Hello and welcome.
My name is Tara Richards and today's meditation is called box breathing.
The benefits are an almost immediate sense of calm and it also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which is brilliant for calming our nerves,
Grounding and nourishing ourselves.
Box breathing takes just 16 seconds so you can practice either one round of box breathing or a few.
For today's practice I'll guide you through four rounds of box breathing.
So let's find a comfortable seated position,
Plant your feet on the floor,
Close your eyes or lower your gaze and have your spine upright and tall but not forced.
And just take a moment right now to notice how you're feeling.
And then draw your attention to the instructions for the meditation today.
We're going to breathe in through the nose for the count of four,
Hold and retain the breath for a count of four,
Breathe out through the nose for the count of four and then hold the breath for a count of four.
And that is one round of box breathing.
It's called box breathing because you also create the shape of a box while you breathe.
So as you breathe in visualize a line being drawn vertically upwards.
As you hold the breath the line continues horizontally to the right.
As you breathe out the line continues vertically down and as you hold the breath at the bottom the line continues horizontally to the left back to where it started creating the shape of a box.
So let's start box breathing.
Breathing in two three four and hold two three four.
Breathing out two three four and hold two three four.
Breathing in two three four and hold two three four breathing out two three four and hold two three four by yourself and bring your breath back to its natural pace and just notice how you're feeling now and when you're ready open your eyes bring yourself back into the room thank you for meditating with me today and I look forward to meditating again with you soon goodbye
