Profound Benefits For Your Back, Posture And Well-being with Pranayama Breathing Practices

by Susan Ni Rahilly

Pranayama or Yoga Breathing is a practice that employs the mind, the body and the spirit with remarkable results.  This gentle Yoga technique relaxes, relieves tension, and strengthens muscle tone.  The result is a stronger back and improved posture which in turn reduces back pain and dramatically increases vital life force energy.  What a wonderful gift, and it’s a gift that is yours to control and to give to yourself.  The art of Pranayama uses the power of breath control to exert a profound effect upon the emotions.

By practicing stillness and controlling the flow of your breathing, you direct the deeply therapeutic benefits of Yoga to targeted parts of the body.  Taking the thoughts, the mind, into the body with breaths focusing on a particular area allows the healing life force to flow to that area and infuse it with vitality.  This breathing technique also frees your emotions to rise and surface.  Thus, the emotions work through you and for you.  Pain related to emotional tensions and stress is thus released.  Breathing in the powerful aspects of silence, calm, and stillness fills the mind and body with a reassuring sense of well-being.

As you control emotions through Pranayama, you strengthen the mind-body connection and spirit by amplifying the vibrations of your own life energy.  The Sanskrit words “Prana” for the energy or life force that we breathe in, and “ayama” meaning expansion and control, combine to give a name to the practice that is far more than just breathing lessons.  I’ve been teaching a powerful set of practices for working with back pain for over 8 years now, and it took two or three years to discover and develop a simple, but deeply effective program.  You will be awestruck at the knowledge the ancients have passed down to us today.

The ancients considered Pranayama such a profound force that learning it was not advisable without the presence and guidance of a Guru.  In today’s culture, especially in Western society, Gurus are neither common nor easily found.  Fortunately, our advances allow us guidance from a guru or master without direct personal contact, through technologies like the internet, CDs and DVDs.  These methods are perfectly acceptable for our times.  They enable you to learn and practice with the virtual presence of an experienced teacher, not simply reading a book alone, and trying to master the techniques on your own.  The feeling of taking your own power back and mastering a technique that gives you control over pain is, indeed, a rich gift for life.

Susan Ni Rahilly has been a meditation and Hatha Yoga teacher for 26 years.  Susan is inspired by Zen, our innate abilities for deep listening and intuitive practice – especially in her work with children and young people.  She makes her home in West Cork, Ireland, and can be found at www.suzenyoga.com

OM Times Magazine » syndicated