Breakdown of Después de meditar cinco minutos, respiro profundamente y mis hombros se relajan ligeramente.
Questions & Answers about Después de meditar cinco minutos, respiro profundamente y mis hombros se relajan ligeramente.
In Spanish, when you say after doing X (with a verb in general, not tied to any specific subject), the normal pattern is:
- después de + infinitive
So:
- Después de meditar = After meditating / After I meditate
You can say después de que medito or después de que medito, respiro…, but that sounds more like a specific, personal routine and is less compact. The version with the infinitive is:
- more neutral and general
- very common in written and spoken Spanish
Compare:
- Después de comer, me siento mejor. – After eating, I feel better.
- Después de estudiar, salgo con mis amigos. – After studying, I go out with my friends.
In Spanish, with lengths of time used as a duration, you normally don’t use an article:
- cinco minutos – five minutes
- tres horas – three hours
- dos semanas – two weeks
So:
- Después de meditar cinco minutos = After meditating (for) five minutes
Using los cinco minutos would usually mean something like “those particular five minutes / all five of those minutes”, which is not what we want here.
Also, por is usually omitted in this kind of duration expression:
- Medité cinco minutos. (more natural)
- Medité por cinco minutos. (possible, but less common / necessary)
Yes, that’s correct and natural:
- Después de meditar cinco minutos…
- Después de meditar durante cinco minutos…
Both mean the same. Durante just makes the idea of during / for more explicit, but it's often omitted:
- Viví en México dos años.
- Viví en México durante dos años.
In everyday speech, the shorter version without durante is very common.
Both exist, but they are different:
- respiro profundamente – profundamente is an adverb (deeply), modifying the verb respiro.
- respiro profundo – here profundo is an adjective (deep). On its own, this sounds incomplete; you’d normally say:
- respiro un suspiro profundo – I breathe a deep sigh.
To say I breathe deeply, the standard and clear choice is:
- respiro profundamente
You will also hear respiro hondo in many Spanish-speaking countries:
- respiro hondo ≈ I take a deep breath / I breathe in deeply.
Yes, that’s grammatically correct:
- …y mis hombros se relajan ligeramente.
- …y se relajan ligeramente mis hombros.
Both are possible. The difference is subtle:
- mis hombros se relajan ligeramente – more neutral, everyday word order (Subject–Verb–rest).
- se relajan ligeramente mis hombros – puts a bit more emphasis on the action se relajan ligeramente, then reveals mis hombros at the end. It can sound a little more literary or stylistic.
In normal conversation, the original order is more typical.
Spanish distinguishes between:
- relajar (algo) – transitive: to relax something
- relajarse – reflexive / intransitive: to relax (oneself) / to become relaxed
If we’re talking about your shoulders becoming relaxed, we use the reflexive form:
- mis hombros se relajan – my shoulders relax / become relaxed
If you say:
- mis hombros relajan
then mis hombros would be the subject that is relaxing something else (they would be doing the relaxing), which is not the meaning we want.
Other examples:
- Me relajo. – I relax (myself).
- Relajo los hombros. – I relax my shoulders (I act on them).
- Los hombros se relajan. – The shoulders relax (become relaxed).
In this context, ligeramente mainly means slightly, a little bit:
- mis hombros se relajan ligeramente
≈ my shoulders relax slightly
It can sometimes be close to gently, but here it's mostly about degree (not a huge amount of relaxation, just some).
Similar adverbs:
- un poco – a little
- apenas – hardly / barely
- levemente – lightly / slightly (very close in meaning to ligeramente here).
Yes, and in many contexts in Spanish, using the definite article with body parts is actually more common:
- Me duelen los hombros. – My shoulders hurt.
- Relajo los hombros. – I relax (my) shoulders.
So you could say:
- Después de meditar cinco minutos, respiro profundamente y los hombros se relajan ligeramente.
However:
- mis hombros puts a bit more personal focus on my own shoulders and sounds very natural in a sentence describing your own experience.
- los hombros can sound slightly more general, or like you're describing a typical reaction of shoulders in general, though context usually makes it clear you mean your own.
Both are correct; the choice is stylistic.
The Spanish presente covers both:
- English simple present (I breathe, my shoulders relax)
- English present continuous (I am breathing, my shoulders are relaxing), in many situations.
Here:
- respiro profundamente could be understood as:
- I breathe deeply (as a habit)
- I am breathing deeply (this time)
Context usually tells you which one it is. To emphasize that it’s happening right now, you can use the progressive:
- …estoy respirando profundamente y mis hombros se están relajando ligeramente.
But that’s longer and not necessary unless you really want to stress the ongoing action. The simple present is normally used.
You can say it, but the meaning changes slightly:
- Después de meditar cinco minutos… – After meditating for five minutes… (the meditation has finished, then you breathe deeply).
- Al meditar cinco minutos… – literally On meditating for five minutes… or When I meditate for five minutes…. It focuses more on the moment or situation of meditating, not clearly after it.
More natural uses of al + infinitive:
- Al llegar a casa, me quito los zapatos. – When I get home, I take off my shoes.
- Al meditar, me siento más tranquilo. – When I meditate, I feel calmer.
In your original sentence, we really want the idea of after, so después de meditar is the best choice.