Have you ever tried proper breathwork?
It’s more than yogic breathing, conscious breathing or deep breathing.
This kind of breathing is different because you intentionally change your breathing pattern. It was unlike anything I had done before. It was similar to circular breathing, which is conscious connected circular breaths, continuous with no spaces between them. But my mouth was wide open, which felt very strange, to begin with.
People who practice breathwork say it decreases stress levels, boosts immunity, helps process emotions, promotes healing, increases confidence, improves energy, and releases negative thoughts. It can help with anger, pain, anxiety, grief and trauma.
Before the session, I had been struggling with my mind soup. I knew it was time to try something new, and the guided breathing session was designed for people on the brink of burnout.
Which is something I’d been struggling with for several months, teetering on the edge of total exhaustion, swinging between ‘I got this.’ and ‘I can’t do this.’.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was warned that past traumas might surface, and I may experience aches, pains, chills, tears… I wondered what would happen to me and if it would ‘work’.
I woke up from the 30 minutes breathwork feeling awake, really awake, clear-headed, warm, peaceful and light. Almost like I was floating.
Quite simply, the session highlighted that I’m exhausted, and it gave me so much mental clarity. I slept really well that night, despite having our two-year-old in our bed from 3am.
I woke up feeling creative and bashed out two poems, and I don’t even write poetry.
Now more than ever, and we need to find the things that keep us mentally healthy. Especially when we live in a society that runs the way it does, cutting things out doesn’t always work. But living the way most of us do isn’t sustainable. We need to make more room for the things that heal us.
Self-care needs to get deeper, richer and become a part of our daily rituals like making a drink or brushing our teeth. We drink to prevent ourselves from being dehydrated, and we brush our teeth to keep them clean.
You can’t reverse tooth decay; we brush them to prevent it.
Seeing as we can’t turn off or tune out of the world around us forever, we need to find better ways to manage the noise internally and externally.
Breathwork will now be added to my arsenal. What about you?