Just Breathe! the ezine of The International Breath Institute (IBI), is sent to you from Dr. Tom Goode. IBI shows you how to be fully alive and in optimal health through lifestyle management—learning to live in alignment with your holistic nature. We provide shortcuts from science, tips for your health, and reminders about your breathing.

Content
IBI's web site focuses on Full Wave Breathing because it is the single most important exercise for your health. Use it to become fully alive--get well, be well and do well.

Healthcare
You either take care of your health or you don't. If you don't, you become a participant in what is known as "Healthcare," a system predicated upon the study of sick people and focusing on how to "fix" them. It addresses symptoms rather than causes and treats disease as an enemy to be eradicated.

Self-Responsible Self Care
If illness were not your enemy, and instead was a message concerning stressors in your mind and body, how would you treat it? Likely you would cooperate with the body using principles based upon natural health. The first place you might start is with the most basic foundation of life, your breathing.

Your mind and body work pretty well until you start storing stressors in your breathing muscles. Then you become a shallow breather, creating chronic tension that wears down your immune system. Your blood becomes toxic, and lacking oxygen and energy, your body is unable to defend itself against environmental stressors. The result is disease.

Holistic Practices
The foundation of all holistic health practices is deeper, effective breathing, which affects your respiration, circulation, vitality, digestion, assimilation, and more. Breathing affects your entire system. Master your breathing and you master the ability to stimulate your healing resources.

Have high blood pressure? Use your breathing to promote the unimpeded flow of consciousness through every cell in your body. Healing takes place on all levels. Your breathing determines your physical vitality, your emotional calmness, your mental focus and your spiritual awareness. Practice Full Wave Breathing for 30 days, and you will see your life improve.

Read It Over and Over
The information in the opening section of the ezine is repeated so it becomes ingrained in your consciousness. If you were to get just the breathing part you would be able to effectively manage 85% of your biochemistry and boost your mindbodysoul system's natural healing ability.

Simple Yet Vital
If you were to "get" the value of breathing and actually employ its daily use as an exercise leading to a healthy habit, you'd be well on your way to avoiding disease and enjoying life more fully. Enjoying life more fully will allow you to make a greater contribution to the life process itself.

Usually the human tendency is to have to hear or read things many times before acceptance sinks in. The normal process when an idea is introduced is to discount it. Repeated exposure brings us to acceptance, and, finally adoption of the idea.

There is Hope
My desire and hope for you is that you will adopt the information I present to you, test it and make it part of your improved life. Thank you for subscribing to the Just Breathe ezine. Write to me with any questions; I welcome them.

A Resolution
The Just Breathe! ezine's focus is on the mindbodysoul aspects of holistic health. The audience is the awakened, those who know themselves to be multidimensional beings with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects; those who practice their purpose in lives of greater enlightenment and service through the pathways of Love, Joy and Peace.

Ten Day Test?
For those of you unable to complete the ten day test, a beginner’s version is offered called, The Three Day Test. It too involves a brief exercise of being with yourself and your breath. Follow the instruction at the end of the ezine.

The Soul
If your interest is expanding your consciousness (increasing conscious awareness) as a spiritual being, then this ezine is for you.

The higher your consciousness, the more whole your life--health and happiness. To increase it just a little is significant because the increase is logarithmic and represents a transformational shift. To review let’s look at:

The ABC’s of Higher Consciousness

Attitude--Either expectant or repellant; positive or negative; open or closed to Life; and embracing as differentiated from resisting; healing or declining;

Breath--Let your exhale demonstrate the complete surrender to God/Universe of all cares and concerns; becoming non-resistant to the tensions of the body, relax the cells, molecules and atoms.

Choice--Either you listen to the voice for Love or the voice for Fear, that of ego. One knows that all are innocent; the other blames and sees the guilty. Teach your brain to tune into the Love channel; access your essence.

Exercise for the Soul
Enter a place of positive attitude within and imagine your connection to the Universe.

1. Visualize light entering at the points of your tailbone and your crown as you inhale. See them come together in the center of your chest.

2. Imagine unneeded stress leaving as you exhale.

3. Visualize light coming to you from the right side and from the left side as you inhale. See these come together also in the center of your chest.

4. Imagine unneeded stress leaving as you exhale.

5. Visualize light coming into the center of your chest from the front and back as you inhale.

6. Imagine unneeded stress leaving as you exhale completely allowing the muscles to soften and the cells to relax.

Continue without pausing between your inhales and exhales.

Part Two

1. Visualize light entering from all six points at once as you inhale and see them coming together in the center of your chest.

2. Imagine light from all six points coming together in the center of your chest as you exhale.

3. Visualize light from all directions entering your body and meeting in the center of your chest.

4. Imagine that you are smiling as you exhale.

Continue for Seven Minutes.

More on the Choice and the Voice for Love or Voice for Fear.
There is within each human an inner voice, a sixth sense that you can call spirit, God, or guidance. It is the Love perspective or seeing through the eyes of your spirit, your highest understanding. You have a physical, emotional and mental understanding or perspective as well. Utilize your highest understanding to get the best result for all.

When choices arise ask, "What would Love do?" When faced with a difficult situation causing emotions to arise and producing upset or confusion, ask "How would Love see this situation?" When making decisions ask, "What would Love counsel as being in the greatest good?"

It will assist you to breathe deeply as you repeat the question more slowly. Allow any pictures, intuitions, sounds, sensations or words to arise within your mindbody system. Feel the quality of the answer to verify Love's answer. Think of the space in the center of your chest. Imagine you were breathing into it. Tune into the answer that comes from your heart, the voice of Love.

Questions and Answers
There were no questions from readers for this month. Please send your questions to thomasgoode@earthlink.net.

The Duh Factor
As More People in U.S. Live Longer, the Number of Dementia Cases Will Go Up according to a study of more than 12,000 people aged 65 and older living in the U.K.

Being In the Flow
Everyone has experienced a moment of being in “the flow” and being in the know. Outcomes were productive and ease abounded. Being in the flow is a progressive state that you can build upon. To do so use your built in tool—your breathing-- several times a day. The idea is to interrupt your stress reactions.

In these highly stressful times, use your breathing to reconnect to reality! It otherwise can become all too easy to forget what is important, lose control of emotions and feel irritated. Suffer the side-effects of unrelenting stress no more!

Your breathing is your best friend who introduces you to Flow. You can instantaneously reduce your stress level and vastly improve your performance. And it all takes place without equipment, gadgets, consultations or worry.

Steps to Being In the Flow
1. Belly Breathing
2. Crown Focus
3. Love Feeling

Tools for Transformation--Technologies for the Soul
These are products that I have used that I know will be of assistance to you on your path of personal power, prosperity and presence. Links are provided for your ease in learning about them and ordering.

Music
The Cosmic Waltz—Give your body and brain a break with this musical transformational tool. It’s perfect to breathe with. Learn More...
Inner Harmony—Feel and free the inner flow of energy and ease with this home-study transformational program. Learn More...

Books
Fully Alive! - How to Live a Longer, Livelier Life, Have More Energy and Increased Sexual Enjoyment. Learn More...
The Holistic Guide to Weight Loss, Anti-aging and Fat Prevention - a no-fluff all you need to know manual to assist in your quest for health. Learn More...
Help Kids Cope - New stressors make our children’s life more difficult that we can imagine. Learn how you can help them now. Learn More...

CD Programs
Use hypnosis to awaken the mind from a hypnotic spell. The Hypnosis Network offers you proven methods to effectively shift your consciousness to a healthier state and change your mind for the better. Professionally crafted for maximum benefit, choose one or more of their many titles. Go to http://www.hypnosisnetwork.com/hypnosis/self_esteem.php

Parents will find help there with two programs of children’s stories. Plus, I strongly recommend you add their self-esteem program to your library. It is one of a kind. You can listen to a Free demo by going to; http://www.hypnosisnetwork.com/hypnosis/self_esteem.php?kbid=1569

Read This New Book
The Invitation to Divinity answers your questions of who and what you are and what to do about it in a mind-opening view of life and its soul expression. Designed to increase the level of awareness in consciousness by its reading, the mind expands and shifts to a more embracing and wholesome perspective. The Invitation provides you with must-have information to understand the world today, your role in it and what action to remain in harmony and balance. This is a book that you’ll want to read several times and share with friends.

Download a free preview @ www.invitationtodivinity.com

Words of the Wise
”Getting stressed and struggling to change the outcome of any past event is like arguing with an echo to make it see your point of view.”
-- Guy Finley

"More important than finding the teacher is finding and following the truth of the teaching...."
-- Sogyal Rinpoche

"There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul."
-- Arnold Bennett

Stress
The importance of stress is once again a hot topic in the medical news. It is now being linked to amnesia and osteoporosis. A new cause has been uncovered too—normal and overweight women who watch ads depicting thin women show stress symptoms. Manage incoming stressors and resolve stored stressors with Full Wave Breathing—the single most important exercise for your life.

More News From The News
Next year's budget for the Department of Homeland Security will exceed $34 billion. By comparison, this country spends about eight times that amount annually -- $282 billion -- on deaths due to medical mistakes. Since 2001, 490,000 people in the United States have died from prescription drugs, while 2,996 people in the United States died from terrorism, all in the 9/11 attacks; prescription drugs are therefore 16,400 percent more dangerous than terrorism.

When deaths from over-the-counter drugs are also included, then drug consumption leaps to being 32,000 percent more dangerous than terrorism. And conventional medicine viewed as a whole is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism. William C. Douglass, MD, reports that you are about 9,100 times more likely to be killed by a well-meaning physician rendering service than dying from a firearms-related incident.

The Healthy Heart Book
Here’s an article taken from the book, that is for anyone with an interest in preventing or treating heart disease. Usually we think only of it affecting adults.

Young at Heart
Heart Healthy Practices for Children
By Dr. Thomas O. Goode
www.acpi.biz

Heart disease is not just for grandpa anymore. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), heart disease can originate in childhood. In a recently concluded study, the NIH discovered many of the conditions that lead to heart disease, including high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries, can begin as early as age five.

In addition to physical changes, the study also identified several key environmental factors. These include poor diet, lack of exercise and tobacco use, all of which can result in high blood pressure and obesity at any age. It is common knowledge that children consciously and unconsciously mimic their parents. Therefore, raising heart healthy children means choosing a heart healthy lifestyle.

The best way of encouraging children to adopt your healthy lifestyle is to empower them with knowledge. Children are eager to learn the truth as it pertains to their bodies and lives. Teaching them how the heart and circulatory system function is a great place to start. Use age appropriate explanations to describe the effect nutritious food, quality water, and regular exercise have on heart health. In addition, find simple and loving ways to explain some of the common causes of heart disease.

Teaching Heart Healthy Habits

Exercise: According to the Department of Health and Human Services, all children over the age of two should get at least sixty minutes of exercise daily. Most children can easily meet this minimum with a little help from their parents. Start by encouraging them to participate in a variety of activities. Childhood is a time of exploration, and daily exercise is a way to determine interests. Outdoor play introduces children to the wonders of nature while organized sports teach them the value of teamwork. Likewise, dancing can ignite a passion while gymnastics encourages agility and flexibility. Any activity your children choose puts them one step closer to a heart healthy lifestyle.

Nutrition: One of the most effective ways to teach children good eating habits is to get them involved in the process. Start by taking them to the grocery store. Let them help you pick out food for the family. As you fill the cart together, explain why you choose some foods over others. For instance, you may tell your five year old that blueberries are good and good for you. If your child is older, however, you might use this opportunity to explain the role antioxidants play in good health.

Next, involve your children in the cooking. The kitchen is a fantastic hands-on learning environment. Allow children to chop, measure, and peel. Let them wash, beat, and boil. Buy them a kid-friendly cookbook and put them in charge of a dish or a meal. When they play chef, you get the chance to talk about what foods are good for us and why.

Water: When it comes to heart health, there is no substitute for pure water. Water helps improve circulation and rid the body of toxins. Therefore, it is important that your children drink plenty of water. Serve water at meals and be sure to send a water bottle to school and sporting events. In addition, limit the amount of fruit juice and sodas your children drink. If they must drink juice, make sure it is 100% natural. Also, if at all possible avoid serving your children soft drinks. They are full of unhealthy chemicals and empty calories, neither of which makes a positive contribution to their heart health.

Breathing: Deep breathing delivers more oxygen to cells throughout the body. This helps keep the heart healthy and improves circulation. Proper breathing also helps children reduce stress, which has been linked to heart disease. Showing your children how to use breathing to regulate stress is a powerful and heart healthy tool they can use now and for a long time into the future. Visit www.fullwavebreathing.com for instructions and deep breathing exercises.

By teaching your children these four heart healthy habits, you are empowering them with knowledge. You are teaching them that a healthy heart depends on good choices and that good choices make for a healthy lifestyle.

Exercise: The Zen of Revealing
(Recommended for those who have practiced Full Wave Breathing in its basic form so they invite and allow the fullness of breath.)

Sitting quietly, following ten Full Wave Breaths, ask within, “What are the steps I need to take to realize a higher level of conscious awareness?”

Continue to breathe gently and continuously--and consider:

Which God would you be? Let’s imagine you had the responsibility for choosing which bacteria you were going to install in your digestive system and maintain for the rest of your life. One group makes you slender; the other, not. Most of us would choose the bacteria that would allow us to be slim, right? Before answering, consider that the slim group requires a lot of care though not much maintenance. You’d have to stop feeding your body poisonous substances and ugly and self-negating thoughts. You can stop today and manage any physical cravings as your mindbody system recalibrates itself by drinking water and breathing. The cravings will pass. You would also benefit from restoring your biochemical balance, beginning with teaching your brain to think the thoughts that keep you calm and receptive to Life. Through your breathing you access the mindbody’s self-renewal system.

As a conscious being, you are in charge of your energy. Just Breathe! Allow yourself and draw upon this calm power. Knowledge was the first step. Now it is time for the action required to unfold Life purpose and path for you.

There are three levels to consider, Love, Joy and Peace. They are One Path, served by conscious direction of the breath. Focus on any one as a mantra as you perform your Full Wave Breathing creates a powerful biochemical response that strengthens self-healing. Its daily, purposeful, regular practice keeps you grounded and focused. Practice it for a few days consecutively making it easy for you to have the best biochemistry and energy for all that you do.

An Amazing Process
In this next part of the exercise, focus upon your will by relaxing your throat and neck as you breathe through your nostrils. Exhale fully and begin to consciously shift your mental focus to the three words, being aware of your bodily sensations as you breathe while thinking Love, Joy and Peace.

Let this simple exercise be the gift for yourself you really wanted for Christmas or Hanukah, to feel Love, Joy and Peace. It is a gift you now give yourself by directing your breathing while focusing your mind and sensing your body. It is a mindbodysoul exercise that you give to yourself to shift into like an additional gear that takes your brain focus to another level of mind. As an added bonus, if you repeat this exercise is will beneficially impact your electromagnetic field and what is known as your “attractor field.”

Hint: You gotta do it more than once or twice to communicate your intention to the Universe. Don’t just scratch the surface; instead, keep digging until you uncover the vein of gold that will be found with effort and practice.

All Is Energy
It is all about energy. You either have sufficient energy to heal on your own, or you need help. Most of us need help. To provide that assistance is the purpose of The International Breath Institute, Inspired Living and its websites: www.inspiredparenting.net and www.acpi.biz, www.drtomgoode.com, the books, cds, exercises, personal counseling and this ezine.

WHO AM I?
(c) Mary Manin Morrissey

Imagine someone saying to you: I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. I am easily managed, but you must be firm with me. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, casual with me, convenient with me, and I will destroy every dream you have. Who am I? I am your thinking. What is your thinking saying to you? And more importantly, what kind of guidance do you provide your own thoughts?

For the few, for the willing, for the rare individual dedicated to making as much progress as possible and living life to the fullest there is a simple, reductionist answer and a lazy way to proceed. Have you given struggle a fair chance? Has it worked? Would you consider another way?

IBI Seminar Schedule
• One-Day Seminar in Warwick, Rhode Island on April 28, 2007
• Three-Day Facilitator Training in Warwick, Rhode Island on May 5, 2007
• Afternoon Workshop, Celebration of Spirit, in Houston, Texas on June 9, 2007

Keep breathing!
Tom

You are spirit experiencing the evolution of human consciousness. Every day is a step along your spiritual path that leads to your Self.

EXERCISE CORNER:

Full Wave Breathing is a natural, drug-free, and dramatically effective way to experience health, joy and aliveness that mobilizes and supports your progression toward balance and wholeness. It is a method which accelerates and complements modern healthcare and treatment practices. Use it to inspire yourself so you can inspire others!

The Single Most Important Exercise is Full Wave Breathing

There are 3 Steps, simple as A B C: Abdomen, Belly, and Chest. First, breathe into the lower abdomen and keep your focus there until you can comfortably fill and relax that area of the body. Use your muscles to expand your lower abdomen, beginning at the top or your pubic bone. Second, after filling the abdomen (A) shift your focus to your entire belly (B) or midsection, stretching and distending your diaphragm and ribs as you inhale. Relax everything as you exhale. Use your muscles to push out the lower abdomen, then expand the area just above.

Third, filling A & B, shift your focus to your chest (C) and above. Having expanded the lower portions of the body, stretch up into the chest and back. Make all of your physical movements gentle and slow. All the movement to become very subtle and gentle as you alternately inhale and exhale without pause.

You may find it more comfortable to begin with distinct movements of your body. Allow the process to become like a dance of movement from bottom to top, top to bottom. Later, allow your body to remain completely relaxed as you visualize the movement of energy through you.

Repeat often for the most dramatic results. For more detailed instruction, read below:

Step One of Full Wave Breathing

Place one hand on the abdomen below the navel and the other on the chest. As you inhale, hold the chest still; allowing the abdomen to expand as if you is filling a balloon. Stretch and extend the lower belly. Relax completely into an inhale at the point where the abdomen is distended fully and the lungs are filled. After exhaling, inhale immediately. The chest does not move at all.

Continue breathing with no pause between inhales and exhale. All of the emphasis is upon your inhale. The exhale is a release of the tension created during your inhale. So you will Inhale and relax...inhale...and relax. Continue as you read this instruction to see how simple it is to perform. Breathe through your nose or mouth as you desire. You increase oxygenation by over 50% when you breathe through your mouth because of the normal restriction in nostril breathing.

Close your eyes as you are breathing and then relax for a few minutes when you are done. Allow your breathing to normalize before continuing with your activities. You may perform this exercise while sitting at the computer, riding in the car, or even watching television. Start practicing this exercise today and you'll be pleased with your result!

To help you stay focused on your breathing, place a book or weighted bag on your lower abdomen when lying down and performing the exercise. If you are sitting, to keep your spine erect, imagine that a rope is attached to the middle of your head. The rope rises into the air. In your imagination, allow the rope to gently lift you up until your spine is erect. Sit straight, be open, and breathe.

Step Two of Full Wave Breathing

Continue breathing with no pause between inhales and exhale. Inhale and Relax...Inhale...and Relax.

Count 1 as you inhale and expand your lower abdomen in Step One. Count 2 as you lengthen your inhale and push out the middle of your torso at the solar plexus. Release tension and allow the body to exhale and repeat. Perform this exercise anytime to relax. Do not perform connected breathing when driving or operating machinery.

When lying down, place a pillow under your knees, not under your neck. When sitting, allow yourself to stretch and open your spine as you sit and breathe.

Close your eyes as you breathe and then relax for a few minutes when you are done. Allow your breathing to normalize and return to your tasks.

Step Three of Full Wave Breathing

Continue breathing with no pause between inhales and exhale. Inhale and relax...Inhale...and relax.

Count 1 as you inhale and push out your lower abdomen. Count 2 as you raise the breath and energetic focus to your solar plexus. Count 3 as you move your breath and muscular focus up into your chest, stretching your intercostal muscles, shoulders and back of the neck. Relax completely when you exhale, allowing the muscles to soften. There is no effort or tension involved in your exhale.

Close your eyes as you breathe and then relax for a few minutes when you are done. Allow your breathing to normalize before continuing with your activities. Perform this exercise anytime you are sitting passively to provide a quick and effective energy boost and relaxation.

Keep your spine straight if sitting and allow to your body to move as you breathe and relax. Feel the wave of inhale as air enters your body and the wave of exhale as it leaves. Increase the volume of air and pace of breathing and feel how it affects your experience.

Since resolving stress at the cellular level is below our awareness, there are times when the breathing is accompanied by laughing or crying as old chemistry breaks up. Simply keep breathing! Allow your body any movement that arises and remember to relax fully when you exhale, softening all your muscles. Continue breathing at your own pace, deeply and fully.

Maintain your own pace and be willing to experiment. Your pace will normally change from day to day and during a session of Full Wave Breathing. Playing music as you breathe helps keep you focused in a gentle rhythm. The Cosmic Waltz, offered by Inspired Living, is the best I know of for this purpose. It focuses on the heart center and expands relaxation throughout the body.

All material in this ezine is presented as information only and should not be constructed as medical advice or instruction. Readers should consult with appropriate licensed health care providers on any matter relating to their health. The information provided is believed to be accurate and based on the best judgment of the author. None of the statements in this ezine have been approved by the FDA.

"How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us."