One-Minute Practice: Buoyant Ribs

Bring your awareness to your rib structure as you read this. Just notice how they feel right now and bookmark it for yourself. 
 
Raise one arm up high and give your side ribs a little stretch. Put your other hand on the side you are stretching and feel how the ribs can open up in between each other. You can also squish them a little, curve your torso a bit this way and that. Feel into the flexibility of all those little muscles between the delicate rib bones. Repeat with the other arm.

Now curve forward and round your ribs in back. Feel how they move like hinges off the spine. Then arch and curve with your hands on your sternum. Feel how they are flexible from the cartilage that attaches them to the sternum.
Now that you've wiggled around and enlivened all the tissues, raise both arms up and let your shoulders, collar bones and ribs all be lifted upwards off your middle. Now as you let your arms float down, don't drop your shoulders or ribs but notice how they can gently stay floaty and buoyant. Invite the upper torso muscles and tissues to all be light and lively. The muscles respond to breath and movement of the lungs and diaphragm so much better when they are not dropped or collapsed or held down or held in a particular place. Let your shoulders be like floating clouds on top of your ribs. Let your ribs be like delicate twigs riding on air currents.

Know that your ribs come all the way up to just above your collar bones and all the way down in the back near your kidneys. There is a lot of lung tissue in the front, the sides and back of you. Your diaphragm is three dimensional too, moving up and down and in and out. Your ribs never stop moving gently in this three-dimensional way. Inviting a sense of liveliness and loft can help you to breath fuller and easier, even when sitting for a while.
 
So anytime you feel a bit stiff or dropped down, give yourself some rib movement by waving your arms up and about. A little spinal movement is good too! 
 
Think of allowing the muscles, tendons, ligaments and connective tissues to soften and un-do excess tension but allow a gentle suppleness and liveliness. Simply sending a clear intention is enough for your nervous system to make a change.
 
What do you notice now? Can you sense some more ease now? Even if it feels “weird” to let your ribs and shoulders rest without pressing them somewhere, try it out for a while. Experiment with lofty ribs and “floating shoulder clouds.”