The Hidden Danger in Popular Breathwork Practices

Today I want to speak about the two movements of energy within our system, because I think it's important when we do work to cultivate our own system. And I want to get into how this manifests within practices like breathwork, because breathwork is very popular nowadays, but often we only have a limited perspective, and many people don't have the understanding yet to fully discern which methods do what to our system, and what is actually appropriate for them to practice. I have had to learn this through my own personal experience.

There's definitely merit in exploring various practices to actually understand and feel, on a deeper level, what it does to your system.

But in terms of these two main movements of energy, it's important because we live in a world of duality, and there are polarities in this reality that we can perceive. When we start engaging with these polarities, it's very important to find a balance between them, because if we get fixated on one polarity, we create imbalance.

The tricky thing is that when we are already imbalanced towards a certain extreme, or a certain polarity, the other polarity can bring balance if it's used to get us away from that and back into the center. But after a while, once we're back to that center, if we continue focusing upon the polarity we were exploring to bring balance to our system, we get imbalanced in the other direction.

So how this manifests in breathwork and breathing practices: I would roughly categorize every technique or practice into two different camps.

One camp is mainly about breath control—slowing down the breath, lengthening the breath, reducing the size of our breathing, and working with rhythm. A lot of the more pranayama-type methods, where it's about rhythm and control of breathing, I would consider falling into the category of breath control.

The other category I would personally call breath liberation. There, it's not so much about control and technique—there can still be techniques involved, but it's mainly the hyperventilation-type practices that nowadays are being termed transformational breathwork, or shamanic breathwork: practices where you intensify the breath, speed it up, sometimes enlarge the size of your breathing, taking in more volume of air. All of that helps to liberate the breath and bring an expansion.

So there are roughly these two categories. One type of breathing technique brings us more into the realm of breath control, where we're slowing down our system—in a way, contracting our energy system and making it more dense, so that more energy goes into the physical dimension of our being. The other is breath liberation, where there's an expansion of energy that makes our energy a bit lighter, and brings energy away from the physical dimension and more toward the higher, spiritual aspects of our being.

Now, when you look at that metaphysically, you can see that the contractive movement, where energy becomes more dense in the physical dimension, is the same energy movement as the movement from spirit into matter. Life force is moving into the physical dimension, from the subtle realm, to strengthen the physical plane and bring more vitality into it.

The other movement is the opposite: from matter to spirit, where energy moves from the material, physical plane back up to the higher dimensions of spirit. This is why many ancient cultures—the shamanic cultures for instance, with their shamanic breathwork—use this type of breathwork to connect to spirit, to get visions and insights, and bring those into the physical plane. Then it's up to us to actually manifest and create those visions within the material plane.

Balance is important, and also an understanding that, especially with the more intensified breathing practices, where we are connecting upwards and expanding our energy system, this is quite taxing on our system. Like I said, it moves energy away from the physical plane. So if we focus too heavily on these types of practices, we actually end up depleting our vitality and our life force.

You can see this when you look at the science behind breathing, and a lot of the science being revealed nowadays about hyperventilation, and how it depletes the mineral stores of the body—including through the kidneys. This is something the Daoists also refer to a lot: the importance of the kidneys with regard to our vitality and life force. So focusing heavily on these types of practices will literally take energy from the physical plane and bring it up to the more subtle planes. It will dissolve the mineral stores of the actual bones—the physicality starts to suffer because of this type of breathing.

Now, most people nowadays generally breathe too much—a kind of chronic hyperventilation—and that definitely needs to be balanced and addressed when somebody works with this.

I think it's actually a problem with a lot of the methods being popularized nowadays, because so much of it is focused on hyperventilation, on intensifying the breathing. In my opinion, a lot of that is because it has the ability to create quite a powerful experience. The debate is whether that's healthy or not. I think if it's done in moderation, it can be helpful—it can break things up and shake your whole system up, which is sometimes very beneficial. But a lot of methods nowadays are about intensifying the system, and we already live in a society that's overstimulated, which is reflected in most people's breathing, in this chronic hyperventilation state that most people are in.

So actually, I think a lot of people first need to slow down their system, slow down their breathing, and focus more on breath control, which will help them settle their nervous system, so that after that they can explore these more intense and advanced breathing practices. This is also the way it used to be taught in, for instance, the yogic tradition, where it's first about learning to settle and ground your system. From that grounded space, you can move upwards in a safe and sustainable way for your nervous system particularly.

So it's important to understand that mechanism, to find balance, and not lose yourself in the hype. Because one aspect to keep in mind is that this movement from matter back into spirit is also where a lot of people get stuck in patterns of escapism. This is also the realm where, eventually, people become addicted to drugs, because they're constantly trying to distract themselves from physical sensations—trying to numb themselves from their emotions and their physical state, and constantly be somewhere outside the body.

A lot of these breathing methods and techniques being popularized nowadays advocate things like "getting high on your own supply." It's the same mechanism: these breathing methods release a lot of hormones within our system, and they give a sort of numbing effect to the body, which is obviously very tempting if there's a lot of physical or emotional discomfort within the system, to numb that and not have to deal with it.

So there is a place for it, but I would argue—based on my own experience—that it's important to be mindful. I have sensed the difference between focusing heavily on these intense breathing practices and then starting to focus more on the slow breathing practices, breath control.

Up to a certain point, I was heavily invested in the intense breathing practices, thinking they would give me more vitality, make me feel more alive. It definitely brought some movement into my system, because that's what these practices do—they move energy and emotions. So when there's a lot stuck, it can definitely be helpful. But over time, if you focus too much on them, you will start to deplete your system.

It's interesting because when you look at the work of someone like Walter Russell—he relates this not necessarily to the human system or breathing practices, but he studied the nature of energy within the universe. How it operates, how it forms matter. A lot of his work goes into the periodic table of elements, where he basically says that the elements, and so also our physical body, are subject to two forces: the masculine and the feminine force. He describes them, in his book The Universal One, as forces of integration and forces of disintegration.

In his framework, the forces of integration are the forces that bring energy together—they integrate energy and make it more dense, and make the physical matter more dense and solid. The forces of disintegration, which in his framework is the feminine force, make the physical matter more subtle and lighter.

If you relate this to water, for instance: water, when it becomes more integrated, becomes ice. When it becomes disintegrated, it goes back into water, and then eventually into vapor, which makes it rise up to the sky, before it gets cold enough that it starts solidifying again and comes down as rain. That's the cycle—all elements, all matter, goes through those cycles.

So, understanding it as forces of integration and disintegration: in his framework, the forces of integration happen when things slow down and become colder. Slowing down and coldness bring everything together, integrate it, make it more dense. You can experience this yourself in your body when you feel cold: everything wants to contract inward to preserve heat, and it becomes more dense. The forces of disintegration is when heat starts building up, the molecules start vibrating faster, and everything becomes lighter and starts rising upward. That's the natural circulation of energy.

But also, with the forces of disintegration: it's an expansion that brings a lot of lightness and opens us up to possibilities. But if we go too far, we basically become boundaryless, and we have a hard time sensing ourselves or experiencing a grounded sense of self, because we're so expanded that we literally don't know where our boundaries are.

So it's an important one to think about, especially if you're exploring work with your nervous system, your energy, your breath, breathwork. It's important to understand, because everyone will be on a certain spectrum along these polarities, and I don't think we'll ever be in full balance. Even though you could argue that, according to the ancient traditions, there is a state where we become so balanced that we're not affected by these polarities.

But when we explore these polarities, it's always important to explore both sides, and be aware of where you are on that spectrum, so that you don't, in the long run, create a lot of imbalance—and with that, maybe even damage—within your system. Because our nervous system, our energy system, is quite delicate. So it's good to be aware, be careful, have discernment, and create as much balance as you can within your system, without becoming afraid of exploration. Because, like I said in the beginning, exploration is very valuable, it allows us to learn. But being aware of the risks is always an important aspect.