What Is Breathwork — And Why High Performers Are Turning to It
The first time I experienced a real breathwork journey, I wasn't looking for breathwork.
I was looking for reiki. I was searching for something that could help me clear what I felt but couldn't name... an energetic weight, a restlessness, a sense that something needed to move. A single online SOMA Breath journey found me instead. Breath, music, and meditation woven together into something I had no framework for.
Within minutes I was somewhere I had never been while fully conscious. Connected to something ancestral, something cellular. By the end of it something had shifted, not metaphorically, but in a way I could feel in my body, in my chest, in the way the air tasted when I came back.
Two weeks later I was in Ibiza for my first SOMA Breath training.
I tell that story not to be dramatic about it but because it is the most honest answer I have to the question I get asked most often: what is breathwork, and does it actually work?
It works. And this article is going to tell you exactly why.
What Breathwork Actually Is
Breathwork is the deliberate practice of changing how you breathe in order to change how you feel, physically, mentally, emotionally, and in some cases spiritually.
It is not a single technique. It is a broad category of practices that includes everything from simple diaphragmatic breathing exercises to extended rhythmic journeys that produce profound altered states of consciousness. What unites them is the central insight that the breath is one of the most powerful levers available to human beings for regulating the nervous system, and that most of us are using it far below its capacity.
Breathing is unique among the body's autonomic functions in that it operates both automatically and voluntarily. Your heart beats without your input. Your digestion proceeds without your direction. But your breath can be consciously controlled... and through it, you can directly influence systems that are otherwise outside your conscious reach.
This is not ancient mysticism, although ancient traditions understood it long before modern science could explain it. This is physiology.
The Science Behind Why Breathwork Works
To understand why breathwork is so effective, it helps to understand the autonomic nervous system and the role breath plays within it.
The autonomic nervous system has two primary branches. The sympathetic branch governs the stress response, the activation state associated with threat, urgency, and action. The parasympathetic branch governs rest, recovery, and repair, the state in which digestion works properly, immune function is optimized, and the body has the resources to heal.
Most high performers spend a disproportionate amount of time in sympathetic activation. The demands of building something, leading people, managing uncertainty, and maintaining performance create a chronic low-grade stress response that the body interprets the same way it would interpret physical threat. Over time this produces the symptoms that high performers know well... disrupted sleep, difficulty concentrating, emotional reactivity, physical tension, and the particular exhaustion that rest alone does not seem to fix.
The breath is the fastest available pathway into the parasympathetic state.
The vagus nerve, the primary highway of the parasympathetic nervous system, is directly influenced by breathing pattern. Slow, extended exhales activate the vagal brake, signaling to the nervous system that it is safe to downregulate. This is measurable in heart rate variability, cortisol levels, and subjective felt sense within minutes of beginning a conscious breathing practice.
Carbon dioxide and oxygen balance also plays a significant role. Most people under chronic stress are chronic over-breathers, taking too many shallow breaths, exhaling too quickly, keeping their CO2 levels low. Paradoxically, CO2 is essential for oxygen delivery to the tissues. Specific breathwork techniques that work with CO2 tolerance can fundamentally change how efficiently the body uses the oxygen it already has, with downstream effects on energy, cognition, and emotional regulation.
Rhythmic breathing, the kind used in practices like SOMA Breath, entrains brainwave activity, shifting the brain toward states associated with creativity, insight, relaxation, and in extended practices, the deeply integrative states associated with theta and delta waves. This is why breathwork journeys can produce experiences that feel meditative, visionary, or emotionally cathartic, the brain is genuinely in a different state than it is during ordinary waking consciousness.
What Is SOMA Breath
SOMA Breath is a specific breathwork methodology developed by Niraj Naik, a former pharmacist who used breathwork to recover from a chronic illness after conventional medicine reached its limits. It draws from the ancient pranayama traditions of yoga, the branch of yogic practice dedicated to breath regulation, and integrates modern understanding of respiratory physiology, brainwave entrainment, and music therapy.
The word pranayama comes from Sanskrit: prana meaning life force or vital energy, and ayama meaning extension or expansion. Pranayama is one of the eight limbs of yoga as articulated by Patanjali, not an add-on to the physical practice but a foundational discipline in its own right, understood in the yogic tradition as the primary means by which the practitioner prepares the mind for meditation and ultimately for samadhi, the state of complete stillness and union.
SOMA Breath makes these ancient techniques accessible through a modern delivery, breathwork journeys set to carefully composed music that guides the nervous system through activation, rhythm, and deep rest in a single session. The result is an experience that is simultaneously scientifically grounded and genuinely transformative.
At Energy of Creation, SOMA Breath is one of the foundational practices we use with everyday high performers. We teach it because we have experienced it ourselves... because it changed things for us that nothing else had reached.
What Breathwork Can Do for High Performers Specifically
The applications of breathwork for high performers are broad and well-supported by both research and lived experience.
Stress regulation and nervous system reset. This is the most immediate and accessible benefit. A single breathwork session can shift a chronically activated nervous system into a state of rest and recovery in ways that hours of passive relaxation often cannot. For high performers who have difficulty "switching off," breathwork provides a physiological pathway, not a mindset trick, into genuine downregulation.
Sleep quality. Chronic sympathetic activation disrupts sleep architecture, reducing the deep restorative sleep that cognitive performance depends on. Regular breathwork practice has been shown to improve sleep onset, duration, and quality by training the nervous system toward more reliable parasympathetic activation at night.
Cognitive clarity and focus. The CO2 tolerance work that forms part of many breathwork practices improves oxygen delivery to the brain, with reported effects on mental clarity, focus, and the ability to sustain attention. Many practitioners describe a quality of mental quiet after breathwork that feels qualitatively different from ordinary relaxation.
Emotional processing. The altered states produced by extended breathwork journeys can facilitate access to emotional material that is otherwise difficult to reach through talk-based approaches. Practitioners frequently report processing grief, fear, and long-held tension during sessions — not through analysis but through a more direct somatic release. This is particularly valuable for high performers who have learned to intellectualize their emotional experience.
Performance under pressure. The breath is available in every situation. A high performer who has trained their nervous system through breathwork has a tool they can use before a difficult conversation, a high-stakes presentation, a challenging decision. The practice of returning to regulated breath in a structured session trains the same capacity for real-time use.
Ancestral and identity work. This one is harder to quantify but worth naming. Extended breathwork journeys, particularly in community, with music, with skilled facilitation, can produce experiences of profound clarity about who you are, where you come from, and what you are here to do. These experiences are not universal and not guaranteed. But they are reported often enough, and consistently enough, that they deserve acknowledgment alongside the more measurable outcomes.
Breathwork and Ancient Wisdom: What Was Always Known
Modern science is in many ways catching up to what the ancient traditions understood intuitively.
The pranayama practices documented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika describe breath techniques that map remarkably well onto what contemporary respiratory physiology has since explained. The understanding that breath regulation is the bridge between the voluntary and involuntary nervous systems, between the conscious mind and the body's deeper intelligence, was embedded in yogic practice thousands of years before the vagus nerve had a name.
What SOMA Breath and other contemporary breathwork methodologies have done is create accessible entry points into this ancient wisdom, structured practices that produce real results without requiring years of dedicated study or the cultural context in which these traditions were originally transmitted.
At Energy of Creation we hold both. We honor the lineage. We also meet people where they are... in a Central Texas living room, in a park, at an in-person gathering, in twenty minutes before the workday begins, with tools that actually work in the life they are already living.
What to Expect in a Breathwork Session
For those who have never experienced a guided breathwork session, it helps to have some sense of what to expect.
A typical SOMA Breath journey round begins with an induction, a settling of the body and mind through relaxed, natural breathing. This is followed by a rhythmic breathing phase in which the breath is guided at a specific pace, often in time with music. This phase produces the physiological changes described earlier, shifts in CO2 and oxygen balance, nervous system activation or deepening, altered brainwave states depending on the technique used.
The journey concludes with a breath retention, a held pause that deepens the stillness, followed by a recovery and integration phase in which the practitioner rests with whatever has arisen.
The experience varies significantly from person to person and session to session. Some people feel deeply relaxed. Some feel energized. Some experience emotional release. Some experience vivid imagery or a felt sense of connection to something larger than themselves. Some feel subtly different in ways they cannot immediately articulate.
All of it is valid. The practice meets you where you are.
How to Begin
If you are curious about breathwork and want to begin, there are a few options depending on where you are.
For a structured introduction, Energy of Creation offers SOMA Breath experiences both in-person here in Central Texas and online. Our in-person events are the most powerful entry point — there is something about breathing in a room with other people, with live facilitation and music, that a recorded session cannot replicate.
For a guided program, the SOMA Breath 21 Day Journey is a structured introduction to the practice that builds the foundational techniques over three weeks at your own pace.
For community and ongoing practice, the Peak Performance Circle and The Peak Collective both include breathwork as a core element of the monthly programming, with live sessions, a resource library, and the relational container that makes the practice sustainable over time.
And if you are not quite ready for any of that yet and you want to start with something quiet and private, the free self-discovery guide below is a good first conversation with yourself about what you actually need.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is breathwork? Breathwork is the deliberate practice of changing breathing patterns to influence physical, mental, and emotional states. It encompasses a wide range of techniques — from simple diaphragmatic breathing exercises to extended rhythmic journeys — all rooted in the insight that the breath is one of the most direct and accessible tools available for nervous system regulation.
Is breathwork scientifically supported? Yes. A substantial and growing body of research supports the physiological mechanisms behind breathwork, including its effects on the autonomic nervous system, heart rate variability, cortisol levels, sleep quality, and cognitive function. The vagal activation produced by slow extended breathing is among the most well-documented effects. Research on specific practices like SOMA Breath and Holotropic Breathwork continues to expand.
What is SOMA Breath? SOMA Breath is a breathwork methodology developed by Niraj Naik that draws from ancient pranayama traditions and integrates modern respiratory science, brainwave entrainment, and music therapy. It uses rhythmic guided breathing journeys set to music to produce states of deep regulation, emotional release, and in extended practices, altered states of consciousness. It is one of the foundational practices offered at Energy of Creation.
What is pranayama and how does it relate to breathwork? Pranayama is the Sanskrit term for breath regulation and is one of the eight limbs of yoga as described by Patanjali. It refers to practices of conscious breath control used to extend and direct the vital life force — prana — through the body. Modern breathwork methodologies like SOMA Breath draw directly from pranayama traditions while making them accessible through contemporary delivery formats. Breathwork and pranayama are not the same thing but share deep roots and significant overlap.
Is breathwork safe? Breathwork is generally safe for healthy adults. Certain techniques — particularly those involving extended breath retention or hyperventilation — are not recommended for people with cardiovascular conditions, epilepsy, severe anxiety disorders, pregnancy, or certain other health conditions. A qualified facilitator will provide appropriate guidance and screening before any intensive session. If you have health concerns, consult your physician before beginning an intensive breathwork practice.
How quickly does breathwork work? Many people notice a shift in their physical and emotional state within the first session. The most immediate effects — reduced heart rate, physical relaxation, mental quiet — can occur within minutes of beginning a regulated breathing practice. Deeper benefits, including sustained improvements in sleep, stress resilience, and emotional regulation, typically develop over weeks of consistent practice.
Where can I experience breathwork in Central Texas? Energy of Creation offers in-person SOMA Breath experiences in the Temple and Belton area of Central Texas, as well as online sessions for those outside the area. Current events and upcoming sessions can be found at energyofcreation.com/events.
What is the difference between breathwork and meditation? Meditation typically involves the observation of breath, thoughts, or awareness without deliberate manipulation of the breathing pattern. Breathwork involves actively changing the breathing pattern to produce specific physiological and psychological states. The two practices are complementary — many breathwork journeys conclude with a meditative integration phase — but they operate through different mechanisms and produce different effects.
About the Author
Destinē is the founder and Minister of Love at Energy of Creation, a nonprofit wellness community in Central Texas. She holds a SOMA Breath certification and is working toward master certification, a 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training, Ayurveda and sound therapy training, and a 5Elements Dance Activation™ DJ certification. Her breathwork journey began when a single online SOMA Breath experience connected her to her ancestors and changed everything permanently — leading her to Ibiza for training less than two weeks later. She has been sharing breathwork, A Course in Miracles, and embodiment practices with her community ever since.
