Yoga is a well rounded sort of exercise. It’s not only good for your physical health but also your mental and spiritual wellbeing. Yoga practitioners have a long history of spiritual connection, and in fact it’s thought that yoga has been spread as a spiritual practice since the nineteen hundreds. Yoga has also been found to have mental health benefits such as improving your sleep, relieving stress, and improving your mood. The wide variety of benefits you can get from a yoga practice is one of the things that makes yoga such a special workout. One of the ways we connect with these benefits in our yoga practice is through our breathing. Here’s seven ways to connect with the benefits of breathwork during your yoga practice.
Listen to Your Teacher’s Guidance
Breathe in, breathe out. If you’re a regular at yoga class, these commands probably sound all too familiar.
But if you’re a yoga newbie, you may be surprised to find that in many yoga classes, you’ll find your instructor will actually tell you when to breathe. You might not think you need direction on when to breathe, but know that your yoga instructor’s directions in regards to your breathing are far from random. The breathwork directions are synced with the movements and flows you are working through and by breathing as directed, you’ll be able to connect deeper with the movements, wit your body, and with yourself.
Breathe Into Your Movements
Even when your instructor isn’t telling you when to breathe, or if you’re practicing on your own, you can use your breath to connect more deeply with your movements. Test it out for yourself. Pick one of your favorite poses and try leaning into it while breathing in. Then, reset and try leaning into the pose while breathing out. See how different it feels and find the alignment between your breath and movements that feels most right for you.
Practice Meditative Breathing
One of the most unique aspects of practicing yoga as opposed to other workout classes is the focus placed on meditation. Breath meditation, otherwise known as simply focusing your attention on your breath, is a great entryway into meditation. Meditation, the practice of calming our minds, has many great benefits like reducing pain, reducing anxiety, and helping you sleep better. If turning your mind completely silent sounds too daunting, maybe you can wrap your head around focusing in on your breath. You’ll get the benefits of meditation and learn that you can take your mind to that quiet place, which will open you up to a whole other world of meditative possibilities.
Try Box Breathing
If you want a specific type of breathing to focus in on, why not try box breathing? Box breathing is a great way to lower stress and delve deeper into relaxation. You might have tried this practice in class before, but if you haven’t feel free to ask your instructor about it or try it out on your own time. To practice box breathing, you simply inhale for four seconds, hold your breath in for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and hold your breath out for four seconds. Then, repeat.
Take A Lion’s Breathe
One of the most powerful types of breathing you may have the chance to experience in yoga class is Lion’s breath. Lion’s Breath is, as explained by Healthline, “a type of pranayama that’s said to alleviate stress, eliminate toxins, and simulate your throat and upper chest”. To accomplish this type of breathing, you breathe in through your nose and then make a deep ‘ha’ sound while exhaling through your mouth. Don’t worry if you feel silly enunciating like this at first – let yourself work through the feeling. Everyone else in your class is right there with you. As you practice lion’s breath and let the feeling reverberate through your body, you can almost feel the stress and toxins leaving, so we think you’ll come to love this sort of breathing in the long run.
Keep Breathing
Above all else, remembering to keep breathing will have a huge impact on your yoga practice. This might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how often people accidentally hold their breath when they hit a tricky part of their practice. But while this may feel like a way to keep control of your body, it’s not an effective way to keep your balance, push yourself further, or just in general to be your best self! There’s been health risks associated with holding your breath while exercising, it can be a hindrance to your performance, and simply put, you can’t stay alive and well long without breathing! If everything else seems too much to focus on, simply take the time to remind yourself to keep breathing, or to check in with yourself in tough moments of class and see if you are breathing, and see how big of an impact this can have on your practice.
Take a Full Body Breather
Remember, breathwork is a great way to ground ourselves through our movements, but sometimes it’s important to let yourself do nothing but breathe instead. If you’re feeling like it’s what you need, you’re always invited to take one of your rest poses like a child’s pose and focus on nothing but breathing for a little while.
If you want to learn more about your body, your breathe, and how it affects your practice, check in with our Oxygen Yoga & Fitness team next time you’re in the studio.