Yes, you already know how to breathe: most of us breathe about 14 times every minute, more than 20,000 times a day, and no fewer than 526 million times during the course of an average lifetime. But breath work is the practice of paying conscious attention to the way that you’re inhaling and exhaling. And it’s something that elite athletes swear by when it comes to increased performance.
Why, you ask? Well, turns out how you breathe can affect your heart rate, blood pressure, and nervous system, all of which play a role in your body’s anxiety and stress levels, explains clinical psychologist Rachel L. Goldman, PhD.
On the wings of wellness, breathwork is gliding out of the yoga camp and bumping up next to nutrition and sleep in your fitness toolkit. So to find out more, we spoke to Nike ambassadors and fitness professionals Megan Waters and Zoe Klein, to find out how they incorporate breathing techniques to hack their health and fitness.
Breathwork and the female physiology
Changing the way you breathe can hack your fitness by improving your oxygen efficiency, boosting circulation and delaying muscle fatigue. While techniques like nasal breathing and hypoxic training have been around for decades, there’s been an uptick in interest in recent years-especially for females. And for good reason.
“Coming to understand my unique female physiology has completely changed the way that I approach my health and wellbeing, explains Nike Well Collective Yoga Instructor, Zoe Klein. “Throughout my breath work studies, training and experience, I have come to learn that breathing is varies greatly depending on gender.”
“A woman’s hormonal cycle interacts uniquely with the way that we breathe both consciously and unconsciously. Our natural breathing rate tends to fluctuate throughout the different phases of our cycle. Progesterone is known to stimulate breathing and may be a contributing factor to these changing breathing patterns. As progesterone rises and falls throughout our Luteal phase, a female’s tendency to over breathe (hyperventilation) increases. In the same way that over eating is taxing on the body, so is over breathing. We also know that breathing pattern disorders are nearly twice as common in women due to our hormonal influences.”
Klein uses this information to inform her breathwork practices and to decrease the likelihood of over breathing during this second phase of her cycle. In practice, this looks like a consistent reduced breathing technique, which over time decreases the amount of breaths she needs to take per minute. Whilst it might sound paradoxical, learning to breathe less actually increases her energy, focus and recovery.
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“Additionally, throughout the different stages of our hormonal cycle, we tend to experience different levels of energy, motivation and focus. Because breathwork is the vehicle through which we can actively press the brake or accelerator pedal on our autonomic nervous system, I utilise different practices for different stages of my cycle — this usually comes pretty intuitively,” she adds. “I like to think of it as intelligent energy consumption — working smarter and not harder.”
“In the first phase my cycle (the follicular phase, including menstruation & ovulation), I typically feel pretty energised. This is when I draw on ‘hermetic stress’ practices (such as deep fast breathing), that are appropriately stressful for the body, but intentionally increase our capacity to adapt to stress. I find at this phase of my cycle, I have the energy and capacity for these more intense practices. However, in the second phase, I tend to feel a little more sensitive and need to focus more on energy retention, so I use this time for slower practice that help me to slow down and lengthen each breath. I actually find that through intentional practice, I can manage PMS symptoms and generally take better care of myself.”
Nasal breathing
A series of studies have shown that when exercising at different intensities, less oxygen is used when breathing through the nose compared to breathing through your mouth. While this might not sound like a benefit, this basically means that the body can still perform the same amount of exercise while using less oxygen to perform it. (Think of oxygen like fuel for car. The fewer miles per gallon of fuel a car uses the better its “fuel economy” is. The same applies to oxygen. The less oxygen used, the less energy used. This means you may be able to run further without becoming exhausted as quickly).
But it doesn’t stop there: nasal breathing has also been linked to increasing oxygen uptake and circulation, helping the facial muscles and bones develop correctly, aiding your immune system, improving lung capacity, supporting better sleep-and a whole bunch more.
“Taping my mouth closed whilst I am sleeping has had a massive impact on my sleep quality. I sleep deeper and wake up feeling more hydrated and refreshed,” explains Klein. “Dealing with life’s stress is inherently challenging, but 100% more challenging when sleep deprived. So subsequently, my capacity to handle stress has significantly increased, just by nose breathing throughout the night. I see this consistently with most people who I prescribe this practice to. Particularly beneficial with my husband’s snoring! I have also seen massive improvements in people who suffer from dry skin and eczema.”
Zoe also tries to breathe with her mouth closed during exercise, allowing her to maintain a steady rhythm with her breath and move into flow state. This also means that at the end of the run, rather than feeling completely gassed, she finishes feeling good and excited for her next run.
“It took me a couple of months to properly adapt but now that it has become habitual, my endurance has massively increased but more importantly, my enjoyment of movement. When I used to run with my mouth open, I would breathe really chaotically and it would actually feel (subtly) stressful.
And finally, anxiety. The link between anxiety and dysfunctional breathing has been discussed for decades, so when working with clients Zoe stresses the importance of breathing through the nose.
“On my psychotherapy intake forms I ask every new client whether they are a nose breather or mouth breather. This alone provides me with so much context on the state of their mind. The clients that I have been working alongside to decrease their anxiety, have massively benefited from the move towards nose breathing only,” she explains. “I think there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, because of the important chemical changes in the blood when we breathe smaller volumes of air. Plus, mouth breathing promotes upper chest breathing, which activates stress in the body. But secondly, it encourages people to pay more attention to themselves. When we pay attention, we invite curiosity, And curiosity is the key to any positive change.”
For fitness and well-being professional Megan Waters, her breathing awareness came after reading the book Breath by James Nestor. The more she learned about the very well researched health benefits of nasal breathing, the more cognisant she became of my own breathing patterns.
“Since intentionally introducing strictly nasal breathing into my daily life, I have noticed how much my sleep has improved but also when it comes to exercise, how much further I can exert myself, when compared to very sharp and shallow mouth breathing,” Waters tells Women’s Health. “Many studies have detailed that mouth breathing worsens stress and anxiety, promotes poor sleep quality as well as increasing the risk of throat irritations and bad breath, to name just a few.”
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As part of her new breathing routine, the Darwin-born Nike trainer introduced mouth taping, too.
“Over the last 6 months, I have introduced mouth taping while I sleep and I can attest to the difference it has made to my energy levels upon waking, including completely diminishing the dreaded case of bad morning breath,” she explains. “I am sure our members at the gym in co-own in Melbourne, Air Locker Training Brunswick must get sick of hearing our team bang on all the time about making sure they are consciously nasal breathing while they are training but it is for good reason. Not only do your working muscles receive more oxygen, it’s also been known to help with faster recovery, as well as helping keep your nervous system balanced.”
Breathing exercises
Over the last few years Megan has become extremely passionate about breathwork and learning to harness the power of her breath in order to help her show up every day in the world as the best possible version of herself. Each day she removes all distractions, closes her eyes and takes anywhere between 10 – 30 gentle breaths.
“I find it really helpful initially to bring my awareness to the sound of the breath as it enters and then releases from the body, then once I have found a fluid rhythm, I turn my awareness to the sounds that surround me and before I know it, my headspace feels clearer and my nervous system feels nourished.”
In terms of here favourite breathing exercises, Waters has three go-to’s on the the Nike Training Club app:
1. De-Stressing Breath with Rebeckah – “I love this simple box breathing technique, all it takes is 2 minutes and it has the ability to shift you from your sympathetic state (more commonly known as fight or flight) and help you slip into your parasympathetic or your rest and digest state.
2. Breath Awareness and Mind-Body Connection with Fa’pawaka – “this is a great 8 min beginner practice intended to help strengthen your mind body connection”.
3. Breathwork for Sleep with Stuart Sandeman – “This is a great 13 min wind down practice and very relaxing to tune into at the end of a long day’s work”.
