Is "Breathwork" the same as Praanaayaama?

In July, I will be leading a This Next Breath Workshop at the Maha Yoga Center in Massachusetts. The owner asks “Is ‘Breathwork’ the same as ‘Praanaayaama?’”

My answer is “No. This Next Breath is a particular praanaayama method. I avoid the word ‘breathwork,’ because of past associations with Rebirthing, Holotropic Breathwork and other hyperventilation techniques.”

“All Yoga is the Same. All Breath practices are the same.”

“All yoga is the same,” to the new student. Someone new to yoga has formed an idea of “Yoga” in their head before they get to class. “Yoga is about yoga poses.” This new student is then bewildered when they look at the class schedule of a modern yoga center that offers dozens of types of yoga that bear little relationship to each other.

“Breathwork and praanaayaama are the same.” They look the same. They are about the breath. And yet, when it comes to the breath, there are many different types of breath practice with significant differences and results.

“Breathwork” is a vague New Age term over the last 50 years that is mostly associated with Rebirthing and Holotropic Breathwork and decades of workshops that employ different hyperventilation techniques. I avoid the label of “breathwork” because of its strong identification with these practices.

Hyperventilation practices make for a good workshop because they can produce a big thrill of non ordinary states of consciousness, “producing dizziness, tingling in the lips, hands or feet, headache, weakness, fainting and seizures. In extreme cases it may cause carpopedal spasms, a flapping and contraction of the hands and feet.” (wikipedia) Hyperventilation highly activates the sympathetic nervous system, and some people claim they re-experience the trauma of their birth. Hyperventilation constricts the blood vessels and capillaries. You might wrongly assume, as most yoga teachers do, that “the more you breathe, the more oxygen gets to your body.” Actually the opposite is true. The body tightly regulates overbreathing and reacts by constricting blood flow.

Hyperventilation can also lead to panic attacks and a whole host of other undesirable outcomes. In 1993, the intentional community of Findhorn in Scotland had to discontinue Holotropic Breathwork because of many undesirable outcomes. Rebirthing has been banned in Colorado after a girl died of suffocation during a 70 minute session. She died of suffocation meaning that no oxygen was getting to her body. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1174742/

Try Hyperventilation

With that said, if you are brave, you might like to try a “breathwork” hyperventilation workshop, just so you have your own experience of them. Then you can speak from first hand experience. You might like them. I have done Rebirthing many times and kinda liked the weirdness of the thoughts I had. It is supposed to be a useful psychotherapeutic tool. It is very possible to have a super cool, one time, trippy experience. If you are a person who suffers from panic attacks, if you have a heart condition, weak valves, poor circulation, diabetes, asthma, and other conditions, you should avoid this kind of “Breathwork.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirthing_(breathwork)

A hyperventilation experience is not a daily practice. It is not something you will do for very long. Hyperventilation techniques, if they have any value, will only be done once in a great while. They will never be a significant part of your life. Whereas, Praanaayaama has the potential to be the most important practice of your life.

“Breathwork,” the way this term has been commonly used over the last 50 years, and its long association with Rebirthing and Holotropic Breathwork is very different from Praanaayaama.

Praanaayaama is different

When it comes to Praanaayaama, the influence of the Krishnamacharya lineage predominates worldwide. The Iyengar and Desikachar schools of praanaayaama, are notable examples. Fundamental to the Krishnamacharya method is a strong reliance on “breath ratios.” The yogi manipulates the breath to fit a certain ratio of inhale, exhale and holding the breath to produce different results. This method of praanaayaama is meant to be built over many months very slowing increasing the length of the inhale, exhale and breath retention. The word praanaayaama is most often associated with this style of practice.

If you are willfully holding the breath, it is of the utmost importance to be monitored by an experienced teacher to watch your daily progress over the months. Willfully holding the breath is extremely powerful, produces intense heat and potentially comes with huge problems (embolisms and aneurysms) for the yogi if done incorrectly, aggressively or with too much force. In 2019, It is quite possible that breath ratios are what most praanaayaama teachers still offer in America.

Squeezing the breath to fit a certain breath ratio is a terrible experience. I am not sure anyone likes it. Even Mr Iyengar wrote of how boring praanaayaama is, much like “learning to play the scales on a piano.” Breath ratios may be true, but no one wants to practice them.

My point is that If you don’t like your practice, you are not going to practice for very long. You certainly wont practice with enthusiasm. Practice happy and you will keep practicing. Lengthen your practice time of Anuloma Viloma and you will find it is the key to kingdom of heaven within.

How is This Next Breath different?

TNB is based in the Kashmiri Pashupati lineage of Swami Kripalu. It is common among the Tantric teachers of the north to place all importance on Alternate Nostril Breath. Alternate Nostril Breath is the superior daily practice. The viewpoint of many gurus and This Next Breath is that Anuloma Viloma is the most important technique in the yoga tradition. I will write more on that later. However, for most students I have taught over the last 31 years, Anuloma Viloma is not necessarily a good place to start.

The absolute starting place of praanaayaama is a daily morning practice. There is no other way. You must develop a lifestyle of daily morning practice for this to work, and never miss a day. Eventually, you will practice many times a day. At first, we don’t emphasize alternate nostril breath during the first two months because the door is not open.

It is more important to awaken the love for the breath first. Experience has shown that the best entry point is to focus on long exhales, sound vibration and subtle body practices that are easy, engaging and ignite the student’s love for the breath. A new student can safely follow those types of experiences and come to many insights on their own. It leads to a sense of “growth!” The long exhale with vibration is fun, absorbing and can be learned in a short amount of time with a minimum amount of experience. You will slowly start developing lung capacity. “Practice happy and get your practice going.” That is the first stage. Love the breath and love your daily practice.

The ethos of This Next Breath is to “Revere the Breath as Consciousness itself. Be the Witness of the Breath.” The physical breath is not to be conquered, but listened to. Take the ego out of controlling the physical breath. Steer the breath, but dont be the awful metaphor of Darth Vader breath. Don’t abuse the breath. You don’t know what you are fooling with. Breath is the Great Mystery. Respond sensitively to how the breath is at this very moment. Be happy, joyous and spontaneous. Never stop. Let if flow. Just keep switching sides. Honor the physical breath which is Consciousness in disguise.

Alternate Nostril Breath is introduced near the beginning of the online course, but not emphasized. The time is not ripe yet. The method is to just start the pattern of alternating breath going. At first, the minds of most accomplished hatha yogis will rebel. They will not be able to do even 15 minutes of alternate nostril breath. If they somehow tough it out once or twice, there are too many obstacles to practice. They are unlikely to continue without support. Huge resistance is built into the first stages of alternate nostril breath. Advanced hatha yogis frequently run away from Anuloma Viloma. As one senior hatha yoga teacher said, “I only need two minutes of alternate nostril breath, tops. What is the point after that?”

This Next Breath has problem solved the most common obstacles to Anuloma Viloma. We break the resistance in novel ways. We walk the walk, one daily practice at a time.

The method is more about listening sensitively. The physical breath is just the outside skin of consciousness. Breath and Consciousness are one. The physical breath moves and Consciousness moves. When the obstacles come up, the course guides you through them with a wide variety of techniques that enhance and hold your attention in the present moment. In the Advanced course, most of these methods have never been seen before, and no one, to my knowledge, teaches them. Then again, I don’t get out very much.

In the Advanced Course of This Next Breath, the emphasis shifts to increasing the time of alternate nostril practice. If you alternate breath through the nostrils long enough, the most amazing things will transpire. You will be dumbfounded by the information that spontaneously arises.

Praanaayaama, since Upanishadic times, has been renowned for awakening the innate higher intelligence in all of us. “Praana activates the Prajna.”

The length of practice is significant. There are so many barriers to lengthening the time of alternate nostril breath practice. The tantric yogis of old like it that way. In a certain sense, you have to earn the information that comes by dedication to practice. We start with 5 minutes, then 10, then 15 and slowly over a few months work up to 24 minutes.

24 minutes, ‘One Ghatikaa” of Anuloma Viloma is the first big milestone. It is difficult to stay that focused on your fingertips and nostrils for every breath when you begin. Once the yogi is well established in an easy flowing, daily, uninterrupted 24 minutes of practice of Alternate Nostril Breath for many months, then the next jump to 48 minutes (“One Mahurta”) is not a big deal.

Time Slows Down

The apparent passage of time slows down when the breath slows down. Instead of 12 breaths per minute which is a normal breath rate, lets say you slow your breath down to only 3 breaths per minute ( 1 every 20 seconds, which is doable in a few months) you will find your awareness of time will slow down or even vanish for long periods.

Biologically, I have found this approach is superior. We want biology to lead the way. We don’t want the messed up, willful, ego in charge, banging out a breath ratio without listening deeply to what is happening in the present moment.

Once established in a solid practice, the time will come when there is a distinct “Paranasal Nitric Oxide release.” The body and breath become flooded with Nitric Oxide everyday. Many Chinese acupuncturists call Nitric Oxide, “Chi” itself. It is the physical form of Chi. Once the body is flooded everyday with Nitric Oxide, many changes take place. (See other blog articles on this topic.)

Everything slows down and gets more efficient. Eventually, the breath will go into a “breath suspension,” but the breath is not held willfully. The stopping of the breath is completely natural, effortless and its not a pathology. The breath will slow down to a crawl, 5 breaths per minute, then 3 breaths per minute and then 2 and then 1. The yogi is not forcing the body to do this. The body no longer needs as much breath because the overall efficiency and metabolic demands of the body don’t require more breath because of the saturation of Nitric Oxide as well as the many hormones released from the pituitary. The breath will be suspended of its own accord. The thinking mind and chattering noise will stop. All there is left, is a wordless Presence. The mind becomes transparent and very clear. Meditation takes off at this point.

Everyone who has fully done This Next Breath remarks how afterwards mediation has never been so easy and effortless.

Work with Your Breath First.

If you want to progress in meditation, if you are frustrated with the noise level your mind is putting out during meditation, try doing what the yogis suggest: “Work with Your Breath first.” Praanaayaama before Buddhist Mindfulness or Yogic Meditation.

Classical Yoga of Patanjali progresses from Aasana, to Praanaayaama, then later on Dhyaana, meditation. Change the biology of the body and nervous system before you sit down and try to observe your flickering mind states. It works better that way. When your biology is stabilized, the mind follows. Trying to lead with your mind in charge, like using a thorn to take out a thorn, is a thorny path.

Gautama, the historical buddha, is said to have tried many praanaayaama practices from the teachers of his day. The Buddha rejected them all. It is recorded that the Buddha’s early breath teachers, were teaching a practice that included holding the breath for long periods of time. The Buddha’s assessment of willful long breath holdings is spot on. Frankly, willful long breath holdings are a nightmare. A “surrendered breath suspension supported by biology and filled with a loving mind” yields the sweet fruit.