Using the breath as a tool to affect the psyche is long established: you have only to think of meditation.

But the idea of using it to support your body’s natural process for releasing chronic tension, self restricting patterns and emotional trauma may be new to you.

If it also sounds a little bit hippy dippy then consider that this is a therapy which has been used by military personnel in countries around the world, including the US, Canada, Brazil, Norway and Sweden, to address PTSD and depression both during and after military service.

Rosemary O’Donohue, a softly spoken Irishwoman who has brought breath work and trauma release to the island, says: ’All animals except humans, if they get anxious or they get into a fearful situation, will start shaking afterwards and they’re shaking off the trauma.

’They release the trauma from the body, they don’t hold onto it. We humans hold on to all of it.

’And when we hold onto all of this it causes physicalities eventually, like issues in our physical body, like gut problems, so releasing trauma and anxiety from the body is important.

’When people are feeling anxious, or down, or out of sorts, the usual is to have some talking therapy and it’s important to express what we need to say.

’But sometimes if it’s going over and over the same thing, our body doesn’t know the difference between this moment in time and what happened in the past so we traumatise ourselves all over again by going into the story.

’With the breath work there’s no stories, there’s nothing attached to it.

’You’re just feeling emotion without it being attached to anything and allowing it just to come up and be.’

Rosemary has been a therapist for more than 20 years and is trained in clinical reflexology, aromatherapy, deep tissue massge, couselling, nutrition and shiatsu but she says that breath work is probably the therapy that has had the greatest impact on her.

She explains: ’I personally wasn’t in a great space last year and I ended up going to Brazil to visit my daughter and also to have time out for me.

’I’d lost my mojo. I was exhausted and feeling really low before I went: I just froze and I couldn’t function.

’But while I was there I was fortunate to have the opportunity to have some breath work healing sessions.

’It was amazing and I felt so much better: I released a lot of the emotional pain of anger, sadness and fear.

’In the days following this I felt a sense of peace, more at home with myself and more joyful.

’A lot of my fear had lifted too, which enabled me to to experience other opportunities I would not have otherwise attempted.’

Rosemary adds that it even allowed her to tick an item off her ’bucket list’ - going down to Buenos Aires and learning to do the Argentine tango.

’I was feeling so emotionally exhausted and not coping before the treatments I didn’t think I would be able travel there,’ she says.

When she got home she decided to train as a breath work therapist.

’I was hooked,’ Rosemary says. ’I knew this was something really special because of how I felt within myself.’

She has since been twice to Poland to train in biodynamic breath work and trauma release and she plans to go again in March.

She says: ’I have been giving breath work sessions since my return and the feedback and changes in clients has been amazing.

’Of all the therapies and treatments I give and have tried, this has been the most remarkable.

’Seeing shifts in myself and those I have worked with is such a joy and a privilege.

’To release the trauma and tension from the body without needing to talk is a wonderful gift.

’It is quite amazing and such a simple thing in a way, just using the breath.’

â?¢Rosemary offers biodynamic breath work and trauma release in one-to-one sessions at the Health and Wellness Suite in Tower House, Douglas.

She will also be doing a one day workshop at the end of January.

Anyone interested can contact her at [email protected] or visit her Facebook page Rosemary Curran O’Donohue.