There’s a moment each autumn here in Dublin when I notice the light has gone by the time I finish dinner, and something in me quietly shifts. The evenings draw in and the rain settles into its long familiar rhythm, and my body seems to know before I do that the season has turned. Over the years, breathwork for winter has become less about doing anything special and more about having a steady companion through these months, something simple I can come back to when the days feel short.
What the season asks of us
In Ireland we know the darker months well. By December the sun can set before half four, and many of us go to work and come home in the dark. With less daylight, our body clock gets fewer of the cues that tell it when to feel awake, which may be part of why the mornings can feel so heavy and the evenings arrive so early in the body. It’s natural to feel slower and to want to stay closer to home, and I’ve come to see this as part of a wider rhythm that deserves a bit more patience from us.
So much of nature slows down in winter, and our bodies often ask for the same, even when our calendars carry on as if nothing has changed. There’s no need to fight that feeling, and there’s no need to push through it either. What I find helpful is to give the body something steady to lean on, and the breath is always there to offer that.
The breath as a steady companion
The breath is one of the few things that stays with us through every season. It comes with us into the dark mornings and the long evenings, and it never asks us to be anywhere other than where we are. When I feel the weight of a grey afternoon, I’ve learned that a few slow breaths can soften how I’m meeting it, even when the sky stays exactly as grey as it was.
I think of it a little like lighting a candle. The room is still dark and the candle doesn’t pretend otherwise, and yet there’s now a small warm place to gather around. In winter I tend to favour gentler and slower practices that feel nourishing, and I keep the more activating work for times when I have more energy to meet it.
A simple practice for a dark evening: box breathing
If you’d like to try something, box breathing is a practice I come back to often in winter. It gives the breath a gentle shape to follow, which can be a comfort on evenings when the mind feels busy, and you can stop at any point and return to your normal breathing whenever you like.
- Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down, perhaps with a blanket or a warm drink nearby, and let your eyes soften or close if that feels okay for you.
- Breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of five.
- Hold the breath gently for a count of five.
- Breathe out slowly for a count of five.
- Hold the breath out, softly, for a count of five, and then begin again.
- Stay with this for a few minutes, letting each side of the box feel easy and unhurried.
As the days and weeks go on, you’re welcome to let the box grow a little, to six seconds on each side, then seven, and so on. The only rule is that nothing is forced. If a count ever starts to feel like a struggle, or you notice yourself gasping or tensing, drop back down a second and keep practising there for a few days before you try again. The box is there to support you, so a smaller box breathed with ease will always serve you better than a bigger one breathed with effort.
Box breathing includes gentle breath holds, so if you have high blood pressure, a heart condition, are pregnant or have any of the conditions on our contraindications list, please keep the holds very short or leave them out, and check with your doctor if you’re unsure.
Breathwork for winter and being gentle with yourself
Winter can bring up a lot for people, and I want to say clearly that a breathing practice is no replacement for support when things feel heavy. If the darker months are especially hard for you, please reach out to someone you trust or to a professional who can be with you in it. The breath can sit alongside that support, and it never needs to carry everything on its own.
Something I’ve noticed over the years is that practising with others makes a real difference at this time of year. There’s a warmth in breathing together, even through a screen, that can be hard to find on your own on a cold night. If you’d like some company, you’re welcome to join us for The Weekly Reset, our live online sessions on Wednesday evenings from 20:00 to 21:15 and Sunday mornings from 09:00 to 10:10 Irish time. There’s a free two-week trial, so you can come along a few times and see how it feels before deciding anything.
However this season finds you, I hope you can be a little kinder to yourself through it, and I hope the breath can be one of the quiet things that keeps you company until the light begins to return.
