The role of breath (pranayama) in yoga

 

the role of breath (pranayama) in yoga

 ERUM Z QURESHI (Mentee)
Dr Pratima Mishra (Mentor)
associate professor
h g m AZAM college of EDUCATION

PRANAYAM

If you’re feeling tired, heavy, dull, or emotionally off-balance, a few minutes of yogic breathing can energize, renew, and sustain you through your day or a challenging yoga class. There are a number of different breathing methods in yoga that can influence and affect your experience in asana, relaxation, and meditation. Having a stronger connection and control of your breath will give you a deeper attunement of your physical, mental, and emotional bodies and help anchor your awareness in the present moment. Yogis believe that if you can master your breath through pranayama practices you can master your mind!

What is Pranayama?

Pranayama is a collection of breathing exercises developed by the ancient yogis for purification, mental focus rejuvenation, and healing. Prana translates into “life force energy,” and Yama translates into “control or mastery of.” Thus, pranayama is a breathing technique used to control, cultivate, and modify the amount, quality, flow, and direction of vital energy in the body. Pranayama is often defined simply as “breath control” and is a primary component in a traditional yoga practice.

 

                                     
Boosting Your Prana

The easiest and fastest way to increase the prana in the body is to change our breathing to affect the quality and quantity of air taken into the lungs. Prana is also absorbed in the nose by its connection to the two nadi energy channels that terminate in the nostrils. Pranayama is used to control, cultivate, and change the prana in the body. A change in the prana will affect the whole body. First energetically, then psychologically mentally, and last physically. advanced pranayama is used to cleanse the impurities and obstructions in the nadis, and eventually unblock the sushumna nadi, allowing the Kundalini prana to flow freely through this channel and upwards through our seven chakras.

The effects of prana on the mind and emotions

When your prana flow or energy channels are blocked or restricted, you may experience a lack of focus and negative emotions like anxiety, fear, worry, tension, depression, anger, and grief. When your prana or energy channels are open and flowing freely and smoothly the mind becomes calm, focused, happy, positive, and enthusiastic. Thus, through the skillful and conscious use of our breathing, we can affect and regulate our emotional states.

The importance of prana in yoga

There are several reasons why a yoga practitioner should work at understanding and creating a sensitivity to their vital energy. Since many of the yogic practices create or change the energy in our body, it is thus important to have a feedback system to know how and when to adjust or change these practices. There are many reasons to practice becoming more aware and sensitive to our energy as we practice:

• It informs the physical alignment and more subtle adjustments in yoga poses.