“Breathwork was the game changer for me,” she relates. Not only did she feel less stress, both her immune system function and Hashimoto’s symptoms improved. Schaal was inspired to share breathwork with other people, so she studied with long-time Milwaukee breathwork expert Jim Morningstar, co-director of the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance and founder of InWellness. Schaal opened Blue Sky Breath in October 2022.

Breathwork is an umbrella term for any conscious, deliberate, breathing technique, Schaal reveals. “Because you can be deliberate about breathing, you can change the state of your body to induce calmness or increase energy through functional breathwork.” She says that once that is mastered, one can also use activational breathwork: a style of breathwork used to release stuck trauma in order to create positive changes in life.

Schaal offers private and small group sessions at her studio. She will also travel to lead corporate and customized breathwork educational events, and has worked with veteran nonprofits. She explains that people can use breathing techniques to calm the nervous system, which in turn helps reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, strengthen immune function and improve sleep.

Many people don’t think about how they’re breathing, Schaal observes, and instead assume that because they’ve been naturally breathing during their whole lives, they don’t need to try something different. She reminds us that we should “think about all the times in society that we’re told to take a deep breath to calm down, or how Lamaze classes teach breathing and relaxation to cope with pain during labor and childbirth.” She notes, “There’s science and research that shows how slow, deliberate breathing can change heartbeat variability.”

Schaal relates that, due to the current popularity of modalities such as meditation and breathwork, people will often consult online videos or go to an event led by a celebrity wellness expert to learn about such topics. She emphasizes the importance of consulting certified breathwork specialists to determine what works best for each individual, like with any wellness modality that has different styles and offshoots.

She adds that pregnant women or people with severe mental illnesses need to heed caution before starting a breathwork program. Schaal does thorough background questionnaires for every client, and helps them to understand their intentions.

It’s easy to not think about breathing during our day-to-day stressful lives, Schaal points out, which results in most people taking short, shallow breaths through the mouth. This does not deliver all the oxygen to the body through proper breathing channels, and thus is not as beneficial as taking deep, diaphragmatic breaths though the nose.

“For functional breathing, it’s recommended to breathe through your nose, and less through mouth, and to use the diaphragm muscle,” Schaal describes. “Your belly should expand out while breathing through the nose.”

For improved sleep, Schaal recommends the “four-seven-eight” breath: “Breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, and then release your breath for a count of eight seconds, and feel your body sink into the bed.”

She adds that a six-breath-per-minute routine is therapeutic when feeling overwhelmed or anxious. “Do a five-second inhale and a five-second exhale through the nose. Try this to decrease anxiety and stress while also increasing dopamine and serotonin,” she advises. “Breathing is a feeling activity, not a thinking activity.”

Breathwork requires no extensive time commitment or costly equipment, and it can be done anytime, anywhere. “My goal is to teach people how to do it so they can go off and do it on their own. I don’t need someone to be my client for two years. I just want to teach people how to get control of their functional breath so that they can find peace and tranquility in a hectic world.”