Fill Your Lungs
By Claudia Cummings, Yoga Journal article August, 2007
In daily life, we rarely—if ever—breathe to the full extent of our lungs’ capability. That means we don’t utilize fully our body’s capacity to absorb oxygen. Our yoga practice helps by teaching us to breathe more deeply. As we use more of our lungs to breathe in class, we change the way our body breathes outside of class. Processing oxygen more efficiently makes us more fit and also more smart!
Here’s a breathing practice you can try to experience the principle of deep breathing in action:
Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair. Relax your belly as you inhale so you can completely fill your lungs. Breathe in as much as you can and then stop, relax, and evaluate. Can you breathe in just a little more? Are you surprised by how deeply you can breathe?
Bringing air down into the lower portion of the lungs, where oxygen exchange is most efficient, has a wide range of beneficial effects on body and mind. It slows your heart rate, relaxes your muscles, decreases your blood pressure, eases anxiety, and calms your mind. Abdominal, or belly, breathing also offers a sense of control over your body and emotions that is extremely therapeutic.
The elegant shapes and impressive contortions of the asanas may be the most eye-catching element of hatha yoga, but yoga masters will tell you they’re hardly the point of practice. According to yoga philosophy, the postures are merely preludes to deeper states of meditation that lead us toward enlightenment, where our minds grow perfectly still and our lives grow infinitely big. But just how do we make the leap from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog) to samadhi? Ancient yoga texts give us a clear answer: Breathe like a yogi.
Pranayama, the formal practice of controlling the breath, lies at the heart of yoga. It has a mysterious power to soothe and revitalize a tired body, a flagging spirit, or a wild mind. The ancient sages taught that prana, the vital force circulating through us, can be cultivated and channeled through a panoply of breathing exercises. In the process, the mind is calmed, rejuvenated, and uplifted. Pranayama serves as an important bridge between the outward, active practices of yoga—like asana—and the internal, surrendering practices that lead us into deeper states of meditation.
More of the 38 Health Benefits of Yoga
By Dr. Timothy McCall
- Gives you inner strength
Yoga can help you make changes in your life. In fact, that might be its greatest strength. Tapas, the Sanskrit word for “heat,” is the fire, the discipline that fuels yoga practice and that regular practice builds. The tapas you develop can be extended to the rest of your life to overcome inertia and change dysfunctional habits. You may find that without making a particular effort to change things, you start to eat better, exercise more, or finally quit smoking after years of failed attempts.
- Connects you with guidance
Good yoga teachers can do wonders for your health. Exceptional ones do more than guide you through the postures. They can adjust your posture, gauge when you should go deeper in poses or back off, deliver hard truths with compassion, help you relax, and enhance and personalize your practice. A respectful relationship with a teacher goes a long way toward promoting your health.
- Helps keep you drug free
If your medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy, maybe it’s time to try yoga. Studies of people with asthma, high blood pressure, Type II diabetes (formerly called adult-onset diabetes), and obsessive-compulsive disorder have shown that yoga helped them lower their dosage of medications and sometimes get off them entirely. The benefits of taking fewer drugs? You’ll spend less money, and you’re less likely to suffer side effects and risk dangerous drug interactions.
- Builds awareness for transformation
Yoga and meditation build awareness. And the more aware you are, the easier it is to break free of destructive emotions like anger. Studies suggest that chronic anger and hostility are as strongly linked to heart attacks as are smoking, diabetes, and elevated cholesterol. Yoga appears to reduce anger by increasing feelings of compassion and interconnection and by calming the nervous system and the mind. It also increases your ability to step back from the drama of your own life, to remain steady in the face of bad news or unsettling events. You can still react quickly when you need to—and there’s evidence that yoga speeds reaction time—but you can take that split second to choose a more thoughtful approach, reducing suffering for yourself and others.
- Benefits your relationships
Love may not conquer all, but it certainly can aid in healing. Cultivating the emotional support of friends, family, and community has been demonstrated repeatedly to improve health and healing. A regular yoga practice helps develop friendliness, compassion, and greater equanimity. Along with yogic philosophy’s emphasis on avoiding harm to others, telling the truth, and taking only what you need, this may improve many of your relationships.
- Uses sounds to soothe your sinuses
The basics of yoga—asana, pranayama, and meditation—all work to improve your health, but there’s more in the yoga toolbox. Consider chanting. It tends to prolong exhalation, which shifts the balance toward the parasympathetic nervous system. When done in a group, chanting can be a particularly powerful physical and emotional experience. A recent study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute suggests that humming sounds—like those made while chanting Om—open the sinuses and facilitate drainage.
Pose of the Month – Lion Pose
simha = lion
Roar Like a Lion
Ever feel so stressed that you wanted to scream? A good shout can literally help you blow off steam, releasing pent-up frustrations and leaving you spent, relaxed, and calm. We are often taught, in our society, to hold all our emotions in and to betray no trace of frustration or exhaustion. But it can be much healthier just to let it out!
In yoga we sometimes mimic the roar of a lion in particular, but any roar or shout will help you reduce stress throughout the day. Some good places to try this include the shower, in traffic, or in the privacy of your bedroom. If others are around, it’s helpful to alert them first—because it can sound alarming! And if you’re driving, of course, make sure to watch the road as you sound your lungs.
Step by Step
- Kneel on the floor and cross the front of the right ankle over the back of the left. The feet will point out to the sides. Sit back so the perineum snuggles down onto the on the top (right) heel.
- Press your palms firmly against your knees. Fan the palms and splay your fingers like the sharpened claws of a large feline.
- Take a deep inhalation through the nose. Then simultaneously open your mouth wide and stretch your tongue out, curling its tip down toward the chin, open your eyes wide, contract the muscles on the front of your throat, and exhale the breath slowly out through your mouth with a distinct “ha” sound. The breath should pass over the back of the throat.
- Some texts instruct us to set our gaze (drishti) at the spot between the eyebrows. This is called “mid-brow gazing” (bhru-madhya-drishti; bhru = the brow; madhya = middle). Other texts direct the eyes to the tip of the nose (nasa-agra-drishti; nasa = nose; agra = foremost point or part, i.e., tip)
- You can roar two or three times. Then change the cross of the legs and repeat for the same number of times.
“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.” ― Dalai Lama
