11. 5 Types of Breathwork & How to Practice Them

TL;DR: Changing your breathing pattern is a powerful, free, easy, and immediate way to drastically reduce stress and enhance focus and well being. You should almost always breathe through your nose rather than your mouth and into your belly rather than your chest.

Introduction

Close your eyes, and notice how you feel for a few seconds. Now, try this simple breathing technique:

Sit up straight and get comfortable
Breath slowly and deeply into your belly over the count of four seconds
Hold this breath for four seconds
Breathe slowly out over the count of four seconds
Hold your breath here while your lungs are empty for four seconds
Breathe in again and repeat this cycle four more times

Now, how do you feel? What changes have you noticed? Hopefully you have noticed some effects from this simple yet powerful breathwork technique called box breathing. It is one of the several techniques covered in this article.

Breathwork is intentionally changing your breathing pattern. Engaging in simple breathwork exercises on a regular basis is likely the best tool we have to reduce stress and improve our well being. Breathwork has an incredibly powerful effect on our central nervous system, immune system, and body as a whole. It is used by Navy SEALs and nurses to calm down and focus under pressure, by the “Ice Man” Wim Hof to survive for hours in ice cold water, by patients to resist toxic bacterial injections, and to treat a variety of conditions including depression, IBS, PTSD, emotional trauma and sleep issues. Techniques like holotropic breathwork can even powerfully alter your state of consciousness. Breathing techniques have been used for thousands of years in practices like pranayama in yoga and techniques like “inner fire” used by tibetan monks.

This article will cover why you should practice breathwork and outline the different types as well as how to practice them.

Why You Should Practice Breathwork

Breathing is something that can be controlled consciously or unconsciously, allowing it to act as a bridge between the two. By taking control of our breathing consciously, we can change the mode our body is operating in unconsciously. The unconscious aspect of us, according to experts in consciousness, is a much vaster aspect of us than the conscious and being able to steer it gives us much greater control over ourselves. Breathwork, for example, affects the unconscious genetic expression of our DNA and basic activity of our cells [1 pg. 47].

Reduces Stress, Increases Resilience

Changing your breathing pattern changes the mode of your nervous system, which has effects on all other bodily systems. Our body typically operates in fight mode, or rest mode. Typically, we are too often in fight mode (sympathetic mode) vs. rest mode (parasympathetic mode) and this causes chronic stress on our bodies wearing it down over time and being a major factor in most diseases. Slowing and deepening our breathing activates the parasympathetic mode, and speeding it up activates the sympathetic mode.

The basic benefits of breathwork:

Reduces stress
Improves sense of well being
Lowers cortisol
Lowers blood pressure
Can lower heart rate
Reduces pain [2]

Beyond just making us relaxed, breathwork can also make us more resilient to the cold, infections, intense exercise, and stress of any kind [3].

While deep, slow breathing and diaphragmatic breathing both help us reduce our stress, breathwork like the Wim Hof method actually stresses us more. However, it does this in a good way, similar to exercise. In fact, hyperventilation reduces blood flow to the brain by 40% after 1 minute [2], which is what gives us a feeling of euphoria. Reducing oxygen like this is similar to high altitude training and it makes us better adapted in the long run. See Deep breathing and diaphragmatic breathing both help us control our stress.

For other strategies to help with stress reduction, check out our articles on meditation here and gratitude here. You can also try a more intense form of stress control from our article on cold exposure here.

Increases Energy Levels

Breath helps with more than just controlling the rhythm of our minds and bodies, it provides us with most of our energy that we burn, shockingly more so than even the food we eat. In fact, it provides us with ¾ of the energy of cellular respiration vs. ¼ for food. Saturating our blood and tissues with oxygen during breathwork increases how much is available for our cells to use. See our notes on oxygen in our List of All Nutrients.

Breathwork is well known to increase sense of well being, creativity, and self-awareness, which may be related to having more energy immediately available [3]. Many use breathwork for sports performance enhancement.

For more ideas on increasing energy, see our article on what to do when you’re tired here, as well as other sleep tips in our sleep category here.

Anti-inflammatory Effects

During breathwork techniques, neurons release epinephrine, which increases anti-inflammatory activity and dampens proinflammatory activity. A 2014 Yale School of Medicine Study found when subjects were injected with pro-inflammatory bacteria toxins, breathwork reduced the inflammatory response.

Breathwork is used to help with IBS, PTSD, depression and anxiety, and sleep issues, all of which have strong ties to inflammation [2].

Helps Process Emotions and Trauma

Breathing has very strong ties to spirituality, mind, and emotions. Breathwork techniques like holotropic breathwork and rebirthing breathwork are two examples usually practiced under supervision where strong emotions are said to be released, and often encouraged. These techniques are designed to release emotional build up related to trauma or difficult emotional events.

Types of Breathwork and How to Practice Them

Basic Breathing Habits

Patrick McKeown, author of the book Oxygen Advantage believes in optimising both our O2 levels and CO2 levels. Having too little CO2 in the blood is actually not a good thing even though we consider it a waste product because it constricts blood vessels reducing tissue oxygenation. This is why hyperventilating for just a minute reduces blood flow to the brain by 40% – breathing in and out so much reduces our CO2 levels drastically. His idea is to balance getting enough O2 and enough CO2 throughout the day by breathing through the nose.

Breathing through the nose is the first step to breathing well. Breathing through our mouths can lead to facial deformities, crooked teeth, bad breath, and stunted growth. It also does not oxygenate our cells as well as nose breathing. Our nasal cavities produce Nitric Oxide, which dilates our blood vessels oxygenating our tissues further and giving us a “pump”. Breathing through our nose allows this Nitric Oxide to go into our lungs and then our blood. Nitric oxide also has antifungal, antiviral, antiparasitic, and antibacterial properties [4]. One strategy McKeown proposes to make it a habit is to tape our mouths closed when we sleep for long enough that we breathe through our nose by habit.

The next step is to breathe in using your diaphragm, not your chest. Diaphragmatic breathing forms the basis of meditation and relaxation exercises, which can lower stress levels, reduce blood pressure, and regulate the body. It also benefits IBS, PTSD, depression and anxiety, increases ability to tolerate intense exercise, and helps with sleep issues. To practice, put one hand on your belly and one on your chest while you breathe and ensure the hand on your chest doesn’t move. The air should move down into your belly, and you shouldn’t be expanding your chest.

[a]

To test how well your body is being oxygenated, try a test called the control-pause technique:

Rest for 10 minutes first
Breathe normally through your nose and as you reach the end of your exhale, calmly pinch your nose
Wait until you feel even the slightest urge to breathe and let yourself breathe normally again. You should not be out of breath
Record how long you held your breath and see table below

Time Breath Was Held	Indication
0 – 15 seconds	Indicates symptoms like disordered breathing, stress, and sleep issues
15 – 30 seconds	Room for improvement
30 – 60 seconds	Good
60+ seconds	“He or she is insured against illness” – according to Russian physician Buteyko [1 pg. 48]

Breathing Techniques

Below we have listed 8 breathing techniques with various purposes and methods. The first 5 can be practiced alone, but the last three are typically with a practitioner.

Breathwork Types

Method

Purpose

1. Box Breathing

Breathe in, hold, breath out, hold, repeat. Breath in deeply over 4 seconds, then hold for 4 seconds, then breathe out over 4 seconds, then hold for 4 seconds. Repeat this while being present and conscious of how you feel. [6]

Heightening performance and concentration, strong stress relief. Practiced by Navy Seals, athletes, nurses.

2. 4-7-8 Breathing

Put your tongue just behind your teeth at the roof of your mouth. Exhale completely through your mouth making a whooshing sound. Close your lips and inhale through your nose as you count to four. Then, hold your breath for 7 seconds. Then, exhale as you count to 8 making a whooshing sound. Repeat this cycle 3 more times. You can work up to 8 cycles with practice. [7]

Based on pranayama, an ancient yogic practice. Brings the body into deep relaxation, and focuses us on the present moment. Helpful for falling asleep when practiced regularly

3. Alternate Nostril Breathing

Sit with your legs crossed. 1. Exhale completely, close your right nostril, and breathe in through your left nostril. 2. Now, close your left nostril and breathe out through your right nostril.3. Breathe back in through your right nostril. 4. Next, close your right nostril, and breathe out through your left nostril. 5. Repeat for up to 5 minutes. [8]

Relaxation, improved cardiovascular function and blood pressure, lowered heart rate, promoting well being, and clearing energy pathways in the body

4. Tummo (Inner Fire)

1. Sit comfortably

2. Visualize that your entire body is hollow like a balloon and your skin is glowing with energy. Now, imagine there is a channel going from the crown of your head along your spine to your perineum. Also imagine there are two channels for your nostrils going up between your eyes and then down along either side of the first tube and that these three tubes join just below your naval. This takes some practice

3. Breathe in and visualize the air going into your nostril channels up to the third eye and down, collecting at the joining point with the central channel. Hold your breath here. Visualize a very small and extremely hot ball of light at this point that gets ignited by the air energy and heats up.

4. Trap this ball by bringing energy up and down at the same time from your central channel. From below, bring up energy through the central channel to the ball by contracting your pelvic floor muscle (kegal) and holding it. From above, imagine energy coming down your central channel to the ball. Try swallowing to get a better mental image of this.

5. Now you have energy coming from your nose channels, up from your pelvis, and down from your head building heat in this ball. Whatever feels like you are accomplishing the goal of building heat at this point is good.6. Now, release all of this heat and energy up through your central channel and up through your crown like a fountain erupting from the crown of your head. This clears your energy pathway. You can also release this energy into parts of the body you want to heal. [10]

A more advanced technique typically started slowly and built up in breath holding over time.
Increasing the inner fire of your body, which increases our energy for everything from the metabolism, to heating, healing, creating hormones, and clearing out energy blockages in your body including your chakras.
This technique involves breathwork and visualization, which takes time to learn.

[9]

The Wim Hof Method

The Wim Hof Method is separated into its own section since it seems unique and powerful. When Wim lost his wife to suicide and was left with 4 children to raise on his own, his already strong disposition for what he calls “seeking”, or looking for the soul, appeared to grow much stronger and he dove deeply into nature to find answers. His journey is quite incredible. Besides raising four children single handedly after his wife’s death, he also holds 26 world records, has remained in ice for 1 hour and 52 minutes, ran up Mount Everest in shorts, learned 10 languages, was injected with Malaria and was fine, can hold his breath for 10 minutes, and ran a full marathon in the desert without water. He also has a twin who cannot do these things, which seems to indicate it is not purely genetic but due to the practice that he teaches.

Wim Hof using breathwork to withstand extreme cold [b]

The Wim Hof method of breathing works by drastically reducing both carbon dioxide and oxygen concentration in the body, which is a beneficial form of stress like exercise, saunas, or cold exposure. This increases red blood cells, production of growth factors, induces nitric oxide synthase which has many benefits on tissues and dilates blood vessels, induction of tumor protein p53, which protects DNA and prevents cells from becoming cancerous. Also increases mesenchymal stem cells by 15x in rats. [1 pg. 53]

Wim Hof is also well known for his advocation of cold exposure and it’s health benefits. Read more in our article on cold exposure here.

5. The Wim Hof Method of Breathwork

1 cycle of breathwork: Breathe in quickly and deeply into the diaphragm and fully fill the lungs, then release the breath naturally. As soon as you are done breathing out, breathe in deeply again. Repeat this type of breathing 30 times. Then, after your last breath out, hold your breath for 1 minute. Then, take a deep breath in and hold for 15 seconds. Then, exhale.
Repeat the same cycle two more times, but hold your breath for 1 minute 30 seconds on this second and third cycle.
Use this video as a guide.

Benefits include increased energy, better sleep, reduced stress, heightened focus, increased willpower, and a stronger immune system.

Instructor Guided Breathing

6. Holotropic

Breathing at a fast rate for a certain amount of time to get to an altered state of consciousness while lying down. This is usually done in a group with music playing. Meditative art and group discussion may be involved after a session.

Benefits include increased energy, better sleep, reduced stress, heightened focus, increased willpower, and a stronger immune system.

7. Conscious Energy Breathing (CBB)

Under supervision of an experienced instructor, you breathe in a deep, continuous way such that breath is not retained at any point in the cycle. Your breathing should resemble a perfect “circle”. Holding the breath at any point is a sign of holding back emotionally. Releasing repressed emotion that comes to the surface during this practice is thought to remove blockages in energy and lead to a higher level of consciousness

Removing blockages to allow proper release of emotions. Blockages may have been caused in the past due to traumatic events that could not be processed at the time.

8. Clarity Breathwork

Similar to CEB, one breathes in continuous and smooth cycles with no hesitations. Before the session, you have a counselling session to set the intention of the exercise, and a reflection with the counsellor after.

Supports healing, higher energy levels, better creativity and focus

Summary

Breathwork is incredibly powerful, safe, free, and can be done anytime with no tools and near immediate benefits. It has helped people resist extreme conditions of all kinds from intense exercise to extreme cold to emotional trauma. It belongs at the top of the list of any biohacker or health enthusiast and there are a large number of practices to employ. We should start with basic breathing habits to begin with including breathing through our nose only, and practicing breathing in using our diaphragm, or “belly breathing” rather than chest breathing. Then, for more powerful benefits we can try specialized methods like box breathing and sessions like holotropic breathing guided by instructors.