Are You Breathing? How To Shift Your Mind With Your Breath

Breath with movement

Swimming is meditation for me. A deeply grounding yet energizing practice. I don’t think about my breath, it happens because I’ve been swimming my whole life. I learned to swim at age 5 and joined the swim team sophomore year in high school after my knees decided they hated soccer. Or maybe I just didn’t like running.

I swam 3 years in high school, became a lifeguard, then a swim instructor and coach. I did that for about 10 years, while I was dancing and early in my yoga exploration. Swimming offered an ease and fluidity that I loved. Nothing made me as euphoric as a swim practice, and I loved that feeling. I felt expansive and exhilarated. It’s a relaxed exertion; like with yoga, it’s the balance of strength and ease.

Currently, when I swim in the pond near my house, I am absorbed by my surroundings, tracking the land so I swim straight, and allowing my body carry me to the opposite shore.

My breath is comfortable, natural, and rhythmic, inhaling for one stroke and exhaling for two. The prolonged exhale is calming and soothing. It keeps me from worrying about the potential of sea monsters (or giant snapping turtles) rising from the depths of the pond to swallow me whole. My brain…

Swimming is one form of exercise that connects breath to movement, thereby connecting the mind to the body. Open water swimming is meditation. The connection of breath to movement leaves me feeling elated, calm, and centered. That’s also why I practice Vinyasa yoga. Breath + Movement = Bliss.

Notice your breath

How often, when you are stressed, do you find yourself holding your breath? Breathing starts as soon as you’re born and you never think twice about it. If you swim, breathing is part of your stroke, but if you’ve been a lifelong swimmer, you might not think about that either.

What is it about the breath that is so influential? How can the breath completely change how you feel? Pranayama, the 4th Limb of Yoga, is Breath Control. Prana (breath) plus ayama (restraint) is a yoga practice that regulates the breath to elicit a specific response. There are many forms of pranayama that do have different effects.

Sitali cools you down. Ujjayi warms you up. Kapalabhati clears the fog from your mind. Nadi Shodhana helps you reclaim your center and balance. Feeling stressed? Dirga breath or box breathing will ground you. Feeling sluggish? Ha Kriya will wake you up, giving you energy for your day. There is a style of breathing for any energy shift you might need.

Breath is life

There are many physical and mental effects from practicing Pranayama regularly, as breath is life. Literally. No breath = no life. I know Dani Rojas from Ted Lasso said “Futbol is life,” but I stand by my original statement. I do miss Ted Lasso though.

Pranayama allows you to get the most out of your breathing, and can change how you feel, often in less than 5 minutes. Knowing how to breathe, however, matters.

First, notice the breath that happens naturally. Is your belly moving or are you solely breathing into your chest? Chest breathing is often due to stress, or fear. I commonly see chest breathing with people with asthma who struggle to breathe well, or people with high anxiety.

Relaxed breathing happens in the belly. As you inhale, your belly expands like a balloon, and as you exhale, your balloon deflates. Ideally this is how you want to breathe all day long. If you’ve ever watched a baby breathe, they breathe into their bellies, but as we age, it’s common to revert to chest breathing. Most stages of adulthood can be stressful.

If you’ve ever been a singer, you’ve probably heard to “breathe from your diaphragm.” Every breath you take is actually initiated from the diaphragm, but belly breathing allows for a deeper intake of air.

When you make sound with your exhale, like when singing or humming, that is a form of breath control. You are adjusting what you do with your exhale to elicit a particular outcome (sound). Chanting, or Kirtan, is often a call and response form of pranayama, which leaves the singer vibrating from the vocal sounds that permeate the body. Ujjayi pranayama is another practice where the breath sounds like the waves of the ocean. It’s a calming and focusing breath that warms the body during a yoga asana (poses) practice.

Controlling your breath, controlling your mind

In this post that I wrote in 2023, I give instructions for 3 different pranayama practices that I demonstrate in the video below: Kapalabhati to clear the mind, Sitali to cool the body, and Ha Kriya to energize you.

Give them each a try and see how you feel afterward.

I have listed a couple of other breathing practices below for you to try. Don’t try them all at once, try each one individually to give it some attention, then notice how you feel.

Basic rules of thumb:

• Practice on an empty stomach.
• Keep your body relaxed. There should be no struggle or strain while practicing.
• If you get dizzy, pause and rest. You might be doing too much, too fast.
• If you have high or low blood pressure, check with your doctor before attempting any of these practices.

Dirga breath:

Commonly called Three Part Breath, this is a deep, slow, complete inhalation followed by a long, slow complete exhalation. The idea is to take in as much air as possible then press it all out. Breathe in and out through the nose only. As you inhale, feel the belly expand, then fill the ribcage all the way to the chest, then as you exhale, gently contract the belly and empty the ribs and chest. Once you empty completely, begin inhaling again. Repeat this process as many times as you like. When I teach Dirga breath in class, I often do 3 full rounds, but you can work your way up to 10 or more. Keep your jaw relaxed. You can do this breath seated or lying down.

Ujjayi breath:

This breath, also called Victorious breath or Ocean-Sounding breath, is the style of breathing used during Vinyasa Yoga practices. This is the breath that you connect to your movement. The sound of Ujjayi breath becomes an audible focus for your yoga practice, while keeping the body warm from the inside out.

This is also nasal breathing, but to start, we’ll be exhaling through the mouth. Inhale through your nose, then open your mouth and sound “haaaaaa” as if you were fogging a mirror. Repeat that a few times so that you can feel the gentle closing in the back of your throat. Once that’s comfortable, make the same sound with your lips closed. If you’ve ever parented teenagers, this might feel familiar. When you have that, try to make the sound on the inhale as well as the exhale. It should start to sound like the ebb and flow of ocean waves. You may notice yourself getting warmer as you practice. Play with this type of breathing on its own, or the next time you step on the yoga mat.

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