It's easy to say the trick to lasting longer in bed is to relax. But if were that easy, you'd have already done that. A more practical approach? Treat it like an athlete building new muscles—specifically, the ones around your lungs.

"If anybody trains you on a sport, they're going to train you first on your breathing," says Kumi Sawyers, an instructor at Sky Ting Yoga in New York. "If you begin to work with your breath, just like you would in a yoga class, or if you're running, or doing anything physical where you coordinate your breath and your movement, all of a sudden you create a rhythm."

That rhythm prevents you from holding your breath, tensing up, or freaking out. Rhythmic breathing gets oxygen to your muscles to relax them. With time, working with your body's rhythms increases stamina for longer stints in bed and multiple orgasms. And all you have to do is sit down and practice breathing. Here, Sawyers illustrates how.

The 4-Step Guide

Step 1: Start Breathing

Start with 25 breaths; over time, build to 100

Lie on your back, knees bent and resting against each other, and your feet wide and flat on the ground. Put one hand on your belly and the other on your heart, close your eyes, and relax into deep breaths. As you inhale, your belly hand will rise first, then your heart hand; as you exhale, the reverse.

Why: "You can fall into that state, and that's how you understand the rhythm of your own breath. Finding the rhythm of your own breath—not only through sex but all things—is going to improve your life, your endurance, and your ability to remain calm and not anxious."

Step 2: Start Rocking

Start with 25 breaths; over time, build to 100

Sit on a medium to low block in Hero's Pose: Legs folded comfortably under you at the knees and hands on your hips. As you breathe, begin to rock your pelvis back and forth on: forward on the inhale, backward on the exhale. Gradually, the rocking speed should increase to about one inhale-exhale cycle per second.

Why: "Think about your pelvic floor touching the block like a match, and you're striking the match onto the block, and that begins to create heat. That's really good for getting dormant sexual energy that you're storing in your pelvis."

Step 3: Change Up the Motion

Do for 25 breaths

After rocking back and forth, begin to move in a circular rhythm, orbiting your ribcage over your pelvis as you inhale and exhale. Keep you lower legs and shins and feet pressed against the ground as your rib cage continues to move in a circle.

Why: "Circular, spherical energy is really the energy you want to look for. If anything is too linear, it becomes rigid. You want to really be able to move all the joints with this circular energy throughout the body."

Step 4: Apply It to the Bedroom

Start with foreplay to loosen your body and build heat. "You can't just stretch a muscle without warming it up, otherwise it will break. You have to bring that same attention to sex," Sawyers says. "There's foreplay, and that's how you begin."

As things with your partner intensify, remember to stay tuned in to your own rhythm and breath, which you established with the previous exercises. With that in mind, you can control the build to orgasm and back away instead of losing control.

Why: "It's like you're going fast in a car and you need to make a left turn. You have to slow down to make that turn. If you're getting to the point where you feel like you're getting ready to climax, and you don't want to, slow your breath down and stop moving so quickly so the rhythm slows again. Your body has a moment to recalibrate, and it gives you more time to go back in and start going back to climax."

From: Esquire US