Emotional Regulation Skills Through Breath, Sauna and Cold Plunge
At Mist Thermal on Bowen Island, we are held by the forest in the heart of the island, adjacent to our sister brand, Nectar Retreat. The conifers and ferns, the steam rising from our eucalyptus outdoor showers, the dry heat from our wood fire saunas, the chilling warm and cold tubs, they speak a language beyond words. But there’s a way to meet them, to listen and respond. That way is through breath.
Breathing with awareness in the sauna and cold plunge is not just a technique, it’s an extension of yoga and a form of remembering. A way to reconnect to the body’s wisdom, and to restore the connection between mind, body, and the elements.
Below are a few simple breath exercises to accompany you through your thermal circuit at Mist on Bowen or other saunas in Vancouver, BC. These are offered not as prescriptions, but as gentle prompts as you practice alternating hot cold therapy. Each one is intended as an anchor for the inner movement that happens when the body meets its edges.
In the Sauna: Unravel
Heat invites a softening. In the sauna, muscles release, thoughts unspool, and the boundaries between inside and outside begin to blur. Breath can help you sink into this unraveling.
Practice: Dirgha Pranayama (Three-Part Breath)
This foundational yogic breath supports grounding, awareness, and emotional spaciousness.
Sit or recline comfortably.
Inhale slowly through your nose, drawing the breath first into the belly, then the ribs, then the chest.
Exhale in reverse: chest, ribs, belly.
Keep the breath long and fluid, with no holding or forcing.
Continue for 2–3 minutes.
While breath can be seen as a discipline, breath can also be about receiving. Each inhale a soft opening. Each exhale a slow release.
In the Cold Plunge: Witness
Cold asks for your attention. It strips away the surface and offers clarity, if you let yourself stay. Breath becomes a way to hold as sensation intensifies.
Practice: Sama Vritti (Equal Ratio Breath)
This breath calms mental chatter and stabilizes your nervous system, ideal for moments of physical and mental intensity.
Begin with a gentle inhale through the nose for a count of 4.
Exhale through the nose for a count of 4.
As you settle, you may extend to a 5 or 6 count breath.
Focus on the evenness of each phase, especially the exhale.
Stay with it for at least one minute as you adjust to the cold.
This breath helps you stay with what is, without resistance, without rushing for the few seconds or minutes you stay in the cold.
Between the Hot Sauna and Cold Plunge: Integrate
The transitions, heat to cold, stillness to alertness, are where insight lives. Breath bridges these thresholds.
Practice: Kumbhaka (Pause Breath)
Use brief breath retention to center and reset.
After a natural inhale, pause briefly.
Exhale gently. Pause again.
Let each pause be a quiet moment of stillness.
Repeat for 3 rounds as you move between sauna and plunge, pausing to rest in our fireside lounges, tucked beneath towering conifers and surrounded by lush forest undergrowth, where the breath can settle and integration unfolds.
These breathful pauses mark transition as an integral part of a thermal spa experience. The in-between spaces matter.
At Mist Thermal, we approach contrast therapy not from a place of forcing, but listening. To the body, to the land, and to the rhythms within and around. Let your Mist Experience be as much as an experience of hot and cold, but also of breath as well, a practice that shapes your experience from the inside out.