This is the second installment in a three-part article series accompanying the video How To Get Through Air Hunger, with Simon Spire (available on the LNB homepage). The first article examined the causes of air hunger. This second article includes a text version of the middle section of the video (9:19 – 15:53), which provides introductory practices and guidelines for coping with air hunger (also sometimes referred to as chronic breathing tension, hyperventilation, breathlessness, shortness of breath, pseudo-dyspnea, or chronic sighing).

Coping Strategies vs. Restoring Your Natural Breathing

The breathing practices and guidelines below can be very helpful for those struggling with non-medical air hunger and chronic breathing tension. Please note, however, that they are intended as introductory pointers. These practices and pointers can help you manage the struggles that come with air hunger and chronic breathing tension; as such, they can be used as coping strategies for managing the everyday symptoms of air hunger, shortness of breath, hyperventilation, yawning, and sighing. Ideally, they may also help you begin the process of shifting from those dysfunctional patterns toward more functional, natural breathing. However, these simple practices are not intended on their own to facilitate the process of shifting from air hunger to natural breathing. To truly be in the larger process of restoring your natural breathing, we recommend joining our online course and community, Liberating the Natural Breath.

Breathing Practices vs. Breathing Exercises

Why do we speak of breathing practices rather than breathing exercises? Typically, when people think of breathing exercises, what comes to mind is a prescribed idea of how breathing should look and how to adopt a “correct” form of breathing. In our opinion, such approaches—while well-intentioned—are typically over-simplified and problematic for those with chronic breathing tension. By intentionally or unintentionally introducing further effort into one’s breathing, they usually fail to adequately account for the substantial amounts of tension and interference that the individual has already developed, and they therefore often add to this burden while failing to create the conditions for more inherent breathing movement to emerge.

We think of breathing practices, on the other hand, as opportunities to listen to one’s breathing and orient toward the direction of its natural movement, while understanding that the larger coordination of our body’s breathing is not something we directly control. It’s in the spirit of this orientation toward receptivity, curiosity, and learning from our own body that we offer these introductory breathing practices and guidelines.

Breathing Practices and Pointers from How To Get Through Air Hunger

We’ll start with a fundamental reminder that you can always come back to:

Can I let go of some of the effort of reaching for the breath with my chest, and can I instead welcome my breath downward and three-dimensionally into the rest of my body.

So I see if I can soften my struggle a little to reach for the breath, and I see if I can instead gently breathe into my belly and my back—while also gently including my chest—as I welcome the breath downward and three-dimensionally through my whole upper body. So we’re not chest-breathing, and we’re not belly-breathing, but we are allowing both of those areas to gently move as we welcome the breath into our body without reaching for it.

Remember, this is just a simple starting point you can use, something to explore, something to experiment with. Be careful not to misinterpret this suggestion, though: You’re not stopping your breathing from happening in any way, and there’s no forcing involved. It’s instead a process of becoming more aware of the additional effort and struggle you’re currently bringing to your breathing, and seeing if you can very gradually, very gently, soften the amount of effort and struggle you add to your breathing.

It can be helpful as you’re navigating this process to remember to witness, release, and allow.

You learn to witness your own tension patterns and habits of interference—which means to notice them or sense them—without getting too involved in them.
You then learn to release some of the additional effort you’re bringing to your breathing.
And then you learn to allow the inherent movement of the breath. You allow whatever movement is seeking to happen without adding in a whole lot of effort and contraction.

So you witness the habits; you release the effort; and you allow the movement.

As I’ve written elsewhere, this process we’re in of restoring our natural breathing is essentially one of learning to recognize and release our own interference while creating space for integrated breathing to emerge. That’s what we’re doing with these basic directions.

Next, let’s talk about what you can do at times when you’re experiencing a lot of air hunger or really struggling with your breathing.

Begin by noticing the position of your body. See if you can invite your chest, shoulders, and jaw to soften and relax, even just a little. If you notice that you’re either hunching or slouching on the one hand, or over-straightening and tensing on the other hand, see if you can invite your body toward easy alignment. If you’re sitting, try standing up and slowly walking around a bit, which might help loosen some unconscious patterns of hunching or tensing or rushing.
Next, bring awareness to your exhalation. One thing that happens with Chronic Breathing Tension is that we’re so fixated on trying to take in air that we impede the usual healthy turnover of air, so we end up breathing in new air on top of stale air, which is part of the issue. So see if you can let some more of that stale air out by noticing your exhalation and allowing it to gently move further toward completion. But the emphasis here is on doing it gently, without going so far that you’re forcing your exhalation or tensing even more.
Now, see if you can become aware of your whole body. When we’re stuck in an air hunger pattern, we tend to get so focused on our chest or throat and taking in air, that we lose awareness of the rest of ourselves, which further cuts us off from natural breathing. So see if you can notice your feet and hands, your lower body and your upper body. See if you can breathe through your nose (though using your mouth is also totally fine if nose-breathing isn’t comfortable) while encouraging the breath to slow down a little and welcoming the movement of your breath into your whole torso—including your back, your belly, your front, and your sides, rather than only your chest. This can be very subtle; it doesn’t always need to be a big movement.
Finally, if you find your breathing getting triggered during a stressful activity, then if possible, see if you can take a brief pause from what you’re doing and check in with each of these reminders. So perhaps stand up and allow your body to come into better alignment; walk around a little; notice your exhale; become aware of your whole body; and then return to the activity.

So these two sets of basic guidelines can help get you moving in the right direction. Of course, there’s a lot more we could go into, and in the program we cover many more tools and understandings and applications, including how to more specifically awaken the inherent movement of your breathing, but I hope for now this gives you something simple to work with as a starting point.

I want to emphasize that none of these guidelines are about getting it right or struggling with yourself. Rather, they’re invitations into the process of getting to know your breathing and how it wants to move. So, to boil it all down, we learn to recognize our patterns of interference and then gently and gradually soften around them and lessen our dependence on them while we welcome more of the natural movement of our breathing. If you want something simple to return to, remember to Witness the habits, Release the effort, and Allow the movement.

Learn more about our resources, including Liberating the Natural Breath, on our breathing homepage.
Continue reading with the third article in the series here.

The materials on this page and the associated online course are not intended to address medical conditions or mental health conditions. These materials and any associated services are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. Emergent Inquiry, LLC recommends that you consult your physician regarding the applicability of any information to your individual situation and utilize the guidance contained in the course Liberating the Natural Breath before attempting to apply these principles to your own breathing. Full terms of service can be viewed here.