BREATHING EXERCISE {PRANAYAMA}
Today let's discuss one important aspect of yoga that makes yoga so unique, I mean an aspect of man that makes him a living being: that aspect of life that's vital to living, that which God blew into a man after creating man from dust and man came to be a living soul. Our life is nothing but a breath.
In yoga science, it's called prana, which refers to life force, though prana is not the air, but it's the active force expressed as air, that life force is also in water, in food, maybe we should refer to oxygen as the active force known by yogis as prana. Exercising or regulation of this active force is what is known as pranayama or breathing exercise, I'm going to introduce few breathing exercises for health enhancement. But before I go into that, let's look at the benefits of breathing exercise and the importance of breath to emotions, health, and life in general.
Importance of prana or breath
Everything in our body that moves need the help of air to move, the cells and all the organs requires oxygen to live. Our mood is being regulated by breath, that's why your breathing pattern changes the moment your mood changes, either from sadness to happiness or calmness to anxiety. The tempo of your breath has something to tell you if you pay attention to it, it tells you if you're calm or not, your respiration per one minute also determines your lifespan, human respiration by normal medical standard shouldn't go beyond 15 times by one minute:
Take for instance in the case of animals and breathing rate, you discover that animals like dog, sparrow, monkey, pig, goat, pigeon, that breath so fast age fast and naturally restless and probably have a short lifespan, compare to tortoise that moderately like 6 times per one minute, though all animals are special exhibit some qualities others don't have, but then tortoise has more mental strength and have a longer lifespan.
Benefits of breathing exercise
Breathing exercise is harmless and doesn't require much effort to practice: but deep breathing exercise should be practiced on empty stomach or 1-2-3, hours after the heavy meal, depending on the heaviness of the food.
Breathing exercise has the capacity to heal, prevent and correct some abnormal factors of the mind and body.
BREATHING AS TENSION ELIMINATOR
When you are tensed just take a deep breath and feel that instant relief, breathing is natural and practical, now when you are tensed, scared or sad, have a reflection on moments when you are under stress and so many deadlines to meet up, within you, you feel this state of tightness of the muscles, definitely if you have ever paid attention to the state of your breath at times like that, you notice your breathing pattern changes into shallow rhymic partner at that very moment. That happens due to insufficient oxygen intake. So with breathing exercise at this moment you are sure to eliminate the tension.
Breath, the food for the mind and emotions
The mind respects the breath because it energizes it and at the same time controls it, I think symbolically the mind crave for the breath and get restless when denied and satisfied when being fed with breath energy. It's very practical just breath and see how magical it works on your mind and emotions, man has no other trouble than mind issues, the mind is just bundle of conflicting thoughts, when you practice regular breathing exercise it opens your mind to your higher self, one rational than emotional, with breathing exercise your depressive mood gets elevated into mental strength, because for me depression is nothing other than weakness of the mind and self-pity. With constant breathing exercise one sends oxygen-rich blood to the brain cells, which impact positively on memory and creativity, your higher opens up the seat of wisdom, you will practically begin to understand that mental worry is just illusion of the mind, so the mind becomes more sharp, relaxed, and calm without mental pictures of unnecessary fear, one starts being constructive and creative.
With breathing exercise one's creative ability increases into expression and practical action. breathing exercise eliminates lethargy and procrastination.
Constant breathing exercise works on skill enhancement. The power of the mind has attractive force, where there's a will that's a way, you begin to vision gaze possibilities and radiate an aura of self-confidence and courage.
Breathing exercise as a natural pain killer.
There're moments in our lives where we've had pains we can't really figure out how and when some persons would want to have the normal pain killer in tablet form, it's okay you have to take care of your arch, but trust me if you haven't tried this before as a remedy, I think you are missing. Breathing exercise can help kill that pain caused by fatigue, just breath into your pains and see the magic yourself, body pain is as a result of low in energy level or excess hyper activeness of the organs and nervous system, stress creates blockages around energy centers and channels, so if you can sit quietly and practice pranayama for few minutes every day you will diffidently be sending oxygen to your nerves to relax, body at this release joints and muscles lubricants to soften your joints and relax the muscles, that's also to say that pranayama promotes flexibility of the body from inside out,.yoga is very practical and no words can explain it better than experience. How can your understand the taste of sugar without having a taste of it?
Constant breathing practice will help align the spine well by opening up the chakras and activate the glands to release painkilling and stress managing hormones; this will bring flexibility to the spine, open up the hip flexors and correct bad posture. With breathing exercise, you can energize the sex gland and enhance sex energy
Breathing exercise is a powerful Detoxification program
There's every need to cleanse the body system from time to time, but experts say about 70% of toxins and unwanted properties leaves the body through the air transport system of the body, and our societies these days are getting more and more polluted with deadly emission. Like recently here in port Harcourt we are experiencing black carbon all around our houses, through the nose we take in air, sometimes pure, some other time very uncertain, so there's every need to assist the body mechanism to promote efficient detoxification process, there's every need to breathe well and deeply, some yoga breathing exercises encourages full usage of the entire lungs capacity, which helps to energize the cells of the lungs, breathing exercises expands the lungs to expels more carbon dioxide that has been moved from the bloodstream to the lungs, you don't have to leave the body natural waste products in the body, you must expel it to detoxify the body. And this will also enhance the immune system. some expert says constant and intensive breathing can even cure HIV.
The lungs have like 73 million cells and most persons don't breath well and deeply, starving about 70-80 % cells of the lungs, and this can also be attributed to one major root causes of respiratory challenges like a cough and asthma.
What about your diaphragm? Breathing makes the diaphragm the second
heart, and reduces the workload on the heart, with breathing heart diseases can be taken care of. Naturally, when we inhale our diaphragm moves down massaging vital organs and gland within that region, like the heart, pancreas, liver, and the small intestine and the stomach, the pressure create movements or peristalsis which extends into proper digestion. Oxygenation promotes metabolism of vital nutrients and vitamins stored in the body, by moving through your bloodstream as it's linked to haemoglobin in the red blood cells. It's only when this process runs smoothly that food and nutrients can be converted into energy to keep the body lively and healthy.
.. If one is having constipation, then he or she should practice abdominal breathing first thing in the morning and drink enough water then for sure there will be bowl movement for the deification of waste products. Constant breathing exercise can help flatten the stomach. Breathing exercise controls weight and burns excess fat, breathing help in processing and absorption food intake.
SOME YOGA BREATHING EXERCISE
NOTE: BREATH ONLY THROUGH THE NOSE, SELECT A CLEAN PLACE IF YOU CAN'T SIT IN ANY OF THE YOGA SITING POSTURE LIKE THE VAJRASANA, PADMASANA, SIDHDASAN, THE SIT ON A CHAIR BUT KEEPYOUR BACK STRIGHT. ON A NORMAL LIFE BREATHING AVOID BREATHING THROUGH THE MOUTH, DON'T SIT ON A BARE FLOOR, PAD YOUR FLOOR. PRANAYAMA SHOULD BE DONE 1-2-3 HOURS AFTER HEAVY MEAL DEPENDING ON THE HEAVINESS OF THE MEAL OR BETTER FIRST THING AS YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING. YOUR BREATHING SESSION AS A STARTER SHOULD BE WITHIN 5-10 MINUTES AND GRADUALLY INCREASE TO 30 MINUTES AND EVEN 1HOUR. DON'T FORCE ANYTHING. SOME BREATHING EXERCISE INCREASE TEMPERATURE WHILE SOME BRINGS IT DOWN. BREATHING EXERCISE IS TO HELPYOU REGULATE YOUR TEMPERATURE SO WATCH YOU MOOD AT THE MOMENT AND UNDERSTAND WHAT SUITES YOU AT THE MOMENT, SEASONS CAN ALSO AFFECT TEMPERATURE SO SOME PRANAYAMA ARE NOT RECOMMENDED DURING SOME SEASONS. PREGNANT WOMEN AND THOSE WITH FEVER SHOULD NOT PRACTICE BREATHING EXERCISE.
So let's begin….IN YOGA BREATHING EXERCISES WE HAVE FOUR SEGMENTS IN BREATHING.
1.INHALATION… 2.RETENTION. 3.EXHALATION… 4. SUSTAINATION
YOU HAVE TO MAINTAIN A PARTICULAR RYDYM, DON'T RUSH.
ALTERNATE NSESTRILL BREATHING
You start this practice by closing the nostrils one after the other.
Use your right thumb to close the right nostril, and also use the 2nd and 3rd fingers to close the left nostril too…your palm facing the nose.
The practice: now open the left nose and take in air through the left as you close the right, fill up lungs with air, and now close both nostril, then open the right and exhale through the right.
Do this slowly for a start and gradually increase the speed.
This you can practice like 3-5 minutes for a start, then with time increase to 10 minutes if you have the time and capability.
Benefits
This exercise helps you to cleanse your energy channels and align the spine well without a struggle.
This breathing program takes care of issues connected to urinary, and reproductive organs, if one can practice this every day then issues like cold, sinus, cataract and anxieties will be taken care of. This breathing exercise takes care of the opening of the heart arteries. If this breathing exercise can be practiced intensively daily then the kundalini shakti will awaken peacefully.
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