The Manual Override: Reclaiming Calm Through the Breath

The Manual Override: Reclaiming Your Calm in Real Time

The world doesn’t have a pause button. But you do. Breathwork is a manual override, a real-time reset to cut through the noise, quiet the anxiety, and get back into your own skin.

Instructor Kelly’s breathwork class is the perfect place to start your reset. While many guests arrive at the Ranch focused on what they eat or how they move, Kelly invites them to look at the one thing we often take for granted: the air moving in and out of our lungs.

“We take our breath for granted because we can do it involuntarily,” Kelly explains. “But being able to consciously work on increasing our capacity for healthy breathing physically impacts your body for the long haul.”

Why We Breathe

Kelly notes that guests generally find their way to her class for one of three reasons:

• Restoration: Finding tools to combat insomnia or those “midnight wake-ups” where the mind won’t shut off.
• Performance: Fitness enthusiasts wanting to improve oxygen intake and CO2 tolerance for better endurance.
• Healing: Those with health conditions like asthma or anxiety seeking a more “easeful” breathing pattern for their body.

The Three Levels of the Mountain

To make the science practical, Kelly uses the Ranch’s iconic mountain hikes as a metaphor. She identifies three distinct levels of breathing that occur as life—or a mountain—gets steeper:

• Level 1: Nasal breathing (In and out through the nose).
• Level 2: In through the nose, out through the mouth.
• Level 3: “Huffing and puffing” (In and out through the mouth).

“At some point on a hike, you’re going to start to lose your breath,” Kelly says. “What we encourage in class is the ability to get back to the nasal breathing as quickly as you can.” That return to the nose allows the body to retain carbon dioxide longer, which, counterintuitively, helps oxygenate your brain and tissues.

The BOLT Test and “Air Hunger”

The class is highly experiential, beginning with a BOLT score (Body Oxygen Level Test) to give guests a baseline of their current respiratory health. Kelly then guides the group through intentional breath holds on the exhale.

“On that exhale, you’re empty,” she says. “When you’re holding the breath on an emptiness, you’re allowing and inviting your body to have a bit of air hunger… it helps your tissues and ultimately your brain.”

A Tool for the Uncertain

For Kelly, breathwork is personal. She turned to it years ago to regulate her nervous system during a period of intense stress and personal loss.

“I couldn’t control the chaos that I was feeling physically or mentally,” she reflects. “But one thing that felt like I could work on was this breath… what I take in my body and what I take out. That was the start.”

Whether you are navigating our fresh hikes or the high-stress demands of modern life, breathwork offers a rare sense of agency. It’s a practice you don’t just experience at the Ranch; it’s an owner’s manual you take home in your pocket. As Kelly puts it: “You can start today and feel the effects right away.”

Deepen Your Practice

If you’re curious about the science behind these techniques, here are two essential resources that are also entertaining.

• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor – A deep dive into how humans lost the ability to breathe properly and how to fix it.
• The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown – A practical guide to improving fitness and health through nasal breathing and carbon dioxide tolerance.