Bhastrika Yoga Breathing Exercise to Burn Fat for Natural Weight Loss & More
Breathing Exercise #4: Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama
Background of Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
This important Yoga Breathing Exercise, Bhastrika Pranayama, is the ultimate pranayama for energy and power. It is one with a long list of benefits, which includes raising metabolic function at the cellular level to increase the burning of fat and promoting healthy, natural weight loss. Other that assisting in healthy weight loss and fat burning, there a myriad of valuable reasons to include this breathing exercise into your daily Yoga practice and a full list of these benefits is provided below.
Bhastrika Pranayama is also called Bellows Breath as it mimics the working of a bellows used to flame a fire. It pumps air and life-force (prana) vigorously and dynamically throughout the entire system. When practicing this champion of pranayamas be ready for a workout!
Benefits of Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
Primary:
- Boosts your metabolic rate so your body burns fat faster promoting natural weight loss.
- Purifies your gross and subtle body by eliminating toxins and waste.
- Generates heat in your body and opens up your energy pathways.
- Builds lung capacity and helps clear and strengthen the respiratory system.
Secondary:
- Expands and fortifies your nervous system.
- When done forcefully, the pulsating of the diaphragm massages the internal organs, thus improving your digestive system.
Cautions for Practicing Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
- If you feel dizzy or nauseous you should slow down the pace of bhastrika pranayama or stop entirely and return to normal breathing. If you suffer from vertigo, you should use caution in practicing this breathing exercise.
- If you are menstruating you should not practice this breathing exercise.
- You should be careful practicing Bhastrika Pranayama if you have high blood pressure, heart disease or suffer from stroke or epilepsy. Also, if you have acid or heat related gastric issues such as ulcers you should use caution.
Guided Beginner’s Breath of Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
- To practice this breathing exercise sit up in a comfortable position. You may also practice it lying down or standing up, but, sitting is best.
- Elongate your spine upwards, lengthen your neck and subtly bring your chin back and in like a soldier at attention. This will align the spine with the back of your head.
- Close your eyes.
- Place your hands on your knees.
- Relax your stomach muscles.
- Now begin to breathe as forcefully as comfortable through the nose with equal emphasis on the inhalation and exhalation. The diaphragm should expand and contract in conjunction with your breathing. All the breaths should be deep and powerful and you should try to establish a steady rhythm. The pace should be about 1 second for inhalation and about the same for exhalation.
- Do a round of 10 repetitions and then inhale completely, hold your breath in for 1-5 seconds and then exhale completely. This completes 1 round. Take a short break.
- Work your way up to doing 5 rounds.
Guided Intermediate Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
- Once you feel comfortable with the Beginner’s version of Bellows Breath perform the breathing exercise at a faster pace now, about 1 breath per second. Also, breathe more forcefully if possible.
- Increase the number of repetitions slowly till you reach about 50 repetitions per round.
- At the end of every round, don’t forget to inhale completely and hold your breath. Build up this period of breath retention as well to about 15 seconds.
- You should still take a short break between rounds.
Guided Advanced Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
- Build up the pace and power with which you do this breathing exercise to almost 2 breaths per second.
- Increase the period of breath retention at the end of every round to 30 seconds. Still continue to take a break between rounds though.
Secret of Bhastrika Yoga Pranayama (Bellows Breath):
The final goal of Yoga is to awaken Kundalini Shakti (latent human potential energy) and Bhastrika Pranayama is one of the most effective breathing exercises for stimulating and raising this energy in you. Think of Kundalini as smoldering embers deep within you and think of Bhastrika as waves of prana stoking and igniting these embers. Be ready to handle the inferno!
Its is first time I saw weight loss via pranayama!
Very good article.
Even I will ty it tomorrow
I am very interested in starting yoga for weight loss, Right now i am doing only “Sun Salute”. I would like to follow your yoga for weight loss, but can you post some videos instead of text ? that will be more helpful.
with regards
Rajan
I will be starting this program.
hello sir ,i m karthikeyan from india.iam a very big fan of ur you tube videos.
I’ve heard this before and wondered if weight loss occurs for people who practice better breathing because they are more relaxed and eat less or because they burn more calories. I wonder if a scientific study has been done of this.
Julie Day
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This is very interesting I have not heard of this so I am now very interested as this will help with my weight loss program. I am using advice and help from Burn fat not muscle
Yoga Pranayama is a good one! Always natural ways to reduce obesity is good to health. A proper diet with some breathing exercises to burn fat can reduce the fat content in the body easily.
Thanks
Collin paul
Buy Isagenix
hi anmol,
is this exercise similar to the breath of fire except that you inhale and exhale more deeply. i am not sure if i am doing it right. thanks, tm
Julie,
Thank you for sharing the positive results. You are right – it does work – both my mother and my aunt have greatly benefited from the same.
Love and light,
Trupti
This really works. I spoke with a lady from India who gained 50 pounds when pregnant. She lost all her weight and more in a very short time, doing this exact type of breathing. She didn’t change her eating habits or increase her activity either and she said she would even do this when she was in the car waiting at a red light. Oxygen increases metabolism and burns fat. It’s a scientific fact and this truly works.
how does one know that the kundalini has been awakened?
Sat Nam Anmol Mehta – Is Bhastrika pranayama the same as Breath Of Fire ? The only difference I saw is that BOF instructions say to sniff as fast as comfortable thru nose and Bhastrika indicates to inhale/exhale as forcefully as comfortable thru nose. I teach BOF the way you instruct Bhastrika. What do you think about this ? Peace to you and yours.
Explained each procedure quite well. But difficult to get proper linkage to eaxh item.
hi anmol
i have done some surya bedh which was really effective in warming the body, increasing energy with the ‘get up and go’ attitude. i understand bhastrika also does this so i want to give this a try, but i certainly do not want to awaken kundalini or anything like that, can u recommend a safe way of doing this to only increase ones effectiveness as much as possible in day to day worldy matters? or are there any better ways to increase that solar energy the body- i think its called pitta dosh! lol I am grateful for your site .
best wishes
I am interested to see bhastrika video, just to see if Im doing the right way. Still not done?
Hi Joy,
Great to hear you are going to start this yoga exercise. Let me know how it goes.
Best,
Anmol
I can’t wait.
I think yoga is the most effective and safest way to lose fat, though its results are slower. Thanks for the post.
-Sami