The sun has begun to warm the insides of the earth, releasing fruits from within its depths. That fruit will nourish our bodies, and with some cooling breath work we will nourish our mind and spirit. Pranayama is the one thing that makes yoga different from ‘exercise.’ It is the one thing that enables us to regulate our systems and bring our bodies into balance. Our lungs learn to breath with a full breath, expanding with every inhale, our heart learns to pump stronger with breath of fire, even our endocrine system is balanced if we take care, and finally our brain is nourished with more oxygen while the pineal gland becomes more efficient.
The most important breathing technique to learn, or actually, re-learn, is deep breathing. The kind of breathing that babies do…that is what we always want to do. Expand fully and wholly with the inhale, puff up the belly, open up the rib cage, let that breath flow right into your insides and be one with Santa. Slowly exhale that breath, letting it exit your belly, your lungs, your upper lungs, and be one with Barbie. Soften yourself. Continue that breath, the most important one you will ever learn.
Now with this warm weather, if you find yourself a little sweaty, or a lot sweaty, you can use the breath to cool yourself off, YES! you can. If you are one of the genetically gifted, roll your tongue into a sausage, and inhale through your tongue, exhale through your nose, continue and slowly find your inner AC working.
If you find that you are not genetically gifted, you still have hope. Simply bring your teeth together, and ‘sip’ the air through your clenched teeth. Exhale through the nose. Its that simple, and it does work. Try it out…we’ll work on the endocrine system and the heart in other blogs 
