Yoga Sutra 2.49 Pranayama: Breath regulation

Transcript

[Music] foreign namaste welcome to unravel the thread a podcast for people who want to apply the yoga sutras to yoga practice and to live today available online at simplehyphenyoga.org where you can also find courses articles videos and guided meditations to enrich your practice i am ruben vazquez your companion on this journey of exploration on today's episode we continue our journey through the second chapter of the yoga sutra with the first sutra about pranayama sutra 249 pranayama while the yoga sutra includes only three verses about asana the following section about pranayama consists of 5 verses sutra 134 alluded also to pranayama as a method for eliminating distractions pranayama is the practice of enhancing the flow of life energy prana through your being by regulating your respiration in a variety of conscious and deliberate ways sutra 249 says once unified and free from struggle pranayama regulating inhalation exhalation airflow and retention after establishing a friendly and helpful attitude towards your circumstances yamas and yourself niyamas asana practice serves as a tool for removing inefficient patterns in posture and movement to enhance your adaptability and resilience one major goal of asana practice is to promote optimal body function by enhancing the flow of vital energy prana throughout your system this goal is closely related to the quality of breathing during postures asana and movements vinyasa although the air you breathe is not exactly the life energy that keeps you alive in the yoga tradition yogis have observed through personal experimentation that the breath is an accessible vehicle for life energy to keep the body alive to enhance vitality and to promote health and well-being seeing asanas preparation for pranayama suggests following sutra 247 that it is always intelligent to ensure that during asana practice the breath is smooth fluid and free from all abruptness in other words asana practice contributes to create stability in your breathing patterns by ensuring that your breath is conscious and deliberate throughout at the same time practicing in such a way also assists you in developing a greater sensitivity to the subtle qualities of your breath this verse defines pranayama as attending to the movement of air through our system by regulating inhalations exhalations and retention of inhalations and exhalations all reputable sources advise practitioners to explore pranayama under the supervision of a knowledgeable teacher the human respiratory system is highly integrated into different aspects of your nervous system and metabolic functions it may be obvious to point out that the quality of your breathing can have a strong influence on your health mood and awareness moreover breathing in specific ways has been used by some human groups as tools for triggering various body reactions as well as for accessing different states of awareness it does make sense to connect to a teacher who can provide useful advice and feedback on your breathing processes the suggestions about pranayama offered here are at the simplest level that can be considered safe to put the sutra into practice find a comfortable position and observe your inhalations exhalations and airflow rather than trying to control your in-breath and out-breath focus on feeling the sensations accompanying your natural inspirations and expirations notice what moves when your body is breathing at its own rhythm notice as best as you can the different qualities of the air that you are breathing its taste smell texture humidity and temperature try to feel as clearly as possible where you feel sensations indicating that an inhalation is happening are there specific sensations that indicate the beginning of your inhalations do the same with your exhalations are the sensations arising towards the end of your inhalations different from the sensations towards the end of your exhalations is the flow of air more noticeable in some areas than others is there a difference between the volumes of air flowing through each nostril are there differences in your ways of breathing when you are standing sitting and lying down if you think of something uncomfortable or embarrassing does your respiration change is your respiration different when you think of something uplifting can you identify some patterns in what you observe do you hold your breath involuntarily when does your body automatically adjust its breathing rhythm to your level of activity as usual one more way of exploring the meaning of this sutra is by chanting it you can choose to chant it in its traditional form with some of the words coming together prana another option is to chant each word in the sutra individually tasman sati foreign yo [Music] thank you very much for listening i hope you can join me for the next episode when we will continue by exploring the sutras about pranayama with the next sutra 250 please remember that you can find more information yoga courses and many free resources including articles videos and guided meditations at simplehyphenyoga.org i would appreciate it if you could share this podcast with others thank you until next time namaste