Yoga Health Benefits Comes Only with ... Breathing Retraining

By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Alternative Health Educator and Author
- Medically Reviewed by Naziliya Rakhimova, MD
- Last updated on August 9, 2018

In this YouTube video below, Volker Schmitz (yoga and breathing teacher from Hamburg, Germany) and Dr. Artour Rakhimov (Toronto, Canada) discuss sources or causes of yoga benefits.

What is yoga?

Yoga is known as a physical, mental, and spiritual system that was born in ancient India. The purpose of this system is to achieve superior physical and mental health. The practice of yoga involves breathing exercises, postures (asanas), various procedures, and lifestyle changes. Mindfulness and meditation are parts of many yoga practices. As about health benefits, yoga, for centuries, had been used to fight chronic diseases and it could accomplish this goal in the past, with striking success. Modern yoga is totally different and, in many respects, is opposite to what was taught by classic yoga gurus. It especially relates to understanding how we should breathe in order to have great health (see links to ancient vs. modern yoga quotes below).

Woman: yoga breathing exercise

What is the essence of yoga?

Many modern people believe that yoga is mainly about postures, although mindfulness and meditation are becoming more and more popular. Yoga teachers spend most of their time, during yoga classes, on breathing: often over 90% of all time in total. Yoga teachers generally ignore and devalue breathing. They say that it is good to breathe more air and have deep breathing as if hyperventilation provides more oxygen to body cells. Traditional yoga views on yoga breathing are very different.

There is a page that provides quotes about breathing from classic Yoga Sanskrit manuscripts written many centuries ago, such as the Gheranda Samhita, the Shiva Samhita, and Hatha Yoga Pradipika. You can find this link as your bonus content right here below.

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One may spend years practicing asanas and thousands of hours doing breathing exercises, but if his or her body-oxygen levels remain unchanged, he or she will suffer from the same health problems. The essence of yoga is in the correct (or ideal) automatic breathing day and night for maximum oxygenation of the body cells. This breathing pattern is diaphragmatic, very slow and light. It ensures up to 2-3 minutes for the body-oxygen test and over 7-8 minutes for maximum breath holding time due to highest possible body-O2 levels. Do you know that ancient yoga texts viewed very long breath holds as crucial qualities of real yoga masters? You can find out more about this below.

Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less (Amazon Kindle Book)

Modern yoga teaching also claims that CO2 is toxic waste gas. Hence, we do not need carbon dioxide in cells and organs. However, medical research proved that we require normal CO2 levels in organs and cells, and if CO2 drops 4-5 times below the norm, we are going to die in minutes. Modern science completely supports old or traditional yoga breathing. Therefore, it is easy to show that:
1. Present-day yoga teachers perverted the classical ancient yoga wisdom.
2. They are not educated in the basics of physiology and respiration.
3. They promote those ideas that can worsen or even cause many chronic health problems.

If you have a Kindle reader or some other reading devices, you can get this book from the Amazon Kindle store. There is a paperback version of this book. Click this link "Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less" (Kindle) or "Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less" (paperback), or use the link on the right (the image of the book) to visit the webpage on Amazon.com. Success in your yoga journey!

Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less (PDF book)

Looking for the PDF version of this book? Here is the link: Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less - PDF ebook.

Related web pages
Yoga video about mistakes of modern yoga gurus and ancient wisdom of classic yoga teaching
Yoga breathing provides quotes about the essence of yoga by Dr. Kp Buteyko, a leading Soviet physiologist. This page also has a graph for the ideal breathing pattern at rest for maximum body oxygenation
Bikram or hot yoga benefits analyzes one of the most popular forms of modern yoga. This page also explains views of modern yoga Bikram teachers (you can read their exact quotes about breathing and cabin dioxide) and why it has limited health effects (mainly due to perspiration)
Pranayama focuses on benefits of Pranayama based on slower breathing, high CO2, and CP. Who and how can get the best benefits from yoga Pranayama.