Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

inside your associated neural pathways. Then, within nanoseconds, the baton is passed to the
amygdala, which ensures that you’ll respond the same way the next time, creating its own conditioned
response to this pleasing new chain of stimuli.
Today, whenever the phone beeps, we answer it. We sacrifice restorative moments of quiet and
focus that contribute to our wellness and longevity for the checking of texts or the number of likes on
our latest Facebook post. We’re always looking outside ourselves for the boost. But the answer isn’t
out there, floating around in cyberspace. It’s there inside you, right now. The answer is one deep
breath. Your breath is the single most powerful tool you have to wake your energy, and you don’t need
special props or anyone else to help you.
Conscious breathing is how you can take charge of your life and your energy. The moment when
your breath joins forces with your movement is when you can access the power of the universe and
expand your energy-cultivation capabilities. Our breath isn’t just our original energy engine and the
central energy-delivery system; it’s the engine of transformation and evolution in our lives. It’s the
vehicle for cultivating awareness. Ancient sages say, “When the mind is distracted, chi scatters.” A
passive existence is dangerous, because we waste so much of our precious life force, or chi, allowing
ourselves to get pulled in different directions; but when we use our mind to direct our breath, every
movement becomes our own. Every conscious moment becomes a waking-energy opportunity.
Conscious breathing is Waking Energy.
The simple act of breathing starts the alchemical process of change within you. It’s how you can
travel deep inside, harmonizing the flow of energy throughout your entire body. If a journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step, then waking your energy begins with one deep breath.
Waking Energy Breathing Benefits
The powerful breathing techniques in the Waking Energy practices have been perfected over
centuries. They facilitate the birth of healthy new cells, making us feel restored and rejuvenated.
Cellular exchange, down to even the mitochondria, cannot occur if your breath does not join forces
with your energy. When we intentionally direct our breath, we optimize this vital process, resulting
in a windfall of benefits.
Breathing keeps our organs and blood supplied with oxygen, which is the very how and why of
our health; because deep breathing massages the internal organs, it keeps the lower abdominal energy
center awake and alive. It’s the source of all the energy in your body and the means by which you can
direct it. How we breathe determines how efficiently we are able to absorb energy from the universe
as well as how well we assimilate chi from the nutrients we ingest.
Optimal digestion, for example, is facilitated by deep diaphragmatic breathing, which provides a
kind of undulating massage that stimulates the internal organs of digestion. In order for the body to
properly digest and assimilate food, our breathing must be relaxed and full, following a natural
breathing into the belly, which promotes increased blood flow to the digestive tract and organs as
well as facilitating the movements of the stomach and intestines to break down food and extract
optimal nutrition from it.
The better you breathe, the more you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which