The Breath That Changes Everything

How Holding Empty Transforms Body, Emotions, and Consciousness

I've found that a single breath practice – Bahya Kumbhaka, retention at the bottom of the exhalation – reliably produces benefits across three completely different domains.

If you came to me seeking the ideal practice to:

• Support your strength and endurance work at the gym

• Deepen awareness of stored emotions in your body

• Cultivate peak mystical experiences in psychedelic states

…I’d teach you the same practice: holding your breath with near-empty lungs!

How could one simple technique support such wildly different goals? As a yogi, direct experience matters more to me than scientific studies and speculation. I’ve practiced Bahya Kumbhaka and verified these benefits for myself, time and again. But I’m curious how much might be placebo effects (which I respect as a powerful force).

It turns out there is compelling scientific evidence for all three benefits.

The Gym: Becoming Stronger Through Breathlessness

When you hold your breath with empty lungs, you force your body into a brief state of oxygen deprivation and carbon dioxide buildup. This “intermittent hypoxia” triggers adaptations that athletes spend thousands on altitude training to achieve.

The science is robust. Brief hypoxic episodes stimulate EPO (erythropoietin), the hormone that boosts red blood cell production. One study found that just eight 4-minute cycles of low-oxygen air significantly raised EPO levels – the body gearing up to improve oxygen-carrying capacity. It’s like giving yourself a legal, natural version of the performance enhancement some athletes seek through banned substances.

Training with high CO₂ builds stress resilience. When you hold after exhaling, carbon dioxide rapidly accumulates, triggering that panicky “must breathe NOW” feeling. Regular practice increases your CO₂ tolerance – you become less reactive to breathlessness and fatigue. Elite breath-hold divers show this adaptation clearly: their bodies produce less lactic acid and clear it faster than untrained people.

The result? You can push harder before hitting the wall. Your body becomes more efficient at handling the biochemical stress of intense effort.

The Heart: Accessing What We’ve Buried

Pushing through the discomfort of breath retention can unlock buried emotions. I’ve experienced this many times – letting go of the last puffs of air can suddenly produce intense intimacy with deeply held feelings. I’ve told students, “It’s as if everything I’ve ever felt in my life is down there at the bottom of my breath.”

I believe some of the pain-inducing repression in today’s society is deeply connected to our failure to fully exhale by letting go (as opposed to pushing). We “over-breathe,” attaching thinking habits to our breath that prevent us from letting go and exhaling fully.

Prolonged exhales and breath-holds naturally stimulate the vagus nerve, which signals safety to your entire system. (It’s called a “vagal maneuver” in medicine – used to slow racing hearts and induce calm.) You’re creating mild stress (air hunger) while simultaneously activating your relaxation response. This combination seems to shake loose emotional patterns that got stuck when we were too activated to process them fully. Many trauma therapies now focus on strengthening vagal tone for this reason.

The breath retention also engages the limbic system – your brain’s emotional center. Conscious breathwork activates these emotional brain regions, potentially accessing memories stored in the amygdala and hippocampus. Mid-20th century psychiatrists even used CO₂-rich gas mixtures to help patients surface and release suppressed emotions. Breath retention creates a similar effect naturally.

The Mystery: Opening Doors to Altered States

This is where my personal experience diverges most dramatically from what science can fully explain. When I practice Bahya Kumbhaka at the peak of a ketamine journey, the results defy description. (Seven years ago, it was this specific practice that shattered my decades-long depression during a transformative ketamine trip.)

Science offers clues about why breath retention enhances mystical states. Research shows that during breath-holding, the brain produces more theta waves – the same slow waves seen in deep meditation, REM sleep, and creative insight. You’re nudging your brain toward a waking dream state.

There’s speculation that extreme breath-holding might trigger release of endogenous DMT. And high CO₂ combined with low oxygen creates effects similar to psychedelic states. Historically, psychiatrists used controlled CO₂–oxygen mixtures called Carbogen to produce therapeutic altered states – patients reported vivid colors, life reviews, and out-of-body sensations.

Nearly every contemplative tradition recognizes breath control as a gateway to altered consciousness. Ancient yogis claimed mastering kumbhaka leads to samadhi. Tibetan practices use breath retention to generate inner heat and ecstatic states. Indigenous ceremonies combine breathwork with rhythm to induce trance.

The particular practice of Bahya Kumbhaka – retention of the exhalation, that vulnerable pause at empty – seems to have special power across traditions, perhaps because it brings us closest to the edge between life and death, forcing a confrontation with our most primal fears while paradoxically inviting profound peace.

The Practice Itself

Building Oxygen Reserves: Take 3-5 deep belly breaths. Let your abdomen expand like a balloon, ribcage following naturally. Let each exhalation spill out completely – no pushing, just releasing.

The Descent: After your last deep breath, let the final exhalation "seek the bottom." No force, no muscular effort – just letting go, bit by bit, as your lungs slowly approach empty.

The Retention: Pause in stillness at the (almost) bottom. Notice everything – the urge to breathe, diaphragm spasms, rising thoughts. Return awareness to the sensation of emptiness. Hold until the air naturally surges back in.

Making It Work in Psychedelic States

For ketamine trips or other psychedelic states, you need to practice until this becomes body memory – beyond language or conscious control. The key is creating a "breath riff" using rhythm and sensation rather than counting.

It’s related to learning a song on an instrument. You don't count individual notes once you know the melody – it becomes a felt pattern. Make your breath practice musical. Feel it in your body – the swoosh at your nostrils, the movement of your ribcage, perhaps a "sshhh" sound on the final exhalation.

This multi-sensory approach is crucial for psychedelic states where language dissolves. By anchoring the practice in sound, rhythm, and physical sensation, you create what I call a "mnemonic pranayama" – a breath practice that can arise spontaneously even when you don't know who or what you are.

I've found that practices connected to non-language-based memory are far more robust in altered states. Musicians may have an advantage here – they already understand how complex patterns can be stored in the body rather than the thinking mind. But anyone can develop this capacity through patient practice.

Integration

Whether you seek athletic enhancement, emotional release, or mystical insight, the practice remains the same: learning to rest in emptiness at the bottom of the breath. Each domain offers its own rewards, but they all spring from the same fundamental shift – from panic to presence in the face of primal discomfort.

By willingly entering that space where every cell screams for air, we discover extraordinary capacities. We find strength in vulnerability, release in retention, expansion in emptiness.

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For those practicing with ketamine or other psychedelics: This is advanced work. The combination of dissociation and breath retention requires careful preparation and integration. Please reach out if you'd like personalized guidance for your practice.

In a future article, I'll share field notes from workshops where we've explored "discomfort practices" – cold exposure, nailboards, and other pratyahara techniques that prepare the nervous system for deeper work.