A Beautiful Inner Support System

by Nina

Ladder by Marie Lossky
(@Marie.Lossky on Instagram)

“Sometimes we don’t fully appreciate the progress or importance of our practices, but there will be a time when our practices show up and show their strength and depth. So practicing both in the times that are easeful and in the times that are not creates this beautiful inner support system that is there for us when things get really rough.” —Jill Satterfield  

The interview Recovering from Heart Surgery that I did with Jill Satterfield recently got me thinking. There were definitely some gems of wisdom in there! And in particular the beautiful quote above got me thinking.

Although our equanimity practices are very effective for supporting us present, allowing us let go of regrets about the past and worries about the future, and to face challenges in the here and now with a sense of balance, practicing regularly will also help prepare you for challenges you may face in the future. So even though it can be tempting to use your equanimity practices on an as-needed basis, we recommend you practice regularly even during “easeful” times. You’ll then have those practices available as a “beautiful inner support system” whenever you need them. (See 7 Ways to Cultivate Equanimity with Yoga.) 

In Jill’s case, she is a long-time practitioner of both Buddhist meditation and yoga. She practices pretty much daily, with meditation, asana, and pranayama all playing a part. And she saw all those practices show their strength for her when she endured a couple of years of uncertainty after being diagnosed with a heart defect and being told she would “know” when the time was right for surgery, and then going through the surgery itself. She says they helped her because after many years of being mindful of her thoughts, emotions, and the sensations in her body, she developed a keen sense of what could be beneficial and when something was too much or too soon. She also said, 

“Having meditated for 30 years, my meditation practice showed up the most as far as supporting me in the post surgery stage. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t anxious, I wasn’t angry, I was surprisingly okay with the reality of my situation. My mind, and the training of my mind—of being in the present —not far-flung into the unknown future of fear and anxiety, really was a great blessing. I was at ease with what was happening and that was great considering it went on for two years.”  

That to me is the very essence of equanimity.

(For more info on Jill, see vajrayoga.com)

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What We Mean By Healthy Aging

by Nina

Melitta teaches "Granny Yoga" to her mother,  aunt, and aunt's friend

For us, the life story of our friend Melitta’s mother Nancy is a perfect example of “healthy aging.” Born in San Francisco on December 12, 1921, Nancy died on August 27, 2015, age 93 (or 93 and a half as she liked to say). She was very active all her life. She played sports in school, and was her high school and college track and field champion in shot put and discus. She loved skiing, sailing, hiking, horseback riding—all things outdoors. She even worked as a wrangler at ranches around California. 

Even in her last years, she walked three miles every morning with her walking buddies Elaine and Ellen, power walking along the beach and greeting the other regular walkers. She did have some back problems with spinal stenosis, so Melitta gave her a yoga mat and some back care yoga poses to do. Nancy did them faithfully every morning, and was so pleased that they really improved her back.

Nancy also loved traveling, and during her lifetime, she traveled around the world, visiting every continent. In 2011, she returned to her favorite country, Turkey, and traveled around Eastern Turkey. In 2012, she did her last safari in Africa, and then gave up long haul travel, though she continued to travel within the US to spend time with family. She volunteered at her church until about age 91, and had an amazing network of friends and family. 

She lived independently in her apartment until her last few days. At age 90, she had made her own decision to stop driving. Although she didn’t have any hired help, her friend Elaine, a true force of nature, looked in on her regularly (and considered it an honor to do that). Elaine also helped her by taking shopping after she stopped driving and would send her husband Lloyd over to help her with tech stuff, such as her computer and printer. 

It was only in the last year of her mom’s life that Melitta noticed her mom was slowing down. She and Melitta did discuss her fear of decline, and Melitta’s fear of her decline. She had some gallbladder issues, and in July 2015 she had a bile duct blockage and had surgery. Then, in August 2015, she had emergency surgery for gallstones, but she also developed sepsis. She was in ICU for four days, and although doctors "threw all the antibiotics" they could at her, her organs were failing, so the family followed her directives and discontinued care. When Melitta first got to the hospital, Nancy was still conscious but unable to speak because she was intubated. In the joking way they had with each other, Melitta said, "it must be bad if I am here." Nancy laughed as best she could. She died two days later, with her children holding her as she moved on. 

In our post What is Healthy Aging, Anyway?, we defined what we mean by "healthy aging," describing its three basic components:

Compressed Morbidity. This is the time out of your life span that you spend in ill health. Nancy had a lifetime of excellent health, with some slowing down and her only serious problems limited to her last year of life. (This is generally the best-case scenario for people who live as long as she did.)

Independence. This means not just being able to live on your own, but being able to continue to do the activities that you love and that give your life meaning. And Nancy was not only able to stay in her home until the end of her life, she was able to keep up her active life almost until the end, including walking on the beach with her friends, traveling, volunteering at her church, and spending time with friends and family.  

Equanimity. This means being able to face difficulty and handle challenges with balance and grace. Although there’s much we don’t know about her life and how she faced earlier challenges, we think it’s worth considering how Nancy dealt with the challenges of being older. It sounds like she faced them head on! She realistically decided to stop overseas travel and driving when the time was right. And she was able to discuss her fears of decline and to confront her death. That allowed her to leave directives for her family and to die on her own terms. Finally, being able to laugh at her daughter’s joke at the very end sounds like she was she was able to stay engaged in life and family for all her days. How beautiful!

Thanks, Melitta, for sharing this story with us.

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Mixing It Up (or Why Not to Practice the Same Sequence Every Day)

by Nina

Bouquet of Mixed Flowers by Henri Matisse

When I first started practicing yoga at home way, way back in the previous century, I really was just practicing poses. That is, I didn’t think about doing sequences; I was just focused on improving my ability at doing certain poses, like Handstand, Headstand, and Upward Bow pose. So I tended to do the same poses every day—the ones I was working on—gradually adding in some warm up and cool down poses as my sequence seemed organically to grow in length. It wasn’t until I started working with Rodney Yee and really started learning about sequencing that I started doing different types of practices on different days so I could cycle through the main categories of poses: backbends, forward bends, twists, inversions, etc. So I understand the how natural it is to think that doing the same practice every day would be the easiest way to have a home practice. And certainly getting started with the habit of practicing —no matter what you’re practicing—is a wonderful idea. 

But I’m here today to tell you that in the long run doing the same sequence every day is not the best idea. Here’s why:

1. Doing the same poses in the same order every single day means you run the risk of repetitive stress injuries. That’s not yoga’s fault; it’s just the nature of the human body. Any joint is vulnerable if you over use it. For example, doing too many standing forward bends can cause back strain, just as too much gardening can.
2. You’ll be missing out on yoga’s other benefits. It’s like eating the same thing every day—even if its healthy food you’ll still be missing out on some of your important nutrients. For example, if the only sequence you do is an active one, you’ll be missing out on the many benefits provided by restorative or quieting sequencing. Or, if the only balance pose you do throughout the week is Tree pose, you’ll miss out on challenging your balance in other important ways. 
3. Mixing it up keeps you from getting into a rut, which can lead to getting bored with your practice. Moving out of your comfort zone in your practice is the best way to keep your mind stimulated (good for brain health!), and to learn something about your habits and thought patterns while you’re at it.

So if you’re not already doing varying your home practice, now is a good time to start mixing it up! If you’re stuck for ideas, you can find lots of new sequences on our blog (search under “Featured Sequence”), as well as in various yoga books and yoga videos. And if you want to change up some of your current sequences, see Stuck in Rut for some simple ways to do this.

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Mind-Body Paradigm Shift

by Nina

Upside-Down Boy by Nina Zolotow

I don’t know about you, but when I first read Ram’s post The Bone-Brain Connection, my mind was quietly blown. I mean, who would have ever thought that our bones contributed to our cognitive health, both in terms of memory and moods! 

"Working with mice that had been engineered to lack osteocalcin, Karsenty noticed that while their skeletons appeared essentially normal, the mice appeared too docile, less rebellious, anxious, depressed, and displayed memory issues, suggesting that the bone via its hormone osteocalcin plays a direct role in memory and moods."

It really struck me because I’ve gradually come to realize that we in the west are undergoing a major paradigm shift in our understanding of the body-mind. For so long, we always conceived that the “mind” (meaning that thing in your skull) controlled everything, sending messages out to the “body” via nerves and receiving response back the same way (with some hormonal communication thrown for fun). But now all kinds of surprising things are being discovered that basically destroys that conceptual model. Like this new discovery about our bones and how they affect our brains. And all that stuff about how our gut microbiome (the friendly bacteria that lives in our gut and isn’t really even part of our bodies as such) communicates with our brain (see Why You Should Care About Your Digestive System). Who knows what they’re going to discover next or what I just haven’t heard about yet, but I can tell you, I’m expecting there will be a ton of surprises soon to come!

In the past I’ve talked about attachment (raga) in terms of clinging to ideas of who you are (see Attachment (Raga) to Our Ideas About Ourselves). Now I considering that certain ideas we’ve been brought up about our body-mind with are equally hard to let go of. Here are some examples of hard-to-let-go-of ideas that I’ve been challenged with recently:

1. That “brain games” and other forms of mental exercise are not as important for brain health as just plain physical exercise (see Leg Power Equals Brain Power). I get the logic behind it and have even written about it, but I still keep thinking that brain aerobics (see How Yoga Sequences Are Brain Aerobics) must at least be equally important, right?
2. That cholesterol is not the culprit in causing clogged arteries and heart disease. Instead, it’s chronic inflammation (see Chronic Inflammation and Yoga). (I’ve noticed in particular that Baxter, as a long-time MD, has had a hard time letting go of his habit of mentioning cholesterol in the context of heart disease.)
3. That flossing is totally useless. (Frankly, I’m having a super hard time wrapping my head around that one, and I’m still flossing every night just in case.)

Fortunately we have a neuroscientist on our staff (bless you, Ram) who can help us stay on top of some of these fascinating but challenging new discoveries about the body-mind. And I also keep learning new and interesting things from Brad, even though he no longer writes for us. So I will try to keep you all informed about breaking news.

But for now I’d just like to say that I think it’s really fascinating to be challenged this way to let go of very strongly entrenched beliefs that at one time we “knew” to be “true facts,” as they say. And that means being able to understand that our attachments to certain ideas can be as strong as many other types of attachments. As for me, even though I’ve been studying yoga for decades, I can now see how I’ve continued to be very attached to the old western medical mindset when in comes to understanding the body-mind. But it’s sounding more and more like BKS Iyengar had it right when he said: 

"Where does the body end and the mind begin? Where does the mind end and the spirit begin? They cannot be divided as they are inter-related and but different aspects of the same all-pervading divine consciousness."

On the plus side, some things like coffee and chocolate and avocado that used to be considered bad for us, are now highly recommended. I have so much fun telling people that for older women three cups of coffee are recommended to help stave off depression. They always look at me with such a weird mixture of delight and skepticism.

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A True Act of Love

by Nina

Most of the time when I’m writing a blog post, I’m sitting at my desk in my cheerful office in Berkeley, California overlooking a large camphor tree. Today I’m sitting on a couch in my aunt’s apartment in New York City, writing on and off between short visits with her, as she lies dying in her own bedroom, being cared for by hospice workers, caregivers, and family members. A while back she told me that this is what she wanted—that she never wanted to live in an assisted living facility or a nursing home—and she has been able to get her wish. But that only happened because when her doctor told her it was time to discuss end of life options, she was open to hearing that and willing to discuss the possibilities. That’s also true of her daughter, my cousin, who—despite her sadness over the impending loss of her dear, dear mother—has been able to face the situation with clear eyes, and admit that to herself that her mother is indeed dying and that hospice with comfort care is the way to go. So my cousin is now able to provide her mother with what she explicitly requested, and to make adjustments on an as-needed basis by discussing them honestly with her mother. A true act of love.

I’ve written about the importance of facing our mortality a couple of times before, in my post Meeting Death at the Front Door and Welcome to Your Mortality. I said then that encouraging people to face their own mortality (and the mortality of their loved ones), helps us cultivate satya (truthfulness) in the face of abhinivesah (fear of death/clinging to life). But now that I’m seeing it in action again, I felt like it might be good to bring it up once more. 

Before I got started writing, however, I decided to check with my cousin to see whether it was all right with her for me to write about her and my aunt. She not only said, “Of course!” but she added, “I think it’s really important to discuss this. Not only within our family, as we have been doing, but with all our friends as well. Because so many people get involved in a kind of magical thinking that ends up backfiring on them in the end, and it just makes everything worse.” So even in the midst of our sadness, she encouraged me to write this post, to let people know how beneficial it is to be honest and straightforward about death, both for the person who themselves who is dying, for the people who are caring for the dying person, and for all the people who love them. 

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Desert Island Yoga Poses

by Nina

The other day I got an email from the manager of a web site for men (which shall remain nameless for now) asking me to recommend 3 to 5 poses that I thought men should practice every day. At first, I rebelled at the thought. As you know, we at Yoga for Healthy Aging recommend in general for both men and women alike that you mix it up and practice a wide variety of poses throughout the week. In addition, we also believe that everyone is different—and their lifestyles and exercises routines are different—so that there is no one single set of poses that will work best for all people. But the truth is that I could not resist the thought experiment that this query provided. It's like one of the "desert island" games: if you could take only 3 to 5 yoga poses with you to a desert island, which ones would you take?

And then I thought that if I came up with a good list, it might inspire some people to get started with the practice, and that is always a good thing. So just for fun, here's what I came up with. And if you'd like to join in the game, please do by leaving a comment on this post!

1. Reclined Leg Stretch (Supta Padangusthasana). Stretches muscles in your legs and hips that can become tight from desk jobs and/or many other types of exercise, such as running, hiking, or cycling. For long-lasting results, hold at least 1.5 minutes. See Featured Pose: Reclined Leg Stretch.

2. Downward-Facing Dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana). Stretches tight shoulders and legs at the same time it cultivates upper body strength (try holding it for 1 to 3 minutes!). See Featured Pose: Downward-Facing Dog Pose.

 3. Warrior 2 pose (Virabradrasana 2). Cultivates both upper and lower body strength while also increasing hip flexibility and improving balance. Featured Pose: Warrior 2 Pose.

4. Tree pose (Vrksasana). Cultivates leg strength, and shoulder and hip flexibility while challenging your balance. See Featured Pose: Tree Pose. 

5. Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani). Reduces stress levels, which is so important both for physical and psychological health. Bonus is a good stretch for your legs and, if you take your arms into a cactus position, a good stretch for chest and arms as well. You can do this at the end of any yoga practice or on its own anytime you need to de-stress. See Featured Pose: Legs Up the Wall Pose.

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How Much Physical Activity is Enough?

by Nina

The Walk by Vincent van Gough

After reading all those posts by Ram and me (Sitting is the New Smoking, The Ill Effects of Prolonged Sitting (Part 2), The Ill Effects of Prolonged Sitting (Part 1)) about the dangers of being sedentary and/or inactive, you might be wondering exactly how much exercise do you need to do to counteract the time you spend sitting. (A great many of us work at desk jobs, so for many of us spending many hours a day sitting is just a fact of life.) Fortunately for us, some scientists had the exact same question. A recent study in The Lancet called Does physical activity attenuate, or even eliminate, the detrimental association of sitting time with mortality? A harmonised meta-analysis of data from more than 1 million men and women reported the results of a systematic review (meta-analysis) of data from 16 studies that associated daily sitting time and physical activity with “all-cause” mortality. 

I don’t want to keep you in suspense, so I’ll just tell you what they found: 60-75 minutes per day of physical activity seemed to eliminate the increased risk of death associated with too much sitting time. Here’s the conclusion of the study: 

“High levels of moderate intensity physical activity (ie, about 60–75 min per day) seem to eliminate the increased risk of death associated with high sitting time. These results provide further evidence on the benefits of physical activity, particularly in societies where increasing numbers of people have to sit for long hours for work and may also inform future public health recommendations.” 

Now that might leave you with an important question: do I have to do all that exercise in single session?

In the NPR piece in which I heard about this study Care To Offset All Your Office Sitting? It'll Take Just An Hour A Day, Allison Aubrey asked the lead author of the study, Prof Ulf Ekelund, PhD, those very questions. He told her that the answer is yes, you can do your exercise in bits and pieces, at different times of the day, and with different types of exercise He said just be sure that the intensity of your exercise is high enough to get your heart rate up (walking at a brisk pace, for example). He also added, somewhat encouragingly, that even 20 minutes reduces some of the risk. But the more you can exercise you can do, the better. 

So that means if you're practicing yoga for exercise, you don't have to do a single practice that is at least one hour long—you could, for example, do one half an hour in the morning and one half an hour in the evening.  And you could also do a shorter practice and combine with a brisk walk or a bicycle ride or any other physical activity that you enjoy. 

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more on this topic in the near future and they'll probably be changing their minds like they always seem to do. But I say for now aiming for 60 minutes of physical activity per day is a reasonable goal to aim for. Are you with me?

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Sitting is the New Smoking

by Nina

Woman Smoking by Kitagawa Utamaro

“Being out of shape could be more harmful to health and longevity than most people expect, according to a new, long-term study of middle-aged men. The study finds that poor physical fitness may be second only to smoking as a risk factor for premature death.” —Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times 

Have you heard the phrase “Sitting is the New Smoking” yet? Because recently I’ve been hearing it more and more often. And although lthough Ram didn’t use it in his recent post The Ill Effects of Prolonged Sitting he did say, “For people who engage in prolonged sitting activities, their risk of heart attack is about the same as smoking.” 

His post cited three different studies that showed the dangers of spending too many hours a day sitting. (That post got me to spend more time standing up at my sit-stand desk!) Then just a week later I read a NY Times article Being Unfit May Be Almost as Bad for You as Smoking about a new study on the longevity of men who were active versus those who were inactive (they measured aerobic capacity to indicate the subjects' general level of activity and fitness). What was special about this study was that it focused on a large group of about 1,000 healthy Swedish men of age 50, and followed them through the rest of their life spans (45 years!). (Many of these types of studies in the past have been done on older people for much shorter periods of time.)

The conclusion of the study Low aerobic capacity in middle-aged men associated with increased mortality rates during 45 years of follow-up was this:

“In this representative population sample of middle-aged men, low aerobic capacity was associated with increased mortality rates, independent of traditional risk factors, including smoking, blood pressure and serum cholesterol, during more than 40 years of follow-up.” 

And not only was poor fitness/low aerobic capacity second only to smoking as a risk factor for increased mortality, it was actually even unhealthier than high blood pressure or high cholesterol! Yes, the study found that the men who were rated as highly fit but who had high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels tended to live longer than men who were rated as “out-of-shape” but who healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels. 

And although the study just focused on men (an ongoing problem in scientific studies), the NY Times reported that: 

But “there is no reason not to think” that the rest of us would also share any beneficial associations between fitness and longevity, said Per Ladenvall, a researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, who led the study. Past studies involving women have found such links, he said. 

Perhaps I am preaching to the choir by sharing this information (because you may already be practicing yoga on a regular basis and understand all its many benefits), but for those who are not yet physically active or who have family members or friends who are not active, the takeaway is clear: start being more physically active! The New York Times article concluded by quoting the Dr. Ladenvall saying that even small amounts of physical activity can have a positive effect.

“Encouragingly, if you now are concerned about the state of your particular aerobic capacity, you most likely can increase it just by getting up and moving. “Even small amounts of physical activity,” Dr. Ladenvall said, “may have positive effects on fitness.”

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Free-cycling vs. Recycling Books on Aging

by Nina

In my neighborhood, we’re big into free-cycling. For those of you who don’t know what that means, for us in Berkeley free-cycling means putting things you no longer want or can’t use—clothes, household goods, knickknacks, books, CDs, furniture, etc.—on the sidewalk so that anyone who wants them can simply pick them up and take it home. I’m both a giver and taker (have found some interesting things!), but mostly a giver. I’m so dedicated to this practice, that it almost hurts me to actually just recycle something (or, God forbid, throw something out). In fact, when a friend of mine was downsizing recently due to a divorce and I heard that she was planning to her old books to the dump, I begged her to give them to me so I could “get rid” of them for her by free-cycling them. And indeed as odd a collection of books as it was—old, new, fiction, non-fiction, obscure, common, young adult, super sophisticated.—it only took a matter of days before those hundreds of books were completely gone. 

So when Brad came home the other day with a stack of books on aging that a colleague of his had left behind, I sorted them into two piles: 1) scientific books about mechanisms of aging that I wanted to keep and 2) mass market books on “how to stay young forever” that I intended to free-cycle. Now if you’ve read our posts about aging you might be able to guess why I didn’t want to keep those stay young forever books. As I said in my post, What is Aging, Anyway? 

“if someone out there tells you they can “stop” or even “reverse” aging—I've heard both claims myself—you should be very skeptical. Because right now with so much unknown about aging, there is no proof that any of these anti-aging solutions are effective (and, in some cases, like overuse of certain supplements or human growth hormones, they could actually harm you).” 

And, of course, the very person who helped me understand the importance of that message and encouraged me to spread it was none other than my husband, Brad (aka Dr. Bradford Wayne Gibson), who for 16 years studied aging as a medical researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

Anyway, after making my two stacks, I checked with Brad to see whether he agreed with my assessment. He gave me the thumbs up, except when I went to take the “how to stay young forever” books outside for free-cycling, he quickly grabbed them away from me. He said, “Oh, no, you don't. I don’t want ANYONE to read those books” and he tossed them all into the paper recycling bin. Whoa. I was shocked for a moment, but then the importance of his action really struck me. Yes, the irresponsible snake oil about aging that is written and published by people out to make a quick buck really does deserve to be reduced to a pulp. 

On Friday the recycling truck took away all the stay young forever books for processing, and one day soon they’ll have promising new lives as fresh, blank paper.

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How Yoga Fosters Respiratory System Health

by Nina

Big Sur Clouds by Melina Meza

In our post 6 Strategies for Using Yoga to Help with Medical Problems, Baxter and I identified six basic strategies that you can use on their own or in combination to address a wide variety of medical conditions. Today I’m going to conclude my recent series about these individual strategies with this overview how you can use yoga to foster respiratory system health. (See Friday Practical Pointers: Your Respiratory System is more than Just a Pair of Lungs for information about what your respiratory system is and the individual components that comprise it.)

First of all, you can use both asanas and breath practices to maintain the health of your respiratory system overall. In general, asanas that move your spine in all directions of movement, and that stretch and strengthen the muscles all around your upper torso, will help support your respiratory system by keeping respiratory muscles strong and flexible. And breath practices that lengthen your inhalation and exhalation, such as gradual lengthening of equal breath, or that include rapid inhalations and exhalations, like Skull Shining breath, can exercise your breathing muscles even more. 

Yoga asanas, breath awareness, and pranayama can help with mild asthma and COPD by improving breathing efficiency and decreasing inflammation. Baxter’s, students report that their regular yoga practice has been helpful for exercise-induced asthma, which can affect younger adults, but can also arise in older adults.  

CAUTION: Yoga has mixed reviews on its benefits for moderate to severe asthma. For this specific condition, we recommend working with a very experienced teacher.  

Exercise 

In addition to keeping your respiratory muscles strong and flexible, you can use your asana practice to reverse changes to your body due to aging, physical habits, injuries, and scoliosis, that negatively impact your ability to breath. These include structural changes to both muscles and fascia of your chest as well as the chest wall bones and thoracic spine. 

In general, you can reverse changes by: 

1. Improving your posture by strengthening back spinal muscles.

2. Increasing movement in your chest and spine by regularly stretching your chest muscles all directions.

3. Improving the flexibility and strength of your respiratory muscles and fascia by regularly practicing a combination of well-balanced asana sequences and breath practices. 

You can also use asanas to target specific problem areas. For example, if you are developing more rounding of the thoracic spine, adding more dynamic and static back bending postures into your practice can help reduce the rounding. You can also use asanas to strengthen weak chest muscles around your lungs. For example, you can use Plank, Side Plank, and Upward Plank poses to strengthen the muscles around your chest wall and active back bending poses, such as Cobra or Upward-Facing Dog pose, to strengthen your back and front chest muscles.

Breath Awareness 

Your ability to breathe in a healthy way can be compromised by unhealthy breathing patterns, such holding excessive tension in your abdominal muscles. However, by practicing breath awareness with special attention to the movements of your chest and belly, you can learn about your particular breathing patterns and potentially identify any problems. 

In normal, healthy breathing, as you inhale, your chest and ribs will expand slightly and your belly will rise up or bulge forward, and as you exhale, your belly will relax back and your chest and ribs will relax back toward center. Although not common, there are two different breathing patterns that occur in some people that can be problematic:  

Chest Breathing. Instead of your belly expanding on your inhalation and relaxing back on your exhalation, there is no movement in your belly at all. All the movement during respiration is in your chest alone.  

Reverse Breathing. Instead of your belly expanding on your inhalation, it actually sucks in during the inhalation and your chest expands dramatically. And on your exhalation, your belly rises as your chest relaxes.

To observe your own breathing patterns:

1. Start by setting yourself up in a comfortable reclined pose, such as Savasana or Reclined Cobbler’s pose, or a comfortable supported seated pose, such as Easy Sitting pose with your back against the wall.
2. Take a moment to relax completely and breathe naturally, with an easy, relaxed breath.
3. Keeping your breath easy and relaxed, turn your awareness to your chest and belly as you inhale and exhale. Just watch. Is your belly rising/expanding/bulging with your inhalation and relaxing back with your exhalation? Or is something else going on?

If you do identify a problematic breathing pattern—or think that you have—unless you are a very experienced practitioner of pranayama, it’s best for you to work with your yoga teacher or yoga therapist to change your breathing habits. Your present pattern of breathing is likely to be a well-established one. And an expert will not only be able to observe your breathing with a trained eye but will also have techniques available to effectively coach you to change your ingrained habits.

Breath Practices 

A well-rounded breath practice, that includes calming, balancing, and simulating practices, can promote the health of your respiratory system by improving the strength and flexibility or your chest muscles and fascia as well as improving the alignment of your ribs and spine. In general, you’ll benefit from actively challenging your diaphragm with practices that extend the length of the inhalations and exhalations, and that include inhalation and exhalation pausing. 

In addition, recent studies have shown that pranayama is effective in improving lung function in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD. For this condition, equal lengthening of the inhalation and exhalation is recommended. 

Finally, breathing practices that calm your nervous system, such as extending the exhalation or pausing at the end of it, add the benefit of lowering overall stress, which can be particularly helpful to people who are challenged by a respiratory condition.

See Calming Breath Practices We Recommend, Stimulating Breath Practices We Recommend, and Breath Practices for Balance.

Stress Management 

Like the rest of your body, your lungs and the rest of your respiratory system need downtime to rest and repair. In the Rest and Digest state, your respiratory system will get a good rest because you don’t need as much oxygen in this state, so lungs and respiratory system won’t need to work as hard! And, of course, spending time in the Rest and Digest state provides the optimal setting for the system to heal from problems and repair itself. 

So spending time in the Rest and Digest state provides an important break that will foster the health of the entire system. In addition, reducing stress also has positive effect on your immune system, which could lower your chances of getting infections of the respiratory tract, from your nose and mouth all the way into the deep part of your lungs. 

Because many people with chronic respiratory conditions experience ongoing anxiety or other negative emotions related their condition, those who have breathing problems can improve the quality of their lives by practicing stress management. This will help quiet your mind and calm your emotions as well as resting your respiratory system. However, if you have respiratory system problems, meditating on your breath can actually cause stress if you worry about breathing. So if this is the case for you and you want to meditate, we recommend either choosing a different type of focus, such as a mantra, or using a simple guided meditation. 

See Techniques for Supportiing Your Respiratory System for specific recommendations on how to practice.

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