This month, I want you to focus on your breath. There are many reasons why breath is incredibly important, and they are all worth outlining briefly. One of the best ways to describe breath is as the link between your mind and your body. When you are stressed mentally, your breath becomes short and shallow, which causes your body to become tight and tense. The good news is that you can utilize your breath to calm your mind.

Breath sustains life in a physical sense. Imagine you have a beaded necklace, held together by a string. The string isn’t really visible, but it needs to be there in order for the necklace to exist. Breath is like that string that holds the beads together. Your body and mind and all their components hang on that invisible string. When the string breaks, or breath stops, then a person is gone. To have a strong breathing pattern is very important since it is the power behind your physical existence.

Mentally, breath has the power to ease and quiet the the mind, which has a tendency to move from one thing to another continuously. It needs things to hang onto, normally your thoughts. When you breathe, air is constantly moving in and out, out and in. Essentially, your mind actually finds it convenient to focus on your breath and move with it. The best way for your mind to get the movement it wants and remain calm at the same time is to focus on the breath.


Related: Not ready to meditate for 10 minutes? Start with 5!


From breath, you also get prana. The easiest way to explain prana is to say that when you breathe in, you’re taking in not only oxygen, but also a cosmic energy called prana in which everything is sustained. When you take a breath in, you take the prana into yourself, and that in turn energizes your whole body.

Lastly, I want to point out that in this meditation, you’ll hear me introduce the concept of chakras. Chakras are the energy centers located at various points on your body. Ideally, you want them to be open, but they can be blocked or out of alignment, meaning energy is not flowing freely through them. Through this process of being more aware of your breath, you are energizing, unblocking, and balancing your chakras. As you can see, there are quite a few benefits to focusing on breath. It takes time and practice to fully understand them all, but this 10-minute meditation will start you off on that journey.

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