Using breath and visualization to ease arthritis.

Expanding Your Breath

• Lie on your back and support your head with a pillow.  You can use another pillow under your knees.

• Breathe slowly in and out through your nose.  Imagine that your two little toes are expanding as you inhale, and shrinking as you exhale.  Visualize the two toes adjacent to the little ones expanding as you inhale, then shrinking as you exhale.  Move slowly on to the middle toe, the second toe, and then the big to, doing the same expansion and shrinking visualization.

• Now feel as if you breath fills each part of your body, one by one: visualize your feet expanding and shrinking with your breath, then your knees, then your hip joints.

• As you breathe into your abdomen, visualize all your ribs expanding, sense the space between them, then let that space shrink as you breathe out.

• Now concentrate on your hands, imagining that your fingers and hands expand as you inhale, and shrink as you exhale.

• Visualize your head doing the same thing.  Imagine that you are increasing the space between your skull bones as you inhale, and that the space shrinks as you exhale.

• When you inhale, visualize more space between your vertebrae; when you exhale, visualize this space lessening.  That sense of movement enhances the blood flow.

• If you suffer from arthritis and you have a swollen joint, focus on that joint for twenty slow, deep breaths.  Inhale slowly and exhale even more slowly, visualizing the joint expanding as you inhale and shrinking as you exhale.

• Whenever the mind connects with a joint, the blood flow to that joint is enhanced.  If you cannot connect with that joint in your mind, and you find it difficult to visualize, massage it gently for a moment just to have a sense of it.  Focus on it for twenty deep breaths, visualizing it expanding and shrinking with your breath.