Intense breath work could mean doing some fire breathing techniques such as kapalabhati or bhastrika or mahamudra pranayama, if so, doing these for more than a few minutes may not be very healthy. On the other hand intense could also mean staying with the breath holding a quiet mind that does not get swayed by distractions as in awareness of breath meditation, one could easily be with this practice for an hour.
I usually recommend some gentle physical body movements practices such as Energy movements or yoga stretches and postures followed by pranayama and finally a sitting meditation practice. The following article about pranayama may be helpful in this context.
Selvan Srinivasan · 1y
As soon as I practiced pranayama, why do I feel a tightness in my chest?
I have been practicing pranayama for the last fifty years. In the beginning, my grand father taught me and then I learnt more from reading books. In my early thirties, I formally learnt pranayama from a guru and became a teacher. I have since taught and continued practice all through my life. There are two possibilities to feeling tightness during or after practice of pranayama assuming that one is practicing it the right way having formally learnt it from a yoga and pranayama teacher or guru. This answer does not deal with such effects due to wrong way of practice and if you are not sure if you are doing it right or not, I suggest stick to the simple practice of FGCB instead, which is explained in the article linked below. Now let us look at why tightness could arise. The first possibility is that the person is already suffering from a chronic condition such as asthma, bronchitis, hypertension, or any other chronic cardiac or lung related illness. With these conditions there would be a tightness in the chest region, it would be there all the time without the person being aware of it. Tightness in the chest region includes a heaviness, contraction, mild ache, fluid retention, etc and is the physical manifestation of an underlying energy block. Practice of pranayama begins to open up and release the block and that is why it shows up as a felt sensation. If this is the cause, continued practice of pranayama would eventually heal the underlying condition itself. The second possibility is that pranayama is increasing the body heat or acidic pH and this causes tightness. Chandrabedi pranayama and Sheetali pranayama helps to cool down the body heat and Anulom Vilom helps balance the energies. One important suggestion I would like to make is to ensure that the mind shifts from its normal restless thinking mode into a quiet being mode as you practice pranayama. That is why a practice of Energy Movements or gentle yoga movements and stretches before the pranayama and a practice of sitting meditation afterwards is better than just doing pranayama as if it is a physical exercise. Wholesome physical activity is not just exercising the body when the mind is busily engaged with thoughts or watching a movie or news or listening to some podcast or news or songs. The following article explains this in more detail. The following link will guide you with an appropriate practice before and after pranayama to make it a wholesome daily practice.
My YouTube channel and SoundCloud channel linked below have several body movements practices and guided meditation audios that may be helpful.
Selvan Srinivasan
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPqfCV4_k9BWWcDz4_GzIQ
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