Breathwork as a Wellness Practice

It’s vital to understand why we engage or begin a wellness practice, which can lead to greater intimacy with Self and lead us to Spiritual development. Breath is our connection to the deepest parts of ourselves. Breathwork holds the capacity to help us to experience our highest potentials, and ultimately can lead us to a greater more fulfilling life experience of enjoying the qualitative reality of our Divine Nature. It’s important to consider that wellness is both a physical state and also an inner state. There are many amazing health benefits that we experience through our practices, and it is through the health of the body that we can experience greater wellness within our inner body. Inner peace, harmony, a feeling of unity within the heart and mind, completeness, wholeness, Self love, a sense of connectedness and inner richness are all qualities of inner wellness. Wellness of both our inner and outer bodies are essential to a balanced life experience.

The spiritual qualities of breath are obvious when we look at the derivations of the word in different languages: in Latin the word for breath and spirit are the same-spiritus. Spiritus also is connected to the word inspiration, which in medical terms is another word for inhalation, and also when we look to the word inspired connected to this Latin root word, spiritus, it also points to be in-spired means to be in Spirit. In Hebrew, there is a root between the words Soul – neshama– and for breath –neshima.

Life giving breath is always there for us, and bringing more conscious attention to the breath invites an improved sense of intimacy with your Self. As we allow for more intimacy with our Self, we then can experience a greater intimacy with Life and its Source. Breathwork enables us to see Life Giving Breath as a tool for transformation and improving our health and wellness. The trick is we simply have to put it into practice. As the digital age progresses there is an ever-increasing experience of anxiety, stress, and an underlying feeling for many that something is missing. What is primarily missing is the ability to rest in contentment, to feel that we are enough, that this moment is enough. This is the inner balance harmony and richness that is available through breathwork and meditation practices.

Science continues to reveal a plethora of studies to back up the many benefits of breathwork. There are many systems that supports life within the physical body. The cardiovascular system, the endocrine system, the lymphatic system, the digestive system, the genito-urinary system, the immune system, and the nervous system to name a few. What is amazing is that it is the respiratory system that directly has positive effect on ALL of these body systems. When we bring balance and health to the breathing system, when we learn to use our breath consciously, all of these other body systems are directly affected by our breathwork practices. This is a pure act of nature, a gift of Grace.

The initial system we begin to positively affect with breathwork is our nervous system, primarily the autonomic system: the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system. Through breath we access this system which regulates processes in the body like heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. Anxiety and poor stress management are directly linked to an over stimulated sympathetic system, the flight or fight response. Conscious breathing helps us to tune down this state of always being on alert, of always feeling stressed, of “not being able to catch my breath” as many of my clients have said. It is the parasympathetic system that signals to the body “I am safe, I am well”. This gives us the rest and digest experience. Tuning up our parasympathetic system gifts us the experience of feeling balanced and enjoying regulation of all the systems in the body, and equally important tuning up this system brings balance, coherence, and harmony to the mental and emotional body, which leads us to experience the relaxation response and deeper states of meditation, ultimately leading us to the sense of inner coherence and wholeness.

On the physical level it is this coherence we are seeking to stabilize, particularly within the relationship between breathing and the heart. Science has shown that a lack of balance and coherence alone between these two systems increases our vulnerability to many states of dis-ease: particularly heart disease, cancer, depression, and anxiety. It has been stated by many Breath Masters and Scientists who study the breath, that for every emotion there is a corresponding breathing pattern. What is empowering about this truth is that when we take control of our breathing system, we can directly affect our emotions. This puts us literally in the driver seat for all of our inner and outer life experiences, instead of being the unwitting passenger to our emotions. This is empowerment. We have the power to use our breath in conscious ways to optimize our wellbeing.

Here is a list of the many benefits of breathwork

-increases longevity

-boosts creativity

-improves sleep

-improve digestion

-reduce pain

-reduces stress, anxiety and depression

-improve physical performance