Today I'd like to teach you a yoga breathing, a pranayama practice, called ujjayi pranayama.
You'll first see records of this way back in Svatmarama's Hatha Pradipika, one of the very
first yoga books over 500 years ago. But this practice continues on until today. It's a simple
practice, but it's not necessarily easy. There are a few important elements. The first element
is we use a pranayama mudra with our right hand, which means you pull the first two fingers down
and press the last two fingers up. If you're new to yoga breathing practices I know this can feel
really awkward at first, but it's a highly functional mudra. It'll help you with later
practices, so it's worth learning. The second thing, and a very important practice in this
particular breathing exercise, is to create that ujjayi sound, that victorious sound in the back of
your throat. There is a glottis, your glottis in the back of your throat you can constrict.
And it makes a slight whisper sound. Here's how to feel it. Imagine that your hand is a
mirror and if you fog up the mirror on the exhale that's easy, but now try to do the same thing by
closing off the back of your throat, that glottis, on the inhale as well. Now see if we can do the
same thing, but breathing just through your nose. The sound should be barely audible,
a whisper sound, not coming from here, but coming from the back of your throat. So it sounds like.
Good. So we'll be using that slight constriction of the back of your throat,
that ujjayi, victorious sound, or "ocean breath",
throughout the practice. The last thing you need to understand is we'll be using something called
jalandhara bandha. It's a big long name, but essentially it's called the chin lock. I lift
my chest to my chin, my chin to my chest, while my nose is pinched. Let me show you what it looks
like and then I'll explain more in depth. I'll take a full inhale, I'll pinch, close, lock.
And then I lift my chin, and then I breathe. A couple of things about the chin lock.
Lift your chest to your chin, and drop your chin towards your chest, and it's a very
firm press. Second thing is when you close your nose don't be shy about it. Close it very,
very firmly. When you close your nose it helps to stimulate your mammalian dive reflex, which
relaxes your body. When you do jalandhara bandha firmly, it helps to put pressure
on your vagus nerve, which helps to relax you as well. Again, a very simple practice,
but not necessarily an easy practice. So we have pranayama mudra, we have that ujjayi sound,
that whisper sound in the back of our throat, and finally we have jalandhara bandha,
or the chin lock. Here's how the breathing pattern works. We inhale with that whisper sound
to the count of four through both nostrils. We'll lock and hold our chin to our chest
to the count of four, and then we'll lift our chin and exhale only through our left nostril
to the count of four. Let me show you a round. I'll guide you through a round and then you can
practice on your own. Generally speaking we would work in rounds of 10, but I'll show you
just a couple of rounds for today. My shoulders are relaxed, chin parallel to the floor, when
my right hand is not in use it'll be face up on my knee. Here's what it looks like. I'll inhale.
So that's two rounds of ujjayi pranayama, that ocean sound pranayama. Why just the left nostril?
It's called ida in Sanskrit, in yoga, and this left nostril correlates with your parasympathetic
nervous system. Slow breathing, deep breathing and left nostril dominance, all of these things
amplify the relaxation response. In the yoga body system we would put this into a whiskey
category of breath, meaning rest, digest and relax. And this style of breathing, slow, low,
left nostril preference, slight constriction of the back of your throat, it's really helpful for
relieving stress and even more relevant for when you're trying to go to sleep at night.
Give this practice a try. Remember work with rounds of 10. If you're new to the practice,
take it slow, start off with 10 rounds. If you have any questions, please post them down below.