Practicing Breath

practicing breath

Practicing Breath

The idea of “practicing breath” is one that’s often heard in yoga classes. But what does it really mean?

Aren’t we always breathing?

In the novel Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins writes about two characters, Alobar and Kudra, who learn techniques of immortality, one of them a slow, controlled breathing practice. I often think about them as I breathe the way I’ve learned through years of yoga practice. And no, I’m not doing it because I want to be immortal!

I started practicing yoga about 20 years ago. I’d follow along with the breathing techniques in classes, and feel their immediate effects; more openness in my body, a greater sense of calm, more energy, and sometimes just pure bliss. But I started to understand why they were so important only more recently as the practice became more a part of my daily life.

Breathing as Pain Alleviation

I’d struggled for years with pain from of endometriosis. And a few years ago I began a weekly practice of Osho Kundalini Meditation. Through this, I learned techniques of relaxation of the pelvic muscles, which helped to reduce the pain. As I would go through the exercises, I started to realize that it was my breathing that brought me to the relaxation. The deep yoga breath made me more conscious of where I was holding physical tension in my body and in invited me to release that tension. I don’t practice the Osho technique anymore, but as soon as I start feeling the pain from endometriosis, I take deep breaths and focus on relaxing my pelvic muscles. The pain quickly dissipates. I’m not saying that this could work for everyone, as not all pain is because of tension. But it works for me.

Breathing to Reduce Anxiety

Another thing that deep conscious breathing helps me with is anxiety. As an introvert, I feel the pressure of social anxiety in crowds of people. It’s easy to take a drink or too in social settings to numb that, and though I’m a yoga teacher, I’m not against that, as it does help me relax! But there are other situations where anxiety creeps up on me too. In these cases, a minute or two of deep controlled and conscious breathing help to me feel a bit more at ease. It’s not perfect, but that little bit does help me to function better.

Breathing as a Healing Practice

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been learning about restorative yoga and its healing potential. Allowing our bodies to rest through deep relaxation and conscious breath can support us in recovering from illnesses faster, reducing stress and anxiety, boost our immune systems and make us stronger. Last year, I began an advanced yoga teacher training, the Svastha Yoga Therapie program. What I’ve learned in the first couple of modules was invaluable. I’m excited for the 3rd and 4th modules which I will attend this year, which are all about the breath. I look forward to continuing to learn more about how the breath can heal.

Practicing Breath

The idea of practicing breath is not something unique to yoga, but it’s one that we focus on in yoga classes. Once or twice a week, we get together, breathe and move together. We learn various breathing techniques in a class lead by a knowledge guide. But then what happens when we leave? Do we go back to our short breaths, hunching shoulders up to ears while waiting for the bus in the cold? Holding our breath when someone makes us angry? My idea of practicing breath is about being conscious and aware of how I’m breathing in the moment. I try, when I can, to take this practice out of the yoga studio and into my daily life. It may not change the world and all society’s problems. But it can help me to deal with it better, and get strong to fight back against it in a way that is productive.

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Juli teaches restorative yoga and vinyasa flow at English Yoga Berlin in our Kreuzberg yoga studio.

Bring the air to your left little toe

Bring the air to your left little toe. How?

Yoga teaching language on breathing

photo by Jordan Whitt

Since I started Leslie Kaminoff‘s Yoga Anatomy course I’ve been exploring some of the teaching language we use in yoga. I remember being in some really beautiful yoga classes and hearing the teacher say “bring the air into” the part of the body we are stretching at that moment. I found it to be a very helpful remark, although I had no idea how one can literally do that. I always took it as a metaphoric remark which meant to bring my consciousness to a specific part of my body. Sometimes I would imagine a little mouth on ie. my left toe and visualize it taking in air while expanding and taking out air while contracting. And funnily enough, it would always bring energy to that part of the body, which I noticed as a feeling of heat or a tinkling feeling.

The truth be told is that you can’t actually consciously bring the air into your left toe. You can bring it only into your lungs. Your circulation system will do the rest for you. But you can’t consciously do that. You can bring your attention, awareness, consciousness to your left toe…but not the oxygen exchange by simply thinking of it.

So what do those yoga teachers mean when they use such language?

According to Leslie Kaminoff, it is important to make a distinction between bringing air into your body and experiencing the breath. The air comes only into your lungs where all gas exchange happens. Breath, on the other hand, can be defined as the shape change of the body when this gas exchange in the lungs occur. When you breathe, your body changes shape: ie. your rib cage expands or contracts, your belly moves, your pelvic diaphragm follows. When you are focused enough you can notice this change in your body shape also in the less obvious places such as your neck, throat, forehead, pelvic floor, legs. This is what the breath is. A change in shape in your body.

When breath is seen in this way, then comments such as “Bring your breath to your pelvic floor” make sense again. They mean become aware of the shape change that is occurring in your pelvic floor as a result of your breathing. Or they could even mean to consciously create shape change in your pelvic floor while you breathe.

Is this just a bunch of semantics? Maybe. But I also believe that when the breath is seen in this way, then you can also notice what kind of breathing patterns you have. Does your body always change shape in the exact same way, potentially indicating being stuck in a breathing pattern? Do you have the freedom to breathe in many different ways depending on what situation you find yourself? Our breath is supposed to be a free changing movement that reflects both our biologies and biographies. It is a movement that is created both as a result of our lives, and can also be consciously controlled, released, or changed.

Pinelopi is a sivananda Yoga teacher based in Berlin. She specializes in Hatha Yoga, Pregnancy Yoga, yoga for beginners and business yoga.