Breathing glossary

The words you'll come across as you practice, explained in a few lines.

Anapanasati: Mindfulness of breathing, in the Buddhist tradition. It's the subject of the Anapanasati Sutta, a discourse in the Pali canon (Majjhima Nikaya 118): the practitioner knows when the breath is long and when it is short, and later trains in breathing while calming the body.; See also: Mindfulness, Susokukan
Apnea: A pause in breathing. In breath practice it means a voluntary hold, with full or empty lungs. It's not the same thing as sleep apnea, a medical condition where breathing stops and starts during sleep.; See also: Kumbhaka, Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Appoggio: The Italian term in classical singing for breath management; it comes from appoggiare, to lean or support. The teacher Francesco Lamperti (1813-1892) defined it as the support the chest muscles give the voice, the diaphragm above all. Voice teachers still debate exactly what it means.; See also: Diaphragm, Belly breathing
Baroreflex: The automatic adjustment between blood pressure and heart rate. Sensors in the aorta and the carotid arteries detect how much the vessel walls stretch: when pressure rises, the heart slows down, and when it falls, the heart speeds up. It has a rhythm of its own, close to one cycle every ten seconds, which is why it's studied alongside slow breathing.; See also: Resonance frequency, Heart rate variability (HRV), Respiratory sinus arrhythmia
Belly breathing: Also called diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing. Your belly rises as you breathe in and falls as you breathe out, because the diaphragm does most of the work and the chest barely moves. It's the foundation of nearly every slow breathing exercise.; See also: Diaphragm, Qigong
Bhastrika: The bellows breath: fast, forceful inhales and exhales through the nose, followed by a pause. Unlike kapalabhati, both halves of the breath are active. It is an intense breath: do it sitting down, and stop if you get dizzy.; See also: Kapalabhati, Hyperventilation, Round
Bhramari: The bee breath: you breathe in through the nose and breathe out with a long, soft hum, lips closed. The name comes from the Sanskrit word for bee.; See also: Nitric oxide, Pranayama
Bohr effect: A property of hemoglobin described by the Danish physiologist Christian Bohr in 1904: its affinity for oxygen drops when there is more carbon dioxide or acidity in the blood, and rises when there is less. That's why, when you overbreathe and your carbon dioxide falls, hemoglobin gives up its oxygen less readily.; See also: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Hyperventilation
Carbon dioxide (CO2): A gas your body makes as it uses oxygen and releases when you breathe out. In a healthy person, the main signal to breathe is rising carbon dioxide, more than falling oxygen: sensors in the brainstem pick it up. That's why the urge to breathe shows up during a hold long before oxygen runs low.; See also: Hyperventilation, Apnea
Chandra bhedana (moon breath): A breath where you breathe in through the left nostril and out through the right, the mirror image of surya bhedana. Chandra is the moon, the name hatha yoga gives the left nostril. It isn't on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika's list of eight breaths, and it's unclear who first named it.; See also: Surya bhedana (sun breath), Nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), Pranayama
Coherent breathing: Slow, even breathing with no pauses, at about five to six breaths a minute. On this site it's 5-5: five seconds in and five seconds out. The name is a popular one; studies usually talk about slow breathing or resonance frequency breathing.; See also: Resonance frequency, Heart rate variability (HRV), Pace
Cycle: One full breath of a pattern, with all its phases: breathe in, hold if there is one, breathe out, and rest if there is one. In 4-7-8 breathing, one cycle lasts 19 seconds.; See also: Round, Pace
Diaphragm: A thin, dome-shaped muscle that sits below your lungs and heart. When you breathe in, it tightens, flattens, and moves down toward your abdomen. When you breathe out, it relaxes and curves back up.; See also: Belly breathing
Dirga (three-part breath): A breath where you fill the belly, the ribs, and the chest in order, then let the air go in a single exhale. Dirgha means long in Sanskrit. Many yoga schools teach it today, and its exact origin is unclear.; See also: Belly breathing, Diaphragm, Pranayama
Heart rate variability (HRV): The variation in the time between one heartbeat and the next. A healthy heart doesn't tick like a metronome: those intervals shift constantly, including with your breathing. It isn't the same as heart rate, which counts beats per minute.; See also: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, Resonance frequency, Vagus nerve
Hyperventilation: Breathing faster or deeper than your body needs. It lowers the carbon dioxide in your blood, which brings on lightheadedness and tingling in the hands or around the mouth. If it happens during a fast breathing exercise, stop and breathe normally.; See also: Carbon dioxide (CO2), Kapalabhati, Bhastrika
Kapalabhati: A yoga practice of short, active exhales driven from the belly, where the inhale happens by itself. The name means shining skull, and texts such as the Gheranda Samhita count it among the six cleansing practices, not among the pranayamas. It is an intense breath.; See also: Bhastrika, Hyperventilation, Round
Kumbhaka: The breath hold, or pause, in pranayama. The tradition separates holding with full lungs (antar kumbhaka) from holding with empty lungs (bahya kumbhaka). Long holds are intense practices: do them sitting or lying down, and never push.; See also: Apnea, Puraka, Rechaka
Mindfulness: Keeping your attention on the present moment without judging it, as the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) defines it. In mindfulness meditation, you watch your breath without changing it. A breathing exercise does the opposite: it changes the rhythm on purpose.; See also: Anapanasati, Susokukan
Nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing): A yoga breath where you breathe in through one nostril, out through the other, and back again, closing one side with your fingers. The name joins nadi, channel, and shodhana, cleansing or purification: in yoga it is said to clear the channels that prana moves through.; See also: Pranayama, Nasal cycle, Nasal breathing
Nasal breathing: Breathing through your nose instead of your mouth. The nose filters, warms, and humidifies the air before it reaches your lungs. Almost every exercise on this site is done through the nose unless the guide says otherwise.; See also: Nitric oxide, Nasal cycle
Nasal cycle: The natural back-and-forth in which one nostril is more open while the other is more congested, and then they trade. The German physician Richard Kayser described it in 1895, and a 2018 review estimates it is present in 70 to 80 percent of healthy adults. That's why it's normal for one nostril to feel stuffier than the other.; See also: Nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), Nasal breathing
Nitric oxide: A gas the body makes in the paranasal sinuses, among other places, and that helps widen blood vessels. In a 2002 study of ten healthy people, humming on the exhale raised the nitric oxide measured in the nose 15-fold compared with a quiet exhale. The study measured the gas, not health effects.; See also: Bhramari, Nasal breathing
Pace: How many breaths you take per minute. Most people, most of the time, breathe between 9 and 24 times a minute. The slow breathing exercises on this site run from about three to about eight.; See also: Coherent breathing, Resonance frequency, Cycle
Parasympathetic nervous system: The part of the autonomic nervous system that takes the lead at rest. It's often summed up as rest and digest: it slows the heart and supports digestion. Its main nerve is the vagus.; See also: Vagus nerve, Sympathetic nervous system
Pranayama: The breathing practices of yoga. The word joins prana, which means both breath and vital force, and ayama, extension or regulation. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras it is the fourth of the eight limbs of yoga.; See also: Puraka, Rechaka, Kumbhaka, Nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing)
Puraka: The name for the inhale in pranayama. It is one of the three parts of the breath that the yoga tradition regulates, along with the exhale and the hold.; See also: Rechaka, Kumbhaka, Pranayama
Pursed-lip breathing: A way of breathing out slowly through the mouth with your lips nearly closed, as if you were blowing on a candle without putting it out. The inhale goes through the nose. It stretches out the exhale without effort.; See also: Pace, Hyperventilation
Qigong: A practice from China that combines slow movement, breathing, and attention. According to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, it was developed in China thousands of years ago as part of traditional Chinese medicine. Its breathing is usually slow, even, and low in the belly.; See also: Belly breathing, Susokukan
Rechaka: The name for the exhale in pranayama. Many traditional practices make it longer than the inhale, as in the 1-4-2 ratio.; See also: Puraka, Kumbhaka, Pranayama
Resonance frequency: The breathing pace at which the rises and dips in your heart rate get largest and line up with your breath. For most adults it falls near six breaths a minute, with differences from one person to the next. It's used in heart rate variability biofeedback training.; See also: Coherent breathing, Heart rate variability (HRV), Respiratory sinus arrhythmia
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia: The normal change in heart rate with breathing: it speeds up a little as you breathe in and slows as you breathe out. Despite the name, it isn't a disease. It's one part of heart rate variability.; See also: Heart rate variability (HRV), Vagus nerve
Round: A block of several cycles followed by a rest or a hold, which then repeats. Intense breathing exercises are counted in rounds: kapalabhati, for example, is three rounds of thirty exhales.; See also: Cycle, Kapalabhati, Bhastrika
Sama vritti (equal breathing): A breath where the inhale and the exhale last the same amount of time. Sama means equal. Add pauses of the same length and it starts to look like box breathing.; See also: Pranayama, Pace, Cycle
Sigh: A deeper-than-usual breath that the body takes on its own every so often. According to researchers at UCLA and Stanford, a person sighs about every five minutes on average, which helps reopen the tiny air sacs in the lungs. Cyclic sighing does it on purpose: two inhales in a row and one long exhale.; See also: Cycle, Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Simhasana (lion pose): The yoga pose that gives lion's breath its name. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes it with the mouth open and the gaze on the tip of the nose; the stuck-out tongue and the audible exhale taught today are later additions. There is almost no research on this breath.; See also: Pranayama
Sleep inertia: The grogginess, drowsiness, and fuzzy thinking that come right after waking. According to the Sleep Foundation it generally lasts 15 to 60 minutes, though it can drag on longer. We found no studies showing that a breathing exercise shortens it.; See also: Pace
Surya bhedana (sun breath): A yoga breath where you breathe in through the right nostril and out through the left. Surya is the sun, the name the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a 15th-century manual, gives the right nostril; the text describes it with a hold between the two phases. On this site it's practiced with no hold.; See also: Chandra bhedana (moon breath), Nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), Pranayama
Susokukan: The Zen practice of counting breaths. The Rinzai school teaches it to beginners: you count each exhale from one to ten and go back to one, and you also go back whenever you lose count.; See also: Qigong, Cycle
Sympathetic nervous system: The part of the autonomic nervous system that readies the body for action, the fight-or-flight response: the heart rate climbs and breathing speeds up. It works in balance with the parasympathetic system; neither one is the bad guy.; See also: Parasympathetic nervous system
Ujjayi: A yoga breath done through the nose with the throat slightly narrowed, so the air sounds like a whisper or like the sea. The name is usually translated as victorious breath. It's common in yoga classes that link movement to breathing.; See also: Pranayama, Nasal breathing
Vagus nerve: The tenth of the twelve cranial nerves and the longest: it runs from the brain to the large intestine and connects to the heart and lungs. Its two branches carry about three-quarters of the nerve fibers of the parasympathetic nervous system. Researchers study its role in the effects of slow breathing, and that mechanism is still debated.; See also: Parasympathetic nervous system, Heart rate variability (HRV)
Viloma: The interrupted breath: you breathe in on several steps, with a short pause on each, and breathe out in one go, or the other way around. B. K. S. Iyengar gave it a chapter in his book Light on Pranayama (1981). By his account, the name means against the natural order of things.; See also: Kumbhaka, Pranayama