Breathwork has a multitude of benefits across wellness and is used in a variety of mindfulness exercises, including yoga and meditation. Mindfulness is a growing trend in wellness, with yoga and pilates being among the most popular fitness classes across the United States in 2022, so it is essential for spa professionals to be well-versed in the subject and have wellness programs that explore breathwork.
Related: How to Bring Mindfulness Into Your Life
The Breathwork Companion: Unlocking the Healing Power of Breathing by Margaret Townsend features a complete program of breathing exercises, along with inspiring stories, present moment prompts and more to help readers build a breathwork routine. Townsend teaches readers how to utilize and access the breath’s power to help enhance well-being.
"The great thing about working with the breath is that it allows practitioners to give themselves ways and teach others to utilize breath as a self-supporting inner resource available anytime, at any moment," said Townsend.
The breathwork guide includes the best ways to wake the body in the morning and wind down at night, how to strengthen the mind-body connection, help with specific emotions and how to find a calmer and more balanced state.
The book shares a variety of ways to calm and soothe the system that can be used while working with clients, sitting and standing movement practices to open the body, breath and energy flow as a resource before, in between clients and at the end of the day to energize, refresh or relax.
There is also an entire chapter on breathing as an act of self-compassion, a proven and most effective way to calm the inner critic. Clients will find how to start their day with a centering intention, sink into their bed at night to let go into sleep, as well as a lying down Circle of Breath practice to unwind deeper tensions that can be truly rejuvenating and inspire inner creativity and expand state of awareness.
Townsend said, "As wellness and spa professionals, there are many different conditions that can get in the way of being present and giving optimal service to others: coming into a session with a client, feeling stressed and frazzled in their own lives, feeling fatigued and tired, getting stuck in a worried busy mind that distracts from being able to listen to what the client is needing. All of these ways of feeling are connected to certain ways of breathing."
The Breathwork Companion was released on January 17 and is available anywhere that books are sold.
