Breathing and lengthening in Bound Angle Pose

Return to Your Breath

A practice is activity we perform with intention.

Practices shape us over time, and each time we return to practice we reaffirm commitment to ourselves. Our reasons for practicing, guide all we do - these are our values, evolving, strengthening.

It is common to think we could do more - 

it is a cultural impulse to increase, improve, insist 

upon importance of that which we seem to have achieved. 

There is little more terrorizing to our evolution, however, 

than a judgement that we must be more or better - 

that we are not enough, right now. 

Instead, at these times, make your practice to breathe deeply.

Feel the temperature of the air on your nostrils as you inhale.

Relax your throat. Close your eyes - it's ok.

Exhale pulling the belly in.

Feel warm air through your nose as you push breath out.

Inhale, fill your chest with air, release the belly to bulge.

Just for this moment, feel air fill your body.

Visualize any empty balloon,

exhale any negative thoughts to fill the balloon.

Feel your breath pushing the balloon far away.

Let it float off, leaving you breathing your own breath.

B 

Breath 

Breath dictates how we experience all that is.
When the inhale and exhale are equal in length, breath brings equilibrium to the nervous system.
A long exhale releases excess waste product buildup from the lungs and blood. 
An inhale longer than exhale brings in additional oxygen.

In daily life as well as during focused physical movement we need a certain depth of breath to release carbon dioxide buildup and prevent oxygen deficiency that occur if we "get behind" on our breathing. Think of when you suddenly sprint, run up some stairs, or move much more quickly than usual, and end up panting for breath. This is a healthy physical response -- your respiratory and vascular systems refreshing the elements they need to continue supporting your physical life.

Even breath, which supports calm thinking and serenity, can be achieved in this way:
Inhale (through the nose if you can) for 6 seconds, pause with full lungs for one second, exhaling through the nose for 6 seconds, and pausing with empty lungs for one second. Repeat. Notice any change in how you feel.
 
How to Breathe during Yoga Pose (Asana) Practice, in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga:
The breathing technique performed with vinyasa is called ujjayi [victorious breath] (Scott 20), which consists of puraka [inhalation] and rechaka [exhalation] ("Ashtanga Yoga"). "Both the inhale and exhale should be steady and even, the length of the inhale should be the same length as the exhale" ("Ashtanga Yoga"). Over time, the length and intensity of the inhalation and exhalation should increase, such that the increased stretching of the breath initiates the increased stretching of the body (Scott 21). Long, even breathing also increases the internal fire and strengthens and purifies the nervous system ("Ashtanga Yoga").

From "Ashtanga Yoga Background".
Works Therein Cited include:
Scott, John. Ashtanga Yoga: The Definitive Step-by-Step Guide to Dynamic Yoga. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000.
"Ashtanga Yoga." Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute: Method. 2001. 11 June 2003 <http://www.ayri.org/method.html>.

Since breath is the most crucial focus of pose (asana) practice, here are further resources to peruse on the role of breath, breath practices (pranayama) and how breath affects health in yoga and beyond.

Further reading on Breath in Yoga:
How Yoga Affects Breathing 
How Yoga Affects Your Nervous System
What Yoga Therapists Should Know About the Anatomy of Breathing  
Nadi Shodana to Balance the Nervous System

Therapeutic Use:
Breathing, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Yoga 
Yoga and Mild Asthma

First, Kill Your Science:  

Delusions in Objectivity, in Brief

A lot of casual "science" falls far short of scientific.

Scientific method requires falsifiability of all hypotheses. 

Otherwise, all experimental conclusions are circumstantial.

Regarding the human body's joints, tissues and organs we have some working knowledge, and a lot of medically relevant conjecture, which assists in treating conditions we deem unacceptable ("sickness," "abnormality," "impairment," and "dysfunction.") But how do we determine the norm and criteria for health, correct form and function of the body, and furthermore the mind and behavior?

The history of medicine shows how often our views of body, mind and "health" have changed.

Our perception of what is inside, composing, and surrounding the body is contextual, culturally.

For example, are you able to feel qi? Can you move prana through your shishumne nadi?

 

Maybe you've received diagnosis that there is stagnance in your triple burner, or seen medieval drawings of a five lobed liver?

Our perceptions of what is physically immutable about the body rely on cultural reality to establish expectations, toward which any particular body tends either to conform or not.

Practicing yoga asana, meaning poses, can change joint alignment and muscle length, strength and endurance, promote more efficient respiration, and alter biochemically induced (really, any) moods. Allopathic medicine, supported by "Western science", "proves" these benefits occur with as little as 15 minutes of yoga pose practice per day. So, of course, you should be totally convinced. Right.

Using the asana (pose) practice diagrams and descriptions for physical guidance helps busy-minded and body-minded folks connect breath (called "prana" which also means energy) with body position and thought process. Through this union the practitioner gets ready for meditation, whether seated, still, or moving. Some say this is yoga's oldest purpose: to unite our perceived being into an awareness that contemplates, and is represented by, a single point.

That is, single-pointed awareness.
Then, to remove the point.

Yoga history describes this union in terms of a transcendent divine that connects with the meat-brain of the physical body when we control our thoughts and movement through breath. "Yoga may be defined as any practice involving the body, but ultimately it boils down to a process of embodying divine consciousness." The Hindu Yogi Science of Breath (pdf) (project gutenberg) describes the long-standing evidence -- from baseline physical to esoteric -- that "breath is life."

This blog presents the background, the science and story, of yoga's approach to knowing the body.