How to Use Breathwork to Drastically Improve Your Health

A quick guide to creating a breathwork practice.

“There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.” — James Nestor

Most of us probably don’t give a second thought to our breathing.

Yet most of us are doing it wrong. And this is leading to so many consequences for our health. From anxiety to crooked teeth, incorrect breathing can wreak havoc. Fortunately, we can learn how to breathe properly. By using nasal breathing initially, and then moving on to other breathwork techniques, we can drastically improve our health.

Here’s a guide on the various breathing techniques and how you can implement them to optimize your health.

Nasal Breathing

Learning to breathe through your nose on a regular basis is crucial.

Mouth breathing can lead to:

• Increased feelings of anxiety
• Increased blood pressure and heart rate
• A chronically activated sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system
• A cramped mouth and crooked teeth
• Fatigue

Nasal breathing, on the other hand, has myriad benefits:

• Increased efficiency of oxygen uptake: Breathing through your nose drives oxygen into the lower lobes of the lungs, meaning all 5 lobes are utilized rather than just the top 2, and the air stays in the lungs for longer, increasing the efficiency of oxygen uptake.
• Increased parasympathetic activation: The lower lobes of the lungs have more parasympathetic nerve receptors that calm the body and mind, compared to the upper lobes of the lungs which trigger sympathetic symptoms such as our fight or flight reaction.
• More carbon dioxide expelled: As air drives into the lower lobes of the lungs where there is more blood, carbon dioxide is taken out of the blood more effectively.
• The lymph system flows more effectively: Nasal breathing leads to full activation of the ribcage which helps with lymph flow. This is important as unlike the cardiovascular system, the lymph system doesn’t have its own pump and relies on the action of our muscles to pump lymph around the body.
• Decreased breathing and heart rate: Nasal breathing leads to a reduction in the number of breaths taken as well as a decrease in heart rate, which is crucial for good health.
• Increased alpha brain waves: Breathing through the nose increases alpha brain waves. These are the brain waves that lead to increased concentration and focus.
• More fat burned: Nasal breathing during exercise increases fat burning compared with breathing through the mouth. Turning fat into energy requires oxygen, and because nasal breathing increases the efficiency of oxygen uptake, we are able to burn more fat.

Nasal Breathing Implementation

• Increase your awareness of how you are breathing throughout the day. Regularly check in and notice when you are mouth breathing, and try to switch to nasal breathing.
• Try nasal breathing during exercise or any time when your heart rate is elevated. You need to start slow, and only work with what you can handle. It might take weeks to build up a tolerance, but it will be worth it.
• Tip: Exercise at a pace that allows you to keep breathing through your nose. If you feel yourself wanting to take a breath through your mouth, slow down until you’re comfortable again. You can slowly increase your pace each week until you can nasal breathe at the full pace of whatever exercise it is you’re doing.

Breathwork Techniques

After learning to breathe through your nose, you can start to manipulate your breathing to achieve different physiological states — from energizing your body to calming down in the middle of distress.

Proper breathing can also:

• Reduce sensations of pain, especially chronic pain
• Increase focus
• Improve sleep
• Improve exercise performance

Note: While breathwork and meditation have many similar benefits, breathwork is active and actually allows us to disconnect from our mind, whereas meditation generally has a heavy focus on staying present with the mind. Therefore, some people prefer breathwork to meditation, especially when looking to disconnect from the mind for a while:

“Unlike meditation, where we are aware of our mental chatter, breathwork allows us to disconnect from the mind and reconnect with our body and energy. From this elevated state of awareness, we are able to heal, grow, and expand.

While meditation is an extremely useful form of self-reflection because it allows us to see the pace, substance, and truth of our thoughts, it also keeps us stuck in our mind, while many people are seeking to get out of their own heads.” — mindbodygreen

Breathwork Implementation

There are so many breathwork protocols out there, but I will briefly highlight the main ones here and explain how you can use them.

4–7–8 breath

Benefit: Calms the body, especially when anxious, frustrated, or distressed, and slows down the heart rate.

How to do it: Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds. Pause at the top of your inhale for 7 seconds. Exhale out of the mouth for 8 seconds. Repeat at least 4 times.

4–4–4–4 breath/box breathing

Benefit: Energy boosting — slows down the heart rate and boosts concentration — therefore improving efficiency and performance by creating a calm and focused state.

How to do it: Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold at the top for 4 seconds. Breathe out for 4 seconds. Hold at the bottom for 4 seconds. Repeat for 5 minutes.

5–5 breath

Benefit: Calming when in a distressed or anxious state.

How to do it: Inhale for 5 seconds. Exhale for 5 seconds. Start with just 4 seconds each and slowly work your way up to a 10 second inhale and 10 second exhale.

2–1–4–1 breath

Benefit: Turns up the rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system and turns down the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system.

How to do it: Inhale for 2 seconds. Pause at the top of your inhale for 1 second. Exhale for 4 seconds. Pause at the bottom of your exhale for 1 second. Repeat for 5 minutes.

Breath of fire

Benefit: Often used in yoga, and similar to the Wim Hof method, this breath is energizing and oxygenates your cells and tissues.

How to do it: Nasal breathing the entire time, quickly and forcefully push all the air out of your lungs, and then allow them to naturally fill again — just focus on the forceful exhale. Repeat for 30 rounds, then take a break and repeat if needed. Please be careful with this one and check with your doctor if you have any concerns. You may experience tingling, light-headedness, and dizziness.

Alternate nostril breathing

Benefit: Very effective for reducing stress and calming the body and mind.

How to do it: Press your thumb on your right nostril and breathe in gently through your left nostril. Press the left nostril closed with a different finger. Remove your thumb from the right nostril and breathe out through the right nostril. Inhale through the right nostril, close it with your thumb. Remove your finger from your left nostril and exhale through this nostril. Repeat for up to 5 minutes.

You can use these techniques at any point during the day. Yesterday, I was running late and found myself getting worked up. I practiced the 4–7–8 breath until I relaxed and could enjoy the rest of my drive in a present and content state.

You may find it helpful to set aside time during the day to practice these, such as in the morning before your day starts or in the evening before bed, but they’re also great to utilize at times when you need them. The next time you feel yourself either getting worked up or in need of an energy boost, try one of these techniques.

Different practices may resonate with you better than others, so play around with these and see which ones you like. A lot of these techniques achieve similar results.

Learning to breathe properly is crucial if you want to be healthy.

While breathing is something that happens automatically, there is a right and wrong way to do it. But with a bit of practice and some awareness, we can make a huge difference in our health.

“No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.” — James Nestor

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