The Respiratory System Aging and Yoga

by Baxter and Nina

Grasses in the Mist by Marie Lossky

It’s very easy to take your breath for granted—after all, it is the first action that states to the world you have arrived, with the cry you make as you take your very first breath. And once your breath gets going, you usually don’t have to give it any conscious thought for most of your life. Yet, as with all systems of the body, the respiratory system undergoes age-related changes to its various components, such as tissues, tubes, muscles and joints, affecting how efficiently they do their jobs. These changes can decrease your capacity both to take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. And a decreased capacity to breathe gradually reduces your ability to physically exert yourself—whether that is on the tennis court or climbing a long flight of stairs—causing shortness of breath and decreasing your overall endurance.

You can use both asanas and breath practices to maintain the health of your respiratory system overall. In general, asanas that move your spine in all directions of movement, and that stretch and strengthen the muscles all around your upper torso, will help support your respiratory system. And practice breath practices that lengthen your inhalation and exhalation, such as gradual lengthening of equal breath, or that include rapid inhalations and exhalations, like Skull Shining breath, can also help.

Airways. With age, the elastic quality of your airways gradually declines, reducing the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of your lungs. This will eventually lower the amounts of oxygen in your blood needed for fuel. In the larger airways, the small hairs that move mucus and small particles up towards your mouth so you can cough or spit them out start to work less effectively. Plus, the nerves in the airways that trigger the cough reflex become less sensitive to smoke, bacteria, and viruses. The combination of these two changes in your larger airways increases your risk of developing respiratory infections or damage to your lungs.

By practicing poses that move your neck and upper spine in all their directions of movement, you can use your asana practice to maintain flexibility and movement in your airways. And the breath practices that foster health of your respiratory system will all have a beneficial effect on your airways.

Lungs. After the age of 25 or so, the ability of your lungs to function gradually declines. In general, exchange of gases between the air and blood stream happens less efficiently and provides reduced immune functioning. As the elastic tissue deteriorates, this reduces the ability of your lungs to fill and empty, reducing the size of your largest breath, and moves the air in and out more slowly. To support the functioning of your lungs, focus on breath practices that lengthen your exhalations and inhalations.

Respiratory Muscles and Diaphragm. Age-related changes in the muscles that enable you to breathe, including the muscles that support your ribs (intercostal muscles) and your respiratory diaphragm, can make the muscles weaker and smaller. This reduces your capacity to take full inhalations and exhalations, as well as your ability to breathe quickly. These changes can also contribute to poor coughing, which, along with changes in your large airways, increases your risk of respiratory infections. By practicing yoga poses that address your respiratory muscles, including forward bends, backbends, sidebends, and spinal twists, you can help maintain their strength. Breath practices that lengthen your inhalations and exhalations can also help strengthen your diaphragm and intercostal muscles.

Chest Cavity. Age-related changes to bones, fascia and ligaments of your chest wall, such as arthritis in joints of chest and osteoporosis of ribs and vertebrae, and thoracic spine deformities, such as kyphosis, and scoliosis, can lead to stiffness of the chest wall, leading to increased work of breathing. Combined with age-related changes to lung tissue and the muscles of breathing, this reduces the amount of air you can inhale and exhale. You can improve mobility and strength in your chest cavity by practicing yoga poses that stretch and strengthen the muscles all around the upper torso. To keep the bones of your spine strong and prevent fractures that could limit chest movement, focus on doing static holds of poses that take your spine in all directions of movement (see Strength Building: How Long to Hold Poses). To increase the amount of air you can inhale and exhale, try practicing gradual lengthening of equal breath.

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Pranayama A Powerful Key to Your Nervous System

by Nina

Cliffs of Varengeville, Gust of Wind by Claude Monet

One of the methods we recommend that you can use to switch your nervous system from Stress mode (Fight or Flight) to Relaxation mode is by practicing breath awareness (see  The Relaxation Response and Yoga). Simple breath awareness provides a focus for your mind that allows you to trigger the Relaxation Response in the same way that meditating on a visual image, a mantra, or any other physical sensation does.

But what about pranayama, the formal practice of breath control? Although practicing pranayama takes quite a bit of focus and is a good way to take your mind off regrets about the past, worries about the future, or negative reactions to the present, it turns out that the reason pranayama works is quite different than simple breath awareness.

Understanding how pranayama works will help you appreciate why it is so powerful. And it will also help you chose the most appropriate practices for your particular condition. This is because—and many people don’t realize this—not all pranayama practices are relaxing. Some are quite stimulating in fact, and others should be considered more “balancing” than quieting. Let’s look at why that is.

Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that controls the functions of your body, such as digestion, heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing, that are “involuntary,” meaning the functions that you don’t have to think about (see Life Changer: Understanding Your Autonomic Nervous System). The autonomic nervous system is also the part of your nervous system that sends you into Stress mode (Fight or Flight) and that triggers the Relaxation Response (Rest and Digest). And while you cannot tell your nervous system directly to slow your heart beat, digest your food more quickly (that would be nice, wouldn’t it?), or to start relaxing right this minute, you can control your breath.

Think about it: even though you breathe without thinking about it, you can intentionally hold your breath, speed up your breath, slow down your breath, breathe through one nostril instead of the other, and so on. And this ability to alter your breathing is what gives you the key to your nervous system, providing you with some control over its “involuntary” functions.

This happens because of the relationship between your heart and lungs and the nerves between them. For each round of breath you take, during your inhalation, the nerves stimulate your heart to beat a little faster and then, during the exhalation that follows, your nerves stimulate your heart to slow down a bit. The overall effect is very little change in your heart rate from minute to minute. But when you make one part of your breath cycle, either the inhale or the exhale, longer than the other, and you do this for several minutes, the accumulated effect is that you will either slow your heart rate down (with a longer exhalation) or speed it up (with a longer inhalation) from where you started.

Stimulating Practices. When you make your inhalations longer than your exhalations, for example, by using a two-second inhalation and a one-second exhalation (2:1 ratio), and you maintain that for several minutes, your heart rate will speed up a bit. This increased heart rate sends a feedback message to your brain that your circumstances require activity, stimulating the Sympathetic portion of your Autonomic Nervous System to prepare you physically and mentally to take action with the Fight or Flight or Stress response.

So pranayama practices that lengthen your inhalation are practices you might want to do if you need energizing or are feeling depressed or lethargic. You would want to avoid them if you are feeling hyper, stressed out, anxious, or are suffering from insomnia. 

Calming Practices. When you make your exhalations longer than your inhalations, for example, by using a one-second inhalation and a two-second exhalation (1:2 ratio), humming on your exhalation with a Bhramari breath, or using your tongue tongue to slow your exhalation with a Sitali breath (see Managing Hot Flashes) and you maintain that for several minutes, your rate slows down a bit. This decreased heart rate sends a feedback a message to your brain that your circumstances are more peaceful and calm now, which stimulates the Parasympathetic portion of your Autonomic Nervous to allow you to rest, recover, and heal with the Rest and Digest or Relaxation Response.

So pranayama practices that lengthen your exhalation are practices you might want to do if you need hyper, stressed out, anxious or suffering from insomnia (they are excellent for doing in bed in the middle of the night). Since typically most of us aren’t really “under-stressed,” about the only time I can think you’d want to avoid these practices are if you are falling asleep and don’t want to.

Balancing Practices. When you make your inhalations and your exhalations the same length, for example, by using a two-second inhalation with a two-second exhalation or by practicing Alternate Nostril Breathing, you are only very subtly affecting your nervous system, maybe only slightly stimulating or calming it (depending on your current state). So these practices are good for times when you feel like you need “balancing” more than calming or stimulating or for when you wish to do a formal breath practice that will harness your mind in the present moment without having a strong effect on your nervous system.

Caution: For completeness, I’m listing forms of pranayama in this post that in the Iyengar tradition are not recommended for beginners. This is because they can indeed have a very powerful effect on your nervous system. Generally, 1:2, 2:1, and Brahmari breath are considered safe practices (although you should never let yourself get short of breath), but I do recommend that if you are interested in experimenting with pranayama that you study with a trained teacher.

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