The Paradox of Trying to “Just Breath”

Speaker Notes:

Take a breath. Take a deep breath.

Inhale deep! In through your nose. Out through your mouth.

Again!

Again!

Do you feel calmer now?

If you do, it’s only the placebo effect. You’ve been told this will calm you down . . . reduce stress.

Reality – it has the opposite effect on your body.

The mindset work I do w/ my clients is about mind AND body . . . manage thoughts AND emotions.

And using your breath correctly is one of the best ways to manage how your emotions show up in your body.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say you’ve been breathing all your life.

We all have!

And most of the time we don’t think about it. 

If you’re a runner or in other exercise, you’ve had times when you feel like you couldn’t get enough.

But do you ever stop to think about HOW you’re breathing?

And whether there might be better ways to breathe? Or that you could change your athletic performance.

Or that the advice to take deep breaths doesn’t do anything to calm you down?

I did all my mindset work and started my coaching without learning how effective breathwork is.

Now I’ve incorporated it into my coaching because I can help my clients get better and faster results.

What I’ve learned about breathwork has changed the way I run and helped me be even more effective at managing my mindset.

I can talk about breathing techniques for longer than most people want to listen.

So I’ll give you the highlights:

1. Most of us breath too fast
2. We breathe too much volume
3. Breathing through your mouth (in or out) reduces available O₂

I want to tell you about a technique that is easy and will give you great benefits.

Resonant Breathing

Breathing at a rate of 3 to 7 seconds for both inhalation and exhalation.

Most common is 5.5 seconds = 5.5 breaths per minute.

Benefits

1. It gives you greater HRV, or heart rate variability. HRV is a measure of how much variance there is between heartbeats.

The variations between heartbeats is a sign of health.

If your heart beats like a metronome, with no variation in between beats, it’s a sign that your body is stressed.

HRV has become one of the key markers of mood, stress adaptation, performance, and even overall health.

2. Balances sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous system

Sympathetic nervous system = gas pedal.

Parasympathetic nervous system = brakes.

How to:

Sit comfortably.

Align your posture

Start off by exhaling from your belly. Pull your navel toward your spine.

Then 5.5 seconds inhale and 5.5 seconds exhale.

Don’t pause between inhale and exhale. 

This will give you a rate of 5.5 breaths per minute.

James Nestor (author of Breath): Breathing gives the same benefits of meditation for people who don’t like to meditate.