Get to Know your Breath, get to know yourself

 About half a year after my back injury, I began missing my periods — a sign that I might be entering premenopause. During a visit to my mom in Poland, she suggested I see her gynecologist. I was in my mid-forties, and it did feel a little early for menopause symptoms.

At my appointment, the first thing the doctor asked was whether I had been under stress.

I immediately said no. My life felt calm — I was teaching yoga and Pilates, surrounded by lovely students who came to class because they wanted to, not because they had to. My personal life was stable, quiet, and far from stressful.

Still, he suggested running some blood tests, including one for prolactin levels. The test was done in a calm environment, and after sitting quietly for a while, they checked my levels again.

To my surprise, my prolactin was very high.

The doctor looked at me and said, “If you truly have no stress in your life, maybe you should explore trauma therapy.”

 I left the office puzzled. How could that be? I didn’t feel stressed. I wasn’t seeing a therapist, never had, and didn’t take any medication. But that conversation made me start looking more carefully at my life — and within myself.

I began reading about the connection between stress and prolactin. I learned that stress can increase prolactin by activating the body’s stress-response system — involving hormones like cortisol. Chronic stress, even when we don’t feel stressed, can keep the nervous system on high alert.

That was when I started to look into the breath.

I realized that breathing is one of the most powerful ways to regulate the nervous system.

As an Iyengar Yoga teacher, I had practiced pranayama before, but it had always felt abstract — I couldn’t really tell what it was doing for me. So I began to study different breathing methods, reading books, and listening to lectures. I tried different techniques, but nothing truly resonated… until I came across a podcast with Patrick McKeown, the creator of Oxygen Advantage® and director of the Buteyko Clinic International.

Everything suddenly started to make sense.

In that same podcast, Patrick mentioned Robin Rothenberg, a yoga teacher and educator whose work he deeply respected. I looked her up, signed up for some of her online workshops, and immediately felt that her approach was exactly what I had been searching for — deeply practical, evidence-based, and yet rooted in yoga tradition.

 I began studying and practicing on my own, then started private breath therapy sessions with Robin. By the end of 2023, I joined her Restore Your Prana training.

That process was life-changing.

Through Robin’s book and teachings, I discovered that — despite being a Pilates and yoga teacher, and a longtime meditator — I was actually a dysfunctional breather with several inefficient breathing patterns. No one had ever taught me how powerful the breath truly is in regulating the nervous system.

Once I started retraining my breath and adjusting my lifestyle, I could feel the difference. My body and mind began to settle into a calmer baseline — the true rest-and-digest state. I realized that when your nervous system has been running on high alert for years, that becomes your “normal.” Meditation and movement help, but only to a certain point. If stress is your default, you no longer know what real calm feels like.

Learning to breathe functionally helped me reconnect to that calm. It taught me how to regulate my nervous system, how to breathe efficiently day and night, during practice and in daily life.

That missing piece — the breath — became the bridge that connected everything I had studied before.

It restored balance in my body, clarity in my mind, and harmony in my teaching.

Next to learning about the breath and changing my dysfunctional habits, I also realized through the Restore Your Prana education with Robin Rothenberg that psychotherapy could be an important part of healing as well. It helped me look into childhood experiences and understand where and why certain nervous system imprints had taken root. I began working with an EMDR therapist and, over six months, experienced deep and lasting progress. These days, I only reach out to her when I notice a situation that triggers a stress response that feels out of proportion to the moment — a sign that something old might still need my attention.