How to Choose a Breathwork Practice

Are you interested in breathwork?

You’re not alone.

Breathwork has been the top health and wellness trend for the last few years, but there are so many different kinds of breathwork practices and they can have very different effects, so it’s helpful to know a little bit about how breathwork works and how to do a quick self-assessment to know which kind of practice is best for you.

It’s helpful to think about your nervous system as a pole between calmness on one end and alertness on the other. The autonomic nervous system is made up of two opposing systems called the sympathetic and parasympathetic. When the sympathetic nervous system is activated it moves us towards the alert end of the spectrum, and when the parasympathetic nervous system is activated it moves us towards calmness.

Now, with that information we can do two different kinds of assessments depending on whether we are trying to determine which practice would be best to do immediately or whether we are trying to determine which practice would be best to do daily.

Here and Now

So let’s start with immediate application. If you want to do a breathwork practice right now, just take a minute and assess your current state.

Are you calm?

Are you anxious?

Are you sleepy?

Or is your heart racing?

And what are you about to do next?

What kind of state would be optimal for your next activity?

Now that you’ve done that quick self-assessment you can determine which practice would be best based on the following information: inhaling activates the sympathetic nervous system (increasing alertness) and exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system (increasing calmness).

What this means is that if you do a breathing pattern which emphasizes inhales it will wake you up and if you do one which emphasizes exhales it will calm you down. Or, if you do a practice with even inhales and exhales, such as box breathing, it will bring you to a state of balance. (Check out my video to learn more about the physiology: Breathwork Will Change Your Life )

For example, if you are feeling very anxious and you want to calm down, you could do a quick breathing pattern like this:

Breathe in for 4 seconds.

Breathe out for 6-8 seconds.

And you would repeat that pattern for as long as necessary. Even just a couple of repetitions can have a powerful effect.

Or, if you are feeling lethargic or tired and want to energize yourself, you could do a type of intentional hyperventilation. (You’ve probably heard of hyperventilation as something that can happen unintentionally during a panic attack. That’s because it’s a breathing pattern associated with a state of maximum alertness, in other words maximum activation of the sympathetic nervous system. And you can often stop the panic attack simply by breaking that breathing pattern with a calming pattern like I described above or the more powerful technique I describe in the video.) However, when you intentionally hyperventilate for short periods of time it can really wake you up and energize you. There are many different kinds of hyperventilation breathwork techniques from different traditions such as Bhastrika (or bellows breath) from yogic tradition, and Wim Hof Method breathing (I do this every morning!).

Many people who’s work involves high-stress, high-stakes situations find that balanced breathwork practices, particularly box breathing, are incredibly helpful for preparation to help them stay grounded, centered, and clear-headed. Box breathing involves breathing in, holding the breath, breathing out, and holding the breath again all for even counts, typically for the count of four. From my research, this seems to be the most common and widespread form of breathwork throughout human history. From ancient Indian texts, to European magical societies, to modern public speaking tutorials and Navy Seal training. It turns up again and again and people throughout history have attested to its effectiveness. So I think it’s definitely worth learning and trying.

Daily Practice

Now that we’ve discussed how to choose the right breathwork practice in the moment, I want to cover how to design a daily practice.

We’ll start off with a similar self-assessment but this time we’re not going to focus on how we feel right now, rather we should think about ourselves in general, or possibly in the current phase we are in, and how we might be able to slowly nudge our nervous system to be more attuned to the life we want to live.

Do you tend to be more calm and relaxed?

Do you have trouble managing stressful situations and get overwhelmed easily?

Do you often feel like you lack the energy to do the things you want to do?

Do you tend to have low blood pressure?

If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions then you may want to try out a type of hyperventilation practice to help give you more energy, confidence, focus, and vitality, and it will also help with managing stressful situations without getting overwhelmed. And the benefits don’t stop there.

Or do you tend to be more energetic and anxious?

Do you have trouble falling asleep at night?

Do you have difficulty focusing?

Do you tend to have high blood pressure?

If you answered yes to one of more of these questions, then you may want to try out a calming daily breathwork practice that emphasizes exhales such as the simple practice from above repeated for 5 minutes or you can follow along to this guided video I made which will walk you through the most profoundly calming practice which has been tested in research so far.

Well, I hope this is helpful to anyone interested in trying out breathwork or starting a daily practice. Breathwork really has changed my life and I firmly believe, based on all of the evidence and testimony I’ve seen, that it is one of the most beneficial things we can do for our health.

Love,

Justin

❤️🙏☀️