Kapalbhati means literally to “polish the skull” in its original Sanskrit, giving a pointed suggestion as to its purpose. Using this breathing technique to cleanse and detox your busy mind, you will find almost instantly that its effects are great and wondrous.

Performing kapalbhati is technically quite easy, though it is important that it is performed correctly in order to obtain the best results. Follow these basic instructions as you prepare to practice:

Take a seat in any position that keeps your spine erect and your body relaxed; I personally find the cross-legged and vajrasana positions have the most beneficial effect. Relax yourself and breathe deeply, closing your eyes and feeling the movement of the breath as you clear your mind. Once you feel fully composed, begin to exercise the diaphragm by exhaling your breath quickly through the nostrils, allowing the in and out of your breathing to remain natural and easy. A general rule of thumb for the beginner is to practice each type of breathing for about seven cycles, allowing the body to gradually warm up to the process. Be aware of the breath deep in your belly and use the upper chest as little as possible.

If you find your breath becoming ragged or broken at any time during the practice, take a break and compose yourself again; the benefits of kapalbhati will not be felt if the body is not relaxed.

What are some of the obvious benefits of kapalbhati?

The powerful breath created in this practice leads to great energy, cleaning and purifying the nasal passage, throat and lungs. The effects on the mind are immediate; relaxation replaces worry, clearness replaces clutter, calmness replaces stress.

Regular and increased practice will help you to maintain these benefits even outside of your practice, allowing you to go through your daily life with the same serenity and clearness of mind that you feel while in seated meditation.

1. Walking Meditation

One of my favorite ways to relax and reconnect with nature and spirit is through walking meditation. Keep a slow, easy pace and focus your mind inward. Continue to contemplate the things you see, being mindful of every step, every sound, every sight and every thought and use the peaceful position of your mind to look inward at the same time. A 10 minute walk performed in this manner will help you to feel more relaxed and can result in beautiful insight as well.

2. In Bed

Another great way for the busy folks among us to meditate is to do so while lying comfortably in bed. Wait for the kids to hit the sack and your partner to settle in if necessary and than stretch out on your back, close your eyes, and let your mind’s eye drift inwards. If sleep overtakes you, consider the practice a success in allowing your body to fall to rest more easily. If you are able to lie awake for 10 or 15 minutes, spend the time simply emptying your mind of concerns and worries and focus on the current moment instead, observing your mind and thoughts.

3. In a Chair

One of the main reasons that so many of us choose to practice seated meditation is the natural effect that the position itself has on the body, lengthening the spine and allow our body to settle. Many people suffer physically in this position because of the knots in their body, their body shape or constant discomfort that makes it difficult to relax and focus. Using a comfortable chair to sit upright is an easy way to mimic the benefits of seated meditation while avoiding the discomfort of a hard floor.

4. Utilize Nature

If you have an hour for lunch, spend half of it resting your bottom on a grassy knoll or beneath a tree, utilizing the many physical comforts found naturally every where we go. You can lie in the grass beneath the sun, rest your back against a strong tree or sit cross-legged on the bank of a river or on a beach; mindfulness and inward focus are the keys and these positions all make that possible.

5. Yogic Mindfulness

Practicing yoga on a regular basis is much easier than committing to a meditative practice for many people and, if you are one of those folks, you can simply combine the two! The smooth, flowing movements of yoga naturally lead to a more peaceful and relaxed mind and you can utilize that relaxation by turning your mind inward while you practice. Focus solely on your yogi breath; allow yourself to be compelled to sit and continue meditation if you feel the urge!

6. Grab a Cushion!

The most important early discovery that the Buddha made was that denying the body what it requires is tantamount to sabotaging the path to awakening. He chose instead the middle way, a path of moderation without indulgence. While some schools of thought encourage practitioners to sit on a hard floor (some monks sleep on beds of nails as well), it is absolutely alright to give your body a higher level of comfort while you meditate. If you’ve sat in meditative position on a hard floor and given up, try the same position again, this time with a pillow under your bum; the difference will amaze you and potentially rekindle your desire to increase mindfulness through seated meditation.

photo by Give a Dam

1. Be Proactive

If you have a problem, any problem at all, face it! I’ve always found that some of my worst stress comes from putting something off that I would rather not do. It is always better to spend your time doing whatever is in your control to do to repair the issue and put it behind you. Sitting and worrying or complaining never fixes anything.

2. Know Stress When You See It

If there are particular things, people or situations that stress you out, acknowledge them and either remove yourself from them or learn to deal with them more productively. Sit down with pen and paper and take the time to consider the question: what stresses me out? You’ll be surprised at how easy the answers seem when you take time to devote to each individual stressor.

3. Be Organized

One guaranteed way to stress yourself out is to be unorganized in your daily life. Without a clear idea of where your day is going, the day itself can seem to get out of hand, leaving you frazzled. Be aware of the appointments and obligations of the day and face them head on! You can acheive this by taking time out in the morning to consider and be mindful of the places you know your day will take you, making sure that very little will catch you unprepared.

4. Don’t Do Too Much

Modern society is fast paced and very demanding and too many of us commit far too much of ourselves to no better an endeavor than making money or climbing a corporate ladder. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with making money; on the contrary, one clear path to a more peaceful and happy life is having the money needed to sustain your chosen lifestyle. Money means very little to the happiness of the spirit though, and you need to remember that. Don’t take on so much that you lose track of the things that truly make you happy.

5. Go With The Flow

Like it or not, stuff happens. Things rarely go exactly as we plan them and getting worked up over a glitch in your day is simply not worth it. I find the best way to counteract this is to simply plan only the fundamentals; I’m not particular and I’m open to possibility. In addition, do the easy things like giving yourself a bit of extra time “just in case” and keeping in mind that there are worse things to be than late.

6. Be Active

Bad physical health ALWAYS leads to bad mental health. Treat your body well, take the middle road of moderation when you do indulge in a treat and exercise every single day. Yoga practice, tai chi, jogging, aerobics, walking, bicycling…the possibilities are endless. And don’t let time stop you! If you have only five minutes to spare, devote it to stretching. Your body has the terribly difficult task of bearing your consciousness with it every day, all day; reward it with preferable treatment.

photo by Velvet G.

1.       Quiet Time

We all crave it but many of us are able to get it only on rare occasions and rising early is a perfect way to be sure that you have a few quiet moments to yourself before you attack your day. Setting your alarm for an early hour guarantees that children are still sleeping, electronics are still turned off and your environment is basically distraction free, if only for a few moments.

2.       Power Breakfast

We’ve all heard it said a hundred times or more: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Studies have shown over and over how the brain simply functions much better when you give your body fuel in the morning. In today’s fast-paced society far too many people skip breakfast altogether, leaving their bodies running on empty. Getting up early ensures that you’ll have time to eat a healthy breakfast every morning, helping you to feel more balanced and productive throughout your day.

3.       Get a Head Start

Have a busy day ahead? Wake up early get a head start! You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish first thing in the morning when the mind and body are fresh and you might just get enough done that you can take an early day by completing your tasks sooner than usual.

4.       Get Pumped

Early mornings are an excellent time to exercise, practice yoga and meditate in solace, giving you a head start on your day and getting the task of working out completed. Simply waking up 30 minutes earlier than usual and committing the time to gradually stretching and training will make a huge difference to the way you feel, and the way you look!

5.       Plan & Create Your Day

If you have a busy day ahead of you, plan to rise early and put pen to paper in setting goals, planning a schedule and getting a head start where possible. Be mindful of the experiences that you would like to have as you go through the day and prepare yourself for all possibilities and situations. This type of planning will help you to tackle the day with ease, taking things in stride while being as productive as possible.

6.       The Sunrise

Watching the sun rise over the horizon and lazily make its way across the sky in the morning is as thrilling an experience as you’ll ever have. Rising early allows you to step outside and truly enjoy and appreciate the rising of the sun and gives you the opportunity to greet the day in its purest and most stunning form.

photo by neloqua

1. Breathing

One of the absolute keys to yoga is the control of the breath. The timed breathing that flows so smoothly with each pose and posture helps one to be more aware of the most fundamental action that your body undertakes each and every moment of your life. Steady, monitored breathing leads directly to increased physical stamina and intense relaxation, two of the biggest boons to yoga. As you continue to practice you will find that you become more and more mindful of your breathing every minute of the day, leading to extended stress relief and overall calmness of mind, body and spirit.

2. The Physical Benefits

Whether you choose to undertake a slow and steady practice or more physically demanding postures, yoga is directly akin to all other beneficial exercises. The stretching and straining involved in all forms of yoga will lead almost immediately to increased flexibility, more and better muscle tone and the loss of fat. See for yourself; 30 minutes of even moderately difficult poses will have you sweating like you went for a run!

3. Increased Mindfulness

As mentioned in point number one, controlled breathing helps lead directly to everyday mindfulness of your body’s most fundamental functioning. Yoga practice also gives you the opportunity to stay in touch with the rest of your body by combining physical relaxation with deep mental stimulation. The longer I practice, the more in tune with myself and the universe I feel and there is nothing better than feeling like you are genuinely in tune with yourself, inside and out.

4. Do it for the Kids!

Yoga practice is a wonderful thing to teach and perform with your children, helping them to understand the absolute importance of peak physical health. Too often in Western society we become dulled to the need for fitness and longevity, focusing instead on the instant gratification offered by fast food and laziness. My two-year-old isn’t much for 30 minutes of practice but he strikes a mean tree pose and helps to make my practice exponentially more enjoyable.

5. Mental Development

While yoga offers much in the way of physical exercise, it also creates the opportunity for clarity of mind and insight. The fluid movement and steady breath that the practice of yoga entails naturally creates a peaceful place for both body and mind, allowing you to experience the mental clarity and evolvement that comes hand in hand with not only yoga, but many mindfulness training practices.

6. Sleep Well, Every Night

I have no clear facts or evidence to demonstrate the effect that yoga has on sleep patterns but I can say with true authority that a day for me that includes 15 or 30 minutes of practice is guaranteed to end with a fit, restful sleep. A day with no yoga might see me sleep a full eight hours with only a slightly rested feeling while yoga creates in me the ability to sleep a scant six hours while waking up alert and rested, ready to attack the day. Peacefulness in the mind body and exercise in the physical body add up to allow one to reach a deep sleep more quickly, giving your body the ability to maximize the benefit of each and every moment that you slumber.

In summation: do yoga! It can be as little as five minutes each morning before work or each night before you hit the sack; unlike many forms of exercise, the benefits of yoga can be seen and felt immediately and will increase steadily in the long term. Many people that I talk to are extremely surprised that, after attempting and then quitting everything from jogging to jump rope, they feel absolutely compelled to continue their yogic practice with no prompting whatsoever – yoga simply speaks for itself!

photo by daily pleasure

My belief, and a belief that is the foundation of many spiritual movements, is that there is no true self because we are all made up of the same stuff; the way that our brain perceives the stimuli around it gives us a false sense of individualism. I believe the universe to work as a layered mechanism with space-time, mass and matter and consciousness laying one on top of the other so that the whole of each comes into contact with the whole of both others. To say this is to imply that a rock has as much consciousness as I do; it simply doesn’t have the biological makeup to know it.

I exemplify this point of view when I discuss with my wife and family by taking three separate sheets of paper and holding them flat together between my open palms, moving them slowly against one another. Each sheet of paper represents the three “dimensions” (I use the word loosely) to the universe as I believe it exists: space-time, mass and matter and consciousness. The pool of consciousness that gives us the ability to be aware of the fact that we are aware exists in all things sentient and non-sentient that we see around us.

None of this is meant to take away from the fantastical fact that single-celled organisms managed to evolve into beings with a neurological system that allows them to perceive the world around them and to know it; whether one believes that our awareness comes from a pool or a monotheistic god, there is no denying our biological greatness. It does mean, however, that in order to continue along our path towards the best enlightenment that we can achieve, we have to give up our sense of self innately and begin to realize that everything and everyone around us are as native to our awareness as we ourselves are.

More on the steps you can take as you shift your worldview to help to ease the change tomorrow.

Now I can sympathize entirely with the idea that there is simply not enough time in the day; I’m also sure that it’s wrong. Breaking any cycle can be hard to do, so I’ve listed four easy ways to expand your mind that are easier (and more fun!) than you’d think.

Read a book, any book!

Reading is not only a wonderful exercise for the brain and mind, it’s also very rewarding in its ability to take you places that you could never otherwise visit or even dream of. Read books with fantastic tales, read books of interesting science, study the words of wise philosophers – there is no limit to the benefits of reading.

Play video games

Well, not just any video games; I’d be lying if I said there were some innate benefit to playing Grand Theft Auto. There is a great misconception among non-video game players that gaming is either a) a waste of time, or b) a waste of time and detrimental to character. Modern video gaming platforms such as the Nintendo Wii are beginning to offer many different hardware and software add-ons that exercise the brain through math and reading and the body through yoga and balance. I’ve been making a point to play Brain Age II on my Nintendo DS for the past few weeks; if you have a DS, pick it up!

Listen to music

Science has shown us that listening to (and even better, performing) music of all types stimulates certain areas of our brain. Take the time to close your eyes and really listen to your favorite song the next time it comes on the radio – the depth of focus that will create will be calm and soothing while your brain comes alive and exercises.

Mediate every single day

Meditation is an excellent way to focus your mind and awaken your brain in the morning. Make the time to sit and mediate for 15 minutes each morning, focusing on only your breath and heartbeat. Your mediation session will leave you feeling calm and able to begin creating your day. Mediate again before bed in order to let your mind naturally sift through the remnants of the day and prepare yourself for a restful sleep.

There are countless ways that you can improve your mind (and therefore your life) with only a few minutes each day and these just happen to be a few of my favorites. Your mind is you and your brain is your only link to your mind – it only stands to reason that you’d do your very best to keep it sharp!