Day 3

TBI-friendly Breathing Exercises - LoveYourBrain Yoga for Brain Injury Mini Training

Welcome to Day 3 of the 5-day Yoga for Brain Injury Mini Training!

This TBI-friendly breathing exercise is called Equal Belly Breath. It demonstrates how using an equal pace of inhalations and exhalations can promote concentration, oxygenation, and nervous system regulation following TBI. It’s also a great tool for managing anxiety, which occurs in about 36% of people with TBI compared to 18% in the general US population. 

This practice highlights 3 recommendations for TBI-friendly breathing exercises:

• Integrate tactile elements, such as suggesting your student place their hands on their belly, to support concentration and interoceptive awareness. This also helps minimize people’s tendency to worry if ‘I’m breathing the right way,’ which only heightens anxiety.

• Simplicity. People with TBI are often managing cognitive fatigue and challenges with information processing. Overly complex breathing practices, like alternate nostril breathing, or practices with detailed counting cues can create confusion and heightened anxiety. 

• It features slow, balanced breathing. Did you know that the brain requires an enormous amount of oxygen relative to its weight? It needs roughly 20% of your oxygen despite being just 2% of your body weight! To function optimally, your brain benefits from unimpeded oxygen flow. So, be cautious with breath retention or forceful exhalation - which can increase pressure in the head and reduce oxygen flow. Continuous breathing, like Equal Belly Breath, increases the level of carbon dioxide in the blood, leading the brain to think that oxygen levels are low, so the cerebral blood vessels dilate to make oxygen more available to the brain!

Today, post a response (in the comments or in your own IG feed--whatever is easiest!):

• Share a breathing exercise in your feed and explain how you could adapt it to make it more accessible for the TBI community. 

• Don’t forget to tag (and follow) @loveyourbrain, @yoga_international, and use #YogaforTBI!

Tap the link in our bio to access FREE TBI-friendly programs for breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga!