Breath Of Joy

Breath of Joy is an uplifting and energising moving breath practice that can be done to shift your mood. A good practice to start the day with vitality or to re-energise at that mid-afternoon slump. It involves three short in-breaths through the nose with the arm movements and one long exhale through the mouth or nose as you swing your arms down.

Transcript

Hi, My name is Nikki. Welcome to this moving breath practice today known as Breath of Joy. So a practice you might like to do if you're feeling a bit flat or a bit low in energy and you just want to lift your mood a little bit. So we'll do the physical movement and add in the breath. So just start by feeling your feet a bit connected to the mat. Roll the floor, Make sure your knees are a little soft. And just feel nice and grounded. No need to do anything with the breath at the moment, Just notice the inhale and the exhale. Then we're going to start by just practicing the physical movement, Which involves drawing the arms up. Opening out at chest level, Drawing the arms overhead, And then a hinging forward as we release the arms back. It's kind of this. Opening at the chest. Overhead and sort of a variation on kind of chair pose from yoga as we release. It's kind of almost like a bit of a skiing kind of motion. Just getting that going. Physical movement. And tuck your poles. So that's the physical movement, And you can do it slower, You can do it faster. We're now gonna add the breath into it. So as we do those three arm movements, We're gonna take three little short in-breaths, And as we hinge forward, We're gonna do one long exhale to release. And you might do the inhales definitely through the nose, And you might do the exhale through the nose or the mouth. So let's begin, Breath in, Breath in, Breath in, One long exhale out. Might like to speed it up a bit. If you start to feel any dizziness or lightheadedness, Just do one smooth inhale rather than the sharp in-breaths. One more. And then pause, Notice, You might like to just close the eyes and just go inwards for a moment. Notice the effects of that breath or pranayama practice. And then the next time you exhale, Just imagine that breath traveling down through the body, Out through the feet, As if you could release it down into the surface you're standing on. And just notice, You might feel a bit more energized, You might feel a bit of opening through the chest. Just being curious. The effects of that practice. So breath of joy, A great practice to do if you need to shift your mood and bring in a little bit of energy into your day.