Breath has been practiced for centuries across cultures as a way to cultivate body, mind, and spirit.

Today, it is booming and with that comes a wide range of offers and trainings - some deep and rigorous, others more superficial.

Not all breathwork is the same. You can use it as a high-performance tool to optimize body and mind. Or as a path into healing and spiritual growth.

In any way, Breathwork is a powerful tool - but only when the right practice is matched to the right intention and held by properly trained facilitators.

There are countless breathwork modalities - Here’s a bit of clarity among the most familiar ones in our cultural hemisphere.

1. Functional breathing
(e.g. Oxygen Advantage® )
→ Optimizes oxygen use and breathing efficiency..
→ Excellent for athletic performance, enhanced physical endurance, faster recovery.

2.Resilience-building breathwork
(e.g. Wim Hof Method)
→ Uses controlled stress through breath retention and over-breathing.
→ Effective for mental and physical resilience and cold exposure.

3.Pranayama
→ Ancient yogic breath practices regulating the nervous system and steadying the mind.
→ Builds regulation, inner balance, and meditation readiness.

4.Holotropic Breathwork*
(e.g.Conscious Connected Breathing - CCB)

→ Circular, deep breathing for emotional processing and to access altered states.
→ Supports profound transformation resulting in mental clarity, emotional balance, physical vitality, and spiritual connection.

I hope that gives you some clarity in the jungle of breathwork.

My work spans the full spectrum - performance to holotropic breathwork -  Details can be found here.

*If you’re exploring transformative/holotropic breathwork, it’s worth checking whether your teacher is accredited by Global Professional Breathwork Alliance. (GPBA). Accreditation requires 400+ hrs and 2 yrs of Breathwork training ensuring strong foundations in safety, trauma awareness, ethics, and facilitation that are needed for this kind of work. An 80 hour training simply does not do that.