SELF-AWARENESS
A Few Things I Love About Mindful Breathing
Inspired by the last 10 years of my life
A few thousand years ago, yogis in the East developed a series of breathing exercises called pranayama. Prana means life force energy in Sanskrit and yama means control.
As they experimented with different breathing methods, they discovered that the body has a natural rhythm that alternates from side to side every 90 minutes or so. During these 90-minute cycles, one nostril is more open than the other.
This opening and closing is mostly due to the flow of mucus and other liquids inside the brain exerting pressure on brain tissue. It’s a perfectly normal and necessary process for removing toxins. However, because each side of the nose connects to each hemisphere of the brain and each hemisphere has different qualities associated with it, we can trace the breath through each nostril to better understand what is going on inside the brain.
When the left nostril is more open, for example, the right side of the brain will be more active so we’re more likely to feel creative and/or imaginative. When the right nostril is more open, the left side of the brain will be more active so we’re more likely to feel detail-oriented and/or logical.
