Yoga for Asthma & Healthy Lungs

Hi everyone, welcome to Yoga & You. I am Ishwarya, and today I am going to take you through a sequence to help you boost your lungs. Your lungs work best when your chest is nice and open, so we are going to work on asanas and pranayama to help you do just that. This sequence is best done in the mornings on an empty stomach and is absolutely beginner friendly. Let's get started.

So for the first one, we are going to sit comfortably on the floor, interlock the fingers, and slowly inhale and raise it up. Imagine you are reaching towards the ceiling all the way up. As you exhale, you are going to round the spine, keep pushing the palms away from you, and stay there. Inhale and raise the hands up towards the ceiling, expanding the sides of the body; exhale and push the palms away from you, round the back. Inhale, arms up towards the ceiling, exhale, push the palms away from you, three.

One more time, inhale, palms up towards the ceiling, stretch up, exhale, push the palms away from you, round back. One last time, inhale, arms up towards the ceiling, exhale, round the spine and push the palms away from you. From there, inhale, release the palms and come to neutral.

From here, we are going to turn around and do a side stretch to expand the sides of the body. So inhale again, raise both the hands up towards the ceiling. From here, exhale and tilt towards the right; you can place the elbows down and open the chest towards the ceiling. Feel the stretch on the left side of the body. Inhale and come back to center, exhale, tilt towards the left, open the chest up towards the ceiling.

Inhale and come back to center, exhale and tilt towards the right, inhale and come back to center, exhale and tilt towards the left, inhale and come back to center. Last set, we are going to stay: exhale and tilt towards the right and stay, keep opening the chest towards the ceiling, two, three, four, five. Inhale and come back to center, exhale and release the arms down.

From here, we are moving on to a small pranayama which is called Bhastrika, and today we will do the variation where we keep the palms on the knees. So imagine you are using your chest and your shoulders to breathe. The breathing will be forceful and long, so the breathing looks like this. So we are going to do 10 strokes, keeping our eyes closed together — shall we begin? Palms on the knees, keeping the eyes closed, spine uplifted and straight, let's do 10 strokes together. Relax the shoulders, come back to normal breath, observe the flow of air in and out of your body, any heat built up inside you, and very gently open your eyes.

From here we move on to our next asana, cat and cow. From here slowly come to tabletop position, your palms placed under the shoulders and knees again under the hips. From here we bring our awareness towards the chest: inhale, bring the chest forward, look up; exhale, imagine you are taking the chest towards the ceiling, round the spine, bring the chin towards the chest. Inhale, bring the chest forward towards the front wall and look up; exhale, lift the chest up towards the ceiling, round the spine.

Inhale bring the chest forward, look up, exhale lift the chest up, round the spine. Inhale bring the chest forward, look up, hold, exhale lift the chest up. Last one, inhale bring the chest forward, look up, exhale lift the chest up, round the spine, stay here. Inhale and bring the spine back to neutral.

From here we are going to get into a puppy dog pose. So keeping the hips above the knees, just take the hands a little bit in front of you and try to push your chest and chin down towards the floor. Feel the stretch on the upper back and maybe in front of your chest, and stay here, long deep breaths. With each breath here, trying to bring the chest closer towards the floor, chin towards the floor, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Inhale, slowly come back up to tabletop position.

From here we move on and lie down on the belly. Here you can interlock the fingers behind your back; if this is a little uncomfortable you can also hold a strap or a towel or anything that you may have. So I am going to interlock the fingers, roll the shoulders back with my forehead on the floor, keep the feet together, heels together.

As you inhale, raise the head and chest up, keep the neck neutral. Exhale, slowly bring the head down; inhale, up again; exhale, down two; inhale, head and chest up; exhale, down three; inhale, head and chest up; exhale, down four; inhale, roll the chest back, head and chest up, keep breathing, observe how it becomes challenging to breathe here, two, three, four, five. Exhale and slowly come back down and relax.

Next, we are going to move into Dhanurasana breathing. So fold the ankle and hold it, fold the knees and hold the ankle. Here we are going to raise the head, chest, and thighs up. So as you inhale, roll the shoulders back, lift the head and thighs up; exhale and slowly release everything down. Inhale, head chest and thighs up, exhale bring it down, three; inhale up, exhale down, four; inhale up.

As you stay here, try to balance on the navel. Observe how it becomes challenging to breathe here — breathing mainly happens from the chest and the shoulder regions — three, four, five, and completely relax and come up. From there, lift up into child's pose and stay here, two, three, four, five, slowly lift yourself up.

For the next one we are going to use a pair of blocks; if you don't have a pair of blocks you can also use two or three firm cushions. I am going to place it on the mat like this and turn around, away from the block. Here I am going to make sure when I lie down the block is right behind where my chest is, or my heart center. So slowly come down carefully, lie over the block so that it is against your upper back; if two blocks are a little uncomfortable you can also remove one. Stretch the legs.

Over here we are going to do a small breathing drill. Place the palms on your lap; as you inhale, take the arms up over the head, imagine you are trying to reach the floor; exhale, slowly bring the palms down, back to your lap again. Inhale, palms up, try to reach the floor; exhale, arms down. Inhale, up and back, feel your chest expanding; exhale, bring the palms down. Inhale, palms up, four, stretch and try to reach the floor; exhale, arms down.

Last one, inhale, hands up, try and reach the floor this time, touch the fingertips on the floor. With each inhale, feel your chest expanding; with each exhale, relaxing. Stay here; exhale and slowly bring the arms down, gently roll on to one side and come to a seated position.

From here we will slowly get into Shavasana. Remove the block and lie down, palms up by the sides of your body, legs slightly wider than hip width, palms facing the ceiling. Slowly bring your awareness to your belly: as you inhale, let your belly rise; as you exhale, let your belly completely relax. Inhale, the belly rises; exhale, the belly relaxes, and stay here as long as you like.

Thank you for joining me today for this beautiful session. I hope you enjoyed it. Start your day with this energizing practice.