Sama Vritti Pranayama (Breath Control) | ZENner mobile yoga

Transcript

[Music] [Music] hi welcome to the Zener mobile yoga youtube channel I'm Jennifer Zener Clark and today we're going to be talking about pranayama or prana breath Yama control so breath control in the practice of yoga the breath is said to carry a person's life force or their prana and just like the asanas or the postures breath control is another one of the eight limbs of yoga and this breath control can actually be practiced separate from doing the postures or you can practice it before your asana practice during or even after your asana practice so we practice pranayama or breath control for many different reasons we do it's for mental clarity we do it to maybe increase energy or we do it to lessen the stress that we're dealing with in life and there's not just mental benefits to breath control but also physical benefits the body just functions differently when you are you know giving every cell of the body its full capacity of oxygen and maybe you've heard of or you already practiced some breath control techniques such as the alternate nasal breath or nadi shodhana or even the you Jai breath which is known as the victorious breath this video is going to be the first of many that I do to practice different pranayama techniques so today we're going to start out with the simplest one some of Richie some of Richie means equal breath so what that means is you're going to have an inhalation that lasts the same amount as the exhalation now this means that the volume of your breath is going to be equal as well so for example we're going to inhale completely for four seconds and then exhale completely for four seconds we use full complete deep breaths using the diaphragm inhaling and exhaling in and out through the nose okay so let's get started the first thing you want to do is find a comfortable seat it could be on the floor it could be at the edge of your chair if you're sitting on the floor you can sit cross-legged and if your pelvis is not tilting forward sitting complete lay on the floor you might want to elevate the hips a little bit so you can roll up a blanket and put it under your sitting bones or you can sit on a block this will help you to have the posture that's needed the first thing I want you to do is close your eyes take a deep breath in and then exhale open your eyes and I want you to notice where that breath came from so add your inhalation if your chest is the only thing that rose you're going to want to go back to one of my tutorial videos that is called the essential breath because the breathing that we do in yoga does not just involve the lungs that involves the diaphragm as well so go back to that video that tutorial and then come back to this one and we'll get started now that you're ready I want you to close your eyes and begin to breathe in and out through the nose and just bringing some awareness to your breath maybe even noticing what your breathing pattern is right now maybe your inhalations are a little bit shallow maybe your exhalations are not feeling complete feel as though your sitting bones are getting heavier and that there's a lightness through the crown of the head and then go ahead and breathe in two three four breathe out two three four again inhale two three four exhale two three four do the next two on your own exhale again breathe out and then return to your regular breath slowly open the eyes easy right it is pretty simple and this pranayama practice just like a lot of the other ones have different benefits you know anytime we want to get back to the present moment this breath that we just practiced is good if you need to lower your stress hormones you can stop and do this it only takes a couple of moments and people don't even need to know that you're doing it so before that meeting before you know a speech or an exam or just before going to bed it's helpful and overall it's going to help you have a healthier body in mind thank you for letting me guide you today namaste