My 7 Favorite Breathing Techniques
Breathwork is the most underrated practice I have come across in a long time. It feels a little bit like investing in Bitcoin, when it was worth 20 cents. But instead of making a lot of money with cryptocurrency, Breathwork will improve your health and performance ten-fold.
Whenever talking about health or performance, we talk about movement, nutrition, recovery, and all sorts of gadgets or habits. But that’s like building a house on dirt, instead of laying a solid foundation.
We have the most elaborate training and recovery protocols. We are working at different heart rates and intensities in training. All while we could literally do the same with our breath alone.
Breathwork can help you lower stress & anxiety, but also replace your coffee and give energy. It can boost your metabolism and digestion, as well as drastically improve your cardiovascular endurance.
I am going to show you why and how you could include Breathwork in your life.
Give it a chance…
Why You Should Practice Breathwork
Breathwork is the term for „conscious, controlled breathing done especially for relaxation, meditation, or therapeutic purposes“ according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. And that actually gives a very good picture of it.
Our respiration system is extremely unique and interesting. It is the only system in the body, which can perform both voluntarily, as well as involuntarily. This gives us the ability to perform Breathwork practices.
And this has been known for thousands of years.
Whenever we are talking about yoga, we should also have Breathwork in mind. Because yoga in essence consists of three main practices: meditation, physical practice (asana) and controlled breathing (pranayama). But over the last decades, yoga became more trendy and therefore a little watered down. We like to put a sweat on or get a good stretch, so very few yoga classes include pranayama.
That’s where us Westeners are missing out…
There are numerous benefits you will experience through Breathwork. Here is just a snippet of what you will potentially achieve:
· Lenghten your life expectancy
· Work your metabolism (working out without working out)
· Increase energy (no need for coffee)
· Change your mood & emotional state
· Manage stress & reduce anxiety
· Boost your immune system
· Fall asleep so much easier
But you don’t understand it, until you feel it!
So, check out these 7 practices that I personally enjoy the most.
My 7 Favorite Breathwork Techniques:
(1) Diaphragmatic Breathing
Diaphragmatic Breathing is the foundation of many breathing techniques. It should be the go-to breathing standard throughout your day. It is sometimes described simply as belly breathing.
Ultimately, you want to be able to breathe into your pelvis, abdominals, chest, ribs and even your back. But to reach this full capacity, one needs to start with breathing into the lower regions of the lungs. This happens when making use of the diaphragm.
The technique works quite simply by placing one hand on your chest and the other hand on your belly button. In the beginning you want to only let the belly expand and contract, while the hand on the chest does not move. Later on, you may want to exhale into belly, then chest and exhale chest first, then belly.
Until you feel confident in breathing deeply, start your breathing routines with this technique. That way, you will become familiar with diaphragmatic breathing and it will become your new operating standard. Why not practice a few minutes during meditation?
(2) 4-7-8 Breath
The 4-7-8 Breath is a highly effective method to reduce stress, anxiety or calm yourself before going to bed. I have heard it for the first time from Dr. Andrew Weil, but it is actually an old yogic pranayama technique.
It was love at first breath, ah sight…
I usually practice it a few times a week. Sometimes because I am too hyperactive before going to bed, at other times when I am feeling stressed.
The numbers describe the inhale-hold-exhale, meaning inhale for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, then exhale for 8 seconds, no pause after exhalation. Don’t overdo it, 6-8 cycles per session are fairly sufficient.
(3) Superman Breathing
While there are breathing techniques for slowing down, this one is specifically created as a pre-workout boost. I have learnt it during my breath coaching certification with XPT, and it really does give you a good kick before a workout in less than 2 minutes.
First, you want to massage and free your diaphragm. Therefore, take your fingers and press just under the ribcage giving your abdominals and fascia a good massage.
Next, you form the characteristic Super(wo-)man position. Both hands at the hips and proud standing with your chest out. Here you are going to take deep inhales and exhales for 1 second each.
8 cycles nose in – nose out
8 cycles nose in – mouth out
8 cycles mouth in – mouth out
This way you fully charge yourself up with oxygen and get ready for any workout.
(4) The Ocean Breath - Ujjaji
Ujjaji Breath is the very first controlled breathing method I have ever learnt. Without knowing much about yoga, I adopted Ujjaji in my teens when doing the first yoga classes. Back then, I did not know too much about the why and how. I simply tried to imitate the ocean with my breath.
The basic idea is that you close off part of your throat and therefore limit air circulation. Ujjayi will heat up your body and is a great practice during your physical practice. No matter if it’s yoga, free-form movement, handbalancing or other. Ujjayi is a fantastic way to get into the zone with the help of your breath.
To perform Ujjayi, imagine you are trying to fog up a mirror, but keep your mouth shut. Use slow, balanced inhales and exhales (e.g. 5 seconds inhale, 5 second exhale). And make the belly the motor, not the nose.
(5) Wim Hof Method
If Wim „The Iceman“ Hof were a fighter, he would be undisputedly the world champion. Thanks to this gentleman, Breathwork and Cold Exposure became a lifestyle trend. Also, he inspired many scientists to base their research on these topics.
And he is most commonly known for the Wim Hof Method.
Next to Cold Exposure and Meditation, the third pillar of his method is Controlled Breathing. It is very similar to the Tibetan Practice called ‚Tummo‘. Used mostly by Buddhist monks in the Himalayans, this practice has been around for thousands of years.
It basically uses controlled hyperventilation and breath holds and is very potent. It is a little too complex to describe here, but you can find a guided breathing session on YouTube (the video below) or download their app, which I personally use. It’s good stuff.
(6) Long Balanced Breath
Balanced Breathing is a fantastic way to find tranquility. Also, it is said that you can prolong your life by prolonging your breath. Meaning, the longer you can stretch out one breathing cycle, the longer you will life.
Now, if that’s not an incentive. Balanced Breathing is a simple breathing protocol, but can be very challenging if performed for a long count.
The basic structure is 1-0-1-0, meaning the same duration of inhales, as the exhales with no pause between. A classic example would be trying to find a 10 seconds inhale and a 10 seconds exhale.
And it can go on for much longer. A good goal is to reach the count of 30-30. Or later on, trying to bring it up to 60 seconds inhalations and 60 seconds exhalations.
There’s no way you don’t feel calm and peaceful after such long breaths.
(7) Mouth Taping
This list of my favorite Breathwork techniques would not be complete without Mouth Taping. Your mouth exists to eat, your nose exists to breathe. The respiratory system is fully equipped with the nose being the main source of ventilation.
Over the last decades however, a lot of our breathing patterns have changed due to the sedentary lifestyle, stress, and more. And as part of that, we now tend to overuse the mouth for breathing. It is simply not meant to be that way.
Obviously, there is a lot of research and scientific knowledge behind why mouth breathing is bad for you. But talking about overbreathing and the downsides of mouth breathing would extend this article into a book. If you are curious, I can highly recommend the easy-to-read book BREATH by James Nestor.
But the main idea is that you want to limit airflow through your mouth. You can do that by choice like Ujjayi Breathing during Yoga. Or you can tape your mouth and practice breathwork the entire night. Mouth Taping also works fantastically during a metabolic workout like Running, Walking, Shadow Boxing, Assault Bike, or Cycling.
I have tried everything from duct tape to simple adhesive strips. But I have found a specific mouth tape, which works the best.
See, I didn’t come up with this one myself.
Conclusion
In the end, there are many fantastic breathing methods. But as said, these are my personal favorites. They lay a very good foundation to get started and experiment with Breathwork.
Before doing any Breathwork, I did not understand why I would sacrifice time for it. It didn’t feel important. It wasn’t until I tried a few different techniques that I experienced incredible sensations.
Even if you just include one or two of the above into your daily life, you will feel a difference and be astonished by the effect of simple breathing.
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