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Belly Breath

In the world today, most people, most of the time, don't really pay attention to how they are breathing at all, and are usually breathing far more shallowly than they should. This effectively separates the upper and lower body, thus creating physical imbalances in the body, as well as chemical imbalances in the blood and brain, leading to increased stress, and decrease in immunity and overall physical, emotional, and mental health.

Belly breathing, medically known as, "diaphragmatic breathing", and called "long, deep breath" (LDB), in Kundalini Yoga, engages your entire lung capacity, rather than the shallow breaths that only fill the chest. The diaphragm and abdominal muscles expand and contract in order to fully inflate and empty the lungs. When done properly, the abdomen does most of the moving, while the chest moves very little if at all, and a great deal more oxygen is taken into your body.

Singers, dancers - especially belly dancers, wind instrument players, and many athletes are often taught this type of breathing. Singers and wind players for breath control, dancers and athletes to assist in learning to isolate the muscle groups.

This type of breathing exercise is used regularly by medical providers to help treat things like asthma, COPD, seasonal allergies, and other lung/breathing affecting ailments. Mental health providers use it to help patients combat depression, insomnia, cognitive issues, In addition to bringing more oxygen into the bloodstream, which cleanses the blood and organs and energises the brain and body, it aids in the reduction and prevention of toxin buildup in the lungs by clearing the alveoli (air sacs), sends additional spinal fluid to the brain, stimulates the pituitary gland, helps regulate the body's pH balance, and causes the release of endorphins ("happy chemicals" produced by the brain) into the system.

In meditative practices, it is used to move further into a meditative state, to move energy within the body, cleanse energy meridians, enhance mental clarity, increase energy, heal the mind and body, and calm anxiety or fear.

This practice will teach you how to correctly take deep "belly breaths", regardless of the purpose, and also can be used as a short meditation on its own.

As with all the exercises found on this site, you should read all the way through this page at least once before you try to do the meditation.

• The belly breath, or, long deep breath, engages the full capacity of the lungs by using all three chambers of the lungs - the lower/abdominal chamber, the middle/chest chamber, and the upper chest/clavicular chamber, in tandem. The inhale begins by filling the abdomen, then the chest, and lastly, the clavicle.

• To begin with, we will separate those three parts into individual breaths, and practice those before we move on to combining them all together into LDB.

Before you start:

• Turn off any unnecessary, extra noise generating items, such as the radio or television, if you can, or consider using headphones with the guided meditation track for this meditation.

• Switch your phone's ringer and other notifications to silent or DND mode.

• If using incense, candles, etc, now is a good time to light them.

• Find a place to get comfortable. This exercise can be done sitting or standing, but it is best for beginners to lie down on a flat surface (floor, mat, bed, couch...), at least the first few times, until you are familiar with how the muscles and breath feel when you are doing it properly.

• Using a pillow under your head/neck and under your knees to support them can help to make you more comfortable, especially if you have back issues.

• If you are sitting, make sure your feet are flat on the floor or a stool, so that your knees are bent at a ninety degree angle, or as close to it as possible.

• Horse stance (kiba-dachi/mǎbù) is the best pose, if standing for this practice. If you are not familiar with this pose, you really should stick to sitting or lying.

• Ensure that your back is straight, tilting your head up/back slightly and tucking in your chin so that your neck and spine are aligned.

• Place your hands in a comfortable, relaxed position (on your lap if sitting, at your sides if lying down) with your palms up/exposed. They will probably naturally tilt inward, with your hands slightly cupped. This is fine. Do not force your hands into a a more open or flat position - just let them rest naturally. If desired, gently touch your index or middle finger and thumb on each hand to one another, as in standard lotus pose.

• you should start the guided meditation track at this point, after you have read through this page once (or re-start it, if you have paused it to read this page).
Remember to make sure there is nothing else on your playlist that might jar you out of your relaxed state after the guided meditation track ends.

• If you have done this exercise before, and do not need the introductory instructions on the track, feel free to use the no intro version.

Now, you are ready to begin...

The guided meditation track uses a chime to begin this exercise, as do most of the meditations in this series. Eventually, you may find that the chime sound alone is enough to put you into a meditative state.

• Begin by simply focusing on your breath for a moment, counting each breath and and observing your natural inhalation and exhalation without changing anything. Notice whether you are breathing through your nose or your mouth, quickly or slowly, deep or shallow breaths.
If you find yourself becoming distracted by random thoughts, try not to engage in them. Just notice them and then let them go, bringing your attention back to your breath. Do this for five breaths.

• Next, take a deep, cleansing breath in through your nose, and blow it out through your mouth. The inhale should be as deep as you can make it, and the exhale should be somewhat forceful, as though blowing out several candles at once.

• Take another cleansing breath. In through the nose. Out, forcefully, through the mouth.

• Now, place one hand on your upper chest and the other on your stomach just below your rib cage. Breathe in and out through your nose, and notice whether the chest hand or stomach hand is being moved the most. It is probably your chest hand now. By the end of this exercise, the goal is to fill your lungs completely, which will have your chest hand remain almost completely still, while your belly hand is moved high and low as you breathe.

• OK, now bring your attention to your lower abdomen, where your belly hand rests, and, still breathing in and out through your nose, take a slow, deep breath, directing it into your lower abdomen. Try to keep your chest still as you do this. Your belly should rise as your lower lung chamber fills with air. On the exhale, use your abdominal muscles to pull your navel toward your spine, and to push out all the air. Remember to keep your chest relaxed and still.

• Relax your abdomen and take another inbreath into it. Feel the air flowing right past your chest and expanding your belly fully, pushing your belly hand up and leaving your chest hand unmoving. And now use your diaphragm and abdominal muscles to push the air out again, up, through your chest and out. Tighten the muscles and use them to squeeze out every bit of air as you exhale.

• Now, continue to take a few more of those deep, abdominal breaths, relaxing the belly on the inhale to fill it fully, and tightening it to push out air on the exhale. Notice and feel all the different muscles you are using with each motion.
Your diaphragm is a dome shaped muscle between your chest cavity and abdominal cavity. When you relax your diaphragm and extend your belly, it flattens out to create extra space to expand the lungs immediately above it. Then, when you exhale, and tense the muscles, it reverts to its dome shape and works with your abdominal muscles to push the air up and out. This allows the lower chamber of your lungs to be used efficiently.

• Next, we're going to move up to the middle lung chamber in your chest. This time, inhale slowly using just your chest muscles and keeping the air in your mid chest. Keep your diaphragm tight, not allowing it to extend at all. And now exhale completely, still using only your chest muscles. Your chest hand should move, and your belly hand should remain still. If you haven't quite got it yet, just keep working on it with more chest breaths - In and out, through your nose, filling and emptying your chest.

• You are using the intercostal muscles (between the ribs) for these breaths. Move your belly hand up to the bottom of your rib cage for a breath or two, and feel how your bottom ribs - the floating ribs, move more than the top ones as you breathe in and out of your chest. Compare these breaths with the isolated abdominal breaths, and notice how the depth and volume differs. These are the breaths that most of us are accustomed to taking regularly, even though they use only a third of our lung capacity, and allow buildup of toxins in the mostly unused parts of our lungs. By now, you should be noticing a lot less movement of your belly hand.

• Now we move up to the uppermost lung chamber, with clavicular breathing - breathing only into the top third of the lungs. Tense your gut muscles, drawing your navel in as much as you can and hold tightly, and lift your chest by just using your muscles, but not inhaling. Now raise your shoulders and collarbone (clavicle) slightly as you inhale slowly, without moving the rest of your torso at all. Exhale, keeping your chest lifted and abdominals tight - only moving your clavicle and shoulders. Keep inhaling and exhaling like this for a few breaths. This is the shallowest type of breath. It should almost feel like you're breathing into the back of your throat, rather than your lungs.

• OK. Take a few deep breaths now to counteract those shallow breaths. Obviously, the clavicle breaths are the least efficient in terms of oxygenating your body, and should only be used on their own for certain, specific purposes, and not too many or for too long at once, since you could suffer health effects from doing so. In this case, they are an important part of understanding how the different parts of a FULL breath feel.

• Finally, it's time to pull it all together, combining each of the distinct, separate pieces of the breath expansion into a complete belly breath, or, Long Deep Breath.

• Start by using your abdominal, chest, and clavicular muscles to push out every bit of air in your lungs, and begin your inhale with an abdominal breath, filling the lower chamber completely. Now continue to the chest breath, expanding your chest with air, and now top that off with the clavicle breath, filling your lungs all the way to the top.

• The exhale is the opposite. Relax the clavicle. Let that top breath out. Then, slowly, empty your chest, and lastly, the abdomen, pulling the muscles in tightly to push out all the remaining air.

• Now do it again. Fill your abdomen. Raise up the belly hand, then expand your chest. And then lift those upper ribs, shoulders, and clavicle to fill the top chamber again. And exhale in reverse. Deflate the upper chamber. Now the middle. Empty the chest, and pull the abdomen in and up to sink the belly hand, drawing your navel back toward your spine until every bit of air is pushed out.

• OK, lets try to get it all in a long, smooth motion now. Inhale to the abdomen. In.. in.. in. Fill the chest. Expand it out. And top it off. Raise those shoulders! Now relax them and exhale from the top. Now empty the chest, and pull those abs in. Empty the abdomen. Again. Inhale. Fill the belly. Raise it up. Fill the chest. Expand. Expand. Raise the shoulders and top it off. Exhale. From the top. Now the chest. And squeeze the abdomen empty. Good.

• Now relax and just take some slow, easy breaths at your own pace. Pay attention to the breaths and adjust them in whatever way feels right for you in this moment. Who knew just breathing could be such a workout? Once you have practiced belly breathing more, it will get a lot easier, and your regular breathing will become much more efficient all the time, with all the attendant health benefits, and your intentional belly breaths becoming even more beneficial than ever. Remember to keep practicing! Even though a longer session like this one is best done lying or sitting down, you can take a few belly breaths anytime, anywhere, and in nearly any position. Try it next time you're feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, or down. It really helps!

~ 🎼 🎶 🎶 🎶 ~ The guided meditation track, itself, is protected under copyright and may not be reused without express consent. Backing tracks, arranged by Khaos WolfKat, include Relax your mind, composed by Stefan Ruesche provided by Copyright Free Music by Ruesche-Sounds under a Creative Commons License. See links for additional reuse information.
~ 🎼 🎶 🎶 🎶 ~