Here’s a gift for you! It’s a heart focused breathing audio that’s a straightforward technique to increase energy, coherence and resilience. So enjoy having a go and experiencing this now for yourself.

While simply doing it brings quick gains , it’s the sustained long term payoffs that come with regular practice. I like to think of it as building your resilience muscle.

You can boost your ability to do this when you combine this practice with an existing habit. Say, you commit to do it immediately after you brush your teeth, and immediately before lunch and dinner.

And really, once you get the hang of it, when you’re short on time a ‘quick fix’ works well too – just a couple minutes of stopping to run yourself through the three key steps:

1. Shift your focus to your heart and centre of your chest
2. Imagine you’re breathing in and out from your heart
3. Activate a positive emotion as you keep breathing from you heart e.g. remember a time you felt good inside, or love, care, gratitude or appreciation for someone or something.

I learned this technique from the HeartMath Institute. And I’m a big fan of their research and HeartMath tools. Benefits from their approach includes reducing depression, anxiety and improving sleep, focus and calm. This organisation has over 25 years of scientific research developing technology and techniques that improve the psychophysiology of stress, emotions, and the interactions between the heart and brain. For example, it’s proven how breathing and activating positive emotions like gratitude, compassion and care, build resilience (as measured through a biomarker, Heart Rate Variability).

Best wishes with this! And I so look forward to finding out how you’re making it a part of your days and what experiences and improvements it’s creating for you.