Healing Breath Meditation
| Healing Breath Meditation |
| Kind of meditation |
Concentration/focus |
| Degree of difficulty |
Beginners |
| Recommended duration |
5 to 30 minutes |
| Posture |
Sitting or walking |
| Advantages |
- It improves your concentration, vitality and health
- It gives you a clear, calm mind
- It improves your breathing
- It helps against stress
- It gives you extra energy
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| Remark |
It is an extremely powerful and deep meditation that has a strong influence on your health and your breathing. Focussing is rather easy in the beginning because the exercise requires a lot of control and consequently attention.
If you practise the 20/20/20 system (see further on) for 11 minutes you are actually doing what Yogi Bajan considers the ultimate healing breath meditation and you can stop worrying about your health
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One of our personal favourites. This meditation helps you to relax quickly and deeply and it has a very positive effect on your health and vitality.
In this exercise, our breathing is our object of meditation. We try to focus on the rhythm of our breathing. In the beginning, also dependent on your air capacity, we take ten seconds to breathe in. Then we hold our breath for ten seconds and we take ten minutes to breathe out. If you can do this easily you can take 15 or 20 seconds for each stage of your breathing. We count in our mind and concentrate on our breathing. If possible we breathe through our nose and we try to let each breathing in and each breathing out last exactly ten seconds that we count from one to ten. Start your breathing in from your belly, then send the air to your ribs and diaphragm and ultimately to the upper part of your chest. When you breathe out you do the same, but in the reverse order. When you hold your breath you can concentrate on your navel or any sensations you might feel in your body. Every time our mind wanders away we return to our breathing. The highest aim you can reach after a while is being able to stick to a cycle of 20, 20, 20 seconds.
This is not only a good meditation but it is also an excellent exercise to improve your breathing and to enlarge your air capacity.
In the beginning it is possible that you will experience some dizziness or other sensations in your body as a result of this exercise. This is normal, but if the twinklings start to bother you either do things more slowly or do the ordinary count your breaths meditation. You can do this meditation quite well while you are walking. Do not get discouraged if your mind wanders away all the time or if you find it difficult to breathe in and out in the right rhythm. If you find ten seconds too hard you can also do this exercise in a cycle of 5 or 8 seconds until things go more easily. For many people it is quite hard at first to control their breathing and therefore this is an exercise in which in the beginning focussing is easy because doing the exercise well requires a lot of concentration. Even if you find the exercise easy try to keep concentrating on your breathing to make this not only a good breathing exercise, but also a good meditation exercise.
As is the case with all meditation exercises the essence remains being well focussed and present. In the course of time you will certainly become better and better at focussing your attention on your breathing and to make your meditation deeper. As is the case with every form of meditation we try not to judge, we try not to get angry when things do not go so well and we try not to be too goal-oriented. Let us begin!
Healing Breath Meditation Exercise
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- Sit down, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Be aware of every breathing in and breathing out.
- Breathe automatically and freely, do not try to control your breathing.
- Pay attention to how the air slowly passes through your nose, fills up your lungs and goes out again.
- If, after taking a few breaths, you feel fine and at ease you start to count.
- Breathe in steadily over ten counts.
- Breathe in, one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten….
- Hold your breath and concentrate on your navel or the point between your eyes, also called your third eye.
one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten….
- Breathe out steadily over ten counts
- Breathe out, one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten…
- Breathe in from your belly, to your ribs and diaphragm and ultimately to the upper part of your chest.
- Breathe in, one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten….
- Hold your breath
one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten….
- If you start to think of something else instead of your breathing or you start to feel something else instead of your breathing, be aware of this and just return to your breathing.
- Breathe out from your chest, to the diaphragm and then from your belly.
- Breathe out, one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten…
- Notice the sensations of your breathing. De depth, the speed, see if your breathing becomes increasingly slower and quieter, if your breathing more and more goes to your stomach or your chest, if your body becomes more relaxed through your breathing, …etc
- Breathe in, one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten.
- Hold your breath.
one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten….
- Breathe out
one…., two….,three….,four….,five….,six….,seven….,eight….,nine….,ten ….
- If all of a sudden you notice twinklings in your body or relaxation reactions in your muscles, that is all right…..just observe and return to your breathing.
- If the twinklings become unpleasant or you become a little dizzy slow down your speed of breathing or pass on to the easier count your breaths meditation.
- Continue doing this in a steady rhythm until the time you have set apart for your meditation is over.
- All right, now slowly take your thoughts back to the rest of your body and the sounds in the room. Move a little, stretch your muscles a little and open your eyes.
- Finished!
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Basics & Backgrounds
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