Kundalini Yoga: Strong breath, strong states, honest cautions

Kundalini yoga is an intense practice built from rapid breathing, repeated movements held for minutes at a time, mantra and meditation, arranged into fixed sets called kriyas. It was taught in the west from 1969 by Yogi Bhajan, a figure later found by an independent investigation to have abused students, which many practitioners now hold alongside the practice rather than ignore. The techniques do produce strong altered states, and that is both the appeal and the reason for caution: powerful breathwork is not neutral for everyone.

Strong breath, strong statesWho should take care, named

Written byMilena Chernomorets

Skip the strong breathwork and talk to a doctor first if you are pregnant, have a seizure disorder, uncontrolled high blood pressure, a heart condition, or bipolar disorder or psychosis in your history.

A round sitting cushion and a folded blanket beside it, the floor drawn with two lines

What is kundalini yoga and where does it come from

The name points at an old tantric image: a coiled energy resting at the base of the spine that practice can raise upward. What is taught today under that name in the west is a specific twentieth century system. Yogi Bhajan began teaching it in the United States in 1969, combined elements of hatha and tantric practice with Sikh mantra, added a dress code of white clothing and turbans, and built a large organisation around it. Two things should be said plainly. The practice itself is coherent, physically demanding and has helped a great many people. And an independent investigation commissioned by the organisation itself, published in 2020, concluded that Bhajan had sexually abused students and abused his authority. Many teachers have since separated the technique from the teacher, removed his image from their studios and continue to teach the kriyas. Knowing this before you walk into a class is simply fair, and how you weigh it is yours to decide.

What does a class actually look like

It looks less like the flowing yoga most people picture and more like a structured workout with sound. Classes open with a tuning in mantra sung three times, then a warm up, then the kriya, a fixed set of exercises done in a prescribed order for prescribed times. An exercise might be arms held at sixty degrees for three minutes with rapid breathing, or a simple spinal movement repeated a hundred times, or sitting cross legged chanting a syllable on each exhale. The sets are not improvised and the teacher does not adjust them to the room, which surprises people coming from vinyasa. Between exercises there are short rests. The class closes with a long relaxation, a meditation and a closing song. Expect to shake, to sweat, to want to stop two minutes in, and to feel unusually clear afterwards. Eyes are usually closed and the gaze is often directed toward the brow point, which contributes to how internal the whole thing feels.

What does the breathing do to the body

The signature technique is breath of fire, a rapid rhythmic breath through the nose driven by the navel, roughly two or three cycles a second, sustained for one to three minutes. It is not a gentle practice. Fast breathing lowers carbon dioxide in the blood, which narrows blood vessels in the brain and shifts blood chemistry, and that is what produces the tingling in the hands and lips, the light headedness, the emotional surges and sometimes the tetany that makes fingers curl. Those sensations are a predictable result of the physiology, not a sign of energy rising, and knowing this takes the fear out of them. It also tells you when to stop. Come out of the breath if the tingling becomes cramping, if you feel faint, if your vision narrows or if fear rises sharply. Sit, breathe normally through the nose, let the exhale lengthen and wait a couple of minutes. Skip breath of fire during pregnancy, during menstruation according to most teachers, with uncontrolled high blood pressure, epilepsy, heart conditions, glaucoma or a recent abdominal surgery.

What is a kundalini awakening and how should you treat it

People describe it consistently across centuries and cultures: heat moving up the spine, involuntary shaking, waves of bliss or terror, light behind the eyes, a sense of boundaries dissolving, sometimes weeks of insomnia and emotional volatility afterwards. Those reports are real experiences and deserve to be taken seriously as experiences. What they are is contested. Traditional texts read them as energy rising through the central channel. A physiological reading points at sustained hyperventilation, autonomic arousal, altered carbon dioxide levels and the effects of prolonged intense attention, all of which reliably produce exactly this cluster. You do not have to choose a side to practise safely, and the practical guidance is the same either way. Strong states are not achievements and chasing them is the one approach that reliably goes badly. If something big happens, stop the intense practice for a while, eat heavy food, sleep, walk outside, spend time with ordinary people doing ordinary things, and talk to an experienced teacher. States that keep escalating over weeks are a signal to get help rather than to push through.

Who should approach this practice carefully

Research on adverse effects in meditation and breathwork is finally being done, and it points in a consistent direction: intensity, duration and lack of supervision raise the risk. Be careful, which means go slowly and tell a teacher, if you have a personal or family history of bipolar disorder or psychosis, since intense breathwork and sleep disruption are known triggers for mania. Be careful with a dissociative tendency or a trauma history, because rapid breathing and eyes closed practice can bring on depersonalisation. Be careful with a seizure disorder, with cardiovascular disease, with uncontrolled hypertension, with glaucoma, during pregnancy, and if you are on medication that affects arousal or sleep. None of this means kundalini yoga is off limits. It means choose a teacher who asks about your health before class, start with gentle kriyas, keep sessions short, sleep normally, and never do long intense breathwork alone for the first time.

How do you start sensibly

Start in a room with a teacher rather than with a video, at least for the first month, because the whole point of supervision is that someone notices when you have gone pale. Tell them about any condition on the list above before the class begins, not afterwards. Take the modification when it is offered: breath of fire can always be replaced with slow deep breathing and the benefit of the posture remains. Three minutes of an exercise is a long time, and stopping at ninety seconds on your first attempt is the correct decision rather than a failure. At home, keep to short kriyas of twenty to thirty minutes and keep the same time of day. Early morning is traditional. Afterwards, eat something, drink water and give yourself ten quiet minutes before going back into the day, because the state the practice produces does not mix well with immediately opening your messages.

Kundalini yoga is dangerous and can cause psychosis in anyone

Fact checkBoth halves are wrong. For most healthy people a supervised class is demanding rather than hazardous, closer to a hard workout with breathwork attached. Risk is not evenly distributed: it concentrates in long unsupervised sessions and in people with bipolar disorder or psychosis in their history, with dissociative tendencies, seizure disorders, cardiovascular conditions or uncontrolled hypertension. Adverse effects from intense breathwork and prolonged practice are documented and manageable, which is an argument for screening, pacing and a teacher, not for avoidance.

An honest boundary

When this belongs with a specialist rather than a practice

Get professional help if after intense practice you experience derealisation or depersonalisation that lasts beyond a day, a sustained elevated state with reduced need for sleep and racing speech which can indicate mania, hearing or seeing things others do not, a conviction of having a special mission, or thoughts of harming yourself. These are not stages of awakening to be pushed through. Tell the clinician exactly what you have been practising, including the breathwork and how long the sessions were, since that context changes the assessment. Stop intense breathing practices until you have spoken to someone.

Questions

What people ask before a first class.

Is kundalini yoga dangerous

For most healthy people in a supervised class it is demanding rather than dangerous, comparable to a hard workout with breathwork attached. The risk is not evenly spread: it concentrates in long unsupervised sessions, in people with cardiovascular or seizure conditions, and in people vulnerable to mania or dissociation. Pace, supervision and honesty about your health are what move it into the safe range.

Do I have to wear white or a head covering

No. White clothing and a head covering are part of the tradition as taught by Bhajan, with an explanation about the aura and about containing energy. Studios vary from strict to entirely relaxed, and no teacher worth attending will turn you away in black leggings. Wear something loose that lets the belly move, since the breathing needs it.

Can I practise if I cannot separate it from Yogi Bhajan

That is a legitimate position and plenty of former students hold it. If the association spoils the practice for you, the techniques are not unique: rapid breathing, mantra, held postures and long meditations exist across hatha and tantric traditions and in secular breathwork. Some teachers now present the same material without the lineage framing. Choose what you can practise without discomfort.

I shook and cried in class. Is that normal

It is common. Sustained effort, rapid breathing and holding a position past the point of comfort all release a lot at once, and tears in the final relaxation are one of the most frequently reported experiences in these classes. It matters how you feel two hours later. Settled and tired is fine. Still shaky, frightened or far away is a reason to go gentler next time and to tell the teacher.

Where next

Intensity is the point, and it is also the thing to pace.

If the breathwork is too much for now, a gentler class still gets the body ready for stillness. And the quiet method with no strain in it is ten minutes long.

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