Change Your Breath, Change Your Mind

Create adaptability in your nervous system with a simple breathwork technique you can do anywhere.  Even the Navy Seals use this one because its so powerful.  In this episode, I get into the benefits of breathwork and how I've used it for over twenty years, even during medical emergencies. As a lineaged breathwork teacher, I talk about some of the ways you can make little changes to enhance effects.

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome to Centered the Podcast. I'm your host, Leslie Braverman, and I'm sharing holistic health content that reconnects you to your most centered self, that place within you that is energized, knowing, and uplifted despite the chaos and demands of life. It's that place within you where you can become a portal of possibility. Today we're getting into one of my favorite centering techniques or practices, which is breath. If you have never done breath work before, this is a game changer in life. And I'm going to talk about it today, not even from the space of it being a practice, but as a tool that you can use on the go. I'm going to just share a little bit of information with you from my book, Centered, The Art of Living from Within. If you haven't picked up your copy, it's available on Amazon. And the passage reads as there's no better way to enhance breath efficiency than through conscious breathing. Conscious breathing for as little as two minutes per day has been associated with a myriad of positive transformations, including rebalancing the nervous system, healing trauma, improving sleep, reducing and eliminating anxiety and fear, improving cardiovascular health and athletic performance, stress relief, and enhancing adaptability for life's ebbs and flows. One of the findings discussed in James Nester's 2020 book called Breath. James Nestor took a deep dive into the anthropology and science behind breath work. And he chronicled his personal experience for resetting his breath function from a shallow breather, novice breather, to a committed breathwork practitioner. One of the findings that he discussed in breath is that breath work conditions adaptability of the nervous system by teaching the mind body to become more comfortable with the buildup of carbon dioxide levels, which typically lead to that feeling of anxiety. By teaching the neurological response to up-level, breath work conditioning prepares the nervous system to rest, release, and up-level. So, like so many things I love to teach, this is really all about connecting that mind-body experience as well as tapping into the deeper layers of your metaphysical self through that internal connection. And so if you've never done breath work before, the absolute simplest breath work you can possibly do is and the most bang for your buck is square breathing. That said, I'll just describe square breathing for a second. You're inhaling for the same count as you're holding and exhaling for the same count and then holding again. The power of the pause, or what often is called as the gap between breaths or release of breath, is that power of creating a more resilient nervous system and deeper connection. And what I am a lineage breath work teacher, and the lineage that I was taught emphasizes the exhale more than the inhale. In square breathing, they're equal. And so what I would say, if you want to use this tool on the go and you can think of a moment or feel into a moment where you can pause and say, Hey, I need a tool right now. Breath work is the most powerful one you can possibly. It's free, it's easy. It can be done standing in line at the grocery store, the post office. It can be done before screaming at your children. It can be done when you need a real reset. And what I would say about emphasizing the exhale is you can make your exhale just a little bit longer than your inhale and your holds, your retentions. And it will create an even more powerful stress release. So the longer exhale will help you down regulate your nervous system. And that's one of the reasons why the lineage of breath work that I come from, I just dropped all my books. Sorry for the crash. The lineage of the of that I come from in breath work, that's why they emphasize the exhale. It's because it's such a powerful and instantaneous nervous system regulator. So if you haven't practiced this before, it's very easy to just start breathing. You don't need focus. All you, I mean, you don't need to have an environment that is quiet and focused. You can do this regardless of the chaos around you. And what I would say is a forecount inhale, a four count hold, a four count or five or six count exhale to get that little extra regulation, and then a four count hold. So we're just kind of talking about this idea of square breathing and then elongating that exhale as a little powerful way of getting into the sympathetic, sorry, the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are like a valve. If the sympathetic, which is your fight, flight, freeze, fawn, is activated, breath work will get you into that parasympathetic. So give it a try and commit, right? We talk a lot about on this podcast the importance of really choosing methods that will help you bring more awareness to that internal self as portal of possibility. And half of that, maybe more than half of that, is conscious awareness. Like, okay, I'm having a response in the nervous system right now. What is the best tool here to regulate it? And I find in my toolbox, breath work is always key. And I can tell you very specific examples. When my son's femur broke on the playground, I wasn't there, it was at school. And all of the parents were there. So I got the phone call from one of the teachers, and I was within walking distance of the school. And I knew I couldn't drive. So the entire walk, I was doing breath work. And when I arrived and had to make all the decisions, and we took the ER, I mean the ambulance to the ER. And then even in the ER, I was when I wasn't talking or making decisions or, you know, completely engaging, I was doing breath work. And then we transferred to another ambulance to go down to children's hospital. The entire time I was doing breath work. And so was my son, the patient. And so when we arrived after like a, I think it was like a 15-hour experience in the two hospitals just to get to children's and to get a room and to get the surgery. He needed to have two surgeries scheduled. This was big, you guys. I mean, this wasn't like breaking an arm or a finger. The experience was so much better for me because of breath work. And then the other thing that really helped was my strong background in anatomy. I had no problem talking the language, knowing what needed to do, asking the questions. But that's kind of an aside. For the people who are listening who are lit yogis, they know the key power that you have with anatomy knowledge. But what I would say is that breath work is the tool that created the power of the pause and the nervous system regulation in that stressful moment. And I've used it probably my whole life. And that's one of the reasons why I put it in this book. I only included 12 practices, though I could have included a lot more. But I think that 12 practices in your toolbox that you will consistently use, and then having tools to bring you into a state of awareness when you need to use those, these are the two key things to really living in your center and becoming that portal of possibility. So give Square Breathing a try. And if you you if you're not into it, then just see what you can challenge yourself to do and play around with elongating the exhale and see if that makes any difference. And I can tell you, I was having a conversation with a coworker not very long ago who is a yogi and breathwork specialist as well. And we were laughing that we have so many breathwork tools in our arsenal, but the most powerful practices, meaning the ones we keep coming back to, are the simplest. And that's why I put box breathing in the book and I wanted to talk about it today on the pod. But just remember it's there for you. It's it's free and it's so easy. You know, it's taught in schools. The Navy SEALs do it. I mean, it's just really around, and everyone can use it. So enjoy and keep being that portal of possibility.