The ancient practice of breathwork is more than applicable in the modern era. What we know about it has been slightly modified over time to align it with the culture. Nonetheless, the five concepts on which it is built remain intact today. The third of those five concepts is emotional and physical health.
Breathwork involves intentional and mindful control of how one breathes. Controlling breathing is known to have significant impacts on both emotional and physical health. Let’s start by discussing the emotional component.
Breathwork’s Benefits to Emotional Health
Think back to your childhood. When you got agitated or stressed out, did your mother ever tell you to stop and breathe deeply? Did she attempt to help you calm down by breathing in and out with you? She was encouraging you to practice a form of breathwork.
Controlled, purposeful breathing:
- Reduces Stress – Breathwork directly affects the autonomic nervous system, primarily by activating the parasympathetic branch. This leads to a sense of calm and relaxation in both body and mind. As such, regular breathwork can break the cycle between chronic stress and anxiety that so many people live with.
- Improves Emotional Regulation – Breathwork can actually improve a person’s mood. How? By improving emotional regulation. Intentional and controlled breathing boost positivity while also reducing anxiety and negative emotions.
- Supports Processing Trauma – Breathwork can even help practitioners deal with emotional trauma more effectively. It is all about removing a person from the ‘fight or flight’ response and into the process of resolving stress and trauma in the mind.
It might be difficult to imagine that breathwork can do so much for one’s emotional health. But it can. Breathwork actually changes how the brain works. And because it requires intention by the practitioner, changes in thinking patterns ultimately impact a person’s emotions. The result is better mental health.
Breathwork’s Benefits to Physical Health
Given that breathwork activates both the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems, it would seem that it should also impact physical health. It does. Controlled, intentional breathing is known to:
- Reduce Blood Pressure – Because breathwork interacts with the sympathetic nervous system, it also helps to lower heart rate and blood pressure. Both are very good for overall physical health.
- Reduces Inflammation – Breathwork has been linked to a reduction in inflammation. Exactly how that works is still being studied.
- Better Immune Response – Irrespective of whether it is related to reduced inflammation, breathwork has also been linked to better immune response. Less inflammation and a better immune system are obviously good for physical health.
- Improved Respiration – Regular breathwork can help strengthen respiratory muscles. In turn, this improves lung function and heart rate variability.
- Better Sleep – By its nature, breathwork promotes relaxation. It can help improve sleep in those who suffer from any number of sleep issues. And if you know anything about sleep, you know that good sleep promotes good overall health.
We don’t fully understand all the mechanisms behind breathwork’s impact on emotion and physical health. But we do know that it affects the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems. We also know that certain types of breathwork techniques can stimulate the vagus nerve.
It all boils down to the fact that the body and mind are intrinsically linked. They aren’t separate entities. By using the mind to better control a particular part of the body, we benefit both. That’s what breathwork is all about.
If you struggle with stress, poor sleep, or certain types of health issues touched on in this post, would you consider breathwork? We know first-hand that it helps a lot of people.
