Yogic Breathing: Chest to Belly or Belly to Chest?

The yoga community is discussing the directionality of the breath. There are many yoga breathing exercises and techniques, and students often ask: Do you begin your inhalation in the chest and then fill the belly, or do you fill-up the belly first and then expand the chest? This seemingly innocent question can have yoga teachers arguing until they are blue in the face. Is there a right answer? Yep, but before we get to it, let’s start at the beginning.

First of all, let’s get our facts straight: We cannot breathe into our bellies (if the air does go into your belly, you are in deep trouble). You certainly do and should expand your belly as you breathe in, but not because the air goes there.

Yogic Breathing: Some Basic Facts

To understand the intricate process of respiration in yoga, we need to know two important facts.

FACT 1: Air will flow from an area of higher pressure to an area of lower pressure

FACT 2: Lungs do not have muscular tissue, which means that you cannot move your lungs at will. Instead, the outer surface of the lungs sticks to the inner surface of the ribcage and to the top of the diaphragm; as a result, the lungs get pulled following the movement of those structures. So you cannot move your lungs directly, but you could intentionally expand the ribcage and, to some degree, affect the movement of the diaphragm (because it is a muscle), which would move your lungs indirectly.

How Breathing Works

Technically, here is what happens when we breathe:

When the air rushes into the lungs, they get filled all at once. You cannot fill the bottom of the lungs first and then the top. Oxygen is not liquid; it’s gas. Therefore, you cannot fill a container (lungs) from the bottom up, like you would with liquid.

The degree of movement of the diaphragm and the ribcage in breathing can vary.

• During diaphragmatic or deep breathing we rely mostly on the movement of the diaphragm; it usually occurs at minimal levels of activity.
• During costal, or shallow breathing, we rely mostly on the rib cage changing its shape. This is more common during higher activity levels or when the contents of the abdominal cavity restrict the movement of the diaphragm (for example, when there is a baby there).

As you can see from this image, your abdominal cavity is packed with stuff—vital organs, digestive tract, etc. When the diaphragm moves down on the inhalation, it pushes down on your abdominal content, and it has no other place to go but forward, so your belly pushes forward.

So far, we have described the natural pattern of breath: when you breathe in, your chest and your belly both expand at the same time; when you breathe out, both of them return back to their original shape.

Now, we can consciously or unconsciously use muscular control to change that pattern. One example of unconscious muscular interference is the unfortunate pattern of “reverse breathing,” when we pull the belly in on the inhale instead of pushing it out.

So if you are keeping your abdomen taut on the inhalation, you are preventing your abdominal contents from moving forward, which means that it will stay where it is and restrict the movement of the diaphragm. So you will end up relying on your rib cage instead. If you do this consistently over time your diaphragm might lose some of its elasticity, causing shorter and shallower breathing (and who wants that?!)

Yogic Breathing

In yoga, we often introduce practices to change the natural pattern consciously. We might, for example, choose to expand the belly first and then expand the chest. Or, we might choose to expand the chest first and then expand the belly. Both are voluntary actions done for a number of reasons:

Inhale – Expand the belly first, then the chest        

• To emphasize the movement of the diaphragm
• To try to overcome “reverse breathing” pattern
• To produce a grounding effect on the system

Inhale – Expand the chest first, then the belly

• To lengthen the spine and improve posture
• To gradually deepen the breath
• To have a more uplifting effect on the system

Your exhalation can either be passive or active. With passive exhalation, the muscles that have been contracting on the inhalation relax and return to their original position.

With active exhalation, you use your abdominal muscles to compress the abdomen and force the diaphragm upward. If you do your abdominal contraction in a gradual fashion as you exhale, it will help stabilize and support your lower back.

Yogic Breathing and Prana

Most importantly, yogis were very interested in the energetic effects of the breath. Breath is a vehicle for Prana, the vital force that runs in different currents throughout the body. According to the Bhagavad Gita, every breath cycle is an opportunity to link Prana vayu and Apana vayu, two primary currents of the life force.

Apana vayu, which is aligned with the force of gravity, moves downward resulting in elimination of wastes, as well as disease, aging, death and the diminution of consciousness. Prana vayu, which is aligned with the air and space elements, is meant to move downward and is responsible for everything we take into the body—food, water, experiences and information.

But it can disperse upward through the mind and senses, especially in this sensory and information overload age. This leads to devitalization and loss of mind-body coordination.

Uniting Prana Vayu and Apana Vayu

Uniting the two primary vayus results in strengthening our energy along with awakening our higher faculties. Yogic practices work to raise Apana vayu up to unite with Prana vayu and draw Prana vayu down to unite with Apana vayu, which occurs in the region of the navel, the pranic center in the body.

To unite Prana and Apana, we would focus on the symbolic downward movement of the breath on the inhalation (nose – throat – chest – belly), facilitated by intentional muscular contraction, and symbolic upward movement of the breath on the exhalation (using progressive abdominal contraction from the pubic bone toward the navel and then compressing the rib cage).

So, to return to our original question, what is the proper yogic breathing technique—chest to belly or belly to chest? The answer is: It depends! It depends on what you are trying to accomplish in your yoga practice.