Just BREATHE

In... and out. In... and out. As stress bites globally, could relief be a few deep breaths away? New studies are weighing up old teachings in breathwork.

- Glynis Horning

Like many other women, I first encountered controlled breathing in the thrill of having my first child. Intent on a natural birth, I took antenatal classes and diligently practised the structured breathing taught for the final phase: two quick, shallow inhales, and then a long exhale - the hallmark 'hee, hee, hoo' (pant, pant, blow) of early Lamaze training.

When the day came, it helped to have something to focus on, giving a semblance of control in the helplessness of overwhelming pain – but only to a point. Then I called out for an epidural, and when that failed to kick in, sucked shamelessly on an Entonox mask until our beautiful first son arrived.

I returned to controlled breathing 25 years later, when he left – gripped by clinical depression and generalised anxiety disorder that he could not bear, linked to a debilitating genetic blood condition. The pain of losing him was immeasurably greater than his birth, and has no end.

In grief counselling, the psychologist urged deep breathing. I did it daily, desperately. And most effectively when swimming every day at dawn – soothed by the repetition of the strokes, the rhythm it gave my breathing, as endorphins flowed and the cold helped fire the vagus nerve.

Afterwards, I would don my little Yoko Ono ‘breathe’ badge, a memento of an early exhibition in Zurich. But I couldn't read the word; only those I was with could. So, on the second anniversary of our boy's departure, I had it tattooed inside my wrist: ‘breathe’. It's a quick self-reminder I use still, six years later, during moments when the hole gapes and I fall in. An invaluable temporary escape. But mostly, of course, it's what I wish our boy could do.

AS NATURAL AS BREATHING

As if we needed telling, our rising levels of daily emotional stress, anxiety and depression worldwide since the pandemic have been documented in journals from