Perform at Your Best Under Pressure
Stay calm when the pressure is highest. Learn practical breathing skills that improve focus, decision-making, and resilience during presentations, important meetings, difficult conversations, and everyday stress.
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The Method
The Method
Whether you're preparing for an important presentation, navigating a difficult conversation, making a critical decision, or recovering from mental fatigue, learn how to stay composed under pressure.
The Buteyko Breathing Method is an evidence-informed approach that helps people develop healthier breathing patterns. Often without realizing it, under stress, many people begin breathing faster, higher in the chest, or through the mouth. These changes can increase the feeling of stress, reduce concentration, and make it more difficult to think clearly.
Rather than relying on willpower alone, you'll learn practical breathing skills that help you recognize these patterns, regulate your breathing, and apply those skills during the moments that matter most.
1. Recognize
1. Recognize
Notice how stress changes your breathing before it affects your performance.
2. Regulate
2. Regulate
Use practical breathing techniques to restore calm without stepping away from the situation.
3. Perform
3. Perform
Apply these skills during presentations, meetings, important decisions, and difficult conversations.
Your breathing changes within seconds of feeling stressed. Learning to notice and regulate that response gives you a practical way to influence your physiology instead of being controlled by it. With consistent practice, these skills become tools you can rely on before and during high-pressure moments, helping you stay composed, focused, and resilient when performance matters most.
Offers
Offers
Whether you're looking for one-on-one coaching, a workshop for your team, executive performance training, or an engaging presentation for your organization, each service is designed to help people stay calm, think clearly, and perform with greater confidence under pressure.
Personalized breathing instruction to improve stress resilience, sleep, energy, focus, and everyday wellbeing.
Interactive workshops that help teams improve stress regulation, communication, and performance in demanding environments.
Coaching for leaders and professionals who want greater focus, composure, and resilience in high-pressure situations.
Engaging presentations and workshops introducing practical breathing science to organizations & communities.
Why Breathing?
Why Breathing?
I’m Maryna Ienina, a Certified Buteyko Breathing Instructor, educator, and workshop facilitator. I help people to understand how their breathing can influence the way they feel, respond, recover, and perform in everyday life.
My background is in engineering, education, and professional development. That combination shapes how I approach breathing: I want to understand the physiology behind it, translate the science into language people can relate to, and turn that understanding into practical skills.
What drew me to breathing education is something remarkably simple: we breathe all day, every day, yet most of us have never been taught much about how we breathe or how our breathing can change with stress, sleep, concentration, movement, and other demands.
Through BigCatsBreathing, I work with individuals, organizations, and communities to make breathing education practical, accessible, and applicable to real life.
Maryna Ienina • Certified Buteyko Breathing Instructor • PMP • Mechanical Engineer (M.S.) • Performance Educator
Who I Work With
Who I Work With
Individuals
Individuals
Professionals
Executives
Parents
Students
Athletes
Anyone seeking better sleep or stress management
Organizations
Organizations
Leadership teams
Engineering teams
Healthcare organizations
Community groups
Schools
Conferences
Corporate Wellness Programs
Client Success Stories
Client Success Stories
FAQ
FAQ
About the Method
About the Method
What is the Buteyko Breathing Method?
The Buteyko Breathing Method is a breathing retraining approach that focuses on developing more functional everyday breathing patterns. It emphasizes nasal breathing, gentle and controlled breathing, and reducing habits such as unnecessary mouth breathing or over-breathing.
Through practical exercises and greater awareness of breathing habits, the method helps people learn how to breathe more efficiently during rest, sleep, physical activity, and everyday situations.
Is the Buteyko Breathing Method scientifically supported?
Research supports a number of principles used in breathing retraining, including nasal breathing, respiratory physiology, and the relationship between breathing patterns and certain health outcomes.
The Buteyko Method has been studied most extensively in people with asthma, with studies reporting improvements in areas such as symptoms and quality of life and, in some studies, reduced use of reliever medication.
Breathing training should be considered a complementary approach and is not a substitute for appropriate medical evaluation, treatment, or prescribed medication.
Do I need previous breathing experience?
No. No previous breathwork or breathing-training experience is needed.
We begin by observing how you currently breathe and understanding your individual breathing patterns. From there, you learn practical exercises progressively, with an emphasis on understanding why and when to use them.
The goal isn't to master complicated breathing techniques. It's to develop practical skills you can eventually recognize, select, and use independently.
Coaching
Coaching
What happens during a coaching session?
Your first session begins with a conversation about your goals, breathing patterns, and relevant lifestyle factors. We establish a baseline and identify areas to work on.
You’ll then learn breathing exercises selected for your needs, with guidance on how, when, and why to use them. Follow-up sessions allow us to review your progress, refine your technique, and adjust your practice as you develop greater awareness and control of your breathing.
The goal is to build practical skills you can integrate into everyday life and eventually use independently.
How many sessions do people usually need?
A typical coaching program includes five sessions over approximately four weeks.
We usually meet twice during the first week, beginning with an initial assessment and coaching session, followed by weekly sessions over the next three weeks. This structure gives you time to practice between sessions while allowing us to monitor progress and gradually build on what you’ve learned.
Consistent practice between sessions is an important part of the process. After the five sessions, we can discuss whether any additional support would be useful based on your goals and progress.
Do you offer virtual sessions?
Yes. Coaching is available both virtually and in person.
Virtual sessions include the same core elements as in-person coaching: conversation, breathing observation, guided practice, feedback, and adjustments to your individual practice. You can participate from home or another comfortable, private location.
Workshops
Workshops
Can you deliver workshops at our company?
Yes. Workshops can be delivered on-site at your organization and adapted to your team, workplace, and event format.
Virtual delivery is also available for distributed teams..
How many participants can attend?
Workshops work particularly well with small to mid-sized groups, where participants have opportunities to practice, ask questions, and engage with the material.
For larger groups, the format can be adapted while maintaining a practical and interactive experience. Contact me with your expected group size, and we can determine the best format.
Can workshops be customized?
Yes. Workshops can be tailored to your organization’s goals, audience, and workplace context.
Depending on your needs, we can emphasize areas such as managing pressure, maintaining focus, preparing for important conversations or presentations, recovery after demanding situations, or developing greater awareness of breathing under stress.
The core breathing principles remain consistent, while the scenarios, exercises, and discussion can be adapted to make the experience relevant to your team.
Results
Results
Can this help with stress?
Breathing and stress influence one another. Under pressure, breathing may become faster, shallower, or more irregular (sometimes without us even noticing!).
Breathing training can help you become more aware of these changes and learn practical ways to regulate your breathing when stress arises. The goal isn't to eliminate stress, but to develop another tool for responding to it with greater control and composure.
Can this improve sleep?
Breathing habits can influence sleep, particularly when issues such as mouth breathing, snoring, or disrupted breathing patterns are present.
Buteyko breathing training focuses on developing healthier daytime and nighttime breathing habits that may support better sleep. Individual experiences vary, and persistent sleep problems or suspected sleep apnea should be discussed with an appropriate healthcare professional.
Can it improve performance?
Breathing training can be useful in situations where focus, composure, and self-regulation under pressure matter.
By learning to recognize changes in your breathing and regulate them deliberately, you can develop a practical strategy for preparing for and responding to demanding situations—such as presentations, difficult conversations, competition, or moments when you need to regain focus.
START A CONVERSATION
START A CONVERSATION
Have a question about coaching, workshops, or breathing training? Tell me what you're looking for and I'll help you determine the best next step.
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