Breathing for Sports, Music, Health and More
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 28
- 13 min read
Remington Steele is a holistic breathwork and mindfulness coach, doula, and speaker dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with themselves through the power of breath, emotional literacy, and community healing.
Breath is the one performance enhancer every athlete, musician, artist, and healer already has, but few are trained to fully harness. Whether you're sprinting toward the finish line, hitting a high note, holding a yoga pose, performing under pressure, or supporting patients through recovery, the breath is your foundation. It fuels endurance, sharpens focus, regulates emotion, and connects mind to body in real time. In every discipline, from the stage to the field to the hospital floor, breathing with intention can elevate performance, accelerate recovery, and unlock a level of mastery that raw talent alone cannot reach. This is not just about air, it’s about awareness, rhythm, and control. And once you learn to breathe on purpose, everything else follows.
Understanding the breath
The breath is more than just an automatic function; it is the body’s built-in tool for precision, recovery, and control. In sports, breath regulates power output, reduces fatigue, and keeps athletes present under pressure. In music and the performing arts, it supports vocal strength, timing, emotional delivery, and stage endurance. In healthcare, breath becomes a stabilizing force, lowering heart rate, calming anxiety, and supporting patient resilience. At its core, breath is the bridge between consciousness and unconsciousness, between thought and action. When understood and practiced intentionally, it becomes a universal language the body speaks fluently across disciplines. Whether you're managing stress in a hospital ward, holding a long note on stage, or pushing through the final lap, mastery of the breath enhances not just performance but presence.
The power of the breath
The breath is the quiet force behind every powerful action. It fuels movement, stabilizes posture, sharpens mental clarity, and regulates emotional intensity. In sports, a well-timed exhale can add force to a punch, control to a sprint, or accuracy to a shot. In music, breath shapes tone, supports phrasing, and gives life to the pause between notes. In healthcare, controlled breathing reduces pain, improves oxygen flow, and enhances healing. Breath is both energy and intelligence; it adapts in real time, syncing with effort, emotion, and intention. When harnessed, it transforms raw ability into refined execution. The power of the breath is not just in sustaining life, but in amplifying it.
Who benefits from developing breath stamina and resilience
Everyone breathes, but not everyone breathes with awareness, and that’s where transformation begins. Whether you're pushing your physical limits, expressing through art, or healing from illness, developing breath stamina and resilience enhances performance, focus, and recovery.
While the benefits are universal, here are a few key groups who see remarkable results when breath becomes part of their training or care:
Track & Field:
Breath stamina directly impacts VO₂ max, the maximum rate of oxygen your body can use during exercise, which is critical for runners and sprinters. Controlled nasal breathing during training enhances oxygen efficiency, delays lactic acid buildup, and helps maintain pace during high-intensity intervals. It’s the difference between a strong final kick and a collapse at the finish line.
Football:
Every explosive movement, tackling, sprinting, and blocking, requires intra-abdominal pressure generated by the breath. Breath control boosts core stability, reduces injury risk, and helps players recover faster between plays. Mastering breath under a helmet and pads also enhances focus during high-pressure plays and improves reaction time.
Basketball:
The constant transition between offense and defense taxes the cardiovascular system.
Breath training increases lung capacity, supports faster recovery during timeouts, and helps maintain composure during free throws and overtime. Athletes with breath awareness avoid burnout and perform with more consistency in fourth quarters.
Boxing & Martial Arts:
Breath is as strategic as footwork. Fighters who exhale with punches deliver more force while protecting core stability, and breath control under pressure prevents adrenaline spikes that lead to premature fatigue. Resilience in the ring isn’t just physical, it’s respiratory. Elite fighters train breath like they train technique.
Musicians Instrumentalists:
Breath shapes tone quality, controls dynamics, and sustains phrasing, especially for wind and brass players. Diaphragmatic control prevents hyperventilation during long performances and supports embouchure strength. Breath stamina translates to endurance in rehearsal and power on stage without straining the body.
Vocalists:
Your voice is your breath. Strong intercostal and diaphragmatic muscles support longer notes, smoother transitions, and proper pitch. Breath regulation also prevents vocal cord strain and promotes longevity in the studio, on tour, or in live performance. Singers with advanced breath control outperform even those with natural talent.
Using the breath to enhance sports performance
As a breath expert, I teach athletes how to turn unconscious breathing into a strategic advantage because peak performance doesn’t just come from muscle; it comes from mastery of oxygen. Intentional breathwork improves VO₂ max, reduces recovery time, regulates the nervous system, and sharpens mental clarity under pressure. Techniques like nasal breathing, breath holds, and cadence control train the body to use oxygen more efficiently while activating the diaphragm and core for greater power and stability.
Whether you're sprinting, lifting, or recovering between plays, learning to breathe with purpose gives athletes a measurable edge on the field, in the gym, and beyond.
Building resilience in the breath for better stamina
In sports, stamina isn’t just about muscles; it’s about how well your body can sustain effort under pressure, and that begins with breath resilience. Training the breath through techniques like controlled breath holds (CO₂ tolerance training), nasal-only breathing, and rhythmic cadence drills conditions the respiratory system to handle higher demands with less fatigue. This kind of breathwork increases lung elasticity, strengthens the diaphragm, and improves oxygen uptake and delivery to working muscles, delaying lactic acid buildup and extending endurance. Athletes who build breath resilience recover faster between sprints, maintain composure in high-stress moments, and perform consistently longer than those who haven’t trained the respiratory system. Breath becomes the internal coach, quiet, powerful, and always present, giving you a competitive edge with every inhale and exhale.
Preparing the breath for impact
In high-contact sports like football, the moment of impact sends a shockwave through the body, and the breath plays a critical role in how that force is absorbed. When athletes learn to brace the core through intentional breathing, typically a quick, sharp inhale followed by a controlled, compressed exhale at the moment of contact, they protect vital organs, stabilize the spine, and reduce the risk of injury. This breath-bracing technique engages the diaphragm and deep core muscles, allowing the body to receive impact with resilience instead of recoil. Much like a gymnast landing gracefully from a fall, a football player trained in breath control can reduce post-game soreness, minimize internal stress, and bounce back faster because the body is ready, not surprised. Breath becomes the invisible armor that cushions the blow.
Creating respiratory endurance for prolonged use
For track and field athletes, respiratory endurance is the key to sustaining speed, maintaining form, and recovering efficiently between events or intervals. Training with nasal breathing during runs enhances CO₂ tolerance and boosts oxygen delivery to muscles, helping delay fatigue and improve aerobic capacity. Incorporating post-run breath holds, such as short, intentional holds after sprints or intervals, conditions the body to remain calm and efficient under oxygen stress, mimicking race-day pressure.
Cadence breathing (timing your inhales and exhales with strides) builds rhythm and lung control, especially in middle and long-distance events. When breath becomes part of your training, not just a reaction, you gain an edge in endurance, focus, and recovery that separates elite runners from the rest.
The breath of music
In music, the breath isn’t just life support; it is the instrument. Whether you’re a vocalist, woodwind player, or percussionist using your body to shape sound, the way you breathe determines tone, control, and emotional expression. Unlike athletic or meditative breath, musical breathing is intentionally timed, shaped, and often manipulated to serve phrasing, dynamics, and rhythm. Musicians learn to regulate the flow of air, not just the volume, to sustain long notes, articulate quickly, or pause with purpose. It requires awareness of breath placement in the body, control of the diaphragm, and the ability to recover between phrases without disrupting the music. Mastering the breath in music is about learning to play silence and sound equally with your lungs, your timing, and your soul.
The music within our breath
Every breath we take carries a natural rhythm, a rise and fall, a tempo all its own, and within that rhythm lies music. The sound of the breath, whether whispered through pursed lips or released in a resonant hum, has the power to calm, awaken, and connect. It is vibration in motion, echoing through the body like an internal melody. When we tune into our breath, we’re not just breathing, we’re composing, creating, and harmonizing with the deepest instrument we’ll ever know: ourselves.
Creating the breath for wind instruments
For developing artists, mastering the breath is foundational to mastering your instrument. Wind players must learn not just to breathe deeply, but to breathe intelligently using the diaphragm, engaging core support, and controlling airflow with precision. A well-trained breath produces tone, sustain, vibrato, and dynamic control, which becomes your voice through the instrument. Practicing breathwork off the instrument builds lung capacity, increases stamina for long phrases, and refines breath-release timing. The breath becomes more than a tool; it becomes a trusted partner in artistic expression, allowing your music to speak with power, clarity, and soul.
Practice tip to increase breath intake capacity
For musicians or everyone, one of the most effective ways to increase breath intake is to practice slow, diaphragmatic breathing while standing in proper posture. Inhale through the nose, expanding the ribs and lower belly fully, then exhale slowly through pursed lips to build control. Focus on keeping the shoulders relaxed and letting the breath fill the sides and back of the lungs. Just five minutes of this daily strengthens the diaphragm, increases lung capacity, and improves airflow giving you more power, sustain, and control in your music.
What is our breath doing to our health?
The way we breathe is constantly sending messages to the brain about how safe or unsafe we are. Shallow, rapid, chest-based breathing tells the nervous system we're in danger, activating the fight-or-flight response even when no threat exists. This triggers the release of cortisol and adrenaline, flooding the body with stress hormones that, over time, can lead to inflammation, high blood pressure, hormone imbalances, and immune dysfunction. Many people are unconsciously living in a breath pattern that mimics anxiety, anger, or fear, training the body to stay in survival mode. The breath we take becomes the state we live in, and unless we learn to breathe consciously and fully, we risk letting our own breath be the silent source of burnout, disease, and emotional instability.
How we may be breathing depression and anxiety unbeknownst to us
Most people don't realize that their breathing patterns may be feeding the very depression and anxiety they're trying to escape. As mentioned previously, shallow, mouth-based, upper chest breathing, often paired with holding the breath or irregular exhales, signals danger to the brain, even when life is calm. This keeps the body locked in a sympathetic (fight-or-flight) state, where cortisol remains elevated, sleep is disrupted, digestion slows, and emotional regulation becomes harder. Over time, this constant physiological stress can contribute to symptoms that look like clinical depression or anxiety: fatigue, hopelessness, irritability, brain fog, and panic. In many cases, healthcare providers treat these symptoms with medications without first addressing the chronic breath patterns that may be causing or worsening the condition. While medication can help, it often acts as a patch rather than a root solution. Until we retrain the breath to communicate safety, presence, and calm, the body will continue to live out the message it's constantly receiving: that we are not okay even when we are. Reclaiming our breath is reclaiming our mental health from the inside out.
Understanding the breath’s relationship to cortisol
Cortisol is the body’s primary stress hormone, released by the adrenal glands in response to perceived threats. In short bursts, it helps us survive by heightening alertness, increasing blood sugar, and preparing muscles for action. But when the body is stuck in a chronic stress state, often triggered by shallow, rapid, unconscious breathing, cortisol stays elevated, leading to long-term damage. Prolonged high cortisol suppresses the immune system, weakens digestion, disrupts sleep cycles, and increases inflammation in the body. Over time, this can contribute to autoimmune disorders, hormonal imbalances, fatigue, and increased vulnerability to illness. Breath plays a direct role in either calming or activating this system. Slow, diaphragmatic breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, signaling safety to the brain and telling the body to slow cortisol production. In this way, every breath becomes a choice: to stay in survival mode, or to shift into healing. Understanding and mastering your breath is one of the most powerful ways to support your immune system and protect your long-term health.
How our immune system is affected by our breath
Our breath is one of the most overlooked yet powerful regulators of the immune system. The immune system is our body's defense network. I like to refer to it as the skin of our insides, made up of organs, cells, and proteins that protect us from harmful invaders like bacteria, viruses, and toxins. It operates through two main arms: the innate immune system, which provides a general defense, and the adaptive immune system, which creates long-term immunity by remembering threats. When we breathe deeply and slowly through the nose using the diaphragm, we stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the “rest and repair” system, which supports immune activity, regulates inflammation, and balances hormones. In contrast, shallow, rapid chest breathing especially through the mouth activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight), increasing cortisol levels. Over time, chronic stress breathing tells the body it’s in danger, leading to suppressed white blood cell production, impaired antibody response, and disrupted cellular repair.
When the immune system is weakened by chronic stress and poor breathing patterns, the body becomes vulnerable to a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Common issues include:
Frequent colds and respiratory infections
Sinus infections and allergies
Digestive disorders like IBS, Crohn’s disease, and ulcers
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis
Autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and multiple sclerosis
Asthma and bronchitis
Migraines and chronic headaches
Reproductive and hormonal imbalances
Diabetes Type I and II
Anxiety and depression, which both suppress immune function further
More severe and life-threatening conditions linked to immune dysfunction include:
Cancer, where immune surveillance fails to destroy mutated cells
HIV/AIDS, which directly attacks immune cells
Sepsis, a deadly overreaction of the immune system to infection
Pneumonia, which can escalate quickly in immunocompromised individuals
COVID-19, where the immune response determines severity and recovery
By retraining the breath, slowing it down, deepening it, and making it conscious, we not only regulate stress hormones like cortisol, but we also create the internal environment the immune system needs to function optimally. Your breath is more than a tool; it’s the frontline communicator to your immune system, either telling it to fight, freeze, or heal.
Breathing well isn’t just good for you; it may be the most essential form of daily self-protection you have.
What changes can be made to improve the health of our breath?
Improving the health of your breath begins with awareness and a few key lifestyle shifts. First, breathe through your nose as often as possible. Nasal breathing filters, warms, and humidifies air, supports optimal oxygen uptake, and helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate. Second, focus on diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing), allowing your lower ribs and abdomen to expand with each inhale. This reduces tension in the neck and shoulders, activates the vagus nerve, and supports a calm, restorative state. Slow down your breath, aim for 5-6 breaths per minute (inhale for 4-5 seconds, exhale for 6-7) to lower cortisol and balance the nervous system. Posture matters too; sit or stand tall to create more space for your lungs. Finally, limit mouth breathing, especially during sleep and exercise, as it disrupts oxygen balance, dries airways, and triggers stress responses. Small butterfly adjustment, practiced consistently, can profoundly shift not only how you breathe but how you live, heal, and perform.
Divers have long understood the power of the breath
Divers, especially free divers, have long mastered breath as both a science and a survival tool. Many can hold their breath for over 4-7 minutes, thanks to training that increases CO₂ tolerance, enhances lung elasticity, and slows the metabolic rate. Studies show that during deep dives, their heart rate drops significantly a phenomenon called the mammalian dive reflex preserving oxygen and protecting vital organs. World record holders like Aleix Segura have survived extended breath holds even after physical activity by using diaphragmatic control, breath holds (apnea training), and meditative focus to enter near-suspended physiological states. Divers prove what science confirms: when trained, the human breath can slow time, preserve life, and outperform the limits we once thought were fixed.
Training for breath retention
Breath retention builds CO₂ tolerance, lung capacity, and mental control under physical stress. Techniques include controlled breath holds after exhale, box breathing (inhale-hold-exhale-hold), and gradual hypoxic training while at rest or post-exercise. As an expert breath practitioner, I guide clients through safe, progressive retention protocols that strengthen the lungs, sharpen focus, and unlock the resilience they never knew they had.
Stretching the lungs to increase breath capacity
Stretching the lungs through intentional breathwork and physical movement increases flexibility in the intercostal muscles, diaphragm, and chest wall, allowing the lungs to expand more fully with each inhale. Techniques like side body stretches, thoracic twists, and breath-focused poses such as Cobra or Crescent Lunge help open the rib cage and release tension around the lungs. This expanded mobility not only improves oxygen intake but also supports better posture, deeper relaxation, and enhanced performance in both athletic and musical pursuits. When the lungs have more room to breathe, the entire body functions with greater ease and energy.
Proven techniques used by divers
Divers, especially elite free divers, use scientifically-backed techniques to train their bodies and minds for extended breath holds and efficient oxygen use. One core method is CO₂ tolerance training, where divers gradually increase the time between breaths to adapt the body to rising carbon dioxide levels without triggering panic. Apnea tables, structured breath-hold, and rest intervals are commonly used to build both mental and physical endurance. Diaphragmatic stretching and lung-packing exercises help expand total lung volume and increase breath capacity. Divers also train the mammalian dive reflex by submerging the face in cold water while holding their breath, which naturally slows the heart rate and conserves oxygen. Mental focus and breath awareness are essential; Many incorporate meditation and visualization to stay calm under pressure. These proven techniques are a testament to how far breath can be trained, and with expert guidance, like the programs I offer, anyone can begin building similar resilience, control, and depth in their own breath practice.
Where can you learn to develop breath power
If you're ready to unlock the full potential of your breath, whether for performance, healing, focus, or endurance, you don’t have to figure it out alone. As an intuitive breath practitioner with over two decades of experience, I offer personalized training, workshops, and transformative retreats that teach you how to master your breath and change your life from the inside out. To begin your journey or book a session, reach out to me directly at BreatheWithRem@gmail.com. Your breath is your power; it's time you learn how to master it.
Read more from Remington Steele
Remington Steele, Expert Breath Coach & Intuitive Holistic Wellness Coach
Remington Steele is a mindfulness facilitator, breathwork coach, and passionate advocate for teen parents. She is the founder of Breathe With Rem, a wellness practice rooted in conscious breathing and self-healing, and We Are The Village – Teen Moms, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and empowering teenage mothers through holistic care, mentorship, and education. Drawing from her own experience as a teen mom, Remington creates safe spaces for healing, growth, and generational change. Her work bridges breath and community, helping individuals reconnect with themselves and each other. Follow her journey and explore more of her articles.
