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| Pranayam Practice |
With the advancement in science and technology, the researchers from the West have now agreed upon the one thing that Yogis have saying all along, which says that Breathing is quite a vital technique in itself. It’s essential for us to understand why and how adequate breathing practice can be advantageous to our lives, especially since we do it all the time.
Our body is breathing on auto-pilot
mode. We pay attention to it or not, our body is programmed in a way we
automatically inhale after releasing a breath. So why is breathing so important
that there is Yoga to indicate the right technique? We will tell you.
Breath control also known as Pranayama, is one the fourth
of Patanjali’s eight limbs of Yoga. Moreover, even
science has its own reasoning to support the fact that if we pay attention to
breathing and learn the process of manipulating it, we can deal with a lot of
day-to-day stress, mental strain, fluctuating mood and overall metabolism.
In simpler words, Pranayama
is the combination of mental health practice, physical health practice and
meditation.
Since certain physiological functions
ascertaining the human body are quite basic and by default functioning, we
often don’t interpret the need to work on those functionality.
While 5-6 breath per minute is what
Nature demands from us, we huff up to a fastened breathing cycle of 14-20 breath
per minute. These facts are stated by Yoga expert Patricia Gerbarg, who is also
the co-author of The Healing Power of Breath.
As per Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, there is a very distinct
relationship between our breathing rate, mood and the functionality of the
autonomic nervous system. To be precise, the autonomic nervous system is
responsible for governing the body's sympathetic (i.e. the fight or flight) and
the parasympathetic (i.e the rest and
restorative responses). These are the body functions such as heart rate,
digestion, respiration etc.
Apparently, from the evolutionary
aspect, these were the factors that turned out to work as a survival mechanism.
Yet the modern day unscrupulous delusions trigger the body's alarm, and that
too quite often.
Speculating this contemplation, the
researchers believe that every breath we take is responsible for instigating an
infinite amount of sensory receptors in the respiratory system, thus sending
signals through the vagus nerve to the brain stem. Faster breathing keeps
pinging the brain at a higher pace, which further triggers the sympathetic
nervous system, instigating the stress hormones, heart rate, muscle tension,
anxiety perspiration, and also the blood pressure. Likewise, slowing the
process of breathing will include the parasympathetic responses which are
mostly the contra effects, like relaxation, calmness and mental peace.
So are you ready to inculcate Pranayama and feel its power? Perhaps it's time for you to give it
a try and experience for yourself how an all-round well-being guides you to a
much peaceful life.
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