Breathwork Class — Recovery Studio Paihia

Breathwork | Sauna | Plunge

$35.00 NZD

$35.00 NZD

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Breathwork Class — Recovery Studio Paihia

Forty-five minutes. Down-regulation. A different nervous system on the way out.

This isn't wellness theatre. This is structured, evidence-based breathing practice delivered by a certified XPT Performance Breathing® Coach, trained yoga instructor specialising in prānāyāma, former personal trainer, and holder of National Certificates in Sport and Recreation. Your instructor has spent over 25 years as a professional diver — breath-hold isn't a hobby, it's the foundation of everything she does.

What we deliver

XPT Performance Breathing® was developed by big-wave pioneer Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece, alongside some of the sharpest minds in human performance: Dr. Kelly Starrett (The Ready State), Patrick McKeown (Oxygen Advantage), Dr. Andy Galpin (Professor of Human Bioenergetics), and PJ Nestler (Performance Director, XPT). It draws from ancient prānāyāma traditions and integrates them with modern respiratory science. It's used by professional athletes across the NFL, NBA, and UFC, elite military and tactical units, and high-performance coaches worldwide.

We work across three pillars — Perform, Reset, and Recover — and what we prescribe depends on what your body needs that day.

Perform: Strengthen respiratory muscles, build CO₂ tolerance, sharpen focus, and stabilise the spine through proper breathing mechanics
Reset: Down-regulate the nervous system, reduce stress and anxiety, calm emotional states, and prepare the body for deep, restful sleep
Recover: Shift from sympathetic overdrive into parasympathetic recovery — the state your body needs to heal, digest, and rebuild

Why this matters more than you think

Most people have never been taught how to breathe properly. Research shows that dysfunctional breathing affects up to 1 in 10 people in the general population — and as high as 83% of people living with anxiety. You might be breathing 20,000 times a day and not one of those breaths is doing what it should.

Dysfunctional breathing patterns are sneaky. They show up as tight shoulders, a locked ribcage, shallow chest breathing, chronic tension in the neck and jaw, poor posture, disrupted sleep, brain fog, fatigue, and a nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight. Most people don't know they have a problem — they just know something doesn't feel right.

What the research tells us about structured breathwork practice:

Anxiety and depression: Meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials confirm that breathwork interventions significantly reduce self-reported stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms through enhanced parasympathetic activation and improved heart rate variability (HRV)
Sleep: Slow-paced breathing practice has been shown to relieve symptoms of sleep-disordered breathing and improve sleep quality by calming the sympathetic nervous system before bed
Blood pressure and heart health: Diaphragmatic breathing has been shown to lower both systolic and diastolic blood pressure and improve cardiac sympathovagal balance — a key marker of cardiovascular resilience
Posture and breathing mechanics: Retraining the diaphragm corrects the ribcage position, releases chronic tension in the upper chest, neck, and shoulders, and restores the natural relationship between breath, core stability, and spinal alignment
Diaphragm function: Your diaphragm does far more than move air — it massages your internal organs, supports digestion, stabilises your lower back, and influences your vagus nerve, which directly regulates your stress response, immune function, and emotional state
Stress and cortisol: Controlled breathing activates the vagus nerve, shifting the body from sympathetic (fight-or-flight) to parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) dominance — measurably reducing cortisol levels
All-cause mortality: Diaphragm dysfunction is associated with respiratory insufficiency, exercise intolerance, sleep disturbance, and increased mortality risk. Strengthening your primary breathing muscle isn't optional — it's foundational

What happens in a session

We assess how you're breathing — where the movement is, where it's stuck, what patterns your body is holding. Then we work through a guided sequence designed to wake up your diaphragm, release holding patterns, recalibrate your breathing rhythm, and regulate your nervous system. You'll leave with a calmer mind, a softer body, and tools you can use every day.

Every breath you take is either a step toward optimisation or a step toward dysfunction. You're going to breathe anyway — you might as well learn to do it properly.