Bountiful Breakfast: Time to breathe….
We love discovering wonderful and thought-provoking ways of keeping our team healthy and happy, so that they come to work inspired, creative and excited and produce outstanding work for our clients. We also love adding value by bringing these discoveries to you to take back to your teams.
This month we called upon Matylda and Megan to educate us on the benefits of breathwork. They say that optimising your breath boosts energy and focus. So you think you can breathe? Think again. Here’s how to do it properly.
Matylda and Megan opened our Breakfast session with some words of wisdom about the importance of breathing to balance mood and improve mindset. We know we need to breathe to live, but do we use our breath as a switch to change our inner state, or to support our mental health? Vogue coined Breathwork ‘The New Yoga’ in 2016.
We wanted to hear more….
About our hosts
Matylda is a breathwork coach and psychologist, on a mission to empower people to enhance their lives by guiding them back into their bodies and re-connecting with their breath. She discovered the power of breathwork after feeling disconnected in a fast-paced job. Her first session was mind blowing, and she knew she had to share its power.
Megan supports start-ups and scale-ups by enhancing team performance and encouraging radical responsibility, resilience and emotional fitness through breathing. Her passion for breathwork began after she suffered severe work-related burnout. Breathwork brought her back to her happy and successful state and she is passionate about spreading the word.
They arrived on our screens and demonstrated (to a very captive audience) some amazing breathing techniques designed to clear your mind, energize your body and eliminate stress.
Optimise your breathing to support mental balance
Yes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Justin Bieber swear by it, but don’t run off. It’s so much more than a celebrity buzzword. The power of dedicated breathing practices is transformational.
So, is breathwork just mindfulness or meditation? Not quite. Breathing is about focussing on regulating your nervous system. It influences your mood and energy levels, how you think and feel. It’s a gym for the mind.
Breath happens automatically but you can control it. Every day we take 20-30000 breaths on autopilot, but there’s a more powerful way to use it. We can use it to change how we feel at any moment, like hacking our own system. When we control our breath, we can send a message to the nervous system that we’re relaxed. And we really will feel calmer.
Breathing for teams
So how can this work at work? Breathwork awakens creativity, strengthens bonds and encourages communication. When teams breathe together it helps enhance understanding and empathy and allows people to be in tune with one another.
Box breathing
When you want to feel more grounded, like before a presentation or an interview, use this technique.
Inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 5, hold for 5.
We did what we were told. We became aware of our breath; of our chest and belly expanding as our more controlled breathing alleviated pressure on the heart and massaged our internal organs. In unison, we took slow deep breaths into the stomach. It was quite marvellous.
Coherent breathing or heart breathing
6 breaths per minute. Inhale for 5, exhale for 5.
This is the exercise they recommend to create synchronicity in teams. Breathing together at the same pace like one living organism makes you feel connected to others. It creates empathy and connectivity. Just by trying it for a few minutes we felt an inkling of its power.
Well, we were blown away (pardon the terrible pun). Who knew that we have so much control over the very thing that works so automatically from the day we are born to keep us alive?
Bring breathwork to your workplace
We love our people to be relaxed and fulfilled. It promotes creativity and innovation and it makes our working day genuinely enjoyable. Sounds good? So why not give breathwork a go in the office? Consider adopting these practices next time you are about to start a big task, or you’re feeling overwhelmed, and maybe even consider breathing together in meetings, workshops, or just around your desks.
Try breathing with colleagues or with the family, and let us know how you get on. And if you’re interested in hearing more about these amazing breathwork workshops, let us know and we’ll put you in touch with Matylda and Megan.
And breathe…