The complete 3-part breath, known in the video's description as Dirga or Mahat pranayama, asks you to fill the torso in three stacked chambers, belly first, then mid-chest, then upper chest, and to empty them in one deliberate squeeze at the end. In a guided tutorial of just under four and a half minutes, published October 27, 2026 on the DoYogaWithMe channel, instructor David Procyshyn leads eight slow rounds of an eight-second breath cycle through the nose, then closes with a pause and a look at the rhythmic breathing that follows. It is a simple-looking exercise with a lot of structure inside it, and it rewards the kind of close attention a guitarist gives a single chord voicing before trying to play the whole song.
The video opens with a short orientation. David names the three parts, "the abdomen, the mid chest, and the upper chest," and then describes the whole movement in a line that is worth keeping in mind for the rest of the practice: "Expanding in three dimensions, down, out, forward, back, up." That phrase carries the logic of the exercise. The breath is not a single up-and-down motion of the ribs. It is a volume that expands downward into the belly, outward and back around the ribcage, and upward into the collarbone area.
Before the first round begins, he sets the tempo. The inhale and exhale together take about eight seconds, and the count is spoken aloud so you can pace yourself. The video then runs eight repetitions, with a few guided moments of counting, a reminder to keep the body soft, and a closing pause. The effect, for a listener, is less like a lecture and more like a metronome with a voice: you can follow the count, or you can let the count fade and hold on to the sequence of fill.
David's instruction is explicit: "we're filling the bottom first, starting with the belly breath, and then you can imagine the swell going down, the air filling the bottom, and then it's filling from bottom to top." The order matters for a practical reason. The lower part of the lungs sits against the dome of the diaphragm, the main breathing muscle. When the diaphragm contracts and descends, the abdomen softens outward, and air is drawn into the lowest part of the lungs first. If you start by lifting the collarbones, you tend to skip this lower chamber entirely and breathe only into the top, which is the habitual shallow pattern many people fall into when they are stressed or simply not paying attention.
That is the sense in which the video's description talks about "transitioning from habitual shallow chest breathing into full diaphragmatic expansion." The belly is the entry point. Once the bottom is full, the breath keeps climbing, and the mid chest and upper chest take their turn. Think of it as filling a glass from the base rather than pouring from the rim.
The middle stage is where the ribs do their work. As the belly fills, the lower ribs flare and the chest widens side to side and front to back, a motion driven by the muscles between the ribs, the intercostals. David calls this the mid-chest stage in the video, and the description identifies it as the intercostal breath. It is the part most people underuse, because it is harder to feel than the belly and harder to control than the collarbones.
The top stage is the clavicular breath, named in the description for the collarbones. Once the mid chest has expanded, the upper chest lifts gently. The critical word here is gently. The count of eight is long enough that the top stage should not feel like a gasp or a shrug of the shoulders. If your shoulders rise sharply toward your ears, you have run ahead of the breath and the exercise has become a shoulder exercise.
On the way out, David gives a permissive instruction: "it doesn't matter the order on the exhalation, just squeeze it all out at the end." This is one of the more useful lines in the video, because it separates the inhale, which is structured in sequence, from the exhale, which is about completeness. You do not have to reverse the order. You let the air leave however it leaves, then gently squeeze the lower belly and ribs at the end to press out the last of the air. That final squeeze is what makes the next inhale start clean.
The squeeze is also what separates this practice from a simple long, slow breath. A long breath that merely fades out leaves residual air in the lower lungs. The 3-part breath asks you to empty the whole container, then start again from the bottom.
The video's description makes several claims about what regular practice of this breath can do. According to the description, consciously uniting the three breathing areas can "expand lung capacity, downregulate the sympathetic nervous system, and establish the essential baseline for all deeper pranayama practices." It also says regular practice "stimulates the vagus nerve, reduces physical anxiety, and improves oxygen saturation throughout the entire body."
These are the description's claims, not findings the video demonstrates. The video is a guided practice. It does not measure lung volume, oxygen levels, or nerve activity, and it does not present research on any of them. What the video does establish, in its own terms, is the mechanics: the order of filling, the length of the count, the number of repetitions, and the instruction to stay soft. Readers who want to know whether a breathing practice affects anxiety or oxygenation should treat the description as the teacher's stated intention and look to qualified medical sources for evidence. If you have a condition affecting your lungs, heart or breathing, check with a clinician before starting a new breath routine.
What the practice does offer, at minimum, is a structured way to notice your breath. Many people have never felt the difference between belly, ribs and collarbones. Being asked to feel each one in turn is, on its own, a useful kind of attention.
David frames the 3-part breath as a starting point, not an end. He notes that the next video moves on to "Savitri breathing, the rhythmic breath," and he observes that there are "so many versions of different counts of that." He describes the levers a practitioner can later adjust: "you can increase the length of time that you breathe in, increase the length of time that you breathe out. You can add retentions on both ends, in and out." He adds that these variations have "different purposes" and different effects on the body.
That sequencing is the real argument for learning the 3-part breath first. Before you lengthen the inhale, add a hold, or change the rhythm, you need to know where your breath already goes. The three-part pattern gives you a map. Later practices become easier to judge: if a longer count makes your shoulders climb, you know the breath has outrun your ribs; if a hold feels strained, you know the belly was not full enough to begin with.
The video's structure translates into a simple routine:
- Sit or lie in a comfortable position with the spine long and the body soft.
- Breathe through the nose. Exhale fully to begin.
- Over about eight seconds, let the belly fill first, then the mid chest, then the upper chest.
- Let the breath out in any order, then squeeze gently at the end to empty the lower lungs.
- Repeat for eight rounds. Keep the shoulders low and the face relaxed.
- Pause, let the breath return to normal, lengthen the spine, and notice the body before moving on.
Do not force the count. If eight seconds is too long, shorten it and keep the sequence. The sequence is the practice; the number is only a tool for pacing it.
Watch the full tutorial with the count in mind, then try the eight rounds once with your hand on your belly, once with your hand on your ribs, and once with your fingers lightly touching your collarbones. That exercise will tell you more about your habitual breathing than any description can. When the sequence starts to feel natural, the next step the video points toward is the rhythmic breath, where the same three-part awareness is carried into counted patterns and holds. Go slowly, stay soft, and let the breath show you where it already moves.
