Fast and activating

Bhastrika, the bellows breath

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 202614 sources

Family

Fast and activating

Breaths

60 to 120 a minute (a slow form runs at 6)

Carbon dioxide

Falls

How well tested

Weak

Risk

Some

Timer

None, on purpose

Bhastrika, the bellows breath, is full breathing in and out through your nose, with the in-breath worked as hard as the out-breath. The name covers two very different speeds. Done forcefully, it sent heart rate up by about 30 beats a minute in a small study. Done slowly, at six breaths a minute, it lowered blood pressure after five minutes in another. We’d pick the slow version for calm, and keep the fast one for a short, seated energy boost if you’re healthy.

Bhastrika has a split personality. Yoga International, for one, teaches it as a fast, pumping breath. A 2009 study from Nepal tested a slow version instead and found that blood pressure fell. The two versions push your heart in opposite directions, so what you get depends on which one you do.

People also mix it up with its neighbors. In kapalabhati, only the out-breath is pushed and the in-breath happens by itself. In bhastrika, both are pushed. Kundalini yoga’s teachers say their Breath of Fire isn’t bellows breath either.

What it is and where it comes from

Bhastrika means bellows, the bag a blacksmith pumps to blow air onto a fire. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Gheranda Samhita, two classic hatha yoga manuals, both describe it. In 2022, researchers compared 25 published bhastrika studies with those texts and found differences in how deeply people were told to breathe.

Schools teach it at very different speeds. Yoga International’s instructions start at about 60 breaths a minute and build to 120, with short rounds that grow over time. Shirley Telles’s lab in Haridwar, India, measured its version of bellows breathing as much deeper breaths with no speed-up at all. A 2020 trial in Brazil started each round with 30 kapalabhati strokes, then added a slow breath in through one nostril, a hold and a slow breath out through the other. And the 2009 study in Kathmandu used six breaths a minute. Bhastrika is also one stage of the Art of Living’s Sudarshan Kriya.

How to do it

The fast version, following Yoga International and a 2024 study in India:

1. Sit tall on the floor or a chair. Never in water, in the bath or in a car.
2. Breathe in and out hard through your nose. Both halves are full and equal, with no pause between them, and the belly pulls in on each out-breath.
3. Start small. Three rounds of 7 to 10 breaths, with a few relaxed breaths between rounds. Keep each breath strong and even, and add breaths slowly as you get used to it.
4. Stop if you feel dizzy, lightheaded or uncomfortable, and breathe normally.

The slow version, as the 2009 study did it:

1. Sit comfortably on the floor, head, neck and back upright, eyes closed.
2. Breathe in slowly through both nostrils until you’re full, for about four seconds. The study asked people to breathe into the chest rather than the belly.
3. Breathe out slowly through both nostrils until you’re empty, for about six seconds.
4. Keep going for five minutes. The researchers asked people to picture an open blue sky instead of counting.

A simple way to picture it

Think of a blacksmith’s bellows. You push the handles together to blow air out and pull them apart to draw air in, and both strokes take effort. Pumped fast, the fire roars, and pumped slowly, it glows.

What happens in your body

The fast version moves a lot more air than you need, so carbon dioxide falls, and MedlinePlus lists lightheadedness and tingling as the result. Your heart speeds up. In a 2021 study of 20 healthy adults, one-minute rounds of bhastrika took heart rate from about 84 to about 114, and the bottom blood pressure number rose about 4 points during it and 6 points after. In a 2024 study of 20 regular practitioners in Bhopal, five minutes of bhastrika shifted their heart rate variability toward the stress side, and their heart rate was still up five minutes later.

The slow version works the other way. In the 2009 study, both blood pressure numbers fell after five minutes, with a small drop in heart rate. When ten volunteers first took a drug that blocks the calming nerve signals the vagus nerve carries, the drop disappeared, which points to the vagus nerve as the route. In the Haridwar lab, deep bellows breathing at a normal or slightly slower pace raised vagus-driven HRV in 42 yoga practitioners. Why does slow breathing calm your heart? and carbon dioxide have the long versions.

What the evidence shows

In Kathmandu in 2009, researchers had 39 adults aged 25 to 40 do slow bhastrika for five minutes, and both blood pressure numbers fell. The limit is that there was no group that just rested for five minutes, so some of the drop could come from sitting still.

In 2005, doctors in Pondicherry trained 30 students for three weeks, half in fast bhastrika and half in a slow breath called savitri. Heart rate went up in the bhastrika group and down in the slow group.

A 2020 trial in Brazil split 30 healthy young adults in half. One group did bhastrika for about a month, three supervised 30-minute sessions a week plus practice at home, while the other did crosswords, puzzles and card games. Anxiety in the moment fell in the breathing group, and brain scans showed changes in areas that handle emotion. The authors call the results preliminary, and their version included kapalabhati and breath holds too.

We couldn’t find a trial of either version over weeks in people with high blood pressure, so the 2009 result is one five-minute session in healthy adults.

Who should skip it

• The fast version is sitting only, never in or near water and never driving, since overbreathing can make you lightheaded.
• Skip the fast version if you’re pregnant or on your period, or have heart disease, high blood pressure, an ulcer, a hiatal hernia or chronic constipation. That’s Yoga International’s list, since bhastrika raises the pressure inside your belly.
• Skip it with epilepsy. Breathing hard on purpose sets off seizures in 87 to 100 percent of children with a common form of childhood epilepsy.
• Keep it short. The 2024 Bhopal team limited practice to five minutes under a certified teacher and told people to stop at any dizziness.
• The slow version is gentler. If it makes you lightheaded, breathe normally until it passes and shorten the breaths.