Calm the mind and body with simple yoga breath practices

For twenty-five years, I have been practicing breathwork (pranayama) and I have trusted one simple truth: breath is the living bridge between the body and the mind. Emotions shape the breath, and the breath reshapes emotion. When we learn this duet, this tender, dialectic call-and-response, we learn to regulate ourselves with kindness. The following are some of the benefits of pranayama.

Vitality: Re-energise yourself

Most of us sip at life. When you breathe wide — belly, ribs, back — oxygen meets every corner, carbon dioxide is released, and your cells hum. You don't amp yourself up; you plug yourself in.

Lung capacity: Make more room for you

Practice is gentle scaffolding. Slow, steady breaths mobilise the ribcage, strengthen the diaphragm, and awaken quiet pockets of the lungs. Stairs soften. Walks lengthen. Your body remembers spaciousness.

Photo: Collected / Chelsea Gates / Unsplash

Parasympathetic ease: The vagus whisper

Long, velvety exhales stroke the vagus nerve and invite "rest and digest". Heart rate loosens its grip, shoulders unhook, and your chemistry recalibrates. From this calm, choices get wiser, kinder.

The NO effect: nasal magic

Through the nose, breath gathers nitric oxide (NO), a natural vasodilator and antimicrobial. Airways open, blood carries oxygen more gracefully, and each inhale feels like a clear path through a quiet forest.

Mental clarity: The sky after rain

When breath steadies, the mind untangles. A few rounds of box breathing (4-4-4-4) or (4-7-8) and the inner weather shifts, thoughts line up, mood brightens, focus returns. Clarity is not forced; it arrives.

Begin simply — Five minutes, nose-only, slow and low. Let breath be your mood's steward and your body's guide. If this speaks to you, come practice with me. We will map this bridge together, movement, stillness, and the sweet conversation between them. Until your breath knows exactly where to lead you.

The writer is an author, a yogini, and the founder of The Flow Fest. www.theflowfest.com