Deep diaphragmatic breathing is very relaxing, and doing so before bed can help one get a good night's sleep.  Here is a practice from the Himalayan Yoga Meditation Tradition that can help one fall asleep and often results in deeper and more restful sleep.

In order to do this practice properly, some proficiency at diaphragmatic belly breathing is required.  Here are instructions for two easy diaphragmatic breathing practices, that will teach you to breath this way. Once you can breath diaphragmatically, then you are ready to begin the sleep practice.

Here's the sleep practice:

Lie in bed on your back, and begin diaphragmatic belly breathing in the corpse posture (as taught  Here)  for one minute. Then, continuing to breathe diaphragmatically, start breathing so that the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation.  In yoga, this is called 2:1 breathing.  Count the length of exhalation and inhalation seeking to exhale twice as long as you inhale.

Use an easy to accomplish count, such as exhaling to a count of 6 and inhaling to a count of 3, or exhaling 8 and inhaling 4. Your goal is to breathe in a relaxed way, smoothly and deeply, with exhalation twice as long as inhalation.  You are not trying to completely exhale nor completely inhale. 

Be aware of the sensation of the flow of the breath, and take care that the breath flows continuously without jerks, stops, or shakiness.  Pay special attention that there are no pauses between the exhalation and inhalation.

Breathe as follows:

8 breaths lying on your back
16 breaths lying on your right side
32 breaths lying on your left side

You may fall asleep before completing the exercise and this is fine.  This practice will often result in falling asleep and sleeping more deeply and with greater relaxation.

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This article is adapted from a practice set forth on page 197 of Freeom From Stress, by Dr. Phil Neurnberger, Himalayan Publishers.

A human being is a citizen of two worlds.  It is common in the current age to live only in the outer, physical-sensual world, with attention on body, relationships, career, pleasures and pains, and have little or no awareness that anything else exists.

Yet, something else does exist.  Something just as much "us", yet subtle, and the source of all joy and beauty in the world. There are many names for this subtle part of ourselves, "soul", "inner", "mystery", "spiritual", and more. One of the goals of the Himalayan Tradition is to know oneself on all levels, both the physical and the subtle.

Explorers of the Inner-World

For millennia, in their cave monasteries in the Himalayas, great souls delved into the inner-world through the practices of Yoga Meditation and claimed their full dual-citizenship.  After realizing their fullness, these Adepts went out as emissaries to teach what they learned, and the Himalayan Tradition spread from India across Asia and to the West.

The Teaching Lineage

The Tradition is handed down from teacher to student in a lineage — a river of wisdom and knowledge flowing through the ages.  Although the Tradition comes to us through time, it is not the musty knowledge of a bygone day, but timeless living wisdom as true today as it was in the moment of creation.  It is fresh and alive because of the existence of great adepts who attain Self-awareness and Self-mastery and verify and exemplify the Fullness accessible through the practices of the Tradition.

Swami Rama Bharati was such an adept, and he brought this particular stream of the Tradition to the World.  He left his body in 1996, and his disciples continue to teach.

One such disciple, Swami Veda Bharati, travels the world providing inspiration and guidance to thousands.  In addition to Swami Veda Bharati, highly qualified traveling teachers are available for special workshops worldwide.  Randall Krause, a 22 year disciple of Swami Veda Bharati and Director of the Himalayan Tradition's center in Los Angeles (Hym-la) teaches the Tradition and provides life coaching based in yoga wisdom through Hym-la.  See Randall's profile Here.

What the Tradition Teaches

The Tradition teaches all aspects of yoga, including the basic practices of meditation, deep relaxation, energized breathing, the physical hatha yoga practices, along with yoga philosophy, psychology, holistic health, diet, stress-relief, and meditative life-style.

About Hym-la

Hym-la (Himalayan Yoga Meditation Society of Los Angeles) is a California non-profit corporation, and is recognized by the IRS as a tax exempt, publicly charitable organization under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3).  All Donations made to this organization are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

Hym-la is officially recognized by, and affiliated with, the Association of Himalayan Yoga Meditation Societies International (AHYMSIN).  AHYMSIN and its affiliates are dedicated to imparting the teachings and training in Yoga and Meditation, in the Himalayan Tradition of Yoga Meditation, as interpreted by Swami Rama Bharati of the Himalayas.

©2009 Randall Krause

As the weeks passed and I continued to practice silence, the inner-television became less and less noticeable.  In its place, a quiet came into my mind, a quiet that was palpable and delicious.  It was so pleasurable that I'd sit for long stretches of time just listening to it.  When I'd take my daily walks, this inner quiet seemed to emit happiness, and I began experiencing everything as beautiful. 

Although years have now passed since that silence retreat, sometimes I can access the inner-quiet again, for a few moments, as if it abides in my mind underneath all the chatter and noise.  Hopefully, when next I'm fortunate enough engage in a long silence retreat, I'll be better at the discriminative vigilance, and will be able to mute the inner-television faster.  Swami Veda Bharati says that human personality changes very slowly, and my experience verifies this. So, learning to discriminate and concentrate takes time. Yet, in yoga, each incremental improvement yields great rewards.

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Randall Krause © 2004

Now I know why they call these fuzzy little balls dust bunnies.  Every morning I am greeted by a new brood of them on the floor of my cottage.  Somehow, they propagated in the night out of nothing, just like rabbits.  They are unsightly and I don’t want them in my house. 

So,  I take hold of the Indian-style broom, made of long grassy stalks bound together at one end, and begin the process of pushing the dirt and dust bunnies around on the floor.  The sweepers, the fellows who do this sort of thing for a living, are expert at getting the dirt to go in the direction they want it to go.  I am only partially successful, especially with the dust bunnies, which have no weight and often explode upon being touched into several smaller bunnies.

I start in one room and work my way through the cottage in a manner calculated to end at the front door where I can sweep the dust bunnies, bugs, and gritty dirt that accumulated overnight, out of the cottage. Having watched the sweepers, I know not to sweep in a straight line, but rather to move in a serpentine course, tacking back and forth across the line I want the dirt to move in and sweeping in that direction. 

I also know that it is essential to move very slowly, as if I were stroking the hair of one I loved, so as not to create wind currents that pick up the dust bunnies and carry them into other directions.  Sometimes I forget the method and try to sweep straight, which doesn’t work. Half the dirt ends up staying right where it started, or just blowing off to the side.  After a while, I manage to get the dirt to move, generally, as desired.  Then, once I get to the door, the next challenge begins, which is getting the dirt out the door.  This is a key time.  The door has to be opened ever so gently, and great patience has to be taken to tease the dirt and dust bunnies out the door so they don’t just pick up and resettle in a different part of my cottage.  Also, the wind has to be considered.   If it is a calm day, then I just have to pay attention to how I’m moving.  But on a windy day, if extreme care is not taken, the dirt just blows right back into the cottage before I’ve had a chance to get the door shut. 

I do not know where all of this dirt comes from.  It just is there in the morning.  When I’ve missed a day of morning sweeping, the floor really starts to pile up with bunnies and there are huge areas where the cream colored floor-tile is grey.  Then the dust bunnies end up in my socks, in and around my travel-bags, on my yoga mat, and many other places where I don’t want them.  Dust bunnies and gritty dirt just seem to be a given here in Rishikesh, like air, water, monkeys, and trees.

In a way, my daily battle with the dust bunnies is a lot like my daily quest to quiet my mind.  Every day, soon after awakening, I sit down and turn my attentions inward, to see what is in my mind, and every day, in some corners of my consciousness, I find bits of irritation, confused thoughts, envies, and other pains---the things that the science of yoga calls “afflictions” of the mind, that have somehow propagated in the night.  These little pains are the things that spoil my inner environment, and make living with this mind unpleasant.  If left alone, just like the dust bunnies, these agitations and irritations multiply and grow, and before long I find myself disturbed. 

Just as I like a clean house, I also like to feel happy.  A clean mind, according to yoga, is a pleasant mind, and a pleasant mind is naturally happy.  This is why people like my meditation teacher Swami Veda Bharati are so attractive; they are always happy.  A couple of days ago, when Swami Veda Bharati was speaking about silence, he said that the agitated mind is like agitated muddy water.  If the water is allowed to become still, the dirt settles, and then the water is clear and fresh again.  So it is with the mind. If the agitation is allowed to settle, the mind becomes still, then it becomes buoyant and I feel happy. 

Just like with sweeping, there is a method to stilling the mind.  In that same talk, Swami Veda Bharati said that one very simple method of silencing the mind is to repeat, over and over, a mantra.  He told us a mantra,  So Hum, and asked us to repeat it over and over---So on inhalation, and Hum on exhalation---mentally with no external sound, really focusing our minds on that sound.  The mantra "So Hum" is known as a Universal Mantra, that can be used by anyone safely.  After a few minutes, he asked us to stop repeating the mantra in our minds and experience what was there. My experience was that my mind was now very, very quiet and I felt absolutely wonderful.  At that point, Swami Veda Bharati told the group that the natural state of the mind is serenity and happiness, and that we don’t experience this when the mind is agitated.

So, just like with sweeping the cottage, there is a method to cleaning the mind:  The attention is put on a soothing inner sound that is repeated over and over for some time. 

There is one more similarity between cleaning my cottage and cleaning my mind.  It comes at the end, when the dirt is just about to be swept out the door.  Just like, in using the broom, I’ve learned that I have to exercise great finesse at this point, so that the dirt doesn’t come right back in, it is the same with meditation.  At the point where I am finishing practicing repeating the mantra in my mind, and going back to my daily activities, how I make the transition from meditation to the rest of my day can spell success or failure.  If, when finishing meditation, I pick up one of the thoughts I was agitated about and start obsessing on it, well, then the dirt has just blown back in.  Similarly, if the environment I’m in is exciting, I find that it is important to keep some of my attention on the inner-feeling of serenity that was just created and not completely throw my attention outside of myself.  If I do, it’s like the wind blowing into my cottage, and carrying all of the dust back in.  I’m sensitive after having meditated and it is easy to get very agitated at that point if I’m not careful. So, just like with sweeping, the final transition requires great finesse. 

©2009 Randall Krause

Have you ever seen how, when an infant breathes, its whole body expands and contracts?  The reason this happens is because infants breathe  with "diaphragmatic belly breaths"; the most efficient way to breathe.  As infants grow up, for reasons possibly having to do with emotional traumas, they often shift from belly breathing to chest breathing.  This is why most adults who have not been trained in breathing, breath by expanding and contracting their chest rather than their belly.

Before going any further, let's briefly look at how breathing happens.  The diaphragm, the principal muscle of breathing, attaches all around the peripherty of inside of the human torso, dividing the torso into two cavities, the upper, thoractic cavity, containing the heart and lungs, and the lower, abdominal cavity, containing the stomach, liver, gall bladder, kidney, intestines and other organs.  When the diaphragm is relaxed, it has a sort of double-dome shape with the top of the dome lying just below the lungs. When the diaphragm contracts, the domes flatten, stretching the thoractic cavity downward and stretching the lungs down, creating space inside of them, and this causes inspiration.  When the diaphragm relaxes, the natural elasticity of the structures surrounding the lungs causes the lungs to contract back into their initial shape, forcing the air out in exhalation. 

Whether we breath by expanding the belly or the chest depends upon which muscles other than the diaphragm are used when breathing.

Belly breathing is not only the way we are born breathing, but it is also the most efficient.  Belly breaths better use the portion of the lungs where there is greatest gas exchange, and also allow the breather to have a smooth and long breath.  This is why singers re-learn to breathe this way. The practioners of yoga discovered, through their experiements with their bodies, that belly breathing allows one to control his/her breath better, and also that doing so has a natural relaxing effect. This is why those who are trying to learn to relax are taught to belly breath.

Chest breathing, on the other hand, is not effecient and associates with agitation. When one chest breathes, the breath is not brought into the area of greatest gas exchange.  Also, there is a natural association between rapid chest breathing and excitement. So, if one wants to be calm, the better choice is belly breathing.

So how to do belly breathing?

Here are two simple exercises from yoga that will help one to re-establish the habit of belly breathing . The first is done lying on the belly in the crocodile pose (makarasana in Sanskrit).  The second is done lying on the back in the corpse pose (shavasana in Sanskrit).

1.  Diaphragmatic Belly Breathing in Crocodile pose:

Place a clean yoga mat or blanket on the floor, and lay down on your belly.  Cross your arms with one hand on each elbow, elbows on the floor about seven inches forward of the shoulders, and lay your head on your forearms.  The arms should be far enough forward of the shoulders so that your chest is slightly lifted off the floor, but not so far lifted that you can't comfortably place your head on the forearms. 

The legs are either spread apart in a "V" shape with the heals falling toward one another, or, if this isn't comfortable on the lower back, the legs may be together with the heals falling away from one another.

Breathe deeply and slowly and notice how as you inhale the belly presses against the floor, and how this pressure is diminished when you exhale.  If this is happening, you are belly breathing.  The crossed arms lock up the chest to some extent to encourage belly breathing.  Deepen and lengthen the breath if you can, and let it flow smoothly without jerks or stops. Seek to breathe so that the inhalation and exhalation are equal in length. 

Continue breathing like this for up to ten minutes, keeping your awareness on the smooth flow of the breath and the sensations of the belly pressing against the floor on inhalation and the pressure diminishing on exhalation.

If your mind wanders into thoughts, dreams, etc., bring it back to awareness of the sensations of breathing.

When finished, take a few moments to notice the effects of the practice, and then, with care, you may get up and carry on with your activities.

This exercise will help regain the habit of belly breathing if you do it daily for a month. As you practice, you'll find yourself able to belly breath at will. As you master breathing this way, you'll be able to belly breathe sitting up and even walking. Anytime you do, you'll likely feel more relaxed and energized.

2.  Diaphragmatic Belly Breathing in Corpse pose:

Lie on your back on a clean mat on the floor, or, if you are wanting to relax to go to sleep, you may lie on your bed.  Place the little finger of your left hand in your navel and spread the rest of the fingers of the left hand toward your chest on the upper abdomen.  Place the right hand in the center of your chest, between the breasts. 

Breathe deeply and smoothly, and notice whether your belly, chest or both move as you breathe, using your hands as guages.  The goal in this practice is to breathe as if into and out of your belly, so your left hand on the belly rises on inhale and falls on exhale.  The right hand, on your chest, should remain relatively still. Your habit might be to breathe in a different way, such as with your chest rather than belly.  If so, it might take some experimenting on your part to breathe this way.  Take time experimenting and be gentle with yourself, and you'll learn to breathe so your belly rises on inhale and falls on exhale. Seek to breathe smoothly, without any pauses or stops in the breath, with inhalation and exhalation equal in length.  Practice breathing this way for five or ten minutes.

When finished, take a few moments to notice the effects of the practice, and then, with care, get up and carry on with your day.

These exercises will help regain the habit of belly breathing if you do one of them daily for a month. After some practice, you'll find yourself able to belly breath at will. As you master breathing this way, you'll be able to belly breathe sitting up and even walking. Anytime you do, you'll likely feel more relaxed and energized.

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Thanks to Dr. Paul Emerson for his invaluable feedback on this article.

The instructions for corpse pose breathing were adapted from the book Freedom From Stress, by Dr. Phil Neurnberger.

A source for this article and an excellent reference book on the structures and processes of breathing is Yoga Anatomy, by Leslie Kaminoff

Please see www.hymla.com for more articles and information. 

Randall can be reached directly at twitter @hymlayoga and by email at Randall@hymla.com.

©2009 Randall Krause

Want a quick recharge? 

Here’s a method. It comes from the ancient and timeless Himalayan Yoga Tradition and is easy to do.  All it involves is sitting comfortably for three minutes and following the directions in the following paragraphs.  Interested?  Let’s get started:

Instructions for three-minute refresh

Sit on the end of your chair-seat (so your back can be erect and relaxed rather than slouching) with feet on the floor and hands resting on your thighs.  Gently close your eyes, and establish smooth, slow, diaphragmatic belly breathing, so that your belly expands as your inhale and contracts as you exhale.

Briefly scan your body for tension, relaxing it as you go, beginning with the face, jaw, throat, shoulders to fingertips, fingertips to shoulders, center of chest, belly, thighs to toes, and then back up the way you came.  Continue the diaphragmatic breathing.

The goal is to have a relaxed soft body sitting erect on the end of that chair seat.

Now turn your attention back again to your breath, and feel sensation of the flow of it, how it flows in, expanding your belly, and flows out as your belly gently contracts. 

Resolve that for the next two minutes you will keep your attention only on that sensation of the flowing breath and nowhere else (knowing that if your attention does wander--which is likely-- you’ll bring it back to feeling the flowing breath as soon as you wake up and notice).

Then take two minutes and simply feel the sensations of breathing.

At the end of the two minutes, return your attention to your whole body, and slowly open your eyes, and notice what effect the exercise had on how you feel.

You are welcome to do this several times a day, especially whenever you start feeling a little tired or stressed, and notice what effect the practice has on your wellbeing.

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