The BreathScape Collection

Posted on Mar 25, 2025

The BreathScape Collection

By Stefan Chmelik

4-7-8 Breath
Balancing Breath

Sensate Soundscapes for March in the Breathe Theme

Dr Andrew Weil's 4-7-8 Breath

7 Mins (Breathe)

As a world-renowned leader and pioneer in integrative medicine, Dr Weil’s tried and tested breathing exercise has already brought calm and relaxation to a huge number of people. This special and unique Soundscape is designed to bring the benefits of this simple routine to even more people, by adding the signature immersive Sensate audio and infrasound tactility elements that further increase the beneficial outcomes.

This Soundscape utilises the different elements of voice, sound and infrasound to create a simple, enjoyable and effective short exercise that is easy to follow and make into a positive habit, one with the potential to change your life.

“The 4-7-8, breath is the most powerful relaxation method that I've discovered”, according to Dr. Weil.

Discover more about the important work of Dr Andrew Weil: https://www.drweil.com/

Balancing Breath (by me)

10 mins (Breathe)

This breathing exercise is one I have used in my clinic for decades and is the most effective, simple and quick acting technique I have learnt to restore healthy respiratory O2/CO2 balance.

Somehow, breathing is both the easiest and most natural thing to do, and yet is so easily thrown out of balance by stress. We’ve all been breathing all our lives, so being shown ‘how to breathe’ can easily feel silly or strange. Breathing is also the only natural continual process any of us can easily change at will, just by holding our breath or mouth breathing, which is its power but also why it becomes disrupted easily by past and current life events.

This O2/CO2 Balancing Breathwave, similar to the Dr Andew Weil 4-7-8 Breath, makes up the Sensate BreathScape Collection and is designed to enable natural breathing with a longer and more relaxed exhalation. This is a variation of the Pursed Lip Breathing exercise, using wave sounds, voice guidance and chest resonance as a subliminal guide.

The Pursed Lip Breathing exercise, this was taught to me and colleagues at New Medicine Group in London by legendary physician Leon Chaitow. This is the best breathing technique that I know for reducing hypocapnia, and I've been using it with patients for decades. Hypocapnia (low blood CO2) most commonly presents as anxiety, subconscious chronic hyperventilation or breath holding. I've been using versions of the ‘Pursed Lip Breathing’ exercise with patients for many years with great effect, and this is the first time it’s been available as a Sensate Signature Soundscape.

The wave pattern in this piece supports a 10 second breath cycle of inhalation and exhalation, making six cycles a minute, with the exhalation longer than the inhalation, which is the optimal length of a full breath cycle of inhalation and exhalation. Do this once or twice a day for at least 2 weeks and your natural balance of O2 (oxygen) and CO2 (carbon dioxide) can re-balance.

Balanced Breathing vs Breathing Dysfunction

There is a lot of confusion about what balanced breathing involves, and we tend to think that more inhalation, and therefore more oxygen (O2) intake is a good thing. In fact, this is only accurate for diseases involving lung function and respiratory failure causing difficulties with blood oxygenation, such as COPD, some forms of asthma, and pneumonia. In modern clinical practice, many people present with symptoms that are actually due to an excess of respiratory oxygen intake, resulting in a relative reduction in CO2, a condition known as hypocapnia (low CO2).

The most common patterns I see in breathing dysfunction are:

Breathing in more than exhaling
Mouth breathing
Breath holding

Hypocapnia is due to ‘overbreathing’, or chronic hyperventilation (a panic attack is acute hyperventilation). Typically this is caused by relatively rapid, shallow, upper chest breathing and over-reliance on the breathing accessory muscles of the neck and shoulders more than the diaphragm. This causes excess oxygen build up and reduced CO2 availability and the symptoms that many people will recognise as anxiety, including hypervigilance, tension, confusion, shortness of breath, a tight or painful chest, numbness, tingling and other symptoms. The correct treatment for this is to retrain the breathing pattern so that O2 and CO2 are rebalanced.

Science and Biomechanical Stuff

Measurement of respiratory Carbon Dioxide is referred to as End-tidal CO2. The balance and regulation of oxygen on inhalation, and the rise of CO2 on exhalation should be a continuous process of homeostasis (balanced and self-regulated). End-tidal Carbon Dioxide (ETCO2) is the level of carbon dioxide that is released at the end of an exhaled breath. ETCO2 levels reflect the adequacy with which carbon dioxide (CO2) is carried in the blood back to the lungs and exhaled. ETCO2 measurement can provide an indication of cardiac output and pulmonary blood flow. (Richardson, Moulton and Rabb, 2016).

Breathing Pattern Disorders Influence health by Altering Blood pH and Creating Respiratory Alkalosis

Other Influences:

Inducing increased sympathetic arousal, altering neuronal function (including motor control)
Encouraging a sense of apprehension, anxiety, affecting balance
Depleting Ca and Mg ions, enhancing sensitization, encouraging spasm, reducing pain thresholds
Triggering smooth muscle cell constriction, leading to vasoconstriction (and possibly altering fascial tone)
Smooth muscle constriction can lead to colon spasm and pseudo-angina
Reducing oxygen release to cells, tissues, brain (Bohr effect) so encouraging ischemia, fatigue & pain
Encouraging evolution of myofascial trigger points
Creating biomechanical overuse stresses and compromising core stability and posture

Breathing Pattern Disorders are: commonly habitual, easily recognized, and usually capable of being improved or eliminated.

Here’s how:

Pursed Lip Breathing

From Leon Chaitow (2008)

Before starting the exercise it is useful to get a sense of ‘where’ your breathing is taking place – in the upper chest (undesirable), or via the diaphragm (ideal). To test this sit in an upright chair or recline and place your dominant hand on your abdomen just above the belly button and the other hand on your upper chest.

Take one moderately deep breath and note which hand moves the most and in what direction, the upper or the lower one. If the upper hand moves first, especially if it moves upwards towards your chin, this suggests an upper-chest pattern. The ideal is for your lower hand to move forwards (away from your spine) slightly as you breathe in. When this happens it means that your diaphragm is operating normally.

After letting that first breath go, place your arms in one of the suggested positionsthat ensure that you ‘switch-off’ your shoulder muscles when breathing. During this exercise – which should take no more than 5 minutes – you should aim to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, through pursed lips as if you were gently blowing through a straw. Imagine you are blowing at a candle approximately 6 inches (15cms.) from your mouth, in a way that would make the flame flicker but not go out.

After a normal inhalation, start to breathe out through pursed lips as described above, and at the end of the slow exhalation – as soon as you sense that you will need to inhale - relax your mouth, pause (not hold) without strain for a count of one, and then once more inhale gently through the nose. Breathing out fully creates a ‘coiled spring’ effect, making the next inhalation easier. Focus on the exhalation, and try to forget about breathing in.

Repeat for not less than 30 cycles, at least twice daily, and for a minimum of four weeks. Practice on waking and before bedtime, and before meals as well if you can. After some weeks of daily practice you should be able to achieve an inhalation which lasts 2-3 seconds and an exhalation lasting 6-7 seconds, without straining. Feelings of pain and anxiety should start to reduce with regular application and practice. A few cycles of breathing (6 cycles takes about a minute) can be repeated every hour if anxious or stressed.

The long, slow exhalation creates the opportunity for the inhalation to be deeper, but try not to pay particular attention to how you inhale....just ensure a full exhalation each time.

Notes:

Breathing using the mouth is not how you want to breathe out in the longer term. This first exercise is to start to get you to reconnect with the diaphragm and abdomen and to learn to breathe out more slowly.

Inhibiting Shoulder Rise

You may already have noticed that when you take a deep breath in your shoulders probably rise up a little. This is undesirable and shows that you are using the upper chest more than you should, and that the diaphragm is getting lazy. When learning breathing rehabilitation it is important to inhibit shoulder rise by learning tactics that restrict accessory breathing muscles leading to ‘over breathing’. Techniques include:

Sitting with both hands resting in your lap, fingers interlocked, and applying gentle finger-pad pressure to the back of the other hand, as you breathe in – relax this pressure as you exhale.

Push your forearms gently onto the arms of a chair, on inhalation – relax this pressure as you exhale.

Arms behind back, grasping a wrist with the other hand pull down slightly, on inhalation – relax this pull as you exhale.

Reclining with hands behind head (‘beach pose’) to open chest, perform entire sequence in this position.

Adopt Brugger’s Relief Position:

Perch on chair edge, arms hanging down, feet below knees & slightly apart & turned outward. Roll pelvis forward to produce slight low back arching. Ease sternum slightly forward and up. Turn arms outward, palms facing forward, until thumbs face slightly back.Tuck chin in. Practice slow, pursed lip, antiarousal breathing.

With acknowledgement and thanks to Dr’s David Beales and Leon Chaitow, as well as my colleagues at New Medicine Group, London.

Sensately yours,

Stefan

Stefan Chmelik is co-founder of and inventor of the Sensate stress reduction system, which is based on his over three decades of clinical experience working with anxiety, stress and trauma. His mission is now the company's mission - to positively impact the lives of 100 million people by 2025. Stefan also specialises in Nervous System Training.

Articles page HERE

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