How my breathwork journey began
Early struggles and my search for answers
I want to tell you a little bit about how this whole breathwork thing started for me.
My breathwork journey started at the end of 2021 with a few harmonious happenings in my life and sheer determination to breathe comfortably. I will never forget the moment that changed my entire outlook on breathing, asthma, and to be honest, my life forever.
For the previous 1.5 years I hadn’t been able to take a full breath in; not a single breath was comfortable. I was diagnosed with asthma at age 7 and struggled with it in sports, allergies, and a few hospital visits, but it was overall pretty manageable; or maybe I should say it was managed by daily medication off and on. That is, until mid-2020, right around the same time as our good friend COVID. Terrible timing, I know.
My breathing was full of wheeze and tightness, all of a sudden I had crippling anxiety that no therapy could ever solve, and my heart felt like it was constantly going to jump out of my chest. I even stopped drinking my 3 daily cups of coffee in hopes this would help; it did a bit with the anxiety part (big surprise) and I have not returned to the habit to date.
I would lay awake at night terrified to fall asleep because I thought maybe I would just stop breathing and never wake up. I’d toss and turn trying to find the most open position to breathe, scared at the irrational thought of crushing my lungs. And when I did finally fall asleep, I never stayed asleep for long (although this was a pattern my entire life and it was only when my breathwork journey began that I actually realized that wasn’t normal). Finally, in an unfortunate hit to western medicine's name, my doctors didn’t want to talk about anything besides continuing the same meds.
Desperate for answers to my issue outside of the medication that didn’t seem like it was having any effect anymore, I started to do some research. I’d heard that acupuncture could help with asthma so I gave it a go. What did I have to lose? At the same time, one of my mom’s friends who heard about what I was dealing with, gave me the book “Breath” by James Nestor. If you haven’t read it, go read it! It’s one of the most important books ever to be written in my personal opinion.
When my breathing took a turn
Now to the moment that changed my life forever… I had just finished my first acupuncture appointment and was curled up on the couch in front of the Christmas tree with my new book. As I was reading I had a sudden realization that I was able to take a fuller breath. Let me just say, there were TEARS… and then an attempt to stop the tears in fear of ruining my good breathing moment with mucus. But man, I felt A LOT and I sure did let myself feel it all. There was light at the end of the tunnel!
I started applying what I learned in “Breath” to my breathing. Nose breathing only and at a slow pace. I began taping my mouth shut at night so as to ensure I was only breathing through my nose; I slept really well for what felt like the first time. Every morning I spent 25-40 minutes doing breathing exercises. I was quite committed and not much has changed on that front.
So, in a classic stubborn moment, I decided to forego my meds and focus on acupuncture and breathwork as they were proving to be more effective. This is not something I recommend to clients by the way, but it is the truth of my story.
Here’s the important thing though. Acupuncture helps with one aspect and breathing exercises help another. I could not say what doing just one and not the other in that time would have done for me because that was not my experience, but I believe the success story would not have been as great.
Functional breathing exercises address breathing patterns and CO2 tolerance, whereas “acupuncture has been shown to modulate Th1/Th2 balance, block inflammatory cells and mediators, improve airway remodeling, and regulate hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis function” (Nurwati, 2020).
Lessons, reflections, and where I am now
I want to make another note here. Because I was learning as I was going, collecting information, testing things out, doing some exercises that likely weren’t helping, and did not know a breathing coach was even a thing, it took longer to fully improve than it needed to. Had I been aware, I would have jumped into a Buteyko breathing program so fast and my breathing pattern would have been addressed properly much quicker. What’s funny is that the Buteyko Method is actually mentioned in “Breath,” but it wasn’t until I went back to skim it recently that I noticed that. Anyway, what matters most is that I found Buteyko eventually and it is a part of my everyday practice now as well as what I teach.
There’s so much more to say about the twist and turns of this path, but after all, I just set out to talk about how my breathwork journey began, not the entire story.
So I’ll leave it at this - I am finishing up writing this newsletter on 4/21/26 and tomorrow my partner and I will set out on a 11 day trek in the Himalayas. Yay for the ability to schedule out emails! Ironically though, I’m about to go on the biggest trek of my life thus far and my breathing is at the worst it’s been in a year due to a couple weeks of bad air pollution. I promise I’ve been rocking the N95 but due to some circumstances I couldn’t/didn’t wear it for a whole week.
Although this has upset me greatly and my dearest Sean has had to hear more than he’d probably like to about it, I have tried my best to not let myself get anxious over it because I know that will make it worse. Instead, I’ve been focusing extra on meditation, my breathing exercises, and my CO2 tolerance.
And what did I do today? Spent two hours with an acupuncturist for the first time a couple years. Immediate chest tightness relief. Incredible!