Nadi Shodhana Pranayama (Audio Recording)

How to Practice Pranayama

It is important with any pranayama practice to enter into it slowly. You don’t want to strain the breath or stress the body or lungs trying to practice pranayama. Practice with ease and allow the breath to be fluid and soft. Retentions should be started gradually and with short holds. Anyone with heart conditions, especially high blood pressure, should not practice breath retentions. Children should also not practice breath retentions. These pranayama practices should be relaxing so don’t use force.

Nadi Shodhana Pranayama

In this Ayurveda pranayama audio recording, you will be led through a 20 minute Nadi Shodhana breathing practice. Nadi Shodhana is the most important and revered pranayama practice in Ayurveda. It is considered balancing for every dosha because it balances both sides of the body. Nadi Shodhana pranayama, works to balance the left and right hemispheres of the body and the mind. It also balances the left (ida) and right (pingala) nadis or energy channels of the body. The right side of the body is considered the solar or masculine side. The right side also corresponds with the organs of digestion, the liver, the gallbladder, the right kidney, ear, eye, nostril, hand, and foot. Conversely, the left side of the body is associated with the lunar or feminine side. It corresponds with the organs of nourishment like the heart, stomach as well as the left kidney, ear, eye, nostril, hand, and foot. Each one of us will have a more dominant side although it will change day-to-day and even hour-to-hour. That is why this form of pranayama is so beneficial, because it balances both the left and right sides, the lunar and the solar, the masculine and the feminine. Now follow along as you are led through the Ayurveda breathing technique of Nadi Shodhana pranayama or Alternate-Nostril breathing practice.

Music by Fried Coffee.