Why Breathwork is Still Overlooked as a Starting Point for Instant Wellbeing
- Apr 12
- 5 min read
Written by Matthew Donnachie, Founder of Inner Balance
Matthew is the go-to breathwork facilitator for CEO's and entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Inner Balance Life, offering trauma informed practices to support business owners leveraging the power of the breath.
For a stressed out, emotionally overwhelmed Matthew Donnachie, breathwork was a salvation. Here’s what happens when you decenter overpriced wellness in favor of a simple breathwork practice. When people begin thinking about improving their wellbeing, they tend to look outward first. Nutrition, exercise, supplements, therapy, productivity systems, each has its place, and all can be valuable. But there is a more fundamental starting point that is often overlooked, despite being with us every moment of every day.
The breath
“Imagine a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, that was me,” Matthew remembers, who is now an expert with 15 years’ experience and a client list including actors, entrepreneurs, and award-winning CEOs. “A friend suggested I try breathwork. Until then, I had no idea that so much of what I was carrying emotionally could be released simply through the way I breathed.”
He’s not the only person to have found himself dedicated to breathwork. People across the world are harnessing their breath to meet the world’s challenges. Here’s how to become one of them. Now, take a deep breath and read on.
Real-time regulation
“After my first session, I felt something shift. My short fuse softened. I became less reactive and more able to meet life’s challenges without exploding,” Matthew recounts. “Over time, breathwork became a tool I leaned on regularly, and eventually, something I felt called to share with others.”
Think about it, without the breath, nothing else functions. And yet, for something so essential, it is rarely given conscious attention. “The assumption is simple, if you are breathing, you are fine. But the reality is far more nuanced. How you breathe directly shapes how you feel, how you think, and how your body responds to the world around you.”
This is why breathwork is increasingly being recognized not as an advanced wellness tool, but as the foundational one. Before optimizing anything else, it addresses the system that everything else depends on. And when that works well, it empowers everything else to, too.
The moment everything starts to shift
For many, the introduction to breathwork does not come from curiosity, but from necessity. It often appears at a point where existing strategies are no longer cutting it.
“That was certainly my experience. At the time, I was working in a high-pressure environment and struggling to regulate my emotions,” Matthew tells us. “There was a constant sense of tension beneath the surface, as if I was holding everything together until the moment I couldn’t. The smallest trigger could tip that balance. It felt like living with a short fuse, always close to burning out.”
“When breathwork was suggested to me, it did not immediately register as something significant. Like most people, I associated breathing with something purely automatic. The idea that it could influence emotional release or internal stability was not something I had seriously considered.”
“But the first session created a noticeable shift. Not dramatic or performative, but real. The edge softened. Reactivity reduced. There was space where previously there had only been tension. Over time, that shift became more consistent. Breathwork moved from being something I tried to something I relied on.” Now he’s built a successful breathwork company from the ground up, or should that be from the ‘breath’ up.
You don’t have to become Wim Hof
Breathing is often treated as a passive function, but it is, in fact, one of the most direct ways to influence your internal state. There are so many simple ways to improve your breathing that go well beyond Wim Hof, but you don’t have to start with anything complex.
“A slow, deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth can already bring a surprising amount of calm,” Matthew recommends. “Many of us have unconsciously become chronic mouth-breathers, especially under stress or when we’re rushing. We take around 25,000 breaths a day, and huge benefits can come from inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, or nose, depending on the technique.”
From there, you can begin to explore different practices that suit you. Techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing help retrain the body to breathe more efficiently, reducing tension and improving oxygen exchange. More advanced forms of breathwork, such as subconscious connected breathing, go further still, working at the level of stored emotional material and long-held tension.
But don’t let that intimidate the beginner in you, slow, steady breathing alone can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, where the body recovers and resets. In a few quiet moments, heart rate slows, stress hormones decrease, and a sense of safety begins to return.
What subconscious connected breathwork actually is
This deeper work is best done with a well-trained, trauma-informed practitioner who can hold safe space and guide you through the process. Matthew’s company Breath4Life™ is for those ready to take their practice up a notch.
A powerful therapeutic process that works on an emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual level, people who work with Matthew’s trademarked system show benefits such as significant reduction in stress, anxiety, depression, and anger issues, support with PTSD, and even improvements in symptoms linked to autoimmune conditions.
“Mentally and emotionally, it also has provided noticeable shifts for people on the autistic spectrum, increased resilience and capacity to handle life’s challenges, and helps release layers of negative emotional baggage built up over years,” he reports.
What does this equate to overall? More joy, passion, and emotional availability, meaning healthier family dynamics, better interactions with colleagues, and a more grounded, authentic way of relating to the world.
Do you need tools, techniques, or devices?
You can’t click anywhere these days without having wellness tools or devices marketed to you. Matthew has never used them. “For some, these can be useful reminders or entry points,” Matthew considers. “But they are not essential. What is essential is the internal shift, the willingness to pay attention to something that has been automatic for most of your life, and to take an active role in how it functions.”
Your body already knows how to breathe. Breathwork is not about replacing that intelligence, but about reconnecting with it and refining it.
A simpler way to think about wellbeing
There’s something liberating in knowing that every breath you take is an opportunity to influence your state. To shift from tension to ease, from reactivity to presence, from overwhelm to clarity. And when that switch in levering becomes consistent, the question is no longer where to begin. You already have. And we’ll bet that you’ve been far more conscious of your breath in the five minutes you’ve spent reading this article than you have all day.
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Read more from Matthew Donnachie
Matthew Donnachie, Founder of Inner Balance
Matthew Donnachie runs Inner Balance Life, which offers bespoke action therapy and coaching, which includes a combination of trauma informed breathwork, cold water therapy and shamanic/energetic guidance. Matthew has built up client practices in North and South Wales, London and Surrey, UK. Fully trained in Breath4Life Breathwork, NLP, Reiki and energetic medicines, Matthew now helps men come back from the brink, and women process underlying sexual trauma through leveraging the power of their breath.
