Breathwork To Energize And Relax

Breathwork meditation to sleep better, improve immune system and relax.
With a guided body relaxation, g-tummo inspired and belly breathing exercises and ends with a gratitude and Mettā meditation.
Hannes has been guiding mindfulness, yoga and breathwork internationally in offices, schools, universities, jails, museums and online to tens of thousands of people all ages since 2014. Hannes was trained by Drukmo Gyal and Buddhist masters.

Transcript

This is a brief guided breathing meditation to simply relax and improve your immune system with a clinically studied breathing technique inspired by my mentor and friend Wim Hof.

First I'd like to invite you to find a comfortable spot,

Maybe lying down,

Maybe sitting,

Maybe in a quiet space and maybe a space where you feel comfortable closing your eyes.

Then you can bring more awareness to your breathing and your internal sensations and redirect that energy,

About 70 percent we spent on thinking and receiving the visuals through our eyes.

So we can redirect that energy to our breathing awareness and thereby strengthening those connections to our breathing and bring that awareness and that deeper breathing into our daily life.

On average the human adult breathes about 22,

000 times a day,

That's like 15 to 20 times a minute and we can simply improve our breathing system by slowing and calming down our breathing and deepen it and thereby really relaxing our nervous system but also improving our immune system.

So if you found a comfortable spot,

Maybe lying down,

Maybe placing one hand on your lower belly,

One hand on your upper belly or on your heart and just sensing your breathing,

Bringing your awareness to your breathing and just feeling the sensation of breathing and then maybe putting a little bit of a gentle pressure with your lower hand against your lower belly and just sensing if you can expand your belly on the inhale.

That's totally fine if it takes a while with your own pace,

Inhales trying to expand your belly.

Oftentimes we're only used to shallow chest breathing but as toddlers humans only breathe through their belly,

The intracostal muscles are not developed at the rib cage.

Just sensing how to expand your belly first and then your chest and how to retrain and reconnect with your diaphragmatic breathing muscles to expand your belly more and more with each inhale.

Then maybe just taking a letting go exhale,

Just expanding your lower belly first,

Your upper belly,

Your chest,

Your throat and then maybe just taking a letting go exhale,

Expansive inhale and letting go exhale and sensing how your belly expands.

We can really have a beginner's mind and so do I with each inhale,

Always exploring how can we expand our belly and our chest more and more with each inhale and all that breathing really is in a way is creating space inside of us.

The more space we create,

The more air can flow into our lungs and the more we can nourish our immune system and energize our body.

Maybe for a few moments visualize your lung wings,

Going down in your chest and almost into your belly,

As having the shape of an upside down tree with a lot of tree like branches spreading out beautifully inside of you,

In your chest and maybe into your belly like roots.

If we only breathe through our upper chest,

We only breathe if we only breathe through our upper chest,

We only nourish our internal tree,

Our internal roots in a way just partially.

So if we expand our belly,

Our chest and create more and more space inside of us more air can flow in and so we can nourish our inner tree or tree like branches of our lung wings more and more with each inhale.

Maybe adding a smile even if you don't feel like it will help your body to create happy hormones.

It's a trick from laughter yoga and positive psychology.

So whenever you can add a smile,

I like to invite you to just do it especially if you don't feel like it.

So you can counterbalance any like thoughts or distractions with happy hormones being created just by smiling.

If you're lying down or sitting,

Doing a little body scan before we go into the Wim Hof inspired breathing,

Bringing awareness to the sole of your feet,

Your toes,

Maybe resting on the floor or lying down,

Maybe moving the toes,

Moving the feet,

The right feet,

The left feet a little bit while bringing awareness to the breathing.

And then we tense different body parts during the inhale with a smile if you like and then on the letting go exhale we just release the tension.

So first we tense all the muscles in our feet,

In our sole of our feet,

In our toes.

I'm taking a deep inhale with a smile and then on letting go exhale just releasing the tension.

Now bringing awareness to our lower legs,

Our upper legs,

Our thighs,

Our hip muscles,

Right side and left side,

Tensing every muscle there,

Taking a deep inhale with a smile and then releasing any tension on the letting go exhale.

Now adding the torso there,

The lower back,

The upper back,

The chest,

The shoulder muscles,

Tensing every muscle there,

Adding a smile,

Taking a deep inhale,

Taking a deep inhale and then letting go exhale,

Just releasing any tension.

Now adding the arms,

Making a fist maybe,

Tensing every muscle in our arms,

In our torso,

In our legs,

Our hips,

Our feet,

Taking a deep inhale with a smile and letting go exhale,

Releasing any tension in our whole body and then adding the throat,

The facial muscles,

We have our eyes closed and we're in a safe space.

We can make a weird face by tensing all our facial muscles,

Tensing every muscle in our body,

Still squeezing in a smile if you like,

Taking a deep inhale and a letting go exhale and then two more times if you like,

Tensing more muscles than we ever tensed in our body,

In our face,

Squeezing in a smile and a letting go exhale,

Then one more breath,

Tensing more muscles than we ever tensed,

Still adding a smile,

Deep inhale and letting go exhale,

Maybe bringing awareness to our belly breathing again,

Maybe having one hand placed on the lower belly,

One hand on the heart,

You're feeling the heart beating and maybe expanding the belly with each inhale and letting go exhale,

Maybe imagining the tree-like branches of your lung wings,

Nourishing them with each inhale.

You can either breathe with me or breathe at your own pace of course.

And then we do a Wim Hof inspired breathing round by taking 30 or 40 of those deep inhales and letting go exhales and then the end of it we take a relaxed exhale and then we hold our breathing after the relaxed exhale and every each inhale,

Every deep inhale during the 30 or 40 is followed by just a letting go exhale.

So we simply just release our breathing muscles so we don't push out air which would be more controlled exhale like a so where we kind of still have some kind of control.

So try to if you like just take a letting go exhale so deep guided inhale and then just letting go exhale.

That really did the trick for me.

I had a lot of anxiety and just taking a letting go exhale was able to help me release any tension by just trusting gravity and feeling gravity being there to just simply catch my diaphragmatic breathing muscles and that I felt create a lot of trust for me just feeling that support of gravity.

You can also imagine all these people globally always taking just this sigh and just release letting go exhale whenever we let go of something.

So it's a really powerful way impactful way to change your blood chemistry and to release any stress and tension.

And so we take 30 or 40 of those deep inhales letting go exhales and then later on the very last exhale will be a relaxed exhale.

So like a guided relaxed exhale where we just bring our breathing muscles to equilibrium so we not fully push out air we just bring them to equilibrium.

So a little bit of air might be left but the purpose here is to fully relax every muscle in our body including our breathing muscle and then hold our breathing.

And in Tibetan medicine for instance the phase of breath retention is a phase of transformation and healing and it's also part of a peer-reviewed and clinically studied breathing study on Wim Hof method breathing.

So I like to invite you to hold your breathing for as long as possible later on after the relaxed exhale and then whenever you need to inhale again later taking another deep inhale and hold your breathing again but I'll guide it just so you're aware when I guide the relaxed exhale it's meant to not fully push out air but just to relax the breathing muscles to a state of equilibrium.

So before we start the 30 or 40 just deep inhales letting go exhales I like to invite you to again focus on your body maybe sensing your body being relaxed and calm bringing awareness to your legs,

Your torso,

Your arms,

Your neck,

Your shoulders being relaxed hopefully,

Your facial muscles relaxing,

Your sensing,

Your breathing again deep nourishing inhale letting go exhale and then I like to invite you to imagine somebody you deeply care about,

Care for,

Feel so much support and gratitude for,

Feel totally safe in the company of that person imagining the presence of that person being with you right here now the beautiful and supportive caring presence of that person just sensing how you're feeling what is the sensation the person evokes in you feeling of gratitude and care how does it feel in your body is it a feeling of warmth around your heart region your chest feeling of relaxation and then imagining with every deep inhale you amplify that feeling of love caring gratitudes throughout your whole body every letting go exhale releasing any tension deep inhales letting go exhales deep inhale expanding your belly chest and throat letting go exhale deep inhales letting go exhales if you're feeling lightheaded or dizzy that's common just keeping the focus on expansive inhales letting go exhales will change your blood chemistry for better deep inhales letting go exhales deep inhales letting go exhales inhaling and letting go exhales move every inhale just using the breathing muscles and the smile muscles letting go exhales deep inhale letting go exhales about two to three more of these i'll do the counting don't worry maybe i'll count a bit more inhale letting go exhales deep inhale and letting go exhales inhaling with a smile and letting go exhale ah inhaling expanding your belly chest and throat and letting go exhale inhaling as much as possible and letting go exhale the more you can let go of any tension on your outside of your belly the more you can expand your belly from within inhaling expanding from within and letting go exhale inhaling expanding from within and letting go exhale last about 22 of this round maybe adding a smile consciously for each inhale letting go exhale inhaling expansively as possible and letting go exhale to last about 20 letting go exhale inhaling and letting go exhale exhaling and letting go exhale relaxing any other muscle except the breathing muscle and smile muscle letting go exhale relaxing any muscles in our face or in our shoulders and letting go exhale last about 15 deep inhales letting go exhales deep inhales and letting go exhales deep nourishing inhale with a smile and letting go exhale last 12 consciously with a smile the last 11 of this round the last 10 of this round last nine the last eight with a smile with a smile the last seven expanding your belly chest and throat the last six of this round the last five of this round inhaling into every cell of your body letting go exhale the last four inhaling and smiling into every cell of your body letting go exhale the last two four more maybe expanding the tree-like branches of your lung wings letting go exhale the last three nourishing every tree-like branch of your lung wings letting go exhale the last two of this round one more inhale like this letting go exhale and then the very last exhale with a relaxed exhale relaxed exhale deep inhale and then just taking relaxed exhale holding your breathing after the relaxed exhale just holding your breathing after the relaxed exhale just sensing how long you can hold your breathing after the relaxed exhale just focusing on relaxing the body releasing any tension any muscles while holding your breathing it's totally fine if you can hold your breathing for 10 seconds now or for a minute if you feel easily comfortable holding your breathing for much longer please do so it's very healthy just whenever you feel you really need to inhale again then take a deep nourishing inhale and hold your breathing again for as long as possible after the deep nourishing inhale and just enjoy holding your breathing for as long as possible either after the relaxed exhale or then after the deep inhale and just enjoying any novel sensations maybe some entirely new sensations are coming up you can always add a smile or imagine the person you so deeply care about just whenever you finished the retention phase after the relaxed exhale after the deep inhale and we can do a joint metta meditation love and kindness meditation to end the session you're still holding your breathing please go on you can pause the session so enjoying for the love and kindness meditation whenever you're ready it's really helpful to hold your breathing for as long as possible scientific studies have shown so you can also repeat the round and it usually gets more and more interesting with each round into two rounds or three rounds i recommend really trying out for 20 or 30 minutes just multiple breathing rounds like this and sensing how long you can hold your breathing scientific studies have shown that a lot of benefits come after holding your breathing for one and a half minutes and it's easily possible to go to that long period of holding your breathing after two or three rounds of this breathing technique of this breathing technique and then starting the love and kindness meditation i also call it superhero exercise of meditation when i work with kids just imagining you're a superhero you're just consisting of vibrations and energies and you can send out laser beams of energy of healing from your heart region out or from your whole body just like a superhero can send out laser beams or rays just imagining you can do that on a letting go exhale we'll send them out to a person evoked and during the deep inhale we supercharge our body our inner tree like branches and every cell and everything that constitutes our bodies or mind bodies bringing awareness to our body and imagining the person we so deeply care about in our presence sensing the feeling of gratitude and care also if you feel a little bit weak or feel not supported enough you can also think of a situation where you received a lot of care where you felt very strong where you received a lot of money maybe or resources just allowing yourself to imagining that situation and taking a deep nourishing inhale amplifying and nourishing that feeling of care and gratitude or that feeling you had in that situation you have now as well holding your breathing after the inhale fully feeling that sensation of care and gratitude you have all that support and care and then also sending it back to that person you so deeply care about letting go exhale maybe as laser beams and rays from your heart region or whatever you wish to imagine there take another deep inhale holding your breathing focusing on the feeling of care of abundant support of joy presence of the person and how it feels in your body no letting go exhale letting go exhale sending it out to that person another deep inhale holding your breathing and getting ready to send it out to that person letting go exhale and then a few for ourselves five of those at least self-care just sending that love and care laser beams straight back to our own mind body kind of like showering and sparkling ourselves in that sensation and sending those wishes and sensations straight back to ourselves deep inhale holding your breathing feeling the sensation of gratitude and care in the present moment moment and then sending it back to ourselves and letting go exhale deep inhale letting go exhale another deep inhale letting go exhale two more the deepest inhale of our lives maybe with the brightest smile holding our breathing feeling the abundant joy care gratitude sending it back to ourselves you to yourself for me to myself one more deep inhale and then letting go exhale and then a few for somebody maybe we might have difficulties with or somebody who comes to mind right away right now we haven't thought of before and just allowing yourself to unconditionally send that care and gratitude and well wishes to that person as well whatever we usually think about that person just allowing yourselves to send that unconditional support as well just for three letting go exhales deep inhale holding your breathing sensing the feeling of gratitude and care and then sending it to that person deep inhale holding your breathing then letting go exhale ah deep inhale and then sending it to that person one more time deep nourishing inhales and then letting go exhale we send it to everybody who is doing this breathing now or in the future deep inhales and letting go exhales and one more deep inhale letting go exhale and now for everybody we'll encounter for the rest of today or tomorrow deep nourishing inhale and letting go exhale deep inhale letting go exhale deep inhale letting go exhale one more deep inhale and then sending this breath out for abundant care and joy and good connections in the future thank you i wish you abundant support joy and care now and in the future and it's all to support each other abundantly to create a happy and joyful society and planet society and planet thank you