Lecture: Proper Practice of Pranayama
Do you know the current balance of CO2 and O2 levels in your breath and airways? No? Guess who does—Your body!
When you’re CO2 levels are low, it throws off your blood’s PH, making it hard for you body to oxygenate the blood, impacting all the systems of your body.
So if we don’t know how to support our blood’s PH Homeostasis, then why do we constantly try to micro-manage our breathing as if we did?
And guess what, according to science, ’taking a deep breath’ is the last thing that would benefit you right now.
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Most of us are over-breathing throughout the day— breathing in too much, and not breathing out enough. We are essentially hyperventilating most of the day.
This results in low CO2 levels, making it hard for our bodies to oxygenate our blood.
Counter to what popular culture leads us to believe, proper respiration is actually a measure of CO2 in your system, not oxygen— which is a feature more closely associated with your exhale.
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- “Respiration is all about CO2…When CO2 is at right levels in blood and airways, then we can have adequate oxygen levels” Good breathing is actually defined as “Retaining the proper amount of CO2 so that we can oxygenate properly and that our systems remain in harmony.” -Dr. Crystal Frazee, Breathing Behavior Analyst.So CO2 levels are actually the key to respiration because if CO2 is low, you’re body cannot oxygenate property.
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The excessive O2 levels, and Low CO2 levels, has lots of symptoms we associate with other things,
Feeling lightheaded, dizzy, weak, or not able to think straight
Feeling as if you can't catch your breath
Chest pain or fast and pounding heartbeat
Belching or bloating
Dry mouth
Muscle spasms in the hands and feet
Numbness and tingling in the arms or around the mouth
Problems sleeping
Because your breath isn’t just about your lungs, it affects all of your systems.
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Week without food, days without water, minutes without breath.
“By proper practice of pranayama all diseases are eradicated, through improper practice all diseases arise” pradipika
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• So what is the proper practice of pranayama?
Shambhavananda tells us in simple language how we can come into harmony with our breath: QUOTE ON SLIDE
Shambhavananda’s internal revelations are supported by today’s science— we’re over breathing, using the breath as a jackhammer to effect our reality. We are told that we must redefine our relationship with it, not breaking open a rock, but massaging open our heart, eventually discovering the flow within the breath.
This flow within the breath is what Patanjali was talking about 2,000 years ago as well, a subtler approach that transcends the breath as a physical thing as helps us feel the breath as an experiential thing.
Which brings us to another perspective on the breath from zen master, and friend of Babaji’s, Paul Reps. He guides us in a poetic internal practice of beginning to do the highest pranamayas which refer to harmonizing, not manipulating.
So how do we get to these experiences? Meditation will take us there eventually, but we can support this pursuit through many practical approaches to our asana and pranamaya practice.
Our biggest work is centered on avoiding the black hole of “hyperventilation”, as we resolve this challenge we harmonize with the breath naturally.
So many factors can contribute to improper breathing
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Over-Stimulation: The general ‘go getter’ sentiment that implores all of us to breathe deeper generally contributes to hypeventilation.
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Over breathing also creates physical disfunction
Experiment with Reverse Breathing
table top (neutral) what do you notice on your inhale and exhale?
(inhale naturally arches the back, exhale naturally tones)
try normal cat cow- notice how our usual cues of inhale for how and exhale cat get us to over arch the backbend and over brace the core in the forward fold
try reversing your breath
what do you notice?
exhaling when we are used to inhaling can provide extra support and eveness in our eccentric contraction
inhaling “”” can help us find buoyancy when we often go to far or collapse
try this in a pose
what do you notice?
note: we don’t want to tell be inhale this, exhale this, because they will follow our cues and not their own natural breath flow. Instead when you are teaching a shakti flow, you can cue them to repeat at their own pace, exhaling to extend, inhaling to bend (for example)
Posture that leads to Mouth Breathing:
Generally due to Poor Posture, Sitting and standing in Head forward posture also leads to increased O2
Here’s how: LETS TRY THIS: head forward makes it hard to breathe, try swalloing, it’s tough. So we open our mouths to compensate.
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Feel the difference in your body’s musculature when you breathe between the mouth and nose. Which one uses more of your body?
Nose breathing engages our diaphragm, the key breathing muscle, as well as other supporting respiratory muscles
Notice the difference in pace of nose vs. mouth
Slower inhales means we tend to take in less O2 and conserve more CO2.
Slower breathing also allows us to be with the pause between breaths, which allows CO2 levels to rise. If this is uncomfortable, it might indicate low co2 levels in your normal breathing
Nose the difference in quality
Nose breathing also filters, warms and humidifies the breath
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Stress: When you’re stressed you can muscle your way into a deep breath, but you have to surrender to deeply exhale, which is usually harder.
Exhaling is a passive actions that requires “letting go” to accomplish, so when stress has you, we usually hold on tighter, and it can feel impossible to deeply release enough to exhale
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Redefine we cue breathing in yoga: How can we work with our breath without creating disfunction? It’s the same question we are asking in yoga. Our body knows more about our breath than we do.
Pranayama is about regulating your breath to find homeostasis, because it’s in homeostasis that we find the balance of CO2 and O2 for proper oxygenation of our blood and airways.
We can’t measure our CO2 levels throughout the day to know how to breathe, and this isn’t necessary. Just like our alignment doesn’t have to be a long list of memorized angles.
We just need to learn how to consciously feel the breath in it’s natural state, and then if needed choose how to breathe from that informed experience.
Natural should be:
Described as “full” and “natural”, not ‘deep’
Has 4 parts
Silent, no sound
Through the nose
Constantly flowing
Don’t clip your exhale
As with so many aspects of our practice, our ‘work’ seems to be about learning how we can use our effort to support the already high functioning capacity of our body, instead of over riding it’s intelligence with what we think the body needs.
Ideal breathing patterns, therefore, are based on ‘noticing and observation’, not “steering and manipulation”.
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Exercise (10 minutes):
The Natural Breath: empower students to not follow your cues if they aren’t comfortable.
Find an upright posture
Body/Mind Scan to notice physical, emotional and mental states that are present
Notice where there is tension, notice depth of breath, where do you prefer to breathe (chest, ribs, belly)
Relax face, throat, shoulders,
Balance out the breath flow, we’ll call this 100% effort
Now try to use 50% of that effort to continue breathing, let the pace start to change, bring the mantra Ham Sah to the breath
Then attempt to use 50% less effort than you are currently using. Let this help you approach the practice of effortless breathing.
Relax the throat and chest, effortless breath is through the nose and silent
Try to continue breathing effortlessly,“Don’t flicker the candle”
Allow the exhale to end without rushing to inhale.
Notice the 4 parts of the breath: inhale, pause, exhale, pause
Pay extra attention to the pause after exhale, allow the inhale to come to you, noticing that you don’t need much to feel comfortable (that’s why we hyperventilate)
Allow the exhale to become a little longer than the inhale. If that’s too challenging, just focus on shortening your inhale a little bit.
Optional Advanced Mod: Add an exhale and pause, let the inhale come to you
“Exhale, pause, exhale, pause, let inhale come to you”
After 3 minutes of this, come back to initial body/mind scan and notice any changes
What was challenging about this? Practice that part for a 1-minute practice session throughout the day, or simply try to do this for one breath cycle 5x a day. `