Yoga & meditation: a simple desk series

I have taken it upon myself to be the Elevator Up yogi. After completing a 200-hour yoga teacher training program in 2016, I taught the team a few different ways to bring the yoga mentality into their workdays. Specifically, I taught them a few poses, a breathing exercise, and a simple meditation practice to help them find peace during a time that can get stressful. Today, I want to feature the breathing and meditation exercise.

You can do both of these exercises any time throughout the day. I prefer finding a closed door so that I don’t have to worry about being distracted. But if you don’t have access to an office or conference room, you can do these at your desk, in a meeting, or on a walk outside.

Belly Breathing

• Tune into your current breath pattern, and start to notice what it is like right now.
• Don’t try to control.
• Inhale to a count of 4 into your low belly and low ribs.
• Exhale to a count of 6.
• After 10 rounds, return to a normal breathing pattern .

“By stopping the activities of our minds and bodies… we become more solid, more concentrated, and more intelligent.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Simple Breath-Focused Meditation

• Close your eyes and bring focus to your breath. Don’t create effort or strain on the breath, just observe.
• Feel and observe the breath moving in and the breath moving out of your body
• Choose a physical spot to focus on the breath movement — your nostrils, your lungs, your chest.
• If you get distracted by any thoughts, release your attachment to them and bring the focus back to the breath.
• Stay here for 2–5 minutes
• If you feel like you’re going to fall asleep, practice with your eyes open, or focus on the inhalation which is the more energizing breath over the exhalation.

When you take time to pause with these exercises, you’re automatically reducing or even turning off the stress responses in your body. This can bring increased creativity, productivity, and clarity of mind to continue the day, or to wind down from it. I suggest finding a consistent time during the day and adding a calendar appointment for it. Try it each day for 1 week and see what you notice.

Tori, Studio Manager and Office Yogi

Originally published at blog.elevatorup.com.