Breathwork: What It Is, What to Expect, and How It Can Change Your Life
We breathe roughly 22,000 times a day without thinking about it. Most of those breaths are shallow, automatic, and just enough to keep us going. But what if you could use your breath intentionally as a tool to create real physiological and emotional shifts in your body and mind? That's what breathwork is, and it's one of the most powerful services we offer at Michigan Massage and Wellness.
What Is Breathwork?
Breathwork isn't just deep breathing. It's an intentional practice designed to create change. The style offered at Michigan Massage and Wellness is 3-Part Conscious Circular Breathwork, facilitated by Rebecca. This technique uses a specific pattern of full, connected breaths that are very different from your everyday autopilot inhales and exhales.
Here's what's actually happening in your body during a session: the deeper, more rapid breath pattern increases your oxygen intake and expels more CO2, which temporarily alkalizes the pH of your blood. This can increase neural firing in the sensory and motor neurons, create a low-calcium state that presents as tingling, smooth muscle contractions, and increased muscle tone. And, it has a measurable anti-inflammatory effect! A 2014 Yale School of Medicine study found that people trained in breathwork had significantly less severe inflammatory responses after exposure to bacterial toxins compared to those who weren't. Your breath is genuinely THAT powerful.
What Breathwork Can Do for You
People try breathwork for many different reasons. Some of the most common benefits include:
What Is Breathwork?
Breathwork isn't just deep breathing. It's an intentional practice designed to create change. The style offered at Michigan Massage and Wellness is 3-Part Conscious Circular Breathwork, facilitated by Rebecca. This technique uses a specific pattern of full, connected breaths that are very different from your everyday autopilot inhales and exhales.
Here's what's actually happening in your body during a session: the deeper, more rapid breath pattern increases your oxygen intake and expels more CO2, which temporarily alkalizes the pH of your blood. This can increase neural firing in the sensory and motor neurons, create a low-calcium state that presents as tingling, smooth muscle contractions, and increased muscle tone. And, it has a measurable anti-inflammatory effect! A 2014 Yale School of Medicine study found that people trained in breathwork had significantly less severe inflammatory responses after exposure to bacterial toxins compared to those who weren't. Your breath is genuinely THAT powerful.
What Breathwork Can Do for You
People try breathwork for many different reasons. Some of the most common benefits include:
- An overall sense of lightness and ease
- Emotional healing and release
- Greater mental clarity and focus
- Feeling calmer, grounded and more centered
- Deeper connection to oneself
- Reduced stress and anxiety
- Decreased muscle tension
- Increased energy
- Greater ability to release negative thoughts and emotional patterns
- Unresolved grief and loss
- PTSD and trauma
- Anxiety and panic attacks
- Depression and chronic stress
- Low self-esteem or self-worth
- Feeling stuck, unable to move forward, or caught in old patterns
What to Expect During a Breathwork Session
Breathwork can bring up a LOT...and that's kind of the point. Knowing what's normal going in makes the experience much less intimidating.
Physical sensations are common and always temporary. You may feel tingling, vibrating, warmth or cold, shivering, sweating, or tetany (sometimes called "lobster claw hands" where the hands cramp up briefly). This is your nervous system responding to the change in respiration rate. It passes.
Emotionally you may cry, feel frustrated or angry, or have anxious energy that wants to move; kicking, punching the air, shaking your limbs. All of that is welcome here. This is a judgment-free space designed for exactly that kind of release.
Mentally your brain is going to want to take over. That's what brains do. Especially when something feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable. The practice is to let it chatter, and then choose to come back to your breath anyway. The goal is to shift from your head to your heart, and open yourself up to something new. As Rebecca puts it: "I tell my brain to take a break, this is my time to get OUT of my head."
Personally, a consistent breathwork practice has led to feeling calmer overall, letting go of things more quickly, and starting mornings with more focus and motivation. The changes may feel subtle at first and then they're not.
How to Book a Breathwork Session
In addition to group classes, we offer both in-person 1:1 sessions at our Troy, MI studio and virtual sessions via Zoom and the experience is genuinely comparable either way. In fact, some people find it easier to drop in deeper on a virtual session, since being in your own space removes a layer of self-consciousness. Whether you want to cry in your car with the lights off or come in and do it on a massage table, we don't judge.
If you're tired of the same stories on repeat in your head, reach out today and let us help get you clarity, a reset or just introduce you to a new tool in your self-care toolbox.
Breathwork can bring up a LOT...and that's kind of the point. Knowing what's normal going in makes the experience much less intimidating.
Physical sensations are common and always temporary. You may feel tingling, vibrating, warmth or cold, shivering, sweating, or tetany (sometimes called "lobster claw hands" where the hands cramp up briefly). This is your nervous system responding to the change in respiration rate. It passes.
Emotionally you may cry, feel frustrated or angry, or have anxious energy that wants to move; kicking, punching the air, shaking your limbs. All of that is welcome here. This is a judgment-free space designed for exactly that kind of release.
Mentally your brain is going to want to take over. That's what brains do. Especially when something feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable. The practice is to let it chatter, and then choose to come back to your breath anyway. The goal is to shift from your head to your heart, and open yourself up to something new. As Rebecca puts it: "I tell my brain to take a break, this is my time to get OUT of my head."
Personally, a consistent breathwork practice has led to feeling calmer overall, letting go of things more quickly, and starting mornings with more focus and motivation. The changes may feel subtle at first and then they're not.
How to Book a Breathwork Session
In addition to group classes, we offer both in-person 1:1 sessions at our Troy, MI studio and virtual sessions via Zoom and the experience is genuinely comparable either way. In fact, some people find it easier to drop in deeper on a virtual session, since being in your own space removes a layer of self-consciousness. Whether you want to cry in your car with the lights off or come in and do it on a massage table, we don't judge.
If you're tired of the same stories on repeat in your head, reach out today and let us help get you clarity, a reset or just introduce you to a new tool in your self-care toolbox.
