A Reporter Tried the Viral Breathing Method for a Month — 'Didn't See Anything, But Mornings Felt Good'

This feature began with a colleague's education-page story about the "seeing" breathing-method videos popular among middle and high schoolers. Shown one of the videos, I'll admit my first reaction was that it looked dubious. But hearing the TDA repeat, over and over, that "the conditions for developing permeation sensitivity remain unexplained, and there is no scientific basis for any so-called 'development method'" made me feel I couldn't really say anything without trying it myself. So from mid-September through mid-October, I tried the same breathing method on my own body, every morning, for a month.

The method the video teaches is simple enough. Right after waking, open the window, breathe in the outside air, and exhale slowly while counting — repeated a dozen-odd times. The video claims small drift creatures become visible to those who keep this up for a certain period. The first week was mostly a fight against oversleeping; a planned 6 a.m. wake-up slipped to 7 more than once, leaving no time even for breakfast, let alone the breathing exercise.

By the second week, waking at 6 had itself become routine. Long before any question of seeing anything, the simple act of opening the window and breathing the air at the same time each morning had turned into something like a small ritual. Needless to say, nothing resembling a small drift creature ever became visible. Asked about it directly, a TDA official told me, "The conditions for developing permeation sensitivity remain unexplained, and there is no scientific basis for the claim that breathing exercises can trigger it. Our studies to date have found no correlation between such exercises and the onset of permeation sensitivity."

When I told Karin Kokonoe, 52, the independent researcher known for her Yuragi-origin theories, about the project, she laughed and said, "Talk of seeing or not seeing is the kind of weed that always sprouts up around a genuine Yuragi-derived phenomenon. But being a weed doesn't mean you should just rip it all out. Some people only notice where the real soil is because of the weeds." I was struck by how she refused to draw a clean line between the genuine article and something more like belief.

In the end, a month of trying produced nothing visible, and no sign that any sensitivity had awakened. Even so, the habit of opening the window and breathing the morning air at 6 a.m. is one I've kept up even after the project ended. I'd struggle to explain why, but even though nothing became visible, my mornings somehow feel a little lighter than before. I didn't see anything, but the mornings felt good — that is the one, and I think the most honest, conclusion this project produced.