09/07/2025
The Insidiousness of Holding One’s Breath
I have been swimming for most of my life—since age fifteen. Now, at eighty-one, I still swim three days a week. What began as competition in my younger years has become something entirely different. I no longer count laps or chase times. Instead, I swim to feel connected, to sense how my 660 muscles coordinate as I move through the water.
Swimming, for me, is about flow—inside and out. When my movement becomes fragmented, the water tells me immediately. I slow down, sense where I’ve lost connection, and invite that part of my body back into the whole. The moment flow returns, so does ease in my breath.
This link between flow and breathing is unmistakable. When movement is fragmented, breath feels restricted. When movement flows, breathing opens naturally. Yet the place I most often lose this connection is my head. I tend to hold it rigidly, especially in the water. True swimming flow requires spiraling motion from head to toe, led by the pelvis. Any body part that resists—especially the head—creates limitation.
Recently, I allowed my head to move with greater ease, and the release surprised me. It brought not just freedom in my stroke but also a surge of emotion. I felt sadness and relief all at once. Sadness for how long I had been holding my head—and with it, holding my breath. Relief in realizing that letting go was possible.
Holding my breath has been a lifelong pattern, rooted in early trauma. As a child, I learned to hold myself tightly—my body, my head, even my breath—to keep vulnerability hidden. Though it may have protected me then, the costs have been real. Over the years, I’ve suffered six concussions, two of them in just the past three years. Each has reminded me to ask: What is this teaching me?
Part of the answer is that fear shaped my body. Fear of being hurt. Fear of going crazy. Fear of being unsafe. For decades, my baseline was frantic energy, fueled by coffee. Not surprisingly, my last two concussions happened while I was heavily caffeinated. Almost a year ago, I stopped drinking coffee and eventually black tea as well. Without stimulants, I began to notice more: emotions, sensations, aches, confusions. The unraveling of old defenses began to show itself, and with it, the possibility of freedom.
This is where breath comes in. For the past 22 years, I’ve taught Buteyko Breathing Education, and for 37 years I’ve taught movement inquiry. Again and again, I encounter the same pattern in students: holding the breath.
This holding can appear in two ways. The obvious is simply stopping the inhale or exhale. The subtler is holding the body so tightly that the breath is trapped in a small space, never fully nourishing us. Either way, oxygen supply is limited, energy production is disrupted, and flow is interrupted.
Sometimes, this happens in small moments of concentration or fear. For example, many people unconsciously stop breathing while reading emails—so much so that it’s been named “email apnea.” Over time, these small breath-holds accumulate, creating erratic breathing patterns that affect both body and mind.
The insidious part is that we often don’t realize we’re doing it. Holding the breath becomes invisible, automatic, and deeply ingrained. Yet the consequences are real. Breath-holding disrupts our chemistry, our movement, and even our capacity to feel. Many of us hold our breath precisely to avoid feelings that seem too threatening, a habit often learned in childhood when the world felt unsafe.
I know this pattern from the inside. And I also know that it can change. Through movement, through water, through breath practices and inquiry, I’ve discovered that the very patterns that once kept me safe can be softened. Breath can return. Flow can return. And with them comes the possibility of living not in fear, but in presence—where the body, the breath, and the self are free to move, feel, and belong.
The Breathable Body - Robert Litman
We explore the breathing body, its harmony and balance. Making choices that enhance health and provide energy in all aspects of our being.
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