Have you ever heard of pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, and wondered what it was?

Pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, is the type of yoga that is dedicated to breath control.  The word “pranayama” is a compound word consisting of two Sanskrit words, “prana” and “yama.”  “Yama” means “control.”  So, “prana” must mean “breath,” right?  Well, no.  Not exactly.

Translating the word “prana” from the Sanskrit into Standard American English as spoken in the twenty-first century is not an easy job.  Although that word is sometimes translated as “universal energy,” I like to think of it as the “life force.”  It is that which a living body has and a corpse does not.  It is the shared interaction between the individual and the cosmos; shared, because an individual breathes the force in and exhales it back out. 

Be careful not to reduce “prana” to “air.”  It isn’t.  And it isn’t simply any of the other interchanges that an individual has with the cosmos, either.  It isn’t water, food or sunshine.

But prana is carried in air, food, water and sunshine.  I like to think about what I learned in Sunday school.  How did Adam change from a pile of dust to a man?  God breathed life into his lungs.  And the word “spirit,” meaning the “animating or vital principle in man or animals” is related to the Latin word for “breath.”

Prana is not merely air.  Rather, it is air entering our lungs and permitting us to live and breathe.

Pranayama yoga, or the yoga breath, is the yoga practice that works on breath control through exercises and attention.  The purpose of this practice is to cleanse and purify the body and to strengthen and purify the mind.  But it won’t just happen by inhaling and exhaling.  The single most important thing to bring to pranayama yoga is your full attention and mental focus.  Pramayama, or yoga breath, supports your practice of yoga asanas to make a richer, more vital yoga practice.  And pranayama and the asanas together prepare you for meditation.

Oddly, as naturally as breathing comes to the youngest of us, most of us do it wrong.  We don’t inhale deeply enough.  We let breath race in and out of our bodies without giving it time to let the oxygen nourish our blood.  We breathe without honoring the prana, the life force.  The result is fatigue, mental sluggishness, sleep disorders and even heart disease.

So you are well advised to honor the prana and to breathe with deliberation and care.  Learn pranayama yoga, or yoga breath, and practice it daily to enhance your practice of yoga asanas and to fortify your mental and physical health.

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Read on to learn a little about chakras:

  • Top 7 Chakras – Listverse – In many religions and practices, there is a belief that there are many energy centers in the body that are tuned to an aspect of life. The energy centers, charkas, are represented with colors and are believed that the person has the …