Breath Work
You breathe 20,000 times a day.
How you breathe really matters!
I’m qualified to teach both the Buteyko Method and Restoring Prana. I’m able to use a range of buteyko and yoga techniques to help you access functional breathing in your body.
Both the Buteyko Method and Restoring Prana have the same aim – to lead you to breathe functionally (lightly, quietly, using the diaphragm) but use different practices and techniques to get there. I’m fortunate to have all this knowledge to draw on so that I can find the right practices for you.
BUTEYKO METHOD
Developed in 1952 by Ukrainian Dr Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko, (Bhew-tae-ko) the Buteyko Method involves exercises to decongest the nose, switch to nasal breathing along with exercises to restore functional breathing patterns. It has shown to be efficacious in helping improve a number of breathing related problems including:
• Respiratory: asthma, rhinitis, hayfever
• Neurological: Anxiety, stress and panic attacks
• Childhood development: dental health, craniofacial development and ADHD
• Sleep disordered breathing: insomnia, snoring, central sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea
The application of the Buteyko Method is very direct and students should experience notable improvements to their breathing and health within a few days. Expected benefits include easier breathing, deeper sleep, more energy, reduced asthma and nasal congestion along with increased feeling of calm.
restoring prana
Robin Rothenberg has developed a step-by-step yogic process for achieving physical health and mental stability through breath re-education. Validated by the science of respiratory physiology, this process uniquely merges the wisdom of the ancient yogis, with modern day therapies, like the Buteyko Method
and Intermittent Hypoxic Therapy.
Prana is the animating force that supports and sustains us — akin to the concept of ‘qi’ in Chinese Medicine. Cultivating a rich reservoir of prana is the essential goal of yoga practice and pranayama the primary tool to actualize it. It is the containment of prana that enables our vitality to thrive. This requires us to train ourselves to need less breath — not more.
The less we breath, the more vital and alive we feel!
The wise yogis knew that everything needs to be held in balance. Overall their counsel was to become more internally efficient and need less. The practices of yoga are meant to enable us to be self-reliant and self-aware. As we practice, the body and mind are to become refined, stable, relaxed and still. The breath, our internal compass can take us into that state more readily than anything else. The yogis knew this too. That is why they counselled us to breathe LESS — to restrain the breath and make it more subtle. A quiet relaxed mind follows a quiet relaxed breath.