Breathwork & Toning

Using Breath and Vibration to Enhance Body Awareness, Stress Management and Healing

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What is Breathwork? Breathwork refers to any breathing exercise or technique. There are a wide variety of techniques that intentionally focus on the breath and that are used to improve mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.

For thousands of years Eastern medicine practices have used these techniques to calm as well as shift energetic states of activity in the mind and body states. May people find breathwork can help to calm or relax the nervous system.

Breathwork helps to provide a reliable technique for regular stress management that can help calm the nervous system when elevated and help lower states of fight-or-flight mode. This allows the body to move into it's more natural healing and restful state which activates th parasympathetic nervous system. It is in this state where our body learns best, can heal, and recovers the quickest.

What Breath Technique Will Work Best for Me? There are a variety of techniques and different ways of training with the breath, but the best choice is the one that does what you need it to do and feels right to you.

These techniques often involve breathing in a conscious and systematic ways that help intentionally change your breathing pattern to create greater calmness or sense of balance. Other techniques can offer stimulation to the nervous system in ways that help energize or bring greater awareness and focus to the body.

Breathwork techniques, just like other forms of exercise, work differently for different people so it's important to try them out. Some of these easy to learn techniques we are familiar with and teach include:

diaphragmatic breathing
circular breathing
box breathing
4-7-8 breathing
alternating nostril breathing
pursed lip breathing
slow tempo breathing
hyperventilation breathwork
meditation breathwork

What is Toning? Toning has been used by humanity for tens of thousands of years and is considered one of our first methods of healing. Even though we can't see it, sound is physical energy. Our bodies are composed of tiny energy producing particles that are in constant motion. So when we produce our own vocal sounds and vibrations, we can directly influence these tiny energy producing particles and explore alternative that use movement created by our voice to enhance health our health. This process can also help bring greater healing and body awareness to our body.

By harnessing specific sounds and vibrations in the voice you can help calm the nervous system, release emotional blockages, stimulate hard to get to or deep areas of connective tissue in the body, reduce stress, and promote overall well being. Best of all, it can be done anywhere when you need it.

Vocal toning also involves exercising the diaphragm and deep core musculature of our body in different ways that general resistance training or stretching. This is beneficial for the health of many of our body systems that include cardiovascular, muscular, respiratory, and nervous system.

Vocal toning is also different from singing because it does not require a singing voice and you don't have to be a musician. It requires no equipment or prior training in order to access its benefits and toning can be done in laying down, sitting, or standing making it easily accessible for all individuals, regardless of condition or disability.

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Benefits of Doing Regular Breathwork:

reduce stress and anxiety
aid in positive self-development
boost immunity
process emotions, heal emotional pain and trauma
develop self-regulation skills
increased self-awareness
enrich creativity
improve personal relationships
increase confidence, self-image, and self-esteem
release of negative feelings

Breathwork Shown Effective With Issues Such As:

anger issues
anxiety
chronic pain
depression
emotional effects of illness
trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder

Chronic stress states increase the risk of many diseases and disease processes in the body. In addition, metal and emotional stress can manifest in many physical ways that include:

aches and pains
digestion problems
headaches
high blood pressure
muscular tension
sexual dysfunction
weakened immune system

How Toning Complements Healing and Training: Given the unique shapes and structures of our bodies, certain sounds, vowels, or tones can have very different resonating effects. Toning allows for an alternative way to experience deeper sensations in our body as well as provides fun ways to bring those perceptions to more conscious states of awareness.

Toning can also offer a more subtle and gentler way of interacting with exercise through movement when other forms of exercise like stretching, Pilates, or other forms of training may be too stressful.

Toning can also be done with the use of instruments such singing bowls, drones, or other stringed or reed instruments to allow singing of unison and matching of tone. This allows for movement (voice) and listening to occur together at the same time and with equal attention and energy. By working with both listening and movement together in this way, it can offer newer skillsets that can also be transferred into other mindful based exercise domains where close attention and accurate responding within the neuromyofascial system may be needed.

Toning is a great exercise choice for children and adults beginning to also study music and work with harmony as it helps develop deep listening capacities using the body's senses.

Convenience and Ease: Best of all, toning is easy to learn and can be used anywhere. It can be used all all types of different intensities which also makes it perfect for being able to match particular training levels you wish to.

We look forward to helping you find the right breathing or toning techniques that will complement your current levels of health or training.

We love sound, movement, and working with the voice!