Breathing is one of these functions that we all take for granted. Of course we can’t live without it but do we really breathe to the best of our benefits? Many people are unaware of how important our breathwork is in our overall muscle tension (specifically upper body tension), our posture and our abilities to deal with stress and anxiety. I advise many clients to become more aware of their shallow, chest breathing that contributes to their hypertonic neck, upper back and chest muscles. It is essential to our health that we learn to breathe using our diaphragms (it is a breathing muscle) and not our chest muscles.

Body Sense Magazine published a relevant article on an effective breathing meditation method. By following the steps one should be able to significantly enhance their health–physically, spiritually and mentally. Here’s the post:

Breathing Meditation
In the pressured environment of the twenty-first century workplace, our perceptions may become so overwhelmed that the holistic postural responses described earlier cannot occur. Instead, bodies become habituated to a constant state of low-grade global tension. This is often accompanied by unconscious breath-holding that, in turn, perpetuates chronic tension.

Holding your breath creates pressure in the abdomen that makes your trunk feel stable. For many people, holding the breath serves as a way of gaining control over time. Without the regular ebb and flow of breathing, there is an illusion that time has stopped, prolonging the arrival of a deadline.

The following practice helps you balance the motions of breathing by attending to their spaciousness and weight. To do the exercise you need to be lying down or resting back in a chaise-like chair that supports openness through your rib cage (see illustration above).

As you inhale, allow the movement of your rib cage to expand your entire skin surface. Imagine your pores are also absorbing oxygen. Or picture yourself on a mountaintop, breathing in the pleasure of the scene. Tune in to your gratitude for each breath as you welcome the air inside your body. This deep breathing should be accomplished without strain in your natural rhythm. If you find that spacious inhalations become taxing, alternate them with one or two ordinary breathing cycles. Notice any tendency to pull or suck the air inside. Should you feel yourself doing that, forget about the inhalation practice for now and go on to the exhalation practice.

During your exhalations, shift your attention away from the expelling of air. Focus, instead, on surrendering your body to gravity. The weighted, yielding feeling of letting go is a feature of relaxation, and relaxation is essential to full exhalation. It will be helpful to sense your body’s weight in stages. During several exhalations, focus on yielding the weight of your legs. When your legs feel truly heavy, shift your attention to your arms, and then to your spine, belly, hands, or eyes. Scan your body for regions where you seem to be held up from the ground. Then allow that part to yield.

As you relax, you will find yourself automatically exhaling more slowly and deeply. You will also notice a pause occurring after each exhalation. If your breathing is habitually shallow and rapid, this pause may not occur. In such a case, do not force the breath to stop after exhalation. As you learn to relax your body, the pause will naturally emerge. The respiratory pause is a needed moment of rest for your hardworking breathing muscles. The pause also allows time for the breathing center in your brain to receive the signal that you need more oxygen. That way your next inhalation is automatic, so it feels effortless.

Practice this breathing exercise for at least five minutes every day. In time, your increasingly slower and longer exhalations will lead to increasingly effortless and expansive inhalations. End each breathing meditation session with a few moments’ awareness of your body’s length and openness. Picture yourself standing upright while sustaining your awareness of spaciousness and weight. Imagine yourself walking across the room that way. Finally, stand and experience an actual shift in your posture.

Besides having an effect on your posture, the breathing meditation can provide opportunity for self-study. Within your breathing cycle you embody your habits of receptivity and surrender—the ways in which you let experiences in and how you let them go. Notice whether you receive your inhalation with urgency, trepidation, or with a sense of gratitude. Notice whether you exhale with reluctance, relief, or surrender. Give yourself time to grow comfortable with the emptiness of your respiratory pause. Allow the truth within your breathing to holistically inform and transform the way you live your life.

Your best posture and freest breathing occur when you are in a relaxed good mood. In such moments your perceptions are open and adaptable. You are aware of the spaciousness of your world and at the same time you feel at ease on the planet, secure and grounded. At such moments, your spine and rib cage subtly rise and settle on the wave of your breathing. Breathing is easy and pleasurable—as the song says, “Easy like Sunday morning.”


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