How Breathwork Changed My Life

I started my regular breathwork practice near the end of 2021 and by the beginning of 2022 I knew that it was going to be my primary focus for the year. And not just mine.

2022 was a huge year for breathwork. The work of people like James Nestor, Andrew Huberman, and Wim Hof catapulted breathwork into the mainstream over the last few years. One journalist said it was the most trending topic in health and wellness for the year. When everyone from New Age gurus to journalists to hard scientists from major universities are talking about the same topic you know it’s worth looking into. So I spent the entire year researching, practicing, and teaching breathwork. I talked about it with every single person I spent time with last year.

That’s because breathwork changed my life.

Why I Started Doing Breathwork

In October of 2018 I moved back to California where I was born. I had spent over a decade living in the cool clean air of the Seattle area and when I moved back to the dry dustiness of Southern California, I started experiencing allergy and asthma symptoms. As much as I love it here, the air quality is not great. So I started taking allergy medication seasonally to try and alleviate those symptoms. 

Then, one day I had a serious asthma attack and I did not have any inhalers or medication to treat it at the time and I ended up in the emergency room. They took good care of me. I went to a doctor to get a prescription for an inhaler, had them test my breathing and lung capacity, and thought that would be the end of it.

But over time it seemed like my breathing and allergies were getting worse, not better, and at the height of the first wave of COVID breathing difficulty was something everyone dreaded and it was causing me a lot of anxiety. It was around this time that I started having panic attacks for the first time in my life. My quality of life was deteriorating.

A year passed by and I went back to my doctor for my annual checkup. Since I had complained about my asthma the previous year and they had done some testing they were able to repeat those tests and compare my results. It turned out that I was getting worse. Based on my doctor’s notes, I reported using my inhaler more often than the year before and my breathing and lung capacity were still in decline. My doctor recommended that I go see some specialists to see if they could determine what was causing this and if something could be done about it, which I did. However, that ended up being completely unhelpful.

That was when I decided that I needed to look into it myself and see if there was anything unconventional that I could do on my own to improve my breathing and my quality of life. That was when I remembered something I had come across years before but never actually tried out. Which, of course, was the Wim Hof Method breathwork.

My first exposure to the Wim Hof Method was actually his 30 day cold shower challenge. I was living in Seattle at the time, and Fall and Winter in Seattle can be very dark and cold and difficult and I was interested in something that could help me handle the cold. The results were impressive. But at that time I never tried out the breathwork or looked into Wim Hof any deeper than that. I did the cold showers, they worked, and that was that.

Flash forward about five years and while I was researching ways to improve my breathing I came across him again. Now, I had already tried out a few other breathwork protocols and had some decent results but none of them felt quite right for what I needed at the time. But since I recognized the name and had prior success with the cold showers I was very interested in trying out his breathwork.

The first time I tried it I knew. This was it.

This was exactly what I was looking for and what my body needed. So I decided right then and there that I was going to make this non-negotiable in my life. One year later I no longer have any asthma or allergy symptoms and I’ve noticed quite a few other benefits as well! (Check out my video for the full story!) 

But there are many other kinds of breathwork practices beyond the Wim Hof Method and they all have their own unique benefits. I found as I was teaching breathwork to people that it is best to find a breathwork practice that complements your own unique temperament and physiology and that different practices are best for different people. So I’ve found that the most effective way to teach breathwork is not to just teach one specific practice but to teach the fundamentals and physiology of breathwork and then provide guidance so that people can choose the practice which is best for them or create their own. And that brings us to…

The Physiology of Breathwork

In order to understand how breathwork works, you need to know a little bit about the autonomic nervous system. 

The autonomic nervous system controls functions that need to continue, even when we aren’t thinking about them. This would include things like breathing, blood pressure/heart rate, and digestion. We don’t have to consciously think about it in order to breath or digest or that would occupy literally all of our mental capacity. So our autonomic nervous system kicks in and makes sure that those processes continue.

What’s interesting is that most of the processes that the autonomic nervous system regulates are actually not even able to be controlled consciously, except for breathing. Sure, we continue to breathe even when we aren’t thinking about it but we all have the ability to focus on our breathing and take control when we want to. What most people don’t know, is that this actually allows us to take control of the entire autonomic nervous system. 

Think about it like this. You are a car cruising along on cruise control. Your autonomic nervous system will accelerate or decelerate in order to maintain the baseline it has been set to or in reaction to something in your environment. But when you take conscious control of your breathing you regain power over the accelerator and brakes and you take control over how fast or slow you move.

Ok, so it’s possible to take control of your autonomic nervous system. So what? What does that mean?

Well the autonomic nervous system is made up of two opposing systems called the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system controls alertness and the parasympathetic controls calmness. And they are opposing because when one is activated the other is simultaneously deactivated. 

In our car analogy, activating the sympathetic nervous system is like pressing down on the accelerator and inhaling activates the sympathetic nervous system. This increases heart rate, energy and alertness but can also cause anxiety.

Activating the parasympathetic nervous system is like letting your foot off the accelerator and exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This will slow down your heart rate and slowly calm you down.

If you’re following me so far, you may be asking what about the brakes? What about those times when you’re revved up way too high and your anxiety is crushing you, like a panic attack, and you need to calm down quickly and dramatically?

Well it turns out that there is something like the physiological equivalent of hitting the brakes. This is something I learned from Dr. Andrew Huberman, creator of the amazing Huberman Lab Podcast, which is one of my primary sources for science-based protocols for health and wellness and is, in my opinion, the best science podcast in the world. So go check that out if you haven’t already.

The Physiological Sigh

Anyways, the equivalent of hitting the brakes is something called the physiological sigh. This is super simple and quick to do but incredibly powerful. So, please, do not dismiss this because it is simple. That is very easy to do. But things don’t need to be complex or difficult to be effective. Sometimes our egos try to tell us that they do, but that’s a delusion.

So here it is… the physiological sigh involves breathing in deeply through the nose. Stopping, and then sneaking in another quick breath at the top, before exhaling completely through the mouth. That’s it. You can repeat as many times as necessary in the moment, or repeat for a set amount of time, 5 minutes is plenty, for a daily practice.

Real-Time Applications

So now that we know about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and we’ve learned about the controls for those systems, namely inhaling, exhaling, and the physiological sigh, we can use that knowledge to put together practices and protocols to improve our performance and well-being.

Remember that inhaling raises alertness and exhaling decreases alertness and makes you more calm. This means that any breathwork practice which emphasizes inhaling will increase energy and make you more alert. And it doesn’t even have to be a formal practice. Just breathe in for a count of 6 and out for a count of 4 a couple of times. Or breathe in deeply and quickly a few times in succession just letting the breath fall in between and now you’re more alert! I use this for any situation when I’m not feeling quite as energetic as I want or need to be. Say I’m falling asleep at the wheel or I’m tired but I have a meeting or call coming up and I need to be more energetic.

And the opposite is also true. So any breathwork practice which emphasizes exhaling will decrease alertness, decrease your heart rate, and make you feel more calm. For instance, a popular breathwork protocol is called the 4-7-8 breath, I learned this from Dr. Andrew Weil, which involves breathing in for a count of 4, holding for a count of 7, and exhaling for a count of 8. Repeat that cycle a few times and you will be much calmer. I use this for times when I’m feeling anxious or my heart is racing and I want to calm myself down. 

And then there’s the physiological sigh. This really is like hitting the brakes and will calm you down very quickly and powerfully. I’ve personally used it to stop panic attacks, and I’ve taught it to others who have also used it for the same purpose. So it is an invaluable tool in my opinion. It’s free, it’s always available, and it works very quickly. I really wish I had learned about it earlier in my life.

Ok, so with that knowledge and these tools you can effectively match your state to fit any task you need to undertake in real time which is already incredibly beneficial and potentially life changing. But you can take it even further because we all have a baseline autonomic nervous system tone, or level. Some people are more on the alert side of the spectrum at baseline and others are more towards the calm side. I definitely tend towards the calm side but my partner tends towards the alert side.

However, with a daily breathwork practice we are actually able to shift our baseline.

Choosing A Daily Practice

For my daily practice, I like to do something which emphasizes activation of the sympathetic nervous system to balance me out and increase my alertness and energy level. And over time that shifts my baseline so that I have more energy and drive.

My partner likes to do a practice which does the opposite and emphasizes activation of the parasympathetic nervous system which helps balance her out, helping her stay calm. This is great for people like her who suffer from the problems that arise from an overactive nervous system such as anxiety, autoimmune disorders, and fibromyalgia, but it can also help with high blood pressure. One study showed that a short daily breathwork practice resulted in an average reduction in systolic blood pressure of 9 mm of mercury which was about the same reduction seen with aerobic exercise or blood pressure medication. This correlates with about a 35% drop in the risk of stroke and a 25% drop in the risk of heart disease. That’s pretty impressive. And it’s something that anyone can do regardless of their physical ability.

(If you’re interested in learning more about the science of breathwork, other forms of daily breathwork practices, how to implement new habits into your life, and how to choose which one is best for you based on your current physical/mental temperament pick up a copy of the first volume of my March Magic Journal, Contemplations, which covers all of that and more.)

Thank you for reading! Now get out there and try out some breathwork for yourself!

Love,

Justin

❤️🙏☀️