Focus Meditation 12: Breath #DoMagick

Meditation Title: Lion’s Breath

Technique: Pranayama is a practice of how one breathes. It’s part of a formal yoga practice for a lot of yogis. Different breathing techniques can actually do everything from promote relaxation to energy.

Usually, this is done sitting on your heels. If this is too difficult for you, try it sitting cross-legged, or on all fours. Whichever is most comfortable for you. Remember, with yoga you should never be in pain. Feeling a stretch is fine, but if it becomes painful, stop and reposition until you’re comfortable. Put your hands, palms down, on your knees. Straighten your arms and extend your fingers.

Inhale through your nose for five counts.

Exhale through your mouth for five counts making a HA sound, and extending your tongue toward your chin, while gazing up toward the third eye. (Focus on your third eye here.)

Inhale and relax your face. Close the eyes and repeat.

The standard method is to repeat this 5 times. You also want to keep your shoulders drawn back and lengthen the spine on the exhale. See the video below for decent instruction.

The focus meditation part comes in where you are doing nothing but FOCUSING ON YOUR BREATHING. It’s about being in the moment folks!

My Meditation: I am going to start with 10 minutes of gentle, focused stretching in a sitting position and then move into the sitting on heels position. I will do 10 lion’s breaths, then I will move back into half lotus for 10 minutes of breath focus for the remainder of the meditation.

Meditation Resources: Check out a nice video illustrating Lion’s Breath here:

Thoughts: I love incorporating pranayama into my regular meditation and yoga practices because it’s a great way to oxygenate the blood. It always makes me feel more refreshed and awake when I do pranayama in the morning. At night, I find it helps me sleep better. Today I did my practice first thing this morning and I felt fantastic afterward. I also noticed I’ve been holding some tension in my shoulders. That’s something I’ll definitely work on.

People have asked me what the purpose of these particular breathing meditations are for beyond feeling good, and what it comes down to is this — it’s about spending some quiet quality time with yourself and giving your body some extra love. Some will say breathing exercises like this will help open the third eye. Others say it will reduce toxic energy in your life. For my purpose, here, today, it to energize my body and make me feel good. And that’s okay.