the power of breath – simple breathing technique

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By: JULIE RAMMAL
Edited date: August 12, 2021Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

breathe in the change you want to see

If you want to be happy, breathe in happiness. If you want to be loved breathe in love. If you want to succeed breathe in success. Set your intention for every breath while you meditate and what you wish for will come (if the universe feels it’s to your best interest!)

The power of breath is much more than clearing toxins, supplying body with oxygen while removing carbon dioxide, it is about becoming more enlightened as you receive the ability to change your mood, stress, fatigue, temperature or energy level.

Through your breath you can heal your body and mind as you access higher levels of consciousness. In yoga, in order to change a situation we must change the energy that governs it. Therefore, to bring positive changes in the body and mind we have to work with the energies through which they work. The universe created us with two large lungs for a reason. Through your breath, you move prana, or energy, and your mental force, chitta, also moves allowing you to open your intuition.

Try to Inhale from your nose and notice which nostril is more opened or easier to breathe in with. If the right was easier, according to the Ayruvedic tradition, you are in a pitta (fire), energetic state. If the left nostril was easier, you are at a kapha or calm, sensitive state. To maintain harmony, we should have equal number of breaths from both nostrils.

Performing nadi adi Shodhan Pranayama (alternate nostril breathing)

1. Inhale from the right nostril, while closing the left nostril with your pinkie finger.

2. Then, close your right nostril with your thumb as you release your pinkie finger and exhale from the left nostril.

3. Inhale from the left nostril, while keeping your thumb on your right nostril, then place your pinkie finger on the left nostril as you release your thumb exhale from the right nostril.

Continue alternating nostril breathing 26 rounds.

While performing your breathing exercise, always remember to keep the mind calm, and set your intention. For example, you are stressed from a long day, and want to relax. Quietly sit down, and visualize breathing in blue, and then perform your yogic pranayama breath. These ancient breathing exercises, clean out internal toxins, change your mood, energy, clears and boosts your energy channels, harmonizes left and right hemispheres of the brain, purifies your nadis, and calms the mind.

To your health!