pranayama

I meant to go to meditation last night, I really did. The last couple of times I’ve gone the hard plastic chairs have irritated the trigger points in my back. Lying on the floor does the same thing. Obviously I should cultivate the ability to meditate sitting on a cushion, without a chair. But…not there yet.

I did, in fact, pack an armload+ of soft cushy pillows in the car, intending  to meditate resting against them, then leave them in the meditation room so I don’t have to carry them in again.

But it didn’t work out. I think Wednesday is just a bad back day for me. I do PT at the chiropractor’s on Tuesday afternoons, and by the end of Wednesday I can be feeling tight and sore. At least that’s how I was last night. I decided not to do anything that might aggravate my back further, and went home instead. I was disappointed, but I can certainly meditate at home where I will be more comfortable.

On the plus side of life, I have consistently been doing my morning pranayama practice for the past week, and I’m loving it! I am not a morning person by nature. It often takes me a while to get going in the mornings. But with just 15 minutes of energizing breathing before my morning shower, I feel awake and  clear-headed. I feel less need for caffeine to get going, and my energy level remains high for the first half of the day. That’s a habit I really want to continue to make time for, if I can.

The pranayama class I gave two weeks ago seemed to go well enough. The new person who was there has come back to the weekly meditation classes (led by the usual teacher, not me) for the past two weeks. So at least I didn’t scare her away! I still have a few nerves when I teach, though. It’s not nervousness that I don’t know what I’m talking about or what I’m doing - I definitely do. I think it’s more that I’m a strong introvert, more used to listening than being the center of attention. Teaching takes a different kind of energy than I’m used to. I want to keep at it until it feels comfortable to me.

What’s really not being comfortable for me right now, though, are the hard plastic deck chairs in the room where we meditate. My back is still very sensitive. When I meditate at home I sit on a soft cushy couch with multiple soft pillows behind my back. (I have been sitting on an exercise ball at work, which takes pressure off my back and helps a lot). Yesterday I took one of those big cushions with arms into the meditation room, set it against the wall, and sat on the floor with a pillow under my butt. I still couldn’t get comfortable! I couldn’t meditate. Lying on the floor isn’t good, either. Anything hard against my back hurts.

I have one more idea. If I could bring some sort of soft cushion to lie on, I might be able to meditate on the floor in Savasana. I do have such a cushion, a twin matress topper, that just might work. As long as I can carry it tucked under one arm. I draw the line at carrying multiple armloads of cushions and pillows, as I end up just feeling silly. I can meditate perfectly well at home, though I do like meditating with other people, so I hope this works out for me.

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My schedule has been a bit wonky the past couple of weeks, leading me to need to get to work a bit earlier. As a result, I have stopped my morning pranayama practice. I am not a morning person; I find it difficult to get going in the morning. The past couple of weeks it has been particularly difficult to get going. Well, this morning I did a bit of energizing pranayama, and what a difference it made! I hadn’t realized how much my morning breathing practice was helping me to be awake and happy in the mornings until I stopped. It may make me an extra 15 minutes later to work in the mornings, but if I can afford it, that extra 15 minutes is really worth it.

I was able to find an hour to meditate the evening that I wrote my last post.  Meditation really does make everything feel better. 

I have also decided to add Alternate Nostril Breathing to each of my pranayama sessions. It’s supposed to balance the right and left halves of the brain, so maybe it will balance my moods, as well. And, for now at least, I’m not performing the bedtime internal retention pranayama. I think I need a rest from it for now; I’ll try it again later. Hey, I made it 10 days.

This evening I teach the second of my classes on pranayama. Last month I taught Pranayamas for Cleansing and Energizing.  Tonight I’m teaching Pranayamas For Calming. My source material for today’s class is almost exclusively B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light On Pranayama. I love the precise, detailed style of his writing.  Occasionally he spices the text with metaphorical description, such as this gem: “As a jug is filled from the bottom to the top, so fill the lungs from their base to the brim.” I am very reminded of the style my massage textbook, which asked the masseur to “knead, as a baker kneads dough (J.H. Kellogg, 1903).” 

During the meditation following last month’s class on energizing pranayamas, I found myself battling thoughts and emotions, and never felt the nice drifty meditation space. I also heard from one other person that she had trouble sleeping that night. That makes sense, since the pranayamas we did that evening were pretty focused on pumping the solar plexus; we probably stirred some stuff up.  Good to know. The next time I teach I won’t do as many of the energizing exercises all in one night, but end with several calming pranayamas.

My meditation after today’s class focusing on stress-relieving pranayamas will hopefully be more peaceful.

My pranayama practice has fallen into a nice pattern recently. In the morning, if I wake up early enough, I do several cleansing pranayamas: Kapalibhati, Nasal Cleansing Breath, Dog Pant Breath, sometimes Breath of Fire. These raise energy and heat, and cleanse the system. They take about 15 minutes to do. It’s a nice way to start the day.

After work I study the pranayamas I am planning to teach at my next class (I’m gearing up for a class this week). Right now these tend to be calming pranayamas, as I taught energizing ones last month. I usually spend 20 to 30 minutes doing this.

For the past 10 days I have been performing a pranyama from the Kundalini tradition before bed. It’s basically a breath retention after an inhale, combined with the mantras Sa-Ta-Na-Ma and Wahay-Guru. This one I do for 11 minutes. It helps me fall asleep.

That’s a lot of breath work. A lot of spiritual movement. I’ve heard that when you do a lot of meditation or spiritual work, one thing that happens is that you pump energy into the personality. You become more of who you are. After a while this effect calms down as you become more able to handle the increased energy.

Who I am is an emotional person who sometimes had mood swings. Over the seven years I have been meditating and doing spiritual work, my mood swings have stabilized a whole lot, and the peaks and valleys of my emotions have evened out. I am much calmer, more even-tempered, more consistently happy than I was before.

The past week, though, I’ve noticed my emotions being a bit more intense than they had been, and I’ve definitely noticed an increase in mood swings. I know this will pass as my capacity increases. But right now it’s uncomfortable. The Kundalini practice, in particular, is pretty intense. I had decided to do it for 40 days, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should back off for now and try again later.

Edit: There is another reason why I might be feeling moody and emotional right now. A beloved cat died this time of year a year ago. I’ve heard that people often get emotional around a death anniversary.

Since I moved into my house three-and-a-half years ago, I have been doing my yoga practice in the living room, because that is where there is the most space cleared, and the room is fairly peaceful. But recently I have been getting a strong urge to create a meditation/yoga space in my study. While the living room is nice, and my partner doesn’t mind letting me have the space when I do my practice, it is still a shared space. It would be nice to concentrate the energy of my practice in a more private space.

The problem has always been that my room has been cluttered and filled with cheap, mismatched furniture. There hasn’t been enough room to do my yoga there, and even if I cleared space, the feeling created by the mismatched furniture and little nick-nacks scattered about is too chaotic and cluttered for me to feel comfortable doing my practice there. My current plan is to clear the clutter and unify the decor to give the room a peaceful, zen feel. (I promise to post pictures when it’s done. :-)

My back’s flare-up a couple of weeks ago was actually the result of my starting to do some of the necessary organizing and redecorating. I had to drop this work due to the flare-up (and I mean that literally: I dropped piles of stuff in the middle of the floor). However, during my meditation marathon last Wednesday I realized I wouldn’t actually have a whole lot more straightening to do to make the room workable.

So, last weekend, moving very slowly and gently, I cleared enough of the piles to feel comfortable with the space. I even put up a small altar as a focal point for my practice.

The only real way to get comfortable in the space, though, is to use it. Sunday evening I did my pranayama there, followed by an hour of meditation. It was nice and cozy. Unfortunately, though, I think my study just might be the loudest room in the house. You see, my house is situated about 400 feet from an Interstate and this room is on the side closest to the highway (the living room, by contrast, faces away from the highway, which really dampens the noise levels). I normally don’t really notice the traffic sounds when I’m just hanging out in the room, but when I was trying to meditate they were quiet noticeable.

I made like a good yogi and tried to work the sound into my meditation, and I *was* successful in meditating. But it was still annoying. I think next time I will try meditating to music using headphones, instead of playing it through the stereo speakers. I could also try using ear plugs and tune into the inner sound. That’s always good.

Even with the traffic noise, I had a really nice practice. It was nice to use that space. I am looking forward to feeling the energy shift as I use it regularly for my practice.

My back has been having a bit of a flare-up recently. It was doing better and the pain had pretty much gone away, so a couple of weekends ago I ended up over-exerting it. I didn’t do anything particularly strenuous, just straightening and organizing, and I put together one of those assemble-yourself particle board cabinets. But my muscles are sensitive, and even that was too much, and the pain returned. A week-and-a-half later and I’m still not back to where I was. It’s very frustrating.

On top of that, work right now is in a place of transition, uncertainty, and lack of focus. I have finished up old tasks, and have yet to be brought into new ones, so I don’t have a whole lot to do at the moment. I find blank days without clear tasks to be stressful.

How easy it is to start feeling sorry for myself. I try to keep a positive attitude, but, like so much in life, that takes practice and attentiveness. I realized a day to myself would help me regroup. So, since I have plenty of vacation time saved, I took a day off yesterday, stayed home, and meditated.

My goal was to spend most of the day studying my breathing practice and meditating. I flipped through Kundalini Yoga: The Flow of Eternal Power, which I recently bought. I can’t do any of the moving kriyas right now, but I did find a couple of pranayama techniques to try. One that I particularly liked was basically breath retention after an inhale, combined with a mantra (Sa-Ta-Na-Ma).

After the breath work, I spent much of the afternoon in meditation (almost 3 hours, with breaks every hour). The pranayama must have stirred stuff up, because it wasn’t until the third hour of meditation that I finally felt like I had a good meditation. Then I went to meditation class, where we meditated another 45 minutes!

After three-and-a-half hours I was definitely ready to be done meditating. But I got some clarity and peace about some things that came up. And I feel much, much better today. I have am so glad I gave myself that break. I needed it.

I have been keeping my pranayama practice for a month now. I started a month ago with a 15-minute practice, and now I am up to 30 minutes. The main effect I have noticed is that my sinuses are much clearer now than they were a month ago. Just two weeks ago I probably used eight or 10 tissues during a half-hour practice. This morning I used two. The Anunasika or Nasal Cleansing Breath is the pranayama that is most responsible for clearing my sinues.

This is very helpful for me, as I tend to have worse allergies during the winter when the furnace is running. I keep the air circulating all the time, and change the filters often, but even so I am prone to sinus infections.  

I am starting to feel some of the emotional and mental effects of pranayama as well.  I feel calmer, my mind clearer. It is easier to concentrate. I especially enjoy when I have time in the morning to practice before work.  It’s a great way to clear my mind for the start of the day.

My Pranayama practice continues apace. I have fallen into a nice little 30-minute routine. I’m working from an old DVD called Pranayama For Health and Wellbeing, which sadly seems to be out of print. I have been focusing primarily on the cleansing Pranayamas included on the video. My routine varies somewhat, but generally runs as follows:

I start with about a 30-50 rounds (each breath is one round) of Kapalabhati, or Skull Shining Breath.

Then I do Breath of Fire through the right nostril, while keeping the left nostril closed, for three minutes. I follow this with Breath of Fire through the left nostril, keeping the right nostril closed, also for three minutes.

Finally I do about five minutes of Breath of Fire through both nostrils.

Note: Kapalabhati and Breath of Fire are similar, but not the same. In Kapalabhati the emphasis is on a strong exhale, and there is a passive inhale. The inhale and exhale do not need to be of the same length. In Breath of Fire the emphasis is on keeping the inhale and exhale of the same length.

Then I often do something the DVD calls Anunasika Pranayama. This consists of taking a deep breath, then blowing it out through the nostrils in a series of exhales until the lungs are empty. I do this six times through both nostrils, then six times through the right nostril only, then six times through the left nostril only, and finally six times through both nostrils. This one is very cleansing: I usually go through several tissues during it!

I follow this with Kukkura Pranayama, or the Dog Pant Breath. I do four sets of 20 rounds (breaths) each. Kneeling in Vajrasana, you put your hands on the floor in front of your knees, stick out your tongue, and pant from the abdomen.

Finally, I finish my practice with Nadi Shodhana, or Alternate Nostril Breathing.

I did this practice 4 days last week, and 5 the week before. I really feel drawn to the cleansing pranayamas right now. Firstly because I’m just getting back into a consistent pranayama practice, and I figure I need cleansing. But also because I tend to have more allergy problems in the winter, so anything that cleans out my sinuses is probably beneficial.

My back has been doing better. The pain is either non-existent or very manageble. However, I still have to take it very easy. I went shopping last Saturday afternoon and was pretty sore the next day. So as long as I take it easy I’m fine. While I miss my physical yoga practice, it is actually nice to have the time now to focus on a pranayama practice, which I had been wanting to do more of, anyway.

A few weeks ago my meditation teacher handed us a schedule of the topics we’ll be learning in the first hour of class before we meditate. We meet every Wednesday.

The first Wednesday of each month she will speak on Consciousness and Energy.
The second Wednesday of the month she will teach Taoist Techniques for Health.
The third Wednesday we’ll learn Pranic Breathing Exercises.
The fourth Wednesday she will discuss Ancient Eastern Philosophy Text (possibly the Vedas?).
And when there is a fifth Wednesday, the topic will be Cosmic History and Extraterrestrial Meaning. (This one is a bit out there for me, but I promise to keep an open mind.)

This past Wednesday was the third Wednesday of the month. Now, I have done some teaching of pranayama techniques there before, when I’ve filled in for my teacher when she’s had to miss the class for some reason or another. But she hadn’t mentioned to me that I would be leading the class on scheduled Pranic Breathing days, and it would have been egotistical for me to assume that I would be teaching.

Well, what did she do but expect me to teach! I was so unprepared. Gah! At least there was only one other student there for the class this week. I floundered about for a bit trying to remember how to teach belly breath and three-part breath. Eventually I hit my stride and taught Breath of Fire, Skull-Brightener Breath, and Alternate Nostril Breathing. I went really deep in meditation after all that breathing!

So I guess it’s official now: I’m a pranayama teacher. I guess I’d better finish reading Light on Pranayama pretty quick (I’m almost half-way through)!

Does anyone have any other pranayama text recommendations, from either the hatha or kundalini yoga traditions?

I am finding it harder to stick to a very minimal exercise regime than I had anticipated. If I don’t regularly do at least some cardio (I have an elliptical machine) and a few stretches, I’m restless and can’t sleep. But if I do too much my back complains later…and wakes me up in the middle of the night. Of course I feel fine when I’m warm and exercising; the pain only makes itself known hours later. Add to that the fact that having two chiropractic appointments, and one massage, a week adds cuts into my normal evening exercise/yoga time. I haven’t yet figured out exactly what works best to both keep my back safe and bring me restful sleep, nor when best to work a practice into my new schedule. It is frustrating. Things will be easier for me once my chiropractor feels I have progressed to a point where she can prescribe exercises for me to do.

What I have been able to do successfully is delve into a pranayama practice. B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Pranayama was my Christmas gift to myself from the store where I attend meditation classes. I’m about a third of the way through. So far he’s discussing the Hindu philosphy of prana: laying the groundwork. I have yet to get into the discussion of specific pranayamas.

However, as I do have prior knowledge of pranayama, either taught to me by my meditation teacher or picked up from various yoga books, I have put together a short practice for myself. I’m sort of making it up as I go, but basically doing Breath of Fire, Alternate Nostril Breathing, and working on the upper two locks: jalandhara bandha (chin lock) and uddiyana bandha (abdominal lock). The entire practice so far is lasting about 15 minutes, but I will probably lengthen it as I get used to the practice, and as time permits.

When I have time, I follow this practice with a 30-40 minute meditation. I have found the combination of the pranayama practice followed by the meditation to allow me to sleep through the night.