Maybe you were nervous, agitated, or anxious; maybe you were crying or upset. Either way, at some point in your life, someone has told you to “just breathe.”
It may seem obvious, but it helps. Breathing consciously has been shown to have profound benefits for your physical and mental health. In addition to regulating the nervous system and reducing stress, breathing mindfully can improve mental focus, promote self-esteem, enhance performance, and increase creativity.
Makes sense, then, that engaging in a focused practice centered on mindful breathing—also known as breathwork—would also be extremely beneficial. “Breathwork takes you from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind,” explains Marta Plannells, cofounder of The Breath Act, an Ibiza-based healing center that combines conscious breathing, neuroscience, and sound to help improve and optimize physical, mental, and emotional well-being. “Breathwork is specifically created to regulate our nervous system and release emotions trapped in our body—everything that we store for years and years that ends up unbalancing us emotionally,” Plannells says.
The benefits of breathwork
“Through controlled breathing, we learn to use our body as an instrument,” Plannells’ co-founder, Juan D’Angelo explains. “We learn to self-soothe, regulate our nervous system, and even minimize our need for external sources to solve our problems. Breathing not only helps us to release stress or negative emotions, but also allows us to quiet mental chatter.”
The transformative benefits of breathwork are varied and well-documented, but—as with many so-called alternative therapies—research is limited. However, the history of using the breath to calm the parasympathetic nervous system, slow the heart rate, regulate digestion, and achieve a balanced state is nearly as old as humanity itself. “These techniques have emerged worldwide with complex historical roots from various traditions such as yoga (i.e., alternate nostril breathing) and Tibetan Buddhism (i.e., vase breathing) along with psychedelic communities (i.e., conscious connected breathing) and scientific/medical researchers and practitioners (i.e., coherent/resonant frequency breathing),” one current meta-analyst states.
Breathing and neuroscience
Plannells and D’Angelo are particularly interested in what new scientific research could uncover—especially since the duo originally discovered the transformative powers of breathwork via Dr. Joe Dispenza, whose work involves a combination of breathing, meditation, music, and neuroscience.
“Conscious breathing is connected to a physiological process which momentarily lowers activity in the neocortex, home of the analytical mind,” Plannells explains. “Through breathwork, we manage to quiet the mental noise. This gives us access to our limbic brain; our subconscious. That’s our true operating system.”
