Body and Breath - Yoga Shop Talk

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Why is there so much emphasis on breathing in yoga?

After a little training in yoga postures and breathing exercises it becomes
plain to any observant student that posture affects breathing and that
breathing affects posture, almost as in two sides of the same coin. How this
can typically happen can perhaps best be summarized by quoting from the
introductory Basic Premises of Anatomy of Hatha Yoga,

"We’ll see in chapters 2 through 7 that inhalations lift you more fully
into many postures and create a healthy internal tension and stability in
the torso. You can test this by lying prone on the floor and noticing that
lifting up higher in the cobra posture (fig. 2.10) is aided by inhalation.
Paradoxically, however, exhalations rather than inhalations carry you
further into many other postures. You can test this by settling into a
sitting forward bend and noticing that exhalation allows you to draw your
chest down closer to your thighs (fig. 6.13). But in either case you get two
benefits: diaphragmatic breathing assists the work of stretching the
tissues, and your awareness of those effects directs you to make subtle
adjustments in the posture."

Second, breathing in certain ways creates different feelings and moods in
our minds, and since yoga is a science of mind as well as a science of
movement and posture, we can access the mind through yoga postures. Many
yoga teachers would be even more emphatic, and would say that paying
attention to our breathing, as well as experimenting with different modes of
breathing that are mandated by different postures, brings us in touch with
deeper levels of our being than almost any other form of inquiry, including
modern psychotherapies. Meditation is perhaps even more powerful, but if
your mind is scattered and you find the practice of meditation frustrating,
this may not work for you. In that case just sit quietly and observe how you
breathe. Watch your breath and feel it in silence and without lapse, as much
as possible, for a couple of days. This is a complete practice all by
itself. Methods of breathing are so important that they are treated
throughout Anatomy of Hatha Yoga, but they are given special attention in
chapters 2 and 3. (bodyandbreath.com).