3. Breathwork: “The great awakening of our time.”
Disclaimer: Before practicing any form of breathwork, make sure to clear it with your doctor or healthcare provider first.
Breathwork has been around for thousands of years.The earliest mention of pranayama breathwork is mentioned in the Hindu Upanishads, written between 800 BCE and 500 BCE. The term was first recorded in the Rig Veda around 1500 BCE.
So what happened? How in the world did we forget such a powerful practice that leads us back to awareness, inner peace, focus, and gratitude?
Some may say that our focus has changed. Changed from the purpose of understanding the reasonings to why we are here, trying to gain insight to who we are as individuals and as a people, to the shift in focus towards, success, ego, climbing up the corporate ladder, every man for themselves, forgetting your fellow man, your neighbor, your family and friends.
Unity, something for past generations is what we had strived for, but not simply just with others, but unity within ourselves.
And the potential for breathwork to lead us back to ourselves uniting with our soul purpose and internal peace has been partially shown scientifically with NIH study: “How Breath- control can change your life: A systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing.” (Link Below)
In this blog, we’ll be doing a dive into pranayama breathwork, specifically Ujjai breathwork also known as ocean breath, which is one of 8 modules of the ancient pranayama breathwork.
Ujjai breath is performed by breathing slowly into the nose on a count of 4, and releasing through the nose to a count of 8, with a slight closing of the Glottis in the larynx, similar movement in the throat to when you’re trying to fog up a window, except in this variation, the mouth is closed and the air is released back through the nose. Primarily used as a relaxing Breathwork, focusing on the parasympathetic nervous system, with sounds reminiscent of the oceans waves due to the slight closure of the Glottis in the larynx during the out breath. Beginner variations do not incorporate breath-holds, simply focusing on the slowing of the breath, bringing the heart rate down, and a relaxation of the muscles, and mind. More advanced modes incorporate short 5-10 second holds after the in breath, and after the out breath, but no force or pressure is involved as Ujjai Breathwork is all about bringing your mind and body to inner and outer peace.
In NIH study reviewed today, slow breathing was practiced, and the findings were two fold, with a conclusion for the slow breathwork model still being up for debate whether it has a full control and effect of the physiological bodily mechanisms, but also showings of slow breathing enhancing the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system.
Here’s what they found specifically: There was an increase in Alpha power and decrease in Theta power. While both of these waves are associated with relaxation, alpha power is associated with a more relaxed, wakeful state like daydreaming, while theta power is linked to deeper relaxation, often occurring during drowsiness or deep meditative states, with a lower frequency range compared to alpha waves.
What are the potential benefits of a heightened Alpha state? The beauty of the Alpha waves and flowing into this state, is that after slow breaths and variations of slow breathwork, it has the potential to put your body in a relaxed state, but not leave you feeling drowsy, sleepy, or fatigued. This is of course subjective depending on the individual practicing the slower forms of breathwork, however if there aren’t any contraindications (Negative health risks that can cause injury when performing breathwork due to underlying medical conditions), then slow forms of breathwork has the potentially to leave you feeling relaxed, focused, and prepared for your work day.
The conclusion of this study: It found that slow breathing has the potential to slow stress and anxiety in the brain by stimulating the mechanoreceptors in the nasal vault, which then stimulates the olfactory bulb, which in turn tunes the activity of the cortical mantal.
In simpler terms, this essentially means that the slowing of the breath, activates receptors in your nose, which triggers a response in your sensory receptors that connect your sense of smell to the brain, which then intern triggers a response in cerebral cortex or the part of your brain that has the ability to process thoughts and process information from your senses, which then can account to causing a trigger affect to slow down rapid thinking, stress, anxiety, and deeper emotions.
So why can we attribute breathwork, and the massive boom of this modality in the past few years to a great awakening? Well as we can tell from this particular study, what breathwork has the potential to help with, is it helps to take your awareness off your stress, off your anxiety, off your ego, and redirect it to what is truly important in your life. It has the potential to help you to recenter your thoughts to your inner self, to your family, to other loved ones, to peace, to gratitude, as well as guiding you back to your true purpose in life. Whatever that may be.
The sooner we become more aware of who we are, we can then move forward to help others. I think that, is one of the many meanings in life. Once we have the ability to find moments of inner peace and direction, it is then our duty to help and guide others to do the same. When we become aware of our consciousness, or lack there of, we have the ability to choose with how we can spend the rest of our day, in peace, in focus, in courage, and in preparedness.
The great awakening isn’t pertaining to a deity or our own divinity, but an awakening to where our focus has been, and where our focus could go to, to better ourselves for a great today and an even better tomorrow.
Until next time.
Breathe in, Breathe out.
Joshua
Disclaimer: Before practicing any form of breathwork, make sure to clear it with your doctor or healthcare provider first.
NIH study link:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6137615/
Ready to harness the power of your breath? Start your breathwork journey with me today and discover how small shifts in your breathing can lead to big changes in your life! Reach out now!