Nadi Shodhana

Nadi Shodhana means the cleaning, shodhana, of the nadis, the channels through which the yogic texts describe prana moving. The two the practice is named for are ida, associated with the left nostril and with cooling and quiet, and pingala, associated with the right nostril and with heat and activity. The classical claim is that the practice balances these two so that sushumna, the central channel, can open, and that meditation only really works when it has.

You do not have to accept any of that to practise it. What you are actually doing is 10 rounds, about ten minutes, on a 1:4:2 count that you will take six months to reach: inhale four, hold sixteen, exhale eight, alternating nostrils each half round. The nostrils really do alternate on their own through the day in a nasal cycle, and the two sides of the nervous system really do have different tone at different times, so the old description is at least pointing at something measurable.

Three things distinguish it from the plain alternate nostril breath. There is a defined ratio. There is a long internal retention, kumbhaka. And there is jalandhara bandha, the chin lock, holding the pressure of that retention below the neck. Take those three away and you have Anulom Vilom, which is a fine daily practice and a much safer one to learn on your own.

The classical ratio is 1:4:2. Inhale one unit, retain four, exhale two. At a four second inhale that is four in, sixteen held, eight out: twenty eight seconds per half round, about a minute per round, ten minutes for ten rounds.

Nobody should start there. This is the timetable I use, and it is deliberately unhurried.

Move to the next line only when the current one has been completely comfortable, every round, for two full weeks, and when the exhale is still smooth on the tenth round. There is no prize for arriving early. Only a minority of long term students ever work up to a full 1:4:2, and the other two thirds are doing very well at 1:2:2, which is where I would honestly put most people permanently.

Advanced texts add bahya kumbhaka, retention after the exhale, and mula bandha. Neither belongs in a page anyone can read. Those are taught face to face or not at all.

The chin lock is the safety mechanism of this practice and it is the part most often left out of instructions.

How. At the start of the retention, lengthen the back of the neck upwards first, then draw the chin back and down towards the notch at the top of the breastbone. The throat closes softly at the front. Do not simply drop the head forwards: the lift comes before the fold. Release it, chin up, before you begin the exhale, never during it.

Why. A long retention raises pressure inside the chest, and without the lock that pressure travels up into the head and the ears. Students who hold sixteen counts without the chin lock describe a pounding behind the eyes and a fullness in the ears. With it, they describe nothing at all, which is the point.

When not to. A neck that is injured, arthritic with nerve symptoms, or recently operated on should not go into deep flexion. If that is your neck, do not do long retentions. That is a straightforward exchange: no lock, no kumbhaka.

For most people reading this, the answer is Anulom Vilom, and I would rather say so plainly than sell you the more impressive sounding practice.

• Do Anulom Vilom if you are in your first year, if you have any blood pressure or cardiac question, if you are pregnant, if you have glaucoma or epilepsy, or if you are learning from a page rather than from a teacher in the room. Six minutes a day, no retention, and you have almost everything the research on alternate nostril breathing describes, because most of those trials used protocols without a long hold.
• Do Nadi Shodhana if you have practised daily for a year or more, if you are healthy, if you have somebody watching you, and if you are practising towards meditation rather than towards general wellbeing.

The Anulom Vilom page sets out the difference between the two names in more detail, including why the research literature uses them interchangeably and why you should read a study's method rather than its title.

Nadi Shodhana is a bridge. In the classical order it comes after asana, when the body has been moved and the ribs are free, and before meditation, when a settled breath is what you need. Putting it first, cold, is the single commonest reason people find the retention unbearable.

The order I teach: movement, whether that is Surya Namaskar or a full class, then two minutes lying still, then a short Kapalbhati if it is appropriate for you, then a minute of ordinary breathing, then Nadi Shodhana, then sitting. Savasana closes the whole thing.

Time of day: before sunrise if you can manage it, on an empty stomach, in the same place each morning. The consistency does more than the hour does. If your morning genuinely cannot hold ten minutes, do six minutes of Anulom Vilom and keep Nadi Shodhana for the days off. A practice you actually do beats a better practice you skip, and after forty years I have stopped pretending otherwise. The hatha page explains where pranayama sits in the tradition as a whole.

Month 1. With no retention, this is simply a long, quiet alternate nostril breath. It should feel unremarkable. If it does not, do not add a hold.

Month 3. The first real retentions. Most people feel a small urge to breathe at about the tenth second and are surprised that it passes. That passing is the thing being learned.

Month 4 to 5. The exhale becomes the difficult half. Eight counts of exhale after twelve of holding takes control, and this is where a ragged finish tells you to go back a stage. Most students spend longer here than they expect.

Month 6. If it comes, 1:4:2 arrives without ceremony. What students report is not a dramatic experience but a flatness of the breath afterwards, so even that they stop noticing it, and a marked ease in sitting still.

Stop signs at any stage. Dizziness, a headache, a pounding in the ears, tingling, or a heart that races during the hold. Any of those means the retention is too long, the chin lock is missing, or this is not the practice for you at present. None of them are things to breathe through.

The ratio is the reason this practice is not the same as plain alternate nostril breathing. Add it slowly, and only after the breathing itself is quiet.

The test of a retention is the breath after it. If that breath is normal, the ratio is right. If it is a gasp, go back a week and stay there.

Nadi shodhana is the practice I give when somebody has been doing this long enough to want a ratio, and it is on five of the nine condition pages here.

• Yoga for anxiety uses it as the step up from Bhramari, once the exhalation is already longer than the inhalation without effort.
• Yoga for high blood pressure uses it without any retention at all, which is the one modification that matters on that page.
• Yoga for back pain uses it because a back that has hurt for months is guarded by a nervous system that has learned to expect pain, and the breath is the accessible end of that.
• Yoga for PCOS and yoga for thyroid both use it as the closing practice of a session built on doing less.

Sit in Vajrasana or on a chair, finish with Savasana, and if the mudra and the counting are getting in the way of the breathing, drop both for a fortnight.