Pranayama, or breathwork, a yoga staple. Here are some tips.
In 2008 the Department of Health and Human Services designated September as Yoga Awareness Month. There are awareness days and months and celebrations for just about everything, and sometimes I refer to these days as Hallmark card days, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to encourage you to try yoga or take your yoga practice to new heights.
First, understand that yoga is not a religion or a religious practice. There are many forms and styles of yoga and yoga philosophy to meet everyone’s needs.
Also, realize that a growing list of research exists to demonstrate the effectiveness of practicing yoga to meet health and wellness goals. Universities including Harvard, Duke and UCLA have touted the numerous benefits of yoga from reducing stress, improving sleep, lowering blood pressure, reducing chronic inflammation, reducing pain and decreasing depression, to name a just a few reasons to explore yoga.
Yoga asanas (poses) are a great way to increase your strength and flexibility, release stress, and improve your health, but they do not encompass the entire practice of yoga. The true meaning of yoga is the union of mind, body, soul and spirit. In the West, we’ve come to think of yoga only as a physical practice, but it extends far beyond. Yoga techniques that include mediation, pranayama (breathwork), self-study, and having a relationship with yoga can transform your life.
Patanjali’s teachings in the Yoga Sutras (140 C.E.) form the scriptural foundation of yoga philosophy and provide us with guidelines to live a yogic life, including standards of self-conduct and ethics, so that we may live in harmony and with integrity.
His teachings help us to understand how our own thoughts get in the way of our happiness. Patanjali defines yoga in the broadest sense as “yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.” He explains why we suffer and what we can do about it. His sutras offer a strategy for discovering a wholeness that already exists in us and how to let go of suffering. In Patanjali’s yoga sutras, pranayama is the fourth limb of yoga. Simply put, pranayama focuses on breath awareness and breathing techniques that have a profound effect on mental, physical and spiritual life.
Because it is Yoga Awareness Month, why not commit to introducing breathwork into your life? This could be done simply be practicing diaphragmatic breathing every day for five minutes for the rest of the month.
Diaphragmatic breathing is also known as belly breathing or abdominal breathing, and it allows you to increase lung efficiency. If you have COPD or asthma, consult your physician before diving into a pranayama practice.
First try lying on your back on a flat surface with your head slightly propped up (forehead a smudge higher than your chin) and keep your neck, shoulders and head relaxed. Place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach just beneath your ribcage.
Allow your body to release into the ground as you begin to observe your breath, smoothly breathing in and out through your nose. Observe where the breath goes — is it in your chest? does it descend to your abdomen? Can you feel the breath in your side ribs? Are you breathing into one side of your body more than the other? After a few minutes of just observing your breath, on your next inhalation allow the breath to descend toward your pelvic floor. On the exhalation feel the release in your abdomen
Slowly inhale through your nose drawing the breath down toward your stomach and slowly exhale, releasing the breath into your groin and thighs. If the deep breathing becomes too much, return to your normal breathing again for a few breaths
It is said that the mind follows the breath, so use your mind to direct and focus your breath to specific areas of your body. This technique will help you oxygenate and open compressed areas of your body, release tight areas and decrease pain and soreness.
As B.K.S. Iyengar says, “In pranayama, the back is the blackboard, the air comes to write, and the mind holds the chalk.”
If you are already a yoga practitioner, consider exploring other types of pranayama from Nadi Sodhana (alternate nostril breathing), Bharamari Pranayam (humming bee breath), Dirga Pranayama (three-part breath) to Sama Vritti (square box breathing).
Realize establishing a pranayama practice can transform your life.
Feel free to share your thoughts with me: ashton@ashtoncannon.com.
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Ashton Graham is an educator, book publisher, photographer, cowgirl and yoga teacher. She is currently studying to become a yoga therapist and lives on a ranch in West Texas. Visit www.ashtoncannon.com to learn more.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Maintaining Balance: Pranayama, or breathwork, a yoga staple
