Breathing Techniques to Enhance Healing with Natural Wellness Coach Arya Donahue

By Samantha Reaves, MA, PMH-C

Breathing techniques can increase and manage energy levels and enhance healing naturally. Natural wellness practitioner and coach, Arya Heath, takes us through five breathing exercises you can add to your daily routine to reduce stress and feel more centered.

Samantha: Arya, tell us about your areas of expertise as a natural wellness practitioner.

Arya: I became certified as a breathwork facilitator some 30 years ago. I often facilitate seminars and private sessions to hundreds of people. What I believe makes me unique in the world of breathwork is that I have developed eight techniques that can be used for everyday energy management. My passion is to empower everyone to use these techniques to enhance their well-being.

I have provided online courses on breath techniques to Duke Integrative Medicine staff. I am also a certified holistic nutritionist and bio-energetic medicine practitioner working with natural medicine and homeopathy. I have had the privilege to work with integrative M.D.s to serve their patients. 

I have been trained through the American Institute for Preventive Medicine to instruct “Empowerment Through Self-Awareness.”

Samantha: How can incorporating breathing techniques change your day-to-day life?

Arya: Breathwork is truly a gift of life! It is the only body function that is both autonomic and voluntary – it is our bridge between unconscious survival and conscious choice. Conscious breathing is a way to empower ourselves to focus, reduce stress, and manage our emotions.

We take 20,000 breaths per day and approximately 95% are unconscious. Each unconscious breath is a missed opportunity to reshape our life experience. 

In the postpartum depression experience it is not simply a low mood, it is a disharmonic state where the body’s tuning fork (DNA, hormones, and nervous system) drifts from resonance. 

In postpartum depression, where one feels “out of phase with life,” breath reattunes body, heart, and mind. Each breath is not an escape but a re-entry into the mother’s own field, so she can offer resonance to the child without depletion. In this case, the breath becomes medicine.

Samantha: Can you tell us about the psoas muscle and how it relates to trauma?

Arya: The psoas muscle runs from the lumbar spine through the pelvis to the femur. It is directly connected to posture, stability and breathing (it works with the diaphragm). 

The psoas is the muscle of the soul and serves as a profound bridge between our physical bodies and the emotional experience of fight-or-flight.

It has a tendency to contract and store trauma. When we experience trauma, whether physical or emotional, our body’s innate response is to protect itself. The psoas often contracts involuntarily in moments of stress or danger, preparing the body either to flee or defend itself.

The prolonged tensions contribute to a range of physical discomforts, including hip tightness, lower back pain, and even digestive issues.

Samantha: Will you share some breathing exercises with us?

Arya:

Samantha: What else would you like to share about your work?

Arya: Through my own healing journey of the experience of deep trauma and physical injuries, I have become passionate about my body’s ability to be supported in the healing process through breath techniques, psoas clearing, and vagus nerve strengthening.

Breath awareness:

• Grounds the mother amidst rapid hormonal shifts and emotional vulnerability.
• Provides a rhythm for bonding with the newborn, since infants naturally entrain to the mother’s breathing patterns.
• Opens space for self-compassion and stillness, which counters the overwhelm of early motherhood.

So, to be aware of breathing after giving birth is to consciously re-enter the body, harmonize the rhythms of expansion and contraction, and stabilize both the healing mother and the child she now attunes with.

During this interview, I have shared specific breath techniques for postpartum moms, and during my seminars I share other breath techniques as well as vagus nerve strengthening and gentle release of the psoas.  

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