Sun Moon Pranayama (breathing exercise)
written by megan jones
A Nurturing Paranayama for Balance
My current favourite pranayama is the Sun Moon Breath which is called Surya Chandra in Sanskrit.
We all walk a very fine line in life to remain balanced. Yoga and its pranayamas help draw our mind and body into alignment.
For me, Surya Chandra typifies in visual language what makes a pranayama. Prana is the Sanskrit word for ‘life force’ and yama means ‘conscious control and direction.’
When we breath we draw in the prana to energise our brain and central nervous system and Surya Chandra’s visualisation captures this process.
It is a visual style pranayama that creates a calm sense of balance in your own energies: your positive and negative energies. Surya Chandra is very restorative.
When we talk about positive and negative it is about the energy rather than the attitude.
Our spine is like a battery. It is the conductor of our electrical system and like any electrical system it can go haywire at times. Like a battery our spine has a positive polarity which is at the crown of our head and a negative polarity at the base of the spine. So, we are harmonising our yang and yin energies at a very deep level.
The breath is based on the polarities with the sun being positive and dominant and the moon being negative and reflective energy. The Sun Moon Breath stimulates the calming nerve centre to help our nervous system to stay in balance with the result of good health and good relationships with others. We are neither over stimulated or under stimulated; our positive and negative currents are stabilised and we feel grounded in our everyday lives
This is the way to do it:
Settle comfortably into a lying position and start doing the Full Yoga Breath in your own time and following a natural rhythm.
Imagine a huge golden sunburst at the crown of the head.
See a round, silvery moon at the soles of the feet.
As you draw in the breath drawn in the quality of the sun beaming above your head.
Draw those energies down through your body to the soles of your feet. Visualise and feel this quality in your very being.
As you release the breath allow the energies of the moon to flow up through the soles of your feet to the crown of your head and permeate every part of your body.
Continue for as many rounds as you feel like breathing.
You might see the fiery sun and the cool moon;
The vibrant sun and the meditative moon;
The courageous sun and the reflective moon;
The energising sun and the restful moon;
The healing sun and the nurturing moon.
When you are ready to let go just allow both the sun and moon energies to rest at the heart centre and allow your breath to settle into its own rhythm.
Rest for awhile to allow your body to absorb the balance you’ve restored to your central nervous system.
