Health Benefits of Breathwork

Your body can function because of the oxygen that is provided by breathing. Your breathing changes when you’re under stress, either physically or emotionally. Breathwork assists in bringing your body into balance and reducing stress. The Health Benefits of breathwork are innumerable.

So, What are breathwork techniques, health benefits, and how does it work?

What is Breathwork?

Even though breathwork is not new, it is currently popular. People have used breathwork for thousands of years, and its roots are in yoga. The fundamental tenet of breathwork is nourishing your mind and body while exhaling toxins and stress when you breathe in.

Breath work consists of several breathing exercises and techniques that can be used to enhance your physical, psychological, emotional, or moral well-being. It comes in various forms, including traditional methods like Pranayama and contemporary methods created by medical professionals and other experts.

Many simple, quick exercises can be incorporated into your daily wellness routine. Breathwork has been shown to have numerous health benefits in addition to being a well-liked relaxation technique. This makes it one of the most organic ways to handle various problems. To better understand how breathwork can enhance your life, let’s examine its scientific advantages.

 

Health benefits of breathwork

Boosts immunity while supplying more energy

Your energy levels and overall health are greatly influenced by your immune system, which is affected more by how you breathe than you may realize. Our bodies can take in more oxygen by engaging in breathwork exercises, and oxygen fuels the cells that keep us healthy and energized. Regular breathwork also has the potential to improve your immune system and give you more energy.

Improved Concentration and Focus

Regularly practicing breathing exercises is linked to improved concentration and focus. Additionally, they improve our capacity for memory and judgment.

Improve Cardiovascular Health

Regularly practicing breathing exercises helps to maintain healthy blood pressure levels and benefits those who suffer from hypertension. As a result, heart disease and stroke are less common. Therefore, breathing exercises are very good for our cardiovascular system.

Good for our Lungs

Breathing exercises help our lungs function better. They have shown to be incredibly helpful for people with chronic lung conditions like COPD, bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma.

Increases confidence and mood

Breathing can enhance our feelings of joy, gratitude, and happiness while also improving how we perceive ourselves. Many people use breathwork to elevate their mood and increase their self-love, self-esteem, and confidence. Breathing exercises can help people who struggle with unfavorable thoughts and feelings, particularly self-directed ones, stay grounded in the present. Additionally, the calming sensations contribute to the development of peace.

Blood Pressure is reduced.

Deep breathing exercises can help people with anxiety reduce their blood pressure by 30 points or more. However, if you discuss something that makes them anxious, their blood pressure will immediately return to normal.

Consistency and regular practice are essential to obtaining long-lasting health benefits, including those for blood pressure.

In a famous study containing about 1165 participants published in July 2019 in Complementary Therapy Medicine, slow breathing exercises resulted in modest drops in blood pressure.

The authors concluded that breathing exercises, particularly for those reluctant to take medication, might be a reasonable first treatment for people with prehypertension or low-risk high blood pressure.

 

How to include breathwork as part of your daily routine

Now that you know how important breathwork is, you’ll want to quickly figure out how to include it in your daily activities. The following advice will make it simple for you to start practicing breathwork and experience its advantages:

• Set a time. Plan to perform your breathing exercises at one or more designated times each day. You’ll be better able to commit, thanks to this.
• Begin modestly. Start with the simplest breathing exercises and limit your sessions to 2 to 5 minutes of breathing. As you advance, you can extend the duration of your sessions.
• Please note your schedule for each session because it’s easy to forget to complete new tasks.
• Take a break: If you’re finding it difficult or unmotivating to complete the exercises, get up and do something else. Return to finish the task when you’re ready.
• Change it up: Try various exercises to keep things interesting and discover what works best for you.

Give it your all: Life can be hectic at times. If you forget to do a breathwork session, it is acceptable to pause and perform a quick, simple exercise whenever you remember. This will still count as training and will help you reap the many benefits of breathwork.

 

Breathwork techniques

The roots of breathwork come from traditional eastern practices. While some emphasize the altered state of mind more than others, all can aid in increasing self-awareness and inner tranquillity. The following are the top three breathwork techniques:

Pranayama

This breathwork technique is probably already familiar to you if you practice yoga. Controlling your breath (prana) for beneficial effects is the goal of pranayama. By managing your breath, you can overcome emotional and energetic blocks that obstruct the flow of your life force.

Holotropic

Holotropic breathwork is a process that is frequently led by an instructor who is instructing a group of individuals and is associated with intense music. To bring about an altered state of consciousness entails breathing in simultaneously and breathing at different rates.

Rebirthing

The foundation of rebirthing breathwork is the notion that you still harbor stress from your traumatic birth experience. With this type of breathwork, you can release any emotional baggage and trauma from birth.

Here you have to lay underwater and use circular breathing to induce a state of relaxation, allowing your body to release accumulated stress stored there since birth.

By controlling your breathing, you can use it to move energy rather than just breathing air in and out.

 

Conclusion

Breathwork can be a highly effective therapeutic technique. If you decide to explore its advantages, speak with a practitioner and experiment with various breathwork techniques to find the one that suits you the best.