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The right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase.
Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side
of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions.
Our bodies operate most efficiently in a state of balance, pivoting between action and relaxation, daydreaming and reasoned thought. This balance is influenced by the nasal cycle, and may even be controlled by it. It’s a balance that can also be gamed.
nadi shodhana—in
“orthopedic breathing.”
She would stand in front of a mirror, twist her body, and inhale into one lung while limiting air intake to the other. Then she’d hobble over to a table, sling her body on its side, and arch her chest back and forth to loosen her rib cage while breathing into the empty space. Schroth spent five years doing this. At the end, she’d effectively cured herself of “incurable” scoliosis; she’d breathed her spine straight again.
The optimum breathing rate is about 5.5 breaths per minute. That’s 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales. This is the perfect breath.
