It is another day and here we are again to share some of the insights that we’ve gained for the week.
Let me start by sharing some of those highlights from the Big Red Run which I participated in a few months back. And one of the important insights that I want to share to you is using the power of breath to deal with pain.
Now, yeah – 250K run. Yeah! Pretty crazy in relation to distance. How do you actually deal with pain that goes through that race?
Obviously you’re running marathon, after marathon, after marathon – and then on the big day you’ve got 84Ks. Your body goes through different cycles of in and out and obviously, dealing with your mental demons – but also the physical pain.
I want to share with you how I got through the physical challenges along the way.
The doctor at the briefing said, “Please do not take any Voltaren or any Nurofen.”
And I wanted to know, “Why? Why?” And they said, “It can actually cause kidney failure.”
Anyway, a couple of runners didn’t listen. They’re in a lot of pain and they actually took Nurofen and Voltaren, and the next minute they started to wee blood. So they were pulled straight away because their kidneys were failing.
Obviously out in the desert, you’re in the middle of nowhere – there’s no resources, there’s a doctor at each check station but you just got to deal with it as you go through.
From your feet – all blistered, it’s the mind games. And it’s so powerful what the mind can actually do.
The Power of Breathing
One of the things, one of the strategies is obviously going through and breathing through where that pain was.
The power of the breath is so important. No matter if it’s dealing with emotional or mental pain – just tapping into your breathing is absolutely quite phenomenal.
The breath is a truly underrated thing. When we’re stressed, what happens? We hold our breath. When we’re anxious, what do we do? We hold our breath.
And the more I see working with clients is, if you just breathe through it, you get the answers.
Because what happens if we don’t breathe, we go into that fight-or-flight mechanism, everything tenses up and we don’t relax our body and the whole mind doesn’t relax.
So, one of the powerful things I’m going to suggest to you throughout this week is, just to be aware of your breath.
You don’t have to run a crazy race, you don’t have to do any race – but watch your breathing when you’re doing certain activities.
Watch your breath when you make your phone calls. When you’re talking to your team. Watch your breathing when you’re doing your presentation.
Where do you breathe from? Is it a shallow breath or is it deep belly breath? And the more you can actually be aware of your breathing, the more in control you can be of your mental state, emotional state and obviously, your physical state.
The power of the breath is crucial on how to deal with pain, and how to actually overcome certain obstacles and challenges along the way.
So, there we go! Let’s breathe more. It does help.