Breath & Energy · “Breath Is the Bridge”
The Energization Exercises
Wake up, tense, and consciously relax each body part in turn so the body is recharged, vital, and calm enough to sit for meditation — using attention and will rather than food or rest as the source of energy.
The Energization Exercises: Stand relaxed, spine straight. Take each body part in turn — forearms, arms, chest, shoulders, neck, face, abdomen, thighs, calves, feet — and tense it gradually low-medium-high on the inhale, then relax it gradually high-medium-low on the exhale, full attention on the part. Travel through the whole body, then tense and release everything at once. End alert yet calm, and sit to meditate. “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.”
What it is
The Energization Exercises are Paramahansa Yogananda’s signature system of 38-39 tension-and-relaxation movements, devised in the early 1920s and taught through Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) and Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) as a daily preparation for meditation.
The idea is simple and physical: you direct attention and will into one body part at a time, tense it with a low, medium, then high tension, then release — travelling through the whole body. Yogananda’s premise is that the body can be recharged not only by food and sleep but by conscious life-energy drawn in through will, so that a tired person can become alert, and a restless person calm, in a few minutes.
Stripped of the metaphysics, it is a brisk, attention-driven sequence of isometric activation and deliberate release that wakes the body up and settles the nervous system before sitting still. The doable, supported core is exactly that: tense with awareness, relax with awareness, part by part.
The Method
Faithfully described from the publicly-taught form (the full 39-exercise sequence with its precise counts is detailed in the SRF Lessons; here is the principle and an accessible version):
- Stand relaxed. Feet a little apart, spine straight, body loose, attention turned inward. Yogananda has you begin by becoming aware that you are about to consciously energise the body.
- The core move — “tense with will, relax with feeling.” Choose a body part. Tense it gradually: low tension, then medium, then high, vibrating with effort; then relax it gradually: high, medium, low, until it is completely loose. The graded tensing and the graded letting-go are the heart of the method.
- Travel through the whole body, part by part. Move systematically — typically through about 20 body parts and then combinations — e.g. forearms, upper arms, chest, shoulders, neck, the muscles of the face, abdomen, thighs, calves, feet — tensing and releasing each in turn, then tensing groups together, then the whole body at once and letting it all go.
- Coordinate with the breath. Inhale as you tense, hold briefly at full tension, exhale as you relax. The breath rides the wave of effort and release.
- Direct attention to the point being worked. Yogananda insists the energising is done with the mind: “the greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” Whether or not one accepts the life-force claim, the practical instruction is to put full, undivided attention into each part.
- Finish calm and recharged. End standing relaxed and still, feeling the body alert yet at ease — then sit for meditation. The exercises are explicitly a prelude to stillness, not an end in themselves. (Sourcing note: short attributed phrases — e.g. “the greater the will, the greater the flow of energy” — are Yogananda’s. The precise 39-exercise count, repetitions, and the medulla-focus instruction are in the SRF/YSS Lessons and are summarised, not reproduced, here.)
Source & Lineage
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) created the Energization Exercises early in his teaching career and made them a public, foundational practice of SRF/YSS — unlike Kriya proper, they are taught openly.
They sit before the concentration and meditation techniques in his graded path: energise the body, then concentrate (Hong-Sau), then meditate. They reflect his lifelong theme that the human being is a channel for an inflow of energy that can be increased by attention and will.
Distinct from his initiation-only: the Energization Exercises are the openly-taught, doable preparatory layer.
The Traditions' versions
The pattern — deliberately tense, then deliberately release, with focused attention — recurs across very different lineages: - Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Edmund Jacobson) — the clinically-validated near-twin: systematically tense and release muscle groups to lower anxiety and tension.
- Tibetan tsa lung / trul khor — coordinating breath, gentle tension and movement to work with subtle energy.
- Qigong energy cultivation — moving and “gathering” energy with breath and intention.
- Eden / Feinstein daily energy routine — a modern Western “recharge the body’s energy” sequence.
- Ramacharaka’s prana distribution — directing breath-borne vitality to body parts by attention.
Common refinements
Tensing to strain. Low-medium-high is graded and brief; “high” still means firm, not maximal or painful. Forcing risks injury and defeats the calming aim.
- Skipping the relaxation half. The release is where the benefit lands — let each part go completely before moving on.
- Going on autopilot. The whole point is attention into each part. Rushing through bodily, with the mind elsewhere, loses most of the effect.
- Holding the breath under load. Breathe with the movement — tense on the inhale, release on the exhale; never strain against a held breath.
- Treating it as the practice. It is preparation. Use it to get the body ready, then sit and meditate.