Breath Your Way to Enlightenment

Breath work can be a powerful tool for learning more about yourself and be a great way to relax into a calmer way of being. Have you ever been in a stressful situation and noticed how your breathing becomes shallow and short? Many of us have been breathing that way regularly for so long that we are not even aware of it. Doing breath work can be a good way to teach conscious breathing. There are many different ways of doing breath work, and most of them should be done with someone who is monitoring your breathing and can assist you when emotions or repressed memories arise. One form of breathing you can do on your own is alternating nose breathing. This is a technique that is safe for you to do on your own and you can gradually increase the amount of repetitions you do as you become conditioned to it. Most of us breath more breath out of one side or the other of our nose. This type of breathing ensures that you are using both sides of the brain. Start out by plugging of the right side of your nose. Draw in air through the left nostril to a count of 4. Next plug your nose and hold the air for a count of 16. Finally, release the air out of the right nostril while plugging off the left nostril, for a count of 8. Repeat this 4 times. Do one more set but this time, plug off the right nostril, draw the air in at a count of 4, release the air out at a count of 8, and hold the air at the release for a count of 16. Repeat this scenario for 4 times. By doing these two sets of breathing techniques you will notice a much calmer and relaxed you. In time, this will become very easy for you to do. As this happens add more sequences. If you continue with this process you can awaken your kundalini and raise your awareness level. Filling your body with more breath increases prana in your body. It stimulates good health and reduces stress in the body.