Inhale Calm, Exhale Stress

Breathwork Techniques to Meet Your Inner Warrior with Joel Primus

Reading time: 4 minutes

Breathing is more than just a biological necessity. It’s a bridge to mental clarity, emotional stability, and physical well-being. Joel Primus, the visionary behind Naked Revival, demonstrates this through his own life journey and the breathwork techniques he teaches.

With a deep-rooted background in elite athletics and a transformative entrepreneurial journey that took him from the heights of athletic achievement to the depths of injury-induced transition, Joel has become a dedicated practitioner in the art of breathing.

Now, he’s helping others reconnect with their inner warriors through simple yet profound routines and breathing practices.

"Breathwork is not just about inhaling and exhaling; it's about reconnecting with the rhythm of life itself," says Joel.

The Breath of Life: Joel’s Journey

Joel’s journey began on the tracks, training for marathons and pushing the limits of his physical and mental endurance. As a teenager, he explored various wellness routines, integrating visualisation, mindfulness, and holistic health practices into his daily life.

After a career-ending injury, Joel’s path shifted from professional athletics to entrepreneurship, leading him to co-found Naked Underwear and later Naked Revival, a brand that promotes a holistic approach to health and wellness.

Through Naked Revival, Joel aims to strip back the complexities of modern life, advocating for a return to the basics. Alongside daily routines, breathwork, he believes, is a core element of this journey. It’s a tool we all possess, yet many of us ignore its enormous potential to transform our lives.

The Transformative Power of Breathwork

Beyond its physiological benefits, breathwork is a gateway to inner peace, self-discovery, and reconnecting with our intuition. Breathwork has the power to unlock hidden depths within ourselves. It’s a journey inward, a journey of self-awareness and deep, holistic healing.

Through his own practice and exploration, Joel discovered the profound impact that intentional breathing can have on our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. From simple techniques like diaphragmatic breathing to more advanced practices like alternate nostril breathing, Joel found that breathing isn’t only a practice of relaxation, but it can also clear our subtle energetic blocks and even heal our bodies.

A topic Primus explores in depth on his Podcast with Breathwork expert Carmen Ganne

At first, breathwork may seem simple, but its effects are anything but. It’s about slowing down, tuning in, and allowing ourselves to be fully present in each moment, which can be extremely challenging in a fast-paced world that never stops rushing.

“It’s like we’re gulping down breath and life when, most of the time, we should be sipping and savoring it.” Says, Primus, That’s precisely why breathwork is a vital practice and why Joel advocates for its incorporation into daily life: it helps us quiet the noise of the mind, release pent-up tension, and cultivate a sense of inner calm.

Breathwork is also a tool for emotional regulation and stress management. In moments of challenge or adversity, our breath becomes our anchor. With a dysregulated nervous system and heightened emotions, we often find ourselves overwhelmed and reactive (reactivity in the culture is a topic Primus regularly explores on his blog). It's in those moments that returning to our breath becomes a lifeline - a way to center ourselves, find clarity, and respond with greater resilience and clarity.

Rediscovering Your Inner Warrior

Joel also emphasises the importance of getting outside of our comfort zones and confronting what’s uncomfortable. He believes that embracing what’s uncomfortable is the only way to transcend our limitations and achieve our fullest potential. He believes that true growth occurs when we push past the boundaries of familiarity and challenge ourselves to venture into the unknown.

In his own journey, Joel found that stepping outside the confines of comfort not only tested his physical endurance but also cultivated a profound sense of inner strength and resilience - his inner warrior. That’s how Naked Revival was born - from the idea of stripping away the layers of comfort and complacency that shield us from our true potential, which transformed into a movement to empower individuals to embrace growth in every aspect of their lives.

In essence, Joel’s journey serves as a reminder that true growth lies on the other side of discomfort. Only by embracing discomfort can we rediscover our inner warrior and achieve our fullest potential in life. “And breathing at the center of what we’re doing, grounds us in our bodies in such a way that we can move through that discomfort and reclaim our aspects of our power.”

Joel encourages us to confront our limitations, challenge our assumptions, and cultivate a deeper sense of connection with ourselves through holistic practices and routines that nourish our body, mind, and soul so we can rediscover the physical, emotional, and intellectual warriors within ourselves and create fulfillment in all aspects of our lives.