Quickly Calming Breath Basics 7-Minute Meditation

Heightened anxiety, stress, fear and other similar emotions can be calmed quickly with basic breath meditation. Follow along for a beginner’s introduction (or reminder for the experienced breath meditators) in a simple approach for effective Mind-Body-Spirit self-calming to the peaceful patter of gentle rain.

Lea draws on her clinical experience working with anxiety, PTSD and emotional-issues clients to explain the vital breathing techniques that are simple for many, but may require a bit of practice at first for those who have unknowingly become stuck in a style of breathing that actually triggers the nervous system to be elevated into an ‘on-alert’ state that worsens the nervous and emotional signaling.

Rediscover how easy it is to quickly self-soothe and rebalance to your natural state of Abundant Life Well-Being.

Transcript

Oftentimes,

Those who struggle with anxiety or stress or panic attacks have become unaware of the connection of their breath to their body's state of calm.

When I have folks who come to my clinic for anxiety or nervousness,

Fearfulness,

Stress,

Any of those types of emotions,

When I ask them to take a few breaths,

Very often they are breathing to the upper lung,

Or breathing a little more rapid,

A little shallow,

Or all of the above.

And when I tell them a few simple suggestions to try,

Always I get wonderfully excited,

Positive results,

Reports of the effectiveness.

So let's touch base with the calmness of breathing for that nervous system.

We'll start with a simple,

Beginner solutions,

Knowing that people,

Including myself way back in the day,

Who are not used to breathing deep,

Diaphragmatic breathing,

Who don't breathe to that lower lung,

Getting those ribs to move,

They will find at first it might be uncomfortable,

Maybe even perceived as painful to get those muscles that surround those ribs to expand because they've been held tight for so long.

So this is the first thing we're going to do.

It's simple and common that you place a hand on the chest and a hand on the upper abdomen.

And your focus is to have that lower hand be the hand that rises and falls the most noticeably.

Combined with that,

A simple breath,

Beginning technique,

Count the seconds of the inhale and double the count of the exhale.

Usually people are counting in to a count of 4 or 5,

Maybe to 6.

And then you'll want to count to 8 or 10 or 12 as you exhale.

Imagining that you are breathing in peace and calm and pure tranquility,

Pure healing with every inhalation and every exhalation.

You are releasing and expelling any stress,

Any tensions,

Even toxins.

You are expelling the outside effects of the world with every exhalation.

Breathing in peace and tranquility,

Exhaling and expelling stress and tension from every cell of that body.

Breathing in healing,

Releasing and expelling the toxins,

Emotional and physical.

And exhaling.

Inhale deep,

Slow,

Calm,

And a natural release of an exhale.

Maybe a little bit like a sigh of relief.

Nothing forced.

Letting that body,

Letting that nervous system relax now.

And know that you can do this in a mere moment or two at any time of your day,

Even with just one or two breaths.

Before you walk through a door,

You will feel grounded,

Connected,

And more easy in your soul.

The more you practice,

The better you get,

The faster you feel the effect.

Peace now.