The benefits of breath
Breathing is the very root of your life; it is vital. It is important, therefore, that you do it properly. No habit pays bigger dividends, and so promptly, as complete breathing that maintains strength and suppleness in all sixteen vital organs of the body. It is the source of your health, cheerful spirit, youthful feeling, energy and relaxation. A body that functions at its peak is a blessing to its owner. Health is so much higher than all other values that soul can build its grandeur and glory upon it alone. No relationship can be maintained without health – that being the harmony of bodily, mental, and emotional functions. If you know how to regulate and synthesize mind-processes, you can cure disease completely. The art of complete breathing is fundamental to your task of acquiring relaxation. It releases the nerve centers from the extensive tension that afflicts them. Correct and complete breathing has a tremendous effect on maintaining physical, mental and emotional harmony. Only the relaxed mind is open to ideas. A deep breath helps break every fear or sinking spell. The exercises in the new DVD, The Science of Breathing and Glands, 2nd Edition, comprise teachings that have been practiced for thousands of years in Persia, Egypt, Ancient Greece, and India – where it originated during the Vedic period more than 10,000 years ago. The teachings represent some of the oldest philosophies in the world and were perfected by ancient saints and yoga masters who received this knowledge intuitively from the divine. Originally this was a secret science, but today these same exercises are practiced as an integral part of yoga, in both the East and the West. Building upon the success of the first edition of The Science of Breathing and Glands, the second edition includes three new exercises and comes with a fully revised and expanded booklet of detailed notes.
The science of correct breathing
To know man, it is necessary to understand why it is that he needs air to breathe; and to know the air we must understand how it relates to the life of man. Breathing is the process of taking in vital energy and removing waste products from the body and mind. The chemical basis of life is essentially an oxidation of tissues. Oxygen carbonizes the lung tissue, and a fire follows the meeting of oxygen and carbon in the lung cells. That fire makes it impossible for bacilli and the cohorts of death to exist. Shallow breathing, on the other hand, means that the waste material in the body is not burnt up and the result is fatigue or a lack of zest for living. The blood, filled with toxins, gets heavy, lazy and causes poor circulation. Any impediment to respiration checks mental and physical development. When your personal rhythm is disturbed, it harms you physically, mentally and emotionally. Nervousness is simply disturbed breathing rhythm. A tense person never has the same amount of courage as the relaxed one. Conversely, the person whose breathing rhythm has the longest pause is the one least likely to break down under the strain of action. All competition is strain, and all cooperation is mutual gain. These exercises are built on the comprehension of the law of radiation of magnetic currents, the psychic force-centers found in all bodies, and upon their relationship to the cosmic force-centers and currents of the solar system and universe. Our bodies are subject to the same rhythmic laws as the Earth and its revolution around the sun, and the solar system around the galaxy, and the galaxy around the universe. Much of the esoteric side of The Science of Breathing and Glands is based upon this well-known principle of nature. By falling in with the rhythm of the body, the yogi manages to absorb a great amount of prana, which he disposes to bring about the results he desires. Meditating
The exercises and their benefits
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- Simple Breath: Excellent breath to improve the liver and spleen.
- Vitalic Breath: Helps in regulating weight – overweight or underweight.
- Dynamic Breath: Best exercise for those whose hearts are weak and vitality low. Helps in controlling emotions.
- Lung-Strengthening Breath: Good for everyone, especially consumptive or tubercular people. Helps ex-smokers restore lungs to full function by stimulating the air sacs in the lungs. If you want to quit smoking then you might want to cut down gradually.
- Beauty Breath: For all who are bald-headed or who wear glasses. Keeps the face free from winkles, benefits the tongue, teeth, and tonsils, and keeps the thyroid and pituitary glands in good shape. Enriches the supply of blood.
- Constipation Breath: Promotes health of prostate, brain, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, spleen, stomach, intestines, and pancreas. Eliminates constipation.
- Insomnia Breath: Keeps the body’s cells in perfect condition by eliminating dead cells and stimulating live ones. Strengthens spinal fluid.
- Solar-Walking Breath: Charges the solar plexus with breath. Charges the sixteen electrical batteries of the body (i.e., the glands). Eliminates fatigue.
- Lunar-Walking Breath: Quickly oxygenates the entire bloodstream. Relieves swollen veins and hardened arteries.
- Vibratory Breath: Keeps the digestive and creative brains in perfect shape. It also straightens the spinal column and gives it electrical vibration. Strengthens the pancreas, enabling it to mobilize starch better. Improves hearing.
- Pineal Gland Exercise: For good, constructive thinking and its healthiest reflection.
- Vagus Nerve Exercise: Controls heart action and life waves. Strengthens the metabolism.
- Adrenal Gland Exercise: Excellent for kidneys, suprarenal and adrenal glands, spleen, liver, and lymph nodes. Keeps these vital organs in excellent health.
- Parathyroid Gland Exercise: For bronchial and neck glands.
- Adam’s Apple Exercise: Energizes the entire abdominal region. Renders the voice soft, beautiful, flexible, and powerful.
- Dog Exercise: Excellent for eyesight, thyroid gland, solar plexus, and sex glands.
- Rejuvenation Exercise: A tonic for the entire body. Varicose veins will vanish. All brain congestion is cleared, making thinking better.
- Regeneration Exercise: Controls sex organs by keeping them divinely strong and under moral control.
- Plough Posture: Strengthens generative and abdominal regions.
Meditating on the breath
As the breath enters and leaves your body, watch it, assuming the role of witness to life’s function inside you. You will notice in a short while that you will have a consciousness that you are something above life itself. Later it will be as if you’re hearing the beating of the inner throb within you. As Emerson says, “Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast and all is clear from East to West.” Some people hear an inner hum and concentrate on that until they are totally lost in it. This gives a consciousness of being a witness, an observer. Yogis seek to attain the state of universal consciousness through meditation and rhythmic breathing. These exercises will increase development in the universal consciousness of those who earnestly and faithfully practice them.
The effects of using these breathing exercises
The exercises in The Science of Breathing and Glands bring stimulating pressure to important nerve centers, which in turn stimulate and energize the entire nervous system and send an increased flow of nerve-force to all parts of the body. By practicing these exercises constantly, the student of breath can increase the circulation in any part of the body. He can also direct an increased current of nerve-force to any part or organ, stimulating and strengthening it. Practiced devotedly, respirotherapy, or The Science of Breathing and Glands exercises, helps remove all ailments. They are wonderful for developing the lungs, muscles, ligaments, air sacs, and all other parts of the body. They are especially effective against chronic conditions. Combined with selective diet, the exercises help cure the following: constipation, dyspepsia, sleeplessness, melancholy, nervous exhaustion, headache, piles, heart disease, neuralgia, sinus troubles, diabetes, hysteria, consumption, obesity and underweight, sterility, and impotence. They result in definite improvement of circulation, digestion, assimilation, and elimination. Complete breathing can even arrest the process of aging — the mother of all chronic conditions.
Breathing and other disciplines
Complete breathing enhances all it touches, and it is an invaluable aid to all other health and fitness practices. Rhythmic breathing improves the efficacy of all healing modalities exponentially. It increases the flow of nerve- and breath-energy to the site of healing. Likewise, yoga instructors, fitness professionals, and personal trainers can become more aware of the truths and myths surrounding the art of breathing, as well as of the related conditions affected by proper or improper breathing. This will allow them to better teach and guide their students and clients.
