Breath to improve your health and wellbeing

coming very soon…

Please join my weekly soma breath sessions. We have a new session every Friday morning at 10 UK time.

You can book your place here.

If you would like to try breathwork first, you can find a short taster session here.

Why Breathwork is so effective

Breathwork directly influences your autonomic nervous system, shifting your body from stress (sympathetic mode) into rest, repair, and recovery (parasympathetic mode). This shift has measurable effects on nearly every system in the body:

  • Lowers blood pressure and heart rate

  • Improves oxygen efficiency and supports cellular metabolism

  • Reduces inflammation and supports immune function

  • Improves digestion by restoring parasympathetic activity

  • Enhances sleep quality by calming the stress response

  • Supports hormonal balance, especially cortisol and melatonin

  • Relieves muscular tension and promotes natural pain relief

When practiced regularly and correctly, breathwork can help rebalance the body’s internal systems, support recovery from stress-related conditions, and enhance overall vitality and resilience.

Please find more information from my monthly letters here and here.

Intermittent Hypoxic Training (IHT)

In many of our breath sessions, we include breath holds. This often leads to a temporary state called Intermittent Hypoxia—a brief, controlled reduction of oxygen (O₂) and increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the blood.

While this may sound counterintuitive, short periods of low oxygen have been shown to trigger beneficial adaptive responses in the body. (There are even specialized machines used in sports and rehabilitation settings to mimic this effect.)

Potential Benefits of IHT

Intermittent Hypoxic Training has been associated with:

  • Improved mitochondrial function and energy production

  • Enhanced athletic performance and endurance

  • Better regulation of blood pressure

  • Support for lung and respiratory health

  • Relief from asthma and chronic bronchitis symptoms

  • Better mood regulation (anxiety and depression support)

  • Increased iron absorption and support for anemia

  • Boosted vitality and reduced fatigue

When to Avoid IHT

While IHT, which means breath holds, is safe for most people, it is not recommended in the following cases unless under medical supervision. The rhythmical breathing part is good for everyone so this is when to avoid the breath hold part of the breathwork:

Key Contraindications:

Cardiovascular Problems: Uncontrolled high blood pressure (hypertension), heart arrhythmias, pacemaker use, or recent heart attack.

  • Respiratory Conditions: Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (II & III) or any acute respiratory distress.

  • Pregnancy: Intense breathwork is generally discouraged during pregnancy.

  • Neurological Conditions: Epilepsy, as breath holds/hyperventilation can potentially trigger seizures.

  • Acute Illness: Any acute viral or somatic illness with fever.

  • Severe/Terminal Illness: Organ failure, late-stage cancer (unless under strict medical guidance).

  • Individual Intolerance: If you experience severe discomfort or intolerance to oxygen deprivation. 

Important Considerations:

  • Gentle vs. Intense: SOMA Breath has gentle rhythmic breathing, but the rare intense parts (forceful mouth breathing, long breath holds, intense hyperventilation) are what carry risks, so listen to your body.

  • Medical Supervision: For any significant health condition, especially heart or respiratory issues, always consult a doctor before practicing intense breathwork.

  • Avoid Aggravation: Conditions like hernias or tinnitus might be aggravated by breath holds, requiring careful technique. 

More information about the benefits of breathwork

When you breathe in oxygen, it binds to red blood cells which transports it to all cells. The oxygen is needed by the mitochondria in the cells for energy. Hence oxygen is very important, but if our body has too much oxygen, it causes oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when there is an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in our body. It can lead to cell and tissue damage. For that reason we need the right balance of oxygen; not too much and not too little.

O₂ + Glucose ⇨ ATP (energy) + CO₂+ H₂O

The oxygen you inhale is carried around your body by red blood cells and it combines with glucose in the mitochondria of your cells, which produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy, carbon dioxide (CO₂), and water (H₂O). When you exhale, you breathe out the carbon dioxide and water. The ATP provides energy to your body, so it can function normally.

The autonomic nervous system is made up of the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. It regulates bodily functions like pupil dilation, heart rate, and saliva production.

Inhalation stimulates your sympathetic nervous system, exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. By changing the way you breathe you can make one of them more dominant than the other in that moment depending on what you want.

Rapid breathing and taking in more oxygen than normal energises your body. It will also cause contraction in the body as you breathe out carbon dioxide at a faster rate, stimulating the sympathetic nervous system.

Slowing down your breathing and extending your exhale to be longer than your inhale will have a relaxing effect on the body. It causes an increase in carbon dioxide levels and also stimulates the production of nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels (vasodilation). Vasodilation reduces blood pressure and increases blood flow.

When tissue cells have high enough levels of CO₂, the O₂ that is bound to haemoglobin in red blood cells detach and then bind to tissue cells. If you breathe out too much CO₂ at a fast rate, the O₂ stays bound to red blood cells and doesn’t transfer to the tissue cells, because there is not enough CO₂ for the exchange to take place. This is how over-breathing causes problems.

We need to have a good CO₂ tolerance, so that we don’t need to breathe much. When we don’t breathe as much, CO₂ levels are higher and that allows the O₂ to detach from red blood cells and bind with tissue cells.

CO₂ is a vasodilator which means it widens (or dilates) the arteries and veins. Nitric oxide also plays a role in this process. Vasodilation reduces blood pressure.

O₂ is a vasoconstrictor, which means it narrows (or constricts) arteries and veins, and increases blood pressure.

This is why goal of Pranayama is to slow breathing down: when you develop a good CO₂ tolerance, it literally keeps you expanded thanks to better dilation of arteries and veins, which keeps O₂ coming in for healthy respiration and metabolism.

On average people breathe 10+ breaths per minute. The main goal of SOMA Breath is to correct your breathing so that your resting rate is 4-6 breaths per minute. This can help protect against disease, balance your emotions and help you spend more time in flow state.