This helped survivors of war and slavery...try it.

This blog post shows us how to breathe in a way that calms the nervous system, calms the mind and helps us heal.

I was lying on the bed. My mind was mellow and clear. My body was light and loose. I felt eternal and carefree. I had just spent the last 10 minutes breathing deeply and evenly. The effect was magical. 

Then, I remembered the things I had seen when I was in South Sudan in the midst of its brutal civil war: tanks, gunmen in the bush, children starving to death. But, there were also warm welcomes, intelligence and resilience. 

You might be asking: "How, and why, did your mind jump from being calm and peaceful to a civil war?" Well, there is a connection - the type of breathing I'd just done. 

It has been around for thousands of years (yogis and Chinese martial artists first created it). But, more recently, it has been simplified and taught by Dr Richard Brown, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University. It has been used to help people heal. It has been used to help people recover from trauma. It was used in South Sudan to help people, who had been brutalised by war, to start their recovery. It is called coherence breathing. 

Want to try it?

I've made this video for you. Watch it, follow along, practise this magnificent breathing and slip into the mellow eternity. All we have to do is breathe.