Breathing: Designing a Breathwork Practice

[Explor­ing Life] Breath­work is a gen­eral cat­e­gory that describes any tech­nique, method, or exer­cise used to con­sciously alter breath­ing. It is a means to explore and inter­act with breath­ing through inten­tion. Breath­work is a phys­i­cal, men­tal and spir­i­tual endeav­our. The nature of phys­i­cal and cul­tural envi­ron­ment that sur­rounds us has a direct impact on the qual­ity of our breath­ing. It is per­va­sive through­out our expe­ri­ence and lies at the root of our per­cep­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions of the world around us. In this arti­cle I focus on my own expe­ri­ences in design­ing and devel­op­ing a breath­ing prac­tice.

It may seem unusual to focus on the devel­op­ment of a breath­ing prac­tice, an auto­nomic func­tion that we often take for granted and seems to func­tion well enough on its own. In the series on breath­ing I out­lined the foun­da­tions of four impor­tant areas: breath­ing aware­ness, abnor­mal breath­ing, con­scious breath­ing, and the per­fect breath (See Related Entries). As a col­lec­tion, these top­ics clearly point out the need for a breath­ing prac­tice since it is a root func­tion that lies at the core of all human expe­ri­ence. To breath improp­erly or abnor­mally is to lose the vibrancy of our own body, mind and spirit, and there­fore the vibrancy of our own expe­ri­ences in life. Breath­ing is the pri­mary and most essen­tial com­po­nent of any fit­ness, health, well being, men­tal, or spir­i­tual pro­gram of development.

Design­ing a Breath­work Practice

Aims: A prac­tice is a con­crete and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion over time of an idea or set of ideas that are designed to encour­age the devel­op­ment of a spe­cific aim. While the actual tech­niques and processes within a prac­tice may (and should) vary and evolve over time, the aim of a prac­tice remains con­stant. The aim of my breath­work prac­tice is to achieve opti­mal breath­ing under all con­di­tions, sit­u­a­tions, and cir­cum­stances in my life in order to cre­ate a resilient state of equi­lib­rium that embraces body-mind-spirit. Of course, this aim is ide­al­is­tic and our expec­ta­tions should be to make progress toward the stated aim­ing with full accep­tance that achiev­ing it to per­fec­tion is nei­ther rea­son­able nor attain­able. Aims are sources of inspi­ra­tion, not ram­pant perfectionism.

Types of Breath­work: There are dif­fer­ent kinds of breath­work we can inte­grate into a prac­tice. I divide my own breath­work prac­tice into four components:

• Core Breath­work: Exer­cises that focus on the devel­op­ment nat­ural full breath­ing. This type of breath­work is designed to retrain the body and becomes the default or nor­mal mode of breath­ing. Core breath­work is the basis for all con­scious breath­ing exercises.
• Rhyth­mic Breath­work: As the name implies, this type of breath­work involves tim­ing the inhala­tion, exha­la­tion and period of rest and tran­si­tion in between. The mind is com­pletely occu­pied with main­tain­ing the tim­ing of the breath, which helps to cre­ate a sense of calm by main­tain­ing focus on the present moment. Tim­ing may be lit­eral (as in count­ing) or felt (as in reach­ing a capac­ity). The spe­cific rhythms used are designed to cor­rect the effects of abnor­mal breath­ing habits.
• Mind­ful Breath­work: Cre­ative visu­al­iza­tion is used as a basis for con­scious breath­ing. The mind is com­pletely immersed in the visu­al­iza­tion. There is no con­scious tim­ing of the breath, instead, the breath occurs in response to the imagery being cre­ated in the mind. The imagery may focus on a par­tic­u­lar qual­ity such as grat­i­tude, or a spe­cific con­text such as bask­ing the breath in sunlight.
• Affir­ma­tion Breath­work: Pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions are chanted out loud or men­tally while breath­ing. The pat­tern used is sim­plis­tic: “Breath­ing in I…[pos­i­tive affir­ma­tion], Breath­ing out I…[pos­i­tive affir­ma­tion].”

It is never good to become too rigidly attached to cat­e­gories, yet a basic struc­ture is required to pro­vide coher­ence in a prac­tice. In addi­tion, the struc­ture may evolve over time based on the insights acquired through the prac­tice itself. In this sense, a prac­tice evolves over time and never becomes mere mind­less habit or rou­tine. A prac­tice is ulti­mately a place to explore and dis­cover, not fall vic­tim to rote and repetition.

Modes of Prac­tice: I use three basic modes in my breath­work practice:

• Struc­tured Prac­tice Ses­sions: A daily breath­work ses­sion no less than fif­teen min­utes. This ses­sion will be focused on a spe­cific breath­ing tech­nique. I use breath aware­ness to decide which tech­nique I might wish to prac­tice that day. I will also vary the prac­tice times so that some are in the morn­ing, oth­ers in the after­noon or evening, so I can expe­ri­ence the prac­tice at dif­fer­ent points in the day.
• Ran­dom Inter­val Prac­tice Ses­sions: Regard­less of where I am or what I am doing, I will ran­domly inter­rupt my activ­i­ties three times per day in order to focus on breath­ing. Usu­ally these ses­sions are only three to five min­utes in dura­tion, but they pro­vide a great deal of insight into how our breath­ing pat­terns change in response to var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions and circumstances.
• Strate­gic Prac­tice Ses­sions: In moments when lev­els of stress or anx­i­ety unex­pect­edly and sud­denly increase, a strate­gic prac­tice ses­sion is cre­ated. If our breath­work prac­tice is to have real value, then it must pro­vide direct inter­ven­tion when the unex­pected vagaries of every­day life some­times throw us into tur­moil. As soon as it is pos­si­ble, the strat­egy is to inter­rupt the moment, focus on core breath­ing to calm the ner­vous sys­tem, and then return to the stress­ful sit­u­a­tion with a renewed sense of phys­i­cal calm and men­tal clar­ity. This aspect of the prac­tice is the most impor­tant and the most challenging.

The effec­tive inte­gra­tion of all three modes of prac­tice is essen­tial. Many prac­tices fail since what is learned in iso­la­tion is often never trans­ferred to the real-world sit­u­a­tions and cir­cum­stances we face in every­day life.

Evolv­ing the Prac­tice: A vibrant and resilient prac­tice will always evolve organ­i­cally through the energy of curios­ity, inquiry, dis­cov­ery and explo­ration. No two prac­tices will evolve in pre­cisely the same man­ner, though shared char­ac­ter­is­tics may be obvi­ous. A mean­ing­ful prac­tice is some­thing that orig­i­nates inside the cre­ative explo­ration of each indi­vid­ual; a con­fin­ing prac­tice is some­thing that is imposed on an indi­vid­ual as a set of rules and pro­ce­dures to be fol­lowed mind­lessly. There are a num­ber of ways a breath­work prac­tice may evolve:

• Real-Life Expe­ri­ence: When breath aware­ness is present in unex­pected and chal­leng­ing real-world sit­u­a­tions, we gain crit­i­cal insight into how our expe­ri­ences influ­ence our breath­ing, and there­fore how we think and feel. These real-life expe­ri­ences and our abil­ity to dis­cern them are eas­ily the most impor­tant sources rel­e­vant con­tent for a breath­work practice.
• Insights Through Exer­cise: Prac­tic­ing a par­tic­u­lar form of breath­work is an act of mind­ful­ness. In other words, our main pur­pose in breath­work is to approach it mind­fully and sen­si­tively so that our per­cep­tion and com­pre­hen­sion of breath­ing opens and expands. Though hard to pre­dict, insights will nat­u­rally reveal them­selves to those who bring the spirit of explo­ration, impro­vi­sa­tion, and curios­ity to their practice.
• Research: Of course, research is part of the breath­work prac­tice as well. Breath­work tech­niques and prac­tices have been a foun­da­tion for many ancient prac­tices and cul­tures. More recently, ideas such as opti­mal breath­ing are gain­ing a great deal of atten­tion from med­ical science.

Reper­toire of Breath­ing Exer­cises: The main action of a breath­work prac­tice is breath­ing exer­cises. There are many breath exer­cises to choose from, some are more ben­e­fi­cial than oth­ers, while a few are actu­ally mis­guided and dan­ger­ous. Cred­i­ble sources and per­sonal expe­ri­ence are the best means to make selec­tions for your own per­sonal reper­toire. I main­tain a list of breath­work exer­cises in a sep­a­rate arti­cle. ( Breath­work: A Reper­toire of Exer­cises).

Breath­work Prac­tice: Key Points

• Aims: A prac­tice must have a stated aim (ideal) to pur­sue. The aim of my breath­work prac­tice is to achieve opti­mal breath­ing under all con­di­tions, sit­u­a­tions, and cir­cum­stances in my life in order to cre­ate a resilient state of equi­lib­rium that embraces body-mind-spirit.
• Struc­ture: A prac­tice must con­tain struc­tured and rel­e­vant com­po­nents. My selec­tions are: a) Core Breath­work; b) Rhyth­mic Breath­work; c) Mind­ful Breath­work; and d) Affir­ma­tion Breath­work. Though the cat­e­gories over­lap and are some­what mal­leable, they are use­ful as a gen­eral orga­niz­ing structure.
• Prac­tice Modes: Modes of prac­tice must be clearly defined and applied in a dis­ci­plined man­ner, oth­er­wise the prac­tice will remain weak. I use three spe­cific modes: a) Iso­lated Prac­tice Ses­sion; b) Ran­dom Inter­val Prac­tice Ses­sions; and c) Strate­gic Prac­tice Sessions.
• Prac­tice Evo­lu­tion: A prac­tice is a growth ori­ented medium designed to facil­i­tate change and trans­for­ma­tion. I con­sciously evolve my own prac­tice by: a) bring­ing breath aware­ness to real-life expe­ri­ence; b) seek­ing insight from the prac­tice of breath­work exer­cises; c) research­ing new ideas about breath, breath­ing, and breathwork.
• Prac­tice Reper­toire: The spe­cific exer­cises applied in my prac­tice are based on per­sonal choice, the lim­i­ta­tions of my own knowl­edge, and trial and error with spe­cific exercises.