I used to think breathing was automatic, something my body just did while I focused on more important things like writing the perfect sentence or crafting the ideal paragraph. Then came the night when my breath turned against me, and I learned the hard way how intimately connected our breathing is to everything we create.
It was during one of the most stressful periods of my life. I'd become a foster parent to a troubled teenager, was returning to college, and had started working in the sex abuse unit of Child Protective Services. I was drowning in responsibilities, using other people's larger problems to avoid facing my own growing depression. But bodies have a way of demanding attention, even when we're determined to ignore them.
That night, after a particularly difficult evening with my foster teen, I felt the familiar tightness in my chest that signals an asthma attack. But this time, my inhaler didn't help. Each puff seemed to make the wheezing worse, the panic deeper. I called 911, overdosing on my medication as my breathing became more labored and my anxiety spiraled out of control.
Looking back, I realize that what I experienced wasn't just an asthma attack. It was anxiety manifesting through my respiratory system, my breath becoming the battleground where stress and fear played out their drama. My breathing had become so restricted by chronic tension and unexpressed emotion that it literally couldn't support me anymore.
The Hidden Breath Patterns That Sabotage Creativity
Most of us have no idea how we're breathing while we create. We sit down to write, paint, compose, or craft, and our breath adjusts itself to match our internal state without our conscious awareness. But here's what I've learned: the quality of our breathing directly influences the quality of our creative work.
When we're anxious about our creative abilities, we hold our breath. When we're trying to control the outcome of our art, our breathing becomes shallow and restricted. When we're disconnected from our bodies, we breathe from our chests instead of our bellies, creating a subtle state of activation that makes it harder to access the relaxed alertness that creativity requires.
This isn't just metaphorical. Research shows that restricted breathing activates stress responses in the body, shifting us away from the parasympathetic nervous system state that supports creative flow. When we breathe shallowly or hold our breath, we're literally programming our nervous system to treat creativity as a threat rather than a pleasure.
I started noticing this pattern in my own creative work after my breathing crisis forced me to pay attention to how I was using my breath throughout the day. I realized I'd been holding my breath while writing for years, creating unnecessary tension that made the creative process feel harder than it needed to be.
How Trauma Lives in Our Breath
For those of us who've experienced trauma, anxiety, or depression, breathing can become even more complicated. Trauma often gets stored in the body as restricted breathing patterns. We learn to breathe shallowly to avoid feeling too much, or we hold our breath unconsciously as a way of bracing against potential threats.
When we sit down to create, especially if our art touches on personal or emotional material, these trauma-informed breathing patterns can kick in automatically. Our body remembers that feeling deeply can be dangerous, so it restricts our breath as protection. But creativity requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires breath.
The paradox is that the very protection mechanism that helped us survive difficult experiences can now interfere with our ability to create authentically. Our breath becomes a guard that won't let us access the emotional depths where our most powerful creative work lives.
This is why simply telling ourselves to "breathe deeply" often doesn't work. We need to develop a conscious, gentle relationship with our breath that honors both our need for safety and our desire to create.
The Breath That Moves Through Art
When I discovered crochet during my deepest depression, I didn't initially realize that part of what made it so healing was how it naturally regulated my breathing. The repetitive rhythm of pulling yarn through loops created a meditative cadence that encouraged deeper, more regular breathing without me having to think about it.
Years later, when I returned to writing, I had to consciously relearn how to breathe while creating with words. I discovered that different types of creative work seemed to call for different breathing patterns. Free-writing flowed best when I breathed deeply and slowly. Editing required more focused, controlled breathing. When I was stuck on a difficult passage, stepping away to take a few conscious breaths often unlocked whatever was blocked.
The breath became my creative partner rather than something I ignored. When I honored my need to breathe fully while creating, my writing became more alive, more authentic, more connected to the emotional truth I was trying to express.
Why Your Creative Tools Know How You're Breathing
Here's something fascinating: many artistic mediums respond directly to the quality of our breath and the tension patterns it creates in our bodies. When we hold our breath, our hands become tense, our movements restricted. Clay can feel this tension. Musical instruments reflect it back to us. Even the way we hold a pen or paintbrush changes based on how we're breathing.
I've noticed this especially with fiber arts. When I'm breathing freely, my crochet stitches are even and relaxed. When I'm tense or holding my breath, the fabric becomes tight and inflexible. The yarn is literally receiving information about my internal state through the tension in my hands, which is influenced by how I'm breathing.
This means that learning to breathe consciously while creating isn't just about feeling better, it's about improving the quality of our work. When we breathe fully, our creative tools become extensions of our authentic expression rather than recipients of our anxiety and tension.
Breathing Exercise: The Creative Breath Reset
Here's a simple practice for reconnecting with conscious breathing before and during creative work:
Step 1: Notice Without Changing (30 seconds) Before you start creating, simply notice how you're breathing right now. Is your breath shallow or deep? Are you breathing into your chest or your belly? Are you holding your breath? Don't try to change anything yet, just observe.
Step 2: Three Releasing Breaths (1 minute) Take three deep breaths, focusing on the exhale. On each exhale, let your shoulders drop, soften your jaw, and release any tension you notice in your hands or arms. Imagine you're breathing out any anxiety about your creative work.
Step 3: Find Your Creative Rhythm (2 minutes) Begin breathing in a rhythm that feels sustainable and calming. I like a four-count inhale, brief pause, six-count exhale pattern, but find what works for you. Continue this rhythmic breathing as you start your creative work.
Step 4: Breath Check-Ins (Throughout your session) Set a gentle reminder to check in with your breath every 10-15 minutes. Are you still breathing fully? Have you started holding your breath? Just notice and gently return to conscious breathing without judgment.
Step 5: Closing Breath (30 seconds) When you finish creating, take three deep breaths to mark the end of your session. Notice how you feel compared to when you started.
Small Shifts That Make a Big Difference
Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly while you create. This helps you notice whether you're breathing into your full lung capacity or just the top of your chest.
Breathe into your back body. Try imagining your breath expanding your ribcage in all directions, not just forward. This can help release tension you might not even know you're carrying.
Match your breath to your creative rhythm. If you're writing, try breathing with your sentences. If you're drawing, let your breath flow with your pencil strokes.
Use your exhale to release creative blocks. When you feel stuck, take a deep breath and imagine breathing out whatever is blocking your creativity.
Practice breathing through difficult emotions. If challenging feelings arise while creating, stay with your breath rather than holding it or breathing shallowly.
Notice how different breathing patterns affect your work. Experiment with faster or slower breathing and observe how it changes what you create.
The Breath That Saves Lives
When I was doing my research for my book Crochet Saved My Life, I came across the story of Maria D'Antuono, the 98-year-old woman who crocheted for over thirty hours while trapped in earthquake rubble in Italy. She had survived a similar earthquake as a child that killed her sisters. Trapped under her bed with memories of childhood trauma, she could have panicked. Instead, she reached for her crochet.
I imagine her breathing slowing as she fell into the rhythm of her stitches, each loop through the yarn corresponding to an inhale and exhale that kept her calm and present. Her breath, mediated through her craft, quite literally kept her alive until rescuers could reach her.
That's the power of conscious breathing in creative practice. It's not just about making better art, though it does that. It's about staying present with ourselves, staying connected to our bodies, and finding tools that help us navigate whatever challenges life presents.
Your breath is always available to you, whether you're creating art or creating a path through difficulty. Learning to breathe consciously while making art develops skills that serve you far beyond your creative practice. It teaches you that you have more control over your internal state than you might think, and that sometimes the most powerful tool you have is the one you've been carrying with you all along.
If you read this far, perhaps you like my work. The work takes work. Support it if you can. Ways to do that:
Sign up for my services such as a Creative Health Assessment or 1:1 Creativity Conversation.
You Might Also Like to Read:
On Medium:
The Somatic Artist: How Embodied Awareness Unlocks Deeper Creative Flow
The Artist’s Window of Tolerance: A Complete Guide to Nervous System Regulation for Creative Flow
How Your Health Secretly Controls Your Creative Process (5 Patterns Every Artist Should Know)
From Other Writers:
Thanks to Ngozi Aboajah, Kate Speer, Suzan Colón, Madelleine Müller (she/her), Victoria Bolduc, and Andrew Smith for inspiration:
Thank you for sharing this beautiful read. A part of me always felt it's too much to think that our breath really has such an influence on our body. But with growing stress and situations I realized there is a deep connection and that I have not been breathing well all this while. It took conscious effort, practice and mindfulness ( still does on many days) to connect well with my breathing. Taking away many lessons from this post today. Remaining kind to ourself is the way forward. Thank you 😊🥰✨
Thanks, Kathryn, for this beautiful and important piece. A wise guide once taught me that the more connected we are to our breath the more connected we are to our love.