I do Abdominal breathing,Chest breathing and Upper Clavicular breathing , Alternate nostril breathing and Brhamari every day in the morning with , each exercise 9 times. I do not do retention of breath, as i have had ischemia 32 years back. I wish to do these exercises in the vening also that means twice a day. Is it good or harmful? Please advise me.
It is potentially harmful to learn pranayama from anyone, or anything, other than a well-practiced, compassionate teacher, especially if you are currently hypertensive (as you have mentioned in another post) and have a medical history that includes ischemia. There are fewer true pranayama teachers in the world than there are true asana teachers in the world, but still, my best advise to you would be to search out a teacher who you would like to be in relationship with and who is able to teach and guide your practice properly. Another piece of freely given advice is to read up on the results of wrong practice. Done properly, the benefits of pranayama are both nourishing to the organs and tissues of the first kosha, and the benefits also transcend to the four subtler koshas too: this is where real and lasting changes begin. Pranayama done improperly for the individual will likely cause additional illness and dis-ease—truly. Here is a thread on wrong practice already on the forum: Wrong Practice.
You may want to look toward the research and work of Dr. Dean Ornish andNischala Devi for [I]reversing[/I] heart disease using Yoga in their healing protocols.
Kind regards,
I could not agree more with Nichole’s assessment.
Absolutely spot on.
Pranayama is a powerful tool and powerful tools can either support or destroy depending on she/he who is wielding the tool.
i am doing the above metnioned breathing exercises since 13 months. i never had any bad experience or reversal in my health so far .Does it mean that i am doing the exercises properly and without any stress or strain?.Does deep breathing techniques also results in ill health,even if done without strain or stress?Please advise me. Finding an excellent teacher in yoga who is competent
to guide the people is extremely difficult. Most of the people who are doing yoga now a days are doing by following the video teachings from the excellent expertise and by reading some good books written by comepetent yoga teachers and also browsing the internet throoughly about yoga practices. if one understood the practices and selects some asanass and some pranayama exercises which are permissible for his state of health, is it not sufficient? If you say if it is not sufficient, i shall stop all asanas and pranayama immediately, until i found a good teacher. Please bear with me and advise me.
Bearing with you.
Sufficient? Of course. The only real test is how these things are in your body, for your life. This is how it was with the masters. Hours and hours of self testing.
It is yoga my friend and therefore it has very deep roots and is very vast. Can it be learned using snippets? Perhaps. Can it be learned well or safely in that very manner? Again, perhaps, but less likely.
Some safety considerations in yoga are precautionary. It is not every student that goes insane from practicing certain pranayama without proper alignment in the physical body first. But in yoga, if we are truly embodying ahimsa, then one student who’s institutionalized from it is one student too many.
So you may be doing practice that are fine. You may be doing them properly (for you).
And there may be no harm what so ever in your body, ever. However the opposite is also true. So if you are willing to take even the most remote chance then that is a mindful and yogic decision - knowing the results could be a or b and accepting that before hand.
If however you make a rash decision and do so without evaluating the possible outcomes, that could not be a mindful decision and therefore would be unyogic.
I would never tell you to stop. But I believe you’ve been cautioned appropriately.