Three Breath Practice To Ease Anxiety

In today's practice, we'll explore three powerful breathing techniques that calm the nervous system and bring you into the present moment. We'll begin with a deep diaphragmatic breath to ground and center ourselves, move into ujjayi breath to build focus and inner warmth, and conclude with bee's breath, to soothe the mind and release tension. Together, these three breaths create a simple yet profound journey inward, taking just a few minutes to shift your entire state of being.

Transcript

Hi there, Welcome back. In today's practice, We're going to be doing a three breath practice. We're going to be putting together three different breath practices for about a six minute break. Minute long breath practice. We'll stick with each one for about, I don't know, Two to three minutes. Maybe it'll be closer to eight or nine minutes long total, But you'll get to feel how each of these breaths practices sort of progress into the next one. You can stick with one longer than the others. You can go straight to either one of them, Any one of them, If you want to, Once you're familiar with them. So just to kind of explain which practices we're going to do, The first breath is just going to be deep diaphragmatic breaths. So just breathing in nice and slow, Deep in through the nose and out through the nose breathing in through the nose and out through the nose and extending the breath each time really just being patient with the breath letting the breath take as long as it needs to to fill up our lungs completely and as long as it needs to to release and let go of all of that air. And then the next breath practice we'll do, Still same long, Deep, Slow diaphragmatic breaths through all of these practices. But the second breath practice is called yu jai yi breath. That's a Sanskrit word. Sometimes it's also called hero's breath or ocean breath. And it's a breath where we just kind of constrict the back of the throat just a little bit. So it's kind of like you're saying the word ha. Or fogging up a mirror. It's that same feeling, Only the mouth is closed. And you feel that vibration just in the back of the throat. So it's an audible breath. You'll hear it a little bit. It sounds kind of like a sigh. Like if you were to go. And sigh. It feels like that. And so then the third breath is just going to be adding another layer, A little bit more vibration in the back of the throat. And that is going to be B's breath. So B's breath was one of our nervous system reset practices. So you may be familiar with it. If you're not, You just take a deep breath in through the nose and on the full exhale, Closing the mouth, Breathing out through the nose and hum like this. You just keep humming until you run out of air. And so you're feeling that vibration in the back of your throat, And it may get a little bit weaker as you get to the end of that exhale. It does start to sound a little bit like a buzzing bee. And that's totally fine. That's normal. With these audible breaths, Whether it's the yujayi breath or whether it's the bee's breath, We start to notice how long our breath is and we can also kind of start to notice how it might feel stronger at the beginning of the breath and then really kind of fade out toward the end. And so working on the practice of having a consistent and steady stream of inhale and a steady stream of exhales the whole way. Nothing wrong if you notice that it kind of fades out at the end. It will definitely do that when we run out of air. But if we can try to make that steady exhalation last as long as possible, That's just another layer we can add to the practice. So let's go ahead and start with our practice now. So we're just gonna start with some regular breaths here. Deep breaths in. Deep breaths out. And just continuing at your own pace. It may take a few cycles of breath to settle in and that's fine. Staying here. Letting the eyes softly close if that feels comfortable for you. And letting all of your attention just be on a full, Slow inhalation. And a long, Slow exhalation. And at no point should we feel like we're constricting our breath or holding our breath or trying to breathe longer. Or just letting the body breathe as long as it needs to, As long as it wants to. We can even take the hands and place them just around the belly button. And we want to feel the belly rising and falling as we inhale, Filling up like a balloon. As we exhale, Sinking in. And then your hands can stay there for that awareness if you'd like, Or you can release them and let them go. On the next exhale, Slightly constricting the back of the throat, Saying the word high. Inhaling. Exhaling that ha sensation. And seeing how long your inhale can be. How long your exhale can be. Keeping the breath steady and long. On our next exhale, Adding in B's breath. Mmm. Mmmmm. Continuing B's breath, Feel free to close the ears with the eyes if you'd like to. We'll take three more breaths. And then when you're finished, Just breathe naturally. Notice what you're feeling in your body. Notice what's going on in your mind. When you're ready, Opening your eyes, Coming out of that moment of stillness and breath. And that is our nervous system reset for today. That's a three breath practice. We combine those three. We could combine any three that we want to, Or you can just stick with any of the one. If you have one of those that you really like better than the others, Feel free to just breathe that way for a few minutes. Three to five minutes would be perfect. Longer if you have it. Let me know what you think about those practices. Add something in the comments if you'd like. I'd love to hear your experiences and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.