Yoga for Immunity

Hi, welcome to Yoga & You. My name is Ishwarya. In today's video, we are going to learn Pranayama for beginners level 1. What is Pranayama? Pranayama is a Sanskrit word which means life energy. Ayama is to lengthen it. How do we lengthen this life energy inside us? How do we get this life energy first? We get the life energy because of the breath.

We take 26,400 breaths per day, so imagine the amount of energy we take in, and if you do it right, we can actually increase the life energy. So what does this life energy do? The life energy is responsible for all your physiological functions, including your digestion, your neurological function, your excretion, your circulation, your heartbeat — everything is because of this life energy. The moment this life energy is finished, that's when we approach death.

So how do we increase the life energy? This life energy will also make us more immune to all kinds of diseases we get these days. So firstly, we have to clean our system before we actually increase the life energy. So how do we take the breath in? We use our nostrils to take the breath in, and it goes through our windpipe and then to our lungs, and using certain movements and practices, we can cleanse the system and start making our internal organs work efficiently.

So the first practice in this is Kapalabhati. It's a preparation for your Pranayama practice. Kapalabhati is a very common practice — you have watched this a million times, everywhere, people practicing Kapalabhati — but there's a right way to do it.

How do we do it? Keep your legs crossed in any comfortable position. You don't have to do Padmasana necessarily — you can even do Siddhasana, which is just keeping your legs on top of each other, or you can sit in a chair. The only prerequisite for Pranayama practice is to have an empty stomach — you should not have any food in your stomach before you start the practice. Please check with your physician to see if you can actually practice Kapalabhati. People with high BP, if you are pregnant, or have sudden conditions, you should not practice Kapalabhati. Because it's a short video, we're going to go directly into the practice.

Keep your hands on your knees, either palms facing up or palms facing down. Keep your spine upright, chin slightly tucked in, and you're going to squeeze your belly in as you exhale. So you're going to push the belly in and throw the air out. Use your right hand to make that movement in the beginning, and eventually you can release that hand. It's a forceful exhalation by pushing the belly in. We're going to do this 30 times and see how you feel.

Keep your hands on your belly. Take a deep breath in and start forcefully exhaling the air out. Exhale all the air out. So when you breathe in, it should be a natural, slow breath. You should not — don't ever do that. Try to breathe in naturally and breathe out forcefully. When you breathe out, you're sucking the belly in. So you do this 30 pumpings and take a break — take three deep breaths.

Now, if you're comfortable doing this, try and do this two more times: 30 pumpings, three deep breaths, another 30 pumpings, three deep breaths. If you feel comfortable, you can make this 30 pumpings into 45 or 60 pumpings at a time, but take it slow and understand your body, and ask a physician or your yoga teacher before you actually start this practice. If you have any more questions, leave us a comment below and we will help you understand more about this practice. Thank you very much.