Breathwork for long covid recovery

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On this site, I review the strategies that helped me recover from long covid and chronic fatigue syndrome. See all long covid recovery posts.

This is for information purposes only and nothing I share should be considered medical advice. What works for me may or may not work for you. Please do your own research and consult with your own trusted medical professionals.

Overview

Early in my recovery, I came across this idea that folks with long COVID weren’t breathing properly. As an endurance athlete with no breathing problems, I dismissed this. How could a mild infection mess up how I BREATHE when I hadn’t had any cold symptoms like a cough.

But despite my skepticism, I had persistent shortness of breath — even at rest. I struggled to eat or talk without gasping for air. Yet I had no damage to my lungs and my asthma test came back normal.

Blood Oxygen Level Test (BOLT)

I decided to take the blood oxygen level test (BOLT) to see where I stood. You can check out these instructions if you want to do the test for yourself. But in short, you take a normal inhale and exhale and then hold your breath. You time how long it is before you have a strong desire to breathe again. This is not a max breath hold test. Your breathing should be relaxed and normal after the test without any heavy breathing.

A healthy adult’s BOLT score is 40 seconds. Mine was 15 seconds. So I was humbled and ready to try breathwork.

What worked for me

I learned to breathe properly by taking breathwork classes through Suzy Bolt’s Rest Repair Recover program. I learned that my chest shouldn’t move much at all when breathing. Instead, my lower ribs should gentle expand out like a jellyfish or umbrella. The teachers also showed us some gentle stretches for your breathing muscles, how to do a diaphragm release, and how to massage between your ribs.

I then signed up for the Stasis Breathwork program, which is now called MeoHealth. Stasis is thirty minutes of respiratory physio you do every day for six months. I needed to repeat some sections (which is super normal) so I ended up practicing daily for close to a year. Thanks to this program, I can now very comfortably hold my breath for almost a minute, which is quite different from where I started!

I also read two books including Breath by James Nestor and The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mckeown. I became convinced EVERYONE should be doing breathwork. It’s as important as eating vegetables and sleeping well. It’s so powerful.

What didn’t work

Doing breathwork once a day for months on end was a real mental struggle. It can be very boring at times. Doing live classes with an instructor was much more interesting.

But like everything with long covid, life is often incredibly boring. Sticking to doing the same old things every day that are good for you, even though they are repetitive, is often how you get out of this.

Resources

• Stasis/MeoHealth: This is an autonomic reconditioning program to aid in recovery from long COVID through breathwork.
• Suzy Bolt’s Rest Repair Recovery program for long COVID recovery. There are two live breathwork sessions per week in addition to the yoga, meditation and other classes.
• Breath by James Nestor. This one is easier to read and great on audiobook.
• The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mckeown. This is a giant reference book, where you can flip to the sections that apply to you.