After a breathwork session, you can follow up with several types of guided meditations that complement the relaxation and balance created by pranayama. Here are some options that would work well after breathwork:
1. Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep)
- Purpose: Deep relaxation, body-mind rejuvenation, stress relief.
- Overview: This practice guides participants through a state between wakefulness and sleep. It involves a systematic rotation of awareness through different parts of the body, relaxation of the senses, and guided visualization.
- Why It Works After Breathwork: Breathwork calms the nervous system, and yoga nidra helps deepen that relaxation, leading to a more profound sense of letting go and mental stillness.
2. Body Scan Meditation
- Purpose: Stress reduction, mindfulness, grounding.
- Overview: In this meditation, you guide participants to bring attention to different parts of their body, noticing sensations and releasing tension. It promotes mindfulness and awareness of the present moment.
- Why It Works After Breathwork: After balancing the energy with pranayama, a body scan helps further relax any remaining tension, promoting a deeper mind-body connection and awareness.
3. Mindfulness Meditation
- Purpose: Increased focus, awareness, calming the mind.
- Overview: This practice involves focusing on the breath or a specific point of awareness (such as sounds, sensations, or thoughts) without judgment. It cultivates a state of non-reactive awareness.
- Why It Works After Breathwork: Mindfulness meditation is a natural continuation after breath-focused practices like pranayama, helping participants carry the awareness they developed in breathwork into a mindful state.
4. Guided Visualization
- Purpose: Creative relaxation, stress relief, goal setting.
- Overview: In this meditation, you guide participants through a calming visualization, like imagining themselves in a peaceful place (e.g., a forest or beach) or envisioning their goals and desires.
- Why It Works After Breathwork: Visualizations work well after pranayama because the mind is already clear and focused, making it easier to engage in vivid imagery and feel the emotional effects of the visualization.
5. Chakra Meditation
- Purpose: Energy balancing, emotional healing.
- Overview: This meditation focuses on the seven chakras (energy centers), guiding participants to imagine and balance energy in each chakra through breath and visualization.
- Why It Works After Breathwork: After Anulom Vilom, which already balances energy, a chakra meditation can help refine this process, focusing on specific energy centers for deeper emotional and energetic alignment.
Choosing the Right Meditation
- For Deep Relaxation: Yoga Nidra or Body Scan Meditation.
- For Emotional Balance: Chakra Meditation.
- For Focus and Awareness: Mindfulness Meditation or Guided Visualization.
You can experiment with these options depending on the theme of your session. For example, if you’re focusing on stress relief, Yoga Nidra or Progressive Relaxation would be ideal. If your focus is on emotional healing, Chakra Meditation or Mindfulness Meditation would be more suitable.
Ultimately you’ve got to decide what you want to achieve and then periodize your nutrition to match the goals of your training blocks. Now, go get strong, jacked and shredded.
Choosing how to sequence your very own periodized nutrition plan is going to depend on where you’re currently at. If you’re looking to pack on some size, then maybe string a few massing cycles together – with the appropriate maintenance blocks obviously, and see how you grow.
Ultimately you’ve got to decide what you want to achieve and then periodize your nutrition to match the goals of your training blocks. Now, go get strong, jacked and shredded.
Bringing It All Together
I think one of the biggest mistakes I see most people make with their pull-up/chin-up programming is that they simply don’t train the pattern enough. However, this approach only works well for those who can already perform 3-5 pull-ups and are looking to level up that number. If you can’t even perform one this would be a daunting prospect to say the least. That said, I think staying cognizant of total VOLUME is an often overlooked component of pull-up progress. Moreover, you also have the option of purchasing both the Ultimate Pull-Up Program & the Ultimate Push-Up Program at a heavily discounted price.
One of the biggest mistakes I see most people make with their breathwork practice is they do not finish it with meditation. After breathwork, your brain is well oxygenated and you can dramatically increase your performance if you conclude it with even 5 to 10 minutes meditation.
Based on your goal or what you are looking to achieve you can practice different types of meditation as per guidance above.
