Guided Breathing and Relaxation for Athletes

[Music] [Music] As this is an ice closed program, please never attempt to play this recording while driving or operating machinery. Hello and welcome to the athletic performance breathing. In this session, you will learn how to turn off your critical mind and reflow-stated will, turbocharge your focus and perform with effortless ease. You will also learn a breath practice that will improve your stamina, endurance and recovery time. You will gain confidence and ease and learn to relax, breathe and let your body take over for a flawless athletic performance every time. For optimum results, I recommend you listen to this recording several times over the next month. I also recommend that you listen to it the night before your competition or if possible the morning of the competition itself. So let's begin. Lower the lights if you haven't already. Put your devices on silent and remove all distractions. Get into a comfortable posture and make any final adjustments so that you feel supported and at ease. Ensure your mouth is closed and rest your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth. Check in with your breath and make sure you are breathing softly and calmly through your nose. When I'm raising your head gently direct your eyes upwards and close your eyes. In this eyes closed comfortable posture, you will be able to follow my words, concentrate deeply and relax fully. As we go through this session, know that you have full control. The essence of this recording is to achieve a state of deep relaxation and if at any time that you want to come out of this state, all you have to do is say the words wake up and you will be instantly returned to a normal state of consciousness. Now let's bring your focus to your body. See if you can relax all the muscles in your feet, ankles and legs. Lose, limp and relaxed. Now move that relaxation up to your lower torso and hips. Imagine all tension just melting away. Move up to your belly and allow it to relax fully. Soft and easy. Now relax tension in your chest and heart, feeling a deep wave of relaxation, washing over you. Think of your right arm relaxing and think of your right wrist and fingers relaxing. Think of your left arm relaxing. Think of your left wrist and fingers relaxing. Now move up to your neck and shoulders. Allow any tension to just melt away and feel this area fully relax. Feeling soft light and easy as you sink effortlessly into the surface below you. Now relax your mouth and unclench your teeth. Relax your jaws, your cheeks, the muscles around your eyes and your forehead. Feel the tension dissolving and your entire face becoming loose and relaxed. That's perfect. Now scan your entire body and feel how loose, limp and relaxed every muscle and tendon has become. All the tension is melted away and you're feeling so incredibly light and relaxed now. Let your mind relax the same way deeply and fully. Allow all unwanted thoughts to leave your mind easily and effortlessly. In a moment I'm going to count from 10 to 1. As I count your body and mind will become progressively more relaxed. By the time I reach 1, you will be more relaxed than you have ever been before. 10. Feeling yourself relaxing more and more. 9. Relaxing deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper still. 8. All remnants of tension have melted away. 7. Feeling loose and limp from head to toe. 6. Your whole body feels so relaxed that your mind naturally follows. 5. Letting go of all tension in the body and mind. 4. All that matters is the here and now. 3. Feeling so incredibly at ease. 2. Your mind and body are no forces of relaxation. 1. You are now in a deep state of rest and relaxation. Now that you are fully relaxed, I would like you to bring your attention to your breathing. Watch your breath, follow your breath, feel your breath. Notice the inflow of air that enters and passes through your nostrils. Notice the outflow of air as it exits out of your nostrils. When you relax, your breathing volume automatically reduces by by 20% and that is great. Imagine and feel your breathing going slow, quiet, gentle and calm. That's it. Offer your breath, your full attention. It's a wonderful thing to do. When you place attention on your breathing, you take attention away from your mind. Give your mind a rest. Take a holiday from your mind. Quiet, light, slow and low, inhales and exhales. Notice the air as it moves through your body. Your chest is still, your stomach is moving gently as you take each breath in and out. As you inhale, breathe so smoothly that you feel hardly any air entering your nose. As you exhale, bring a feeling of relaxation to your entire body. Allow the air to leave the body effortlessly. Take a soft breath in, almost as if you feel hardly any air entering your nose. And allow a slow and relaxed breath out. You were doing it correctly if your breathing now is less than what it was before you started. By breathing less air, you will feel a sensation that you would like to take in a deeper breath. Creating a comfortable need for air is the best way for you to optimise your health and athletic performance. This type of breathing is excellent for sleep and recovery. Train hard, but recover even harder. Breathing light improves blood circulation and increases oxygen uptake, energy, focus and concentration. By implementing this breathing into your life, you reduce breathlessness during sports competitions, increase endurance and have a faster recovery time. You also improve your sleep and your ability to take control of your nervous system and access flow state as well. These tools allow you to achieve athletic mastery. If you notice air hunger, grache, relax into this feeling of air hunger, knowing it is priming your body to achieve its highest potential. Great work. You are so deeply relaxed now that your brain can readily accept and absorb the suggestions I am about to give you. You now commit to implementing the oxygen advantage, light slow nasal breathing into your everyday life. At different times during the day, the goal is to soften and slow down the speed of your breathing to experience a tolerable air hunger. This is an excellent sign that you are optimizing your physiology and boosting your athletic capabilities. The more you remember to breathe this way, the more effortless and naturally becomes. If you breathe through your mounted knife, you tape your match-shush to achieve a restful night sleep. Disentherning gives you more energy and vitality and allows you to perform at your very best. Before your warm-up for both training and competition, it is very helpful to sit down and spend 5-10 minutes while eyes closed. Focus the tension to the breath and breathe less air. Surrender and relax into the feeling of air hunger. This helps to conserve energy and bring your attention into the present moment. The thinking mind is put aside as you tune onto your breathing. During your warm-up, perform all movement while breathing in and out through your nose. This helps to balance the body and mind from prove mental focus during training and during the game. 10 minutes into your warm-up practice breath-holding. Exhale and hold your breath until you feel a moderate to strong air hunger. It is helpful to pinch your nose with your fingers during the breath-hold. But you can also do it by simply holding your breath. So as you continue to move, exhale normally through your nose. Pinch your nose with your fingers to stop breathing. And as you hold your breath, continue moving. As the sensation of air hunger gets stronger, you may experience involuntary contractions of the diaphragm. Bring a feeling of relaxation to the body as you continue to hold your breath. Resume breathing through your nose when the feeling of air hunger is moderate to strong. Ideally, you recover within 2-3 breaths. Repeat the breath-hold five times during the warm-up with about a minute's rest between each. Holding your breath following a normal exhalation will awake the body and mind. Blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain increases. Nose and lungs open up and the spleen contracts to release oxygen carrying red blood cells into circulation. This is a great start to your competition. You feel more alert with a balanced state of mind, not too stressed, not too relaxed, but just right. Your airways feel open to allow for easier breathing. And during the competition itself, forget about your breathing. Apply your full attention to the task at hand. That is all that is required from you. This is under your complete control and anything outside of your control, just put it to one side. If you were a recreational athlete, it is very beneficial to do all of your physical exercise which are now closed. Tongue resting gently against your polish, breathing in and out through your nose. If you were a professional athlete, then the vote about 50% of your training to nose breathing only and 50% with my breathing. There is a time during high intensity exercise that breathing is through them out, especially when you are pushing yourself and it is not comfortable to sustain nasal breathing. Your ability to sustain nasal breathing during exercise is influenced by a number of factors. Your fitness level, your both score and your nasal airway. Having a high both score is advantageous. As the amount of air you will need during physical exercise is less. This translates into breathing efficiency. You have trained your body to do more with less. Having a wider nasal airway allows easier breathing. But don't worry, if your nose is narrow or if you have a deviated septum. You can wear a nasal dilator during your training and running to help open the nose for easier breathing. At first when you switch to nose breathing during exercise, it is more challenging as the air hunger is stronger. This adds an extra load to your body causing adaptations so that you can do physical exercise with less air. You can do more with less. You don't gas out so soon and you recover faster. For everyone, recreational or pro athletes, the warm-up and recovery is an excellent time to bring in oxygen advantage. To recover post-physical exercise, bring your attention to your breathing. Do your best to breathe in and out through your nose and focus on slowing down the speed of your exhalation. If nose breathing is too difficult at this time, take the breath in through your nose and breathe out slowly through your mouth. By slowing down the speed of your exhalation, you have a faster heart rate recovery. Breathing this way expands your physical boundaries and allows you to perform at your highest potential. Connecting to your breath again now, light, slow and low. Wonderful. While the mind and body are interconnected, it is ultimately the mind that rules the body and determines its limits. While training the body to perform is important, competitions are won by training the mind. You are training your mind at this very moment and this mind training is deepened every time you return your focus to your breath or bring your attention into your body in everyday life. Our limits and capabilities are set by our minds and the key to entering flow is true or Brett. Listening to this recording and implementing light, slow and nasal breathing prepares you to enter flow at will and to do your very best. Concentration is an important tool to enter flow states. Concentration is your ability to hold your attention under task at hand. In order to have optimal concentration, sleep quality must be optimal and physiology must be balanced. If we are in a state of stress whether it's the body or the mind, concentration is impaired. Concentration can be trained. So every time the mind wanders and you bring your attention back to the Brett, you are training your brain to hold attention on one thing. This is developing your concentration. You are in the moment and at first you might notice that the mind wanders frequently. But with gentle and sustained practice, a quietness appears in the mind and a gap emerges between thoughts. With a quieter mind, it is easier to direct your attention to the task at hand. Use your physical training to train your body, your breathing and the mind. As you train, bring your attention onto your Brett or true out the body. Train whatever is cell of your body. When the mind wanders off during your training, bring your attention back onto your breathing, into your body or present moment. Focus detention during training allows focused attention during competition. What's more, these benefits carry into your everyday life. The capacity to have focused attention no matter what the task at hand is instrumental to achieving a high quality of work. This is training for the brain and will give you the edge. You are teaching your critical mind to step aside and a deeper unconscious directing mind to dominate. By training your mind in this way, when it is time to perform, you naturally enter a flow stage, where everything happens effortlessly and the right action happens by itself. Great, now focusing on your life slow and low breaths once again. That's it, softly in and softly out. And by incorporating oxygen advantage into your way of life, you are training yourself to access flow states at will. This is not a case of merely going through the motions. This is a case of reaching mastery. With each day that passes, you notice your performance improving. You are able to push yourself harder and further while training and competing. Your airways clear from congestion, your lung capacity increases and you experience less breathlessness while performing. Your core strengthens from breathing low and the enhanced circulation and oxygenation of your muscles and brain allow for a quicker reaction time and faster recovery. You also feel more mentally alert. Breathing this way activates the parts of your brain responsible for concentration and your ability to focus is now turbocharged. Let's train your mind further now by visualizing the sports competition. Imagine the event is about to begin shortly and you have brought nose, low and slow breathing into your warm up routine. 10 minutes into your warm up, you performed five breath holes. By regulating your state, any pressure or stressors from the day it dissolves. and you access flow stage. You access the state of mind where your attention is moving simultaneously with time. You are not distracted with what is going on around you. And as you walk or jog out onto the field track or ring, walk with your attention to spare structure body, walk out with every cell of your body. You are now walking out to the event feeling calm. Your critical mind is step-to-side and you're fully in the moment. You're quietly confident in the knowledge that you are at your very best and the right action will happen by itself. You have just the right amount of nerves and are excited to show off all that you have learned over the years. Go out and enjoy yourself. Wonderful. Now visualize yourself competing with full attention and a task at hand. You're performing at your absubes best. Compete with every cell of your body. It's almost as if everything is slowed down and the events are happening in slow motion. Your mind is incredibly sharp and your attention has dispersed throughout your body. Your body seems to be on autopilot and it knows exactly what to do in each and every moment. You become one with the competition. There is no differentiation between you and the task that you are performing. If you ever experienced discomfort or limiting thoughts you remember your breath and in that very moment discomfort dissolves and effortless ease returns. For example if you are taking a free kick spend a few seconds taking a soft breath in through your nose and a slow relaxed and calm breath out. This allows you to cut out any distractions and to bring your attention fully into taking the kick to put the mind aside and to take the kick with every cell of your body. In this flow state you feel confident and powerful. Your concentration and focus are impeccable. If someone or something tries to distract you you remain fully focused on the task at hand. This is the ultimate in performance and goes beyond the traditions of physical and mental performance. This flow state you were in has allowed you to access the highest intelligence open to human beings. This is the intelligence access by human beings who have achieved great feats and endeavors in their life and this intelligence is now yours as you effortlessly compete at the highest level. When there are breaks during the competition you take a few moments to focus on your breath again. Breathe in light slow and low just a few inhales and exhales is all it takes to release any tension and feel completely focused and eager to get back out there and deliver your very best. Now see the competition coming to an end. You demonstrated athletic mastery and you're feeling incredibly energized. You feel an incredible natural high and you take a moment to really acknowledge yourself for the amazing job that you've just done. Amazing. Now come back to the present moment and focus again on your breath. Light slow and low in and out through your nose. Very good. The more you remember to breathe light, through your nose during sports competitions in every day life, the easier and more natural it becomes. In fact every time you listen to this recording you realize just how much more natural this way of breathing has become for you. Eventually you won't even need to rely on this recording at all for you will breathe this way naturally and be able to enter the flow state as well. You're now a full control over your nervous system in mind and this allows you to perform at your highest possible level with effortless ease. You enter an incredible state of focus and flow while competing and allow your body to take over because you've trained both your body and your mind. You now achieve even higher levels of athletic greatness than you previously taught possible. Congratulations. This session is now complete and it's time to open your eyes. So when you are ready, gently wake up, look around the room and feel fully awake and alert. Thank you for listening to the breathing and relaxation for sports competition recording. If you enjoyed this session and would like further support oxygen advantage has an up with a library section geared specifically towards athletes. Excellent work today well done. [Music]