This is the second article in my pranayama series called The Breath of Life. I am offering these articles to present what pranayama is and how you can start with simple breathing practices to receive profound benefits.

Science-Based Practices Used For 1000+ Years

Breathing exercises have been practiced for thousands of years, predating modern science. Today, we are fortunate to have hundreds of published papers which verify and confirm what ancient pranayama (breathing) practitioners learned and refined through experience. From ancient and current findings, we can agree that our breathing patterns reflect our current nervous system state. Also, we can agree that harmful breathing habits can be reversed and we can breathe in a way that will have an immediate impact on our autonomic nervous system. When we affect our nervous system, we affect how we feel.

It has been discovered repeated and consistently that no other mind-body practice can reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure, and even alter the pH of the blood in minutes like breathing can. Once you learn how it works, you will possess a powerful tool that you can use as part of your self-care and self-soothing toolkit available to you whenever you need it.

Amazing Facts About Breathing

Breathing has an immediate impact on your mind and body. Studies have shown that just how we inhale and exhale affects our nervous system differently. It is common to train in diet, exercise, and even hydration, but almost no one trains their breath. Yet, Yogis and Yoginis have known this powerful practice for thousands of years. For current health seekers, this is a huge missed opportunity.

Did you know…

  • Breathing can change your blood PH (acid/alkaline) in minutes. No food, exercise, or medication acts as quickly.
  • Reduced rate breathing can stimulate a rest and digest, parasympathetic nervous system state to help with sleep, stress, and anxiety.
  • Rapid, pulsed breathing stimulates a sympathetic nervous system response to increase energy and prepare for exercise.
  • Diaphragmatic breathing massages the vagus nerve and reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress.
  • Symptoms of respiratory conditions like asthma, COPD, and long COVID can be successfully managed through specific breathing patterns.
  • Breathing can help reduce the fear of public speaking, improve digestion, reduce insomnia, lower stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.

I have studied Yoga and meditation since 1995.  Through the Ashtanga tradition, I learned and practiced pranayama with Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois and Richard Freeman. I continued my studies through Patricia Gerbarg’s books and programs on breathing.  She has dedicated her 40 year career as a M.D. to how breathing can help people recover from trauma and how to integrate these mind-body practices in psychotherapy sessions. Plus, I trained with Iyengar teacher, Richard Rosen (author of the Yoga of Breath and Pranayama Beyond the Fundamentals). His approach and trainings have been a strong influence on my approach to pranayama.

From my studies, I came to learn that there is no mystery to breathing at all. The science of breath has been well-researched for over 100 years. Yet very few people have applied the actual science to the classic practices of pranayama.

After twenty years of research, here is what I learned:

Discovery #1: CO2 is Your Friend

The main purpose of most breathing exercises is to manipulate carbon dioxide in the blood, not oxygen. CO2 should be looked at as a metabolic byproduct, not a toxin, and it’s crucial for optimal respiratory health and nervous system balance. Most people over-breathe, not under-breathe, so we need to learn to slow down and optimize CO2.

Discovery #2: Slow Breathing = More O2 Absorption

Logically,  think that if you breathe fast, you’ll get more oxygen, right? Not true. In fact, if you breathe in and out for a few minutes straight, you’ll get dizzy and might even pass out. The Bohr Effect explains that when there’s more CO2 in the blood from slow breathing, it becomes easier for hemoglobin to release oxygen to the body’s tissues.

Discovery #3: Simple Practices = Profound Results

My first serious pranayama teacher taught me 12 different breathing exercises. With other teachers,  I have learned a dozen more interesting and complicated forms.  Common in all of them is that the more advanced the breathing exercise, the simpler it is. Here is what you need to know: every single breathing exercise is simply affecting your nervous system in one of three ways – a parasympathetic (calming), sympathetic (stimulating), or balancing response.

Breathing vs. Meditation?

In traditional yoga, breathing is traditionally taught as a stepping stone practice that eventually leads students to the stages of seated meditation.

Meditation is amazing and profound. I’ve trained and spent time with amazing teachers in meditation centres in Canada, USA, India and Nepal. However, what you might not know is that silent meditation can provoke  anxiety and frustration because it will reveal the obsessive rumination many of us experience. This can become a problem because this frustration with the restless mind causes many people to quit meditating altogether.

Breathing is different because it is a constant somatic process we can tap into at anytime. Because of this, it is our friend.  The key is to let breath awareness become a habit so you can notice it and working with it skillfully.  Plus, when we focus on the breath in this manner, it is the beginning stages of meditation. Plus, it feels great.

The benefits you will experience are measurable, well-documented, and reproducible. This means that with minimal and consistent training, you can enjoy stress relief, nervous system balance, mood stabilization, improved sleep, strengthened digestion and the ability to self-soothe at will.

Now, you are going to learn the first breathing exercise which promotes calming and cultivating the parasympathetic response (Calming down deeply).

Body Scan with Breath Support:

Lay down on the ground and focus on the sensations of your body touching the ground. Lay down in a manner which is comfortable for your body.  You may want to lay on a blanket and place a folded blanket in 4 to 10 cm in height under your head if you have any chest or neck tension. Next, collect your attention on your body sensations. Receive them in your awareness just as they are.

After a few breaths, move your awareness to your feet. Breath into your feet and feel your feet touching the ground.  Slowing move your awareness up your body. Breath into your calves and feel your calves touching the ground.  Breath into your knees and receive the sensations of your knees. Continue in a calm and steady manner, moving your awareness up your body one body area at a time.

As you focus your awareness and receive each unique sensation, notice how your breath begins to slow down.  Important, when you reach your head, take particular attention to relax and sense each part of your face ie. jaw joints, root of tongue, inner ears, outer ears, cheek bones, eyes, forehead, top of head, sides of head and the back of the head.  When the head and specifically the eyes are experienced somatically, this provokes the relaxation response.  Your heart beat will decrease, your blood pressure will lower, your breath rate will lower and your awareness will increase without effort.

This breath exercise is all about sensing, softening and letting go.  Do this practice every evening before you go to sleep.

In The Breath of Life, Part 3, I will describe the breath practices which stimulate our nervous system.

If you are interested in practicing these exercises with support, take my Breath of Life: Pranayama 4 Week Online Course. The next course is starting on Sunday September 15th, 2024. Register through this link.

In Metta (loving-kindness),

Allison