The Wonder Of Breath

I’ve extolled the virtues of the breath for many years now. It began with a daily yoga practice where I was introduced to the idea of Pranayama, a type of breath retention. You may have heard of Wim Hof, for example, who teaches is a type of Pranayama - breath hold and release. My breath practice, called Connected Breath (so a type of breath release), has come and gone over the years, but there’s always been a deep belief that learning how to breathe better is really good for me — really good for us all. And so, after several coincidences that led me down this path, I’m embarking on a six-month long teacher training course to be a Breathwork coach because I believe that most of us - particularly so in the workplace - have become disconnected to our bodies and let our minds run the show. Breathwork helps us redress this balance and gets us back into a healthier relationship with our bodies.

I’ve seen how breath practices help people reconnect deeply to their bodies and in doing some research for an article I’ve been writing on the subject, I thought I’d share some of this with you in the hope it will inspire you to explore the depths of your breath, too. Here are just a few:

1. Yoga was not always the series of postures you see now, but actually a breath practice, holding one pose and breathing into areas of the body to open it up. It’s only in the last 100 years that modern yoga has begun incorporating postures into the practice.
2. There are literally hundreds of different types of breath practices. In yogic tradition alone, there are over 400. Most yogic breathing is about breath retention and control. You may have heard of Wim Hof’s method for example (if not, I urge you to check him out, he’s fantastic) is exactly that, a Pranayama ‘breath control’ method.
3. There are breath methods to enable your body to relax and others to heighten your state, or ‘stress’ your body — both are hugely beneficial for you. The idea that stressing your body is good for you may seem surprising, but it works in a similar way that ‘stressing’ your body does during sea swimming or a cold shower (often known as cold-water immersion). Positive stressors, or ‘eustress’, are actually good for your body. Eustress is a product of the nerves, and can emerge from experiencing exciting things, such as receiving a promotion at work, starting a new job, or taking a trip that you’re really excited about. It generates feelings of excitement, wellbeing, and satisfaction. When you challenge yourself, eustress makes you feel confident and motivated — one more reason to keep challenging yourself throughout life.
4. Breathwork and better breathing helps with so many different ailments and conditions — both mental and physical. It helps hugely with anxiety and depression and I experience this personally on a daily basis. Whilst I don’t suffer with depression as such, two weeks solo quarantine, a lockdown, a total annihilation of my travel business during 2020 and the general collective fear in the air this year would suggest a mental struggle of some significance. But I’ve been able to operate almost as normal throughout this time and I put this 100% down to my Breathwork practice.
5. Lowering blood pressure, boosting the autoimmune system, improving circulation. You name it, most types of Breathwork will help in a variety of positive ways. I suffered from Raynaud’s Disease (a type of vascular disorder which for me meant very poor circulation and often alarming blue fingers when I got cold) which did not go well with my love of sea swimming. Yet since having a regular breath practice each morning, in the same way people might build meditation into their early morning routine, it has totally disappeared. I’ve been in the sea every day throughout October and not a sign of it.

It feels important

The stress of modern life, with its busyness, negative media bombardment and always-on culture, overloads our systems to the point where most of us live with low (and often high) levels of anxiety as ‘normal’. Believing that how we breathe doesn’t matter to our wellbeing and to our lives is no longer something any of us can afford to do. How we breathe affects every single system in the body deeply, on a cellular level. If you’re new to this phenomenon and not convinced by ancient wisdom, modern science is beginning to catch up and there’s now plenty of scientific data to support this. Just pop it into Google and you’ll have an evening of data to sift through and convince you.

Learning to breathe more effectively will positively affect your mind, your emotions, your thoughts, your physiology — even down to improving the density of your bones. It will increase your energy, your circulation, help you sleep better, help you feel calmer and reduce your anxiety. As I said before, I know this because I’ve experienced it for myself and if I’m going to try and convince you of something, I know that’s important. I know it too, because it’s improved my life in so many ways. I’ve also come to realise that breathing is an often-untapped potential that can transform every aspect of our lives. And when you feel better you live better. If you’re still skeptical try seeing the results ‘for real’. Try taking your blood pressure for a week if you can get your hands on a machine and see how it changes, whilst you take up a breath practice. In terms of breath methods to try, there are lots to try online for free, or get yourself a 1–1 session.

Breath is wonder — a lost art

For me, breath is wonder. As babies, most of us are born as perfect breathers. Watch as their tummies slowly inflate and deflate, they are the perfect role models. But as the years go by, this changes due to stress and well, just generally not paying attention. And so breathing properly becomes an art we lose. You could say, it’s a lost art.

Regaining this lost art has helped me see the world in technicolour when it often seemed so black and white. I re-discovered breathing and the benefits of Breathwork through my curiosity and search for better health and a better way to live and be. Something has kept you reading this. You may just be curious. Or you may have some of the health reasons I mention above. Either way, most of us have something in us we want to change, or you could say, wake up. Whatever the reason, re-learning the forgotten art of breathing is suitable for almost everyone and is particularly relevant right now in the workplace with teams working apart and with uncertainty around every corner.

We each walk our own path and must make a series of choices throughout our lives, both for ourselves and if you manage a team, for others too. So, if what you’ve read here calls to you and feels like the right choice for you, or perhaps your team, why not go on a journey. One where you’ll rediscover the simple, yet incredibly powerful magic of the breath.

If you believe you don't have time, think again. I can confidently tell you, that within a relatively short space of time - usually an hour and twenty minutes for a group workshop or a 1–1 session and around ten to thirty minutes self-practice a day — you’ll begin to experience the benefits of Breathwork. Just as I did. Even better, these can all be done just as effectively online as they are face-to-face.

I’m currently looking for people to work with i.e. to breathe as they say in the industry and offering free 1–1 sessions online. Just get in touch here on Linkedin to discuss a date and time. The website wonderbreath.co will be online in the coming weeks and from March I'll be offering online group sessions to teams which I can say with 100% validity will be hugely powerful, bonding, energising, clearing and nurturing for those participating.