Asanaverse

Asthma and Everyday Breathing

8 Week Yoga Program for Breathing With Asthma

You breathe higher and shallower than you need to, and it is almost impossible to notice from the inside. Then a cold day, a flight of stairs or a bad night makes it obvious. Your treatment handles the flare ups. The everyday pattern of how you breathe is the part nobody has worked on with you.

Our yoga teachers built this eight week program on the protocol that improved lung function, quality of life and rescue inhaler use in exactly eight weeks. Eight weeks to change the pattern of how you breathe, alongside the treatment you are already on.

Three longer sessions a week and a ten minute one on the other days, four sequences, eight weeks. Every session is built around one thing, which is a long controlled out breath, because that is the part the research keeps pointing at.

Length

8 weeks

Practices

56 in total

Rhythm

Three sessions a week plus a short one on the other days

Made for

Adults with mild to moderate asthma that is well controlled on their usual treatment

What the research says

The clearest single result behind this program comes from an eight week trial of 57 people who added a structured yoga and breathing programme to their existing asthma treatment. Over those eight weeks their FEV1 rose from 70.2 to 77.9 percent of predicted, their peak flow from 68.6 to 85.3 percent, and among the participants whose airways narrowed with exercise, that narrowing fell from 26.7 percent to 8.0. Quality of life improved in every domain from week two onwards, and rescue medication use dropped.

A second trial is the reason this program is built the way it is. It went through the breathing techniques one at a time rather than treating them as a block, and over twelve weeks coughing fell from 73 percent of participants to 12, wheezing from 76 to 8, and breathlessness from 73 to 10. The authors concluded that it was mainly the techniques built around a long controlled exhalation that did the work, and recommended making them a regular part of treatment.

The wider picture is consistent. A Cochrane review of 15 trials with 1,048 people found that yoga probably leads to improvements in quality of life and symptoms, and reported no serious harms. A head to head comparison found breathing practice clearly better than standard treatment alone. Everything here was studied as an addition to existing asthma treatment, which is exactly how this program is meant to be used.

See every study and guideline behind this program →

How the program works

3 phases, and you stay with the same practices for the whole of each one. That repetition is the plan rather than a shortage of ideas. A body changes when the same ask comes back often enough, and the trials this program follows repeated for weeks before they made anything harder.

Weeks 1 to 3MoveBelly before chest, and an out breath that takes longer than the in breath.Weeks 4 to 6BuildThree specific breathing techniques, all of them built around the exhalation.Weeks 7 to 8IntegrateKeep the pattern while standing, moving and working.

Each phase has one longer session and the same short one, and you stay with them for the whole phase. Open a session below to see every pose, its timing and the breathing that goes with it. Two rules run through all eight weeks, and both come straight from the protocol this follows: hold each pose for about thirty seconds, and never hold your breath in any of them.

Who this is for

  • ·You have a diagnosis of mild to moderate asthma from a doctor.
  • ·You are on your usual treatment and it is keeping things stable.
  • ·You have not been in hospital or in emergency care for asthma in the last year.
  • ·You want to work on the everyday pattern of your breathing alongside your medication, not instead of it.
  • ·You can find twenty minutes three times a week and ten minutes on the other days.

Before you start

This is an addition to your asthma treatment, never a replacement for it. Breathing exercises are not what you reach for during an attack: that is what your reliever inhaler is for. Nothing in this program uses forced or rapid breathing. The practice guide has the rest.

Read the full safety notes in the practice guide →

The practice

Two practices per phase. Open one to see every pose, its timing and the reason it sits where it does.

Move · Weeks 1 to 3

Find the Diaphragm

Belly before chest, and an out breath that takes longer than the in breath.

Three weeks on one pattern. The belly moves first, the chest barely moves, and the exhalation gradually gets longer. It sounds like very little and it is the thing everything else is built on, because you cannot train a long controlled out breath on top of a shallow one.

  1. 1.Easy Pose4 min
  2. 2.Staff Pose1 min
  3. 3.Child's Pose2 min
  4. 4.Cat Pose1 min
  5. 5.Cow Pose1 min
  6. 6.High Cobra Pose30 sec, twice
  7. 7.Bridge Pose30 sec, twice
  8. 8.Fish Pose45 sec
  9. 9.Legs Up the Wall3 min
  10. 10.Corpse Pose4 min
Open the full sequence →

Week by week

Week 1Find out what your breathing actually doesHand on the belly, hand on the chest. Most people find the upper hand moving more than the lower one, and that is the pattern this phase is changing.
Week 2Lengthen the out breathIn for four, out for six. When that is comfortable, out for seven. Never force it and never hold at the end.
Week 3Keep it when you stop countingIn the last minutes of the session, stop counting and see whether the pattern holds on its own. That is the sign phase two will work.
← Back to the asthma and everyday breathing practice guide

Build · Weeks 4 to 6

The Named Techniques

Three specific breathing techniques, all of them built around the exhalation.

This is the part the research is most specific about. Alternate nostril breathing, humming bee breath and a long toned exhalation are the techniques from the study that evaluated them one at a time, and they get the first twelve minutes of the session rather than a footnote at the end.

Week by week

Week 4Learn the three techniquesDo not judge them yet. Alternate nostril breathing feels fussy at first and humming feels strange. Both settle within a week.
Week 5Find out which one is yoursOne of the three will feel noticeably better than the others. Give it more of the twelve minutes. They all pull the same lever.
Week 6Use it outside the sessionTry two minutes of it before a walk, or after climbing stairs. Not as a rescue, as a rehearsal.
← Back to the asthma and everyday breathing practice guide

Integrate · Weeks 7 to 8

Breathing While You Move

Keep the pattern while standing, moving and working.

Everything so far has been done sitting or lying down, where breathing well is easiest. These two weeks stand up. If the pattern only exists on a cushion it will not turn up on a flight of stairs, and the stairs are the point.

Week by week

Week 7Standing is harder than it looksThe same in for four, out for six is noticeably more work standing than sitting. Slow the session down rather than letting the pattern go.
Week 8Compare, then keep somethingThink about stairs, cold air and how often you have reached for the reliever, against where you were in week one. Then keep the ten minute session most days.
← Back to the asthma and everyday breathing practice guide

The 19 poses in this program

Every pose has its own page with alignment, common mistakes and the energetic effect. Look one up when a shape does not make sense in your body.

Easy PoseStaff PoseChild's PoseCat PoseCow PoseHigh Cobra PoseBridge PoseFish PoseLegs Up the WallCorpse PoseSeated Side BendRevolved Easy PoseCow Face PoseCamel PoseMountain PoseMountain Pose with Side BendStanding Forward BendUpward SaluteWarrior I
Go to the Asana Lab →

The guide behind this program

Why these poses and not others

The Asthma and Everyday Breathing practice guide explains what each pose does and why it belongs to this goal. It also carries the safety notes and every study this program is built on. Read it if you want the reasoning rather than the plan.

Read the guide →

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this replace my inhaler?

No, and nothing here was ever tested that way. In every trial behind this program, yoga and breathing practice were added to existing asthma treatment rather than substituted for it, and that is the only condition under which these results exist. During an attack, the reliever inhaler is what you reach for.

Why is it all about breathing out?

Because that is where the effect seems to sit. The trial that separated the breathing techniques out one at a time concluded that it was mainly the expiratory ones doing the work, and recommended making them a regular part of treatment. Every technique in this program is a different way of practising a long controlled exhalation.

What about Kapalabhati and Bhastrika?

They are not in this program. Both use fast forced exhalation, which can tighten the airways in some people with asthma, and neither was the mechanism in any of the studies here. The evidence points at slow breathing, so that is what this does.

Will my lung function actually improve?

It might. In the eight week trial this program follows, FEV1 rose from 70 to 78 percent of predicted and peak flow from 69 to 85. Reviews that pool many trials together are less uniform on the objective numbers than on symptoms and quality of life, so the honest expectation is that how you feel and how much reliever you use are the most likely things to change, with a real chance of the numbers moving too.

I get tight chested when I exercise. Is this program a bad idea?

It is one of the more encouraging findings, actually. Among the participants in that trial whose airways narrowed with exercise, the narrowing dropped from 26.7 percent to 8.0 over the eight weeks. It took the full eight weeks rather than happening immediately, and the dynamic parts of this program are introduced gradually for exactly that reason.

Is this suitable for severe asthma?

This program is built for mild to moderate asthma that is stable on treatment, because that is who was studied. If your asthma is severe or unstable, or you have been in hospital or emergency care for it in the last year, this belongs in a conversation with your doctor rather than as a self-directed program.

Creator of this program

Manish Rana

Manish Rana

Founder of Asanaverse.de. Manish writes about yoga, Ayurveda and meditation, and owes his deep connection to yoga to his Indian roots. With over 1,000 hours of Yoga Alliance Teacher Training, he shares his knowledge with the community.

More about Manish →
Registered Experienced Yoga Teacher, E-RYT 500

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