Breathe It All In — And Heal From the Inside Out

We take around 22,000 breaths a day.
That’s 22,000 opportunities to nourish our body, calm our mind, and create balance in our system.

It’s also 22,000 opportunities to trigger subtle or not-so-subtle stress.

How Breathing Shapes Your Health

Most of us don’t think about our breath until it’s challenged. But the way we breathe isn’t just about oxygen it impacts our nervous system, our gut, our inflammation levels, and even our capacity for change.

I once received a referral from a highly respected functional medicine practitioner who had been working with a client for over a year. They’d addressed diet, lifestyle, gut microbiome imbalances, and stress management. The client had run the tests, followed the protocols… and yet, nothing was shifting.

When we met, I noticed her posture immediately: rounded shoulders, head forward, chest collapsed. We spoke briefly about her posture, both in terms of physical mechanics and the emotions it might be holding. I then gave her a single 15-minute daily exercise to open her thoracic spine, reeducate her diaphragm, and restore better breathing mechanics. (see exercise below)

Within weeks, all the previous work she had done started to “take hold.” Her body began to respond to the protocols. Symptoms improved. What changed wasn’t the supplements or diet it was her breath.

The Stress Switch Hidden in Your Breath

Here’s an experiment:
Cover one nostril and take a breath. Now switch and do the same with the other. Finally, partially block one nostril so that you can still breathe, but less easily.

If you paid close attention, you probably felt a subtle shift maybe even a jolt in your body. That’s your sympathetic nervous system switching on, preparing you for fight or flight. This system reacts instantly to breathing inhibition, even if it’s slight.

Now imagine that some degree of that inhibition is happening all the time because of posture, clothing, congestion, food sensitivities, emotional tension, or unprocessed stress. With every breath, your body gets a micro-dose of fear. Multiply that by 22,000 breaths a day and you begin to see the problem.

How Dysfunctional Breathing Affects the Gut

Breath isn’t just about air it’s the delivery system for oxygen to every cell. Proper breathing helps:

• Support parasympathetic activity (“rest and digest”)

• Deliver nutrients at the cellular level

• Remove metabolic waste

• Reduce inflammation

Dysfunctional breathing, on the other hand, can:

• Keep you stuck in sympathetic dominance (fight or flight)

• Trigger chronic stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline

• Disrupt the gut microbiome

• Slow digestion and nutrient absorption

• Increase inflammation and immune reactivity

• Contribute to autoimmune processes over time

The link is so strong that I’ve seen gut protocols fail repeatedly until breathing mechanics were addressed.

The Posture–Emotion–Breath Connection

Your body’s shape influences how freely you breathe. A forward head, collapsed chest, or locked diaphragm doesn’t just limit oxygen it mirrors the emotional patterns you carry. Anxiety, shame, grief, or guardedness can subtly change your posture, which then reinforces dysfunctional breathing.

These patterns are often invisible because they’ve become your “normal.” But they still keep your body in a stress loop, closing your perceptual lens and narrowing your creativity, adaptability, and openness to new ideas.

Breathing in Life

This is where breath becomes more than a mechanical process.

How do you breathe in life? Do you breathe deeply only when things are going your way? Or can you breathe fully even when you feel discomfort, uncertainty, or pain?

One of the biggest inhibitors to breath is our unwillingness to “breathe in” what life offers the situations, emotions, and truths we’d rather avoid. Holding back from life and holding back from breath are often two sides of the same coin.

Breathing fully into life requires two perspectives:

1. The Participant — willing to feel, think, and sense what’s here.

2. The Observer — able to step back and find meaning or purpose in what’s unfolding.

When these work together, we begin to soften the inner critic, create space for change, and restore trust with ourselves.

Your Invitation

Start noticing your breath in different contexts:

• When you eat

• When you speak with certain people

• When you sit at a computer

• When you’re in conflict or under pressure

• When you’re relaxed and at ease

Ask yourself:

• Is my breathing free, or restricted?

• Is my posture supporting my breath, or limiting it?

• How does my breath change with my emotions?

• Easy excercise below for improving breathing mechanics, posture, and stress management

Improving your breathing patterns may be the simplest and most overlooked tool for healing. When you breathe well, more of your cells receive oxygen and nutrients, more waste is cleared, inflammation reduces, and your nervous system shifts toward rest and repair.

Deep breaths, friends.

Breathe into life all of it.
The next breath isn’t guaranteed. Neither is the next heartbeat.

So… how do you want to live? And will you let yourself breathe it all in?

Until next time friends 👽

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