Expand Your Yoga Practice with Pranayama

If you couldn’t breathe for even a few moments, you’d probably feel anxiety and panic rushing in.

Breathing is an automatic and innate process, but it’s not just an uncontrollable bodily function. With Pranayama, you can unleash the hidden powers within your breath.

Where’s your Prana?

Remember when you were young and imagined that you were a superhero? Where did your super power go? It’s still there, just hidden away. It’s your Prana.

Your energy has many different names. In yogic terms, it’s called Prana. The Chinese call it Qi; in Japan, it’s Ki or Youki; the New Age movement calls it Cosmic Energy.

Use your Prana Wisely

You can use Yogic principles and practices to conserve your energy when it’s not required and to increase your energy.

Do you have unconscious habits like clenching your jaw, holding your abdomen muscles, or tensing your shoulders? Do you get upset at small things or hold a grudge toward someone?

These habits are like holding an unnecessary heavy brick for the entire day. Conserve your energy for when you need it by relaxing the physical body and mind whenever possible.

Maximize your Asana Practice

Get more out of your asana practice by incorporating your breath. Slow full breaths will help to clear your mind and connect with yourself on a deeper level. You can breathe during asana practice and throughout your day to bring increased mental alertness.

Dirga Swasam Pranayama – full yogic breath, or three-part breathing – is relatively easy. Relax your body, take a slow, deep breath by inflating the bottoms of the lungs by the belly, the middle, then the tops of the lungs near the shoulders. Then exhale slowly by deflating the same way: bottoms of the lungs first, then the middle, then the top.

Increase your Energy with Pranayama

Pranayama breathing exercises can help to increase your energy. Anuloma Viloma (alternate nostril breathing) produces results within minutes to balance the whole of your being.

In the first level, sit comfortably with the back straight. Your left hand is in Chin Mudra with the palm upward, thumb and index finger lightly touching, and your other fingers are straight. Use your right thumb to gently close the right nostril to take a slow breath in and out of the left nostril. Then block the left nostril with the ring finger and repeat on the right. The breath is elongated to inhale for 4 counts, exhaling for 8.

This practice can be advanced several times. In the second level, stick to the same count, but inhale through the left and exhale through the right, then inhale through the right and exhale through the left.

In the third level, a retention is added so the count becomes inhale for 4, retain for 16, exhale for 8. When introducing the retention, begin with a shorter retention for 8. Then when the body and mind can stay calm, extend the retention for the full length.

Use your inner energy wisely and make the most out of it. Pranayama builds the energy that you already have inside of you. Practicing pranayama before or after asanas will strengthen the benefits of both the pranayama and asana practice and will give you energy to help you fulfill your potential!