Healing through Pranayama…
“When the breath wanders, the mind wanders….When the breath is calm, so too is the mind.”
Inhale……
Exhale……
To survive we must breathe. We are performing this action at every moment of our life.
But how often are you paying attention to this?
If you are similar to me, your answer is, “not at all”.
I took this all-important task for granted. I breathe. It happens naturally to me.
As I journeyed through my path of self-realization, I have become in tune with my breath. Mindful breathing has made a great impact in stabilizing my mood, balancing my body, relieving tension, grounding, and calming my emotions and thoughts.
Shifting your awareness back to your breath is the key to bringing your body back to a balanced, healed state.
For thousands of years yoga, and its sister science Ayurveda, have spoken about our life force, prana. Prana governs our movement, respiration, circulation, and all things associated with our mind, body and emotions. Prana is always moving through you and is mostly felt through our breath.
Pranayama is the consciousness-based practice of controlling and regulating our breath, an essential aspect of the spiritual practice of yoga.
We invigorate our prana through pranayama. Learning to control and regulate our breath has the strength to soothe and revitalize our wandering minds, energize our tired bodies and uplift our spirit
Re-membering and re-turning to this practice has been one of the many keys to re-connecting to my intuition. Pranayama in my perspective represents a return to love for oneself. A gift of healing we can offer ourselves through simple practices. Returning to pranayama, is the gateway to optimize our personal meditation practice which provides an avenue for us to tap into our highest selves and intuition.
As a global society, we have always had access to this knowledge, but only now is it coming to the forefront of our consciousness in Western civilization. Practicing pranayama has invaluable effects on ones mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health including:
· Reduced stress, anxiety & depression
· Improved ADD
· Healing of respiratory ailments
· Reduced insomnia
· Alleviation of headaches/migraines
· Healing digestive disorders
· Improved energy levels
How stress impacts the body
When we experience stressful thoughts and emotions, we take short shallow breaths. This triggers our sympathetic nervous system’s natural fight or flight response. Our brain is now notified that there is a threat to the body, releasing cortisol, the stress hormone resulting in higher blood pressure and increased pulse rates. Your body feels restless.
When you practice deep breathing, we can instantaneously reverse these effects, activating your parasympathetic nervous system, which reverses the stress hormone in your body, stimulating the main nerve in this system, the vagus nerve, thus slowing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure can calming the body and mind.
There are several pranayama techniques available and should be utilized based on your individual needs. Always be in a state of awareness and listen to the signals your body provides you.
Commonly used techniques include
Complete breathing:
Sit in a comfortable position.
Inhale with a natural and focused breath for a few seconds, feeling your lungs fill with beautiful clear air and allowing your abdomen to rise and allow the rib cage and collarbone to expand.
At the peak of inhalation, pause for a moment, long enough to settle into stillness, but not to experience any discomfort.
Exhale for a few moments, allowing all the air to flow out of the lungs. At the end of exhalation, contract your abdominal muscles slightly to allow any residual air out of the bottom of your lungs
Nadi Shodana:
When you are feeling anxious or ungrounded, you may want to practice this technique.
Sit in a comfortable position.
Place your right index finger over your left nostril and right thumb over your right nostril. Close your mouth.
Press your index finger down gently closing the left nostril. Deeply inhale with the right nostril. Let this breath enter your entire body. When you can’t breathe in anymore, pause for a few moments. (Again until you feel stillness, but no discomfort). Lift your index finger and press down with your right thumb and exhale from your left nostril slowly. Allow yourself to fully release the air from the left nostril.
Pause and repeat.
When you do your next round start with the nostril you exhaled from.
Ujjaji (Oo-jai):
I utilize this breathing technique when I’m feeling frustrated, angry or irritated, and feel the need to settle my mind.
Sit in a comfortable position.
Inhale through your nose. Slightly contract your throat and make the sound ‘ahhhh’ when you exhale through your mouth. This will make an ocean wave sound. Practice this multiple times.
After a few exhalations out of the mouth, gently close your mouth and lips softly, and begin breathing through your nose. Keep the same constriction in your throat as you exhale through your nose and you will still hear the same ocean sound. Focus on the sound of your breath which will slowly calm the mind.
These are just a few practices that are available to us as we connect to our breath. There are many other pranayama techniques that are available to us, some of which are more advanced, but can be incorporated into our practice, depending on where we are in our own individual training.
Inviting a daily practice of deep mindful breathing into our daily routine can have significant long-term health and wellness benefits. We can incorporate these techniques as we deem fit during our day if we are experiencing a stressful moment or notice our breath is constricted. Through continued practice and increased awareness, you will achieve deep efficient breathing that becomes second nature.