SWEEPING BREATH EXERCISE


Begin by lying in the Relaxation posture. Breathe with the diaphragm, allowing your breath to become very even and smooth.
Now visualize the body as hollow reed. Then breathe in as if inhaling through the toes and filling the body with breath to the crown of the head. Exhale as if you are breathing back down the body and out the toes. Breathe easily and gently, without any effort. Do not try to force your breathing: let your body decide how much air you need.
Focus your concentration on feeling the entire body breathe and imagine every cell and pore in your body breathing in and out. It’s as if you are feeling your entire body expanding in and out. It’s as if you are feeling your entire body expanding on the inhalation and contracting on the exhalation.
After a few moments, visualize the breath as a wave washing upon the shore on the inhalation and receding back into the sea on the exhalation. Maintain this imagery as long as you wish.


SLEEP EXERCISE

All breathing is 2:1. Exhale for twice as long as you inhale.
Use a comfortable count such as 6:3 or 8:4. You are not trying to completely empty or fill the lungs. The 2:1 ratio should be effortless.
Pay close attention to your breath. There should be no stops, pauses or shakiness during either the inhalation or the exhalation. Minimize the pause between inhalation and exhalation.

The exercise goes as follows:

8 breaths lying on your back.
16 breaths lying on your right side.
32 breaths lying on your left side.

BENEFITS:

It helps in getting a restful sleep.
Effective to minimize chronic fatigue and insomnia.
Excellent exercise to teach children who suffer from night terrors or sleepwalking.
If you don’t fall asleep the first time, repeat the exercise; practice every night until you can fall asleep easily and stay asleep all night.

TAKING CHARGE OF POWER

Self-discipline doesn’t mean self-punishment. Self-discipline is about accessing inner strength and developing the ability to do whatever we choose to do. The beauty of this is that we already have everything we need to become skillful human beings. All we need to do is understand a few simple things about the mind and body, and we can use power in creative and useful ways for ourselves and others.


Our Habits: Channeling the Power

A habit is like a groove that channels the energy of the mind in a certain direction. The more often the mind’s energy travels down that channel, the deeper the channel, and the stronger the habit becomes. We form these groves, or habits, through a process called conditioning, repeating behaviors associated with pleasure and avoiding behavior associated with pain.
We also build habits through association. The cause and effect may not be related to each other but occur close enough in time that we make a connection. Like my brother had stomach flu just after eating Prawns ten years ago. Even though he knows intellectually that the prawns was not the cause of his illness but the feeling is so strongly associated with prawns that he can’t force himself to eat it again.
When habits are practiced and refined, they are called skills. If we do something well or easily, it is because we have the habits that support the behavior. When something is difficult, it means we don’t have habits to support the behavior. We become skilled at driving, brushing our teeth, eating healthy or having good posture. We also become skilled at worrying, self-criticism, self-doubt and poor health habits because we practice them. Every time we worry, we are practicing worrying. No wonder we become so skilled at worrying.
The most powerful and subtle habits are those learned in the first five or six years of our lives. But we didn’t choose these habits they developed unconsciously as a result of our interaction with parents and society. Once these habits are established they become part of our personalities and guide our behavior for rest of our lives. If we grow up thinking we are not important or smart, it becomes difficult in later life to experience ourselves as important or smart. And we will probably spend a great deal of effort trying to prove that we really are important and smart. As long as we remain unaware of these built-in biases, we don’t have any effective way to counteract them.


Bad Habits Bring Bad Outcomes

We are all familiar with those habits that create emotional reaction for us. Let’s say that you walk into a crowded room and see two people together. One is a stranger, the other is someone you don’t like or trust. Your eyes meet this “enemy,” and you experience the moment of mutual recognition. Then the person smiles and drops his gaze. You see him whisper into the ear of the person sitting next to him. The next moment the stranger looks in your direction, smiles, and quickly looks away. Now, what does your mind do with this? Are they talking about you? No doubt! Are they saying what a wonderful person you are? Very doubtful! And what is your emotional reaction? Does the term “paranoia” fit?
Did you make a conscious decision to be upset? Highly unlikely. You walked into a situation and unconsciously interpreted actions along the lines of your past experience (Habits). The consequence was an emotional reaction, not a choice. Very few of us consciously choose to be disturbed!
It is the consequences of these physical habits created by our emotional reaction that we often call stress.


The Unconscious Power

The key to self-control is to take charge of our habits. Habits develop in many ways and for many different reasons. But all habits share one critical aspect – they only operate in, and because of, the unconscious mid. We may consciously build our habit, such as when we practice playing guitar or proper breathing and relaxation techniques. The whole point of practice is, in fact, to build a habit, to have a certain behavior that we don’t have to think about. Not a single habit function as a part of the conscious mind. According to the late B.F. Skinner, the “grandfather of behaviorism,” we are products of our environment, and are controlled by our environment.
Just think about the last time you became furious. A few moments before you exploded, I’ll will bet that you did not consciously and rationally think: “ hey this individual’s behavior call for an drastic expression of anger. I better scream and demonstrate some anger here.” Instead, you just felt an explosion of anger that came right out of the unconscious emotional reaction. This person pushed one of your triggers, and all your repressed emotional energy got channeled into your reaction. You didn’t really had a choice, you simply reacted. When we react to such emotional stimuli, we lose the power to act and our environment governs our behavior.
For example, let’s say you have acquired the deep-seated habit of feeling incompetent. This attitude learned in childhood, lies in the unconscious, where you are not fully aware of its power.
However, whenever anyone questions your judgement, you react with anger or aggression, and overwhelm your questioner with intense, logical argument. The intensity of your response indicates that one of your triggers (your old habit of believing yourself to be incompetent) was pushed, and you react to this with fight-or-flight reaction. When your inquisitor backs down, both the effectiveness of your reaction and the old habit of feeling incompetent are reinforced. More than likely you rationalize your reaction,, never really aware of the reason behind your action.

Nasal Breathing

Sigmund Freud found that menstrual cramps were often related to an inflammation and discoloration of specific areas in the lining of the nose. When these are anesthetized, the menstrual pains disappeared until the effects of anesthesia wore off.
Modern research is also finding that emotional states are related to an over dominance of either right or left nostril activity. For example preliminary research indicates that some forms of depression are related to over-activity in the left nostril, while excessive airflow in the right nostril has been found to be associated with hyperactivity. This does not necessarily mean that a constantly overactive left nostril causes depression, or that an overactive right nostril leads to hyperactivity. What it does show is the connection between the way we breathe, certain neural conditions, and physical and emotional states.
Yoga science states that when you are doing active work, the right nostril should be open and dominant. Consciously working with your breath in this way gradually allows you to establish control over your breathing with your mind. The goal is to be able to establish sushumna, the ability to willfully direct both nostrils to be open equally at the same time.
The purpose of sushumna is to allow the mind to be deeply concentrated without effort.

THE COMPLETE BREATH

In this exercise all three mechanisms for breathing – diaphragm, chest, and collarbones – are brought into use. When you first practice this exercise, place your right hand on your upper stomach area and your left hand on your upper chest. When you breathe with the diaphragm, the right hand will rise on the inhalation and fall on the exhalation. The left hand will rise when you inhale with the chest mechanism. Once you are sure of the proper movement of the diaphragm, chest and clavicles, you can do the breathing without using your hands.
Inhale first, using the diaphragm and expanding the belly; then continue the inhalation by expanding the chest; then let the inhalation continue to the very top of the lungs. At which point a slight upward movement of the clavicles may be experienced. The exhalation is done in reverse motion, letting the clavicles drop slightly then letting the chest wall collapse slightly, then letting the belly collapse as the diaphragm moves upward, pushing the air out of the lungs. The breath should be slow and smooth, without any pauses or jerks.

BENEFITS:

The complete breath is a very useful technique to use when you are sitting at your desk and feel a lot of tension in your shoulders.
A few minutes of practice will be very helpful in reducing not only muscle tension but also mental fatigue.
The complete breath is an energizer and can be used any time you feel mentally dull, or need to be more alert. For instance, when you have been driving for some time and are beginning to feel a little tired, you can energize yourself by taking six or seven complete breaths.

RETRO: THE SENSORY MIND

Don’t confuse the mind with the brain. The brain is the physical organ, part of the body, which serves as the control room for the mind. Brain changes the subtle energy of the mind into biochemical and neurological events that move the body. Of course the quality of the mind’s expression is greatly influenced by the condition of the brain. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your software program is – if the circuits are damaged that program will not run properly.
We call the third dimension of the personality the sensory mind because it collects, organizes, and interprets sensory data. The sensory mind is a busy, noisy place filled with sensory stimulation, emotions, wants and desires, habits and feelings. Its primary job is to interpret the world around us, and to create a personal sense of reality, the context through which we view the world. The sensory mind makes meaningful patterns from sensory input. It does this through four power functions:

1. Perception –

Two people sitting in the same room, having the same experience, will see and interpret that experience in highly individual ways, and will not always agree as to what really happened. A favorite story of mine:

In the clubhouse, three umpires were discussing the pending World Series game. The youngest, proud of being selected to participate in the World Series, bragged to his colleagues: “ I never worry about mistakes. I call them as I see them.”
The other two umpires started laughing, and the middle-aged umpire retorted: “ Well, you are still a little wet behind your ears. I call them as they are!”
The old umpire smiled and looked out the window.
“What are you smiling at?” the middle aged umpire finally asked his elder.
“Well,” said the old wise one. “It seems as if there are two here who are still little wet behind the ears. They are what I call them.

A particular event in our life can be good or bad, exiting or dull, awful or wonderful. We don’t actually describe the actual event but what that event means to us.

2. Language –

Language is the tool we use to create meaning. Once we use language, we are stuck with the consequences of our interpretations. Much of the unhappiness that we create for ourselves happens because we don’t realize the impact that our language has, nor do we know how to use language as a tool to help ourselves.

3. Emotions –

The interpretations we make determine our emotional reaction. In turn, our emotional reactions distort our perceptions, interfere with thinking, lead to conflicts and create disease. Many of feel victims of our emotions and yet we alone create them. We need emotional energy to succeed in life. Our emotions stimulate, challenge and motivate us to accomplish what we want. But all this depends where we channel our emotions.


4. Habits –

Whether we use our emotions to help or to hurt ourselves depends a great deal on our habits, the fourth function of sensory mind. Habits are the most deep-rooted and pervasive functions of the mind. We express our entire personalities through habits. It’s easy to see the enormous impact habits have in your life. Try shifting a habit when you get dressed tomorrow morning. As you put on your slacks, stop, and put the other leg in first. Most people fall over as they alter this simple, almost meaningless pattern of behavior.
Habits dominate the three outer levels of the personality – sensory mind, energy, and the body. We have habits of driving, eating, walking, and talking. How we react, feel, whether or not keep our muscles tense, even how we think are all regulated by the power of habit. All our skills – typing, playing cricket, managing, building a fire – are determined and controlled by habit. The friends we choose, the work we do, and the clothes we wear are all controlled by habit. Of course there are other factors involved in behavior, such as the power function of the mind, genetics and the environment. But habits provide the structure of what we think, what we do, and how we react. Habits allow us to live skillfully and usefully. Habits can also kill us.
As we shall see later, habits are the power behind our skill. But we didn’t consciously choose most of our habit, and many of them are destructive because they feed the three dragons of the mind. However, if we know how to take control of the powerful function of the mind, we can build habits that help us create a healthy body and mind instead of chronic conditions of stress, unhappiness and disease.

ALTERNATE BREATHING:

Close your eyes and sit comfortably, with your head, neck and spine in straight line. Rest the index and middle fingers of the right hand on the space between the two eyebrows. Determine which nostril is active. (The active nostril is the one in which the air is flowing freely. The passive nostril is the nostril in which there is some natural blockage due to the natural cyclic swelling of the mucosa.)

1. If the right nostril is active, press your ring finger against the left nostril, closing it, and gently exhale through the right nostril, counting to six (or about six seconds) mentally as you exhale. Then inhale immediately through the same nostril for a count of six.

2. Now press the thumb gently against the right nostril, closing it off and at the same time release the pressure on the left nostril. Exhale for a count of six, and then inhale for a count of six through the left nostril.

3. Now press the ring finger gently against the left nostril closing off the flow and at the same time release the pressure from the thumb on the right nostril. Exhale for a count of six, and inhale for a count of six through the right nostril.

4. Close the right nostril and open the left. Exhale and inhale for a count of six in the left nostril.

5. Close the left nostril and open the right. Exhale and inhale to count six in the right nostril.

6. Close the right nostril and open the left. Exhale and inhale for count of six through the left nostril. You have just done three rounds. This completes the exercise.


BENEFITS:

· It enhances your power of concentration.
· It should be practiced three times daily.
· It strengthens the ANS and leads to increased lung capacity.
· It maintains balance, and helps in developing control over emotional reactions.
· It is recommended in resolving depression.

CAUTION:

· Notice that you begin this exercise with an exhalation, not an inhalation.
· Length of inhalation and exhalation should remain the same.
· Maintain the same count until you can breath comfortably and effortlessly without any bumps, jerks or pauses.

Coined By Your ownself

The Deceptive Mind

We may not have the power to change our situations, but we certainly have the freedom to change how we define them. It is our language and consequent emotional states that reinforce fear and self-hatred and make them stronger. The words we use rob us of our own strength and give it to the two dragons.
The first mistake that we make over and over again is to accept whatever the mind tells us as the “truth” instead of calmly evaluating the usefulness of our mind chatter. The sensory mind was never designed to tell us truth, but to provide us with a perspective, a consistent way to interpret our perceptions. Its function is to collect and present sensory data, all of which are organized by the unconscious habits that control our perceiving and thinking. Our unconscious emotional habits can create many disturbing and unproductive lines of thought that have little to do with reality. Our emotions aren’t the only source of misleading information. The mind can offer us completely arbitrary thought, images, and sensations.


Let’s try an exercise:

THE GREEN FROG EXERCISE

Sit-back, close your eyes, and relax. Focus on an even, smooth breath and clear your mind as best as you can. Let your face muscle relax, and follow that relaxation down to your toes, relaxing the whole body. Now imagine yourself as a great green bullfrog, sitting on a lily pad in the middle of a beautiful, small clear pond. Over to the side you can see red-winged blackbird building a nest. Picture a blue sky with puffy white clouds. It’s about ten o’clock in the morning of a beautiful October day. The sun is shining and you feel the heat of the sun on your back. The sunshine feels very warm on your back. Now jump off the pad into the water. Glook! Ahh, the water feels cool and nice on your warm skin. Swim down under the lily pad. You see the stem coming up from the bottom, attached to the lily pad. As you look up to the surface of the water, you see the sunshine filtering through the water. Beautiful sight!
Now come to the surface, swim over to the lily pad, and climb back on. Feel the pad moving underneath you as you climb on. Now the sun feels really good on cool wet skin. Life is wonderful!
Now open your eyes. Do you really believe that you are a large, green bullfrog? If you do then you need more help than this single article can give you. Most of us distinguish easily between our imagination and what is real…or do we? These imaginations are all nothing more than mind forms. You determine which ones you will believe and accept, and which you won’t.
You may not be able to stop your mind from telling you things, but no one says you have to believe them! You don’t have to accept everything that the mind chatter says. You probably have some particularly troublesome thought that keeps gnawing at you. You may not feel smart enough, or you may feel that what you accomplish is second rate, or worry that someone will find out just how incompetent you really are.
The same thought pop into our mind day after day and we keep proving ourselves that this is not true. But then very next day the thought is back. Every time we have to prove ourselves, we reinforce the underlying negative thought by paying attention to it. This is the second mistake: trying to use language to control the consequences of language.


THE LIMITS OF POSITIVE THINKING

The sensory mind builds on opposites. In other words, there must be a “right” to have “left” and “good to have “bad.” If we think positively, then somewhere in the mind we have negative thinking. As long as we deal with opposites, we cannot eliminate just one side of them. When we stand in front of a mirror, smile, and say. “Today is going to be a wonderful day in every way,” just guess, what the mind is saying on an unconscious level? Probably something very much like “Wanna bet?” or “Yesterday sure was lousy.”
When we deal only with positive statement, that means we are forcing our negative feelings into the unconscious mind. In fact, the very motivation to think positively comes from a negative condition. Why would you need to think positively unless you had already created a negative state? If you didn’t create any negative feelings about yourself, you wouldn’t have to think positively. Your mind would be free to focus on problem solving. No matter how many times you repeat positive affirmations, they only subtly reinforce the negative, and you never gain freedom.
As we shall see later on, we can access the deeper levels of the mind and neutralize the power of our emotional and language habits when we eliminate the need to be positive, we will find that we already are.

Until now we have been trying to know about Self-knowledge, which is only the first necessary step. Knowledge has power, but without skill, we have nothing. We know where the power lies within the different dimensions of the personality, but unless we know how to use that power, unless we become skilled human beings, nothing happens.

2:1 BREATH AWARENESS EXERCISE

One of the easiest ways to stay relaxed is 2:1 breathing in which you exhale twice as long as you inhale. The extended exhalation provides a greater stimulus to parasympathetic discharge, leading to a deep and balanced relaxation. You should always be comfortable when doing breathing exercises.
During your practice of diaphragmatic breathing, when your breathing is balanced and even and has become very smooth with no jerkiness stops or pauses; gently slow the rate of exhalation until you are breathing out twice as long as you are inhaling. It might be necessary to shorten the length of inhalation very slightly. You are simply changing the rhythm of the breath, not trying to fill the lungs completely or empty them completely. The purpose is to alter the motion of the lungs in a very systematic way. You may count to six on the exhalation and three on the inhalation or eight on the exhalation and four on the inhalation – or whatever is most comfortable for you. After you have established this gentle rhythm, stop the mental counting and focus on the smoothness and evenness of the breath flow. Eliminate all jerks and pauses. Maintain 2:1 diaphragmatic breathing for as long as you wish. Pay attention to what happens to your heartbeat and any other changes in your body.

BENEFITS:

The exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic system twice as long as the inhalation stimulates the sympathetic system.
This rhythm greatly reduces tension and creates a deeper state of rest for your heart and vascular system.

CAUTION:

Do not practice, if you suffer from chronic depression. In chronic depression, the PNS is already too dominant, and you don’t want to emphasize its dominance with long exhalations.
For depression and low energy states, alternate nostril breathing exercise needs to be done.