Get refreshed with Kapalbhati Pranayama

What is Pranayama?

The word Pranayama refers to the series of breathing exercises that are taught in yoga. According to yoga, the single most important function necessary for the existence of life is breath. You cannot live if you cannot breathe. Also, when you don’t breathe properly, the cells of your body do not receive sufficient oxygen. This in turn leads to many different ailments in the body.

Sadly most people have become used to taking shallow breaths that only utilize the upper portion of their lungs. This leads to a steady state of oxygen deprivation over a period of time. Pranayama can teach you how to breathe fully once again, so that you are using all your lung power to deliver to your cells the oxygen that they so desperately need.

What is Kapalbhati Pranayama?

There are many different kinds of Pranayama exercises. Kapalbhati Pranayama is one of the yoga breathing exercises. It is commonly translated into English as the “Shining Forehead” because ‘Kapala’ means forehead and ‘Bhati’ means to shine. So why does this yoga breathing exercise have such a strange name? Well the truth of the matter is that Kapalbhati Pranayama can actually make your forehead shine. Regular practice of this yoga breathing exercise stimulates the nerves in your brain and imparts a visible glow to your forehead.

How to do Kapalbhati?

Sit down in a comfortable posture. The Padma Asana (Lotus Pose) or Sukha Asana (Easy pose) are the most common postures adopted when performing Kapalbhati Pranayama. However, this yoga breathing exercise can even be performed while seated on a chair. Just keep in mind that your back should be straight. Concentrate on a point on the tip of your nose.

Inhale gently through the nostrils. Now clench your lower abdominal muscle to force the air out explosively through your nostrils. Your diaphragm should visibly rise up while exhaling. Repeat this process.

Kapalbhati Benefits

Kapalbhati Pranayama offers a number of benefits to your body. The first and most obvious benefit of this breathing exercise is that it gives your abdominal muscles a strenuous workout. If you’re looking for those elusive six-pack abs, Kapalbhati Pranayama is one of the best ways to get them. In addition to this, the forceful exhalations help to get rid of any toxins that have collected in your respiratory system. Kapalbhati also helps to reduce lines and wrinkles from your face, especially those irritating lines that appear on your forehead with age.

Benefits of yoga breathing exercises

Yoga, an ancient Indian healing technique, is made up of many poses and postures. However, often ignored, yogic breathing techniques are sometimes more beneficial for the body and mind than any of the postures.

According to the principles of Yoga, the air around us contains a life-force, also known as ‘Prana’. We may be able to live without food and water, but this life force is essential to our existence and without it, we cannot hope to remain alive. Though there is a lot of this life force in all forms of nourishment, it is most readily assimilated when inhaled. Mixed with the blood, this life force reaches all the various parts of the body and the vital organs, pumping life throughout.

Pranayama is a technique, with which the human body can gain control over this inhaling of the life force, harnessing it and then expelling the waste. With our changing lifestyles and the increasing incidence of various lifestyle diseases, it is imperative that the life force within us be utilized to the maximum.

Due to the prolonged periods of time that we spend sitting behind our desks, we have developed a faulty way of breathing. To take in large quantities of air, we should breathe from the entire chest and the abdominal area. Unfortunately, most of us use only the upper respiratory tract for breathing.

There are many yoga breathing exercises that you can try. These exercises help you to re-programme your natural breathing techniques and clear the airways, allowing the lungs to work at full capacity and increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood.

Yoga breathing techniques offer numerous benefits in addition to de-stressing the body. Here’s what yoga breathing exercises can do for you:

• Release tension, either acute or chronic, that may have accumulated due to strenuous work or routine. This not only helps you to get rid of pain and aches in your body, but also gives a gentle internal massage to the internal organs like the heart and the lungs.
• If you suffer from any illness of the respiratory system, yogic breathing techniques can help overcome shortness of breath and asthma.
• Strengthen the cardio vascular system and stimulate the nervous system.
• Reduce anxiety and mental stress, helping an individual achieve calm and inner peace.
• Cause detoxification of the body, helping to expel toxins from the body, and increasing the quantity of red blood cells.
• Improve stamina and vitality.