Anulom Vilom & Kapalbhati: How to Do Them Correctly and What They Actually Do

First, how to sit

Almost every pranayama problem starts below the neck. If you are slumped, your diaphragm cannot move properly, and no amount of nostril technique fixes that.

Sit cross-legged — Sukhasana (सुखासन) is plenty — on a folded blanket or cushion high enough that your knees are lower than your hips. If your knees sit above your hip line, your lower back will round and the whole practice becomes a fight. If the floor does not work at all, sit on a chair with both feet flat, back away from the backrest. A chair is not a lesser version.

• Spine tall, shoulders soft and dropped away from the ears
• Chin very slightly down, back of the neck long
• Eyes closed, jaw and tongue relaxed — people clench both without noticing
• Empty stomach: three to four hours after a full meal
• Same time each day, ideally morning, before the house wakes up

Anulom Vilom — अनुलोम विलोम

Alternate nostril breathing. Slow, quiet, and by a distance the safest and most useful pranayama for a beginner. If you learn only one thing from this article, learn this one properly.

A note on the name, because it confuses people. In the classical texts the alternate-nostril practice taught below is Nadi Shodhana (नाड़ी शोधन), and strictly speaking anuloma viloma is a slightly different pattern. In everyday Indian usage the two names have merged, and when someone in Jaipur says “anulom vilom” they mean exactly what is described here. Learn the technique; the label matters less than the count.

The hand. Use the right hand in Vishnu mudra (विष्णु मुद्रा): fold the index and middle fingers into the palm, leaving thumb, ring finger and little finger extended. The thumb closes the right nostril; the ring finger closes the left. Rest the left hand on your knee. Keep the elbow soft — do not hold the arm up rigidly for ten minutes.

The sequence, one round:

1. Close the right nostril with the thumb. Breathe in slowly through the left, counting four.
2. Close the left nostril with the ring finger, release the thumb. Breathe out through the right, counting six to eight.
3. Breathe in through the right, counting four.
4. Close the right, release the left. Breathe out through the left, counting six to eight.

That is one round. The exhale being longer than the inhale is the part that does the work; it is what settles the nervous system. Do not add breath retention as a beginner — kumbhaka (कुंभक) is a later stage and should be learnt in person.

How long. Five minutes to begin with, roughly fifteen to twenty rounds. Build to ten or fifteen minutes over a month or two. Ten minutes every day beats thirty minutes twice a week, by a wide margin.

Anulom vilom: common mistakes

• Breathing too hard. If someone sitting beside you can hear it, it is too forceful. Anulom vilom should be almost silent.
• Pressing the nostril shut hard. Light contact closes it. A pushed-in thumb distorts the whole side of the face and tenses the jaw.
• Equal in and out. The longer exhale is the mechanism, not a stylistic detail.
• Lifting the shoulders on the inhale. The breath should move ribs and belly, not shoulders.
• Adding retention from a video. Holding the breath badly makes people dizzy and, in some cases, is not safe at all.
• Losing the pattern and carrying on anyway. If you lose count, start the round again. It matters less than it feels like it does, but the rhythm is the practice.

Kapalbhati — कपालभाति

Kapalbhati is a cleansing practice, not a breathing exercise in the ordinary sense. Everything happens on the exhale: short, sharp exhalations driven by a snap of the lower abdomen, with the inhale simply allowed to happen by itself.

The technique. Sit tall as above. Rest the hands on the knees. Take one normal breath in. Then:

1. Contract the lower abdomen sharply inwards — the air is pushed out through the nose in a short, audible puff.
2. Release the abdomen completely. The inhale happens on its own, passively. Do not pull it in.
3. Repeat at a steady rhythm, roughly one exhalation per second to begin with.

How many. Start with 20 to 30 strokes in one round, then stop and breathe normally for thirty seconds. Three rounds is a complete practice for a beginner. Over several weeks you might build to 50 or 60 strokes a round. There is no prize for 200.

How it should feel. Warm through the abdomen, alert in the head. Not dizzy, not breathless, not with a racing heart. If any of those appear, stop, sit quietly and breathe normally.

Kapalbhati: common mistakes

• Forcing the inhale. The single most common error. If you are actively breathing in, you are doing a different exercise and you will get dizzy.
• Breathing from the chest. The movement belongs to the lower abdomen. Put a hand on your navel and check that it is what moves.
• Going too fast, too soon. Speed comes last. Rhythm and a full release of the belly come first.
• Bouncing the shoulders and rocking the body. The torso should be still; only the abdomen moves.
• Tensing the face. Screwing up the eyes and clenching the jaw achieves nothing except a headache.
• Doing it on a full stomach. Genuinely unpleasant, and avoidable.
• Practising it because it is supposed to reduce belly fat. It is not a fat-loss technique. That belief is the reason most people do it too hard.

Who should avoid kapalbhati

This list matters, and it is the part usually left out of the videos. Do not practise kapalbhati if any of the following apply to you, and ask your doctor if you are unsure.

Which order, and how long

Kapalbhati first, then anulom vilom. Kapalbhati is stimulating and clears the nasal passages; anulom vilom settles everything afterwards. Ending a session on kapalbhati leaves a lot of people wired rather than calm.

If you are in one of the groups above who should not do kapalbhati, replace step 2 with three more minutes of anulom vilom. The practice is not diminished.

What they do — and what they don't

Practised regularly, these are breathing exercises that work the diaphragm and abdominal muscles and give the nervous system a reliable way to settle. Students most often report falling asleep more easily, feeling less scattered, and noticing their breath in ordinary moments — standing in a queue, sitting in traffic on Madhyam Marg — which is where the benefit actually shows up.

What they do not do: cure disease, detoxify organs, replace medication, or melt abdominal fat. Pranayama may support wellbeing and is complementary to medical care. Anyone promising more than that on the internet is not describing yoga.

One last thing, and it is the reason we teach these in a room rather than by video: you cannot see your own abdomen move, hear how loud your own breath is, or notice your own shoulders creeping up. Ten minutes with someone watching fixes habits that would otherwise take a year to notice.

अनुलोम विलोम और कपालभाति — सही तरीका

अनुलोम विलोम में साँस धीरे और बिना आवाज़ के लें। बाईं नासिका से साँस लें (4 की गिनती), दाईं से छोड़ें (6–8 की गिनती), फिर दाईं से लें और बाईं से छोड़ें। साँस रोकने का अभ्यास शुरुआत में न करें। रोज़ 5 से 10 मिनट पर्याप्त है।

कपालभाति में केवल साँस छोड़ने पर ज़ोर दें — पेट अंदर की ओर झटके से खींचें, और साँस अपने आप अंदर आने दें। शुरुआत 20–30 स्ट्रोक के तीन राउंड से करें। गर्भावस्था, मासिक धर्म, उच्च रक्तचाप, हृदय रोग, हर्निया, अल्सर, हाल की सर्जरी, मिर्गी या स्लिप डिस्क में कपालभाति न करें। कोई भी नया अभ्यास शुरू करने से पहले डॉक्टर से सलाह लें।