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What are Breathing Exercises or Pranayama? |
The most important part of yoga lies in the breathing exercises. These include Pranayama and all the other associated breathing exercises. Pranayama means effective increase of the life force. Oxygen is life giving to our bodies. Therefore increased oxygen intake through pranayama breathing exercises is the most essential part of yoga.
Pranayama acts as the foundation for yogic spiritual awakening. By increasing oxygen intake, the hitherto unreached places in the brain and body are flooded with oxygen. This helps in obtaining the sensation of both mind and body rejuvenation. Through pranayama and the resulting rich oxygen intake degenerative processes in the body become delayed.
Pranayamic breathing can be performed by sitting or lying down on a mat. The inhalation (puraka) performed at the initiation of a pranayama breathing cycle fills the lungs with fresh air. Then, breath retention (kumbhaka) raises the internal temperature of the lungs and plays an important part in increased oxygen intake into them. Finally, the exhalation (rechak) causes the return of the diaphragm to its original position.
During this last step in a pranayama breathing cycle, the impurities and toxins filled air is forced out through the inter-costal muscles contraction. Through pranayama breathing exercises, the abdominal muscles are properly massaged and this helps tone up the working of the various bodily organs.
Due to the proper functioning of the lungs, the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles through pranayama, vital energy giving oxygen flows to all the organs of the body. Pranayama breathing can become successful in achieving the above objective when you maintain the proper proportion between inhalation, breath retention, and exhalation.
Besides the above three stages in a Pranayamic breathing cycle, three types of pranayama breathing exercises are used for achievement of different benefits. These are the high breathing, low breathing, and middle breathing exercise. The different types of Pranayamic breathing helps exercise different parts of the respiratory system.
High breathing - This affects the upper part of the lungs and chest. This technique is also known as collarbone or clavicular breathing. In it you raise the ribs, the shoulders and the collarbone. High breathing is inherently shallow breathing. It is not as much desirable as the other types are. This is because the air capacity of the upper portion of the lungs is quite less.
Low breathing - This is the best of the three types of Pranayamic breathing techniques. In it you move your abdomen in and out and the position of your diaphragm changes because of the abdominal movements. Low breathing is performed generally by sedentary individuals and effects in the best intake of oxygen into the lungs.
Middle breathing - This is also known as thoracic breathing or rib breathing. It is better than high breathing, but it still is a shallower form of breathing than the low technique.
Most of us use a combination of the above forms of breathing and that is known as complete breathing. In pranayama, the breathing exercise aims at complete breathing, because the aim is to exercise all the different parts of the respiratory system. |
