Yoga and Breathing

The above exercise is called Salute To the Sun (One of Mike's favorite yoga/stretching exercise series).

This page is about supporting you and the Yoga community in the quest for superior knowledge and effectiveness about proper breathing. We are limited only by our imaginations and our breathing is often the wind beneath our wings.  Yoga, being one of the most effective self help approaches to life and living on earth invites me to assist its myriad expressions into being  integrated with as much wisdom related to breathing mechanics and energy as is reasonable. 

About what might be regarded as a basis for developing what Michael Murphy in his Future of The Body  calls "ordinary psychosocial development. full bodied home base to return to prior to traveling out into the spaces of all possibility. A grounded center to return to safely following investigations of altered states of consciousness and meta-normal experiences.  

Both Donna Farhi, author of the excellent The Breathing Book and "R", a co-founder of Yoga Journal (and my former minister's wife) have stated that they taught Yoga for over 20 years - Donna - and Rama 40 years and neither did not know how to breathe right or did not think to teach others how to breathe properly. With the phenomenal and well deserved popularity of yoga in the past 10 years it behooves us to alert everyone about this issue as there may well be millions of students and teachers with an unclear or distorted idea of healthy breathing.

There are many "styles" of yoga. Plus There is bad yoga, good yoga and great yoga. Durckheim observed  that even though many yoga teachers try to help their students relax before giving them breathing exercises, they do not realize that the "letting-go" required for deep relaxation can be achieved "only after long practice."  *Italics Adapted from an article by Dennis Lewis. This "letting go" Dennis talks about is greatly facilitated by the techniques in our 176 Fundamentals video.

Nowadays, you can take many choices in weekend wonder courses and call yourself a teacher.  And along those lines, people can call themselves counselors or ministers and have far too little training.  There's a wide range of yoga teachers out there. As Donna Farhi and Leslie Kaminoff will attest there may well be tens of thousands of yoga instructors and millions of students uncertain about proper breathing. The greatest tragedy of this is that many teachers are first to defend their breathing development proficiency but alas, last to prove it.  Very little information is needed or wanted because "information" including anatomy and physiology is often confused because most have no internal relationship about what great breathing looks, sounds and feels like. What is needed is the experience of good breathing. A feeling is worth a million well meaning words. I know as I learned that the hard way.

A few words from Else Middendorf.
"All the yoga ways of breathing come from the male way. The Eastern way of thinking is to find God in one direction, in a male way. 'The way is directed. I go there and I have to go; I must go'. This way needs will; That is also the reason why, in this case, breathing is connected. it has something to do with will. This male way of being needs will. When this is the basis, the breathing is under the law of the will". 

Mike adds. "This can also transform conscious breathing into "self-conscious" breathing. It gets out of balance."

Pranayama
Just as lions, elephants and tigers are gradually controlled; so the prana is controlled through right practice.  Otherwise the practitioner is destroyed. Verse 15 of Chapter 2 of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika
A comment from a recent radio talk show listener featuring Mike. "A close friend of mine became very ill in India studying Pranayama, my guru Amma says you have to be very developed before you undertake it, It can be harmful."

Pranayama is said to begin spontaneously with the perfection of hatha yoga positions, and proper breathing then and only then facilitates the advanced techniques. But just which hatha yoga positions are the "perfected" ones and why? 

The word Prana translates as something akin to "life force". The second part of the word is "Ayama", meaning "non-restraint".  The practice of Pranayama is meant to free the life force, not restrain it or over energize it.  The techniques are meant to open up the inner life force... which may not feel like a "deep" breath.  I think there's a big misunderstanding about these techniques. 

They are intended for the more experienced  practitioner, and are intended for deeper states of meditation (they often work with increasing the body's capacity to tolerate CO2 - which facilitates meditation).  According to a former colleague and psychotherapist who also teaches yoga,  "pranayama is meant to be a spiritual practice, and is not meant as a way to take deeper, more so called "healthy" breaths.  The body needs to be well-prepared, through the Hatha yoga practices, before the pranamayakosha, or energy body, can work with the pranayama practices appropriately."  This sounds true enough to me but how do you know that the teacher is qualified to judge when the student is ready for the next step.  We might well have a much different teacher in a licensed accountable psychotherapist then we do in someone that has taken a 30 day pranayama training.   Or viceversa.

Almost every pranayama I have witnessed is about control of the breath, from the obvious to the most complex levels. To me pranayama today is largely for altered states of consciousness though there are clinical studies in process that are quantifying many health attributes when practiced correctly.  I much prefer the envelope of Ayureveda as an all inclusive system that includes proper usage of pranayama.

In my opinion most pranayama is not appropriate because it does not allow first to learn about healthy natural breathing that is NOT controlled. Lung and breathing mechanics problems manifest in varied ways from this forced/male way of addressing the breath. Pranayama, toning and chanting, while being potentially quite beneficial, can often constrict the lung volume and hinder breathing sequencing and balance as well as invite throat blockages similar to certain weight loss programs using breathing as its primary focus and advertised frequently on TV they can work or not and are safe or not).   

From a newsletter reader

"Dear Mike: I do breathing exercises (pranayama) but I want to know what I can do to make my breathing better. How can I make each breath longer, without having to think about my breathing? thanks! 
From Mike:  Get this program.  www.breathing.com/video-ds.htm

"From a newsletter subscriber: "I had started Alternate Nostril Breathing Pranayama (with no retention) and I was doing it for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon for 25 days. In these 25 days, I felt very light and nice, suddenly lately I started to feel pressure with pain in my head as soon as I start Alternate Nostril. I feel headache and pressure. I can see my face and eye are little looks swollen. My spine is straight. I am doing it correctly. Do you know why this is happening? I have stopped the practice. Please reply me, I was taken to emergency, but doctor could not figure out what was the problem." MP

I recommend that if you are going to experiment in pranayama that you first develop a strong balanced, healthy, natural breath so your nervous system knows where to return to after the altered state experience; that you know where “home base” is;  Do not learn to fly without also learning how and where to land.  Practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Leading edge yoga teachers are learning how to teach optimal breathing to ensure this perfect practice.

MEASURED BREATHING EXERCISES 
The 7 count inhale, 4 count hold and 8 count exhale is often cited. Because many people are stressed out, breathe too quickly and thus over-stimulate their nervous system and or invite carbon dioxide issues, almost any attempt to slow down the breathing rate will be somewhat beneficial. But for optimal breathing to be reached and maintained the breathing mechanics must be developed to expand and contract in balance without force or resistance, even during sleep. Learn more of teachers like Dennis Lewis in his book Free Your Breath and Free Your Life and or in our 176 fundamentals video.

Beware of long term breath following exercises.
They can be wonderful for some and harmful for others. I use a scientifically proven biofeedback device to measure blood carbon dioxide saturation and learn that even the slightest attention to the breathing can sometimes cause the inhale to develop a subtle and almost undetectable to the eye or inner sensing, erratic breathing sequencing and pattern during the exercise which can develop into permanent UDB.  What is perceived as relaxation may be better or worse then it was before but with a long term tendency to cause or exacerbate UDB.  If you've tried breath following and felt they did not work for you, you may have UDB. You may already have developed restricted breathing.  You may also have experienced deep peace within which is the primary goal and why it is so good to do when correct. The point is that success is not a given.

STRETCHING
Yoga - the stretching aspect of it - is generally quite good for the human body. It is just not breathing specific.  Many of the Yoga developed bodies I have worked with are better integrated and very responsive to Optimal Breathing work. Much the same as a finely made violin or piano is more responsive to an experienced tuner.  Most people I have worked on have learned to breathe incorrectly and their breathing is a little or a lot out of balance.  Distorted internal breathing balance and sequencing sets in with restricted and inappropriate muscular development and sound making quality resulting in various forms of energy/emotional/volitional  blocks that worsen as time goes by. more about

Do I stretch using stretches/exercises/techniques that are borrowed from Yoga?  Absolutely, as well as from Qi Gong, vocal training, inversion traction, rebounding, Tom Anderson's Stretching Book,  walking, weight training and more. 

COMMENTARY: an e-mail from a subscriber

Dear Mike, I fully agree to your view that breathing is often steeped in esoteric agendas here in India. That was exactly the reason that I decided to look out for other sources from where I could gather information, learn and inculcate good breathing habits. 

When I read some Indian books on Pranayama they appeared to me to be not touching the immediate subject, that of the psyche and the physique. When I asked about Pranayama to some elderly persons, I was warned not to practice or to think about it as it was considered to be dangerous when what I only wanted was knowing good breathing habits.

I have no direct control on my heart. Hence I cannot directly control the pace of my heart and whatever other functions it may be doing. There are innumerable such organs, systems and processes which are beyond my voluntary control and hence I cannot meddle with them. Which entails I cannot directly influence them and do them incorrectly or wrongly.

However since breathing has a voluntary part in it, it can be done incorrectly. More the reason I felt that I must know what is correct breathing. What is correct breathing when I am eating, relaxing, doing physical work, reading, having a work out, traveling, sleeping, etc. That is all what I wanted to know.

After having visited your website and that of Dennis Lewis, Illse Middendorf, and Carl Stough.  I recognized that the physical and psychic aspects of correct breathing are very important. Without any foreign intervention in our body this magical gift of breathing has the potential to do wonders to us. Importantly for me it is absolutely and truly the natural way of living.

Having come to this conclusion I feel I could live correct breathing as well as make a livelihood from teaching it when I become proficient enough. Thanks a lot for your invitation. I will remain in touch via the e-mail and the net.

Namaste, CD

From Gary:
I just wanted to express my appreciation for your web-site and, what I suspect is your passion. My experience with pranayama and other eastern breath practices for going on 25 years has been, shall we say, a "learning" experience. The path I took would have been better served having had someone like yourself around to correct the unintended mistakes (learning from experience is not always the best way). My current understanding certainly supports and agrees with your well-written perceptions. Thank you. Gary A

From Mike in an email to C:
Spiritual paradigms are very important but often taught from within a human nervous system structure that is out of balance due to poor breathing mechanics.  The teacher unknowingly clones his or her own dysfunction. With the presence of Unbalanced Deep Breathing, constructive spiritual principles may be poorly or much too slowly integrated. Learn to breathe right first.

How do you feel? What do you do differently when you feel like that? How is your life or attitude different? Leave it at that in the beginning. Work on developing the breath and stretching in ways that establishes an inner ease, balance and sense of wholeness/integrity. To bypass this is like painting a wall before you prepare the surface for paint or building a building on top of a weak or non existent foundation.

In support of professional counseling.
Do we suggest that because someone says they can teach pranayama to the Western mindset that they are qualified to assist in another's deepest process? I think not.

I believe that pranayama falls within the category of Breathwork as defined in http://www.breathing.com/articles/differences.htm I always recommend that the really deep work be done with an experienced facilitator (10 years or more) or a state licensed or church certified and accountable health professional.

BREATH HOLDING
When you hold your breath you most often cause excessive physical restrictions. A few need to do that to regain CO2 balance but how they know they are back in proper CO2/O2 balance is only measured by modern technology. Taken too far can lead to issues such as anxiety, snoring and sleep apnea. Longer inhalations often energize and also can over-stimulate and cause anxiety, panic and UDB.

From a client of one of our students.
Yoga and Breathing
"In my own yoga practice, good breathing has always been confusing. I have had experiences with teachers that were helpful and not so helpful. The best pranayama class I have experienced was taught in a very relaxing way, mostly laying down, dim lights, with plenty of calming asanas first. There was no pressure to time the breath or to hold anywhere. It was refreshing as I had been used to a more ‘formal’ practice. Sometimes it is assumed that if one can perform the asanas well, then pranayama will come easily. This is not my experience. Firstly, the seated pranayama techniques can be difficult for people who are not used to sitting for a long time on the floor. In my own experience, sitting cross legged was not a good idea, because I had a Psoas imbalance that caused lots of tension in the breath. Kneeling with support was much more preferable, but I still did not feel very relaxed. From this I conclude that breathing work for some works much better to begin with in the supine position. There needs to be no tension whatsoever, this can be assisted by a teacher who is calm and accepting of all students, adapting to their needs.

In summary, we need to know the basics first. So many people today are off balance in one way or another. They need to be shown their place of center and ease first, then they can proceed with more advanced practices at their own pace under experienced guidance if they so wish." More from other students

Complete breathing - yoga breathing   Exercise and Breathing