Advanced Breath Work for Yoga After 50

Breath work is an essential part of the Yoga tradition. I’ve even spoken to a number of experts who say that the real purpose of postures and movement in Yoga is simply to prepare the body to sit and breathe for extended periods of time. I know from my own experience that the breath can be a very powerful tool in stress and pain management.

For this article, an old friend in India, Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, gave his opinion of the best breathing routines for the 50-plus population. (Bhavani is a medical doctor, earned a doctorate, and is a Yoga therapist.) We based our recommendations on two criteria:

• Each routine is safe to do without a teacher present.
• Each routine is designed to put no or minimal stress on the body.

While they’re certainly not the only breath routines available to you, here are our recommendations:

• Bellows variation
• Left nostril breathing
• Alternate nostril breathing
• Bee breath

Don’t underestimate the power of your breath! Even now, without doing any exercises, you experience the positive physical sensations of a yawn or a simple sigh. In the following exercises, you explore the ways you can use your breath to recreate these same benefits — at will.

Preparing for breath work

Unlike the breathing that surrounds your movements and postures, the following exercises focus on your breathing alone. They’re typically done in a comfortable seated position, which is great news because you can do them in an office or at the kitchen table.

Please note that these breathing exercises are not meant to be a substitute for a medical diagnosis or treatment. Moreover, if performing any part of these routines causes you to start feeling dizzy or lightheaded, you may want to lay down on your back, with your eyes closed, or, if you’re standing, you may want to lower to a squat and drop your chin. The bottom line is to not push through it. Give your body a chance to find its equilibrium.

To prepare the lungs for the following routines:

1. Sit in a place that is comfortable (see the following figure).
2. Inhale and exhale only through the nose.

   If you can, slow down your exhalation and make it take longer than your inhalation.

3. Continue for eight to ten breaths.

Bellows variation routine

This breathing exercise is one of the few times I ask you to use your mouth. It’s actually a relatively easy technique to perform and very effective in extending your exhalation and slowing down your breath.

1. Inhale fully through your nose only.
2. Exhale through your mouth only, making the “shhh” sound as you slowly release air (see the following figure).
3. Repeat nine more times.

Left nostril breathing

This breathing exercise should be avoided if you’re dealing with depression, your metabolism is slow, or you suffer from hypotension or syncope (the tendency toward fainting). The technique is intended to have a slowing or relaxing impact on the body and mind. Such an effect may exacerbate symptoms of depression. Similarly, the potential slowing of the metabolism — the heart rate and blood pressure — could worsen conditions like hypotension or syncope.

1. Use your right thumb to gently apply pressure to your right nostril, just enough so that the air is completely blocked in that nostril (see the following figure).
2. Slowly inhale through your left nostril, trying to fill your lungs as you count to four in your mind.
3. Exhale through your left nostril, this time trying to slow the mental count to six or more.
4. Repeat this cycle for a total of eight more rounds, keeping your right nostril blocked the whole time.

Each time you inhale, feel yourself relaxing as you fill your lungs. As you exhale, feel your stress exiting.

Alternate nostril breathing

Alternate nostril breathing is a great exercise to help you link your mind with your breath. You breathe through one-nostril at a time instead of two. It takes a bit of concentration, but you ultimately reduce your stress level by allowing your thoughts to focus on the technique itself, and by slowing your breath rate down. Benefits include:

• Better mental balance
• Improved focus
• Reduced stress and anxiety

You have multiple options for how you want to position yourself, but sitting upright, in a comfortable chair, will probably help with your concentration if you’ve never done this exercise.

Use an easy hand position, making the Hawaiian hang-loose sign (see the following) and then adding the ring finger.

Then follow these steps:

1. Sit comfortably on a chair or in one of the yogic sitting postures with your back straight.
2. Place your right hand so that your thumb is on the right nostril and the little and ring fingers are lightly on the left nostril, with the index and middle fingers tucked lightly into the hand (near the ball of the thumb).
3. Close the right nostril and inhale gently but fully through the left nostril — don't strain.
4. Open the right nostril and close the left, and exhale through the open nostril (right).
5. Inhale through the same nostril (right) then block that nostril and exhale through the left.
6. Repeat 10 to 15 times.

With practice, you can gradually increase the repetitions.

Bee breath

Bee breath is a particularly useful exercise for relieving anxiety, according to my friend and colleague Tim McCall. He wrote an entire article on this technique that appeared in the Yoga Journal (see “Bee Breath to Get Anxiety to Buzz Off”). In the article, he explains that extending your exhale using this technique may trigger an immediate relaxation response. Additionally, you do make a bee-like sound in this routine, and the sound itself may be healing.

While doing the bee breath, don’t force the sound or try too aggressively to extend your exhale, says McCall, or you may actually create even more anxiety.

1. Sit upright in a comfortable position.
2. Place your hands on your face with one thumb in each ear canal, your index and middle fingers on your eyes, your ring fingers closing your nostrils, and your pinkies fingers on the corners of your mouth (see the following figure). Use light pressure only, especially on your eyes.
3. Inhale completely.
4. As you exhale, make a humming sound in your throat.
5. Notice how you feel vibrations in your fingers.
6. Repeat for six to eight rounds.