Basic Breath Training

Introduction

• Focusing on the breath is a fundamental tool for beginning to settle the mind and feel the body.
• Conscious breathing is known for its positive effects on stress reduction and pain management.
• A fundamental objective for beginners is to help them safely strengthen and expand their respiratory capacity.
• The most important instruction for students learning breathing fundamentals is to relax.

Unconscious Breathing

• The average unconscious resting, or “normal” breath rate is 12 to 16 breaths per minute
• At the average rate of 15 breaths per minute, we breathe over 20,000 times per day.

Conscious Breathing

• Simply instructing students to be aware of their breath will tend to lower their breath rate to around 6 times per minute.
• Advanced yogis drop their breath rate to 4 or fewer per minute.
• Additionally, B.K.S. Iyengar (Light on Pranayama 2010) teaches that when we take a consciously deep inhalation, we take in six times the amount of air than during average respiration.

Expanding Respiratory Capacity

• With new students, practices are designed to help them safely strengthen and expand their respiratory capacity.
• This means they learn to take deeper, fuller breaths efficiently and regularly. This on its own brings many benefits.

DEEPER, FULLER MORE EFFICIENT BREATHS

The practices of working with the breath to strengthen and extend respiration are the preliminary methods of yoga breathing culminating in pranayama. These exercises begin with simple breathing methods such as those a respiratory therapist might use for the alleviation of symptoms of shortness of breath or to develop a greater vital capacity in the lungs. These are quite powerful practices, given that most people breathe with as little as 25 percent of their respiratory capacity. Just to increase respiratory efficiency can give a tremendous relief to the vital organs, which have been starved for oxygen and pervaded with the waste gas, carbon dioxide. It’s no wonder that just learning how to take deeper, fuller breaths efficiently and on a regular basis can have an uplifting effect on all the physiological systems. – Mukunda Stiles

Basic Breath Training

Overview

Rolf Sovik of the renowned Himalayan Institute describes the breath training that prepares a student for pranayama:

• Awareness of the breath
• A relaxed sense of the mechanics of breathing
• A relaxed mind and becoming the observer of one’s own relaxed nervous system

The most important instruction for students learning breathing fundamentals is to relax. These experienced experts use these words to guide practitioners:

IT IS IMPORTANT TO RELAX

In learning breath practices the most important thing to remember is to relax… As you are learning a new practice it may feel awkward or unnatural at first. You may begin to worry about whether you are doing it correctly, whether it is working, whether you need to try harder. All this thinking and worrying will just make you tense up… The less you judge yourself, the easier it will be relax and experience the benefits of [conscious breathing.] – Richard P. Brown MD and Patricia L. Gerbarg MD

Tools

See the Yoga Teacher Central online lesson for links to training videos & more resources

Importance

Often, students are unaware that they are breathing shallowly or inefficiently, contributing to anxiety, stress or tiredness. With training and practice, they can become conscious of their breath patterns. This awareness in and of itself typically contributes to a change in breathing. This simple practice of making the breath conscious may be the fundamental factor in students’ change in state from the beginning to end of yoga class.

ESSENTIAL TO GUIDE STUDENTS OF ALL LEVELS

As the breath fades, students lose subtle awareness of how energy is flowing in their bodies, of the subtlety of sensation in the body, of the unification of body-mind, of refinements in the practice. Maintaining attention to the breath can be especially difficult for new students trying to move their bodies into new and often awkward positions. Even as students progress in their asana practice, their breathing practice typically lags behind. As asanas become more challenging, limited breathing skills limit the deep source of stability and ease found through full and conscious breathing. It is thus essential for teachers to guide students in basic yogic breathing… and to introduce students to more refined breathing techniques found in the larger art of pranayama. – Mark Stephens