Breathing for Mindfulness and Calming

Pranayama is the formal practice of controlling the breath. It brings more oxygen to the blood and brain and helps control Prana, our vital life energy (known in other cultures as Mana, Qi, Chi, or Awen). The word is composed of two Sanskrit words: prana, which means life force, or vital energy, (also known as the breath), and ayama, which means to extend or draw out.

The main purpose of pranayama is to relax the body and mind. It is great to settle down and help you stop a chattering mind. It is grounding and calming. Anxious peeps, are you listening?

First, learn belly breathing:

• Empty your lungs fully, until you can’t empty them anymore.
• Inhale slowly and deeply with the lower part of your lungs; it will feel as though you are breathing with your belly, from approximately the area of your navel. Only your belly should rise, not your chest.
• Repeat. Belly breathing might take you some time to learn. Don’t hurry it.

After you’re comfortable with belly breathing, learn chest breathing:

• Breathing with the upper part of your lungs only; since this is the way most people in Western culture breathe anyway, learning chest breathing should not be difficult to do.
• When chest breathing, only your chest should rise, not your belly.

Next, learn to combine belly and chest breathing for a full breath:

• When you breathe now, fill your entire lungs, first by filling the lower part of your lungs with belly breathing, and then by filling the upper part of your lungs with chest breathing.
• When you exhale, empty your lungs fully.

Finally, learn to breathe rhythmically, in a fixed, repetitive pattern.

The Fourfold Breath is a calming pattern that helps slow a racing heart, calm hyperventilation, focus the mind, and still the body. The pattern which I have found most effective, is 4-4-4-4, as follows:

• Inhale with a full breath to the count of four. Visualize breathing in life force from all around you entering you as you breathe in.
• Hold: Hold the full breath in your lungs to the count of four. Visualize banking that life force and storing it in your body.
• Exhale: completely empty your lungs to the count of four. Visualize your contribution to the planet- your life force being contributed to the world around you as you exhale.
• Hold: Hold your lungs empty to the count of four. Vizualize reflecting and mirroring that life force to the world around you.

Repeat as needed.