Had a back and forth with @EmilyQ about breathwork and wanted to expand on it without clogging up her training thread.
She greatly enjoys the runner’s high but running can be damaging as we all get older so I suggested breathwork to get a similar high. She, like many of us, struggles to be still so dismissed breathwork - something I understand.
When I talk of breathwork I am referencing holotropic/transformational breathwork rather than yogic pranayama. Specifically, the breathwork developed by Stanislav Grof who developed the method to replace LSD therapy when LSD was criminalized. Through conscious connected breathing the prefrontal cortex shuts down and allows the breather to attain samadhi - a feeling of blissful connectedness.
One of the people I follow is Tommy Rosen who began his yoga practice in early recovery. He tells a story where his yogi told him he should have gone to prehab before becoming an alcoholic/addict. His yogi explained that prehab was learning to sit still. Tommy recalled positioning himself during yoga classes so that he could see the clock during downward facing dog so he could tell how much time he had to endure before class was over. He had not learned to be still.
I have had similar experiences. I enjoy having done yoga, but not the yoga itself.
Through repeated attempts to sit still, including daily meditation, eight hours of chanting meditation at Kundalini White Tantra, breathwork, and now Vipassana meditation, I have gotten better at sitting still. I have found value in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s encouragement that we are human beings, not human doings. There is great value in the space between breaths.
Just some random thoughts that I thought I would throw out.