Balloon Breath

This meditation uses the inflation of a balloon to aid with your breathing timings to help relax you and deal with anxiety. Use this meditation to deal with stress or anxiety and help calm you down in times when you need it.
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Transcript

So this meditation is in fact a breathing exercise. It's one that I do quite often with children but it's equally useful for us grown-ups. It's called balloon breath and it's about taking really long deep breaths. So go and get yourself somewhere comfortable and we'll begin. So balloon breath is exactly as it sounds really. We imagine that our body is a balloon and normally in the day if you're like me and most people we breathe in a really sort of shallow place which is just at the bottom of our windpipe here at the bottom of the throat and we kind of breathe in and out really shallowly not very mindfully quite short breaths during the day and this isn't great for us and if we're feeling anxious or even in a state or sense of panic then breathing shallowly is not going to help us at all. So this exercise can be used as almost a deterrent from becoming anxious but we can also use it if we are feeling anxious or even as I say in a panicky moment. If you are in that panicky moment you will start with your breaths very shallow of course and it might take quite a long time for you to get to this deep deep balloon or belly breathing. So I'm just going to talk you through what we'll do and we'll do this for around 8 to 10 minutes. Little disclaimer if when you're doing it you begin to feel light-headed or dizzy just stop revert back to normal mindful breathing use your breath in and out through the nose and then if you want to go again you can pick it back up but listen to your body and if it's a new experience for you you can feel a little bit light-headed. The reason for that is a bit like when you take gas and air when you're in labour or maybe if you've had a painful experience it's about flooding the brain with oxygen and we're not used to this and whilst it can relax us it can also make us feel a little bit spinny headed so be mindful of that. All we're going to do is get comfortable wherever we are probably best to do this sitting you can do it lying down but it's sometimes more difficult to notice the effects so you bring one hand onto your chest here just by your heart and your other hand literally down onto your to your belly and what we're going to do is imagine that this whole area our chest our diaphragm our belly is a balloon that we're going to try and blow up and then as we breathe out imagine we're sucking that air out of the balloon so breathing in we fill the balloon with air and then imagine we're squeezing that balloon breathing out okay chest and belly and just start by breathing normally and just see which hand is moving and if you're not breathing deeply my guts or my instinct is saying that you're probably only moving your top hand so maybe a little bit in the belly but mostly we're moving this hand that's on our chest so just take a few moments to notice that close your eyes softening your gaze just feeling that connection as the chest rises and falls so you can either breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth or you can breathe in and out through your nose totally fine now what i'd like you to begin to do is to try and breathe a little deeper now if you are in an anxious moment don't worry you take it at your own pace but if you're feeling all right try now to fully inflate the lungs so that your hand on your tummy or your belly is also moving and it will go a bit like a wave you'll feel the chest hand lift and then you'll feel your belly hand lift there might not be much of a gap between and when you're fully inflated hold the breath for a moment before exhaling completely every ounce of air let it go so breathe in hold breathe out naturally your exhale will be longer so keep going breathing in i'd like you to picture a balloon now if that helps whatever color balloon you like as you breathe in imagine you are inflating this balloon completely fully hold it so you have that full balloon in front of you exhale gently squeezing the air out through the neck of the balloon so i'm going to leave you for two or three minutes just to have a little play around and just try to create as much space in the lungs and as you breathe out just find a little bit of softness so two or three minutes now just in peace and stillness trying to get your hands to rise as high as you can exhale squeeze that air completely out noticing the pause at the end of the exhale and between the inhale and exhale so just of that rise and fall that gap in between so take two or three minutes now and i'll speak to you again in a couple of moments so if you're finding it too labored to have these long and deep exhales of course just take it down a notch and revert to your usual breath breathing in and out through the nose just feel that connection with the hands trying to get both hands to rise and move noticing the exhale when you let go so And then just bringing the hands down onto your lap and just for these next two minutes try to keep that connection with the chest and the belly but now just by feeling the presence of the rise and the fall and just carve out this little moment of stillness and connection notice how it feels to breathe deeply. And just by feeling the presence of the rise and the fall and just by feeling the presence And just for these final few moments, As you're breathing out, Just find some softness in your body. So make sure that you are relaxed in your fingers and your toes, That your jaw is not clenched, That your shoulders are relaxed. And just allow your whole body to completely be released of tension as you breathe out. And just slowly allowing the breath now to just return to a comfortable rhythm and flow into your hands. Release, Relax. And you might begin to make tiny movements, Wiggling fingers and toes, Maybe just moving the head a little bit from side to side. Keeping your eyes closed for a couple more moments, Bring your hands together and give your hands a little bit of a rub to create some warmth and heat. And just hovering the hands over your eyes, Linking your eyes open whenever you're ready, Removing the hands to the lap, And I'm here when you open your eyes. So belly breathing or diaphragm breathing, Whatever you want to call it, Is a really useful technique and it can be that we do this whilst we're in a queue, You could even do it at your desk, You can do it anywhere, You can find a few moments to practice because I think we're all guilty of shallow breathing at some point during the day and the brain really likes to have that fresh oxygen to the head to clear the mind, To calm the nervous system and it's a really, Really useful technique. You wouldn't do it for very long, We didn't do it for as long as we might practice one of the more guided meditations, So it's a technique that's specifically for around five, Six minutes but you could practice it for longer once you feel comfortable with that amount of time. But I hope it was a useful addition to your day, Have a lovely rest of your day and I'll see you again very soon. Take care.