How to Reset Your Nervous System the Quick and Easy Way: 50 Deep Breaths
Reset Your Nervous System with 50 Deep Breaths
Phew boy … it’s been quite an intense few months, hasn’t it? Between Hurricane Harvey and the other hurricanes, the fires in Wine Country, and now the second “Hurricane Harvey” (the #metoo campaign) … plus all the crazy hallucinations that Fritz the Cat and I went through this summer as we continued the Harvey Resurrection Project …
Most of us have been pushed to our limits. Age-old collective traumas are coming to the surface to be healed. This ultimately will be a positive development. In the meantime, though, many of us have frayed nerves and hair trigger nervous systems.
Shortly after Harvey the Cat’s seeming passing almost a year ago, my nervous system was shot. I had already been in fight or flight mode pretty much continuously for over two years – beginning with the vegan debacle. Now Fritz the Cat was seemingly sick as well. I was finding it very difficult to stay present or grounded in any way.
That was when I discovered 50 deep breaths.
This 50 deep breaths is a very, very simple technique that came to me through my intuition when I noticed that I would wake up in the morning with my heart already racing, and my breath shallow, before the day even started.
It came to me to take 50 deep breaths before I even got out of bed to start the day. If I got ten breaths in and lost count because my mind was racing or wandering … I would start again at one.
Very quickly I noticed that everything changed after 50 deep breaths. Sometimes I would fall back to sleep, which was much needed. Usually my mind would become much quieter. I found that my nervous system profoundly relaxed after 50 deep breaths.
Now sometimes I will also add mantras from A Course in Miracles.
Like, if we want to use the mantra “I call upon God’s Name and on my own,” I’ll count one, two, three on the inhale, and then repeat the mantra on each exhale.
Would you like to reset your nervous system?
Try it for yourself. Next time you feel stressed out by the news or by your own life … rest somewhere quiet, close your eyes, and take 50 deep breaths. It’s a simple yet life-changing practice that can reset your nervous system in a hurry!
Let me know how it goes …
Love,
