Hot Yoga: Help! It’s So Hot I Can’t…
Hot Yoga: Help! It’s So Hot I Can’t Breathe
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Help I can’t breathe
Oh my god, it’s so hot in there. How will I ever survive? Is there enough oxygen? Ever feel as though you can’t breathe in the hot room?
Has this ever happened to you? Have you said or maybe even heard a hot yoga student say: “I can’t breathe”, “there is not enough oxygen in there”. I have heard it thousands of times. And with the exception of one time in my life in a Bikram Yoga studio with a capacity of 200 students where there were 300 of us piled high to the rafters puffing, panting and working oh so hard, I have NEVER been in or heard of another time where people were really, truly and authentically short of air! That in itself is another story and really worth telling. I may just do that another day. 
Beware hot yoga skeptics
There is so much misinformation out there. And you know where that comes from? Usually from the folks who don’t know the first thing about the alchemy of hot yoga, the heated room and the amazing effects it has on mind, body and soul.
Usually it boils down to ignorance and fear. There are some valid concerns about the temperature and moisture levels, and the amount of fresh air. I’ve heard it all and it usually centers around how bad it is to exercise in the heat. If you go to http://www.hotyogadoctor.com/index.php/site/forum/viewforum/4/ there have been some great forum discussions about people who go to studios where the room has been, in my opinion, heated to dangerous levels.
If you are reading this you are either new to hot yoga, a diehard hot yogi who loves the heat, or maybe you still haven’t taken the plunge.
Is it too hot? Is it safe? Why do I feel like I can’t breathe?
So what’s really going on here? The whole issue is very complex and can be misconstrued by our own perceptions and ignorance. Believe it or not you can have those feelings:
* Of being stifled
* Of not being able to get enough air
* Of not being able to breathe deeply
* As if you are gasping for breath
* Of being hot and flushed
* Of being dizzy
* Of being unable to find even enough energy to get through the class or even get up off the floor
And they can all happen at many varied temperatures and not just in a heated room.
But is there really not enough air in there? Could it be something else?
Taking a positive look at the problem
Hang on to your seat because there is actually a huge upside to those uncomfortable feelings and sensations in your body.
Your lungs are your ticket to a fully enriching life experience.
The way you:
1. Hold your body
2. Hold your posture
3. Use your ability to open your chest
4. Use your diaphragm and draw life-giving breath into your body;
changes with your mood and physiology.
But not everyone has the same capacity. The more anxious of us, or at least when we are in fear, flight or fright mode, breathe very shallow into the top of the chest. We pant, often with mouth open and would be lucky to use more than 10% of our lung capacity.
Just as anxiety can trigger you to breathe in a shallow way, the reverse is true too. That’s right, shallow breathing can trigger an anxious state. If you only have a tiny lung capacity, only sipping small volumes of air, you could be challenged with a smaller ability to cope with stress.
Yoga teaches you to be happy 
Breathing is key. Gosh that sounds so lame. But so true. When you learn how to breathe you open up the pathway to a journey of limitless possibilities.
On a physiological level, your yoga teaches you the physiology of happiness:
1. Standing tall
2. Shoulders down and back
3. Chest open and breathing deeply.
4. Your lungs are challenged to expand and when you can breathe more deeply and more fully, your body and life experience is more expansive.
It is as simple as that.
The converse is true. If you have a small lung volume:
* Breathing deeply can be a really scary experience as you bypass the physical blocks to lung expansion
* Your lungs may literally be sacs of unused tissue taking up a large amount of space in your chest cavity, yet be largely unused.
* In effect you are feeding your lungs just to stop them from stagnating (to keep them alive).
* They are almost deadweight in your body not doing anything but taxing your system, using energy but not giving anything in return.
Here’s a great analogy that will tease your mind. Imagine a circus tent. It gets unpacked and is laid on its footprint soon to be erected. Without its center pole it lies on the ground like a sad sack of plastic (albeit large). At this point it is hard to imagine that it could possibly fit thousands of people inside it. But here’s the thing: erect the center pole, prop up the center and magically a huge volume is instantly created. The same thing happens with your lungs and diaphragm. If you have years of minimal lung use with only small volumes filling them then your ‘center pole’ is only very small and the air just cannot get to all the little nooks and crannies.
* Breathing is a SKILL that can be improved upon.
* The deeper the breath, the bigger the ‘pole’.
* The more you can open your lungs the more breath you can draw in.
Your diaphragm needs exercise too
1. Your diaphragm is an extremely important muscle that spans the space under the ribs.
2. It moves downward on your inhales by contracting its fibres.
3. It works as you inhale to increase the negative pressure in your lungs to help draw the air deep down to fill them.
4. Your breath is as deep as the effectiveness of your diaphragm can work. If you cannot even inflate your lungs past that anxiety producing shallow breath, then guess what? Your diaphragm is getting very little exercise and maybe none.
I know you are probably skeptical, right?
Think about it. Imagine you go to your first classes in a hot yoga studio. The moisture is about 60-70% (considered perfect for optimum lung function). Your body is primed able to breathe more easily. But your lungs are so out of practice of breathing. They start to open up a bit.
The diaphragm is getting stimulated and starting to WORK. It starts to move downward into the abdominal space as it contracts. You can possibly feel the discomfort of this expansion. And on top of that, the lungs start to expand and inflate with some air. All of a sudden the body becomes awash with oxygen, prana, life force, chi, energy that it has been denied of for maybe the longest time.
Who knows why your resources have been so low? How did this happen to you in the first place? Did a lifetime of emotional and physical distress or experiences fashion your body into the way it is now?
Perhaps yes! So here you are newly exposed to this crazy hot yoga, betting your bottom dollar that you can’t breathe, that you can’t get enough oxygen into your lungs, or even blaming the heat for your physical crisis. When actually your body has been CRYING out for air, for oxygen and for the first time in the longest while you are ACTUALLY delivering the goods.
Physical discomfort or fear of change?
In part it is your physical body not being used to taking in that much air that makes you pay attention to these odd sensations in your body.
The other part is the sheer fear or discomfort of releasing your emotional demons (or whatever they are) through your breath and by the perhaps resistant physical expansion of your torso. You are finally using those tired disused muscles, and awakening millions of alveoli in your lungs, those wondrous little powerhouses that direct the good stuff into the blood and swap the toxins and impurities out back into the air that you breathe out.
Embrace the intensity
Once you realize this, you can embrace your practice and everything it reflects you with grace and open arms and with a receptive spirit. This is why this yoga is SO damn great.
You tease, coax and seduce your lungs open to receive the bounty of the universe in the form of life-giving oxygen. The heat and moisture in the room enhances this ability exponentially so that doing yoga in the hot room makes your benefits happen fast. So fast sometimes the mind cannot *cope* with the newness, the opening and the potential for change. Either the mind gets in the way and creates difficulties by sabotaging your efforts to evolve AND/OR the body has been *shut down* for so long that it is challenged by the physical stimulus of creating space.
Confront yourself in the mirror
Hot yoga is an intense experience that encourages deep breathing and helps you grow your lung capacity. This intense work in the heat fosters a strong connection with yourself looking at your reflection in the mirror. Looking in your own eyes can trigger many varied reactions which open you up to personal growth through self-confrontation.
Who knows what that might mean? One thing’s for sure the inability to look at yourself in the mirror is often accompanied by difficulty in breathing. The heat seems to accelerate the process and to me that has only an upside: You have the power in your hands. You have the ability to choose to process your *stuff* in a much more timely manner: it is your MISSION, should you wish to accept it .
If you can’t stand what that does for you, how those intense emotions or feelings start to bubble up from deep within and surface through sensations in the body including difficulties in breathing then you have choices to make at that moment in time.
You can EITHER be:
Fixated by the difficulties and *blame* it on the heat,
OR, you can tackle it head on in your own timeframe by continuing to go to class; face yourself head on and whatever your body and mind want to serve up to show you at that particular moment.
Once you know that you are actually feeding your body with more oxygen and enlivening your soul then you may just have the impetus to stand there and breathe through it, no matter how uncomfortable it is. In time you will do this while looking at your own eyes in the mirror, cementing a strong self-connection rather than doing what most of us do in the beginning which is averting the eyes, looking elsewhere, bending over, identifying with the *pain* rather than working through it more effectively by simply and effectively observing it.
Be an inspiration to you and others
Not able to breathe? Hardly! You are breathing better than you may have done in years. Love that feeling. Let it be expressed. Learn to breathe again. Now you know you can’t blame it on the heat or the air you will know what to say to the next person who complains that they can’t breathe.
In the meantime, please feel free add your comments (use the link I’ll give you below) and share with all of us what you think is your greatest tip to deepening your practice, or something that you have heard.
Remember it doesn’t have to be groundbreaking ... just useful, practical and something you want to share!
Tell us all what you think, believe or feel - click the comments link here
Feel free to download and share this report in printable format:
Posted by Gabrielle on 06/26 at 01:02 AM
Click here to read comments or leave yours (8) • The Heat • Permalink
So glad I read this article, because I feel the same way… not being able to breathe or take a deep breath during class.
Posted by Karen A. Capone on 06/26 at 04:20 AM
Hi There,
I’ve been practising Bikram since January and just love it! The breathing was really difficult at first and I’ve come a long way from when part way through class, I gasped for air with my head down by my knees, and the sweat poured off my beat red face.
Now that I’ve got my breathing under control in the yoga room, I’d like to work more on breathing more effectively during stressful situations such as in elevators or other enclosed space. Even being a passanger in the back seat of a car fills me with anxiet and the thought of flying effects my breathing - any enclosed space where I wonder if there’s enough air makes me breathe more shallowly.
The question is how do we bring our wonderful yoga practice into our every day lives? How can be reap the befefits and rewards more methodically? I feel like they are two separate entities.
Any suggestions would be geatly appreciated.
Posted by Julia BC on 06/30 at 03:35 PM
I’m going for my 4th class of a 30 day challenge in a little bit; I’ve loved all but maybe 5 minutes of it since the first moment! I think it was that the timing was perfect for me to embrace this kind of work; I’ve been an athlete all my life but I’m coming back from a large weight gain and learning to be in my body again. What a way to do it!
Posted by Carrie Dekkard on 07/02 at 06:28 PM
@ Carrie
Thanks for the follow too!
Indeed, this yoga IS the way to do it. Gotta love it (you and me both from the first moment).
Posted by Gabrielle on 07/02 at 06:38 PM
Thanks for introducing this subject Gabrielle, thought I was pretty much alone on this one.
I have been practicing various yogas off and on for 21 years. I began Bikram just over two years ago. In my first year of classes (roughly 2x’s a week) I would become dizzy, scared, panicky. There were times I actually felt too frightened to attend class, but I always did. There was also an element of shame that I had to pause because my breathing was difficult.Occasionally a subtle sense of fear is still present if I push myself too hard but I have slowly learned to do MY yoga practice.I make breathing my primary focus as I can perform the asanas very well but the breathing is my challenge. When my breathing is not calm and regular I simply stand still until it is, then I proceed with my asanas.I believe my lung capacity is increasing as the need to stop and regain control of my breathe is slowly becoming less and less.
I hope this was helpful. Namaste
Posted by Michael on 07/09 at 03:17 AM
I just started Bikram 2 months ago, and try to attend 3X a week. Unlike anything else I have done, I have already seen vast improvements in my general well being which is not a over statement.
As Michael said, even though he’s been at yoga for 23 more years than I have, I sometimes find myself afraid of attending as well, but keep on getting myself there. For me, regular, thoughtful breathing is one of the hardest things for me because I practice karate, and in karate, you are taught to exhale through your mouth at the height of the physical exertion or on impact of a punch or kick. This is so different from yoga - I find myslf holding my breath waiting for that moment that never comes, and i run out out of the oxygen needed to nourish my muscles to get me through the pose! Little by little I hope to improve this aspect of my practice and i believe the rest will come in time - I’m looking forward to the journey!
Posted by jfritzky on 11/24 at 05:12 PM
Thank you for this article Gabrielle. I have hated heat, natural or space heater produced for many years. Winter has always been “MY” season.
Now I’m suddenly enjoying my Hot Yoga sessions in the heat. I couldn’t figure it out but your article has been food for thought. I wonder if the 3+ years of daily breathwork has conditioned my lungs and that has helped me get past the fear, discomfort or whatever it was and begin to embrace the heat.
Whatever the reason I am certainly finding the heat to be very restorative and far from dangerous or damaging.
Lannette
Posted by Tee42 on 12/05 at 03:38 PM
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