I swear I got smarter through regular yoga and pranayama practices. My reflexes also improved 100-fold.
There is now science to back what the yogi’s always knew. Yoga – done properly – works with your brain and your mind with huge effect.
I am not being yogist (classist) by saying yoga and breathing done properly – it is the action of bringing the mind and brain and awareness into the yoga and breathing exercises that makes all the difference. If you do yoga for the sake of movement alone, you will get the benefit of becoming strong and flexible, of increasing your fitness and agility. But that is not what yoga and pranayama is.
Yoga and pranayama are actions that we do, with the mental attention in the action which is what changes your brain. Yes, it literally changes the brain. The awareness brought into the action, the mind following the action and the breathing with awareness of the breath in the action starts to prime your brain (tested as a physiological change in the brain structure) making it easier and easier anytime you start to move with mind awareness. It becomes a brain-fitness that you develop which has these benefits:
The brain accesses quiet observation much more quickly.
The mind can then get quieter much more easily.
“A different kind of intelligence comes online when we pause and really drop in” Coaches Rising
The quiet mind makes space for learning, understanding and applying knowledge that is already in the brain whether you know it is there or not and a quieter mind allows space for new creative ideas and knowing to surface.
The creative ideas, inspiration and ‘intelligence’ is always there, I believe. The science that we only access 5% of our brains comes to mind. Perhaps through these ancient techniques we can train ourselves to access a higher percentage of our brain.
We mostly miss this intelligence because we are in so much noise, we are allowing old noise to consistently fill our minds. Our minds are an energetic sheath around the whole body and so it is also available to the rubbish around us that this sheath comes into contact with and it is available to infinite possibilities. We learn to discern what we allow in and practice accessing higher and higher mind. Discernment we learn through the body and breathing exercises – when we work with ourselves and listen to ourselves and start the process of letting go of the noise by making a conscious choice. This choice can only be made when we really see how we are generating the noise. Working in a safe space (within ourselves), we can acknowledge the landscape we have created for ourselves (some is however created for us through early childhood experiences which is a latter part of the process and a different discussion). We can then start to spring clean our inner environment. This does not speak to trauma which requires perhaps a slower, more careful approach for those who find being in the body triggering. That is not the scope of this message.
When we develop the brain-mind relationship, we develop our perception and in perceiving, I feel we can receive or reject more freely, with conscious choice because we have brought in consciousness.
Developing awareness, like anything, requires consistency and practice. Discernment and managing the internal dialogue or our subtitles to experiences rather than being in the experience, all also require practice and for me the most delightful place to practice that is by myself, in these yoga and pranayama techniques. It creates a bubble of what is me and what is not me – outside influences and I can really take accountability for myself and accountability is freedom even though it sounds like a swear word.
Yoga and pranayama with breathing awareness changes breath from keeping you alive to breath that works on your prana. Your prana is your vital life force, your energy, your mind (mental sheath). It gives you the reigns of the mental experience you are having of your life. First we learn to experience “life” in the moments in our body, and then out in the world once the former is consolidated into a strength.
I have experienced ‘smart’ moments where I have shocked myself. One example is trying to help my son with his grade 8 maths – all of which I have long since forgotten, If I even did this kind of maths. I couldn’t remember. But, I was calm. Mind quiet. And within seconds I was teacher extraordinaire explaining something I had no business knowing. Another example is facing a problem with my pool – with little education in this department – and becoming quiet and calm, I can tap into logic, or constructive thinking to solve the issue. I have also found things I have lost things which through calm, could find them again. It is a kind of intelligence that is not book smarts, but applied high thinking.
Regarding reflexes – yoga and pranayama train your perception and your body-mind relationship which helps with anything that needs the two to work together as a cohesive unit.
This gives a certain kind of freedom and self-empowerment.
It doesn’t solve all my human existence, but it certainly helps.
If you wish to find out more about my upcoming Pranayama Mandala 1 month course, please click here for the information, or here for FAQ. Of course, feel free to contact me.