How To: Ujjayi Breath

This is a technical how-to on the Ujjayi breath / Ocean breath. We discuss the basic breath, and how to expand on it. This is a deeply relaxing breath that is great for pregnancy, childbirth, anxiety, stress relief and grounding. Look for other tracks utilizing this breath and guided  somatic meditations on this channel. Namaste

Transcript

Jenea Maitre here to talk about ujjayi breath.

This can be a deeply relaxing breath that can be beneficial for pregnancy,

Anxiety,

Or finding some deep grounding.

It is also used in several guided meditations,

So let's learn the steps by starting with the exhale.

Hold your hand up to your mouth as if you're trying to fog up a mirror.

Now continue that breath,

Inhaling through the nose,

And then exhaling that sound through the nose.

So inhale,

Exhale.

This isn't a breath where we're going to make any vocal sounds,

But you should be able to hear the pressure of your breath pressing through your nose.

And with this breath,

You'll want your exhales to be slightly longer than your inhales.

And as you're inhaling,

You're going to do a deep diaphragmatic breath,

Inhaling that belly button nice and full,

And then into the chest as we stretch the crown of the head towards the sky.

And then on that exhale,

As we constrict the throat slightly to make that window fogging sound,

We're going to exhale that belly button to the spine,

And then exhale the chest down.

So inhaling,

Big belly,

Big chest.

Exhaling slightly longer,

Belly,

Then chest.

Again,

Inhale,

Getting taller,

Exhale.

And if you get dizzy or uncomfortable at any time,

Just pause and go back to your natural breath.

It's good to practice this breath while sitting down while you're not driving until you get used to it.

Another way to expand on this breath is as you inhale and your lungs become full to capacity,

We try to squeak a couple more breaths in,

Expanding the lungs,

And then exhaling all of the air out until that belly button is hugging close to the spine.

And we just push out a little bit more air at the bottom,

And then inhale again.

We're not quite holding the breath,

Though it may feel similar.

Instead,

We're just continuing to expand as much as we can on that inhale and exhaling as much as we can on the exhale.

So I'll do a few rounds with you,

And then you can look for other meditations of mine that use ujjayi breath in a guided or somatic meditation.

So here we go.

Inhaling,

Exhaling,

Inhaling,

Exhaling,

And return to your natural breath.

Namaste.

Thanks for listening.