Prana(Breath), bridge between mind and body

Breath is the bridge that connects life to consciousness, the bridge that unites your body to your thoughts? – Thich Nhat Hanh

What is prana? It is our basic life force. It is our breath, also called chi in Chinese. It is the basic force which we need to do our daily task. It makes our blood flow, carries impulses from brain to body parts and back. Prana flows through Nadis or energy channel and gives every cells and tissues that energy which they are required to do their work.

When there is no Prana, there is no use of the body. There is no life.Breath connects our mind and body, breath connects our emotions to the body. Any imbalance on emotional level affects the body and vice a versa

Do you feel lethargic and tired when you are sick?
This is because of imbalance in prana. When you are sick, you feel depletion of energy, again due to an imbalance in prana.

Do you feel short of breath when you are angry or stressed?
This is due to emotional imbalance, which effects on our breath/prana.
When you are angry or stressed, the sympathetic nervous system is active. To cope up with the stress, the heart must pump blood faster and hence breathe becomes faster.
We are living in today’s environment, where faster is better. Speed matters here. That is putting negative pressure on human beings. They undergo pressure, stress to complete their task. There is competition, deadlines, goal, pressure from society gives us stress.

If someone undergoes stress for the consistently prolonged period, the sympathetic nervous system is always on the rise. To cope with the stress, breath is always short and shallow, and it becomes habit after a while. That imbalance on emotions and breath effects on the body in terms of diseases like asthma, migraine, back pain, blood pressure, diabetes etc.

Of course, the key is to bring balance on the emotional level, reduce stress, which is a continuous process, which needs awareness and consciousness.

But if we work on our breathing, if we work on the bridge, the path becomes easy. it brings the balance of mind and body. And the key is to practice pranayama or breathing techniques.

There are different pranayama or breathing techniques which is the big topic. But simple deep abdominal breathing helps to calm down your mind and relax your body.
When you take long and deep breaths, belly expands, diaphragm pushed down, it fills the lungs. When you exhale belly goes in diaphragm releases and lungs gets empty.

During this process, it uses almost full lung capacity and hence energy distribution to the body part is effective. As each body gets oxygen, it relaxes each body part.
And when you are breathing deeply and with awareness, during that time you have no choice but concentrate on breathing, hence your mind doesn’t have any time to think of crazy thoughts. It remains with your breath; hence you feel the calmness in mind. In this way, mind, breath, and body work in harmony.
That is why we feel so relaxed after few rounds of deep abdominal breathing.

With the normal breath, you take 500 cubic air but with each deep breath, you take 3000 cubic air.
It needs practice. So daily if you practice 5 rounds of deep breathing 3 times a day and increase the number every day, it will become the habit.

Make the Deep breathing a habit and enjoy lifelong stillness, happiness, and peace.

“If you have the art of breathing, you have the strength, wisdom, and courage of ten tigers”