Process trauma and emotions with your breath, gain insights into yourself and release stress. Sounds like spiritual bullshit maybe, but this can be explained very well anatomically!
When you are still relatively unfamiliar with breathwork and you are told that through your breath you can: process trauma and emotions, gain insights into yourself and release stress, then you may think: "What a spiritual bullshit story !". Then you also see all those intense images on the socials, where people can be seen full-face in emotion: trembling, shaking, angry, crying and in cramp. It seems almost unreal that the breath we use every day can have this effect. And yet this healing power of breathwork can be explained very well anatomically!
Breathwork: the anatomy
Back to school for a short while. Breathing provides energy in our cells and in our body. When we breathe in, oxygen enters the lungs, which is transported by the bloodstream to the cells in our body. In those cells, oxygen is converted into energy, which our body needs to function.
Oxygen binds to the red blood cells (hemoglobin) and is transported to the cells in this way. That oxygen can only enter the cell if there is enough CO₂ (carbon dioxide) present in that cell. So when there is a shortage of CO₂, less oxygen can enter the cells. And this shortage of CO₂ is created by overbreathing, which you may know as hyperventilating.
Beautiful that magical spiritual world, those supernatural powers which we can't always explain or even know anything about. As a breath coach, however, it is important that you know what is happening in that body and that you can explain this to your client. Take, for example, the connected breathing technique, with which we overbreathe powerfully and intensively and briefly disrupt the body. As a customer, it is nice to know that your coach knows what he or she is doing and that you are in safe hands.
Breathwork: the connected breath
Connected breathing is a breathwork technique where you overbreathe. You omit the pauses between inhalation and exhalation and breathe faster or deeper than usual. This influences the oxygen and CO₂ in your body, giving our body a signal that the energy must be distributed differently. The parts in our body that require the most energy therefore receive less attention.
Breathwork takes you out of your head and into your body
"And which part of our body uses the most energy?" Exactly, the voice that is now rattling in your head! This little voice is in our prefrontal cortex, our ego. The part of our brain that we think with, with which we tell ourselves that we have to be strong, suppress emotions, keep going and make us doubt. This is in continuous action and costs our body a lot of energy. That prefrontal cortex therefore receives a little less oxygen for a while, so that it has less energy to tease us. And you may have guessed it: if that critical part in our brain is muted, there will be room to just be. Is there room to release those stored emotions, traumas and tensions that we have suppressed for so long with that critical voice in our head. You step out of your head for a while and are more in touch with your body.
Logical story right?
Have you become curious about breathwork, do you have questions or would you like to undergo a breathing session? Feel free to contact me. I love connecting and sharing ideas!