Breathing, the primal, universal human experience, is at the center of a crop of new books that draw on yoga and holistic healing practices. “There never seem to be enough books on breathwork,” says Georgia Hughes, editorial director at New World Library, highlighting Unblock Your Purpose: Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State (Nov.), which combines hypnosis, breathwork, and visioning. Written by Francesca Sipma, a former advertising executive and creator of the HypnoBreathwork method and the Mastry app, which offers workshops and coaching, the book shares a 22-minute daily practice the author created to increase inner peace and purpose.
Breathwork is a key component of The Practice of Immortality: A Monk’s Guide to Discovering Your Unlimited Potential for Health, Happiness, and Positivity (Balance, May). “It’s the one thing we all have,” says editor Renee Sedliar, “and truly is the key to timelessness.” Author Ishan Shivanand, an India-born yogic monk and researcher whose yoga-based wellness programs help young people manage stress and burnout, offers breathwork as a tool to escape what he calls “the anxiety of time moving too quickly.”
The Aquarian Shaman: Walking the Spiral Path of Transformation (Inner Traditions, Sept.) references Reiki, Chakra therapy, and sound healing, in addition to a shamanic tradition that combines spirituality, magic, and varying states of consciousness. Author Linda Star Wolf learned shamanism from a Native American spiritual teacher, the Seneca elder known as Grandmother Twylah Nitsch. Inner Traditions acquisitions editor Jon Graham says that the “deep circular breathing work” Wolf teaches in the book “helps forge connections with other forms of consciousness.”
In Feeling Happy: The Yoga of Body, Heart, and Mind (Shambhala, Nov.), yoga teachers Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor focus on finding peace and contentment through breathwork. “When breath leads the way,” they write, “the mind, which gets tied up in knots attempting to solve the happiness problem, is freed, and subtle aspects of heart that intersect with mind and enrich the experience of happiness—such as insight and creativity—flourish.”
“In our lives we inordinately fixate on the dichotomy of happy versus unhappy,” says executive editor Beth Frankl. “Mary and Richard wisely steer us toward cultivating contentment and equanimity.”
Frankl also observes that with yoga and breathwork books drawing from so many traditions, it’s important to distinguish between cultural appropriation and appreciation. One title that falls into the latter category is Suzanna Barkataki’s Ignite Your Yoga: How to Live, Practice, and Teach as an Authentic Yoga Steward (Shambhala, Apr.). The book, according to Frankl, encourages “a deeper understanding of yoga’s spiritual roots and inspires readers to embody yogic values in all aspects of life.”
Barkataki, who calls for engaging authentically with yoga, writes in the book: “Too often yoga in the West focuses solely on asana (body positions) and leaves little to no time for pranayama (yogic breathwork) or meditation. By doing this, asana becomes simply a fitness practice and its deeper and subtler benefits are elusive. Remember... no breath, no yoga!”
