The Simplest and Most Effective Tool for Personal Wellness – You Won't Believe It's Just Breathing!
We breathe naturally over 20,000 times a day, yet the immense value of it is often taken for granted.
Take a breath. Inhale and exhale. Feels good, right?
We all know common knowledge that breathwork and meditation benefit the body, mind, and soul. While it won't solve everything, it's a simple practice we should all incorporate into our routines to improve both our mental and physical health.
But, in our frenetic, often face-paced world and lives, most people have lost the instinct to take deep breaths and instead take shallow ones. This shift is believed to be related to various external factors, including stress, which, as of late, multiple studies have confirmed to be an almost national epidemic.
The term breathwork refers to a meditation technique used to shift energy through the body by reframing the nervous system. There are a variety of styles practiced, including holotropic breathwork (combining accelerated breathing with evocative music), cathartic pranayama (clearing trauma from the body) and shamanic breathwork (voluntarily inducing a state of hyperventilation to reach an altered state) to name a few.
Historically, many modern forms of yoga and meditation fall into mainstream ideas of self-care and wellness. However, breathwork has roots in many spiritual practices like tai chi and Buddhism and can also be traced back to Asian and Indian cultures.
One of the main goals of breathwork is to release past triggers and traumas — ones you may not even know you have. As a society perennially caught up in what to do, where to go, and who to see next, we give ourselves little time to grieve and process. We're expected, both internally and externally, to resume our responsibilities ASAP.
So how do you get started? Finding someone to guide you through a breathwork session is the ideal first step. You can find free guided breathwork recordings online, to get a taste of what the experience is all about.
As there are a few different styles of practice and different ways of teaching, try out a couple classes to find one that's right for you.
But remember, in the end, just breathe.
