Humming is not just a simple act, but a technique that can bring numerous benefits to your mind and body. By humming, you stimulate the vagus nerve, promoting relaxation and reducing stress. The vibrations created during humming have a calming effect, helping you find a sense of peace and wellbeing. Moreover, humming increases the production of nitric oxide, improving blood flow and supporting cardiovascular health. It also enhances respiratory function, benefits vocal and throat health, and even uplifts mood. So, take a moment to hum, and experience the amazing benefits of this simple yet powerful practice.

​Consistency and practice are key when it comes to harnessing the power of breathwork. Find the techniques that resonate with you and integrate them into your daily life for optimal benefits.

The unexpected gifts of pain are often overlooked when we focus solely on getting rid of it. Instead of embracing the pain as part of our experience, we resist it and view it as an enemy that must be eliminated. This resistance is rooted in the belief that healing means the disappearance of symptoms. However, healing is not a final destination but a continuous invitation to remember who we are and to love ourselves in every moment.

When we approach pain with love, we give it a home in our hearts instead of attacking it. We hold it in our vast hearts and embrace it for what it is: a powerful expression of life itself, even if it is unwanted or uncomfortable. Pain is not against us but a frightened part of ourselves that needs love and inclusion. It is a teacher that invites us to be present and to appreciate life in all its forms.

Instead of rushing to label pain as negative and seeking to transcend or obliterate it, we should be kinder towards it and get curious about its fire and ferocity. Pain may hold its own original medicine and teachings of slowness and presence, which we need to acknowledge and honour.
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True healing involves being aligned with 'what is' and embracing the present moment. Presence is the greatest kind of medicine, and it frees us from victimhood. When we stop focusing on getting rid of pain and start embracing it as part of our experience, we open ourselves up to unexpected gifts and deeper healing. So let us bow before our pain and embrace it for as long as it is here, knowing that it may just be what healing actually feels like.

Sometimes we need a reminder that it's okay to not be okay. So here it is: IT'S OKAY.

It's okay to be tired, to say no, to cancel plans without giving a reason, and to "just not feel like it." It's okay to not know anything, to leave, to walk out, to take time to decide, and to take space to feel. It's okay to mess up, be awkward, tremble, be down, and feel low. It's okay to rest and embrace the negative, shadow, and unwanted parts of ourselves. These are our friends, not our enemies. And it's okay to learn as we go and be imperfect each day. If you forget who you are and where you're going, it's okay to begin again. Just remember, it's all okay. 

Are you or a loved one experiencing sleep problems? The solution might be simpler than you think: morning sunlight. 
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While we often associate sunlight with vitamin D, its effects on the human body go much further. When we expose our skin to midday sun, we convert vitamin D and risk sunburn. However, sunrise light is different. All sunlight contains 42% infrared light, which can stimulate collagen production, improve bone healing, and heal wounds. Additionally, this type of infrared light has anti-aging properties, reducing wrinkles and scars.

Morning sunlight is critical in how we use sunlight throughout the day. Infrared light in the morning preconditions our skin to protect against the UVA and UVB rays that come out later. Around 10am, UVA raises its head, playing a critical role in producing nitric oxide, which increases energy, memory, and has anti-aging effects. UVA also triggers the production of serotonin and dopamine, releasing endorphins and creating a small opiate effect, leaving you feeling good. Ultimately, these neurotransmitters help release melatonin, the sleep neurotransmitter.
If you struggle with sleep issues, try timing your exposure to morning sunlight 12 hours before bed. 
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Health tip: Try getting up with the sunrise, exposing your eyes, skin, and brain to the benefits of sunlight.

​Are you someone who tends to breathe through your mouth? 

While it may seem like a small thing, nasal breathing can actually be a powerful tool to help calm your mind, improve digestion, and promote healing in your body. Breathing out through your nose, in particular, is an effective way to access the calming benefits of the parasympathetic nervous system. While breathing out through the mouth can release some stress, nasal breathing is much more effective at helping your body achieve a state of relaxation.

Next time you're exercising or trying to fall asleep, try focusing on breathing in and out through your nose. If you feel the urge to breathe out through your mouth, concentrate on slowly breathing out through your nose instead, with your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth.

It's worth noting that breathing through your left nostril in particular can be especially effective at activating the calming parasympathetic nervous system. To try left nostril breathing, simply use your right thumb to gently block off your right nostril and take a slow, deep and quiet breath in through your left nostril. Then exhale slowly through the left nostril as well, allowing your body to relax with each breath.

You can also experiment with using different counts for your breaths. For example, try inhaling for four beats, holding for four beats, and exhaling for four beats. This can help you find a rhythm that works well for you.
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Did you try left nostril breathing? How did it feel? Do you struggle with breathing out through your nose?

​Your body has the ability to both heal and harm itself, and the autonomic nervous system plays a crucial role in this process by switching between two modes: healing and survival. 

Many people are unaware that they can activate the healing mode by adjusting their tongue posture. By placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth, specifically on the soft palate, you can stimulate cranial nerves that signal the brain to remain calm and promote healing. This action also supports the vagus nerve, which is responsible for sending calming signals to the organs and immune system.

Additionally, practicing proper tongue posture can strengthen the muscles in the neck and promote nasal breathing, which helps improve overall health. 
To get started, try sealing your tongue to the roof of your mouth with the tip resting behind your front upper teeth and the sides and back pressing against the palate. Focus on activating all three points and feel the muscles in your neck and throat engage. 
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How did it feel?

​By acting in the present moment, every action is filled with a sense of attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and love - no matter how trivial the task may seem.

The focus is on the action itself rather than the outcome it produces. The result will naturally follow. 
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This approach holds great spiritual significance and is known as Karma Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita - one of the oldest and most refined spiritual teachings. Karma Yoga emphasises detachment from the fruits of one's actions and is regarded as the path of devoted action.

​Meditation involves connecting with life exactly where life is touching you. The goal is not to alter or control your experience, escape from difficult feelings, or access higher states of consciousness. It is about embracing any part of yourself that resists meditation and beginning from there. Take a brief moment now to feel the sensations in your feet and the weight and position of your hands. Observe the sensations in your body. Notice any tension or relaxation in your face, shoulders,  jaw. Acknowledge your unique experience in this moment and bless it with your attention. Remember that this moment is fleeting and will never come again. Fully embrace it.

​If you attempt to fix me, you unknowingly transmit a message to my nervous system that implies there is something wrong with me, and I lack the internal resources to cope with my situation.

Even if your intentions are good, your attempts to fix me can undermine my healing. You hold the knowledge and power and I feel smaller and weaker.

Listen to me and trust me instead of giving me your answers. I am more resilient and capable than you realise.

When you stop trying to fix me and hold space for me, I feel supported and empowered to face my challenges. In this way, I can learn to trust my intuition, feelings, and body, and discover my own inner strength.

By dropping your concepts, advice, and fixes and simply loving me, I can learn to love myself and trust myself.

The paradox of healing is that when you stop trying to fix me, I feel less broken and more capable of healing.

​I was asked a great question recently about how different nostrils affect different parts of the brain given all the air just ends up meeting in the same place. I’ve collated this info to explain more for anyone who likes to geek out on such stuff 🤓

There is about four decades worth of research looking at yogic alternate and unilateral breathing techniques, e.g:
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• Selective hemispheric stimulation by unilateral forced nostril breathing 
• The effects of unilateral forced nostril breathing on cognition 
• Changes in Shape and Size Discrimination and State Anxiety After Alternate-Nostril Yoga Breathing and Breath Awareness in One Session Each 
• Hemisphere specific EEG related to alternate nostril yoga breathing 
• Slow yogic breathing through right and left nostril influences sympathovagal balance, heart rate variability, and cardiovascular risks in young adults 

​For a more complete list, you can go onto pubmed and type “(alternate n nostril) AND (unilateral nostril)” into the search bar. 

A lot of the research on alternate nostril breathing is limited by the choice of comparison. Ideally studies would have compared alternate nostril breathing with other breathing options matched for respiratory rate, ratio and nasal breathing, and would have accounted for nostril patency (openness) in their analysis. Few have done this. The unilateral breathing research is a little more robust.

Recently the AUT Bio Design Lab using a type of continuous airway pressure (CPAP) machine to control breathing to examine what happens in the brain, or at least the cortex by using electroencephalography (EEG): “EEG signatures change during unilateral Yogi nasal breathing” 

The same team recently repeated this study using fMRI, but the data are yet to be analysed. The affects observed were robust in terms of each condition leading to clear differences in EEG signal. What these shifts ultimately mean is still open to interpretation.

In terms of using specific breathing techniques with patients/clients, as with any technique, responses will vary, and no work appears to have been done to assess who might respond well and who wouldn’t or why. My own experience is that while alternate nostril breathing is focusing and calming for the majority, trying to breathe through a very obstructed nostril can increase agitation, so the technique is best preceded by a nose unblocking exercise.

Although the mechanisms remain unclear, while we have only one pharynx and trachea, we have two nostrils, two sets of sinuses, and two sets of turbinates that undergo engorgement through vasodilation and deflate through vasoconstriction and thereby determine which nostril is more open. This leads to the nasal cycle:

Here is a great Virtual Reality-style video looking at the upper airways: 

One possible mechanism by which unilateral and alternate nostril breathing affect the brain, is by influencing the release of the gas nitric oxide from the sinuses another might be how it influences the nasal cycle  (this article is only normal nasal cycles without application of specific breathing techniques).

Just as we can voluntary control the rate and depth, and biomechanics of our breathing, and subsequently influence some of our biochemistry, e.g. blood pH, carbon dioxide partial pressure, and oxygen saturation, we can influence our nasal cycle by unilateral breathing and/or applying pressure to the fifth intercostal space near the armpit: Article 1, Article 2

Another mechanism that may link nasal patency and the brain is via the trigeminal nerves influenced by carbon dioxide or perhaps stimulation of the olfactory nerves  (this article covers the topic well but is a little dated).
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It’s safe to say that a lot more research needs to be done to be confident about any mechanism, or interaction of mechanisms, but the weight of the evidence is on the side of brain activity influencing and being influenced by the nasal cycle and nostril patency.

I love this quote by Pema Chödrön, about tending to the first arrow. The parable of the second arrow is a Buddhist parable about dealing with suffering more skillfully. The Buddhists say that any time we suffer misfortune, two arrows fly our way.

The first arrow that hits us (an unexpected event, situation, illness etc) causes pain and hardship, which we can’t ignore.
The second arrow is the suffering we add on top of the pain. It is our reaction to it, and is optional.

The teaching is that pain and hardship are unavoidable for us all, however, we have a choice when it comes to the suffering. Our relationship to pain and hardship are what to a great extent influences our suffering.

When we tend directly to the experience, and turn off the mental chatter, suddenly the experience of suffering that seems to arise from pain will resolve. This has been shown in research using brain MRI scans in mental and physical pain studies. 

In a 2006 study, it was found that women with PMS experience a much greater decline in blood carbon dioxide in the premenstrual phase than women who do not experience symptoms.

As progesterone increases and blood Carbon Dioxide (CO2) decreases, symptoms appear. When the luteal phase ends, progesterone decreases, CO2 levels normalise, and symptoms disappear.

The study concluded that women with PMS have higher than normal sensitivity to CO2, perhaps caused by progesterone, resulting in ‘pronounced hyperventilation’ - and that the hyperventilation is responsible for the symptoms.

If you experience PMS symptoms we can help to correct your breathing! 

Chakras are symbols of the body-mind connection. Originally cited thousands of years ago in sacred Hindu texts, known as the Upanishads, chakras run along your spine and link directly to your endocrine system. Particular thoughts and emotions can affect energy flow to a specific chakra, which can then create an imbalance of prana (energy) flow to the corresponding nerve-bundle, major gland/organ.

An example of this that many people can relate to is experiencing ‘butterflies in your stomach’ when you are about to do something that challenges your confidence and self esteem – such as public speaking. Thoughts around how you will be perceived by others and a disruption to your confidence can have a very real affect on the body – particularly the solar plexus area (below the ribcage and above the navel - manipura chakra). This creates what is referred to as a chakra blockage. It should be noted that not all emotions create such an obvious visceral reaction in the body, and most people in modern society are disconnected from their bodily sensations, and it is not always obvious. Yoga helps to develop this internal awareness (interoception).

So basically, each of your main chakras harbours bundles of nerves and major organs as well as your psychological and emotional states of being. A blockage in any one of your seven chakras can lead to illness, so it’s important to understand exactly where each chakra is located and its role in your body.

It’s important to regularly check in with yourself and look for any signs of suboptimal prana flow. Under or overactive chakras can have a ripple effect.
​The good news is that equilibrium can be restored with simple targeted yoga practices.  We will share more on this in future posts.

Yoga is the art of removing what distracts us from our true self. By connecting to ourselves more deeply, we become our own refuge. Our own home. 

It may sound counter-intuitive, but the absolute most effective way to short-circuit the panic button is to voluntarily stop breathing for short durations. Short breath holds rebalance your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, which then increases oxygen to the brain and body tissues. This calms the nervous system and helps you to feel more in control.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Take a normal breath in and out through the nose (light, slow abdominal breath)
2. After the exhale, pinch your nose with your fingers and count gently up to 5 seconds. It is important to always start the breath hold after an exhale.
3. Release your fingers and take another gentle and light breath in and out through the nose.
4. Either continue steps 1-3 or take recovery breaths between the breath-hold cycles as needed. Be sure to also keep these recovery breaths light and slow – avoiding any BIG breaths ( big breaths increase the stress response and negate the benefits).
5. Repeat the short breath hold process until you feel a return to calm.
How to find an appropriate breath hold time for you:
- Most people are comfortable starting with 5-second breath holds. However, if you felt like gasping or needed to take a BIG recovery breath afterwards, try reducing the breath hold next time to a comfortable count for you.
- If it felt easy, you might like to increase it to 6 seconds next time and go up to 15 seconds as you become more comfortable with holding your breath.
For those wanting to teach this technique to children, I highly recommend this video instruction from Patrick McKeown. 

The benefits of nose breathing:
Chronic mouth breathing can lead to a dysfunction where we tend to over breathe. Here are some great reasons to switch to nose breathing...

• Nose breathing protects us from various harmful particles like viruses, bacteria, dust and microbes.
  
•  Tiny hairs in the nose called cilia clean, warm and humidify the incoming air.
• Nose breathing also helps us to engage our diaphragm more efficiently.
• Exhaling through the nose creates more air pressure and slows the exhalation down - helping your lungs to absorb 10-20% more oxygen than mouth breathing.

And most relevant right now is that nostril inhalation increases nitric oxide intake, which helps to ensure transportation of more oxygen through the whole body. As mentioned in an earlier video post, nitric oxide has antiviral properties and has been shown to be protective against the SARS virus (a coronavirus). So there is good reason to believe that nitric oxide is also protective against the current pandemic Covid-19 virus. How cool is that!

How can you increase the amount of nose breathing you do?

Great places to start are during exercise (even if this means temporarily cutting back your intensity for a while, it can actually give you greater fitness gains in the long run!), during yoga, while chewing food, when you sleep...

​Try it out, it is more challenging than you might think!

As mentioned in our previous post, 'take a deep breath' is often misinterpreted to mean BIG breathing. Deep breathing is not the same as BIG breathing.
BIG breathing is taking in bigger than necessary breaths. Controlled and deliberate deep breathing is different.
Here's why we want to avoid BIG breathing...
Big breathing leads to over-breathing, which can mess with the delicate balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange taking place inside every cell of your body.
Over breathing can cause you to release too much carbon dioxide which impairs blood flow to the brain.
This image shows what happens to your brain after just 1-2 minutes of over breathing. Notice the substantial drop in oxygen.
Breathing exercises that focus on SLOW, quiet, rhythmic, nasal and diaphragmatic breathing are key to restoring calm.
Follow our page to learn more as we post about optimal breathing - in bite sized chunks.

'What's the first thing you hear when someone is trying to help you to relax? 'Take a deep breath'... Right? And that probably made you think 'big breath'. That's not what the vedic (ancient yogic) texts talk about, and it's not consistent with what we know about physiology now.
Ancient yoga teachings counsel us to make the breath subtle and still, in order to restore pranic balance.
Deep breathing is not the same as big breathing. Something seems to have been lost in translation when people think of them as the same.
Follow our newly created Instagram account to learn more as we post about optimal breathing - in 'bite sized chunks'.
www.instagram.com/yogawithdanika/