Calming the Brain Fast!: Mouth Breathing

In general, most meditation schools will say that breathing through the nose is best for meditation and for the most part I would say that this is true.
However, there are specific advantages that can be gained from deliberately meditating whilst breathing through the mouth. One reason for this is that breathing through the nostrils has a directly stimulating effect upon the brain as the air passes through the nasal cavities, which are directly beneath the left and right hemispheres of the brain. When we breathe through the mouth our breathing no longer stimulates the brain in such a way, and so it can be easier for us to move into a relaxed and non-conceptual state of mind relatively quickly.


Here is a ''mouth breathing'' meditation that you can try:
Sitting comfortably with a naturally straight back, begin consciously breathing through your mouth in a natural and comfortable manner. As you do so, feel your brain moving into a state of deep relaxation, almost as if it were like a computer that you are putting into ''sleep'' mode; it is still switched on and partly alert, but moving into a deeply relaxed and non-conceptual state. Simply focus your mind on the breathing in this way, consciously allowing energy to flow through the brain without it stimulating conceptual thoughts.
You can do this as a meditation in itself (for as long as you like), or you can use it as a preliminary technique to calm your mind before going on to do your main meditation.
For the insomniacs amongst us, it can be a good one to do as you are lying in bed at night to help you fall asleep!

Variation:
One thing that you can happen with mouth breathing is that you may find that your concentration becomes a little dull, or goes a little too far toward a sleep state. If you find this to be the case, try this as a balancing breathing pattern; Breathe in through your nose, as you do so feel energy and light spiralling down into your chest, lungs and body, revitalizing and reinvigorating them. Then breathe out through your mouth, consciously relaxing the brain and other areas of your body. This pattern of breathing helps us find the ''middle way'' between alertness and non-conceptual relaxation.

Inner Smile Meditation

We have been doing quite a lot of meditation with the inner smile recently in classes, please find below a brief meditation on the inner smile that can be integrated into your daily routine easily:

The expression on our face is always an indicator of how we are feeling (unless we are deliberately trying to hide how we feel). When we are happy and relaxed, our face becomes relaxed and open. When we are tense or unhappy our face becomes tense and serious. Consciously generating the energy of a smile is a very simple and powerful way of helping to transform difficult and negatively charged energies in our body and mind by sending the energy of our smile to them.

Here is a simple form of this exercise:
Firstly, sit in a comfortable meditation posture, breathe and relax.
Direct your attention to your face, consciously relax all the muscles in the face from the forehead to the bottom of the chin.
Raise the corners of your mouth up a few millimeters, so that your facial expression becomes that of a half smile. Feel the energy of this smile spreading through out your whole face.
Now feel the energy of your inner smile gathering within your third eye area (between the eyebrows), once it has gathered there feel it flowing backward into your brain, head and neck areas. As you send the energy of your smile to your brain and other parts of your head and neck, feel them smiling back to you.
Now smile down into your heart, lungs and other areas/organs in your chest. Feel them filling with the light and energy of your inner smile, see and feel them smiling back to you.
Now smile down into your abdominal organs, liver, stomach, digestive system, pancreas, kidneys, sexual organs and so on. Feel the light of your inner smile filling them with light and warmth. Feel them smiling back to you.
Now send the energy of your inner smile out to your limbs, hands and fingers, feet and toes. Feel all the cells of your body filled with the energy of your inner smile, feel your whole body smiling back to you.
Conclude by spending a short while sitting with the feeling of well being that has resulted from your practice of smiling.