The benefits of controlled breathwork have been known for millennia

Wim Hof, also known as the Iceman, speaks almost hypnotically as he encourages me to breathe like never before.

‘Inhale, exhale, don’t stop. Let’s give him everything we’ve got! he says. I think my lungs are going to explode. After 30 deep breaths, the command comes to exhale fully, hold it there, feel my heartbeat, slow down, and don’t breathe again for a minute.

One minute! No wonder they call the guy crazy. Then the strangest thing happens. His soothing voice fades and I feel the tension slip from my shoulders, heading south and toward the ground. The calm wraps me like a warm blanket and when I remember to breathe again, I look at my watch. It’s been over a minute and a half. But where did he go?

Welcome to the world of breathing – the ultimate must-try for the dedicated seeker of inner calm and outer health. It’s probably no coincidence that a newfound interest took off during a pandemic that tragically took the breath away of so many. Now it seems to be everywhere: in online exercise classes, in gyms, and all over Instagram.

Among its most vocal supporters is Gwyneth Paltrow. Hof was virtually unknown before appearing on The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow on Netflix in January 2020, taking a breath and jumping into icy water. Within weeks the world had shut down due to Covid and Hof was a household name. The breathwork he tried is from one of his YouTube videos – it’s had 50 million views. But what is it, and will it do you any good?

First, controlled breathing as a pillar of meditation has been around for thousands of years. Already in the year 1000 a. C., Chinese Taoists and Indian Hindus believed that some kind of energy, an internal breath, passes through us, and breathing was the best way to harness it. The Hindus called it prana, and this is harnessed as pranayama, or breath control, in yoga.

Numerous scientific investigations have found that this type of breathing and meditation really helps to relieve stress and anxiety. Mindfulness (with breathing at its core) has been shown to be so effective that it is now recommended by both the National Health Service and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Dr. Danny Penman, author of The Art of Breathing and co-author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Hectic World, which has sold more than two million copies, is a passionate advocate: “Breathing is based on the large, powerful muscles of the diaphragm, abdomen, and those between the ribs, and is aided by the smaller secondary muscles of the neck, shoulders, and upper ribs.When you are upset, anxious, or stressed, the abdomen tenses and it prevents the primary muscles from working. Instead, they start pulling against each other, letting the secondary muscles do all the work. But these are only designed to carry 20 percent of the load, so they get stressed.

“If this continues, it can lead to chronic shoulder and neck tension, headaches and fatigue, and increasingly shallow breathing.”

I don’t feel stressed, but I do some breathing exercises with Penman. He tells me to sit me comfortably, close my eyes and focus on breathing (inhaling slowly for a few seconds, exhaling a few more) and to let my mind wander if I want to. (It’s a myth that true meditation is thinking about nothing; that’s practically impossible.) Within minutes I realize that he had been tense and now I feel much more relaxed and focused.

Penman, who calls himself ‘as spiritual as a brick house’, says: ‘Simple breathing exercises, even just a three-minute breather, will help you calm down quickly. Do that several times during a stressful day and you will have a much better day, you will have much more control of your life and the situations you encounter.

And if you are able to meditate longer, your life in general will be materially better. Countless studies now show that breath-based meditation, like mindfulness, has a dramatic impact on anxiety, stress, and depression levels.

But all is not rosy in the fast-growing garden of breath. Penman, and other professionals who have been working in the field for many years, are concerned that their sudden popularity is leading to the arrival of inexperienced self-proclaimed ‘enablers’ on the scene. During a quick internet search, I found ‘accredited’ teaching courses that involved no more than 15 hours of online teaching. Then, for $500 (£454) plus a £130 annual subscription, it could be called a breathing instructor.

There is no internationally recognized blanket rating, nor is there any regulation, a concern given that some practitioners claim to induce out-of-body experiences, hallucinations, and deep psychological interventions to address trauma, while others offer unnecessarily elaborate and complicated New Age. style courses

“It’s a bit like the Wild West right now,” says Vidyamala Burch, co-founder and director of the respected charity Breathworks, founded 21 years ago to offer mindfulness teaching courses to help people deal with pain, illness and stress. ‘In mindfulness instruction, you can check with BAMBA (the British Mindfulness-Based Approaches Association) to find qualified instructors. Ideally, in the field of breath there would be something like this: you’re playing with something very powerful with your breath.’

Tom Granger, author of the award-winning beginner’s book Draw Breath: The Art of Breathing, says that gentle techniques are “highly unlikely” to cause problems, but that some people may experience anxiety or panic attacks: “Any technique that involves hyperventilating it has a wide number of contraindications for people with pre-existing health conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, or a history of serious mental health problems.A good trainer will advise against attempting hyperventilation techniques if any apply to you.

I have been told by more than one trainer that the deeper techniques designed to draw out physical or psychosexual trauma should only be used by very experienced practitioners. Performed by an inexperienced trainer, one said, they might ‘do more harm than good’.

Several instructors, including Vanessa Dietzel of the Netherlands-based International Breathwork Foundation, told me they were looking for an organization to tame the ‘Wild West’: the US-registered Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (GPBA). In 2001, this accreditation body has strict rules on training, practice, and ethics. For example, you will not recommend any instructor who has not completed at least 400 hours of training in two years. It has accredited 31 schools around the world, including some in the UK.

In the new breathy boom, the more mature members of the GPBA may have been left behind by Instagrammers and internet users. But the GPBA is getting going, says co-founder Jessica Dibb: ‘We recently established a highly experienced new board. We have a more user-friendly website on the way, and we’re going to be better with social media.

“Breath is like a medicine, a nutrient that can produce an instant change in the brain. It transcends socioeconomic status, gender, language, culture, disabilities, race. It belongs to the people, and we will do everything we can to make sure it is delivered to them properly and safely.

And if they’re able to do that, then we can all breathe easier.

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