Can Mindful Breathing Lead To Better Skin? This Breathwork Coach Thinks So

New Zealand breathwork coach Sarah Lamb believes she cured her rosacea through conscious breath.

In his book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, award-winning science journalist James Nestor recounts numerous groundbreaking studies which showcase the power of something we inherently do every second of the day — breathe. He documents the ways in which “proper” breathing can boost athletic performance and bring relief to common health concerns, including asthma, allergies, snoring and autoimmune disease.

He even describes a case in which one woman’s incurable scoliosis was healed through mindful breathing techniques. If our breath has the power to transform our bodies in this way, rather than slathering our skin with serums and lotions to fix common concerns, could we change it just by breathing better?

Breathwork coach Sarah Lamb certainly believes so, at least when there’s an inflammatory issue at play. “I arrived into my 40s with rosacea and adult acne,” explains Sarah, who, as well as having trained in breathwork, has a degree in physical education and physiology. “I knew it was inflammation, you know, rosacea is a very angry condition in the skin, and I knew at some level that I needed to treat the root cause.”

It wasn’t until she started regular breathwork, and eventually trained in the modality, that Sarah began to notice “profound changes” to her skin. “It’s not a quick fix, you know, it took probably six months to a year [but] I completely healed my skin; just transformed it.”

Breathwork has roots in the yogic tradition and is also known as pranayama, or the practice of breath regulation. There are many different styles of breathwork taught today, but the overarching idea is to take your breathing from an unconscious function of your autonomic nervous system and instead use conscious breath patterns to increase the body’s physiological functions.

Sarah explains that when it comes to healing inflammatory skin conditions through the breath, there are two main pathways. The first is that conscious deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which she describes as the “master nerve of the nervous system”. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it helps to slow the heart rate and allow the body to sit in a parasympathetic state where it can prioritise resting, digesting and repair.

“That’s skin renewal, digesting, flushing out toxins, everything. All the organs are basically doing all of their repair functions,” she explains. “So it’s no surprise that if you spend more time in that part of your nervous system, you are improving the health of your whole body and that of your skin.”

“The blood flow around the body is restricted, and you just can’t heal and repair yourself very well when you’re responding from that place. [You can use] all the best products in the world but you can’t heal your skin when you’re constantly stressed,” she says. Through utilising breathwork practices, Sarah says you can start to retrain your body to come back into the rest and repair state more easily, which is not only beneficial for healing the body, but calming the mind and reducing stress levels, too.

Another beneficial pathway for the skin that comes through conscious breath is the ability to tackle inflammation at a cellular level. While Sarah in no way claims to be a skin specialist, she points to the fact that there are studies that document the link between breathwork and the promotion of anti-inflammatory cytokines in the body.

“[These] are the little proteins running around the body telling your body what to do in terms of going to an inflammatory site or treating infection. It goes back to that really healthy functioning of the body, but particularly at an inflammatory level,” she says.

Inflammatory skin conditions include acne, eczema, dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis. These can flare up during times of stress, and topical steroid creams are often prescribed to help clear and calm irritation. These conditions can be incredibly debilitating to one’s state of mind too, so activating your mind-body connection through breathing may also serve to foster a more positive mindset and reduce that baseline level of stress.

“When making that space for yourself, within these kinds of conscious breathing practices that I teach ... you do actually get a release of those feel-good [hormones], endorphins, oxytocin and serotonin,” says Sarah.

So how exactly do you practise breathwork? At its essence, it’s about breathing further into the body, activating the belly rather than keeping the breath in the chest or collarbones (as most of us unconsciously tend to do) and breathing in and out slowly through the nose.

“It often helps to place your hand on your belly and just slow your breath down to the belly. Then extend the exhale for longer than the inhale,” explains Sarah. “You could go twice as long on the exhale as the inhale, or just as long as you like.”

Another breathing technique Sarah recommends is called the heart coherence breath, which is known as the “anxiety antidote” as it puts your body right into the rest and repair state through slow, controlled breathing, this time exhaling through the mouth. This breath practice involves breathing in for five counts through the nose, then out for five counts through a “straw breath”, as if you’re blowing through a straw. It equates to about five breaths per minute and it’s recommended to do it for five minutes at a time.

“People may breathe poorly for periods throughout the day, we all do, that’s totally natural. But it’s once you start to become conscious of your breath, ideally put in place a little short practice each morning, then you just become more aware and more often you’re able to go back to good breathing throughout the day. It doesn’t have to be a chore,” says Sarah.

“It can be the basis for not only great skin health, but just so many other benefits in your life. It’s time well spent.”

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