Breathing Works

• Do you wake up tired after what you thought was a good nights’ sleep?
• Have you been told that you snore?
• Do you feel stressed and anxious for no good reason?
• Do you struggle to concentrate?
• Are you breathless at rest, or do you get puffed out easily?
• Are you are chronically congested or wheezy?

If you answered yes to one or more of these, then changing the way you breathe can help!

Breathing is absolutely fundamental to life.

Because we breathe automatically, we assume that our body naturally knows the best, most efficient way to do it, but the way we breathe – through your nose or mouth? Deep or shallow? Fast or slow? –  is actually determined in a large part by the state of our nervous system. When we experience physical or neurological (emotional/mental) stress, our breathing patterns change in response. In the short term, this is normal and helpful, but if we remain in a state of stress over time, disordered and dysfunctional breathing patterns become entrenched as habit.  Unfortunately, these dysfunctional breathing patterns then cause an increase in the neurological experience of stress, which then feeds back into even more dysfunctional breathing patterns!

There is an optimal way to breathe. Taking conscious control of our breath can have a significant impact on our energy levels, stress levels, immune functioning, cognitive functioning, athletic performance, sleep quality and even our weight!

Harnessing the power of this freely available resource – your breath – could be the single most impactful factor in your health and wellbeing journey.