Breathe

It’s the mainstay of yoga, the thing that makes yoga different from a stretching session or Pilates. It is the core of yoga. It is breath.

I must say a variation of “inhale, exhale” fifty times while teaching a yoga class. I watch carefully during challenging poses to make sure the breath is flowing in my students. “Are you breathing?” often brings a chuckle and murmurs of, "Oh yeah, breathe". As the breath returns so does the ease and comfort and confidence, and the difficult pose can be held another beat.

Yogic breathing, or Pranayama, can be useful off the mat as well, I assure my students. We practice different forms of breathwork that can calm the body’s nervous system and keep our stress levels down.

And there I sat the other week, in a stressful situation, with my shallow breath. My lungs filled lightly, air moving no further than my sternum then puffing out in a quick burst. When I finally noticed this, I sternly told myself to deepen that breath, to fill my own lungs. But I rebelled. This was a comfortable place for me. It seemed a quiet space with just me and my shallow breath and my nervous tummy. I actually had to force myself to sit up straight and draw a deep breath, hold it for a count or two, then release it fully. Repeat, I commanded. And I did. After about three of these full rounds of breath my tummy settled a bit and my head felt more clear and light.  It was a better place to be.

So, lesson learned. Even after years of practicing, hearing, and teaching that yogic breath is helpful in stressful situations, I still had to consciously remind my self to go there. Maybe if my life was loaded with heart-quickening events my body would learn to go there automatically, but happily, times of true, extended periods of stress are fairly rare. So I need to remind myself. And I did, and it worked!