
~5-15 minutes (This is a great one for beginners and advanced students alike as it is super effective!)

I'm going to teach you a very quick breathing technique that allows for full body breath. 

To start you are going to get comfortable in your seated position and take a moment here to just relax into that space. 
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Adjust the body so the feet are flat on the ground, spine nice and straight
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And to begin you're going to start by bringing your left hand to your lower abdomen, perhaps around the naval area, and your right hand to your upper chest, perhaps around the heart. 
These are general placements, so wherever is comfortable for you on your lower belly and heart area is good, just making sure that the hands are on the upper and lower sections of the torso. 

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And now we are going to begin breathing via Ujjay breath…if this is not familiar to you, it is a breathing technique that is utilized in yoga quite often and is very simple . 

Breathing through the nose we are going to allow the inhale and exhale to vibrate the back of the throat just a bit, similar to a very faint snoring noise.  It shouldn’t be so strong that others can really hear it, but you should feel it in your throat and be able to hear it.  

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So with Ujjay breathing going return quickly to check into your posture here, allowing your spine to be straight and your feet fully on the floor. I

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For the breathing we are going to be practicing what is called a full yogic breath here now.  
And a full yogic breath is a lower belly to upper lungs, exhaling upper lungs into lower belly. 

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So practicing this now, inflating the lower belly and then upper chest on the inhale, and then deflating the upper chest first and then finally the lower belly on the exhale.  
And remember to keep with Ujjay breathing. 
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If this is difficult for you then utilize the hands here to help with your awareness, meaning that when you are inhaling in the lower belly, allow the hand to rise up and then as you breath into the upper chest, allow the hand here to feel the chest expanding.  
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And the reverse on the exhale
(pause and practice for a few minutes)


And now let us expand our singular awareness to the actual totality of the body. 

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So what I mean by that is as we begin our inhalation, instead of having your awareness on the lower hand on the lower belly, bring your awareness to the soles of the feet. You may feel them tingling, or you may feel like pressures building up or a hot cold sensation. 

It's totally normal, just let it happen. 

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And on the inhale, again, we are inhaling lower belly to the upper chest. 

But instead of focusing just on the torso, you're going to focus on the totality of the body. So as you begin to inhale, your awareness scans from the bottom of the feet up to the calves, the knees, the thighs, the hips, lower belly, upper chest, through into the throat, and then all the way up to the top of the head. 

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So we're going to end with an awareness on the crown of the head. 

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And then as we exhale, we do the reverse. 

So the awareness goes from the crown, down the forehead, you know, the ears, the eyes, the jaw, throat, the lungs, organs of digestion, organs of elimination, sexual organs, down the legs, muscles, and out through the feet. 

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So it's factoring in a body scan awareness, which is a beautiful component of a meditation practice or a mindfulness practice because it allows us to start to cultivate that connection to the body. 

And in this connection, you can start to see points that need attention.

 For instance, you might feel a twisted knee that starts to really pound away as you do this meditation, that's a good thing. It's that you're actually bringing awareness to that part of the body and your mind is being able to then focus on that trauma, the inflammation, the healing that needs to take place, whatever it may be, without any of the other distractions or disturbances, so we can get a more accurate account of what needs to be healed. 

And we can then begin the healing. 
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Okay. So exhaling awareness onto the base of the feet. 

And as you inhale, scan the body upward, beginning of the inhalation, soles of the feet, and of the inhalation on the top of the head. 

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So the awareness moves with the inhale and exhale,
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 inhaling up the legs, to the hips, belly, digestion, organs, organs of circulation, the heart the lungs, throat, jaw, forehead, crown, full inhalation -- hold the breath here for a few moments
(pause)
and exhale slowly crown, forehead, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, jaw, throat, lungs, heart, digestive organs, organs of elimination, still exhaling sexual organs legs and feet. 

Hold the breath here again for a few moments
(pause)

inhaling slowly, slowly, slowly 

inhaling, scan the body when you're at the crown, pause for a couple of seconds and then exhale, slowly, slowly, slowly 
(pause)
scan the whole body all the way down.

Hold inhale hold slowly exhale inhale hold and exhale notice what a difference in the mind and the body that just three or four rounds make. 

Once familiar with how to get into this practice you can easily jump right into the breathing and simply notice how much of a difference you can feel after just a few short minutes of this practice.  

This is a two to three minute practice that can be utilized on the commute to work at work at home before bed upon rising in the morning, anytime that you're looking to stay in that state of the parasympathetic nervous system and that rest/restore state. And remember that's where we want to be as much as possible we want to try to stay in the parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system and away from the automatic nervous system because we then we're staying in a state of rest and restoration as opposed to a state of inflammation and stress. 

And whenever you would like to conclude this practice, simply open your eyes and return to normal breathing.  
