4-7-8 Breathing This technique, made famous by Dr. Andrew Weil, places the body into a state of deep relaxation. I use it on long flights to help fall asleep. Take a breath in, then exhale through your mouth with a whoosh sound. Close the mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four. Hold for a count of seven. Exhale

The perfect breath is this: Breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute for a total of about 5.5 liters of air.

Ann Kearney, the doctor of speech-language pathology at the Stanford Voice and Swallowing Center, was so impressed by our data and her own transformation overcoming congestion and mouthbreathing that, at this writing, she is putting together a two-year study with 500 subjects to research the effects of sleep tape on snoring and sleep apnea.

The key to Sudarshan Kriya, Tummo, or any other breathing practice rooted in ancient yoga is to learn to be patient, maintain flexibility, and slowly absorb what breathing has to offer.

mouth. Do not let the breathing be audible. Let it be most subtle and fine. When the breath is full, block it. The blocking (of the breath) will make the soles of your feet perspire. Count one hundred times “one and two.” After blocking the breath to the extreme, exhale it subtly. Inhale a little more and block (the breath) again. If (you feel)

Lie down every day, pacify your mind, cut off thoughts and block the breath. Close your fists, inhale through your nose, and exhale through your

Eighteen percent of Americans suffer from some form of anxiety or panic, with these numbers rising every year. Perhaps the best step in treating them, and hundreds of millions of others around the world, was by first conditioning the central chemoreceptors and the rest of the brain to become more flexible to carbon dioxide levels. By teaching

The nagging need to breathe is activated from a cluster of neurons called the central chemoreceptors, located at the base of the brain stem. When we’re breathing too slowly and carbon dioxide levels rise, the central chemoreceptors monitor these changes and send alarm signals to the brain, telling our lungs to breathe faster and more deeply. When

The textbooks were wrong. The amygdalae were not the only “alarm circuit of fear.” There was another, deeper circuit in our bodies that was generating perhaps a more powerful sense of danger than anything the amygdalae alone could muster. It was shared not only by S. M., the German twins, and the few dozen others with Urbach-Wiethe disease, but by