Why Are Breathing Techniques Helpful for You and Your Sanity? The Reasons Why Breathwork for Anxiety and Breathwork for Sleep Really Work
While the idea of “breathwork” may feel unfamiliar or even odd, the reality is that anyone who has ever taken a deep breath in order to calm themselves down, or noticed how their breath shifts when they’re excited or scared, is familiar with at least the concept of breathwork. By becoming aware of how just one breath can shift everything, you’ve entered into a relationship with your breath.
The idea of breathwork, then, is not just being aware of this relationship; it’s about learning how to leverage your breathing patterns so that you can be in more control of your thoughts, emotions, and physical way of being.
Although numerous studies have demonstrated just how effective breathing exercises are, the best way to really grasp the potency of breathwork is to try it for yourself. Once you’ve had a conscious and embodied experience of breathing, it’s impossible to deny the interconnectedness of breath and literally everything else in your life.
What Is Breathwork? A Deeper Dive Into Breathing Practices
There are countless types of breathing exercises and approaches to breathwork, but at the heart of all of them is the idea of cultivating an awareness of your breath so that you can manipulate it in order to achieve a certain desired effect. And, of course, while breathwork might seem new and trendy in some circles, a quick dive into the origins of breathing exercises demonstrates that these kinds of techniques, as well as the understanding of why they’re important, have been around for centuries. Touted for its ability to heal in some cultures, breathwork has maintained a remarkably solid reputation when it comes to mental and emotional health.
So, yes, your sanity can be maintained through an awareness of your breath – how it works and how to control it.
Breathwork is often lumped together with meditation, but the two can be notably different. The thread that ties the two together, however, is mindfulness. Being present and aware, conscious of subtleties that often go unnoticed, is something that both meditation and breathwork share. The biggest difference is that, in general, meditation asks you to “do nothing” while breathwork asks you to become an active participant.
By engaging with the breath through certain techniques and exercises, you tap into the power of the Autonomic Nervous System, or ANS. Oftentimes people think that the “A” in ANS stands for “automatic,” which makes sense since this part of the nervous system is responsible for automating certain functions of the body – like breathing. Because the ANS works on its own to make sure that you’re not always needing to think about every single inhale and exhale, it runs the risk of responding incorrectly to a certain stimulus (and there are lots of them in our tech-driven world today.)
When your body’s ANS engages the sympathetic nervous system, your breathing becomes more rapid and your heart rate increases. This is great when you need to respond physically to some sort of threat because it gives your body the extra resources to do so. Unfortunately, a lot of the stimulus you experience in the modern world doesn’t really need a physical response; it’s a different kind of stress.
And because our sympathetic nervous system stays engaged more than necessary, it often gets stuck, unable to downshift into another gear. This other gear, the parasympathetic nervous system, is what brings you and your body into a rest and relaxation mode – but it’s more elusive than ever thanks to the overwhelming amount of stressors we expose ourselves to each day (and often voluntarily.)
Because of this, an argument can be made as to why breathwork is more important than ever. We need a way to help override our sympathetic nervous system so that we can access the restorative benefits of the parasympathetic nervous system.
While your nervous system has the ability to dictate how you breathe, the inverse is also true: how you breathe dictates how your body responds.
Exploring the Many Benefits of Breathwork: Do Breathing Techniques for Anxiety and Sleep Really Work?
Breathing exercises have been known to have a positive impact on people for centuries and have been prescribed for a variety of reasons, ranging from aiding the immune system to becoming a more compassionate and kind person. Today, more and more people are turning to breathwork out of necessity: 50% of the American population experience symptoms of insomnia and nearly 7 million American adults (3% of the population) suffer from chronic anxiety.
Interested in learning what a breathwork session can gain them, people are more open-minded about trying a breathing technique to get the help they need than ever before.
While the benefits of breathwork are personal, every individual responds differently to certain techniques, some of the more common and proven benefits include:
Stress reduction. Many people try to “work” their way out of stress, performing all sorts of mental gymnastics, including just working until exhaustion. This approach, however, just piles on more stress that eventually has to be dealt with. Breathwork, on the other hand, actually helps to reduce stress because it overrides the nervous system. When you use a breathing technique to relieve stress, your brain actually begins to function better thanks to the pressure that’s released from your brain’s prefrontal cortex.
Immunity. Your immune system benefits when you begin to practice breathwork because it rewires your nervous system so that you can more easily tap into your parasympathetic nervous system, which is where rest and repair happens for your body. Additionally, practicing certain breathing techniques regularly makes you a more efficient and powerful breather – that means you can take in more oxygen through an increased lung capacity. This extra (fresh) oxygen fuels your immune system and can help keep you healthy.
Compassion. At first it might seem far-fetched, but breathwork really can make people more compassionate. Practicing breathing exercises is a form of powerful self-care. And when you feel confident and capable of fully embracing who you are, it’s natural to be able to empathize and care for others. The old saying “hurt people hurt people” really is true. If you want to start feeling more compassionate towards others, then you have to show compassion to yourself first – and breathwork is a great place to do just that.
Emotional management. When you’re in a stressed state, it’s difficult to command your emotions. That’s why so many people feel like their emotions are in control of their day-to-day existence. The more you learn to be aware of your breath, the more you realize that you can shift your states – emotions don’t have to take the wheel. Practicing breathing techniques give you the ability to become more self-aware and that leads to feeling more embodied. Rather than feeling like you’re constantly being pulled up, down, and side to side, you’re grounded, rooted so that life feels more steady and manageable.
Pain management. When you’re in pain, or believe you’ll experience pain, you have a physical response: your body becomes rigid and tense. Pain of all types, including emotional, gets stored in the body when this physical response occurs. In order to access these stored responses in the body, you need to learn how to speak your body’s language. That language is breath. Through breathwork, you can relieve both immediate pain, as well as stored pain that you might not even be aware of. When this pain gets accessed and released, the blocks in your body are freed so that it can more optimally function.
But what about helping you sleep? What about your anxiety?
One of the reasons why sleep and anxiety are becoming so prevalent in society is because they’re not easy fixes. There are so many variables at play that it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where the problems stem from. The beauty of breathwork, then, is that it’s capable of doing so much at once – and taking care of problems without you ever needing to be aware of them.
Is it possible that pain, stress, or your health is making it difficult to sleep?
Could your relationships with people be causing some of your anxiety?
Do your emotions dictate how you feel at the beginning and end of each day?
That’s why breathwork is so powerful – it efficiently addresses all of these contributing factors of insomnia and anxiety.
In order to get the most out of breathing exercises, and to ensure that you’re using practices appropriate for the issues you are experiencing, it’s good to have a trusted guide who can knowledgeably take you through the different techniques. More than having someone who can show you the “right” way to do a breathwork session, you want to find a guide or a coach who understands the practices personally so that they can help you prepare for the experience and hold space for you once a session is complete.
Of course, not all breathing techniques are complicated or difficult to understand. In fact, most of them are straightforward and easy to memorize and repeat. The problem most people have when attempting to do a breathing exercise without the support of a guide or coach is that they overthink. They let their brains get in the way of the experience and all too often give up after one half-hearted attempt.
Leveraging Guided Breathwork Sessions for Amplified Results
The beauty of guided breathwork sessions is that you really can start to relax into the practice. When a trusted coach walks you through the experience, there’s nothing else for you to do. Because relaxation is easier to find, these guided breathwork sessions are a great way to expedite the process of shifting into your parasympathetic nervous system, which means you get to take a shortcut to all of the benefits.
More than just resting by lying on the sofa or lounging on the couch with nothing to do, guided breathwork sessions give you an opportunity to become an active participant in relaxation, which might seem counterintuitive. But because your sympathetic nervous system is typically in overdrive, it takes active participation in order to override that system so that you can truly rest.
Once you remember what it feels like to be in your parasympathetic nervous system, you’ll realize just how different everything in your life becomes. This true rest and relaxation state not only calms your mind, but it reminds you of your true nature – who you really are. It’s in this state that you’re able to let your body do the work it needs to do. So, when it comes time to sleep, your sleep drive wins and you happily doze off, rather than your stress and anxiety pumping the brakes and keeping you constantly awake.
According to researchers who have studied the impact of breathwork on sleep and anxiety, the most important aspect of receiving the benefits is “not getting hung up on details.” The ability to just let go and to be present in a breathwork session really is the key to finding a breathing practice that works for you.
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