Most people never think about the way they breathe. It is something that happens as a natural reflex and doesn’t require thought. But, when you do need to concentrate on it, such as during your first yoga class or while working out, that’s when flaws in your breathing style can become easy to detect. Have you ever tried to take a deep breath and found yourself yawning afterwards due to lack of oxygen? Or do you ever have trouble focusing on yoga poses and correct breathing at the same time? If so, you’re not alone. Not only do most of us neglect to think about the way we breathe, we are most likely in the habit of breathing improperly. In order to enhance your yoga practice and improve your physical health and emotional well-being, learning to give your body the oxygen it needs should be your very first step. Here’s how:

1. Identify incorrect breathing.

Most people breathe quickly and do not inhale all the way. This is called shallow breathing. If your find yourself breathing fast, raising your shoulders as you breathe, and not letting your stomach expand, you could be breathing incorrectly. When you breathe the right way, your stomach, diaphragm and ribcage fill with air and visibly expand.

2. Warm up.

Before you learn how to breathe the right way, take some time to warm up your body first. This will relax your muscles and allow the breath to enter the body more fluidly. Don’t exercise to the point that you’re out of breath, though. If you do, wait until your breathing has stabilized.

3. Pick your posture.

You can either stand with your back straight and knees slightly bent or sit cross-legged with a straight back. Put your shoulders back and let your chest lift. Relax your arms and put them on your waist or fold them gently in your lap.

4. Inhale.

Inhaling slowly through your nose, let air pass into your diaphragm and fill your stomach. You should feel like your stomach is expanding like a balloon. Inhale for about five seconds, or until you feel you have taken a full breath. Never force yourself to take a deeper breath than feels natural. The point is to train your body to take slower, better breaths, not to breathe so deep that it hurts. You have to practice a bit until you find the length of breath that feels good for you.

5. Exhale.

Exhale through your mouth, not your nose. Make sure to exhale slowly, in about the amount of time you took to inhale (this can vary, though, with inhaling and exhaling taking different amounts of time for different people). Keep breathing out until you have exhaled fully.

Try this sequence several times a week, and practice regular yoga, and you should see vast improvements in the quality of your breath.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com. 

Thank you so much, Angelita, for your contribution to the True Yoga Blog and for teaching us all how to breathe better for well-being…

Namaste

This brilliant article was written by Christina from yogaforthenewworld.com.  Thank you, Christina, for your wonderful contribution to the True Yoga Blog: 

Is Yoga Creating a Transcendental Democracy? 

Imagine a world of transcendental democracy. Not the democracy as we now know it, where, as singer Bonnie Rait said in a recent Rolling Stone article, “we have an auction, not an election” but one in which the universal good is expressed, not as a religious or political movement, but a humanistic movement towards wholeness and integration. Can yoga and meditation provide this type of transcendental democracy? 

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru of the Transcendental Meditation movement in the US and elsewhere ( as well as the Beatles’ guru) thought is was possible. He even created the Global Country of World Peace, one without borders. He may have been imagining physical borders, but perhaps his vision is being captured in the ways in which we are, both consciously and inadvertently, creating a more equal playing field for everyone. 

One example of this is Professor Muhammed Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank. He lives the yogic principle of Asteya, or non-stealing. After all, don’t corporations who pay share-holders and CEOs 300% of the profits (real or mustered with creative financing) while paying the majority of its workforce pennies, steal? Yunus created a bank for the poor, enabling them to take out small loans which are given to people who wouldn’t be able to grow a business with traditional means. This means that every man and woman, even those in poor and rural villages has an opportunity to live in a more truly democractic society. 

Another example of a more democractic society, truly one without borders is created through the Internet itself. Organizations like Learnitlive.com and institutions like MIT, Stanford, Yale and Harvard, as well as hundreds of other universities make advanced learning free, or nearly free, to people all over the world. If you can afford an internet connection for a few hours a day (in India one hour of internet access will cost you about 150 rupees, or the equivalent of about $2.50 US depending on exchange rates) you can learn from Ivy League Professors. If you want to take a yoga or meditation class, or learn about nutrition of even advanced shapeshifting, and Bollywood dance you can access it from your own living room, live, with the click of a button. Experts on almost any conceivable subject are there for you instantaneously with very little effort on your part. This democracy of knowledge addresses an important gap in human evolution. 

In ancient times, when yoga was being developed in the Indus Valley, Brahmins were the priests and holders of wisdom. Social change cannot happen without education. 

“Education is the very foundation of good citizenship… It is principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment”

-         Brown v. Board of Education 98L Ed 873 at 880; (1953) 347 US 483 at 494 

In times past, only those with money and power were allowed knowledge. In recent times present, those who might have access to greater wisdom scarcely had time to develop it, since the toil of everyday life left them with little time to develop their intellects and spiritual or humanistic traits. 

Our modern technology has both created a lack of time to seek the higher soul and an excess of information to sift through. Learning to control your thoughts, or to be ‘mindful’ is a high rung on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Most of the free-world is still learning how to chop wood and carry water. The yogic energy we create in meditation, for example, is available to everyone who is introduced to the idea of learning to tame the emotions and ‘monkey mind’ that yokes us to ever more toiling. Is it possible that the presentation of Dhyana to the masses could free them even more completely?

 The Bhagavad Gita tells us that “Meditation is the highest virtue. Meditation is the foremost austerity. Meditation is the greatest purity. Therefore be fond of meditation,” and until very recently a working mom in the big city had more less of a chance of running into this information than a sadhu in the Himalayas. That has changed with the democratization of information. 

Yoga was also once practiced primarily by men in its birthplace, but now is practiced by a majority of women in its new outgrowth in the West. Gender quality is addressed by the spread of ideas, yet again, and yoga has trickled into classes for the old, the young, the fit and the infirm. No matter your sex, age, or ability, you can increase your wisdom and physical health with yoga. 

Finally, programs like Off the Mat, into the World and the 3HO Foundation, take the yogic aha moments that we glean in a classroom and transform them into an engine for social change. Seva, or selfless service is a cornerstone of almost every yogic tradition. By giving back some of what yoga gives to us, we help to create a ripple effect that makes Maharishi Yogi’s dream of a Global Country of World Peace a reality. This is a transcendental democracy in progress. 

Christina Sarich, guest blogger for TrueYogaInc.com, owner of yogaforthenewworld.blogspot.com and contributor to http://www.Learnitlive.com

Into the arms of God…abandon yourself into the arms of Love.  As Reverand David Roseberry said this past weekend, when you have God in your life, you can relax. 

Namaste…

I hope you are well and had a wonderful Easter holiday or Passover if you are celebrating that now.  

Blessings to all…

Many wonderful things have been unfolding in my life.  It’s still too soon to share the news on the True Yoga Blog, but, I will definitely let you know when the time is right, for sure.  It’s hard not letting you know the good news now, but, I’ve learned there is a timing for everything and sometimes it’s best to feel out that timing.   So, that’s what I’m doing.

In the meantime, I’ll still be updating the True Yoga Blog regularly.  

A couple of things…this passage found its way to me last week, so, I’m glad I get to share it with you here…  Before I share, I wanted to say…I respect whatever anyones personal faith is.  That’s one of the things I love about Yoga is its beyond religion, race, creed.  Yoga is a great unifying practice that has us realize that what unites us all, more than a particular belief, is the fact we are all human beings on planet earth.  THAT is our oneness.  In fact, Paramahansa Yogananda says one ought to practice the traditions of whatever faith they were raised.  So, if you were born Jewish, respect the Jewish traditions.  That doesn’t mean you aren’t able to embrace the teachings of Christ.  I believe as we grow on our spiritual path we realize all spiritual traditions have wisdom that can enlighten us.  If you were born Buddhist, respect the Buddhist traditions.  Practice those traditions because that is in your ancestral, familial blood and its important to honor our lineage and ancestral past… Read the rest…