What does BMW, “The Ultimate Driving Machine”, have to do with healthy living? British Motor Works says their BMW enables an “unparalleled” driving experience. So if it’s unparalleled that means it’s exceptional–having no equal. Precision, engineering, and style make BMW vehicles reliable and a pleasure to drive. How is your driving machine? Not your car–your body. Is it reliable? A pleasure to operate? Does it offer precision and responsiveness? Does it know how to handle stress?
If your answer is more Moped than motor car, we have an exercise you can do every day to help tune up your physical driving machine.
ONE DAILY EXERCISE FOR BETTER HEALTH
So why all this BMW talk? Well, you may associate the acronym BMW with a car, but Licensed Physical Therapist, Bonnie Yost, and founder of 4X4Healing uses the acronym B-M-W to remind us how to approach stress from a position of strength. Encountering any stress we can B-M-W: Breathe, Melt, and Wiggle.
B-M-W: BREATHE
Your body is engineered for deep breathing. The benefits of intentional deep breathing are many. It can reduce the risk of:
- strokes,
- memory loss,
- anxiety and depression,
- muscle strain
- high blood pressure, or
- other harmful conditions.
So where do you begin? How do you shift your B-M-W into gear?
Start by taking in oxygen through the nose. Take a deep breath. Inhale into your core. when you inhale the diaphragm contracts and moves down toward the abdomen while the rib muscles pull the ribs out and up. This increases the size of your chest cavity which decreases the pressure inside and pulls air into your lungs through the nose (or mouth). The air then travels down the windpipe, or trachea, into the lungs.
When you exhale the diaphragm relaxes and moves upward while the chest muscles relax. This decreases the size of the chest cavity which increases the pressure inside and forces air out of the lungs through the nose or mouth. This air is a waste product of your body’s use of oxygen and it is rich in carbon dioxide. This gas exchange is essential to life.
HOW IMPORTANT IS GOOD BREATHING?
Unlike a car without fuel, your body won’t just wait for a refill of oxygen to start again. A lack of oxygen is dire to a human. Every cell in the body requires oxygen to survive. With each inhale, oxygen flows to every part of the body, creating energy, mental clarity, emotional calmness, and connection with the internal self.
Inhaling offers the body, mind, heart, and spirit an activation of new and true belief systems.
Deep breathing begins to enable the mind to renew and take thoughts captive. With each exhale, the breath releases toxins and soothes the body from head to toe. Breathing is designed as an automated calming system and a source to release pain, wounds, and false belief systems.
When there is stress, breathing patterns become labored and difficult. Breathing becomes either shallow or speeds up. These are clues pointing to the effects of pain, wounds, and a lifestyle of unhealthy living.
Those who deal with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression will be more likely to be reactive in circumstances as long as they breathe shallowly. Moving from shallow breathing to breathing fully to the core of the body (and practicing this six times a day) begins changing muscle memory and moving from the freeze, fight, and flee mode.
B-M-W: MELT
With our breathing regulated we move on to the “M” in B-M-W. It’s time to Melt. When we “melt” we surrender to the moment.
Let’s look at the roots of the word surrender: “Sur” is a prefix meaning “higher” and “to render” means to melt. To surrender then is to “melt” into something higher: to surrender (to melt) into the fullness, wholeness, and authentic self.
Acknowledging that there is something much bigger and higher than our circumstances, will lead us to let go of controlling the circumstances. This “melting” brings the ability to have a sound and calm mind. It creates a responsive attitude toward the circumstances to bring harmony into our lives, resulting in the ability to see more options. When there is surrender (melting), this opens up something new. Holding and having frozen, reactive, and shallow breathing continues the pattern that causes old circumstances to control the present.
The new something turns out to be far more abundant and fuller than anything that could be accomplished or imagined. Here is where the stability of our emotions begins, returning us to a state of responsive calmness instead of reactive action.
Understand that the body holds old living patterns from past experiences in the subconscious mind. Moving into a new conscious state instead of a reactive subconscious state risks vulnerability.
B-M-W: WIGGLE
With our intentional deep breathing and surrender through melting, we next get to “wiggle”. What happens when there is wiggling (movement, even shaking) in a crisis? It brings stability. When a person gets wiggling and moving, they take old patterns out of trauma. When overwhelmed, stressed, even anger causes the body to hold unhealthy patterns, wiggling (movement) engages the central-nervous system that connects to the inner-self. Connecting with the inner-self brings a calm state creating clarity of mind.
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF B-M-W
This exercise of B-M-W causes our body to release endorphins: naturally produced hormones in our brain that, generally, make us feel better. Wiggling, shaking, and moving are part of this stress management tool. Wiggling helps release the tension and trauma, helping to regulate the nervous system. When one wiggles, this causes the body to connect as a whole, burning excess adrenaline, and calming the nervous system to its neutral state, where an individual can manage stress levels in the body.
Allow yourself to become childlike, even goofy with it, and make any type of movements. Feel the freedom to play and reconnect with your body and yourself.
The B-M-W exercise establishes a grounding and stability to help you move out of old unhealthy patterns. Begin to see your physical driving machine swerving to miss the potholes of life while you:
- breathe,
- melt, and
- wiggle.
Awareness of possibilities and options opens up and also brings hope of getting past circumstances and begin living above them.
It is an honor and privilege to have journeyed with Bonnie Yost (above). Her experience of over 4 decades of Physical Therapy and the 4X4Healing approach and her tools are integral to Walking On Water Living. All of our coaches encourage you to read her book The Heart Of Healing: Break Free From Physical Pain and Emotional Wounds.
Let’s make BMW our way to cruise through a healthy life. For additional ways to deal with anxiety, depression, and deep breathing, we encourage you to browse our information on Body Awareness. If you have any questions, let us know.