Calming your Mind by Controlling your Breath

When you control your breath, you affect how you feel

Many people understand how taking five deep breaths can shift you from feeling stressed to feeling calm. Learning to breathe deeply and slowly calms the nervous system, getting you out of “fight or flight” and back into “rest and digest.” Learning to control your breath in other ways can help you feel energized, cooler, warmer, clearer, and more. The more you can control your breath, the more you can control how you feel.

Breath is life. If you don’t breathe, you don’t live. Ask anyone who has ever struggled to breathe and they will tell you it’s true. When you struggle to breathe, or tend to breathe shallowly from your chest, “fight of flight” kicks in and your body feels more stressed. Whether you feel emotionally stressed doesn’t matter, the stress hormones release into your system when you don’t breathe well.

If you deal with acute or chronic pain, that can also cause you to breathe more shallowly. Over time, this can cause the breathing muscles in your torso to guard against the pain, making it harder to breathe deeply and fully. This adds to the stress your body already feels, and your muscles feel tighter. You may lose some of the mobility in your torso when you don’t breathe well which can lead to back pain as well.

Your upper back and chest muscles get tight if you chronically struggle breathe, like with asthma. Many asthmatics have tight upper backs from when they can ‘t get a deep full breath. The lungs are in the center of the upper torso, even though we think of them in the front. Ideally you’ll want to expand the entire rib cage when you take a full breath, not just the front. Breathe into your front, side, and back ribs. Notice how that feels, and how much more air you can take in.

Pranayama

Pranayama, the 4th limb of yoga, can be practiced daily, as part of your yoga asana practice or on its own. The style of yoga that I practice and teach (Vinyasa) combines breath with movement, joining the 3rd (Asana) and 4th (Pranayama) limbs of yoga in a single practice. Ujjayi breath (Ocean sounding or Victorious breath), the breath practiced with Vinyasa yoga, warms the body while also being an audible focus for your mind.

This is just one form of pranayama. There are dozens to choose from, depending on what you need based on how you feel.

I have written about Dirga (Three Part) Breath, Ujjayi Breath, Kapalabhati (Skull Shining) Breath, Nadi Shodhana (Alternate Nostril Breathing), Sitali (Cooling) Breath, and Ha Kriya in “Are You Breathing? How to Shift Your Mind With Your Breath” and “3 Simple Breathing Practices to Change How You Feel” The video has detailed instructions to guide you.

Today’s focus is on Box Breathing (Sama Vritti Pranayama), and the related practice, 4-7-8 Breathing, both of which focus on calming and centering, which, in this world today, we could definitely use.

Basic rules of thumb when practicing Pranayama:

• 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.

Box Breathing

I like to do Box Breathing in Legs Up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani), but you can do it seated as well. What matters is that your body is comfortable and relaxed so that you can focus on your breathing.

Box breathing, like the name implies, is broken into 4 parts: Inhale (Puraka), retaining the inhale (Kumbhaka), exhale (Rechaka), then retaining the exhale (Kumbhaka). Keeping a count in the mind helps you make each part of this practice the same length, like four equal sides of a box. I like to count to four, but you can make each “side of the box” as long or as short as works for you. Start smaller and work your way up to higher numbers if you like.

This pranayama practice is great for centering your mind if you feel scattered and all over the place. This practice, with its soothing rhythm, will bring you back to feeling calm and centered, ready to tackle whatever life throws at you.

Practice

*If you get dizzy while practicing, pause the practice until you regain your bearings. If you have any blood pressure considerations, just inhale and exhale and skip the breath retentions.*

Find a comfortable position, either seated or Legs Up the Wall pose. If you are seated, adjust your body so that your spine is straight and your hands are resting on your lap. If you are lying down, your hands can either rest on your belly or be on the floor to your sides, palms facing upward.

Breathe in through your nose, smoothly and slowly for the count of four, then hold your breath in for the count of four. Release your breath back out through your nose for the count of four, then hold the breath out for the count of four.

Repeat this process for as long as you like. The longer you practice, the more meditative it becomes, and the easier it is to drop into the count and rhythm of your breath.

4-7-8 Breath

This is a variation on box breathing where the inhale retention and exhale are longer than the inhale. I often do this breath as 4-7-8-1, where after exhaling I retain the exhale for the count of 1. You can practice this with or without the retained exhale. I don’t believe there is much of a difference in terms of benefits, it’s just how I learned it, so that’s how I practice.

This can also be done seated or in Legs Up the Wall pose. I find breathing with the legs up the wall has the benefit of relaxing the abdomen so that it’s easier to breathe. That comes in handy for this breath with the long inhale retention. When I used to sing in college, the director often had us sopranos sing while lying down to get more air for those high notes. I felt ridiculous at the time, but it helped.

This pranayama practice has a deeply grounding and relaxing effect because the exhale is twice as long as the inhale. The exhale is connected to the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest), so lengthening out your exhale encourages the calming to kick in.

Practice

*Please don’t practice the retention if you have blood pressure considerations, just do the inhale and exhale.*

Come to your comfortable position, either Legs Up the Wall pose or seated, same as with Box Breathing. Breathe smoothly through your nose for the count of four, retain your inhale for the count of seven, exhale slowly through the nose for the count of eight, then either hold out for the count of one or simply begin your inhale again.

Repeat this process as many times as you like, dropping into that feeling of meditation as you go. The more you practice, the easier the retention and prolonged exhale become. There will also be less gasping for the inhale with practice.

Join me on the Mat

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