Breath as Medicine: The Quick Shift I Come Back to Again and Again

I’ve been teaching for almost twenty years, and there’s a practice I still don’t have a name for. It’s an arm and breath kriya — you make a V with your arms from your heart center, inhale, squeeze your fists as hard as you can until your whole arms start to shake, hold, and then let it all release. I was taught it years ago as a way to bring energy into the thymus gland, to support the immune system right as the weather turns and we all move indoors. I’ve used it for two decades. I still call it “that one with the shaking arms” when I’m teaching it live, because somewhere along the way, naming it never felt necessary. It works. That was always enough.

I think about that a lot when it comes to breath work in general. We spend so much energy trying to label, optimize, and perfect our practices, when the truth is much simpler: the breath is one of the fastest tools we have, and it doesn’t need a name to do its job.

This month’s breathwork class weaves together three practices — breath of fire and kapalabhati, which we built together in September, and bastrika pranayama, a bigger practice that pairs an active inhale with an active exhale. Bastrika asks more of you. It can make you a little lightheaded the first time. It will very likely bring something up — irritation, resistance, or even unexpected joy. My instruction is always the same: whatever arises, it’s welcome. We’re not troubleshooting our way through the practice. We’re learning to meet whatever is actually here with a little friendliness instead of judgment. 

That’s really the same instruction I’ve been giving all month, in every practice. In Staying Power, it was staying with the impulse to check your phone instead of acting on it. In Calm Heart Kriya, it was staying at the edge of a held breath instead of letting go early. Here, it’s staying present through breath of fire instead of checking out the moment it gets challenging. Staying, again and again, in as many forms as I can find it. 

Here’s the thing I’ve come to trust after nearly twenty years of teaching: if you need a quick shift physically, a posture will usually do it. But if you need a quick shift emotionally or mentally, pranayama is the fastest way there I know. Different problems call for different tools, and the breath is often the one we forget we’re carrying with us everywhere. 

A practical note before you try this one yourself: it’s invigorating rather than calming, so I’d save it for morning or afternoon rather than right before bed. And if you’re newer to pranayama, please build slowly — ease your way in rather than trying to match my pace, and skip kapalabhati and bastrika entirely if you’re pregnant. 

Breath as Medicine is in the portal now. Come breathe with me