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Winter Pranayama: Yogic Breathing Practices for Energy, Immunity, and Calm

Winter Pranayama: Yogic Breathing Practices for Energy, Immunity, and Calm

Winter invites us to slow down and turn inward. Shorter days, colder weather, and dry air can affect both our body and mind. This is the perfect season to focus on yogic breathing practices, or pranayama, which support energy, immunity, and can create a sense calm. By aligning our breath with the season, we can stay warm, balanced, and resilient throughout winter.You may be familiar with the Ice Man Wim Hof, who utilises the breath for managing extremes of temperature. However, we do not have to go to extremes to benefit from deepening our breathing practices in the winter season. There are several practices from the simple to the more complex, that can suport your body and mind in the cold winter months.

Why Breathing Practices Matter More in Winter

During winter, many of us experience low energy, stiffness, and mental restlessness. From a yogic perspective, the season often increases Vata and Kapha tendencies, which manifest as dryness, heaviness, or congestion. Winter wellness yoga encourages gentle, mindful breathing practices to counteract these effects. Conscious breathing improves circulation, warms the body, and helps regulate the nervous system, keeping us grounded even on the coldest days.

How Winter Affects the Breath and Nervous System

Cold weather can lead to shallow breathing, tight muscles, and mental fatigue. Our lungs may feel constricted, and stress or anxiety can rise as daylight decreases. Seasonal yoga for cold weather practices, particularly pranayama, help release tension, increase oxygen flow, and restore a sense of calm. Regular practice supports not only physical health but also emotional balance, making the mind as resilient as the body during winter.

Winter sunset

Winter sunset

Best Yogic Breathing Practices for Winter

Here are three effective winter pranayama practices to incorporate into your daily routine:

Dirga Pranayama (Three-Part Breath)

Also called the three-part breath, Dirga Pranayama gently expands the belly, ribs, and chest with each inhale, and empties completely on the exhale. Try inhaling for four counts and then exhaling for four counts; if you find this comfortable you can extend the exhalations to calm your nervous system. Practicing this for five to ten minutes daily enhances lung capacity, promotes relaxation, and generates internal warmth. This gentle technique is perfect for beginners or anyone seeking calming breathing techniques for winter.

Ujjayi Breath for Inner Warmth

Ujjayi, or “victorious breath,” slightly constricts the back of the throat, creating a slow, audible breath, a little bit like you are about to snore, or if you were trying to mist up a bathroom mirror with your breath and then closed your lips. This practice increases circulation, raises body temperature, and strengthens focus. It’s especially useful during winter yoga practices or as a calming ritual during times of stress.

Nadi Shodhana for Balance and Calm

Alternate nostril breathing, or Nadi Shodhana, balances the left and right sides of the nervous system. It reduces anxiety, improves focus, and supports immune function. Practicing this in the evening helps transition the body into deep rest, making it an excellent pranayama for stress and anxiety in winter. Here is a popular video that shows you more about the pranayama practice.

Making Winter Pranayama Part of Your Daily Routine

The key to winter breathing practices is consistency and mindfulness. Even five to ten minutes a day can improve energy, immunity, and mental clarity. Begin your morning with warming breaths, or practice calming techniques like Nadi Shodhana in the evening to ease tension and prepare for restful sleep. By tuning in to the breath, we honour the slower pace of winter and allow the body to restore itself naturally.

 

Wishing you the best with your yoga practice!

With love,

Genny

 

 

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Unveiling Serenity: The Transformative Power of Body Scan Meditation

The Body Scan meditation is a wonderful way to relax, de-stress and unwind.

In the hustle and bustle of our fast-paced lives, finding a moment of calm can feel like an elusive dream. Enter body scan meditation – a powerful practice that holds the key to unlocking a treasure trove of physical and mental well-being. If you’ve ever found yourself yearning for a simple yet profound way to de-stress, unwind, and reconnect with your inner self, the body scan meditation might just be the answer you’ve been searching for.

What is Body Scan Meditation?

At its core, body scan meditation is a mindfulness technique that involves directing your attention to different parts of your body, systematically and progressively. This practice invites you to explore sensations, tensions, and feelings within each region, fostering a deep connection between your mind and body.

The beauty of body scan meditation lies in its simplicity. You don’t need any special equipment, a dedicated space, or a guru on a mountaintop. All that’s required is a few minutes of your time, an open mind, and the willingness to embark on a journey within yourself.

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Mindfulness

Welcome to Mindfulness

 

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that focusses on the present moment; it is not about ‘clearing your mind’, instead it is about witnessing thoughts, feelings and sensations as they arise without judgement. Much of our suffering is caused by the stories we tell ourselves about our thoughts, emotions or feelings. Through mindfulness we can become aware of these negative and repetitive habits of thought and, with practice, can learn to detach from them.

MINDFULNESS BENEFITS

Mindfulness was developed as a stress reduction technique, however, studies over recent decades have shown that it may also assist with the following:

  • clarity and focus
  • greater resilience
  • enhanced creativity
  • improved relationships
  • improved concentration
  • rapport and communication
  • improved health and wellbeing
  • greater confidence and self-esteem
  • better sleep
  • reduced anxiety and depression
  • greater work satisfaction
  • improved memory
  • pain reduction

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Winter Mountain Restorative Yoga Retreat

Start the New Year with Winter Mountain Restorative Yoga Retreat, Online, Saturday 2nd January

This restorative yoga retreat has the theme Winter Mountain, for feeling grounded and stable. Many of us a facing new lockdowns and restrictions on our lives. This retreat will focus on our inner strength, resilience and stability to see us through these winter months, – just like the snow covered mountain awaiting the spring!

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Wind Down with a Yoga Moon Salutation

This Yoga Moon Salutation can be used as a gentle warm up or wind down for an evening’s yoga practice.

 

 

How to practice a Moon Salutation:

  1. Start in Table position on the hands and knees, knees about hip width apart and hands below the shoulders.
  2. Come up onto the finger tips and step the left foot forward between the hands into a lunge (if you are newer to yoga you may have to lift your hand or assist your foot into position).
  3. Come into a ‘square lunge’ and get your balance.
  4. Inhale, raise your arms up overhead, hands in prayer position.
  5. Exhale, lean back gently (avoid this move if you have any back injuries)
  6. Inhale, release the backbend.
  7. Exhale, lower arms to shoulder level.
  8. Inhale, lengthen spine,
  9. Exhale, twist to the left.
  10. Inhale back to centre,
  11. Exhale, twist to the right.
  12. Inhale back to the centre.
  13. Exhale lower the right hand to the floor and raise the left arm.
  14. Inhale back to the centre.
  15. Exhale lower the left hand to the floor and raise the right arm.
  16. Inhale back to centre.
  17. Exhale return to Table position.
  18. Inhaling sit back to heels
  19. Exhaling reach arms forward and rest in Hare posture.
  20. Return to Table posture and practice the same, this time with the left foot forward in the lunge position.

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Need to Relax? Try this Short Relaxation for Busy People

Here is a short guided relaxation for busy people; known as ‘Yoga Nidra’, or yoga-sleep.

 

It is mental health awareness week so I decided to share this yoga nidra. I hope that you find it relaxing.

The purpose of this yoga nidra is to let your body fall into a deep state of relaxation but for your mind to remain awake. It aids a deeper state of relaxation than just sleep alone.

I have been giving guided yoga nidra relaxations and meditations for well over a decade now. This recording is from the early days, however, many people have enjoyed it, so I hope you will too! I will add different relaxations and meditations to my You Tube channel from now on, so please subscribe if you want to access more yoga tips and stress-relieving techniques.

Happy relaxing!

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Do You Rebel Against Yoga? Join the Club!

‏I have a confession: Sometimes I rebel against  yoga ….

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We have all been there: we want to practice yoga but there is something stopping us. “I’ll practice tonight” we tell ourselves, or: “Maybe not tonight, maybe I’ll get up early tomorrow morning and practice before breakfast” –  and then we lie in. Why do we rebel against yoga, time and time again? This is a question that is close to my heart as recently I had found myself rebelling against yoga.

Misunderstanding yoga

I believe one of the reasons that people rebel against practicing yoga is the desire for perfection and the fear of falling short before they even start. There is a perception (often perpetrated by yogis themselves), that yoga practitioners glide through life on a rainbow cloud of bliss: somehow immune to everyday human experiences and emotions; never to get sick or injured, sad or upset, angry, proud, jealous, lazy, or any of the other Seven Deadly Sins.

‏It is a fallacy. Yogis, like everyone else on the planet, have all of these experiences. Let’s face it, if you are in excellent health and are naturally enlightened, then you have no need for yoga. Does that apply to anyone you know? Not me, that’s for sure. Everyone finds yoga for a reason.

‏Recently, I saw a yoga meme that read:

‏“I don’t know why people think yogis are together, we are all here because we’re mad”.

‏That made me laugh.

‏Yoga is not just my passion but it is also my business, which in itself causes conflict. I have been making changes to my business to incorporate major changes in my life, (including a new found love of the ocean and the therapeutic benefits of being with the sea through surfing).

‏And then I stopped.

‏I rebelled against yoga.

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Loose Your Stress: Find The Breath

Yoga Therapy: How can the breath relieve stress?

A very dedicated student of mine contacted me recently; she said she would be unable to make yoga for a few weeks as she was sitting with a family member in hospital whom she feared would not pull through. I could sense that she needed some reassurance …

I thought about how to respond for a long while…

In the end I opted for simplicity: “Just breathe….”

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