WELLVENTURA

Breathwork 1

Breathe slow. Live long.

Breath awareness, belly breathing, managing your breath and making it count.

Breathing is as easy as 1-2-3. The good news is you already know how to do it!

Part 1 of this guide introduces breathwork and gives you simple breathwork exercises you can use in everyday situations or for those moments when you need to take time out and recenter. If you are new to breathwork or have any medical concerns, please check with your primary care provider.

Breathing is an automatic bodily response that you don’t have to think about, allowing you to maintain bodily functions and homeostasis. We also have the ability to consciously control how we breathe and override our natural breathing rhythm if we choose to. For example, you can hold your breath intentionally, breathe fast or slow, deep or shallow, etc.

Let’s start with the basics of learning how to breathe more efficiently so your body and general wellbeing can benefit.

First Get Comfortable

Take a seated, neutral position. If you are on a chair, rest your hands on your lap and make sure your legs are not crossed. If you are sitting on the floor, assume an upright position, either cross-legged or in the lotus position. To help elongate your spine, you can dip your chin down slightly, and sit on a pillow if you feel you need to. Or if you prefer to, you can also lie down on your back. Take a moment to relax your arms and legs, and release any tension you may be holding in your body, shoulders, neck, and jaw.

Breath Awareness Practice (1-2 minutes)

Take a moment to listen to the sounds close by and in the distance. Bring your attention to your body and the immediate space around you, and allow your breath to be easy and natural.

  • Notice your breath; how does it feel? Breathe as you normally do. There is no right or wrong. Is your breathing smooth and even, or does it feel heavy and restricted? Is your breathing fast or slow? Is your inhale or the exhale longer, or are they the same? Visualize your breath being drawn into your body. Where does the air go? Does your breath feel warm or cool?

Simply observe your breath for at least 10–15 cycles. Close your eyes if you wish, and explore internally how you feel in this present moment. You can choose to stop any time you want by bringing your attention back to your body, the surrounding sounds, and the space all around you. Giving yourself this time to simply focus on your breath is a wonderful way to calm, reset, and clear your mind. Now you are ready to continue on with your day.

Belly Breathing (5 minutes)

Belly breathing is a simple exercise that can help develop your breath awareness and encourages you to use a more natural breathing pattern.

  • To practice belly breathing, take a comfortable, neutral position. Breathing only through your nose, simply observe and connect with your breath. Breathe smoothly and evenly; try to keep the length of your inhale the same as the exhale. Try counting your breath if you find that helps, e.g., breathing in for one and out for one. As you draw your breath in, visualize where the air goes as it flows into your chest area and then down lower as it sinks into your abdomen. Your breathing should feel natural, not forced. Think of a baby sleeping peacefully. 

To test this, place a hand on your belly and notice how your belly rises and expands with every inhale—and then returns to its original position with every exhale. Sometimes it is easier to ‘feel’ this breathing motion when you are lying down. Imagine a balloon inflating and deflating with each breath. As you breathe in, your diaphragm, which is a large muscle, contracts and pulls down, pushing your belly to push out. As you breathe out, your diaphragm relaxes and rises back up, and the belly goes in.

It is easy to overthink it. Belly breathing is a gentle movement. If you feel you’ve ‘lost’ your place, just start over and find your own natural breathing rhythm again.

Keep breathing and connecting with each cycle, building up your practice to five minutes. You can try to slow down your breath cycle by increasing the length of your inhales and exhales, or maybe you’ll find this happens automatically. Just remember to keep it equal. Breathe in for a count of two and out for two, or count for longer if it’s comfortable for you. 

In addition to the balancing and relaxing effects, belly breathing also forms the starting point before progressing to other breathwork techniques detailed in this guide.

Managing Your Breath

Your consciousness gives you the ability to control how you breathe, engage your body, direct the flow of air, and either slow down or speed up your breathing rate. This can affect your body in different ways. It helps to have an understanding of basic breathing techniques such as belly breathing and yogic breath before progressing to more advanced breathwork techniques.

  • We can breathe without thinking. We can also choose to connect our mind with our breath and our body. We can visualize our breath as it moves within us, carrying oxygen to internal organs and reaching the different parts of our body, such as our brain, lungs, and digestive system; and traveling our blood flow down to our fingers and toes, and circulating through our heart space. Millions of complex chemical reactions take place, and electro-magnetic messages are transferred through the body’s nervous system, and all through the body.

Some people only breathe into their chest area without engaging their abdomen. And a third of people find their breathing pattern is reserved, where on inhalation the chest expands and the abdomen draws inwards, and on exhalation the chest contracts and the abdomen extends outwards (paradoxical breathing). Although there is nothing wrong with either of these ways of breathing, they can become habit forming.

We can also feel self-conscious about our stomach and can cause muscle tension and uneven breathing by actively holding in our abdomen. Belly breathing encourages a more natural and efficient way to breathe and can rectify some irregular breathing patterns.

  • Breathing through our nose is the more natural way for the body to breathe. It is healthier and used in most practices. There are some breathwork techniques that will call for mouth breathing. Breathing through our mouth can disrupt airflow and the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, which can affect how our body functions. Sometimes we can’t help breathing through our mouth; e.g., if nasal passages are blocked and we snore through the night, we can wake up still feeling tired. When you talk, you will breathe through your mouth. If you talk a lot in your job, you can feel exhausted by the end of the day. 

In stressful situations, we tend to breathe faster, activating our sympathetic nervous system, our fight-or-flight response. Sometimes we need this; it’s our body’s defense mechanism. To feel less stressed, our goal is to slow our breathing down, calm our body, and activate our parasympathetic nervous system—our rest and digest response. By helping the body relax, we can regain focus and have better control over our actions.

Calculating Your Respiratory Rate

Your respiratory rate is the count of how many breaths you take in one minute. One breath is one full breath cycle through the nose: one inhale and one exhale. 

  • Calculate your resting breath rate when you are relaxed and not after strenuous exercise or when you are feeling stressed. Set a one-minute timer and count the number of breaths you take. Repeat the same exercise two more times, and then take the average number, rounding up if you need to. This is your resting respiratory rate, also called breathing rate (BR).

The average resting breathing rate for most people is 12–14 breaths per minute. This is perfectly normal and healthy. Yoga creates an awareness of breath and applies techniques for slow-paced breathing. Many yogis have naturally low resting breathing rates, with six breaths per minute thought to be optimal for practice and meditation.

Make Every Breath Count

Your breathing rate (BR) in conjunction with other health metrics such as heart rate and HRV (heart rate variability), tidal air, lung volume, gaseous exchange, and blood gas composition are measures often used by medical and sports professionals. It can become a very complex subject area with scientific studies into the interrelationships of bodily functions and physical performance, heart-breath resonance, and their effects on the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Keeping things simple, our only goal in this guide is to achieve better breath awareness, manage our breath to enhance our general health and wellbeing, and restore balance to our wellbeing by using natural breathing patterns.

  • There is an ancient yogic belief that says, ‘We are born with a fixed number of breaths in our lifetime. The slower we breathe, the longer we live.’ 

Whatever truth this may hold, we can all agree that the secret to living a fulfilling life is to make every breath count!

Breathwork Rescources

There has been a lot of interest in breathwork in recent years, as reported in scientific research papers, healthy lifestyle practices, popular media channels, and celebrity followers. If you would like to delve deeper into breathwork, you can find many published works, in-person workshops and yoga classes, and many online learning resources covering a wide range of both traditional practice and modern breathwork techniques. In addition to reading this guide, you may find the following interesting as you go on your breathwork journey:

About Breathwork 1-2-3

This breathwork guide introduces different breathwork techniques that you can use to restore balance, activate, and relax the body when needed. 

» Breathwork Part 1: breathwork introduction
» Breathwork Part 2: yogic breathing techniques, ratio breathing, response mechanisms
» Breathwork Part 3: developing your breathwork practice, energy work, advance techniques

Balancing Breathwork Techniques

  • Yogic Breathing: full diaphragmatic chest to abdomen breath
  • Sama Vritti: equal ratio breathing
  • Ujjayi Breath: victorious or ocean breath
  • Krama Breathing: equal steps on the inhale and exhale 
  • Nadi Shodhana: alternate nostril breathing
  • Bandha Pranayama: using energy locks 

Activating Breathwork Techniques

  • Vishama Vritti: unequal ratio breath with elongated inhales
  • Krama Breathing: applying steps to the inhale
  • Surya Bhedana: right-side nostril breathing
  • Bhastrika Pranayama: bellows breath forced inhale and exhale
  • Kapalbhati Pranayama: skull shining breath forces exhale, passive inhale

Relaxing Breathwork Techniques

  • Belly Breathing: breath naturally like a baby
  • Vishama Vritti: unequal ratio breath with elongated exhales
  • Sleep Ratio Breathing
  • Sheetali and Sitkari Breath: the cooling and hissing breaths
  • Krama Breathing: applying steps to the exhale
  • Brahmari Pranayama: humming bee breath
  • Chandra Bhedana: left-side nostril breathing