Longevity Through Breath – The Ancient Practice of Ankhing
- Brainz Magazine
- Dec 17, 2025
- 9 min read
Kristy “Ceilidh” Suler is a Sex, Relationship & Birthing Coach with a background in Psychology, blending Somatica®, Orgasmic Birth, and intuitive energy practices to guide clients into healing, intimacy, and joy. She is the founder of Heartgasm Coaching and author of Heartgasms: Sacred Sex, Prophetic Dreams, & the Frequency of Love.
For thousands of years, the ancient Egyptians guarded a breath-centered practice said to restore vitality, nourish the soul, and support physical and emotional well-being. Today, as science begins to uncover how breath shapes longevity, energy, and cellular regeneration, this forgotten technique, Ankhing, reveals itself as a timeless pathway to renewal. By circulating life force in a continuous loop of breath and awareness, Ankhing revitalizes both the physical body and the subtle energy field, awakening deeper layers of consciousness, balance, and inner coherence.
What is ankhing?
Ankhing is an ancient Egyptian practice centered on the conscious movement of life force energy through the breath. In hieroglyphic art, deities are often shown holding the Ankh, a looped cross, before the nose of a pharaoh or initiate. This gesture symbolized the transmission of the “Breath of Life,” a direct infusion of divine energy.
The Ankh itself encodes deep metaphysical meaning. The oval loop represents the feminine principle, the vertical stem the masculine, and the crossbar the bridge that unites them. When energy flows freely through these poles, it forms a continuous circuit, an infinite loop of creation that mirrors the rhythmic pulse of inhalation and exhalation.
Ankhing echoes this geometry, breath as remembrance, breath as awakening, breath as a conscious act of returning to one’s own essence. Each inhale draws in divine life force, and each exhale offers it back in gratitude, completing the loop again and again.
Ankhing in the Egyptian mystery schools
Although the ancient Egyptians did not leave behind explicit manuals on breathwork, the way their deities are depicted offering the Ankh to the nose of an initiate hints at a deeper reverence for breath, not just as air, but as a conduit of spiritual vitality. The gesture appears throughout temple walls and funerary art, always the same, the Ankh extended toward the face, as if awakening something within.
Priests and priestesses in centers like Abydos, Edfu, and Heliopolis trained in rituals that blended symbolism, embodiment, and cosmology. While the details of their internal practices remain largely veiled by time, their mythology suggests that breath, life force, and consciousness were intimately linked.
Ancient Egyptian texts describe the human being as composed of multiple energetic and spiritual aspects, including the Ka, the Ba, and the Akh. The Ka was understood as the vital life force or animating essence. The Ba represented the soul’s personality and capacity for movement. The Akh referred to the radiant, transfigured aspect of the soul associated with enlightenment and immortality. These three facets were believed to interact in complex ways, shaping both earthly existence and the soul’s journey beyond death.
Many modern mystics and teachers, including Drunvalo Melchizedek, interpret the Ankh as more than a symbolic object. They view it as representing the circulation of life force within the human being, connecting the Ka, Ba, and Akh in a continuous flow of vitality, consciousness, and spiritual illumination. This interpretation aligns with the Egyptian reverence for cosmic order and the movement of energy through both the body and the universe. In this view, the Ankh reflects a functional understanding of how breath and life force interact to awaken higher states of awareness.
Rather than treating breath as a mechanical necessity, the Egyptians seemed to understand it as a bridge between the mortal and the divine. Viewed through this lens, Ankhing becomes a modern name for an ancient intuition, that the way we breathe shapes the way we live, awaken, and connect with the sacred.
Parallels in Tantra, Taoism, and Kabbalah
Across mystical traditions, we find echoes of Ankhing’s looping, life-giving current. In Tantra, energy rises through the sushumna nadi and descends through the front channels, completing a circuit of awakening. Taoist teachings map the Microcosmic Orbit, a near-identical flow of life force that nourishes the organs and spirit. Kabbalah describes the Tree of Life as a ladder through which divine energy descends and ascends, moving in cycles of transformation.
These practices do not mirror Ankhing by coincidence. They reflect a shared intuitive truth, life force does not merely rise or fall. It circulates. It returns. It completes itself.
Ankhing is the Egyptian expression of this universal energetic geometry.
The science of breath and energy flow for vitality and longevity
Modern research is finally beginning to articulate what ancient civilizations encoded in symbol and ritual, breath is biology, electricity, chemistry, and consciousness. Slow, intentional breathing influences nearly every system tied to aging and vitality. Studies across neurobiology, psychophysiology, and integrative medicine show that conscious breathwork can reduce oxidative stress, support mitochondrial efficiency, increase telomerase activity, improve vagal tone, regulate the stress response, lower inflammation, and elevate emotional states linked with healing. These are measurable biomarkers associated with cellular repair, resilience, and long-term health.
Coherence: The missing ingredient in longevity
Research from the HeartMath Institute shows that elevated emotional states such as love, gratitude, awe, and pleasure create heart brain coherence, a state of physiological harmony that strengthens immunity, stabilizes hormones, and supports nervous system balance. When the heart and brain synchronize, the body enters a restorative state where regeneration becomes possible. This mirrors what many people experience during Ankhing, a unified pulse of breath, awareness, and subtle energy.
The biofield and the geometry of life force
Biofield science describes the human energy field as a toroidal loop, the same looping pattern encoded in the shape of the Ankh. Rather than seeing the Ankh as metaphor, this research suggests it may be a visual blueprint of how energy naturally circulates through and around the body.
When I practice Ankhing, this toroidal flow becomes visceral, energy rising up the spine, arcing through the field above me, and returning through the heart and belly. It feels like conscious participation in my own energetic architecture.
Wim Hof and the physiology of extraordinary breath
Research on Wim Hof practitioners adds a groundbreaking piece to this puzzle. Scientists have documented that trained breathwork practitioners have been shown to voluntarily increase adrenaline, modulate inflammatory cytokines, influence the autonomic nervous system, enhance immune regulation, activate thermogenesis, and increase pain tolerance and stress resilience.
A landmark PNAS study demonstrated that participants could modulate their immune systems through breath alone, challenging long-held assumptions about what humans can consciously influence.
Wim Hof’s method proves that breath can directly influence systems tied to aging, inflammation, immunity, and vitality.
Why this matters for Ankhing
Ankhing functions along the same principles that science is now validating. Breath regulates electricity in the body, electricity regulates chemistry, and chemistry regulates longevity.
When breath, emotion, and awareness circulate in a continuous loop, the body enters a state of coherence, the same state shown to support regeneration, resilience, and healthy aging.
I am not claiming immortality. But I am saying that Ankhing reliably creates the physiological and energetic conditions associated with vitality, repair, and extended health span. In this sense, modern science is not replacing mystical wisdom. It is simply translating it.
My experience with Ankhing energy
My first experience with Ankhing unfolded a few weeks after my initial Heartgasm, during what became my first Third Eyegasm. I was lying in bed while my partner was giving me oral pleasure, hovering at the threshold of climax but never quite tipping over. Trusting the inner skills I had been cultivating, I decided to meditate. One conscious breath dissolved the mental noise, and in that instant, something entirely new ignited.
The orgasmic current did not bloom in my Sacral Chakra the way it usually did. Instead, it sparked at the base of my spine and shot upward like liquid lightning, threading each vertebra until it blossomed in my Third Eye. For a few minutes, the center of my skull pulsed in ecstatic waves. With my eyes open, I watched sapphire blue light radiate from my forehead like ripples moving across water. It felt as if invisible fingers were kneading both the outside and inside of my brain in an utterly gentle, exquisite, and otherworldly way.
Then one stray thought, concern for my partner’s jaw, broke my focus. Instantly, the blue light collapsed into a pearl white sphere that shot up through my Crown Chakra, arced through the air, and reentered my chest. It caressed my Heart Chakra, slid into my Sacral Chakra, and burst into a full-body orgasm that shimmered through every cell.
The energy did not stop. It looped again and again:
Sacral - Heart - up and out the Crown - arcing down into Heart - descending to Sacral.
An endless figure eight of pure life force. This serpentine current, which I later learned is called Ankhing, moved without effort or intention, powered only by breath, awareness, and the innate circuitry of the body.
Ankhing in the external chakras: A new frontier of human energetics
For years, Ankhing moved solely through my internal chakras, Sacral, Heart, Crown, looping within the familiar architecture of my physical energy body. But after years of practice, something shifted.
The loop extended upward. Instead of returning through my body, the current rose into the energy centers above my head, the Soul Star, Stellar Gateway, and other transpersonal chakras. At first, it felt like a subtle lifting at the top of my head, almost like a magnetic pull. But over time, the sensations became unmistakable. Ankhing was continuing in the external chakras just as clearly as within the physical ones.
It was the same serpent-like rhythm, the same intelligence, simply moving in a higher dimension of my being. My body was revealing a variation of Ankhing I have not yet encountered in any lineage or text, a subtle frontier that seemed to open only through sustained practice and deep nervous system readiness. It felt like what happens in music when a note rises into a higher octave, the same structure, the same identity, but vibrating faster, finer, and more expansively. That is what Ankhing in the external chakras feels like: the familiar circuit repeating at a higher frequency of consciousness. A higher-octave loop that seems to awaken only when the nervous system is trained, safe, and deeply open.
This experience reshaped my understanding of subtle anatomy. It felt less like ascension and more like expansion, the soul remembering its own architecture and moving energy through layers of self that most people never consciously access.
Practicing Ankhing did not just strengthen the loop inside me. It revealed the loop beyond me, a living bridge between body and consciousness.
How to practice the breath of the Ankh
If you feel called to experience Ankhing for yourself, here is a simple, gentle way to begin:
Find your center. Sit or stand tall with a straight spine. Rest your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth.
Inhale through the nose. Feel breath rise up the spine from the base of the pelvis to the crown of your head.
Exhale slowly. Guide the breath down the front of your body into your heart and belly, completing the loop.
Visualize. Imagine a golden Ankh glowing within your body. With each cycle, light moves in an infinity pattern, up the back, down the front. Continue until the flow becomes natural.
After several rounds, let go of effort. Simply breathe and feel.
You may notice warmth, tingling, or emotional release. These are signs that your life force is awakening. Move gently. There is no need to force anything. The energy knows where to go.
The return of the Ankh
Across millennia, the Ankh has resurfaced as a symbol of eternal life and balance. As we rediscover the connection between breath, energy, and longevity, Ankhing emerges not as a relic of the past but as a living practice that brings the body, soul, and consciousness into harmony. In a time when humanity is remembering how interconnected everything truly is, the ancient science of Ankhing feels like a gift returning right on time.
To breathe consciously is to participate in creation itself, to remember that pleasure, peace, and presence are not separate from spirituality but expressions of it.
Pleasure is medicine, and breath is the doorway back to our divine design.
Call to action
If you feel called to explore how breath, energy, and conscious intimacy can reshape your relationship with yourself and others, I invite you to reach out. My 1:1 coaching is rooted in safety, somatic depth, and embodiment, supporting you as your system heals old patterns and awakens to new possibilities, leading to a deeper sense of empowerment. Every transformation begins within, and I would be honored to walk that path with you.
Read more from Kristy "Ceilidh" Suler
Kristy "Ceilidh" Suler, Sex, Relationship, and Birthing Coach
Kristy "Ceilidh" Suler is the founder of Heartgasm Coaching and a Sex, Relationship & Birthing Coach trained through Somatica®, Dancing for Birth™, and Orgasmic Birth, with an academic background in psychology, sociology, and peace studies. She offers 1:1 coaching for individuals, couples, and polycules, weaving trauma-informed intimacy, energy work, and sound healing into pleasure-centered transformation. Ceilidh is also the author of the forthcoming book Heartgasms: Sacred Sex, Prophetic Dreams, & the Frequency of Love. Her vision is a world where pleasure, love, and birth are reclaimed as ecstatic expressions of embodied sovereignty and a collective movement toward peace on Earth.
