Picture Perfect Breathing for Fast Stress Relief

If you've experienced one or more traumatic events or you are prone to chronic stress, it’s important to engage in self-care activities including monitoring stress levels and taking steps to neutralize stress before it becomes overwhelming.

In this blogpost and companion podcast episode, you’ll discover a simple, effective breath technique you can use anytime to lower stress and create a sense of relaxation and calm.
Picture Perfect Breathing

Applying Picture Perfect Breathing (PPB) for 60 seconds or more allows mind and body to let go of tension and disempowering thoughts as your brain and body are refreshed and renewed.

With only one to two minutes of Picture Perfect Breathing, you'll be ready to engage in whatever activities are at hand feeling great. Engaging in PPB periodically throughout the day is a great way to maintain a sense of calm and control.

One important item: If you have asthma, COPD, or other breathing or lung problem, please talk with your doctor before doing Picture Perfect Breathing.
Here Are the Steps for Picture Perfect Breathing

• Begin with a yawn, sigh, and stretch. Really give it a good stretch, sigh, and yawn even if you don't feel like yawning.

• Choose a framed picture (preferably a picture of a calming scene), a doorway, or even your computer monitor or laptop screen. You'll be using the corners of your focus object and moving from corner to corner as you breathe.

• Allow your gaze to focus on the lower left corner of your focus object. Allow a gentle, unstrained focus. As you gaze at the lower left corner, inhale for the count of 5, which represents about 5 seconds.

• Gently hold your breath as you shift your gaze to the upper left corner of your focus object and count to 5.

• Shift your gaze to the upper right corner of your focus object and exhale gently through pursed lips for the count of 5.

• Shift your gaze to the lower right corner of your focus object as you relax into the empty breath sensation for the count of 5. If you feel an urge to breathe before reaching 5, go ahead and do so. With just a few times through the process, you will likely feel comfortable mindfully allowing the empty breath sensation to simply be for the count of 5.

Take one or more normal breaths. and then repeat the process for a total of 3 to 5 cycles. Each cycle will take about 20 seconds (5 seconds at each of the 4 corners), so 3 cycles will take about a minute.

Finish with another good yawn, sigh, and stretch and then return to your activities refreshed and rejuvenated.
Guided Picture Perfect Breathing Experience

PPB was the featured technique in the episode linked below of the, "Easy Stress Cures" podcast. Simply click the white triangle on the podcast player below, listen to the episode, and experience the positive mind and body benefits waiting for you.

For more "Easy Stress Cures" podcast episodes visit the, “Mind Over Stress Show” website at http://MindOverStress.us. 

To learn about Stress Solutions, LLC and how to apply Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to dissolve stress and create empowering beliefs and a happier, more successful life, visit, https://www.EFT-MD.com.

Learn to Easily Experience Positive Emotional States

A few days ago I created a video based on a live presentation done in March. The video's title, "Positive EFT and Beyond..." covers a trifecta of three simple methods to achieve positive emotional states of your choice. 

Those three methods are:

- Positive EFT;
- Power Posing; and,
- Anchoring.

This video is short on theory and long on how to actually do and use these three methods.

You'll find the 34-minute instructional guide below.

Blessings and light,

Steve Carter

Stress Solutions, LLC | www.EFT-MD.com 

P.S. To be notified of other upcoming holistic health, stress mastery, and emotional well-being webinars and videos, visit http://www.eft-md.com/contact-us.html and look on the lower right of the page for the "Join Our Energy and Holistic Healing Family" sign-up.

Get Your Motor Runnin'... A Story of Emotional Freedom

Waves of powerful emotions swept over Mary as she drove down her quiet residential street at 5:00 A.M. She felt intense fear, then anger, then sadness. Despite these cascading painful emotions, she was determined to complete the 12-hour trip to St. Augustine and be free.

Why was she going? 

To answer that question, we need to go back in time about three months. Her husband announced he was leaving her. He had "fallen in love" with his secretary and he no longer wanted Mary as a wife. He was leaving her and both of their young teenage sons.

As the husband was leaving, he turned around and said, 

"You'll never make it without me. You can't keep the home, pay the bills, or do anything else. Just sign everything over to me. It's the only way you can survive."

He turned back toward the door and left.

After a few weeks of counseling, Mary decided she needed to do something she had never done in her life: she was going to take a long trip by herself. She was going to prove to her husband - and to herself - she didn't need him. She didn't need him to be a husband. She didn't need him to be a companion. She didn't need him to drive. She didn't need him at all.

As she left the community and pulled out onto the main road leading to the interstate, the voice in her head started to shout, 

"He's right! You can't make it. It's not safe! Turn around! Go back home!".

The voice got louder and louder: 

"Maybe he was right. What if I break down? No one is here to help me. I can't do this!" 

She felt the fear growing by the second.

As she left the familiar comfort of the local road and entered the ramp leading to I-95 South, she turned on the radio and tuned it to her favorite Classic Rock station. When her hand touched the volume knob, she turned it as high as it would go. She had to drown out the negative voice shouting in her head.

 She heard the beginning notes and then the words of a song by Steppenwolf...

"Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space..."

As the words and music of, "Born to be Wild" filled the car, she instantly knew the universe was telling her, "You CAN do this... You CAN depend on yourself... You WILL make it!". 

And she did. 

Twelve hours later as she triumphantly drove into the driveway of her aunt's home in St. Augustine, she knew something vitally important had happened.

From that moment forward, her confidence grew stronger day by day. The fearful voice still made an appearance every now and then over the months that followed. But when she heard that voice, she simply turned on her Classic Rock radio memory, and sang out loud, 

"Get your motor runnin...".

"Born to be Wild" became Mary's freedom anthem. 

Months later as I worked with Mary as a client to help her deal with issues unrelated to her now former husband, we used the power of Steppenwolf's song to empower her in other areas of life.

Do you have a musical freedom anthem? What songs create such positive energy throughout your body that when you hear the music, it washes through you; empowers you; creates such joy that there is never space for a negative thought.

Choose Your Own Musical Freedom Anthem!

Why not choose your own musical freedom anthem? Why not hum, sing, and then belt it out loud to energize your life? You'll notice the difference every time you do it.

No song comes to mind? Feel free to borrow Mary's. Have a listen to Steppenwolf's, "Born to be Wild". She won't mind a bit.

Find Your Emotional Freedom:

For more tools, tips, and techniques to achieve emotional freedom, join our Energy and Holistic Healing Family at http://www.eft-md.com/education-resource.html.

With love,

Steve Carter

Stress Solutions, LLC
www.EFT-MD.com