Black Sun

    Breathing

    Essential Healing Skills

    Breathing

    Breathing as a healing technique seems laughable but it's not. For one, you need to breath to survive and if you aren't doing it well it will create problems for you. Second, it has been linked to health in multiple different ways, the most important being its link to activating the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for calming you down. Hinduism believes breathing to be so important that one of their main branches pertaining to how to reach enlightenment is centered around breathing.

    Here's a list of benefits from deep breathing:

    Benefits

    1Reduces stress by stimulating the Vagus nerve which signals the brain to release stress and promote calm.
    2Counteracts stress responses.
    3Lowers blood pressure.
    4Reduces heart rate.
    5Increases the amount of oxygen delivered to the organs.
    6Makes breathing more efficient by increasing tidal volume (the amount of air moved in each breath).

    There are a lot of very simple breathing techniques out there and all of them are just trying to get you to inhale deeply and exhale deeply, but in very different ways. Here are a couple:

    Techniques

    1
    Box Breathing — Breathe in for 4 counts reaching max breath at 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, breathe out for 4 counts exhaling entirely at 4 counts, hold for 4 counts. Repeat.
    2
    Other Breathing Counts — You can count to whatever you want in terms of breathing. Another common one besides box breathing is breathing in for 8 counts until full of breath, hold for 2, exhale for 8 counts until completely out of breath, hold for two, repeat. Do the count that works for you, just make sure to fully fill your lungs on the inhale and fully expend the air on the exhale.
    3
    Diaphragmatic Breathing — Focusing on breathing from the diaphragm.
    4
    Alternate Nostril Breathing — Taking turns breathing in with individual sides of the nostril.
    5
    Wim Hof Method — The guy is pretty famous for his breathing techniques which has allowed him to endure extreme levels of cold in only shorts. He demonstrates it .
    6
    Pranayama — Hindu breathing techniques. Like I mentioned earlier, an entire branch of Hinduism is devoted to the breath. You can check out a video on a simple 15 minute practice .
    7
    Holotropic Breathwork — The type of breathing intentionally induces stress in the body to help it process difficult emotions. You quickly breath in as much as you can to full lung capacity, then take an extra breath, release it all, and repeat. The whole process should take around a second to do, or as fast as you can do it. Continue this method for 30 minutes to an hour to experience the benefits. You can check out which talks more about it.

    Note of caution for holotropic breathing, colloquially known as breathwork. It is intense and very uncomfortable but effective.

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