1. Introduction: Unlock Your Inner Potential with Breathwork
In this first blog, I want to start with the story of how I personally first got into breathwork. The year was 2019, I was going through a very difficult divorce, my life was in shambles, and I was essentially giving up on myself. I was laying in my bed, it was 2pm, 1 hour before I was supposed to start work. I hadn’t been to the gym in weeks. I was crying, and lazy, and I had had enough. I said to myself, “What you’re going through sucks, but your killing yourself living this way. Now you can feel whatever you need to feel, but what would you rather, crying here in this bed, or crying doing pullups?” I answered myself, “ Crying doing pullups”, and that’s what begun my journey to self betterment.
At the time I had never done breathwork before, but had begun the process of becoming a endurance athlete, specifically with ultramarathon running. I would tell myself “I’m gonna be great at this, get so good at this thing that I need to learn, learn, and learn some more to achieve my peak performance.” So I put on a search, and stumbled upon a Deutsch gentleman named Wim Hof.
And I was hooked, not only because of the beginning stages of seeing all this mans crazy feats, but because he was the first to bring forward the science based evidence on the benefits of breathwork.
I can at times be a very skeptical person. I want cold hard evidence and facts behind something if I’m going to back it, not only from others, but also proof from my own practice.
As I begun to practice Hormetic breathwork on a daily basis, I began to notice that my hill runs were getting easier, my sleep began to improve, and my depressive mood was beginning to subside. Now this to me was anecdotal, I didn’t want to just say “Yeah I’m feeling great because because of this.” I wanted to know why, on a biological level. So I enrolled to become a Certified Wim Hof Facilitator. And that’s where the door to the scientific proof and evidence on how breathwork can and does physiologically improve your mind, body, and soul started.
Since then, more and more PubMed and other reputable and trusted publications have released and undertaken studies to delve deeper and deeper for proof and evidence that this works! One of the many studies that have stood out to me, was a report that was released back in 2019 by The NLM ( The National Library or Medicine, link to the study below) which went in depth about the potential benefits of Hormetic stress and breathwork for short time frames and how it strengthens the body on a cellular level, but also how it helps your body to use oxygen more efficiently, decreases overall stress levels, enhances endurance, improves mood, improves sleep quality, and much more.
For todays blog, I won’t be delving deep into the science, but rather an introduction to a modality that saved my life. My hope is that I can help teach it to you, so that you also can go on to live your best life and thrive. More to come.
“Breathe in, Breathe out.”
Joshua
Disclaimer: Before practicing any form of breathwork, make sure to clear it with your doctor or healthcare provider first.
NLM study link:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9540300/
Ready to harness the power of your breath? Start your breathwork journey with me today and discover how small shifts in your breathing can lead to big changes in your life! Reach out now!