Breath Meditation

Follow your breath to peace and health with breath meditation. It’s easy to learn and costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time.

Meditation helps you let go of habitual thoughts and worries. Letting go of habitual thoughts and worries frees your mind to be present to the moment you’re in—the “now.” You let go of worry about the past or the future. In the “now,” you experience your true nature, not what you or someone else thinks you are. Your true nature is pure aliveness.

Breath meditation is an excellent way to start learning meditation. With this meditation, you focus your attention—awareness—on your breath, following its repeating, rhythmic movement as your inhale (breathe in air) and exhale (breathe out air).

Breathing is life. When you breathe in you inspire (inspiration). The words themselves speak to the close association of your breath with life and with your spiritual nature.

Here is a quick exercise to demonstrate the breath's connection to your state of mind and body.

Mind Body Connection Exercise

1. Make a tight fist.

2. Feel the tension in your fist.

3. Now, notice your breathing. Are you holding your breath? Is your breath shallower or coming in short spurts?

4. Relax your fist.

5. Make a tight fist again, but this time focus on breathing normally.

6. Now feel the tension in your fist.

Most people find that the tension in their fist is much less when they focus on breathing normally. It’s hard to maintain tension, anxiety, anger, and even pain while focusing on breathing.

You can use this principle in all kinds of situations. You can use it to relax and gain mental clarity. You can use it to help relieve pain. You can use it during a painful or frightening procedure or an anxiety-provoking situation like public speaking. You can use it to energize your body when you feel tired.

Here are two easy-to-do forms of breath meditation.

2 Breath Meditation Forms

Get Prepared

As with anything new, it helps to practice. Start by dedicating about 5 minutes of uninterrupted time to your meditation. Always be kind and gentle with yourself. If your mind wanders, just bring your awareness back to your meditation.

Sometimes when people focus on their breathing they breathe deeper, and/or more rapid. This can make you feel anxious, dizzy, or light-headed. If this happens to you, just pause the practice until you start breathing normally again and the symptoms disappear. Then begin again.

1. Sit relaxed with your back straight (not stiff) in a place that is comfortable for you. It can be on a chair with both feet on the floor or sitting with your legs folded up as in a modified lotus (yoga style) position.

2. Close you eyes or leave them partially open but unfocused.

3. Open your mouth just a little with your lips parted. This relaxes the jaw.

4. Bring your awareness to your breathing. Breathe through your nose. Just be aware of your breathing, don’t try to change it. Here are two ways to do breath meditation:

1. Counting Breaths

As you focus on your breath, noting its sensation as it moves in and out of your body, simply count each breath in and each breath out.

• Breathe in “one;” Breathe out “one.”

• Breathe in “two;” Breathe out “two.”

• And so on to ten.

• Continue repeating the counting breaths cycle (from 1 to 10) as often as you like.

2. Counting Breaths Variation

• Breathe in, bringing full awareness to the sensation of breathing. Feel the air as it moves through your nose and into your lungs. Feel the gentle rise of your abdomen.

• Breathe out, silently saying a word with deep meaning to you like “peace,” "relax,” “joy,” “gratitude,” or another word that is affirming for you.

• Repeat ten times.

• Continue as often as you like.

When finished, take a few minutes to notice the effects. Did you notice more energy, peace, or relaxation?

Don’t worry if you got distracted and had difficulty concentrating. It’s expected in the beginning. Even experienced meditators get distracted some times. Meditation is a discipline. It takes repetition and time to learn.

You can use breath meditation anytime and anywhere. Try doing it it at least 3 times a day.

You can do it before meals and before going to bed at night. Before meals, it clears your mind. Helps you be more focused on your eating. When focused on your eating, you enjoy your food more, eat more slowly, and often eat less.

Doing breath meditation before sleep releases your mind from the busyness of the day and prepares you for a peaceful sleep.

You may want to support your leaning of breath meditation with a CD including peaceful music. Breath meditation, easy to learn and do, is a great way to begin meditating.

It’s wonderful to remember your breathing and its connection to the miracle of life. You will enjoy breath meditation. So begin!

Sources

Margaret A Caudill, Managing Pain Before It Manages You (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995).

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