Pranayama is an umbrella term for different breathing exercises. Some of these exercises have different goals than others, but the gist is the same: to regulate or control your breath, sink into the experience, and alter your energy through the breath.
I don’t have a history of getting headaches, so when they started nagging at me, pulling at my forehead and temples by early afternoon, I took notice. Nothing in my lifestyle had changed—I was still at the same job, eating the same foods, reading and working and writing under the same lighting. At a loss to pinpoint the source of these new headaches, I decided it was the perfect time to check out craniosacral therapy.
Prana is, quite simply, life. It is the life force, nourishing body, mind and soul both literally and figuratively. Prana flows within the body by way of breath (the element of air), but also enters the body by the other four elements: earth, water, fire and the ether. The ether, or space, is the element of the soul. It is the element we aim to embody during meditation, as we move inward to find space. Prana is essential to accessing this endless space, and so we prepare for the process of locating space by practicing pranayama.
The word mudra is a Sanskrit word meaning a hand gesture that symbolizes something – and accordingly bestows joy and happiness. Mudras are considered so very important because it is said that our hands are full of our karmic energy, while our fingers are like plugs that help exchange energy between our pranic force (life energy) and the universal cosmic energy.
On a train ride from Bombay, India, to Goa, I sat in a car with a man in Bermuda shorts and white wild hair talking endlessly for the entire 12-hour journey of his experiences all across India: as a monk, in the Tantric temples, as a martial artist learning from the best. I had no idea I was cosmically being set up with him as my teacher for the next several months. He was a Tai Chi master and I was one of the lucky students to meet Sahm.
Yoga is great for your physical health, and fitness goals draw many of us to the mat. Some come to class because the elongating poses complement other activities like running, and some are motivated by the family member who can miraculously touch her toes, or the coworker who’s traded her sweaters for halter dresses since discovering Ashtanga. Yoga is a good workout. But if you’re in it for the “yoga butt,” you might be tempted to tune out all the other stuff, like when your teacher starts going on about the breath.
One of my yoga teachers says we don’t notice the breath until we’re out of it.
By the time I started a yoga teacher training in 2011, I was out of it, both figuratively and literally: my breath was labored, shallow, strained. I was a first-year 4th grade teacher, and my heart was always racing, whether I was standing in front of my classroom, lying in bed, or brushing my teeth. I was clearly overwhelmed, my body was rebelling, and I couldn’t find the off switch. I was sure my short, panicky breaths were announcing my anxiety to the world.
Power struggles seem to be more and more common as the number of individuals “taking back their power” increases. Where perhaps men, corporations, religious figures, medical practitioners and “anyone in a position of authority” used to automatically assume the upper hand in both conversation and assumed appropriate action, these days individuals are learning how to manage their own lives. Yogic breathing is the perfect tool to use when looking at how to alleviate the potentially harmful affects of power-struggles in any relationship situation, be it work, intimate or otherwise.
4-7-8 breathing is the kegel of mindfulness cultivation. You can do it quickly, any time, anywhere, with great results, and without anyone even noticing (okay, unless you’re in the middle of a conversation and decide to practice deep breathing—you got me there). As an added bonus, its practice isn’t limited to beings of the female variety. In fact, it’s not limited to anyone at all. You don’t have to be female, crunchy, green, hip, square, a yogi, a hippie, or an MD. You just have to breathe.
Breathing. You might say it’s important.
Sure, we know it is life juice – a necessity to think, do, speak, say, move about our ways. But what is the real deal behind breathing? Why do yogis and mindfulness practitioners believe in the power of the breath?