Breathing exercises: Balancing the Breath to Increase Mental Poise

By www.anandaindia.org

Breathing exercises: Balancing the Breath to Increase Mental Poise

When greeting a sunny day joyously, one tends to inhale, as if drawing into one's very lungs the wonders of creation. When one is ill or unhappy, he sighs as if to throw the burden out of his body or mind. The increasing power of inhalation or exhalation is associated with the strengthening of upward or downward currents of energy in the spine.

The balance of these two currents results in a state of mental poise, and in a deepening inner awareness. When the two currents are perfectly balanced, even the movement of physical breathing is stopped. Only in breathlessness is one able completely to concentrate the mind.

Advanced yogis are able to remain breathless for long periods of time. The practice of kumbhak, or forcible retention of breath, is done for brief periods in order to focus one's mind on a particular thought or state of consciousness.

A breathing exercise that is intended to help balance and harmonize the two currents in the spine (known as pran and apan) is a technique known as alternate breathing:

Close the right nostril, inhaling through the left for a count of 8.

-       # Hold the breath, counting 8

-       # Close the left nostril and exhale through the right to a count of 8.

-       # A slight constriction in the throat, so as to make a gentle sound there during respiration, will help to increase the consciousness of the corresponding movement of energy in the spine.

-       # Repeat six times.

-       # The proper position of the fingers during this breathing exercise is to extend the thumb and the ring and little fingers, closing the forefinger and middle finger against the palm. Close the right nostril with the thumb of the right hand. Close the left nostril with the ring and little fingers.

Source: www.anandaindia.org

.

.

See also: Breathing exercises, Yoga, Yoga and Health, Yoga Systems, Yoga Positions)