Welcome,
My name is Celia Roberts and today we're looking at grip strength.
Grip strength is fantastic and we want it so that we have awesome,
Good health outcomes,
Longevity and it's also a predictor of how much education we have as well.
Our handshake can dictate a lot about who we are to a fellow human being and as we age we want our grip strength to remain strong.
It suggests that those of us with better grip strength tend to age more slowly and that our immune systems are essentially much stronger when our grip strength is good.
Now you can do yoga,
Asana and weights to improve your grip strength but you can also do breathing and so that's our focus for today.
Now our breathing focus based on the research can either be fast or slow.
In fact,
The difference between either fast or slow breathing for grip strength is negligible so we can look at both.
But we'll start with one that has been particularly helpful and this one that we're going to look at is Kapalabhati.
Kapalabhati means skull shining breath so it's a fast breathing technique and it is predominantly to make the skull shine.
So in Ayurveda we say that we're removing Tupaka Kapha.
Kapalabhati means the cover of the mind,
The heaviness of the mind,
The water and earth element of the mind and your scientific mind might relate that to the speed of the breath being through the nostrils.
So we're clearing the sinuses,
Clearing the mind of depression and we're raising basal metabolic rate and our heart rate with the breath.
So we're increasing the fire element and reducing the water and earth elements.
So we're removing heaviness of mind,
Heaviness in the sinuses with Kapalabhati and this has been shown in a 2018 study to improve your grip strength.
So we'll begin.
You breathe predominantly out through the nose and it's fast.
Good let's have a break.
So now just return the breath back to normal.
One good thing to notice with Pranayama techniques is that you don't in this particular instance really need to focus on the inhalation that will happen naturally.
You focus predominantly on the exhalation and everything else will follow.
Kapalabhati and Brahmari,
Which is the next one I'm going to show you,
Both improve cardiovascular autonomic control,
Thereby indirectly benefiting muscle strength and grip.
Study done in 2018 by Goyal et al.
Brahmari is hummingbird breath,
Bumblebee breath.
Now it can be a little bit complicated and you don't need to add the work with the hands,
But you place the fingers just gently over the eyes,
The index finger in middle and you partially close the eyes.
So you close the eyes,
But you partially put a gentle pressure on them.
Then you block the ears with the thumbs.
Then you place the ring fingers just at the nose and you partially block the nose and then the little fingers sit just above the lips.
Now if that seems all too complicated,
Just hum.
Now we add the hum,
Brahmari.
Keep the humming going.
Last round.
Now Brahmari releases nitric oxide in the paranasal sinuses and this is awesome because nitric oxide is a natural vasodilator and a natural anti-inflammatory.
Let's come back to Kapalabhati skull shining breath.
So that fast breathing technique through the nostrils,
Clearing the mind,
Clearing the nose.
Don't worry about the inhale.
Keep the exhale going.
Good.
Come straight into Brahmari Pranayama.
Begin the hum.
You can partially block all the orifices.
So index finger and middle finger to the eyes,
Both hands.
Ring finger to the nose,
Partially blocking the nostrils.
Thumbs partially blocking the ears and the little fingers sitting just on the top upper lip.
And then you hum.
Last round.
Good.
Now we're going to move on to Nadi Shodhana Pranayama.
A study done in 1997 found that single nostril breathing improved grip strength and each nostril improves strength in both hands simultaneously.
So what we'll do here is do a very simple Tibetan technique.
And I really like this technique because it's very gentle on the nostrils and very,
Very gentle,
Therefore,
On the corresponding nerve endings in the nose that correlate to the opposite side of the brain.
Work of research done by Philip Stevens at Monash University quite some decades ago.
So we place the thumb gently to the base of the nose and we just very partially block the nostrils.
So it's a very gentle block.
So let's block the right side.
Breathe predominantly now through the left.
Good.
Breathe out through the left.
In through the left.
Out through the left.
In through the left.
Out through the left.
Lovely.
Let's change the opposite side.
So you might block with the opposing hand.
So the thumb just gently rests underneath the left nasal passage,
Partially blocks it without disturbing the nerve endings in that side of the nose because we want the breath to move through in pranayama through the nasal passage and gently stimulate on the right side,
The nerve endings in that nostril.
So we're breathing in through the right,
Stimulating the left side of the brain.
And as you breathe in through one nostril,
You're improving strength in both hands simultaneously.
Now,
A study done in 2014 found that both fast and slow pranayama showed significant improvements in grip strength and endurance.
So we can use both.
This time we'll make a little bit of a change.
So we're going to use a breath here that stimulates digestion,
Bhastrika,
And we're going to add the tongue and the mouth.
So we breathe out like a lion with our tongue sticking out and then our belly pulls in as we exhale.
That will happen naturally.
Don't need to think about it too much.
So it's this,
You're breathing out through an open mouth and in doing that,
You're pumping the belly.
So we're using both Breath of Fire from Kundalini Yoga and Bhastrika,
Which is bellows breath.
And this pump to the belly starts to liberate immune cells in the gut as we massage gently to that region.
We're also improving basal metabolic rate and the autonomic control that we have over our nervous system and heart.
When you're ready,
Begin.
Tongue sticking out,
Belly pumping.
Good.
Back to Brahmari,
The hummingbird breath.
Don't even worry about the mudra this time,
The holding of the hands to the face,
Just humming and keep going while you listen to me.
It's really important that you understand the science behind it.
There's a part in the rear brain that as you're doing these exercises likes to listen to the science and cognize it,
Making the exercise more effective.
So yogic breathing increases autonomic balance also whilst increasing parasympathetic tone.
And that's reflected by the state of calm.
Now,
When you add sound to your breath,
As in the hum here,
What you're doing is actually extending your breath much further than if you just took an exhale on its own.
So listen.
Now if you did that just on the exhale,
There is no way your breath would be as long.
Now your heart rate reduces with this sound,
Nitric oxide increases,
And that increases in the paranasal sinuses acting as both a vasodilator and a natural anti-inflammatory.
Let's complete the practice with three of our longest hums possible.
Good.
Grip the hands as tight as you can.
One theory that grip strength actually is shown to increase when we actually feel strong in the body,
Feel strong in our breath,
Strong in our body,
As it tends to boost our confidence and grip strength then starts to increase.
And remember grip strength is not only a marker of our longevity and our health and the state of our immune system when we shake someone's hand,
But also of our education.
So the stronger we feel and the more confident we feel within ourselves,
The more we're able to impart that not only to somebody in front of us and within ourselves,
But in all factors and all mechanisms of our life.
May you be well and may you be very happy and deeply confident in your own strength.
