Kumbhaka Pranayama: How to Breathe Yourself to Better Health
7,000 years ago, humans found a way to boost health and prolong their lifespan. Now, it’s backed by science
“Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health. If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly. There is no single more powerful — or more simple — daily practice to further your health and well being than breathwork.” — Andrew Weil
In 2007, a man named Wim Hof climbed Mt. Everest in board shorts.
In 2010, he smashed the Guinness World Record for the longest time submerged in an ice bath — 1 hour 44 minutes.
In 2011, he ran a marathon through the Namibian desert without drinking any water.
And in 2014, he was injected with a virus on purpose to prove to scientists he wasn’t messing around.
He did all this to show that by breathing in a particular way we can ‘hack’ into our autonomic nervous system and change how our genes express themselves — something that scientists prior thought was impossible.
As incredible as his results are, it was nothing new to a few ancient yogis in the East 7,000 years ago. They were also speeding some breaths up, slowing some breaths down, and pausing some breaths altogether way back in the day.
And like Wim, they were also able to live longer lives and be disease-free.
They called this method kumbhaka pranayama. And it’s what I’d like to take a closer look at now.
Kumbhaka pranayama
Prana in Sanskrit means life force energy. Yama means control. And kumbhaka translates to breath retention.
It goes by another name too: intermittent hypoxic training.
Hypoxia is defined as — a condition where not enough oxygen makes it to the cells and tissues in the body.
Intermittent is defined as — occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous or steady.
So intermittent hypoxic training is the act of temporarily slowing the flow of oxygen to the cells and tissues in the body.
To understand this technique properly, imagine a set of scales that tips from one side to the other on every breath that you take. Inhaling oxygen tips to the left, exhaling carbon dioxide tips to the right.
After a round of rhythmical or active breathing (40 deep breaths per round followed by holding the breath out, for example) the body is fully oxygenated, so it has an abundance of oxygen now “locked” inside.
Carbon dioxide levels are also lower than normal here which means that a sticky protein called haemoglobin will hold oxygen hostage because there’s not enough carbon dioxide to separate them.
(This is known scientifically as the Bohr effect after Christian Bohr discovered it in 1904.)
But here’s where that word temporarily comes into the picture because as our carbon dioxide levels begin to naturally rise again throughout the breath retention phase, oxygen can then be released. However, this time in more abundant quantities.
This allows more oxygen to reach more tissues in the body, providing more essential nutrients and energy as it goes.
It also manages body temperature which is how Wim Hof was able to run through the desert without water and stay so long in an ice bath.
The long-term effects of intermittent hypoxic training are that fewer breaths are needed to be breathed per minute. And fewer breaths breathed per minute promotes mental clarity, inner peace, relaxation, good digestion, a healthy heart, and a calm nervous system.
A fantastic comparison
Fasting from food helps the body to cleanse, heal, and regenerate in much the same way holding the breath out can.
The longer a person goes without food, the bigger the impact of fasting has on their body. Fasting for three days has a bigger impact than fasting for 12 hours, for example. It’s the same with the breath.
It’s only when a person goes without food for too long or too often does it become a problem.
However, because the body can survive for months without food and days without water, there is less urgency for the body to respond so more time is needed for the effects to kick in. Hence why fasting is done over many days.
A lack of water forces the body into a quicker response, but it still takes hours before it rings the alarm.
When it comes to the breath, however, the body knows it only has a few precious seconds to respond whenever the breath stops so it wastes no time in alerting the heart and brain of its absence.
That urgency is key because an enormous amount of information and resources are sent around the body almost immediately.
It’s the same way skin heals and repairs. When our skin is burned, scraped, or cut a lot of information is quickly sent to the damaged area(s). Water forms blisters to protect burns. Blood hardens into scabs. And new cells rush to create new patches of skin to cover the affected areas.
The body’s wisdom is doing this all the time, both externally on organs like the skin and internally on each and every cell.
The pause that kumbhaka pranayama/intermittent hypoxic training provides speeds up this healing process because it capitalises on the body’s urgency to heal and regenerate either because (or before) it needs healing.
This then ultimately repairs and/or reverses tissue and cell damage or prevents damage from occurring in the first place.
Other benefits of kumbhaka pranayama/intermittent hypoxic training are:
- Increased red blood cell count
- Improved cognitive functioning
- Improved focus
- A stable HRV (heart rate variability)
- Lower blood pressure
- Bigger lung volume capacity
- Significantly improved autonomic nervous system functioning
- Smooth digestion
- Clean cerebrospinal fluid movement
- More untapped energy
Breathing exercise
Let’s bring it all together.
- Find a nice comfortable position lying down
- Relax your hands and feet, allowing your soles and palms to face up to the sky
- Breathe in smoothly, deeply, and fully through your nose or mouth
- Exhale fully through your mouth, emptying all the air out of your lungs
- Continue for 40 more breaths
- Then on your last exhale, hold ‘no breath’ for as long as you possibly can
- When you can’t hold your breath any longer, inhale fully and hold a full breath in your lungs for 30 seconds. Then exhale and repeat twice more (total of 3 rounds)
- Relax and meditate
Soma Breath is how I love to practice this every day and it’s what I’ve been doing for four years now.
They went one step further by adding rhythmical breathing and brainwave music into the mix which makes for a very powerful combination indeed!
Check them out for yourself here
Or, alternatively, read more of my own personal journey into the technique here:
