Breathwork Magic
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, a podcast dedicated to exploring the life-changing power of Breathwork. Discover how conscious breathing can unlock inner peace, resilience, and clarity as we dive into inspiring stories and practical insights. Whether you’re new to Breathwork or looking to deepen your practice, each episode offers wisdom to help you connect more fully with yourself and the world around you. Everything starts and ends with the breath.
Breathwork Magic
When Perimenopause Meets the Power of Breath with Amita Sharma
What happens when perimenopause brings sleepless nights, stress, and anxiety… and you finally discover the power of your breath?
In this empowering episode of Breathwork Magic, host Amanda Russo sits down with Amita, co-founder of Nourish Doc, a holistic wellness platform dedicated to supporting women through every stage of hormonal transition. Together, they explore how breathwork, yoga, and other holistic practices can ease the challenges of perimenopause, menopause, and beyond—offering natural, accessible alternatives to medication.
Amita opens up about her own struggles with debilitating perimenopause symptoms, how she discovered the healing potential of pranayama, and why simple daily practices like alternate nostril breathing, bee breath, and cooling breath became essential tools in her journey. She also shares how routine, yoga, and meditation helped her overcome chronic fatigue, improve her metabolism, and reclaim her energy.
🔹 Episode Highlights
[2:30] – Amita’s personal struggles with perimenopause and why she began seeking holistic solutions
[3:24] – The moment she discovered Breathwork and the evidence behind pranayama
[5:20] – How Breathwork helped her manage stress, anxiety, and sleep
[11:37] – Breathwork techniques for cooling the body, calming the mind, and boosting energy
[14:53] – How yoga, meditation, and Breathwork together transformed her metabolism and fatigue
[20:05] – Why habit and daily routine are key to sustaining healing practices
[23:26] – Advice for beginners: starting small, staying consistent, and seeking guidance
This episode is a must-listen for women navigating midlife changes or anyone seeking simple, natural tools to support energy, balance, and emotional wellbeing.
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Welcome to Breathwork Magic, the podcast that explores the life-changing power of your breath. Breathwork isn't just a practice. It's a gateway to healing, transformation and shifting to a new mindset by letting go of the past and embracing the possibilities of the present moment and embracing the possibilities of the present moment.
Speaker 1:I'm Amanda Russo, your host, a certified breathwork facilitator, level two Reiki practitioner and creator of the Mander's Mindset podcast. On my own journey, breathwork has been a powerful tool for releasing what no longer serves me and shifting my perspective to step into my fullest and greatest potential. Each week, I'm joined by inspiring guests breathwork facilitators, healers and wellness enthusiasts who share how this practice has helped them and their clients heal, grow and embrace lasting change. So take a deep breath in and out, settle in and let's explore the magic of your breath together. The transformation starts now. Welcome to Breathwork Magic, where we explore the life-changing power of your breath. I'm here today with Amita, and she is the co-founder of Nourish Doc, a holistic wellness platform dedicated to empowering women through every stage of their hormonal transition, and I am so excited to speak with her today. Thanks for bringing me.
Speaker 2:Thanks, amanda, for having me. I'm super excited. I know you're also one of the holistic experts, so the conversation we're going to have is not something that's foreign to you.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. I'd love to know when you discovered the power of our breath.
Speaker 2:So I personally had very, very debilitating symptoms for me to function, in the sense like I had a very tough time going through perimenopause. So that was something. At that time. I never thought I'll be doing this, what I'm doing now, but it was over a period of time. In the last couple of years I must have talked to about 3000 or so, maybe more, holistic experts, majority of them women, and this whole topic kept coming back mid age, menopause, perimenopause and it just completely triggered my experience, right. So then it was like oh, I was like, oh, I was always ashamed to talk about my experience and I'm like so many women have the same problem like me and I need to dig deeper. That's kind of how this whole thing happened.
Speaker 1:So how did you discover that your breath is powerful?
Speaker 2:on that. So okay, so I did not know at that time about the breath work. To be honest with you, I just was discovering different holistic therapies, different things to just take care of myself because, like I said, you know, I was like completely um in a mess. So I started researching in yoga. I Then I started researching on the pranayama, which is a breath word, and I started reading the evidence behind the deep breathing, diaphragm, breathing nostril, alternate nostril, breathing box, breathing kapalbhati, breathing all these deep breath and I just got fascinated by how this is free Each one of us has a breath right and we never use it to our advantage and how it can be so helpful. So that's when I started doing simple things like shikari I'm sure you know all of the terms that I'm using Cooling breath to cool myself, then B breath to help me sleep at night. You know, just kind of putting it like that alternate breathing, alternate nostril breathing just to calm myself. So I just started using the simple breath techniques on a daily basis, as and when needed.
Speaker 2:How long ago was that? That's been about for a few years now, five years or so. You know. It's not something new. Before that I used to do yoga and some of the other Ayurveda-based practices, but not so much breath work. What would you say breath work helped you with the most? I think it's stress and anxiety and also helping me calm down right with the stress and anxiety. And then also at night, you know, when I was going through my perimenopause journey, I would have a hard time trying to sleep, so it also helped me calm down at night and just sleep better. Those are the things that, personally, I feel that it has been useful for me Now.
Speaker 1:I'm curious do you with the perimenopause any other ways? I haven't gone to that stage yet, so I'm curious about that I never used breathwork before I started doing perimenopause.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you. Ok, because in my 30s I never discovered the power of breath, so which is not good, but that's the truth. I did do yoga. I've been doing yoga for a long, long time more than a couple of decades but I never used breathwork. I started using breathwork about five, six years back when I started interviewing some of the holistic experts and they started mentioning about you know the things that I'm talking about alternate nostril breathing and all these different breath works and how you combine it with the yoga postures and how it can just with meditation. You know how it can just accentuate the healing process, right. So that's kind of when I started taking it seriously.
Speaker 1:Before that, I honestly was not exposed to it, to taking it seriously before that I honestly was not exposed to it, and now you have to facilitate this for other people.
Speaker 2:Well, this is not the only thing we facilitate. What we do is we talk about importance of holistic therapies when a woman is going through mid-age, typically perimenopause, which is mid-30s and onwards. So this is not the only thing we said. Breathwork is very powerful, along with the other things that we were just talking about the yoga, the meditation, it could be tai chi, it could be aromatherapy, it could be hypnotherapy, all these things together. That's what we facilitate by having experts like you. I am not a facilitator. I'm not a breathwork specialist by any stretch of imagination, but I have learned enough to talk about it. I'm not an expert. What we do is let me just go what we have built is a platform, and platform is basically focused on women's wellness, from PMS, pcos and actually going deeper into the perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, so when the hormonal shifts are happening for women at different stages, right. So what we do is we invite experts, breathwork specialists or breathwork experts to come on our platform and teach that to women. I personally am not a holistic expert.
Speaker 1:I have, along with my team have put together this platform, a nourish talk platform, and you have different people speak on these modalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, the whole idea is to educate people and make them aware of the importance and efficacy of holistic therapies and not rely only on medication. There is so much power in using natural resources that you know universe has given us, whether it's food as medicine, right Exercise is medicine, kitchen herbs and spices and medicine, breath work as movement, as you know, as medicine. So we are combining all of the things that I just talked about, putting it in a box and basically sharing with women that you know some women might want to do something else. So we have a complete holistic toolkit which women can use to help themselves navigate this journey.
Speaker 1:I love the holistic remedies, like you mentioned the breath, it's always with us and it's free, and food and movement and all these things. There's no side effects to them, you know, like medications, and that's my big thing. I'm not anti-pharmaceuticals. I know they might have their time and place, but there is a lot of risks. I had daily chronic migraines when I was young. I was 19 years old had daily chronic migraines when I was I was young, I was 19 years old, I was seeing a neurologist and they put me on a medication and I actually fainted. And at a public mall and I had no recollection of it and they were like, stop taking this medication. And I was like'm going to stop taking the medication and see what happens. I changed my diet, I started meditating and I don't have daily chronic migraines anymore.
Speaker 2:That's amazing that you know migraine actually Ayurveda believe it or not, because I've talked to a lot of Ayurvedic experts Ayurveda has a lot of proven outcomes for migraines, especially migraine, and I'm happy to send you some information if you like. But Ayurveda has had a lot of research, a lot of clinical evidence using some of the herbs Ayurvedic herbs specifically for migraine in women. I'm happy to send you more information because I think that will help you yeah definitely.
Speaker 1:I just made small changes and I stopped taking the medication and I get headaches, but it's not migraines. I got 70 years ago With inflammation. Yeah, I don't eat any fast food anymore.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say. I sense a lot of inflammation. That's inherent in the sad, in the standard American diet, unfortunately what we are used to in this country. And you know what the funny thing is? I go to Europe here If I eat bread and I'm like, oh my God, I'm bloated and all kinds of strange things start happening to me. But if you go to Europe and I eat all the bread and the cheese and all the salamis of the world and nothing happens, no, nothing happens. So we are gifted you know Now.
Speaker 1:you mentioned a few different types of breathwork, like the alternate nostril breathing and then cooling breathwork. Do you have a favorite type of?
Speaker 2:breathwork. Not really. I just use different type of breath based on what I need. Like I said, if I'm having problems sleeping, I'll just do the B breath. If I just want to calm myself, anxiety, I'll just use alternate breathing, right. Then if I need to cooling you know, cool myself because I used to have a lot of problems going through perimenopause and heart flashes and night sweats Then I'll use the Sheet Kari or Sheetali Pranayama. It's very good. Then I'll use fire breath called Kapal Bhati, just to cleanse Sita. It's a very good cleansing breath like that, you know, kind of in very short, kind of exhale, powerful exhale. I just use it because I've learned different breathing techniques, not all of them. I'm not an expert, like I said earlier, but I do use it were you skeptical before you tried any of the?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely. I had no idea. You know, I was like any other consumer out there. You take a medication, medication not medication so much. But I basis different type of breath work right and then I think I have a lot more energy now at an you know when, when I was much younger if I compare, just my compare myself from what I am now and what I was about even 20 years back, I feel I have more energy, more clear focus, my metabolism is pretty good, all those things right. Most of the mid-age women start having, right? I mean, I'm obviously a mid-age woman here. So all the problems you know they typically start having bloating and all these kinds of things. It helps you so much if you do, if you learn how to breathe properly.
Speaker 1:That's so true. Now you mentioned it changed your metabolism. Can you elaborate?
Speaker 2:on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, earlier, like a few years back, I would eat I don't know, I would just eat some like even nuts, or even a little bit of wheat, right, literally a speck of wheat, even a little bit of like not that I eat now, but just simple carbohydrates, right. My stomach would get so bloated and I would just like, even at night. Suddenly my stomach has literally gone like a three month pregnant kind of a thing, you know, and it won't come back until I die, literally detox it or flush it out, and it it would take me more two, three days to to do that detoxification and flushing by going into a mono diet, sort of like a kichadi diet, with lentils and rice cooked together with little warming spices, right. But now, because of all the things that I'm doing, as I just explained, I use regular breath work on a daily basis, different breath work. I feel that I have a better metabolism because I can digest the food better.
Speaker 2:My digestion, right. It's not what you eat, it's also what you are able to digest. It's very important, right? If you're not able to digest a food, then it either sits there as a toxic material or whatever. So I'm able to digest the food properly, because I don't get a feel bloating. I don't get bloated anymore and I don't feel fatigued. It's a huge thing, right? Because I used to feel so fatigued, if you like, even 20 years back, and I would I would not even be able to wake up. I would be like with my eyes swollen in the morning and I'm like, oh my God, I have to wake up and go to work. It was what you call it a chronic fatigue. Like you're talking about your migraine, I had chronic fatigue. So, with me doing all the yoga and the breath work and the meditation, I combine it together. I don't do everything like in silo. I combine these three things together. It has made all the difference, all the difference for me.
Speaker 1:Now, approximately how long ago, did you notice you didn't have chronic fatigue anymore?
Speaker 2:Like I said, I started doing this about five, six years back, right, so it was almost instant. Well, you know, I literally like one day, two days, if I, if I did this, if I followed my routine, so to speak. Right, I do my little yoga, like sun salutations, then I do a little bit of a breathing, like I just told you, and then at night I just do a little bit of meditation, like not much much, three, four minutes. I'm not a good big meditator kind of a person. You know I have a hard time, but in listening to music or listening to some soulful music, that's meditation in my mind too. And it was like within one or two days it started slowly, slowly, helping me sleep better, helping my metabolism, helping my energy. It was very, almost like two, three days. I've started feeling much, much better.
Speaker 1:That's so quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I couldn't. And now if let's say, hypothetically, if I eat something bad like a fast food not that I do, but let's say, if I end up eating something, then I know how to fix myself by using these tools. Right, it takes some time to know your body, but now I'm very careful not to eat fast foods, not to put the junk in my you know, in my body. Right, I respect my body and put all the natural things, all these things right. That's an ongoing I think it's an ongoing care of your self-care, for your mind, body and soul.
Speaker 2:If you don't do that, you know you're going to something or the other would go out right. So that's what I try to do. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I try very hard to follow a certain kind of a regimen, certain kind of a routine on a daily basis so that how, like, simple breathing techniques can help me, simple yoga postures can help me, simple meditation can help me, all these things together, you know you do it regularly, right, your body starts changing, your brain starts changing. As you know, there's a lot of research. If you do breath, work and meditation, your brain wires start changing right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your neuropath waves Now. Have you experienced any resistance?
Speaker 2:Resistance from where?
Speaker 1:From like doing the breath work or doing your meditation.
Speaker 2:No, no, there's no. It's just one of those routines, right? You get into a certain routine in life and if you don't do it, you think you're missing something. So, yeah, that's, I feel, is that whatever you teach your body, your body learns to do that. So that's what I've taught my body to do and that's what it has learned how to do it so you never face like even early on that you, your mind said I don't feel no, I mean, sometimes you know the things go out of you know, not in the like when you're traveling.
Speaker 2:You can't keep the schedule. All those things happen, happen, right. That's part of life. I'm not saying I'm doing every single day, if if, like you know, I try. What I'm saying is that I try to do it every single day. But if I'm traveling for you know, or I'm just you know some kinds if the routine is not the same it's supposed to be, then of course I don't end up doing it.
Speaker 1:But overall, if you do it pretty regularly, then it helps. I gotcha, yeah, but you didn't face an instance where your mind got in the way a little bit.
Speaker 2:No, initially it used to be right. It was hard to come into a practice or come into some kind of a routine. It took some time. It didn't happen immediately. It took some hard work on getting into some kind of a rhythm, getting into some kind of a training your mind to do every single day you know whether it's yoga or whatever.
Speaker 2:So, like anything else, it's a habit. Right, habit takes about six weeks to form. So I had to work initially hard at forming the habit. You know six to eight weeks of initial habit forming. But once you form the habit, then it's a matter of if you don't do that habit and your body is looking for something is wrong, why aren't you doing that? To me it's like food right, if you've got, start skipping your breakfast or lunch or dinner, your body is hungry. And I think the same thing happens if you train your body to do something every single day, whatever it is. Your body says oh, you didn't do that today. To me, you have to do it, it doesn't feel right. So that's kind of how I feel has happened to me now, after putting together a very structured daily routine.
Speaker 1:So the structured routine helped you commit to it.
Speaker 2:Commit to it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Right, the structured routine is important If you can do it. It's hard Initially, it's hard to build the habit, but once you do put together some sort of like a structure to it, then your body becomes accustomed to it, it gets used to it and then, if you don't give it to give it to your body, it kind of asks you what the heck happened. Why aren't you giving me? It's the same thing, right, I started eating chocolate, like three, four months back.
Speaker 2:Every meal I'll have a piece of chocolate. And then I said, oh my God, I have to wean myself out of it. And my body, every single time I would have a meal, it'll say oh, I haven't had chocolate, I need to have chocolate, but I had to wean myself. So it's like that. Right, it doesn't matter if it's a chocolate or a cake, or a breath work or a yoga, it's the body.
Speaker 2:You teach your body to do something right, and that's what I'm saying. You teach your body. Like, every single day in the morning, I eat oatmeal. So my body, if I don't eat my oatmeal in the morning, my body thinks something is wrong. So same analogy, I'm saying, is for anything, whether it's breath work. You teach your body how to do breath work. Every single day, different type of breath work. It's going to ask you to do that, you know, otherwise you don't feel that the day is complete. So that's kind of how I've trained myself to do every single day a certain kind of a routine and I try to follow it every single day so that it stays in sync. It doesn't go out of sync like a waiver.
Speaker 1:Right, that makes a lot of sense. So that's what helps you stick to it. You know, because my habit of eating oatmeal is a little easier, I think, than breath work. You know, breath work is a little more worth than eating, yeah.
Speaker 2:Eating gives you a lot of pleasure, right, it has this little oh. So you know it has a taste and like, did I work with breathwork? You know, yeah, it's a sensual kind of, it's a pleasure to eat the yummy food and it gives it, gets your senses all going. And I think breathwork is the same way. It's just that people don't know the power of breathwork. You know, after you do the breathwork you feel so light, I feel so light, I feel so good. You know, people just don't know and they don't know the right technique to do it. That is the other thing. So it's a matter of awareness and education.
Speaker 1:That is true. It's a matter of awareness and education. I think it's becoming more known. Do you have suggestions for people if they're on the fence for trying graphically?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my suggestion would be go slow, don't be hard on yourself, you know. Don't seek for perfection. Just seek one step at a time, even if you do it once a week, to initially start with and slowly go into a couple of days, three days or whatever works for you, and then just take the time to learn it properly. I was different because I had a lot of experience, work and ayurveda, yoga, all those things I was exposed to, a lot of these holistic therapies. I don't think I'm a good example for someone who's starting like, oh, should I do that? Or it's just new to this whole thing should go step by step and it doesn't hurt to work with someone who can help you with breathwork real breathwork specialist like yourself, someone who can you. I think that could be a way to learn and then slowly, once you understand that, you know, then you can be on your own. That would be my suggestion.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you so much, amanda, for having me, of course.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for speaking with me and thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Breathwork Magic. Thank you for tuning in to Breathwork Magic. I hope today's episode inspired you to connect more deeply with your breath and embrace the transformation that it can bring. Remember, as long as you have your breath, you have options. You're not stuck. You can make a change, you can make a shift. Each inhale is a new beginning and every exhale is a chance to let go of what no longer serves you.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed the episode, it would mean the world to me. If you shared this with a friend, left a rating or review. Your support helps more people discover the magic of breathwork and the incredible transformations it offers. If you're ready to take the next step, I encourage you and I invite you to join me every Monday evening, virtually, for a Mindful Mindset Monday, a virtual pay, what you can Black Work session where you can reset, recharge and refocus. All of the information is in the show notes. Until next time, keep breathing, keep shifting and keep embracing the magic with inside of you. I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this.
