Live Whole Health: Self-care episode #4 – Mindfulness of Breath

Whole Health focuses on what matters most to each of us. Mindful awareness and self-care empowers you to take charge of your health and well-being, and to live your life to the fullest. Cultivating this awareness with meditation helps us find what really matters.

Mindful awareness is being fully aware and tuned in to what is going on right now, in the present moment. It takes time to cultivate mindful awareness, but with practice, it comes naturally.

This Mindfulness of Breath practice will bring awareness to your breath. With heightened present-moment awareness of your breath, as your anchor, you may experience that your attention expands to other mental, emotional or physical experiences. By simply returning your attention to your breath each time, you’re accepting your experience without elaboration, judgement, or resistance.

Dr. Brandon Yabko leads exercises like this 12-minute breathing exercise at VA Salt Lake City’s Mindfulness Center.

Mindful breathing can be done formally in a practice (as above) or informally throughout your day. Simply pause, then use your breath as a cue to bring back awareness to your present experience.

More tools

Did you know that you could have mindfulness tools at your fingertips?

Mindfulness Coach is a free and publicly available mobile app for people who are interested in learning about and practicing mindfulness. It was created by a team at the VA’s National Center for PTSD. The app includes a self-assessment for mindfulness mastery, a training plan to follow, exercises that build a daily mindfulness practice, and opportunities to find support. The app can be used by anyone. To learn more about VA apps, visit https://mobile.va.gov/appstore

Sara Grimsgaard, MHMS, NBC-HWC is a Health Systems Specialist for the Integrative Health Coordinating Center and Whole Health Education Program in the VHA Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation