Category: Breathwork

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2021 the breath tokens are about our relation-ship to breathing.
In the current climate, rather than giving an instruction, I feel like taking a step back and formulating an open question instead.

The question for this month is: Imagining my lungs and ribs as my wings, I can ask myself how do my wings feel at this moment? Are they powerful, drooping, stuck together, light or heavy, for example?

We can explore the question through touch, movement, sound, writing, drawing… We can explore it any time, anywhere…

If you have any questions or would like to share something with me, please feel free to contact me: hallo@nicolacaroli.com.

I was surprised to hear that there is such a thing as a “Breathing Stool”.

In her video, bioenergetics teacher Leah Benson explains what a Breathing Stool is and how it helps with breathing.

I’ve found a great article about the thoracic diaphragm on Julee Snyder‘s blog Embodiment Etudes. Julee Snyder is a somatic body worker who applies a variety of somatic practices to Yoga. Her article is simple, yet detailed and gives some insider tips on the diaphragm.

“The thoracic diaphragm

The thoracic diaphragm is the main breathing muscle of the body.  It is a double doming structure that divides the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity.  It attaches to the lower circumference of the ribcage.  And its fibers run from out to in like the spokes of a wheel to attach to the central tendon in the middle of the body just forward of the spine. The diaphragm also has two long kite tails called crura that run along the front of the bodies of the vertebrae.  While most anatomists state that the crura go to T12, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen believes that the fibers actually go all the way down to the tip of the coccyx offering support to the front of the spine.  Her argument is that sitting in chairs allows the lower part of the muscle to atrophy among those of us in the west.  Regardless of whether the muscle goes to the tail or not, the fibers interdigitate with those of the anterior longitudinal ligament and there has been increasing research to suggest a contractile component to the function of connective tissue.  So it is not unreasonable to suggest that the contractile support of the crura of the diaphragm can be felt to support the spine all the way to the tail.

Read More

Revisiting our favourite explorations from 2020

Now that we‘re coming to the end of the year, rather than add a new exploration, let‘s revisit a breath exercise that resonated with us, that felt good, brought joy or comfort.
“Humming with a quivering jaw & smile” from August and “Smelling a rose and letting out a sigh” from October are favourites of mine, for example.

Let‘s repeat an exploration and sense how something has the same or a different effect, how we’ve changed within the repetition. What’s changed and what’s stayed the same? Let’s meet it with acceptance, let’s meet ourselves with acceptance, receiving ourselves as we are.

I wish you all a good transition into the new year. Let’s stay in touch. Let’s be breathed.

In her article “Why Breathing to Calm Down Doesn’t Work“, bioenergetics teacher Leah Benson explains why deep breathing, more often than not, isn‘t actually deep breathing – which is why it’s not calming – and what actually helps.

“Calming Breath
It’s no secret that deep breathing will calm you down when you’re stressed out. Unless, of course, you’re someone who can’t calm down when you breathe deeply.

You could take a Valium or a Xanax. But if that works for you, then you’re probably not looking around for alternate ways to calm down.

The trick for you is to learn how to make deep breathing calm you.

Read More

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2020 the breath tokens are about connecting breath and sound.

The art of humming

I’ve been revisiting Ways to Better Breathing, a book about the work of breath teacher Carola Spitz (in the US Carola Speads) and was struck by her precise guidance to humming.

Even though humming is perhaps the simplest kind of sounding one can do, there are, according to Carola Spitz, several aspects to consider:

“begin after a natural inhale, not a forced inhale

make the hum steady and pleasant

sense where the resonance of the hum is in the body

neither press to extend the hum or cut it off before it comes to its natural conclusion

after the hum sense the effect on the quality of the subsequent breaths

let the reactions of the breath happen without interfering”

Read More

In the online Embodied Breathwork day in May of this year, I was delighted to take part in a breath teaching session by breathing expert Dr. Ela Manga. Dr Ela Manga‘s approach is also based on Natural Breathing. „Working with breathing is working with the body“, she said, „…the body loves the breath, it receives the breath. We have to do very little for the body to remember.“ I loved the philosophical, yet grounded and earthy way she spoke about breathing.

The session she was offering that day was about the way we relate to our bodies through „story“. „So much of illness is wrapped up in story“, she said, „in habitual story, in conditioned story, unconscious story“, and that we need „to find a new way to relate to story.“ To demonstrate what she meant by that, the participants of the Embodied Breathwork day were invited to an exploration she called 3 degrees of separation:

Read More

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2020 the breath tokens are about connecting breath and sound.

Smelling a rose and letting out a sigh

I’m one of these people who stop for roses. When I walk past a garden fence with a rose bush close enough to reach with my nose, I’ll take a sniff. I love all the different roses and their smells, especially at this time of year when only the last flew blooms are left.

When I smell a rose, I draw the scent into my nose, into myself and let out a satisfied sigh with an Ah or some similar sound, or some words of appreciation like “wonderful” or “glorious”…

Read More