~inhale~
Fill your lungs with the air surrounding your body. Drink deep the air, more than for a normal breath. Your stretch receptors resist, then adapt. They resist and adapt, over and over, until you have finished your breath. While you were stretching these tissues, they were sending out messages to your central nervous system. From there, your heart, lungs, limbic system, and cortex worked together to decrease your metabolic activity, slowing your heart rate, and immediately lowering your blood pressure. They gave you a break. They let you slow down.
~exhale~
Your nervous system is being reset.
…Doesn’t that feel nice?
You have special areas in your brain. They help you pay attention, recognize emotion, feel.
They like this, too. They sit up and pay attention. Hello, they say.
~inhale~
They are reducing your perception of discomfort, of pain.
You are reducing your perception of discomfort, of pain.
Oxygen courses through your veins, but it doesn’t travel alone. GABA, norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin all take a quiet and joyful wander through your body, to wake up places you’d forgotten you had.
…Doesn’t that feel nice?
~exhale~
How long does it take, to feel different? To feel better?
To be better?
~exhale~
Your creative thinking improves within a week of short daily meditations. Your working memory increases, you have improved visuospatial processing.
You will soon find yourself with increased attention span.
Your immune function will improve.
~inhale~
These are short-term benefits. You’re welcome, you can say to yourself. And you’ve only just begun. Your brain changes. Cortices, insula, junctions and networks all change. And not just chemically, they physically change. You are making real, positive change in your life, your body, your brain.
You can call it meditation. You can call it mindfulness. It can be spiritual, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s both ancient and relevant. It is not something to be mastered, but met. It is powerful.
And it is waiting for you.
~exhale~