Retraining Stress-Driven Breathing Patterns
You May Benefit From This Course If You:
- Notice that you sometimes hold your breath without realizing it
- Catch yourself breathing shallowly or feeling short of breath
- Have experienced panic attacks or anxiety and suspect breathing may play a role
- Feel tension in your chest, shoulders, or neck when you try to relax
- Have tried breathwork before but felt frustrated because it “didn’t work”
- Feel curious about whether your breathing patterns might be connected to symptoms like tension, fatigue, anxiety, or digestive discomfort
- Want a practical and non-judgmental way to understand and improve your breathing patterns
When Something About Your Breathing Feels Off
Many people have a quiet sense that something about their breathing doesn’t feel quite right. They may notice themselves holding their breath while concentrating, breathing quickly during stressful moments, yawning a lot, or struggling to take a satisfying breath when they try to relax.
Some people experience shortness of breath during anxiety or panic. Others feel a persistent tightness in the chest or shoulders, or notice that they become easily fatigued. These experiences are often confusing because breathing is supposed to be automatic. When something about it feels off, people often assume the problem must be psychological or that they are “doing something wrong.”
In reality, many of these experiences are related to acquired breathing patterns that develop over time in response to stress.
Why Many People Never Consider Their Breathing
Breathing happens automatically, so it is rarely something people think about unless a problem becomes obvious. As a result, many individuals live for years with breathing patterns that are subtly inefficient or dysregulated without realizing the connection to their symptoms.
Stress, trauma, anxiety, injury, and chronic tension can gradually shape the way the body breathes. The nervous system adapts to protect the body in demanding situations, often shifting breathing toward faster, shallower, or more guarded patterns that support vigilance and rapid response.
These adaptations are not mistakes. They are survival responses. The challenge is that once these patterns become habitual, they can persist long after the original stressor has passed.
Why Breathwork Sometimes “Doesn’t Work”
Many people have tried breathing exercises in the past and concluded that breathwork simply doesn’t work for them. Some may have felt more anxious when focusing on their breath, while others may have struggled to follow instructions such as “take a deep breath” or “breathe into your belly.”
These experiences are more common than people realize. When breathing patterns are already dysregulated, certain breathing techniques can feel uncomfortable, confusing, or even activating.
This course approaches breathing differently. Instead of assuming there is a single correct way to breathe, participants learn to recognize different breathing patterns and explore multiple pathways for restoring more natural, efficient breathing.
A Trauma Informed Approach to Breathing
Breathing practices can sometimes feel vulnerable, especially for individuals with a history of anxiety, panic, or trauma. For this reason, the course emphasizes trauma informed principles such as choice, pacing, and respect for individual differences.
Participants learn that there is no single “right” way to approach breathing. he course introduces several approaches including direct breath retraining and alternative techniques that influence the nervous system without forcing breath control.
Reconnecting With the Body’s Natural Breathing Intelligence
One of the central themes of the course is that dysfunctional breathing does not mean something is wrong with the person. The body has adapted in response to stress, and those adaptations often served a protective purpose at some point in time.
Breath retraining focuses on gently helping the nervous system rediscover more efficient patterns rather than forcing the body to breathe in a particular way.
Participants learn how breathing interacts with the diaphragm, nervous system regulation, carbon dioxide balance, and emotional states. They also explore practical self assessment methods that can help them recognize patterns and how to unwind them.
The goal is not to master complex breathing exercises but to develop a flexible toolkit that allows participants to experiment and discover what works best for their own bodies.
A New Perspective on Breathing and Stress
For many participants, the most valuable shift comes from understanding that breathing patterns are deeply connected to nervous system function and stress physiology.
What may have felt like a mysterious or frustrating symptom often turns out to be a predictable physiological response that can be understood and gradually retrained.
By approaching breathing with curiosity rather than correction, participants learn how to work with their body’s natural regulatory systems and support greater comfort, resilience, and ease over time.
Course Format:
Self-paced online learning with approximately three hours of video instruction, demonstrations, and guided practices. You have one year to complete the course.
CE Credit:
3 CT-NASW CECs
This program has been approved for Continuing Education Credit Hours by the National Association of Social Workers, CT and meets the continuing education criteria for CT Social Work Licensure renewal. Approval also meets the continuing
education criteria for CT LMSWs, LMFTs, LPCs, and licensed psychologists.
Tuition:
$49. Course content is available for one year after purchase.
Instructor:
Christine Saari, MA, C-IAYT
About Your Instructors
Christine Saari, MA, C-IAYT
Director, ClinicAlly Trained™ | Co-Founder, Yoga Therapy Associates
Christine Saari, MA, C-IAYT, is an author, educator, and yoga therapist dedicated to bridging yoga therapy and mental health care. As Director of ClinicAlly Trained™, she develops specialized continuing education and yoga teacher training programs for clinicians who want to integrate evidence-based somatic and breath-based interventions into therapy practice.
Christine’s clinical background centers on supporting individuals living with anxiety, trauma, depression, and cancer. As a breast cancer survivor, she brings lived experience and clinical expertise together with genuine compassion, recognizing both the depth of suffering people carry and the practical tools that support real healing.
As co-founder of Yoga Therapy Associates and ClinicAlly Trained™, Christine envisions a professional platform where yoga therapy and behavioral health meet. Her work emphasizes elevating best practices, strengthening ethical standards, and ensuring that yoga therapy is represented with the same rigor and accountability expected in clinical disciplines.
Through a partnership between Yoga Therapy Associates and the Held Center for Healing, Christine helped develop the EMbody Trauma Recovery Program, an IOP alternative for individuals recovering from addiction and trauma that combines EMDR and yoga therapy. She has also presented multiple times at Smilow Cancer Center at Yale New Haven Hospital on yoga therapy for emotional and physical recovery. In addition, she provides continuing education for DMHAS, the Connecticut Women’s Consortium, and EMDRIA’s national webinar catalog, teaching clinicians how to integrate yoga therapy and breathwork into trauma treatment.
Christine’s writing and teaching reflect a deep commitment to professionalizing yoga therapy, making it accessible, research-informed, and relevant to the realities of modern clinical practice.
Learn more about Christine’s work at www.yogatherapyassociates.com/about/christine-yoga-therapist and explore her specialized programs for therapists at www.clinicallytrained.com.