Pranayama: Your Summer Practice
This breath technique packs light but delivers depth and amplitude.
Holidays are a time to unplug, and many of us disconnect not only from our professional lives, but also from our exercise, yoga and meditation routines. No judgment!
Sometimes you need to dial things back to zero in order to understand and appreciate what you have. A clean slate enables you to see your habits clearly, making it easier to build them back up, bit by bit, when you’re ready.
The one thing you shouldn’t leave behind, though, is breathing. Breathing—and breathing well—is kind of important. It’s a habit you shouldn’t quit.
Pranayama is your breathing… but better
On vacation, your breathing is naturally more relaxed (of course it depends on the vacation, and with whom you might be vacationing, but you get the idea.) Away from life and work stressors, you can literally breathe easy. Inhales and exhales equalize creating a sense of balance, and this fluidity can result in your chest feeling more open, your shoulders less scrunched up by your ears. By adding a little Pranayama to what you’re naturally experiencing, you’ll further unknot tension and loosen its grip on your whole being.
Pranayama + Summer = Feel good with less work
Summer is an opportune time for Pranayama. Why? Let us enumerate the ways:
Pranayama is easy to do, doesn’t take much time, requires no equipment and you don’t have to make room for it in your backpack.
You can do it when you’re by yourself on the top of a mountain, you can do it in the middle of a crowded festival. It doesn’t require you to sequester yourself.
Pranayama can be as effective as ice in cooling the body down when temperatures rise. The results from western scientific studies on the efficacy of cold beverages in cooling the body have been contradictory, but Ayurveda has been pretty clear from the get-go: cold beverages are a shock to your digestive system and not good.
Pranayama is even more accessible when you’re in a reclined position (on a towel at the beach, for example.) Geeta Iyengar once said that “Savasana is a kind of threshold between asana and pranayama. Once students begin to feel the relaxation in Savasana, they come closer to their breath.” After a swim and a short savasana, remain supine and do some breathing exercises 🙂
📚 If you’re in need of some holiday beach reads, B.K.S Iyengar’s Light on Pranayama, as well as Richard Rosen’s The Yoga of Breath, are terrific primers on Pranayama.
Cooling Pranayama practices to keep you chill
Sitali and Sitkari Pranayama are designed to be practiced when it’s hot outside as they lower your internal body temperature. Nadi Shodhana and Sama Vritti, while not known as “cooling” practices per se, can be useful for procuring a deep sense of chilled out tranquility. The goal here is to use your breath to increase lung capacity and openness; your breathing should flow freely. If at any point during the exercises you find the counting or the holding causing you anguish, stop and return to your normal breath.
Sitali Pranayama (if you can roll your tongue lengthwise)
Begin with a few rounds of natural breathing, eyes closed. Next curl you tongue, stick it out a little and inhale slowly through it as you would sip air through a straw. Enjoy the cooling sensation. Exhale through your nose. Repeat 10 times.Sitkari Pranayama (if you can’t roll your tongue)
Begin with a few rounds of natural breathing, eyes closed. Next, press your top and bottom teeth together and separate your lips so that your teeth can feel the air. Now like a baleen filtering krill, breathe in slowly through your teeth. Listen for the hissing sound and enjoy the cool air on your teeth. Close your mouth as you exhale. Repeat 10 times.Nadi Shodhana Pranayama (alternate nostril breathing)
Begin with a few rounds of natural breathing, eyes closed. Next you’ll use the thumb and ring finger of your right hand to tick-tock between your left and right nostrils. Using your right thumb, close your right nostril and inhale slowly through your left nostril. At the top of the inhale, close your left nostril with your ring finger so both nostrils are blocked. Pause and hold your breath, without struggle, for a moment of gentle inertia. Then open your right nostril and release the breath calmly through the right side. Begin again, this time by blocking the left nostril and breathing through the right. One full cycle is both sides. Repeat 5 times.Sama Vritti Pranayama (box breathing)
Begin with a few rounds of natural breathing, eyes closed. Inhale for a count of 4, hold at the top for a count of 4. When you’re ready to exhale, exhale for a count of 4 and at the bottom, hold for 4. The goal is to find a comfortable sequence so if 4 is too short/too long, find the right count for yourself like so: breathe in comfortably and count how long that takes; then use that number to construct your “box.” Repeat 5 times.
We’re not here to tell you to stop putting ice in your drinks; we’re just here to let you know there are additional ways to cool down and that with regular practice Pranayama can not only lower your body temperature, it can increase lung capacity, improve cognitive function, lower stress and keep anxiety at bay.
And you thought only rosé had that effect… 😜
Have a great summer! See you in September.