A daily Pranayama practice stimulates the body’s natural relaxation response, creating a sense of calm that decreases heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension. It also helps you reconnect to your body and shift your awareness away from the chatter in your mind. Because every emotional state we experience has a corresponding pattern of breathing associated with it, when we spend several minutes a day consciously regulating our breath, we break our unconscious patterns of breathing — and thus the unconscious emotional and thought patterns. Practice tip: Inhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Exhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Repeat for 10 rounds. Practice Tip: Inhale for four counts with ujjayi sound. Exhale for four counts with ujjayi sound. Repeat for 10 rounds. Practice tip: Start by emptying the lungs on an exhale. Close the right nostril with the right thumb, and breathe in through the left nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts. Inhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Exhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Repeat for 10 rounds. Seal the left nostril with the right ring finger and breathe out through the right nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts. Breathe in through the right nostril for four counts and hold for two counts. Seal the right nostril with the right thumb, and breathe out through the left nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts. Repeat the cycle eight times. Practice tip: Inhale for two counts and pause for two counts. Inhale for two more counts. Exhale for four counts. Repeat for 10 rounds, activating the ujjayi breath. Practice tip: Inhale for four counts. Exhale for two counts, and pause for two counts. Exhale for two more counts. Repeat for 10 rounds, activating the ujjayi breath. Related reads:
