Widening Your Bandwidth: Breath- Body-Mind for regulation & resilience
Learning how to work with the breath is one of the most transformative tools we can possess for day-to-day resilience. From stress management and improved physical performance to deepening meditation, the breath is our most direct bridge to the nervous system.
I know "resilience" itself can be a loaded word. I am not suggesting that we should be able to withstand all the stresses and strains of life without effect; rather, that we might have more bandwidth to recover and respond to the situations we find ourselves in.
For some, connecting with the breath feels natural and non-threatening. For others, the mere mention of it can feel difficult or unfamiliar. The good news? It is a skill that can be learned, and the healing effects are often so immediate that they provide all the motivation needed to continue.
A Safer and Gentler Path
My first teacher training in Yoga was with the British Wheel of Yoga which, for all of its quirks, did place a big emphasis on proceeding with care. Yogic texts are full of warnings about breathwork for a reason: how we breathe directly impacts how we feel. As Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, co-founder of Breath-Body-Mind, explains succinctly: "The brain listens to the lungs." Because breathing is essential to survival, the lungs have a "priority line" of communication to the brain.
After over 20 years of continued work and training in yoga and related disciplines, I was deeply impressed by the BBM method when I discovered it about 5 years ago. Unlike some intense breathwork styles (both in secular and traditional yoga settings), BBM practices work more softly and gently, yet no less profoundly.
The core of the program is Coherent Breathing - which simply means slowing the breath down to something between 3.5 - 6 breaths per minute and encouraging the breath to be gentle. In BBM we work from a basis of 5 breaths a minute as this has been shown to have the most benefit to the most amount of people.
How Coherent Breathing Works
Coherent breathing is regulating and brings the rhythms of the brain, heart, and gut into coherence.
1. The Heart
When you practice coherent breathing you engage a process called Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA).
Inhale: Your heart rate speeds up slightly.
Exhale: Your heart rate slows down.
At the "coherent" frequency, these fluctuations form a smooth, sine-wave-like pattern. This maximizes your Heart Rate Variability, which is a key indicator of a flexible and resilient nervous system.
2. The Brain
The heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. When the heart enters a coherent rhythm, it modulates the activity in the amygdala (the fear centre) and the prefrontal cortex (the logic centre).
This can bring a state of alert calmness.
It reduces cortisol and increases the production of DHEA (the "vitality" hormone).
3. The Gut
The connection here is the Vagus Nerve, the main conduit of the parasympathetic nervous system.
Coherent breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs from the brainstem down through the heart to the digestive tract.
This communicates "safety" and you bring the gut into a "rest and digest" state, improving peristalsis and blood flow to the digestive organs.
Upcoming BBM Opportunities
Having served as a BBM teacher and trainer for several years, I have witnessed these practices help everyone from stressed office workers and cancer patients to survivors of large-scale disasters.