WHAT IS CONSCIOUS CONNECTED BREATHING?

Conscious Connected Breathing is a beautiful way to get out of your head and connect to your emotional inner world. By this breathing technique, you breathe through blockages in your body so the life energy can flow freely again. You can ‘breathe yourself free’ of emotional baggage. Sadness, anger, and old pain can arise, but also the positive spectrum of laughter, satisfaction, happiness, and sexual liberation. Often, a combination of all kinds of emotions passes by in a Conscious Connected Breathwork session. This style of breathwork is practiced one-on-one with a dedicated practitioner or in a circle setting.  

We host seasonal Breathwork + Micrdose Ceremonies in Amsterdam, where you can experience this intense, transformative style of breathing combined with a truffle microdose.

What can I expect from a Conscious Connected Breathwork Session?

Conscious Connected Breathing is not only practiced to create a calm mind and balanced, relaxed body. This breathwork style brings your body into a temporary state of ‘stress,’ increasing oxygen flow and enhancing the movement of energy within your body. Practicing this technique for a more extended period (15 minutes – 1 hour) results in reaching an altered state of consciousness that allows you to release stored energy in your body. This release can result in a profoundly mentally and physically cleansing and joyfully liberating experience. 

How do I Practice Circular Breathing?

In a deep Conscious Connected Breathwork session, the active part of Conscious Connected Breathing is mainly practiced for 30-40 minutes and needs to be guided by a professional breathwork coach. Due to the intense effects it can have on the system, including the rise of strong sensations, the release of emotions, and the revelation of (childhood) trauma, we strongly recommend always practicing this style of breathing only under the guidance of an experienced trauma-informed breathwork practitioner.

To start the practice, you will lie on a soft mattress and start breathing deeply in and out. The most important thing is that you eliminate the pauses between inhalation and exhalation and vice versa. Without any intermissions, our breath becomes circular. Our inhalation is intense, while our exhalation is relaxed and without effort. Both the in and out-breath proceed through the mouth. 

Entering your Subconscious

Conscious Connected Breathing brings what may be hidden in your subconscious to the surface – where it can be observed and revised. Music often brings the breather even more into their emotional process. Doing this deep cleansing practice (most often) comes with strong bodily sensations like cramps and tingling sensations and can invoke powerful emotional releases. When practiced more regularly, the most intense sensations will fade away, as the hypothesis is that your body can deal with the heightened oxygen in your body better. The active breathing phase is followed by an ‘integration’ or relaxation phase where the participant lies down and enters a profoundly calming, relaxed state for 20-30 minutes.

A circular breathing practice has many similarities with a psychedelic experience — more about how this works in the next section. 

Contraindications of Circular Breathing

Circular Breathing practices are generally not suitable for pregnant women, and if you have high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, aneurysm in the brain or abdomen, asthma, epilepsy, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or had a hospitalization for any psychiatric condition or emotional crisis within the last few years.

Reasons to Practise Circular Breathing

There can be numerous reasons to start practicing Circular Breathing, as it has many benefits. Here are some examples of reasons to start exploring Circular Breathing practices:

• If you are curious and ready for the next step in your journey toward self-inquiry and want to expand your consciousness 
• If you want to hack your health and optimize physical processes in your body
• When you are looking for new ways of healing trauma
• If you want to let go of emotional baggage 
• When you want to tap into your subconscious and the answers that are stored there
• When you want to prepare for a psychedelic experience
• When you want to integrate things you’ve learned in your psychedelic experience
• When you want to experience deep, nourishing peace and relaxation 
• When you want to find new ways to deal with stress
• When you want to release anxiety, stress and alleviate (mild) depression

Disclaimer: always consult your doctor first when you have a mental disorder and want to start with breathwork.

Benefits of Circular Breathing Practices

Research on circular breathing techniques such as Conscious Connected Breathing and the Wim Hof Method show the following effects:

Physical Benefits of Circular Breathing  

• You release body blockages through heat or energy movement
• It enhances immune function
• Lowers stress (cortisol) and blood pressure
• Improve cardiovascular health, including improved Heart Rate Variability
• It can aid with sleeping problems

Mental Benefits of Circular Breathing

• It can help to release emotional pain and process emotions
• It elevates anxiety, grief, or (mild) depression
• It can aid in the release of trauma and PTSD
• It can give you more clarity and focus in life
• It can provide answers to life questions that you need answers to
• It can increase feelings of well-being and happiness 
• There may be realizations about dysfunctional thought patterns or new insights,
• You can experience overwhelming spiritual revelations that give meaning to life 

But how does it work?

The Science Behind Circular Breathing

During normal breathing, your lungs absorb (O2) from the air you breathe. When you inhale, oxygen is introduced into your lungs through the upper and lower airways. The blood in the smallest blood vessels of the lungs, the alveoli, exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide (CO2).

CO2 is often seen as a waste product, but it also plays an essential role in the breathing process: you need CO2 to absorb oxygen from your blood. It ensures that oxygen is released from the red blood cell (hemoglobin) and can thus be transported from the cell to our organs, such as our heart, liver, intestines, and kidneys. CO2 is, therefore, a vasodilator (it dilates your blood vessels) because it relaxes the muscle tissue around the veins.

Intense breathing, such as Conscious Connected Breathing, causes your blood to lose (a considerable amount of) carbon dioxide (CO2) to the outside air. The PH value of your blood then increases, which means it becomes alkaline (i.e., less acidic). There are also fewer hydrogen ions in the blood. This process is called hypocapnia and occurs with controlled hyperventilation: Consious Connected Breathing.

The consequences of hypocapnia are that blood vessels narrow, resulting in the brain receiving less oxygen. The oxygen in the brain is also released less quickly because the binding to the homoglibin is stronger (Hemoglibin is the protein that transports O2 and CO2).

Possible physiological consequences of Conscious Connected Breathing are:

• Incoherent thinking
• Looking out of focus
• Hallucinations/insights
• Euphoric feeling
• Lightheadedness, dizziness
• Cold hands and/or feet
• Pale complexion
• Tingling sensation and cramps (due to the lack of calcium ions)

More than just a Physical Experience

In addition to these explainable phenomena, Conscious Connected Breathing often also introduces something much bigger and more profound that still needs to be thoroughly investigated by science.

The theory says now that our neocortex (our rational brain) is ‘sidelined’ during connected breathing. This less-active neocortex has the result that other parts of the brain (the middle brain with emotions and our reptilian brain with our survival instincts) can be experienced unfiltered. This way, we come more directly to our ‘old pain’ and possibly old memories. In addition, the chemical train set in motion by Conscious Connected Breathwork also activates something in the pineal gland, which explains the spiritual experiences that occur regularly. The hormone DMT is produced in your brain and can give a blissful feeling while breathing.

In Summary

If you breathe faster and deeper, the CO2 in your body decreases. Your body compensates for this by making your blood more alkaline, which causes a change in your brain. The neocortex, also called the ‘Default Mode Network’, is deactivated. This network is responsible for the mental constructions of the self and the ego. The temporary inactivation provides the opportunity to reconnect with your inner wisdom and your inner guidance.

Experience Conscious Connected Breathing with us

Join our next Breathwork + Microdose Ceremony in Amsterdam. We’ll meet in the beautiful Posthoornkerk with 90 fellow breathers and 20 breathwork coaches to support you. Expect a ceremony with live music, Conscious Connected Breathing, and an optional truffle microdose to connect deeply with the body, release emotions, and attain a psychedelic state.

This ceremony is part of a program that includes a preparation workshop and an integration workshop. You will learn to practice circular breathing and experience the healing effects of releasing energy and emotions.

Upcoming Summer Edition: 27 & 28 June 2024 – Read more

Tickets: € 129

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