How To Do High Breathing Video

High breathing in yoga refers to a style of breathing that takes place in the upper part of the chest and lungs. Learn how to do high breathing by raising the ribs in this exercise video.

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Take seated position
Place hand on chest
Inhale & exhale using only top of chest

About this Author

Cindy Mastry has practiced yoga since the age of eight, and also has a background in Jazz and Ballet. Active in the fitness industry for nearly twenty years, she teaches aerobics, kickboxing, and yoga at many fitness centers in the Tampa Bay area. Cindy trained with 84 year-old Master Yogi Monk, Baba Hari Dass at the Mt. Madonna Center in California and owns/operates "Yoga Etc Studio" in St. Petersburg, Florida. Cindy teaches yoga to people of all ages and experience levels and at very competitive rates.

CINDY MASTRY: Namaste. My name is Cindy Mastry, and in this clip Faith is going to help me demonstrate high breathing. When you talk about high breathing, what you're really talking about is a chest breath. So we're going to breathe only with the upper point of our chest. We're not going to use our abdominals and we're not going to use our ribcage. So Faith is in a comfortable seated position. She's lengthening her tailbone down into the earth and reaching up through the crown of the head. Her shoulders are coming down and back--her shoulder blades, I should say--and she's lifting her heart. Now as Faith inhales, she allows the breath only to come into her chest. So I'm going to ask her to take her hand to her chest so she can feel the air. Now we don't want the chest to expand outward. You just want to basically lift your shoulders and collar bones just ever so slightly up towards your chin. And then as you exhale, the shoulder blade--the shoulders and the collar bone move away from the chin. Now, a good way to feel this is to practice by sniffing, so we're going to ask Faith to take a sniffing action, and then exhale. And this allows you to feel what it feels like to just breathe very suddenly through the upper chest. So again, inhaling in, lifting your collar bones and your shoulders just ever so slightly up, and then as you exhale, exhaling the shoulders and the collar bones down just a little, allowing the air only to come into the chest and relaxing through the breath.

How to Do High Breathing Video

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