Let us set about understanding pranayama and meditation after we drew down our expectations from them. Some people expect the impossible from these. The uninformed anticipations like diabetes cure or kevela kumbhaka* (do not worry what it is, at this stage) helping to defy death, bring disrespect to this simple, pristine health practice. It is not a path to salvation or god.

1. Pranayama and meditation help in bettering your breathing, hypertension and respiration ailments.

2. Pranayama invigorates internal organs to function as they are designed to. Example: lungs and heart.

3. Pranayama along with meditation helps gain control over mind and thus able to concentrate more.

4. Important of all, it calms down arousing thoughts and frustrations.

The tendency to call pranayama a technique should be refrained at. The word technique dilutes the practice to something, like a ready made formula that when applied, results in a quick fix solution. Yet it is known to have resulted in helping patients suffering ailments like asthma and palpitations. But it is not an out of the box, all-in-one remedy.

What is Pranayama?

It is a conjoin of two words prana and ayama. Prana stands for breath and ayama for dimension. This is not the same dimension as in measurement. So, pranayama is a conscious and definite way of breathing for expected results. The breathing cycle in pranayama can be divided into three steps.

1. Puraka

2. Kumbhaka

a. Antar-kumbhaka

b. Bahya-kumbhaka

3. Rechaka

Inhalation or puraka of breath is slow enough to feel the air filling your lungs and alveoli to their entirety. In the normal course we do not feel this as our breaths are shallow. Here in practicing pranayama, we make an attempt to fill in completely & deeply and see lungs expand to maximum. We watch the inhalation to be peaceful from beginning till we are full.

Exhalation or rechaka is again equally slow as the inhalation is and we should watch that it is complete. With this we feel the empty lungs contracting to minimum.

Retention or kumbhaka has two varieties such as internal retention or the antar-kumbhaka and the external retention or bahya-kumbhaka. The former is important as it gives our alveoli time sufficient enough to exchange the oxygen the puraka has brought in and the excretes like carbon dioxide and moisture back to breath. Notice, without the breath being retained at least for a while inside our lungs, we will not be making justice to our own selves.

The normal volume of air handled per cycle of breathing is measured and is around 200 300 ml. But with the watchful and conscious pranayama, it is found to increase upto 500 ml in healthy adults.

Method of pranayama practice

The excerpts of methodology explained in good books and perfected over the centuries by proponents are here for you. Here is a tip to you before you are begun with the practice. Pranayama is something to start with a firm faith in it. Do not take it just for the heck of a dekko (trial). Here we go!

Practice to chant OM. The sound of OM can be divided tripartite.

1. (should sound like the first syllable in the word audit)

2. oo (this is the sound as in the word shoot)

3. m (the simple, mouth closed sound)

When and how long one should chant this? The chant OM may last for 10 to 12 seconds depending on time you take to inhale or exhale fully. You can prolong this further, looking at your comfort level. Mind you, do not unnecessarily stretch time till you suffocated. Comfort level is important here. You are not doing hatha yoga with this.

Divide the stretch of time equally amongst the three components of OM.

Get the feel by placing your palm on your diaphragm when you start chanting and move up to mid chest during oo, finally touch the top of your lung when chanting m.

Repeat the same thing, but in reverse order when exhaling (rechaka).

You can hold your breath approximately for the same duration as the inhalation and exhalation (i.e; incase of antar-kumbhaka). This is the most important time physiologically as well as mentally. This is when the actual exchange of the oxygen and waste gases occurs. Observe this meticulously in a silent environment.

You can practice this in sets of twelve and increasing the number of sets to comfortably more than three, with increase in experience. If you are doing more than one set, I would suggest you to use your nostrils alternately for inhalation and exhalation. Further for increasing concentration, you can try closing your eyes during the course of pranayama.

In the silence of your surrounding, under guided breathing you realize your heart beat has eased up even from the normal rate, giving it the much desired rest. The heart pumps blood slowly but rich with oxygen. This is studied to be beneficial even psychosomatically. The relaxation of the muscles leads to lesser energy consumption calming the brain.

Now, what do you make of meditation? I tend more to think it is just the other face of the same coin as pranayama is, wherein you guide your mind and breathing and control certain metabolic activities. If there is any difference, then it can be just in what you chant. Thank you.

* kevala kumbhaka only kumbhaka. There is no puraka or rechaka.

Katha Upanishad (I. iii. 3 to 6)

The soul is like a traveler who has set on a journey of life in the chariot of the body, driven by the intellect (buddhi) with the mind for the reins and the sense organs being the horses. The objects of experience form the way to be traversed. The soul, senses, and mind together form the enjoyments of pleasure and pain, i.e., the individual. If the mind is not properly controlled, then the senses go out of hand like untrained horses. But if the mind is properly controlled then the senses obey the orders of the master, i.e., the individual, like well trained horses. Indeed, such an individual reaches the highest goal of life.