Breathwork
Encyclopedia
Breathwork refers to many forms of conscious alteration of breathing, such as connecting the inhale and exhale, or energetically charging and discharging, when used within psychotherapy or meditation. Proponents believe breathwork technique may be used to attain alternate states of consciousness, and that sustained practice of techniques may result in spiritual
or psychological
benefits. Breathwork may also relate to optimal healthy breathing
in a healing context.
Pranayama
and Tibet
an Tantric
Tummo
, traditional spiritual practices from which the modern Western therapies most probably derive. Occasional use of the term Breathwork to describe Buddhist
Anapanasati
, “mindfulness of breathing” or "conscious breathing" appears to be misleading, because the meditator breathes naturally, without attempting to change the length or depth of the breath, simply observing it. This too can be debated as some practitioner would contend that whenever attention is focused and the object of attention changes, in this case breathing typically becomes longer, deeper and more relaxed.
While using movement, T'ai chi and Qigong
also make conscious use of the breath.
When the modern breath-oriented therapies were first developed in the 1970s, they were often, as well as the previous spiritual and therapeutic history of breathwork, influenced by ideas from psychotherapy
, vegetotherapy
or the human potential movement
.
Leonard Orr
, Jim Leonard
and Stanislav Grof
are three practitioners from whose work many of the more recently created types of breathwork have derived the basis of their techniques.
is based on the technique of conscious connected breathing; connecting the inhale and exhale without pause or lock in between them. Stanislav Grof's Holotropic Breathwork
can include hyperventilation
, which Grof believes can aid emotional integration.. According to Vivation Breathwork
, hyperventilation is unnecessary and is caused by a non-relaxed exhale. Emotional integration comes from connecting with the feelings honestly, which is made easier through a relaxed and connected breath.
There are many other types of Breathwork which have emerged over the last few decades, including Integrative Breathwork, Transformational Breathwork, Shamanic Breathwork, Kris Kassidy's Breakthrough Breathwork, Clarity Breathwork, Conscious Connected Breathing, Radiance Breathwork, Zen Yoga
Breathwork, and others. Older non-Western techniques such as Yoga
, Pranayama
, T'ai chi, and Qigong
are also offered as classes and written about in the West more frequently than in the past.
Orr founded conscious breathing as one of the five aspects of spiritual purification that he still supports today. In his low intervention approach, there is breathing guidance at different points and no encouragement for movement or externalising emotion.
Grof's Holotropic Breathwork
emerged from his study of the healing potentials of nonordinary states of consciousness since the mid-50s. It utilizes deep, fast breathing in combination with loud evocative music. In Holotropic Breathwork, the sessions are less facilitator-directed and more client-directed, believed to be guided by an innate healing intelligence. Trained facilitators support each individual's process as it emerges with various techniques including bodywork.
Kris Cassidy's Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation combines music, massage, and energy work with verbal support to facilitate profound physical, emotional, mental and spiritual breakthroughs. Physical movement and emotional release are encouraged to promote a deeper connection with the Higher Self.
Aaron Hoopes, founder of Zen Yoga
calls breathwork a fundamental aspect of the physical body.
The Russian Martial Art Systema
uses breathwork to control and relax the body from tension as well as control the cardiovascular system by extension through the use of various types of breathwork. Those who study Systema
can calm their mind and control tension throughout their body. Despite generally being categorized as a martial art, training includes many health-enhancing exercises. Some training exercises could be seen as forms of meditation or self-psychology. Breathwork is a fundamental aspect of Systema
.
. There is little peer reviewed scientific evidence of its effectiveness in treating illness. Although altering the breathing can be relaxing to some people, hyperventilation
can be a symptom of a panic disorder
or even energy depletion. However, breathwork and hyperventilation are not synonymous as many types of breathwork listed above regard hyperventilation as unnecessary and only occurring when the exhale is excessive or exaggerated and not relaxed. A state of hyperventilation can be relieved by containing the inhale and slowing the rate of exhale.
Some psychiatrists have suggested that more extreme forms of breathwork might bring about psychotic episodes in some people. Other believers in the earlier esoteric ideas underlying much Breathwork have also raised concerns about unskillful or premature psychospiritual awakening of patients or meditators.
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
or psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
benefits. Breathwork may also relate to optimal healthy breathing
Breathing
Breathing is the process that moves air in and out of the lungs. Aerobic organisms require oxygen to release energy via respiration, in the form of the metabolism of energy-rich molecules such as glucose. Breathing is only one process that delivers oxygen to where it is needed in the body and...
in a healing context.
Origins of breathwork
Breathwork has been used as a label for yogicYoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
Pranayama
Pranayama
Pranayama is a Sanskrit word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or...
and Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
an Tantric
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
Tummo
Tummo
Tummo is one of the methods of the Kagyu Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism used to recognize the ultimate nature of reality...
, traditional spiritual practices from which the modern Western therapies most probably derive. Occasional use of the term Breathwork to describe Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
Anapanasati
Anapanasati
Ānāpānasati , meaning 'mindfulness of breathing' , is a form of Buddhist meditation now common to the Tibetan, Zen, Tiantai, and Theravada schools of Buddhism, as well as western-based mindfulness programs.According to tradition, Anapanasati was...
, “mindfulness of breathing” or "conscious breathing" appears to be misleading, because the meditator breathes naturally, without attempting to change the length or depth of the breath, simply observing it. This too can be debated as some practitioner would contend that whenever attention is focused and the object of attention changes, in this case breathing typically becomes longer, deeper and more relaxed.
While using movement, T'ai chi and Qigong
Qigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
also make conscious use of the breath.
When the modern breath-oriented therapies were first developed in the 1970s, they were often, as well as the previous spiritual and therapeutic history of breathwork, influenced by ideas from psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
, vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy
Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions. The basic and founding text of vegetotherapy is Wilhelm Reich's Psychischer Kontakt und vegetative Stroemung , later included in the enlarged edition of Reich's Character Analysis .- Practice...
or the human potential movement
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
.
Leonard Orr
Leonard Orr
Leonard Orr is an American best known for developing Rebirthing-Breathwork, a 'system' or technique of breathing that can help one to overcome the "trauma" of being born...
, Jim Leonard
Jim Leonard (Vivation)
Jim Leonard was an American teacher, author and an early pioneer of modern day Breathwork. He was the originator of Vivation and author of three books and numerous articles on human potential.- Biography :...
and Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
are three practitioners from whose work many of the more recently created types of breathwork have derived the basis of their techniques.
Types of breathwork
Leonard Orr's style of Breathwork, Rebirthing-BreathworkRebirthing-Breathwork
Rebirthing-breathwork is a breathing technique that claims to heal suppressed emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, etc. It shares a common belief with various other therapies called rebirthing, with both groups believing that human birth is a traumatic event and that reviewing or revisiting this...
is based on the technique of conscious connected breathing; connecting the inhale and exhale without pause or lock in between them. Stanislav Grof's Holotropic Breathwork
Holotropic Breathwork
Holotropic Breathwork is a practice that uses breathing and other elements to allow access to non-ordinary states for the purpose of self-exploration. It was developed by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. and Christina Grof, Ph.D. . Holotropic breathing has some similarities to rebirthing-breathwork,...
can include hyperventilation
Hyperventilation
Hyperventilation or overbreathing is the state of breathing faster or deeper than normal, causing excessive expulsion of circulating carbon dioxide. It can result from a psychological state such as a panic attack, from a physiological condition such as metabolic acidosis, can be brought about by...
, which Grof believes can aid emotional integration.. According to Vivation Breathwork
Vivation
Vivation is a form of meditation whose primary aim is the permanent and pleasurable resolution of suppressed negative emotions. The word "Vivation" comes from the Latin word vivé...
, hyperventilation is unnecessary and is caused by a non-relaxed exhale. Emotional integration comes from connecting with the feelings honestly, which is made easier through a relaxed and connected breath.
There are many other types of Breathwork which have emerged over the last few decades, including Integrative Breathwork, Transformational Breathwork, Shamanic Breathwork, Kris Kassidy's Breakthrough Breathwork, Clarity Breathwork, Conscious Connected Breathing, Radiance Breathwork, Zen Yoga
Zen yoga
-Many Founders, an Eclectic & Growing Practice:Many people use the words zen and yoga together to describe a feeling, a state of mind, an orientation toward yoga that is not usually associated with the yoga practices that have come to us from India...
Breathwork, and others. Older non-Western techniques such as Yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
, Pranayama
Pranayama
Pranayama is a Sanskrit word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or...
, T'ai chi, and Qigong
Qigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
are also offered as classes and written about in the West more frequently than in the past.
Orr founded conscious breathing as one of the five aspects of spiritual purification that he still supports today. In his low intervention approach, there is breathing guidance at different points and no encouragement for movement or externalising emotion.
Grof's Holotropic Breathwork
Holotropic Breathwork
Holotropic Breathwork is a practice that uses breathing and other elements to allow access to non-ordinary states for the purpose of self-exploration. It was developed by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. and Christina Grof, Ph.D. . Holotropic breathing has some similarities to rebirthing-breathwork,...
emerged from his study of the healing potentials of nonordinary states of consciousness since the mid-50s. It utilizes deep, fast breathing in combination with loud evocative music. In Holotropic Breathwork, the sessions are less facilitator-directed and more client-directed, believed to be guided by an innate healing intelligence. Trained facilitators support each individual's process as it emerges with various techniques including bodywork.
Kris Cassidy's Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation combines music, massage, and energy work with verbal support to facilitate profound physical, emotional, mental and spiritual breakthroughs. Physical movement and emotional release are encouraged to promote a deeper connection with the Higher Self.
Aaron Hoopes, founder of Zen Yoga
Zen yoga
-Many Founders, an Eclectic & Growing Practice:Many people use the words zen and yoga together to describe a feeling, a state of mind, an orientation toward yoga that is not usually associated with the yoga practices that have come to us from India...
calls breathwork a fundamental aspect of the physical body.
The Russian Martial Art Systema
Systema
Systema is a Russian martial art. Training includes: hand to hand combat, grappling, knife fighting and fire arms training as well. Training involves drills and sparring without set kata. It focuses mainly on controlling the six body levers through pressure point application, striking and weapon...
uses breathwork to control and relax the body from tension as well as control the cardiovascular system by extension through the use of various types of breathwork. Those who study Systema
Systema
Systema is a Russian martial art. Training includes: hand to hand combat, grappling, knife fighting and fire arms training as well. Training involves drills and sparring without set kata. It focuses mainly on controlling the six body levers through pressure point application, striking and weapon...
can calm their mind and control tension throughout their body. Despite generally being categorized as a martial art, training includes many health-enhancing exercises. Some training exercises could be seen as forms of meditation or self-psychology. Breathwork is a fundamental aspect of Systema
Systema
Systema is a Russian martial art. Training includes: hand to hand combat, grappling, knife fighting and fire arms training as well. Training involves drills and sparring without set kata. It focuses mainly on controlling the six body levers through pressure point application, striking and weapon...
.
Criticism
There have been several criticisms of breathwork's safety, with critics pointing out the alleged physiological dangers associated with hyperventilationHyperventilation
Hyperventilation or overbreathing is the state of breathing faster or deeper than normal, causing excessive expulsion of circulating carbon dioxide. It can result from a psychological state such as a panic attack, from a physiological condition such as metabolic acidosis, can be brought about by...
. There is little peer reviewed scientific evidence of its effectiveness in treating illness. Although altering the breathing can be relaxing to some people, hyperventilation
Hyperventilation
Hyperventilation or overbreathing is the state of breathing faster or deeper than normal, causing excessive expulsion of circulating carbon dioxide. It can result from a psychological state such as a panic attack, from a physiological condition such as metabolic acidosis, can be brought about by...
can be a symptom of a panic disorder
Panic disorder
Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurring severe panic attacks. It may also include significant behavioral change lasting at least a month and of ongoing worry about the implications or concern about having other attacks. The latter are called anticipatory attacks...
or even energy depletion. However, breathwork and hyperventilation are not synonymous as many types of breathwork listed above regard hyperventilation as unnecessary and only occurring when the exhale is excessive or exaggerated and not relaxed. A state of hyperventilation can be relieved by containing the inhale and slowing the rate of exhale.
Some psychiatrists have suggested that more extreme forms of breathwork might bring about psychotic episodes in some people. Other believers in the earlier esoteric ideas underlying much Breathwork have also raised concerns about unskillful or premature psychospiritual awakening of patients or meditators.
See also
- Rebirthing-BreathworkRebirthing-BreathworkRebirthing-breathwork is a breathing technique that claims to heal suppressed emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, etc. It shares a common belief with various other therapies called rebirthing, with both groups believing that human birth is a traumatic event and that reviewing or revisiting this...
- Vivation BreathworkVivationVivation is a form of meditation whose primary aim is the permanent and pleasurable resolution of suppressed negative emotions. The word "Vivation" comes from the Latin word vivé...
- Holotropic BreathworkHolotropic BreathworkHolotropic Breathwork is a practice that uses breathing and other elements to allow access to non-ordinary states for the purpose of self-exploration. It was developed by Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. and Christina Grof, Ph.D. . Holotropic breathing has some similarities to rebirthing-breathwork,...
- Gay HendricksGay HendricksGay Hendricks is a psychologist, writer and practitioner in the field of personal growth, relationships, and the mind-body connection. He is best known for his work in relationship enhancement and in the development of conscious breathing exercises.After receiving his Ph.D...
, developer of Radiance Breathwork - HyperventilationHyperventilationHyperventilation or overbreathing is the state of breathing faster or deeper than normal, causing excessive expulsion of circulating carbon dioxide. It can result from a psychological state such as a panic attack, from a physiological condition such as metabolic acidosis, can be brought about by...
- PranayamaPranayamaPranayama is a Sanskrit word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or...
- Pre- and perinatal psychologyPre- and perinatal psychologyPrenatal and perinatal psychology is an interdisciplinary study of the foundations of health in body, mind, emotions and in enduring response patterns to life...
- Psychedelic psychotherapyPsychedelic psychotherapyPsychedelic therapy refers to therapeutic practices involving the use of psychedelic drugs, particularly serotonergic psychedelics such as ergine, LSD, psilocin and DMT...
- TummoTummoTummo is one of the methods of the Kagyu Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism used to recognize the ultimate nature of reality...
External links
- The International Breathwork Foundation (IBF Network) - An international community of people interested in all aspects of the breath including breathwork and conscious breathing
- Australia Breathwork Association
- A Breath of Fresh Air Group Breathwork
- Learn to Breathe Energy - An international resource and educational website on conscious breathing and breathwork
- The Healing Breath Journal - An international peer review journal on conscious breathing and breathwork
- Geoffrey Smith's Breathwork article repository site
- Leonard Orr's website
- Ewa Holt's website - Rebirthing in Poland (website in Polish)
- Peter Kane's website
- Vivation International's website