Disturbed Breathing

August 18 -- Pranayama notes for the fourth day of the 65th year of our Babylonian captivity.

The breathing was interrupted several times by coughing today, and concentration was difficult because of excessive shaking due to Parkinson's Disease. I need to see an acupuncturist.

Today I changed the counting method, and counted each individual tick of the pendulum as "one" rather than using every other tick as I had been doing before. After six warm-up breaths, the ratio was 6: 2: 12: 2 for a total duration of 22 per cycle.

After 12 monitored breaths and six cycles of decompression, 10 minutes exactly had elapsed.


August 19 -- Breathing was disturbed again today, and during asana practice I noticed the inhale coming rapidly and quite shallow.

The six warm-up breaths went by quickly. Once monitored breathing was begun, I couldn't get any suspense after exhale for about the first six of 12 monitored cycles and was counting 4: 4: 12: 0. During the second half of monitored breathing I settled into 4: 4: 12: 4, for a total duration of 24 per cycle (using the grandfather clock) and a ratio of 1: 1: 3: 1.

Six unmonitored (but deeper than the warm-up) cycles returned breath to normal. The total elapsed time today was about eight minutes.

I noticed that my breathing was better during the meditation period that followed pranayama than it was during pranayama itself. Tomorrow I'll try setting a goal and preparing mentally for pranayama and see if that makes a difference, because right now I'm not getting the results I want.

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