Breathing on purpose
"Anybody can breathe. Therefore anybody can practice yoga." — T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga
Pranayama
Pranayama, the practice of working with the breath, is the fourth of yoga's eight limbs, and it sits right between posture and meditation. That's not an accident. It's the bridge from moving your body to steadying your mind.
Long exhale, 4 and 6
When you notice you've been holding your breath.
Why it works
Breathing is the only thing your body does on its own that you can also take over. Your heart rate, your digestion, how alert you feel. All of it runs without asking you. The breath is the one door in …
Your nervous system has two settings. One is the stress side, the sympathetic, which speeds you up and gets you ready to deal with something. The other is the rest side, the parasympathetic, which slows you down so your body can digest, repair and sleep. You need both. The problem is that modern life keeps the stress side switched on for things it was never meant for, like replying to an email or thinking about a deadline, and it stays on long after the thing is over.
your breath follows whichever side is running. When the sympathetic side is in charge your breathing gets fast and shallow and moves up into your chest, and you don't choose that, it just happens. But it works the other way round too. Your brain is always reading your breathing to work out what kind of situation you're in, and slow, low, steady breathing isn't something that happens when you're in danger. So when you breathe that way on purpose, you're telling your body it's safe. That's what switches the parasympathetic side back on.
The exhale is where most of the work happens. Your heart speeds up a little every time you breathe in and slows down again when you breathe out, so the longer you make the exhale, the more time you spend on the calming side. That's the whole trick, and it's why most of the practices below give the out-breath more room than the in.
You'll feel it within a minute or two of starting. Slow breathing brings your heart rate down and takes some of the edge off anxiety, and it gives you something to do when there's nothing you can do about the situation itself.
There's no single right way to do it. Some practices slow the breath down, some even it out, some add a pause at either end. Think of them as tools to keep on hand. You won't need all of them at once, and the one that works for you today might not be the one you reach for next time. The point is having a few you know well enough to use when you need them.
Box breathing
Before you walk into something you've been dreading.
Styles of Breathwork
There are a lot of breathing practices. What separates one from another is mostly the shape of the breath: how long it is, how even, and whether you hold at either end. None of them is the advanced version of another, and there is no order to work through. This is just so the names make sense. It’s not a list of recommendations, and it isn’t a complete list either. Kapalabhati, Bhramari, Sitali and plenty of others aren’t here.
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What it is. Breathing low, so the belly moves and the diaphragm does the work it was built for. Lie down or sit, put a hand below the navel, and let the hand rise on the way in and fall on the way out. Nothing forced. Most of us breathe high in the chest all day without noticing, so this can feel like effort at first and stops feeling that way fairly quickly.
What it's good for. Coming down from a stressed day, and for anyone who wants somewhere to start. It's also the base every other practice on this list sits on.
When to be careful. After recent abdominal surgery, wait until you're cleared. Late in pregnancy there isn't much room for the belly to move, so let the ribs take over instead. If focusing on your own breathing makes you anxious rather than calmer, that's a real reaction and not a failure, open your eyes, look at something in the room, and go back to breathing normally.
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What it is. Belly first, then ribs, then upper chest, filling in that order and emptying in reverse. It's slower than it sounds, and it's usually taught lying down with a hand moving from belly to ribs to chest so you can feel where the air is going.
What it's good for. Learning where your breath actually goes, and for using more of your lungs than the shallow top third most of us live in. It's a good one when the mind wants a job, because counting three places to move through gives it one.
When to be careful. Same as belly breath. It's also easy to overdo, filling to maximum every round for several minutes will make you lightheaded. Stay around two-thirds full.
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What it is. Breathing out for longer than you breathe in, without straining either end. In for four, out for six is a common shape, and so is simply making the exhale a little longer than whatever the inhale happened to be. No holding.
What it's good for. Settling down. The long exhale is the part of the breath that slows the heart, so this is the most direct route from this list to feeling calmer, and it's the one to reach for at bedtime or before something you're nervous about.
When to be careful. Very little to flag. Don't stretch the exhale so far that the next inhale comes in as a gasp, if you're gulping, the ratio is too aggressive, shorten it. People with COPD or asthma often already use a version of this in their care, so follow what you've been taught rather than a number off a website.
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What it is. Four counts in, four holding, four out, four holding again, and round again. The equal counts and the two pauses give the mind something rigid to hold, which is the whole point of it. It came into wide use through military and emergency-services training rather than through yoga.
What it's good for. The minutes before you walk into something you're dreading. There's no posture to get into and nothing anyone can see you doing, so it works in a waiting room or a parked car.
When to be careful. This is the only one on the list with breath holding in it, and holding is where the actual cautions live. Skip the holds if you're pregnant, if you have high blood pressure that isn't well controlled, if you have heart disease, glaucoma or raised pressure in the eyes, or if you have epilepsy, breathe four in and four out and leave the pauses out entirely, which still works. If air hunger is a trigger for panic for you, the same substitution applies. And never practise breath holds in water.
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What it is. A slight narrowing at the back of the throat that makes the breath audible, a soft sound somewhere between the sea and a sleeping person. Both the inhale and the exhale go through the nose and the sound stays quiet, if it's rasping or anyone across the room can hear it clearly, ease off.
What it's good for. Keeping the pace honest in a flow class when the body wants to rush, and for anyone whose attention holds better onto sound than onto sensation.
When to be careful. Leave it out with a sore throat, a chest infection, or after any recent surgery to the throat or neck. If you have asthma and you're anywhere near a flare, don't add resistance to breathing that's already work. Some people find the sound intrusive rather than steadying, which is fine, the practice isn't compulsory.
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What it is. Closing one nostril at a time with the fingers, breathing in one side and out the other, then switching. The classic hand shape rests the thumb on one side and the ring finger on the other, though any way you can close a nostril without pressing hard will do.
What it's good for. Settling before you sit to meditate, and for a scattered mind that needs its hands occupied. It has more research behind it than most breathing techniques, mostly small studies pointing at a lower heart rate, lower blood pressure and steadier attention. It's also slow and fiddly enough that it's very hard to rush, which may be half of what it's doing.
When to be careful. A blocked nose, a sinus infection, or a deviated septum will make this frustrating rather than calming, so skip it until you can breathe through both sides. Wait after any surgery to the nose. Many versions add a hold between sides, if any of the box breathing cautions apply to you, use the version without one.
4 - 6 - 8
Lying awake at two in the morning.