Morning and evening pranayama

By Jie Zhong, 200hrs YYT, September 2017
In this blog post I would like to talk about my morning and evening breathing routines. They are very simple and can be accomplished in as little as three minutes or so.
Morning pranayama
In the morning I want energize myself and make myself ready to deal with the day’s challenges. At the same time I want it to be soothing.
I start of in cat pose. On an exhale, I slowly lower my bottom to my heels, into a little child pose. On the inhale, I returne to the cat pose. This I repeat five times.
Then I do the exercise again, but I divide in two the motion that I do in exhale. I breath out, go half way down, pause, and then exhale again and move all the way to the little child pose. I don’t pause during the inhale, only during the exhale. This is important. As before, I repeat this five times.
I find the exercise profoundly relaxing. It relieves anxiety and gets me ready for the day.
Evening pranayama
I first inhale, then exhale half, pause, exhale half again, pause, before inhaling again. This I do ten times.
This exercise is called pacifying breath and I include it into my evening pranayama practice. It is a great way to relax before bed. 
But if course it can also be useful any time that I need to de-stress, unwind and relax.