Breathe Into Your Hips

If you’ve ever heard “breathe into [body part other than the lungs], ” and been confused or written such instructions off as a meaningless hippie yoga phrase, this post is for you!

There are some things that yoga teachers say that just don’t make sense … until one day they do.

Recently after class, a student approached me and asked rather hesitantly, “How exactly do you ‘breathe into your hips,’ when it’s your lungs that breathe? ” I was immediately excited to explain in more detail what I meant by that phrase. At the same time, I wished I had provided more detailed instruction during class when it would have been the most useful.

Yes, the lungs fill with air and empty of air during breathing. But the diaphragm must first contract. The ribs and intercostal muscles expand. You actively draw air in through your nose and push it out. So breathing is a complex process that involves many body parts.

But how do you “breathe ” into the limbs or joints?

By changing your definition of what it means to breathe. Breathing can be just as much an energetic or mental activity as it is a physical action. When you inhale, you actively expand the body. When you exhale, you soften and let go.

Part visualization, part soft muscular engagement, the act of “breathing ” anywhere in the body should be experienced in sync with your actual breath. You can “breathe ” into the hips by visualizing and experiencing a muscular expansion around your hips in time with your inhale. On the exhale breath, soften the muscles surrounding the hip joint.

The more you practice linking breath and conscious, specific relaxation points in the body, the more you increase your overall body awareness. You might even become more aware of the energetic body, which contains all of your thoughts and emotions.

Using the breath to focus on a single energetic part of the body is one way to practice Dharana, the seventh limb of yoga which means one-pointed concentration. This concentration is the work that precedes meditation, which boasts so many benefits from reduced stress and anxiety to improved sleep and digestion.

Purposefully guiding the breath “into ” specific areas of the physical body to release tension is a great introductory method to self-guided meditation. Use this technique in any slow class (like restorative or yin yoga) or during savasana as you slowly breathe towards whole body relaxation.