13 Minutes a Day Will Improve Your Life
Gut instincts are great for a variety of life scenarios- work, relationships, purchases, snap judgements, etc. Trusting your gut can even save your life!
While using a combination of gut instinct and hard data is the best way to make decisions, sometimes you just don’t have the ability to collect all the facts. If this is the case, being able to trust your gut is a must!
How To Strengthen Your Gut Instincts
Check in with yourself daily.
· Set a timer for 13 minutes.
· Either sit comfortably or lay down.
· Close your eyes.
· Notice your breath.
· Feel your breath filling your lungs and your belly.
· Breathe in, pause, slowly breathe out, pause, repeat.
Eventually thoughts will start drifting into your mind. Observe each thought without investing in an inner dialogue. Simply observe:
· How does this thought make you feel?
· Do not judge your feelings. Instead notice:
· Are these feelings causing any tension? Where?
· Release your tension.
· Repeat this series of actions all while maintaining your controlled relaxed breathing.
Do not invest in inner dialogues. Do not judge your feelings. Simply observe your thoughts and how they make you feel. Notice where you tense up and release your tension. Keep breathing controlled and relaxed breaths.
After your 13 minutes are up your mind and body will feel refreshed.
Why This Works
Your brain and gut conspire to protect you.
Neurons aren’t only in your brain and spinal cord; they’re located in other parts of your body too. A great deal of these neurons are located in your gut via the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a bidirectional highway in the gut-brain axis. Some responsibilities of this nerve include:
· Heartrate
· Digestion
· Rate of breathing
· Reflexes like sneezing, coughing, swallowing, and vomiting
· The constriction and expansion of blood vessels when the temperature changes in the environment
When you breathe deeply at a relaxed controlled pace, calming messages are sent through the gut-brain axis. Circulation improves and you’re rewarded for this behavior with feel good neurotransmitters like serotonin and GABA. You’re also rewarded with a dose of acetylcholine for focus.
Your thoughts and emotions are a feedback loop and the gut-brain axis is a major player in the loop. When you feel good you often have more positive thoughts; when you have negative thoughts you often feel crappy.
I like to look at my emotions as my own customized toolkit to help me navigate life. Emotions are not to be judged as good or bad just as you wouldn’t judge a hammer or screwdriver.
All emotions are valid. But in order for emotions to be effective you have to examine them. If you don’t take the time to examine how you feel you risk being reactive. You also risk storing stress in your body which can lead to unpleasant and even life-threatening health conditions.
And while emotions are not to be judged, behaviors are. If you react impulsively to your emotions, you risk behaving impulsively i.e., lashing out at others or making rash decisions. Behaviors have consequences.
When you take the time to become aware of your mental state without judgement you pause your reactive mind (a.k.a. monkey mind). This enables you to make informed decisions and put forth efforts that benefit you most.
The alternative is expending energy on cleaning up the outcome of a messy reaction or poor decision.
You also get the benefit of connecting with your body. You can feel where you store stress and release it.
You’ll also start to connect how your body stores the stress that different thoughts and feelings create. For example, when I’m under a lot of pressure I’ll store the stress pressure creates in my jaw, neck, and shoulders- I’m literally gritting my teeth and bearing it. But when I feel uneasy about a situation, I’ll feel a knot in my stomach- then I know to trust my gut and if necessary, bale out of the situation.
We all receive these subtle cues. This is your body giving you valuable information you can use to strategize and navigate your life. But if you don’t take the time to shut out the noise of everyday distractions, it’s easy to miss the quiet wisdom of our gut instincts.
Taking 13 minutes a day allows you to declutter your mind. Your thoughts stop racing and your focus increases. You’ll make healthier decisions. Your stress will be reduced significantly.
With regular practice you will get to know yourself with more depth, sharpen your mind, and hone your gut instincts. These are huge gains for the price of a mere 13 minutes a day!
© Cherie Fournier 2023
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