Hi there, I’m Perrin and I created Breathe Well Be Well with the aim of offering the preventative care I needed as a child and the support that saved me as an adult — seeking to link treating AND healing the body through the breath.
As a child I suffered with allergies and poor sleep, even being named most likely to fall asleep during graduation as my high school superlative! What I then thought was funny, I now know was a cry for help. My airway was compromised and despite going to bed early, my body never fully rested. My mouth was always slightly opened and my nose was always stuffy. I was a mouth breather.
As I moved into my college years, still sleeping poorly and being expected to accomplish more, I was diagnosed with ADHD and consequently put on Adderall. While this kept me awake during class, it certainly didn’t help me address the depression nor how to sit with hard feelings as my parents divorced. All I knew at that time was a pill helped me not feel sad and not sleep through class. And so I moved even farther away from understanding the WHY behind my symptoms and focused on the WHAT would make them disappear.
The tricky thing with bandaids is that they do work, for a while. My bandaids helped be earn a graduate degree and start my career as a speech-language pathologist. But as we grow, so do our responsibilities and the bandaids I had leaned so heavily on to cope with stress and executive thinking tasks no longer “fixed” anything. They just made things worse. And so after a decade, I finally ripped my Adderall bandaid off.
As the first layer of dysfunction began peeling away, I was next able to address a major root cause issue: my airway. It was chronic strep throat that finally got me to the ENT. There I learned I had a deviated septum, enlarged nasal turbinates and inflamed tonsils. I took the leap and fixed all those, at age 34! When I finally took my first full nasal breath post surgery, I cried. I had no idea what I had been missing out on! That was the moment I began to rethink formers held truths. If I assumed my dysfunctional breathing was “normal” breathing, what else had I gotten wrong?
It was that mindset that finally allowed me to address my oral dysfunction, specifically my oral rest, swallowing, and breathing pattern. Remember my chronic mouth breathing?Enter root cause: dysfunctional oral facial muscles most likely caused BY my tongue-tie. When the tongue doesn’t naturally rest on the roof of the mouth, the palate becomes high and narrow, which then decreases the space available in the nasal cavity and obstructs airflow and ability to maintain nasal breathing. And my three decades of dysfunctional breathing had caused havoc on my airway. Around this time I had begun taking an interest in Orofacial Myology and was learning how to treat myself and others on the proper use of these muscles. After having my tongue, upper lip, and buccal ties released, I finally found the ability to fully rest my entire tongue on the roof of my mouth, with lips closed, breathing using only my nose. And through earning my certification in Orofacial Myology began to confidently treat others with similar issues.
I never sought to become a yoga teacher, but rather knew I loved the practice itself. It wasn’t until the pandemic of 2020 however, that I found myself in yoga teacher training to better understand these ancient teachings. During training, I kept seeing overlapping themes in both yoga, speech, and myofunctional therapy – with breath being the common thread. Yoga calls it pranayama. Speech therapy calls it vocal hygiene. Myofunctional therapy calls it breathing re-education. But all seek to bolster the same thing: AIRWAY HEALTH.
I later pursued more breathing certifications, which allowed me to better understand the biochemical, biomechanical, and psychophysiological components of respiration. And through better grasping the workings of the breath, I gained the confidence to actually start teaching breathwork and yoga classes – anything that I could sneak airway health into the teachings I did! I also slowly began improving my skills as a meditation instructor, learning the power of quieting the mind for improved overall health. I knew the breath reflected the anatomy-physiology of your airway and was also discovering the influence it has on your emotional-mental health! I knew that as my stress, anxiety, and fear grew within, so did the rate of my respiration. And if this went unchecked too long, it can become another unhelpful pattern. But now I had tools to both use and teach to others through breathwork and meditation.
I share all this to let you know I understand struggle. I know what it’s like to feel stuck. And I know we are all capable of change.
Speech-language pathology taught me how to be an effective therapist and support client needs. Myofunctional therapy taught me how to treat and support the airway and orofacial development. And yoga gave me the bridge to connect mind to body. And we need them all. I need them all.
I knew my therapeutic style did not fit in a box and I wanted to offer a different approach to treating all the parts of the breath and airway – the anatomy, physiology, behavioral and emotional. And so on 2/22/22, Breathe Well Be Well was born.
It’s an honor to be a part of your healing journey as we all seek to find a way to breathe + be.
37% Americans rated their mental health as only fair or poor, up from 31% a year ago
About 66% of Americans take prescription drugs, with around 50% of the cost paid out-of-pocket.
41% of the US workforce has reported feeling burnout in 2023
Nearly half of all U.S. adults say that stress has negatively affected their behavior.
Inspiring Transformation and Empowerment through the Art of Breath, Mindfulness, and Movement, Harnessing the Profound Potential of Functional Breathwork, Meditation, and Yoga Practices.
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