the brush

THE FEW MINUTES you spend each day moving a toothbrush against your teeth and gums you’d probably rather spend doing something else, but you make it a priority, because if you didn’t, food particles would accumulate, carbohydrates would wear away your enamel, and eventually cavities would form, causing pain or loss of teeth. So you brush them every day.
     Just as teeth accumulate food and must be brushed periodically, the mind and the body accumulate stress and must also be brushed periodically. Humans are natural stress magnets. You don’t have to do anything for stress to find you. Illness, bills, traffic, work, family, relationships — all you have to do is be alive. And unless you brush it away, a little bit every day, the stress you accumulate takes root and wears you down. Mental hygiene should be as important as dental hygiene, but most people don’t spend even one minute of their day brushing their stress away.
     The good news is, you don't have to buy any paste. You don’t need an actual brush either. In fact, you don't have to purchase any equipment at all. You don’t need to read a book. You don’t need a yoga class. You need only yourself and a timer. And you can do it anywhere, anytime. To brush away stress, simply notice your breath for one minute every day.
     Normally when you breathe, you don’t notice that you’re breathing. Breathing usually goes unnoticed. For one minute every day — you must use a timer — just breathe naturally, and notice your breath as you breathe, feeling your breath go in, feeling your breath go out. That’s it. When the breath goes in, notice it going in. When the breath goes out, notice it going out. It may help to put a hand on your chest or on your belly and feel yourself moving as you breathe. The movement of air into and out of your body is what you’re practicing noticing. And remember, just breathe naturally. Breath to breath, you brush the stress away.
     It may come as a revelation. All these years you've been breathing, and you've never really gotten to know your breath. You demand many things of yourself, but rarely do you ask yourself to do something as simple as noticing your breathing. At first your mind will want to race ahead. Your body will want to go do something else. But this is exactly why it’s important to do this one simple thing for a minute every day. This minute recharges and replenishes you. The other nine hundred and fifty-nine minutes only wear you down.