| The relationship of breath with thought is very tangible. Next time when you are agitated, take a moment to observe how you breathe. Whether angry, frustrated, unhappy or calm, the pattern of breathing corresponds to the mood. It vacillates from choppy and uneven when upset or excited to long and deep when serene.
Regular practice of yogic breathing techniques facilitates quick calming of the breath when faced with difficult situations. This leads to corresponding change in behaviour allowing one to be in control with ease. Thus the adept yoga practitioner controls the mind and its thoughts via the medium of the breath by the regular practice of pranayama.
Pranayama is not just the habitual breathing that keeps the body alive. It is a more subtle conscious technique of accessing the universal life force energy that surrounds us.
It consists of inhalation (puraka), exhalation (rechaka) and retention of breath (kumbhaka).
As the yoga practitioner uses this disciplined technique, subtle chemical changes take place releasing all negative thoughts and dissolving stubborn mindsets as the Prana starts to move freely in the body.
There is a special branch of yoga called the swara yoga that maps the relationship of the nasal breath with the brain and nervous system. At any given time, a person is breathing freely through one nostril either right or left. You can check this for yourself.
Close the left nostril and breathe through the right then repeat the exercise with the other nostril. You will find the breath moving more easily through one or the other.
It is common scientific knowledge that the right brain controls the left side of the body and the left brain influences the right side of the body.
When the right nostril is active, the left brain is functioning and vice versa. Since the opposite sides of the cerebral hemispheres have different functions, the breather is in the practical and mathematical mode when breathing through the right nostril and the left brain is active.
When one is emotional and intuitive, breathing happens through the left nostril and right brain is active.
When one side of the brain is used predominantly while suppressing the other, imbalance in the chemical secretions of the brain may occur leading to schizophrenic behaviour, nervous breakdowns, hallucinations and physical maladies such as migraines, cysts in the brain, strokes and embolism. |
