What is breathwork?

Breathwork is a simple and highly effective way to use our breath to change our basic stress responses and learn to come back to a more natural healthful way of breathing that has positive effects on body, mind and emotions. Breathwork is working consciously with our breath; humans have the unique ability to change our breath and in doing so we can positively affect our nervous systems, our biochemistry including hormones, moods, emotions and can calm the mind. It can help us let go of tension and stress. 

It can even create altered states of consciousness where we can meet and integrate old patterns held in the body/mind from our past, so in a sense becomes a fast track psycho therapeutic approach to healing. 

Breathwork can benefit mind, body and soul, and it’s relatively simple to access. There is a vast and growing body of scientific research showing us how powerful it is, with recovery from depression, stress, anxiety, trauma, asthma and much more. 

In working with Deborah you will learn and deepen practices that can be used to empower you to change your day to day reality, and support you to feel more in charge of your responses, and to be more resilient in the face of life's ups and downs. 

Benefits of breathwork sessions include:

• Feel calmer and more resilient in the face of stress

• Enhanced mindfulness and focus

• Feel more grounded and more deeply embodied

• Relax, Rest and Restore your body and mind

• Reduced blood pressure

• Toned vagus nerve

• Increased resilience

• Nervous system regulation

• Stronger immune and digestive systems

• Greater ability to manage emotions

• Improved sleep

• Reduced anxiety and depression

• Reduced pain

• Improved heart rate variability

• Reduced Inflammation

• Feel more empowered and energised

• Breathe more freely in daily life and so flow with life more freely and creatively

You will leave breathwork sessions with practices and guidance information so that you can easily integrate the practices into your daily life and feel resourced and empowered to use them when needed.

There are Three types of Breathwork practice 

Breathwork can be a confusing term as there are so many different practices around. We can simplify it into 3 main types of Breathwork, all of which you can study and benefit from with Deborah:

1. Mindful Breath awareness. Simply watching our breath, as practiced in mindfulness has been proven to have profound effects in calming the mind and bringing one into the present moment. This is included in all breathwork sessions

2. Regulatory Breathwork.  These are breathing practices designed to have a specific effect on the body, it's nervous system and energy.  Yoga breath practices fit into this category, for example, as does the Coherent Breathing taught by Deborah as part of the 1 hour Breathe sessions.  Some types of regulatory breathwork calm the body and mind and some energise it. Coherent breathing is a balancing breath designed and proven to balance the nervous system, to create a state of "relaxed aliveness", the optimal state for living life awake yet relaxed. Coherent Breathing is used as part of Conscious Breathing for Trauma Recovery as well as a simple practice for anyone to help them feel calmer and more resilient.

3. Integrative Breathwork aka Rebirthing. This is a completely different ball game of breathwork, which uses the Conscious Connected Breath, in addition to other practices, normally for an extended period of time in order to allow the client to inhabit themselves more fully, raise energy levels, and dive deeper into integrating old held material from the past. It can allow us to access altered states of consciousness, "getting high on our own supply"! The nature of this work also brings up our "stuff" for integration, so it can take us on a journey of healing. This is breath as therapy and can be very powerfully life changing.  

Deborah always incorporates grounding, embodying practices to support clients to Breathe from a safely embodied place.  Due to her TRE® training and work with trauma (including PTSD and CPTSD), all her work is deeply informed by trauma aware practices, and is underpinned by Polyvagal Theory (the Science of Human Safety), the work of Professor Stephen Porges.