Breathwork is a powerful tool for enhancing well-being, and in this episode, we explore its key scientific findings and practical applications.
Klaudia discusses how breathwork can help reduce stress hormones, improve focus, and even enhance decision-making by simply shifting our attention to our breath.
She introduces three practical methods to incorporate breathwork into your daily routine: an intention breath to start the day, the energizing breath of fire for the afternoon slump, and the calming four-seven-eight technique for winding down.
These techniques are designed to be easy and effective, allowing you to reap the benefits of breathwork in just 15 minutes a day. Join Klaudia as she shares insights and encouragement for making breathwork a transformative part of your life.
Welcome to the Happiness challenge, the podcast where I test drive the best happiness hacks that science has on offer to create more happiness at work, in relationships, and in our own skin. In the previous episode 124, we heard from author, coach, and breathwork teacher Isabel Tew, who introduced us to the concept of breathwork.
In this short episode, part two of exploring the concept of breath work.
This month, I summarize the key scientific findings about breathwork, its impact on our well being, and most importantly, introduce three practical methods of using breath work to try this month. Let's begin. So, as Isabel and I discussed, breathwork is very simple, yet very powerful practice. We all breathe after all.
But how often do we truly pay attention to our breath? Let's be honest, most of us are on autopilot, we breathing shallowly or we're holding our breath. And that happens especially when we are stressed.
But by simply shifting our attention to our breath, we can calm our nervous system, our minds, release the tension and boost our energy. And for me personally, this is the most appealing aspect of breath work, is that it's very practical.
It's a tool that frankly, it's always with us, whether we are at home, at work, in the midst of a very hectic day, we can be paying attention to our breath, even if for few seconds. And that means we can practice breath work anywhere, anytime, making it very powerful ally in our parachute of happiness.
Let's discuss the science behind this.
This is a very quick summary, a simplified version, but in a nutshell, when we breathe shallowly or rapidly, our brain signals that we are in a state of stress.
And when we are stressed, our body starts producing high level of stress hormones that frankly have lots of different, not great effects on our body, but also disrupt the brain's attention networks, leading to us actually being quite distracted.
And having quite distracted thinking and holding our breath or starting to breathe even more quickly actually worsens this problem by raising carbon dioxide levels in our blood even more, which triggers more stress hormones being produced. So I like to think about breath work as almost a reset button.
We are bringing stress hormone levels back down and allowing our attention networks to work in sync again. It's a little bit like a pause of a very fast paced movie.
There is so much happening, but we hitting pause with the breath so that we can come back to whatever is happening in a very different state of mind.
And studies have shown that controlled breath work lowers the level of stress hormones while boosting endorphins, which are our body natural mood elevators. This of course, in turn reduces anxiety, increases our focus, and improves our emotional regulation.
One study even found that debriefing exercises improved participants result in a task that involved decision making by nearly 50% after just two minutes of practicing controlled breath work. So that's huge, especially if we, for example, at work, want to have really big impact.
Having that access to a tool that allows us to make better decisions, well, for me, it's a win win. And there are also lots of additional breath works on our body.
But my three favorites are practicing breathwork help us to decrease heart rate and dilate blood vessels, which means that we are improving circulation. And I must say, during the time when I was struggling with long Covid, I would often feel my heart palpitating.
And actually breathing exercises helped me to regulate that.
Breath work can help us to manage chronic pain because the more stress we are, the more our body is in a state of arousal and the more sensitive we are to pain and discomfort. So actually focusing on breathing and lowering stress response can help us to also manage pain. And final one, improve sleep quality.
So self regulation briefing is very much successful in helping people who struggle with sleeping, who may be struggling with insomnia, to relax and fall asleep more easily. And again, I know it from practice, I actually often wake up in the middle of the night, and debriefing is what often helps me to get back to sleep.
So lots of great benefits that we can reap every single day by focusing more on our breath. So, all right, let's now get practical.
So, as part of this happiness challenge, I encourage you to set three reminders on your phone to pause and practice breath work for five minutes, three times a day. So in total, we're spending 15 minutes a day of simple, controlled breath work exercises.
So my suggestions here are the following, and this is what I'll be practicing this month. So the first reminder on the phone should be about starting your day well. So, as per Isabel's suggestion, this is called an intention breath.
And you can learn more about this about this method on Isabel's website, isabelciu.com. and I will put that in the podcast notes.
But simply, this is about waking up and starting our day with five to ten deep breaths while setting an intention how we wish to feel throughout the day. And this is a great start because it really reminds us to pay attention to the breath.
We are starting a day without rushing into this fight or flight response and going straight into that state of arousal and stress.
And we are actually also concentrating on positive emotions because within that intention we can think about all those positive emotions, such as feeling grateful, feeling calm, feeling energized, whatever you want to choose. And if you have more than five minutes, you can spend 20 minutes and combine this with gentle stretching.
And again, Isabel has some fantastic video called express morning Krias that allows us to wake up, move, breathe, and feel great within that 20 minutes. But either way, the first reminder is about starting a day well with a breath.
slump. For me, usually around:
i definitely feel like, oh, my goodness, I literally had enough. So this is known as the breath of fire. And this is a rapid, rhythmic breath that stimulates the body and clears the mind.
So we're taking quite quick, forceful exhales through the nose while keeping inhales quite passive. So it's quite quick and it's very much about firing up our energy. We introducing lots of oxygen into our body. So just a heads up though.
If you are new to this technique, start slow, maybe start with 30 seconds, and then take a break to notice how your body feel. When I use this technique for the first time, I definitely, in the first moment, I got a bit of head spin.
So again, see how your body feels and then you can build it up for a bit longer. And the third and the final reminder to start practicing breath work is about time to recover.
So again, I'll be scheduling it for the end of the day so I can shift from work mode to a life mode. So this one is very much perfect for winding down after a long day. So we're Just taking a few moments to just wind down and see how our body feels.
But use the breath to calm our nervous system. And this is very simple. Four, seven, eight. Breath.
So you breathe in for count of four, you hold for the count of seven, and then you exhale for a count of eight. And the extended exhale help us release the tension. It very much signals our body that, you know what, it's time to relax and let go.
And I think I'll be also pairing it with a nice healing sounds, sounds of nature or a gong sound, because again, I love the sound vibrations and how they impact my nervous system. So three specific ideas for you to try with me. Let's see how it goes. So here we are.
Those are three easy breath work techniques that you can try every day to shift your mood. It's only 50 minutes of a TIMe a daY, so I think it is a quite small change.
We're spending only five minutes on each of those exercises, but this can really lead to a big transformation of how we feel and therefore how we interact with the world around us. So thank you so much for tuning into today's episode.
I really hope that these tips and methods are helpful, and you will feel inspired to start incorporating breath work into your daily routine.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, and of course, feel free to share it with anyone who could use a little more calm and balance in their life right now. And I see you at the end of the month where I will share my further reflections of using this three breath work methods.
But in meantime, please take a deep breath and remember, I dare you to be happy. Bye.
