Guided Stomach Breathing For Total Relaxation

The mind and the body are completely connected.

If you impact the body,

The mind will follow.

If you impact the mind,

The body will follow.

This means that if you want to calm yourself down,

You can do certain physiological things.

You can alter your body as a way of influencing your mental state.

And the easiest and most accessible version of this is the breath.

So I invite you to take a seat in a nice strong posture.

That's upright,

Your hands in your lap,

And you're imagining that there's a balloon gently pulling your head to the ceiling.

There should be no pain or tension,

Just a nice chest expanded upright posture.

What you're going to do is take a long slow breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.

And I want you to attempt to fill your lungs from your belly first.

So as you breathe in,

Your belly will expand first,

And just at the very end of the breath will your chest expand.

So you're going to breathe in through your nose and your belly will rise.

Your belly fills first.

So keep taking these long slow breaths.

And we're going to work on the out breath now.

So keep breathing into your belly.

But when you breathe out,

I want you to imagine there's a mirror close to your face.

And you're going to open your mouth wide and breathe out quickly onto that mirror.

Empty your lungs completely.

So you're breathing slowly and deeply into your belly through your nose.

And then very quickly fogging up the mirror out through your mouth.

And we're going to do that five times.

Ready?

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

This breathing technique is something that I use to start my mindfulness meditation practice,

But also at night.

As I'm lying in bed,

I do 10 slow and deep breaths into the belly and then out like I'm breathing or fogging up a mirror.

And this just resets my body,

Resets my mind and gets me ready to sleep,

Relaxes me,

Or puts me into that meditative state where I'm able to draw my attention mindfully to whatever object I choose.

So I encourage you to use this practice as a standalone relaxation technique or as a precursor to your meditative practice.

Happy meditating.