The power of breathwork
Our breath is referred to as Prana in Sanskrit, which can be translated as ‘life force’ or ‘energy’. Breathing is something that we do unconsciously and intuitively throughout our days – we don’t think of breathing, it just happens naturally. Our breath is such a simple yet powerful tool that is available to us at any time, but as we tend to live such fast-paced lives, it is something that we tend to overlook and rarely do consciously.
However, when we start to practice breathwork – or Pranayama, a conscious form of breathing – we can start to shift our energy and our mind, and bring ourselves back into a state of balance. By focusing on our breath, we have the power to stop our ‘monkey mind’ (these thoughts that endlessly come back in loops). It allows us to switch from stress into a state of calm by stimulating our parasympathetic nervous system – responsible for our rest and digest state.
Some benefits of breathwork include:
- Slow down your heart rate and blood pressure
- Reducing stress and anxiety
- Feeling more grounded
- Make clearer decisions when facing challenging situations
- Boosting our immune system
- Improving sleep
How to get started with breathwork?
The easiest way to get started is to practice simple breath awareness. As you are sitting or lying down, start to notice the natural rhythm of your inhales and exhales. Is your breath quite long or quite shallow? Are your inhales and exhales of equal length? Then, notice where you feel your breath the most – is it low in your belly? Or in your chest? Or, perhaps all the way up at your nostrils?
There is no right or wrong to all these questions here, it is simply a practice of getting to know your breath patterns. And as you get to know our breath, you start to become of the shifts and changes that occur throughout a day, or from one day to another.
Two types of breathing techniques you can practice that are calming and grounding:
Three-part Breath (grounding and expansive)
source: Canva
Find a comfortable sitting or lying position. Breathe in and out of the nose. To begin, place your hands on your belly. Breathe in and out of the belly, focusing on its rises and falls. Practice for a couple of rounds. Then, place your hands on the sides of your ribs. Send the breath to the sides and back of the ribs. Repeat a few times. Then, place your hands on your upper chest and send your breath to this area for another couple of rounds.
Finally putting it all together - place one hand on the belly and keep one hand on the chest. Send your breath to the belly, ribs, and chest as you inhale and exhale through the chest, ribs, and belly.
Take a few rounds of this three-part breath for as long as it feels good – as you come back to your regular breath, notice and reflect on how you feel (2).
Nadi Shodhana or Alternate Nostril Breathing (calming and balancing)
Source: Canva
In this practice, we breathe alternatively through the right and left nostril to rebalance our right and left parts of our body and brain in order to rebalance our energy.
Find a comfortable sitting position. Breathe in and out of the nose. You will use the right thumb to close the right nostril and the fourth finger to close the left.
Begin by closing the right nostril and inhale through the left, then close the left as you exhale through the right. Inhale through the right, and exhale through the left. This is one full round of alternate nostril breathing. Repeat as many times as you are comfortable good – as you come back to your regular breath, notice and reflect on how you feel.
References:
- (1) Rachael Coopes, 2022. “Find your strength”.
- Chopra, 2020. https://chopra.com/articles/how-breathwork-benefits-the-mind-body-and-spirit
- Vivian Rosenthal, 2020. https://www.frequencymind.com/blog/top-10-benefits-of-breathwork