The objective of meditation is to quiet our mind and stop some of the stray thoughts that pass through our mind from occurring – at least for the length of time we’re meditating and ideally for longer.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to focus on our breathing. If you’ve listened to a guided meditation session (or a hypnosis one for that matter), you’ll have noticed that most of them start with “take a deep breath”. The idea of this is to help you to start to relax. The meditation process works a lot better when you’re relaxed and taking a handful of deep breaths will start this process.
Even if you’re not about to start a meditation session, you’ll find that practicing a simple breathing exercise will help you to relax and be calmer.
One breathing exercise is to pretend that you breathe in air through your mouth or nostrils and exhale it through the soles of your feet. You can visualize the air that is being breathed out, carrying all the toxins and worries out of your body with every exhalation.
Another way of visualizing whilst you learn to breathe is to practice breathing in very gently (in contrast to the sounds of breathing that are often used in guided meditations). Imagine that there’s a feather or another equally light object just in from of your mouth. Practice breathing gently so that the imaginary object doesn’t move when you inhale or exhale. Concentrate on your breathing – not so hard that your head hurts, just do your best to make your breathing the sole focus of your attention.
There are other methods of breathing meditation. One of the best beginner’s courses I’ve found is at:
https://learnaboutmeditation.com/secrets.html
It comes with a good introduction to the subject and several guided breathing meditations that take you gently through the simple methods that you need to use to start meditating.
