Ujjayi breathing - OG ASMR for yogis

The beginning of most vinyasa classes start off with pranayama breathing exercises, and is usually ujjayi breathing. The room fills up with a deep, hollow oceanic sound as students prepare for their class. What is ujjayi breathing & why is it so important for yoga?

Ujjayi (pronounced oo-jai) is also commonly known as “victorious breath" or "oceanic breath". Ujjayi breathing helps us flow with our breath, making the yoga practice rhythmic and more effective as opposed to practicing without ujjayi breathing.

Technique

• Seal your lips so you can only breath via your nose

• Originating from the base of your throat - take deep inhales and exhales through your nose

• Place your tongue on the top of your mouth and constrict the back of your throat as breathe

• For every inhale - expand your ribcage. For every exhale - compress your belly by bringing your navel to your spine. Although the air goes through the nose - the energy comes from your abdominal muscles

• Image that you're sighing with just your nose or snoring with just your nose

Benefits

• Linking breath to movement prepares the body to transition between various poses.

Transitioning into backbends is a perfect example of how ujjayi breathing can optimize how we prepare our body

For example, when you inhale to prepare - you're engaging your back muscles and softening your belly. This allows you to get into a larger backbend since you're able to stretch the front side of your body when it softens on the inhale.

When you get into the backbend - you exhale. This engages the back muscles which provides stability to the post and prevent you from dumping into your low back assuming that other body parts have proper alignment.

• Relaxes the body which results in greater flexibility and mobility

The body doesn't like to struggle. Even if mentally - you know you're not dying while holding a pose - if you forget to breath, take shallow breaths, and/or do not take ujjayi breaths the body thinks it's in a crisis. Thus - your body cannot relax into the pose.

However - if you remember to take ujjayi breaths - the body believes that it is safe. So - even if you are struggling a bit - you can trick your brain into relaxing just enough to get deeper in to the pose resulting ins flexibility and mobility gains

• Helps you mentally stay present and centered

As an ADHDer - I never thought I would get off the struggle bus while doing yoga, until I connected the dots and incorporated ujjayi breathing.

By focusing on the breath - you have an action to focus on for the entirety of class making your practice a moving meditation rather than just sequences of poses. It helps you reduce distractions so you can stay grounded and increase your proprioception (bodily awareness)

There's also other benefits of ujjayi breathing as well such as increase oxygenation. If I could give myself advice when I first started yoga - prioritizing the ujjayi breath and maintaining it throughout class would be one of them

Check out my youtube on how to take ujjayi breaths and my online classes for more details