Pranayama

We often focus much of our yoga attention on the practice of Asana, but equally important is the practice of Pranayama, breath control.  Let us turn our awareness back to the breath this month and explore some of the ways Pranayama practice can shift our energy, excite or calm our minds, and reset our neurological systems.

Pranayama can be as simple as watching our breath and reflecting on our unconscious patterns of how emotions and thoughts effect the breath.  What our breath is doing can be directly related to how we are feeling or what we are thinking.  When we shift how we are breathing we affect our mood, thought patterns and the way we feel. 

Our Pranayama practice can be as complex as learning to breathe again, opening airways that we have restricted in patterns of fear or anxiety, and creating whole new patterns of being.  Different Pranayama teaches us to control what we have left unchecked for so long.  You can discover breathing in different sections of your body like the belly breath or upper chest breath.  You can pause in your breathing, relaxed and comfortable, or build the breath into a vigorous energetic or slow cooling pattern.

We will explore all of this, and watch on and off the mat how conscious breathing helps us stay centered, aware, energized, calm and connected.