In the Wake of Covid, Corporate Bosses Become Breathwork Believers

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When a legal firm reached out to Belisa Vranich about breathwork sessions 15 years ago, it had one concern in particular. “They said, ‘We just want to make sure you’re not going to chant,’ ” recalls Vranich, a clinical psychologist. “I said, ‘No, we might sweat, but we’re definitely not going to chant.’ ”

Today the New York-based author and founder of the Breathing Class has less difficulty explaining the nuances of breathwork, or the practice of controlled breathing to increase oxygen flow and strengthen the muscular, nervous, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems. She now teaches people in military and law enforcement, human resources professionals, coaches, chiropractors, and therapists how to conduct their own sessions. “There is so much science behind it,” she says.

Deliberate breathing has been practiced for thousands of years in various forms. Nostril breathing involves using a finger to alternately close a single nostril while inhaling and exhaling; abdominal breathing requires sitting or lying down to inhale deeply through the lower abdomen. Forceful breathing actively expands and contracts the thoracic cavity in shorter breaths, and vocalized breathing involves a number of sounds, which, yes, can include chanting.

But the practice didn’t gain traction in the corporate world until the 2000s. Instead of being seen only as a component of meditation or yoga, shrouded in spirituality—or at least the smoke from a smoldering palo santo stick—breathwork has now been studied, and validated, by scientists.

“There is a fundamental connection between how you breathe, your heart function, and your autonomic nervous system,” says Marc Russo, a pain specialist in New South Wales, Australia, who led research published in the US National Library of Medicine in 2017 that helped kick-start further studies.

Many of the findings have focused on the practical application and benefit of strengthening the diaphragm, the thin muscle that divides the chest from the abdomen. The more resilient it is under stress, the better you can breathe, and the more active it can be in affecting other systems in the body. “A diaphragmatic breath is the breath that helps you with digestion, with acid reflux, irritable bowel, constipation, and back pain,” Vranich says.

Experts say the coronavirus pandemic created demand among workers to find ways to regulate stress and anxiety and to treat possible lingering effects of the disease. Doctors at New York’s Mount Sinai Center for Post-Covid Care found overwhelmingly positive results when treating patients with breathwork. The Stasis program, developed by Josh Duntz, a Navy Special Operations veteran, and his co-founder, Dan Valdo, involves inhaling and exhaling through your nose in prescribed counts up to three times a day.

Applications such as these are converting people who might have discounted it because of lingering quasi-spiritual associations. “Before the pandemic, people were closed off,” says Taryn Toomey, a former Ralph Lauren executive who founded the breath-based workout the Class. “Now people are realizing you have this incredible tool that is with you every second.”

Digital platforms and apps such as Breathwrk and Breethe are also providing a new online format that offers corporate wellness for employees working from home and others who prefer more privacy when it comes to stress management.

“I have found that people are more likely to try a class at home first than come in to the studio,” says Toomey, who introduced her digital platform weeks before the pandemic hit. “We have seen a big change since Covid in the type of people coming. I’ve seen a lot more men.”

Times can vary from as little as 22 minutes to as much as 75 minutes in private breathwork training. Costs range from $5 to $10 per month for an app to $29 for a group class. Private sessions can run to $250 and around $300 for a weekend retreat. But once you learn the technique, you can do it anywhere, anytime, for free.

Francesca Sipma, a marketing executive-turned-breathwork coach who started the Mastry app on March 16, counts Deloitte, Google, Snapchat, and Staples among her corporate clients. She introduced Jelani Jenkins, a retired Miami Dolphins linebacker and networking app developer, to breathing exercises almost two years ago; now he takes her classes regularly in person and online and practices at home daily.

“I was blown away by the results,” Jenkins says. “Starting from the first session, I had a lot of clarity. I started using breathwork to help me train for a marathon, and being able to remain calm during those really tense moments in the middle of a 13-mile run, it’s huge.”