Tag Archive for: “deep breathing”

Breath: Your Most Basic Body Tool

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In the Beginning Was the Breath

Breath. It’s the foundation of life itself, one of the unchanging rhythms of existence. When you were born, the first thing you did was breathe—you ‘inspired.’ When you stop breathing, you die—you ‘expire.’

Breath: The Bridge to Somewhere

No one had to teach you how to breathe. The pattern of your respiration is determined by your actions, emotions and energy. If you’re anxious, your breath tightens, becoming short and restrained. Panic makes it rapid, shallow and frantic. If you run fast, you breathe hard and deep. As you relax, it lengthens into a regular sweeping flow. Most of the time, your emotional, mental and physical state are the engine of the train, pulling the car of your breath behind.

But you don’t have to breathe on auto-pilot. You can use your breath to alter your state. Your respiratory system is innervated by both your involuntary and voluntary nervous systems—it’s the only system in your body with that overlap. It’s where conscious choice intersects with unconscious programming. That means that your breath can become the ‘engine,’ pulling the ‘train’ of your state along behind. Anytime you want, you can become aware of your breath pattern and have it take the lead. While there are limits—you can’t breathe once an hour or 300 times a minute—within those bookends, you have a great deal of flexibility.

There are innumerable ways to use your breathing to shift your state, including many ways to use it to enhance your pleasure. You can use your breathing to relax, get present, turn off your inner chatter-box, to turn on your body and to expand your orgasms. While there are no right or wrong ways to breath and to use your respiration as a conscious tool, it is possible to have less then pleasurable effects.

Hyperventilanne-anderson-wind-blowsation

When you play with your breathing, you can ‘over-breathe’ or hyperventilate, disturbing your body’s critical balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Your inner warning sensors will respond when you’re exhaling too much (when you have too little carbon dioxide) and not inhaling enough, (not enough oxygen). At that point you’ll start to have symptoms of hyperventilation such as dizziness, tingling lips and fingers, and spasms of your hands, feet and face.

 

Hyperventilation Prevention

Prevent hyperventilation with the following practices:

  • Keep your inhale and exhale the same length.
  • Even when breathing rapidly, make sure to take deep breaths.
  • Alternate fast breathing practices with slow ones.
  • Intersperse a few deep slow breaths with fast breathing.
  • When breathing fast or doing long exhales, reinforce your breath with other tools, especially sound and traditional ‘hands-on’ stimulation. The more you use your whole toolkit to build your arousal, the less likely you are to hyperventilate no matter how wildly you breathe.

Hyperventilation Treatment

Feeling woozy and tingly (and not in a good way)? To treat impending hyperventilation, you can:

  • Make your inhale long and slow and do shorter exhales.
  • Take a breath in, hold it for a count of three, then release slowly.
  • Breathe into your cupped hands.

Play with your breathing. Run experiments and see how it can fire you up or calm you down, expand your awareness and bring you into your pleasure. Breath is the centerpiece of many spiritual practices and mind-body disciplines because of it’s power to consciously shift your consciousness. It’s your most basic and flexible body tool. So remember: you can use it anytime, anywhere, to go wherever you want to go. And don’t forget to practice safe breathing!

Why SexCraft? Because sex isn’t just natural, it’s a craft, and awesome sex is learnable!

SSC-3D-150x214Want to learn more about how to use your breath and other ‘SexCraft’ tools? This blog is an excerpt from my book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice. It’s the book that can guide you to discovering your awesome erotic potential!olc_succulent_sexcraft_product-image

Would you rather get personal teaching direct from me? You can get the online course of Succulent SexCraft. Go here for more info about this enlightening erotic education course.

 

An Easy Way to Play with Your Pleasure: A Sexual Breathing Practice

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My book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play and Practice is jam-packed with games, exercises and practices. Here’s a teasing, tempting taste! I find this practice super-useful in a wide variety of sexy situations.

anne-anderson-wind-blowsSexual Breathing Practice

Your brain is one of your most powerful arousal engines. You engage it through your awareness, focus and imagination. Joining it with your breath is a winning combination!

In this simple Sexual Breathing Practice you imagine breathing through your bottom (genitals, anus and perineum) at the same time that you pump your pelvic floor muscles (PFMs) and, of course, breathe. You can coordinate the pattern in whatever way is easiest for you. Try doing it the way I suggest and if that doesn’t work for you, do the reverse.

Here Goes

Take a deep breath in and pull up on your PFMs. Exhale and release them. Continue the pattern of coordinating breath and pelvic floor muscles. Begin to imagine that your breath is actually being sucked in through your bottom as you inhale and is being released from your bottom on the exhale. Imagine that you feel the air flowing into your genitals as you pull it in on your inspiration and flowing out as you exhale and release. Feel the sensations of the air rolling in and out.

Find the rate that is easiest for you. Practice and play with it until it feels natural and effortless.

Relaxing Rhythm

You can use this practice with a slow rhythm to relax. Make it nice and easy, using a pace that’s a bit slower then your normal rate. Get that leisurely rhythm going and bask in the calming practice.

Ramp It Up: Slowly Get Faster

Play with using this practice during erotic play. See what happens when you start slow and slowly increase the speed until you’re really rocking it. Take your time going from slow to rapid. The more time you take to shift gears, the better.

Fast and Furious

Try breathing at a rapid rate to turn up your turn-on. Make sure to keep each breath deep as you go fast. Use your energetic breath as a way to fire up your erotic energy.

Breathing Plus

Use a combination of various breath rates and rhythms, along with pulsing of your pelvic floor muscles and engage your imagination. Imagine that you’re using your upper and lower pumps to pump up your arousal! (You actually are doing exactly that.) Imagine that your mouth and throat are connected to your pelvic floor and genitals. (They actually are!)

Orgasm Additions

Add conscious breath practices to your next climax and see what happens. Experiment with breathing slow for one orgasm and breathing fast for another. Notice what happens.

Breath is for Solo Or Partnered Pleasure

You can do sexual breathing alone or with a partner. When you do it as a duo, you can synchronize by both doing the same pattern at the same time. Or you can do opposite patterns, with one of you inhaling while the other exhales.

Play and Experiment

Remember, there’s no right way and no way to do it wrong, so go ahead and experiment. Play with breathing through your bottom and pulse your way to more pleasure.

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Just Take a Couple of Slow Deep Breaths

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Here’s a simple breath technique for relaxing, getting centered and present. Good for sex and for the rest of your life, too!

(JUST CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.)