Health, Beauty and Fitness Mobile hairdresser, specialising in classic cuts and short hair Vidal Sassoon qualified Based near Melle (79190) Tel: 07 88 72 46 76 Facebook: harrisonhair Instagram: gillharrisonhair Siret number: 893 356 006 00013
Everyday Yoga for Everyone How we breathe has an almost immediate impact on how we feel? What do I mean by ‘how we breathe’? I mean the speed, the rate and the force of our breath together with the mechanism of breathing, the respiratory muscles that we engage and how we engage them. Most of the time we don’t notice our breathing patterns. Our breath just goes on in the background, unconsciously. But the fact is that most of us are breathing too fast, and this signals our nervous system to send out chemical messages for hyper vigilance that keeps us in a state of constant anxiety. When we habitually breathe too fast, we can get stuck in ‘sympathetic overdrive’ – where we are on high alert all the time. This puts a lot of pressure on the heart. It interferes with our concentration, our mood and our sleep, even our ability to properly digest our food. And, over time, it also suppresses our immune system. The good news is that we can re-learn, very easily, to adjust our breathing patterns to feel better almost right away. In yoga, there are hundreds of different breathing practices, generally classified as ‘pranayama’. A yoga teacher and breathing coach named Lucas Rockwood recognized that all breathing practices can be separated into three main categories: ones that calm you down when you’re too anxious, practices that lift and motivate you when you’re too low, and practices that balance you out from either being too anxious or too demotivated. Rockwood calls these three types of practices whiskey, coffee and water, respectively. These three categories of breathwork might seem a little odd for a yoga teacher, especially the whiskey and coffee ones! But the point is to understand the effect that these practices have on our nervous systems, and so on our internal experience. I recently had the opportunity to train with Lucas Rockwood to become a certified Breathing Coach. I had done breathwork for decades, and had long been interested in how to make traditional yogic breathing techniques – which are often complex and esoteric - more user-friendly for Westerners but I had always found it challenging to distil these methods into their essence so they could be more easily communicated and understood. Rockwood’s method is game-changing because it keeps all of the benefits of these techniques while dispensing with
by Rebecca Novick
the complexity and esotericism that can create an obstacle for many people who simply want to feel better as quickly as possible. Keep it simple and make it effective were the mantras on the course. The first time I applied the techniques I had learned in his program in a real-life yoga class, the difference was noticeable. It was like a code had been cracked. Suddenly, people were ‘getting it’. They could easily follow and engage with the practices. Most importantly, they could access them any time of the day to self-regulate. I’m very grateful to Lucas to now have these teaching tools to be able to share the power and efficacy of these practices with others. Try a very simple water category practice. This type of practice helps to bring you into balance. Sit comfortably. You can be on a chair but try not to cross your legs and place your feet firmly on the ground. Let your hands rest in your lap. You can also do this practice lying down. Take the focus of your breath from your chest into your belly. Allow the belly to rise and fall with the breath giving space to your diaphragm to do its job. You can place your palm over your belly to help you to connect with this movement. Close your eyes, and inhale slowly through the nose to a count of 4 like you’re counting between lightening and claps of thunder in a storm. Then exhale to the same count of 4 through the nose. Continue to do this for 5-10 rounds with each inhale and exhale being equal to one round. Try to make the breath even. Don’t gulp in the air and don’t sigh it out. Try to keep it even and steady like you’re playing a long note on a wind instrument. After the 10th round, bring your breath back to ‘normal’. This practice is perfect to do any time during the day and only takes a few minutes. If you’re interesting in learning how to breathe your life better, contact me for information on individually tailored 4 session breathing courses available online and in-person: lavieenyoga@gmail.com Respect yourself, explore yourself.
Rebecca
Private courses available online and in-person For more information email: lavieenyoga@gmail.com http://www.facebook.com/groups/lavieenyoga
The Deux-Sèvres Monthly, December 2021 | 55
