Welcome to your daily meditation.
In today's practice,
We will be exploring diaphragmatic breathing benefits and how-to.
In terms of understanding the benefits,
We first need to examine breathing that can be problematic.
When we experience anxiety or panic,
What can happen is the rate of the breath,
As well as its depth,
Can change.
For some people,
They can increase their breathing so it's not only shallow,
But also rapid.
That can create some unpleasant experiences in the physical body,
Experiences like lightheadedness or feeling dizzy.
In some instances,
Anxiety can even get to a level of impacting the breathing to a state of hyperventilation.
Hyperventilation essentially means where you're breathing faster when it's not necessary for the body.
When that happens,
That means you're creating or taking in more oxygen into the body than is necessary,
Therefore reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood.
That unfortunately creates an unpleasant,
Uncomfortable state in the physical body,
Meaning increased lightheadedness,
Fatigue,
Numbness,
Tingling,
Dizziness,
Even shortness of breath.
Hyperventilation is known as chest breathing.
But remember,
There's also a difference in the rate of the breath,
Meaning that it's more rapid.
As much as possible,
We want to pay attention to both the depth and the rate of our breathing.
But lastly,
Of course,
The location of the breath.
In diaphragmatic breathing,
We bring the attention to the belly,
In fact,
To the belly button,
The navel.
I want you to think about it as a balloon expanding with your breath in.
On the exhale,
The constriction draws the belly in towards the spine.
Let's pay attention right now in this moment to our experience of breath.
Sitting comfortably,
Spine is tall or perhaps leaning down on your side or onto the back with props or without.
Take one hand onto the heart and the other hand onto the abdomen,
And take a deep breath in through the nose,
And exhale.
Let's do that again,
Deep breath in through the nose.
Long breath out through the mouth.
Notice where your hand is moving.
Is it rising at the chest or at the abdomen?
Let's take another deep breath in now through the nose.
And on your next exhale,
Just relax any tension that you may be experiencing in any part of your body.
Just relax the muscles.
With your next breath in,
Target the expansion of the belly,
The abdomen,
Just right above the belly button.
And on your exhale,
Soften,
Contracting the abdomen,
Effortlessly with your exhale.
Let's do that again,
Deep breath in,
Expanding the abdomen.
Maybe the chest also rises slightly or is still.
And then slow exhale.
We're now going to add a little bit more to notice the expansion,
To pay attention to any tension and let that go on the exhales.
So we're going to count our breaths.
Inhaling for a count of one,
And then slowly exhaling.
For a count of one,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhaling for four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Let's do that again,
Deep breath in for a count of one,
Four.
Exhaling for four,
One.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Continuing that rate and rhythm expansion through the abdomen on the inhales.
Slow and steady exhales.
Noticing anything you're holding on to,
Any tightness in the body.
With every exhale,
Finding a little bit more ease.
You might even be able to focus the mind on any feelings of deep relaxation associated with the breathing.
Continuing,
Breathing in.
Exhale to empty.
I want to invite you now to continue on with at least 10 more full belly breaths in and full emptying for your exhales.
When you lose count,
To return back to the start of one.
Wishing you peace,
Relaxation,
And ease.
