Breathwork
Breathwork refers to breathing with conscious awareness and intention, using breathing exercises to change our breathing pattern. There are various breathing techniques which have been found to improve sleep quality, provide relief from physical pain, enhance cognitive function, increase emotional atonement and our capacity to connect to our thoughts and feelings.
Our autonomic nervous system is responsible for controlling all the bodily functions that happen without our conscious awareness, such as our digestion, heart rate and breath. When the body perceives a threat, the nervous system shifts state into survival mode to guard itself. This sympathetic nervous system activation is often known as flight or fight. Is this state, the body prioritises its resources for survival and, amongst other physical changes, our breathing may become rapid and shallow.
Living in a states or fear, stress or trauma long term can have a detrimental effect on our health and our capacity for joy creativity, focus and connection can be reduced, as these functions require the thriving state of safety. For centuries meditators, monks and shamans have sought ways to control the body's involuntary processes and many ancient practices, such as yoga, contain practices designed to manipulate autonomic functions. Scientific evidence has grown in recently years, showing breathing practices to be one way that we can control and alter our autonomic state. Our breath is our key to changing our emotional state.
In traditional talking therapies, the focus is on a top-down approach to trauma, understanding our experiences from a cognitive perspective. What happens to us is not only stored in the brain, but also in the body. Somatic, body orientated modalities, such as breathwork, consider the impact of trauma on the body and nervous system and work to increase our awareness of our body, using a bottom-up approach.
Increased awareness of our body and its sensations, allows us to self-regulate and better manage overwhelming thoughts and emotions. To heal trauma, it is important to meet and process our unresolved emotions. There is a growing body of research that suggests a combined approach is needed in effective trauma recovery and that somatic approaches can be helpful when dealing with anxiety, depression, addiction, grief, stress and trauma.