Getting familiar with breathwork

Your mind and body are very much in sync with the air, water, and land you live in. This means that your inner well-being and peace are directly proportional to the external space and elements you are accustomed to, especially if you want to achieve a healthy lifestyle and want to bring about positive changes within the community to do so.

Thus, when Shazia Omar, founder of Dhaka Flow, a wellness platform says "I need clean air to breathe, pure water to drink, to be in good spirits. Healthy people and a healthy planet go hand in hand", it resonates well with your plan to promote a sustainable lifestyle of self-growth and mindfulness. It has to be a concerted community effort.

Dhaka Flow's most recent programme is a 14-day pre-iftar "Pranayama challenge" that started on April 7 and ends on April 20. It is an online session in which every day at 5:00pm, different yoginis will teach you breathwork from the Facebook page of Dhaka Flow.

"Pranayama or breathwork has many profound benefits for our health. It helps us increase the intake of oxygen in our blood, which in turn nourishes all our cells. The breathwork will help focus and allow you to breathe deeper for the energy you are missing," explains Shazia.

Breathwork like Brahmari, Lion's breath, Chandra Bhedana, Nadi Shadhona, and Dancer's breath will be taught to help you relax. The Pranayama course features 14 different breathing mechanisms from ancient Vedic times. The sessions will be conducted by 14 teachers, who will help you bring a shift in your outlook toward healthy living and wellness.

After Covid-19, doctors have started suggesting Pranayama techniques to people to help them strengthen their respiratory systems. Athletes regularly practise breathwork, as do mental-health patients to help them achieve calmness and focus, lower heart rates, and reap other health benefits.

"Dhaka Flow: Festival of Yoga & Wellness" in December 2022 brought together over 30 vendors of wellness products, 30 fitness teachers and healers, and 1,500 participants under one platform, to build a community, celebrate health and healing, honour the environment, and elevate the spirit. It was a momentous way of creating demand for mindfulness and helping to meet the demand under one platform.

For example, Dhaka Flow also has a list of vegetarian food vendors to help you eat healthily. Mental-health therapy is a huge sector, and you can initiate your therapy sessions from the Dhaka Flow platform.

Ramadan is the time when everyone thinks about streamlining their bad habits and embracing good practices like living healthy, being energetic, and being conscious of what we eat. Wellness platforms are slowly gaining ground, and Dhaka Flow brings yoga practitioners and groups of people together to work on wellness.

"We did this to raise awareness. We have to change our unhealthy consumer product-based living and bring back healthy Ayurvedic habits that went unpopular but are coming back now," Shazia Omar explains.

Those interested can visit facebook.com/dhakaflowfestival