Meditation For Healing Anxiety

Chronic anxiety can take on a lot of different forms and levels of intensity. Today we're going to mainly focus on a practice for healing chronic low-grade anxiety. This practice is not meant to treat more serious mental health issues, so please seek the advice of a medical professional if you suspect you need it.

I've struggled with chronic anxiety as far as I can remember. Meditation has helped me immensely to work more skillfully with the anxiety I experience on a daily basis, and even to find some actual healing and transformation. In particular there have been two types of meditations that have helped me the most, and these fall into the categories of somatic awareness practices as well as breath-work practices that involve deep abdominal breathing and sometimes breath holds.

We’re going to explore a breath-work practice involving breath holds. I first learned this practice with my main Buddhist Mentor Tsoknyi Rinpoche. You can learn more about him at fullybeing.org.

This practice is derived from a Tibetan Buddhist breath-work practice called Bumchen (pronounced boom-chen). Bumchen roughly translates as Vase Breathing in English. There are a variety of Bumchen breath-work practices in Tibetan Buddhism. Some are more advanced techniques found in the Vajrayana methods of Tibetan Buddhism, and some are found in the Tibetan medical tradition. We are going to work with a type of Vase Breathing practice from the Tibetan medical tradition meant more as a healing practice.

As a healing practice Vase Breathing is focused around drawing the upward moving wind energy down below the navel. When the upward moving wind energy is imbalanced or excessive, this subtle energy tends to increase our thinking, felt speediness, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm. Many people suffer from this kind of imbalance in the modern world because we often live speedy, busy lives, and tend to prioritize thinking over feeling. So we're going to work with a practice to bring the speedy energy down via the breath, helping this energy find its way back home below the naval area.

Please prepare a seat for meditation. Find a posture where you can sit upright yet relaxed. If you’re sitting in a chair it’s good to sit towards the front of the chair so the spine and back are free. You're welcome to close your eyes or leave them open for this practice.

To start we'll just simply begin to connect with the breath as it passes in and out of the nose. Allow the breath to enter and exit the nose in a relaxed easeful way.

As you begin to connect with the breath we're going to start to draw the inhalation into the lower abdomen. Obviously the literal breath isn't going there, but we want to feel as if it is. So on each inhalation we're going to begin to expand the lower abdomen. On the exhalation allow it to contract towards the spine. Allow the breath to be natural, gentle, and relaxed, breathing in and out at your own pace.

On the inhalation it’s almost as if you are filling a balloon in the lower abdomen. On the exhalation allowing the lower abdomen to contract back towards the spine. There's a little bit of muscular effort here but see if you can do it in a relaxed way.

When we're first learning this type of lower abdominal breathing it can be challenging to allow the musculature to expand on the inhalation and gently contract to the spine on the exhalation but just try your best. The main thing is to stay relaxed and allow the breath to be drawn as low as you can below the navel.

An additional tip is to allow the perineum to also be relaxed, open and spread so when you're breathing in below the navel there's a “balloon” or a “vase” being filled all the way down to the perineum where your seat meets the chair or cushion below you.

When you start to feel comfortable with that you can introduce a breath hold after expanding the lower abdomen. So breathing in, filling below the navel into the lower abdomen/pelvic area, hold the breath. No need to hold for too long, 5 to 10 seconds is enough as we’re learning. Then breathing out from the nose allowing the abdomen to contract to the spine. Then again breathing in and holding.

Repeat this for 5 or 10 minutes. Breathing in, expanding the lower abdomen, holding. Then breathing out and repeating.

I recommend holding the breath long enough to focus your attention and energy below the navel, but not so long that you have to stop the practice in between breathes or gasp for air. All should be relaxed, gentle, and smooth.

Allow the chest and shoulders to be relaxed. Try not to hold tension in the upper body. There's no need to hold for super long. Hold as long as is comfortable for you. The main thing is to make sure each inhalation is going below the navel, and you're holding the energy there with awareness. If you feel tension try to relax with or around the tension.

Some beneficial side effects you'll start to notice are less tension in the upper body, more relaxation, perhaps even some sleepiness. Sometimes the head may start to feel more open and less cluttered, almost as if a weight is being lifted off your head.

As the wind energy is able to move down to its home below the navel you'll be able to hold the breath for longer periods of time, but the main point is to use the hold to help relieve the symptoms of anxiety which comes from this wind energy being excessive in the upper body.

To close the practice allow the breathe to pass in and out of the nose normally. You can still breathe deep into the lower abdomen if you want, but it’s not necessary to hold it.

Notice how you feel. What's shifted for you? For some of us it may take a little more time to feel some of the benefits. You may need 15 minutes or longer per session. Nonetheless just notice how the body feels right now.

Some signs that we need to work more on relaxing the body during the practice are: tightness in the chest, light headedness, or no decrease in anxiety. Adjusting the body to the practice can take some time, please be patient with yourself.

I hope the practice was helpful for you. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or if you need some more support in your practice.