Breath Perception: A Daily Guide to Stress Relief, Mindfulness, and Inner Peace

by Barbara Ann Kipfer

A daily guide to harnessing the amazing power of breath.

Breath Perception is your companion to understanding the power of breath and using it as a tool to improve your physical and mental health. Partly because we take breath for granted and do not “work” with it, we are somewhat unaware of the potential it holds to reduce stress, change metabolism, and increase our supply of energy. Breath Perception presents 261 simple exercises—one for every Monday through Friday—for using breath to attain greater well-being. On each page is a daily exercise followed by a “wake-up call,” bits of wisdom to inspire you and enrich your meditation. Develop compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness while de-stressing, lowering your blood pressure, and building up your immune system. Yes, simple breathing has the power to do all of that and more!

Sleep better at night, concentrate better at work, and connect better with loved ones at home. Once you learn to harness the power of breath, you’ll find that it serves you wherever you are, in whatever situations you find yourself. Smartly packaged and attractively designed, Breath Perception is perfect for anyone who wants to give the gift of well-being or who is looking for a way to enrich a yoga or meditation practice.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Health, How To, Spirituality, Reference

306 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Dr. Barbara Ann Kipfer (born in 1954) is a lexicographer,as well as an archaeologist. She has written more than 60 books, including 14,000 Things to be Happy About (Workman), which has more than a million copies in print and has given rise to many Page-a-Day calendars. The 25th anniversary edition of the book was published in October 2014. She is the editor of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Kipfer is Chief Lexicographer of the company Temnos. She has worked for such companies as Google, Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, Answers.com, Ask Jeeves, Bellcore/Telcordia, Federated Media Publishing, General Electric Research, IBM Research, idealab, Knowledge Adventure, Textdigger, The Chicago Tribune, and WolframAlpha. Barbara holds a PhD and MPhil in Linguistics (University of Exeter), a PhD in Archaeology (Greenwich University), an MA and a PhD in Buddhist Studies (Akamai University), and a BS in Physical Education (Valparaiso University).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick review for a quick read - this book is basically a compilation of daily meditations coupled with some beautiful photographs. I got this on a clearance rack in Barnes & Noble and was curious to see what kind of daily meditations it would offer. I read through all of them, and had the chance to practice a few on my own time this past year. It's good as a guide to those who want to try the meditations for themselves (as well as be introduced to the terminology) in a daily, bite-sized format.

[Sian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book of exercises. It doesn’t necessarily guide you through them, it tells you what to do and then proceeds to the next exercise. I know that every meditation is of great value, however, it’s not what I had expected. I thought it would focus more on the education of better breathing techniques, rather than a count of meditations. It’s still shares great value, although, I believe it would be beneficial to practise each meditation for a consistent time line, as opposed to doing each one once and then moving on to the next. I don’t seem to remember the book sharing that. It is well narrated, I was just disappointed that it wasn’t what I’d anticipated.

[Gerald Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a barrage of breathing techniques, which in and of themselves can be used to release street or strengthen your focus. This will become a reference book, that you will want to refer to again and again.

[Abhishek Tripathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this free on audible. I liked it. It has hundreds of little breathing exercises, most of them can be followed by anyone, even without much background in meditation. This book reminded me of Gurdjieff and Osho's Book of Secrets. It is nowhere near as deep, but has flavours of both.

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book for learning about effective breathing and meditation exercises.