Diaphragmatic Breathing and Mindfulness Meditation: Better Intention

The term intention has many meanings in a meditation context. Diaphragmatic breathing can support intention in at least two meanings: as a pre-meditation ritual, to support motivation; and as a pre-meditation exercise, to aid stable attention.

Intention as motivation: Diaphragmatic Breathing as a pre-meditation ritual

Rituals are symbolic behaviours we perform before, during, and after meaningful events. They allow you to quickly and more easily engage in a specific mindset (think classical conditioning and the Pavlov effect) and perform an activity, such as meditation.

Rituals bring your awareness and attention to the present moment, which is what mindfulness is all about, and also helps creates meaning, by acting as reminders of what we actually care about.

Just like you would not run a marathon without preparing yourself, stretching, hydrating, you probably shouldn’t jump into longer meditation sessions without any sort of preparation.

Regularly practising breathing exercises before sitting for a meditation session may allow for deeper, more focused and intense practices than when such techniques are not performed.

This happens not only because of some of the direct effects of the breathing techniques (such as relaxing and re-energising the body, as well as clearing the mind) but also by creating an anchor to the feelings of the meditation practice. By following a prescribed pattern of behaviour (for instance, a deep diaphragmatic breathing technique as a pre-meditation ritual), one can activate the corresponding neural pathways in order to more easily experience certain mental states associated with meditation.

Intention as stable attention: Diaphragmatic Breathing as a pre-meditation exercise to increase focus and mental clarity

Dr John Yates defines and explains stable attention as follows:

“Stable attention is the ability to intentionally direct and sustain the focus of attention, as well as to control the scope of attention. Intentionally directing and sustaining attention simply means that we learn to choose which object we’re going to attend to, and keep our attention continuously fixed on it. Controlling the scope of attention means training the mind to adjust how wide or narrow our focus is, and being more selective and intentional about what is included and excluded.”

Diaphragmatic breathing allows for increased focus and greater clarity of thoughts which might be an effect of increasing blood flow to the pre-frontal cortex of your brain. A recent research study indicates significantly increased sustained attention after diaphragmatic breathing training.