Additional Support

Your Practice, Anywhere – Maintain Consistency. Get Inspired. Deepen Your Insight. Build Connections. 

TM APP 

Transcendental Meditation App on the Google Playstore. 

Transcendental Meditation App on the Apple Apps Store. 

Find Your Local TM Teacher

Continuing Education Courses

Yoga Asanas 

Pranayama 

Pranayama, or comfortable breathing exercise, is an ancient technique that enhances vitality and promotes longevity by encouraging slow, deep, and mindful breathing. It establishes regular breathing patterns, restoring natural rhythms to the body and mind, which can improve physical and mental health. Benefits include strengthened lungs and heart, improved digestion, purified nervous system, and increased energy.

How to practice pranayama:

1. Sit in a comfortable position on a chair or sofa and close your eyes.
2. Breathe in through both nostrils.
3. Close the right nostril with the thumb of your right hand and breathe out through the left nostril, slowly and completely.
4. Breathe in through the same (left) nostril and then close the left nostril with the ring and middle finger of the right hand while opening the right nostril to breathe out. Do it noiselessly, slowly, and completely.
5. Now breathe in again through the right nostril.
6. Breathe out and in through the left nostril while closing the right nostril; close the left nostril and breathe out and in through the right nostril.
7. Continue the same way for 4-5 minutes, at your own pace, breathing slowly, completely and comfortably.
8. To finish doing pranayama, after breathing in through the right nostril, release your hand and breathe out through both nostrils.

If at any point, the breathing exercise begins to feel uncomfortable, please do not strain to complete the full 4-5 minutes. In this case, take a momentary break and return to complete the 4-5 minutes whenever you feel ready.

Pranayama is believed to influence the autonomic nervous system, specifically the parasympathetic and sympathetic responses, which control the body’s stress and relaxation states.

Pranayama practices can be easily integrated into a daily routine and are particularly effective when performed before meditation.

Diaphragmatic Breathing 

Diaphragmatic breathing is about putting your attention on the diaphragm and making sure it is actually participating in the breathing process.

The diaphragm is a key muscle in the body, located between the thorax and the abdominal cavity, it is the engine of our breathing. If we are only breathing with the chest muscles, the breath can become shallow, or sluggish, which is not the most effective way to breathe.

Diaphragmatic breathing helps to deepen the breath, which can help with heart, lung, and respiratory problems. Normalizing breathing also settles the mind and body, which is helpful in preparing us for pranayama and meditation.

You can follow this simple process:

1. Start by sitting comfortably and easily in a chair and close your eyes. Put one hand on your chest (right or left is fine) – then put the other on your abdomen.
2. Inhale through the nostrils – feeling your abdomen moving out. As you inhale, you will also feel the hand on your abdomen moving outward.
3. Now exhale through your mouth, with a feeling of softly blowing on something. As you exhale, you will feel the hand on your abdomen moving in, towards your back. When you have done this 2-3 times, put your attention on your hand that is on your chest. You will feel it is not moving. It is the silent part. Do this for a few breaths, feeling that silent part.
4. Now have your attention on the softness of your hands (everything is happening with your attention). Your attention goes from one hand to the other, and in that attention, you will feel the softness, the easiness of the hands.
5. Then move to the feeling of the shoulders, as you continue to experience the inflow of air moving the abdomen outwards and the outflow of air moving the abdomen inwards.

With your attention on your shoulders, make sure they are not shrugged up or tense, that they are easy and relaxed. See that your arms are hanging from the shoulders relaxed, that everything is soft.

6. Then go to your face. Feel that your face is soft; your jaw is relaxed.
7. Then go back to your hands and do the same. Feel that your hands are soft and moving properly – this means that the hand on the abdomen is moving in and out, while the hand on the chest is settled and soft.
8. Then go back to your shoulders, and feel that they are soft, and then go to the face and jaw. Circle like this a few times, then put your hands down and slowly open your eyes, in a soft, slow way. No rushing. Take the breathing normally, as it is.

“You can do this at home, 3 or 4 times a day to re-enliven the muscle, it’s a muscle, like any muscle, and if we are under stress and strain it would have been a little more dormant. So we are awakening it and exercising it. So you can do this for 3 or 4 times a day for about 5 minutes each time. You can do it also before going to bed, or if at the beginning you feel that it’s not well coordinated, some people find that by lying down and putting the hands like this and doing the breathing, it’s maybe a little bit easier.”

– Dr Tony Nader