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Physiological and psychological states are reflected in nostril dominance. Now that you understand how open or closed nostrils can impact the brain and emotions, here is the amazing, indispensable Emotion Cooler. When you breathe solely through the left nostril, as in this exercise, you are clearing the right brain, where emotions and images are located.

1. Put your right thumb on your right nostril, lightly closing it off. You are going to breathe only through the left nostril.

2. Exhale a long, slow, even breath visualizing it as a black cloud full of
all the anger, tension, and other negative emotions you are feeling.

3. Inhale a long, slow breath through your left nostril, visualizing it as golden light and going up your nasal passage and across the corpus callosum (the connections between the two sides of the brain) to the right hemisphere of your brain, filling it with pure, radiant energy.

4. Continue to inhale and exhale for twenty-six complete breaths.

	Make them as long, smooth, and even as possible.
	If there is any obstruction in your nasal passage, imagine a tiny stream of air bypassing the blockage and making its way smoothly up into the right hemisphere.
	With each exhalation, release all the tension, anger, annoyance, hurt, or other negative emotions you are feeling; visualize them all drain­ing out of your body, emptying from every pore. Each time you exhale, let go of more—not just what happened today, but last week, last year, and all of your life, until you are completely released and clear.
	Stay empty for a second or two at the end of each exhalation before you begin the next inhalation. Enjoy the increasing relaxation of your whole body and mind.
	The black stream of your exhalations may gradually grow lighter until, at the end of the twenty-six breaths, both the inhale and the exhale are pure white light.

A student, Beryl S., who had never got along well with her father, reported that now when she speaks to him on the phone, she keeps her thumb on her right nostril the whole time, breathing only through the left. "The first time I tried it, I had the first conversation with Dad since I moved away from home when I didn't either fight with him or cry. Suddenly I realized that he was unhappy, too, and I could just listen without getting defensive.”

Here's a tip for quick energy: reverse the nostrils, that is, close off the

left one with your left thumb. This brings you energy through the right nos­tril (affecting the left hemisphere of the brain). Exhale and inhale twenty‑six times.

Just as some people find it harder to take attention than to give it, some express through their shallow breathing the difficulties they have in asserting themselves. They lack the basic confidence to take a deep breath and dare to live fully. It doesn't seem to matter whether you start from the inside or out. In fact, it's easier for many people to start with the breathing—the subsequent opening up that begins to happen is effortless and remarkable. The quality of life changes.