Meditative Breathwork
Intended Audience
All members including people living with cancer, family members and significant caregivers.
Program Description
Meditative Breath Work guides participants through gentle breathing exercises that promote calmness, build resilience, and strengthen lung capacity. Breath practices utilize an embodied felt sense, visualizations, and sound of breath. Examples of practices include diaphragmatic breathing, heart breathing, back body breathing, side-to-side body breathing, multi directional breathing, and circular breathing.
“I love this class. Claudia’s compassion as well as her ability to encourage each of us to explore and expand our breathing spaces is so helpful and refreshing. I now recognize how shallow my breathing is in stressful situations and I now have the tools to correct this. Thank you!” -Suzanne P.
“The essence of the class is based on curiosity and inquiry, and I believe this is what has motivated me.” -Ken
Benefits and Impact
Research has demonstrated that meditation and breathwork can have important health-related benefits for those with cancer. Meditation has been reported to improve stress, sleep, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, and quality of life in people living with cancer (Dhruva et al., 2012; Galantino et al., 2019; Shahriari et al., 2017). Research on meditative and yogic breathwork also identifies similar effects (Dhruva et al., 2012; Shahriari et al., 2017). One study corroborates the observed improvement in stress in people living with cancer following a meditation program when it is delivered online (Trevino et al., 2020).
What to Expect at a Session
Breath practices vary week to week but each is done in a seated position and members are asked to have a long scarf, strap or tie available.
Classes begin with time to settle into the present moment and follow the breath, then make inquiries about it. With simple movements, members gain greater awareness of the feeling of the breath, and find greater mobility for the breath. Participants are encouraged to notice the impacts of the breath practices through mindful observation.
Classes end with an opportunity to share observations and impacts of the practices.
