How to combine powerful breathwork with deep meditation
I regularly practiced Wim Hof Breathing during a Vipassana Retreat and it was pretty powerful
Vipassana?
If you have never heard of Vipassana, it is a school of meditation, supposedly based on the original teaching of the Buddha himself. There are Vipassana facilities all over the world, offering retreats which last for ten days or longer. For the first 3–4 days you are doing nothing but to focus on your breath (Anapana). After that, you are introduced to the Vipassana technique, which is a body scan variation. There is no obligation to follow any kind of religion or belief system to participate. You just listen to audiotapes and videos in which the movement founder S. N. Goenka explains the technique and the philosophy behind it. There is no fee, except a voluntary donation.
Strict Restrictions
In those retreats, you will live like a monk without technology, without anything to read or write and without speaking. You are doing nothing but meditating on a hard cushion, eating simple meals and sleeping sixish hours in a barren cell. You are within a group of people of your gender and there is no social contact allowed, not even eye contact.
Before you enter the retreat, you lock away all your valuables, your phone, everything, except for some clothes and toiletries. Besides the material constraints, there is also the rule of restraining from all kinds of religious or spiritual practices. This means no prayer, no mantras, no yoga, no exercise, nothing except a little stretching. To have the practice of your belief banned might seem a bit brainwashy and oppressive, but since you are there to clear your mind of attachment and aversion as much as possible, it made sense for me. Also, I am mostly secular, so whatever.
However, in the year before my Vipassana retreat, I became attached to a daily practice of Wim Hof Breathwork…
Wim Hof Breathing in a Nutshell
I’m not an instructor of any kind, so if you are curious about the Wim Hof Method, look into the guy’s official channels for detailed guidance. Never do breathwork while in water, while driving or any other situation where you shouldn’t lose control.
The Wim Hof breathing method consists of three phases:
1. Do 30–40 deep breaths: inhale deeply by going up from your belly, to your chest, up to your head. Let go of the breath without pushing it. Repeat.
2. Retention: On the last breath, exhale softly and hold your breath as long as you can. Relax all your muscles.
3. Take one deep recovery breath: When you feel you can’t hold it anymore, take one deep breath, keep it in and hold. You can stretch and flex your muscles during this phase or just relax. After 10–30 seconds let the air out again.
Repeat this cycle 3–4 times. While you are doing this, focus on your breath and your body, just like in meditation.
In my personal daily life, this technique helped me with getting up in the morning and providing me with energy after exhaustion. I also have the feeling that it strengthens my immune system. Beyond that, I noticed some interesting physical and psychological effects. After a few rounds of this exercise, I experienced not only a pleasant tingling in my body but also a feeling of my whole body being “blown up”. I have done body scan techniques before and doing those with breathwork really intensifies them. I feel like I really can sense disturbances or inflammations within my body, like in an actual scan.
How I snuck in Breathwork in my Vipassana retreat
I will not go into detail about the strict daily routine of the Vipassana retreat but suffice to say the meditation practice starts very early in the morning and takes up most of the day. Lunch break gives you two hours for eating and for yourself — after that the hardest part of the day starts, four hours of meditation with only small breaks in between. A “session” of Wim Hof breathing takes up about 20 minutes for me, so I started my daily breathwork half an hour before the first afternoon meditation.
Because I did not want to alert my neighbours or the helpers, I kept my breathing as quiet as possible. During my travels, I have done breathwork several times in hostel dorms and I noticed that the effects got way stronger when I tried not to make any sounds during the breathing — while still going as deep as possible. The effect also might have to do with the fact that you are more focused and mindful when you try to keep silent. So next time you do it, try to imagine a person right next to you who is not to be disturbed.
I must say it was nothing short of powerful for me to do these exercises in this environment. Doing them gave me much stronger Tetany than normally and a real power boost that lasted well into the first hour of meditation afterwards. I had the feeling that the quality of the meditation improved drastically — which means fewer thoughts and more mindfulness.
I also experienced a serious high for a short while. As I was walking to the meditation hall I experienced a clear shift in consciousness, similar to cannabis, but crisper. The feeling was mostly very positive, I felt awake, fit and positive — there was also a little anxiety, but it was the lighter kind which is more excitement than fear. I was almost afraid of getting “caught” like you would when you would do drugs on a school trip or something. My guess is that the euphoria I felt from the breathwork came from the adrenaline which is produced during the breathing exercise. Also, the endocannabinoid system is somehow triggered during the breathwork, so it is definitely a form of natural high.
An elevated feeling is not unusual when doing breathwork exercises. But I think that the prolonged lack of external influences like social contacts, sugary foods, media input, work and physical exercise, this high got even stronger. There is a reason why it is recommended to stay away from external stimuli a few days before going on a psychedelic endeavour…
