Breath Work

Breath work is more than an exercise of breathing correctly or with intent. Breathing techniques are tools for major transformation and healing. Breath work encompasses a broad range of whole-being therapeutic practices and exercises used to relieve mental, physical, and/or emotional tension.

Week One-Breath Assessment

This is an 8 minute assessment to notice how you are breathing and what your breath can teach you about how your chakras are doing.

How you do one thing is how you do everything and this definitely applies to breathing.

Take a moment to notice, before you start the exercise, how you naturally breathe...do you take in tiny sips of air (breath, life, expansion)?

As you exhale, are you free with the release and surrender? Are you willing to let go and trust that the next best thing (more breath) is coming? Or do you hold on and never truly let go and release?

What does you breath have to teach you?

Week Two - Root Chakra Reset

7:16 min Breath work and this week’s challenge

This week’s challenge will give us a context for stress and for nervous system regulation. Our nervous system gets so sensitive that we react to everything as if it is a life or death situation and it’s just not. This challenge will help give context for when the fight or flight response is appropriate. And the breath will guide you through it.

Week Three - Sacral: Uijaya (Ocean) Breathing

Uijaya Breathing (ocean breathing)-take 3-5 minutes to breathe in through your nose, focusing on drawing the breath to the back of the throat, making the noise of a wave. Draw the breath all the way down the spine into the pelvic area and feel into your genitals, perineum and pelvic bowl. Exhale, again focusing on making the sound of a wave through back of your throat and feel the release and surrender as your body softens and focus on the sensations in your pelvic area.

Uijaya breathing is powerful because it focuses the breath on supporting the vagus nerve.

This is an extremely powerful breathing technique for taking your body from fight or flight back to rest and digest and when you focus on the genitals and pelvic area, especially on the exhale (surrender) it can create a lot of sensations, similar to what you experience in turn on and orgasm.

We also choose this breath work because the element of sacral chakra is water and this is a way of feeling the flow in our bodies.

The immediate benefits of this breath should be apparent after your very first breath.

To learn more, click here.

Week Four - Solar Plexus -Diaphragmatic Breathing

The diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs and located underneath your solar plexus, plays an important role in breathing. When you inhale, your diaphragm contracts and moves downward. This creates more space in your chest cavity, allowing the lungs to expand. When you exhale, the opposite happens — your diaphragm relaxes and moves upward in the chest cavity.

All of us are born with the knowledge of how to fully engage the diaphragm to take deep, refreshing breaths. As we get older, however, we get out of the habit. Everything from the stresses of everyday life to the practice of "sucking in" the stomach for a trimmer waistline encourages us to gradually shift to shallower, less satisfying "chest breathing."

Relearning how to breathe from the diaphragm is beneficial for everyone. Diaphragmatic breathing (also called "abdominal breathing" or "belly breathing") encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, this type of breathing slows the heartbeat and can lower or stabilize blood pressure.

Here's how to do it:

Lie on your back on a flat surface (or in bed) with your knees bent. You can use a pillow under your head and your knees for support, if that's more comfortable.
Place one hand on your upper chest and the other on your belly, just below your rib cage.
Breathe in slowly through your nose, letting the air in deeply, towards your lower belly. The hand on your chest should remain still, while the one on your belly should rise.
Tighten your abdominal muscles and let them fall inward as you exhale through pursed lips. The hand on your belly should move down to its original position.

You can also practice this sitting in a chair, with your knees bent and your shoulders, head, and neck relaxed. Practice for five to 10 minutes, several times a day if possible.
Notice the sensations in your body as your belly stretches, lengthens and unwinds. You may feel vulnerable and open. See if you can get comfortable taking up all this space.

Week Six - Breath Work through Chanting

Chanting is an amazing way to clear the chakras…There are 7 seed sounds:

Root: LAM

Sacral: VAM

Solar Plexus: RAM

Heart: YAM (YUM)

Throat: HAM (HUM)

Third Eye: OHM

Crown: AH

Take a deep breath, filling up your lungs and then follow the recording to chant the seed sound for each chakra. You can play with the vowel sounds (LAM, LOM, LUM, LIM, LEM, etc…), but the idea is to really feel the vibration in each chakra and each specific part of the body. You will chant for two minutes for each chakra. This feels absolutely incredible.

If you would like the full recording or you prefer to use spotify, here’s the playlist.

Week Seven - Awaken the Pineal Gland/3rd Eye

Dr. Joe Dispenza has cultivated this beautiful pineal gland activating breath work practice.

You draw energy from the lower chakras, by bringing breath in through the sitz bones (root) and then forming an energetic/muscular lock after drawing up each breath.

So, draw breath up into your sitz bones into your pelvis and then squeeze your pelvic floor muscles as if doing a kegel or stopping your pee, keep the “lock” and bring breath up into your womb space.

Continue to inhale, drawing breath into your sacral chakra & contract your lower abdominals and create another lock by pulling your belly button back towards your spine.

Breathe up into your solar plexus and then lock by pulling your ribs towards each other.

Continue to draw the breath up into the heart and throat and then tilt your chin forward as you draw the breath into the space at the roof of your mouth, between your ears.

Keep the chin dropping forward and all of the other locks in place as you “pump” the breath deeper into your brain…you can do this by drawing short breaths in through your nose up to 10 times and then gently relax everything and release the breath slowly.

Repeat 3-10 times, as you start this practice and you will feel your body relax completely on the exhalation and notice the pulsing as the blood rises and pulses in your brain.

You can play and follow this recording and check out Dr. Dispenza’s video. The idea is to be able to push enough spinal fluid into the crystals surrounding the pineal gland that you can actually stimulate your brain to convert melatonin into DMT…When you do this breath long enough, you will feel as if the walls and structures are pulsating around you and/or go into meditation, as your pineal gland is activated.

Week Eight - Nadi Shodhana

Tips: I like to help to clear any blockages by inhaling Breathe blend before I get started (if you don’t have Breathe, you may purchase it here.)

I find it more comfortabe to inhale more slowly and count to 8-10, rather than 4. Just try to match your inhale length to the exhale length….if you inhale for 8 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds.

You will inhale through the same nostril you exhale through, then switch to inhale. So, to start, inhale through the left, then exhale through the right, inhale through the right, exhale through the left, inhale through the left, switch to the right to exhale…and repeat….