What is Barratt Breathworks?
Barratt Breathworks is a unique fusion of meditative and mindfulness practices designed to unleash the healing and transformative power of the breath. Rather than advocating breath control techniques, our approach focuses on a discipline of pranayama, or “conscious breathing,” aimed at rediscovering the natural state of the breath and liberating it from the tensions imposed on it. In freeing the natural breath, we not only revitalize our life energies, but we also open a gateway to higher consciousness and our own inner powers of healing.

Breath and Energy
In addition to supplying oxygen during the process of respiration, the breath simultaneously draws in another energetic quality, known as “prana.” This “prana,” or “Qi,” as it is called in China, is the vital energy of life. Eastern adepts have long been aware of the rejuvenating power of prana, recognizing it as an essential link between the mind and body. For centuries, they have used specific breathing practices to harness and direct this life energy in order to facilitate healing and self-development. It is these breathing practices that form the basis of the Barratt Breathworks model.

Benefits of Breathwork
Modern scientific research demonstrates what Eastern traditions have known for centuries. When we breathe effectively, we create optimum conditions for restoring overall health and well-being. Breathwork has been known to achieve remarkable results, including:

Relieving stress and fatigue
Inducing deep relaxation
Restoring physical health and vitality
Decreasing anxiety
Balancing blood pressure
Pain management
Improving sleep patterns
Increasing mental concentration
Emotional healing
Enhancing self-awareness
Personal growth
Spiritual development

Breathing Habits
In recognizing that the breath is a primary vehicle for our life energy, we begin to understand how the quality of our breathing literally reflects the quality of our lives. When we begin to cultivate an awareness of our breath, many of us notice that we are unable to breathe fully, and that our breathing is labored or erratic. Most of these tensions in the breath grow out of highly complex breathing habits caused by chronic stress and suppressed emotions. Our unhealthy breathing habits inhibit the body’s natural ability to draw in and absorb prana, creating energetic disturbances within the human energy system. These energetic disturbances deeply affect the intricate balance of the mind/body continuum, ultimately undermining health and well-being.

Our Approach
Letting go of old patterns of holding and resistance requires an effortless inner attitude. It is not about controlling the breath but rather about developing a relationship of receptivity to the breath and learning how to open to the breath’s natural rhythm. As tensions in the breath are released, we also stimulate and redirect the movement of energy through the human energy system, balancing excesses and compensating for deficiencies of energy flow. In dissipating these energetic blocks and regulating energy flow, we restore a synchronistic balance within the human energy system. This enables us to improve our health, balance our emotions, and cultivate the skills needed for personal and spiritual growth.