WARNING: Intense physical-spiritual exercise is vey challenging to the body and requires time to adjust to as to intensity, duration, and frequency in order to do safely. Check with medical doctor(hopefully spiritually aware one) and Mental Health professional as to whether you have some medical condition that makes this unsafe to do. Do at your own risk using your intuition to help you stay within safe limits!
All forms of meditation involve over breathing or controlled hyperventilation. This takes more carbon dioxide out of the blood in the form of carbonic acid which will make the blood more alkaline. This will have a relaxing affect on the body and tend to slow down ones metabolism. Hyperventilation is not healthy when taken to extremes or when out of control, but that is true with so many things. The medical community seems to see only the negative side of hyperventilation at this time. The medical community often just focuses on unhealthy people and have not done enough studies of meditative practitioners that benefit from using controlled hyperventilation in their breathing techniques. One can find articles on the internet that challenge the way the medical community view all forms of hyperventilation. The medical community can scare people from doing what it takes to get the most benefits from meditative techniques. It is true that overdoing anything(including hyperventilation)tends to be unsafe. This controlled hyperventilation puts one into a relaxed altered state, where one can focus on anything or envision anything that one want to have more control of or be able to handle more comfortably or in order to help heal oneself in some way.
One can meditate on really difficult emotions or hard to deal with desires. One can adjust the way you do any of the meditative/mind-body techniques I describe below and find out what works best for you. Being a little creative never hurts as long as you do it carefully so as not to hurt yourself. With any of these meditative/mind-body exercises one can breath through ones mouth if it makes it easier. I find breathing through the mouth work well for me for my more vigorous meditative exercises. I breath mostly through my nose when doing my slower meditative running, meditative walking and more stationary meditative exercises.
The meditative exercises here are not directed toward making one an athlete, but will rev up ones nervous system. The focus on overbreathing will slow the body down similar to stationary meditation, so one will not be able to do them very fast. As one progresses one will not get faster(may actually slow down as the stronger meditative state makes the body harder to speed up), but will become more able to put oneself in a difficult spiritual state of mind due to breathing more than required which is what puts one into the meditative/spiritual/altered state. One must judge ones progress by how difficult it is to do these exercises due to the tough spiritual state it puts one in and the mental/spiritual effort required. All of these exercise I mention in this note can be considered MIND-BODY EXERCISES.
STATIONARY MEDITATION does involve over breathing(hyperventilation), which will happen automatically when one focusing strongly on ones breathing. One will be relaxed by this breathing which will slow the body down and make it require a lot less breathing in order to to maintain the state. You do not need to do all of what I suggest when you meditate. Be creative and do what works best for you. To meditate, get in a comfortable position sitting or lying down, breath deeply tensing ones stomach muscles when breathing in, relaxing your stomach muscles when breathing out, while focusing on something or nothing at all. One can close ones eyes if this helps one focus, and can also squeeze ones hands(or thumb to index finger) and move ones feet alternately in rhythm with ones breathing. The tensing of the stomach muscles when breathing in tends to help one to breath a little more. One can tighten up ones stomach muscles a little more when doing a lying down meditation by using ones sit-up muscles to a degree without actually lifting ones upper body. Doing this(adding extra tension to the stomach when breathing in) will help one to relieve extra tension from the body and does not need to be done for long. I find moving ones shoulder muscles up and down alternately in rhythm with ones breathing can help one relieve head and neck tension and I believe also increase blood flow to the brain so as to helps one to get into a deeper meditative state. The alternating movement of both the hands and the feet tends to connect one to the whole body while stimulating the nervous system giving one more of a sense of oneness. Losing oneself in the body helps the mind to better focus on the purpose of the meditation. Meditation is like an exercise and must be adjusted to in regard to intensity, duration, and frequency. It can be hard to do just like an exercise, but can bring results over time. Emotions power the spiritual, so one can focus on any emotions that are having an impact on you while meditating. Also one can focus on desires one wants to gain more control of or on physical problems/pain so as to help one better cope with them and help them to heal.
MEDITATIVE WALKING Breath in with one step and breath out with the next while focusing on whatever emotions that are disturbing ones inner peace. Focus as much of ones attention on breathing as intensely as possible. When one gets really good at breathing really fast one can breath in and out with every step, but might have to slow down ones walking pace a little in order to do this. Also attention can be given to the massaging ones neck to a degree with the raising of one shoulders a little more naturally happens as one does the normal arm movements that come with walking. The neck tends to absorb tension. The neck is so close to the brain that it can stimulate it with its motion. One can also close one eyes during brief periods when one can safely get away with it.
I sometimes close my eyes with 6 steps and open for 2 steps when I am walking in an area with few distractions or dangers/obstacles. One can even strain to breath harder while closing ones eyes more tightly or squeezing one lips more tightly closed. Actually closing ones eyes more tightly and pressing ones lips together more strongly while doing a meditative walk will in time relieve tension in the head. Some people do damage to their teeth(gritting them due to tension). Pressing the lips strongly together will not cause any harm.
Meditative walking can be complicated and it takes a while to make it all happen automatically. One can be creative and figure out the best technique that will work for you. Relieving tension and transforming the emotions that are the source of the tension can be done while doing a meditative walk. Relieving stressful tension in the body does help one to improve the spiritual state one is in. Along with the tension one can also relieve any emotional imbalance one has that is creating the physical tension.
This is a description of how I am now doing my meditative walk. I have been doing meditative walking for over 2 decades, so I can do it very intensely with very intense rapid breathing. I breath in and out with each short step which is carefully place. I focus on moving my arm up and down a little more than normal walking action which massages the neck and provides more blood to the brain I believe. Within 3/4 of a mile of walking like this I get very tired, which means I must walk slower with more side to side motion to keep going. I burn out at the end. I do have to have careful foot placement on the Earth, since when one is tired and in an altered meditative state one will lose ones balance if one is not doing it carefully enough. I also close my eyes every couple of steps and try to intensify the effort/focus I am putting into this.
My MEDITATIVE RUNNING is like meditative walk, but with a slow running motion. It involves running with short quick steps and fast arm movements with strong side to side upper body movement while breathing in with one step and out with the the next one(or two). One can do a slower meditative run while breathing in and out with each step. One can breath in rhythm with ones upper body movements which are naturally in rhythm with ones steps. Ones upper body movement does help one to do quicker, shorter steps by helping ones feet to hit the ground more quickly. Putting an added emphasis on vigorous upper body movements and shoulder movement I feel helps one to get more blood flow to the brain and seems to help the overall circulation get more revved up. . I find pains in my lower body often go away when I focus more on massaging my neck by means of my shoulder movements, moving ones head so it is facing more upwardly will help one to massage ones neck more readily. CHANNELING ONES ANGER INTO THESE SHOULDER MOVEMENTS WILL REALLY HELP ONE TO MAKE A LOT OF PROGRESS IN ALL MEDITATIVE EXERCISES. One should focus on breathing as intensely as possible and can focus on intense or difficult emotions that one has been dealing with lately or has from ones past. This exercise can become quite intense as one gets good at it, with the steps getting shorter and faster and arm movement and breathing becoming more rapid. One needs to get use to this exercise, as well as all forms of meditation or meditative exercises, over time in regards to intensity and frequency. The duration may vary depending on ones intensity. The rapid quick movements tend to rev up the nervous system which makes it a more intense mind-body exercise.
One will find one can not keep ones mind quiet or keep ones focus on ones emotions at all times when doing these exercises. One can do some thinking or have your mind wander at times while doing these exercises. But, one should try to really put forth the effort to keep the mind really quiet and focused to the point of really challenging oneself for as long as you can, and then after the mind wanders again for a while, make an other effort to quiet the mind and focus. One can only advance in the effectiveness of ones techniques and reach a deeper spiritual state by focusing without the mind being distracted by thought a certain amount of the time while doing these meditative exercises. Making the effort to quiet the mind by focusing all one can on increasing the intensity of the technique is how one advances further in how well one can do them. One can even alternately open and close ones eyes while doing both the meditative running and walking exercises to help one focus even harder. One can do this while opening ones eyes just enough to safely deal with ones surroundings. Also, ones can channel most of ones intensity into really focusing on and getting better at the breathing side of the exercise. One will notice a sort of floating feeling in ones mind and tingling in ones face and even some itching in certain parts of the body when one is really doing well with the breathing. One can learn to not let any itching adversely affect you.
Being able to be relaxed under intense conditions or when facing strong emotions is what one can gain from this type of training. One may need to do some stretching and weightlifting also being careful not to injure oneself and focus on ones breathing while doing them. Both of these will help the body to better handle the mind-body running exercise. As one progresses these exercises should become increasingly hard to do, provided one is really trying to put oneself in a difficult spiritual state by keeping one mind really focused on breathing really intensely and putting forth as much effort as possible. One will find this exercise hard to do if one does not have spiritual beliefs that really connect you strongly to the physical/spiritual reality that we all exist in at this moment. The spiritual truth has a lot of power to it. The closer ones beliefs are to the truth, the more one can use the strength one gains from these beliefs to power ones meditative/mind-body exercises. One will find that when doing these exercises that any beliefs one has that are not good enough to help one handle the intense and difficult spiritual state on is able to get into will tend to surface and one will tend to think about them while exercising. One can spend some of these exercises in deep spiritual thought, but should keep the mind quiet and focus on the exercise and ones emotions for as long as one can in order to get the most intensity and value out of them.
I take nutritional supplements in order to handle my intense spiritual exercise program. I require a lot of protein, B-vitamins, calcium-magnesium, vitamin C, and other nutrients. Everyone is different, so one needs to figure out what works best for you, but I think it is important to get extra nutrition when taking on really intensely challenging forms of exercise of any kind. Here is a link related to my diet and how it has evolved: https://astrogoodwin.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/the-diet-i-use-to-help-me-handle-my-intense-physicalspiritual-exercise/
CARDIOVASCULAR EXERCISE: I believe any exercise done in a way that one has to focus extremely hard spiritually in order to do it is meditative to a degree. I do an exercise routine that involves such a really intense cardiovascular(heart&circulation) exercise . This is a link to the intense dumbbell swing exercise routine I do Monday, Wednesdays, and Friday:
This is my current exercise routine on days I do not do the dumbbell swings routine: At 4:15 AM, I do crunches, then stretching followed by a 2 mile meditative run starting out harder and ending in a slow meditative run. Most of my harder part of my run I breath in with one step and out with the next two. When doing my slower meditative run, I breath in and out with each step. During meditative runs I really focus hard on moving my shoulders up and down and keeping my head raised upwardly so as to massage my neck in a way to direct more blood flow to the brain. I try to keep track of my breathing rhythm, not by my steps, but by my downward action of my arms which is automatically in sync with each step. I also try to close my eyes a few steps at a time, opening them enough to see what I need to, and really strain to get the most out of me.
astrogoodwin Spiritual Website 