Category: yoga

Hillary Clinton Explains Alternate-Nostril Breathing – The Atlantic

When I came to the part in Hillary Clinton’s new book where she describes how she treated her anxiety with a practice called alternate-nostril breathing, I thought, that sounds impossible. I tried breathing through only one nostril at a time. I couldn’t do it.

Then I read a little further and saw that she recommends using her fingers to cover one nostril. Got it. Okay, that makes it much easier.

Clinton demonstrated the technique last Wednesday in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN. She doubled down on her enthusiasm, suggesting that it’s best done sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat with eyes closed. “I would highly recommend it,” she said. She also endorsed it to viewers of CBS Sunday Morning: “Off I went into a frenzy of closet-cleaning, and long walks in the woods, and playing with my dogs, and … yoga—alternate-nostril breathing, which I highly recommend—trying to calm myself down.”

Hillary Clinton Explains Alternate-Nostril Breathing – The Atlantic

Neuroscientists have identified how exactly a deep breath changes your mind — Quartzy

Breathing is traditionally thought of as an automatic process driven by the brainstem—the part of the brain controlling such life-sustaining functions as heartbeat and sleeping patterns. But new and unique research, involving recordings made directly from within the brains of humans undergoing neurosurgery, shows that breathing can also change your brain.

Simply put, changes in breathing—for example, breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths—were shown to engage different parts of the brain.

Neuroscientists have identified how exactly a deep breath changes your mind — Quartzy

B. K. S. Iyengar, Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, Dies at 95

B. K. S. Iyengar, who helped introduce the practice of yoga to a Western world awakening to the notion of an inner life, died on Wednesday in the southern Indian city of Pune. He was 95.

NYTimes

R.I.P Guruji B.K.S. Iyengar

I was fortunate to have taken his Saturday classes in Mumbai, until I left for Hawaii. Iyengar Yoga changed my life in many ways–including changing from a mostly meat-eater to a vegetarian 23.5 years ago.

This is what he looked like back then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t2OLXi2xvY

Unfortunately, the clips that I have viewed on YouTube do not display his relaxed, mischievous manner. I can still see the infrequent flashes of impatience or frustration. The occasional “kick” or “whack with a rope” followed by the loud chuckle or laugh. [I use quotes as the “hits” never hurt’ He always knew what he was doing.]