Day 70: Change your breath, change your mind

Tags

Diaphragmatic breathing, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, thoracic breathing, yoga and PTSD, yogic breathing. pranayama

I have had issues with stress in the past… The reasons for this really are out of the scope of this blog but several years back I was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I had just seen too much tragedy in too little an amount of time. Rather than processing and mourning I skipped past my pain. Eventually this pain caught up with me. It came out as a big ball of stress related meltdowns. It seems like a distant memory now. Looking back I can’t even really sort out why I was having such a hard time managing life. I spent a lot of time healing old wounds though. During this time of healing I was introduced to yoga and acupuncture. These two things helped me immensely. So did breathing. Really deep big full belly breathing.

Yesterday part of our focus in our teacher training was on our lungs and how we breathe. I am sure you all know that yoga has a BIG FOCUS on breathing. It is a huge part of the practice. Our instructor handed us a diagram from a PTSD site that showed how people with stress disorders breathe in their lungs. It really hit home with me. For almost a year my breath was shallow, going only into the top part of my lungs. This breathing is associated with the “fight or flight” response. And for that year all I was really thinking in my head was “RUN!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE”. Breathing. It’s important.

In yogic practices there are many exercises (pranayama) that focus on breathing. By practicing these breathing exercises a lot of knowledge comes out about how breathing effects our bodies and our minds. With different breaths we can heat or cool ourselves. Breathing can energize us or calm us. By changing our position or our focus area of breath we can massage our organs with breath. We can bring life back into areas of our body that have become deadened or numb. Breathing. It is wonderful. May we all take deep beautiful healing breaths today!

Day 66: Breathe.

Tags

bandhas, yoga breathing. meditation. pranayama

We had a wonderful class on the different paths of yoga, pranayama and the bandha’s last night. I love learning about this sort of thing in a classroom setting because it is so rarely covered in the average yoga class. Hatha yoga (or the physical asana’s) is the primary focus of most yoga classes in our culture. To learn more in a class setting about the other path’s of yoga often means going to a workshop. Although I would LOVE to go to all kinds of these longer specialized classes my finances the past few years have limited the amount workshops I can attend. Thankfully there is a wealth of information in books about these “other parts” of yoga so when I get the chance I fill my brain up with as much information as I can soak in. It isn’t the same as learning in a classroom though. I learn things much deeper when I am in a classroom setting. One of the women who runs the program I am taking mentioned that a majority of the students they train are Kinesthetic Learners. Yup. That is me. I learn by seeing and doing far more than I learn by reading.

We also spent some of the class time working with the Bandha’s, locks and Pranayama. I have explored this part of yoga with a few different teachers before so the information we covered wasn’t new to me. It has been a part of my practice that I let go when I was pregnant though (not recommended during pregnancy).  I haven’t really gotten back into it despite being physically able now. Last night reminded me to focus on this area of yoga again. I really do a feel a difference on many levels when I incorporate breath work into my practice. The best thing? I can do it fairly easily for short amounts of time when the baby naps.