How safe is it physically? I've experimented with breathing deeply and slowly (in some cases halting the breathing process for between 1/2 second or as much as possible without exerting any kind of force, more so after exhaling rather than after inhaling) while on Corpse pose (Savasana), Child's pose (Balasana), and I sometimes wonder if what I'm doing is dangerous for my body.

Just moments ago, after holding the Balasana position and breathing slowly for what I thought was less than a minute, I stood up, felt pressure in the lower middle of the forehead, felt so lightheaded that I decided that throwing my body facedown onto the bed was the thing to do. While breathing slowly and deeply on Savasana, it's as if I can feel my organs and/or whatever's inside my body (cells, muscles, blood pumping, heart, lungs, etc.) working. Sometimes I've felt a sort of tinglyness in different parts of the body or throughout the body, a wind blowing on my ears, and energy or something in me made of something else moving around my body without me controlling it, but certainly feeling where it is and where it is moving to.

I also wonder how slowly I can possibly breathe without it being harmful to my body. Say 12 breaths per minute? 6 breaths per minute? 3 Breaths per minute?

Anybody else experiment with slowing down their breathing and the effects it can have on our bodies, thoughts, and being?

Breathing does 2 things, provides oxygen for the cells in our bodies and removes carbon dioxide waste.

Our bodies are adaptive and naturally breathe at the optimal rate to continue these 2 essential functions in different situations.

If you are slowing down your breathing by force to the point where these aren't happening you are both starving your cells of oxygen which they need to live and poisoning them with carbon dioxide. I'm not a scientist so I don't know the tolerances, but that doesn't sound good to me.

I get that by slowing and controlling your breathing it can be relaxing and give you greater control of your thought processes, I use it too, but there's a balance in everything with our bodies and we need to always be aware of that. It's not really something we need to quantify with numbers, we can just feel it if we are receptive to the messages.

It is impossible for a healthy individual to permanently harm himself / herself by slowing down their breathing at regular atmospheric pressure breathing air. The worst you can do is pass out briefly and even that is extraordinarily difficult to do.

There have been reports of deaths in free divers but in these situations the immense pressure is the culprit as it does funny things to the solubility of various gases in your blood.

We have very little direct control over our body functions. Breathing is one of the few things we can control voluntarily. Yoga uses this as a handle for manipulating and influencing other functions we have very little control over like emotions, heart rate etc.

Some of the symptoms you describe are due to hypercarbia secondary to breath holding. It will not permanently harm you. Hypercarbia could become a problem if it was caused by lung disease. In your situation, if you don't have any lung conditions there is no need to worry.

Some of the feelings you experience in Savasana might be due to increased awareness.

Normally, if you slow down your breathing, you automatically slow down your metabolism as well. Under normal circumstances (when you're not under water or on mount everest) your body will automatically respond when you don't get enough oxygen. You cannot wilfully prevent this automatic response from happening.

https://www.youtube.com/...=0xc3XdOiGGI&t=2418s

not breathing properly will decrease frontal lobe activity

braething rythm is very important

decreasing o2 levels is called the buteyko method (at least most popularly mentioned...) and has no scientific data backing it up - some people say it helps with their asthma


increasing o2 is a much moar fun stuff doe xD wim hof method has lots of science behind it, look it up i think it has more potential than decreasing it


but who knows, and untill we doe there are posibilities !!