Lion's breath (simhasana)

How to do it

1. Sit on a chair with your feet on the floor, or kneel with your hips on your heels. Rest your hands on your knees and spread your fingers wide.
2. Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, mouth closed, back long.
3. Open your mouth as wide as it goes without pain, stretch your tongue down toward your chin, and breathe out through your mouth for 3 seconds with a breathy "haaa" from the back of your throat.
4. As you breathe out, turn your gaze to the tip of your nose or upward, without straining your eyes.
5. Close your mouth, let your face go slack, and stay empty for 2 seconds.
6. That's one breath: 9 seconds. Do 6 in all.
7. To finish, breathe through your nose at your own pace for half a minute and notice your jaw, your tongue and your forehead.

What lion's breath is

It's a whole gesture more than a rhythm: a quiet inhale through the nose and a short, open exhale through the mouth, with the tongue stretched out and the entire face in motion. In this guide it runs 4 seconds in, 3 seconds out and a 2-second pause on empty.

Most of the breathings on this site lengthen the exhale and ask for quiet. This one does the opposite: the air leaves faster than it came in, and it makes noise. It resembles a sigh in that it lets go, but here the tongue, jaw, eyes and hands all join in. In yoga it's called simhasana, lion pose, and the breath on its own also goes by simha pranayama.

Where it comes from

The pose is old. It's described in the Vimanarcanakalpa, a tenth-century text, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the manual Svatmarama compiled in the fifteenth century, counts it among its four chief postures. In Pancham Sinh's 1914 English translation, you sit with the heels crossed under the body, hands on the thighs with fingers stretched, mouth open, mind collected and gaze on the tip of the nose. The text says the best yogis hold it sacred.

One detail is worth knowing: those verses mention neither a tongue sticking out nor a roar. The version taught today, with the stretched tongue and the audible exhale, is more recent. B. K. S. Iyengar described it in Light on Yoga (1966) with the mouth wide open and the tongue out, in two variants. It isn't clear who first added those gestures to the classical pose.

What people use it for

To loosen the face. Hours at a screen, or a day of clenched teeth, pile up in the jaw, the tongue and the space between the eyebrows. Lion's breath moves all of them at once.

People also use it as a break: before speaking or singing, after a tense meeting, on getting home. Some do it because it makes them laugh, and that counts too. Since it's loud and not especially dignified, nearly everyone prefers to do it alone.

What the research says

Very little about this breath in particular. Cleveland Clinic put it plainly in a 2023 article: there's almost no research on lion's breath itself, though there is on pranayama in general. The same page mentions a study of people with chronic pain who found lion's breath overstimulating and came away lightheaded.

There's more on the wider family. A 2020 systematic review gathered 18 controlled trials of pranayama, with groups of 16 to 160 people and practice periods from 4 days to 6 months. It found favorable changes, mostly in people with respiratory disease, and concluded that better-quality trials are needed. None of that transfers directly to lion's breath: what's known about it comes from tradition and from the experience of people who practice it.

What it feels like and what to notice

The first time feels a little embarrassing. Then comes the stretch: the root of the tongue, the corners of the mouth, the throat. When you close your mouth, your face tends to settle looser, and a yawn or an urge to laugh may follow. Your eyes might water a bit.

It shouldn't scrape your throat or hurt your jaw. If you get dizzy, or the exhale leaves you feeling short of air, stop and breathe normally.

Variations

• Gentler: the same count, with your mouth less open, your tongue barely out and the air silent.
• In a chair, face only: keep your hands still on your thighs and make the gesture with just your mouth, tongue and eyes.
• With the body, as in today's yoga classes: kneeling, lean your torso slightly forward on the exhale and straighten your arms with fingers spread.
• The classical version: heels crossed, mouth open and gaze on the tip of the nose, in stillness and without a roar, as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes it.
• More spacious (uncounted variation): take one or two normal breaths between lions, as Cleveland Clinic suggests.

Common mistakes

• Shouting. The sound is air passing through, not voice. Push hard with your vocal cords and your throat gets irritated.
• Forcing the exhale until you're empty. What leaves in 3 seconds is enough; don't squeeze your belly at the end.
• Straining the jaw. Open only as far as is comfortable. If it clicks or hurts, open less.
• Tensing the neck and shoulders. The gesture belongs to the face and hands. Shoulders stay down.
• Chaining lots of them without a rest. Six is plenty. More and faster is the most common way to get dizzy.
• Skipping the pause. Those 2 seconds on empty, with a slack face, are half the effect.

How often and how long

A set of six takes 54 seconds. One or two sets a day make a complete practice, and Cleveland Clinic talks about five to ten rounds at a time.

It works better as a spot gesture than as a long session: first thing in the morning, before you use your voice, or when you catch yourself with your teeth clenched. If you want to stay settled afterward, follow it with a slow, silent breathing.

Before you start

• If you're prone to dizziness, this isn't the best one to start with. If you feel dizzy, tingly or short of breath, stop and breathe normally.
• If your jaw hurts or clicks, or your throat is irritated, open your mouth less and leave the sound for another day.
• Kneel only if your knees and ankles are comfortable. In a chair it's the same breath.
• If you're pregnant or have a heart, lung or blood pressure condition, check with your care provider first.