I’ve been teaching yoga for more than 18 years, and breathing in yoga classes always makes me feel great, but sometimes I felt like I was missing something.
There were so many amazing pranayama techniques, all of which gave me something interesting and beneficial, but I couldn’t translate lots of them into my day-to-day life. Kapalabhati on the tube or my bike definitely didn’t work out.
I wanted something simple for my day-to-day, that would help my sleep, calm my stress responses, enable me to think more clearly in the moment, and set me up for a great yoga practice or bike ride.
At the same time, I was made redundant after 28 years of working in international book sales at a publishing house. I had also had a pretty bad time going through perimenopause and was just navigating menopause, and I had a (fortunately minor) health scare.
A reset was needed.
Yoga has always carried me through everything challenging, but I needed something that I could do anywhere, in two minutes, and which would calm me physically and mentally. I had been exploring Functional Breathing for a year or so, and I found that by leaning into that I could make immediate, beneficial changes that felt real and supportive.
What surprised me was that I could do breathing exercises on my own, in my own time, once I knew what I was aiming for.
I’ve always depended on yoga techniques in a class. I realised I could do Functional Breathing myself, and it felt achievable. Also I could integrate it into other things — so if I went for a walk, or was on my bike, or with family or friends, even when I was just washing up or watching TV.
I could build better breathing into my life without it feeling like another thing I had to do. That was really freeing.
I have remembered what good sleep feels like
That’s probably the biggest difference Functional Breathing has made to me personally.
I have remembered what good sleep feels like. I don’t always get it, and not always for as long as I would like, but now, mostly I get good sleep. This is pretty miraculous. It makes everything better.
Also I love building Functional Breathing into my life, not feeling that I have to move my life around to do Functional Breathing exercises. Life is busy. I needed something that fitted me and fitted around me. Functional Breathing does that.
Light, slow and deep
The basic idea is to breathe light, slow and deep.
Light — breathing slightly less air than you think you need at that moment.
Slow — breathing just a little more slowly, particularly on the exhalation.
Deep — into the lower side ribs. You should feel your lower side ribs move out on the inhale, and in on the exhale. Basically, deep means into your diaphragm — so deep in an anatomical sense.
People think deep breathing means taking big breaths. We don’t need to take big breaths most of the time. It can feel like we need to if we’re stressed or working hard, but Functional Breathing is about learning to breathe through the nose, and a little lighter, slower and deeper.
There is some interesting science behind this too. Some research suggests that slow breathing can affect heart-rate variability and other measures associated with the autonomic nervous system.1
For me, though, the interesting thing is the immediacy of it. You can change the way you’re breathing and sometimes notice a difference in how you feel surprisingly quickly. I find that genuinely amazing.
“Why did nobody ever tell me this before?”
When people first try Functional Breathing with me, they tend to notice that they feel calmer and clearer. They feel it in the body and the mind.
It’s like a genuine “wow” moment. And then they often say, “Well, why did nobody ever tell me this before?”
I think the biggest misconception people have about breathing is that we know how to breathe because we’re doing it all the time.
Functional Breathing is different from the Breathwork people may already have experienced at Phoenix, or pranayama in a yoga class, because it’s about our day-to-day breathing. It’s about creating an efficient breathing practice to support our needs at different moments in our lives.
Understanding and empowerment
That’s what I hope people will take away from the 90-minute workshop: understanding and empowerment.
Understanding how Functional Breathing might benefit them in their life, and how they can explore that with a few simple exercises they can do at any time.
People might not have a clear wish list of what they want to achieve when they come in. They might want to sleep better, think more clearly, feel calmer, or have a more comfortable time when they jog. Or they might just be curious.
The idea is that they leave understanding their breathing a little better and knowing some simple things they can practise themselves.
And then the regular classes give us the opportunity to explore that further.
Why Phoenix?
I love Phoenix. Whatever I need, I know I can come in, be seen, heard and supported by the teacher, move, and come out feeling better in my body and my mind.
Functional Breathing feels like the natural next step. It makes things feel better.
I can’t wait to share that.
Rachel Graves has been teaching yoga for more than 18 years. She has been training in Functional Breathing and the Oxygen Advantage method, and completes her qualification this weekend.
1 See, for example, Laborde S, et al. (2022), Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews; and Zaccaro A, et al. (2018), How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.