Change Your Life With Breathwork

Today at a glance:

• Question: Redefining Breathwork in 2023

• Quote: Marcus Aurelius

• Resource: Wim Hof Breath Practice

5 min read.

Question:

Did you know that the quality of our breath dictates the quality of our life?

I have had an advanced daily breathwork practice for a long time now and I can say first hand that it has changed my life. I do 21 minutes minimum every single day.

By breathwork practice, I’m referring to a variety of breathing exercises where I take conscious control over my breathing pattern to influence a particular mental, physical, or emotional state.

In case you were wondering how powerful your breath is, you can actually put yourself into an altered state of consciousness without the use of psychedelics. Isn’t that insane?

Your breath is everything.

I have reduced stress, increased my energy, strengthened my diaphragm, expanded my rib cage, released store tension in my body, processed grief, increased flexibility, increased mental resilience, strengthened my nervous system capacity, and so forth.

All through a variety of different breathing patterns combined with movement.

If we aren’t breathing… we are dying. If breathing is 100% necessary to live, don’t you think it’s something worth diving a little deeper into?

In todays letter I hope to provide you with a solid foundation into the importance of this practice as well as provide some entry level resources to get you started.

To put it lightly, the vast majority of the population are not breathing correctly on a daily basis. Most people walk around everyday chronically hyperventilating.

When was the last time you were regularly breathing slowly, in and out of the nose, deep into your low belly and filling up your entire abdomen?

My guess is when you were a baby.

The best way to maintain a state of calm is by focusing on deep slow intentional breathing. This is very hard to do if you are not in the practice of it.

This is where a daily breathwork practice comes in.

I do not recommend you dive straight into advanced breathing exercises such as Wim Hof, Breath Of Fire, Holotropic breathing, etc, because these practices can be very intense and cause you to become light headed or pass out.

Instead I would recommend starting with 5-10 minutes each day where you sit down and focus on breathing through your nose as low into your body as possible. The goal here is to slow down the breath and fill as much of your body as possible.

This will feel quite challenging if you are used to shallow breathing but the beautiful thing about this practice is that it compounds over time.

You will not notice a difference in a day. It is like going to the gym in that you are training your body over time to breathe in a way that is healthy for your nervous system.

Once you feel like you have more control of the depth of your breath, I would recommend you check out the beginner version of the Wim Hof practice below.

Disclaimer: Please consult a licensed physician before attempting a breathwork practice.

Quote: “You consist of body, breath (or life), and mind. Body and breath are yours to care for, while the mind is the part that does the caring.” Marcus Aurelius

Resource: Wim Hof Breathing (Beginner Video)

If you are looking for more resources on how to better manage your mental and emotional health, we have a variety of available resources when you sign up for a free Nurtr Wellness membership. Check it out here.