SIMPLE ABDOMINAL BREATHING
SIMPLE ABDOMINAL BREATHING
The first ‘real’ breathing technique discussed is probably the most important, as this is one you can learn, or rather re-learn to unconsciously follow, making it your everyday breathing habit. Although described and taught as a basic technique, abdominal breathing is the way you should breathe naturally, this is the way you are meant to breathe by nature. Re-learning proper abdominal breathing does in fact reduce stress levels without any further effort, while meditation obviously adds much greater benefits to simply breathing good. Learning to breath naturally is key to learn meditation. Learning abdominal breathing can be somewhat challenging at the beginning, but in reality it is much easier than many would believe, as re- learning something is a lot easier than learning a new skill. MEDITATION ABDOMINAL BREATHING To correct your breathing, get back to the same position, you have used for checking yourself previously, with one hand over your chest, another over your belly. Sit or stand with a straight spine, but comfortably simple abdominal breathing. Now, start breathing consciously. Watch your hands rise and fall. Try to inhale into your belly, pushing out your belly to an extreme with every inhale, and pulling it in, as much as you can, with every exhale. Do this consciously, only minding the movement of your abdominal wall. Practise for a few breaths. When you are fairly comfortable with it, and it does feel more natural than it did at first, you can start doing it with less effort: do not push your belly out that far and do not draw it all the way in with each breath. Now start watching the hand on your chest. This hand should barely move, or not move at all. This will probably be much more challenging than the first part, you would most likely need some effort to compress your chest as you inhale, preventing it from moving upwards and outwards. It might even help to apply some gentle pressure with your simple abdominal breathing. hand, to prevent this movement, yet the effort should really originate from inside, but never force anything. Do not worry, it will become effortless in no time. This non-movement of your chest is only essential for the learning phase. Once you learn to use abdominal breathing naturally, some movement of your chest will still be present, but a lot less articulated or observable than when you are mainly using your chest to breathe.
As you inhale, the abdominal wall relaxes and protrudes. As you exhale, the abdominal wall compresses and withdraws Your breathing should be relaxed for most of your practice. The movement of your abdomen would still be noticeable, but not very much articulated, while your chest would move very little, or not at all. This is one way you can breathe in most sitting meditation practices. Practise until you feel you need. Practise every day, at least once a day, always in a rested position. Remember, the exaggerated belly movement was only for the beginning for you to feel how your abdomen should move, you must not produce the same belly movement for your entire practice. You can use a couple of deeper breaths, with greater navel movement every time you practice, to start off with a better feel of it, then just return to breathing normally. Alternatively, you can turn it into an individual breathing exercise, with greater abdominal involvement, as a way of training your abdominal wall. Another point to consider is, at least when you are consciously practising abdominal breathing, that you should not attempt to suck in the air through your nose. Just move your belly in and out, open your nose and your throat and let the air stream in effortlessly, without doing anything else in order to inhale. This could eventually lead to a truly relaxed breathing process, with only a minimal movement of the diaphragm, where even the movement of the belly is hardly noticeable. After several days of practice, when you are confident and the correct breathing does not require a great effort anymore, you can incorporate this practice into your everyday activities. During the day, whenever you remember it, start watching your breathing and if you catch yourself breathing into your chest, switch immediately to abdominal breathing. Do not penalise yourself or feel bad about still breathing into your chest. This is normal, you have probably been breathing like that for so many years, your body needs time to re-adjust and come back to its natural ways. It will take some time, but you will notice how you need to adjust your breathing less and less, and eventually you will find that you always breathe the right way, without any particular effort. How long it takes, will vary from person to person. Do not try to rush it, let it happen at its own pace. Chances are, the process will take a lot shorter time than you would expect, as your body has an amazing ability of adaptation. If it takes longer than you thought, there is nothing you are doing wrong, you only need more patience. With time and practice the change will eventually occur simple abdominal breathing. You do not have to have learned to breathe automatically this way, to start practising meditation. As soon as maintaining simple abdominal breathing requires little effort, you can start practising meditation, just make sure you keep your breathing the right way. Many meditation techniques would involve focusing on your breath anyway, having to watch yourself breathing the correct way should not only not disturb, but possibly even aid and deepen your practice. Read the full article
