When You Need More Patience (and Tolerance) Even the calmest among us can feel stretched thin this time of year. Long lines, travel delays, extra family opinions- your patience can get tested fast. This is where Sitali Pranayam comes in. It’s literally the “cooling breath,” and it works wonders when you’re on the edge of snapping.

This meditation is one of a class of meditations that will become well known to the future medical society. Meditation will be used to alleviate all kinds of mental and physical afflictions. But it may be as many as 500 years, however, before the new medical science will understand the effects of this kind of meditation well enough to delineate and measure all its parameters.

The quantity, quality, and circulation of the breath creates the foundation of a vital and creative life. It is a barometer of how much energy we normally run on, and how much reserve capacity we have created for emergencies. The breath is both gross and subtle. The gross aspect is the blend of oxygen, nitrogen, and other elements that constitute air. The subtle aspect is the prana or vital force that energizes the mind, body, and consciousness. Most people do not breathe cor