Pranayama

Pranayama can be translated as control or regulation of the breath or life force. It is one of the eight limbs of yoga mentioned in the Yoga Sutras. Patanjali describes pranayama as an exercise that prepares one for the concentration of meditation.

In Elemental Yoga, we practice pranayama at the beginning of each class. For beginners, a good first step is just being aware of the breath - this is an inhale, this is an exhale. Then begin to control the length of each - inhale to the count of one, two, three, exhale to the count of one, two, three. One can play with lengthening both inhale and exhale as a next step, then experiment with making the exhale longer than the inhale, particularly if one's mind tends toward agitation (not to rat myself out or anything, but this is my go to pranayama - the 1:2 breathing I mentioned in an earlier entry, where the exhale is twice as long as the inhale).

I just read this passage in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna is describing all of the various ways that yogis can come to know him. Just by being aware of your breath, you can come closer to a relationship with the Divine.

Still others offer
The incoming breath
Into the outgoing breath,
Likewise, the outgoing breath
Into the incoming breath.

Having restrained
The movements of incoming
And outgoing breaths,
They are wholly focused upon
Control of the life-breath.

In Elemental Yoga, we also practice a type of pranayama called Climbing Breath, where you increase lung capacity on each inhale, expanding the rib cage, feeling the fullness of the lungs in all directions. Since I have been more dedicated to a daily practice, over the past two years, my primary care physician has noticed a change in my lung capacity. None of my doctors have figured out why, but I have the lung capacity of a ten year old child all the time, and I tend towards asthma whenever I do any rigorous physical activity. But lately, my lung capacity has been registering at low normal for my height and age. My doctor was amazed the last time she checked. She asked what I had been doing differently, and she was surprised that the answer was just yoga. Low normal may not seem that great to a normal human, but for me, this is an incredibly big deal.