Unlocking Creativity and Flow Through Breathing

Can we unlock deeper states of creativity and flow states through breathing?

We often hear the question arise about what do you do in the float tank?

Other than the pithy answer of “well, you just float,” it often helps to provide some open-ended guidance to those new floaters who maybe don’t have a lot of practice with single-point meditation or focused yoga.

Breathing is often the first place I turn to when recommending something to focus on when floating. Your breath and your heartbeat are the only things you can hear if you’ve turned off the music and so you can either embrace it or it may become a foe like the telltale heart of Edgar Allen Poe.

It still sounds a little hokey, but learning to attend to your breath and breathe more consciously is doing miraculous things for people’s health. You can do anything from reducing stress to performing and recover better in sports all just by shifting the way you breathe.

Most of us breathe an average of 12 times per minute and this isn’t far away from what researchers suggest is a sign of a stressed body at 15 breaths per minute. Shifting your body into a relaxed state takes a little conscious awareness and practice to reduce your breathing rate to less than 8 per minute.

I believe that getting into this relaxed state alone is enough to induce deep states of flow in the tank and enhance creativity by allowing your brain to function more optimally.

However, to take it a step further, there are techniques more deliberately designed to tap into the creative centres of your body, as you practice and develop more conscious awareness of oxygenating your body through deep breathing.

This is an example of a Wim Hof Method (WHM) technique used to specifically induce creativity through thyroid activation. This is a more advanced technique with the Wim Hof Method and while you may try and practice it, I will be releasing more information in the coming months about how you can join me in learning more of the fundamental techniques to help you get more out of the practice.

WHM Technique for Creativity:

* Never push anything past your comfort zone. This isn’t about doing anything to extremes. It’s about developing more control and capacity in your body over time.

* Get into a comfortable position, either seated in a chair or preferably lying flat on the floor.

* Begin WHM breathing - fully breathing into your belly, chest, head in a wavelike motion. On the exhale, only let your chest and belly fall without effort to retain most air and oxygen.

* Repeat this wave-like breathing for about 30 breaths until you are fully oxygenated. The signs of an effective round are that you will begin to feel lightheaded, tingling in the fingers and toes, and loose in the body.

* On your final breath, fully inhale, fully exhale, fully inhale again and hold at the top of the breath with your lungs full of air.

* Squeeze your chest and neck and push that oxygenated blood into your upper chest where the thyroid is located. Only partially squeeze the neck to avoid the sensation from going to your head, which is another technique for different intended purposes. It helps to visualize the blood going to your chest and thyroid as well.

* Hold for about 30 seconds before exhaling fully.

* Repeat two more full rounds before ending or doing some regular WHM breathing for relaxation.

This practice will take between 15-20 minutes depending on your pace of breathing.

After completed it helps the first few times to sit for a moment and take inventory of how you feel. If you are doing the practice for the intended tapping into your creativity, you would then ideally sit down to do the creative work you’re wanting to do.

This might not make complete sense at first, but we talk about it in this podcast episode here as well and watching the video version may help to better see how it works. Read or listen through a couple of times while trying it out for yourself.

P.S. I will be running some seminars inspired by the Wim Hof Method and other meditations that I’ve learned from in the coming months and so follow us on social media or subscribe to the email list to get advanced notice on the limited space that will be available in each of those groups.

Spring Cleaning To Declutter Your Mind

Spring cleaning is like this quarter's New Years Resolutions, it’s great that we make a whole big event around it but why did we let it get to this point in the first place?

Whether you embrace the springtime for decluttering your surroundings or you keep it up year-round, we all can benefit from doing some more mindful decluttering not only of our environment but also our mental and emotional framework. 

Decluttering may leave you with the feeling of a great sigh of relief - not only because your physical space is in more harmony but also your mental state has been granted a reprieve. 

We all know the basic principles of decluttering - gather up the junk you don’t use anymore and donate, sell, or throw it out. Today I want to share with you a few brief techniques that may help in your spring cleaning efforts but I also want to emphasize how your physical reality translates to your emotional state and vice versa and if you’re spring cleaning, you might as well clean up the attic too. 

The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

Marie Kondo has become the patron saint for tidying up and admired by minimalists around the globe because of her book and the inspiration she provides as a professional organizer. It’s become so popular that Netflix has made a series out of it. If you want a fresh take on tidying up that will have you actually enjoying the process, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up is a short, but complete, reference to how you can declutter your physical space to create joy in your life. 

The basic rule of the “KonMari” method is that you organize by category not location and gather every item into one pile before discarding anything. A massive pile of stuff that you barely use will leave quite the impression on you during this process. You are to take each and every single item and ask yourself if it sparks joy. This may seem like a strange practice with inanimate objects but is the core principle of the KonMari method and seems to be the reason this practice works so well to tidy and maintain that tidy sanctuary once you’ve done it. 

Sort in this order clothes -> books -> papers -> miscellany -> mementos

Treating your objects with such reverence shouldn’t be hard to do if they are actually that meaningful to you. If you can’t bring yourself to think of the joy you get from a particular item, it’s time to discard it. 

Emotional Baggage Impedes Focus

Spring cleaning can be a great time to discard your emotional baggage as well. The physical act of decluttering lends itself well to improving your mood and this is the perfect time to declutter your headspace. 

Consider Jim Rohn’s statement that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

During your spring cleaning efforts, ponder your emotional state and who is contributing positively or negatively to your life. 

If you don’t get rid of the wrong friends you will never meet the right friends. 

Is it time to fire your friends? Maybe even a family member?

Emotional decluttering is much harder than cleaning up your living space but will lead to greater breakthroughs in your life. 

This doesn’t happen overnight, although I suppose it could if you wanted to be really aggressive with your action plan. Don’t just point the finger and throw out blame in this process though.

If you’re going to blame someone for all the bad that has happened in your life, be sure that you are also ready to thank them for everything good that has led you to where you are as well.

You must lead with grace to truly exit a relationship with peace of mind and a clean slate.

A Clean Slate Leads To More Flow

Physical clutter is distracting when you are trying to do deep work but emotional turmoil can be catastrophic. Whatever you do in your life can benefit from being in a flow state. It’s what leads to finding meaning in our lives. 

You can’t find flow when in a bad mood. 

In this week’s FlowCast, Telsi makes the analogy of your mind is like a river flowing smoothly versus the rapids where all the jagged rocks are. 

We all face those rapids but the more that you can smooth out your mental landscape the more productive and creative you will become. 

If you want to learn more about strategies you can use to do your spring cleaning more effectively this year, check out this week’s episode of the FlowCast where we dive even deeper into this topic and subscribe on Apple Podcast to get notified when a new episode comes out.