A Super Easy Way To Lower Your Stress
There are techniques that can help you maintain a calm disposition throughout each teaching day.
Even if chaos is swirling around you.
We’ve covered several in the past, both in our books and here on the website.
But today I want to share with you a super easy method that is scientifically proven to put you in a more relaxed state.
And keep you there.
It’s used by archers, golfers, surgeons, yoga teachers, and others whose performance is so directly linked to their ability to keep their composure.
So what is it?
It’s called nasal breathing, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
The way it works is from morning bell to dismissal, unless you’re talking or eating, you’re going to practice breathing through your nose.
The benefits are many.
1. The narrow passages of the nose force you to slow down your breathing, filling the lower half of your lungs and stimulating parasympathetic nerves that automatically calm the body.
2. It causes you to be aware of your breathing. It keeps you attuned to the present moment without having to remind yourself again and again to focus on what’s in front of you.
3. It improves your energy level. A full day of deep, nasal breathing will circulate more oxygen throughout the body and allow you to feel refreshed at the end of a long day of teaching.
4. It lowers blood pressure and heart rate, which sends calming signals to the brain, allowing you to be naturally and effortlessly more pleasant and likable.
5. It increases respiratory function and fitness, filters out millions of particles of foreign matter per day, and more effectively expels carbon dioxide waste from the cells.
6. It’s easier to stay disciplined verbalizing only what your students need to succeed. It keeps you from reminding, narrating, and micromanaging them through every little this and that.
7. You’ll move more efficiently. Slowing your breath naturally through nasal breathing will slow your body as well. Your movements will become graceful and economical.
8. It very effectively removes excitability from your classroom, which is one of the biggest causes of misbehavior. Students take their cue from you, and if you’re calm, they will be too.
One Easy Change
Although it may take a few days to develop the habit of nasal breathing, you’ll find it delivering blessed relief within your first hour of practice.
The stressors themselves may still be there, but your ability to handle them and avoid your physiology from being negatively impacted will greatly improve.
In time, your days may even take on a meditative quality.
This one easy change will not only make you feel, and even look, a lot better, but it will open your eyes to how much stress you’ve been experiencing.
It will show you just how profoundly a naturally calm demeanor positively influences those around you.
Your students. Your colleagues. Even the loved ones you go home to.
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