Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing Alternate Nostril Breathing

Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

Yoga Breathing  Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

Welcome to Yoga with Adriene. 

Today we're going to learn a pranayama practice, or a breath technique, called alternate nostril breathing, or Nadi shodhana. What is Nadi Shodhana breathing?

Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

It's one of my favorite tools. 

I feel like almost everyone can benefit from this practice. 

It's a very simple breath technique with an abundance of benefits. 

Everything from being a nice tool to cure headaches, 
anxiety,
 it's a great connector of the brain and body and something to balance out the nadis, or the energy channels in the body. 

So hop on the mat or find a comfortable seat and we'll learn it together, 
Nadi shodhana. 

(acoustic guitar music plays) All right, so to begin, we're going to come into a comfortable seat, so you might come into Sukh Asan here,
 like a nice cross-legged position. 

I'm using a block under my butt today.
You can also fold a blanket or use a pillow. 
If that's not comfortable for you and you want to try this, you can do this in a chair.
Just make sure that you're in a nice, supported position so that your back can be nice and tall and we can sit up with the head over the heart, the heart over the pelvis, just a suggestion. 

So I'm going to come into my nice, comfortable seat here, cross-legged position. 

Again, I've lifted the hips, just to give me a little bit of space for the thighs and the knees, legs to the dropdown. Do you use both nostrils to breathe?

Yoga Breathing  Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing
Take a second, roll up through the spine, maybe loop the shoulders forward, up, and back. 
And then, just take a couple of seconds here to just notice your breath as we inhale in through the nose (inhales) and out through the nose. 

(exhales) Inhaling in through both nostrils (inhales) and exhale out. 

(exhales) One more. 

(inhales) And exhale, we arrive. 

(exhales) Just kind of checking in with the body and opening the mind to learn something new.

Take your right hand in front of you, if you're left-handed, you can do this with your left hand and on the blog, I'll talk about how to adjust for the left hand, but for now,
 we're going to use the right hand. 

I'm going to take my index finger and my middle finger and drop it down towards my palm. What does left nostril breathing do?

So for some, this might be kind of like already a little yoga for the brain. 

So just give it a try, you can even take your other hand and bring the fingers down, just kind of guiding it there. 

Yoga Breathing  Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing
And in time, this will become easier, with practice. 

Right? It's all about practice. If you're finding that this is just too distracting and you're, like, not able to do this in the hand today, then it's okay to go hang loose. 

Bring all three middle fingers down and just use the thumb and pinky.
This is a nice little beginner's tip, but like I said, with practice, this will become easier. 

So the index finger and the middle fingers are coming down. 

And for this practice, pranayama practice, I'm going to use my thumb and my ring finger. 

The pinky is just kinda there for style, mudra points. 

So I'm going to sit up nice and tall And I'm going to take my right thumb to my right nostril, kind of sealing the deal here. 

Sealing it up, sealing it up. And I'm going to inhale in through the left nostril.
Inhaling in through the left nostril, here we go. 
(inhales) After the inhale, I pause and I take my ring finger and seal the left nostril, exhaling out through the right. 

(exhales) Inhaling in through the right. 

(inhales) I seal the right nostril with my thumb and exhale through the left.

(exhales) Inhale through the left. 

(inhales) Sealing with the left nostril, with the left finger, sorry and exhaling through the right nostril. 

(exhales) Inhale in through right nostril.

(inhales) Pause, sealing with the thumb, and exhale through the left nostril.
(exhales) So just in case, you're like, "What?" Here's a little tip. 
Each time I inhale in, 
I seal. Why do I breathe better through one nostril?
Then,

Yoga Breathing  Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing

Yoga Breathing | Pranayama Breathing  Alternate Nostril Breathing 
I exhale out,
 I inhale in and seal. 
So just a beginners' tip is each time you inhale, that's when you're sealing and alternating to the next nostril. 

So each time I inhale in, 
I seal and alternate. 
So we're going to give it a little bit of practice time together and then you can just try this on your own. 

At first, again, this might feel a little more like yoga for the brain, even though it is yoga for the brain.

Certainly replenishing and good for the mind and brain, but don't get frustrated and quit. 
Stick with it and soon,
 your brain and body will work together. 
So here we go,
 we take a nice deep breath in through both the nostrils.

 (inhales) And a nice exhale out.
 (exhales) We find our mudra here, 
relax your jaw. 

You can close your eyes.
 And we seal the right nostril with the right thumb. 

Nice, long,

smooth, deep breath as I inhale in through the left nostril. 

(inhales) I just inhaled it, How do you practice nose breathing? 
so I'm going to seal with the left ring-finger, excuse me, seal the left nostril with the ring finger, and exhale out through the right nostril.

 Let me get this clear for you, here we go. What are the 3 main Nadis?


Inhale in through the right nostril.

1. (inhales) And seal and alternate, exhale through the left nostril.
2. (exhales) Inhale in through the left nostril. (inhales) Seal and alternate, exhale through the right nostril.
3. (exhales) Inhale in. 
4. (inhales) Seal and alternate. 
5. Exhale out. (exhales) Inhale in.
6. (inhales) Seal and alternate, exhale out.
7. (exhales) Inhale in. 
8. (inhales) Seal and switch and exhale out. 
9. (exhales) Inhale in. 
10. (inhales) Seal and switch, exhale out. 
11. (exhales) Keep it going, inhale in. 
12. (inhales) Switch. 
13. Exhale out.
14. (exhales) Inhale in. 
15. (inhales) Switch. 
16. Exhale out.
17. (exhales) Inhale.
18. (inhales) Switch. 
19. Exhale out.
20. (exhales.) 
21. Let's do one more round together, deep breath in.
22. (inhales) Seal and switch, exhale out.
23. (exhales) Inhale. 
24. (inhales) Switch.
25. Exhale out.
26. (exhales) Release the mudra, palms to the tops of the thighs. 
27. We take a deep breath in through both nostrils (inhales) and we exhale, release.
28. (exhales) Take a second here to just notice how you feel.

Eyes closed, skin on the face nice and soft. 
And then, gently, we'll open the eyes, soft gaze.

 And inhale, drawing the shoulders all the way up to the ears deep breath in, and exhale, let it go.

 (exhales loudly) All right, so that was alternate nostril breathing.

 Like anything in our yoga practice, remember, it's a practice.

 So if it feels like you're doing this at first or if it feels weird or funky, I encourage you as your teacher and as your friend to return to it and give it a try, maybe give yourself a little goal to try this video four times this next the coming week, just to see what happens.

 As I mentioned before, this breath is great for just connecting the brain and body, it's great for replenishing and waking up the body and the energetic channels in the body, or the nadis.

 It's wonderful for anxiety, if you're a student or you're a creative person, you have a big project coming up or an exam or something like that, this might be a great thing to practice to just get the mind and the body-centered and just kind of calm the nervous system.

 There's, as I said before, an abundance of benefits to practice this regularly and I'm gonna talk about all of them and more on the blog, so make sure that you hop on over there to read the article associated with this video.

 As always, I love to hear your questions, comments, but really, for this one, for this pranayama technique, this breath practice,
 I would love to hear just how it goes, what your experience was.

 How you felt afterward, maybe you could share with me and the others and I think we could all kind of inspire each other and it just might be interesting to hear how others felt after practicing alternate nostril breathing.
 And it's kinda cool, you can share it with your friends.

 Ok, I think that's all, for now, I thank you and I wish you the best of luck.
 Have a wonderful day, namaste.