Diaphragmatic Breathing - A Quick Overview!

Hello. In this video, I want to talk a little bit about diaphragmatic breathing and demonstrate how this can be done. And this can be something that you can actually practice with me at home, if you would like. I know it's a little bit of a cliche these days when you're told to just take a deep breath or Maybe count to 10 as you take a deep breath, or take 10 deep breaths when you're trying to calm down. And I've definitely had clients react with some frustration about this. I've even been asked, why am I paying you money to tell me to breathe when I'm already breathing and I already know how to breathe? And I think it's a legitimate question. I think it's become such a cliche, that notion of just taking a deep breath, that we don't pay much attention to it anymore, or might even feel a little bit irked or a little bit frightened, frustrated by it. And I definitely wouldn't claim that by doing deep breathing exercises that all of the problems in your world are going to go away. But I do think this is the most powerful tool that we have with us as a part of us at all times. And this is something that you have to do anyway. You always have to be breathing to be alive, so you might as well do it in a way that benefits your psychological health. So I'm going to give you some tips. I'm going to say a little bit about diaphragmatic breathing, why it works when you're trying to relax and then how you make it work. Because I think the reason why sometimes it really doesn't work for people is because they're not breathing in a way that will activate something called the vagus nerve, which you need to activate if you're going to feel calmer. So really quick. And I go into a lot more detail about this in my seminars. But when you engage in diaphragmatic breathing, long, slow, deep breaths through the diaphragm, what you're doing is you're filling your lungs with air, which takes up space inside of your chest cavity, and it pushes your diaphragmatic wall down long. And the short of it is you end up compressing your internal organs when you take deep breaths. But in order for that to happen, you can't be doing shallow chest breathing. I mean, when you really fill your lungs with air, you feel your stomach protrude out when you inhale, what it's doing, pressing your diaphragmatic wall down, it's compressing your internal organs Most importantly though, when that happens, it's pressing on your vagus nerve, which is a cranial nerve. It's your 10th cranial nerve. The vagus nerve does a lot of things, but one of the things it's involved in is promoting the relaxation response in the body. When you press on the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve goes from the brain all the way down to the internal organs and it actually wraps itself around a lot of these internal organs. But when you press on the vagus nerve, what happens is it starts the relaxation response in the body. It takes about 30 seconds before depressing on it really activates that response, but it will. And when that response is activated, it begins the process of putting your body into parasympathetic arousal or the relaxation response. Really cool. Also though about this is that the vagus nerve then runs all the way up to the brain. So when you press on the vagus nerve through deep breathing, essentially through the compression of your internal organs, which, which inadvertently presses on the vagus nerve. When you do that, that relaxation signal is sent from the body all the way up to the brain where it indirectly hooks into that little almond shaped area of the brain for threat detection, that smoke alarm of the brain called the amygdala. It actually indirectly hooks in there. And when it's activated, that vagus nerve is activated, it begins to slowly chip away at the functioning or sorry, the activation of the, that amygdala. So it begins to crank down that dimmer switch, crank down the knob of the amygdala. Which is why diaphragmatic breathing, when done well, deep breathing done correctly, will promote relaxation. I always say this is not a, these videos are not a substitution for therapy. One of the things I want to emphasize and where therapy can be really helpful for this is if you're someone who, when you do deep breathing, it's actually triggering to you, it actually makes you worse, not better. That can be a specific post trauma response. And this is where I think therapy can come in really handy, can be really useful because in therapy you can learn how to slowly titrate into relaxation techniques and maybe add some additional techniques to it to make you feel a lot safer. And some clients just need to be in the presence of a therapist while they're doing this to feel safe enough to even do some of these relaxation techniques. So know that this won't always work for everyone under all circumstances, but I wanted to share with you some of the mechanics of how diaphragmatic breathing works. So how do you make sure that you are breathing through the diaphragm give you a couple of really quick tips, ways that you can position your body to maximize the chance that you are, in fact breathing through the diaphragm. You are, in fact, activating that vagus nerve, and that relaxation signal is in fact traveling up to the brain. Because if you don't press on the vagus nerve, you don't promote relaxation in the body, then the breathing isn't going to help you relax at all. In fact, you can kind of induce this in yourself. You can. You can do a little experiment. And if you're prone to anxiety, I wouldn't say necessarily to do it, but if you on purpose breathe really fast and shallow, you'll start to get anxious. Sometimes people can throw themselves into panic attacks just by altering their breath. So fast, shallow breathing is going to make you more stressed, more anxious. Long, slow, deep breathing, with few exceptions with some individuals with ptsd. But for most individuals, long, slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths to make you feel calmer. Okay, so how do we actually do this? Well, you're going to want to make sure you're breathing through the diaphragm. The issue is, for people who've been stressed out for a really long time, I mean, you know, 10, 20, 30, 50 years of stress, they're not used to breathing for relaxation. So it feels kind of funny, it feels a little bit bizarre when they first start to do it correctly. It may not even be easy to know how to do it. So what I'm going to recommend is that you assume a pose that we know will maximize your chances of actually breathing through the diaphragm, activating that vagus nerve, promoting relaxation in the body and the brain, cranking down the activation of that fear center. So a couple of options. So one that you can see well here on my video is hands behind the head. Okay? So you can go like this. You can put your hands behind your head and then take long, slow, deep breaths. So hands behind the head. Long, slow, deep, deep breaths. You can see me doing it. If you don't want hands behind the head, you can also do hands on the rib cage. You can't really see my rib cage, but a little bit lowers my ribcage. Hands on ribcage. Shoulders down and back. Hands on rib cage. Long, slow, deep breaths. That'll also help. Okay. It's kind of like what you're trying to do is essentially kind of pull open your ribcage so there's more space, so it's easier to fill the lungs with air. Another variant that I sometimes teach clients that I think accomplishes something pretty similar and that can feel soothing to some people. It's not, you don't do it. But for some people, they like one hand behind the head in one hand gently on the chest, and they are essentially pressing in on the body from both directions. Long, slow, deep breathing. Now, what some people will say about this, why they like this, is that when you're pressing in on the back of your head and you're pressing in a little, just gently on your chest, it can create the sensation of being held. So it can feel really soothing to some people. In some ways it can mimic being held as a baby. So again, if that's not your thing, that's fine. Some people really do like that. And because one of your arms is up, it makes it a whole lot easier to get to that vagus nerve to take the long, deep breaths required to get to the vagus nerve. So if you are practicing a breathing technique, maybe that a therapist taught you or that you read about online, or maybe it's a meditation app or something like that, you may just want to add one of those posts poses to try to get the technique to work as best as it possibly can. So assuming one of those poses. Another thing that I like to encourage clients to do is when they exhale, they're doing deep breathing. When they're exhaling, I want you to focus on elongating the exhale to be a little bit longer than the inhale. Now, that may not make logical sense. Usually when I tell someone I want you to take a deep breath, they go and they really focus on that inhale, which is not bad, but they really focus on the inhale. And then they de. Emphasize the exhale. But I actually want you to do the opposite. It's okay to emphasize, I guess, the inhale. Yeah, you take the deep breath in. Maybe my hands are on my ribcage, shoulders down and back, breath in. But then the exhale is slow and long. We know that if your exhales are longer than your inhales, it's going to promote more relaxation in the body. And it does something else called increasing heart rate variability. We won't go into the details of that. But basically, when you increase heart rate variability, you improve vagal heart control. It helps that amygdala, that almond shaped fear center, to calm down faster. So I want you to do two things when you're doing breathing exercises. One is to assume a pose. And I say choose one of the Poses. And I'd say stick with that for weeks when you're starting a new breathing regimen. If you're starting like a daily breath practice, I would say assume that pose and keep with it for at least a few weeks until you've learned. Until your brain has really learned how to do diaphragmatic breathing, how to engage in it in a helpful way that presses on that vagus nerve. So assuming the pose is number one, the second thing is really elongating the exhale. It's okay to also really take a long inhale. Yeah, that's great. We want to be breathing now. Of course, you don't want to over inhale. You might start to feel a little bit lightheaded even, but, you know, inhale fully. But then I really want you to slow down the exhale. Those are the two things. If you want to add a third thing to make breathing work better, faster. You can hold the breath after you inhale. So you take a long, deep breath in, and then you actually hold the breath. The reason why you might want to hold the breath, it sustains oxygen in your brain. But also when you've taken a long, deep breath in, your ribcage has expanded, your lungs have filled with air. At that point, remember, you're pressing on the vagus nerve because the diaphragmatic wall is dropped down. It's compressing your organs. You're pressing on that vagus nerve. So when you inhale and you hold the breath, then you're sustaining that focus on the vagus nerve, which gets it activated a little faster. You're just getting a little more out of the breathing practice a little bit faster. So I'm trying to make these techniques as effective and also as efficient as I can. For you, the number of counts isn't as important. I don't think it's always super important what exactly you're doing with your mind or what you're thinking about, or is it a thought or is it an image? There's a lot of different ways to do breath work, and I can share some of those with you, and I'll be sharing some of those with you in other videos. But main things that I think are important are the mechanics. So how you're doing, not just what you're doing in the breathing exercise, but how you're doing it. So again, we really want to make sure we're in a pose that we can activate the vagus nerve. Regardless of what number you're counting to. If you're counting the breaths, elongating that exhale can be really important. And if you want to get the most for your money in a practice, then holding the breath, even if just briefly after you inhale. If you inhale and you hold the breath and you feel like you're strangling or choking or it feels more anxiety producing, that's not totally uncommon. I would say hold it a little bit less strongly. So. So what I mean is, don't tense as much your body as much when you're holding it. You may also want to inhale just a little less before you hold it. That might make it a little more comfortable. And if you're holding it for a long time, you can shorten it a little bit. Okay. You don't have to hold it forever. But an example technique would be the 4, 4, 4 or 5, 5, 5 breath, where you're going to inhale for a count of, say, four, hold the breath for four and then slowly exhale for four. It's a classic exercise. You might be thinking though, but didn't you say to elongate the exhale and. Yes, so sometimes folks like to stick with the one number 4, 4, 4, 5 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. If you really want to craft a practice that has the best chance of working well quickly, I would say choose whatever numbers you want, but hold the breath a little bit after the inhale and try to exhale for longer than you inhale. So an example of this might be 4, 4, 6. Inhale for a count of four, hold the breath for a count of four, exhale for a count of six. And you can really do this at your own pace. I'm going to step you through a couple of those counts if you want to do this breathing exercise with me now. But if it's not really fitting your rhythm, it's not really at the right speed or the right pace. I totally understand. It's hard for me to lead an exercise and do it at the pace that would be good for everyone. But if you want to try it with me, try it with me now. And then I would say use your own counts, go at your own pace when you're doing the exercise. If you find a pace that really works for you, you could even record your voice on your phone taking yourself through the counts. Or you don't have to, but you could if you wanted something to listen to as you're doing it. Okay, so let's just try 4, 4, 6. We're going to inhale for a count of four. We're going to hold the breath at the top for a count of four. And then we're going to slowly exhale for a count of six. So to do this exercise, you just follow along with my voice. I invite you to close your eyes if you'd like to close your eyes. Otherwise you can just gaze down at something down in front of you. So let's begin by bringing our awareness inward to the breath. And you can just notice the breath to begin with. So we're not even doing any particular exercise yet. Just checking in with the breath and if you like, could assume one of the poses that we talked about. I'm going to place my hands on my ribcage, shoulders down and back, back, continuing just to check in with the breath. And now let's begin the 4, 4, 6. Breath. Let's begin to inhale now for a count of 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold, hold the breath. 2, 3, 4. And slowly exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Inhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, four, five, six. Inhale, 2, 3, 4 dot hold, 2, 3, 4 dot exhale, 2, 3, Four, five, six. Inhale or 2, 3, 4. Hold the breath. 2, 3rd 4. Exhale, 2, three, four, five, six. Keeping the focus on the breath, you can relax, you can can exit the pose. So you're turning the focus to the breath, noticing again the quality of breath, what it feels like to breathe in and breathe out. And when you're ready, you can begin to open your eyes to end this practice. It's a very short and sweet example of what it can be like to do a diaphragmatic breathing exercise. If you don't like those counts, you want some other counts. Totally fine. I don't think there's something magical about specific counts or one pose over another. Main things, again, you just want to activate that vagus nerve. Make sure you're actually engaged in diaphragmatic breathing. You want to elongate that exhale. And if you can tolerate holding the breath after inhaling, then I'd recommend that as well. These are things that can make breathing work better. As with other techniques, I usually recommend that you make a practice out of this. You don't have to make a practice out of every technique. I would just recommend, recommend, find one or two that really resonate with you, that you really like, that you feel the effects of. You might even look forward to doing sometimes. Practice those and make it a daily practice. Even if it's three minutes, five minutes, eight minutes, whatever you can do, make it a practice. Because breath work, like other relaxation techniques, is something that works a lot better with time. I started my own breathwork exercises in 2007, so it's been a long time now. And I can tell you that it works so much better now than it did way back then. And it's because now my body and my brain know what I'm doing when I'm starting the exercise, because we've done it so much before. The body and the brain know exactly what's happening. And so the body and the brain cooperate to relax a lot faster than I did many years ago. So consider this, this sort of breathing exercise, something that you can add to a daily pract.