How to start a breathing practice

All you need

Pick a position you can stay in without effort. The UK's National Health Service (NHS) describes three that work: standing, sitting in a chair that supports your back, or lying on a bed or a mat. If you choose the chair, keep your feet flat on the floor, about hip-width apart.

Loosen anything tight around your waist. Let your shoulders and jaw drop. You can close your eyes or rest your gaze on one spot.

Look for a moment that already exists in your day: right after you wake up, before lunch, when you shut your laptop. A practice attached to something you already do is easier to repeat.

Your first pattern: 4-6 breathing

4-6 breathing is the simplest pattern on the site: breathe in for 4 seconds and out for 6, with no pauses. You don't have to count. The guide keeps time, and you just follow the sun as it rises and sinks.

• Sit or lie down and take a few ordinary breaths without changing anything.
• Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds. Let the air go as low as it comfortably goes, without forcing it.
• Breathe out through your nose for 6 seconds, gently, as if the air were leaving by itself.
• Keep going for 5 minutes. If you lose your place, pick it up at the next inhale.
• When you finish, stay quiet for a moment and breathe at your own pace before you get up.

How long and how often

The NHS suggests repeating its breathing exercise for at least 5 minutes, and says you get the most out of it when you do it regularly, as part of your daily routine. That's a good place to start: 5 minutes, once a day.

If 5 minutes sounds like a lot, start with the One-minute pause: six slow breaths, exactly one minute. A minute you actually do beats twenty you put off until tomorrow.

There's no rush to build up. Stay with the same pattern for a week before you change it or make it longer.

What you'll feel, and what you won't

Most often you'll notice your body settling a little: your shoulders drop, your exhale gets longer without any help. Some days you won't notice anything, and that still counts as practice.

A 2018 review pulled together 15 studies of healthy adults breathing at 10 breaths a minute or fewer. Several found people felt calmer and more comfortable, but many found no clear change, and none was a randomized trial. The evidence is interesting and still limited.

If you feel dizzy or tingly, you're probably taking in more air than your body needs. Fast, deep breathing lowers the carbon dioxide in your blood, and that can cause lightheadedness, weakness, and tingling in your arms or around your mouth. Stop, breathe normally, and come back another day with smaller breaths. Slow doesn't mean huge.

Where to go after the first week

Once 4-6 breathing feels comfortable, here are two more patterns with no breath holds:

• Belly breathing: in for 4, out for 6, rest for 2, with a hand on your belly so you can feel it rise and fall.
• Coherent breathing 5-5: five seconds in and five seconds out, six breaths a minute.
• Save fast breathing and long holds for later. The site shows a notice before any of those begin.

When to ask first

This is a practice, not a treatment. If you're pregnant, or you have a heart, lung or blood pressure condition, epilepsy, or a history of panic attacks or fainting, check with your care provider first.

Don't practice while you're driving or in the water. And if something feels wrong, stopping is always a good call.