Box Breathing Visualization For Lasting Calm

In this session we practiced 'Box Breathing With Visualization ', followed by 10 minutes of silence.

Principles of breathwork for calm: Nose, Low, Slow. Box breathing: Breathing in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Repeat.

Entraining (adding) a visualization of the box and counting on the fingers to occupy the mind.

Remember to adjust the count to suit you. If the count offered is too fast or slow, it can be anxiety inducing. Feel free to speed up, slow down, and tweak to your count (just slowing the breath down is the goal!)

Transcript

Welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat. Or lie down. And get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish begin by taking some slow Deep breaths. In through the nose. And just taking a moment to scan the body. In the mind space. To see if you're holding on to anything. Just allowing yourself to release any surface level tensions. Any things you're holding on to from the day. Just settling into the session. Today we're going to be. . . Diving into. . . Breath work. A breathwork that's designed to calm you down. The basic principle is this. Nose, Low. And slow. If you want to use the breath to calm you down. Breathe through the nose. Slowly. Knows. Slowly. And into the belly, Low. So the yogic breath, You go belly. Cheers. And then throat. So you're breathing deep. Filling out and then breathing out in the reverse order, Releasing from the throat, The chest, And then the belly. Nose. And to sleep. Give that a try now. Just remember with all breath work. Whether you're just slowing down the breath. Are you going to be doing a count like we will do today? Nose low and slow. And it shouldn't be strained. If you are following a count and you find yourself straining. Gasping. While struggling to keep up. Going too quickly. Because the person counting has a different timing to your inner breath or what you need. Just change it. Change it but with the principle of nose low and slow That's the overarching goal. Breathing in and out and holding. To a time or to someone else's instruction is great. If that timing works for you. If it doesn't, Adapt it. Let's take another couple of slow, Deep breaths. And then we'll introduce the count. The type of breath work that we'll be working with today is called square breathing. Box breathing. Or tactical breathing. There's a few different names for it. But the basic premise is this. You breathe in for a count of four. So you're breathing in. Hold. For a count of four. Out for a count of full. Hold for a count of four. Or three, Or five, Whatever works for you. But let's give it a try now. So I'll move. Breathe in. Cross to hold. Down to breathe out. Cross to hold, And so on. We'll try a cycle of four. Let's begin. Breathing in. Hold. Hold. See if that count was too quick. Or too slow. Change it along the principle of nose, Low and slow. Now, The good thing about box breathing is that you can entrain or add some things to box breathing. Entrainment is when you add an extra thing for your mind to focus on. And this is great for people with busy minds or if there's a lot going on. So if you visualize a square, Imagine like a ball of glowing light. In the bottom corner of the square and as you breathe in you visualize that light going up the top corner. As you hold, You visualize the ball of energy going across the square. As you breathe out, You visualize it going down the other side. And then as you hold again, You visualize it returning to the starting space. So in this way, As you are doing the breath work, You're also visualizing. In, You visualize the ball of energy traveling up. Hold, You visualize it traveling across. Out, You visualize the energy traveling down. Hold, You visualize it returning back. You've entrained. You've added. So now you're doing two things, Two things at once. You're doing breath work. And visualization. And it just gives your mind a little bit extra focus. So breathwork is great for calming down the body, Which in turn calms down the mind. But what we're doing by adding the visualization, Is adding something for the mind to do in addition to the breath work. So let's try another set now. And behind your closed eyes, You're visualizing the ball of energy traveling with the breath in that square. Let's try it. Breathing in. Hold. So you've got the breath work. And you've got the entrainment of the visualization. But there's one more little tool that we can add to this practice. If you find that having a digital counter, For example, On a device or on a watch being a bit distracting, You know, You go to use your timer for meditation, But then you're on your phone sort of thing. You can actually do Brock's breathing to a time but counted on your fingers. So if you touch your thumb to your point of finger. That could be a count of one. So for example, You breathe in. Hold. Then you move your thumb to your middle finger. In hold out hold. To your ring finger, In, Hold, Out, Hold. To your pinky finger in hold out hold. And in that way, You've actually given yourself a count of four. Four cycles. So each time you use a hand, You can actually count, You can actually time yourself. For about a minute. One hand is one minute. Two hands is two minutes. So you've actually got an inbuilt meditation timer that relies on no tech. And also if you want to entrain, If you want to add some more for your mind to focus on, You can focus on the visualization. But you can also focus on the sensations of the fingers touching. So now you're giving yourself three things to do. The breath work, Calming down the body. The visualization to focus the mind, And the physical stimulus of the fingers touching. Extra things for a busy mind to do. Great in response to anxiety. Each hand is about one minute. If you look closely at your hands, You'll see that each finger has three components. So if you touch your thumb to the top of the pointer finger. That could be one cycle. Then the middle. Than the bottom. Then you move to the middle finger at the top. Middle finger middle, Middle finger bottom and so forth. So you'll find that each hand actually has. . . 12. 12 cycles. Gives you about three to three and a half minutes per hand. What this gives you. Is two hands is about six to seven minutes. It means that you can really go deep in your practice and you can go, Okay, I'm going to meditate for three minutes, For six minutes, For nine minutes. You can keep adding time without the need for any tech, Without the need for any distraction. And if you're out in public. If you're struggling with anxiety or a trigger or something overwhelming. You're okay. I'm going to take myself. Somewhere and meditate for three minutes. Counting the fingers, Each section. It's a useful little tool. Let's practice for one more minute. We could do the breath work. In-hold, Out-hold. We'll visualize the square. The ball of energy? And we will count on our fingers. Feeling. The pointer finger and the thumb, Middle finger and the thumb, Ring finger and the thumb, Pinky finger and the thumb. So it's a lot to do. And if it's too much, Just do the breath work. That's okay. Let's give it a try. Breathing in. Hold. Middle finger in. Ring finger in. Pinkie finger in. So how'd you go? In this practice, We looked at box breathing. With the principle of nose, Low and slow. We added the visualization and the finger counting for extra entrainment. So thank you for joining me. And I'll see you in the next session. But if you'd like, We can sit together and practice our box breathing. Or whatever practice we would like, For 10 minutes. Let's give it a try So if you'd like to maintain the meditation or the breath work, You're more than welcome to do so. But for everyone else, I want to say thank you for joining in. Always good to meditate. In community, Either in person or in real life. Or digitally, I suppose. So thank you. This is an act of self-care and self-love. The breathwork practice. With the principles of nose, Low and slow. It can be taken anywhere. If you're anxious. Triggered or overwhelmed. If you're struggling. Just slow down the breath. Slowing down the breath will cause the mind to slow. It's an ever-present intervention. We worked on box breathing. Breathing in for full, Holding for full, Out for full. Holding for full. And we added the idea of entrainment. Adding something more for the mind to focus on. Visualizing the box. And then also potentially counting with the fingers. Thank you. Tip to fingertip to fingertip to fingertip. Each hand is one minute, Or if you use each segment of the fingers, Each hand is three minutes. And you can also entrain or add. Extra focus on the sensation of the thumb and the finger touching. Occupy the busy mind, Slow down the body with the breath, And you will come. Thank you, And I'll see you in the next session.