Breathwork is an ancient relaxation technique that is used in yoga, meditation and other mental and spiritual activities. The activity has a multitude of benefits across wellness. Here are some expert insights and techniques for incorporating breathwork into your offerings.
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Breathwork is an ancient relaxation technique that is used in yoga, meditation and other mental and spiritual activities. The activity has a multitude of benefits across wellness. Here are some expert insights and techniques for incorporating breathwork into your offerings.
What is breathwork?
Sandy Abrams, author of Breathe to Succeed: Breathwork has been around in Eastern philosophies for thousands of years as a tool for mental and spiritual well-being. Today, there’s up-to-the-minute data and research on the physiological benefits of different breath modalities. I’ve been utilizing simple, fast and effective breathwork techniques for more than 30 years, and it always delivers.
Breathwork equalizes the playing field when it comes to well-being because it’s free and accessible to all. In today’s world full of stress and digital overwhelm, breathwork offers an immediately effective way to override your nervous system and create your optimal mindset and energy for wellness and mental health.
Shweta Jain, yoga instructor at MyYogaTeacher: In yoga, the practice of breathing exercises is referred to as “pranayama.” In Sanskrit, “prana” means breath or vital life force and “ayama” means to control. Therefore, pranayama means control of breath. This practice involves consciously controlling the rhythm of the breath, thereby elevating the life energy forces within, so we can achieve a healthy body and mind.
Marizza Contreras, spa director, Leaf Spa at Hotel AKA Brickell: The concept of breath as a conduit of life force energy - qi or prana - goes back thousands of years. Breathwork refers to any type of breathing exercise or technique. People often perform them to improve mental, physical and spiritual well-being. During breathwork, you intentionally change your breathing pattern. There are many forms of breathwork therapy that involve breathing in a conscious and systematic way.
Derek Davenport, advising esthetician at Cosmedix and owner of Urban Routine Wellness: Breathwork can be any type of breathing technique or exercise. These range from quick breathwork sessions that last a few minutes to hours of breathing exercises that shift the body’s energy, boost mood, activate healing, and cause a deeper state of relaxation and meditation.
What are the benefits of breathwork?
Jain: Pranayama practices balance the flow of prana in the body and promote holistic well-being—physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It directly or indirectly regulates the proper function of all important systems of the body, including the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, endocrine and nervous systems. Such breathwork relieves stress, relaxes and rejuvenates the body and mind, and promotes healing.
Davenport: Breathwork has a ton of benefits, including stress reduction, activation of the body’s natural healing and increased tranquility. Breathwork has also been shown to deliver an energy boost, along with increasing feelings of love, gratitude and overall wellness. I believe breathwork creates a healthy relationship with ourselves. When taught properly, we can quickly recognize when breathing patterns are off and we’re able to use breathwork to shift back to a calmer state.
Abrams: There are many breathwork modalities, so the benefits range from calming and balancing to supporting the nervous system and good energy. You can breathe in ways that lower blood pressure, calm nerves, slow heart rate. Or, breathing in more robust rigorous ways will provide a boost of adrenaline. It’s empowering to know that we can take agency of our emotions and regulate our nervous system by simply changing the way we breathe. Illness can be worsened or even caused by stress; this is where breathwork comes in, as an accessible tool to manage and relieve stress daily.
How can spas incorporate breathwork into wellness offerings?
Davenport: There are many ways to do this. For simple exercises, have clients begin treatments with deep breathing, focusing on pulling the breath in from the top of their head all the way through the bottom of their feet; this is a great way to calm the body and mind, and help them fully immerse in the treatment. As a practitioner, I do the breathwork exercises along with my clients to create a deeper connection that allows for the ultimate healing experience.
You can also incorporate breathwork while focusing on different parts of the body. For example, in a skin therapy session, I have my clients focus on relaxing their facial muscles as their head, neck and shoulders melt into the table.
There are “breath of fire” techniques, ideal if a client is experiencing a lot of stress, and another technique called “holotropic” breathwork expands the person into a deeper state of consciousness. These are more advanced techniques, and practitioners should have in-depth training before using them with clients.
Incorporating oils and fragrances into sessions can further elevate breathing exercises. It can be an aromatherapy blend that your client chooses or your own signature blends.
Contreras: Spas can incorporate breathwork by doing guided meditations before or after treatment, for instance with exercises like diaphragmatic breathing. Guided guest to put your hand on your stomach and as you breathe in, feel it expand. As your lungs expand, they push down on your diaphragm which in turn makes your abdomen stick out. Now when you breathe out slowly observe how your shoulders drop and relax. This is good for; stress, IBS, depression, insomnia, PTSD symptoms and lower risk of muscle injury. This helps relax guests before their treatment so they reap the full benefits.
It’s something that is accessible to all, helping stay connected to conscious breathing is a tool that allows you to unit with your own breathing. It allows us to better understand and become aware of the benefits related to our breath on daily basis. Breathwork has soothing virtues for the heart during more difficult moments but it can also help you better manage your stress.
Jain: Knowingly or not, most people breathe shallow breaths, causing unwanted gasses and accumulations. Similarly, unresolved issues trap emotions in the body and drain energy, causing burnout and emotional imbalance. Massage helps relieve these issues; when combined with breathwork, the body is cleansed at a deeper level for better overall balance.
Breath awareness is all about concentrating on the gentle flow of the breath across the diaphragm, intercostal and clavicular muscles of the respiratory system, filling the air bottom to top on inhalation and top to bottom on exhalation. Meanwhile, diaphragmatic breathing is equalized breathing from the diaphragm, while keeping the intercoastal and clavicular muscles relaxed and stable.
Equalized breathing involves inhaling slowly and continuously to a comfortable count, followed by exhaling slowly to the same count, maintaining awareness of the breath. Ujayi breathing is a tranquilizing exercise in which you breathe through the throat, creating a soft snoring sound.
Nadi shodhna is a balancing exercise that purifies and regulates the body’s energy channels. It’s characterized by alternating inhalations and exhalations between the left and right nostrils, leading to equilibrium in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
Breathwork helps put the brakes on an acute stress response and diverts the health problems associated with chronic stress. By electing the boys relaxation response, deep abdominal breathing helps reduce blood pressure.
What is your favorite breathwork exercise?
Abrams: My three favorite tools are lion’s breath for an immediate cleanse of negative or stagnant energy. A 4/8 relaxation breath (inhale to 4, exhale to 8) is my go-to when I need to calm my mind and energy, and three slow, deep breaths help me reconnect to myself and feel grounded anywhere, anytime.
Jain: Nadi shodhana with Ujayi inhalations are my favorites. This has dual benefits of cleansing as well as balancing the energy channels. It sets a calming rhythm for the brain and the heart, and thereby relaxes the body, relieves stress and improves concentration.
Davenport: I prefer holotropic breathwork because it teaches the mind to pay attention to inner radar. This breathwork technique truly creates an inner connectedness that, when mastered, allows for total body awareness at all times when we are awake.
For my clients, I like to keep the breathwork comfortable for them, starting first with deep breath exercises so the body can adjust to taking in more airflow. At the top of every breath is true silence, which is where the body loves to be in order to activate healing systems. We work to get to that inner silence through breath work by paying attention to how much air we are bringing in and releasing. By exhaling as much air as possible, we can release tension, stress or unwanted energy and emerge from a session feeling renewed and re-energized.
