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THE IMPACT OF ALTERNATE NOSTRIL BREATHING ON PATTERNS
OF PERFORMANCE
Dr. Ganesh Shankar
The facilitation of muscular performance has been of great interest to investigators concerned with the military, industry and athletics, as well as to sportsmen themselves. Present century scientists of biological rhythmometry have produced evidence to the effect that most forces in the body work in diurnal cycles, peaking and ebbing at certain hours indicating the hyper and hypo-functional periodicity of the front organs of the body. Many aspects of such long and short rhythms and their alternations have also been studied to discover their correlations with higher potential for error, injury, impairment of reflexes and co-ordination.
Ancient Indian exponents of the science of yoga seem to have put forth a similar theory of physiological rhythm related to the breathing. The text books of swara yoga mention that man does not breathe evenly through both nostrils. One nostril is active for about one and a half hours while the tissues of the other are slightly engorged. Then for one and half hours it changes and one breathes predominantly through the other nostril. During the period of crossing over, the breath flows equally through both nostrils for a few seconds. The phases of the predominance of left and right nostril breathing are called ida and pingala swaras respectively, while the phase of equal breath flow through flow through both nostrils is known as sushumna.
In the texts, definite indications are given pertaining to the performance of daily regime. Activities like taking of solid and liquid food, attending to jobs requiring mental concentration, engaging oneself in sexual activity, attending to natural calls for urination and bowel movements, undertaking vigorous activities, going to sleep, taking of bath, etc. should be
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