Overcome Fear with a Simple Breathing Exercise

Fear can be an extremely paralyzing experience. One traumatic event can affect a person's entire life. In Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is believed that too much fear causes an energy imbalance in the body that leads to disease. These eastern traditions created very simple meditation techniques to combat and control harmful emotions such as fear.

In Ayurveda, they recommend pranayama yoga exercises to control the breath, vital energies, and emotions. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, they recommend QiGong exercises. Essentially these two meditative practices accomplish the same things. They're looking to balance the emotional system within the body so we can feel healthy, happy, and stress free. Pranayama means “control of the breath or vital energy.” The word 'Prana' is breath and/or the vital energy that runs the body. The word 'ayama' means to control. QiGong means “vital energy cultivation.” The word 'Qi' means vital energy and 'Gong' means 'cultivate.'

These two meditative practices have worked well for combating stress and fear for thousands of years in eastern healthcare systems. The energetic component of these traditions sometimes confuses people. Very simply, if you can feel your body, you're feeling energy. The goal of these traditions is to create positive energy feelings in the body rather than negative energy feelings.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, they say that a person should find their center to restore their health and energy. What they mean by this is bringing your awareness to the stomach region, which is a major energy center. It's no accident that western physicians are starting to verify a second brain in the abdomen. Recent research has suggested that the same neurons in our brains are located in the stomach. It has also been proven that that majority of the body's serotonin, which is the happy chemical, is located in the stomach.

Once you recognize fear as an energy feeling in the body, you have the power to convert it into a more positive feeling. One of the greatest ways to do is through breathing from the energy center in the stomach.

EXERCISE: Breathing From the Stomach:

1. Place you awareness on your abdomen

2. Set your two hands on the abdomen

3. On the inhale, expand your whole body

4. On the exhale, contract your whole body

5. Always inhale through the nose

6. Breath in and out massaging the internal organs

7. Your belly should feel like it’s filling up with water

Now, try this a few times by reading my instructions. You can even copy this page and paste it near your meditation area for a quick lesson. Soon, it will become second nature to you.