Road rage is rarely about traffic itself. It is a nervous system response shaped by stress load, breath changes, and reduced regulation capacity. Learn what is actually happening in your body when you react in traffic and how breathwork can help you regulate in real time.
Read MoreIt is common to feel like nothing is happening during deep dive breathwork, but from a nervous system and somatic perspective, subtle states often mean the body is processing. Learn what is really happening in your body and why these quieter moments matter.
Read MoreHave you ever felt a lump in your throat that just won’t go away, a tight jaw, or like you want to scream but can’t? This sensation isn’t just in your head—it’s actually a real physical phenomenon, caused by tension in the throat muscles often linked to stress, posture, and suppressed emotion.
Read MoreAsthma Is Often Linked to Breathing Dysfunction — Not Just the Lungs But in many cases, it’s also linked to breathing dysfunction — especially the way we breathe on a daily basis.
Read MoreWhy Healing Stalls and How Deep Dive Breathwork Releases Repeating Patterns
Why do some people spend years doing healing work and still end up in relatively the same place? You may have tried therapy, courses, self-help books, and even breathwork before — yet the same patterns resurface: anxiety, indecision, repetitive relationship dynamics, or internal self-doubt.
Read MoreAlways Feeling Frustrated? How Functional Breathwork Helps Regulate Your Nervous System
Do you find yourself getting irritated over small everyday things? Maybe it’s traffic crawling along, or asking your child to tidy their room for the third time only to find it still messy. You can really feel it in your body — that heat in your chest, the tight jaw, the tension in your shoulders — and you just want to shout. That’s frustration showing up physically, even before your mind has a chance to catch up.
Read MoreBreathwork is one of the simplest yet most powerful tools you can use to improve your health, wellbeing, and emotional resilience. But if you’re new to it, you might be wondering: Where do I start? How do I practice correctly?
This guide gives you a clear, structured path to begin your breathwork journey, with practical exercises and explanations so you can feel confident incorporating breathing practices into your daily life.
By the end, you’ll understand the basics, know a few practical exercises, and feel confident about incorporating breathwork into your daily life.
Read MoreAre you ready to transform your energy, calm your mind, and improve your overall health? I’m Mel Breathgal, a breath coach based in Steyning, West Sussex, and I specialise in helping people unlock the power of their breath. Whether you live in Brighton, Hove, or elsewhere in West Sussex, I offer online Healthy Breathing Workshops and online or face-to-face 1:1 sessions designed to meet your unique needs.
Read MoreA year ago I wrote about the moment grief snacked me in the face at Christmas. I was standing in a supermarket aisle, listening to a family going about planning their Xmas and something inside me broke wide open. And the grief poured out right there in that aisle. (I had lost my mum the year before).
Read MoreMany of us get a stuffy nose in winter. Cold air, central heating and seasonal colds make nasal congestion common, which in turn pushes people toward mouth breathing, poorer sleep and less efficient oxygen use. Before reaching for sprays, there is a simple, non pharmaceutical technique used in breathwork training that can help open the nasal passages quickly by using your own breath. This nose unblocking exercise is used in Oxygen Advantage teaching and is a safe, effective first step for many people.
Read MoreThis is the month when people tell me, “I just can’t catch my breath.”
And it’s no surprise — the days are darker, the pace is faster, and we’re all trying to fit more into less time. The breath is often the first thing to go when life gets full. It becomes shallow and quick, shoulders rise, and before you know it, your body is running on stress.
As the air turns colder, our bodies instinctively tighten up. We hunch our shoulders, breathe a bit higher in the chest, and feel that drop in warmth and energy.
Breathwork can do more than calm the mind — the way you breathe actually influences how warm and alive your body feels.
Conscious connected breathing is a deep, intentional form of breathwork that helps you access more clarity, emotional release, and energetic balance in the body. Unlike regular day-to-day breathing, which is often shallow or automatic, conscious connected breathing encourages a continuous, connected flow of breath, often through both inhalation and exhalation without pauses. This sustained, conscious breathing allows your body and mind to enter states of deep relaxation and heightened awareness.
Read MoreIf you have been exploring breathwork, you might have typed into Google: “Is conscious connected breathing dangerous?” It is a question I hear often and it deserves a thoughtful answer.
Read MoreThis blog is inspired by a recent deep dive breathwork session that left me completely in awe. A client experienced such profound fascial release in the neck and shoulder area that the surrounding tissues visibly shifted, even though she didn’t consciously feel it. Watching it unfold was extraordinary, a reminder of how responsive our bodies are and how much they can let go when we breathe deeply and consciously. It was one of those moments where the body’s intelligence is undeniable, moving and releasing in ways that the mind cannot always perceive.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever been nudged awake by a frustrated partner, or startled yourself with your own snoring, you’re not alone.
Snoring affects nearly half of all men and about a quarter of women.
Snoring happens when airflow becomes partially blocked during sleep, causing the soft tissues in the airway to vibrate. In simple terms, your body is working harder than it should to push air through narrowed passages.
Read MoreI want to share something that might surprise you: breathwork isn't about staying calm all the time.
I know, I know. That probably sounds contradictory coming from someone who teaches breathing techniques. But stick with me here, because this shift in perspective could change everything about how you approach your emotional wellbeing.
Read MoreSitting all day—whether at school or work—can lead to poor posture, which disrupts healthy breathing. Slouching compresses the diaphragm, encourages mouth breathing, and weakens vagus nerve function, leading to symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and shallow breathing. Poor tongue posture adds to the problem by restricting airways.
As a certified breath coach, I help identify and retrain dysfunctional breathing patterns caused by long-term sitting. With the right techniques, you can restore proper breathing, improve posture, boost energy, and feel better than you even realised was possible.
Read MoreMouth breathing may be a hidden contributor to ADHD-like symptoms such as inattention, restlessness, and mental fog. Research shows it can reduce oxygen flow to the brain and disrupt sleep, both of which impact cognitive function and behaviour. Breathing coach Patrick McKeown's method—focusing on nasal breathing, CO₂ balance, and retraining breathing patterns—offers a science-backed approach to improving focus, sleep, and overall brain performance. The good news: breathing habits can be changed, offering a promising, non-pharmaceutical way to support ADHD management.
Read MoreAre you struggling with that familiar midday mental haze? That feeling where your thoughts feel stuck in molasses and simple tasks seem impossibly difficult? If you're a woman navigating perimenopause or menopause, you're not alone. Brain fog affects up to 60% of women during this transition, but there's a surprisingly simple tool that can help: conscious breath holds.
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