In the modern yoga world, there’s a lot of information available about āsana but less information about prāṇāyāma, and interestingly, even less information about the relationship between āsana and prāṇāyāma.
In the Viniyoga lineage of Krishnamacharya, we use breath-centric āsana to work with our structural condition, our structural alignment, stability, and range of motion.
In prāṇāyāma, we work with the breath to influence the physiology, to influence the autonomic nervous system, and then to influence the mind and the emotions.
If we work with the breath in prāṇāyāma, it deepens our understanding of how to use the breath in āsana. And then if we use breath in āsana, it prepares our breath to work in prāṇāyāma to enhance or balance our physiological and mental emotional condition.
We can use prāṇāyāma to help manage stress. Many of us are constantly stressed in our daily life. The world is unsettled now, so prāṇāyāma is a powerful tool for helping you create sympathetic parasympathetic regulation to help calm the system and give you the energy and strength to face all the challenges in life.
If you’re fatigued from excess activity and stress, you can use the breath to revitalize your system and increase what we call Prāṇaśakti: our energy.
So the breath can be used in prāṇāyāma to deepen your understanding of its application in āsana, but also, and more importantly, to help you balance your physiological system, enhance your energy, manage stress, and increase your Prāṇaśakti (vitality).
