“Equalize the out-going and in-coming breaths moving within your nostrils.
Control your senses, mind and intellect; have liberation as your supreme goal.
Be free from lust, fear and anger.”
Bhagavad Gita, 5.27–28
How do you relieve tension when situations make you feel angry or frustrated? Do you shout, punch pillows or slam doors? Maybe you bottle up your feelings instead? All of these strategies drain you of prana, and when sustained over a period of time can contribute to chronic physical health conditions. And since they don’t help you to address the root of the problem, they leave issues unresolved.
To deal with all negative emotions – but especially anger – in a more healthy way, stop what you are doing and take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Visualize yourself drawing in as much prana as possible alongside the air you inhale. This extra energy nourishes your mind, so that you can find a healthy outlet for your negative emotions. As the positive energy of all the vitalizing prana you have inhaled percolates through to your body, riding on the wave of your breath, it helps to relieve any physical symptoms of tension, too, such as knotted muscles. In this way, rather than allowing your negative emotions to control you, you use the strength of your vitalizing breath to control them.
To better understand the relationship between your breath, mind and emotions, try to practise being a “silent witness” for a few days. Watch yourself with an objective, non-judgmental attitude – with the same detached interest that you might observe a stranger in a café. Monitor yourself engaging in various activities – speaking to someone who is rude to you, giving an impromptu talk, reacting when your boss assigns you a distasteful task, sitting on a stalled train when you are late for an important appointment. If you start to get flustered or upset, switch on your observing mind. Examine your reactions and mental behaviour, make a note of how much or how little you seem to be controlled by your emotions, and scan your body for tension. Then, examine the state of your breath. Is it fast or slow, deep or shallow, or are you so tense that you are holding your breath? Now begin to breathe consciously. Either use the Counting Backward exercise above or just try to take long, slow, deep in-breaths and then exhale fully, using every part of your lungs (to check if you are doing this correctly see pages 29–30).
Whenever you find yourself upset by the frustrations of day-to-day life, try this breath-counting exercise. Counting backward increases your concentration, which focuses your distracted mind and keeps you on a more even emotional keel. This in turn has a vitalizing effect on your body and mind. When you are full of positive prana, there is no space for anger or frustration.
1 Gently sealing your mouth and breathing through your nose, inhale for a count of 4, then exhale for a count of 4.
2 Now repeat, but counting backward – inhale, three, two, one; exhale, three, two, one. Take at least 10 deep breaths in and out, then judge whether you need to take 10 more.
3 As you regulate your breath, notice what happens to your emotions – do you feel calmer or less bothered? Watch what is happening to your body, too – are your shoulders and neck muscles relaxing or your fists uncurling?
You shouldn’t worry if you can’t see immediate results when you start using this witnessing technique or the Counting Backward breathing exercise above. Remember that your emotional wellbeing is a continual process of growth, breath by breath.