Feeling anxious? Stressed out? Frazzled? Great word “frazzled,” but not a fun condition to experience.
If you knew a simple way to immediately shift your mood from anxious and stressed out to calm and happy, would you use it? What if this magic mood shifting tool is something you do all the time anyway?
And if using this tip felt luxurious, healthy and relaxing would you take 20-30 seconds several times a day to practice it? You’re smart, so of course you would. And here it is…
BREATHE!
Yes, it can be that simple with the right technique. Mindful breathing has been proven to lower blood pressure, reduce your heart rate and increase brain function.
I sign all my emails with, “breathe” to remind myself and my readers how luxurious it feels to take life-giving, life-saving oxygen into the lungs. The few seconds it takes to think about your breathing can instantly change your mood and bring you back to the happiness of the moment.
As a voice trainer – singers and executives – I witness the benefits of breathing mindfully.
Breathing with awareness is the foundation of all voice work. Sometimes clients will tell me at the start of a lesson that they are feeling stressed and low energy and probably should have canceled the lesson. They say this with droopy eyelids and slumped posture. Body language that is crying to go back to bed and hide.
Then, by the end of the lesson, they are full of energy and confidence – empowered. They are always surprised that they feel ready to handle the stresses of their day with ease. This shift in mood and energy is a direct result of the mindful breathing of voice work.
BREATHE!
Most of us hold our breath way more than you realize. Check it out for yourself. Do you hold your breath when you’re thinking? When you’re angry? Do you hold your breath even when you are talking? Are you holding your breath right now?
Breathing is a cyclical function. So why is it such a strange concept to breathe mindfully? Because over a lifetime we all develop habits that, at the time, feel safer or fit our idea about breathing that is not based in reality. These unhelpful habits became the norm for you.
It’s exhausting to hold onto negative emotions by limiting breath flow because it is the antithesis of how your body works naturally. A fascinating discovery is to discern the thought or negative belief that causes you to hold your breath.
Here are some of my thoughts/beliefs:
“Did I do it WRONG?”
“That’s going to hurt!”
“Internet marketing? I haven’t a clue!”
Fortunately for me, mindful breathing is a big part of my job and my passion so I have a tool box full of techniques to help me return to natural, cyclical breathing and shift my mindset to calm, energized and empowered, instantly.
Here are a few mindful breathing gems for you. The steps…
Calm: Become aware of physical and emotional tension, possibly the stress-inducing belief or thought. Take this simple first step and anxiety starts to dissipate.
Energize: Each breathing tip opens your vocal instrument with an inhale that energizes body and mind.
Empower: Feel how you can use the breath to speak with authority.
Exercise #1
To Calm: Become aware of your stress/anxiety/fear
To Energize: Yawn to fill your torso with life-giving air
To Empower: Use the breath to say, “Woah!” elongating the vowels
Exercise #2
To Calm: Notice when you are holding your breath
To Energize: Yawn to open your torso all the way to your bottom
To Empower: Use the breath to say, “Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow!”
Exercise #3
To Calm: Observe your tight shoulder muscles and let them go
To Energize: Inhale with a yawning feeling, letting your jaw drop open
To Empower: Use the breath to say, “Pow-Pow-Power!” and feel the authority in your voice
You can also watch it here:
Use these exercises as often as you notice the need to relieve your stress/anxiety/fear/holding breath. They only take moments to perform and the benefits can last for a long while. The more you practice the exercises, the longer-lasting the benefits.
With time and mindful practice these exercises can restore the breathing and phonation that are natural to you. For guided video help and more specific techniques, visit BREATHE! Calm Energize Empower.
ABOUT SALLY MORGAN
Sally Morgan wrote the book on contemporary vocal technique — literally. Sing Like You Speak® is specifically designed to restore the effortless vocal production that is natural to the human instrument making your singing powerful, joyful and free. Singing so simple it feels like talking to your best friend without sounding trained. Sally has been successfully teaching people how to sing for more than 40 years. That is how she turns decades of learning into days.
Every master begins as a disaster – including Sally Morgan. She gets it that you need to sing for the same reason you need to breathe. She’s felt the pain of not knowing how to release the amazing voice trapped inside. She’s felt the longing to be accepted as a great singer.
That longing became an obsession with finding solutions to vocal challenges. Sally spent many years developing those solutions into what became the Sing Like You Speak® vocal technique that is now empowering singers worldwide.
In both 2018 and 2019, Sally was a featured workshop presenter at SXSW® where she introduced an enthusiastic audience to the power of Sing Like You Speak®.
Sally has helped her clients heal vocal damage, expand vocal range, land a Broadway show, record their original music and tour internationally without vocal fatigue or strain. Besides teaching workshops Sally teaches private voice lessons and has developed online singing lessons – Sing Like You Speak® Academy.
You can see and hear some of Sally’s clients on Broadway stages, Off-Broadway, in Musical Theater – Regional, on Major Label Recordings, the Conan O’Brian show, A Prairie Home Companion and in Federal Courts, the PA House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Sally teaches singing voice lessons in NYC and worldwide on ZOOM as well as online voice lessons on the Sing Like You Speak® Academy
Ask a question or leave a comment: