Could you believe that in every moment your breath is your friend?
Yes even when you panting up that 6th floor walk up. As a yogi I spend a lot of time teaching and talking breath. You see control of the mind depends on the ability to control the breath.
In business circles people throw around the word mindset like a chef tosses a salad but the more conferences and meetings I attend, blogs I read, it strikes me that most of these people are still advocating that we live and lead from the head up with a little bit of exercise thrown in to look good and release a few endorphins.
Proper breathing involves the whole body and can help your entire organism function more effectively and that includes your brain.
Many people only breathe to the top of their lungs. Meet Mr/Mrs Reactionary and take things really personally, even the weather. Shallow breathing is not just a breathing ground for illness, it also weakens your nervous system.
We’re all emotional beings and trauma gets stored in our muscular system. Proper breathing allows it to release, helping remove the protective armour we build up to guard ourselves from trauma, which in time can stiffen both the body and the heart.
Correct breathing increases the flow of prana, increasing your vitality, engagement and overall zest for life.
When we live as the only function of the body is to carry that precious cargo aka the brain, we exhaust ourselves with too much thinking, doing and not enough being and playing.
Like the planet earth, your body which includes your brain is an interdependent organism. And if I have learned anything about the body it’s that it’s complicated.
Just by placing your tongue on your upper palate you are stimulating pressure points associated with your glands and organs. You are a vibratory frequency so what you send out, comes back. Your hands are an energy map of your consciousness and health and then there’s the mystery of the whole machine that mostly just functions automatically. Magic but I digress today’s focus is just the breath.
Pranayama is using the breath to effect and manage different states of consciousness, relaxation, and well-being. We all know increased aerobic capacity is good for us. So how is that different to pranayama. Pranayama is about controlling the breath, not just increasing it. By exercising control over the gross breath, you can control the subtle prana inside. Prana is your life force energy and believe me you want lost of it. You know those people who seem like energiser long life batteries that never seem to run out. We all know that spark when we see it in people. We want what they are having.
The purpose of pranayama is the control of your subtle life force. This means you can switch gears as you need in your work and life. It’s useful for meeting deadlines, for winning that race, for dealing with unexpected challenges and for keeping your head when all around others are losing theirs:-)
We are so not designed to be in top gear all the time however it’s healthy to have an energy reserve so you can turbocharge when needed.
As the increasing pressures of the Technology Age consumes more of our diminishing attention span and vitality, you need a way to navigate this increasingly complex adventure we call life. So many people are running off their adrenals, while impressive for pulling a car off a body in an emergency it’s not so cool as an everyday plan. Enter prana.
So how do you learn to increase your prana and control your breath?
Come to a kundalini yoga class or here’s a short exercise to get to know your own breath.
I integrate these teachings in my leadership program because if you can’t control yourself you sure can’t lead others with any true authority. Besides getting to know yourself becomes increasingly important as every time you speak, search or buy you are showing your patterns and habits to ‘data robots’. Don’t you want to know yourself at least as well as they know you?
Seriously if you can control prana, you can completely control your mental, emotional and physical state which of course increases your clarity and focus which of course means you can get what you want.
I do yoga to do life better. Do you have tools to do life better?