Optimise Your Breath and Optimise Your Health
Breathing – can we really be doing this wrong?
As a breathwork instructor, this is the question I get asked the most. Commonly people will respond with:
“It’s not that hard, I breathe in and I breathe out, I am pretty sure I do not need an instructor.”
It certainly took me years to discover this superpower of health and wellbeing, but now that I have this gemstone of knowledge, I am keen to share it with whoever will listen and even those who are not that keen to listen (I can usually win them over too).
I was an extremely anxious child, a worrier, my resiliency was low if there at all. This did not change as I grew up, I just got better at avoidance and disassociation. The ongoing worry led to high levels of anxiety and the high levels of anxiety lead to the stress response being activated continuously in my body, whilst my mind circled and spun both night and day.
Physiologically my body was trapped in sympathetic nervous system response. As my body ‘sympathised’ in my fight or flight system, my body shut down the non-essentials including digestion, immunity and then it would seem, reproduction.
Over the years I have struggled with fatigue, frequent illness, digestive issues, sleep issues, chronic pain, inflammation, mental health challenges and mountains of emotional overwhelm. Breathwork has changed all of this, it has changed me from the inside out and with some key practices and knowledge, it can help change your health for the better too. By empowering yourself to breathe functionally and learning which tools to apply in any given situation, you too will see effective and sustainable results in overall wellbeing.
As a result of a continued breathwork practice, my health consistently began to improve. My body was finally able to signal to my brain that it was safe, creating a more optimal condition for the body to relax, repair and heal, just as it is designed to do. One of the key notable changes that came from including regular breathwork into my daily routine has been learning how to manipulate the stress response. The ability to become aware of the signs that your body is under stress is paramount to being able to implement the ideal strategy to manage it and prevent the onset of stress-related illness and dis-ease.
Breathwork helped me to reduce and control my heightened levels of anxiety and supported me in getting my panic attacks under control. The chronic inflammation in my body began to decrease and the pain from my scoliosis that had plagued me for many years started to lessen. My sleep quality drastically improved, therefore simultaneously improving depressive tendencies, low mood and emotional resiliency. Having struggled with low energy for most of my life, I was now experiencing a new vibrancy and lust for life, living with so much more joy than I had before.
Breath re-education and coaching is a simple process than evaluates the efficiency of your breathing and whether you are breathing above your metabolic needs. Chronic overbreathing and hyperventilation disorders are becoming increasingly more common and the relationship of breathing patterns and health related challenges are becoming more and more recognisable, usually resulting in heightened levels of anxiety, poor energy and lower sleep quality. Some people suffer with symptoms such as, asthma, snoring, sleep apnea, rhinitis, COPD, breathlessness, and exercised-induced asthma, all of which can be traced back to dysfunctional breathing patterns.
Children who have adopted dysfunctional breathing pattern or who consistently mouth breathe, are more likely to struggle with learning difficulties, anxiety, ADHD, dental problems and craniofacial development issues.
We breathe up to 23,000 times a day, breathing pattens change and develop over time (this may be caused by trauma, illness, posture, bad habits, etc), this results in us adopting a new breathing pattern. This pattern becomes our new normal breath rate. If this rate is too fast, too hard, too shallow or we are breathing through the mouth, then dysfunctional tendencies will result. Overtime, subtle symptoms will begin to develop including sleep disorders, snoring, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, digestive issues, anxiety, panic attacks, mental health issues, lack of vitality and so on. We are often told that this is just a normal part of the ageing process, but it can just be a dysfunctional breathing pattern that has taken hold, making us overbreathe and pave the way to a plethora of health-related challenges.
Functional breathing and breathwork helps us to support and balance the nervous system, alkalise the body, decrease inflammation, ensure quality sleep and wane off stress and anxiety related issues. The breathe is Mother Nature’s gift, a perfectly designed, inbuilt system that is free and available to us on demand in every moment of every day. So why not get the user guide and learn how to hack into your nervous system and support yourself to create the optimal conditions for health to flourish.
Rise to Shine offers:
Private Breathwork Coaching - Buteyko Method and Pranayama (Yogic Breathwork)
Online courses including Breathe Yourself to Health
Breathwork for athletic performance and optimal recovery Workshop – The Cutting Edge (new online course coming soon).
Workplace wellbeing presentations – The Forgotten Dimension of Health.