my question: i am breathing with the NOSE BUT it is deficient because when i use only my nose, i cant get enough air to build energy and my heart rate increase, what must i do? still using the nose or… ? 
Hello tombikadam,
And welcome to the forum! Great to have you here.
You question is a [U]very[/U] good one.I’ll give you some of my take on it.
My suggesstion is to breathe normally(or let it go) if it’s laboured during asana work…
Compromising our breath for the movements or vice-cersa is,sure ,not ideal but our practice is never going to be perfect.Remind yourself that is good that we are doing the practice that not at all. Once we impose all kinds of strict rules we can nnot practically abide by all the time we can get ourselves into a real jam or even pickle, i have personally found,that can interefer with practice.Indeed i think it can sometimes introduce by the back-door, so to speak an element of strain and over-exertion,conscious & unconscious, because we simply cannot do whatever we’re trying (or efforting) to do.So the “rules”, at least all of them, if you have any, to me,relative to being [I]impossibly skillful or perfect[/I], get ditched in favour of focusing on the practice at hand.It’s just being practical and accepting we cannot do or control everything. We just keep on praciticing…that is all.
So not worrying too much about imperfections in our practice is a good idea…
Remeber that air, the main vehicle for prana, can leave through the mouth, the nose and indeed both.
If you cannot sustain nose breathinig throughout the durationof asana work ,most folk cannot, it can be rather difficult and advanced,then i think it’s better to let go of the breath and relax that protocol & not be draconian about it or certainly overly so…The general rule is back bends, of course, are done with an INhale and forward-bends an EXhale. But I’m sure you know that.
Insufficent air,going too fast for the rate of your breath- i.e there being no synchronisation etc…
Do what you can do tha is comfortable for you without worrying too much about the details or not being able to satisfy perfectly every little protocol,detail or rule.
It is best that we practice in a safe & steady manner than not at all.
Main rule of thumb is not to forceor use unnecessary strain whether it’s in our movments, the breath or on the level of mind/awareness.Iyengra used to talk about relaxing the brain,the temples and the eyes. One let’s go and uses steady effort and application while in a posture for example.
Indeed if you/re a beginner there’s more than enough to get on with just familarising yourselves with the movements how you enter and exit any given asan and states of mind,ie effects, resulting from that.
Sounds to me like it might be too much…so you just ease off and don’t worry about it.
Keep practicing…wisely , safely…and so on.
Let go of that need to control every little detail.The body and the nervous system certainly know a good thing,i.e yoga, when you show them it,and will certainly follow suit, sooner or later.
nice post core, felt like you were talking to me
Brother Neil
Hi Neil,
Most Grateful for the humble appreciation, Brother and for stating so humbly like you always are so good at doing…
Merely sharing a few tidbits encountered along the road.Great if it others might find it helpful or interesting.
Dropping ‘end-gaining’( the guy that invented the Alexander technique used this phrase, i think) or the hankering after projected results over the long-term is another useful aspiration also & project for me too.It’s always accepting wherver you find yourself today is quite an art and can feel quite challenging.Acceptance of yourself.A s well as realising my imperfections of which i would need quite a few new threads started up to address to some degree. I could psychoanlayse this one and other stuff but i’d end up talking about myself too much…
Relative to the topic of the thread----
I think if you’re a perfectionist and everything is not perfect then one can end up feeling dissapointed and feel that our practices are inadequate because of our inaibility ot satisfy all the “rules”.Respect to the breath i think you can just focus on the movements & relaxation.If the breath is laboured i think that is a signal to let it go,& relinquish the need to control, fo r everything,every little minutiae to be [I]just[/I] right.it’s not going to or rather unlikely to happen.That does’nt mean we should’nt try breathing in a particular manner , but i think if the rhythm is significantly compromised or off, heart rate possibly up ,respiration and diapgrmagmatic action incapable of keping up, dizzinness even or just general laboured-ness it’s not necessary or even helpful sometimes to complicate things.Additional elements can mean any given practice might get done in a less than otherwise satisfactory manner.
Tommorow’s another day. We work wheere we are today, and tommorow will show up.No effort required.Free.
Have an asana on me:cool:
P.S. By the way i’ve entertined this very question myself numerous times.And i’m glad i’ve resolved it.I think it can seem to largely boils down freq. to trying to control every last detail of any given practice and being overly religious about “rules” and our inability to not being able to adequately satisfy them all perfectly as we would like…Sometimes i think we just forget to kind of let-go. which of course is at the heart of yoga, the non-doing.We are so habituated to doing,controlling and so on because of set-routines that are programmed into us, more or less from birth but particularly as adults.
I would need a clarification on your statement about building energy and whether you are HAVING an accelerated heart rate or you are unable to achieve one and that is one of your desired results.
Generally speaking, the practice uses breath through the nostrils. However there are clearly times in the practice where that is not so. For a student who is not getting enough oxygen through their nostrils it is best to breathe through the mouth. In the meantime, reducing dairy and watching one’s diet and environmental surroundings can help alleviate nasal congestion, along with neti a few times per week.
i saw that, when i breath with MOUTH, i get more endurance and energy and my heart rate is normal despite of the difficult poses so MORE OXYGEN for me means MORE ENERGY and not being tired throughout the whole poses.