Our breathing often becomes shallow, strained, or restricted throughout the day without us even realizing it. Try this easy, slow, deep breathing technique to soften, relax, and expand again.
Thanks to the autonomic nervous system, life-sustaining processes such as heartbeat, digestion, and respiration occur without the need for attention. But our environment, stress levels, and other factors can certainly affect the health and efficiency of these processes.
for example sat hunched over at our desks and looking at screens often means our breathing becomes shallow and irregular – which of course affects things like concentration, energy, cognition and focus.
This week, Shamash Alidina is doing a guided breathing exercise called Light, Slow, Deep (or LSD), designed to tune the breath in a way that opens the chest, relieves tension, and calms the nervous system.
Most of us breathe backwards: too hard, too fast and too hard. We catch our breath without realizing it. Breathing in LSD is an invitation to do the opposite.
- Light means breathing with softness, delicacy, as if breathing barely disturbs the air around you.
- slowly means lengthening each breath, giving the nervous system time to settle, like a pendulum swinging wildly, gradually finding its fixed point.
- Deep means breathing low in the lower abdomen, not in the chest, but down where the lungs are most spacious and efficient.
Together, these three qualities activate your parasympathetic nervous system—the calm, resting, and digesting part of you that is so often crowded out by the noise of the day. Think of it like turning down the volume on a radio that’s playing too loud. You’re not turning it off, you’re just taking it to a softer, more natural level.
Light, Slow, Deep (LSD) Breathing Meditation
Read the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
- Start by finding a comfortable position. You can lie on a chair with your legs crossed on the floor. You can even stand and just move carefully. Anything that allows your body to feel supported and light.
- The breathing pattern we will use today is simple. Inhale for a count of four, a gentle pause, then exhale for a count of six. Exhaling a little longer is the key. Longer exhalations directly stimulate the vagus nerve, signaling to the entire system that you are safe. So there is no need to force anything, you just allow.
- Let’s get started. First, take one natural breath. Nothing needs to be changed yet.
- Now place one hand on your lower abdomenjust below the navel. This is your anchor, and as you breathe in, you aim to feel that hand rising like a tide. As you exhale, the hand goes down, the tide goes away.
- Continue with this easy breathing. Inhaling softly through the nose, feeling the expansion of the lower abdomen. After two, three, four, pause. And exhale slowly. Two, three, four, five, six. And then a pause. In, two, three, four, and out, two, three, four, five, six
- Breathe in easily and steadily, like warm mists rising from still water. Exhale, the breath melts. Softening of the body.
- If there is a tendency to grip or control during breathingsee if you can loosen your breath hold by just a few percent. On inhalation, the lower abdomen rises. The chest barely moves, the shoulders are down.
- Remember to keep exhaling longer than inhaling. All the way to the end. When you inhale, receive the breath, not inhale it. Exhale and let go. Not pressing, just letting the air escape naturally.
- Now let your breath find its natural rhythm. Your job is simply to notice it now as a witness, not as a controller. When thoughts arise, and they will, treat them like clouds passing across a still sky. The sky does not chase the clouds, does not argue with them, but simply holds them. Lets them be there and they come through.
- Feel how each full cycle of breath makes you a little more still, just a little more calmly. Like sediment that slowly settles to the bottom of a glass of water. The water does not try to clear itself, but simply rests. And a certain clarity comes naturally. Breathing is slow, light, low. Exhaling slowly. There is nothing to achieve and nowhere to go. Breathing just happens – as it has effortlessly all your life, long before you even think about it.
- One way to breathe easy is to breathe quietly. See if you can breathe so quietly that you can hardly hear your own breathing. When you do this, you may feel a small amount of air hunger, a tiny desire to breathe more. And it is quite natural. Actually, that’s a good sign. You restore the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body. More oxygen gets to your cells and yours the brain if you breathe easily.
- If you don’t force yourself too muchyou may notice a little more saliva in your mouth, a little more warmth in your hands and feet, maybe. This is a sign of active relaxation, a sign that you are going in the right direction.
- As we come to the end of the practice, begin to notice the quality of your mind right now. Is it quieter than when we started? More spacious? Breathing LSD doesn’t create this silence, it reveals it. Silence always hid under the movement. Breathing simply clears the way. Breathing is light, slow, deep. And exhale, releasing all the last effort.
- Remember that you can come back to this breath at any point in your day –on the train, at the table, before a difficult conversation. Does not require special equipment. Just a few moments.
- When you are ready, slowly open your eyes if they were closed. Bring the outside world back into yourself and bring that quality into your day. Well done, you gave yourself 12 minutes of real rest. Thanks for joining me.
