[MUSIC]
Hi. We're going to focus for
the next five minutes on breathing.
I'm excited to talk about this because it
turns out that the rate, and depth
that we breathe at is a huge determinant
of our mental state, and our physical state.
We're just hard wired so that if we're
breathing really shallowly and fast,
it causes our nervous system
to upregulate, and we feel tense and anxious.
If we're breathing slowly,
it actually turns on the anti-stress response.
It increases very healthy patterns
of arousal increasing,
what we call, our heart rate
variability, or our vagal tone.
This is why it's important to actually
consciously slow, and deepen our breathing.
It's good to relax.
It's good to watch TV and do
things that make us feel less stressed.
But, they don't actually change
our breathing rate to be as slow, and as
deep as we can do with
just a little direction within a few minutes.
That's what we're going to do now.
The core of deep breathing
is that we are bringing in breath into our belly,
so breathing in, or filling our belly,
making it protrude and fill with air,
filling lower lungs that we don't usually use,
and then breathing out slowly and slowly.
We're getting better action between oxygen,
CO_2 exchange that happens
deep in our lung cells, our alveoli.
We're increasing our oxygenation.
We can do that just by bringing our breath rate from,
usually it's over 10,
maybe it's 15 all the way down closer to six.
That really turns on our relaxation response.
We can also do that by exhaling longer than we inhale.
Then you can see what works for you.
You might want to add a beautiful image of
nature because for many people that adds
even a deeper state of [NOISE] relaxation.
Let's begin together. First,
I'd like you to breathe in
deeply, and fully into your lower belly.
Breathe out slowly and slowly.
[NOISE] Keep doing that with your hand on your belly.
Now, we're going to do what's
called one-to-two breathing.
We're going to breathe in for four and breathe out,
twice as long, for eight.
Breathing in, 1,
2, 3, 4,
and breathing out, 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Continue doing that.
[NOISE] When we get to the bottom of the exhale,
you think of the word relax.
Breathing in, 1, 2,
3, 4,
and breathing out, 1,
2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8.
You might [NOISE] picture a beautiful scene in nature.
Continue with that.
There maybe a lot going on outside, and inside.
We can't necessarily control what's happening outside,
but we can control
our breathing, and thus our autonomic nervous system.
It's a fundamental way
that human beings have enhanced their well-being.
It's at the core of most practices like
yoga, meditation, qigong.
I'm going to show you another breathing technique
taken from a yoga practice.
That is a 4,
6, 8 pace.
How could there be three? There's just
an inhale and exhale.
We're going to breath-hold in the middle.
I'll tell you that this is
a really good one for helping you sleep.
It's one that I use whether it's the middle of
the night or winding down. Let's start.
We're going to breathe in for four,
hold for six, and out for eight.
As we breathe out, you might want to have a whoosh sound.
Ready? Breathing in,
hold, and out for eight.
In for four, hold, and whoosh.
[NOISE]
Do that four times.
Do that when you wake up,
or before you have a stressful event, or dialogue,
or when you're trying to sleep.
The more times that we treat
our bodies to these deeper states of breathing,
the more we're able to turn our physiology,
like that, into a restorative state.
It's just so important during
these [BACKGROUND] times when we don't know what's next.
We can't control what's next,
but we can control our own breathing.
We can use that as an extra tool to help
us [BACKGROUND] be okay with whatever is,
and be there for others.
[MUSIC]