Pranayama – The Power of the Breath

Part of our “Eight Limbs of Yoga” series

Pranayama is the practice of conscious breathing. Sounds easy, right? After all, we breathe all the time. Every day, every moment, no matter what else is going on, we keep breathing without even thinking about it. So why should we pay attention to it?

Because pranayama is one of the most powerful and accessible tools of yoga.

Prana is the Sanskrit word for “life force” or energy, and it refers to all forms of energy that the body absorbs, from the air we breathe and the food we eat, to the sunlight on our skin. But prana-yama focuses on practices that control the flow of energy, using the breath.

Yoga is often defined as the union between the mind, body and breath. The breath is really the anchor for this union, and it can influence the state of both the body and mind. We can use pranayama techniques to influence the mind and calm us down, improve mental focus, or prepare for sleep. Similarly, there are practices that change the body, relaxing it, easing tension, or even energising it. Pretty impressive!

Let’s explore the relationship between the breath, body and mind, and the role of pranayama.

The Breath-Body connection

When we practice yoga asana we are aiming to balance sthira, the sense of alertness, and sukha, the sense of ease. The breath is key to this balancing act as it tells us about the tension in our body.

When there is too much sthira, our breathing tends to become faster, more shallow and centred in the upper chest. We also tend to inhale for longer than we exhale as our body tries to suck in more oxygen. This is our body’s natural response to exertion.

When really stressed or in danger, our body goes further. We pump out hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to speed up our reactions; our heart beats faster to flush oxygenated blood to our muscles; our senses become sharper; and sugars and fats are released into the blood for energy. This is the body’s “fight or flight” response, or the sympathetic nervous system that humans developed to survive.

The problem is that our lifestyles and surroundings have evolved faster than our survival instincts, so now our stress response is activated during our daily lives. Something as simple as a negative Instagram comment can trigger a full physical stress response in the body. Science increasingly shows that spending too much time with the sympathetic nervous system activated is actually damaging our health, particularly in relation to MS.

Scientists have summarised basic molecular and animal experimental research, as well as human clinical and epidemiological studies, showing that stress can precipitate relapses and worsening disability through a variety of mechanisms, including an ‘overshooting’ of the inflammatory response, and through worsening degeneration.

Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis, the evidence based 7 step recovery program
Dr George Jelinik

This is where a pranayama practice can make a huge difference to your health, because you can use your breath to switch off that stress response.

When your body is not in “fight or flight” mode, the parasympathetic nervous system is active, known as “rest and digest” mode. This is when your body is relaxed and your biological functions can focus on healing, digesting and resting. In this state breathing tends to be slower and deeper into the lungs, with longer exhalations than inhalations. We can use pranayama techniques to mimic the breath patterns that occur in rest and digest mode, which actually activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This is one of the rare situations where “fake it ‘til you make it” actually works!

Pranayama to activate the parasympathetic nervous system

The Breath-Mind connection

The human brain is miraculous, but living with one in your head is hard work!

In his book “The Power of Now” Eckhart Tolle explains that we all have inside of us a thinker and a watcher, i.e. our conscious and our subconscious mind. Our thinking mind is the one that does great things like our day job, and making sure we don’t forget to buy milk. But it is also the one that ruminates on the past and frets about the future. The trick is to understand that the thinking mind is not who we are. We can choose to ignore it.

For a long time I believed I was an anxious person. I would think through all eventualities for everything, worry about unlikely outcomes, and render myself incapable of making decisions. This changed for me when I learned to reframe the way I think about myself: I am not an anxious person. I am a person who has anxious thoughts, and I have the power to control those thoughts! By learning to quiet my thinking mind, I can calm my anxiety, lower my stress levels, and even focus better.

The easiest way to quiet the conscious mind is to anchor your attention on something here and now, in this moment. The breath is perfect for this, as it’s always there!

Pranayama to quiet the mind

The aim of this practice is simply to focus all of your attention on your breath, to the point that all other thoughts are excluded. For some people this will be easy to do just by focusing on the sensations of breathing, but if you find it hard, try a more involved practice that requires you to count or to move, such as Nadi Shodhana.

The close connection between our mind, body and breath means that we can use the breath as a tool to change the way we feel in body and mind. Practicing pranayama can help you to relax, to ease tension, and to counter your stress response. Perfect to help you focus your mind, or fall asleep more easily.  There are also energising practices that will fire up your digestion and your mind. We’ll cover those another day!

If you are feeling inspired to include pranayama in your daily routine, subscribe to find more practices, and let us know how you get on!