Did you know?
- Your nostrils do not breathe in equally.
- The unequal balance of breath flow in your nostrils keeps shifting through the day and night AND depending on your health condition.
It is commonly believed that the best time to do yoga is in the morning but Swar Yoga expert – Mr. Umakant Dauneria takes a diverging stance. He explains that this is a misconception – one that is born from the fact that generally, people’s Right nostril picks up in the morning – which leads instructors to generally advise exercise in the morning so as to make it even more active and help yield maximum energy to get through the day.
He argues, however, that this is not universally true. Yoga is only beneficial when your swara’s (energy flows) are aligned with and are working in sync with nature’s defined routine, which in turn means that the ideal time to do Yoga fluctuates from person to person – depending on the unique alignment of their swara’s (energy flows).
He insists that individuals have their own strength, capacity, immunity and constraints to deal with, which is why one must learn to balance their swara before launching into a personalised yoga routine . He warns that performing yoga during unfavourable timings – that is, when one’s right nostril is not dominant might actually work against and degenerate the body cycle rather than building it.
The right yoga routine, not only considers the existing balance of swaras but it also corrects it to form the ideal working balance in both swaras. The way to extract the benefits of yoga and move towards freedom from disease is to balance your swaras in sync with nature. This can be done by many ways – by maintaining a proper routine and following a simple practice like sleeping and getting up on time.
The way to check your swaras and see which is the dominant one is outlined below.
Nostril Check:
Follow the trick below to check your nostril flow the moment you get up-
- Making a fist out of both your hands, keeping thumbs outstretched
- Keep both the thumbs right below your nostrils. Only gently touch the thumbs to the nostrils, keeping a slight gap for air to flow over the thumbs into your nostrils. (do not block the nostrils).
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- Now breathe in-out 4-5 times and observe your breathe “IN” pattern.
- You should clearly observe one of your nostrils inhaling more than the other. This will appear as a feeling of stronger air flow over one thumb OR you may feel one of your thumbs is getting pulled in a bit more than the other.
- Get back to normal