A Morning Breathwork Routine You Can Do in 10 Minutes

Most mornings, your nervous system wakes up before you do. Your mind starts running through the day before your eyes are fully open. Emails, responsibilities, conversations you are dreading. By the time you get out of bed, your body is already in a stress response that has nothing to do with actual danger.

A morning breathwork routine interrupts that pattern. Not by thinking your way out of it. By breathing your way out of it.

I have been doing this for over six years. Every morning. Before coffee, before the phone, before anything. Ten minutes. Three breathing patterns. It is the simplest practice I know and the one I have never stopped doing. Here is exactly what I do, and why it works.

Why the Morning Matters

Your nervous system has two modes. Sympathetic is fight or flight. Parasympathetic is rest and digest. When you wake up, your body is transitioning from the deep parasympathetic state of sleep into wakefulness. That transition is a window. Whatever state you enter in those first few minutes tends to set the tone for the next several hours.

If you reach for your phone and start scrolling, you hand that transition to whatever the algorithm decides to show you. If you jump straight into your to do list, your sympathetic system takes over before your body has had time to finish waking up.

Breathing intentionally during that window gives your nervous system a clear signal. You are awake. You are safe. You are choosing how this day begins.

This is not mindfulness philosophy. It is nervous system physiology. Your breath directly affects your heart rate, blood pressure, and the balance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. Slow breathing activates the vagus nerve, which is the main brake pedal on your stress response. Fast breathing activates your sympathetic system, which is the accelerator.

A good morning routine uses both. First you calm the system, then you gently energize it. You arrive at your day alert but not anxious. Present but not wired.

The 10 Minute Routine

Here is the exact sequence I use and teach. You can do this sitting up in bed, on a chair, or on the floor. You do not need a mat, an app, or a candle. Just your body and a willingness to pay attention to it for ten minutes.

Minutes 1 to 4: Coherent Breathing

Coherent breathing is the most researched breathing pattern for nervous system regulation. It means breathing at a rate of about five to six breaths per minute. For most people, that is roughly a five count inhale and a five count exhale.

Here is how to do it:

• Breathe in through your nose for a slow count of five
• Breathe out through your nose for a slow count of five
• No pause between the inhale and exhale
• Keep the breath smooth and steady, like filling a glass with water and then pouring it out

Do this for four minutes. That is roughly 20 to 24 breaths.

What this does: coherent breathing brings your heart rate variability into an optimal range. HRV is the variation in time between heartbeats, and it is one of the best markers of nervous system flexibility. Higher HRV means your body can shift between states more easily. Stress does not stick as long. Recovery happens faster. Four minutes of coherent breathing is enough to measurably shift your HRV for the next several hours.

If counting to five feels forced, try four counts in and six counts out. The exact numbers matter less than the rhythm. Find a pace where the breath feels full but not strained.

Minutes 5 to 7: Extended Exhale

Now you shift to an extended exhale pattern. Same nose breathing, but you make the exhale longer than the inhale.

• Breathe in through your nose for a count of four
• Breathe out through your nose for a count of six to eight
• Let the exhale be slow and complete
• Feel your belly soften at the bottom of each exhale

Do this for three minutes. That is roughly 15 to 18 breaths.

What this does: the exhale is directly linked to your parasympathetic system. When you exhale, your heart rate slows slightly. When you deliberately extend the exhale, you amplify this effect. It is the most direct way to activate the vagus nerve through breathing. After three minutes, most people feel noticeably calmer. Not drowsy. Just settled.

This is the pattern I recommend for anyone dealing with anxiety. If you only take one thing from this post, take the extended exhale. It works every time, regardless of where you are or what is happening around you.

Minutes 8 to 10: Energizing Breath

Now you wake up the system. This is where most morning routines get it wrong. They either stay too calm (and you feel groggy) or they jump straight to stimulation (and you feel wired). This pattern sits right in the middle.

• Breathe in through your nose sharply and fully, like sniffing a strong scent
• Breathe out through your mouth with a short, audible exhale
• Keep the pace rhythmic. About one breath per second
• Continue for 30 breaths, then take one deep inhale and hold for 15 seconds
• Exhale and return to normal breathing
• Repeat the cycle one more time

What this does: faster breathing increases oxygen delivery and gently activates your sympathetic system. The brief breath hold at the end creates a small carbon dioxide buildup that triggers a parasympathetic rebound when you release. The result is alert but not agitated. Energized but not stressed. It is the nervous system equivalent of a cold splash of water on your face, but gentler and more lasting.

If 30 breaths feels like too much, start with 20. Build up over time. Some tingling in your fingers or face is normal during the fast breathing. It stops within a minute of returning to regular breathing.

What You Will Notice

The first time you do this, you might not feel much beyond a general sense of calm. That is normal. The effects compound. After a week of doing it daily, you will start noticing differences that go beyond the ten minutes themselves.

You will be less reactive to the first stressful thing that happens each morning. Emails that would normally spike your cortisol will land differently. You will have a slightly wider gap between something happening and your response to it. That gap is where good decisions live.

You will also sleep better. This sounds counterintuitive for a morning practice, but regular breathwork trains your nervous system to switch between states more efficiently. That same skill applies at night when you need to shift from the activity of the day into sleep mode.

Most of the people I work with in UNTAMED tell me that the morning routine I teach them is what they keep doing long after they leave the island. The guided sessions open the door. The daily practice keeps it open.

Common Mistakes

A few things I see people do that undermine the practice:

Breathing too fast during coherent breathing. If you are taking more than six breaths per minute in the first four minutes, slow down. The magic is in the slowness. Your nervous system responds to the pace, not the effort.

Mouth breathing during the calm phases. Nose breathing is critical for the first seven minutes. It filters the air, activates nitric oxide production in the sinuses, and sends a signal to your nervous system that you are safe. Mouth breathing bypasses all of that. Save the mouth breathing for the energizing phase at the end.

Checking the phone first. If you pick up your phone before breathing, you have already lost the window. The practice works because you are intercepting the default pattern. Once the pattern is running, it is much harder to override. Put the phone in another room at night if you need to.

Skipping days and doing longer sessions occasionally. Ten minutes every day beats thirty minutes twice a week. Consistency is what trains the nervous system. Your body adapts to what you do regularly, not what you do occasionally.

What Comes After the Routine

This ten minute practice is a foundation. For most people, it is enough. It does what it needs to do. You go into your day more present and less reactive. Over weeks and months, that compounds into meaningful changes in how you handle stress, how you sleep, and how you relate to the people around you.

Some people want to go deeper. That is where guided sessions come in. In a facilitated breathwork session, you access states that a daily home practice cannot reach. The combination of a trained facilitator, music, group energy, and longer duration creates space for things to surface and release that are beyond the scope of a ten minute morning routine.

Think of it like this. The morning practice maintains your nervous system. A guided session overhauls it. Both matter. One keeps things running smoothly. The other addresses the deeper patterns that accumulate over months and years of living under stress.

If you are on Koh Samui and want to experience what guided breathwork feels like, UNTAMED is a full day that goes well beyond what you can do at home. If you have a group, a private workshop is two hours of breathwork and ice bath designed around your people. Both are built on the same principles as this morning routine, just taken to a different depth.

Start Tomorrow Morning

You do not need to prepare. You do not need to buy anything. You do not need to watch a tutorial. You just need to wake up, sit up, and breathe with intention for ten minutes before the world starts pulling at you.

Four minutes of coherent breathing. Three minutes of extended exhale. Three minutes of energizing breath. That is it.

The nervous system responds to what you practice. If you practice reacting to stress first thing in the morning, you get better at reacting to stress. If you practice regulating your breath before anything else, you get better at regulating. The choice is ten minutes. The effect lasts all day.

For a deeper look at the science behind why this works, read how breathwork resets your nervous system. If you are brand new to all of this, start with the complete beginner guide.

Keep Reading

• How Breathwork Resets Your Nervous System (and Why That Matters)
• Breathwork for Beginners: Where to Start and What to Expect
• Breathwork for Anxiety: What Actually Helps
• Breathwork vs Meditation: Which One Do You Actually Need