Breath is life.

More dramatically put, without the breath, there is no life.

The funny (or not so funny) thing is, as important as the breath is, it happens to take a back seat for many us.

You see, our focuses tend to be on so many other things like our to do lists, finances, tending to our careers, kids, other people, and the like. All the while, these things outside of us take our attention away from our breath…and our bodies pay for it.

When we put our breath on the back burner, we can experience the following:

• Chronic tension in our shoulders and neck
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Consistent stress
• Panic attacks
• Inability to think or communicate clearly
• Chronic fatigue or outright exhaustion
• Clenched jaw or TMJ Dysfunction
• Digestive issues 

These are but a few signs that we're not breathing correctly, and there are many more possiblities.

When we breathe correctly, the breath helps with the following processes (to name a few):

• It calms the nerves and the mind.
• It oxygenates the blood, which helps with pain reduction.
• It helps improve posture by opening up the diaphragm and lifting our chest.
• It helps to balance the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.
• It helps lower the amount of stress hormones in blood.
• It reduces blood pressure.
• It helps balance our heart rate.
• It detoxifies the body by stimulating the lymphatic system, and this improves immunity, as a result.

So even with all of these wonderful benefits, it turns out that we only use 10% of our breathing capabilities, much like we only use 10% of our brains' capacity! Interesting parallel, is it not?!

Why is this!? You see, although the breath falls into the parasympathetic nervous system function (i.e. “rest and digest” mode), basically meaning that we don't have to think about breathing. The reality is, we happen to operate in the sympathetic nervous system mode (i.e. the “fight, flight and freeze”) and our breathing becomes shallow, which then negatively impacts our bodies as a result of being in a constant high state of alert.

When we're in a constant state of alert, we tend to react to life rather than respond to it.

So while breathing is part of our innate bodily function; in order to actually improve the quality of our breath, we do have to think about it, and breathing exercises can help enhance this innate function.

This 3-part workshop series will give you a glimpse into the importance of healthy breathing, and learning how to heal your breath can help you respond to life rather than react to it.