An Introduction to Breathwork - 2023 Thrive Practice #1

“People don’t think much about breathing. Of all the things we take for granted, breathing must be number one. It’s our main source of life and energy. When I started focusing on my breathing, I became a stronger athlete and was better able to control my levels of effort and pain.” – Laird Hamilton

I want to start the year with a simple idea for you. Breathwork. You may have heard of this as its becoming quite popular.

Breathwork is a holistic practice that involves using conscious, controlled breathing as a means of promoting physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. It can be done alone or in a group setting and may involve a variety of techniques and approaches.

Some common types of breathwork include:

• Pranayama: This is a practice from yoga that involves controlling the breath through a series of specific techniques, such as alternate nostril breathing or bellows breathing.

• Holotropic Breathwork: This approach, developed by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, involves using fast, deep breathing and evocative music to access non-ordinary states of consciousness.

• The Wim Hof Method: This method, developed by Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof, involves a combination of breathing techniques, cold exposure, and meditation.

Breathwork can be used to improve physical and mental health, reduce stress and anxiety, increase energy levels, and enhance self-awareness and spiritual connection.

Breath makes life, health, wellbeing, and human achievement possible. Alternately, impaired breathing can take it all away. Many diseases affect our ability to breathe, such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sleep apnea and others. So can infections like pneumonia, colds, and the flu. When we don’t breathe well, total health is deeply compromised.

It is important to note that breathwork should be practiced with caution, as it can sometimes bring up strong emotions and should not be done by those with certain medical conditions. It is always a good idea to consult with a healthcare professional before beginning any new health practice.

Here are 2 simple practices to try:

Start Here: Belly Breathing

Using diaphragmatic or “belly breathing” is a very effective strategy to bring your attention into the present moment and to your breath. It also has the wonderful benefit of activating your parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system that calms your mind and body down.

To learn belly breathing, sit in a relaxed position or lie faceup with one hand on your navel.

As you inhale, expand your belly, pulling more air down into the lower part of the lungs. Your hand should rise as your belly expands. It’s okay to expand your belly like a baby or like a statue of a Buddha!

As you exhale, contract your belly and push the air out so your hand falls and your belly returns to a resting position.

Doing this a few times throughout the day will help bring your attention to your breath, help you release mental and physical tension, and lower stress and anxiety.

A Little More Advanced: Count Your Breaths

Bringing your attention to your breath has the physiological effect of lowering your heart rate and blood pressure. From a psychological perspective, this practice can also help to reduce burnout, exhaustion, and fatigue. Fundamentally, this practice helps to decrease the activity in the fight, flight or freeze nervous system and to increase the activation of the rest and recover nervous system.

In addition to simply bringing your attention to the breath to gain these benefits, you can also use counting as an anchor for your mind. Here’s how it can work.

Sit, stand, or lie down in a comfortable place where you can focus completely for a few minutes. Relax and bring your attention to your breath.

Take a few breaths and simply notice the breaths passing by. Each breath will be slightly different.

Now count your breaths as they pass. You can count one on the inhale and three on the exhale, then three on the inhale and four on the exhale. You can choose to count to 10 then start over at one, which helps to keep the mind from wandering.

If you do notice that your mind has wandered, you can start back at one. Starting over at one can be done non-judgementally. You simply notice that your mind has wandered, gently invite your attention back to your breath and begin counting.

It helps to set a timer for this exercise so that you don’t need to worry about counting cycles, you just practice for a set amount of time. Three-, five- or ten-minute sessions work well.

You can perform this technique by counting breaths and can also use beads on a bracelet to help you count. People of the Catholic faith are familiar with rosary beads, and yoga practitioners are likely familiar with mala bead bracelets.

If you want to read more check out “Breath: The New Science of A Lost Art” by James Nestor.

If you want to try a cool app that leads you through some breathwork exercises check out “Othership”. You can download it at this link: https://www.othership.us/app. We hope this information helps you get some perspective about breathwork practices that lead you to an upward spiral of wellness!

Have a great month!