Breathwork as a Whole-Body Healer
Breathwork is a collection of practices, from the ancient to the reinvented, that control the breath pattern for a spiralic set of health benefits including a deeper connection to the body.
Our breath pattern is tasked with a lot: it brings oxygen to all our cells, and reduces our blood pressure, keeping us alive in the most fundamental way. And yet, it is so common to subconsciously restrict our breathing most hours of the day.
Subtle stressors throughout our day put our bodies in the well-known sympathetic nervous state:
Our blood vessels constrict, our pulse goes up, and, namely, our breath tends to quicken. This lessens the amount of oxygen we take in, and our circulation cannot get everywhere it is required.
The central goal of breathwork is to unwind this intelligent, but not always needed, physiologic stress response. While many of us are overworked and overburdened, breathwork has benefits for low-level stressors like frequent scrolling, which have been shown to increase the propensity for sympathetic nervous states. Breathwork is an excellent way to follow up on your bodywork appointments; your practitioner may even have recommended it to you personally.
There is a multitude of practices out there: we recommend finding one that feels the most authentic and repeatable to you.
If you want an invigorating morning practice, try Kundalini breathing, or the Breath of Fire, wherein you relax your abdominals on the inhale, and engage them on the exhale for maximum respiratory flexibility. If you prefer something more subtle that you can practice throughout your work day, try a count-based practice, like the popular 4-7-8 method: breathe in 4 beats, hold for up to 7 beats, and exhale 8 whole beats.
Breathwork is easy to sneakily incorporate into your daily routine. It requires no tools besides a willingness to pause your thinking, even briefly.
There are loads of psychological and meditative benefits that those with a breathwork practice report, such as greater focus, emotional regulation, and reduced reactivity. We hope breathwork meets you with ease during this time of year when many push for grind-centered changes to daily life.
House Nine Wellness
1413 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
Email: hello@housenine.com
Phone: (503) 841-6460