Get breathing properly through yoga
Our yoga instructor Shelley Edwards explains how to get breathing properly through yoga. Our breathing is a vital tool we can all use for reducing stress, improving health and operating at our best
Are you breathing properly?
Noticing and understanding how we are breathing is a huge step to living a more balanced and calmer life.
Breathing is the clearest signal of your body’s state at any time. Large sets of muscles are involved in taking air in and releasing waste (carbon dioxide) out. When we breathe properly we empty the lungs fully and refill them. Breathing incorrectly and from the chest leaves about a third of stale air in our lungs. We get in control of our nervous system when we breathe full body breaths, stomach to throat on the inhale and throat to stomach on the exhale.
Thoracic (chest breathing) when we are stressed or when the diaphragm cannot move fully is called secondary breathing and many people get stuck in this pattern, using up more energy and creating strain on the neck and shoulders.
Diaphragmatic breathing uses the primary breathing muscles (at the bottom of the ribs) as we fill up and empty our lungs. This is known as belly breathing as the belly rises as we inhale and flattens as we exhale. The diaphragm drops down as we inhale and the breath expands the chest, then it rises back up as we exhale and the chest drops. It all starts in the belly! This is energy efficient, oxygenating and the least stress on our muscular system.
Scientific test show that nasal inhalations calm down the brain’s frontal lobe, calming its activity and warming up air entering the lungs and body for easy oxygen uptake. It also helps nitric oxide production which is important for immune function and circulation.
What is your breath telling you?
Becoming aware of your breath gets you in control of you! Simply feeling and listening to your breath is a way of learning what your body is expressing and finding out what it needs. This then helps us to relax and drop into a more easy and calm breath rhythm and have the chance to feel balanced.
Whether you are lying down or standing up just place your hands on your belly and feel it move out on the inhale and back in on the exhale.
Mindful breathing practices are key – get breathing properly through yoga!
This is quite simply the one tool we can all use for reducing stress, improving health, operating at our best to increase our own potential and team performance. To optimise our fitness and athletic training, to improve our emotional intelligence, to change habitual behaviour patterns and oh wait . . . to improve our brain function, cardiovascular and respiratory health?
My yoga classes get you in tune with your breath as well as getting you feeling energised, relaxed, calm and in control of you – allowing you to control your mind and not your mind to control you!
In a yoga class you will be guided to learn how to breathe properly, you will connect with your own breath rhythm and it doesn’t matter if it takes you a little time to truly learn how to breathe properly as we all learn at different speeds. But you will be guaranteed the fact that you will tune into you and get in control of your nervous system which is the hub of you!
You do not need to be a bendy gymnast to take to a yoga mat and indeed you will certainly surprise yourself as you use your breath to guide you in and out of the postures. You work at your own pace, understanding your own flexibility, and there is never any judgement or competition as that quite simply would not be yoga!
Come join me on a mat and start to tune into your breath. Get breathing properly – not only will it calm you, it will make you healthier
Shelley teaches hatha yoga at The Hub on Friday mornings