Anxiety - Pranayama For Stability

When you're feeling anxious, it's not always easy to lengthen your exhales and 'calm down.' This practice meets your anxiety where it is and slowly works the inhale, with intentional pauses, in order to build your breath capacity and energy. This is a slow and steady approach to easing anxiety, and building stability in your breath and mind.

Transcript

Welcome.

Please make yourselves comfortable.

And just take a few deep breaths,

Loud breaths,

Whatever you need to do.

And maybe while you do that,

Roll your head just a little bit side to side.

Move the shoulders,

Move your hips,

Just gently iron out your spine.

So I thought today we would do a couple of different breathing techniques,

Mostly focusing on the inhalation.

The inhalation is what fuels us,

Is what feeds us.

When we are feeling anxious and worried,

Sometimes we can't exhale well.

That tends to be what we hear,

Just take big deep exhales,

But sometimes that's not possible.

So using our inhalation,

We meet our anxiety where it is.

So I'd like to start initially with ujjayi breath.

If you are unfamiliar with ujjayi breath,

It's where we gently constrict the back of the throat so that when you breathe through your nose or through your nostrils,

You're making this very subtle water-like,

Wave-like sound.

So begin this technique.

If this is a new technique for you,

What I'd like you to do is inhale through your nose and then exhale through your mouth.

And when you exhale through your mouth,

You get that sound.

So you can create it with the mouth open and then begin to work on creating it with the mouth closed,

Breathing through the nostrils.

So when we can bring a light application of ujjayi breath,

The sound is just for ourselves.

So it's very soft and subtle.

So in one way,

It's extremely soothing because it literally sounds like the ocean,

But because of the effort,

No matter how minimal,

There's a sense of enlivening to it as well.

And when we use ujjayi breath,

We're able to lengthen the breath a bit more.

So let's take a few more rounds.

So we're going to begin with the inhale through the nose,

Doing your best inhaling and exhaling through the nose,

Very softly cutting off the back of the throat or closing off the back of the throat.

And then we're just going to be counting our inhalations.

So on your next inhale,

If you can,

Inhale to the count of four and just let your exhales be natural.

Inhale to the count of four,

And exhale,

Let it all out,

Still through the nostrils.

Let's do two more rounds,

Inhale to the count of four.

And now what I'd like you to do is continue inhale to the count of four,

But add a one count hold or retention at the top of the inhale.

So the briefest pause in your breath,

And then exhale,

You let it all out.

So we're going to spend one more minute here,

Inhale for four,

Hold for one at the top,

Exhale is natural,

Doing your best to use ujjayi breath as we continue.

Inhale for four,

Hold for one at the top,

Exhale is natural.

Complete one more round,

And then inhales for five,

Exhale natural.

So this is going to be our pattern.

Inhale for five,

For about another minute or so,

And then we're going to add another hold at the top,

And we're going to slowly increase the holding,

The retention.

But right now,

While you're inhaling to the count of five,

Do your best to keep the breath circular,

So there's no pausing,

No unintentional folding.

Your breath is as quiet as you can make it,

Still with this very light application of ujjayi breath.

Please do two more rounds,

Inhale for five,

Exhale is natural.

So our next round is going to be inhale for five,

Hold for two at the top,

Exhale natural.

Inhale for five,

Hold for two,

Exhale naturally.

So as we increase the holding at the top of the inhale,

My intention is that in those few brief seconds,

Everything stops.

The worry in your mind,

The endless thoughts,

And you have this brief cessation of thought.

And in these few seconds,

You can enjoy the complete quiet.

This is the goal,

Something to work toward.

Let's do two more rounds,

Inhale for five,

Hold for two at the top,

Exhale is natural.

So our next pattern is to increase the hold.

So we'll inhale for five,

Hold for three at the top,

Exhale is natural.

Inhale for five,

Hold for three,

Exhale is natural.

Hopefully feeling with this inhale to the count of five,

You're feeling your breath move in all directions.

So you're inhaling up,

But you're also inhaling out to the sides and front to back.

So you can feel your ribcage expanding all around.

And then we hold the breath through the three counts and we're building more capacity for breath by creating this big container and then asking it to stay.

Asking it to hold the breath.

Please do two more rounds,

Inhale for five,

Hold for three,

Exhale naturally.

We increase the hold by one.

So inhale for five,

Hold for four,

Exhale natural.

At any point with increasing the holding of the breath,

If it feels like it's too long,

Like you have to take a big quick inhale,

Drop the count by one.

We'll be increasing it once more to create a stable breath five and five.

However,

I'd rather you feel comfortable with the breath.

And have this breath work be effortless.

So for right now,

Doing the best you can,

Inhale for five,

Hold for four,

Exhale as natural.

And while we're continuing with this pattern,

We're about at the halfway mark.

So if you'd like to switch your sitting position,

Now's a good time to do that.

Take your time coming out,

Shaking out your legs,

Moving slowly so that you can be aware of how you're moving your body,

But also aware of staying with the breath.

Inhale for five,

Hold for four,

Exhale as natural.

So working in this way with the retention of the breath being quite intentional.

So many times I hear yoga students and meditation students say that they forget to breathe.

It's a very common thing that we do during practice,

That we do throughout the course of our days.

But when we can create an intention around retaining the breath,

We build more capacity for breath.

We become very present with what we're doing.

Let's take three more rounds.

Inhale for five,

Hold for four,

Exhale as natural.

Our final round,

Or rather our final cycle,

Inhale for five,

Hold for five at the top,

Exhale naturally.

Inhaling using that ujjayi breath,

Holding at the top,

Exhale as natural.

It's likely when we work with the inhales that the exhale grows.

So if that's happening,

Just let that happen.

And by working with the inhale and the retentions today,

My hope was that we would meet any worry and anxiety and then move toward stability.

It's harder to find stability.

We'll continue this pattern for the next couple of minutes.

Inhale for five,

Hold for five,

Exhale as natural.

If the holding ever becomes too forceful,

Drop a count or two for a couple of breaths and then pick it back up.

The goal is to soften anxiety,

To come to a stable place.

If there's any forcing of the breath,

It will have the opposite impact.

Release any tension in your fingertips,

In your arms,

Soften the muscles behind your eyes,

Your cheeks,

Your lips.

So the only real effort here are the muscles in your throat using this ujjayi breath.

As we continue to breathe here,

I'd like you to notice where your internal gaze is as you're breathing.

Does it feel like it's at the tip of your nose,

At the space between your eyebrows?

Don't overthink it,

Just notice where does it feel like your eyes are pointing toward?

Or where does it feel like your inner awareness is pointing toward?

We're going to stay here for a few more rounds.

Inhale five,

Hold five,

Exhale as natural.

Please one more round.

And then release the effort of the ujjayi breath,

Release the effort of counting your breath.

And we'll rest at whichever place your inner awareness falls upon.

And we'll spend two minutes in silence.

At any point though,

The thoughts come rushing back,

You lose that place of stability.

Come back to inhale five,

Hold five,

Exhale as natural.

We'll spend two minutes here.

Less than a minute to go.

Please take a deep breath in.

A deep breath out.

Again,

Big breath in.

And release.

Please place your left hand on your heart and your right hand on top.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for breathing with me.

I hope that even the smallest amount of stability that you felt during pranayama stays with you for the rest of your day.

Thank you so much for your practice.

Reviews

My Husband & I did this together and received a beautiful reset your day form the breathing. Thank you