Extra breathing exercise

Sit with your back straight

• Exhale slowly and deeply on a loud FFF

• Concentrate completely on the outgoing air

• When you get to the end, wait a moment

• Continue with a few more puffs, FFF, FFF, FFF (without taking a secret breath first)

• Close your mouth and then slowly release your breathing muscles (abdomen) so that the air comes in naturally, through your nose

 

Do this exhaling and inhaling at least five times

 

After the last time, inhale independently and then exhale relaxed, stopping halfway through the exhalation. Then do nothing for a while (breathing pause) until you feel a breathing stimulus again. When the breathing stimulus occurs, first breathe out and then follow the rhythm as shown. your body indicates
Notice how your breathing continues naturally afterward

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Cleansing effect
Blowing off residual air has a purifying effect on your entire system. We wrote earlier that the respiratory tract excretes 70% of all waste products that your body produces. 20% is eliminated through the skin and only 10% through the digestive system. Wouldn't it be particularly effective to change the residual air daily or at least once or twice a week? You can even make it a habit, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower. Even during intensive exercise, where you push yourself to the limit, you change the residual air while panting. In addition to distracting you from your daily worries, freshening your residual air can also be one of the reasons why you feel so clear after intense exercise. We also suspect that this is an important reason why people who start breathing training and exhale deeply almost immediately feel better, clearer and more energetic.

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During the breathing pause it seems as if you don't need any breathing at all. The silence is more or less automatic. You do not freeze your breathing, but concentrate on your diaphragm (the place where the breathing movement stopped), which you hold still with mindfulness. That's about halfway through a relaxed exhalation. You have activated your parasympathetic nervous system during the exhalation exercise and are therefore in such a calm state that breathing is at first not necessary and then only minimal. This is a state of being that you can also experience during meditation, for example.

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By actively exhaling you also train yourself to limit the air inflow. Your brain gets used to a higher carbon dioxide level and this makes your breathing pattern calmer. Mechanically speaking, you become accustomed to connecting your breathing from the diaphragm to your base rather than to your chest muscles.
(Source: Bridgeman 2016)

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For extra/next level exercises, see:

Robert Bridgeman and Marleen van den Hout: start breathing today (book - 2016)