Abdominal exhalation (also known as Kapalbhati in yoga)
Posted by Gopal on January 5, 2008
Abdominal exhalation (also known as Kapalbhati pranayama in yoga)
Please read and follow all rules for breathing exercise practice here.
Method:
- Sit in Sidhasana or any other sitting posture or even on a chair and make the spine and head erect in a relaxed manner.
- Place the palms on the knees and close the eyes.
- Breathe rapidly from the abdomen.
- Exhale with forceful contraction of the abdominal muscles.
- Inhale by passively allowing the abdominal muscles to expand; there should be no effort.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 continuously as long as you can do without feeling want of breath.
- Now, keep both inhalation and exhalation natural till the breathing system becomes relaxed.
- Steps 4 to 7 constitute 1 round of abdominal exhalation exercise.
- Practice multiple rounds continuously for a duration of 3-5 minutes.
Benefits:
1. Benefits for body:
- Digestive: it massages and improves the functioning of the digestive organs.
- Brain: it clears the frontal lobe of the brain by speeding up the blood flow.
- Respiration: It cleans out the lungs. It improves their elasticity and makes oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange more efficient.
- Diseases: Due to its good effects on health of respiratory system, it helps in removing respiratory ailments like bronchitis, tuberculosis, asthma and emphysema. In case of asthma and emphysema, during attacks, it should not be practised, but its practice at normal times helps in removing asthma and emphysema.
2. Benefits for mind:
- It is one of best breathing exercises to be done just before thoughtless awareness practice because it empties the mind of thoughts, emotional feelings and excessive images and thus, introduces a tranquil state of mind.
- It wakes up the mind. So, it can be used to remove mental tiredness.
Note: If you don’t grasp the technique of this technique, watch its demonstration by Swami Ramdev here.
Limitations:
- It should not be done by people who suffer from high blood pressure, vertigo and hernia.
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