Pranayama

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Rhythmic Breathing

Pranayama Rhythmic Breathing

“The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.”

B. K. S. Iyengar

Heart Rate Variability – HRV

Normally, the heart rate accelerates during inhalation and decelerates during exhalation (Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia).
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the time variation between consecutive heartbeats.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls HRV.

The ANS operates independently of our will and regulates, among other things:

  • Heart rate
  • Blood pressure
  • Breathing
  • Digestion

The brain continuously processes information in a region called the hypothalamus. Through the ANS, the hypothalamus sends signals to the rest of the body to either stimulate or relax different functions.

Frequent stress, poor sleep, unhealthy diet, and lack of physical exercise can disrupt this balance.

HRV is an intriguing and non-invasive method for identifying such ANS imbalances.
If a person’s system is in fight-or-flight mode, the difference between heartbeats is low.
If someone is in a more relaxed state, the difference between beats is high.

In other words, the healthier the ANS, the quicker you can shift gears, indicating greater resilience and emotional flexibility.

People with high HRV may have better cardiovascular fitness and greater stress resilience.

HRV changes with:

  • Meditation
  • Sleep
  • Physical activity

It is a measure of cardiovascular adaptability.
The loss of adaptability signals a fragile system unable to cope with normal stress. A fragile system is more likely to break.

Rhythmic Breathing

One of the main reasons we lose energy is through chaotic breathing, much like how we consume more fuel driving in city traffic compared to cruising on a highway.

When our breathing is chaotic, we expend significantly more energy. Rhythmic breathing is like driving on a highway: we cover more distance using less fuel, with less strain and wear on our system, leaving us feeling younger.

Rhythmic breathing (where inhalation and exhalation are of equal duration) is the fastest and simplest way to stabilize our physiology and optimize our performance.

Consider this: what happens when you are startled or shocked? What about when you are angry? And when you are relaxed? Your breathing immediately and constantly reacts to whatever is happening around and within you.

To experience negative emotions and states, you must lose control of your breathing. For instance, panic requires rapid, chaotic, shallow breathing. In challenging situations, the first thing we lose is our ability to breathe normally as a reaction to what is happening. Our breathing becomes chaotic, disrupting everything—from how we feel to how we think, act, and ultimately behave and perform.

Rhythmic breathing causes heart rate variability (HRV) to occur in a dynamically stable way. This increases the power generated by the heart, leading other biological systems to synchronize with the heart, resulting in physiological coherence.

The simplest way to understand this is to imagine your body as an orchestra. The heart represents the string section, including the violin, viola, cello, and bass. The electrical signal generated by the heart acts like the lead violin.

Rhythmic breathing allows us to take control of the biological equivalent of the lead violin. When we do this, the heart’s electrical signal produces a harmonious note instead of chaotic noise. This smooth and powerful signal from the heart begins to synchronize with signals from other body organs, unlocking much more power.

Due to this synchronization through breathing, it becomes far easier for other parts of the orchestra—lungs, kidneys, brain—to play their own notes, enabling the entire system to produce a series of balanced and harmonious melodies. This, in turn, leads to emotional balance. The message sent from the body to the mind is that all is well.

Thus, under pressure, what essentially happens is that heart rate variability (HRV, see below) becomes chaotic.

Heart Signal HRV with Chaotic Breathing

The brain receives signals from the heart through the nervous system, which under pressure becomes completely chaotic.

The consequence of this chaotic signal is that it literally shuts down the frontal lobes of the brain. It’s as if you’ve performed a lobotomy on yourself. Put someone under pressure, whether they expect it or not, they may appear to be in control. In reality, they are not. Under pressure, the brain shuts down and cannot perform even the simplest tasks. This happens to everyone when they are under stress.

With rhythmic breathing, you can take control of this physiological level and transition from a chaotic signal to what is called “heart coherence.”

Heart signal HRV with rhythmic breathing

In Heart Coherence, your heart rate is smooth, rhythmic, and predictable. And when your heart beats smoothly, rhythmically, and predictably, your mind synchronizes, and everything becomes easier. When you’re in coherence, there’s no internal struggle between your thoughts and emotions. Your mind and body are in agreement. You can stay calm and focused under all circumstances.

Your body slows down the release of cortisol and increases the release of the happiness hormone DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone). If you don’t release cortisol, you don’t feel stress. And if you release DHEA, you feel positive emotions such as gratitude and inner balance, and vice versa.

What supports brain function is the ability to create a coherent signal where the variation is smoothly changing as opposed to chaotic variation.

This is the secret to high performance!

HOW RHYTHMIC BREATHING WORKS

Simply focus on the following:

  1. It should be rhythmic. The most important thing is the rhythm. First, you need to adjust your breath so there is a consistent ratio between the inhale and the exhale. For example, you might want to inhale counting to four and then exhale counting to six, and then repeat. The only thing that matters is that you keep any ratio you choose consistent — three inhale, three exhale, or four inhale, six exhale, or five inhale, five exhale.

  2. It should be smooth with a steady flow of inhalation and exhalation, without interruptions.

  3. Focus on the center of the heart. When there’s too much noise in our heads, and we’re struggling to regain control, moving our attention away from all that noise and into our bodies, especially into the heart, is beneficial because we experience a positive emotional state in the heart. For example, we say “I love my wife with all my heart.”

BENEFITS OF RHYTHMIC BREATHING

  • Improves resilience to external stimuli such as stress
  • Enhances cardiovascular capacity
  • Increases HRV (Heart Rate Variability), improving cardiovascular flexibility
  • Balances the function of the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System)
  • Improves concentration
 

In the following videos, you can see the effect of rhythmic breathing on HRV.

I am wearing a special sensor on my chest.

The red heart shows the heartbeats, and the yellow one shows HRV.

Observe the HRV chart when I begin rhythmic breathing.

Utthita Pada Angustasana with rhythmic breathing 6": 6"

Trikonasana with rhythmic breathing 6": 6"

Matsyendrasana with rhythmic breathing 6": 6"

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