- Hey, Everyone!
Welcome to Yoga with Adriene.
I'm Adriene and today we're going to learn
a pranayama practice, or a breath technique,
called alternate nostril breathing, or nadi shodhana.
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 sukhasan 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 myself
a little bit of space for the thighs
and the knees, legs to drop down.
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.
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.
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 finger 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 left nostril, with left finger, sorry
and exhaling through right nostril.
(exhales)
Inhale in through right nostril.
(inhales)
Pause, sealing with the thumb,
and exhale through left nostril.
(exhales)
So just in case you're like, "What?"
Here's a little tip.
Each time I inhale in, I seal.
Then, 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 in, 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.
Inhale in through the right nostril.
(inhales)
And seal and alternate, exhale through the left nostril.
(exhales)
Inhale in through the left nostril.
(inhales)
Seal and alternate, exhale through right nostril.
(exhales)
Inhale in.
(inhales)
Seal and alternate. Exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale in.
(inhales)
Seal and alternate, exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale in.
(inhales)
Seal and switch and exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale in.
(inhales)
Seal and switch, exhale out.
(exhales)
Keep it going, inhale in.
(inhales)
Switch. Exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale in.
(inhales)
Switch. Exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale.
(inhales)
Switch. Exhale out.
(exhales.)
Let's do one more round together, deep breath in.
(inhales)
Seal and switch, exhale out.
(exhales)
Inhale.
(inhales)
Switch. Exhale out.
(exhales)
Release the mudra, palms to the tops of the thighs.
We take a deep breath in through both nostrils
(inhales)
and we exhale, release.
(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 coming week,
just to see what happens.
As I mentioned before, this breath is great for
just connecting 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 practicing 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 afterwards, 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.
(acoustic guitar music plays)