Breath Meditation: 3 Simple Breathing Exercises | BRIGITTE.de

breath meditation
3 simple breathing exercises

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Stephanie Pingle

Breath meditation helps us to find our inner balance and reduce stress. We explain three exercises and how the method works.

What is breath meditation?

Breath meditation uses simple breathing techniques to improve mental and physical health. It is often combined with other relaxation techniques, such as yoga. Most breathing exercises can be performed anytime, anywhere. However, there are some breathing meditation techniques that should only be practiced under the guidance of an expert.

Benefits of Breath Meditation

Breath meditation has many health benefits – and is a completely free method for more mindfulness in life. Proper breathing has the following benefits:

  • Stress level is reduced
  • Thoughts and feelings are calmed
  • Pulse and heartbeat are calmed down
  • Concentration is strengthened
  • Feelings of anxiety and nervousness subside
  • Lung capacity is improved
  • Immune system is strengthened
  • Chronic pain subsides
  • anger subsides
  • Grief is processed more easily

Instructions for breathing meditation

You can theoretically do the breathing meditation whenever and wherever you want – on the go, in the office or at home. However, most people are best able to focus on their breathing when they are in a quiet environmentwhere you can be with yourself. It is best to go to a quiet room and sits down comfortably there or lies down backwards on the floor. Start the meditation practice like this:

  1. Close your eyes and feel into your body, focus your attention entirely on yourself.
  2. Notice your body in its current state.
  3. Focus on your breathing and feel it flow—but don’t try to control it. Just notice them.
  4. If the mind wanders, slowly and calmly bring it back to the breath.
  5. As you breathe in deeply, feel your belly and then your chest fill and expand with air, and slowly lower and flatten as you breathe out.
  6. If you want, you can mentally count while you breathe.

If you do this simple breathing exercise for 10 to 15 minutes a day, has already done a lot for himself through meditation.



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Breath meditation: 3 more breathing exercises

If the above variant is too boring for you in the long run, you can also try one of the next breathing exercises for meditation. Here are three other possible techniques:

The box breathing

Box breathing helps calm your body in no time and increase concentration. It can be done anywhere. This is how box breathing works:

  1. Exhale deeply until all air is gone from your body, especially your lungs.
  2. Now breathe in calmly and with concentration through your nose for four seconds and feel your lungs fill with air.
  3. Hold this air in your lungs for four more seconds.
  4. Exhale again slowly for four seconds.
  5. Hold your breath again for four seconds.
  6. Start the exercise over: Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds.

After five minutes of this mindfulness meditation you will feel much calmer and more relaxed than before!

The rapid burst of breathing

When we breathe quickly, we not only calm our body and mind, we can also train our arm muscles a little while breathing. That is how it goes:

  1. Breathe in slowly while stretching your arms all the way up, hands open.
  2. Keep the position and the air in the body short.
  3. Exhale, clench your fists and lower them to shoulder height.

The exercise at a faster pace Repeat 20 to 30 times.

Respiratory Therapy: The calming breath

In the case of stress and restlessness, calming breathing helps best, to get back down quickly. How it works:

  1. Slowly exhale all the air from your body and lungs.
  2. Breathe in slowly through your nose for four seconds until your lungs are completely full.
  3. Hold your breath for seven seconds.
  4. Slowly exhale all the air through your mouth. You can use the pursed lip here: press your lips together and only leave a narrow gap open for the air to escape.
  5. Hold your breath for eight seconds with your lungs empty.
  6. Start all over again, so breathe in slowly for four seconds.

This breath meditation technique instantly relaxes because it slows our breathing.

You can find more breathing exercises here.

Reading tips: Here we explain how to learn meditation. We also present other relaxation techniques and reveal how stress management works. And in these articles, you’ll learn all about hatha yoga, zen meditation, sleep meditation, and chakra meditation.

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