The Breathwork Glossary collects the terms used when 📝Breathwork appears in a Somatic Realignment Therapy session or home protocol, defined in plain language for clients.
Glossary
B
- 📝Box Breathing — inhale, hold, exhale, and hold for equal counts, often four seconds each.
- 📝Breath Awareness — watching the breath without changing it, the starting point of every practice.
- 📝Breath Hold — a deliberate pause after the inhale or the exhale to build comfort with rising carbon dioxide, never forced.
C
- 📝Cadence — the tempo of a breath pattern, counted in seconds per phase.
- 📝CO2 Tolerance — how comfortable the body is with rising carbon dioxide, which shapes the urge to breathe.
- 📝Coherent Breathing — about five to six slow breaths a minute with the inhale and exhale roughly equal.
D
- 📝Diaphragm — the dome-shaped muscle beneath the lungs that does most of the work of breathing.
- 📝Diaphragmatic Breathing — breathing that lets the belly and lower ribs expand on the inhale instead of the chest and shoulders lifting.
- 📝Downshift — the settling toward the calmer side of the nervous system that a longer exhale tends to produce.
E
- 📝Exhale Emphasis — making the exhale longer than the inhale to encourage settling.
F
- 📝Four-Seven-Eight Breathing — inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight, a pattern used before sleep.
H
- 📝Hyperventilation — breathing faster or deeper than the body needs, which can bring tingling or lightheadedness and is avoided in this practice.
L
- 📝Lateral Rib Expansion — the lower ribs widening sideways and back on the inhale, a sign the diaphragm is working.
M
- 📝Mouth Breathing — a more stimulating or releasing path for the breath; the nose is the default for regulation.
N
- 📝Nasal Breathing — breathing in and out through the nose, which slows and warms the breath and supports downshifting.
P
- 📝Pacing — using the breath to keep session intensity inside a workable range.
- 📝Paradoxical Breathing — the belly drawing in on the inhale, a bracing pattern the work aims to unwind.
- 📝Physiological Sigh — two inhales through the nose followed by one long exhale through the mouth, a fast way to settle.
R
- 📝Ratio — the relationship between inhale, hold, and exhale lengths, written like 4-7-8.
- 📝Resonance Frequency — the individual slow breathing rate, near six breaths a minute, at which heart rate variability peaks.
S
- 📝Sigh — a natural long exhale that discharges tension, encouraged rather than suppressed.
T
- 📝Three-Part Breath — filling the belly, then the ribs, then the upper chest in sequence.
U
- 📝Upregulation — using faster or fuller breathing to raise energy and alertness.
V
- 📝Vagal Tone — how readily the body settles after activation, which slow exhales help train.