Pranayama: it’s not just breath work
For many, Pranayama is simply the mastery of breathing techniques to be used with yoga. Pranayama is actually much more that this. Prana means life force and pranayama is the practice of mastery of the life force. The life force translates to breathing for our human bodies. Certain breathing techniques can be used to achieve certain effects in the body. There are many prana exercises that can help energize you, or help you fall asleep. It can be a practice in its own right, apart from yoga, but it is useful in yoga too. It helps maintain an easy and calm mental state when flowing into and out of pose.
Learning to control your breathing is a powerful technique in yoga. Breathing is the only autonomous functions that most people have control over. We can consciously speed up or slow down our breathing at will. And when we forget or stop controlling our breathing, our body picks up where we left off and the autonomous function continues. As we practice our yoga, we can use several different prana exercises (such as Ujayi breath) to help regulate our breathing, and to keep a calm mind. During meditation, where having an empty mind is the goal, focusing on our breathing or prana is an excellent way of emptying the mind. With each inhalation, feel the life force nourishing your body. With each exhalation, feel the remnant breath exit your body so space can be made for a new inhalation.
Learning how to breathe again, learning the prana exercises can help calm the mind and body, and help us let go of anything irritating us in the present moment.
