The meditations I lead during TeleMeditation Retreats® emphasize simple yet effective breathing techniques to relax the body and prepare you for meditation. Proper breathing is vital; it’s considered the most important practice for healthy living. And when used in meditation or yoga exercise, it can even help to reduce pain. This is partly because muscles tend to relax when you exhale, and lengthening the time for exhalation can promote relaxation and reduce tension. When practiced with yoga, it can also help eliminate toxins.

Here is what one participant wrote immediately following her first experience in one of my teleconference meditation retreats:

“This was a very special meditation for me, Donna. One of the great benefits
was to realize how shallow my breathing had become these past few weeks.
Deep breathing is so important, and I thought I’d never forget that but now understand where some of my physical tensions were coming from!” –M.M., Michigan

This kind of awareness of the breath helps you to achieve calmer, slower respiration and aids in relaxation and pain management. The self-awareness that comes when you focus on breathing can have an overall protective effect on how you move your muscles and even help re-educate them to prevent actions that normally lead to pain.

For more in-depth training on correcting your breathing, I recommend the complete course of eight breathing exercises taught by bestselling author and influential physician, Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. Dr. Weil provides a practical introduction to this crucial aspect of self healing in this two-CD audio book, Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing (The Self Healing Series). He not only uses these techniques in his own life, but has prescribed them to hundreds of patients over the past two decades.

Dr. Weil describes the secret of breathwork in easy to follow terms. You’ll learn about the breath’s power over your health, and its remarkable ability to influence – and even reprogram – the nervous system. You’ll not only learn fundamental breathing exercises, but also be entertained with anecdotes from Dr. Weil’s medical practice.