Oct 13 • Community Connection
☕️ Breathwork & Caffeine: Why It Matters
From a Nervous System Lens:
Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant. It increases adrenaline and cortisol, raises heart rate, and shifts your body toward sympathetic activation (the “go” state).
That means if you come into breathwork (especially down-regulating or nervous system repair practices) after a strong coffee, your baseline arousal is already elevated.
So instead of dropping into calm, your system may:
- Struggle to slow the breath or settle the mind
- Feel jittery, anxious, or “stuck in the chest”
- Interpret stillness as threat, not safety
For gentle, restorative sessions (like extended exhales, functional nose breathing, or integrative practices), caffeine can make it harder for the body to enter ventral vagal states, the physiology of rest, safety, and connection.
In Conscious Connected Breathwork (CCB):
During a CCB journey, we’re intentionally working with activation and release: opening energy and emotion through the body.
Caffeine can amplify this activation, making sensations stronger and sometimes more erratic. It may:
- Increase tingling, shaking, or dizziness
- Shorten the breath cycle
- Make it harder to stay connected to your body or surrender to the process
For trauma-informed facilitation, this matters. Caffeine can push the system into hyperarousal instead of healthy expansion, increasing the likelihood of overwhelm or emotional flooding.
That’s why in ReWild we often recommend arriving caffeine-free (or with only a small, early-in-the-day dose). We want your system available, not overstimulated.
What Supports Regulation Instead:
Before breathwork, try...
- Warm water with lemon or herbal tea (chamomile, tulsi, or cacao husk)
- Light movement or time outdoors to gently raise energy naturally
- Slow nasal breathing for 3–5 minutes to ground before the session
You’ll likely notice you drop in faster, feel safer in your body, and experience more clarity afterward.
Takeaway:
Caffeine isn’t “bad...” but it changes your physiology.
For down-regulating breathwork, it keeps the brakes on.
For CCB, it can magnify activation before the body is ready.
Often, it can leave us more in our head than in our body.
So if your goal is to calm, integrate, or deepen into the body… try practicing without it, and notice the difference.
Remember, it's all exploration, look at this as an experiment, and just notice how you feel with caffeine vs. without.
Drop in your own experience here ✏️
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☕️ Breathwork & Caffeine: Why It Matters
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