Breathwork is a powerful practice where the breath is used to calm the mind, body, spirit, and emotions. It is the breath that allows energy to flow swimmingly across all areas of our well-being.

A spiritual source to soothe uneasy emotions, reduce stress, and cultivate feelings of openness, love, peace, gratitude, clarity, communication, and connection. It is also helpful for releasing trauma or mental, physical, and emotional blocks and anxiety, depression, fear, grief, and anger.

Breathing exercises are helpful for countless reasons, including building self-esteem, self-image, and self-love. That is why I include 10 minutes of breathwork exercises into my daily rituals.

How To Include Breathwork Exercises In Your Daily Rituals

Including breathwork exercises into your daily rituals is highly beneficial to your well-being in more ways than one. Along with combating anxiety, calming the mind, and boosting energy, there are so many other benefits of why you should make breathwork a daily practice. Here are 13 of them.

Here are also 3 tips on how you can incorporate breathwork into your daily rituals: 

Tip 1. Establish a set time in your schedule where you are best available to commit at least 5 minutes of deep mindful breathing per session.

Tip 2. Cultivate the habit of breathwork by habit-stacking your breathwork exercises with a ritual you already do every day. For example, take several deep breaths as you wait for your kettle to whistle and as your tea simmers in your coffee mug.

Tip 3. Experiment with various breathwork exercises to find what works best for you and your daily practice.

Expanding more on Tip #3: Did you know there are different techniques for breathwork? This is known as the Pranayama (or in Hindu yoga), the regulation of the breath through specific techniques and exercises.

7 Different Breathwork Techniques for a Daily Pranayama Practice

Just as it is important to practice breathwork, exploring the various techniques to discover which works best for you and is easiest to incorporate into your practice is also important. Here are 7 breathwork techniques that I suggest you try:

1) Rebirthing Breathwork. This is best for processing repressed emotions, shifting thoughts or behavior patterns, and soothing emotional trauma.

2) Deep Abdominal Breathing. This technique incorporates a deep breath through visualization. Perform this technique by expanding your belly and chest when you inhale and relaxing your chest when you exhale.

3) 4-7-8 Breath. A count breath technique like the 4-7-8 breath technique helps you to instantly calm the mind by focusing on the present moment via counting beats with each breath. The practice is to breathe in for four seconds. Hold the breath for seven seconds, and then exhale for eight seconds.

4) Alternate Nostril Breathing. Alternate nostril breathing focuses on energizing the two sides of the body. This breathing best regulates the energy flow, balancing the mind and body. Apply light pressure to your right nostril. Breathe through your left nostril, hold your breath, then breathe out deeply. Switch the sides by lightly adding pressure to your left nostril. Breathe in through your right nostril and continue the sequence.

5) Breath Of Fire. If you need to release some tension, the Breath of Fire breathwork exercise is the way to go. While inhaling, relax your abdominal muscles. When you exhale, engage your core  pushing the air out of your body. This breathing technique focuses on releasing pressure, re-energizing the body, and building confidence. 

6) Holotropic Breathwork. This type of breathwork focuses on balancing the body’s energy, thus renewing the cells with a continuous inhale and exhale pattern.

7) Clarity Breathwork. This technique provides brain clarity by clearing away blocked emotions with continuous breathing and grounding the mind.

It All Starts With The Breath and a Daily Pranayama Practice

I believe that breathwork is a powerful tool in one’s self-development journey to self-care and wellness. Remember, it all begins with the breath. The breath is a spiritual source that you can always come back to calm you and center you. 

Learn how to practice these breathing techniques properly and start incorporating them into your daily rituals by watching any of my breathwork lessons here. Practice them live along with me and other health enthusiasts in the Get Loved Up Community during our monthly group sessions.

Which breathwork technique would you say is your favorite? Share with us in the comments any of the benefits you received from having a daily pranayama practice.