rule #2: river or stream
Rule #2 of Yoga Reset is called ‘Rivers or Streams’.
After determining whether or not your day ended on a ‘Peak’ or in a ‘Valley’ (or some weird combination of the two) your practice will naturally unfold in one of the following ways:
- If you’re on a ‘Peak’, you will follow the ‘Stream’ back to neutral.
- And if you’re in a ‘Valley’, you will follow the ‘River’.
Here’s what that means practically:
Take a deep breath in for me and hold it at the top. Fix your posture, extend your spine up long, and fit in another toke of air. Keep holding, and let your belly relax to shift the breath downwards. Keep holding here, and — last thing — spread your collarbones and shrug your shoulders up to your ears a tinnnnyyy bit to move your breath up.
Beautiful, now exhale.
Breath is, in a very literal sense, energy. You can go weeks without food, days without water, but mere minutes without air. It’s a large part of what sustains the functioning of your cells from moment to moment.
Inhales are what bring this energy into your body and prepare you for action. Consider how you take a sharp breath in and brace yourself when something hurtles towards you. Or how you take a deep breath right before doing something courageous.
Exhales, on the other hand, are intimately paired with your relaxation response. Think about what happens right after a deadline gets pushed back? “Ahhhhh.” Or right after an intense workout? “Ahhhhh.” Or right after an orgasm? “Ahhhhh.”
Total relief, right!?
So let’s say you’ve determined that you are in a ‘Valley’: you’re too low and are ready to come back up. What do you do?
Focus on your inhales — ‘Rivers’!
And what if you’re on a ‘Peak’: you’re too high and are ready to come down. What do you do?
Focus on your exhales — ‘Streams’!
You can remember the distinction by thinking about how mountain ranges actually work: higher elevations (peaks) tend to have many, small streams, all following the path of least resistance. And lower elevations (valleys) are where rivers tend to form, because all of the water has congregated at the lowest point.
I’ll admit…this rule is a bit counterintuitive, because we are used to the more mentality.
If we feel depressed, we tend to fixate on rest. Or sleep. Or alcohol. But lethargy always leads to more lethargy — a body at rest tends to stay at rest.
On the other hand, if we’re feeling anxious, we opt for the exact opposite: exercise, caffeine, action-packed movies. But stress always begets more stress — a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
If your goal is balance, neither of these solutions actually make sense. How will caffeine reduce your anxiety? How could alcohol cure your depression?
No, what all of us so desperately need is an actual recentering. For up to come down and down to come up.
Coincidentally, recentering is the perfect segue into our final rule: ‘The Eastern Star’. Go ahead and head to the next page when you’re ready.
– Ethan ॐ
P.S. It’s very important you embody these lessons, so please scroll down to the practice video on this page to get the hang of this rule.
P.P.S. You can, of course, switch your breathing practice halfway through your session if you start to feel different. Or, alternatively, you can do both ‘River’ and ‘Stream’! That is, you can manually alter both your inhale and your exhale. More on this in Tip #3: Battery Saver Mode.
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