Your Poetry Oracle: Week of May 15

♥️ Your intuition sent this message for you ♥️

Welcome back to the Self Love Confidential Poetry Oracle, where the universe sends you the message you need to hear by way of a poem from one of my books. I’ll select the weekly poem(s) by trusting my intuition, the very thing I hope you’ll start to do as a member of this self love community.

If you’re worried about your memory or brain health, this week’s oracle is for you.

The Shift: Poetry for a New Perspective, pages 8-9.

Last week, I read an article about a study that suggests that doing deep breathing exercises twice a day for 20 minutes can lower the volume of the protein amyloid, a hallmark protein of Alzheimer’s. TLDR: More breathing = lower risk of dementia. What are these deep breathing exercises? Some complex pattern that requires the guidance of a guru? Nope. Just simple breathing: five seconds in, five seconds out. For twenty minutes. That’s it.

Is breathing the simple thing that’s standing in the way of our brain health and longevity? Could it really be that simple?

I’d like to say this is a new realization for me, the importance of deep breathing, but clearly it’s not. A few years ago, I started wearing a Spire for a while, which is a wearable tech device that tracks your breathing. After two days something became abundantly clear: when I look at my phone or computer, basically when I’m working or on social media, I stop breathing normally. The device would vibrate at me and send an alert that said, “Your breathing has been tense for 2 minutes. Time for a break?” Tense breathing is code for not breathing deeply or consistently enough. Which I now realize is true. When I’m looking at social media, I take short, erratic, fast breaths — partly because I’m focused, but partly because I’m anxious. And when I don’t breathe deeply enough, I can feel it impact my whole body — including apparently my memory and brain.

Tense, short breathing is associated with being in fight or flight mode, which means your sympathetic nervous system has been activated and your body is experiencing stress. Fight or flight, hello old friend. If my phone is telling the truth when it says I’m on my phone for at least six or seven hours a day (sometimes eight, eek), that’s a really long time not to be taking a deep breath. Is this why I’m having trouble remembering? I’m going to start an active breathing practice and see if I notice an improvement. I hope you’ll join me.

This week, see if you can carve out some time to breath, deeply and meaningfully. Each time you take a deep breath remember: if fear is holding your breath, trust is letting it go. Please breathe.

Need some music to listen to while you practice your deep breathing? I got you covered.