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Introduction To Breath Control
As a society, we have been educated into believing that we have no control over our autonomic nervous system and immune response. We have been fear-mongered into the idea that our mind and our body are totally separate from one another and that pharmaceutical drugs and medications are the only options for treating disease.
This is not the real truth. The mind and body are connected far more than we acknowledge. Our health does not rely solely on drugs and medication.
One of the biggest causes of illness in modern society is stress and our inability to effectively manage stress. The crazy thing is that sometimes those that suffer from stress know that they should be doing to better manage it, but they tend to avoid it. They say they are too busy and don’t have enough time, and then the continued stress escalates to a chronic condition later on.
Our modern lifestyle sees us eating junk food, which is called junk food for a reason. It contaminates our physical bodies, and it also alters our energetic bodies by lowering our vibrational energy.
How active are we as a society? The NHS (“Physical activity guidelines for adults”, n. d.) and WHO (“Physical Activity and Adults”, n. d.) recommends that the average adult (all the way from 18 to 64 years old!) should exercise for 150 minutes per week. We have 160 hours in a week, and we are recommended to use 2.5 of them for physical activity. Seems wrong, doesn’t it?
We sit down while we travel to and from work, sit down at desks while we work, get home and sit down to eat, then walk all the way to the couch to watch television. 150 minutes of exercise will not, cannot, and simply does not counteract our sedentary lifestyles in the slightest.
What does television do to nourish our well-being? It triggers our bodies’ stress response with fast flashes of blue light and scenes of violence depicted in detail in both fictional series and on the news.
The diagram below shows the effects that chronic stress has on your body. How many people do you know in this situation or are heading there?
We are far too stimulated every day. Stress hormones flood our bodies, our heart rate rises, we clench our jaw, tense our shoulder muscles, exacerbate that by staring down at our phones, hunched over. Our breathing changes. Pay attention to how often people sigh while they’re at their office desk. Notice how you clench your jaw when you catch up with the news.
Thousands of years ago, our bodies ran from predators in the wild. Today, we run from deadlines, from uncomfortable truths, even from ourselves.
When we physically run, our bodies generate that all important CO₂, but when we’re sitting at our desks, living our 9-5 lives, only running metaphorically, we don’t generate enough. And that means we deplete our CO₂ stores, and our tolerance for CO₂ decreases. Our health follows soon after. Subtly at first, but one day you realise you’re overweight, out of breath, your cholesterol is imbalanced, your blood pressure is high, maybe your joints ache, and maybe your body can’t produce certain hormones or enzymes.
Breathing and breathwork is simple, but it takes dedicated practice to be good at it. If you want to be good at something, you have to do a little bit every day.
Our bodies are super intelligent systems designed to self heal. When we learn how to harness the power of our breath using the Breath Control techniques, we encourage our body’s natural healing, balancing, and restorative functions. They cost nothing and they have no negative side effects as long as they’re practised safely.
The SOMA Breath Control techniques can be used as a highly beneficial preventative measure to maintain good health, or they can be used to reduce (or even remove) side effects of a variety of health issues that are triggered by chronic and emotional stress, autoimmune diseases, and metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
This training does not qualify you to practice as a health coach. If you would like to coach someone using Breath Control techniques with the aim to improve a health condition, it is entirely your responsibility to sufficiently educate yourself in this area. Please consider working alongside qualified health professionals. Please refer to the SOMA Breath Code of Ethics at the end of the online course for further guidance.
Will Learn In Breath Control
This module provides you with an introduction to Breath Control techniques. Knowing the Breath Control techniques is just like having your own Inner Pharmacy of healing, balancing, restorative, and rejuvenating medicines ready to use whenever you need them! All you need to do is harness the power of your breath.
You can lower your blood pressure, reduce inflammation, activate stem cell and repair cell circulation, promote the growth of good bacteria, cleanse the bowels, balance the nervous system, and enter a flow state.
All techniques are designed to be a complementary addition to existing treatment and not a replacement for them. Any dependency on medication can be reduced and may eventually fade away over time. You must seek medical advice before taking part in any alternative holistic practice such as SOMA Breathwork and Breath Control techniques.
Please be aware that if someone would like to reduce or remove their dependence on pharmaceutical drugs using therapeutic breath techniques, they should always consult their doctor or healthcare provider to do so. Changing the dosage of prescription drugs can come with horrible side effects that can do more harm than good and it should always be done under the correct supervision of a qualified professional.
All of the techniques inside SOMA Breath Control can be used to help with a variety of chronic health issues that are triggered by chronic and emotional stress, autoimmune diseases, and metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Some of the areas these techniques can be used for include:
Lose weight
Increase energy
Heal wounds
Enjoy deeper sleep
Improve digestion
Live longer
Improve your mood
Reduce anxiety and panic
Reduce inflammation
Reduce asthma
Clear congestion and relieve sinus problems
3 Breathing Exercises To Activate Your Inner Pharmacy
The following exercises are the 3 introductory Breath Control techniques. They are the most scientifically validated breathwork techniques based on Pranayama.
The foundational Breath Control techniques are:
REST/RELAX
Turn off stress and lower heart rate and blood pressure.
ENERGY
Raise core body temperature, heart rate, and produce a controlled stress response to ward off illness and inflammatory diseases.
BALANCE
Balance and restore the nervous system, create harmony between the left and right hemispheres of your brain, improve heart health and HRV.
Useful Tools For These Exercises
The recommended (but not essential) tools for these exercises are:
Pulse Oximeter
This device measures oxygen saturation of your blood (SpO₂) and your heart rate. Normally a pulse oximeter is used by people who have difficulties breathing so that they can monitor their oxygen levels. Chronic hypoxia can cause serious health issues. However, it can also be used to measure intermittent hypoxia. A pulse oximeter measures your heart rate so that you can monitor how your resting heart rate drops as you become fitter and healthier over time.
HRV chest strap and HRV app
These will help you monitor your Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Your HRV indicates how adaptive and resilient your body is to stress. An app like SweetBeat HRV will give you a score for your HRV. In this particular app, a score between 70-100 is a sign of a good heart health, whereas a score of 40 or lower is a sign that you are struggling with stress and your heart health has room for improvement. Your score should improve gradually over time as you practice the Therapeutic Breath techniques.
Rest/Relax
In Pranayama, this technique is called Rechaka.
What is this method used for?
RELAXATION: Relieve stress and anxiety in a matter of minutes with this technique! Wind down and relax.
GETTING INTO FLOW: Enter a calm flow state where you are relaxed and perfectly focussed with a clear mind. Increases productivity and decision making.
DIGESTION: Switches on your parasympathetic nervous system so you can digest your food better. This exercise can be done before and after a meal.
SLEEP: Helps you relax so that you can fall asleep faster.
This is also one of the techniques used in The Awakening Journey.
How to do the method:
Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight.
Inhale through your nose or mouth.
Purse your lips and gently breathe the air out of your mouth very slowly as though you are breathing out through a straw. Relax all the muscles in your body as much as possible while you do this.
As you exhale, imagine a wave of relaxation flowing down your body from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.
Repeat the process for 5-10 minutes, several times a day if you like. The more you practice this, the more effective it is at lowering your blood pressure and heart rate.
Once you have exhaled, you can also hold your breath for a few seconds before inhaling and repeating. Gradually increasing the breath hold time each time you repeat for an even deeper effect.
The Evidence-Based Supporting Research:
Improves symptoms of asthma (Ritz & Roth, 2003; Lehrer et al., 2004).
Effective treatment for COPD (Fregonezi et al., 2004; Cabral et al., 2015).
Relieves symptoms of depression (Vedamurthachar et al., 2006).
Reduces stress (Mahour & Verma, 2017).
Maintain a healthy weight with health cholesterol levels (Prasad et al., 2006).
Improves cognitive functioning (Sharma et al., 2014).
Energy
In Pranayama, this technique is called Mula Bandha.
What is this method used for?
This is one of the techniques used in The Awakening Journey.
ENERGY BOOST: Increase your metabolism slightly and boost your adrenaline levels for more energy.
MOOD LIFT: Dopamine and serotonin will also be produced, which can improve mood.
ANTI-INFLAMMATORY: The adrenaline boost will also release natural steroids that
have and anti-inflammatory effect on the body.
RAISE BODY TEMPERATURE: When combined with breath holding, it induces a fever-like response in the body that can suppress and ward off infections. It can also help you stay warm in cold climates or ice baths.
CAUTION: This technique can also raise your blood pressure slightly, but then cause a drop in both heart rate and blood pressure. Use with caution and very gradually if you suffer from high blood pressure.
How to do the method:
Sit comfortably in an upright position with your back straight.
Tightly contract your pelvic floor muscles (Mula Bandha).
Hold the contraction for as long as you feel comfortable and watch your heart rate go up on your monitor by around 20-30 BPM. Alternatively, place one hand on your chest and feel your heart rate increase.
Gently release and relax the muscles and watch a drop in heart rate – even below your normal resting heart rate – for a few moments.
If you hold your breath in while you contract your muscles it will enhance the effect and you will also feel a rise in body temperature.
Note: To increase the energetic charge do 10-15 cycles of rhythmic breathing at a 2:2 or 4:4 rhythm at 60-120 bpm and then do the technique.
The Supporting Evidence-Based Research:
Improves lung function, comparable to the lung function of athletes (Prakash et al., 2007), when combined with other Pranayamic techniques.
Improves bladder function (Patil et al., 2012).
Improves sex drive and improves various symptoms of sexual dysfunction
Strengthens pelvic floor, improves symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse (Sweta et al., 2018).
Balance
In Pranayama this technique is called Anulom Vilom.
What is this method used for?
BRAIN HEALTH: Creates balance and harmony in the left and right hemispheres of the brain
TOXINS: Helps to remove toxins from the body
NERVOUS SYSTEM: Rejuvenates the nervous system and reduces stress and anxiety
CARDIAC HEALTH: Increases autonomic modulation of the heart or Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
How to do the method:
Hold your right nostril shut with either your finger or your hand.
Inhale through your left nostril making sure you breathe deeply (belly rises)
Hold your left nostril shut
Open the right nostril and exhale
Inhale through the right nostril keeping your left nostril shut
Close the right nostril and exhale through the left nostril
Repeat this cycle for at least ten times or at least 5 mins or longer. The more you do the easier it becomes.
The Supporting Evidence-Based Research:
Reduces blood pressure in cases of mild hypertension (Goyal et al., 2014).
Increases vital capacity (ability to take deeper breaths) (Bal, 2010).
Improves lung function: Comparable to the lung function of athletes (Prakash et al., 2007). Improves respiratory function (Kumar, 2013).
Encourages rehabilitation from coronary artery disease (Yadav et al., 2009).
Improves visual reaction time and information processing (Dhadse & Fadia, 2013).
Improves symptoms of hypothyroidism (Swami et al., 2010).
Improves auditory reaction time (Dhadse & Fadia, 2016).
AUM Chanting And Toning
In Pranayama, this technique is called Omkar Pranayama.
According to the ancient Yogic texts, AUM is the sacred sound of creation. There is physiological evidence to show the benefits of chanting AUM:
When you make a toning sound for an extended length of time, you are extending your exhale. Exhaling for longer than you inhale reduces stress and helps you to relax by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Extending a tone stimulates the cerebral cortex, which calms the hypothalamus and even our pain receptors. This explains why it helps to shout or scream when you get hurt!
The extended exhale combined with the vibration of the sound you’re making, activates your parasympathetic nervous system and stimulates your vagus nerve. This helps to reduce inflammation, stress, and anxiety in your body.
The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has approved a technique called Vagus Nerve Stimulation, which stimulates the vagus nerve using electrical impulses. It is being used successfully in reducing epileptic seizures, reducing depression, and reducing chronic pain. The Yogis were definitely on to something!
The Yogis are not the only people who chant single tones like AUM.
Tibetan monks, tuvan throat singers of Mongolia, and various other tribal cultures sing in single tones too.
Did you know that AUM is actually 3 separate syllables? Each of these tones creates a vibration in a different area of the body, which becomes deeply meditative when repeated:
Aaaa = Stomach/Abdomen
Uuuu = Heart/Chest/Throat
Mmmm = Brain/Pineal/Pituitary Gland
This toning sequence can stimulate the endocrine glands and energy centres of these areas of your body, restoring and revitalising the cells and organs. This is important for optimal health and well-being.
The highest tone of “Mmmm” stimulates your cortical functions and the pineal and pituitary glands. This is also where the third eye chakra is located.
Benefits of AUM
Decrease inflammation in the body
Reduces stress
Improve concentration and increase focus
Enter a meditative state for deep relaxation
Aid in self healing
The SOMA AUM Meditation
With this exercise you will flow naturally into the alpha state and your third eye chakra will begin to be activated. This is where your pineal gland is located.
In many ancient cultures the pineal gland is considered to be “the seat of the soul”, and this AUM meditation can be used to enhance the activity of the pineal gland. This allows you to connect with the divine and the universal consciousness.
Deep meditation in this state enables you to receive divine inspiration, heightened creativity and divine knowledge as well as receiving multiple health benefits.
Step 1:
Sit comfortably, with your back straight (but not uncomfortably so), in an upright position.
Place your hands facing upwards in your lap, keeping your arms unfolded.
Take a slow, deep inhale.
As you exhale, relax the tension around your forehead and eyebrows, around your jaw and throat, around your neck, shoulders, and upper back.
Relax all the tension in your body from the top of your head to the end of your toes.
Step 2:
Bring your awareness from any past or future point, and reflect that all is now.
All is folded into one eternal now moment.
Close your eyes, and again release all the tension in your body with one big exhalation.
Step 3:
Now take a deep diaphragmatic breath, making sure your abdomen rises as you breath, for a count of 4 seconds.
On your out breath chant the sacred sound of AUM for a count of 12 seconds, focussing 4 seconds at a time on each syllable. The sound should be totally smooth, with no breaks, stops, or stutters.
Bring your awareness to each area of your body associated with the syllable you’re sounding.
Repeat the pattern continuously for 5-10 minutes. Observe how you feel more relaxed and calm at the end of it.
Step 4:
For the next 7-10 minutes after the AUM meditation, visualise yourself healthy, happy, and vibrant. Clearly picture yourself in full health, free to do all of the things you truly want to do. Imagine the scene in great detail.
Engage all of your senses and consider even the smallest details.
What would you be wearing? What can you smell? What would you be doing? Who would you be doing it with? What emotions are you feeling? Who are you with?
You may use the AUM meditation at any time to help you reduce stress and anxiety, and to reap the long-term benefits of AUM chanting. The visualisation aspect helps magnify the healing effects when carried out after the meditation.
Once you start practising AUM chanting regularly, you might find yourself addicted to it!
SOMA Toning
Repeat the same meditation as above but play around with different tones that vibrate in different areas of your body. You will notice that higher pitches and more humm like sounds will vibrate your face, head, and upper body. Lower pitches and deeper tones will vibrate lower regions of your body like chest and abdomen. Also play with Oooh’s and Aaaah’s. Which feels best for you?
The secret is to find the tone that resonates with you the most. You will have a feeling of pleasure, relaxation, and an instinctive knowing that you have found your tone.
The Supporting Evidence-Based Research:
Reduces blood pressure in cases of mild hypertension (Goyal et al., 2014).
Increased melatonin production (Harinath et al., 2004).
Increased heart and lung health (Harinath et al., 2004; Mooventhan & Khode, 2014).
Reduces stress (Gurjar et al., 2009; Das & Anand, 2012; Bhatt & Gupta, 2013).
Helps clear the mind and create a meditative state (Telles et al., 1995; Gurjar & Ladhake, 2008; Gurjar et al., 2009).
Encourages weight loss and a healthy body mass index (Mooventhan & Khode, 2014).
Improves asthma symptoms (Saxena & Saxena, 2009).
Lowers heart rate (Telles et al., 1995; Gurjar et al., 2009).
Balances the nervous system and creates internal harmony at a cellular level (like heart coherence) (Gurjar et al., 2009).
May be an effective preventative measure to avoid diabetes (Bhagat & Singh, 2017).
Heart Coherence Training
Heart Coherence training harnesses the energy of your heart to balance your thoughts, emotions, and harmonise the physiological functions of your body. It can help you achieve a calm, neutral, and focused state for clear thinking. It will help you release stress and work through emotions like frustration and anger, giving you mental clarity and well-being in a matter of minutes.
Your heart is the primary generator of rhythm in your body. It also produces the largest electromagnetic field of any organ in your body – even your brain!
There is more and more evidence to show that our hearts contain nerve cells, neurons, and can even store memories. A quick Google search will bring up many accounts of heart transplant stories where the recipient can recall memories from the donor’s life. Your heart influences processes in your brain that control your nervous system, cognitive function, and emotions. Your heart has a conscious intelligence of its own.
When you are in a state of heart coherence you are at your optimum physiological functioning, which is similar to being in a flow state.
Some of the things that you will experience when you are in coherence are:
Feeling confident, focused, positive, and calm.
More energy and motivation.
Improved hand-eye coordination, mental functioning, faster reaction times.
Negative emotions like fear, frustration, anxiety, irritation or anger can bring you out of coherence and drain you of energy.
Coherence training can prevent them from escalating and getting out of control, thus preventing harm to your body.
Coherence occurs when you focus your intention on your heart and breathe deeply, smoothly, and rhythmically so that every inhale and exhale is equally spaced in a perfect groove.
Breathing at a musical rhythm of 58.6 bpm makes you breathe 7.8 breaths per minute, exactly synchronizing the rhythm of your body to the Schumann Resonance: 7.83hz.
The Schumann Resonance is the natural pulse of our planet Earth, which also corresponds to low alpha brainwaves in the brain.
In the online version of this course, there are 3 downloads available. When you access them, follow these steps:
Focus your attention on your heart. Slip on your headphones and press play on the Heart Coherence Trainer Audio.
Breathe in time with the audio using the drum beat as your guide. This drum beat is synced to the Schumann Resonance.
Inhale on the first beat. Exhale on the next beat. Your breathing should be slow, smooth, and deep into your heart. To do this, imagine your nostrils are in your heart.
Conjure up feelings of love, gratitude, and joy. Perhaps it will help you to recall a happy memory. Or, maybe you’d prefer to think about a dear friend, a family member, a loved one, or even a pet!
If you have important goals you want to accomplish, focus on the feeling you would have if you were to successfully reach these goals. If you want to overcome a negative emotion, focus on the opposite of that emotion. So if you feel fear, focus on its opposite: courage.
Breathing In Beats
Of course simply breathing in beats offers health benefits!
Breathing in beats creates heart coherence. Heart coherence is the ideal state for healing, as discussed in previous sections. Check out these exercises below for creating heart coherence:
Breathe In Heartbeats
Sit comfortably in an upright position with your back straight.
Place your finger on your pulse and start counting your own natural heartbeat.
Do full diaphragmatic rhythmic breathing to the count of 6 heartbeats on the inhale and 6 heartbeats on the exhale for 5 minutes.
If your resting heart rate is around 60 bpm, then the frequency of each breath cycle will be 0.1 Hz because your heart would beat on average at 1 beat per second. Entraining your breath to this frequency is the sweet spot for coherence.
You can also change the I:E ratio to 4:8 or 6:12 or gradually increase the exhale time till you are comfortable with it.
Use a heart coherence monitoring app and you will see that you quickly get into coherence.
Breathe In Drum Beats:
Do the same exercise as above, but switch out your heartbeat for music produced at either 60 bpm or 120 bpm.
Breathe in for 4 beats and out for 4 beats to music that is 60 bpm to create heart coherence.
Breathe in for 2 beats and out for 4 beats to music that is 120 bpm. You will quickly switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system dominance and experience feelings of euphoric bliss.
Breathe In Flow State Beats
Exercise
During the day, while you’re going about your normal business or you’re working, play some beat-driven music you enjoy that has about 100-120 bpm.
Bring your awareness to the rhythm of the music and breathe in beats with an I:E ratio of either 2:4 or 4:8 smoothly and consistently.
Keep your awareness on the beat for the first few minutes, but then gradually move your awareness back to whatever you are doing.
With regular practice your breathing will synchronise to the music automatically, with small fluctuations when you get an inspired thought.
Whenever you lose focus on your work, bring your awareness back to your breath and breathe in beats. With this method you will be able to enter flow state more frequently and more naturally. You’ll also be able to stay in flow state for longer.
You can use a HRV app that measures coherence to see how long you stay in coherence even when you get distracted from your work as a way to monitor your progress.
