What Is Breathwork – The Science And Purpose Of Different Breathwork Techniques

By Niraj Nalik, Contributor

As there are so many different breathwork styles, I decided it was time for me to write an article that explains the most popular styles, that led me to create my own, and fast growing in popularity, breathwork practice called Soma – learn more about Soma here

 

This article will explain to you the science behind various breathwork practices and modern breathwork’s ancient counterpart, Pranayama.

You will learn:

1. The most popular styles of breathwork that exist today.
2. How various styles of breathwork influence your physiology in different ways.
3. Why Pranayama, an ancient form of breathwork, is the most holistic form with important long term health benefits.
4. The importance of controlling oxygen levels in your body, and the little known facts about carbon dioxide.
5. The evolution of Soma Breath as the most holistic breathwork practice that is free from dogma and based on strong scientific principles.

If you want to try the SOMA Breathwork technique I offer free sessions every Sunday where you can learn all about the technique and even experience a session online. Click here to join our next session

The Most Popular Styles Of Breathwork That Exist Today

There are numerous styles of breathwork however here are the most popular breathwork styles with a description of how they work and what they are used for.

Holotropic Breathwork

This popular breathwork practice was originated by Dr. Stanislav Grof and his wife in the 1970s. Dr. Stan Grof is a psychotherapist and inventor of transpersonal therapy. He was one of the first people to use LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, however, when it was made illegal, he needed an alternative. He discovered that through breathwork techniques you could stimulate a similar psychedelic effect that would also be therapeutic.

How Does Holotropic Breathwork Work?

Holotropic breathwork would be done either in groups or one on one in the presence of a ‘sitter’ who facilitates the process of guiding people through their breathwork experience. A participant would lie on their backs and hyperventilate by breathing in a continuous rapid manner for 1-2 hours. You would breathe in with a forced exhale through your nose and a relaxed exhale out through your mouth without any pauses in your breath. In some variations, you would breathe through your mouth with a gasp on the inhale and a relaxed sign on the exhale. The experience would have very dramatic music as the soundtrack that changes frequently in its theme and moods. The result would be a very cathartic and sometimes psychedelic process where the participant may have a dream like visions, hysterically cry, laugh, have severe muscle cramps called ‘tetany’ and go into spasms, releasing a lot of emotions. At the end of the experience, the participant would be asked to draw or paint a ‘mandala’ to represent visually any thoughts or ideas that came out of the experience.

Scientific Explanation Of Holotropic Breathwork

In Dr Stan Grof’s own word’s, what may explain some of the common feedback from holotropic breathwork, is that it causes the participant to go into a simulated ‘near death’ experience, that processes a lot of past traumas and makes the participant feel they are ‘reborn’ at the end of it. Some participants may leave the experience feeling more traumatized that before they did it. In various reports from Dr. Stan Grof’s own holotropic breathwork sessions, it is not unusual for people to see a white light at the end of the tunnel, or see dead relatives.

This ‘near death experience’ that Dr. Grof states is harmless in the long term, may be stimulated by the ‘respiratory alkalosis’ generated by excessive hyper-oxygenation of the bloodstream that changes the pH of the blood by making it more alkaline. Your body has a very strict control mechanism of blood pH. If this changes even by a tiny degree, your body goes into panic mode and does whatever it can to correct the in balance, as if it goes on too long and too far, you will die. You will learn more about respiratory alkalosis later in this article.

It may also be that Holotropic breathwork produces a stress response in the body which stimulates the reptilian and limbic part of the brain that deals with survival instincts and emotions. If this part of the brain believes you are dying, but you override it, this may reprogram the hardwired instincts based around fear and survival, to make you have less fear and more resilience during stressful situations that life inevitably may throw at you. It would have a similar ‘reimprinting’ effect to doing something totally shocking and overstimulating to the brain, such as taking a powerful psychedelic or jumping out of a plane at 30,000ft, making your reptilian brain go, ah well if I can survive that, I can get through anything!

Rebirthing

Rebirthing breathwork was created by Leonard Orr, also in the 1970s and it is remarkably similar to holotropic breathwork in its effects, method, and results. Leonard Orr, however, claims this is a divine breathwork technique that was given to him by an immortal yogi called, Mahavatar Babaji who also inspired Yogananda, the famous yogi who brought yoga to the West, best-selling book, The Autobiography Of A Yogi. Leonard Orr believes that through this breathing technique you simulate the feeling of being born from the womb and taking your first breath. This is supposed to help you overcome what Leonard Orr claims is the most traumatic experience of your life, that affects people psychologically into adult life, that is the very process of ‘being born’ into this reality. He has his own club with a fairly high membership fee called, ‘The Immortality Club’ where he claims that using rebirthing breathwork, you can overcome death itself, by overriding what he calls ‘the death urge’ and then becoming immortal. He is still alive into his 80s, so something he is doing is working, however, my grandma also lived into her 80s, and I never ever saw her lying on her back hyperventilating!

How Does Rebirthing Breathwork Work?

Rebirthing breathwork is practically the same process to holotropic breathwork without dramatic music. The emphasis is on the relaxed exhale. The reason is that as human’s we tend to force the exhale or breathe out under tension, whereas birthers believe that the exhale should be as relaxed as possible as this help liberate stress and tension from the body. During my first session, I got very high and went into a fairly deep meditative state at the end of it. I then was then told to repeat the rebirthing process the next day in a hot bathtub, which was very comforting, and reminded me of when I was a child and used to go into really deep dream-like states often for 1-2 hrs by myself in a very hot bathtub – I would say this was my first ‘psychedelic trip’ at the age of 12, when I nearly fainted from being in their so long!

After a little bit of research, I was surprised to discover that Leonard Orr did practically the same thing. He would get into hot bathtubs, stay 30mins – 1hr longer than when his mind starts telling him he should get out, a length of time he calls ‘the urgency barrier’. By overriding, the ‘urgency barrier’ profound revelations and deep transpersonal insights would be revealed to him. He then went on to create the ‘rebirthing breathwork’ practice that is one of the most popular styles today, as a way to make this ‘overriding the urgency barrier’ process more accessible.

Many facilitators of rebirthing come from the ‘new age’ world and use new age terms to describe the revelations in the process that come to participants, such as being visited by angels, demons or seeing ancestors or going back into ‘past lives’. True or not true, they still seem to have usually positive and therapeutic meaning and significance to the people experiencing the revelations.

Scientific Explanation Of Rebirthing Breathwork

There is very little scientific explanation given by either Dr. Stan Grof or Leonard Orr for how their techniques work, or whether any health or psychological issues can be caused by frequently repeating the process over the long term.

The clue for how rebirthing works may also be resisting the physical stress created by hyperoxygenation and the resulting respiratory alkalosis. Leonard Orr describes somewhat elusive terms on his website like ‘resisting the death urge’ and talks about breaking the ‘urgency barrier’ as the goal of his method. This could be the very fact he is psychologically and consciously overriding the natural fear response to stop breathing from when the body becomes too alkaline. As the body is so quick and efficient to adapt to changes in blood pH, any conscious meddling of blood pH would quickly revert back to normal after the hyperventilation is stopped and would most likely not cause much long term damage to the body if only done occasionally.

So, in essence, you are tricking the body into thinking it is about to die, therefore creating the same chemical reaction as a ‘near death experience’ which for some people can release deep emotions such as fear, crying and others hysterical laughing and even the feeling of deep bliss. The deep bliss states often reported at the end of hyperventilating breathwork styles may be due to the release of endocannabinoids and opiates due to the stress response on the body. Recent scientific studies on the Wim Hof method confirms this physiological response happens after the circular connected breathing phase of the method.

Wim Hof Method

This more recently popular breathwork technique was developed by my close friend and mentor, Wim Hof, The Ice Man. He discovered it after being inspired by the power of breathwork from learning and mastering yoga and martial arts at a young age. He later refined the breathwork practice of the Wim Hof Method after being drawn to freezing cold water that he would love to dip into. Wim Hof wanted to be able to stay longer in the freezing cold water, as it had such a therapeutic effect at relieving the depression he suffered from. This was triggered by his wife committing suicide leaving him to look after 4 children. The actual Wim Hof breathwork technique generates heat in the body, while at the same time stilling the mind to be able to control the sensations of fear and stress from the intense cold. However creating this breathwork technique led him to eventually break over 20+ world records with several of these records involving Wim being able to handle extreme weather conditions, and proving scientifically for the first time, that you can control your autonomic nervous system, just through the power of breathwork and meditation. What sets this apart from rebirthing and holotropic breathwork is that it is daily practice only requiring 5-10 minutes to do. There are many positive reports from over 50,000+ members of the Wim Hof private facebook group, who regularly practice the Wim Hof breathwork method. Some having reversed the symptoms of chronic autoimmune conditions, others have managed to also withstand extreme conditions, by joining Wim on crazy expeditions climbing up mountains in Poland and even Kilimanjaro!

How Does Wim Hof Method Breathwork Work?

The Wim Hof Method breathwork technique consists of 20-30 cycles of continuously connected breathwork with no pauses between each inhale and exhale. In a similar way to rebirthing, your exhale should be relaxed and you should not full exhale, but still leave some air in the lungs, so that you breathe in more oxygen that you breathe out. You would then make a final exhale and hold your breath for as long as possible with no air in your lungs. You would then get an urge to breathe, as CO2 builds up in the bloodstream signaling your brain that you need to breathe again, so when you take a final inhale and hold your breath in for 15-30 seconds, squeezing the forehead a little to shoot blood flow to the brain. You would then usually repeat this process for 2-3 rounds.

Scientific Explanation Of Wim Hof Method Breathwork

What sets Wim Hof apart from both Leonard Orr and Dr Stan Grof is his enthusiasm for trying to scientifically show exactly what is happening during the breathwork to the mind and body, as well as to explain why people get the health benefits they receive from daily practice. Another important thing that differentiates the Wim Hof Method breathwork from Rebirthing and Holotropic breathwork is the breath retention phase where you hold your breath out for as long as possible, then hold it in for 15-20s. This phase also explains many of the scientifically proven health benefits of the Wim Hof Method. The 20-30 cycles of continuously connected breathwork, hyperoxygenates the bloodstream, and this creates a slight respiratory alkalosis, making the blood pH more alkaline. It may help give relief to over-acidity in the body. However, this is very brief as your blood has a very intricate system for maintaining the correct pH balance. In this first phase, you breathe out more CO2 than normal, meaning you can hold your breath a lot longer than normal, as it is CO2 that signals your brain that you need to breathe again. The next phase involves holding your breath on the exhale for as long as possible. After around 1:30min breath retention time, blood oxygen levels now drop below 90% SPO2 level (the measurement of oxygen saturation of the blood). This creates a brief period of hypoxia. Your brain responds by signaling the body to prepare for survival in a lower than normal oxygen environment by initiating a positive stress response. A cascade of hormones is released, especially adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Blood vessels dilate, especially in the areas of your brain and heart that require the most oxygen, as your body thinks it is running out of oxygen. The final inhales and breath retention for 15-30 seconds gives a new surge of oxygen to the brain. This produces, even more, feel-good hormones and a flushing effect of fresh blood being sent to all the organs. The net result of this method is becoming more resilience to stress. Internal heat is also generated in the body, especially from the breath retention phase. It is also a powerful technique for preparing to climb up a mountain as you become more adapted to low oxygen environments. Hence why Wim uses this to train his students to be able to climb up extremely high mountains in nothing but their shorts!

Pranayama

I was personally drawn to pranayama when I became very sick with an autoimmune condition called ulcerative colitis. My dear friend, Swami Ambikananda taught me very simple breathing she calls ‘the extended exhalation’ rooted in pranayama that had a powerful healing effect on my mind, body, and spirit when combined with my own style of meditation in and out of a sauna.

No one really knows the true origins of pranayama but it is at least 5000+ years old, and perhaps even 10,000+ years old according to which historian you choose to listen to! However, the yoga sutras, from which pranayama originates from, was first systemized and recorded by Patanjali in 200-300 BC.

How Does Pranayama Work?

Prana = life force/energy and Yama = control.

So Pranayama means ‘energy control’ and it is a series of different breathwork techniques each one with a different therapeutic purpose that works through the control of energy in the body.

There are many different types of pranayama but I believe there are 7 core ones that have the most practical benefits for everyday life, as well as evidence-based research to support them.

1. Omkar  (chanting and extending the exhale with OM mantra) – for relaxation/cooling the body/preparing for yoga asanas
2. Anulom Vilom/Nadi Sodhana  (alternate nostril breathing) – for activating whole brain/relaxation/preparing for yoga asanas
3. Bhastrika (bellow breathing/breathing in more O2 than you breathe out and breathing out CO2) – for energizing the body/generating heat/flushing organs with oxygen and fresh blood
4. Kapalbhati (rapid forced exhales while pulling in the abdomen) – for getting rid of stale stomach gases/clearing sinuses/energizing
5. Kumbhaka (breath hold/retention either on inhale – puraka/antar or exhale – rechaka/bahir) – promoting healing/deep meditation
6. Ujayi breath (restricting the throat to slow down and control the flow of air into lungs on inhaling and exhale) – relaxing/generating heat/preparing for yoga asanas
7. Kati Mudra (‘drinking air’ into gut) to cleanse bowels and promote the growth of good bacteria

How to do alternate nostril breathing

 

Scientific Explanation Of Pranayama

A closer examination of Pranayama and its techniques by showing that they all have something profoundly similar, the control of air flow in and out of the body. Omkar, Anulom Vilom, Ujayi and Kumbhaka all lead to a much slower rate of air flow meaning CO2 levels rise and O2 levels fall, and in the case of Kumbhaka, no air at all, with a dramatic increase in CO2 and decrease in O2. Bhastrika and Kapalbhati are much more energising, and the opposite effects. with a major increase in O2 and decrease in CO2. I will go into more depth in the science of Soma Breath as to exactly why the ancients had a big emphasis on controlling O2 levels and focused primarily on increasing Co2 levels.

The pranayama techniques with the most significant health benefits and proven scientific research to back them up are Om Kar, Anulom Vilom and Kumbhaka. Wim Hof’s breathwork method is similar to a combination of Bhastrika and Kumbhaka, and Wim has already proven the benefits of his own method.

The very fact they are focused on lowering O2 levels and raising CO2 levels contradicts most of our modern ideas about the role and importance of oxygen to our health and wellbeing. You will discover exactly why this is in the next section.

Soma Breath

As a pharmacist who healed himself from a chronic autoimmune condition using breathwork and meditation techniques based on pranayama and yoga, I was fascinated to try and research exactly why and how they worked.

I first discovered the power of breath after finding peace and solace in a sauna after a hard days work from my highly stressful career as a community pharmacist, when frequently visiting a wellness centre called Nirvana in my home town of Reading, England. I instinctively began to extend my exhalation and even make toning sounds with my voice that would bring me into a deep meditative state. To the surprise of other members of the spa, I was able to stay in the sauna for many times longer than everyone else, up to 45-1hr at 90c+ temperatures.

Eventually I escaped the pharmacy as I was promoted to the head office of one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK to carry out his novel healthy shopping list system for delivering essential life saving information to patients on diet, nutrition and holistic health. This is when I was first branded as ‘The Renegade Pharmacist’ as the corporate management felt the idea was too ‘risky’ and could conversely impact profits.

The fear of going back to my old job standing on my feet all day dishing out pills as a pharmacist overwhelmed me and I ended up housebound for nearly a year with an autoimmune condition called Ulcerative Colitis and depression. I was left with the option of being a guinea pig for a new untested drug or having my entire colon removed.

A dear friend called Swami Ambikananda came to the rescue and told me that I now have a new gift, and that if I chose a third path of using holistic techniques of ayurveda, yoga, meditation and breath/pranayama to heal myself without medication or surgery I would become a great role model to others.

This is when I learned the ‘extended exhalation’, breath retention and chanting/toning techniques, that became the catalyst for my cure. I then went back into the sauna and revisited my own instinctive methods for relieving stress and combined my own style of self hypnosis/visualization techniques that helped to rapidly heal me.

This urged me to bring pranayama, meditation and yoga to more people, however I felt a similar battle to what Wim Hof faced. Major opposition from people, especially doctors, fearing that it was from a religious background, was to woo woo to comprehend, or had little or no scientific proof to back up my claims.

So thats when I decided to demystify yoga and pranayama, but rather than just focusing on one breathwork technique, I wanted to share the most effective ones, that have a clear mechanism of action, and that would be free from all dogma and religion.

I then met an amazing doctor called Dr Prakash Malshe who had done a great job of explaining the power of yoga and pranayam from a medical perspective. I went to train with him in Rishikesh and this confirmed my understanding of the physiological effects of breath control leading to the evolution of Soma Breath.

What Is Soma Breath?

Try it for yourself in the 21 Day Awakening Protocol 

Soma is a complete holistic system of breathwork techniques. There is no one size fits all, and Soma takes into account everyone is different and requires different breathing techniques depending on their needs. Soma Therapeutic Breathwork techniques are the core pranayama techniques that have the most scientific evidence to support their function.

The Awakening is inspired by the most revered pranayama technique called Nishessha Rechaka Kumbhaka and the ancient ritual of Soma that has over 50,000 references to it in the ancient text, Rig Veda, that is the basis of modern day Hinduism and the Vedic philosophy that yoga originates from. It is also inspired by the breathwork technique that is the core of the Wim Hof Method, created by Wim Hof, a close friend and mentor, the work of Dr Prakash Malshe an Indian doctor based near Rishikesh, the birthplace of yoga who uses pranayama and yoga to treat his patients, and Swami Ambikananda Saraswati who has one of the most popular yoga schools in the UK, based on the earliest recorded traditional yoga practices.

Modern counter parts such as Rebirthing and Holotropic Breathwork focus on one method that hyperventilates the body. These should be done with caution as oxygen creates oxidative stress in the body, and are not for regular use because of this reason.

Over 5000 people have downloaded our free ebook “Growth Hacking Tips And Rituals For Optimal Living” CLICK HERE to get your free copy now

Soma The Awakening is something that can be practiced more regularly and can only lead to positive health and psychological benefits. F.I.T and Soma Yoga utilizes breath retention and special yoga postures designed to make you highly efficient at using oxygen as they are anaerobic.

Most modern day exercises and styles of yoga that have evolved away from the original teachings are aerobic and so do not create as much strength or endurance.

How Does Soma Breath Work?

Soma Breath takes the fundamental pranayama techniques listed above, puts them in the correct combination to use for the intended therapeutic function and makes them easy and accessible to anyone regardless of race, color or religion.

These breathwork exercises become your toolbox of techniques that you can use to treat or prevent a range of issues that may arise in your body.

Think of Soma Breath as a means to activate your ‘inner pharmacy’ through the power of your breath.

Soma Therapeutic Breathwork

1. RELAX/REST: How to turn off stress and lower heart rate & blood pressure
2. ENERGY: How to raise core body temperature, heart rate and produce a controlled stress response to ward of illness and inflammatory diseases.
3. LONGEVITY: Benefits of intermittent hypoxia for more stamina, better circulation and even ability to move stem cells around the body for anti-aging, longevity and peak performance.
4. DETOX: How to clear toxins from your gut, remove nasal and sinus congestion and purify your blood.
5. CLEANSE: How to drink air to purify digestive system, suppress hunger, eliminate bad bacteria and promote the growth of good bacteria.

Soma The Awakening

The Awakening is a full 1.5hr breathwork ceremony featuring a series of ancient breathing techniques put into a sequence that combines rhythmical breathing to beat-driven music, vocal toning/humming, breath retention, meditation/visualization techniques and the activation and transmutation of sexual energy.

This can:

Awaken dormant functions of the brain.
Enhance creativity
Create heightened states of consciousness and inspiration.
Improve brain function and mind power
Cleanse and purify the bloodstream and lymphatic system.
Activate stem cells
Stimulate self-healing
Reduce depression/anxiety
Clear negative imprints and traumas from early life (0-7 years)
Reimprinting with more empowering beliefs and habits.
Set intentions, create motivation and energy to complete important goals.
Self-realization, discover your true self, your deeper inner calling.

Awakening is one of the most popular experiences that I facilitate at my various events and festivals around the world. It literally wakes people up to their full human potential!

Scientific Explanation Of Soma Breath – Therapeutic Breathwork

Imagine you have a fire burning inside that produces all the energy you need to live. Just like a real fire, if you have too much oxygen, the fire will burn too much potentially causing damage. This is known as oxidative stress on the body. However, too little oxygen will mean the fire cannot burn at all.

So we need the right balance of oxygen, not too much and not too little.

O2 + Glucose = CO2 + H2O + ATP (energy)

When you inhale you breathe in oxygen. This combines with glucose in the mitochondria of your cells to produce carbon dioxide, water, and ATP energy. When you exhale you breathe out the carbon dioxide and water.

Inhalation stimulates your sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight), and when you exhale you stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest/digest).

By changing the way you breathe you can switch on or off the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system depending on what result you want.

Breathing in more oxygen than normal by rapid breathing will be energizing on the body. It will also cause a contraction in the body as you breathe out carbon dioxide.

Slowing down the rate of breathing and extending your exhalation will have a relaxing effect on the body as you raise carbon dioxide and also stimulate nitric oxide that dilates blood vessels.

pH – The Most Important Factor For Life To Exist

Your blood needs to be slightly alkaline at a pH of 7.4 or else the chemical processes that drive your life cannot function. So your body does its best to maintain this exact pH value. Oxygen increases the alkalinity of your blood whereas carbon dioxide makes it more acidic.

Your body can actually survive low pH of around 6.8 without any lasting disturbances to your physiology. These states may be created under intense exercise or long breath retentions and you easily recover from it. However a high pH of 8 and above can quickly kill you and your body struggles to recover.

You actually have an abundance of oxygen and you can measure this by using a pulse oximeter. It will show that most people have 97-99% SpO2 reading under normal conditions and it is not easy to get this reading down to a hypoxic level. So it is very easy to over breath and makes your blood too alkaline under times of stress. You breathe out too much carbon dioxide and breathe in too much oxygen.

This state is called ‘respiratory alkalosis’ and your blood cells quickly correct this by producing more acid in the blood. However, if this situation is chronic due to high-stress levels, or certain disease states causing you to over-breathe, your kidneys have to take over. This can make you lose important minerals like sodium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphates. Your body may also compensate by dumping extra acid, meaning there is less available for your stomach and this may lead to digestive disorders.

Too much oxygen leads to contraction and sympathetic dominance, meaning you do not go into the necessary parasympathetic rest and digest mode causing digestive disorders.

Chronic respiratory alkalosis caused by chronic stress can lead to:

Chronic anxiety/depression
Panic attacks
Stiff joints, muscles, and inflammation.
Asthma
Digestive disorders
Constipation
Kidney disorders
Heart disease and failure

How Your Body Rusts

When you expose the metal to air for long periods of time such as the body of your car, the oxygen in the atmosphere reacts with the metal through a process called oxidation that causes it to rust.

The same rusting occurs in the body that can lead to inflammation and cell damage.

This is why we want to control the amount of oxygen that goes into the body.

By a process known as the Bohr effect, you need a certain concentration of carbon dioxide in order to release oxygen into your tissues which is normally bound to hemoglobin.

So disease can also be the result of over-breathing or hyperventilation that happens when you are stressed or anxious which causes you to have too little carbon dioxide and too much oxygen bound to hemoglobin and not enough going into the cells where it is needed to create energy.

I believe that Yoga was developed to help you become super efficient at burning oxygen, giving you the right amount of carbon dioxide in your body, so that you can survive with less oxygen, creating less oxidative stress on the body, promoting longer, disease-free lives.

Scientific Explanation Of Soma The Awakening Breathwork

The hardest imprints and traumas to clear are from your inner womb experience to birth and then first 6/7 years of your life. Higher yoga practices were designed to clear these past traumas and negative conditioning so that you can become free and liberated.

The Awakening is a higher yoga ritual designed to clear negative imprints and help you break free from the past, so you can be more present, in the flow, liberated with the power to create your own reality.

The rhythmical breathing phase hyper-oxygenates the body, bringing in more oxygen and blowing out more carbon dioxide than normal. This alters the pH of the bloodstream and creates a stronger electromagnetic field and current to flow through the body. The effect of this is an elevation of your vibrational and emotional energy. Through a higher vibration and emotional quality, negative emotions can be released and cleansed from the body, and the ability to attract and manifest your intentions is increased.

This type of breathing also moves the largest lymph gland in the body creating a powerful cleansing effect.

Before the breath retention phase, you extend you exhale with deep vocal toning. This allows you to tap into the power of the vagus nerve, switch off stress and connect with your subconscious mind during the breath retention phase.

Life is a series of inhales and exhales, and when you pause your breath you press pause on life. Your quality of thought is also linked to the breath. Erratic breathing leads to erratic thinking. Smooth consistent breathing leads to coherent thought – this has been shown by studies from the Heart Math Institute.

When you pause your breath during the breath retention phase, you press pause on life. This allows you to go into the deepest meditative state possible where you can connect with your subconscious mind.

Using the power of affirmations, visualization techniques and self-hypnosis you can program your subconscious operating system to influence your autonomic nervous system.

The activation of sexual energy throughout the process and the gradual progression of the experience through repetition of the routine over a 1hr duration creates a strong gamma wave stimulation and heightened ecstatic states of consciousness.

Powerful emotional releases can occur, negative imprints from the past can be cleared, and what we call ‘divine downloads’ that are moments of deep insight and moments of inspirations makes this experience truly unforgettable.

References:

Rebirthing Breathwork

https://rebirthingbreathwork.com/

Wim Hof Method

https://WimHofMethod.com

Holotropic Breathwork

https://www.livestrong.com/article/233280-holotropic-breathing-technique/

Nisshesha rechaka pranayama offers benefits through brief intermittent hypoxia

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3361916/