30 Days of Recovery- Chapter 13: Relaxation
Chapter 13: Relaxation
There is no right or wrong way to relax as long as you feel peaceful, your muscles are heavy and your breathing is slow. A few 
times during the day take five minutes to just sit still and if you cannot do five minutes just sit for as long as you can. Take a deep breath; concentrate on the air coming through your nostrils, all the good clean air. Then exhale all the negative dirty air out of your mouth.
Now take a big cat stretch. Stretch your arms and your shoulders, your wrists and wiggle your fingers. Stretch your legs and your calves rotate your ankles and wiggle your toes. It feels great and you should try to remember to do this a few times a day as well.
Find a comfy spot to sit. Place your hands on your thighs. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Breathe in through your nostrils and out through your mouth again through your nostrils and out through your mouth. Try counting breaths, start by counting to four and increase it every few breaths.
Another way to learn how to breathe correctly is by lying on your back. Place your hands on your stomach. Feel your stomach rise as you breathe in, feel it collapse as you breathe out. Try not to raise and lower your chest, that is shallow breathing and you are not using your diaphragm correctly. The diaphragm is the muscle below the lungs that helps them fill up and expel air, oxygen to carbon monoxide. For our purposes we just focus on, it’s the muscle that helps make your lungs work.
Related articles
- Breath (qitime.wordpress.com)
- 30 Days of Recovery: Excerpt from Chapter 1 Day 1: Detox (amylong1933.wordpress.com)
- 30 Days of Recovery: Surviving the First 30 Days of Recovery (amylong1933.wordpress.com)
- Realistic Advice – Letter From the Author of 30 Days of Recovery (amylong1933.wordpress.com)
- Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. (pastryfreethoughts.wordpress.com)
- Why is Our Breath so Important in Recovery? (breastcanceryogablog.com)
Journey Through Recovery 
I’ve been looking for a good way to relax and learn a little more patiences. And as fate should have you find my post then I find this little jem. Thank you very much for this insightful post. I will be doing this daily!
PS: still lookin for The Silo 😕
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The Silo hasn’t been published yet, it’s a novel, I wrote it 6 years ago, it’s on my list of things to do/edit and publish! I will post a few more excerpts from after I’ve published 30 Days which will be released soon. I am changing the name to “A Better Way To Live” or “A Better Way Of Life” with a subtitle “Tips from a Junkie” or “Journey of a Recovering Heroin Addict”….I don’t know I’m still playing with a few ideas, I was working on the book cover today but the book is finished and ready to be released. I’m such a perfectionist though I keep going back and finding things to change. I finished all the paperwork today to release it I just have to send the actual book file and cover and I’m done…
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Wow that’s awesome, I’m still trying to get myself to write a book. Just don’t seem to find it incredibly important to me right now. BUT it is definitely something I want to do. Just need to find my calling about what to write about I suppose.
I’m proud of you for overcoming your addictions. I may not know you but I am genuinely proud. Your a very strong person that’s lived more than many people. Maybe not in age but in experience.
Also I read this in a book by Jon Acoff(I always forget how to spell his last name) , “90% and published is better than 100% and stuck in your head”. I don’t know if that helps or not, but it’s what popes up when I read you message.
Oh and sorry about not writing back. I haven’t been putting much time into my blog sadly
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I haven’t been blogging much either, I’ve been in a depressive slump and haven’t posted anything in nearly 2 weeks. I’m inching my way out of it though. Thank you very much for the compliments! I take what works for me which is writing and sharing my experiences and reflections and I leave the rest that doesn’t work. I hope to hear from you soon!
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Sorry to have not written back in so long. I do hope you are feeling better and are in higher spirits than when you first sent this message. And that’s good to leave the bad and try and focus on the good.
But remember good bad or otherwise everything in our lives make us into the person that we are. If we choose to believe it or not. So make sure your dealing with the bad instead of burying it.
I tried to bury all of my bad happenings in my life and I still am to an extent but I realize that by doing that i just decay my foundation and rot my world out from the inside. So I’m trying to self actualize and make myself deal with the things I wish I could just forget.
How’s your book coming along? Have you been blogging more?
I hope to hear from you soon.
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I have been writing every morning and I go to a trauma specialist for counseling every week. I published my book in May which is when my depression kicked in. I have done a bit of research and it is quite common among artists when they finish a project such as a book. I have come out of my depressive slump but it took time, courage and discipline. I took baby steps each day to improve my life and environment and it certainly has paid off.! It’s wonderful to hear from you! Blessed Be )0(
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PS, I’m glad you liked the excerpt from the book on Relaxation, I myself use it daily as well
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This is a wonderful reminder to hit the “pause” button on our busy lives. My best friend always say, “in the nose and out through the mouth!”
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