My name is David,
And welcome to a guided practice to teach you how to relax your breath.
You can do this sitting or lying down.
If sitting,
Make sure your back is straight,
But not stiff.
Let's take a moment simply to observe how we are feeling right now.
So close your eyes if that feels comfortable to you.
Ask yourself how does your body feel?
How does your mind feel?
Just observe how it is to sit or lay right now,
And bring your attention to your breath.
What we are going to practice is relaxed breathing.
And relaxed breathing is made out of three components.
The first,
You breathe straight into the belly.
The second,
You breathe in through the nose.
And the third,
The exhale is longer than the inhale.
So let's begin by setting a baseline,
Taking a few breaths completely normally without changing anything.
Just notice the length of the inhale.
How long does it take to inhale?
You can invertly count.
So as you begin to inhale,
You count one,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Let's do that.
Now we are going to add two counts to our exhale.
So if you are counting in to the length of four,
You will breathe out to the length of six.
Let's do that for a few moments.
Good.
Now we are going to add another count to the exhale.
So if you inhale on the count of four,
You exhale to the count of seven.
Let's go.
Now we are going to add another,
Another beat to our exhale so that our exhale is twice as long as the inhale.
Good.
Now,
You will step it up a little bit and extend the exhale so that it is three times as long as the inhale.
Don't worry.
You can do it.
So if you are breathing in to the count of four,
You will exhale to the count of 12.
Let's go.
Good.
Now we are going to extend the exhale to make it four times as long as the inhale.
So if you inhale to the count of four,
You exhale to the count of 16.
Don't worry.
You can do it.
Let's go.
Good.
Now,
For the last step,
We are going to extend the exhale to be five times as long as the inhale.
So breathing in to the count of four,
You breathe out to the count of 20.
You can do it.
Let's go.
Good.
Now,
Let go of the guided breathing and simply breathe at your own pace.
But notice how you breathe right now.
So continue to count the length of your inhale,
The length of your exhale.
See what happens.
Remember,
You are not trying to breathe in any purposeful way,
Simply the way you naturally feel like.
Now,
Bring your attention back to how you are feeling.
So how does your body feel right now?
How does your mind feel right now?
How does your being feel right now?
You may also reflect back on the exercise and ask yourself,
How easy was it to keep my mind on the breath?
Were you distracted or did you find it relatively easy,
As long as you kept counting and paying attention on the length of the exhale and the length of the inhale?
Just spend a few moments noticing how you feel as you sit in,
Breathing naturally.
So as we end this practice,
Remember the fundamentals of relaxed breathing.
Breathing in through the belly,
Breathing in through the nose,
And exhaling longer than you inhale.
The longer the exhale,
The deeper the relaxation.
Thank you for practicing.
Have a great day.
