Welcome to First This, a short mindfulness practice and message for any time.

I'm Catherine Nicolai, and I'm glad you're here.

I recommend that we do our practice today sitting up as long as that is available to your body.

You can sit in a chair or on a cushion.

You want to hold your chest up and let your shoulders relax down

so that you have space to breathe into.

If sitting is not an option, look for a posture that gives your chest an abdomen

space to expand,

something where you don't feel compressed.

It's okay to pause me if you need to and restart me when you're ready.

This episode is part of an ongoing series I'm calling Breath School, in which you'll learn various pranayama and other breathwork

techniques.

Remember that breathing is your primary biological function and learning to feel and direct to your breath is an empowering way to

shift your mood and your parasympathetic nervous system.

So today we're going to start with the very basics. If at any point you feel like you should stop. Yeah, just stop.

Now, I find a couple of deep sighs always help me reset when I need to.

So let's do that.

Breathe in through the nose and sigh through your mouth.

Again, pull breath in and let it out. Good. Just let your breath move naturally for now.

Through the nose or through the mouth.

Completely add its own pace to its own depth. Thank you. Before we can start to direct breath, we need to be pretty connected just to how it feels. So let's take the next minute or so.

Simply notice your breath as it comes and goes.

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