I’ve been working with breath for a few years now. First, intuitively with myself after three ten-day silent retreats. Then intentionally. And finally, with others.

What I’ve realised recently is simple, but powerful: breath is its own language. And if you want ultimate self-mastery, you have to learn to speak it.

Reading/Leading the Room Starts With Reading/Leading Yourself

In leadership, we talk a lot about reading the room, about tuning into other people. Sometimes it can feel a little… manipulative. Noticing someone’s body language and adjusting yours to get a reaction.

Sure, that has its place, like in hostage negotiations, high-stakes deals, maybe even sales. But real leadership? Real self-mastery? It’s not about hostages. It’s not war. It’s not eye-for-an-eye.

It’s about reading and then guiding.

Before you can guide others, you have to read your own inner room. Otherwise your message is skewed. The most important thing to read about yourself is your current state and your breath is the clearest, most honest indicator for that. Each inhale and exhale tells you where you are. You might be stressed, present, excited, drained. It’s a constant conversation with your nervous system.

Take a moment now: notice your breath. Feel its rhythm. Sense how it reflects your state right now. What is your current state? This awareness is the first step toward self-mastery.

Breath and the Nervous System

Your breath is the language of your nervous system. The only autonomic function you can consciously influence.

When you slow your exhale, your body reads it as “safe.” When your inhales are short and shallow, your body thinks “alert, stress, danger.” Even tiny shifts in breath ripple through your physiology: heart rate, focus, tension, and energy all respond.

You don’t need to memorise studies or numbers. Just notice that this is real, measurable, and happening in your body every second. Your breath is both a mirror and a lever: it reflects your inner state, and it gives you a tool to influence it. It tells your system where it is and gives you a tool to guide it where you want it to go.

It’s simple, undeniable, and entirely in your control.

Your Breath and Emotions

Do you still believe the myth that emotions have no place at work? That you should leave them at the door?

It’s nonsense. Just like leaving your head at home wouldn’t make sense.

One of the first things I noticed about breath is that every emotion has a breath pattern. Some emotions share similar patterns. Excitement and fear, for example, can feel surprisingly alike in the body. Think of a time you were really excited. Imagine it now. Feel your heart racing, your breath shifting. You might notice a faster breath, your breath become shallow, irregularity in your breath or even holding it. Notice it in your body. Now mute your mind. Don’t call it “excitement.” Just feel it.

Good to notice.

And here’s the important part: if breath carries emotion, and breath is the only autonomic function you can influence, then maybe don’t tell yourself “just calm down” or “don’t be angry,” but use your breath to shift yourself to a state that serves you better.

Even simply imagining it, changes your state — as you just experienced if you were playing along.

This is the back door in.

Taking ten conscious breaths or a deep breath in, might sound like an old wife’s tale. But that’s because it has a lot of truth to it and survived the ages. Ask any midwife.

Breath in Subtitles

But let’s get back to breath as language. Think about the subtitles in movies or TV shows. Lines like “(breathing heavily)”, “(sighs)”, “(hyperventilates)”, “(panting)”, “(breathless)”. They are part of the script, part of the acting and part of the subtitle — because they tell a story.

They aren’t decorative. They give essential cues about inner states: tension, relief, anxiety, excitement. Sometimes they even mislead you, creating nuance — a heavy breath behind a door could hint at intimacy or someone exercising.

Your breath works the same way. Every inhale, pause, or sigh is a subtitle of your inner state. Learning to read these subtitles is like discovering a hidden script of your life.

Breath as Information

Breath is data. A continuous stream of signals and intelligence from your nervous system. Your body is always talking, always giving you information if you pause to listen. Learning to understand it is like learning a new language. At first, it feels like gibberish. You might catch a word here, a phrase there. Understanding often comes before speaking.

Your nervous system already speaks this language but for you it happens unconsciously. You don’t even notice. Your breath moves before your mind intervenes. So, awareness is your first lesson. Paying attention to the subtle rhythms, tiny fluctuations, and the messages you’ve been missing. Let’s give it another try.

Right now, as you read this:

What is your breath doing?
Does it move into your chest, your belly, or both?
Are you holding it without noticing? (Email apnea is real.)

Just notice. No judgment. Your breath is constantly giving you intelligence about your state and this is the foundational step in reading your own inner room.

Learning a New Language

Once awareness is in place, you can start to interpret and guide your breath. You could consider this a real unfair advantage in influencing your energy, focus, and presence because most people don’t realise this or use it to the extend they could. Think of it as learning to speak with your nervous system.

Here’s a simple framework to get started:

Notice it first: Observe your breath throughout the day, in different moments. No judgment, no forcing. Just attention. Notice recurring patterns: sighs, short bursts, long steady rhythms. Each pattern is a word in your inner language. Most people have no self-awareness, no awareness of their body or their breath and they don’t realise that these things profoundly impact their environment and the people around them. When someone constantly breathes in a fast way, other people pick up this stress and absorb it. That’s not how you want to run your team or project.
Label it: Give it a subtitle: “this is stress breath,” “this is calm breath.” Recognition gives you context and knowledge. And in most circumstances it also puts you back in control something which so many of us crave but search for in the wrong places.
Experiment gently: Notice what feels good. Lengthen your exhale to calm down, take a grounding inhale before a meeting, pause briefly before responding to someone, practice sighing (one of my clients’ preferred practice). Observe what shifts and what supports you.
Respond intentionally: Once you can read your breath, you can “speak” with it. Guide your state, your focus, your energy. Not to control, but to dialogue with yourself. You can use this as a way to meet your higher potential, feel more rested and present, make clearer decisions and set better boundaries.

Common Breath Patterns to Notice

Rapid, shallow breaths → alertness, anxiety, overstimulation. Try lengthening the exhale.
Sighs or yawn-like breaths → natural reset for tension. Allow them fully. Do not suppress them. That’s like swallowing down a not fully chewed potato. Uncomfortable and unnecessary.
Belly vs. chest breathing → chest reflects alertness/stress, belly engages calm. Place one hand on your belly to feel expansion and release.
Pause or breath-hold → Unconscious holds is your body in stress response (you might have heard of box breathing where you inhale for a count of 4, then hold, exhale and hold again each for a count of 4). Short conscious holds (those that you are not aware of) can increase awareness and presence. For example, I recently went through a phase of grief and regularly caught myself throughout the day not breathing.

Breath in Leadership and Self-Mastery

Breath isn’t just for meditation. It’s a secret weapon for presence and leadership. Leaders need more than knowledge — they need clarity, emotional intelligence, and the ability to stay centered under pressure. Maybe you are like my recent client who came to me saying, “Nina, I have done the courses, I have read the books and I have been mentored in leadership. I have the knowledge. But something is missing.” We started our 3-month work together with breathwork sessions. It made all the difference.

A leader who checks their breath before a difficult conversation can stay calmer, listen more deeply, and respond instead of reacting. A few conscious breaths can create space between stimulus and response. And it can become more than a forced box to tick. It can become your way of conscious, present operating.

Your state is contagious. Calm, intentional breath spreads focus, clarity, and balance through a team. Stress and agitation spread too. Learning to read your breath (and guide it) is not just personal. It’s leadership.

Deepen Your Breath Awareness

If you want to take it further, I’ve created a Breath Cheat Sheet (a brief guide with key “breath vocabulary”) to help you read your nervous system and influence your state more intentionally.

It includes:

Common breath patterns and what they might indicate
Simple ways to guide your breath in real time
Quick exercises to build awareness anywhere, anytime

Think of it as a toolkit for leaders who want to cultivate presence, energy, and clarity through the language of their breath.

If you want to go further than that, get in touch.

The Language of Breath: Your Path to Self-Mastery and Healthy Leadership