On World Breathing Day 2021, The Global Classroom was joined by experts from around the world to discuss the benefits of implementing healthy breathing exercises into our daily routines. Healthy breathing habits contribute to our overall well-being, and our seventh digital classroom featured conservationists, musicians, authors and more to discuss the importance of breathing.

The purpose of Deep Breath

Deep Breath was hosted by The Global Classroom in collaboration with James Nestor, a bestselling author who has travelled the world to learn about healthy breathing habits. 

Hosted on Sunday 11th April to coincide with World Breathing Day, Deep Breath was designed to address the importance of breathing exercises to live a happy, healthy life. 

Our extensive panel of guest speakers shared their experiences with breathing exercises to illustrate how healthy breathing habits can have a positive impact on both our physical and mental well being. Our line up of thirteen guest speakers included Wim Hof, Lindsey Stirling and Jason Mraz.

This digital classroom addressed four specific uses of breathing exercises: 

1. How using a breathing technique can improve your sleep
2. How to breathe for focus (before a test, doing homework, in class)
3. How to breathe to improve your exercise
4. How to breathe throughout the day

Ultimately, Deep Breath aimed to equip our global students with the relevant tools, techniques and knowledge that would allow them to implement healthy breathing exercises into their daily routines. 

Learning breathing exercises from The Ice Man

Wim Hof is a leading expert in breathing exercises across the globe thanks to the development of The Wim Hof Method. 

Wim Hof’s nickname – The Ice Man – refers to the incredible amount of world records that he has broken throughout his career as an extreme athlete. He has used The Wim Hof Method to swim underneath sheets of ice and run across the Arctic Circle with bare feet. 

During Deep Breath, Wim Hof shared his revolutionary breathing exercise with our global students. He explained that ‘through these revolutionary techniques, we are able to control any part of our body and brain’. His breathing exercises are designed to increase focus during difficult tasks. 

You can practice your breathing exercises with Wim Hof on our YouTube channel, as he guides you through deep breathing and holding your breath to increase your control over your mind and body. 

Hair hanging with Lindsey Stirling

Lindsey Stirling is a professional violinist who rose to fame on YouTube after appearing on America’s Got Talent with her unique choreographed sequences to original violin scores. 

During Deep Breath, Lindsey shared how beneficial healthy breathing habits have been for her personal and professional development. There was one story in particular that illustrated the power of breathing exercises when you’re trying to reach your goals. 

For her Crystalize music video, Lindsey wanted to perform the aerial circus act of hair hanging. This skill is incredibly difficult to master, and Lindsey found the intense training period to be incredibly challenging. Whilst she almost gave up throughout the rehearsal process, she persevered and the music video is stunning. 

Whilst sharing her story, Lindsey explained how she believed ‘This is impossible, but I turned to breathing to help me get through it.’ This was a brilliant example to show how implementing daily breathing habits can be extremely useful in moments of increased emotion and help you to focus on what you want to achieve. 

You can hear the full story, and witness the fantastic finished product of her hair hanging training over on our YouTube channel.

Implementing healthy breathing habits

The full video for Deep Breath is available on our website, and over on our YouTube channel. This hour-long classroom features both Wim Hof and Lindsey Stirling’s stories in full, alongside athletes, scientists and musicians. 

To support you in your deep breathing journey, The Global Classroom have shared a range of resources on our Deep Breathing Hub, including articles, videos, and FAQs about the benefits of breathing exercises. 

If you still can’t get enough of our content, our eighth digital classroom – The Big Picture –  took place on June 8th 2021 at 16:30 BST, featuring Hanli Prinsloo who was also part of the guest speaker panel during Deep Breath.