In | Out
It’s self-evident. The natural cycles playing out over the course of each year, each month, each day are elements of life itself. The four seasons, a synodic lunation, day & night, and even our own breathing. And they’re reflective of each other. Consider the Summer Solstice, where the Sun reaches its highest excursion of latitude, at 23.4° N, the top of an inhale. And by complement some six months later at 23.4° S, the Winter Solstice is the full exhale. The inhale is Yang, as is the march to Summer, and the exhale is Yin, as in the retreat toward Winter.
Of course … and I know you know … it’s not the Sun that’s rising and falling, rather it’s the changing geometry of the Earth’s position along its orbital path, and its axial tilt, both relative to the Sun, that produce the annual changes we call seasons. Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, the greater insolation of the Spring and Summer months is generally the growing season. Flora and fauna flourish now, again, that’s Yang. Then reversing, and withering. That’s Yin.
Of course, exceptions exist: evergreen trees, for instance, but by-and-large, these are the polarities, and the solar system, and thus our earthly experience breathes. In and out.
This contrast between Summer & Winter extremes differs with latitude, but manifests nonetheless. Whether midnight Sun or twenty-four-hour darkness at the top / bottom of the world or, whether dry season or monsoon nearer the equator, a year is but one life cycle on this planet. Again, Earth’s respiration.
Over shorter periods — months, in this case — the lunar phases follow a similar pattern. While not directing seasonal growth / decay, the Moon’s revolutions around the Earth produce meaningful tidal shifts affecting the behavior of marine organisms. Grunions are the small, sardine-like fish that rush the Southern California shorelines during Spring and Summer months. In an effort to spawn at the higher tides of the New, and Full Moons it’s a spectacle to behold. With humans, well, whether scientifically validated or not, some people exhibit crazy behavior under command of the Full Moon. Theirs is, as defined by Apple Computer’s Dictionary App, an “insanity of an intermittent kind.” Lunacy!
For practical purposes humans have organized weeks and months around a lunar calendar simply because it’s a natural time keeper. A week begins with Monday, or Moon-day. A single lunation is a month (Moonth). And, being human, ancient despots would add days and even months to the calendar for their own aggrandizement. July, August, for instance. That said, Solar and Lunar years don’t easily coincide. But no matter, since, as Steven Hawking pointed out, Nature isn’t perfect. (But her rules are.)
Continuing…
Daily, well at least between latitudes 66° north and south, the Sun appears to rise and set over 24 hours, delimiting day and night. Within these intervals of light and dark, this quotidian cycle, we work and rest, we wake and sleep, and we breathe … in and out. These rhythms, beats, pulses, are apparent in the swirling paisleys of the Taiji — the Yin / Yang symbol — and they reveal an ancient wisdom. In fact, any naturally occurring cycle, or antagonistic pair — light / dark, hot / cold, loud / quiet, push / pull, up / down, this / that … what-have-you — describes the Way. Work with these contrasts, complements, and processes that have been developed over billions of years to your benefit. Or not, to your detriment.
Respiration is one of the processes, celestially, earthly, and individually. And, of course, it’s self-evident. Still, somehow, we as a society tend to miss the recurring opportunities to hitch a ride with the Tao, or the natural order.
Healthy animals breathe comfortably without even trying. They are breathing only enough to satisfy metabolic needs. Animals in captivity, however — as zoo attractions, as laboratory subjects, or as pets in our homes — may breathe as neurotically as do many humans. That’s a reaction to their contrived environment. Even the low-grade threat of captivity itself can produce an autonomic nervous system response — fight / flight — that increases ventilation.
Since in an artificial environment, like our typical day-to-day, which is filled with outsized mental stimuli and little opportunity to recover, a negative feedback loop ensues. This self-perpetuating perception of threats stokes a primal sympathetic response. Adrenaline is released, respiration increases, and the body / mind is ready to engage. Problem is, the daily threat is not immediately physically endangering. It isn’t real in the way threats were real when nervous systems were developed on Earth. Yet, the perceived threat is continual.
Individuals are jolted throughout their day and have little to no way of grounding that charge. Anxiety follows, as does rapid breathing, as does adrenaline release, as does anxiety, as does breathing … and it becomes a vicious circle. It’s useful to note that just breathing in excess of metabolic demands — hyperventilation — puts the organism under stress, and into a continuous sympathetic drive, a hyper-vigilance, that eventually exhausts the body and mind, opening the door to any number of psychophysiological ailments.
Indeed, our state of health or disease hinges on our rate of breathing in and out. While we can unconsciously count on our nervous system to take care of us in time of emergency, we must consciously manage our nervous system responses the rest of the time. (That’s pretty much all the time.) And, we can do so very effectively by breathing.
Yes, this has been a long-winded way of getting to these breathing exercises, but doesn’t it make sense to acknowledge the inherent cyclical workings of Nature, in both the grand and more minute scales, so as to better appreciate how we humans are a part of the natural world, the natural universe? We are integrated with, not separate and apart from Nature. Even as clever as we are, and even as we do solve many ostensible problems through development and application of specific technologies, we often confound natural processes. Drug contraindications and side-effects are evidence of expedience over effectiveness.
That doesn’t necessarily make us smart. Smart would be recognizing and blending with natural cycles instead of fighting them. Historically, many solutions we find are for problems we ourselves create. Take your pick of the diseases of civilization. While the last sentences could lead to lengthy discussions, one very simple solution — breathing less — could very well stem the endemic breathless, irrational decision-making that inevitably leads to our overlooking or ignoring the natural order in favor of short-sighted artifice and convenience.
One problem we’ve created is that of the big breath. The early yogic texts reference minimal breathing, and only recently has a dramatic Ujjayi breath been incorporated into commercial Hatha practices. Ujjayi may well be felt on the back of the throat, but it was never supposed to be heard. A loud breath is a big breath. A big breath is an inefficient breath. Generally, you’ll benefit by reducing your breathing. How?
Reduced Breathing
Biochemically, reduced breathing allows for CO2 to accumulate. Since CO2 is a vasodilator, blood flow increases. What’s more, in the presence of CO2, Hb (hemoglobin — the O2 carrying protein in the red blood cells) releases O2 more readily into cells, tissues, organs, and the brain. That means even as the reduced breathing results in something known as air hunger — a desire to take a bigger breath — greater oxygenation is occurring throughout the body. And, since CO2 accumulation indicates when to take a breath, desensitization to CO2 allows for a reduced breath to eventually feel normal (which it is). And there’s more.
A reduced breath provides for nitric oxide (NO) to be produced in the nasal sinuses in exponentially greater amounts. This NO is a vasodilator, and a bronchodilator, and it is antibacterial, and anti viral. The slowly, nasally-circulated air is purified as it enters the airways, and once there it opens the airways, and increases blood flow, too. Then, of course, is the extended duration of both the inhale and the exhale which will — if the breathing is light, and slow — tend to promote a diaphragmatic breath.
This diaphragmatic breath will necessarily be deeper, and as such will be more efficient. The reason being is that there is roughly 150ml of anatomical dead space in the airways. This dead space, between the nose, mouth, trachea, and the first 16 bronchioles is not involved in any gas exchange. That happens between bronchioles 17 to 23, deeper into the lungs. Rapid ventilation takes in and expels, say, 500 ml of air, and the dead space accounts for 150ml of that air. Only 350 ml is available to deliver O2 to and receive CO2 from the blood. Slower ventilation takes in and expels, say, 1000ml of air in half as many breaths, so proportionally less air is lost to the dead space, and proportionally more is available for gas exchange. Slower, diaphragmatic breathing is therefore more efficient. Reduced breathing is a tremendous example of how less really is more.
Some Examples of Useful Breathing Patterns
In my Yin yoga classes, while I do utilize various breathing patterns, here and there, I normally direct what I call a Yin breath. It’s an inhale over four seconds and an exhale over 6 seconds, or a 1 : 1.5 ratio. For some, an inhale over two seconds, and an exhale over three seconds may be all that’s possible. The shorter of the two provides for twelve breaths / minute, which depending on the posture, depending on the individual, may have to suffice. The longer, the 4 : 6, provides for six breaths / minute. During some of my own meditative explorations I’ve used comfortably an 8 : 12 pattern, which provides for three breaths / minute. Between these spans of breath cycles, even if the counts are not precisely second-accurate, most students can find their own correct breathing pace. So, while heart rate variability (HRV) is said to be optimized at the 4 : 6 second pattern, which produces a ten-second breath cycle, any 1 : 1.5 should provide benefit. If not immediately, at least down the road as breathing duration — in particular, the exhale — has been extended.
HRV
Heart rate variability references respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which simply means the heart beats faster on the inhale, and slower on the exhale. One takeaway would be that the increase in heart rate brings more blood to the lungs while that blood is being loaded with O2, and that the decrease in heart rate provides a little more time for that O2 to be offloaded into cells, tissues, organs, and the brain, and, for CO2 to be offloaded into the lungs and expired. Another takeaway is that the HRV is indicative of Vagal Tone.
Vagal Tone
The Vagus nerves, the 10th cranial nerves, meander from either side of the neck to the major organs of the trunk, and into the intestines. An active inhale is more a sympathetic nervous system activator, and the passive exhale a parasympathetic cue. During the reduced breathing just described it effects what’s known as the relaxation response, which includes lowering of the heart rate. This Vagal Tone is indicative of a well-functioning autonomic nervous system, and is recognized through greater RSA — the difference between heart rate on inhalation, and exhalation. The Vagus nerve responds to reduced breathing, especially the extended exhale, by sending acetylcholine to the heart, which lowers heart rate — a relaxation response. While the autonomic nervous system has been considered automatic, and beyond conscious control, it’s actually quite accessible through breathing.
Hyper-ventilation
On the other end of the equation is stressing the system with big, fast breaths. The Wim Hof method of hyperventilation does exactly that. Patrick McKeown’s Oxygen Advantage does, too, with a slight modification. The Oxygen Advantage protocol is 20 big, nasal breaths to hyperventilate, followed by a long breath hold to induce hypoxia / hypercapnia, and then reduced breathing after that. Hyperventilation, once again, is simply breathing in excess of metabolic demands. That is, blowing off more CO2 than is produced from cellular respiration. This sort of breathing, big breathing, is a stressor, and stimulates the sympathetic nervous system — fight / flight. This sort of breathing pattern is stimulating, up-regulating, as is not relaxing, per se. I only use this sort of breathing leading into a relatively active, relatively Yang, Full Moon class.
Box Breathing
A third approach, reportedly used by S.W.A.T. outfits and Navy SEAL teams, is Box Breathing. Box breathing is so named as it reveals a visually square pattern when diagrammed. Inhale for four seconds, retain the breath for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and suspend the breath for four seconds — four sides of equal duration, a square, or box, right?
The idea is that a balance between relaxation and stimulation is achieved. That is, an alert calm, a composed readiness. Probably a good state of being for those functioning in a life and death, or otherwise stressful professional environment. However, since the breathing cycle is quite long, less than 4 breaths per minute, it’s therefore something of a reduced breath. Whether this breathing pattern consistently does what’s purported is not always a given. I cannot speak to armed combat scenarios, but within my experience as a martial artist, and as an athlete, I favor a 1 : 1.5 breathing ratio, or a 1 :1 ratio, in general. Nonetheless, by virtue of it’s symmetry it’s a Yin-Yang-at-once pattern and well suited to Quarter Moon classes.
In a Nutshell
A Reduced Breath is one that’s that 1 : 1.5 ratio, whether that is in seconds, or some fraction of seconds per count, and supports the parasympathetic nervous system’s relaxation response, aka, rest and digest. Through light, slow, and deep nasal breathing incoming air is purified, breathing passages are expanded, blood flow is increased, and O2 is more readily delivered throughout the body. By practicing air hunger you are reducing your sensitivity to CO2, so reduced breathing becomes easier and more natural. Do this for four minutes, or longer, as a meditation, as part of a class, or for a short while when you just need to settle yourself.
A bigger breath, in this context, is a series of strong inhales and exhales, followed by a breath hold, and followed by reduced breathing. The initial inhales / exhales, while big, are made through the nose which provides some of the above benefits. One benefit not mentioned earlier that is present in all nasal breathing is that the incoming air is warmed and moistened, properly conditioning it for entry into the bronchioles and alveoli, the tubes and air sacks where perfusion of O2 into pulmonary capillaries takes places.
So, the Wim Hof variation goes like this: Twenty strong inhales / exhales of 1 second each, followed by a maximum breath hold that begins on the 20th exhale. After however-long — a minute, a minute-and-a-half, two-minutes? — commence reduced breathing, that is, light, slow, and deep breathing, for three minutes. Repeat twice more. Do this as a pick-me-up in the morning, mid-afternoon, or pre-workout.
Box Breathing is a simple light, slow, deep nasal breath over four counts of four. Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds. Try this when you need to be simultaneously on your game, and serene. Equanimous!
Breathing
All the other cycles aside, breathing in and out is the one that is absolutely reflective of life. That should be self evident. The Way of the Tao is to flow with the universal cycles, yet without coordinating with your own inherent cycle of life — breathing — how could that begin to be possible? Whatever your state, now or in the future, you can flow in harmony with the natural order simply by breathing as described, in and out. It is quite literally the case: change your breathing, change your being. Now you know how.
Do It Now
Explore Yin breathing in this free, On Demand Deep Meditation recording from Malibu, CA. Scroll down to the Soundscapes category and scroll across to 03.23.23 | Surf for a soothing nine-minute break from the day-to-day. Or, go longer any of the others. There’s no time like the present!