In this episode of Finding Harmony, we’ve decided to take a little “Breathing Break.” We wanted to share some funny stories and talk about our experience with the fourth limb of the eight-limb yoga path: Pranayama. During these especially stressful times, we felt it was important to share with you some of the many benefits that cultivating a regular breathing practice can have on your body and mind.

Some benefits to lengthening your exhalation are:

• It slows down your breathing pattern and releases tension in the body

• It relaxes the Nervous System by stimulating the parasympathetic response

• It tones the vagus nerve and stimulates the vagal break, which is responsible for slowing down the heart rate, and thereby helps to lower and normalize blood pressure.

• It can reduce anxiety and depression and help to regulate your mood.

• It ensures that your blood pH is maintained at an optimal level, thereby reducing inflammation in the body.

• It improves our immune system functioning and supports healthy digestion.

• It will slowly increase your lung capacity so you can breathe bigger, deeper breaths more naturally.

• It trains you to feel comfortable with retaining the breath, thereby giving you greater breath-control.

If you want to learn more about practicing the 4th limb of yoga: Register for my online Pranayama Course that starts Sunday September 13.

Peel Back The Layers with our Autumn Retreat October 2-4. Join myself, Russell Case, Lara Land and Thimo Wittich for our AUTUMN YOGA RETREAT ONLINE. Registration is NOW OPEN!

Here is a Simple Breathing Practice you can begin with:

To begin you can start with a practice of Simple Breathing. If you are new to this kind of breathing, start with three minutes. Inhale for three seconds and exhale for six seconds. Continue this pattern of lengthening the exhalation to be twice as long as your inhalation. If the 3:6 (inhale:exhale) ratio feels too fast or easy, then the next day you can extend both your inhalation and exhalation by one second, to create a breath rate of 4:8 (inhale:exhale).

If it is comfortable for you slightly tighten the glottis muscle at the back of your throat to create that “ujjayi” sound as you breathe, you might find you have more control over your ability to elongate your inhalation and exhalation.

When you slow your breathing down and consciously regulate your breathing pattern to a four second inhale and an eight second exhale, you are effectively restoring balance to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, in this case you would be slowing your breath rate to five breaths per minute.

Even with a three second inhale and six second exhale, your breath rate slows to just under seven breaths per minute, which is a significant drop from the normal, every day, breathing rate of fifteen to eighteen breaths per minute. This slowing of the breath in turn slows down your brain-wave patterns so they can drop into a more contemplative frequency.

Remember to breathe with a feeling of kindness towards yourself and patience with the process. You are doing something tremendously beneficial for yourself by taking a breathing break.

Listen Now…

Opening and closing music compliments of my dear friend teaching Ashtanga yoga in Eindhoven, Nick Evans with his band “dawnSong” from the album “for Morgan.” Listen to the entire album on Spotify - Simply Click Here.
To purchase your own copy - Click Here.

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