Breathing Exercise | Spiritual Weight Lifting
This simple breathing exercise will help you build the strength, muscle memory, and conscious awareness you need to control your breath to your benefit.
In “The Power of Breath“, we discussed how you can use your breath to control your emotions. This simple exercise will help you build the strength, muscle memory, and conscious awareness you need to control your breath to your benefit.
- Lie on your back on the floor.
- Release any tension in your shoulders and hips. Relax your hands and feet. Mentally scan through your face, neck and body, releasing any other areas of tension.
- Notice where you are breathing – you want to breathe from the diaphragm taking your breath below the navel.
- Each breath should expand your abdomen in all directions, upward, sideways and even towards the back so that you feel your sacrum pressing against the floor.
- After becoming familiar with this breathing method, place a large bean bag on the lower abdomen (a bag of beans or split peas from the store placed inside a ziplock bag for reinforcement will do).
- As you inhale, actively push your abdomen out in all directions making the bean bag rise upward.
- As you exhale, let your abdomen deflate and push your sacrum into the floor lowering the beanbag to a resting position.
- Feel the air enter and leave your body with each breath.
- Continue breathing in this fashion.
You are likely using new abdominal and back muscles in this breathing exercise and may find that you tire after a few minutes. Continue daily breathing with the bean bag and over time you will build up the strength and endurance to conduct this exercise for longer periods of practice. As this breathing method becomes second nature to you, you may wish to listen to recorded meditations to enhance your experience.
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