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Breathing Meditations

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Guided Meditation and Breath Practice for Balancing Your Energy

by Julie Peters

Start or end your day with this breath practice.

In yoga, it’s understood that you have three major channels of energy in your body. Ida, on the left side, is the lunar channel, related to coolness, calm, quiet, and the parasympathetic nervous system. The right side, pingala, is the solar channel, related to heat, energy, movement, and the sympathetic nervous system. These two channels wrap around the central channel, shushumna, where your most loving and creative energy flows. Balancing ida and pingala help us connect to the central channel. This meditation is safe for pretty much anyone to do at any time. It's excellent for starting your day and it's also quite effective right before bed to help let go of the day and prepare for sleep. 


Breathing for Mental Clarity

by Lara Ruddy 

A guided meditation to sharpen the mind.

Use this guided breath practice of Nadi Shodhana to improve mental clarity and focus by balancing the right and left hemispheres of the brain. In translation from Sanskrit Nadi is "channel" or "flow" and Shodhana is "purification". This can also be used to help relieve stress and anxiety as well as help maintain a balance of hormones.


Breathing for Better Digestion

by Lara Ruddy 

A guided meditation to ease tension in your abdomen.

The abdomen holds a majority of our digestive system but can also harness stress. Use this two-part guided breath practice when your digestion feels sluggish or your belly is wrapped up in anxiousness. Perfect for releasing tension, the second breath practice is also known to uplift your mood and purify the lungs. 


Instant Calm Breathing Meditation

by Julie Peters – January 03, 2019

A guided meditation to calm yourself.

Life can be overwhelming—perhaps especially during the holidays. If you feel like you are short-circuiting, take a time out to do this breath-focused meditation to calm your nervous system, give your mind a chance to rest, and soothe your internal systems in just a few minutes. You can do this meditation anytime, including right before you go to sleep at night. 


The Fullness of Emptiness: A Guided Breath Meditation

by Julie Peters – January 16, 2018

This guided meditation explores the bottom of the breath.

This guided meditation explores the bottom of our exhale. This can be very calming, as it tends to instigate the rest-and-digest nervous system state, but it can also be a little scary for some of us because it indicates an ending, the mini-death of the breath. Exploring how we feel when we are empty and not yet hurrying to fill ourselves up can be a valuable practice within the breath, and also within our lives. Please ensure you practice this is a gentle way: If breathing in this way becomes too stressful, breathe regularly. This practice may not be appropriate for pregnancy as it can affect blood pressure and oxygen intake.