Why Teams That Breathe Better, Work Better
While "breathing" and "breathwork" have become popular buzzwords in recent years, you may still find yourself wondering why it’s such a big topic, what on Earth a breathwork coach does and how it is relevant in a workplace setting? This blog aims to answer these questions and more.
Let’s acknowledge the obvious….
Humans need to breathe to survive. All day, every day. We need oxygen for every cell in our body for every function, but notably for things like thinking, energy and moving.
So you’d think we must be pros at breathing, right? Given that we’ve been doing it for thousands of years and many of the species on our planet have also evolved to do it too. But there are some aspects of how we breathe that are particularly interesting in relation to our health and wellbeing.
Breathing lesson one
Your lungs, which are the organ for breathing, are just part of the whole respiratory system that makes sure that the air that enters through your mouth and nostrils gets where it needs to go. Alongside your lungs, you also have other systems all working together:
Your nervous system is automatically controlling the reflexes to breathe in and out.
Your musculoskeletal system provides muscular effort (ideally mainly your diaphragm but more on that later) and structures such as bones, ligaments and cartilage are all in motion as you breathe.
Your cardiovascular system is receiving oxygen and pumping carbon dioxide back out via your lungs.
The nervous system has so much more to do though – the nerves that run past your lungs send two-way communication to your brain and back. The messages instruct the brain and the body about details such as whether you are safe or in danger and whether there is enough oxygen in the air.
Here are some interesting effects your breathing can have:
Stimulate the fight or flight side of the nervous system.
Or the opposite – stimulate the rest and digest state.
Therefore fight or flight can turn off digestion and contribute to digestive complaints.
Tell your brain that there is not enough oxygen – yawning can be one side effect but being air hungry or deprived of oxygen can have more serious effects.
Cause you to over-use secondary breathing muscles which can lead to aches and pains and affect bladder control.
About those breathing muscles
Your diaphragm is the muscle that is designed to do all the work when you breathe. It is shaped a little like an upside-down umbrella and it pushes down when you are filling your lungs up with air, upwards when you are breathing out.
You have a variety of secondary breathing muscles – these are ideally fairly passive if your diaphragm is fully active. But when they engage to take over some of the work, you can experience muscle tension in places like your neck, shoulders, back and jaw.
In fact, there are a range of ways that we can slip into unhelpful ways of breathing. As well as pain and discomfort, this can result in less oxygen to go around the body, increased anxiety, a lower ability to manage stress and more. If your diaphragm isn’t working properly, you can even find yourself experiencing a weak bladder.
Why we are not always breathing optimally
In our modern world, we often ignore signals from our body when we need to slow down, rest, physically move or even go to the loo. After a while, the thinking part of our brain stops registering the signals fully and we become experts at tolerating a level of discomfort while we use the brain for more pressing matters, such as worrying and getting stuff done.
But our nervous system is not fooled. It monitors every little thing and when we ignore those bodily signals, it still tells our heart rate, our lungs and the glands that make our stress hormones to behave as if we’re on high alert. The same goes for stressful thoughts – even working to tight deadlines can send our bodies into the stress response.
In turn, our breathing changes. We might breathe less deeply forget to breathe or we might hold our breath. That means less oxygen to your brain!
There are also inconvenient little quirks we can develop with our breathing. One example is Paradoxical Breathing – when we breathe in, our tummies should expand to allow more room for air, but instead the tummy sucks in. And when we breathe out, the tummy should draw in towards the spine to depress the air upwards out of our lungs, but this might not be happening if you were already sucking your tummy in.
Paradoxical breathing often affects people who have been conditioned to try and look slimmer – by regularly sucking your tummy in, it can create a dysfunctional way of breathing that does not allow for you to breathe air in effectively.
Significance in the workplace of suboptimal breathing
There is a strong case to consider the impacts of yourself and your colleagues not breathing well, because it contributes to numerous effects, including:
Reduced concentration, productivity and effectiveness at work
Absences due to stress, exhaustion and back pain
Impaired tolerance for stress and reduction of skills such as problem solving
Hidden complications such as digestive and bladder control issues
How Breathwork Helps
It is possible to improve the way that you breathe to provide a range of different benefits:
Improve the amount of oxygen you can take in and use in your body
Reduce the over-reliance on secondary breathing muscles (such as your chest, back and neck) and reduce pain
Support brain function including memory, concentration and clearer thinking
Shift your mind and body into a calm, energised or more alert state
Support stress reduction and reduce stress on your body
Create a sense of mental “space” to problem solve and be creative
How Breathwork Benefits Teams
Breathwork can provide a tool for stress management, resilience and something that your employees can do for themselves at any time. In doing so, team members can solve problems, find ways of working harmoniously together, and become more effective at work.
A better awareness of the body in the process of learning breathwork can encourage individuals to move more regularly and to release muscle and joint tightness. Activating the main breathing muscle (the diaphragm) more effectively can further help to reduce pain. All this can help employees to maintain a sense of physical wellness and help to reduce sick days.
There are a multitude of other benefits, but essentially the big benefit for the team members is that they can access a greater sense of wellbeing from something that they already do at no expense to them, all day, every day.
How a Breathwork Session is Adapted for Teams
Creating a space for a breathwork session is much easier than popular images would make it seem. All you really need is a comfortable seat for each person – any type of chair is fine – and enough space for people to stand up and have a little space to move. That is all! Breathwork can be carried out in any type of clothing, although it helps to be comfortable and for clothes not to be too restrictive.
While some teams might like to try some advanced techniques and be more experimental, for the more introverted person these sessions are generally designed to make everyone comfortable and able to participate.
What an Introductory Breathwork Session Involves
Generally, a session lasts around 45-60 minutes, although we can create shorter or longer versions to suit any timeframe. While an in-person session can be especially enjoyable and encourage full engagement, online sessions are deliverable to an audience who are geographically spread out – this is often popular for our international clients. The format would include the following:
An overview of how our body uses the main breathing muscle, the diaphragm to breathe
The link between our breathing and our nervous system, the effects of stress on our breathing and vice versa
What happens when our diaphragm isn't doing all the work to breathe
How to re-engage the diaphragm fully and the act of "breath awareness" as a calming tool
A selection of other breathing techniques to use in different situations
Q&A throughout the session
Attendees often report getting a huge benefit from experiencing the basics of breathwork. The first stage is grounding, which involves focusing your attention on the sensations of your body and especially where it is in contact with the floor, a chair and other objects.
The next step of exploring breath awareness gives the audience a deep familiarity with what the mechanics of their breathing feel like – where they feel the breath, which parts of the body are involved and qualities of the breath such as pace and how deep it is.
By mastering these first two basic steps, the attendee not only has two very simple and quick calming techniques they can use indefinitely, but we can move on to working on modifying their breathing. From a large range of breathing techniques, we run through a small selection such as extended exhales, belly breathing and box breathing.
Here is what some of our previous participants have said about the sessions:
“I didn't realise how powerful breathwork could be and that there's so much to it!”
“It helped me understand the benefits of breathing with more consciousness”
“This session helped me appreciate just how important grounding is and how often it has helped me (without consciously being aware) in many situations. Of course, if I could have a mini Victoria in my pocket to calmly and gently talk me through any stressful situation where grounding & belly breathing would be beneficial, then that would be just amazing!”
“Breathing is something that we completely take for granted, and we know little about it - the variations of breathing (shallow, belly, chest etc), and just how much it impacts upon our mental and physical performance. You reminded me of these different types of breathing, and I have improved my desk posture already since our taster session, which means that my back and shoulders are better off by the end of an admin day!”
“I found the session really useful at uncovering why I breathe the way I do and what that breathing is doing for my health (or not doing as the case maybe) I found the exercises calming and very relaxing. It was a great mix of education and action.”
And here is some feedback from one-to-one breathwork coaching:
“I was very satisfied with the online session which was facilitated in a caring and professional manner throughout and the technical side of the session was excellent too. After the 45 minutes had come to an end I felt lighter physically and emotionally within myself and had more physical flexibility, and left the session having more 'tools' to equip myself with when I need to focus and to let the 'noise' go.”
What makes an experiential breathwork session so impactful
While there are undoubtably many brilliant apps out there to teach people breathwork (and yes I even use them myself!) there is something unique and more meaningful in spending time in a room with someone guiding you through it. Or even online – when you practice breathwork with a teacher in real time, there is the potential for you to learn those skills in a much deeper way than on your own.
Once someone has learned the basics and built up the confidence to use them in their own time, they are potentially more likely to continue practicing them and add a tool to their kit for reducing their stress levels in the longer term.
By providing breathwork sessions to your teams, not only do you all benefit, but the experience leaves your team members with a prime example of how your organisation cares for their wellbeing. It’s a win-win!
