Breath ratios.
This is the fourth in a four-part series on breathing meditations.
If developing a voluntary breathing pattern is new to you,
Please start by practicing my other three audio meditations,
Breath inquiry,
Then mindful breathing,
Followed by complete breath.
Once you can bring your respiratory system under conscious control without any physical strain or mental anxiety,
You're ready to find your breath ratio.
So before doing this pranayama or breathing practice,
It's extremely important that you're also able to sustain relaxed awareness on the flow of your breath with some knowledge of controlling respiratory function.
When working with breath ratios,
You learn to safely,
Consciously,
And voluntarily control the length of the inhale,
The exhale,
And eventually add a breath retention or kumbhaka as it's called.
This practice alters the brain's information processing.
When we breathe voluntarily,
We actually change the region of the brain that we breathe from.
Unconscious breathing is controlled by the lower brain or the brainstem,
And conscious breathing is a function of the upper brain.
We also balance the heart rate.
The inhalation slightly increases the heart rate,
And the exhalation decreases it.
On a subtle level,
Inhalation increases our focus,
Energy,
And vitality,
And the breath out is an opportunity to purge,
Purify,
And relax more deeply.
The breath is the perfect example of complementary opposites.
So we'll begin with the breath inquiry.
Begin to feel yourself from the inside out as you breathe,
And take your awareness to the nose.
Allow your breath in and out to go through the nose.
Notice what parts of your body are naturally moving with your spontaneous breath.
As we're simply the observers of the breath,
Without changing anything,
We can begin to be mindful of the different parts of the breath,
Noticing your inhalation,
The space between the inhale and the exhale,
The exhalation,
And the space between the exhale and the inhale.
So we move on from breath observation to mindful breathing and into complete breath.
Now visualizing yourself all the way from the tail to the tongue on the subtle body,
Or physically from the lower lobes of the lungs to the upper lobes,
The ribs to the collarbones.
Allow your inhalation to rise up through your torso from the ribs up through the throat,
And allow the exhalation to empty in whatever direction feels most comfortable and natural to you.
The inhalation flows upward through the lower lobes of the lungs,
The middle,
And the upper.
In the exhalation,
There's a sense of complete emptying in whatever direction the breath would like to leave.
Continue to watch your inhale and your exhale,
And as you allow the inhalation to be slower and deeper and longer,
Do the same with the exhalation.
Take three more rounds of this complete breath,
Noticing how the entire torso responds to the breath.
Not just the front body,
But the sides of the ribs,
The back body,
The freedom of movement of your body with your breath.
Not forced in any way.
Comfortable and sustainable.
Now I'd like you to pay particular attention to your inhalation.
And as you're inhaling,
Silently count to yourself to see how long your inhalation is.
Count once or twice and see what number you get on the inhalation.
Remember that number.
Now focus on your exhalation.
And as you do that,
Focus on how long your exhalation is.
Count to yourself.
Do this a few times.
So we have two numbers.
The first number was for your inhalation,
And the second number was for your exhalation.
If the first number is higher than the second number,
In other words the inhalation is longer than the exhale,
Please adjust your inhalation to match your exhale.
Or you may adjust by making your exhalation as long as your inhale.
The goal here is to have either a balanced breath of equal inhale and exhale,
Or the exhalation may be longer,
That larger number.
So play with that for yourself.
And see if you can find a balanced ratio,
Perhaps 4 to 4,
4 inhale,
4 exhale.
Or the ratio may be 5 to 5,
Inhale,
Exhale.
Or 4 inhale,
6 exhale.
Never pushing or straining.
Once you find that breath ratio for yourself,
Take three more rounds,
Silently counting to yourself as you take those rounds of breath.
Continue with your newfound breath ratio.
But note the space once again at the top of the inhalation,
The pause,
And at the bottom of the exhalation,
The pause.
Once we've found our breath ratio,
We may be ready to add the breath retention.
And we start with just the natural pause.
Take the inhalation for your appropriate breath ratio.
Come to the top of the inhalation and simply relax in that space.
Begin to exhale.
Get to the bottom of the exhalation and relax again in the peaceful pause.
Take three more rounds of breath,
Allowing yourself to experience the fullness of your breath in and out and the natural pause at the top of the inhale and the bottom of the exhale.
This is the beginning of learning breath ratios and something you can practice on your own.
As you get more comfortable,
You may find the breath ratios increase.
But always remembering that as the inhale increases,
So does the exhale,
Either to match it or longer.
And when comfortable,
The natural pause may also increase at the top of the inhale and the bottom of the exhale,
But never enough to allow any sort of strain,
Nor should the heart rate ever increase during this practice.
