Morning Breath Breathing & Stretching Exercise

This short, simple, breathing and stretching practice is great for first thing in the morning, right after you get up (Yes, before coffee!). It helps clear your respiratory, sinus, and nasal passages, as well as relieving muscle and back tension, stiffness, or pain.

Like many breathing exercises, it also fully engages your lung capacity, delivering oxygen more efficiently to your brain, organs, and extremities, promoting better blood circulation, and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).

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

Before you start:

Now, you are ready to begin...

The guided meditation track uses a chime to begin this meditation, 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.

• Stand up straight, and tilt your head forward, dropping your chin toward your chest, and back, so you are looking directly up, a few times. Then tilt your head from side to side in the same manner, and lastly, rotate your head left to right and back a few times, gently stretching your neck muscles.

• Now, roll your shoulders forward a few times, then backward. Next, alternate raising the left and right shoulder, and then alternate rolling them forward (like you're shimmying), then backwards, a few times each.

• Next, inhale as you stand up straight, with your knees slightly bent, then exhale as you bend forward from the waist, blowing out all the air from your lungs and letting your arms dangle down toward the floor.

• Now, begin inhaling, slowly and deeply, as you return to a standing position by rolling your body up slowly, lifting your abdomen, then chest, then shoulders, and lifting your head last.

• Complete the inhale, filling your lungs full, as you stretch both arms above your head, and tilt your head back. Hold the breath for three seconds, raising your face and hands to the sky.

• Now, begin your exhale and lower your head and arms as you bend at the waist again, allowing your arms to hang loosely, knees just slightly bent, and your hands and head coming as close to the floor/ground as possible. Blow out any remaining air in your lungs when you reach the lowest point, and hold, without inhaling, for three seconds as you bounce, gently, two or three times. You may feel a few pops in your spine on these bounces.

• Inhale and roll your body back up again - abdomen, chest, shoulders, and head last. And reach up those arms and tilt your face up again. Really stretch your hands up to the sky as you fill your lungs as full as you can. Hold the breath for three seconds, and relax, let the breath out, and drop down again. Knees a little bent, arms nice and loose.

• Force out all the air. Hold it and bounce. And roll back up again, inhaling nice and deep. Reach and look up to the sky. Hold the breath and stretch three seconds... And release.

• One more time. Bend at the waist as you exhale. You can probably bend lower than ever this time. Fully exhale. Hold it and bounce. Three seconds, and inhale and roll back up. Good. Head back, reach up - up as far as you can, hold the breath... And relax, allowing your arms and head to rest naturally again.

• Now do the initial loosening steps again - tilt your head forward and back a few times, then tilt side to side, then, rotate your head left to right and back a few times. By now, you've probably heard lots of pops, have a warm feeling coursing through your limbs and joints, and are feeling a lot looser than when you started. If not, you can try a few more repetitions until you really feel the warmth and relaxation flowing.

• Remember, you can repeat this practice anytime, throughout the course of the day, anytime you need a quick rejuvenation, and don't forget to drink plenty of water to keep your system healthy and hydrated!