Tuning In: Naad & Breath

“Breath is the connection between mind and body.”

Prana

Breath is our body’s life force. The Sanskrit word for breath and life are one and the same - prana. When we talk about prana flow through the body, we are talking about both the flow of our life energy, and breath simultaneously. This is a very instinctive connection - as even in medicine, a doctor checks for signs of breath as the first sign of life. How often have we turned on a TV show and watched an emergency scene with the line “is ___ breathing?”

Our prana is also our connection between the body and the mind. When we want to calm our mind down, we breathe slower. When our body is active, we breathe faster. When we are stressed, we breathe shallower. Our breath is connected to all parts of the mind - conscious, subconscious and unconscious. We don’t need to think about our breath, it just happens. If we don’t actively think about it, but keep a baseline awareness of it, it’s in our subconscious awareness. If we focus on it, it’s in our conscious mind. The breath is the only thing that we have access to in this way. Even our heartbeat cannot be accessed the same way - yet through the breath, we can also access all parts of our body. We have the capability to breathe into any muscle or any cell and send life into it.

Why is Breath important to Naad?

Our breath is perhaps the most overt example of a naad current. We breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold, and repeat. It is a cycle that we repeat for the duration of our lives. The rate and quality of our breathing creates an energy current that circulates through our bodies. When our breath changes, the energy we circulate changes. This is how we can change our moods and emotions with just our breath.

How we breathe also powers our bodies. When our life force prana meets our life energy in our bodies, it creates a naad current. For instance, imagine standing tall in mountain pose. If you breathe deeply into your ribs, your body opens up and you power yourself with expanded energy. This circulates the associated emotions like groundedness, presence, and confidence. If you breathe shallow, your shoulders round up, and you end up circulating doubt, apprehension, and nervous energies. Therefore, it is important to work on our breath in order to fully access our naad currents.

Internal Vibrations

There are specific practices to help us regulate a better resting pranic flow dealing with breath. These are practices geared towards accessing our internal energies generated through our breath. Many cultures have various techniques of breathwork that are practiced and recommended.

Pranayama

This is the deep system of yogic breathing exercises with a systematic kriya technique based approach. These practices activate the body in various ways.

Breathwork

Other forms of breath techniques including Wim Hof breathing also have deep connection to the body. This technique has been well studied by Stanford University in terms of its effects on the body, to the point at which one can control one’s heart rate, and even find an increased immunity to disease.

Qigong breathing from Chinese traditions is another such breathwork tradition similar to Pranayama.

External Vibrations - Sound Based Breath Practices

We will define externalized breath practices are those that utilize external sound. Specific breath based bhramari pranayam techniques use sound on the exhale come under this category.

Breath is also deeply utilized in any Naad practice. Any time we make any external sound, it is powered by breath. We need to be conscious about how we use our breath in these practices.

Breathing and Resonance

Breathing is also deeply tied to how we create specific resonances and reverberations with a tone using our bodies. Depending on how we breathe, we affect our body’s physical shape. This changes how we can hold sound resonance. Utilizing the right breathing techniques allows us to have greater control on our tonal resonance in any Naad practice.

Anahata Naad Meditation Using Breath

This practice is deeply laid out in the Naad Bindu upanishad. This is a special technique where one uses the breath to ground oneself to listen to the internal sounds of the body. Eventually, it is said if one focuses deeply enough, one can hear the fundamental Aum frequency that resonates as Brahman.