Written by Vedant Kulkarni, Executive Coach
Vedant is an internationally acclaimed executive well-being coach, aka 'Friend In Need' for high performers like you, to help you clear the clutter of anxiety, overthinking and depression.
Imagine boundless, free energy that revitalizes your body, soothes your mind, and brings you pure bliss! That source of energy is right under your nose. Literally.
You Breathe over 20,000 times a day, but have you ever thought about how you could consciously use it to transform your energy and experience of life?
In the next 3-5 min, you'll explore how through Pranayama: the science of the life force! (P.S. Don't miss out on insights about Chakra balancing and Kundalini awakening towards the end.)
What is Pranayama
'Prana' means life energy, and 'ayama' means regulation. Thus, Pranayama is regulating the flow of our very life energy to enhance our physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Yes, Pranayama mainly includes regulating our breath but it's also a lot more than that!
The science abehind Pranayama
Pranayama has a profound impact on our nervous system, which controls our stress response and emotional regulation. When we breathe deeply and slowly, we stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxation and healing. This lowers our heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline.
Thus, with pranayama, we are at bay from stress, anxiety, and a hoard of chronic diseases. Plus, It can boost decision-making, improve lung capacity, and even help quit smoking!
But all of these are by-products of Pranayama! Here's the ultimate goal:
The ultimate goal of Pranayama
It is: Having complete control over our mind and emotions, to enter into a tranquil and blissful state.
But how does Pranayama even help with controlling the mind?
Have you noticed this: When you're anxious, your breath becomes shallow and weak? When sad, the breath becomes fragmented and abrupt. But when you are happy and blissful, you breathe slowly and deeply.
Conversely, by changing the way we breathe, we can change our emotions and thought processes too!
Pranayama helps us naturally breathe deeper, and thus, have perfect control of how we feel and experience life. There are several Pranayamas like Nadi Shodhan, Ujjayi, and Bhramari which help the same, and soothe the various organ systems of our body. However, pranayama is not something that you can learn overnight or do randomly. You need to have proper guidance from experts who can teach you how to practice pranayama safely and effectively.
Bonus: A seamless way to get started
Our mind has been constantly trained to get engaged with something and be stressed or anxious. Thus, calming it down, especially the first time can be quite challenging and even a scary and painful experience.
What if you could switch from a state of stress and worry to a state of peace and joy in a matter of minutes? Imagine if you could master your mind and emotions and live life the way you want. It’s all possible, and you can learn how in the upcoming masterstroke (for Free!). In this masterstroke, you will also uncover three powerful secrets on how you can conquer anxiety, stress and overthinking and boost your productivity and relationships at work and home. Don’t let this rare opportunity slip away!
What are chakras and what is chakra balancing?
To understand what are chakras we first need to understand how Prana Flows through the body:
As we become more and more aware through Pranayama, we can understand that Prana (life energy) does not move randomly but flows in established pathways inside our bodies called Nadis. Among thousands of these subtle energy channels, the three most important ones are:
Ida: runs from the base of the spine to the left nostril, and is responsible for creativity, emotion, and relaxation;
Pingala: runs from the base of the spine to the right nostril, and is responsible for logic, alertness, and activity, and
Sushumna: the central channel that starts from the base of the spine straight to the top of the head. When the prana flows through Sushumna, one lives with the ability to maintain inner tranquility, and high energy, regardless of external circumstances. This offers a sanctuary of peace within oneself and opens the doors to explore the elevated levels of consciousness.
When we practice pranayama, we aim to balance the flow of prana in Ida and Pingala and activate the Sushumna nadi.
Now, Chakras are energy centers that are located along the Sushumna Nadi. They are not physical structures but rather energy centers that influence various aspects of our being such as physiology, psychology, emotion, experience etc.
There are seven principal chakras in the human body: Muladhara (root), Svadhisthana (sacral), Manipura (solar plexus), Anahata (heart), Vishuddhi (throat), Ajna (third eye) and Sahasrara (crown).
Each chakra has positive and negative qualities associated with it. If the chakra is balanced, one experiences positive qualities and vice versa. Rather than balancing, it's more of activating the chakra in its positive manifestation. Like Muladhara can be associated with inertia (feeling dull, sleepy) but when the energy manifests positively, you experience enthusiasm and are full of energy. Similarly, the energy in Swadisthana could either result in lust or could manifest as creativity. The energy in Manipura can be experienced as Greed or Generosity; in Anahata: Fear/Hate or Love; in Ajna: Awareness or Anger; and when the energy reaches Sahasrara: total exuberance.
And how can one bring out the positive aspects of all these chakras? This can be done through practices like Meditation (not concentration), Pranayama, and Yoga (not just stretching the body) to help harmonize the flow of energy through these chakras. In fact, the spiritual process focuses on taking energy from the root chakra to the crown chakra (leading to spiritual awakening or enlightenment).
The Kundalini energy and Kundalini awakening
There are several aspects of being a human that we never experienced as part of our mundane life which only asked us to strive for money, fame, and pleasure. One such aspect is experiencing bliss beyond what our senses (sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing) can offer. Kundalini is one of the names for this blissful energy, the dormant potentiality sitting right within us (coiled at the base of the spine).
Sushumna nadi is the pathway for the kundalini energy to rise from the base chakra (Muladhara) to the crown chakra (Sahasrara), piercing through each chakra along the way and activating its positive qualities. When it reaches the crown chakra, it leads to a state of ultimate bliss (often referred to as the Kundalini Awakening).
Naturally, the question might come up, how to awaken Kundalini?
Well, you might hear stuff like: Focus your mind on 'this' chakra, or do this mantra and it will awaken your Kundalini instantaneously, etc. Beware, running behind such things can rather be detrimental. Kundalini Awakening is not an overnight process. It's a beautiful journey of discovering what life energy is, and discovering bliss beyond any external factors!
To start with, you can wonder about life; be curious about the fundamental questions about life:
Who am I?
Am I just the body, the mind, only my limited self-imagined identity? What is the purpose of life?
Is it just struggling, having bits of pleasure, and dying, or is there something more?
Then, you can be curious about what the mind is. How our own thoughts and emotions lead us to a miserable state. Then, strive to transcend the mind through practices like meditation, and more, etc.
All of this must be done under the guidance of a master, who has walked the path.
We dive deep into understanding the mind, emotions and the skill to tap into happiness at will, at our masterstroke (free webinar). If you've not signup yet, this can be a great starting point to kick off your journey.
In a nutshell
Pranayama is not just a simple breathing exercise. It is a vast ancient science that encompasses regulating the energy that is responsible for our life, to enhance physical health, mental well-being, and spiritual development. It goes far beyond breathwork: a general term for any practice that involves altering the breathing pattern.
Pranayama can help you reduce stress, improve your sleep, reduce anxiety, cultivate holistic well-being and even help you access higher states of consciousness.
Through Pranayama and other techniques, our life energy could be regulated in a way that we manifest positive aspects of our physiology, psychology, and our very own life experiences, and explore the dimensions of life we've never touched!
All that we talked about Pranayama, Chakras, and Kundalini in this article is not even the tip of the iceberg. But this should be enough to get you intrigued about your own breath, life and their enormous untapped potential. The next step is to learn more and try to get this into practice with proper guidance so that you can start experiencing it.
If you had any Aha moments or could dispel any misconceptions through this article, feel free to share it with those who you know can benefit from a deeper understanding of Pranayama, Chakras, and Kundalini.
Thank you for your curiosity to know more about Pranayama and your own life! Thank you for taking action to learn more about these and implement their amazing benefits in your life!
Thank you for sharing these insights with your loved ones. I'll see you in the masterstroke.
Vedant Kulkarni, Executive Coach
Vedant is an internationally acclaimed executive well-being coach, aka 'Friend In Need' for high performers like you, to help you clear the clutter of anxiety, overthinking and depression, take control of your emotions & feelings, and set up a road map to reach the top of your industry. Through his decades of experience and expertise he developed unique short, and effortless meditative techniques which are helping thousands high-performing executives, founders, employees, and artists to reclaim their peace of mind, take their performance to the peak, find love in what they do, and explore deeper secrets of this mind, and the life. Over the last decade, Vedant has guided CEOs, Executive Directors, and Heads of State from across the world, advised the United Nations, and closely worked with the World Health Organization on implementing solutions on mental health & wellbeing.
