The Three Types of Breathwork I Teach, and When to Use Each

Breath is the only part of the autonomic nervous system you can take hold of directly. Your heart rate, your digestion, your blood pressure all run without you. Breathing runs without you too, right up until the moment you decide otherwise.

That makes it the fastest lever any of us has. It is also the one most commonly taught badly, as a single technique handed out for every situation.

There are three I teach, and they do genuinely different jobs.

1. Lateral thoracic breathing — the Pilates breath

What it is: breathing wide into the sides and back of the ribcage rather than pushing the belly forward.

What it is for: movement. This is the breath that lets you keep the deep abdominals engaged while the diaphragm still moves properly. It is the foundation of everything we do on the equipment.

How: Put your hands on the sides of your lower ribs, thumbs toward your back. Breathe in through the nose and try to push your hands apart sideways. The belly should stay quiet, the ribs should widen. Exhale through slightly pursed lips and feel the ribs close.

Most women find this genuinely hard the first several times, which tells you how long belly-forward breathing has been the default. It is worth the frustration. Once you have it, your core work changes completely, and I have written about why in What "Engage Your Core" Actually Means.

2. Box breathing — for a mind that will not settle

What it is: equal counts. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.

What it is for: focus and steadying. The equal structure gives a racing mind something to hold, which is why it is used everywhere from athletics to the military. It is the one I reach for before something demanding rather than after it.

How: Sit upright. Inhale through the nose for four. Hold, without straining, for four. Exhale for four. Hold empty for four. Repeat four to six rounds.

If four feels like too long, use three. The counts matter far less than keeping them equal.

3. Extended exhale — for coming down

What it is: making the out-breath longer than the in-breath. In for four, out for six or eight.

What it is for: this is the one for stress. The lengthened exhale is associated with a shift toward the parasympathetic side, the part of the nervous system responsible for rest rather than readiness.

How: Inhale through the nose for a count of four. Exhale slowly through the mouth for six, building to eight as it becomes comfortable. Five or six rounds.

If I could only teach one, it would be this. It is the most reliably useful, it needs no equipment, and it works in a car park, at a desk, or lying awake at two in the morning.

Try it now — three minutes

Reading about breath does very little. Do this on the page, before you close the tab.

Sit with both feet on the floor. Let your shoulders drop. You do not need to close your eyes.

Round one. Hands on the sides of your ribs. Three slow breaths in through the nose, widening the ribs into your hands. Notice whether your belly wants to take over.

Round two. Hands down. Four rounds of box breathing — in four, hold four, out four, hold four.

Round three. Six rounds of extended exhale — in for four through the nose, out for six through the mouth. Let the out-breath be slow and unhurried rather than forced.

Then sit for a moment before you carry on. Most people notice their shoulders have come down. Some notice nothing the first time, which is completely normal and not a sign it is not for you.

Where breath fits in what I teach

Breathwork is not a separate offering at GLOW Body Pilates. It runs through everything.

In private sessions it is where we start, because you cannot stabilise a spine or load a joint well while holding your breath. In group work it is the thing that turns an exercise class into something more considered. In coaching it is often the first practical tool I give someone, because it is available in the moments when nothing else is.

What I would not do is sell it to you as a cure. Breathing well will not resolve grief, or a difficult marriage, or a job that is taking too much. It changes your physiological state for a while, which is sometimes enough to make the next decision from a steadier place. That is a real thing, and it is also a limited thing, and I would rather say so.

If the practice itself is the hard part

Some days the counting is exactly what you cannot manage. That is the gap I built SOVA for, and there is more about how the two fit together there.

And if you would like someone watching what your ribs are actually doing rather than guessing from a page, that is what a session is for. It is usually the first thing we look at.