mindfulness Archives - Page 2 of 2

Belly breathing aka diaphragmatic breathing

Posted on 18th July 20204th February 2021 by Fiora Touliatou

Breathing is the function that keeps us alive. Since ancient times, different spiritual practices have considered breathing the connection of our body-mind-soul and what brings our awareness to our bodies and the present moment.

Diaphragmatic breathing is the proper way to breath. Also known as belly breathing, it is a fundamental bodily function that mammals do instinctively. The process of breathing is facilitated and relies mostly on the thoracic diaphragm, the dome-shaped muscle located just below the lungs and heart, which contracts and expands continually during respiration.

During inhalation,the diaphragm contracts (flattens) so that the lungs fill with air. During this contraction, the diaphragm pushes down the abdominal internal organs causing the belly to expand. During exhalation, the diaphragm relaxes, thus the organs go back to their initial position thus the belly contracts. This bodily function is mostly done involuntarily.

However, because of several circumstances in our daily modern lifestyle, we unfortunately disrupt this natural process and we have developed a shallow breathing habit during which the diaphragm doesn’t move to its full capacity and the breathing is done with expanding the chest instead of the belly. Consequently, this causes several health issues such as stress, anxiety, panic attacks and even depression and severe mental health issues.

So what causes shallow breathing?

First of all, bad posture! For most of us nowadays, daily life involves sitting down in front of a computer. Even while using mobile phones, we tend to lean our hear down to look to our phone instead of lifting the phone higher to our eye level. Bad posture causes the shoulders to drop, the head to lean forward, the chest contracting and putting enormous pressure on the lungs and the heart. Consequently, as we cannot take deep breaths in, we start breathing shallow and faster which causes our heart rate to increase as well as the cortisol (the stress hormones) levels in our body. Moreover, we are inhaling less oxygen so our brain gets less oxygen too which lowers our concentration levels and while increases the possibility of headaches and migraines.As mentioned above, having a habit of shallow breathing creates chronic stress and anxiety disorders, even leading to mental health issues.

To reverse this shallow breathing and bring back the harmony and balance to our body-mind-soul, we simply need to connect to our breath. There are several ways to practice and relearn how to breathe properly. For a daily practice on your own, dedicate 5-10 minutes. Focus on your breath and your belly:

take a deep and slow breath in from your nose
let your belly rise/expand
count for 10
take a deep and slow breath out from your mouth
let your belly flatten/contract
count for 10

This can be practiced any time in the day, especially when you feel stress and you need to reconnect with your body and mind.

If you like to further your practice, you can start with holistic practices such as hatha yoga, meditation, taichi, chikung or/and internal martial arts which teach this principle as an essential practice for our energy system and overall welbeing.

The healing power of silence

Posted on 27th June 20204th February 2021 by Fiora Touliatou

Article by Fiora Touliatou

“Listen to Silence. It has so much to say.”
Rumi, 13th century Persian poet

Since ancient times, ascetics from different spiritual practices have spent significant amounts of time in silence and isolation, either with prayer or meditation. Even nowadays, monks and spiritual practitioners retreat themselves for days without socialising or talking to anyone. Throughout history, artists and musicians always had the tendency to spend time on their own in order to connect to inspiration and creativity. Nowadays, many meditation teachers advise that frequent meditative pauses throughout the day have poweful healing effect to our body, mind and soul regardless of our spiritual beliefs. So what is the significance of silence in our lives?

Modern science has proved that noise is destructive to us while silence is healing us. Various studies have shown that noise has a powerful physical yet destructive effect on our brains, because it causes the release of stress hormones. Actually, not only our brain, but our whole energetic field, our aura, receives noise as disruptive sound waves. Even when we are sleeping our body receives noise as intrusive and threatening to our system, therefore it reacts with releasing stress hormones. Consequently, living in a consistently noisy environment causes high levels of stress and can even lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, tinnitus and insomnia.

In 2006, physician Luciano Bernardi studied the physiological effects of noise and music. He surprisingly made a very important discovery. During the study, the participants were not only exposed to noise and music, but also to random stretches of silence in between. These pauses were far more relaxing for the brain of the participants than the relaxing music. In fact, these ‘irrelevant’ pauses became the most important aspect of the study as they had the most powerful and relaxing effect.

In 2011, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated that the root cause of 3,000 heart disease deaths in Western Europe was due to excessive noise.

All these facts and other important studies and practices are a proof that taking time to switch off is crucial to our wellbeing and our lives in general.

According to the “attention restoration theory”, when we are in silence, the brain can recover some of its cognitive abilities. Moreover, according to Imke Kirste, a Duke University regenerative biologist, two hours of silence per day can initiate cell development in the hippocampus, our brains center of our memory and senses.

Unfortunately, in our modern digital world, our brains have minimal time to switch off as we are exposed to enormous amounts of information. Modern life demands our brains to be in constant attention and consequently a lot of stress. This mental overload leads us into difficulties with making decisions, solving problems and daily functions. However, when we switch off and ideally spend time alone in silence, our brain is finally able to relax, release this constant focus and start its healing process.

To conclude, silence replenishes and nourishes our cognitive powers, raises our concentration levels, increases our motivation and helps us connect with our centres and balances us emotionally. Hence, as ancient spiritual masters always taught, silence is healing as it connects us deeply into ourselves and balances our body, mind and soul. The simple yet ancient practice of silence might be the healing balm we all need to cope with our modern lifestyle.

The healing power of positive words

Posted on 6th June 20204th February 2021 by Fiora Touliatou

Article by Fiora Touliatou

Did you know that words have power? Did you know that when we speak we create vibrations?

Positive words create beautiful vibrations and negative words create destructive vibrations. When we speak and use positive words, we create positive energy. However, when we speak badly or swear, we create destructive energy. Imagine how much power we create everyday depending on how we speak!

Have you heard of the water experiments? Japanese alternative medicine doctor Masaru Emoto created experiments with water and discovered that words emit specific frequency that the water can sense. When positive words were spoken, beautiful geometric crystals were formed in the water. However, when degrading or negative words were spoken, then broken and deformed crystals were formed. Dr Emoto concluded that, since we are 70% made of water, positive words create beautiful energy both in our body and to others around us. On the contrary, when we speak with negative words or swearing, negative energy is created, firstly inside our body and consequently to everyone around us. Therefore, we create as we speak and we have both the choice and the power to make beautiful and/or ugly energy.

Speaking with positive words has several impacts, like a ripple on the surface of water. Firstly, the vibrations that are created inside our body can either heal us or make us ill. This is how affirmations work; saying positive affirmations daily can truly change our lives drastically. Secondly, how we speak has an effect on others, not only to humans but also to animals and plants. Energetically, we are all connected and we have a responsibility to what effect we create to our environment.

Some positive affirmation that we can say loudly to ourselves on a daily basis are:

I AM HEALTHY!
I AM POWERFUL!
I AM SAFE!
I AM LOVED!
I AM GRATEFUL!

We have the power and we can create beautiful things! Let’s be more mindful with our words! Let’s create beauty inside and around us!

The simple things in life are the most important

Posted on 30th May 20204th February 2021 by Fiora Touliatou

Article by Fiora Touliatou

Have we learnt yet to be grateful for what we have? To make the most of every single day? To be happy with simple things? To be grateful for our health? For being alive?

Everything in life happens for a reason. After every disaster there are new beginnings, new life, new ways of living. Nature always has a way and as we are part of it, we find a way to get through and manage. This period of the global pandemic and lockdown has undoubtably changed our lives in every aspect. Everything we had taken for granted was suddenly threatened.

We were forced to stop, we were forced to realise that we need to find new ways of living our life, new ways of existing. Precisely, we were simply forced to stop and appreciate everything around us. Appreciate our life, our existence, our health. Appreciate our family, our friends, our neighbours, our community, our networks. Appreciate the planet we live on; we are part of it. The planet can live without us but we cannot live without it.

We had to realise how important it is to reach out to others, to care, to ask for help or offer help, to create new ways to support or be supported. Suddenly, the definition of wealthy changed to being alive, being healthy, being happy, being loved, being supported, being appreciated.

The most important is that we had to learn (or remind ourselves) about solidarity between people, being a nice human being. Because this is the real health and happiness, when we are nice we shine from inside, we are all connected, we are all one.

Let’s hope that humanity will remember this once we get back to what we consider normal.