The Three Vital Breaths Meditation
The Three Vital Breaths are a cornerstone of Taoist and Qigong meditation practice. I like to teach this breath-based practice to new meditation students because it helps to restore natural breathing, not to be confused with normal breathing You also may encounter variations of this practice in yogic traditions. Essentially it retrains your torso’s respiratory muscles to expand and contract with greater fluidity. Such optimal muscle relaxation and coordination induces a more complete inhalation and exhalation, the crux of meditative breathing.
An Overview of Breathing Physiology1
It’s a little-known fact that your lungs are totally passive in the breathing process. They can’t move a jot on their own. The pleural cavities around them are completely closed; however, the inside of the lungs—through the trachea, nose, and mouth—communicate with the surrounding atmosphere, and so are subject to its changing pressure.
The thorax and pleural cavities only enlarge when activated by the diaphragm, intercostals, transverse thoracis, and abdominal, oblique, and lower back muscles. Working together, these muscles cause your lungs’ internal pressure to fall so that the lungs enlarge. As they expand, their internal pressure drops, causing outside air to rush in and fill the partial vacuum. This breath phase is called inspiration (inhalation).
When your respiratory muscles return to their starting point, the cavities in the thorax shrink, the elastic tissue of the lungs recoils, and air is forced out through expiration (exhalation). Expiration in normal easy breathing is quite passive, and the amount of air exchanged, about 500cc, is called your tidal volume. On the other hand, you can take a deep breath and follow it by a forced expiration, exhaling as much as you possibly can, whereby the exchange of air may top 3700 cc. This is called your vital capacity
Even after forced expiration, about 1200 cc of air remains in your lungs. This is the residual volume. Even when a lung is collapsed, some air will remain trapped in the alveoli by the recoil of the elastic tissue in the lung, which is the lung’s minimal volume. The critical point is that healthful breathing is by and large a matter of muscle tone, flexibility, and balance. The Three Vital Breaths practice aims to increase your tidal volume and reduce your residual volume so that each breath uses more of your vital capacity.
How to Perform The Three Vital Breaths
The Three Vital Breaths include the chest breath, the diaphragmatic breath, and the abdominal breath—in that order. The 1st vital breath, the chest breath, involves inhaling deeply to activate the many intrinsic muscles of your chest and upper back, which enable the ribs to move (front and back). Start by placing both hands over your chest along the upper rib cage, middle fingers touching over your sternum. Inhale deeply and feel the breath filling your hands as your ribcage expands. Similarly, as you exhale, feel your ribcage sink back to baseline position. Repeat this three times, as slowly as you can without straining.
The 2nd vital breath, the diaphragmatic breath, is an extension of chest breathing. Place your hands beneath your ribcage, thumbs tucked just under the lowermost true rib, middle fingers meeting along your midline over the diaphragm. Breathe into your hands and feel them expanding outward and downward as your chest inflates and your diaphragm contracts. As you exhale, feel your diaphragm move inward and upward as it returns to baseline position. As before, repeat this breath cycle three times.
The 3rd vital breath, the abdominal breath, takes up where diaphragmatic breathing left off. Place both hands over your lower abdomen, fingers pointing toward your midline, middle fingers touching one inch below your navel. As you inhale, feel the breath expanding your hands as your chest opens, your diaphragm falls, and your abdominal, oblique, and lower back muscles all expand like one big balloon. Then feel the balloon shrinking back to baseline as you exhale completely. Repeat this three times as well, as slowly as you can.
How to Progress with The Three Vital Breaths
Breathing in this deep, rhythmic way feels good all over, like giving your internal organs a healing massage. In the beginning, perform three breath cycles for each hand position as indicated. When you get more comfortable with the practice, work up to 6 x 6 x 6, then 9 x 9 x 9, and eventually 12 x 12 x 12 breaths.
When you’re first learning this technique, it helps to use your hands as an effective somatic feedback system for your respiratory muscles. As you get more in touch with the muscles of respiration, you can drop your hands to your thighs or lap and just mindfully follow the muscular pattern of breathing. As your tidal volume increases, your breath rate will naturally slow. Eventually you will only need to take 2-to-5 breaths per minute, a real sign of progress. But please don’t force it. Let your slower breath rate evolve through greater relaxation.
The Benefits of Three Vital Breaths Practice
The Three Vital Breaths are unmatched for retraining dysfunctional Western breath dynamics, which are typically shallow, constricted, forced, and unnatural. Many people more-or-less pant all the time, taking short, shallow breaths that physiologically provoke anxiety. The Three Vital Breaths are a return to natural breathing. Letting go is the secret. Remember that babies the world over breathe the right way with no training at all!
In time, you will realize increased tidal volume and vital capacity, leading indicators of health and wellness. Increasing them correlates with lower heart rate and blood pressure, reduced anxiety and depression, and improvements in concentration, attention span, alertness, and psychological resilience. You will also reduce your residual lung volume, which means you’re breathing out more stale air and CO2. Your more complete exhalations promote reduced residual muscle tension and increased samadhi (concentration and calm).2
All things considered, The Three Vital Breaths are your gateway to breathing easier—and to talking life easier. The two go hand in hand. The beauty of this practice is that you can do it anywhere— sitting, standing, or supine. In fact, the only thing standing between you and this practice is your next breath. Why not take it slow, smooth, and easy?
Footnotes
- Adapted from Crouch, J. E. (1978). Functional human anatomy, 3rd Ed. pp. 516-538.
- Sekida, K. (1973/1989). Zen training: Methods and philosophy. New York: Weatherhill, Inc.