Freud, Frankl, and Absolute Truth

Please watch the video below.

The Physical Level of Meditation

Welcome to Psych Naw’s Mindfulness and Meditation module. Being that meditation and mindfulness are more of a practice than anything else, parts of this video will be conducted as an active meditation, complete with chill ass music and breathing and what not. So, feel free to relax and get into it. And if you’re like working or driving you can listen, but obviously can’t do it along until you get home so you don’t crash or get fired. Feels dumb to have to say that, but you know.

We’re gonna do something of a warm-up to get started. But before we do, let me say that this series of 3 videos will break meditation down into three distinct levels that correspond with what a person might ultimately want to achieve. The first, or physical level, is the simple relaxation of the mind and body. The second, or cognitive level, is to help sharpen or discipline the mind so that we can enjoy the benefits of meditation in the space of time outside of its practice. And the third, or spiritual level, is for spiritual or life fulfillment.

 A lot of the weirdness around meditation has to do with the fact that we are seeking help on the first, or physical level, but are watching stuff about the spiritual practice of meditation and get all flustered and weirded out. Or maybe we want the benefits of the spiritual level of practice but are only doing stuff from level one and get all confused that way, thinking it “just doesn’t work for us.”

Almost everyone I talk to about meditation, who has tried it, usually says something to the tune of “but I’m really just not good at it. I can’t do it…or, sometimes it doesn’t work for me!” these kinds of issues will be addressed in the second and third videos. For now, we’re just going to a very basic foundation so we can get started and gauge where we are at before trouble shooting our “issues” at the different levels.

Like we already said, a lot of people try to just jump into meditation without addressing the fundamentals. You can focus on the breath all you want, but if you’re not breathing right, you’re kinda fighting an uphill battle. So, being that this is the physical level, we are going to make sure we’re breathing properly before getting into the other stuff. And you may be thinking…breathing properly? Pretty sure I’m breathing right now…hehehe. And you no doubt are, however…there is a ton of research on how the way people breathe affects them. Breathing in through the nose versus the mouth. Pulling in through the chest versus into the diaphragm. There is even a clear cut relationship between how many breaths you take per minute and things like your heart rate, they way your heart beats, blood flow, lung function, digestion and a ton of other important health stuff that we probably just take for granted.

Think of it this way. How you eat is important. If you eat like shit, you will at some point end up feeling like shit. The same applies to breathing. Even though it seems like there is nothing to it, there most certainly is. I mean if you think about it, you can go without food for weeks or months, but we can only last around 3 minutes without breathing, so we might as well be doing it right.

And even though the science behind breathing it gets super technical and tricky, the practice of breathing properly is really simple and anyone can do it.

So, let’s spend a few minutes getting into the rhythm of slow and proper breathing. If you can do this lying down that’s great, but if you’re sitting that’s fine too. Just make sure your spine is as straight as possible without tensing yourself up.

First just close your eyes and notice the way you’re breathing. Place a hand on the chest and another hand on the belly. Notice that parts of your body that rise and fall with your breathing. Is your chest rising when you breathe? Or is the area surrounding your belly rising? Try to relax and pay attention to what’s going on with your body while you take a few more breaths in and out, letting go of any tension or thoughts about what you are doing. We’re just paying attention right now. We’re noticing.

Ideally, we want the area below our rib cage, call it your belly, to be rising first when we breathe. But to do this we need to relax and soften our core. So, let’s do this. Let’s give it a try. Exhale all the air in your body. No need to force it or strain, just relax and let it out.  

Now, keeping one hand on the chest and another on the belly, inhale slowly through your nostrils. And as you inhale through your nostrils imagine that there is a balloon right at the bottom of your rib cage filling as you breathe, which we can feel as our belly rises… And exhale through the mouth relaxing the body, letting the belly fall as the air leaves us…and back in through the nose, filling the balloon as we pull the air a little deeper down into the kegels or taint area…and back out through the mouth…Take a few more breaths like this and just play around. If your chest is feeling tense that’s okay, just relax the body and breathe a bit more slowly. There’s no need to pull the air in with any force whatsoever. All we gotta do is send it down to the belly and make sure that the belly is rising before the chest..keep breathing, keep feeling the belly rise and fall…we’re going to do a few more breaths, but these are going to be big ones. Keeping the hands in place, belly and chest, draw a big, full breath in through the nose as much as you can into the belly and you might notice that the chest also rises after we fill our bellies. This is good. There’s nothing wrong with feeling an expansion in the chest while breathing as long as the lungs are being supported by the diaphragm. Two more breathes. In through the nose, filling the belly, chest expands, and release….Last one…in through the belly…pulling air down to the kegels filling the entire body with air, and back out through the mouth….GONG….

So, just to recap, there is nothing wrong with activating the chest while breathing, but we just shouldn’t lead with the chest because that’s the job of the diaphragm. A lot of us, due to stress and what not, adopt a pattern of chest breathing, where we lead the breathing process using the upper portion of the lungs that are really just there to lend the diaphragm a hand when we get over exerted and need more air, like if we’re exercising or something.  Chest breathing is like running a house on a tiny back up generator when we can be tapping into the powerlines instead.

And it makes sense that we do this considering all we ever hear about are the lungs when it comes to breathing. Though it helps to think of it this way. The lungs are more like a laboratory. They are there to process the air we take in, absorbing all of the oxygen molecules and getting them into the bloodstream while at the same time, getting rid of any excess CO2. The diaphragm, located at the bottom of the rib cage above the stomach is meant to pull in the air, so that it can be delivered to the nerdy scientists working in the lungs. When we pull air into our bodies using just the chest, we are forcing the nerdy scientists of the lungs to do the heavy lifting that should be reserved for the jacked, chad-like teamsters that make up the diaphragm.

What’s happening when we belly breathe is that the diaphragm is expanding in the front, the sides, and back of our body, a full 360 degrees, and when we release it, letting go of the breathe, it acts like a pump, moving any excess CO2 out of our lungs which in turn allows the lungs to absorb more oxygen, which in turn helps the heart relax since it doesn’t have to work as hard to move oxygen through the blood, which in turn chills out the nervous system, which in turn chills us, the person, out.

Now, that’s one piece of the puzzle. And I encourage everyone to practice that throughout the day. Don’t stress on it, just try to be conscious and see what happens.

The other piece is how many breaths we take per minute. A nice pace for meditation is six breaths per minute. And if you do 7 or 5 that’s fine. Nothing to freak out about, but six is just easier to track given that a minute is sixty seconds.

So, let’s do two minutes of slow, diaphragmatic breathing and see what’s good. And again, no need to get this perfect. Just try to relax and play around with it.

Try to keep one hand on the chest and one hand on the belly and breathe along with me.

(two minute slow breathing exercise)

And slowly open your eyes.

Close your eyes and take a nice easy breath in…and let it out…And back in through the nose. And out through the mouth. Continue to breathe like this. Very simple. As you breathe in notice what’s happening in your body. The chest rises, and then the belly. And then they fall when we breathe out. If you only feel expansion in your chest, see if you can relax and divert that breath down into your diaphragm, which is what makes the belly expand. Not straining, or trying to suck as much air in as possible, just take what you need. In through the nose, filling the belly, and back out through the mouth or nose.  As you continue to breathe like this…In through the nose and out through the mouth. Scan your body for any physical or mental tension. As you exhale, see if you can soften these areas of tension, letting go of any tightness you might be holding in your jaw, neck, chest, back, or legs, just let it all soften as you release your breath. Feel yourself expand as you breathe in, and then softening and letting go as you breathe out…Imagine pulling a current of air in from the space around…and then letting that same air back out into that space as you breathe out. Imagine all the tension and worries attaching to that air as you breathe it in and leaving your body as you exhale and let go. Take a few more breaths like this as you feel the surface of whatever you’re lying or sitting on. The force of the ground under your feet, the seat under your butt or whatever you’re lying on. Just notice what that feels like for a moment as we continue to breathe. Thoughts might arise, but no need to engage. Just notice them, just like you’re noticing whatever is beneath you as they are just another thing we can be aware of. Take a few more breaths and open your eyes when you are ready.

Okay. So that’s a very basic form of meditation. Just relaxing, noticing stuff, and letting go of tension. And honestly, you could stop the video right here if you want to and just do that for five minutes a day and you’ll be better off as you are now a master of the first, or physical level, of meditation. Doing this helps people sleep better, lowers blood pressure, reduces stress, and all of that other good stuff. Just learning how to breathe properly and making a habit of it helps as well. And if you want to be a level one all-star, download the “mindfulness bell” app onto your phone (it’s free) and set an alarm to go off every one or two hours or so throughout the day. When the bell goes off, take a second, acknowledge whatever you are thinking or feeling, scan for physical tension, and then do this kind of meditation for 3-5 minutes…or even for one minute…and you will significantly lower your stress throughout the day. And brother…that’s a guarantee.  

Maybe you’re thinking…wait…that’s it? That’s so simple! And you’re right. Meditation, the practice, is very, very simple. There’s nothing really to it other than breathing, relaxing, and noticing what’s coming up. But…our minds, in this relaxed state, usually for some reason start to protest…we get bored…we make judgements, we assess whether it is working, or whether or not it meets or exceeds our expectations—mind you, none of this mind stuff has anything to do with the simple practice of meditation…as we’ll see…if anything, it only makes it more difficult.

In the next video we’re going to descend into the depths of the cognitive level. We did a good job relaxing and releasing tension today, but maybe we can figure out how to not create so much tension in the first place—but to do this we need to learn how to deal with the mind. In the next video, which will be significantly longer and a bit more complicated, we will learn begin the path of mental mastery, of organizing our thoughts and feelings within the context of our awareness, rather than our default mode which is the other way around.  Be brave, for in the next video you are to enter the ranks of the level two meditator, the level of the mind. See you there.