One Minute Breathing Meditation – Bhastrika
Recipe Key
This is a one-minute breathing meditation that calms you down and shifts your nervous system into rest and digest where health and healing occur naturally. It is incredibly simple and amazingly effective.
Bhastrika, or “bellows breath,” is a traditional breathing exercise in yoga that helps to increase Prana or life force in your being. You begin to feel from your heart rather than thinking from your mind.
This One Minute Breathing Meditation is 30 seconds Bhastrika Pranayama or Bellows Breath followed by 30 seconds sitting quietly in stillness.
Why Does the One Minute Breathing Meditation Work?
The bottom line is when we’re stressed the brain overworks. Thoughts become incessant and blood circulation and oxygenation to the brain become compromised.
Without adequate oxygen in the brain we become nervous, anxious, and feel unable to cope.
The One Minute Meditation literally pumps oxygen into the brain, delivering quick and effective relief for your stress.
Pumping oxygen into your brain fills your body with hormones that calm you down allowing you soothe your body, mind and spirit. It reconnects to your true self.
Since Bhastrika pumps lots of oxygen into your brain, you may even get a little dizzy at first. That will go away in a couple of days. That dizziness is not hyperventilation. The dizziness is because you are not accustomed to carrying a lot of oxygen in your brain.
When you have a lot of oxygen in your brain your nervous system calms down. Your brain starts thinking “wow I am not going to suffocate”. I don’t have to hold on and worry over every little thing.
You stop thinking, you connect to your true self, engaging your brilliance and creativity.
Benefits of Bhastrika Breathing
- Oxygenates the blood increasing the vitality of all the organs and tissues
- Calms the mind
- Shifts your nervous system into the calm restorative parasympathetic mode where health and healing occur naturally
- Improves digestion
- Drains excess phlegm from the lungs
- Decreases stress by shifting from sympathetic fight-or-flight
- Strengthens and tones the abdominal region
- Energizes the entire body and mind
- Reduces blood pressure
- Increases your energy
- Improves your ability to focus
How To Do The One Minute Breathing Meditation
Here is a video to guide you:
It consists of 30 seconds of fast—but deep—nasal breathing that literally pumps more oxygen into the brain followed by 30 seconds of sitting still with your eyes closed.
Do your best to keep your breathing from your diaphragm, keeping your head, neck, shoulders, and chest relatively still while your belly moves in and out.
- Set a timer for 1 minute.
- TAKE A BREATH, a deep strong short inhale through your nose, and then a FAST BREATH out through your nose pulling your stomach in. That is called the bellows breath or Bhastrika.
- Do Bhastrika breathing for 30 seconds or 30 breaths 1 second per cycle. You can count.
- Then sit and breathe normally, relax, be perfectly still, eyes closed, breathe naturally and notice your breath until your timer goes off.
- Slowly open your eyes, feel how much calmer you feel, how still your mind is. Amazing in just 1 minute.
I learned this powerful meditation from Dr. John Douillard. He recommends doing it 10 times a day to connect back to your true self but a few times a day is highly beneficial.
You can do it when you get into your car before you start driving. Doing it before you eat helps your digestion.
Years ago when I was going through some very hard times with my divorce I did it 10x a day and it made a huge difference in my life.
It also can be used at the start of any meditation to quiet your mind. If you have a lot of thoughts during your meditation do 10-20 seconds of Bhastrika to help your mind calm down.
See how it works for you; it just takes a minute. Notice the changes that occur.