We all know breathing techniques can make you feel more relaxed, but have you ever wondered about the other positive benefits it can have on the way you are feeling and your overall health?
There are various different breathing techniques that you can use on a daily basis to help calm you down, become less stressed and help reframe your day, if you're struggling to stay positive. In this episode we discuss how breathing techniques can help you stay calm when stressed and even improve your mood. Shell even walks Sparky though a step by step breathing technique called the 4-7-8 method, to see if it makes any difference to his state of being.
The Science Section
A sample of university students, deep breathing improve the mood and to reduce the levels of stress.
06 Welcome to dopamine kick, your weekly dose of positivity. We're your hosts Sparky and shell. Join us each week as we have changed your habits to tackle fears and challenge your mindset. Let's get to it. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 14 of a dopamine kick. Today we're going to be talking about the power of breathing.
Sparky 0:
30 Thanks very much for listening guys. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. You can do this by clicking on the Follow button or the subscribe button on what ever platform you are listening. And please also stick around to the end for a little kicker, because we've got a great one this week for you as well.
Unknown Speaker 0:
45 And on the subject a little kickers, our little kicker last week was a great resource on panicking. So we'd really like it if you could let us know if you found that helpful. And if you want us to include more of that sort of stuff in our weekly little kickers. Okay, so today we're going to be talking about the power of breathing and you can use breathing techniques to come and help reframe your day. And also if you're struggling to stay positive, it's a really great tool. So today we're going to be talking about two different types of breathing exercise, one to help promote calming and relaxation and the other to help quickly reset you when you're on the go. So if you think about when you're stressed, when you're panicked or frightened, you'll breathe quickly. You might even hyperventilate or when we think something's about to go wrong, like a crash will hold our breath. So we've normalised a change in breath in response to negative situations. But today what we're going to do is turn that around and use our breathing pattern for positive change instead. So we
Sparky 1:
42 will do this every day and we breathe subconsciously and I know that when I'm on the phone to anything that's a little bit stressful, like I don't know, the GP or the dentist or anything like that. I subconsciously go into this panic mode where my breathing will change and I think this is a really great exercise. What we're gonna be talking about today because it means that we'll be able to actually reframe the way that we breathe and actually calm ourselves down. And I think that's a really useful tool
Unknown Speaker 2:
07 going forward. As always, we've got a study for you. So this is backed up by science to this study. They looked at university students and the effect of deep breathing and what that would do for their mood and their stress. So they split the groups into two and one group came in for 90 minutes once a week and did a series of deep breathing exercises. The other group came in for 90 minutes but didn't do any exercises. And afterwards at the end of the study, they looked at both self reported evaluations on mood and stress levels, but also objective parameters. So they measured the participants heart rate, and the saliva cortisol levels, which is the stress hormone that the body secretes, and they found that across everything they measured, the group that had done the deep breathing exercises showed lower levels of stress, and there's no difference between men and women. So across the board, anybody that had done deep breathing exercises was less stressed than the group that hadn't.
Sparky 3:
11 Wow, that's amazing that breathing can affect things like your hormones or your cord soul and stuff as well because a lot of people do tend to have a lot of cortisol these days and it's obviously because of the stress for situations that we're living in. But one thing that I really think that we don't think of a lot is that it's such a such a simple, subconscious effort, isn't it to breathe and it's often overlooked, how beneficial it can be breathing techniques for your mental health and for your physical health as well. And that study just proves
Unknown Speaker 3:
43 that that's correct. Yeah, I thought it was so interesting that it could, I mean, I expected it to have a change on their mood because they're going to be deep breathing. You know, the focus is on relaxation. I would have thought that at the end of that they would have had some improvement in their mood on the on the self evaluation. But I'm really shocked that it actually affected both their heart rate and their saliva cortisol levels as well because that's something that you've got no control over.
Sparky 4:
10 The thing is how many years have you been told about this? And you don't really think about it like how many times have you been told, Oh, just just take a deep breath when you're stressed or anxious and you don't really think about what that means like? Do you really just take a deep breath but actually the science behind it is actually true. Like it is going to it is going to change how you feel it is going to change things like your heart rate. It's going to change how you feel about that situation in that moment. And I just think it's it's really mad that we don't really think about it like that. It's just kind of like a subconscious thing like, oh, you know, just take a deep breath. You know what I mean?
Unknown Speaker 4:
44 Yeah, absolutely. And that ties in perfectly with our first breathing exercise. So this technique encourages your body to produce a relaxation response, which is the opposite of the stress or fight or flight that we hear so much about. So it's called the 478 method, and it was developed by Dr. Andrew vile. So I'll go through how to do it. And then Sparky, I know that this is quite new to you. So what I thought might be interesting is if I take you through doing it and you do it live on the podcast, well not live but you know,
Sparky 5:
17 okay, perfect. I'm ready for this challenge.
Unknown Speaker 5:
21 Okay, so what you're going to do is close your lips and inhale through your nose for a count of four. Then you're going to hold your breath for a count of seven. And you're going to exhale completely through your mouth making a wishing noise for a count of eight. And this completes one cycle and you should do it for three cycles at a time.
Sparky 5:
44 Okay, so I'm not going to remember that you're going to go through it with me.
Unknown Speaker 5:
48 I'll prompt you don't worry. I'm just getting a little stopwatch up so that I'm doing this. There's a stopwatch
Sparky 5:
53 there's a stop.
Unknown Speaker 5:
55 No expense, there's
Sparky 5:
59 cost. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready.
Unknown Speaker 6:
03 Okay, we got your eyes closed. Yes. Okay. So close your lips and inhale through your nose for a count of 41234 16 Hold your breath for a count of 7123456 26 exhale completely through your mouth making a wish sound for a count of 29 812345678. 40 Now you're going to close your lips again and inhale through your nose for a count of four 44 to three hold your breath for a count of 723456 56 exhale completely through your mouth making a wish sound for a count of 59 834567
Unknown Speaker 7:
06 a last time close your lips and inhale through your nose for a count of 10 four to three. Hold your breath for a count of 723456 exhale completely through your mouth make your wish sound for a count of 8345678 stock. How do you feel?
Sparky 7:
37 I feel so relaxed. I don't think I can carry on with his past I'd have three coffees so obviously it was a bit like glue. And now I'm just like, wow. Yeah, it feels really good at do you feel like it really does.
Unknown Speaker 7:
56 Oh, your shoulders and stuff. Relax. I've always felt like my neck and shoulders are a lot looser. Yeah,
Sparky 8:
01 definitely more relaxed and I'm floating amazing but I don't know how I'm gonna carry on. I don't know how I'm gonna carry on talking now because I was just like, who a nice breath of comments so really works then.
Unknown Speaker 8:
14 And it's insane to think that like the whole exercise three cycles. It's less than a minute, but what a difference it makes.
Sparky 8:
22 It's so true. Although there is one thing that I would say. Obviously, I've got asthma so at one point I did think I was going to suffocate myself.
Unknown Speaker 8:
34 But I realised when I said it the first time that like because I was counting after I've given you the instructions, you're actually doing it for longer. And I was like oh god is gonna pop. So I tried to compensate for that the next couple of times. We probably should have practised this off air before we recorded it.
Sparky 8:
51 It's fine. It's always good in the moment, isn't it? You know, we talked about being in the moment and the moment and we're not perfect exactly. So I'm glad we didn't on a live while it's not live but you know, I mean, I'm glad we did it on edge Hello, wheel tire real time challenge. So I would definitely encourage you guys to do this because obviously, I've never done anything like this before. I mean, I've done breathing exercises, obviously but not something like this where it's just been out of the blue and I didn't even know about these 478 methods. So I think this is a really, really good way to actually calm down. In a stressful situation. I think this would really make a difference to how you feel.
Unknown Speaker 9:
27 So the second breathing technique that we've got is counting backwards from 17. So I've searched everywhere and I just cannot find who to credit for this one. So is initially something that both Sparky and I were introduced to during training when we worked together about all but eight years ago now, but I still use it to this day. So the premises is it takes about 17 seconds to reset yourself as if it is technique. You breathe deeply no particular pattern and count backwards from 17. So you can close your eyes if you want to be you don't need to. And I didn't think that it would work, but it really surprised me. How different you feel after you've done it. And for me, I find it really valuable in my line of work. I'm dealing with multiple different clients in a day. And if I've just had a difficult conversation, my next client expects me to be totally 100% focused on them. And I find the 17 seconds method really helpful to just reset myself only reminds
Sparky 10:
32 me of that song. You know that song that goes is not a second 1707 seconds away not 17 seconds. Oh, I thought I had something there. Oh, wow.
Unknown Speaker 10:
44 So I'm really sorry. I can't find a resource on this because it is a specific 17 seconds, so there must be a study on it somewhere. I don't know if it's through a paywall or something but I absolutely can't find it. But it was to do with customer service. It's customer service training that we both went through. So maybe someone if you've gone through the same training you can let me know where to find it. But it does really really work and we won't do it on the podcast because I think it'd be a bit boring for you to listen to us count backwards from 70.
Sparky 11:
15 I love I love the premise though, that you know you can reset yourself in 17 seconds. And I think I heard something really similar once before from someone called which we mentioned in the podcast last few episodes ago. Marissa Pia how you can make decisions in a certain amount of time, which I'm sure we'll go into later day when we're talking about different topics. Yeah, I just think it's really nice that you can reset yourself in 17 seconds.
Unknown Speaker 11:
39 Yeah, it's like I mean, it's not like you know you go from being really upset and then 17 seconds later, it's all sunshine and rainbows. But you do feel noticeably different if you take that time, deep breathe count back. But it definitely like I said, I still use it to this day, eight years later and I find it really really helpful.
Sparky 11:
59 But actually you know what this actually is this is this is like mindfulness in a way because I know we're talking about mindfulness a lot show and I know you're probably thinking, oh you guys get on the mindfulness. But really that's all that's all mindfulness is in a way it's focusing on your breath and bringing your attention to the present without allowing your mind to drift from the past or the future. It's been in the now isn't it? So this, these breathing techniques really help you to just kind of calm in that moment. And think about that moment, just as it is. So I have to say that's a win for me with mindfulness, because I know that you know, you said you didn't know much about it, but you do it every day. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 12:
35 So maybe that's maybe that's just what I need, like mindfulness light, like maybe these 10 minute meditations. Like my attention span is 17 seconds. Well,
Sparky 12:
45 you know, mindfulness. It doesn't have to be a meditation. Mindfulness can just be breathing and I know I've mentioned CBT a lot in this podcast. But one of the mindfulness techniques is to focus on your breath. So I think that's, that's related to this podcast as well. And talking about breathing is you can use mindfulness just for breathing and there's so many different breathing techniques out there. We've only mentioned a few in this episode, because we'll be here all day, but try out different types of breathing exercises. Use these ones, see what works for you, and then we'd love to hear how it's made you feel if you've got any other exercises that you know work for you that you swear by then send us a message all our details will be in the shownotes and just let us know.
Unknown Speaker 13:
31 And that brings us on to this week's little kicker. So this week's topic is probably no surprise. It's a challenge. And the challenge is to do the 478 method for three cycles every time you wake up and before you go to bed every day for the next seven days. This is something that we're going to do too. So we're going to talk next week about how it's made us feel and we'd be really interested to find out how you're getting on with it as well
Sparky 13:
57 as great and I can't wait to do it because I know how that made me feel in this episode. So I think it's gonna be really good to do it for a week and see how we feel afterwards. I'm excited. I'm excited for the challenge. And I hope you always are to
Unknown Speaker 14:
09 me to see you next time.
Sparky 14:
11 All right, that's everything this week, guys, but if you want to carry on with the conversation, join us over on our social media platforms. We're on all the major channels and our handle is a dopamine kick.
Unknown Speaker 14:
22 We'd also be super grateful if you could leave us a review on the podcast wherever you're listening, because it helps us to grow our audience and help more people. Okay, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye