What Is Breathwork: 3 Categories of Conscious Breathing

A lot of people ask me what “Breathwork” is and what style of breathing they should be doing as a home practice. There are many ways I could answer this, but I thought I would take this opportunity to share a bit more about the categories of “Breathwork” and how we can use our breath on a regular basis to feel better in our lives.

The term "Breathwork" has a wide range of definitions but encapsulates three primary categories explained here:

1) MINDFUL BREATHING

Mindful breathing has a host of benefits, including helping to bring about greater awareness of our bodies and away from our over-active thinking mind. Mindful breathing helps to promote attunement with the present moment, and gives us access to a “felt sense” of our inner life.

Breath awareness or mindful breathing can be defined as simply placing your attention on your breath. The term “mindfulness” means to observe without a judgement- so when we mindfully breathe, we are inviting ourselves to becoming AWARE of our breath without needing to change it.

The invitation in any mindful breathing practices is to be curious and open and to build greater present moment awareness by being more aware of our breathing.

Some questions you can ask yourself as you’re breathing mindfully are-

How am I breathing right now?

What part of my body moves as I breathe?

Whre does my breath originate from?

Where does it go?

Is my breath fluid, jagged, open, closed, heavy, or light?

Just simply be with the observations and the “felt sense” of your own breathing and bring your non-judgemental awareness to the moment. It is amazing how this simple practice of relationality with our own breath can help us learn so much about ourselves!

In fact, often- how we BREATHE is how we live. So- when we mindfully become aware of our breathing, this naturally helps us to know where and what we need in the moment. THIS is the magic, and the basis for ALL Breathwork practices.

Try this short Audio Meditation for Balanced Power which offers a short guided mindful breath practice.

2) CONSCIOUS BREATH PRACTICES

Additional ways to work with the breath is through conscious breath practices you can do at home. There are many ways we can alter our breathing for a desired effect including: consciousness expansion, nervous system state regulation, energy enhancement, and so much more.

In fact, when I recently guided a 30-Day Breathwork Challenge, I led 30 different practices (one for each day)—but I could have kept going! There are so many ways to work with our breath.

Some of these conscious breath practices include breathing in and out through the nose or mouth, using breath retention or breath counting, alternating nostril breathing, intentional reverse breathing and many more.

If you’re curious about exploring conscious breath practices at home- try one of these guided breath practices on my YouTube Channel here.

We all have the capacity and the opportunity to use our breath on purpose to change how we feel in the moment. This includes helping to calm ourselves to promote sleep, or access a fresh energy boost for greater vitality. A simple 3-5 minute practice daily can have lasting benefits to our health and wellness.

Learning what is an optimal open, healthy breath is an essential part of this practice as well. We dive into this in Therapeutic Breathwork Sessions- a personalized approach to integrative healing- in addition to finding what home practice is right for you.

But in general, to determine what conscious breath practices work best for you in the moment- begin with-

How are you feeling in the moment?

What do you want to feel?

How are you breathing right now?

Begin with mindful breath awareness- and then go from there.

3) THERAPEUTIC BREATHWORK SESSIONS USING CONSCIOUS CONNECTED BREATHWORK

Therapeutic Breathwork Sessions can help to shift the underlying patterns associated with unhealthy breathing and holding patterns.

Breathwork Sessions (whether in Individual or Group Offerings) offer an integrative approach to therapeutic healing. A guided breath journey using conscious, connected/circular breathing in a supportive atmosphere, this style of conscious breathing is not often one we do on our own until we’ve had a number of facilitated sessions (and certainly not one that we do while operating heavy machinery ;)).

This is, in part, because it is a therapeutic tool somewhat similar to hypnotherapy or shamanic journeying and does alter consciousness levels but it also considered a relational healing therapy and when guided by a skilled facilitator can have lasting benefits.

During guided Therapeutic Breathwork Sessions, we slightly alter our nervous system (slight elevation of sympathetic) and consciousness-state (slightly lucid dream) which helps to bring about a “state” change on purpose. This can help us to access deeper parts of our memory, stored emotions or even process non-verbally early trauma memories somatically all through our own deep breathing.

The benefits of somatic-based therapies like Breathwork are written about extensively in the works of Bessel Van Der Kolk, Your Body Keeps the Score and Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger.

How does the healing happen with our own breathing? Many reasons. But some of the more simple reasons are- we are learning to breathe through, with, and alongside of ourselves and to let go.

Conscious, connected breathing can be cathartic and connecting. We can also access our power and vitality as well as deep serenity and bliss. There are a multitude of ways a Breathwork Session can support our lives. And while every Breathwork Session is different, all of Spiraldance Breathwork Sessions are personalized for what the client/student is ready for.

This work can be deeply healing (and what got me personally on the path 30 years ago after experiencing my first Breathwork Session in 1994!) and is also best experienced for yourself.

Individual Breathwork Sessions last about 90-120 minutes and include an intuitive coaching portion, personalized mindful breath awareness and conscious breathing exercises followed by a 45-60 minute guided Breathwork Session using conscious, connected Breathwork- and most sessions include hands-on support and a soulful musical soundtrack.

Group Breathwork Sessions can also have a profound positive effect on our lives as we learn to stay open to ourselves and our vulnerability in community when we breathe together in a facilitated session.

Whether done in guided 1-1 Sessions or in Groups, Therapeutic Breathwork is considered an alternative approach to integrative healing and can be a wonderful compliment to traditional talk therapy. Although many clients find it a nice change after doing a lot of talk therapy- because it really is therapy for the “whole body system”.

The Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (GPBA) is the oversight committee for this professional therapeutic field and requires any Breathwork Practitioner certifying training to be 2 years in length with over 400 hours of schooling (Australia requires over are 500 hours). This high-level training helps to ensure the credibility and skill of facilitators offering this deep work in therapeutic trauma-informed settings.

I’m happy to offer a certifying Breathwork Training School that is accredited with GPBA (1 of currently only 11 schools in the U.S.)!

At the base level- “Breathwork” is the power of connecting to one’s own vital energy consciously. And this is GOOD!!!

Whether through breath awareness, conscious breath practices, OR Therapeutic Breathwork Sessions- breathing is great for EVERYONE.

I would be honored and thrilled to share the breath with you. Are you ready to start your journey ahead? Join me!

Thanks for following and following your breath!!!