Breathing the Yoga Way

Yoga’s effectiveness in being able to make its participants relax has a lot to do with the breathing techniques that they teach. Breathing is a very important aspect in the practice of yoga and it is imperative that the people who do yoga know how to do the proper breathing techniques.

Yogic breathing is said to utilize the full capacity of one’s respiratory system and aids in that person’s relaxation. Yoga teaches a breathing technique that alters a person’s natural breathing patterns so that a person’s breathing flows from abdominal to thoracic and so on. It can be a bit tricky to do this at first, but you can train your body to do this as though you’ve been breathing like this your whole life. Learning to do yogic breathing you first need to observe the way you naturally breathe and progress towards learning how to do it properly.

In abdominal breathing, your abdomen rises as you inhale and falls with exhalation. Observe this movement for a moment and then try to deepen, lengthen, and extend the movement that your abdomen makes as you breathe, keeping the chest still during the entire process. Do 20 breaths and then rest.

Thoracic breathing comes next. Observe the movements your chest makes as you breathe. Your chest moves slightly up when you inhale and moves down when you exhale. Now begin to deepen and lengthen the movements for about 20 breath cycles. Remember to keep the abdomen still as you do this.

Now, full yogic breathing starts. It is somewhat a combination of abdominal and thoracic breathing. First inhale by filling the abdomen and then CONTINUE inhaling as you expand and fill the chest. Then exhale first from the chest as it empties and falls and then CONTINUE exhaling from the abdomen as it draws inwards completely. This is one round of the full yogic breath. Repeat this for 20 rounds. Remember as well that doing all the breathing exercises mentioned here must be done without any strain. Like everything else in yoga, nothing must be forced.

The desired effect is a continuous wave pattern of breathing. Though difficult at first, this method of breathing will soon come naturally to you.