Book excerpt: Discover how to heal both body and mind using only your breath and your hands. In The Power of Breath and Hand Yoga, Christine Burke shows how you already have all you need to heal both physical and emotional conditions and improve your overall wellbeing. Breath awareness has been linked to calming the body and brain, regulating blood pressure, improving memory and immune function, preventing heart attacks and easing chronic pain and asthma. Mudras are known as 'yoga for the hands': they are hand poses and positions that channel energy and offer a point of focus during meditation. First, Christine teaches you a range of breathing techniques and reveals the background behind mudras and how best to use them, and then she offers breath and mudra practices for 36 conditions, divided into body and mind. Each practice also includes a 'jewel thought' meditation, which can accompany the breath technique and/or mudra.