Pregnant women or people with respiratory illnesses such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, should use caution before trying breathwork and consult with a medical professional. Both these groups have been excluded from previous breathwork or breathing exercise trials. However, there are thought to be many people who can potentially benefit.
A few small changes can help lower stress hormones in healthy people, while for those living with chronic health conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, breathwork can improve symptoms and lower inflammation. For most of us, small tweaks to the rate, rhythm and regularity of breathing can make an immediate difference.
So how can you begin to reap the benefits? The BBC takes a closer look at the fast-developing science of breathwork – and breaks down five different breathwork techniques you can try yourself.
The science of de-stressing
There is a growing body of evidence that breathwork can offer a new way of managing stress. Chronic stress is a pivotal driver of many age-related disorders, along with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. For people who are already battling illnesses such as breast cancer as well as other cancers, levels of stress hormones such as cortisol can worsen prognosis and accelerate disease progression, while research shows that it can also accelerate the ageing process.
“We’ve studied cortisol levels in women with advanced breast cancer, and found that abnormal patterns of diurnal cortisol [the daily cycle of cortisol production], can predict how much longer people are going to live,” says David Spiegel, professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in the US.
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