Your Paced breathing technique

Yoga practice is all about paced breathing technique and simultaneous movement of the body in synchronization to the breathing pattern. In my earlier blog on want a healthy heart? , I did mention the deep breathing pattern for yoga practice.

I quoted a formula

Et > It and typically Et is 1.x of It                 where x = 1 to 9. Typically, Et is 1.5 of It. (Et- Exhale duration and It- Inhale duration)

The above formula is one such example of paced breathing technique. The idea of using the paced breathing is to work internally on our autonomous nervous system (ANS). This is an involuntary automatic system. With the regular practice of yoga even for 20 minutes/day, the behaviour of the ANS can be changed permanently. Most of the physiological parameters such as metabolic rate, heartbeat, blood pressure etc. are controlled by the ANS. At a psychic level, a relaxed calm state can be achieved with the changed ANS.

Someone asked me to give a practical method of doing this practice. I recommend doing the practice in two phases. The first phase is to train the respiratory pathway for this type of deep breathing. For this, I suggest to spend 10 minutes of deep practice in the sitting position. To keep track of your timing of breathing, I recommend using the paced breathing app. This is one such good app where one can change and set the timing durations of inhale & exhale. The durations vary from person to person depending on his lung capacity.

 At any point of the exercise, one should not overstrain the lung. So, find out your deep breathing pattern with your own comfortable inhale and exhale durations. Say, for example if your comfortable It is 4.0 sec and Et is 4.5 sec then program these numbers in the app and continue the practice with this rhythm for 10 minutes. After few days of practice, gradually increase Et insteps of 0.5sec until you can do exercise comfortably with Et of 6.0sec.

In the second phase, add 10 minutes of body mindfulness movement by incorporating set of yoga postures that aid in the distribution of blood throughout the body. Again, use the paced breathing app to pace the breathing duration.

You will see a dramatic shift in ANS that changes one or more of the parameters such as metabolic rate, heartbeat, blood pressure as well as a relaxed calm state. All that you need is a regularity of this 20minutes practice that helps in reprogramming your ANS.