Meditation Breathing Techniques and Exercises

Breathing is very important in meditation; it allows more oxygen to flow throughout the entire body energizing it. However some don’t know just how to breathe when meditating. Do you breathe from your chest or your stomach? How long do you hold your breath, how long do you inhale and exhale? These questions are common and easily answered.

A very simple exercise that you can do during the beginning on any meditation is exhale for 4 seconds, inhale for 4 seconds, and hold for 4 seconds. Breath from your chest and stomach combined if you can. You can experiment with how long you hold each part; you could do a set of 4-4-3 if holding the inhale is hard for you.

Another method called “Complete Breath” is where you breathe till your lungs are full and exhale slowly. This allows the maximum amount of oxygen to enter your body. Breathe in deeply and slowly, and exhale slowly. Do this till you feel you don’t need to anymore, about 5 or 10 minutes before meditation will be fine.

Now for a breathing meditation you can do the same as the first breathing exercise with the sets of 4 or the “Complete Breath” and feel with ever inhale good energy coming in and every exhale bad energy leaving, this will help with finding a constant rhythm. If you practice enough breathing like this will become second nature to you and you won’t realize that your breathing patterns have changed.

You can practice these any time of the day and it doesn’t matter whether you are standing, lying down, or sitting. Practice on your way to work, or at work to relieve a little stress, anywhere. These breathing exercises are to help you to calm yourself and to warm your body up for meditation.