Why Breathwork?

If you prefer to read instead of watch, here’s a transcript of the video above:

1. Understanding the Nervous system

Why Breathwork?
If you’re anything like you me, you’ve probably experienced: anxiety, been stressed out, frustration, anger, impatience, decision fatigue, or maybe you just felt like everything was too much and you wanted to crawl into your turtle shell, stay in bed all day, just shut down.
I get it. I’ve been there, you’ve been there. We’ve all been there at some point.
What do all of these things have in common?
They are all states of being dictated by your nervous system.
Your nervous system is in charge of how you respond to the world and to keep you safe.
Interesting enough, the breath is directly related to the response of your nervous system.
Do you understand what this means?!
Let me give you a couple examples of how this works.
If you’ve ever felt panicked or stressed or maybe scared, how do you breathe?
Short, quick breaths. Even just this morning I grabbed my towel in the bathroom and there was a spider next to it and I immediately panicked and I started to breathe really short, shallow breaths.
In contrast, if you’ve ever felt so relaxed, connected, and so safe, maybe you’ve watched a baby sleep, how do you breathe?
Long breaths, in and out of the belly. It feels really good, right?
Can you imagine what it would be like to live more in this state of calm?
The good news is – you can!

So how do you do this? You flip it.
What do I mean by that?
If the nervous system affects the way we breathe, you can flip this!
By consciously breathing, you can affect the response of your nervous system.
You can bring your nervous system back into a state of rest and its ability to self regulate.
This changes the way that you feel, respond, and experience the world – with your breath!
Do you understand what this means? This is really exciting!

Why does the nervous system do this?
Short answer, to keep you safe.
Long answer, I’ll give you an analogy. It’s the playbook analogy.
Every experience that you have, the nervous system has a response and this response is recorded in your playbook.
It’s recorded so your body can be as efficient as possible, so when you go out into the world, you’re not wondering “Is this safe, is that safe?” Otherwise, you’d get nothing done.
It’s also really, really important because our ancestors needed to have this response of the nervous system because something like a tiger may threaten them or they were in danger for some other reason, and they needed to make sure they were safe and responded accordingly.
The problem with this, the dilemma, is that we live in a highly stressful world.
We have jobs and phones and things always calling and needing our attention, and so our bodies think that we’re unsafe when we’re actually safe.
This causes a lot of stress, which turns into chronic stress, which is highly detrimental to the body.
So, how do we get out of this state of fight or flight?
How do we re-regulate our systems?
Remember how I said that you can flip it?
By consciously breathing you can re-record or re-write your playbook to have more preferred responses in the world.

 How about a real word example to help this make sense?
Maybe when you were a kid you were made fun of or you grew up in a really chaotic household with yelling, and in order to stay safe you fought, ran away, people pleased, or just shut down.
These strategies worked when you were a kid, though become very problematic if they continue on into adulthood in a similar situation or even in other situations.
This is just one example, though any kind of experience can feel really traumatic.
Whether it be abuse or someone seemingly inconsequential like someone looking at you funny, your nervous system remembers everything.
Here’s where Breathwork comes to the rescue!
By consciously breathing you can re-write your playbook and the way that your nervous system and body responds.
Over time you help your body know how to respond in more of a connected and relaxed state and live in a state of calm.
Who doesn’t want that?

To sum this all up, Breathwork helps you respond in a more preferred way.
Say you’re a parent and you’re impatient with your child: Consciously breathing helps you respond with more tolerance and be a better parent.
Say you’re stressed at work: Consciously breathing can bring your nervous system into a state of rest so you’re not so stressed out about all the things you need to do.
Consciously breathing can help you cultivate a deeper more intimate relationship with yourself so that you can embody self love   .
And If you’ve had a traumatic experience, consciously breathing can help free you from those old emotions so you can live a more happy life.
Even just 5 minutes of conscious Breathing helps.
So, I invite you: Try Breathwork!
Daily, weekly, even after just 30 days of Breathwork, I guarantee you you’ll feel like a different person.
And, your nervous system will thank you!