(Jonathon pants)
- It's okay, just breathe.
Look at my, look at my eyes.
We're gonna breathe in for three.
1, 2, 3,
and out for 1, 2, 3, 4.
In for 1, 2, 3,
out for 1, 2, 3-
- You're very soothing.
- Four.
(Alicia and Jonathon laugh)
This is serious.
- This is serious.
(upbeat music)
- Breathwork. It is a powerful tool.
And why is it such a powerful tool?
- Gee, Alicia, I don't know.
Why is breathing so important?
- Okay, so here's the thing,
breathwork is powerful.
And the reason it is powerful
is when we get into a state of fight or flight
or freeze or fawn,
any of these things,
our nervous system changes.
It puts us in a sympathetic state.
- Yeah. What does that mean?
'Cause that doesn't mean like,
I have sympathy for you. What does-
- No, it basically says
your nervous system thinks there's an emergency
and it's going to go into a state of emergency.
- Right. And sometimes there is an actual emergency-
- Right.
- But following your nervous system's lead
isn't always the best way to go.
- Right. Well, 'cause what happens is
you can experience a trigger,
something that reminds you of a past trauma
or puts you in a state of anxiety or overwhelm
and your nervous system is like, I know what to do.
Woo, and it's off, right?
And even we can just be upset
or in an emotionally aroused state
and we need to stop and calm down.
- Right.
- And you know,
we carry our breath with us everywhere we go.
And so a really easy way to get us back in a calm state
is to breathe.
And so we're gonna teach some breathing techniques.
- Okay.
- But here's the thing-
- I'll be your guinea pig.
- You are, you're gonna be our guinea pig.
- Sweetest little guinea pig.
- Aw.
(Jonathon and Alicia laugh)
- Anyways, sorry.
- So here's the thing.
If you wanna know the science behind it,
check out this cool book.
Breath. A New Science of a Lost Art.
But if books aren't your thing, don't worry,
I read it for you.
(both laugh)
- That's how our marriage works.
Just kidding, I enjoy books, but yeah.
- So we're gonna teach you
some of my favorite breathing techniques
from that book.
A couple of things first,
before we go into the breathing techniques.
You wanna be breathing in through your nose.
- So why is that?
'Cause I always thought breathing through your mouth
is like the same thing.
I'm a mouth breather.
- Okay, here's the thing.
Breathing through your nose lowers your blood pressure,
moistens the air you breathe and even filters it.
It's got a ton of health benefits.
The moral of the story,
you wanna breathe in through your nose all the time.
And occasionally, some of the breathing techniques,
we do breathe out through our mouth.
- You were telling me before
that breathing in through your nose
releases certain chemicals as well.
- Breathing in through your nose
releases chemicals in your body
that regulate your heartbeat
and lowers your blood pressure.
So while it's most supportive for your health
to breathe in through your nose,
what do you do if you're congested?
- Alka Seltzer.
(Alicia laughs)
- Okay. So I'm gonna teach you a breathing technique
to decongest your nose.
And don't worry, it's kind of entertaining
and a little silly,
but it really works.
- Okay.
- It really works.
Okay. So here's what you're gonna do.
You're gonna sit up straight,
always make sure you're sitting up straight
so you can feel your full diaphragm, right?
- Poise and quiet dignity.
- Yeah, yeah.
You're gonna sit up straight
and then you're gonna exhale very softly
through your mouth because your nose is clogged.
- Okay.
- Exhale softly through your mouth.
(Jonathon exhales softly)
Good job.
And then you're gonna pinch both nostrils shut.
- Okay?
- Like a little bit lower.
- Down here? Okay. - Yeah.
And then you're gonna wiggle your head side to side
and front to back a little bit.
And so you're holding your breath
while you're doing this, yeah.
And you're not focusing on the fact
that you can't breathe.
And you're gonna do that for maybe 15 seconds,
longer if you can.
And once you get to the point
where you feel like you need to take a breath,
you're gonna unplug your nostril, unplug it,
yeah, let go.
And you're gonna breathe slowly
in through your nose.
And if you're still too congested to do that,
it's when you're gonna take another soft breath
in through your mouth
and you're gonna do it again, right?
So plug your nostril, side to side.
- Go until you almost pass out.
(Alicia laughs)
- No, not until you almost pass out.
- Then release?
- Yeah, then release
and then try breathing in through your nose.
And if you need to cycle through this,
if you're really congested
and you need to cycle through this a few times,
it's okay to do that, right?
- Yeah.
- You're gonna take a few regular breaths
in between when you do that.
- To be clear, if you're congested,
the first thing you should do is blow your nose
and then proceed with this.
This isn't like-
Right?
- That's true, but sometimes you blow your nose
and you're like-
- Still congested. - And it's still congested.
- Yeah. For sure.
- So this is something to do,
if up in your sinuses, you're congested,
is when you close that.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Good to know.
- So that is how you decongest the nose.
- I didn't even know that.
I'm halfway through my life and I never had that fixed.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Thanks for that life hack.
- So that's breathing technique number one.
We're going to go into breathing technique number two.
This is called the conscious breathing anchor.
And we have like a basic one
and then we have a little more advanced one.
- Okay.
- So here's the technique.
In general, when you're wanting to calm yourself,
you wanna exhale for longer than you inhale.
- Okay.
- So what we're gonna do
is we're gonna inhale through the nose.
- Okay.
- Always wanna inhale through the nose if you can,
for a count of three.
- Okay.
And we're gonna exhale very slowly
through the mouth, pursed lips, right?
It's a, it's a-
- What's pursed lips, like this?
- Yeah, like this where you make it smaller, right?
So you slow-
No, that might be a little much.
You can even use a straw.
- Oh, like, okay, like I'm sucking a straw.
- Yeah. Like, but you're not sucking.
So you breathe in through the nose for a count of three.
- Okay.
- So you breathe in through the nose for a count of 3.
1, 2, 3.
And then slowly exhale for a count of six.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
- Nailed it.
- You did such a good job.
- Thank you.
(both laugh)
I have a master's degree.
- So in this anchored breathing technique,
you're gonna sit up straight,
just like we did the first time.
You're gonna breathe in through the nose,
1, 2, 3,
and you're gonna exhale
for a count of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
And you're going to try and get all of the stale air
in the bottom of your lungs out.
And so the more advanced technique-
- Okay
- Would be to do the same thing.
- Yeah.
- To inhale for a count of three
and exhale for a count of nine.
- Wow. - Yeah.
- Okay.
- And what happens is that longer exhale
naturally puts your body into a parasympathetic state
which is your calm, relax, and rest state.
Okay-
- I can feel it actually.
- Yeah.
So if you've watched the channel very much,
you know I'm a big fan of box breathing.
Box breathing comes up in a lot of our videos.
We're not gonna teach that technique in this video
because we've taught it in multiple other videos,
but this last technique that we're gonna teach
is great to do when you're trying to fall asleep.
- Okay.
- So this last technique
that we're gonna talk about is called 4-7-8,
and it puts the body in a deep state of relaxation
and it's really helpful to use
maybe when you're trying to fall asleep.
- Okay.
I have that problem actually.
I mean, she knows, but like restless nights,
up late, things like that,
so this is good.
You've been holding out on me,
you could have taught me this years ago.
- You're, I'm sorry.
- That's why I look so haggard.
(both laugh)
- And that's why I look so young.
- Wow.
- So the reason this is called 4-7-8
is because you're going to inhale through the nose
for a count of four.
You're gonna hold for a count of seven
and then you're going to exhale
through the mouth using a ooh sound-
- Ooh.
- For a count of eight.
So let's do that together.
(Jonathon laughs)
So inhale through the nose for 4.
1, 2, 3, 4, hold,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Exhale slowly using a ooh
for 5, 6, 7, 8.
And then typically you'll do that
for 3, 4, 5 cycles,
and that will put you in a rest state.
Why are you laughing at me?
- I know exactly why you didn't teach me this.
'Cause you'd be trying to sleep
and then you just hear me every few seconds going, hoo?
(Alicia and Jonathon laugh)
Who can sleep with that?
- Who can sleep with that?
No, I didn't-
- The person who's hooing through it.
- Hooo. - Hoo. I'm so relaxed.
- Your breath is a powerful tool
to help you rest and relax
that you always have with you.
- Thank you so much for this.
I learned some new stuff today that I did not know
and that's gonna help me with my anxiety and relaxation.
Have you, watching, used breath work to relax
and to deal with stress or to deal with anxiety?
Let us know in the comments below
what techniques you've used and what has worked.
If you found this video helpful,
we invite you to check out three signs
that you may have social anxiety
which is gonna pop up here at the end.
If you need support with working through trauma,
your own emotional and mental health,
go to mendedlight.com.
Check out our low-cost membership site
where we share the things
that we share in therapy with you
and you can work at your own pace,
or you can meet with a member of our clinical team.
You can schedule a 15 minute
complimentary consultation right there.
Till next time, folks keep shining,
we need your light. - We need your light.
- And 1, 2, 3
hoo.
(Alicia and Jonathon laugh)
(fast happy music)