In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Svoboda discusses the best way to breathe to increase prāṇa circulation and promote good health.

Today I am with you on location in front of this beautiful kapok tree. This kapok tree has become a good friend of mine over the past few years, and it is going to assist me with the subject of today’s video: abdominal breathing.

“Wait,” you will say, “kapok trees have no abdomen!” “Yes,” I will reply, “that is true, but learning to breathe well begins with learning how to be nice and straight, just like this handsome and talented kapok tree.”

Please stand nice and straight where you are and breathe with the muscle that is your muscle of breathing: your diaphragm. Many people, when under pressure—especially when thinking too much and not exercising enough—breathe with their intercostal muscles instead of their diaphragm. The job of the intercostal muscles is to open the chest so that you can get more air into it. They are not the breathing muscles. The muscle of breathing is the diaphragm, the giant muscle down in your abdomen. This is the muscle you need to use for breathing.

Put your hands on your abdomen and inhale. When you inhale, you should feel your hands slowly moving outward as your lungs fill with air. This causes the diaphragm to move downward. As the diaphragm moves downward, it creates a partial vacuum that draws air into the lungs. You should not try to suck air into your lungs. Instead, allow the air to enter by letting the diaphragm move downward. As you inhale, this causes the abdominal muscles to move down a little farther, so you will feel them move outward as your abdomen is compressed.

It is good that your abdomen is being compressed because compression and release—compression and release—drive blood through the abdominal organs, improve circulation, help things move through your intestines, and make everything there better. Regular abdominal breathing is quite essential if you want to be healthy.

Prāṇa is what circulates in your body to give vitality and life to every cell in every tissue. Breath is the chariot of prāṇa in the body. As you breathe in, especially in a nice, healthy, prāṇa-filled environment such as this one, the energy of prāṇa will be able to circulate, provided that you have filled your lungs nicely, which you will be able to do if you are using the diaphragm.

It is also a very fine thing to use your awareness, because remember: where awareness goes, prāṇa goes, and the breath goes. These three move together: prāṇa, awareness, and breath. Try to move your awareness even farther down into your organism.

Maybe open your pelvis a little bit. Maybe bend your knees slightly. The farther down you can move awareness into your organism, the better. Down to your perineum is even better, for that will encourage prāṇa to move through your abdomen and pelvis. The better you breathe, the healthier you are going to be.