Welcome to this exercise on three parted or complete breath.
To begin,
Please lie down in a comfortable position.
If you like,
You can rest one hand on your abdomen like you did in the diaphragmatic breathing,
And the other you can rest lightly on your chest.
We are going to breathe into three specific areas of our body or of our lungs.
We're going to do one at a time and then we're going to combine them together.
To begin,
Breathe into your diaphragm,
Just like you did before,
Into your abdomen,
And just feel the lower lobes of the lungs.
Take a breath in and just watch as your belly and your navel rises.
No other part of your chest or your ribs are moving.
And slowly exhale,
Empty your lower lobes of your lungs and just feel your belly falling softly,
Navel moving down towards the spine.
Just do this a couple more times,
Breathing in and filling the lower lobes of your lungs.
Filling your belly only,
No other part of your body,
Your shoulders,
Your ribcage is moving.
It's a long and slow full breath and then exhale.
No need to hold the breath in or out now.
Release the breath and feel the belly soften.
Very relaxing breathing technique.
Now let go of that breath,
That style,
And now see if you can breathe into your ribcage.
It might help to rest either hand on your ribs,
Either side,
Left and right,
And see if you can direct the breath into your ribs.
If you're doing this correctly,
You'll feel your ribcage pushing up and out.
And as you breathe out again,
You'll feel the ribcage soften and move down back into the body.
Breathe in and feel each hand expand,
The ribcage expand at the same time.
Exhale.
In a rhythm that feels good for you,
Notice that it's not the same amount of breath you can fit in.
Continue this for a couple more rounds and also notice the quality of your thoughts if this is doing anything different to you in any way.
Is it as calming?
Let go of that style now.
And now briefly,
We're going to try and breathe into the upper lobes of our lungs,
Or the chest and the collar bone.
So now your ribcage is no longer moving,
Neither is your diaphragm.
You're just directing your breath into the,
Into your chest and your collarbones.
Notice how little air you can fit into this space as you breathe in.
Breathe out.
Notice again if that's doing anything different to your state of mind.
When we are agitated or very upset,
This is where we automatically tend to breathe.
So let's not spend too much time here.
Just release that style of breathing and just come back to a normal breath for a moment.
The complete breath or three-parted breath is one by one.
First,
We breathe into the diaphragm.
Then when that fills,
We feel the ribcage.
And then what's left,
We fill into the chest.
And then as we exhale,
We exhale from the navel first.
It's quite strange at first.
Release the breath,
We exhale from the navel,
That falls,
Then the ribcage,
And then the chest finally.
So let's begin that together now.
In your own time,
Just take a long,
Smooth breath.
Breathe into the diaphragm,
Controlled,
Smooth.
When that's filled,
Then naturally,
Then move the in breath to fill the ribcage,
And then all the way up into the chest.
And then exhale,
Release the breath from the navel,
Mechanical as it feels now,
Then release,
Exhale from the ribs,
And then exhale from your chest,
Completely and fully.
Pause for a split second,
And then begin again.
Inhale,
Fill the lower lobes of your lungs.
The belly rises,
The ribs then expand,
And then the chest.
Pause at the top briefly for a second,
And exhale,
Let go of the belly.
Feel that fall and soften,
Followed by the ribs softening,
Followed by the chest relaxing.
Continue in this way for a few more rounds,
And just observe how slow and long a quality of breath you can achieve by following this three-parted system.
Continue this practice now for another 10,
15,
Maybe 20 rounds,
And just allow yourself to soften and relax afterwards,
And notice again the effect that this has had on the state of your mind.
And just aware how aware you are now of how much you can truly breathe when you put your mind to it.
