She Can Heal Podcast

Ep. 88 - How to Reset Your Nervous System: Simple Breathwork for Adults and Kids with Dr. Deborah B. Daiek & Dr. Michael Oliver

• Keila Aldea, LCSW • Season 3 • Episode 88

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Your stress response is loud, fast, and convincing, but your breath is one of the quickest ways to turn the volume down or up on purpose. I’m joined by Dr. Deborah Dayak and Michael Oliver, the co-founders of Mindation.com, to talk about breathwork, mindfulness, meditation, sound, and intuition as practical tools for emotional wellness, nervous system regulation, and everyday self-care.

We get honest about why so many people try breathing exercises once and decide “it doesn’t work,” then walk through what’s really happening inside the body. Deborah and Michael break down the shift from fight-or-flight into rest-and-digest, why longer exhales tend to calm the body, and how breath holds can support oxygen delivery through carbon dioxide buildup. If you like to understand the “why,” we connect the dots with clear, accessible science, including how breathing rhythms affect heart rate and how simple patterns can change how you feel in minutes.

You’ll also hear real, usable techniques you can practice right away: box breathing for calm and balance, humming or “bee breath” for soothing vibration, and energizing breathwork like breath of fire for that afternoon slump (with clear safety guidance). We also talk habit change for busy professionals and overwhelmed parents, plus easy ways to stack a three-minute reset into commutes, meetings, and bedtime routines.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, share this with a friend who’s been living on adrenaline, and leave a review to help more women find tools that actually work. What breath practice are you going to try first?

Connect with Michael and Deb

Instagram @mindtation

(Direct link: https://www.instagram.com/mindtation/)

 Facebook - https://tinyurl.com/47pj8awv

 YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/33ue8uc5

 Mindtation Collaborative- Mindtation.com

Breathe With Bubbaloon: A Breath Workbook For Kids

Just Breathe: Breathing Strategies for Busy Professionals


 



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Welcome And Why Self-Care Matters

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to the She Can Heal Podcast, a podcast aimed at helping women heal and thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I am your host, Kayla El Dia. I'm a licensed therapist and a self-care advocate that is passionate about helping women take back their power and help them realize they're important, worthy, and deserve the care and attention they give to those they love most in their lives. This show is meant to help inspire you on your healing journey, no matter if you're in the discovery phase and are just realizing that you have unhealed wounds, habits, and mindsets that are keeping you stuck in your life, or you've been on this journey for a while and are looking for inspiration, encouragement, and or new tools to help you continue on your healing journey. My goal is to help you realize that you can heal from all that life has thrown at you and are capable of evolving into your healthiest and happiest version. On this show, I will provide you with resources, tools, and insights to help you heal and thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually because you deserve all of that. So if you're ready to ditch the guilt and make yourself a priority, then you're in the right place. Because the truth is that you can't pour from an empty cup, even though most of us do this on a regular, and we really need to stop that nonsense. So get ready to be inspired, motivated, and equipped to truly thrive.

Meet The Mindation Co-Founders

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Sheik and Heel podcast. Today I have a fun episode where I speak with the founders of Mindation.com, which uses what they call the five touchstones: meditation, mindfulness, breath work, sound, and intuition. Rooted in these practices, Mindation offers transformative support for those seeking more joy, clarity, and purpose in their lives. Our first guest is Dr. Deborah Dyek, an educator-turned wellness expert who is passionate about helping people navigate stress with greater calm. With a PhD focused on learning theories and a background as an award-winning academic dean, Deborah co-founded Mitation to support emotional well-being. She is a certified mindfulness instructor, a licensed vibrational sound therapist, and the author of Breathe with Babaloon, a breath work for workbook for kids. Whether working with adults or children, she teaches practical breath and sound techniques to help us all reconnect with balance and inner peace. Also joining today's conversation is Michael Oliver. He is the co-founder of Mentation and he is a licensed professional counselor. Michael has spent over 25 years in international leadership development and holds a PhD focused on using music to improve learning outcomes. He is also a 30-year practitioner of Northern Sholin Martial Arts specializing in Qigon, breath work, and meditation. Through Mindation, Michael teaches people how to raise their consciousness and live with a full heart and clear mind. So if you've ever been curious about breath work or you wanted to get more information about it, this is a great episode for you. Both Michael and Deborah are so passionate about the work that they do that is showed in our conversation today. I'm really sad because there was a portion of the recording that was not good and I had to remove it. And this is where Michael and Deborah talked about the book that they both wrote, which I am going to include in the show notes. They actually sent me a copy of it and I would definitely recommend you checking it out. Deborah's book is called Breathe with Babaloon, a breath workbook for kids, which has a bunch of different activities that as therapists we can use with kids, but also as parents. I will share the link. And Michael's book is called Just Breathe, Breathing Strategies for Busy Professionals. Again, it's a small, easy-to-read book. And I'm really excited to read the different breathing exercises. And he actually talked about there's journal prompts that you could do. So I'm gonna link both books. So I hope that you would check them out. And I hope that you enjoyed today's conversation with Michael and Deb. Okay. Well, welcome Michael and Deb to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. Yes. Oh my God. I'm so excited about today's conversation. I think breath work is number one, is something that I, as a therapist, love to use in my practice. And I've learned a lot about breath work, so I know the power of it. But I think just talking about it from, you know, experts at yourself, I think would be really valuable for our audience to really again reiterate everything that you're going to talk about, how it can be so important in regulating our stress, mental health, and all of that. But before we get into it, if you can please introduce yourselves, tell us who you are, what you do, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So, yep, I'm Michael Oliver, and I'm retired. I was an administrator at Schoolcraft College, and you know, this whole space that Deb and I share, we've been at this for quite a long time. We carried it on when we first met each other, which was, I don't know, 35 years ago or something. And we carried it in through the work that we do, and we just found a great need for it, so we continue it. And uh Deb, I'll let you introduce yourself as well.

SPEAKER_05

And I'm Deb Dayak. I am now currently a vibrational sound therapist, licensed and um certified. And I was a former dean at in higher ed. And while in higher ed, both of us recognized the need to help students, and not just students, but people in general, but because we're working with the student population, so stressed out. And so we followed a little bit of Parker Palmer's work, which he always said

How Stress In Higher Ed Sparked This

SPEAKER_05

to bridge the humanistic with the academic, that I found that we were stuck in higher ed, just teaching students about content, but not dealing with the whole human, not teaching students how to be human with the content. And when you try to separate it, it it's not as effective. So when you teach the humanistic skills, students are able to learn more effectively, they're they're able to interact with other students more effectively. So that's where our work began.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that was really the birthing place of our work. If we backed up even before that, we we were both involved in the martial arts for a real long time. That's where we were introduced to meditation, we were introduced to mindfulness, we were introduced to breath work. All of that was because the teachers that we had in in the martial arts were focused not just on the physical, but also on the spiritual side. And when I use spiritual, I say those mindfulness meditation techniques, uh, breath work, those sort of things. So that's really kind of where we Tai Chi was really big. Deborah introduced that to me as well. And breathing was a very, very important aspect of that type of movement.

SPEAKER_05

So well, I will tell you, initially, I never understood how powerful breath could be. I was someone, as a dean, I had to give presentations, and I had as Michael Willet, I had extreme stage fright. I did. I had a lot of anxiety, and I didn't realize it was all about the breath. What happened is I realized as I learned about breathing techniques, that I was not breathing. So, of course, my body, I mean, you can only not breathe for so long before your body begins to shake and you get nervous. After I started doing some breathing techniques and realized it changed my life, that I could be in control of my body. And that I think was a lot of support for us to move forward with breathing. It works and it's portable and it's free.

SPEAKER_01

And I know that you, you know, you mentioned that you use this in your practice, and I think it's really it's really excellent. You know, we we have these automatic responses in our systems, right? Our digestive is automatic and you know, our respiration, but it's one of the very few things that we actually can control and take control of. It's just a lot of people aren't really conscious of their breathing. And so it's only until they stop breathing that they know they need to breathe, which is why people go, you know, they they automatically take that big breath because they were like didn't wear anymore. They weren't breathing or breathing effectively enough. And so the body forces it to take a large breath. So I'm really glad you're doing this as well. And I know you know the power of it because especially I'm sure that you can when you see clients and you take them through a breath session, you can actually shift them, right? You can shift their consciousness. Um and you do trauma work, I would imagine, or so in that case.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so like for instance, I am an EMBR EMDR therapist. And so in the beginning of EMDR, really were like prepping clients to be able to stay within that window of tolerance or when they're ready to reprocess. And so one of I just recently did help the client to do the 47A breath, which is the one that I usually go to. She came back, I see her every two weeks. She came back in two weeks. And you know, you never know, clients from time to time, they'll be like, Yeah, I did it. This lady came back and she's like, that was the like, I don't know what it did to me, but like that works so great. Like I'm so relaxed. And she has another therapist that sees her monthly, who is one of my colleagues. And my colleague, she told me, Kayla, what breathing breathing exercise did you teach her? Because I need to. And I was like, Oh, it's just it was just the 478. But because she did it consistently and really like got the benefits from it, she just right, thrived from it.

SPEAKER_05

So the beauty of it, when we first began, it was considered, and by some people it still is until they experience it, but it's considered kind of a woo-hoo art. Uh same thing with my sound therapy, until they realize there's so much science behind it to back it up. There are reasons that it makes you relaxed, and and so we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01

But so I really I I just think it's so valuable the work that you do because what you're doing and what and what we like to do is start showing that these strategies and these techniques aren't limited to a few, that they're they're at our disposal and they're very easy. Some of they don't have to be very, very difficult. One of the things that when Deb and I were doing these programs, we were invited into companies to do some of this type of work. They would say, you know, we want to do a professional development program for our employees, for example. Can you come in and do something different? We don't want a presentation of a PowerPoint and a talking head and telling us, oh, you can do stress management techniques. Like, show us and do something different. So we would bring bowls in, Deborah would be doing the sound therapy, we'd give some background, right, about the science of it. Wouldn't dive deep into it. It was more about the experience that we wanted them to have. And then we would go through some mindfulness activities and some breath work. But what we found is people would have the great experiences, but then they would say to us, you know, we just don't have time. And then then that became the mantra where people were saying we don't have enough time for that. So that drove me to write the book where everything in that book is three to five minutes. That's it, three to five minutes. And I think everybody can find three and a half, three, three to five minutes to take care of themselves. Because I know you're a big promoter of that, you know, self-help, self-management, self-care. Yep. And if we can't, and and I know you're you know this, but it's just for your audience, right? But if we can't take care of ourselves, then we can't show up, right? We can't show up, whatever it is we're doing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. And I springboarded from that thinking, why wait until people grow into adults and have to unlearn all of the bad habits and all of the stress how to unlearn it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could teach children how to take control of their emotions when they're early? First, to understand what their emotions are. Many children don't even know why they're upset, don't realize

Breathwork For Anxiety And Trauma Support

SPEAKER_05

that they're anxious or upset. So to identify their emotions is, I think, as critical in order to learn how to breathe, to manage it, and to be able to take control of their emotions.

SPEAKER_00

So full-time I work as a therapist and I work with all across the board. And just what you're talking about is so important because it is true that involving the parents to help, because in if we're thinking about just in therapy and even like in schools, right? It's you teach a kid a technique, you work it with them, but it's really after you leave, after they leave your office. So really involving the parents to really practice it with them, do it with them, model it for them, and even like prompt them. Because the time a lot of times it's these kids are they don't know when they could use when they need it. So parents prompt them. Yeah. So I think that's that's wonderful. And I think for you, Michael, I think when you mentioned your book talks about those really short, easy to do exercises, is another key one when we think about especially adults. And I love to talk about like taking those little micro breaks, the little mindful moments that take a couple minutes versus someone thinking they have to meditate for 20, 30 minutes every single day, because who got who has time for that? But when you say like that, right? Like I say, if you're taking a break, take three minutes to do a mindful, you know, breathing exercise. I think that is a lot more approachable.

SPEAKER_05

Look, if you could even read just a couple of the chapters, I think what's what's different about your book and what is unique and and is so helpful is that you are you wrote the book for people who are busy professionals, who are busy who say they don't have time, but it's for someone giving a presentation, just really practical um chapters you have.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's all designed. It you know, so a little bit of science on the front end just to establish the the foundation that it's research-based. But really, it's all around, it's all around the practice. Every chapter is built around something you make. If you need, for instance, if you need, if at around three o'clock in the afternoon you start getting sluggish and you start getting tired, there is a breathing, like an energized breath that you can do that'll take just a couple of minutes, and it's like getting a shot of espresso. But you don't have to get the shot of espresso. You can just sit at your desk and do this breathing technique, and and it, it's it's really you can feel it. You it's just it's so exciting to have the experience. So the book is designed as a to-do, and then at the end of every at the end of every chapter, there's a reflection piece. So you can then journal what your experience was like. And I know that you're into journaling, so you know the power of that. Yeah. So we figured, well, then why not reflect back on this experience that you had? So that is all part of the integration because what we really want to do is to get people where instead of for them to you know reach for a cup of coffee or you know, a cigarette to calm the minds or to vape, or whatever the it is that they are using as that alternative method that they can reach to something that they inherently have within themselves available at all times.

SPEAKER_05

And I think that's important that you I think that's a really important point that breathing techniques aren't just for calming. And I and I think that's what people, I mean, that's primarily what they're used for, is to get to the rest and digest state.

SPEAKER_01

But I think it's important to know that you can use them to energize yourself as well, to wake up and you know what's fun is you I don't know if you you know, there's there's a a breathing strategy, it's called the uh breath of fire. I don't know if you've heard of that. You right? So what's really kind of cool about that is you can do the exhale, but the inhale happens automatically. You don't have to try to do the inhale. So, like if you if you're sitting with someone, you say, you know, take a big inhale, they take the inhale, take a full exhale, then you inhale halfway, and then you just do the exhale. It if your listeners would just do that, if they just do the exhale, the the inhale is automatic, right? You don't have to try to do that. So you just it just it and you do that six you you just do you do that for like I don't know, 45 seconds, and you're like, whoa, that's like like I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00

Literally, yes. I think that's a great point.

SPEAKER_01

And so some people go like, how do you do that rhythmic thing? It's you know, if you do the natural, it's natural. The the inhale happens automatically, so you can just do that in rhythm and for literally less the 30, 30, 40 seconds, and then if you feel up to you, you can go longer. But that's just and then the other thing I talk about is triggers, like every doorway. Think of think of if think of how many doorways somebody walks through in a day. Like if you just use that of your turn to say every doorway that I go through, I'm gonna just pause for a minute, I'm gonna take a nice inhale, and I'm gonna take a nice exhale.

SPEAKER_05

Makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01

Right, getting in the car, right? You go through a door, you get in the car, you sit down, you close a door, and that triggers one nice inhale, one nice exhale. It can be that it can be that simple, is my point, rather than you know, more more of the complicated things that can we can do as well, right?

SPEAKER_05

But the thing that's that's awesome about the breath is and also sound, is all natural and it's all they're all healing techniques that are within us. And and you already know this as a therapist. There's something that we've forgotten to use, that now we go externally. We forget that we have the breath to help us regulate our emotions, um, to take control of our lives, but we forget. So when people get stressed out, that's that's why we do our work is to teach people that it's all been within you all along.

SPEAKER_01

It isn't anything that you're we get pretty excited, so I'm excited too.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Love it.

SPEAKER_01

Just tell me just just just tell me if you can just flip the switch down if I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_00

I definitely um I I love to feel that passion because I I personally love mindfulness and like everything you're talking about is everything that I personally teach because it helped me. During COVID, I thought I was having like chest, something going on with my heart. I've called my doctor, I'm like, my chest is like I'm having these like just squeezing of my chest. And so I go to the ER, they did all the tests, and they're like, you're fine. They told me I was going through some like panic, you know? And since and and I just don't feel like I wanted medication. I tried medication, it just wasn't for me. And I just started doing breath work, I started doing meditation, and it really helped me so much. Um, so I know that it helped me so much, and this is why I really, really just like talk about it and really encourage and educate my clients to really use tools like this. So, how about we start in the beginning? Like, because when we think about breath breathing, right? Like you said, breathing is something we do automatically. You kind of I say you take it for granted because you don't have to think about it. And so, how does like these breathing exercises, like how do they work? Like, how do they help us shift into that more parasympathetic, just kind of calm ourselves down if we're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious? Well, how does it actually work for someone who's probably heard about brief breathing exercises? Because one of the things I hear all the time from kids, adults is that doesn't work. I tried it, it doesn't work, you know? And of course, I educate them on hey, we need to try it, consistency, blah, blah, blah. But also, sometimes one of the things I really love to do is educate people because I'm that's how I learn. When I first started learning about meditation, I didn't want to just tell my clients, let's meditate. I was like, how does this work? Like, what happens in meditation and why does it help? So, with breath work, tell us about what is it, like how does it work and how does it get us to feel better?

SPEAKER_05

The body is made up of it's all part about rhythms. There's a rhythm and frequency for every part of the body. When you get stressed out, what's happening is your parasympathetic nervous system is shutting down, and the other, the fight and flight, the sympathetic, is put on steroids. It's the cortisol is shooting through your body, and the cortisol and the Adrenaline was intended if fight and flight. If you had to get away, it would shut all the organs down

The Science Of Breath And The Vagus Nerve

SPEAKER_05

so that you could focus 100% on getting away and saving yourself or whatever you needed to do. So that that helps if you're being chased by a bear. But if it's because you're having anxiety about bills or you're having anxiety about children or work, whatever, it's a little bit different. You don't want to comp continue to flood your body with the cortisol. So when you take in the breath, it slows the heart rate down and it and it calms the systems. And like I said, they're rhythms, so they end up putting it, it's it's a what am I trying, entrainment type that it through the vagus nerve all the way down, it touches all of the organs that when you calm and you breathe calmly, that rhythm that you're creating through your calm breath puts your body back into its natural state. I would say reset, but I know reset is a metaphor, but it's something that we can all relate to, resetting a system. But but that's that's basically what it's doing. It's resetting it to before you had the stress, before you had any anxiety, that it's back to its natural state. And that's what breathing does, and you can add to that.

SPEAKER_01

So when you inhale, you you take in nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is a vasodilator, so it dilates, it dilates the vessels, which means it transports the oxygen in the blood more effectively. When so you have hemoglobin, which is a protein. And when you when when the oxygen gets really the hemoglobin likes to hang on to its oxygen, so it's very sticky. So how do you release the oxygen into the bloodstream? Carbon dioxide does that, which is why you have the exhale. So so when you inhale, right, when you're taking an inhale, you're creating nitrous oxide, which is opening up the roadways. The blood, the hemoglobin in the blood has the oxygen. The oxygen trucks kind of run out, and the hemoglobin has them, and it's like now we have to deliver the oxygen into the blood. How do we do that? Through the exhale. And then Deborah has talked about this too. The longer the exhale is, right, you're releasing the carbon dioxide, but it's also releasing more of the oxygen.

SPEAKER_05

It's like the one that you you teach, the one that the triangle breath that you're having people do where the exhale is the longest.

SPEAKER_01

So that's a little bit of the science be behind it. People say, you know, this idea of it doesn't work, you can't nitrous oxide is created when you inhale. You don't say, I don't want the nitrous oxide. And then you when you dump the carbon dioxide, you don't go, well, I'm not going to dump any carbon dioxide, you know. And actually, when you think about hyperventilating, when when you hyperventilate, people think they're not getting enough oxygen. They have too much oxygen. What's happening is they don't have enough carbon dioxide to release the oxygen. So, you know, these are hyperventilating, but they can't, the oxygen isn't being released into the bloodstream, which is why they don't recommend this anymore. But remember the paper bag? Remember what your hyperventilates will breathe in through a paper bag. What do you do? You're exhaling the carbon dioxide, but then you're taking it back in, and the carbon dioxide releases the oxygen, and then you can get you can reset for a normal pace. So that's a little bit about what's happening behind it. Inhales will typically be more of an accelerating. It's like turning the volume up on the remote. And when you exhale, it's more of a calm.

SPEAKER_05

And once you start getting that calm feeling, the cortisol is replaced with serotonin and dopamine. So it's the positive chemicals.

SPEAKER_01

So it's all the chemistry that's really natural. That's really doing it. Beautiful thing is that through the breath work, you can regulate all of that.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Yeah. Question for you. For example, with the 478 breath, right? It's four seconds and seven seconds you're holding. What's happening when you're holding the breath for seven seconds before you release for eight seconds? What would be the purpose of that?

SPEAKER_05

It's expanding the lungs and it's it's pushing out any of the old air that you may have in your lungs and replacing it with fresh air. And the pressure, actually, it's called, I'm trying to think, PEP, it's the pulmonary positive expiratory pressure. And that, I don't know if you've ever had surgery before where they have you breathe into a tube to help your lungs after certain. Well, I guess it shows you my age, but I have surgery. And and they give you the where you have to breathe. It is, is when you hold the breath, it's it's um what you said earlier, opening the well, when you when you actually when you're holding your breath for a little bit of an extended period of time, you're building up the carbon dioxide in the blood.

SPEAKER_01

And that is what releases the oxygen into the bloodstream. And you've already developed it like it's you're you asked, ask a great question, but that is what's happening, is that when you when you we have there there's there's a little bit of an advanced advanced technique called the cobra breath. It's in the martial arts, but there's a there's a there's a hold in there. But the reason why you're holding it is you're allowing just a little bit more of the carbon dioxide to build up. So before you exhale it out, it it releases the blood, it releases the oxygen into the blood. And because you took in the nitrous oxide, you've opened up those roadways nice and right for that oxygen to be to be able to travel through that on a lot easier.

SPEAKER_05

Slows the heart down.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_05

There are so many benefits.

SPEAKER_01

So that's what happens with those with those extended with the hold. And then the exhale, the extended exhale, also helps in the calming. The the longer the exhale helps you kind of bring bring down a little bit more. It's really fascinating, actually.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah. Because I know it's something. No, I was just gonna say it's something that, for instance, that that breathing exercise, it's it's you know, we I understand the inhale, exhale, but it's like you have to hold for a certain period of time, which I wasn't really completely sure, you know, what that actually, what was the purpose of that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's to build up it, it's to build the CO2 in your blood, is what it's doing.

SPEAKER_04

I think it balances the nervous system, both both parasympathetic and sympathetic.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Where would you like to go next? I mean, we can talk about specific techniques if you guys want, or if there are anything specific before we get into that that you feel would be important to add to this conversation at this point.

SPEAKER_05

We can do a couple of favorite techniques, and and I guess for parents with children, one easy one is, and for parents too, because this is one of your favorites, is the bee breath. Not the bee breath, but it's just the humming where you inhale. It's that simple. Just hold, hold, put your hand on your chest, inhale and exhale. Long humming.

Calming Tools Like Humming Breath

SPEAKER_05

It's it uses sound, it uses vibration, and it's it's very healing.

SPEAKER_01

And if you happen to, and if you happen to do yoga. So but but the the other option here is that you take your thumbs and you just uh close off your ears, right? You just close off your ears, and you can kind of lower your eyelids a little bit here. And then when you do that, you take a nice inhale, and then you do that hum when you close off the ears. You really, really feel that vibration within your whole, your with your whole system. You vibrates the head bones. They call it the shaking of the energy, is what they they shake up the energy. It's like when when you do some breathing, some sometimes that that bee breath is combined with other other breathing techniques that are just that are just designed to help shift the system. And then when you do the bee breath, it's kind of like shaking everything up and kind of distributing that throughout the body.

SPEAKER_05

I have a rainbow breath, and you might call it an alternative nostril breath, but the the concept is the same. It's just one is geared for children to get them into the habit of enjoying breathing, that breathing actually feels good, makes you feel good, and helps you sleep. And it's the same. They're based on ancient techniques from many years ago.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, a lot of these, I mean, I you know, we we talk about in our books, but you know, if someone is just if one of your listeners, for example, says, you know, I want to check out that B breath, or I want to check out alternate nostril breathing. I mean, really, you can just go to YouTube and and you can, you know, type in alternate nostril breathing, kind of look through the ones that kind of they resonate with or kind of settle with, and then they can practice it. It it is true, it is so readily available, you know. And I think that if anybody, I I usually say no matter what it is, you can find it on YouTube. If you want to know how to epoxy a table, you can find it on YouTube. If you want to know how to do it first, yeah. If you want to know how to do the B breath, or you want to do a calming breath, or you want to do the, they have like the box breathing, the triangle, they have all of it. And and I I would say for your listeners to just one of the challenges for that I often think about, I've I've shared this with Deborah, but and and and maybe you can even share from your perspective, because you're in the business of behavior change. I often tell Deborah, you know, we don't we're not selling widgets, you know, we're not selling something you can put on your wrist, or we're not selling something you can, you know, hook up around your neck and you know that looks really nice. You're talking about someone stepping into to doing something different out of the routine of their day that they normally don't do. And when people, when when when you try to introduce something into people's norm, their routine, it's disruptive. Even though it may be healthy, it's disruptive. And that's where I believe I don't have time for it, is what they're really saying is my routine every day is is so locked in, and I'm in lockstep, you're asking me to introduce this into it, and I don't have time to do that without thinking about, you know, how do I rearrange things in order to fit that in? I was talking to a client yesterday, for example, and she was telling me about how she's saying, Michael, you know, I really like this stuff and I really want to do it, but I really don't have a lot of time. And I I talked to her about her time, and I said, Well, you know, let's talk about time. What give me an example of what you do? And so she says, Well, I gotta fit in the gym, and then I gotta fit in my homework, and then I've got to fit in my job, and then I all that fit in, right? And so I go, Well, let's how tell me about the gym. How much time do you put at the gym? Well, I got to put an hour in the gym. And I said, Why? Why does it have to be an hour? Why can't you put in 30 minutes? And she pondered that for a minute. She said, Well, I I don't know. I I and she just that's was her like, oh I so a lot of times we set up our belief systems that drive our behaviors, that drive our outcomes. And so if we if we start peeling that back away and say, look, if I know that a breath technique or a strategy that you may introduce into a session, and you're saying, or even a sound session, what whatever the it is, if it's not in the routine, then what maybe I need to look at what I believe my routine is, and what do I need to make those adjustments in order to do the self-care work?

SPEAKER_05

Well, I think a lot of people are looking for the instant gratification, not realizing not realizing that if they would just give it a chance, it it will make them feel so good. And once they experience that, oh my goodness, just like the the one you were working with that said, I don't know what that triangle breath, she'll do it every day now. Once they experience that good feeling, it will become a habit. But it takes a while to become a habit. And I I'm sure that you work with habits when you're doing the journaling so that people can go back and see.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I think that in a lot of people we're just busy, right? We're like, especially when I think about moms, right? We are on the go, go, go, go, go. And I think that we are, we just can't seem to slow down, you know? And so what we're telling people is you need to slow down a little bit. You need to find moments where you can slow down. And like you're saying, they are a little bit resistant to that because they say, if I slow down and do this thing, then I'm not gonna be able to accomplish this other thing or whatever it is, right? And I think it's hard for us in this day and age of slowing down. I know, right? I can I can attest to that as well. Um, and one of the things I usually tell clients, or you know, depending, you know, if they're a teenager, if they're an adult, is like, you know, where can we like stack it, right? So like if I'm telling a if I'm telling a teen, I want you to try to do a breathing exercise, like try it in the morning and then try it at night. Maybe like on your way to school when you're on the school bus. And I tell them, I'm like, nobody's gonna know you're doing it. You're just gonna be doing it, you know, you know, right before bed, like after you brush your teeth, you know, finding different ways that they can, even like walking in the hallway. If you're feeling stressed out at school as you're walking in the hallway, you're just doing the, you're just doing this breathing exercise. And again, because you know, everything's embarrassing to them. I'm like, nobody's gonna really know you're doing it. Like you can literally do it and nobody knows, you know. So it's, I think for a lot of us, it's just like, where can we slow down, of course, right? Because we don't have time to slow down. But like an example for me would be like traffic just stresses me out. Or like even before, you know, talking to you guys, it's just like, all right, I'm feeling a bit anxious because I think there's gonna be traffic. And I literally, today I did it, I did the 478 breath. I did like three or four rounds, and I literally felt so relaxed. I felt so much better. But again, it's not like I'm not taking any extra time. I'm driving. I'm just right, right? I'm in this car for another half an hour and might as well practice it there. So I don't know if you have any other tips that you maybe you share or any any other insights on helping clients to slow down or of journaling and tracking.

SPEAKER_05

And and it's just and even that will get sometimes resistance because that takes time able to track, but we try to make it as easy as possible, where it's just a simple, a simple system where you can see and to be able to go back and see that it worked. But the one thing I do have to say as we're talking about teaching people the strategies, we talked about this before the podcast, is it's all about intention. Intention is very important, and

Why “No Time” Is A Belief

SPEAKER_05

you know this when when you're working with your clients, that if they have the attitude this isn't gonna work, they're right. It isn't gonna work. If they have the attitude that they're open-minded and willing to try it, they'll find that it does work because it's all science-based. It isn't something that Michael and Deb are saying, this is really good for you. It it's all science-based, it does work, and it and it's physiological.

SPEAKER_01

It I think the one of the things that I would say to start out is it'd be a it'd be a great you could tie this into mindfulness. But if people want to just start, I would say we call it mindful breathing. So you're not really doing any technique, right? You're not doing an inhale and holding it and in there. All you're doing is pay attention to your breath. And when Deb says the tracking part, we try to make it really easy. Okay, just put a check mark down when you notice your breath is shallow and what was happening at that moment. That's all that that in itself is a start. You don't have to memorize the breathing technique, you don't have to try to figure out what doorways you're going through. All you have to do is say, Yeah, I'm gonna pay attention to my breath. And and if I forget to pay attention to my breath, my breath will remind me to pay attention to it because I'm gonna take some deep sigh at some point. At some point of the day, I'm gonna go, okay, so now I have that moment, what was happening at that moment, or what happened just before that moment. And as you become, as a person becomes to become more aware and conscious of their breathing, that's the start. Do you, you know, is it is it heavy traffic that will shift your breathing pattern? Is it are you are you at a job where you have to, you're a supervisor or an employee, and you have to have a performance evaluation discussion with your boss, or your boss has to have a performance and performance improvement discussion. Does that shift your breathing patterns? You know, so that's the start. That would be my suggestion is to start by just being attentive to when your breathing patterns change. Then, once you know when your breathing patterns change, then you can say, okay, I feel pretty much tense every day at this time. So for instance, I have a standing meeting every morning at nine o'clock, and I hate them. And I hate them because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if I'm paying attention, what happens to my breath, right? And I say, okay, maybe I need a calming breath. Maybe I do the box breath. Four in, hold four, four down, hold four. Right? That's that's a balancing, calming breath. And all I need to do to your point, which is really nice, Kayla, is you said no one has to know I'm doing it. I could sit there and do that box breathing right there, and it'll shift my consciousness, it'll shift my state of being, and that meeting then won't be as stressful because I did something to control it. So that's just a technique to begin with is to track pay attention. Awareness. Awareness, thank you. And then introduce one simple technique to make the adjustment when your breathing patterns shift.

SPEAKER_05

Many people don't realize what's going on, they don't realize until their stomach is tense. They don't realize what caused it. And I I don't know if you I'm sure you do this with your clients, but with body scans, it's amazing to me when you ask someone, how do you feel right now? How do you feel?

SPEAKER_01

In your body.

SPEAKER_05

In your body, it's going to be, oh, okay, good. I don't we don't really have the language, and I don't know if you share the language, but we can share that scan sheet when you do a body scan. There are thousands of words to describe how we feel, but most people don't know how they feel. They just know their stomach hurts, they're tense.

SPEAKER_01

You know what, Kayla, I really like what how you position this because you're you're what this discussion here, and kind of like the foundation of discussion, is all about self-care now. And I know that is like a mantra for you. And I I think that's such a nice uh foundation, is because it is really all about self-care. And and if you want to be, if you if you need to feel more creative at certain times, there's a breath strategy for that. If you need to be more mindful, there's a breath there the breathing strategies all all it is is all about regulating the nervous system. That's all it is. It's regulating the nervous system. And they're just different, it's like it's like a remote control, you know, volume up, volume down, and mute.

SPEAKER_05

And it can alter your brain states. Yeah, oh, for sure. What you're saying. So what were you saying? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. I was what I was gonna say is one of the things that I noticed, and this is where like the mindfulness piece comes in, is that a lot of people are in their heads and they're not in their bodies. And so what I've come across is when you tell when you tell ask someone, you know, how are you feeling in your body, even though you tell them how do you feel in your body, they're like stressed. And I'm like, no, no, no, how do you physically feel? You know? And it's like one of the things that I actually have to uh teach people is to really tune into their bodies because they're so in their heads that they don't even know. A lot of them will say, like, if they if they mentioned they had a stressful situation, something happened, and I'm like, how did that feel in your body? They're like, I don't know, I don't know. You know what I mean? So that's something that I've noticed is you know, people just are not in their bodies, like they just are not.

SPEAKER_01

Not being aware, and I like that work that you're doing is because you're helping. I mean, by the way that you're you're positioning your questions, are making them think about where they're holding their attention and where they're holding their stress.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_01

And what were you thinking? Right? What were the thoughts that produced that outcome? You know, so I think, yeah, the what you're doing there is really, really cool because you're really asking people to make that shift into thinking about something that they don't.

SPEAKER_05

Hyperbile, I guess, is what it is. But when when a lot of clients come to me when we began a sound session, a sound therapy session where it's the individualized placing the bowls on the body, when they come and we do make intentions. What what do you hope to get from this? It's just most of them will say it's just to stop my mind from going a million miles an hour, just to not focus on anything anymore. So it is trying to shift, but breath, getting back to breath, breath can do that as as well.

SPEAKER_01

People have more control in their life than they think they do. Absolutely, but we don't know.

SPEAKER_02

We've given that.

SPEAKER_01

And and it's it goes back to beliefs. If you if you believe, you know, I man, I I just I pay I pay really close attention to how people are framing the language that they use. You know, when they I I'm sure you get this all the time, is like when you're listening to clients and you you hear how they're making statements, Deborah always would always say, if you believe it, it's gonna happen. Whether negative or positive, you say it's gonna happen, the universe will find a way to manifest that for you. So that I think that really, you know, all the things that we're talking about are kind of like these different pieces that we we have found out through what we call the five touchstones in our practice, right? Mindfulness, meditation, breath work, sound, and intuition are kind of the pillars that can help drive this control in restating, resetting, rebalancing yourself through a combination or any one of those techniques.

SPEAKER_00

To wrap up today's episode, how about you share like what are your go-tos or your favorite breathing exercises? For instance, if someone is overwhelmed or they're have some anxiety, like what are your usual go-to breathing exercises that you would suggest?

SPEAKER_05

I'm gonna do one that Michael doesn't like too much, but I I love this one because I practice it. It's I for the children, it's called the lemon breath, but for I guess from pranayama, it's muscle energization. You start

Box Breathing And Breath Of Fire

SPEAKER_05

as you inhale and you do it quickly. I'm gonna say it's gonna sound longer than what it is, but you tense the muscles starting from the toes and you tense them, and you tense the uh thighs, and then the up the upper legs, the stomach, the chest, you you tense, and I'll I'll practice it for you. And then it's you're gonna feel all this tenseness coming all the way up. When you exhale, you release the muscles, not all at the same time, but you go backward, down, release until you get to the feet. And it is it puts me in a really deep state so that when I go to meditate, it gets rid of all the things that are getting in my head or in the way it relaxes me. So I'll just and I do that three times. Okay, and I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so I'll give you two. Do we have time for two? It won't take I'll just so you're already familiar with this one. It's the box breathing. It's just a very good thing. The Navy SEALs use it, it's just very good, it's a very common, very good calming type of thing. So we'll go inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. And then you'll do that like you could do three to four rounds. But we'll do one round and then I'll show you an energization breath. So we'll do the box breathing, we'll go inhale, exhale, hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, three, four, and then you can just return to normal breathing. Love it. So you would do that for like five, six rounds. Okay, this one is for energization. So let's say you are at three o'clock in the afternoon and you're ceiling on your computer and you're feeling sluggish and you're starting to nose off, you're gonna do the breath of fire.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

This is how this is gonna go. So I I'll tell you first and then we're gonna do it, okay? All right, all right. So you're gonna so well, if you if you're happening to driving a car, do not do this. And if you're if you don't do it if you're operating machinery. Anyways, so you'll take a full breath in, and so you, and then you're gonna exhale fully. You'll take a half breath, and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna exhale, and then when you exhale, you're gonna do a real quick exhale through the through the nostril. Oh through the nostril, and then okay, and when you when you exhale through the nostril, you're gonna notice that you'll do an inhale automatically. Right? It'll be so so then, and then you do that, you could do it for, I don't know, do it for 15 or 20 seconds, right? So we'll do it for like just, I don't know, we'll do it for a short period of time. All right, are you ready? So you're gonna take a full inhale, you're gonna, and then a full exhale, you're gonna inhale halfway, and then you're gonna exhale through your no through your nose. And when you do that, like do this right now, Caleb. Just do a quick burst through your nose and tell me what happens. Do this. Do you did you get an inhale automatically?

SPEAKER_05

If you're doing it, it's like splashing water on your face.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it's true, yeah. Yeah, right. So we do a deep inhale, right? Exhale fully, inhale halfway, and then through your nose. Exhale, and then return nice inhale, and just return to our normal breathing point.

SPEAKER_05

I didn't realize that the children's breath that's very similar to that, which is an iteration of that, it's a puppy breath where you're inhaling three times quickly, and then exhale through the nose.

SPEAKER_01

But then interesting. But when you do that inhale, and then you do the quick exhale. Yeah, and you can do that for the I'm definitely gonna practice that one. All right, I'm definitely gonna do it. I know we were a little bit over, but uh yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00

I appreciate you both being here, and for everyone, I will link all the information in the show notes with your website, your information, your books, everything. Thank you so much for joining this conversation today. I hope this episode was helpful to you on your healing journey. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of Pack of Valuable Tips and Insights designed to empower you. If you found value in this episode, I'd be so grateful if you left me a review wherever you're listening from and share your thoughts and feedback. This really helps me to reach more women just like you. Thanks for listening.