I have been following the yoga forums closely for quite sometime. I have developed some interest in the yoga practice. Hence i wish to start doing some breathing exercises only intiailly. my age is 60 years.Will anybody suggest me which breathing exercies (pranayama) are best for my age . also i wish to know about the duration of each exercise and precautions to be taken and method of doing. I know it will be a matter of inconvinience to the masters to eloborate. Please excuse .
There is no reason why, at 60 years young, you cannot practice the full range of pranayam. Providing you have no health issues.
If you have no previous practice then perhaps start with some basic sectional breathing leading to full yogic breath, nadi suddhi with no kumbaka, and maybe some simple ujjai breathing?
Once you have mastered these and everything is proceeding well you might perhaps move on to kapalabhatti (essentially a kriya).
It would be wise to take instruction in these techniques from an experienced practioner if this is possible for you.
Namaskar.
For the sake of developing balanced, it is better to do some Hatha yoga,
some pranayama and some meditation every time.
Some styles of yoga try to incorporate all of this at once
like Kundalini Yoga.
Best to have a qualified teacher.
If no teacher is possible you could try practicing with videos.
In the Pranayama front Swami Ramdev’s is a good choice. You could
get it from www dot divyayoga dot com and others
Namaskar
Hello Veerabhadra,
Some things are good for some people while other things are good for other people. Likewise, there are some practices which aggravate certain constitutions. Furthermore, when specifically evaluating pranayama, some of it is gentle and some of it is not - but all of it is powerful.
With that in mind I would prefer new students learn pranayama in a gradual fashion and do so using only the gentle practices for several years. And I feel it is quite important that they not be learned randomly from this or that place but rather from a skilled teacher who can provide sound guidance each step of the way thus keeping your ego from lurching your forward, your sloth and torpor from holding you back.
Breath awareness, radiant breath, Viloma I & II, and Ujjayi would be the only practices I would be teaching to a student of your experience.
gordon
Thank you sir for having given me the good advise
A good advise.
You can learn about different types of pranayama exercises on the Yoga Journal website under Poses > Browse Categories > Pranayama. Sorry, but I can’t post the direct link yet!