Glossary
Breathwork
การฝึกลมหายใจ
Breathwork is the modern umbrella term for any practice that uses a deliberately altered breathing pattern to change how you feel.
Breathwork covers a wide range: slow-paced breathing, box breathing, the yogic techniques grouped under pranayama, alternate nostril work, and the fast hyperventilating styles associated with various modern methods. They are not interchangeable. Slow practices calm; fast practices deliberately do the opposite, producing tingling, light-headedness and strong emotional release, and they are not suitable for everyone.
What it is for depends on which direction you are going. For calming, the reliable rule is a longer exhale than inhale — four in, six out, repeated for a few minutes — because exhalation is tied to the branch of the nervous system that slows the heart. For alertness, faster and sharper breathing works, and it has a cost. The useful skill is knowing which one the situation needs, which is more valuable than any single technique.
In a KEO session, breathwork is always the slow kind. Sessions open with eight to ten minutes of it, and it continues underneath the movement as the pacing tool. Fast, forceful techniques are not taught in a general class — they belong in a workshop where there is time to explain the contraindications, which include pregnancy, cardiovascular conditions, epilepsy and recent surgery, and where there is somewhere to lie down afterwards.