How to Practice Breathwork
Breathwork can be one of the most powerful tools to become everything you hope for. There are many different protocols and approaches to using breathwork to improve our quality of life. We have found SOMA Breath® to be by far among the best. The incorporation of the immersive music tracks and the long breath holds truly make the difference. The SOMA Breath® Protocol incorporates rhythmic breathing with music and these long breath holds to reach the deepest levels of our bodies cellular activity.
However, If you’re new to holding your breath, as part of a breathwork practice with many physical and mental health benefits, it might seem intimidating. But anyone can learn to hold their breath and there are tricks to making it easier.
Tips for more productive Breath Holding
First of all one of the key insights into how to practice breathwork is understanding that the rhythmic breathing prepares you to hold your breath, the more you engage with that the easier holding your breath is. You want to do the rhythmic breathing fully, but don’t force it. Do make a sound on your exhale, this lets more air out which allows you to take more air in on your inhale.
Try squeezing your pelvic floor muscle at the end of your inhale (beats 3 and 4 if it’s a 4:4 rhythm). This allows you to pull in more energy as well. Really engage fully with the rhythmic breathing and enjoy it (don’t worry about how you sound while making a sound at your exhale:), you’ll see that this makes holding your breath easier, Once you master this, you are well on your way to becoming a pro at how to practice breathwork.
After breathing out and holding your breath- do you feel panicky and so you take a breath? Consider pushing past that feeling just for a split second or two- for me, when I was new to this- the feeling went away and I could actually stay holding my breath without any discomfort. It could be a mental thing rather than physical.
Try pushing yourself to hold a little bit longer than is comfortable (you may notice automatic contractions in your belly that’s a good sign- after 2-3 of these is a good time to take a sip). A “sip” is a quick strong breath in and out where you then continue to hold your breath. It’s a good way to encourage yourself too, to not give up and return to normal breathing, but rather to take sips as often as you need. Done correctly, you can maintain a hypoxic state even with taking sips. Really you want to hold as long as you can, but once you get a few automatic contractions then it’s best to take a sip otherwise you will likely just quit because you really were at your limit.
Remember, you’ve just taking in a ton of oxygen from rhythmic breathing so know that you have plenty in your system to now hold your breath. Encourage yourself by timing yourself- if you held your breath 20seconds before, see if you can get 25seconds this time. Another idea is to try a more advanced class where there is more breathwork including controlled hyperventilation- after doing this you will find it MUCH easier to hold your breath and for surprisingly long.
Once you fully understand these techniques on how to practice breathwork efficiently you will surely experience wonderful euphoric feelings as well as reap all the health benefits of intermittent hypoxia! The clarity for your life you will receive is unbelievable.
Look forward to hearing how it’s going for you! You can also use an oximeter to measure if you’re reaching a hypoxic state in your breath holds (this is when you get full benefits), try to reach 90 and below (85 is better, can go down much lower too).