Five Minute Calming Breath Meditation

Slowing Down and Finding Peace

Try this quick breathing meditation to kick in the parasympathetic nervous system and induce a state of calm when anxiety strikes.

This medication can be done sitting, standing or reclining.

1. Find a long spine stacking shoulders over the hips allowing the chin to be parallel to the floor.

2. Imagine your breath is a pool at the base of your spine. 

3. As you inhale, pull the breath in a cool stream up the back of the body, between the shoulder blades, the back of the neck and end at the space just above a between your eyebrows.

4. Pause briefly.

5. Exhale out warm breath like a waterfall down the front of the throat, the heart, the belly back into the base of the spine.

6. Pause briefly.

7. Begin again pulling the breath up the back of the body as if it was a cool stream, pausing, exhaling warm air down the front of the body, pausing, etc, etc, etc….repeat 4 more times for a total of 5 for the shortest practice or set your timer and aim for 5 minutes.

After you are done, let the breath come back to normal and simply notice how you feel.

This quick pranayama will pull you back into your body, back into a little peace and leave you feeling very balanced and refreshed.

Pranayama (breath meditation) is the yogic practice of focusing on breath. In Sanskrit, prana means "vital life force", and yama means to gain control. In yoga, breath is associated with the prana, thus, pranayama is a means to elevate the prana shakti, or life energies.