31/08/2026
Recently, I was talking to someone in Montenegro about how I hadn’t been feeling quite right in my physical body.
After my latest treatment with Nicola, some beautiful somatic Thai massage, I realised quite quickly that what I was feeling wasn’t necessarily just physical. A lot of it was coming from my nervous system.
These days, it’s almost as though I have a little “check engine” light in my body. You know that orange warning light that comes on before things turn red? I’m much better now at noticing when that light appears.
I feel the signs.
I know when I’m getting close to that point of doing too much, holding too much, or simply needing to slow things down.
And I know that sometimes what I need most is to give my nervous system a chance to settle.
I was sharing this with someone on retreat and she asked me, “But how do you do that?”
And I said, “It’s actually pretty simple. I breathe.”
She looked at me slightly puzzled.
But the breath really is one of the most powerful tools we have.
Something as simple as slowing the breath down and allowing the exhalation to become a little longer can help signal to the body that it’s safe to soften and settle.
The thing is, it’s not really something we practise once when we’re stressed and expect everything to change.
For me, it’s become part of everyday life.
I practise at the airport. On the plane. While I’m doing the laundry. While I’m swimming in the sea. If I notice myself feeling agitated or overstimulated.
There really are very few excuses because the breath is free, it’s always with us, and there’s plenty of it to go around.
These days we hear the word “breathwork” everywhere, but of course this is nothing new.
In the yogic tradition, pranayama has been practised for thousands of years — working consciously with prana, our life-force energy, through the breath.
And there are so many different practices to explore.
James Nestor’s book Breath is a fascinating read if you want to go a little deeper into the subject.
We take thousands upon thousands of breaths every single day.
We arrive in this life with an inhale, and one day we’ll leave with an exhale.
And yet it’s all those breaths in between that we so often forget to notice.
Maybe we notice them in yoga.
Maybe we notice them when we’re anxious.
Maybe we notice them when life forces us to stop.
But what if we didn’t wait until then?
What if the breath simply became something we returned to every day?
A little anchor.
A little reset button.
A quiet reminder that one of the most powerful tools we have is already right here within us. 🤍
