Soothing Breath Practice: Alternate Nostril Breathing

Experience a calming breath technique from the yoga tradition designed to soothe the nervous system, focus the mind, and cultivate a sense of balance and equanimity. In this guided practice, you’ll explore two accessible approaches to alternate nostril breathing—one using the hands and one hands-free—allowing you to choose what feels most comfortable. A gentle, grounding way to reset and reconnect.

Transcript

This is alternate nostril breathing practice. This is a breath practice that you can use to calm down, To focus your attention, And to generally relax. To do this, Begin by seated comfortably. The first time you learn this, It's probably best to be undistracted and to even close your eyes so that you can just take your awareness inside. And once you have learned this practice, It's something that you can also do out and about. We're going to do this practice two different ways. The first way is using our hand and actually manually opening and closing the right and left sides of our nostril. And the second way we're going to do this will be without the use of our hands. But begin first by just sitting comfortable, Sitting comfortably, Simply bringing your awareness to your breath. Drawing a deep inhalation and exhale fully and completely. And let's do that again, Inhaling deeply and exhaling. And begin by just bringing your awareness to the central channel of your body, This line of energy that follows your spine. And as you inhale, Breathe from the base of your spine all the way up to the crown of your head. And as you exhale from the crown of your head, Breathe all the way back down to the base of your spine. Let's do that again. Inhaling and exhaling. And just for a moment, Just envisioning that this central channel of your body that follows your spine is like a hollow bamboo tube. You can breathe up into the tube, Which will lift the heart and belly. And as you exhale, Feeling those areas settle again. One more time, Like a hollow bamboo tube, Breathing up and breathing down. And now we'll continue. With your right hand, Palm up, Place your index finger and middle finger down and let your thumb, Ring finger and pinky be up. And sitting comfortably, Gently place your thumb on your, On the outside of your right nostril, Gently just closing off the right nasal passage. And as you inhale, Breathing through the left side, Taking a deep inhalation, Exhale, Closing the left side and breathing out through the right side. You can even use your thumb to open up that right nasal passage a little bit more. And now reversing that, Inhale through the right nasal passage, Closing off that side and exhale, Breathing out through the left nasal passage. Inhale through the left, Exhale through the right. Changing your hands as you go along. Inhale, Opening up the right passage, Breathing in. Exhale, Breathing out through the left. Once more, Manually with your fingers, Inhaling through the left, Exhaling through the right. Inhaling through the right, Exhaling through the left. And now just let that right hand release down to your lap. Bring your awareness back to the central channel of your body, Breathing up through the center and back down. Once more, Breathing up through the central channel of your body from the base of your spine to the crown of your head and exhale, Envisioning the breath flowing back down. Now, Imagining that you have two other channels in your body just to the sides of this central channel, One channel moving up through the left side and one channel moving up through the right side. In the yoga tradition, The left side of the body is considered to be the lunar channel and the right side of the body is the solar channel. And we're going to go back to this alternate nostril breathing, But this time we're not going to use our hands. We're simply just going to visualize the breath flowing up one side and down the other and then reversing that. Okay, Let's try this. So imagining and envisioning the area beneath your spine, Almost as though you could imagine this process beginning beneath the earth. As you inhale, Envision a line of energy moving up through the left side of your body and as best as you can, Breathe in through the left nostril, Following this line of energy all the way up through the left side of the body, All the way up to the crown of your head. And then as you exhale, Following the breath down the right side of your body, Down the right side of your head, Down your neck, Down your torso, All the way back down to the base at the earth. Inhaling now up the right side of your body, Following that line, Tracing the line up the right side, Over the crown of your head, Down the left side. Following the energy up the left side, Over the top, Down the right side. Pausing at the bottom, Up the right side, Over the crown of your head, Down the left side. And continuing this way with the rhythm of your own breath, Finding your way up one side and down the next. Try it for a few cycles on your own. Taking your time, Softening your body as you do this. And the next time you exhale down the left side of your body, Come right back to that feeling of the central channel again, As though it were a hollow bamboo tube. And begin to take the breath up and down through the central channel, From the base up to the crown of your head, From the crown of your head back down to the base of your spine. And a few more times, Up and down. Inhaling. And exhaling. And now just releasing any notion of right or left or center, And just come back to an easy, Relaxed breath, Natural breath. And take a moment just to notice if anything has shifted in your awareness. Maybe your mind feels a little bit more clear. Your body might feel a little bit more relaxed. And sometimes it takes a little bit of practice for this breath work to become natural to you. But this is a really wonderful practice for calming the nervous system, Activating the relaxation response, And bringing well-being to mind and body. I hope that this practice can be a benefit to you. Thank you for joining me.