Befriend Your Breath

 November 2016 (Life Positive Magazine)

by Saraswathi Vasudevan (www.yogavahini.com)

When you give your breath your loving attention you will have earned a friend who will come to your aid in all situations, assures Saraswathi Vasudevan.

“One can only understand the things one tames, the Fox tells the Little Prince. If you want a friend, tame me. You must be very patient. First you will sit down at a little distance from me, like that, in the grass. I shall watch you out of the corner of my eye and you will say nothing. … But everyday, you can sit a little closer to me” (From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

The fox here presents a very important pre-condition for developing a friendship: the time you invest and the loving attention you give.

This is the kind of relationship one seeks to establish with one’s own breath through practices such as pranayama.

It might sound strange when I say pranayama is about befriending your breath. For most of us, pranayama practice means inhaling through one nostril and exhaling through the other, or breathing like a bellows! We have been conditioned to focus on these aspects so much that the real purpose of pranayama the mind being an active witness to the breath has been lost! This article is about reconnecting with the real purpose of pranayama.
Before we even try to understand how to befriend the breath, we need to know why this is important.

Do you have any friend in your life you can call for help anytime, in any situation? And also reach that friend in a moment? Yes, we know technology has advanced so much today that you can reach a friend in a moment but ironically, the same technology has also caused so much separation and isolation, has it not? But you do have one companion who will come to your aid anytime you want unconditionally (well, almost)! Your breath perhaps your only companion who comes with you from birth to death. Breath is our sole connection to life and to all life forms around us. To the extent we have nurtured this friendship with our breath, we can be assured that this friend will come to our aid in any emergency. And if you want to learn how to use your breathing to deal with stress, observe your breath in a stressful situation.

Try to observe the reactions in your body, breath, thoughts and emotions as they arise.
How comfortable are you in your body?
How is your breath? Where can you feel/hear your breath? What is the quality of your breathing?
Are you in control of your thoughts and emotions?
Just observe the complex dynamics of a stress response as you stay with your breath.
At other times, work on lengthening your exhalation systematically. Start with three seconds exhalation, and then go to four seconds, then five seconds till you reach your maximum comfortable exhalation, and maintain it for some time. Practise this as often as possible (not immediately after a meal) so that you develop a stronger relationship with your exhalation.

Try this practice at bedtime:

Sit on the bed with your back straight and eyes closed. Rewind the whole day in your mind’s eye from the present moment backward and look at everything that comes up in your memory. Exhale deeply and let everything drop clearing your mind of all residues from the day. When your exhalation is long and complete, it induces a deep relaxation response in the body and mind. Lie down and have a wonderful sleep!

Wake up feeling fresh and rejuvenated, ready to welcome a new day with a smile!

About the author: Saraswathi Vasudevan is a yoga therapist trainer in the tradition of Sri T Krishnamacharya. She specialises in adapting yoga to the individual. (www.yogavahini.com).

Exhale fully to receive fully

 December 2016 Life Positive

By Saraswathi Vasudevan (www.yogavahini.com)

Long and deep exhalation can lower your blood pressure, reduce pain, improve sleep, and facilitate healing of the body quite effortlessly, says Saraswathi Vasudevan

Breathing is the fundamental cleansing process of the system. When we breathe efficiently, we release a lot of impurities and end products of metabolism allowing all organs, systems and cells to receive fresh nourishment through the blood. When breathing is inefficient, we accumulate the waste products that toxify the system and prevent fresh intake of nutrients.

Exhale first!

Yoga Sutra says one of the ways to calm the mind is to focus on exhalation, and retention after exhalation (YS 1.34). Good exhalation reactivates the parasympathetic response, shifting the system from sympathetic domination (stress mode). When the mind calms down and becomes quiet, we begin to conserve prana that is wastefully dispersed through incessant thinking and strong emotional reactions.

Exhalation helps relax the muscles that may be held tight because of inherent stress response. When muscles relax, flexibility improves, general aches and pains come down and the breath expels waste products from muscles and joints to be eliminated through the breath!

If you can extend your exhalation long and deep, you can lower your blood pressure, reduce pain, improve sleep and facilitate healing of the body quite effortlessly. All you have to do is breathe out long and deep!

How to exhale efficiently?

Lie down in a comfortable position with your legs bent so that your lower back and abdomen are relaxed. Pay attention to your natural breathing. When you begin to observe your breath, it is no more natural, it becomes slightly longer and deeper. Observe where you are able to feel the movement. With natural breathing – like a baby asleep – abdomen goes up on inhalation and relaxes on exhalation.

Exhalation is a passive process in normal breathing but in yogic deep breathing, we make exhalation more active! To facilitate good exhalation and emptying of air from the lower lobes of the lungs where 75-80 per cent of gaseous exchange takes place, we actively but gently draw the lower abdomen in and up, simultaneously relaxing the chest. The diaphragm gets pushed up and the lungs are emptied more efficiently. Make sure you are not holding up the chest while drawing the abdomen in.

Once you get the technique right, begin to extend the exhalation by gently slowing down the movement of the lower abdomen and chest. You can begin with 3 seconds exhalation and extend up to 6 or 8 seconds, to the extent you are comfortable and there is no strain in the body. Do this practice in seated position (on a mat/chair), extending exhalation.

 As you draw the lower abdomen in and up, the often overarched (lordosis) and strained lower back flattens and relaxes. The organs in the abdomen are squeezed out so that they can receive fresh oxygenated blood with the next inhalation. The floor of the perineum is lifted up, toning the lower abdominal muscles and reinstating the organs that are pulled down with gravity. The technique helps to pull the lower chakras up, thereby allowing the circulation of prana, and removal of impurities that are accumulated in the lower abdominal area. You start feeling lighter in your body and mind as the breath is trained to flow out slowly, smoothly, unimpeded.

Try this technique every night before you go to bed, to prepare for a beautiful day ahead!

About the author : Saraswathi Vasudevan is a yoga therapist trainer in the tradition of Sri T Krishnamacharya. She specialises in adapting yoga to the individual.  (www.yogavahini.com).

Receive in abundance

January 2017 Life Positive Magazine
By Saraswathi Vasudevan (www.yogavahini.com)

In the third of her series on right breathing, Saraswathi Vasudevan imparts the secrets of good inhalation

In normal breathing inhalation is an active process. When we are stressed out, we almost always breathe in from the upper chest, and the breath is shallow and sharp. You might even be holding your breath a lot when you are stressed. Neck and shoulder muscles are overstrained because we use these accessory muscles to breathe instead of chest and abdomen. This can also account for a lot of tension and fatigue in the neck, shoulder area, even poor sleep.

The first step in learning how to inhale more efficiently is to actively engage the chest and the abdomen in breathing in. Initiating inhalation from chest to abdomen is always far more efficient. Chest  to abdomen inhalation helps to maximise the intake of air for exchange, it helps the diaphragm movement to the extent required to fill the lower lobes of the lungs, and straightens your upper back to counter a stooping posture.

When you breathe in from chest to abdomen rather than abdomen to chest, it prevents the lower abdomen from bulging out and lower back from being hyper-arched (which is already deep for most women, causing much strain and stiffness).

When you learn to inhale better, your energy level improves dramatically, you feel more active and productive. It enhances self-confidence and helps counter feelings of depression. It improves your posture, inter-vertebral space in the upper spine and neck thereby countering and preventing neck problems precipitated from tight and stooping upper back with neck thrust forward.

Also breathing in from chest to abdomen helps open up your heart centre which is also the centre for emotions thereby helping us clear pent-up emotions!

When you learn to integrate the technique of deep inhalaltion and exhalation, you can breathe in and out almost 9-10 times the volume of air you are normally breathing in. Longer breath means longer life span and good health.

So, do you want to inhale more efficiently?

Try this, even as you read this article:

Sit up (on a cushion/chair) with back straight (not leaning on to a back support).  Place one hand on your upper chest and the other hand above your navel.

Take a few breaths slowly deepening the exhalation and inhalation. Exhalation to be initiated from lower abdomen as discussed in the last issue. As you draw the lower abdomen in and up relax your chest. After extending exhalation to a comfortable extent, deepen your inhalation.

Start breathing in from the upper chest downwards and outwards (also opening the sides of the chest). The upper abdomen is extended automatically as the diaphragm is pushed down, no need to push the stomach out. And ensure that you don’t push the lower abdomen out (portion below the navel).  When you inhale from upper chest downwards, upper back automatically straightens improving your profile with every deep inhalation.

Exhale as usual by gently drawing lower abdomen in and up, relaxing chest.

Slowly begin to extend the inhalation from 3 seconds to 4 to 5 until you reach your maximum inhalation capacity. Stay with each step for 2-3 breaths with extended exhalation. Stay with the maximum inhalation and exhalation for 10-20 breaths with gentle hissing sound in the throat. You have now started doing pranayama! We will start looking at pranayama techniques from the nest issue.

NB: It is best to take the help of a trained yoga teacher or therapist to guide you through this process.

About the author: Saraswathi Vasudevan is a yoga therapist trainer in the tradition of Sri T Krishnamacharya. She specialises in adapting yoga to the individual.  (www.yogavahini.com).

Reflections from YogaVahini

View in browser January 14, 2021 Resting in Truth Dear Friends, Hope you have had a good start with 2021 after the big Pandemic year. With all the social isolation and restrictions, I can only say, 2020 also brought people together like never before, albeit, through the online medium. Many of us have become crazy busy and so consumed by this new discovery and its immense possibilities! Now it remains to discover the middle path… Today is the beginning of the Uttarayana period - the position of the Sun in relation to the earth's revolution begins to shift from South to the North. This is considered the most auspicious time of the year! It is also our harvest festival in South India, time to celebrate and venerate the field, the Sun, our farmers and their tireless toil. The field is also a beautiful metaphor for our inner ground, that needs to be tilled, weeded and replenished continuously. A group of us have been coming together a few hours every week to study, share and reflect on the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. This has been, for most of us, the best anchorage through this period of uncertainty. We are currently on the Isvara Pranidhana sutras. As I listened to one of the teachers, it made me realise how important it is to find the restful space within, beyond that which is bound by strife and struggles. To get there, stay there and live from there is all the abhyasa that is required! This space within, is our ultimate ground of truth. With the right effort and mental attitude (Bhavana), we can experience a sublte shift in this direction with our daily practice. In asana, as we deepen our body awareness, making the breath smooth and subtle, when we experience a sense of expansive restfulness (sukham) and vibrant steadiness (Sthiram), we know we are touching this ground. Through the practice of pranayama, as we work with our breath, we can cleanse and declutter the inner channels to quietly settle in and replenish ourself. Slowly with practice, we can let go of everything we have been holding on to and allow ourselves to move deeper... let even the breath and the "practising" self drop… Every day, we find some time to meditate, to come back into this space and rest, trusting, only this moment fully lived gives us the experience of truth. Everything else is just corrupted memory and imagined ideas of the future. Just this moment is the only moment where we will find the truth… stay here, rest here… From this space, we can simply witness the struggles without getting entangled. Just that watching will begin to shift something within. We will find the path to freedom that is lit from within. As we walk this path, individually and collectively, we can create a powerful ripple effect... A simple realisation that only by taking care of ourselves, we will be able to serve the world better. Wishing you a very happy 2021, let us be fully alive and present to everything that life has to offer because every moment is a gift! much love, Saraswathi Reflections from YogaVahini: Resting in Truth YogaVahini Foundation Centre for Specialised Yoga Training, Therapy & Research               Plot No. 18-A, Lakshmi Nilayam Apartments, 19th St, Venkateswara Nagar, Kottivakkam, Chennai 600041. www.yogavahini.com 98846 42456 yogavahinichennai@gmail.com You received this email because you signed up on our website or made a purchase from us. Unsubscribe

Reflections from YogaVahini

 

Resting in Truth

Dear Friends,

Hope you have had a good start with 2021 after the big Pandemic year. With all the social isolation and restrictions, I can only say, 2020 also brought people together like never before, albeit, through the online medium. Many of us have become crazy busy and so consumed by this new discovery and its immense possibilities!

Now it remains to discover the middle path…

Today is the beginning of the Uttarayana period - the position of the Sun in relation to the earth’s revolution begins to shift from South to the North. This is considered the most auspicious time of the year! It is also our harvest festival in South India, time to celebrate and venerate the field, the Sun, our farmers and their tireless toil. The field is also a beautiful metaphor for our inner ground, that needs to be tilled, weeded and replenished continuously.

A group of us have been coming together a few hours every week to study, share and reflect on the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. This has been, for most of us, the best anchorage through this period of uncertainty. We are currently on the Isvara Pranidhana sutras. As I listened to one of the teachers, it made me realise how important it is to find the restful space within, beyond that which is bound by strife and struggles. To get there, stay there and live from there is all the abhyasa that is required!

This space within, is our ultimate ground of truth. With the right effort and mental attitude (Bhavana), we can experience a sublte shift in this direction with our daily practice. In asana, as we deepen our body awareness, making the breath smooth and subtle, when we experience a sense of expansive restfulness (sukham) and vibrant steadiness (Sthiram), we know we are touching this ground.

Through the practice of pranayama, as we work with our breath, we can cleanse and declutter the inner channels to quietly settle in and replenish ourself. Slowly with practice, we can let go of everything we have been holding on to and allow ourselves to move deeper... let even the breath and the “practising” self drop…

Every day, we find some time to meditate, to come back into this space and rest, trusting, only this moment fully lived gives us the experience of truth. Everything else is just corrupted memory and imagined ideas of the future.

Just this moment is the only moment where we will find the truth… stay here, rest here…

From this space, we can simply witness the struggles without getting entangled. Just that watching will begin to shift something within. We will find the path to freedom that is lit from within. As we walk this path, individually and collectively, we can create a powerful ripple effect... A simple realisation that only by taking care of ourselves, we will be able to serve the world better.

Wishing you a very happy 2021, let us be fully alive and present to everything that life has to offer because every moment is a gift!

much love,

SaraswathiReflke

Yoga Sadhana - 2021

View in browser Dear Sanga, More people would benefit from yoga if we could facilitate a deeper and fuller understanding of what yoga can actually offer! Not just for fitness and peripheral benefits but for living a happier and fulfilling life, preventing and healing through illness and living one's deeper aspirations. After taking many avatars, a new edition of Yoga Sadhana 2021 is being launched in January 2021: Spread over 8 weekends starting January 16, 2021, Saturday & Sunday 6-10 am IST. Here is a short video that gives a glimpse into the journey. To learn more about the program please see the brochure below. Do share with those who might benefit from this program. Brochure: https://www.yogavahini.com/bro... To register: https://docs.google.com/forms/... Love, YogaVahini Team Yoga Sadhana - Stepping into the heart of Yoga. Register YogaVahini 3rd floor, 21/4, Beach Road, Kalakshetra Colony, Besant Nagar, Chennai India You received this email because you signed up on our website or made a purchase from us. Unsubscribe