Hum your way to health
Discover the bee breath & unlock your inner pharmacy
As the challenges of mental health rise people are needing more tools that they can draw on to find daily balance. Yoga is a proven complimentary therapy & stand-alone solution for addressing many imbalances including those related to our mind. We hear a lot about the power of the breath to create calm, induce relaxation and initiate a raft of chemical changes that move us out of states of stress. This is good news.
It is, in fact, often the simplest of tools, literally right under our noses where the solution lies.
This is of my favourite breathing techniques to create a change in state quickly and efficiently is the humming bee breath also know as Bhramari. In Sanskrit - Bhramari is named after the sound that the Black bee makes. This humming vibration reverberates in the skull and head region affecting the cerebral nerves and currents.
It induces calm by producing relaxed brain rhythms (alpha & theta waves) which slow us down and allow time and space for more homogenous integration of stimulus. The sound produced is soothing and supports a longer exhalation. Longer exhalations work to tone down agitation and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system - our rest and digest system.
Its another little gem of a yoga practice to insert in those moments where you need to centre yourself or quieten your mind in order to connect with a grounded sense of who you are. When we are in touch with these aspects we are better able to manage the constant inputs we receive on a moment to moment basis. Those inputs accrue overtime and if we don't have a mental 'out valve' like anything thats overloaded - tensions rise!
Try it out. 3 - 5 rounds of 7 long and smooth exhaled breaths focusing on the reverberation in the head region on each exhalation. Listen in, feel and follow the sound from the head through the body & feel the accompanying vibration. Give your brain a massage just as you would your body - after all they are interconnected.
Here's a link to a free guided audio to try the practice out & use whenever you need.
Let me know how you go & breathing workshops feature regularly on our events schedule & form a core component of our holistic Hatha classes.
Aum shanti - Beee Well
Pragyadhara
