Twice a week, often between video calls or meetings, Andrew Lowenthal takes a break from work to open an app on his phone that helps him focus on his breathing.
The payoff? Better stress management, clearer thinking at work and — to Mr. Lowenthal’s surprise — more strength and power in the gym. “It’s such a fundamental part of being human but not something that we think about often,” Mr. Lowenthal said about his breathwork.
As the executive director of Out in Tech, a Manhattan-based nonprofit, Mr. Lowenthal, 33, typically spends three to 10 minutes on an app created by Inscape, a New York meditation studio. He inhales, holding and exhaling his breath for various lengths of time according to prompts. Mr. Lowenthal said that he now exercises more regularly and takes care of himself better because of his breathing exercises. “It definitely helps me with my endurance,” he said.
Long a key part of meditation and some kinds of yoga, breathwork is now becoming a discipline in its own right, with proponents offering classes, one-on-one sessions and apps dedicated to the practice. And whereas the focus has predominantly been on the mental and psychological benefits of breathwork, fitness industry professionals are increasingly saying that it can also enhance athletic performance or speed muscular recovery after a workout.
Mindbodygreen, a wellness-focused media company that has published articles on breathwork, has noted an uptick in interest in the subject from its audience — in particular from “people who are thinking meditation is too woo-woo,” said a company co-founder, Colleen Wachob. “It’s a slightly different cohort that’s looking for a shortcut or hack and that’s more performance- or science-driven,” she said.
It has been long recognized that deep, controlled breathing can calm someone having an anxiety attack or help anyone in need of a little more stress-relief and mental clarity. Hillary Clinton, for example, has talked about using alternate side nostril breathing to help her relax while on the 2016 presidential campaign trail. But what’s new is that scientists have found a physical link between breathing and what they call “emotionality.”