But breathwork has become so much more than a simple inhale-exhale. (We even predicted back 2018 that breathwork would become an advanced alternative to meditation.) And according to Usui Reiki Master and Certified Teacher of David Elliott Breathwork Gwen Dittmar, breathwork is quickly becoming a go-to method of choice for clearing negative thoughts and balancing energy. While meditation will always stay near and dear to our hearts, we suspect breathwork is on the rise for the following five reasons. It’s easy, free, and universal—a triple threat, we’d say. “I think a lot of times people get very stuck in their heads, and the meditation practice can feel discouraging for certain people based on where they are in their healing journey,” she notes. Breathwork, on the other hand, doesn’t require thinking at all. It has those same benefits of helping you get out of your own head, but you don’t have to be thinking in order to do so. “Certain breathwork modalities bypass the mind so that you don’t have to be thinking. It really can have that experience of getting you out of the mind,” Dittmar adds. “After my first class, the first thing I noticed was I felt like I had just done a triathlon training day,” she notes. She also had quite the endorphin high, the kind that she had only previously experienced after her marathons. “I felt like I had just worked out for about 12 hours, and I had that release that happens from that extreme exercise. I also felt like I got out of my head.” A calmer mind and an endorphin rush without hitting the gym? Consider us sold. That’s because breathwork can clear energy from your body that you didn’t even realize you had. It’s sort of like when you feel stressed, but you don’t know what you exactly feel stressed about; breathwork can help clear that energy, even when you don’t know how you’re feeling, yourself. Breathwork can also clear out energy that you might’ve picked up from others that you didn’t even know you’ve been harboring. “It starts to clear out energy that is not yours, or energy that you’ve picked up, so you can better connect with your own energy,” Dittmar explains. That’s why a lot of times people may vibrate or shake during their breathwork practice without knowing exactly why. “People just feel very activated, and a lot of them will say, ‘What is this? What is that? What’s happening?’ My answer is that it’s just your life force,” Dittmar notes. “Those people in top positions, if they can really start to connect to their energy, that energy starts to ripple out into whoever it is that they’re leading,” she says. What she means is that breathwork has the potential to create a better company culture; after all, a staff that feels united and can relate to one another can create quite the positive office environment. “Breathwork is effective, it’s profound, and it’s inside of you,” Dittmar says. “You don’t have to go see a shaman.” We all have the ability to control our breath—and although you might need an instructor like Dittmar to guide you for the first couple of times, you generally have the power to tap into your own breath. It’s something so simple but so groundbreaking in terms of healing. “Because we all breathe,” she continues. “Our connection to the human experience is that breath, the breath of life.”
