Summary
Highlights
This daily breathing practice aims to help you reconnect with your breath, feel centered, and manage stress and anxiety. It also helps improve clarity, focus, and emotional regulation. The practice begins by grounding yourself, bringing hands to heart center, closing your eyes, and focusing on the rhythm of your breathing cycles, emphasizing lateral breath.
Transition into Kanan mudra with index finger and thumb touching. Practice deep abdominal breathing, inhaling deeply through the nostrils to fill the lungs and exhaling with the mouth wide open. Observe your belly moving up and down with each deep breath.
Engage in breath retention by inhaling through the nose and holding your breath for 10 seconds before exhaling fully through the mouth. This is repeated to build lung capacity and control.
Learn alternate nostril breathing (Anulom Vilom or Nadi Shodhana Pranayama). Use your thumb to close the right nostril and your ring and pinky fingers to close the left. Inhale through the right, pause, close the right, and exhale through the left. Then, inhale through the left, pause, close the left, and exhale through the right. This cycle is repeated to balance energy.
Perform two more rounds of breath retention, this time holding the breath for 15 seconds after a deep inhale from the belly, followed by a slow release.
Practice Sheetali Pranayama, or cooling breath. Stick out your tongue and curl the lateral edges to form a tube. Inhale through the curled tongue, feeling a cooling sensation, then close your mouth and exhale through your nostrils. This technique effectively cools the mind, body, and emotions.
Conclude the practice with a cool down. Place one hand on your heart and the other on your belly to bring awareness to your breath. Gently massage your temples in circles, then move to your forehead, smoothing it down to your temples to relieve stress. Finish by rubbing your hands together to create warmth, cupping them over your eyes, and taking three deep breaths, feeling grateful for the practice.