/ / /

The Power Of Your Breath

“THE BREATH IS THE STEERING WHEEL TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.”

Holistic Wellness 5 Minute Read

BREATHWORK IS WHERE INSTINCT MEETS INTENTION. IN THIS COMO CONVERSATION, FORMER INTERNATIONAL RUGBY PLAYER ANTHONY MULLALLY — WHO WILL ALSO BE AT COMO SHAMBHALA ALPINA DOLOMITES IN JANUARY 2025 — EXPLAINS THE SCIENCE BEHIND YOUR BREATH, HOW BREATHWORK CAN BUILD EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE AND IMPROVE ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, AND WHY RECOVERY IS SO IMPORTANT FOR EVERYDAY LIFE.

On Breath and the Body

Anthony Mullally

Anthony Mullally is a former international rugby player whose journey to wellness began after he took up breathwork to improve his performance in elite sport. He now works with professional athletes, Olympians, FTSE 100 executives, and everyone in-between, helping them achieve a sense of inner wellbeing and access to ‘flow state’, improving performance at work and in sport. He also conducts retreats for men, providing a safe space for men to redefine masculinity and discover what mature masculinity means to them.


 

WHAT IS HIGH-PERFORMANCE BREATHWORK? AND HOW DID YOU DISCOVER ITS BENEFITS ON THE BODY?

I started delving into breathwork quite a long time ago. It started with meditation, and breathwork and meditation are quite synonymous. I was using the breath as a focal point, but I didn't know why the way you breathe actually makes a difference, and how dysfunctional breathing can be detrimental — I didn’t fully understand the power of the breath back then. I’m a Strength and Conditioning coach and studied physiology. I started seeing some research and literature on breathwork, but in elite sport at the time, breathwork wasn’t very well-received — it was an “it is what it is” mindset, that the breath is unconscious, and it just changes when you exert yourself. But now we know that the breath is conscious and unconscious, and that we actually have a lot of control over it.

I used to get very nervous before big games, thinking of the outcome and worrying about whether I’d make the team next week. I had an over-breathing pattern, which amps up your metabolic demand. I was trying to conserve energy before the game, but was hyperventilating due to nerves. The thing that affects our frequency of breathing the most is our emotions, and if you’re stressed or have a strong emotional attachment to something that you’re about to do, it unconsciously creates physiological changes in the body. My body was switching gear between energy systems. I was moving from a state of using fat and oxygen as my main fuel source, to a more anaerobic state. My body was mobilising energy because my emotions were heightened and the body viewed it as an incoming threat, and was getting ready to address it. But if that state isn’t necessary for what the moment requires, then there’s a disparity there. I was exhausting myself out before I even got on the field.

What the breath really helped me with was the ability to bring myself back into my body and not let the nerves overwhelm my mind. And it helped me to access flow state, which is being present and in the moment and believing that yes, I’ve done the training, and yes, I believe that I’m capable.

WHAT IS THE FLOW STATE AND WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO YOU?

There’s many definitions of the flow state. It refers to a state where the needs of the environment are directly matched with our capabilities, or when we feel confident that with a slight push, we are able to meet the needs of that environment. The latter involves recognising a motivating factor for growth, to get better and improve. 

When I was playing, and I managed to score a try or do something athletically impressive, I usually don’t even remember it. It’s a little bit of an out of body experience, where I’m kinda hovering over myself and watching it happen. I’m not thinking about what's going to happen or whether I can do it, all I know is that I’ve done the training and I just let my body do what it’s been trained to do. So to me, the flow state is when my mind gets out of the way of my body and just lets it perform. 

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE BENEFITS OF BREATH?

When you’re breathing rapidly, the oxygen that you inhale flows into the bloodstream and attaches to the haemoglobin in the blood. But that doesn't mean that it’s getting into the working muscles — you’ll need the presence of carbon dioxide to release the oxygen into the muscles. For example, if you’re running a marathon, you’ll need most of the oxygen to get into our legs to continue the output. But if you’re over-breathing — which means you’re letting out too much carbon dioxide — the oxygen doesn’t get a chance to be adequately released for optimal performance to the tissues, cells, and brain. Carbon dioxide is also a vasodilator, and when you over-breathe, you’re also restricting the oxygen and glucose supply to the brain.

HOW DOES THE BREATH HELP WITH CONTROLLING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM?

The breath is the steering wheel to the nervous system, but it’s also the indicator that tells you how your body is doing. So if you’re feeling stressed and your breathing is on the verge of hyperventilating, that’s bio-feedback of where you’re at emotionally. 

But it also allows us to dictate the state of our nervous system and attain emotional balance. When you breathe in, your heart rate speeds up. When you exhale, your heart slows down. Just by knowing that, and by manipulating the exhales, we can slow the heart down. When we do long, slow exhales, we stimulate the vagus nerve, which releases chemicals that slows the heart down, reduces blood pressure, and prepares the body for a "rest-and-digest", recovery state. It kicks the body back into restoration mode, instead of a stressed-out one that is preparing for a threat. 

We have more control over our internal systems than we think. If you’re feeling a bit low or sluggish, you can use your breathing to bring energy into your body. If you’re very stressed, or there’s a situation that needs you to act with resolve, the fastest way to calm yourself is to use the physiological sigh method. It involves a double inhale through the nose, followed by a long exhale through the mouth. It’s especially effective in a work setting, if you’re in between meetings and you need some time to yourself, to place a hand on your chest or ribs and do the physiological sigh, to help bring the balance back to yourself. 

YOU’RE HEADING TO COMO SHAMBHALA ALPINA DOLOMITES IN JANUARY 2025. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF BREATHWORK YOU’LL BE COACHING?

Different ways of breathing can be used in strength and conditioning. When lifting heavy weights, people typically wear a training belt around the torso to create stability in the core. You want to breathe into the belt, which helps to create intra-abdominal pressure when inhaling to stabilise the spine and lower back. But if you focus on your breathing and expanding the ribs properly, there’s less need to rely on the belt while stabilising the spine. Breathing also helps with postural integrity during training, which reduces the risk of injury. And of course, it helps with recovery too — recovering faster means you can go even harder, and bounce back quickly. So if you’re doing interval training, and you have a minute to recover before you go again, you can really optimise that one minute. 

A lot of what I’ll be doing at COMO Shambhala Alpina Dolomites will be focusing on that recovery, so people can get up and go again. People typically breathe through their mouths during training, so we’ll focus on how quickly they can go back to breathing through the nose — which is a much more efficient way of getting oxygen into the body. I call these breathing gears. Gear 1 is in and out through the nose, Gear 2 is in through the nose and out through the mouth, and Gear 3 is in and out through the mouth. Each breath you take requires energy from the body, so the more efficiently you can breathe, the less you’ll fatigue yourself. And you’ll increase aerobic threshold as well. 

This learned control over the breath isn’t just relevant for training. It’s about learning how to regulate the breath in real life, with high-intensity training as a conduit and exercise as a stressor. So when they encounter stressful situations in real life, they are able to approach it more rationally and calmly. 

Anthony Mullally will be in residence at COMO Shambhala Alpina Dolomites from January 12th to January 21st 2025. He will be offering group classes that include Introduction to Breathwork, Performance Enhancement Breathwork, Strength and Conditioning Breathwork, Deep End Pool Training, and Evening Guided Meditation. To learn more or book a session with him, click here.

Share the Story

Related Tags

Related Articles