Why I trained in breathwork

The history

Until I learnt about the science of breathing, I really didn’t give breathing or how I breathed much thought.

If I ran up the stairs or if the gardening got a bit physical, it was just easier to open my mouth. No one told me not to!  I just didn’t think about it. We humans tend to take the easy option especially if we can’t see a reason not to.

The only other time I would think about breathing was if I was in an exercise class. If it ended with a relaxation the instructor might guide our attention to  follow the breath, perhaps breathing deeper or slower.  What I didn’t understand was that this mattered all day, every day, for every breath. That with every in-breath I took, my stomach and diaphragm should move out and down, and that the number of breath’s I took per minute was important.  Quite honestly I hadn’t understood any of this and yet it is a fundamental aspect of our physiology and therefore our health. 

The main reason

When I first trained in breathing the main reason I did so was because I knew that addressing oxidative stress, created as a by-product of metabolic processes, was critical for the body to function well. Our digestive system and the absorption of food is one the core metabolic processes. Your diet and your antioxidant balance is critical for this, but what about the oxidative stress caused by breathing? This is another essential metabolic process, perhaps even more important than food, given that most of us cannot survive more than a few minutes without it. What if, as well as ensuring sufficient antioxidant intake, you could minimise the creation of oxidative stress by breathing correctly?  It was this thought process that led me to explore breathwork.

Disordered breathing

How people breathe is frequently disordered, and this can have a negative impact on cellular and organ oxygenation, especially your muscles. This means cells and organs may not assimilate and process nutrients correctly or in sufficient amounts to function well. This can also impact any physical activity you undertake and especially if you are doing fitness or sports training or going to the gym. 

Poor breathing patterns also have a detrimental effect on the nervous system and your stress and anxiety levels, especially upper chest breathing. This is partly because it activates your fight/flight system but it’s also a chemical issue. Most of your alveoli are at the bottom of your lungs and if the breath is too shallow the oxygen doesn’t get to them.