When people think about training, they think about effort: heart rate, sweat, reps, pain. What they rarely think about is space — space to notice their body, their breath, and what’s actually going on inside them.
And yet, for many people, that’s the hardest part.
I’ve had clients who struggled to take a slow, deep breath when asked. Not because they were unfit, but because they’d never been asked to pay attention to it. Others have found that a few minutes of quiet breathing during a gym session unexpectedly unlocked strong emotions — sometimes to the point of tears. Not because anything “mystical” was happening, but because they were finally giving themselves permission to notice how they felt.
That permission matters.
Creating space in a noisy world
Modern life is loud, fast, and relentlessly external. Phones, music, notifications, pressure to perform — even the gym often becomes another place to dissociate rather than inhabit your body.
Deliberately stepping away from that creates something rare: time and space to be present.
In practice, this can be very simple:
- Slow, conscious breathing between sets
- Paying attention to where tension sits in the body
- Noticing how effort actually feels, rather than pushing through it blindly
This isn’t about relaxation for its own sake. It’s about re-establishing a basic physical relationship with yourself.
Why breathing is such a powerful entry point
Breathing sits at the intersection of the voluntary and involuntary nervous system. You don’t need belief, language, or insight to engage with it — just attention.
For many people, consciously slowing the breath and allowing the diaphragm to move is surprisingly difficult. That difficulty is informative. It tells you something about chronic tension, stress, and how little time is spent inhabiting the body rather than managing it.
When people do manage it, even briefly, the effect can be striking:
- Reduced muscle tension
- A sense of mental “space”
- Emotional responses that have been held at bay by busyness
None of this is exotic. Humans have used breath awareness for millennia. Modern medicine is simply rediscovering — cautiously — what was always obvious.
The measurable effects
While the main benefit is subjective — awareness, presence, self-regulation — there are measurable physiological correlates:
- Slow breathing can shift autonomic balance toward parasympathetic activity
- It can reduce heart rate and blood pressure in some individuals
- Changes in heart rate variability (HRV) are commonly observed
These measurements don’t create the benefit — they simply confirm that something real is happening. They’re useful when you want to avoid sounding, well, a bit “woo-woo”, but they’re not the reason to do the practice. But these measures reflect a reduction in stress, which in turn means reduced cortisol and inflammation, creating a better environment to reduce fat accumulation and the host of chronic diseases associated with excess sympathetic activity.
“You try it — it’ll be the hardest thing you’ve done”
When people dismiss this work, my response is simple: try it.
Sit still. Breathe slowly. Pay attention to your body without distraction. Don’t fix anything. Don’t optimise it. Just notice.
Most people find that far harder than another set of squats.
The same applies to therapy and counselling. Looking inward, honestly and without escape, is difficult. That difficulty doesn’t mean it’s pointless — it usually means it’s important.
How this fits into training at DRTLifestyle
This isn’t about turning the gym into a meditation hall. It’s about integrating awareness into physical training, rather than using training as another way to avoid yourself.
Strength, fitness, and body composition still matter. But so does the ability to pause, breathe, and notice what’s going on in your body and mind — especially in a world that constantly pulls attention outward.
For some people, this approach is transformative. For others, it’s simply a useful skill. Either way, it’s available, low-risk, and deeply human.
No evangelism required.
References
- Zaccaro A et al. How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psychophysiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018.
- Lehrer PM, Gevirtz R. Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? Frontiers in Psychology, 2014.
- Brown RP, Gerbarg PL. Sudarshan Kriya yogic breathing in the treatment of stress, anxiety, and depression. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2005.
