Breathe... Just Breathe

The thing I love most about yoga is how it's helped me mentally. The calm, clarity, and "ok"ness I feel after practicing yoga is something I had never felt before. It is amazing!

This is why I say "Breathing is the most important part of yoga". 

"Can you breathe? Then you can do yoga."

What does the breath do...?

My husband and I are professional musicians and we perform or record almost daily. We always have to be on "top of our game". Stage fright is something we frequently deal with but tools I've learned in yoga aka Breathing has helped significantly. Especially when we perform somewhere like 

Carnegie Hall. 

Sometimes it's hard to get enough air, like at Machu Picchu at 11,152 feet above sea level...

Or when feeling anxious, worried, restless.

As Americans, most of the time we walk around with our sympathetic nervous system activated. When we link movement to breathe, aka yoga, it switches our brain over to the parasympathetic nervous system. This is associated with:

• slowing the body down for repair, digestion, and rest
• turning off the stress response
• bringing heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing back to normal
• strengthen your immune system
• elevating mood
• Brings that lovely, totally relaxed, nothing is wrong feeling

Next time you are feeling totally overwhelmed, way too busy, can't sleep or sit still or relax, try yoga. As long as you breathe it's guaranteed to give amazing results!