If Hypnobirthing had a Queen it would be Up Breathing.
Because if Hypnobirthing is your life jacket, your rescue team, your comfort blanket AND your emergency exit?
Up breathing is the safety net you will always need.
Because whilst Up Breathing might not sound like much?
Everyone is glad to have it.
And EVERYONE uses it…
What is Up Breathing?
Up breathing is a long slow breath in through the nose. And a longer, slower breath out through the mouth…(breathing in to the count of 3 and out to the count of 5 if it helps you find your pace)
While you think about your uterine muscles drawing UP!
Up Breathing is helpful in latent labour and invaluable in established labour.
It’s as helpful for physiological birth as it is cesarean birth.
Popular alternatives are:
- Rectangular breathing
- Surge Breathing
- Ribbon breathing (or golden ribbon breathing)
- 7-11 or 5-8 breathing
And while we are going to focus on up breathing, let’s not forget down breathing which you can read about here!
What does Up Breathing do?
Body and mind are linked. So the same state is replicated between them and they respond to each other.
And what do we want during birth? A calm birthing body and a calm mind.
So a clever hypnobirthing tip is to calm your breathing to calm your body.
Because a calm breath sends a message to body & mind that all is safe. All is well. And let’s face it….
No ones breathing is calm when they are in danger!
Oxytocin
Calm Jaw, Calm Floor
The jaw is linked to the pelvis (long story – ask me in our free hypnobirthing FB group!). So by breathing out of your mouth and letting your jaw relax during your Up Breathing visualisations? You actually help your pelvis & pelvic floor relax too!
Are you teaching yourself Hypnobirthing?
Then you might like to read my list of the Top 15 things to Practice for Hypnobirthing (that includes techniques, scripts and more how-to-guides) or my Complete Hypnobirthing Practice Routine to help you get it done FAST.
Not sure about Hypnobirthing yet? Try my Complete Guide to a Calm Birth...you really will find everything on my website!
Pregnant?
How to use this Up Breathing Script
The most important things to do with any Hypnobirthing script or MP3 are:
- Golden rule – Avoid use if your consultant has said that visualisations or relaxations are medically unsafe for you
- Check you like the script before you start practising with it – so just read it first
- Ask someone to read this script to you or record it for yourself (this is written for personal use only)
- Practice the breathing before you add in the visualisations
- Make yourself comfortable so you can really switch off, tune in and relax
- Never use whilst driving or doing anything else that requires you to be fully attentive
Up Breathing Script
Breathing…nice and soft…nice and slow…
And as you breath in this gentle way…you’ll start to find…perhaps…without…even trying…
That your out breath starts to become…longer…and slower…longer…and slower…
Just breathing in through your nose…and out through your mouth…
Long… and slow…
Softly…and gently…
Your jaw…and your shoulders…nice and relaxed
As you just breath… in this pleasant way…
And allow your thoughts to drift up…
So you might like to imagine
A beautiful sunrise – as the sun just starts to rise up on the horizon. The subtle swell of new light as the pinks and oranges grow larger on the horizon. The warm colours lifting with the gentle rising of the sun. As the sun lifts. Turning warm pinks and oranges to warm yellows and golds. Breath up as the sun grows and rises. As the sun lifts from the horizon into the sky. As the sun lifts higher and higher…higher and higher…with each gentle breath…as you imagine your body drawing gently up…gently up with the sun as it lifts up and up into the sky.
Geese on a lake about to take flight – relaxed and settled and all as one…all confident and ready…about to take flight from a beautiful lake…graceful geese all taking flight…rising easily and effortlessly into the sky…together as one…taking flight…forming together way up high…drifting and dancing…way up high…as they fly off…way off…across the sky…
A brightly coloured hot air balloon that’s about to be blown up – the flame rising as it’s lit…the balloon gently filling…the balloon gently lifting to form it’s shape…the beautiful bright colours becoming even more visible…the balloon filling gently and…fully inflating…fully in place…lifting from the ground…as basket and balloon lift…gently from the ground…slowly at first…up and up…lifting higher…lifting faster…drifting up…and up…way up high in the sky…drifting way up…off across the sky
Your body just drifting up with every easy breath – with each easy breath you take…imagine as your body softens and settles…imagine your muscles drawing up…body and mind focused as one…each easy breath…breathing up…softening you…and calming you…as your body draws up…your breathing draws up…and your body draws gently up…
Up Breathing Script Extras
Up breathing visualisations are only limited by your imagination. So here are a few ideas – and let me know if you create your own!
Imagine you are blowing bubbles – you can imagine holding a brightly coloured little pot that holds a soapy liquid…and gently dipping in the bubble stick…slowly lifting it up….lifting it out…the soapy film glistening with shiny flashes of purple and green…the film gently stretching…so keen…so eager to be a bubble…and so you gently blow…out through your mouth…blowing out…and up..watching the bubble form…the bubble stretching upwards…stretching upwards…breaking free…and lifting up…lifting up…getting larger and larger…gently lifting in the breeze…moving in the breeze…floating up…floating off…way of high…high across the sky…
Imagine a beautiful rainbow…colours reaching way up high…into the clouds…into the sky…the ground based colours soft and faint at first…yet with all the subtle colours…of…red…orange…yellow and green…getting stronger…more brighter…more vivid…more beautiful…as the rainbow reaches up…stretching up…blue…indigo…violet…lifting up…up into the sky…
