The Sanskrit prānāyāma is usually taken to mean control (Yama) of the breath (prāna).Actually this is a misunderstanding. If we parse prānāyāma correctly, we get prāna and ayāma (the short last ‘a’ of prāna and the short first ‘a’ of ayāma elide by the rules of Sanskrit grammar to form one long ā.
Strictly speaking prāna-cognate with the Greek pneuma and the Chinese chi-does not just mean ‘breath’ but the cosmic life-energy that manifests on the gross level as breath in living creatures.
Ayāma means ‘expansion, increase.’
Thus prānāyāma comes to mean ‘expansion and increase of life-energy.’
In other words, it is the process whereby the ordinary and relatively weak
manifestation of prāna in the nervous system is purified and strengthened.
Breathing exercises form part of this process, allowing the refined prāna to penetrate deeper into the nerves (nādis) of both gross and subtle anatomies
and release blocks of accumulated stress, which in yogic terms is the whole contact of held and unresolved past experience – trapped memories, emotions, desires.
As the nervous system becomes pure, this vitalizing flow of energy in the gross and subtle bodies increases……
Breath and thought are two complementary expressions of prana; they go together. When the breath is calm, the mind automatically becomes more settled. One of the meanings of nirvana is ‘without breath.’
Alistair Shearer’s Introduction
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
This quote from Alistair Shearer, who has translated many Ancient Sacred Texts from India, shows that Pranayama, also called ‘breath work’-(although it does not need to be ‘work’ ) is about awareness of how we breathe.
Your breath is natural but we have come away from the naturalness of it to hold it, pull the inhalation in and push the exhalation out- we do not need to do any of that.
The breath will return to its naturalness from our giving it our full attention.
The Buddha termed this Mindfulness of breathing.
If we do this the breath will slow down, deepen to fill the whole of the lungs and become its own natural rhythm .
What is most important is posture-if the spine is collapsed down the shoulders and hips tight then we cannot possibly breath naturally.
In asana, posture we can lengthen and align the spine and head- the axial skeleton so that the diaphragm and ribs can move and spread to make space for the breath to move through the body.
See ‘The nature of Breathing “