Bridget from Immeasurable Minds teaches 10-finger breathing, a technique where you trace each finger of one hand with the other while breathing in and out. The practice, learned from a 2011 Mindfulness in Schools Project training, takes just minutes and helps calm your nervous system and refocus a wandering mind.
Hi everybody, it's Bridget here from Immeasurable Minds. Today I thought I would offer you a little breathing practice that might be helpful. This is a practice I learned in like 2011 on the Mindfulness in Schools Project training. It was a course I did called .b for teenagers. So it's a great course actually if you're interested in teaching teenagers. Teenagers, and you can also do it online now. But one thing I learned in that course is something actually I do with my adults all the time. So you can do this with your kids, you can do it if you're grown up. It's called— I don't think it actually has a name, I'm calling it 10-finger breathing. So we're gonna breathe, but we're gonna do it with our fingers. So it's gonna help us stay concentrated and focused for 10 breaths, which really can make a huge difference. So, if you can do it with me, I want you to put your hand up, get the finger from the other hand, and then I want you to breathe in as you trace alongside the thumb. Get to the top, there's a wee pause, and then you breathe out. Inhale up the next finger, exhale. You can even close your eyes as you breathe in. Inhale. Breathe out and feel the sensations of the finger touching the finger. Breathing in, breathing out. Inhale, exhale. And then we swap over and we go to the other hand. Breathe in, breathe out. Inhale, Exhale. That's it. Inhale in, exhale out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. And then you can put your hands down, close your eyes, have another mindful breath. Mindful breathing is really simple. It just means conscious breathing. It means that when you breathe in, you know that you're breathing in, and when you breathe out, you know that you're breathing out. So we become aware of our inhale, we become aware of our exhale, we follow it all the way in, follow it all the way out. So just every now and again throughout the day, if you stop, come back to your breath, it'll help calm your nervous system, give you a wee pause. And definitely using your fingers will help you remember how to do it, and it'll help your brain stop wandering, drifting off. I know people often find their mind wanders, which is really normal, by the way. If your mind's really busy, it just means you're a human being, so that's all okay. But The breathing with the fingers, it gives you a wee extra focus. So please give it a go. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much. Take care of yourself.
