As a breathwork facilitator and teacher trainer, one of the most common questions I encounter is: How often should you do breathwork? While there’s no straightforward ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer to this question, several factors can help you determine the ideal frequency for yourself.
Before we dive in, it’s important to distinguish between conscious connected breathwork and general breath practices. This article refers to conscious connected breathwork, which is a powerful modality that induces altered states of consciousness and is practiced for healing and transformation. In contrast, breathing practices such as 4-7-8 and box breathing are used for self-regulation and calming the nervous system and can be done frequently without the need for integration or pacing.
How Often Should You Do Breathwork: Factors to Consider
How Busy Is Your Life?
If your daily life is so busy that you can only carve out time for a breathwork session without any time for grounding and integration, you should reduce the frequency of your sessions. While breakthrough insights and experiences can occur in conscious connected breathwork sessions, the importance of integration cannot be overlooked. Without integration, lasting transformation is impossible.
If you currently have a lot of free time and can set aside time for integration after each session, you can do breathwork as often as you like. For some, this might be daily, but for most, once every 3 to 7 days is plenty.
What is the Setting?
If you’re in a retreat setting with ample time for integration and a strong support network, practicing breathwork daily can be highly beneficial. A breathwork retreat with daily sessions provides an ideal environment for rapid and deep transformation. This setting allows you to build momentum from one session to the next, with plenty of resources for integration. Be sure to choose your retreat wisely and ensure the facilitator has trained with a GPBA-certified Breathwork Training School.
If you’re on vacation, between jobs, or on a dedicated healing journey, a daily connected breathwork practice can also be very beneficial. However, if you have many responsibilities and a busy schedule, participating in weekly or biweekly breathwork sessions with time for integration between sessions may be more manageable and beneficial for you.
How Much Inner Work Have You Already Done?
If you have already peeled back many layers of conditioning, released stuck emotions and traumas, balanced your nervous system, and established a relatively high level of well-being, then there is no need to do connected breathwork frequently. However, life continues to unfold, and more things will always present themselves for you to continue to grow and awaken. So for those who have done a lot of inner work and are in a ‘good place’ mentally and emotionally, I typically recommend one full-length breathwork session every month or two as a ‘top-up’.
But if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us are not already operating at our highest frequency. If you do not feel like you have stepped fully into your power and potential, you will likely benefit from a breathwork session every week or two to accelerate your healing and personal growth. After 5-12 sessions, you may be able to transition into top-up sessions and partake less frequently, and I recommend you allow your inner wisdom to guide you in this decision.
How Much Change Are You Looking to Create?
Some people turn to breathwork who are already in a good place but they want to gain clairty or to nourish more joy and abundance in their lives. While others have severe trauma or addictions they are working through, or strong, negative subconscious programming that needs to be completely reprogrammed. Each of these situations requires a different amount of breathwork to achieve their goals. Generally speaking, the greater the change desired, the more breathwork sessions you will benefit from.
Is It Possible to Do Too Much Breathwork?
In addition to being asked “How often should you do breathwork?,” another question I frequently encounter is whether it is possible to do too much breathwork. The answer is both yes and no.
Yes, it is possible to do too much breathwork if you are not taking time between sessions to integrate them. If this is the case, you’d benefit more from fewer sessions with ample time for reflection and integration.
No it is not possible to do too much breathwork, in the sense that you can’t actually cause any harm to yourself by doing too many conscious connected breathwork sessions. Because the breath is the medicine and you are not ingesting anything external, it is completely safe to partake in connected breathwork every day, or even more than once a day (as long as you don’t have any contraindications).
In fact, I’ve met a couple of people who have embarked on connected breathwork sessions for over 18 hours at a time, and one man who did 12 hours of breathwork daily for 3 weeks! While this is excessive and completely unnecessary for most people, it did not lead to any harmful outcomes or negative consequences.
How Often Should You Do Breathwork?: Closing Thoughts
While various factors influence how often you should do breathwork, only you can truly answer this question for yourself. At the heart of breathwork is the notion that you are your own guide and healer, and the answers you seek are already within you. Although I can provide guidelines, ultimately, only you know what is best for you.
However, if you want to know my general guidelines, for those new to breathwork, I typically recommend a weekly session until you reach a level of well-being and vibrancy that satisfies you. This duration varies depending on your mental and emotional state when beginning your breathwork journey, the level of trauma you’ve endured, and how much negative subconscious programming needs to be worked through.
In our breathwork facilitator training program, participants engage in weekly breathwork sessions for about ten months. By the halfway point, our trainees are completely transformed, and by the end, they are confident, inspiring, and radiating with incredibly high vibrational energy. While a ten-month journey of weekly sessions is not practical or necessary for everyone, participating in more sessions generally yields greater benefits, provided integration is part of the process.
Once you establish a baseline of wellness and bliss, you’ll be so attuned to your inner wisdom that you’ll instinctively know when you need a ‘top-up’ breathwork session. Having said all of that, breathwork is the most profound and rapid healing modality available to us. Even if you can only commit to one or two breathwork sessions right now, I encourage you to go for it. As long as you integrate your sessions, you will still experience some notable benefits.
Ready to Embark on a Life Changing Journey with Breathwork?
If you’d like to book an online breathwork session with us or join an upcoming group breathwork you can contact us here. If you’d like to find out more about our biyearly breathwork retreats in the beautiful and charming beach town of Sayulita, Mexico, please click here.
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