Of All the Breathwork Techniques I’ve Tried Over the Years, This Is My Favourite
It's the one I've been practicing every day for the last eight years
Kombucha is big business where I live in Cape Town. There are 15 different companies all vying to make the best brew and there are thousands of happy customers willing to pay a premium.
However, recently, I’ve noticed a new trend — one that I don’t particularly like. To keep things exciting, a few of these companies have decided to branch into new territory. But some have gone too far.
Instead of trusting that regular kombucha is delicious enough, they’ve felt the need to add cacao, sceletium, moringa, rose water, chaga, lion’s mane, turkey tail, or whatever superfood is trending next.
It’s too much. And it takes away from the essence of what kombucha is.
I see this among spiritual communities too
I used to go to a conscious dance and that was enough. Now there has to be a cacao ceremony before.
I used to go to a tantra workshop and that was enough. Now it comes with a micro-dose of MDMA.
I used to go on a sound healing journey and that was enough. Now it comes with sanaga and rapé.
As much as they can support each practice they almost undermine their power.
Dancing is enough by itself. So is tantra and sound healing. But like some Kombucha companies here in Cape Town, they feel the need to add more things to make it special or valuable.
That’s one of the reasons why I love breathwork so much. It’s simple. It doesn’t need anything else to make it powerful. In fact, its stripped-back approach makes it more profound. The breath just breathes and that’s potent.
Having said that, there are almost as many ways to breathe as there are foods to eat.
The breath can speed up, slow down, or be paused altogether, for example. It can also be breathed in through the nose, through the mouth, or through each individual nostril.
So there are lots of different ways to breathe and each exercise has its own intention and benefits.
I wrote a book about this recently so I won’t diverge too much here. Today I’ll focus on my favourite breathwork technique and the reasons why.
My favourite breathwork technique (and the reasons why)
Over the last 10 years, I’ve tried pretty much all the different breathwork techniques that are on offer:
Conscious Connected Breathwork
Holotropic Breathwork
Vivation
Re-birthing
Bio-Dynamic Trauma Release Sessions (BBTRS)
The Wim Hof Method
Tummo Breathing
The Buteyko Method
And hundreds and hundreds of other pranayama exercises are found in yoga, tantra, tai chi, qi gong, and other spiritual practices.
Each one has had a profound and long-lasting impact on my life. So there is enormous value in each and every one.
However, my life changed when I found Soma Breath because it was the one technique that I could practice every day. And it’s what I’ve been doing for the last five years. It consists of two rounds of rhythmical breathing (roughly 40 breaths per round) and breath holds.
Rhythmical breathing in a nutshell helps to improve heart health, create better circulation, lower blood pressure, reduce stress, aid digestion, boost the immune system, and regulate the nervous system.
Breath holds (or intermittent hypoxic training) in a nutshell increase lung capacity and lung volume, reduce inflammation, strengthen the amygdala(the part of the brain that’s responsible for processing emotions), increase oxygen uptake in the blood, remove toxins, and boost cerebrospinal fluid.
This on/off — breathing deeply and then not at all — is key to the technique’s success because it forces the body into active stress one minute and then deep relaxation the next.
Carbon dioxide levels in the blood temporarily crash, then they build back up again. Tissues become oxygen-deficient and then saturated. This makes the body more adaptable and flexible to stress over time and the outcome is that it learns to become more psychologically, physiologically, and emotionally resilient.
Now to a slight confession
I know I went on about Kombucha at the top but not all combinations are bad. In fact, my favourite flavour is ginger and mint. So I don’t mind it when a combination of flavours compliment one another.
Soma Breath has mastered this by combining rhythmical breathing with brainwave music.
Brainwave music harmonises both hemispheres of the brain in the same way rhythmical breathing regulates the heart and breath holds strengthen the nervous system.
So my slight confession is that Soma Breath does have a few ‘ingredients’ but they support one another to go deeper. So I’m perfectly OK with that.
That’s why it’s become my favourite breathwork technique and one that I practice every day.
If you’re curious to experience it yourself, check out what Soma Breath has to offer here.
Thanks for reading!
See you next week :)