Breathe In Love
November 14th, 2019
A good starting point for your meditation practice is a breath focused meditation. Breath work or Prānāyāmā has many benefits; as well as creating a focus to help you slide into your meditative state, particular breathing techniques can help to reduce anxiety, stress and tension and help to flood the body with energy and blissful feelings.
First things first lets start with the basics of returning your breathing to its natural state. As humans we have two instinctive styles of breathing, and like many of our beneficial instincts our environment has caused many of us to lose this natural way of being. To easily sum this up for you and help you make quick progress I’m going to keep the detail to a minimum. How are you breathing now? Concentrate whilst trying not to alter it for a moment, how much of your torso is swelling with breath? For many of you the breath will be shallow and just the front of the chest will be rising a little. This type of breathing is related to a stress reaction and has the unfortunate effect of telling our instinctual being that we’re stressed. Now concentrate again, take a deep breath in, let it start from below your belly button, let your stomach expand, let your sides swell, let you chest rise and your back fill; it is possible to feel your entire torso swell with breath. The theory goes that as bipeds, walking on two legs we risk harm to our organs by presenting them to attack and we evolved techniques to deal with this. We have strong abdominal muscles that contract and harden when we’re in a stressful situation that gives some protection to our underbelly, for this to happen we only use our intercostal muscles between our ribs to breathe, we breath only in our higher chest area. When we are relaxed we have the opportunity to breathe diaphragmatically, with soft abdominal muscles, and our belly swells, we are not under duress.
Stressful lives are causing the same stress response in our breathing despite the fact we’re not ‘in danger’, and then there is a cyclical nature to the behaviour where this type of breathing then tells us we are in a stressful situation and other responses occur, such as hormone release, and we perpetuate a feeling of being stressed. I personally find modern beauty ideals encourage this as well. How many of us were taught to hold our stomachs taught and as flat as possible? I feel I’ve spent as long as I can remember holding my stomach taught whenever I am around other humans and the result is years of intercostal breathing.
There are many, many breathing exercises; they have different purposes and effects. I’m going to briefly discuss three here for you to try.
Firstly, let us assume that in all of these exercises you will be breathing diaphragmatically, whenever we talk about an inhale it is filling your whole torso up, belly, chest, sides and back, so much air that you feel you are entirely full, you cannot possibly sip in anymore air. If you are pregnant, suffer with high BP or any other condition that contraindicates you from similar practice please consult with your healthcare professional before completing the below exercises.
I like to start my meditation practices with cleansing breath or Kapalabhati for its cleansing ability, there are many other relevant times to practice as the exercise has many benefits such as strengthening and toning the diaphragm and abdominals, releasing toxins, increasing oxygen flow and purifying the blood, energising and clearing the mind and focusing attention, improving digestion and warming the body when cold, although I also find it is a good way of releasing excess heat, for instance when exercising.
To begin, inhale deeply through the nose with a slight constriction to the back of the throat, this creates a gentle sound, yogis will be familiar, placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth helps with this if it is new to you and release your breath with a gentle sigh through your mouth.
Now inhale deeply in the same way through your nose, with your belly expanding, and this time release your breath in a exhale through your mouth with a sharp sighing sound, a ‘ha’ whilst drawing your belly in towards your spine using your muscles. Repeat this ten times and then allow your breathing to return to normal and ask yourself ‘how do I feel?’
For novice meditators or those struggling with your focus, the following exercise is so simple and so beneficial. It is how I began meditating, a simple Zen technique.
Firstly come into your comfortable sitting position, legs crossed or in lotus or half lotus position, fold your hands in your lap, palms facing up, left on top of right, lower your chin and gaze whilst maintaining a tall, straight spine. I find a gentle smile suits and aids the pose and descent into peace. Once you are comfortably seated, if you need a straight backed chair or even to lie down then that is fine, take your first deep, slow inhale through your nose and in your mind just as slowly, count ‘one’. Now exhale just as fully and slowly through your nose and repeat ‘one’. Next inhale and count ‘two’, exhale ‘two’. Keep going with your gentle, calm breath and your slow counting until you reach ten and then begin again. If you lose track of your counting either because your mind has wandered to another thought or because you have stopped thinking at all, this is fine, just return to one and begin again. You can set a timer if you would like to practice this as a method to improve your meditation or just keep going until you are calm and peaceful if the practice is to help resolve panic, anxiety or stress. When you gently start to bring movement back to your body, return your breathing to normal and lift your gaze, note how you feel. I feel it now. Serene. How do you feel?
The third breathing technique I want to tell you about is another Zen technique. If you are feeling unwell or energy-less, uninspired and deflated, ungrounded or manic I like this breathing exercise. The idea is to breathe grounded energy into your hara, your gut, there is much research currently into the gut as a second ‘brain’ and the importance of cultivating its health. First of all bring your focus to a spot just below your belly button in the centre of your body, your tanden, this is the spot you will bring energy to, if you are comfortable with intention work then this is the perfect opportunity to draw your intention into your gut, otherwise just focus on the breath, on energy. Concentrate your focus on this spot until you feel super aware of it, almost not aware of anything else. This exercise works with sound, ‘ah’ and ‘un’. The ‘ah’ on the inhale is made with mouth open and throat slightly constricted. The ‘un’ on the exhale with mouth closed, breathing out through the nose and the noise is like a purr or a noise of satisfaction.
Breathe in as described through your mouth and make the sound ‘ah’ feel the breath fill your entire torso, now take a little saliva and swallow, the energy flows downwards to your belly and the exhale ‘un’ is now released, your belly protruding outwards and vitality pushed into your gut. Keep repeating this exercise for nine breaths. Note how you feel.
As mentioned, there are so many breathing techniques and exercises, all have their place. To start, just become aware of breathing as something you have, that you can do and change and control. Most of us are never taught to breathe but the practice of breathing holds such power. In your meditation it is almost always the starting and ending focus, in yoga it is the flow of movement, for today I invite you to breathe fully into your belly, with love.
