The Breath and Water Club is a support group of sorts for people who want to:
drink 8 glasses of water per day
and
breathe for 15 minutes twice a day
and
do so daily for 6 months
How do you begin the practice?
First of all, if you don’t have a kitchen timer, get one. It is way easier to breathe for 15 minutes if you don’t have to think about how long you’ve been doing it or how many minutes you have left.
Then begin slowly. No need to begin with 15 minutes of breathing if you haven’t been doing any. Start with 3 minutes, or 6, or any number. Add one minute a day or every other day until you’re up to 15. Same with water. If you’ve been only drinking a glass or two a day, just add a glass every day or two until you’re up to 8.
Here’s what happens to me. I sit down to breathe and pretty soon I’m making a mental list of what I have to do that day or for the rest of my life. Then I think of a great idea for a newsletter. Then I remember that my mother’s birthday is coming up. And so on. Each time I find my mind busy with something, I just return to the feeling of my body, the feeling that breathing brings. Usually after a minute or two, my mind settles down and I can just breathe.
Breathing for 15 minutes in the morning makes a big difference in my day. Today, for example, felt all jumbled up and confused. As I look back I realize that I didn’t do my first 15 minutes until 3:00 this afternoon! When is the best time to breathe? That’s up to you. For me, living with my partner in a 230 sq. ft. travel trailer can strongly influence my timing. My goal is to breathe for 15 minutes soon after I get up in the morning. In the afternoon I have a natural low ebb between 3 and 4. Doing my second 15 minutes of breathing then makes sense to me. It allows me to honor my natural rhythm.
Many have already begun. You can start anytime.