#516 Three proven ways to use breathwork to instantly calm your nervous system, with Tim van der Vliet.

Can just 5 minutes of breath work really change your life, even during a panic attack or before a tough meeting?

In today’s high-pressure world, the ability to instantly regulate your stress response isn't just a luxury - it’s a necessity. This episode dives deep into how breathwork can help you take control of your mental, physical, and emotional well-being, both on demand and over time.

Discover three powerful ways to use breathwork for immediate calm, daily resilience, and deep transformation.

• Discover three powerful ways to use breathwork for immediate calm, daily resilience, and deep transformation.
• Find out how breathwork improves long-term health and may even enhance longevity.
• Learn a simple yet powerful technique that can help you avoid panic, regulate emotions, and manage stress on demand.

Press play now to unlock simple yet powerful tools that can instantly calm your nerves, energize your mornings, and enhance your overall vitality—starting today.

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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:

02:13 - The Power of Small, Consistent Actions

05:38 - Practical Breathwork Techniques for Stress Relief

11:35 - Physiological Effects of Breathwork on the Nervous System

18:35 - Breathwork and Longevity

23:44 - Exercise, Cold Exposure, and Holistic Health Practices

29:44 - Breathwork Instructor Training and Community

35:41 - Closing Wisdom and Parting Thoughts

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MEMORABLE QUOTE:

"Our ability to slow down our breathing equals our ability to manage stress."

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VALUABLE RESOURCE:

Tim's Breathwork Instructor Program:

https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/breathworkinstructor

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🎙️ Want to be a guest?

Message Agi on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/member/personaldevelopmentmastery

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Actionable insights on personal development, self improvement, self mastery and personal growth for a life of purpose and fulfilment.

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Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:00

What if the clarity you're seeking isn't out there, but already within you, waiting for you to listen? Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast that helps intelligent, busy professionals develop self mastery and gain clarity so you can thrive in a fulfilling, purposeful life. I'm your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 516 if you are looking to manage stress more effectively and boost your daily energy, this conversation with breathwork expert Tim Van der Vliet explores how breathwork and cold exposure can become simple powerful tools for long term transformation. By listening today, you are going to discover three powerful ways to use breath work for immediate calm, daily resilience and deep transformation, and you will learn how just five minutes a day can radically improve your long term health, reduce stress and even boost longevity. If you are feeling overwhelmed by daily stress or searching for a practical wellness routine that fits into a busy life, then this episode is for you before we dive in. If what you hear resonates with you and you're curious to go deeper in breathwork not just for yourself, but maybe even to guide others. Tim runs a breathwork instructor programme. It's rooted in simplicity, safety and science, and it is for anyone who wants to build an effective breathwork practice or even make it part of their professional path, you will find the link in the show notes. Now let's get started. Today. I am thrilled to welcome Tim Van der Vliet back to the show Tim, our first conversation was three years ago, and that was episode 208 where we explored breathwork as a key to happiness and resilience. And you know, today, I will only give a very, very brief introduction of you to the listener, just for reference, and I will only say that you are a breathwork and cold exposure specialist, and you are passionate about teaching others how to harness the power of this breath and the power of cold, of the cold, to unlock incredible energy and health in them. So Tim, welcome back to the show. It's it's a real pleasure to have you back.

Tim van der Vliet: 3:05

Thank you, Agi, it's a real pleasure to be here.

Agi Keramidas: 3:09

It's been three years, as I said, but I still remember this conversation, and as I was telling you earlier, before we started recording, I still have out of that conversation, I have picked one routine that I have been following almost every day for over three years now, so amazing, and I think that is for me. And tell me if you agree, personal development consists of these small actions that you repeat over and over again, and you know, they beat incrementally what we what we do, how we grow, how we live. So I don't know if that's how you see it

Tim van der Vliet: 3:46

exactly. And I love mathematics. I used to be a stock market trader, and I still have a love for mathematics. And it's a simple, you know, mathematical equation that if you grow point 1% every day, which is like almost nothing, right? Then you grow 50% in a year and in five years time, 600% so that's what I you know, like breath work can be, can be very difficult, and I make it very applicable. So if you would do just five minutes of breath work every morning, and you stick to five minutes, which is so little that there's no reason not to do it, then you will see immense growth in the long term.

Agi Keramidas: 4:32

That's great. And today, breath work, since you mentioned it, will be definitely our main topic of conversation. And there are some very specific and particular elements and benefits of it which I want to discuss. And actually, let's start with with that straight away. And I will ask you something more of a practical nature, rather than going into the theory of you know, how. How breath retention affects our brain. So the practical question in this high stress world that many of us live and probably the listener also is, how can we use breath work to calm the nervous system, but on demand when you know the stress really hits us and we need to deal with it, maybe it can be in work environment. Usually it's like that, but not necessarily. So how can we use breathwork in such a situation?

Tim van der Vliet: 5:38

So let me, let me start with explaining how you can use breath work. And this what you're asking is the number one. So in three ways. Number one is to calm down immediately at work in the car, listening to somebody and you feel you want to cut in, you know, things like that, like calm down at commands. Number two is to have some form of practice, I'd say minimum of five minutes, but it can be longer. You know, some techniques are proposing 20 minutes or 40 minutes, but like five minutes of breathing exercises every day. And then number three are, like longer sessions. I have a lot of like, American clients, and over zoom, I guide them through 45 minutes of breath work. Now, number one is instant stress relief. I call it crisis management. You know, I need to calm down. Now, what do I do? Number two is to have some form of practice that creates more breath awareness, more air available through the air and being more calm generally. And number three is like really having stacking, a stacking effect, like, if you do a longer breath work session with me, it is between 24 and 70 hour. 72 hours, you feel different. So these are the three ways you can use breath work in general, and mostly when we see breath work. You know, on Instagram, it's all about these longer sessions. And my, my, my two cents in is, if you do five minutes of breath work in the morning and you practice this every day for a few years, you have more change than going to a longer session once a month. Now, let's, let's go into into calming down at command. There's two techniques that I like to share, and this is like an example of where breathwork doesn't have to take very long. So number one is to get over a panic attack. I've as you know, and you've been there too, but I've been putting people in ice bath for about 10 years. So I think the count is at 10,000 people. And I've seen a lot of people panic in that ice bath. And to get over a panic attack is to simply breathe in deep, to hold for two seconds and then breathe out twice as long. We're going to practice in a bit of time. Why this is important is, for example, in the UK, I saw this statistic that 80% of the first aid rides are panic related, and with just using this technique, they could be treated at home, and we could save 80% of the rides to the hospital, because it can be treated at home. Can you imagine just how a simple like, every breath takes like 15 seconds about so if you do four times, it's a one minute breathing exercise. Now let's say we're in a very stressful moment and we're hyperventilating, so you're breathing high in the chest and focusing on breathing in, while you actually should be focusing on breathing out. And this is what you change. So let's mimic this. I'm in a high I keep on breathing then breathe in and hold I'm deliberately breathing in through the mouth now, because this is what happens when you are hyperventilating. Then breathe out, then breathe in for about four counts through the nose. Here we go. Hold one, two breathe out for eight. Let's do two more, indeed, hold breathe out more, slower one last time slower in hold and breathe out longer and. How do you feel?

Agi Keramidas: 10:05

The effect is instant. Every every series of breath works. I was even more, you know, I was not in any stressful environment earlier on, but I do feel the effect of in my body, also not only in my mind, but also in my body, the calmness, or this, yeah, it's, I think that's the best way to describe it. There is a calmness. And thank you for sharing this. It is powerful. When you were saying about the three different, you know, types or kinds that breath work can, could be used, and this is definitely the one that you can, I suppose, do also as a practice, but I think it has even more value when you do it in that moment. My My comment on this is that in order to from the stressful situation, from the stimulus that whatever it is happening that is causing that panic inside you to come up to you actually starting to do this practice, because once you start doing it, will work. There is that moment of self awareness and of being able to actually direct yourself to do the the breathing. So I just wanted to share that. I don't know if you want to add anything to this.

Tim van der Vliet: 11:35

Well, this is what you're talking about, being aware of your breath through the day, and this is what you get when you do five minutes of breath work. And like my signature breathing techniques are TT five or simplified tummo, but they're very similar. So let's talk about TT five. One round takes one minute, it's basically breathing five times in and out, nose, in, mouth, out. Breath number six, you breathe in and you hold for 10 seconds, and then you breathe out slowly. So we can do two rounds, if, if, if you want to, just to show you what is happening, because with the first technique, four to eight, we calm down and command so this is what you can use in the car when you're about to explode, opening your email box, having a stressful conversation. Nobody has to see this. You know you can do this without talking to a person. Now, what we do when we when we have a practice, we breathe five times deep, in and out, first, slightly activating adrenaline release, and then afterwards, you're actually calmer than before. And this is much like running. And when you go for a run, your heartbeat goes up. But this is not a chronic state. It's a temporary state, and after running, your heartbeat will be lower. So that is the same by taking five deep breath and then breathing in and holding for 10 seconds and breathing out slowly. So this is one round takes one minute. So if we do two rounds, it would take two minutes, and then afterwards you you can test yourself by seeing how slow you can breathe, but likely you feel much more composed. What, I think, what you meant to say before was you're more in the body. It's like you're less in the hat. Get out of the hat and be in the body. You know, like become more body aware, and when we get to think a little bit less, we kind to have the tendency to have more positive thoughts. So let's do two rounds of this, if you're okay with that. Now, let's do it now, first the safety measures, because with the podcast, people may be listening in the car, taking deep breath and holding on the breath in can make you dizzy when you're driving a car on the highway. This can be dangerous, simply because you may have the sensation of losing it for a moment. So you cannot join if you're driving a car, and not when you're lying in the bathtub for the same reason, right? So let's do two rounds just to see how this works. Because I love, you know, I'm a very busy person. I'm travelling all over the world. I have five kids, so I love these short breathwork snippets. This is what what I'm doing every morning. I do five of these rounds, so five minutes, and then I do that 10 times. So before we went on this this meeting, I was a little bit early, just to check my connection. I'm doing five rounds of dt, five, you know. So I do that a lot, and this is what creates more breath awareness by doing some practice every morning. Mm. Breath, I would say, before you eat or leave the house. So take one really slow breath, nose in mouth out, just to prepare again making your breath out longer than your breath in. Let's breathe, nose in, mouth out about 80% in and out. Here we go. You extra deep. Breathe out everything. Breathe in and hold. Hold it here. Shoulders are nice and low. 10 seconds, another five and breathe out slowly, a bit dizzy as normal and rounds to five deep breaths you extra deep, everything out and breathe in and hold and Again, 10 seconds, and breathe out everything, tingly, sensations, normal, a bit dizzy or lightheaded, all normal, and take the slowest breath of your life. You and make your breath out even slower. It's so when you're in the back of the taxi before you're about to get your phone out and start scrolling social media to five or 10 rounds, start with two, extend to five maybe 10 rounds. No more waiting time.

Agi Keramidas: 18:22

Tim tell us what, what actually happened in the body during this because, you know the effect. You asked me earlier, how do I feel? And the effect is similar, even deeper now, but what is happening internally?

Tim van der Vliet: 18:36

Yeah, so my promise was to give your energy yet calm you down at the same moment, right? So when we breathe deeper and faster than we need to, we activate our sympathetic nervous system. Now I know that sympathetic nervous system is also you know where our stress is, and if you're too stressed at a certain moment, you will get a burn out. You know, we all know this, yet, if you temporarily increase the pace of breathing and the intensity of breathing so you breathe deeper than you need to, and faster than you need to which doesn't have to be extreme. Let me put emphasis on that. It doesn't have to be extreme, but we activate our sympathetic nervous system so we release a little bit of adrenaline, noradrenaline and things like that. What happens on the breath hold, and when we breathe out slower, we activate the parasympathetic. So you could see this as a very small interval training, like with running, sprinting, walking, sprinting, walking, increasing your running stamina, building your running muscles and. Making you able to run faster and longer. Right? What happens with this is that after two or five rounds of TT five, we have a much slower pace of breathing, which is enhancing our ability to calm down. So I think I said this last podcast that the key to happiness in two words is to slow down your breathing, right? Because stress doesn't make us happy, unwanted stress, and if we are able to slow down our breathing, that is equaling your stress management. So your ability to slow down your breathing equals your ability to manage stress, but by taking a few deeper breaths and add a breath hold, we are even calmer than we would just do with, for example, four to eight, or that first group of breathing exercise where you Calm down immediately. So the idea that the sympathetic nervous system is bad is not true. You know, we just if we put stress under control on our own body, for example, by doing sports, for example, by ending your shower cold doing cold exposure, or using deep breathing breath hold techniques, we get to be calmer yet with energy at the same time,

Agi Keramidas: 21:30

just a quick pause. If you're finding this conversation inspiring and thinking I want to learn more about how to use breath work, then I highly recommend taking out Tim's breathwork instructor programme. It's an eight week in depth experience with everything from science back techniques to practical business tips, and it's all taught with Tim's calm, empowering style. You can find the link in the show notes. Now let's carry on. Thank you. And I highlighted what you said that our ability to slow down our breathing equals our ability to manage stress, and it is. It's very important to realise that there is Thank you, Tim, and actually there is something else that I wanted to discuss, different elements, shall we say, of the benefits that breathwork gives you. Already talked about calming down or being energised or being more resilient in the moment, I wanted to ask you about another factor that is longevity. I read the comment you wrote somewhere about breath work being a long term, long term health practice, and I like very much that idea, rather than, you know something that you go at a retreat and you do some sessions, and then you come back. My question is, I've been reading specifically about longevity, and one of the best, let's say, indicators of longevity is the VO two Max, which is how the capacity of oxygen that our lungs can handle. So my question is, are there any particular breath work practices that you recommend for increasing that you know, capacity, and therefore the probability to live longer.

Tim van der Vliet: 23:45

Well, the it has, for sure, to do with your ability to use your diaphragm and to breathe through the belly, because if you, if you use your lower ends of your lungs with every breath in, you take up twice as much oxygen. So that should have an effect on the VO two ratio. And the funny thing is, I was talking to a doctor in Brazil. I'm just back from Brazil, from giving workshops there and corporate sessions and a retreat, an instructor retreat. He was asking me this question too, and I'm I'm very positive, but this is something I haven't tested yet, but that if you would test your your 302, before a 20 minutes, say, tt, 35 rounds. Not TT five what we just did, but TT 35 rounds. So more like a 2030, minute breathing session, that afterwards our fear two would be higher. So our ability to uptake oxygen is directly influenced by a breath work practice. So if you do a daily breathwork practice that should have an effect on your longevity, I want to add, though, that. That that longevity is, of course, interesting, and we all have want to have a long life, but what is more important for me is the quality of life, you know. And I've been talking to many biohackers in the past, and there's so much focus on longevity. Well, I would say, if you just increase the quality of your life. Likely you will live longer too. But that is more important than being very old, you know, like we I have the feeling I'm going to be 155 years old. I'm now 55 I have another 100 years to go, you know. So I'm very positive I will live long, but the quality of life, your amount of happiness, the ability to reduce stress, is something that is like in the short term, giving you the benefits that you may actually be looking for and having a longer life is like the cream on the cake. That happens automatically.

Agi Keramidas: 25:58

I remember the phrase I was reading about longevity, and I couldn't agree with you more that the quality of your life, especially when you are old, really is the whole point, rather than living for many, many decades and being, You know, sick or exactly, debilitated, yes. So what I remember reading was that he was talking about aerobic exercise, but you know, at the very end, we're talking about the lungs and how we use our lungs, and also breath work is a different way. But he was saying that this kind of exercise will make you live longer, but when you do strength exercise, that's make that extra time worth living being able to do the things that you can. Anyway, I digress. It was something that made sense to me, and I realised the importance of doing, you know, working out the body exactly when we get older, along with our lungs. So,

Tim van der Vliet: 27:06

so I'm not a doctor, so my recipe from not Dr Tim is to do every day without failure, two minutes of exercise, five minutes of breathing and ending your shower cold 30 seconds. So it's not, you know, like you hear sometimes breathwork instructors claim that all you do is, is breathing. I'm like, no, what about exercise? And the same breathwork Instructor An hour later, yeah, I'm getting fat. I'm like, Yeah, well, I get it. You know, it's not all about breathing. For me, the breath work is the 80% it's a missing link. You know it's it's like, where, where we really make our lives better, better, because exercise we know. But also ending your shower cold only 30 seconds. It's so little, it doesn't even cost you any time. But if you do this every day, this is my holy trinity of the perfect morning routine, everyday exercise, breath work, cold exposure, keep it as little as you can, minimum two minutes, five minutes breath work. So that takes seven minutes and ending your shower cold is not costing you any time, but that minimum thing you do, you will see that after maybe a month of practising something that little you want to go to Hot Yoga. You like it. You go four times a week. You start running again. You know, so more is better, of course, but stick to the minimum, and this is like the true change in your life.

Agi Keramidas: 28:34

Indeed, this comes back to what was saying earlier, that these small things cascade little bit exactly one good habit brings about another good habit, and you know, over time, you have a completely different life than if you did not.

Tim van der Vliet: 28:51

For example, if, if people have the tendency to overeat due to maybe five rounds of TT five that we just did to spend two minutes breathing before you start dinner. You know, if you're, if you're eating with the family, do it in the kitchen or something, you know, like, if you want to hide it, that's fine. You, you just breathe a little bit less. Or you, you you make less sounds, but you will notice you're calmer. You eat more quietly. You would likely not go for 80% thus helping your body weight.

Agi Keramidas: 29:28

You now teach others to become breastwork instructors. So I wanted to ask you to tell us about this who, who is the person that might be interested in something like like that.

Tim van der Vliet: 29:44

It's select three groups. Number one is, I want to learn everything about breathing for my own personal development. This is also why, always why I do instructor programmes. I want to learn more about myself. Number two. Is people that are coach or a personal trainer or a GP or a doctor or things like that, that have clients already and want to implement like, for example, what we just did. I've one doctor in Denmark, everybody is doing one minute of four to eight breathing before they start the doctor session. And it's very simple, but it works. And then the group number three are already breathwork instructors called exposure instructors, or want to be. And they come to my programme basically because it's, it's very much in depth, you know, I've, I've, I've developed my own techniques called TT, Tim's techniques, which is exercise breath work, called exposure. And within the TT breath work, there's like six techniques. You know, however, in my programme, I'm not only speaking and practising my own techniques. This is something I want to take a step back from two there's only one technique, the technique that I learned or that I developed, and that is helping all the people. It's just not true for some people, lighter breath work, and for some people, more intense breath work may be the case. So you want to learn about the whole spectrum of breath work and not just one technique. So I think this is very important. I mean, I'm still doing pranayama, Breath of Fire, alternate nostril breathing. Sometimes I do Wim Hof. I do bioflow sessions or rebirthing. I Bucha breathing through the day. You know, oxygen advantage, so to be aware of the whole spectrum of breath work is what makes you a good instructor, so you can really connect with the client and give what a person needs, instead of that technique that you have learned, and that is the answer to everything. So I think that is an important part as well. It's not only my own techniques. I feel science is important if you know what happens in your body. This is bit of a paradox, but if you understand rationally what is happening in your body, for example, you know like your heartbeat goes up when you start breathing deeper and faster, very simple, but you start you when you understand what is happening, you can let go of that same rational mind and start to feel more so the science behind cold exposure and breath work is important. One of the things that I find important, too, and this is really making my life better, is to have breathing exercises in public spaces. So for example, in the London Underground, it's very noisy. You can make a bit of noise, but if you're in a taxi in the back in London, it's very silent. So you want to keep your voice down. But whether you use breath work for walking, for killing time, back of the taxi, behind your computer at work, you know, like during a zoom session. Breath work in public spaces is, is really, you know, there's so much waiting time in a day that if you have, like, a palette of breath work techniques that you can use in public spaces, then you're doing great. Another thing that I'm, I'm, I'm teaching a lot in the corporate world, and I feel that this is where we're needed. You know, like to teach at the yoga school is fine, but if you teach in the corporate space, you can help more people, plus the side effect is that you make more money yourself. So making a business out of it is part of what is on my agenda with every instructor programme that I give and also being able to teach in the corporate space. Then there are, like, very short sessions, like we just did, or for example, you know, if you want to be able to listen better, four counts in through the nose, four counts out through the nose, just use it whenever you're listening. Use it now if you want. And then I think the last thing is that what, what I felt that was a problem in my life is, as a breathwork instructor, I was living on my own island, you know, and all my instructors, and there are over 100 are actively teaching all over the world. We have this community together. And when somebody is doing their first corporate session, I'm nervous. I'm getting paid good. This is my plan. What do you guys think? So everybody's helping each other out. So instead of living on your own island, we have a whole group, a whole community of breathwork instructors that is, is working together, you know, assisting each other, it's just amazing. So I would say those are a few bullets of of how I feel. I can instruct the best breath work, cold exposure and light exercise instructors,

Agi Keramidas: 34:56

and I want to, I will add to that, and wish you from my heart to keep on. In doing that and impacting the people that learn from you as I have in the past. Thank you, and I want to wish you all the very best in doing this and being in your your power and sharing with the world you know, your this beautiful knowledge and skills. Tim, I don't have anything else to add. I really enjoyed the conversation. There were many things that we talked about, and I thought about another 20 things that I would like to talk about, perhaps in a third session at some point. Well,

Tim van der Vliet: 35:41

I will. I will talk to you in a few, few years time, right? We're going to do this

Agi Keramidas: 35:47

again, hopefully not in many years, either way, I will, for today, I will leave it to you for your parting wisdom to the listener of this conversation, okay, that would be

Tim van der Vliet: 36:02

try to slow down your breathing as much as you can through the day. And know this that when we get stressed, our breath breathing increases, but we can be ahead of that by being able to slow down our breathing. And this is maybe theoretically, but when we are able, if we would be able to always slow down our breathing, you would be able to always manage any kind of stress, and to really, you know, like, be more breath aware. Do five rounds of TT five every morning, and then you will be slowing down your breathing through the day a lot more So breathe slowly.

Agi Keramidas: 36:55

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Tim Van der fleet. I hope it has given you a fresh perspective on how small, consistent breathwork habits can reshape your health, mindset and overall quality of life. If this episode sparked something in you, whether it is starting a daily breathwork practice or sharing breathwork with others. Teams. Breathwork instructor programme is a great next step, whether you are a complete beginner or already working with clients. Tim's approach is clear, comprehensive and grounded. I am an affiliate for the programme because I truly believe in it. Check the show notes for the link and explore how you can deepen your breathwork journey until next time, keep growing, keep showing up as your authentic self. Stand Out. Don't fit in .