A Moment With Uncle Joe

Today’s post is brought to you by Uncle Joe Pilates:  it’s time to take a deep breath.

We’re going to start our deep breath by standing up.  We’re going to use our good posture, because if we’re all slumped forward, we have a hard time making space in our bodies for the breath.  This means, ideally, that our ears are over our shoulders, which are over our hips, which are over our knees, which are over our ankles.  For most of us, this means we need to pull our heads back a bit, roll our shoulders down and back, tuck our pelvis under a little, and soften our knees.

 

Now we start.  As we take our deep breath in, we can notice that our breastbone lifts, our spine arches just a little, and our ribcage and abdomen expand.  A lot of us think that our breath just expands us to the front, but really the breath opens up the sides and the back of the body, too.

 

As we exhale, the breastbone sinks a little, the spine curves back, and everything else deflates a little.

 

If we do this nice and slowly a few times, we will tap into our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us relax and rest and recover.

 

Carry on!