20/11/2025
🌙 Left-Nostril Breathing (Chandra Bhedana)
Breathing only through the left nostril activates the Ida Nadi — the lunar, feminine, cooling, introspective energy channel in yoga. It’s the opposite of right-nostril breathing and is ideal when you need softness, grounding, emotional balance or deep relaxation.
There’s also strong scientific evidence explaining why it works so well.
🌙 Benefits of Left-Nostril Breathing
1. Deeply Calms the Nervous System
Left-nostril breathing boosts parasympathetic activity — the rest-and-digest state.
This slows your heart rate, reduces cortisol, and helps your whole body soften.
2. Reduces Anxiety + Overthinking
Ida Nadi is linked to the inner moon — cool, intuitive, reflective energy.
Scientifically, left-nostril breathing activates the right hemisphere, which is associated with emotional regulation, creativity, and slowing down excessive mental activity.
Perfect when your mind is spinning.
3. Helps You Sleep Better
Because of its calming effects on the vagus nerve and parasympathetic system, left-nostril breathing is a beautiful pre-bedtime practice.
It can gently lower body temperature and calm the cardiovascular system — everything you want before sleep.
4. Lowers Internal Heat + Reduces Tension
Energetically, the left nostril is cooling.
This makes it helpful for:
• migraines
• irritability
• hot flushes
• stress-induced tension
• emotional overwhelm
It brings the body back into balance when you’re “too hot” physically or emotionally.
5. Supports Hormonal Balance
By reducing stress hormones and activating the parasympathetic branch, it supports:
• menstrual cycle regularity
• adrenal balance
• mood stability
• digestion
• nervous-system regulation
This is why so many women feel instantly soothed by left-nostril breathing.
