Deep Breathing Exercises For Meditation And Stress Relief

 Deep breathing exercises have proven useful to a wide range of different people and for a wide range of different purposes. There are many benefits to practicing them too, depending on how and when you use them and which ones you choose to do.

Control of breathing has always been a major part of meditation in many different traditions, and as such these kind of exercises can be used to help deepen meditation, and / or to provide a focus for your attention to help you clear your mind of irrelevant thoughts.

They are also very good indeed to use as relaxation exercises to help you let go of all the excess tension that has built up in both your mind and your body and to ease you into a peaceful and relaxed state. Getting rid of all this tension not only feels good, but it is also very good for your health, allowing your immune system to work in a much better and stronger way so that you get ill less often.

And finally, for people who suffer from stress, anger or any other such strong emotional states which they need to dial back on, to control or to pacify, deep breathing can be used quickly and effectively while you are out and about to get an 'instant hit' of relaxation  that will help enable you to deal with whatever life throws at you.

Here are a set of step by step instructions for a simple deep breathing exercises that anyone can practice for relaxation:

1. Find a quiet and comfortable place and try to make provisions so that you will not be disturbed (turning off your phone, telling people in your house not to disturb you)
2. Make sure you are wearing fairly loose and comfortable clothing.
3. Practice this exercise sitting down, but preferably in a position where you back is fairly straight and you aren't slouching too much.
4. When you are ready to begin simply focus on your breathing and try to relax.
5. Take 3 big, deep, slow breaths. As you exhale try to feel all of the tension leaving your body.
6. Allow your breathing to return to normal and simply try to relax for a minute or two, and then repeat the 3 deep slow breaths again as many times as you feel comfortable with.

 If you are out and about, working or socializing or whatever it may be and you start to get stressed, or frustrated or angry and need to quickly calm yourself down and relax then taking three deep breaths and trying to let go of your tension on the exhalation can really help.

This works best if you practice the three breaths as described above when you are at home and able to take time out to relax. Then when you need the three breaths you can just use this part without doing the full exercise. Try to remember the relaxed feelings you got when performing the exercise at home and to allow yourself to return to that place inside yourself as you take the three deep breaths.

 This is a good one for both relaxing and reinvigorating yourself. In order to perform this you should be sitting with your back straight, or standing up. As you inhale try to fill your lungs from the bottom up. You should feel your lower belly expand as you draw in the air. Then as you exhale you should try to push out the air from the bottom of your lungs up, and your lower belly should pull back in as you do so.

This exercise is used extensively in Chinese Qi Gong.