Restoring Prana A Therapeutic Guide to Pranayama and Healing Through the Breath for Yoga Therapists, Yoga Teachers, and Healthcare Practitioners

One of the most common issues clients face is lack of energy, vitality or prana and this book presents a simple yet revolutionary breathing approach to restore balance. Grounded in the yogic teachings, this text introduces the Buteyko breathing method as a more contemporary way of understanding the original intention of pranayama. Through extensive research, Robin Rothenberg establishes that as with Dr. Buteyko's breath retraining technique, the ancient yogis prescribed breathing less not more. Vedic science and physiology are broken down and explained in accessible ways. The book presents a new understanding and application of breathing to address a wide range of ailments, including COPD, asthma, hay-fever, autoimmune disorders, anxiety, sleep apnoea and neurological conditions.

“A comprehensive text on functional breathing with the goal of achieving and maintaining health, complete with exercises and explanations, as well as the science behind it all. For those in the Yoga field… a must-read! Should be required reading for all Yoga training programs. Finally, an explanation of pranayama with science and The Buteyko Breathing Method.Invaluable knowledge for healthcare practitioners treating people with respiratory illnesses. Suffering from respiratory dysfunction? Don't wait a moment longer to read this masterpiece. It holds the key to a healthier, perhaps even disease-free life inside its pages.”

Lisa Bauman, DMD, C-IAYT

“This book and the practices within are the best defense against COVID-19 - for everyone! This should be required reading and practice for all healthcare professionals, not just yoga therapists. Healthy breath is low, slow, and light - barely perceptible - not the big, noisy Ujjayi that many of us were taught in our early yoga education. Robin goes into the biochemistry and biomechanics of why this is so, and then puts it into practice, with full instruction where you can try it out for yourself and feel the effects. With the practices in this book I have learned to reduce my breathing and improve my breath-hold capacity so that I experience greater strength and fluidity in my movement, improved focus and a greater capacity for emotional stressors. Robin's gift to us comes through her open-hearted curiosity and intelligent parsing of teachings old and new. She weaves in her own story of the journey and we feel connected to her as she expresses exactly what it is to be human – sometimes locked in our patterns that no longer serve us. She gives us tools for how to transform such patterns that the ancient yogis called samskara. She is a masterful integrator and communicator, taking in ancient Sanskrit, as well as modern medical biochemical research and turning it into an effective book and set of experiences that is now available to all. This is a very important piece of work, and timely given the coronavirus pandemic. Everyone should do all they can to optimize their respiratory systems – this book tells us exactly what to do”

Janelle Aberle