Momentum Issue 30: Breathwork
This week, we’re building on last week and learning about breathwork.
A major issue we all face today is chronic stress. As we learned in Momentum issue 28, short-term stress is beneficial, but the long-term stress we all face is detrimental to our health.
Fortunately, as we learned last week, we have a powerful tool at our disposal that we have constant access to, that can help us to mitigate these negative effects.
“There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.” - James Nestor
Importance
As we learned last week, improper breathing can be detrimental to every aspect of our health. If you’d like a refresher, read Momentum issue 29.
Learning to breathe properly, starting with nasal breathing, and then learning how to manipulate your breath with breathwork techniques may change your life.
You can manipulate your breathing to achieve different physiological states - from energizing your body to calming down in the middle of distress.
Proper breathing can also:
Reduce sensations of pain, especially chronic pain
Note: While breathwork and meditation have many similar benefits, breathwork is active and actually allows us to disconnect from our mind, whereas meditation generally has a heavy focus on staying present with the mind. Therefore, some people prefer breathwork to meditation, especially when looking to disconnect from the mind for a while:
“Unlike meditation, where we are aware of our mental chatter, breathwork allows us to disconnect from the mind and reconnect with our body and energy. From this elevated state of awareness, we are able to heal, grow, and expand.
While meditation is an extremely useful form of self-reflection because it allows us to see the pace, substance, and truth of our thoughts, it also keeps us stuck in our mind, while many people are seeking to get out of their own heads.” - mindbodygreen
Implementation
There are so many breathwork protocols out there, but I will briefly highlight the main ones here and explain how you can use them.
4-7-8 breath
Benefit: Calms the body, especially when anxious, frustrated, or distressed, and slows down the heart rate.
How to do it: Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds. Pause at the top of your inhale for 7 seconds. Exhale out of the mouth for 8 seconds. Repeat at least 4 times.
4-4-4-4 breath/box breathing
Benefit: Energy boosting - slows down the heart rate and boosts concentration - therefore improving efficiency and performance by creating a calm and focused state.
How to do it: Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold at the top for 4 seconds. Breathe out for 4 seconds. Hold at the bottom for 4 seconds. Repeat for 5 minutes.
5-5 breath
Benefit: Calming when in a distressed or anxious state.
How to do it: Inhale for 5 seconds. Exhale for 5 seconds. Start with just 4 seconds each and slowly work your way up to a 10 second inhale and 10 second exhale.
2-1-4-1 breath
Benefit: Turns up the rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system and turns down the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system.
How to do it: Inhale for 2 seconds. Pause at the top of your inhale for 1 second. Exhale for 4 seconds. Pause at the bottom of your exhale for 1 second. Repeat for 5 minutes.
Breath of fire
Benefit: Often used in yoga, and similar to the Wim Hof method, this breath is energizing and oxygenates your cells and tissues.
How to do it: Nasal breathing the entire time, quickly and forcefully push all the air out of your lungs, and then allow them to naturally fill again - just focus on the forceful exhale. Repeat for 30 rounds, then take a break and repeat if needed. Please be careful with this one and check with your doctor if you have any concerns. You may experience tingling, light-headedness, and dizziness.
Alternate nostril breathing
Benefit: Very effective for reducing stress and calming the body and mind.
How to do it: Press your thumb on your right nostril and breathe in gently through your left nostril. Press the left nostril closed with a different finger. Remove your thumb from the right nostril and breathe out through the right nostril. Inhale through the right nostril, close it with your thumb. Remove your finger from your left nostril and exhale through this nostril. Repeat for up to 5 minutes.
You can use these techniques at any point during the day. Yesterday, I was running late and found myself getting worked up. I practiced the 4-7-8 breath until I relaxed and could enjoy the rest of my drive in a present and content state.
You may find it helpful to set aside time during the day to practice these, such as in the morning before your day starts or in the evening before bed, but they’re also great to utlize at times when you need them. The next time you feel yourself either getting worked up or in need of an energy boost, try one of these techniques.
Different practices may resonate with you better than others, so play around with these and see which ones you like. A lot of these techniques achieve similar results.
Resources
The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter - By Patrick McKeown
This book is a great resource for those looking to further understand the importance of learning to breathe properly, and how we can use our breath to improve almost every aspect of our health. From the back of the book:
Following his program, even the most out-of-shape person (including those with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma) can climb stairs, run for a bus, or play soccer without gasping for air, and everyone can achieve:
Easy weight loss and weight maintenance
Improved sleep and energy
Increased concentration
Reduced breathlessness during exercise
Heightened athletic performance
Improved cardiovascular health
Elimination of asthmatic symptoms, and more.
For those looking to challenge themselves with their breathwork:
A Breathing Expert's Exercise to Increase Respiratory Strength
Mindbodygreen recorded a great podcast with Patrick McKeown, and I highly recommend listening to it. Patrick is incredibly knowledgeable in this field and I learned a lot from this episode. You can find it here.
The Ultimate Breathwork Ninja Guide: How To Banish Stress & Kiss High Cortisol Goodbye
In this article, Ben Greenfield does a deep dive into breathwork and all the biology and physiology behind how it works.
If you want to really go into the science behind breathwork, you can read this article from the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Before you go
I truly love bringing this newsletter to you each week. I enjoy being able to take complex and confusing health information and breaking it down into straightforward and actionable information for you to implement each week.
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Excellent information on the various breathing techniques. Breathing is life and correct breathing is invigorating and super charging your body for additional benefits. I loved it. Please let more of these flow! Thanks!