Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Stress Hacks | Navy SEALs' Breathwork Secret for Staying Calm Under Pressure

5 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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Short YouTube segment by Aaron Hartman, MD presenting a Navy SEAL breathwork technique to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and induce calm. He describes breathing out through pursed lips and holding the exhale to increase intrathoracic and intra-abdominal pressure, compressing internal organs and the vagus nerve to produce a calming effect. He says it takes about 3–5 minutes to begin working, recommends performing it a couple times a day, and suggests using a phone timer/app to prompt breathwork every 2–3 hours; also references box breathing as a related technique.

Questions this video answers

About 3–5 minutes.

Every 2–3 hours.

Chapters

This is used by Navy seals to keep their head in game during combat. Sounds silly, but it actually has a massive impact on activating your parasympathetic nervous system. If you breathe out through pursed lips and you hold it, then you actually increase the intrathoracic pressure and intra abdominal pressure that cuts like compresses your internal organs as well as your vagal nerve and has a big calming impact. It takes about three or five minutes of breath work to start getting the calming impact. Doing that a couple times a day. And next health hack with the box breathing of breath work would be having a timer using app on your phone that goes off every two or three hours to remind you time for breathwork.