Most people are not conscious of their breathing for most of the day. Conscious breathing, however, can be used to energize, de-stress, increase sexual energy, achieve altered states of consciousness, harness a person's self-healing potential. As well as to promote self-exploration and thus access implicit memories, repressed feelings and other body information.
What is Breathwork?
Breathwork describes conscious breathing. It includes various breathing techniques, each of which has its own effect on the body (the autonomic nervous system).
Breathwork is known by names such as Tummo, Pranayama, Buteyko Breathing Technique, Holotropic Breathing, Wim Hof Breathing, Orgasmic Breathing or PranaSanna Neurotransformative Breathing.
There are various breathing techniques, each of which has it’s own effect on the autonomic nervous system. Let’s focus on the following ones:
Connected Breath
Long, slow and complete inhalation and exhalation without pauses after inhalation and exhalation. One breathes either through the nose or the mouth.
Effect: Conscious connected breath brings more oxygen to the cells, stimulates the vagus nerve and increased Alpha brainwave activity. It allows for an altered state of consciousness, and increases dopamine and serotonin (Lalande & Bambling, 2012). As a result, focus and motivation increase, mental clarity and relaxation set in, mood improves, anxiety is reduced, and thoughts cease to exist. This can happen after a few minutes to 30 minutes. Breath rhythmically through the nose affects mostly the meditative and subtle parts of the body. In yoga (pranayama) and Tantra, it is used to control sexual energy.
Mouth breathing though helps you to become more fully aware of your body. Breathing through the mouth affects the lower body centers and can help to clear the emotions, which otherwise limit sensitivity and presence.
Rapid Breath > Fast and complete inhalation and exhalation
Is the fast version of the Connected Breath. The air is sucked in strongly during inhalation. The exhale flows out without pressure, because forced exhalation can cause cramps in the hands, legs and face.
Effect: enables an altered state of consciousness, can bring stuck feelings to the surface.
Breath Retention ‘ the little death’ Breath Retention is the act of increased awareness, stabilization of the mind and the opening of the being toward subtle energies. Learning how to make yourself feel relaxed, Increasing of life span & resistance to bacterial infection, Improving breathing and lung function
The Yoga Tattva Upanishad (142) likens kumbhaka to a lamp inside a pot that does not flicker because no breeze can reach it ("pot-like"). Kumbhaka often used in Hatha Yoga texts to designate all the breathing processes and the subtle phenomena associated with them: breathing in, breathing out, and the retention of the absorbed prana (subtle energies) and refers to the fact that during the suspension of breathing, the body fills up with prana, which is retained just as a pot retains liquid.
Hatha Yoga texts speak about two kinds of retention:
Sahita, “associated” with inhalation and exhalation
Kevala, “isolated,” that is, without either inhalation or exhalation
There are a lot of breathing methods, explains Nestor. The key to these breathing practices rooted in ancient yoga is to learn to be patient, maintain flexibility, and slowly absorb what breathing has to offer.
James, Nestor (2020): Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.UK: Penguin Books Ltd.
Fotos: Unsplash
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