There are seemingly two schools of thought when it comes to breathing: you do it instinctively and so there’s no need to think about it; or you do it purposefully as a way to harness a state of optimal health and wellbeing.

Pranayama – the fourth limb of the eight limbs of yoga – is all about the breath. It comes from the words prana, which means vital energy or life force, and ayama, which is to do with stretching, expanding and extending.¹

Depending on the style of yoga, pranayama might not be taught until you have a solid grasp of the postures (asanas). This is certainly the case at Iyengar classes that I’ve attended, but in other schools of yoga, such as Sivananda, breathing is incorporated into each class delivery.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find pranayama one of the most difficult parts of yoga. Many of us don’t know how to breathe properly in our daily lives, let alone follow set breathing in classes.

But why does it even matter?

Why learning to breathe properly matters

I’ve been to many yoga classes in the past and hated on the pranayama. Really struggled with it. Alternate nostril breathing. Pumping breath. Lion breath. Ocean breath.

These are all real things. I would go through the motions and hate it and be glad when it was over.

And yet I recognise more and more that this is exactly the one part of yoga that I need to work with the most! Because, if the yogis are to be believed, pranayama ‘not only rejuvenates the body but actually extends life itself’.³

More recently, I’ve been in Active Birth yoga and Calmbirth classes where the teachings focus on the use of breath to manage pain and ‘breathe the baby out’ while in an altered – yet very conscious – state of awareness.

The idea of a pain free birth sounds appealing, of course, but using breath to focus the mind and get into an altered state of awareness is not a new practice.

It is part of many traditional practises, yogic and otherwise.

So many ways to breathe

For example, preparation for Vipassana meditation (also known as insight meditation) focuses on observing the breath to focus the mind.

No counting. No tricks. Just breath awareness, in and out.

More modern takes on breathwork include the techniques of Dr Stanislav Grof, a psychiatrist who has made his life work to focus on the ‘non-ordinary states of consciousness’ made possible by controlled breathing techniques, and Wim Hof who has developed his own method. The Wim Hof Method combines cold therapy with breathwork to achieve  ‘more energy, reduced stress levels, and an augmented immune response’.^4,5

As many of my teachers like to remind me, the vast majority of these different types of breathwork practices stem from yogic practices.

Arguably, even meditation practices not obviously associated with yoga may have their basis in yogic practices (it is suggested that the Buddha, for example, was a yogi himself, and so his own teachings on observing the breath will undoubtedly have flavours of yoga scattered throughout).

What yogic texts say about proper breathing

It is difficult to argue with the claim that when there are problems with our breathing, there are problems with our body and mind.

If you take some shallow, quick breaths, for example, how do you feel?

Now what about if you slow things down? Count four in for the in-breath, letting the breath rise up from your belly into your lungs. And then count to five or six as you exhale and release the breath back down back into your belly.

Shorter in breath. Longer out breath. Do it a few times.

How does that feel?

For me, the shallow, quick breaths make me feel a bit frantic. That type of breathing is also what I notice in myself when I’m anxious, stressed or crazy busy. The type of breathing that I’d do into a paper bag when I was in my late teens and felt like I was losing control, until gradually it would start to slow down to a normal rate again.

When I slow it down, I start to relax. I become conscious of my body. Slowing my breathing down turns down the dial on my mental chatter and I can feel my shoulders descend, to let go of some tension.

This connection has long been observed, summarised by revered teacher TKV Desikachar in The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice:

‘Because we can influence the flow or prana through the flow of our breath, the quality of our breath influences our state of mind, and vice versa. In yoga we are trying to make use of these connections so that prana concentrates and can freely flow within us.’²

Benefits of pranayama

If we practice pranayama – yogic breathing techniques –suggested benefits include:

• A healthy, energised body and mind, achieved by keeping the prana within the body, and thereby not scattering yourself in a million directions and getting sick;
• Improved mental clarity, achieved by learning to focus the mind and in doing so give you the space to see the bigger picture. As TKV Desikachar says, ‘the veil is gradually drawn away from the mind and there is growing clarity’;
• Preparation for meditation, achieved through total absorption in the activity of following your breath.²

In terms of daily life, proper breathing can help us to feel physically at our best.

It can also help us to be mentally alert. The benefits at work include better concentration and ability to focus on what matters, rather than getting caught up in time-wasting details.

The benefits within personal relationships are that our potential to be less reactive is increased by giving us insight into the bigger picture, into what’s really going on.

What science says about proper breathing

But despite what you might discover on an experiential level with conscious breathing, it’s interesting to note that there isn’t currently a great body of scientific evidence to support the use of breathwork for optimal health, improved mental focus and management of pain.

A search of various scientific databases, for example, shows that since 1985 there have only been 54 published studies that reference yoga, breathing and pranayama.

Excitingly, though, it is starting to be examined more closely. A 2017 systematic review, for example, examined the effects of yogic breathing exercises on lowering high blood pressure and concluded that although there is a need for more robust studies, current findings are encouraging.⁶

Being able to fix our bodies – or at very least support some of its functions – by breathing alone is fascinating and exciting. It’s also free, meaning it’s accessible to every single person in this world.

The yogis, people are realising, have been on to something for centuries.

Isn’t it about time that we in the Western world paid closer attention to the power of the breath too?

References

1. Iyengar, BKS. The Path to Holistic Health: The Definitive Step-By-Step Guide. 3^rd 2014. Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Limited
2. Desikachar, TKV. The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice. Revised Edition. 1995.
3. Carrico M. Get to Know the Eight Limbs of Yoga. Yoga Journal. 2007. https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/the-eight-limbs. Accessed 22 Aug 2018.
4. Stanislav Grof. http://www.stanislavgrof.com. Accessed 4 Sep 2018.
5. The Wim Hof Method. https://www.wimhofmethod.com. Accessed 4 Sep 2018.
6. Brandini JZ, Mizuno J, Ciolac EG, et al. The hypotensive effect of Yoga’s breathing exercises: A systematic review. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice. 2017; 28:38-46.