Breathwork: And How Your Breath Is A Muscle

When you read the word breath, I bet you instantly notice how it flows in through your nose, or maybe even your mouth. You notice its speed, where it falls—that automatic body response to fill our bodies with oxygen.I believe most of us have been taught that we don’t need to think about our breathing, that it is automatic and there is no need to learn or experience it further. It’s a good thing it is an automatic response; I couldn’t imagine having to add that to my hustle and bustle, but I can bet, if I were to ask a group of random individuals what breath is, I would get something like, “Keeps us alive, I just do it automatically”. Yogis and breathwork practitioners are probably cringing at that—maybe even fainting from sheer indignation because they know better. Breath is more than automatic, and we do need to learn and understand it.

But did you know that your breath is trainable? Adaptable? I would go out and say your breath is actually a muscle.

And like any muscle, if you don’t use it intentionally, you lose access to its full power. It doesn’t go away, but it atrophies—and you can potentially harm it. When we work out and are strength training, building muscle, if we stop training it, it shrinks—atrophy, as they call it. Our breath, when fully accessed, taken care of, and strengthened—amazing things happen in our life.

Let’s start from the ground up, looking at our physical body and breath.

Your breath, as it enters the body, is governed by the diaphragm, which to me resembles a jellyfish—but in medical books, they will say, a dome-shaped muscle beneath your lungs. When your lungs expand, the diaphragm contracts. When the lungs release, the diaphragm relaxes.

Much like watching a jellyfish move through water.

This sounds simple, but it’s actually not, because most of us walk around functionally under-breathing. Meaning: more shallow chest breathing, irregular rhythms, unconscious breath holding, and not truly activating diaphragmatic breathing.

If we were taught and understood how important the diaphragm is and its function, I am willing to bet we would all be more consciously trying to breathe better.

But because we are all under-functioning breathers, our systems do hang out at a higher level of stress.

I will note that we as humans are very adaptable, so though we are not breathing to the best of our capabilities, we are still living our lives. But I just think about—if we were fully actualizing our breath—how much less stress would be on the body and soul (we will get to soul later), and how much better a world we would be.

Here are some really awesome facts about diaphragmatic breath.

When we take deeper breaths, activating our diaphragm, we are also activating the vagus nerve. This nerve stimulates anti-stress (or anti-cortisol), promoting health and healing in the body.

Just by deepening the breath, you are nurturing your body.

What is also important to realize about our breathing is how tied into the nervous system it is. When we slow down, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to calm, regulate, and bring safety back in. While fast, shallow breath activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is tied to our fight-or-flight system.

Both have purpose—but if we are constantly only in one or the other, it can cause harm.

Now, I could spend this entire blog just in this area of breath and body, but I want to make sure I am touching on all areas and leaving you with questions—and a hunger to go and learn more about your own breathing and incorporate breathwork into your practice and daily life.

When we bring the breath to the emotional and somatic body, we see breath as a bridge, or vessel, that brings us into our subtle bodies—especially our emotional body.

When the breath enters the body and moves oxygen, it is also moving experience. When I say experience, I am referring to the emotional experience we have.

Let’s take a moment to notice:

If you are anxious or worried about something, notice how a deep breath comes in and creates a little more space for you to hold that concern.

If you are feeling weighted down by something, and you start taking shorter breaths, you might notice a little energy flowing into that heaviness—creating some buoyancy. When you then take a nice deep breath, that heaviness is much easier to hold.

So, you see, the breath moves experience and creates space for us to experience our emotions fully, bridging body, emotion, and memory together.

It is because of this that I always bring awareness to breath in the work I do as a trauma specialist.

Now, as I mentioned before, breathwork is not new. It is a very ancient practice and tradition.

We know breath by other names such as Prana, Qi, and Spirit. Breath is life force, moving through every layer of our being—physical, energetic, emotional, and intuitive.

This is why when we become intentional with our breathing, we have access to and influence over our energy, awareness, and consciousness.

When you become aware of your breath, you are literally working with life itself as it moves through you—like the river and ocean of life.

And that—oh, that one gets me too.

Breath and water—they are the same language.

Breath behaves just like water.

When you go to the ocean and watch it, you are watching the physical representation of your breath.

Breath can be still, turbulent, flowing, restricted, deep, shallow—and just like water, breath takes the shape of the container it is in.

If your body is tense, your breath constricts.If your mind is racing, your breath becomes erratic.If your system feels safe, your breath becomes rhythmic and flowing.

Let’s go even deeper…

Water holds memory—the memory of the beginning—and I believe so does your breath.

Your breathing patterns are shaped by your experiences, your environments, your stress, and your traumas.

So, when you begin to work with your breath more intentionally, you are actively reshaping the current of your internal world—how you hold those memories and patterns.

You are allowing nurture and a new form of healing in.

That is so powerful. You are so powerful.

(Side note and random thought as I am writing this blog: power and powerful are different, at least in this context of how I am using it—but we’ll get into that another time… cliffhanger.)

When we are doing therapy work, there comes a point where we finally listen to the breath.

Because we have learned how the breath communicates. Let me explain.

In sessions—whether I’m using hypnosis, EMDR, Brainspotting, or other somatic approaches—one of the first things I attune to is:

How is the breath behaving?

I look at the pace, whether it stays in the chest or moves into the belly, if there are hesitations, if it is deep or shallow, if there is a refusal to go deeper.

The breath communicates some very interesting things—not just to the individual, but to the observer as well.

In hypnosis, we may begin by guiding the breath.

I incorporate very deep breathwork in my hypnosis practice. We spend at least ten minutes before we even begin the induction, because I want my clients to fully connect to their breath so they can drop deeper into trance.

Because the breath knows the way.

When working with modalities like EMDR or Brainspotting, breath becomes one of the indicators of what is happening internally:

• Shallow breath → activation• Held breath → protection• Deepening breath → integration

Sometimes a client has little to no words, sometimes they have no words at all—and that is perfectly fine.

They are still processing, allowing things to release from the body, and the breath is the vessel moving that release.

I notice how their breathing shifts in these exercises.

It’s truly transformational.

If you have made it this far, thank you. Below here is an informative and instructional breathing exercise you can do literally right now if you so choose.

Exercising the Breath

If breath is a muscle, it needs:

• awareness• repetition• gentleness• consistency

Start simply:

Inhale through the nose for a count of 3 - Hold for a count of 3 - Exhale through the nose for a count of 3

Let it be imperfect.Let it be human.

Because the goal is not to control your breath—it is to build a relationship with it.

This particular breathing exercise comes from the book Psychic Yoga that I reviewed in my February newsletter.

In yogic practice, individuals can work up to inhaling for 20, holding for 20, and exhaling for 20—but this is advanced breathwork, and I don’t recommend starting there.

You want to treat your breath like the muscle it is—working at its edges as it grows and strengthens.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0eacf7_3161efa6909d40a08033d07dee5ae5c6/144p/mp4/file.mp4

A short breathing exercise with me, Your LCMHC Mystic. I apologize for the sound quality.

Your breath is fascinating because it is of your body—but also outside of it.

It is automatic, and also within your influence.

Every single day, we have access to how we utilize our breathing.

And when we work with it, we gain access to other internal systems:

• we regulate our nervous system• we process emotions• we shift energy• we reconnect with ourselves

And we do this without forcing anything.

We simply return to something that has always been there—our breath.

So, I hope this sparks curiosity to go deeper into the power of your breath.

Allow breath to lead you—so you may lead yourself even better.

Because…

You are everything and nothing less.