Conscious breathing

Conscious breathing encompasses techniques directing awareness toward the breathing process, serving purposes from improving respiration to building mindfulness. In martial arts like tai chi and qigong, breathing exercises are said to strengthen diaphragm muscles and protect organs, with reverse breathing being a common method. Meditation traditions, including yoga and Buddhist meditation, emphasize breath control. Yoga's pranayama is believed by practitioners to elevate life energies, while Buddhist vipassanā uses anapanasati for mindfulness of breathing.

In music, circular breathing enables wind instrument players to produce a continuous tone. Singers, too, rely on breath control through consciously managed breathing stages. The Buteyko method in physical therapy focuses on breathing exercises for conditions like asthma, emphasizing nasal breathing and relaxation. In psychology, Integrative Breathing combines various techniques to address specific needs, particularly in cases of drug abuse disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

New Age breathwork practices, like Holotropic Breathwork and Rebirthing-breathwork, developed in the late 1960s and 1970s, use deepened breathing for accessing altered states of consciousness and purging repressed memories. However, the medical community questions the efficacy of some methods, such as the Buteyko method, due to limited evidence supporting their claims.

In tai chi, anaerobic exercise is combined with breathing exercises to strengthen the diaphragm muscles, improve posture and make better use of the body's qi.

In qigong, reverse breathing is a breathing technique which consists of contracting the abdomen and expanding the thoracic cage while breathing in through the nose and then gently compressing it while exhaling through the mouth, which is the opposite of what an abdomen would do during natural, diaphragmic instinctive breathing. The technique is also widely practiced in a number of martial arts. Some notable ones include Chinese systems such as baguazhang, tai chi and other styles of kung fu. Reverse breathing is believed to activate healing and protective qi as the practitioner is consciously controlling the breath in a way opposite to normal breathing. By expanding the abdomen while delivering some technique (e.g. punch), the martial artists also protect the inner organs from any received counterattack.

Different forms of meditation and yoga advocate various breathing methods. In yoga these methods are called pranayama. In yoga, breath is associated with prana, thus, pranayama is a means to elevate the prana-shakti, or life energies. Pranayama is described in Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Methods include prolonging the in- and outbreaths, holding pauses on the in- or outbreath or both, alternate nostril breathing, and breathing with the glottis slightly engaged. Later in Hatha yoga texts, it meant the complete suspension of breathing. The pranayama practices in modern yoga as exercise are unlike those of the Hatha yoga tradition.

In Buddhism, vipassanā focuses on breathing in and around the nose to calm the mind using anapanasati, a form of Buddhist meditation meaning "mindfulness of breath", which was first introduced by Buddha.

In music, some wind instrument players use a technique called circular breathing, a technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. It is accomplished by inhaling through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth using air stored in the cheeks. The technique was developed independently by several cultures and is used for many traditional wind instruments.