Interrupted Breath
Inhaling or exhaling in stages with pauses between. A gentler way into breath retention than holding a full breath, and unusually good at revealing exactly where the breath is restricted.
Meaning of the name
Against the grain. Vi-loma means contrary to the natural order — the breath is deliberately interrupted rather than allowed to flow.
How to practise
- 1
Lie down or sit upright, whichever allows the ribs to move freely.
- 2
Inhale for a third of your capacity, then pause for two seconds without closing the throat.
- 3
Inhale another third, pause again. Inhale the last third, pause.
- 4
Exhale smoothly and completely in one continuous stream.
- 5
Do six rounds this way, then six rounds with the pauses on the exhalation instead.
Benefits
- Increases usable lung capacity by opening under-used regions of the lungs
- Introduces breath retention safely, without the risk of a full kumbhaka
- Reveals where the breath is habitually restricted — most people find one stage much harder
- Deeply calming, particularly the version with pauses on the exhalation
- Useful in asthma and for building breath control before harder pranayama
What happens in the nervous system
Staged inhalation recruits alveoli in sequence rather than all at once, which improves ventilation in the poorly-inflated dependent regions of the lung. Staged exhalation, by contrast, lengthens the parasympathetic phase of each breath — which is why the two versions feel so different despite the identical structure.