11 Aug Wake Up Energised! Morning breathing exercises

You’ll be amazed at how doing just 5 minutes of morning breathing exercises first thing can transform your energy levels and make you feel so much more awake and ready for your day.

In yoga these breathing exercises are called ‘pranayama’. Prana in Sanskrit means vital energy and the practice of pranayama is a powerful way to supercharge your whole body with energy.

Try these 5 breathing exercises for 5 mins every morning for a week and you’ll feel for yourself the deeply grounding, invigorating and uplifting effects.

These morning breathing exercises are best practiced first thing when you’ve just woken up and before you’ve eaten anything. You can sit in bed, on the floor or on a chair, just make sure you’re comfortable and able to sit up straight. 

The insight timer app is a great tool for this practice. You can set it to 5 minutes with a chime each minute to tell you when to move on to the next breathing exercise. You could also use a stop watch (probably the one on your phone) and move on every minute to the next exercise.

Energising Morning Breathing Exercises

Spend 1 minute on each breathing exercise.

3 Part Breathing 

• As you take a deep breath in through your nose focus on breathing deeply in to your belly, expanding it like a balloon.
• As you continue to breathe in expand the breath to fill your chest and feel your rib cage expanding.
• Finally for the last part of your inhale visualise breathing up to your collar bones and feel your upper chest expand.
• As you breathe out feel the breath leaving first your collarbone and upper chest, then rib cage and finally the belly, letting them drop and relax.

Keep each breath smooth and deep and don’t struggle or force the breath. Just breathe as deeply as you can and enjoy the feeling of expansion and space in the lungs. Energising you for your whole day ahead.

Ocean Breathing

• Continue to breathe deeply as in your 3 part breathing.
• Create a slight constriction at the back of your throat so you hear a HAAAAAA sound as you breathe in and out.*
• Listen to the sound of your breath rolling in and out like an ocean wave or the sound of holding a shell to your ear.

*If you’re new to this breath practice begin by breathing in through your nose and out your mouth. Think about creating the HAAA sound like a big sigh, or fogging up a mirror, as you exhale. When you’ve mastered this close your mouth and continue to breath in the same way through your nose first on the exhale and then when you’ve got the hang of that on both the inhale and exhale.

count the breath

• Breathe in deeply through your nose as you count to 5.
• Breath out deeply through your nose as you count to 5.
• Continue to breathe like this, making every inhale and exhale last for the count of 5.

Skull Shining Breath

• Take a comfortable breath in through your nose.
• Begin short sharp exhales out of your nose, drawing your belly in quickly as you breathe out to help fully expel the air from your lungs.
• Your inhale is a passive reaction to this sharp exhale. As your belly relaxes the inhale will naturally follow.
• Count 30 short, sharp exhales, take a regular breath through your nose, then repeat twice more.

This is the most energising breath practice out there! 

Breath Meditation

• Let your breath flow naturally now with no effort at all.
• Take your full attention to your breath.
• Focus completely on your breath, letting everything else drop away.
• Sit here in silent meditation for a minute or as long as you like.

How do you feel after trying these morning breathing exercises? Energised, uplifted, calm or relaxed? Leave a quick comment below and let me know. I truly love hearing from you.

Ready for a longer yoga practice? What would be SO cool is if you practiced these breathing exercises and then went on to do my simple morning yoga routine afterwards! Have a great day yogis and if you’re not already signed up to my newsletter to receive cool stuff like this every week, well, what are you waiting for! Click here to sign up right now.