Find Balance with Alternate Nostril Breathing | Nadi Shodhana Guide

Transcript

If you're feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, your heart is racing, or you're feeling out of balance, today we bring you alternate nostril breathing, nari sudi pranayyama to balance the two hemispheres of the brain. And stay with me until the end of the video because we'll give you a mudra, a hand gesture technique to make this pranayyama way more effective. So let's understand the basic of alternate nostril breathing. Why do we alternate the nostril as we're breathing in and out? Nari shoddana pranayyama or narishi pranayyama also known as alternate nostril breathing purifies your nadis. See according to hata yoga we have 72,000 nadis. Nadis think about this as energetic channels which carry prana. From these 72,000 nadis, three are the most important. Your nari, pingala nardi and the sushima nari. When you're breathing from the left nostril, your feminine side is more dominant. And as you breathe from the right nostril, pingala nardi, your masculine self. and the sushima nardi when the breath is balanced from your left nostril and your right nostril. So the whole point of doing alternate nostril breathing is to balance the nostrils, balance the and the pingla nari and activate your zashumna nari. Then your feminine and masculine sides are in balance in harmony. And even if you don't believe in the yogic science, the physiological benefits are clear. It balances your nervous system. It activates your vagus nerve, reduces your anxiety, and improves your presence, improves your concentration. So, how do we do this? First, we find a cross-legged position. Sit down with a straight spine. Very important to have a straight spine because we want the prana to flow up through the spine. And here's a tip. When you do the alternate nostril breathing, you can just close your eyes and bring your whole focus, your attention on the passage as the breath moves in and out of your nostril, in and out of your body. See if you can just simply put all your brain power into tracking that breath. So let's begin the first round of alternate nostril breathing. In the first round, we'll do inhale for six, exhale for six. Inhale for six, exhale for six. Second round, we introduce kumbaka, the retention of breath. Inhale six, hold on top six and exhale six again. Again inhale six, hold six, exhale six. Third round, we increase the hold to 12 seconds. Inhale 6, hold 12 and exhale six again. So we'll continue with this counts. So it's not about forceful breaths, inhaling and exhaling. It's about quiet, controlled, and gentle breath. So be gentle with yourself as you're inhaling and exhaling. So without any further find a comfortable cross-legged keeping your spine straight and coming into Vishnu mudra. So we bring the first two fingers to fold. We'll always use right arm to do this. If you use the left this would confuse the elements. See we have five elements in the body. And your right nostril represents fire, pingla, masculine. And your right thumb or your thumb represents fire elements. So you want to align the fire with the fire. Inhaling from the left six. Exhale right six. [Music] Inhale right six. Exhale left six. Inhale left six. [Music] Exhale right six. [Music] Inhale right six. Exhale left six. Inhale left six. [Music] >> Exhale right six. Inhale right six. Exhale left six. Inhale left six. Exhale right six. Inhale right six and exhale left six. Beautiful. Now come into meditation. Close your eyes and watch your energy. Beautiful [Music] [Music] job. Slowly start to open your eyes. All right, my friends. Now we go on to the second round. Here we introduced kumbaka, the retention of the breath. So remember when you're doing the energy purification pranayyama this is also known as energy purification pranayyama because there's energy stuck in the nadis the channels which carry the energy the prana and when you hold the breath then you create a little pressure in the prana so the prana starts to move a little more quickly. Think about a hose. When the water is flowing through the hose and you hold the tip of the hose, it creates pressure. The water is trying to gush out and when you release it, gushes out. So the same effect happens when you start to hold the breath kumbaka in your body. All right, let's quickly talk about where would you retain the breath when you do kumbaka. As you inhale, hold the breath. The breath should be held in your belly. So expand the belly and then contract the belly as you're exhaling. All right, let's go on to the second round. Here we introduce the hold for six, inhale for six, and exhale for six. Inhale six, pinch the nose, hold six, exhale six. Beautiful. [Music] Inhale. Six. Hold. Six. Engage root chakra. Exhale. Six. [Music] Inhale. Six. [Music] Hold. [Music] Exhale. Six. [Music] Inhale. Six. [Music] Hold. [Music] Exhale. Six. Inhale. Left. [Music] Hold. [Music] Exhale. Right. Inhale. Right. Hold. [Music] Exhale. Left. One more round. Inhale. Left. Hold. Exhale. Right. Inhale. Right. [Music] Hold. [Music] and exhale left. Beautiful. Very slowly come to meditation. Watch the energy rising. Slowly start to open your eyes. Beautiful job my friends. Let's go on to the third round. Here we double the hold. So we can create a little more pressure in the nardis so we can purify the nardis. Again coming into Vishnu mudra. Inhaling six left. Hold 12. Engage the root chakra. Exhale. Right six. [Music] Inhale. Right six. Hold. 12. Exhale. Left. Inhale. Left. [Music] Hold. 12. [Music] Exhale. Right. Six. Inhale. Right. [Music] Hold. 12. [Music] Exhale. Left. [Music] Inhale. Left. Hold. 12. [Music] Exhale. Right. Inhale. Right. Hold 12. [Music] Exhale left. Beautiful job. Continue for one more round. Inhale. Six. [Music] Hold. [Music] Exhale. Right. Six. Inhale. Right. Holding for 12. [Music] and exhale left. Beautiful job. Come into meditation. Watch the energy rising up. [Music] [Music] [Music] Beautiful job. Slowly start to open your eyes. So, these are the three rounds you'll practice for the next 30 days to bring your body into balance, to bring your masculine and your feminine into balance, to bring the left and the right hemispheres of your brain into balance. So practice this for the next month so your body can create a memory of harmony of balance and then you'll start seeing the effects of this harmony into your daily life. And if you want to follow this guided animation where it's timed for you, you can just download our app called the school of breath app from your iOS store or play store and you can just go along with the animation and on the app you'll have more control. It's going going to be time. You can close your eyes and you can change the number of cycles and customize the breathing technique the way you want. So after each round when you sit in meditation, you'll be engaging akash mudra or called space mudra. The middle finger represents your space element. So you'll bring the tip of the thumb and the tip of the tallest finger together and then come into meditation. This is called your akash mudra. So this would enhance the benefits of balancing the space element or balancing your ida and pingla and activating the space element in your body. We have prepared three guided meditation audios to enhance your kundalini awakening journey. With that, we also include a 21 session ebook that supports your condalini journey through daily reflections and tracks your spiritual progress. Link is available in the description below. If today's session was helpful for you, you might like to enroll in our comprehensive step-by-step condalini awakening course. Join us on our holistic awakening membership that grants you access to the condalini course along with all the breath work courses and meditation courses we offer. If you found a little value in this video, make sure you hit the button, hit the like button and send this video to a loved one who can also get the benefits of yoga, pranayyama and breathing in their life. Until next time, my friends, my name is Abid Dubal. Namaste, peace and love. And thank you for joining the school of breath. [Music]