30-Minute Breathing Exercises | Reduce Stress & Improve Lung Health | Yoga Day | @badarinathgella

Namaste. The only thing that connects all of us is our own breath. Everybody in the world breathes. The first thing we take once we come to this planet is inhalation. The last thing we do, leaving our breath. What we have in between is our life. Our breath is our life force. It has been told that God entered into our body through the breath, and God leaves our body mainly through our breath. That means what we are inhaling is God's energy. Ancient rishis, ancient yogis has figured out how breathing influences on every system in our body. Breathing is a bridge between your mind and your body. When we are working on our breath, we can able to fix our nervous system, we can able to improve our oxygenation in our body, increase our lung capacity, and improve many physiological functions. And same with mental level also, it helps you to reduce your stress, anxiety, and reset your nervous system, activate your parasympathetic nervous system, and also stimulate your vagus nerve, and which has huge number of benefits on our overall health. But unfortunately, 90% of the people are breathing wrong, which is leading to various health disorders such as respiratory disorders, digestive disorders, mental problems, and many more. Including because of the chest breathing people have, they're putting, they're using accessory muscles, the neck muscles, shoulder muscle, which is leading to the shoulder pain, neck pain, back pain. This is a missing element of our healing, missing element of our medical system. If you can take your breath as a medicine, you don't need to take medicines. I've seen thousands of people in our community, in the Conscious Breathing community, has healed, reversed their health issues. If you want, you can go and check in this YouTube channel itself. Right? So today we are going to learn fundamental aspects of our breathing, how to train our breathing capacity and how to channelize our own breath, our own prana to heal ourselves, to energize our body. If there is any pain, any discomfort in our body, that means there is a lack of prana as per philosophy, yogic philosophy. Okay. Through these practices, we are restoring the prana. But unfortunately, many people are directly practicing breathing exercises without training their respiratory muscles, without correcting their breathing patterns. This is the biggest challenge I have observed in the society. That's the reason many of them are unable to see the maximum benefits out of these practices. In this session, we are going to learn in a structured way how to implement the breathing practices. In case if you wish to learn, in more structured way, I'm leaving the link in the comment section where you can register for my 2 days BreathFlow Mastery Workshop where you are going to learn more detail. Let us begin our session. Before that, my name is Badarinath Gella. I'm a breathwork coach. I'm a certified wellness instructor by Ministry of Ayush Yoga Certification Board. I have helped thousands of people to overcome their health issues. So far, more than 2 lakh+ people have attended my workshop, and we have a community of 21,000 members. So let us begin. So before we go forward, we have to check our breathing patterns, whether you are breathing correctly or not. The first thing I want all of you to check, whoever is watching this, place your right palm on your navel, inhale slowly, and exhale slowly. Tell me, while you're inhaling, the belly is coming out, are going in. If it is coming out, you are breathing right. Good. If it is going in, that means you are having dysfunctional breathing, wrong way of breathing habit. You have to fix this as soon as possible, otherwise it is going to create a lot of health issues in your life. It's a reverse breathing habit, it's the anxious breathing habit. And second thing which I want you to check, whether your spine is erect while you're sitting throughout the day, whether your spine is erect or not. If your spine is not erect, Whenever you're sitting, you're slouching. If you're slouching, you're compressing your lungs. You're not allowing the lungs to expand properly, breathe properly. That limits your breathing. So please make sure that you're consciously checking whether you're breathing, you're sitting straight or not. And third thing, you are breathing through mouth or nose. If you are breathing through nose, that's great. Even during your sleep, some people, they open their mouth and sleep. And they also have snoring issues, sleep apnea issues. That might also be the reason. So there are various reasons, various factors for that. So please make sure that you are breathing through nose because nose filters air, purifies air, humidifies air, which mouth cannot do this. These 3 parameters are very, very important parameters to check. There are many other parameters, but 3, these 3 are most fundamental parameters which you need to check before you go to any practices. Okay. Okay, so please comment below or like raise your hands or like check whatever, whether you are doing these 3 things correctly or not. If not, please make sure that you are correcting this as soon as possible. Now before we go to the practices, the first thing we need to do is we need to bring rhythmic nature to our breath. We need to calm down our breath and rhythmic nature to our breath. In case if you cannot sit on the floor, it's completely fine. You can also sit on your chair and practice. It's not mandatory to sit on the floor. We are doing mainly for our physical, mental, and emotional health. You will get equal benefits even if you sit on the chair. It's completely fine. Do not complicate the things. So first, we'll start with rhythmic breathing. So place your both hands on your thighs. Keep your shoulders and neck relaxed. Keep your spine erect. Roll your shoulders back. Okay. Make sure that the weight is equally distributed on both the hips, both the hips, whether you are sitting on the chair, on the floor. Look forward. Inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Now gently close your eyes. Let us begin with rhythmic breathing. Inhale for 3 seconds, exhale for 3 seconds. Let's do this. Breathe in, 1, 2, 3. Breathe out, 1, 2, 3. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your nose. Breathe in slowly, Breathe out slowly. Inhale 1, 2, 3. Exhale 1, 2, 3. Keep focusing on your breath. We are bringing the rhythmic nature to our breath. Keep observing your breath. Inhale for 3 seconds, exhale for 3 seconds. In case if you cannot able to do for 3 seconds, do it for 2 seconds, but maintain the equanimity in your inhalation and exhalation. Last time, breathe in, 1, 2, 3. Breathe out, 1, 2, and 3. Slowly relax your efforts, keep your eyes closed. Observe the silence. Slowly and gently open your eyes. Very good. The next, we are going to train our muscles, lung muscles, so that we can breathe better, right? So there are different muscles which is supporting in our breathing. So we'll expand so that there will be more space to breathe. Otherwise, many people used to have a lot of tightness in their chest, shoulder region. They can't breathe properly, they struggle to breathe. The first exercise we are going to practice is Hands in Hands or breathing as part of lung opening exercise. For this, stretch your both hands forward, join your hands together. Make sure that you're not bending your elbows. Your shoulders and neck muscles are relaxed. Do not put any tension on your shoulders and neck muscles. While breathing in, open your both hands, expand your chest. Do not bend your elbows, keep your hands straight. Do not go back, keep hands in the shoulder level. While exhaling, join your hands together. Coordinate your movement with your breath. While inhaling, breathe in and open your hands. While exhaling, join your hands together. Do not do it very quickly, do it slowly with coordinated breathing. And exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep repeating this. Inhale through your nose. Expand your chest. Exhale. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale slowly. Exhale slowly. Last 2 times, while inhaling, open your hands. While exhaling, join your hands together. Last time, breathe in slowly. Breathe out slowly. And slowly release your hands. If you feel any stiffness or discomfort, you can do less number of repetitions and To release the stiffness and discomfort, do this shoulder movement with coordinated breathing. While inhaling, lift your shoulders up, back, down, and front. Inhaling up, exhaling down and front. Now reverse. Back, inhale up, exhale down. Backside, inhale up, exhale Relax. Okay, so I think now you feel relief. Yes, yes. So these are the practices which opens up our lungs. That's why it needs little more. If you have frozen shoulders or tight shoulders, you feel little discomfort, but it's okay. It will also help you in your posture as well as frozen shoulders also. The next practice we are going to do is shoulder breathing. For this, what you have to do is by inhaling, raise your both hands above your head. And place your right palm on your left shoulder blade, left palm on your right shoulder blade. If you're not comfortable, you can place it behind your shoulders. If you're not comfortable with this, now inhale and exhale slowly. Breathe in slowly, observe the expansion of your ribs and shoulder blades and shoulder region, clavicular region. Exhale slowly. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out slowly. Our lungs are more towards our back. Yeah. So we have to— that spine alignment also plays a very important role. Opening up of shoulders also plays a very, very important role. Keep doing. Do not put any tension on your neck and shoulders. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out slowly. Do not put any weight on your neck. Inhale and exhale slowly. Breathe in. And out. Make it rhythmic. Inhale, 1, 2, 3. Exhale, 1, 2, 3. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out slowly. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale slowly. Exhale. Last 2 times. And slowly relax your efforts and raise your both hands up. Again, and slowly ex— release your hands. Again, if you feel any stiffness, roll your shoulders backwards, coordinated with breathing. Inhale up, back, exhale down. Inhale up, back, exhale down. Reverse. Back, up, down. Back. Inhale up, Exhale down. Back, up, down. Okay, now again lift your shoulders up towards— take them towards your ears and relax. Again up towards your ears and relax. And bend your head laterally towards your right side, center, left side, center. Now turn your head towards your right side, exhaling, turn your head towards your right side, center. Left side. Center. Hope now you feel relief. The next, now that we have expanded our lungs and opened up our lungs, the next we'll practice the very, very important practice of all, which is called diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragm plays a huge important role in our overall breathing process, right? And also it's a muscle which pushes down while we are inhaling. It stimulates digestive organs and improves secretion of proper digestive juices. And it calms down your breathing, slows down your breathing process, and it has so many, so many benefits. So how to do this practice, diaphragm reset breathing? For this, place your left palm on your left thigh, right palm on your navel. Gently place the palm, do not press on your navel, not below the navel, on your navel. Now breathe in towards your abdomen. That means you're pushing your belly out. While exhaling, take your belly in. Inhale, breathe towards your abdomen, push your diaphragm down and belly out. While exhaling, take your belly in. Inhale slowly. Exhale slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in slowly. Inhale. Breathe out slowly. Inhale, 1, 2, 3. Exhale, 1, 2, 3. Let's make it rhythmic. Breathe in for 3 seconds. Breathe out for 3 seconds. Inhale slowly. Exhale. Breathe in. Keep repeating. Observe the expansion and contraction of your belly. Keep focusing on your breath. Observe the expansion and contraction of your belly. Last 3 times. Last time, breathe in, 1, 2, 3. Breathe out, 1, 2, and 3. Slowly release your hand, keep your eyes closed. Observe the changes. Observe the silence. And slowly and gently, Open your eyes. Next, we are practicing calm exhale breathing. Exhalation is the key. Longer exhalations creates magic. Very, very powerful. It instantly calms you down, reduces anxiety, stress. And many more. So in this calm exhale breathing, we are exhaling for longer. We inhale for 2 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds. Okay, so we can also increase the numbers later on, but initially we can start with this. Place your both hands on your thighs, palms facing upwards. Keep— make sure that your spine is erect, your shoulders are relaxed, you're looking forward. Now breathe in for 2 seconds. Breathe out for 4 seconds. Inhale, 1, 2. Exhale, 1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe in, 1, 2. Breathe out, 1, 2. 2, 3, 4. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your nose. Only if you have any difficulty in exhalation, you can use your mouth. If not, do not use your mouth. Try to inhale and exhale through your nose. Okay, let's do it. Breathe in slowly. Breathe out completely. Now gently close your eyes. Let's practice. Breathe in. 1, 2. Breathe out. 1, 2, 3, 4. Inhale. 1, 2. Exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe in. Breathe out. Keep doing. Inhale slowly. Exhale. Breathe in and out. Last time, breathe in, 1, 2, breathe out, 2, 3, 4. Relax your efforts, absorb the silence. Eyes closed. Now the next practice, do not open your eyes. You can keep your eyes strictly closed and just start observing your breath. This is called Saakshibhava breath. You're just observing your breath. Just observe the process of inhalation and exhalation. Keep observing your breath. Feel that divine energy. The God, the Universe, the universal energy, the life energy entering into your body, energizing your body. While exhaling, you're exhaling all your tensions, worries. Keep focusing on your breath. Just focus on your breath. You may get a lot of thoughts, but do not entertain your thoughts. Slowly bring your attention back to your breathing. Just observe your breath. Feel the touch of air in your nostrils while inhaling the warm air, exhaling the cold air. Namaskar. Just be silent. Keep observing your breath. Now slowly relax your efforts. Leave your breath, leave your awareness on your breath and become aware of your body, become aware of different sounds around you. Observe the changes in your physical level, mental level, emotional level. How are you feeling? Ask yourself, how are you feeling? Slowly and gently, rub your both hands, generate the heat. Cup your eyes. Open your eyes within cup of your palms, smile on your face. Release your hands. Thank you so much. Please share how are you feeling in the comment section. And also please make sure that you are practicing this sequence for the next 21 days to see the maximum benefits out of this practice. Because practice is what will give you the better results. If you are feeling better right now, imagine what if you practice for the next 21 days. Think that this is a 21 days diksha. Diksha. Take that challenge to practice for the next 21 days. And in case if you wish to join our workshop, I am also leaving the link of workshop in the comment section as well as in the description. You can also join so that you can learn in more detail. And I am also giving you one small gift to all of you where I am giving you 21 days planner. So you can also find that link and— Or if your facilitators are doing this session, they will be guiding you how how to get the 21 Days Planners. So please make sure that you're clicking on the link and getting your 21 Days Planner, or you can also check with your facilitators. With this, thank you so much. See you all. Have a great breathing day for all of you. Thank you so much. Please share this video with friends and family so that they will also get benefited out of these practices. Thank you. Namaste. Namaste. Namaste.