Breathwork? Breathing Retraining? Are they the same?

I'm fairly confident that had someone told me, as recently as the previous decade, that they did breathwork, the conversation wouldn't have developed any further. I hadn't come across the expression ‘breathing retraining’, but since it wasn't something I needed, it wouldn't have grabbed my attention, either. And I wouldn't have bothered to consider whether or not breathwork and breathing retraining were the same thing. 

Did I say I didn't need it? I was wrong. And it took James Nestor's book, Breath, to reveal that to me. In fact I was so wrong that the revelation and my personal response to addressing it led to me training as a breathing instructor. Now it's my turn to sometimes be on the receiving end of a slight glazing of the eyes although the more common response is rather more encouraging. 

That ‘more common response’ is recognition of the importance of breathing and not just for keeping us alive. More and more people have not only heard of breathwork, they've encountered it in some way, often via yoga or pilates. References to exercises such as box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing are often made, not to mention Wim Hof breathing or holotropic breathing. And the knowledge that slowing breathing to better cope with a stressful situation or to fall asleep more easily is also gathering pace in the mainstream consciousness. 

All of the above can definitely be considered to be breathwork and we use some of them ourselves as well as with people who come to us for training. And right there is the part that seems to be least well understood. Training. All of the breathwork references above work on an interventional basis, breathing tools to employ when wanted or needed. Breathing retraining, for the many who could benefit from it, can literally reduce the need for these and other types of interventions by returning breathing patterns to more natural ones and thus making life easier than it used to be when breathing wasn't quite optimal. I know, ‘making life easier’ is a bold claim, but it's not unjustified. Let me explain. 

You've almost certainly noticed that our ancient biology is a poor fit for the kind of world we've created: the fast pace of life (why wouldn't it be? We've become convinced that unlimited economic growth is a good and necessary thing), compromised food, less sleep, less movement, more contaminants. All of these have had an effect on our breathing such that many of us now breathe too fast for our metabolic needs. And it matters, even if it's just a little too fast. In fact it can keep us in a fairly permanent state of high alert and affect our sleep quality. 

Breathing retraining addresses this as well as any of the other characteristics that are indicative of sub-optimal breathing, eg breathing through an open mouth, breathing shallowly into the upper chest and thus overworking secondary breathing muscles, often leading to pain in the upper body. To address just these (there are other characteristics of dysfunctional breathing) requires work on both the biochemical and biomechanical aspects of breathing. 

When breathing is returned to its natural state, it's not just breathing that's easier, oxygenation of the body is better, positively affecting all the tissues, muscles and organs, including the brain! Sleep duration and quality typically improve and allow any other relevant interventions (the sleep hygiene list for starters) to be more effective in the absence of moment by moment disruptive over-breathing. Any persistent anxiety is quite simply reduced as your brain stops receiving the message that the body's under threat when it isn't. Rebalancing a dysregulated nervous system is more likely if breathing allows the body to spend more time in parasympathetic drive aka rest, digest and repair mode, rather than constantly on low-level alert.

Breathwork interventions will do none of the above because any underlying unsupportive breathing patterns remain and will thus continue as before once the chosen breathwork practice has finished and the normal day-to-day activities have resumed. It's why I don't say I do breathwork. Breathwork as I've referred to it here, whilst potentially very helpful for those with good, functional breathing, is for the rest of us, little more than a repeatedly needed sticking plaster at best, and potentially harmful at the other end of the spectrum, depending on the intervention chosen.

So in summary, my take on breathwork versus breathing retraining is as follows:

Breathwork ➡️ interventions for immediate and short-term effect.

Breathing retraining ➡️ a reset to re-establish health-and-resilience-supportive breathing when modern life has interfered with the natural breathing we were born with.

~ Annette Henry 

If you're unsure about whether or not breathing retraining is something you need, some of the questions on our Breathing Re-education page may help you to decide.

Do you need an instructor or can you retrain your own breathing? You may be able to do the latter. We've weighed up some of the considerations here.

And finally, you're welcome to get in touch with us henryandhenryeurope@gmail.com and you can always book a free exploratory 20 minute Zoom call with either of us. We'd be happy to listen to you and answer your questions.