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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
Focused breathing exercises have been used for centuries as an effective therapeutic modality with many physical and mental health benefits. Explore our wide variety of breathing techniques for relaxation, calming the nervous system, falling asleep, and much more.
The breath is a great place to practice appreciation because it is the most fundamental reason that you're alive.
Breathwork is the practice of using intentional, controlled breathing exercises to positively affect your physical, mental, and emotional state. As a mindfulness tool, practicing breathwork can be a wonderful aid in re-centering in the present moment. There are many types of breathwork which serve different purposes and offer unique physical and mental health benefits (we will touch on these below).
Breathwork has a wide range of mental and physical benefits. When practiced regularly, these are just some of the things that breathwork can help with:
It’s important to check with your healthcare provider if you’re sick or pregnant to make sure a specific breathing exercise is safe — but there are practices that can promote healing and that are gentle, safe, and beneficial during pregnancy.
Choose an area of interest to explore, and start your mindfulness journey today.
If you’re new to focused breathing exercises and want to experience the benefits of breathwork, there are breathwork apps that can offer guidance. The Mindfulness.com app offers a library of conscious breathing practices for many different purposes.
Here are 6 techniques commonly used in breathwork that you can try to get started.
Conscious breathing comes in a variety of forms, from following specific patterns to focusing on deep breathing, rapid breathing, or even intentional holding of the breath. Each type has its own purpose and its own benefits. Some types of breathing can be a part of several different schools of breathwork therapy. For example, Conscious Connected Breathing is used in Holotropic Breathwork, Integrative Breathwork, and Shamanic Breathwork.
Let’s briefly explore some of the most common types of breathwork.
Holotropic breathwork is a therapeutic breathing practice that involves taking rapid, deep breaths for up to 2-3 hours, often with music playing in the background. It is designed to help with emotional healing, trauma release, and personal growth. Because it is essentially a controlled hyperventilation that can cause altered states of consciousness (and big emotional release), it is recommended that this practice be done in the presence of a certified holotropic breathwork practitioner.
Also referred to as conscious energy breathing (CEB), rebirthing breathwork is a self-healing technique marked by intentional deep breathing that eliminates the pause between inhale and exhale. In the process of engaging in this conscious connected breathing with a trained and trusted facilitator, a participant begins to feel safe enough to allow unresolved emotions and memories to surface. In the altered state of consciousness, people see their experiences with a new kind of objectivity and perspective, and many report a deep sense of peace and clarity at the end of sessions.
Based on pranayama in yogic practice, shamanic breathwork is a way of consciously controlling and integrating your breathing with meditative practice. It holds that breathing is not just a physical process, but also a mental and spiritual process that can intimately affect our physical and emotional wellbeing.
A biodynamic breathwork session combines focused connected breathing with movement, sound, bodywork, meditation, and emotional release. This school of breathwork therapy has been developed as a tool for physical, emotional, and trauma healing.
Soma breathwork, sometimes called Soma Awakening Breath, was developed by Niraj Naik. It uses a combination of ancient yogic breathing like pranayama and Kundalini yoga technology, along with visualization and music sound healing. It increases the production of alpha brain waves, dropping the practitioner into a deeper meditative state, strengthening the nervous system, and improving symptoms related to depression and anxiety.
Formerly connected to Rebirthing, Clarity breathwork is a combination of personalized counseling with an hour of guided circular continuous breathing. Conducted in the presence of a certified practitioner, Clarity breathwork allows a person to enter a heightened state of awareness, which helps release held tension, stress, suppressed emotions, and old stories. After each session, the guide offers suggestions and possible assignments that are designed to help integrate insights and healing into daily life.
One of the most recognizable breathwork practitioners in the world is Wim Hof, the Dutch extreme athlete (known as “the Iceman”) who is able to withstand extremely cold temperatures. His health-boosting Wim Hof Method combines cold therapy with deep, rhythmic breathing (which he calls “power breathing”), along with periods of holding the breath. This has the effect of improving the health of the autonomic nervous system — the system which controls the automatic function of all our major organs. A stronger autonomic nervous system bolsters immunity, lowers blood pressure, reduces the effects of periodic and chronic stress, and enhances physical and mental wellbeing.
Discover the practical benefits of mindfulness and meditation by learning from some of the world’s most respected teachers, authors, and researchers.
While breathing techniques can be and are often used to aid in meditation, breathwork itself is a standalone practice separate from meditation.
Like meditation, breathwork is often practiced for its many mental and physical health benefits, like lowered stress and blood pressure, release of tension, increase in mood-boosting neurochemicals, stronger immune function, and improved sleep. So they make wonderful companion practices.
So while it isn’t strictly necessary to focus on breathing in order to meditate, many breathwork practitioners find that learning to work with the breath greatly enhances their meditation practice and increases the benefits.
By learning how to breathe from the diaphragm, you reap the benefits of lowering your blood pressure and stress levels.
Play NowIt’s understandable that those who are new to breathwork are curious about the evidence-based claims that practitioners make. And in recent years, there has been an increased interest in the effectiveness of breathwork in the scientific community. As a result, these practices have been scientifically proven to improve mental, physical, and emotional health.
Breathing is (obviously) fundamental to our very existence — but we often are completely unaware of how our posture, daily habits, stress levels, and environment affect the quality of our breathing. Breathwork intentionally focuses on expansive, healthy breathing, which alkalizes your blood PH, reduces inflammation and tension, improves mood, and strengthens muscles. It’s a simple thing with a huge impact on our overall health and wellbeing!
Because breathwork activates the parasympathetic nervous system, it gets the body out of fight/flight/freeze mode and into rest/relax/digest/repair mode. In this state, where our defenses are finally down and we feel safe, it is common for people to experience the release that can make physical and emotional healing possible.
Technically, some types of intense breathwork (like Holotropic breathwork) could be considered controlled and voluntary hyperventilating. Deep rhythmic breathing temporarily reduces CO2 and oxygen delivery to the tissues and increases alkalinity in the blood — which calms activity in the frontal cortex and can cause that tingly “high” sensation that many people report. For the vast majority of people, these temporary biochemical changes are not harmful, and in fact have been scientifically proven to have a host of benefits.
Certain types of intense breathwork are not recommended for people with a history of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, or heart problems. For people new to breathwork, dizziness can result — and very vigorous practices should be done with the help of a trained practitioner. Pregnant women should consult with their healthcare providers before participating in breathwork.
Breathwork is safe to practice every day, and a breathwork session of 5-15 minutes is a wonderful way to start or close the day.
As mentioned above, the temporary reduction in CO2 and oxygen levels with deep breathing can lead to altered states of consciousness. Many people report feelings of deep inner peace, euphoria, emotional release, connection, and a tingly buzzy feeling.
Generally, breathwork practitioners recommend doing your breathwork practice after yoga or exercise. Traditionally in yoga, the asana (poses) come before the pranayama (breathing). Additionally, because breathwork balances the nervous system, it is a great tool for activating the rest, relaxation, and recuperating mechanisms of the body after exercise.
Read about the fundamental principles of mindfulness, how to practice in your everyday life, and the latest in mind-body research.
Mindfulness, at Your Fingertips
The Mindfulness.com app offers access to guided meditations, talks, courses, calming soundscapes, and micro-practices for in-the-moment support — plus encouraging daily dispatches from Melli and Cory. It’s the perfect companion for the journey.
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We believe in a world where everybody has access to the life-changing skills of mindfulness.