To start off where we left in Why Conscious Breathwork - Part 1, “And that’s just the beginning”.

Because when we realise that if we can change the patterns of the breath - the ancient primitive systems of breathing - then we can change anything!

So we might start to look at our lives and start to understand why we do what we do.

We might start to seek a deeper sense of purpose and look at how to make our dreams real.

We might pick up that paintbrush or musical instrument that has collected dust in the attic since childhood.

We start to come to breathwork for personal growth. Some people join the world of breath precisely for this reason, because how we breathe is how we live.

Some people come into breathwork to enhance their sports performance. And it will. It can help you run, dive, swim, fight, play better, whatever your game is. Briefly a bit about sports - whatever the skill, it is ultimately about being able to increase your VO2 max - the amount of oxygen you can deliver to your tissues with every heartbeat. And then how successfully can that be pumped through the mitochondria energy factories, to generate usable energy for your body in its activities.

If you have low VO2 you will not be hitting champion status, unless your game is poker or darts! Even then breathwork will help - as whoever has the coolest nerves may well win!

Many people first encounter breathwork through pregnancy. Conscious breathwork transforms pregnancy and labour. It gives some tools to shatter that rather ugly biblical tenet that childbirth should be painful. Women using breathwork sometimes even report of the incredible ecstatic quality of their birthing.

Women use breathwork to bond with the baby when it is in the womb and when it is breastfeeding. Many women find breathwork crucial when they are exhausted after many sleepless nights in a row.

Then when they are managing a child having emotional explosions, they can manage their own state and continue to unconditionally love that wonderful being emerging through its emotionally active second and third year, into the budding of reason and the many glorious expressions of that child’s unique being.

Teaching children breathwork is eminently sensible. Why would you not give them tools to manage their state, deal with stress and find optimal flow and peak performance at an early age?
Why not?
I’ve taught my children.

Some people come into conscious breathwork to explore their business edge. If their emotions are unclear then their decisions will be unclear. If their stress state is pushing them towards burnout then their career is over. Having tools to manage stress and wake each day with a bounce, no sleeping pills, no happy pills, just your zest for life emanating through you. This is what people in business want.
They also want to work in terms where people respect each other and are not dumping responsibility in a parade of blame.

People want more. Breathwork brings coherence and a profound sense of synergy to gut feelings, heart wisdom and mental intelligence.

The heart is the most electromagnetic organ in the body. We now know that a brain and heart out of sync leads to inflammatory diseases and an early grave.

This can now be measured by heart rate variability HRV. What is the best tool for creating greater HRV and therefore wellbeing and business edge?
You’ve got it.
Conscious breathwork.

Many people find conscious breathwork a powerful tool to generate greater creativity. One of the many things that deeper breath work can do is to take you into a theta brainwave state. You lived in this state until you were about eight years old. This magical age is rippling with imagination. You enter this state when you are dreaming. And this state is the very roots of imagination.

Great scientists like Einstein, Ramanujan, Kekule and Edison all experienced the creativity of the dream state. Music comes from here, art comes from here. How can you enter this state consciously as an adult?
Through conscious breathwork and meditative depth.

Some folk enter into breathwork through yoga, through meditation, through martial arts and they are looking to find out more of who they really are.

They have the great and universal inquiry running through them, “Who am I”.

One of the key strategies in almost every spiritual tradition is conscious breathwork.

Some people start looking for physical and psycho-emotional wellbeing and find greater creativity, inner peace and find out who they most deeply are.

They find their core-identity and all the peace, clarity and joy that comes with this.

The integrated and expansive states spoken of in the ancient Yogic texts, and in other religious texts are available to everyone, everywhere.

People just need to start breathing, consciously.

Why did I start conscious breathwork? Tune in next week for Part 3 to find out.

Conscious Breathwork for Beginners - a new online course coming soon!

I have a wonderful new online course launching on 20 July - it has 25 beautiful and profound breathwork practices to learn and weave into your life. It is unique. It is transformative. And I passionately believe it is for everyone.

You can find out more about this course here.