Stress is a killer, and when your mind is active too many thoughts can keep you from relaxing, calming down and repairing your body. When your mind is overactive, stress rules your spirit, tension grips your skeletal system, inflammation expands the tissues and a host of health saboteurs come to the forefront—headaches, muscle and joint aches, insomnia, pain…
Breathing exercises have been used for centuries by Indian yogis to calm the mind, relax the body and restore health. They help you tap your energy within. In today’s video, body-mind-spirit trainer Datu Shishir Inocalla teaches how to do three simple breathing exercises that will quickly quiet the mind and relax the body.
Preliminaries
You can do these standing, sitting or even while lying down. All you need to do is relax and focus. In this video, Shishir is seated comfortably with feet flat on the floor and back straight.
The main thing is to relax and feel the energy move within your body. In as little as 10 minutes a day you can do this simple series of three breath exercises, in this order, to improve your quality of life.
Quick breath exercise
The quick breath exercise is done with a succession of rapid breaths. Whenever you want to focus or gather your thoughts or to harness your energy you can do this exercise for a few minutes.
Place your palm over your stomach. Inhale through your nose then quickly expel an audible burst of air from your mouth. As you do this, feel your diaphragm expanding and contracting with each breath. It should sound a bit like you are making a “puffing” sound as you exhale.
Follow a series of 10 quick breathing cycles with the deep breathing exercise.
Deep breath exercise
From the same position, take deep breaths. In through your nose and out through your mouth. The key here is to first expand the belly then bring the air up into the chest as you inhale while compressing the stomach.
Follow a series of 10 deep breathing cycles with the quiet breathing exercise.
Quiet breath exercise
For this exercise you can either have eyes open or closed. You just want to feel the energy of your breath. As you breathe in, visualize the energy going up toward your nostrils and into your brain, then down your neck, passing through your upper body, down to your stomach and to the feet.
Just feel this wonderful energy going up your body with each inhalation and down your body with each exhalation. Try to accomplish this with no external physical movement or sound. This will allow the pranic energy to move in and out of your system. Juts feel the inner quietness as the breath regulation is in progress.
You can do this quiet breathing for just one or two minutes, or continue on to a full meditation practice.
