How to unlock the power of breathwork to gain mind-body balance
Summary
‘Your Body Already Knows’ by writer Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya offers a 21-day Ayurvedic-based guide to help reset your health. In this excerpt, she dives into how deep nasal breathing can benefit both the body and mind
From my earliest memories, my breath has been my closest companion, even before I made real friends. My mother’s remedy for all of life’s challenges was simple: “Bring awareness to your breath." Whether it concerned my fear of the dark, frustration with math problems, a tummy ache, or even the whims of a child’s imagination, her advice was always the same. Through her, I discovered a world of healing and emotional processing long before I understood those concepts.
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And remember how, on the 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat that I went on when I was a teenager, we spent 13 hours each day simply becoming present with our breath? By the third day, my awareness had sharpened to the point where I could detect which nostril was active, even in my sleep. This experience was transformative and ignited a lifelong exploration of the breath.
Over the years, I have explored various practices, from holotropic breathwork to becoming a certified pranayama instructor. Pranayama is a branch of yoga that focuses on manipulating the breath to enhance prana, or life force. This mastery allowed me to deliver both my babies in a state of complete calm, without uttering a single shriek, as I used my breath to disconnect from my body yet stay anchored in my consciousness.
I will be encouraging you to embark on your own journey with the breath and let it take you to places that you could have never imagined, but first let’s revisit some key insights.
The nose is for breathing and the mouth is for eating, so the ideal is to breathe through the nose. Our nostrils act like filters, preventing dust, allergens, and microbes from making it into our respiratory system. Moreover, nasal breathing warms and moistens the air before it reaches the lungs, thereby improving lung function and our overall respiratory health. Ooh! How warm and moist! Our nasal passages also produce nitric oxide, which has antimicrobial properties and helps to enhance oxygen uptake in the lungs. Nasal breathing also promotes better use of the diaphragm, leading to deeper, more efficient breaths and supporting better oxygen exchange and circulation throughout the body.
In addition to this, our breath tells us about our current state of mind. When we feel triggered or panic, the breath becomes short and rapid. Just becoming present with it changes its course and, as a result, resets the nervous system. When we are rested and relaxed, the breath deepens. And if you were to fall into a subconscious state, the breath would become very subtle, almost absent. You can use your breath to detect the onset of an emotional trigger and use awareness to bring it back into a state of calm without getting sucked into the trigger vortex.
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I personally avoid making major decisions when my breathing is short and rapid. Decisions from that intense place feel strong and intuitive, but are impulsive since the nervous system is not in equilibrium. I wait for the breath to regulate and to return as a whole to a warm and moist state. I have found that decisions made in this manner feel clear, organic, and intuitive.
This is also a good time to pick up our earlier conversation and explore the shifts the body experiences with each inhale and exhale. Each inhale puts the body in a sympathetic state. For our purposes, let’s call this the solar or “doing" mode. In contrast, each exhalation puts the body in the parasympathetic, lunar or “being" mode. Ideally, we want to balance our doing with being and our solar with lunar. However, when we are constantly in a doing mode, we shorten our exhalations, and as a result, our breath dysregulates. When the body has had enough, it forces out a sigh, which is nothing but a long exhale. But by bringing awareness to our breath and actively expanding the exhales while we are busy, we can keep the mind in a state of flow–in a state of “being" while we are also “doing." Pretty incredible!
You may also recall that our left and right nostrils also have unique energies. Even though our bodies may look perfectly symmetrical externally, the world inside us is quite divided. The right and left brains have unique abilities; the right-side organs (such as the liver, gallbladder, and appendix) have more metabolic abilities than the left (e.g. the heart and spleen). Similarly, the right nostril carries solar energies, and the left nostril carries lunar energies. When they are balanced, the body is in the perfect place, warm and moist.
Balancing our inhalations and exhalations tends to restore warmth and moisture in the mind, while the balance of the right and left nostrils has a little more to do with the state of the body and the circadian rhythm. For example, it is natural for most people to have a more active right nostril during the peak of the day.
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BREATHING EXERCISES TO STAY CALM
Download the free Breathing App created by (author, lecturer and researcher) Eddie Stern at www.thebreathing.app and get ready to play with your breath. Actively bring your awareness to the natural flow of your breath several times a day. If you can catch yourself at the start of a trigger vortex and notice the shifts in your breath, continue to observe it till it feels settled. In addition to this, pick at least one of the two following practices to add to your morning routine. If you can do both, even better:
Resonance Breath: Using the Breathing App, set an inhale–exhale ratio, and follow along with the gong for four minutes. Make sure that you’re breathing through your nose. This breathing practice balances the inhalations and exhalations, expands your breath, relaxes your being, and increases prana. Sometimes, I like to use the app even while I am working. My subconscious mind takes cues from the gong and enhances my exhales, allowing me to think more clearly and be more efficient without burning out.
Alternate Nostril Breathing: This is a restorative practice, and you can feel the immediate benefits of the calm it brings. While the original practice requires the fingers to be in a specific position or mudra, I will simplify this and break it down so you can at least get started. As you read this, try to practice it at the same time to familiarize yourself with the practice.
- Block your right nostril with your right thumb and breathe in through the left nostril slowly, counting to 6.
- Close both nostrils (right thumb blocking the right nostril and right middle and fourth fingers blocking the left nostril) and hold for a count of 12.
- Let go of the right thumb and exhale from the right for a count of 12.
- Now, with the left nostril blocked (still with your right middle and fourth fingers), breathe in through the right nostril for a count of 6.
- Hold once again for 12 counts and exhale, this time from the left nostril for a count of 12. This completes one cycle.
Read these instructions and practice the breath once more to internalize it. Bring the practice to your morning routine; do four complete rounds with your eyes closed every day. You can repeat the practice again at night or anytime during the day you need a reset, as long as you aren’t carrying the fresh weight of a meal in your tummy.
Excerpted from Your Body Already Knows: Reset Your Gut, Hormones, Sleep and Mood in 21 Days, with permission from Harper Collins India.
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