Sama Vritti

Sama Vritti, which almost everybody now searches for as box breathing, is ten rounds of 4:4:4:4: inhale four counts, hold four, exhale four, hold four. That is a little over two and a half minutes and it can be done at a desk with the eyes open. Use it before something difficult rather than after it.

Sama vritti means equal movement, and the equality is the whole instruction: the four sides of the square are the same length, which is why the modern name is a good one. The two holds are genuine breath retention, short, and that is what makes this both the friendliest introduction to kumbhaka and the reason the safety list below is longer than the practice looks.

It has escaped yoga altogether. Box breathing is taught in police and military training, in sports psychology and in most meditation applications, usually with no mention of where it came from. That is not a complaint: it has also meant the pattern has been tested under laboratory conditions in a way most pranayama has not, and the results are on this page.

Ten rounds at 4:4:4:4 is sixteen counts a round, so about two minutes forty at a genuine one second count.

• Week 1 to 2: 10 rounds at 3:3:3:3 if four is a strain, otherwise 4:4:4:4. Two to three minutes.
• Week 3 onwards: 10 rounds at 4:4:4:4. This is a complete daily practice and most people should stop here.
• Month 2 onwards, if four is entirely comfortable: 10 rounds at 5:5:5:5, about three and a half minutes.
• Ceiling: 6:6:6:6. Not beyond, and not at all if you have high blood pressure, heart disease or glaucoma.
• Frequency: once or twice a day, and additionally whenever you need it. Five minutes before a difficult conversation is the classic use and the studied one.

The five minute dose is worth noting because it is what the stress trial used: five minutes of box breathing before the stressor and one minute during it. If you are using this practice for a specific moment, do it beforehand rather than afterwards.

Every application teaches 4:4:4:4 and none of them says what to do next, or when to stop. This is the ladder I use, and the last two columns are the ones that matter.

That last row is the one I most want read. Somebody with high blood pressure, heart disease or glaucoma gets the slow rhythm without the holds, which is four counts in and six out, and it does most of what they came for. The holds are the part with the safety list attached, and removing them removes almost all of it.

Two trials are worth knowing, and they point in different directions, which is why I will give both.

Before a stressor, it works. Sixty six people were randomised to normal breathing, prolonged exhalation, or box breathing at 4:4:4:4, five minutes before a virtual Trier Social Stress Test and one minute during it. Heart rate rose 4.4 beats a minute in the normal breathing group and fell 6.4 in the box breathing group. Salivary alpha amylase rose 27.7 units in the control group and stayed flat in the box breathing group. State anxiety rose only in the controls. Prolonged exhalation did about as well as box breathing on every measure, which is worth noticing.

After hard exercise, it does not. Forty active students recovered from high intensity interval training with box breathing, with breathing at six a minute, or spontaneously, in a randomised crossover. Box breathing left heart rate higher, 164.7 against 154.8 beats a minute, and perceived exertion higher. The authors concluded six breaths a minute was the better recovery strategy and that box breathing may itself impose a load.

Put together with the 2023 meta analysis of breathwork, which found small to medium effects on stress, anxiety and depression across fifty trials with most at moderate risk of bias, the picture is clear enough. This is a useful, cheap, quickly taught practice with a real but modest effect, best used before a stressor rather than after exertion, and no better than a long slow exhale for most purposes. Anybody selling it as more than that is selling something.

Three patterns compete for the same five minutes, and the differences are smaller than the marketing suggests.

My own order of preference for somebody who wants one pattern and one only: slow breathing at four in and six out, then box breathing at four, then everything else. The long exhale is the part that does the work, the box is the part that is easy to remember, and 4:7:8 is a long retention dressed up as a bedtime routine. If you want the traditional practice that the long exhale belongs to, that is three part breathing.

This is the only practice on this site that I actively suggest doing with your eyes open in a public place, because that is what it is good for.

1. Before something difficult: five minutes, 4:4:4:4, sitting anywhere. This is the studied use and the best one.
2. As a daily sit: ten rounds after asana, before Savasana, in Padmasana or on a chair.
3. At a desk: ten rounds every few hours. It fits with the desk sequence and needs no space at all.
4. Not at bedtime. The holds keep a fair number of people awake. Use left nostril breathing or Bhramari then.

In a longer practice it goes after the asana and before the rest, because it wants a steady mind to count with. If you are assembling a first routine, the home practice guide has the order, and I would learn Anulom Vilom before this one, because a practice with no retention should come first. In the online classes I use box breathing when somebody arrives visibly rattled, because it is the fastest thing to teach over a screen.

It shows up in the practical corners of this site rather than the therapeutic ones.

• Yoga for anxiety includes it with a caveat that matters: for some people the holds reproduce the sensations of a panic attack, and those people should do the same rhythm with no holds at all.
• Yoga for high blood pressure allows it only at four counts and prefers the version without holds.
• How often should you do yoga uses it as the example of a practice short enough that frequency beats duration.
• Yoga therapy is where the question of tailoring a ratio to a person properly belongs, rather than everybody doing the same square.

Sit for it wherever you are. Vajrasana or a chair are both fine. If you want somebody to watch whether you are bracing on the holds, which is almost impossible to notice yourself, that is what an introductory class is for.