Basic Breathing Yoga Pose - Vedyou For Better Health
Life begins with our first breath and ends with our last breath. The breath plays a crucial role in maintaining the bodies life. In Yoga, breathing is considered the most important of the bodies functions. Through the breath man connects himself to the world around him. Man is apart of the natural world, his body is made out of the same elements as are found in the earth and in the universe. There is a continuous exchange of these elements with each breath. You breath the world in, but you also breath some of you out into the world. There are microscopic bits of you in every exhalation. Thus, you share in the chemical mix of the planet, as you inhale and exhale. The breath is an invisible umbilical cord to Mother Earth. If the cord is broken, even for a short time, you will not live.
In Hatha Yoga, the breath is considered to be the primary conveyor of subtle, etheric energy. This energy is not detectable by any scientific instruments, it is not an object in the usual sense. It can not be described acuratly because it is not physical, it exists as a fourth dimensional shadow of matter, it is in all things, but is not the thing itself. This force is found in the food we eat and the water we drink, but it primarily exists in the air we breath. This invisible force animates matter and is the fuel for all action. This energy force is always hidden behind a dimensional wall yet is everywhere present. Yoga calls this energy Prana, and the study of the breathing process is called Pranayama. By breathing you bring Prana into the body. By breathing correctly you allow higher levels of Prana to enter and accumulate.
The free flow of high levels of prana throughout the body makes the body strong and resilient. But Prana is also needed by the mind. The breath provides a vital link between the body and the mind. It has been observed that various patterns of the breathing will effect the emotions. Pranayama studies the relationship between the breath and consciousness.
To do yoga breathing, you should allow the lungs to fill from the bottom up, this assures maximum air penetration and absorption. To do this, you need to understand that the lungs lay just behind the rib cage and are pulled open and closed by them. If you are breathing only with the top half of the chest, the top of the lungs will open first, so the air fills them only at the very top. If on the other hand, you push your belly out as you inhale you will expand your diaphram first. The lower ribs will then push out and open the lower portion of the lung first. The air then rushes down into them to fill the vacum and so fills the whole lung from the bottom to the top. When you exhale, you reverse the process and pull the belly in at the end of the exhalation. This pushes the air completly out of the lower portion of the lungs, thereby, pushing all the toxins in the used air out of the lungs.
The breath is also used as a focus of meditation. For a meditator all power exits in the present moment . You can not breath in any other moment but the present one,therefore an awareness of the breath automatically returns you to this moment . So a meditator becomes more conscious of the present moment as he observes his own breath. Breath meditation is the simplest yet most difficult of meditations. To pay close, continuous attention to the coming and going of the breath is for most people highly difficult, possible for a minute or so at best. Yet it may be learned with patience and practice. The breath meditation will help keep you in the moment, so you can harness the power which lays hidden there.
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