Category: Breath

Breath in – nasally.

Hold four counts, exhale by mouth,

hold four counts and repeat.

Use that diaphragm!  Rise and Fall!

Later, you increase the count!

*(I practiced this form of relaxation/concentration breathing infrequently in high school.  When, finally, I was blinded and deafened by a rocket-propelled grenade in a strange bunker (my first time in one at night) in Vietnam, I began “tasting” my face and chest and arms for a copper-presence signifying blood outside its usual bounds: so I began my yoga breathing game to slow both my heart and my breath in hopes of rescue.  I had been left alone and what happened next in my mystery play was up to me.  Within an eon or seven or six minutes, vision returned, and I searched for my flak jacket to wear over my head – my glasses and my rifle: hah! – I ran with unerring vision somehow straight to the command bunker and yelled my way inside…and then went back to breathing and counting…and have been doing so intermittently ever since!)