Pranayama is a process that regulates our breathing into a rhythm. This rhythmic breathing, in turn, regulates the heartbeat also to happen rhythmically.

When we hold the breath after exhaling, we have holding the breath in both stages. Inhale, hold, exhale,hold. makes it a better divided labor than having no rest to the lungs. It is only when we hold the breath, as much as we can comfortably do so, after exhaling that our lungs get to rest. Giving this short duration of rest to the lungs for the lungs in between the exercise sessions allows the lungs to perform better and better. Rest gives us recuperation. The same lungs can serve us better for the rest of our life.

When we have finished the quota of vitality given to us we die. If we hold the breath after exhaling, we are actually not breathing but living that duration. Several short intervals of not breathing can be compared to a recurring deposit scheme in a bank which gives us periodic interest and adds our investment return it to us with added amount. In case of our breath we live without breathing for all those intervals of holding the breath comfortably after exhaling and we are actually adding life time. Whether we agree to this or not we definitely can see that our lung health improves dramatically and we live a better life. Only thing is we can not be ambitious about the holding or time it..It has to be purely based on one’s own comfort.

Now let us see the more significant advantage in holding the breath after exhalation. It is the nature of air to spread itself equally in all the area of a closed compartment. When we exhale and hold the breath, air from different parts of our body rushes to fill our lungs which are holding less air compared to the rest of our body. In this process, some air that is locked up in several crevices in our body also kicks off its aboard and rushes towards the lungs.

This air as we know has a lot of carbon di oxide (CO2) in it. This CO2 in the crevices of our brain kicks off the brain cells while trying to come towards the lungs. This opens up so many information files stored in our brain cells for generations. The genes which were in our forefathers carry the memory of information stored by our father and forefathers. Just as in the mother board of a computer. all of  this information becomes available for us and we are better able to meet challenges in our life.