What is Breathwork?
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About the Show
Breathing seems like a no-brainer. We do it all day, every day (deep breath in and out). But what happens if we do it consciously and more mindfully? On this episode, Chuck Gaidica is joined by Medical Director for Provider Engagement Dr. Jessica Huhn to explain what breathwork is, how to practice it and share some of its benefits.
In this episode of A Healthier Michigan Podcast, we explore:
- What breathwork is
- The different techniques
- The benefits
- How you can get started today
Transcript
Chuck Gaidica: Breathing is something we do automatically every single day, often without even thinking about it. But in recent years, there's been a growing attention that is around the idea of breathing more intentionally, and how simple breathing techniques may help support both physical and mental well-being. From stress management to sleep support to focus and relaxation.
All these practices often referred to as breathwork, are becoming increasingly popular because they're accessible, they're easy to learn, and they can be done almost anywhere. So today we're exploring what breathwork actually is, how it affects the body and mind, and how listeners can begin incorporating simple breathing techniques into their daily routines.
Welcome to A Healthier Michigan podcast. I'm your host, Chuck Gaidica, and every other week we explore topics that help us all live our healthiest life. And today, we're joined by Medical Director Dr. Jessica Huhn to discuss the science and the benefits behind breathwork, common breathing techniques, and practical ways people can use mindful breathing to support their overall wellness.
It's good to have you back.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Always good to be here.
Chuck Gaidica: So breathing. I mean, it's kind of funny. I'm saying these words and I'm like, well, I don't know. It just happens. I'm not really thinking about it. Right?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Exactly.
What is breathwork and how does it work?
Chuck Gaidica: But we can. And that's what's interesting about that. What is the term itself, breathwork? What does that encompass?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So it's an umbrella word for basically intentional breathing. So as you referenced we breathe continually without having to think about it. It's one of the things that keeps us alive. But if we are intentional about breathing and we do it in a patterned way, it really can support mental, social, behavioral health, and it can cause your body to become much more relaxed if you're in a stressful situation.
Chuck Gaidica: So we've probably all used this, either we've been told this by our parents, we've said it to our kids: "Just take a breath. Just take a breath." So there's a lot to that, right? And now it's expanded over the many years and decades that this is a practice much more than just a little saying we use.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yes. And I think especially after Covid, when there was a lot of stress and a lot of attention on mental wellness, this technique actually became more to the forefront.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Just because it's something easy, it's something you don't have to go somewhere to do, and it's something that you can incorporate into your daily routine on any schedule that works in your life.
Chuck Gaidica: I remember speaking to someone who said that when they would go to a meeting in their office space, their building, they would be walking down the hall.They were one of these people that gets kind of wrapped up that they have to either make a presentation or talk to the boss, whatever it is, and they would spin and it could be a closet. They'd go in, they would breathe deeply a few times and just recenter themselves and walk out and felt like a million bucks walking into this meeting.
Chuck Gaidica: And I thought, this doesn't have to be like hours of this, right?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: No, it does not. It can just be very few short minutes. And as a person who does get a little anxious before presentations, I have utilized these techniques myself.
Chuck Gaidica: You really?
How does breathwork affect the nervous system?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yeah I do. And one of the things I don't think a lot of people know is that breathing is very close to our automatic nervous system.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So our automatic nervous system has two components, the sympathetic which is fight or flight. So if you see something that's scary, you breathe faster, your heart rate goes up, your muscles tense, and then you have the rest and digest, which is your parasympathetic nervous system. When you take deep breaths, you actually activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is what helps calm you down and makes these techniques very effective.
Chuck Gaidica: Well, that's really interesting. You know, I've seen, having been behind the scenes in television for so many years, I've seen people who probably relate to that first place where they're getting nervous to be on camera, and then once they get on camera, there's no real good way live to catch their breath. And then you'll see, even to this day, you'll see newscasters get out of breath, because there is no way to turn and get out of the picture, you know?
Chuck Gaidica: So it's one of those things where even people who do it for a living can be in a position where they're intimidated by a camera or just the idea they're on. Breathwork has become popular in conversations now. And I think that that's a good thing, because it also maybe indicates that we're more comfortable speaking about mental health and wellness in general.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Right? 100%. And I think that it was probably a part of a lot of other things that we were doing before we started talking about it so much. So yoga, meditation, some of those techniques that people go actively engage in actually do incorporate breathwork without maybe identifying it as its own pathway to mental and emotional health.
Chuck Gaidica: So I'm just curious, before we move on, this idea that you're going to get a bit nervous. What is it in front of a group? Or tell me your context and I'm just curious, what do you do to fix it, then? What do you actually practice?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: That's actually a very good question. I do box breathing, okay, before I do presentations.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So box breathing is you breathe in for four seconds, you hold it for four seconds, you breathe out for four seconds and then you hold it again. Okay. This is a technique that's used very often in athletics, the military, because it allows you to become calm but allows you to retain your focus.
Can breathwork reduce anxiety and stress?
Chuck Gaidica: So you would think you could kind of play that card, whether you're getting anxious in a situation where there's an argument brewing or you're in a disagreement. Right. You could use that really with anything.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Oh, 100%. So if you are going into a difficult conversation, if you're having a stressful day at work, if you've got a child who's going to a sporting event and they're very, very nervous, these are all things that you can easily do to help everybody just pause in the moment and do something that's going to help their heart rate, their muscles and everything just relax.
Chuck Gaidica: So you've explained this quite a bit already, but this idea that breathing affects the body and also a stress response. So is that 100% across the board for everybody? In other words, if you've never practiced this, is it a pretty good idea that if you do practice it, you'll see some reward from it?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Likely you are going to see some reward. The caveat there is just like with anything else that you try, some people are going to respond differently than others. So some people may get a large amount of relief. Some people may only be a little bit, but the likelihood is it's going to help in some way.
Chuck Gaidica: And does practice make perfect?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: It does.
Chuck Gaidica: Yeah. Okay. So the more you practice it, the better off you are.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yes. Although more is not always better. So this is, you know, this is something that you can incorporate when it works for you. Yeah. Doing it at night can help with sleep. Doing it before presentations can help with nervousness. It can help relax your muscles. It can help regulate your heart rate. So there are a lot of benefits, but I don't think that doing it more times a day is going to be exponentially beneficial.
What are the benefits of breathwork?
Chuck Gaidica: So what would you say are the most common benefits, then, in general, of this idea of practicing, learning and then practicing, breathwork?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So your muscles relax, your heart rate may regulate more easily. You're going to feel calmer mentally. You're going to have decreased anxiety. This can help with sleep. So there are a lot of different benefits. And not every person has all of those things. So you really need to identify what situations this might be helpful for you in and practice them when you're in those situations.
Chuck Gaidica: I was excited about this episode because these real world examples have just come to me that I've watched. I don't know if you and I have talked about this in the past or not, but my dad at the time, for a good part of his life, had hypertension. He had high blood pressure, and I'd be at his house, and we were kind of helping with the caregiving and put the cuff on. If we said to him what the doctor suggested, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and just visualize the prettiest place you'd like to go, could be Hawaii, a beach, whatever it is, I could literally watch the numbers go down. I could watch the heart rate settle. I mean, I literally had proof that this was working.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: You know, that's amazing.
Chuck Gaidica: Yeah. So different types of breathwork differ also, right?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yes. So if you go looking, there are probably a lot more than I'm going to share today, but I will do the three most common.
Chuck Gaidica: So the first one, do them. Sure.
What is diaphragmatic or belly breathing?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yeah, okay. So the easiest one is a diaphragmatic or belly breath. Okay. So this is the foundational form of breathwork. And basically what you do is you take in the biggest breath you can and slowly let it out. Okay. So that's something you can do as many times as you need to. Some people, they do it once and they're like okay, but you can sit at your desk if you have an important meeting or something and do it as many times as you need. If you start to feel lightheaded or dizzy, please stop, because that means you're hyperventilating.
Chuck Gaidica: Okay, you've done too many. Like, stop. Stop there.
What is box breathing and how do you do it?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yeah. The other one was the box breathing that I was talking about. So you breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, and hold for four. And that's the one that allows you to remain focused but helps you calm down. And you can do a couple cycles of that as well. And another one that I don't use very much is four, seven, eight breathing. So again, this one's a little more challenging for me because I'm not a great breath holder. But you breathe in for four, hold for seven and exhale for eight seconds.
Chuck Gaidica: Oh, so that one's a little longer, but that can be particularly helpful for sleep.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So that's one that they often recommend to utilize at bedtime.
Chuck Gaidica: Well, that's interesting because if you're reclined already and you're starting to relax, maybe it's a little easier to use that one, right?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Yes.
What is the difference between breathwork and meditation?
Chuck Gaidica: You mentioned meditation. Other words used like that, prayer, right? But how do they differ from breathwork? Because oftentimes, like you mentioned, they're used in conjunction with each other.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: That is a great question. So meditation requires you to be focused on something. Breathwork is just focus on breathing. But a lot of times if you're doing yoga or you're doing meditation, the instructors will tell you to focus on your breathing, and that's what you're focusing on. So it does incorporate the breathing techniques, but it doesn't focus directly on that. It's more like that mental focus and trying to recenter yourself.
Chuck Gaidica: Yeah. And I think that that's an interesting thing that we can all use in all kinds of circumstances. Doesn't have to be a yoga class.
Chuck Gaidica: It could be at work, like you've mentioned.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Absolutely.
When is the best time to practice breathwork?
Chuck Gaidica: So this idea of somebody wanting to get started, you can't begin something if you don't start it. So how do we start this? Literally, I could just do it like I did today.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: So be intentional. Make a plan. If you don't set aside time for your own wellness, you're never going to do it because life is very busy. So pick a time that works for you. Start with maybe just the belly breathing in the morning before you go to the office, or trying the 4-7-8 technique if you're having difficulty sleeping at night, and if this is something that seems to work for you, just continue to practice it daily, or even just in situations where you might need it because you're anxious or you're stressed, or you're going into a difficult situation.
Chuck Gaidica: Short of the hyperventilating part, I'm not seeing a whole lot of downside to this, but are there misconceptions, other misconceptions about what could go wrong or why I should even do this that you've heard about?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: Well, I don't know that I'd necessarily say misconceptions, but this is not something that's meant to be a treatment in of itself. So this is an additive thing that you can add to your daily routine to help. But this does not replace medical care in any way. It's not going to treat the underlying anxieties. It's not going to treat your underlying problems. You still need to incorporate the medical piece in if you have concerns. And like we talked about already, more is not necessarily better. The hyperventilating is where we get into that.But breath techniques are a great way to take just a couple seconds and reset your day.
Can you use breathwork at work?
Chuck Gaidica: I think if I saw someone doing this at their desk in a shared work environment, it would actually encourage me. I don't know that I would. I would think I'd want to start, like I'd want to start to pick up on what they did. So maybe it's not a misconception as much as it is an upside, that maybe you'll encourage others around you, that it's a good technique.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: And one thing that I absolutely loved is one of the sessions we had at one of our meetings actually incorporated a wellness section, and we did some of these techniques. So I would encourage people, if you're in an office setting, if you have group activities, great opportunity to say, "Let's just take five minutes and walk through these three things," and some of you are going to find them incredibly useful, and some of you may not, but it's something that I can give you if you are stressed or you do need some time to calm down. These are tools. These are tools for you to use.
What breathwork techniques are best for beginners?
Chuck Gaidica: What a great idea. So of all we've discussed, give me one. Is it the box breathing? What's one thing you would encourage all of us to try today, just to see if we can get hooked?
Dr. Jessica Huhn: I would try the box breathing. I find that technique incredibly helpful.
Chuck Gaidica: I was already calmed down before you got here, so I don't really need to do it a whole lot. It's good to see you.
Dr. Jessica Huhn: It's good to see you as well.
Chuck Gaidica: Thanks for dropping by again. Time for us to all practice our breathwork.
Chuck Gaidica: You know, it's a simple practice, but it really can have a meaningful impact, as you've heard, when you incorporate it intentionally into everyday life. So whether it's taking a few mindful breaths during a stressful moment in a building at work, or starting a regular breathing routine or small habits you can roll out at home to support your overall well-being, it sounds like good stuff.
Thanks for joining us on a Healthier Michigan podcast, brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. If you like our show, you can always check it out more online at a HealthierMichigan.org/podcast. You can always leave us ratings and you can catch us on YouTube as well when you need to and let us know!
Check in with us and give us ideas for our next segment or episode. We'd love to cover some of the things that are on your mind and heart about wellness. Until then, be well.
