Why Is Everyone Talking About Pranayama?

Pranayama is a Sanskrit word: 'Prana' means life force energy - the energy that connects every living being and 'Yama' means restraint, or control. Pranayama refers to many different techniques in which we learn control our breath.

Why Practice Pranayama?

When we control our breath with Pranayama, it helps to direct the flow of prana (the life force energy that flows through the energetic pathways in our body), enabling us to quieten our minds and find peace but also which has great physical benefits, including: alleviating stress, improving our respiratory system, helping us sleep better, enhancing our mental well-being, stimulating our para-sympathetic nervous system, increasing oxygen levels in our blood, increasing our digestion and elimination processes, increasing energy levels and much more.

Although an ancient practice, Pranayama is so important in our modern age, where we seem to live in a constant state of stress, whether it's exam or work stress, issues at home or work, health issues, divorce, finance, moving home, illness and so much more! Our breath changes according to the emotion we are experiencing at that moment. Maybe notice next time how different your breath is from a happy moment to an unhappy or angry' moment. Fast breath? Slow breath? Shallow breath? Notice the quality of your breath. Notice your heart rate.

A few moments each day, simply regulating our breath can give us an amazing change to our unconscious breathing patterns and we when change those habitual patterns, we can change the emotional patterns that underly those habitual breathing patterns. Helping us become calmer in daily life and better equipped to deal with our challenges.

Whilst there are many pranayama techniques, the main idea is to control our breath through our nose and mouth according to the technique you are practising. Taking slow, long deep breaths is not easy at first, but with practice, you increase your breath stamina, and the way that you co-ordinate your breath. At the same time, you can help your digestion and elimination processes, detoxify the body naturally.

Using our breath and lungs more efficiently helps the flow of prana through the body. If we practice pranayama before our breathing becomes strained, we are able to use our lungs more efficiently and benefit from the increased oxygen to our blood. Poor posture can also lead us to use our lungs ineffectually, such as taking breath only from the upper or middle parts of our lungs or using our diaphragm inefficiently. Of course, where there is consistent long-term breathlessness, you must seek medical assistance for the underlying cause.

If you are interested in knowing more, or practising pranayama, please see my page dedicated to Pranayama on my website.