Mechanics Of Breathing For Beginners

This session is designed to create a more fully expansive breath. You will be guided through postural awareness, which enhances your ability to sit in a comfortable & still way during mindfulness practices. You will also move through some gentle stretching. The intention of these stretches is to allow freedom through the muscles surrounding your diaphragm, which in turn allows for more full breaths.

This is part 2 of "Breathing for Beginners"

Pt 1 - Find your Comfortable Meditation Seat

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

Today I'm going to guide you through a short exercise that will help you to start to create a little bit more space around the front,

Sides and backs of your ribs and the tops of your shoulders so that you can take a more full deep breath.

To start,

We're going to just take three deep breaths together.

You'll breathe in through your nostrils.

And breathe out through your nostrils.

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

Last one,

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

The first thing I want you to notice is how you're sitting already.

Just without changing anything,

You'll get a sense for where your head is in space.

For most of us,

The head tends to sit a little bit forward of the shoulders when we're not paying attention.

You'll notice the backs of your shoulders and get a sense for how that is.

You'll feel for the space across your chest and the front of the shoulders and see if they're upright or if it feels like they're slightly rounded forward.

You'll start to get a sense for how the spine is and if it feels like it's nice and long or if it feels like it's a little bit hunched over today.

There's not a right or wrong.

You'll do your best to notice the neck and see how it feels.

Now we're going to start to come into that optimal seated position.

You take your back away from the chair if it's not already.

The soles of your feet are going to be on the floor.

Ankles and knees stacking over top of the feet.

You let your hands fall down into your lap and press your sitting bones to find that length all the way from the base of your spine up into the crown of your head.

We're going to take a couple of slow nostril breaths.

Breathing in nice and slowly and equally softly.

Breathing out,

You'll relax the shoulders away from the ears and let the tongue fall away from the roof of your mouth.

We're going to start to move a little bit in this exercise.

So the first part of it is a seated cat and cow.

So what we're doing is creating a little bit of flexion in the spine.

To start,

You're going to take the hands onto your lap or your knees.

And as you inhale,

You're going to arch the back so you start to peel the tailbone,

Arch through the spine,

Lift the chin.

And you're going to take a big breath in.

And what I want you to feel is that you're creating a really nice big arch in the spine.

The shoulders are nice and heavy away from the ears.

You're going to hold this and continue to breathe deeply.

So you're tucking that tailbone out and starting to feel how when you sit like this,

It creates a little bit more space around the front of your chest.

We're going to start to visualize the ribs drawing apart with each breath in.

You're going to take a couple of exaggerated deeper breaths.

Start to really encourage and expand that space that we're already creating in this shape.

So you'll take two breaths here on your own,

Breathing in,

Imagining that expansion through the rib cage.

Breathing out,

Think relaxation through the jaw and the shoulders.

Last one like this,

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

You take the spine back through center.

You'll notice that maybe it feels like there's a bit more space across the chest and a little bit more solidness,

Stability through the back.

And then we'll take that into the opposite shape.

So you're going to press the hands into the thighs and start to tuck the chin towards your throat.

You'll create a nice roundedness through the spine.

So you're tucking the tailbone under.

And what I want you to look for here is space between the shoulder blades.

So you'll imagine that you're drawing them apart and pressing the back of your shoulders back in space as you let the chest kind of come into a concave.

We're going to start to send some breaths into the backs of the shoulders now.

So we'll take three here.

Deep breath in,

Stretching the muscles between the shoulders with your breath.

And on the breath out,

You picture that softness,

The jaw releases.

Two more like that,

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

Last round,

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

You'll start to draw the spine back through the center line,

Stacking your head over your chest and your chest over your hips.

You'll notice how that feels now that you've created a little bit of a stretch in that space in the back of your body.

I'll take a deep breath in and feel the full rib cage start to move and expand with breath.

The exhale,

You'll notice how it settles back down and the ribs draw back together.

We'll move into our next exercise,

Which is a side bend.

So we're going to start to really expand the sides of the waist and the ribs.

You'll take your right hand down.

Your left fingertips will sweep up and over your left ear.

I want you to really reach the left fingertips towards the side and up so that you're creating length from the pinky finger down into the hip.

And here you're going to take three deep breaths into the left side of your body.

Breathing straight into that left rib cage.

And on the exhale,

Perhaps imagining that you're releasing tension here.

You have two more like that.

With each deep breath,

You'll start to feel maybe that the ribs start to expand and draw away from each other.

The next exhale draws your right shoulder away from your ear.

Last one,

Breathing in.

Your left hand will come down to the left side.

We're going to come into the right side,

Fingertips reaching up and over your right ear.

We'll start the process here.

Breathing straight into your right rib.

Feeling how it starts to create a little bit of space in the tissues.

You have two more breaths like this and we start to use these breaths to really exaggerate the stretch.

Last breath here.

You'll take the right hand back down by your right side.

We'll just take a full breath in imagining the sides of the ribs expanding.

You'll feel for that space that you've just created.

We have one more exercise for today.

That's a seated twist.

So sit up nice and tall.

Take your left hand behind you,

Your right hand to your left thigh.

I want you to start to draw the left shoulder back in space.

You might take your gaze over your left shoulder.

On the breath in,

You're going to work with pressing into the sit bones and growing a little bit taller.

On the breath out,

I want you to actively draw the navel towards your spine.

You start to take that left rib a little bit deeper towards the back of the room.

Two more breaths like that.

Breathing in length.

Breathing out,

Belly button to spine.

Last one.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

The chest comes back through center.

We're going to come straight into the other side.

Right hand moves behind you,

Left hand to the right thigh.

You press yourself up nice and tall through the sitting bones.

And you have two breaths.

Just working with that same concept of length and twist.

You might notice that the left rib starts to draw forward as the right rib draws back.

One more breath here.

Nice and easy,

Take yourself back through the center line.

You let the hands rest down in your lap.

Then you'll notice any new space that you've created for the breath to move.

You might feel this at the sides of the ribs.

Perhaps the chest moves a little bit more with each breath in.

You draw the attention to the back of your shoulders and notice if the breath has a little bit more space to move there.

And take a moment to check in and notice what this breathing practice and movement has done in your body today.

You'll get a sense for if there's a little bit of a release of that tension.

Perhaps a bit more softness around the shoulders and the neck.

This is a practice that you might continue to do a number of times to really get the tension out of tight muscles.

And that's totally okay.

Sometimes the body takes a little bit of time to respond to these things.

I hope you enjoy the space that you've created in your ribs today and the deeper breath that you'll start to take for the rest of your day.

I look forward to seeing you back here soon for our next session.

Reviews

Hello beautiful 🌺🎈🌺🎈🌺Thank you so much for the wonderful breathing with movements ☮️it gives me so much peace ☮️and sunny glimmers 🗺️have a blessed day 🕉️Namaste