Sitali Pranayam

This breath is calming, cooling, and cleansing. It also gives you a feeling of vitality and personal power. 

Sit: comfortably in Sukhasana (easy pose) or at edge of a chair, sitting tall. Hands resting on knees. 

Gaze: eyelids are closed. Roll the eyes up to the third eye, between the eyebrows and up an inch, until you feel a gentle pressure around the eyes. 

Breath:
Inhale through the rolled tongue. 
Exhale through the nose. 

You can do this without a count, or you can count the length of your inhale and slow down your exhale to double that count. So if you inhale for 3 seconds, you'd exhale for 6 seconds. 

Time: At least three minutes. Can work your way up to 7, 11, 22 minutes. 

Tips: If you can't roll your tongue, put the tip of the tongue up right behind the teeth and inhale though the mouth. 

Breath Tips:   Enjoy these long deep breaths and make them last. There's no rush to get to the next breath. Soften the belly and let the diaphragm move down below ribs, allowing the belly to push out. We are filling up like a balloon, getting bigger on our inhale. The exhale isn't passive. We actively use our core muscles to draw the navel and sides back in firmly to squeeze out every last drop of air. 

Meditation for a Calm Heart

Sit comfortably with left hand over heart and right hand in Gyan Mudra, thumb to first finger. Eyes closed. Draw ears over the shoulders, giving you a gentle Jalandhar bandh, or chin lock. 

Breath: Inhale slowly through the nose, expanding horizontally 360 degrees. Suspend and hold the breath with full lungs for as long as possible. Lift the chest and pelvic floor.

When you can't hold the breath anymore and are starting to get that panicky feeling, exhale slowly and completely. Exhale until every drop of air is expelled from lungs, then hold the breath there for as long as possible. Then inhale slowly and repeat. 

Time: Set your timer for 3-31 minutes

Ending: Inhale and Exhale strongly 3 times, then relax. 

Benefits? It helps us see our relationships with others and ourselves more clearly.  It also cultivates calmness and increases lung capacity. If you are confused or upset with yourself or someone else, try this meditation.

Why hold my breath? It helps retrain the nervous system. When we hold the breath in, our heart rate and blood pressure rises, then when we hold the breath out, our parasympathetic nervous system turns on, calming us. Wherever we suspend the breath, we experience moments of Shuniya or zero. Shuniya is the deepest level of stillness into which you can plant new seeds of behavior, thinking, or way of being. 


Tips:

• One beauty of this meditation is that you won't be able to miss the feeling of your heart beat into your left hand. It instantly brings you into the moment and into your body. Soak that up and use it in this meditation. Notice how the heart rate changes whether you are holding the breath out or in. 
• Look into the center of your forehead with eyes closed ("Third eye") and soak up that shuniya, that sensation of zero, nothing, stillness. See that no thoughts (or very few) are crossing that internal movie screen.