breathing practices for the lockdown

do breathing practices help with dealing with viruses?

ab-so-om-ing-lute-ly

yes, they do

how? why? and what would I know anyway?

Let's be realistic. If you've come into contact with a virus, you may well get it, depending of course on

• the degree of the contact. Full on such as eating food prepared by someone who really doesn't do hand hygienne. I've picked up a few bugs this way, for sure. Or someone who coughs all over the place, infecting things that you touch. Yep, been badly infected this way. And sometimes, well, when it's just minor contact, thankfully, we don't get it so bad. 
• one's own state of health. Obviously, the less well we are, the more vulnerable we are. Because our immune system is already lowered. And if for some reason our immune system has been badly compromised on an ongoing level, we are very vulnerable. 

So to be clear, pranayama (yoga breathing techniques) won't prevent us getting these contact viruses. But, they can definitely lessen their severity. And I would suggest that this is the most commonsense way to look at this. And for those of us who are predisposed to have our chests affected whenever we get sick, the breathing practices will strengthen our lungs. Thereby, again, lessening the impact on our lungs. Not stopping, if you are predisposed, but lessening.

What I'll be giving today, is for

• keeping the sinuses clear
• strengthening the lungs
• creating like a bubble of negative ions around our nose and mouth. Negative ions make us feel good, and positively affect our wellness
• decrease acidity. When we are sick, our bodies are acidic, so it helps to reduce this on an everyday level
• increasing our levels of life - force (prana)
• feeling good: physically, mentally, emotionally

These days, pranayama is done crosslegged or similar. Instead, please do these sitting on your heels (vajrasana) or sit on a chair with knees and feet togther, feet on floor. Either of these will have more positive physical effects on your lungs. Hands palms flat, down on your thighs. 

bhastika for our sinuses

I teach this to people who are prone to sinus mucous problems, and since I learnt it, over forty-six years ago, I have never had sinus problems. Prior to that, I always did. Big time.

Use your right hand: thumb to open and close your right nostril; ring finger for the left nostril; index and middle fingers on your forehead just above between the eyebrows.

With this bhastrika, use your abdominals to begin with creating a pumping action, just because it will be easier for you if you're not used to bhastrika: inhale: push abs forwards; out breath: pull them back. Practice this.

Close off left nostril so that you're using your right nostril, and do six fast bhastrikas in and out of the right nostril. Close off the right nostril; six in and out left nostril. Now do six in and out of both nostrils. This is one round. Do three rounds.

Starting with the right nostril is the opposite way that yoga pranayama is often taught, but for sinuses, please do it this way.

bhastrika for the lungs

Again, this is not the way that bhastrika is often taught. However this is how I first learnt it and it is amazing for getting the phlegm to lift off the chest. All that hacking and coughing won't be so bad if you do get a bug and have been doing this. I do it even if I just get chesty. This is hatha yoga specific, and hatha yoga is for purification of the body. In this bhastrika we are breathing in and out of the nostrils.

Visualise a square in front of your chest. Hold onto this image whilst you do the bhastrika breathing which is rapid breathing in and out of the nostrils, and here we are doing just both nostrils to gether. Start with five, pause, do five more, repeat one more time. That's fifteen all up. It won't take too long before you can do fifteen without stopping. See if you can work up to forty five, or fifty four. The maximum is one hundred and twenty, one round only, working up to one to two bhastrika breaths per second. Finish with a slow deep breath in and out.

Bhastrika means bellows and you will notice that pumping bellows effect on your lungs doing it this way, rather than the pumping action of the abdominals which is how it is often taught.

kapalabhati for negative ions and a clear head

Hatha yoga style, and this is also different to how most teach it. Whereas in bhastrika, in and out are fairly equal and we could say it's a very active breath. Kapalabhati is too, but only the exhale has the emphasis. The inhale is passive meaning that we allow the in breath to happen by itself. 

Visualise a tringle pointing upwards in the base of your torso. Do a quick breath out of your nostrils as you pull in your abs. release your abs for the passive inhale. Practice until in and out are fairly equal in length. As with the bhastrika instructions, start with three rounds of five, and the maximum is one only round of one hundred and twenty breaths, one to two breaths per second. It can take a while to get kapalabhati right and it's okay to go slower for a while. Take a deep slow breath in and out through nostrils to finish.

This clears the head especially our frontal lobes. Kapalabhati means "shining skull". Creates negative ions around our nose and mouth, keeps our energy "up". In this version, our prana is "flinging up" from the base of the torso into the head. 

mukha bhastrika for making us less acidic

This is a mouth bhastrika. We make a crows beak with the mouth on the exhale, having around your mouth open and stiff rather than soft. Take a deep breath in through the nostrils, exhale doing a loud "shoo" through your mouth, as you pull in your abs. The next step is to inhale deeply, now start leaning forwards towards your knees (or child pose if you're seated on the floor), going shoo! shoo! three to six times out for one inhale. Now close your mouth and inhale to arise. Do this three times. 

Yoga teachers might tell you that these instructions are not correct. They are correct techniques, they are specific and not well known. They were taught by Dr Swami Gitananda here in New Zealand in the early 1970s, and this is where I learnt them, and although I have learnt and practised other styles, I prefer this method.

Do everything in the order given (please) Next time we'll do complete breath and throat health.