Please, this activity involves breath holds so NO actively PREGRNANT, those with uncontrolled high blood pressure, or uncontrolled epilepsy.

Deep Conscious Breathing is an amazing tool to reduce stress, anxiety, and pain. This 45/75/90 second session involves 3 rounds of breathing with successively longer breath holds.
Each round consists of 2 minutes of controlled conscious breathing, followed by a 45/75/90 second out breath hold, followed by a 20 second in breath hold. These rounds are designed to warm up the participant to longer breath hold periods. It is not necessary to hold your breath for the entire time for each round. Go to your edge, push yourself a few heartbeats, then go into your in breath hold. Then wait for the recording to catch up for the next round while breathing normally. It is important to remember that these are diaphragmatic breaths, belly, into the ribs, then up to the chest. Without force, meaning you can bring more air in if you tried. You should be able to maintain a relaxed posture, with the back of your neck remaining long and your shoulders down. If they start to creep up it is a sign you are trying too hard. The out breaths are strong but not full, you should have ~20% air left in your lungs, its more like you are popping the lid off your lungs and letting the air out and helping it a little.
Method:
1. 2 minutes of controlled conscious breathing, full diaphragmatic breaths (belly, ribs, chest)
2. Breath out (leaving 20% air in your lungs) hold [45sec/75sec/90sec]
3. Breath in hold (~20sec)
Repeat for 3 rounds. This takes about 10-15 minutes to complete depending on how long you linger in your meditation at the end of the session.


Notes: Make your breath circular, remove pauses and holds between your in and out breaths, flow cleaning in to and out and out to in. Add visualizations of space, energy, and oxygen making new space in your body and opening up areas of tightness when breathing in. And stress, carbon dioxide, and pain leaving your body. Your mind is an incredible tool to make physical actions more successful if you add your mind's focus to an area.