Welcome to Vida Breathworks
Functional Breathing Training for Health, Healing & Optimal Performance
Breathing re-education based on:
~ Buteyko Breathing Method ~
~ Oxygen Advantage ~
Book your initial Functional Breathing consultation today
Vida's one-on-one Functional Breathing consultations are highly personalized to meet your needs. Tailored to your key health objectives and challenges, your current health status, your existing breathing patterns. This tailored approach is the most effective and empowering way to see results quickly.
Enhance your physical & mental health with Vida Breathworks!
The Buteyko Breathing Method and Oxygen Advantage breathwork methods are two distinct, yet complementary approaches aimed at optimizing breathing for improved health and well-being.
Let's start with the Buteyko Breathing Method...
This method is the best option for individuals seeking to address & manage respiratory or other health conditions/symptoms, including asthma, allergies, anxiety, fatigue, impaired sleep, sleep apnea and reflux. It is designed to address dysfunctional breathing patterns, restoring healthy, functional breathing. In other words, this method suits those with a focus on addressing and/or managing specific health concerns and enhancing both physical & mental health. The Buteyko Breathing Method primarily focuses on reducing over-breathing (chronic hyperventilation) by utilizing techniques to normalize breathing patterns, enhance CO2 tolerance, and regulate the body's breathing volume.
Okay, so what about the Oxygen Advantage method?
The Oxygen Advantage methodology, on the other hand, is a great option for anyone who is generally healthy; athletes, fitness enthusiasts, sporting teams, or individuals who want to proactively optimize their physical performance & recovery! It combines principles of breath-holding, controlled breath reduction, high-intensity interval training, and simulation of high-altitude training, to enhance athletic performance, endurance, functional movement, and recovery, by training the body to tolerate higher carbon dioxide levels and improve oxygen utilization & respiratory efficiency. It's amazing for anyone who wants to proactively optimize their physical and mental performance, and to achieve their full potential. This is achieved via a focus on the three key dimensions of breathing; i.e. breathing biomechanics, restoring optimal breathing biochemistry, and a focus on cadence/coherent breathing.
You can learn more about the Oxygen Advantage here.
Which method is best suited to me?
Vida's breathworks courses, workshops & consultations are tailored to each group or individual. Combining elements of both methodologies offers our clients a comprehensive and personalized program. Where dysfunctional breathing is present, the initial focus will be on the Buteyko Breathing Method, however, as individuals progress and improvements are experienced, the Oxygen Advantage exercises will be introduced at the appropriate time. For example, someone with moderate-to-severe asthma symptoms will initially benefit through Buteyko Breathing Method, however, as they progress and are able to resolve and/or manage symptoms, we will transition into focusing more on the exercises Oxygen Advantage has to offer.
In summary, Beth, Vida's functional breathing expert will always tailor consultations to your unique needs, health status, and goals. By combining elements from both methodologies, she crafts a holistic program designed to maximize your health and performance potential. Whether you seek relief from health issues and symptoms, aim to boost athletic performance and recovery, or simply wish to proactively optimize your health and well-being, our integrated approach ensures a customized path to deliver the best possible results based on your individual requirements. For those with moderate-to-severe health concerns, there is also the option to combine a naturopathic approach with your breathworks training, as in addition to her breathworks certifications, Beth is a traditional naturopath, holistic nutritionist and herbalist. For more information on this, check out our sister organization, Vida Naturopathics here.
A Vida Breathworks consultation or course is for anyone who wants to:
- Address asthma naturally
- Relieve snoring, sleep apnea or insomnia
- Enhance stress resilience and overcome anxiety and/or panic attacks
- Alleviate suffering from chronic allergies, hay fever or blocked nose
- Alleviate hypertension, muscle tension, chronic headaches, IBS symptoms, or reflux
- Address long covid symptoms of breathlessness, nervous system dysfunction, and severe mental/physical fatigue
- Proactively enhance general health, energy levels and physical/athletic performance & recovery
What is 'Dysfunctional Breathing'?
Dysfunctional breathing (or chronic hyperventilation), is simply referring to over-breathing; or breathing in more air than your body requires for its metabolic needs. The simple fact is that many people breathe too much. This alters the natural levels of gases (carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitric oxide) in the blood, reducing oxygen delivery to cells, tissues and organs, and causing constriction of the smooth muscles surrounding blood vessels and airways. This can lead to numerous health issues. Bringing breathing volume back towards normal, and making the switch from mouth to nose breathing helps to alleviate, manage and/or resolve such health problems.
Common signs & symptoms of dysfunctional breathing include, mouth breathing during the day and/or during sleep, upper chest (shallow) breathing, absence or restriction of diaphragmatic breathing, muscular tension in the shoulders, neck and/or jaw, hyperventilation (chronic over-breathing), high blood pressure, a respiratory rate great than 12, erratic or irregular breathing, waking with a dry mouth, snoring, disturbed sleep, apneas, impaired immune function, and poor posture.
Vida Breathworks Group Workshop Details...
We offer flexible structures for our group courses to meet varying needs and goals. We regularly design group courses around a group's specific goals and specifications. For example, size of group, group availability, the group's overall goals, etc. Course length can range from a one-off session several hours long, to a full day or weekend workshop, to a series of 3 to 5 shorter workshops held a week apart. Workshops & courses can be held both in-person, or virtually, or even a combination of the two. Please reach out, and we can make recommendations for the best structure to match up with your group's wants/goals/availability/etc.
What to expect when you attend a Vida Breathworks course:
Provided you follow the recommendations, most people experience a reduction in symptoms within days after the first session. Benefits include improved sleep quality, increased & more stable energy levels, enhanced fitness/sports performance & recovery, better digestive function and improved immune function. To achieve optimal results it is recommended your breathing exercises be practised daily for six weeks. As you progress, you will be given new breathing exercise recommendations with each consultation or workshop session. Everyone is different and tailored advice will be provided based on your health status, goals, etc. After six weeks, you will have created new habits within your daily life; for example how you breathe during sleep and physical activity.
Buteyko Breathing for Asthma
The Buteyko Breathing method was developed by Russian medical scientist, Professor Konstantin Buteyko in the 1950s, and was endorsed by the Soviet Health Ministry in the mid 1980s.
The method quickly achieved significant anecdotal success for its ability to provide asthma sufferers with quick and sustained relief from symptoms, and a decrease in the need for both reliever and preventative medication. Various clinical trials have been conducted over the years, showing the effectiveness of the Buteyko Method for reducing symptoms, and the need for both reliever and preventative medication. Participants always must work with their doctor to ensure medications are reduced in the most appropriate way.
Sleep Apnea and Snoring
It is not well understood that snoring and sleep apnoea may be the result of a dysfunctional breathing pattern. Learning a breathing technique like Buteyko Breathing Method, may therefore effectively alleviate or even resolve the problem.The Buteyko Breathing Method restores healthy, functional breathing, and can therefore help relieve your snoring without the need for anti-snoring devices or surgery.
Many of our course attendees achieve improvement in their snoring, a reduction in sleep apnea episodes, and an improvement in their sleep quality within the first week of the course. As functional breathing is restored over time, snoring and sleep apneas can reduce and enhanced sleep quality is achieved. This of course has a multitude of benefits for health and wellbeing.
Addressing Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Anxiety and panic attacks are becoming increasingly common in our lives over the past decade.
The feeling of anxiety is linked to a whole range of unpleasant symptoms, muscle tension, increased perspiration, increased heart rate and blood pressure. Additionally our breathing is effected, as our respiratory rate increases, and we are more likely to switch from nasal to mouth breathing. This is a normal response to acute stress as we enter a "fight or flight" (sympathetic nervous system) state.
We all experiences anxiety at times but if it is very severe, long lasting and gets to a point where it negatively affects our quality of life, then it is likely to be an anxiety disorder rather than normal anxiety in response to acute stress.
Anxiety is strongly linked to dysfunctional breathing. If a chronic state of hyperventilation exists (that is, if you breathe more than physiologically required all or much of the time) then this will trigger changes in the nervous systems, producing a chronic state of anxiety. Buteyko Breathing Method can effectively alleviate symptoms of anxiety, and over time by restoring healthy function breathing patterns, chronic anxiety can be easily managed or resolved. Tools are also taught to prevent or stop panic attacks when the first signs are felt.
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Vida Breathworks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
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