In this blog post, I will share some background information and tips for integrating breathwork before, during, and after a SOMA Breath® Awakening experience.

Breathwork is a versatile tool that, when used properly, may address a wide range of health conditions and general well-being issues. Pranayama (breathwork) is an ancient practice that has been used to open ethereal channels to improve the mind-body connection, relieve stress, and promote healing.

You may even be surprised to learn that the breath governs every aspect of our body, including our bones, blood, tissue, organs, and cells. Each of these parts breathes and operates within us in a certain rhythm. The breath quickens and becomes shallower when you’re stressed, anxious, angry, or afraid.

Many people experience breathwork for the first time while practicing yoga or meditation. But, even without the yoga and/or meditation component, more people are looking for stand-alone lessons on conscious breathing.

While meditation is an extremely beneficial method of self-reflection, many individuals want to transcend their mind, whereas an untrained meditation practice can leave us without an integrative experience.

Integrating breathwork into meditation enables us to turn off the mind and re-establish contact with our body and energy, more easily allowing us to detach from our mental chatter.

Breathwork can be easier to drop into when you are seeking more immediate feedback. It’s a great tool to use when you’re feeling anxious, overextended, or off-balance.

So how can you fully integrate the experience for lifelong health and wellness before, during, and after a breathwork experience?

• Have you ever had a breathwork experience that completely blew you away?
• Ever struggled to return back to daily life after a breathwork session?
• After a workshop, were you left feeling vulnerable, sensitive, or confused?

The art of breathwork integration is something most of us have dealt with, but few of us discuss. Why am I writing about it? I’ve personally been “taken out” by ignoring integration when I need it.

The truth is, after a transformational experience, everyone—breathwork facilitators or students alike—needs to integrate.  Indeed, any practice that involves higher states of consciousness should incorporate integration.

We are often reminded of how important it is to get ready for a breathwork session if we want the complete benefit of it. Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose sight of the value, art, and practice of integration following a breathwork experience. 

Integration is required for any transformational journey, and it should be planned beforehand. We all need integration since our nervous systems are susceptible to disruption—none of us are immune.

Why Does Integrating Breathwork Matter?

Breathwork has an impact on many aspects of our lives, including our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

By enabling us to assimilate, embody, and implement into our everyday lives the insights discovered while practicing in-depth exploratory work, attending to integration has the opportunity to improve our life experience.

Integration is the period of time spent getting ready for a breathwork experience, in-between activities of a workshop, and following the event. It helps to stabilize emotions, peak experiences, and transformation into grounded, practical wisdom.

Integration involves slowing down, learning to tolerate discomfort, and applying lessons learned into daily life. It also involves making space for taking a step back and reflecting on your life from the “bigger perspective,” as well as seeking out the assistance of others familiar with your situation.

It’s worth noting that both the highs and lows of a transformational experience needs continuous integration; if space is not held for proper integration, both the surreal, blissful “ah-ha moments” and the bottom pit of activating the pain body can cause feelings of loss, off-purpose, and helplessness.

How Much Time Should You Spend Integrating Breathwork?

In order to get the most “development” out of integrating a breathwork experience, consider the following questions:

• How deep and/or powerful was my experience? 
• How much did I release emotionally and/or physically? 
• How much was I surprised by its content? 
• How “blown away” was I by it? 

In general, as your answers on these questions approach the higher realms, plan on giving yourself more time for integrating breathwork. Trust your intuition.

Integrating Breathwork and Time

It’s easy to become bogged down by the belief that “there isn’t enough time” in the fast-paced reality, but if you don’t take a moment to slow down and “catch your breath,” you can’t integrate.

Time and integration are inextricably linked, and without time, integration is impossible. I invite you to start modifying your connection with time itself as you begin a conscious relationship with integration, and to examine the core beliefs that have guided your actions.

With this in mind, the following tips for integration will help you take 100% accountability for your wellbeing for lifelong health and wellness.  This advice encompasses all 3 phases of a transformative journey—before, during, and after an event—through post-event self-care.

21 Tips for Integrating Breathwork Before, During, and After a SOMA Breath® Awakening Experience

1. Research the facilitator, schedule, and venue first. Do your homework before registering for an event to ensure the facilitator, schedule, and venue are a natural fit for your nervous system. Interview with the facilitator and let them know if you have any unique needs.
2. Plan down time before and after the event. Overestimate the amount of time you need to process things, whether it is 15 minutes early for a two-hour session or a week-long intensive. When making travel plans, give yourself ample space.
3. Pre-plan a support system for the event. Schedule a time in advance to get support from a life coach, therapist, or other professional advisor to help you gain greater insight.
4. Plan self-care and bring self-nurturing items. Plan daily yoga and meditation around workshop hours and pack special items such as vitamins, elixirs, tonics, teas, special snacks, yoga mat, essential oils, crystals, and a travel altar.
5. Cancel all work and family obligations during retreats, trainings, or workshops. Unplugging and taking time to rest is essential for emotional process work. Give your mind and body the energy needed to pause in stillness without distraction.
6. Avoid alcohol, smoking, recreational drugs, plant medicines and new sexual relations during workshops. Cleanse your field and focus on purification practices that bring you deeper into the present moment. Take responsibility for your own power to influence others and be clear, present and at the same wavelength. This helps everyone in the group feel safe diving deeper.
7. Check in and share how you feel. Make a commitment to communicate your feelings to the group and facilitators on a regular basis, especially if you are having difficulty. Feel free to cry when you need to, and don’t be afraid to speak out and express how you feel. If there is no time for sharing during the workshop, talk to the facilitator after. Crying helps release healing chemicals and bond with others.
8. Journal. Journal at events on breaks and after full days to explore experiences, feelings, and needs.
9. Full stop—create a sacred pause. Creating a sacred pause after an event is essential for true integration. Plan this in advance and block the time. Take alone time, spaciousness, and deep rest. Be gentle, move slowly, and sleep a lot. Treat yourself the same way you would care for a small child.
10. Incubate your precious insights. Enjoy the sanctity of silence. Avoid your phone, stay off social media, and incubate for several hours after events. Focus on self care, meditation, yoga, long strolls, sun, swimming, dancing, singing, writing, daydreaming, and body treatments.
11. Nourish with healthy, clean foods and lots of water. Choose high-quality organic whole foods with lots of veggies and fruits, drink lots of water to detox your emotional body, drink fresh juices and tonics, increase your adrenal and other tonics, and eat potatoes or yams that grow underground to help get grounded.
12. Keep slowing down. The most important idea here is to continue slowing down in the days and weeks after a sacred pause in order to gain deeper awareness and make sense of the insights you receive.
13. Deepen your home practice. Create a home practice after attending a body-based retreat to stay connected to the insights gained. 
14. If you’re struggling, get help. Reach out to a support system in advance if you are feeling lost, adrift or alone. If you didn’t set up support beforehand, reach out to the event facilitator and ask for help or a professional referral. Be honest and take action to get support, as this is where true integration is taking place. As a human, you are not wired to get through challenges alone.
15. When you’re ready, confide in loved ones. When returning to a family or close friend dynamic, ask for space to incubate core insights and confide in those you trust. Exercise discernment and avoid oversharing with those who will diminish the value of your inner work.
16. Embrace turbulence. It is normal to experience feelings of separation and turbulence when returning home from a workshop, but it is important to anticipate these feelings and prepare for them in order to gain the courage to create a life in congruence with who you are.
17. Take baby steps and welcome discomfort. Take baby steps instead of radical action when making changes in your life, such as reorganizing your life, relationships, and career to match who you really are. Imagine your life is like a filing cabinet and each drawer is a part of it, so don’t pull out all the drawers at once. Instead, make friends with the sacred gap between who you’ve been and what’s emerging next and allow yourself to feel the tension of a slow build in change.
18. Don’t expect everyone else to change because you have. Instead of expecting everyone in your life to change to accommodate the “new you”, focus on assimilating your lessons into your own life.
19. Anticipate fallout. Letting friends go is a natural process and it is important to stay focused on people and activities that match who you are becoming. This may mean reaching out beyond your comfort zone and looking for new friends who share your values and interests.
20. Be kind and loving to your family. Family is for life, and it is important to embody the lessons you have learned to get closer to them. Be kind to those who stay behind, be quiet and confident in their presence, and try to establish a simple, sincere, mutual feeling of communion. Be considerate of aging persons, and avoid adding substance to the dramas between parents and children.
21. Stay connected with your learning community. Retreats can be a catalyst to create deep friendships that can grow over time, so be open to making new friends and stay connected to those you shared the experience with. Be the one who initiates a deepening.

Create an Integrating Breathwork Routine—Before, During & After an Immersive Experience

The above keys are crucial to integrating breathwork. Activities for creating an integrative breathwork experience can include things like: self-care, meditation, massage, yin yoga, sound healing, journaling, walking in nature, creating art.

I hope this article may inspire you to take integration more seriously. Spend some time planning your next one in advance! The more you can normalize slowing down, feeling and metabolizing change, the more gifts you will have to share with the world.

Surround yourself with nurturing elements, grounding into nature, or using emotionally supportive essential oils will help facilitate your integration. And remember, take a deep breath, you got this! Sometimes, just taking a deep breath and doing NOTHING is all you need.

Integrating Breathwork Resources:

• 21 Keys to Integrate a Life-Changing Retreat by Christabel Zamor, M.A., founder of Breath of Bliss
• How to integrate your breathwork session with the help of your ego by InnerCamp
• The Art and Practice of Integration
• The Power of Breath Work On and Off the Mat by Kelly Alexander, Escape Haven