Gary Brecke (Ultimate Human podcast) gives a short practical guide to a morning breathwork routine aimed at improving mood, energy, digestion, anxiety, and longevity. He recommends a beginner-friendly, modified Wim Hof–style practice done within ~30 minutes of waking, preferably outdoors, starting at three rounds of five breaths and progressing by one breath per day up to three rounds of 30 breaths with breath-holds; total practice time is about 4–8 minutes. He emphasizes using full, diaphragmatic breaths, tolerating normal lightheaded/tingly sensations, pressing the tongue to the roof of the mouth during holds, and exposing skin to first light for extra benefit.
Questions this video answers
Within 30 minutes of waking.
Outside (balcony or outdoors), regardless of weather.
Start with three rounds of five breaths and add one breath per day until reaching three rounds of 30 breaths.
About 4–8 minutes total.
Press the tongue to the roof of the mouth during the breath-hold.
Chapters
Ultimate Human. Hey guys, I'm human biologist Gary Brecke. Welcome to the Ultimate Human podcast, where we explore everything that takes regular human beings and makes them ultimate human beings. Biohacking, longevity, anti aging, wellness, and the entire category of making human beings superhumans. And these podcast shorts are where I try to give you quick, practical things that you can put to work in your life as early as tomorrow morning that could very well change the trajectory of your life and not impact your budget one iota. One of my favorites is breath work. Now you can go way down the rabbit hole of breath work. There's shamanic breath work, there's vivation breath work, there's pranayama breath work, there's transformational breath work, there's holotropic breath work, there's all kinds of breath work principles. They're all very, very valid. I encourage you to go on the journey of exploring breath work as a way of improving your emotional state, longevity, digestion, handling anxiety, depression, improving your mood, elevating your emotional state, even increasing your body's capacity to digest nutrients, and helping your biobacteria in your, in your gut to better perform. But before we go down this long, winding, endless road of breath work, if you're new to breath work, then my favorite is a modified kind of Wim Hof style of breath work, which doesn't really focus on which nostril you're breathing out of. It doesn't focus on whether or not you're breathing through your nose or your mouth. It is an introduction to getting your body used to doing breath work. A lot of times when I post breath work, when I post breath work videos, you know, people get online in the comments and they're like, well, what about this type of breath work? What about that type of breath work? Um, shouldn't you tell them to breathe only through their nose? Shouldn't you tell them to breathe only through their mouth? What about alternate nasal breathing? And all of these concepts are very, very valid. But for you beginners at breath work, to get addicted to breath work, you need to feel the impact on your mood, your emotional state, your energy level, your cognitive function, your short term recall right out of the gate. So one of the best ways to do that is first thing in the morning, within 30 minutes of waking, find a quiet spot. My preference is that you find a spot outside. And yes, if it's hot, go outside. If it's cold, go outside. If it's windy, go outside. And if it's raining, go outside. Because aging is the aggressive pursuit of Comfort and us deciding whether or not the environment is right for us to go out and do breath work is exactly what I'm talking about. Because we walk up to the door and we're like, yeah, there's a little bit of. There's a couple of sprinkles on the window. I'm just going to stay inside today. Or it looks like it's too hot or it's too cold or it's too windy. Guys, please just get out there and do your breath work. You're going to be outside for a total of four to eight minutes. You're not going to die. Okay? So every morning I go out to my balcony, I do three rounds of 30 breaths with a very specific type of breath hold in between. So let me explain what I do. My suggestion is that you start with three rounds of five breaths and then every day add an additional breath. So day two, do six breasts, Day three, do seven breasts, day four, do eight breaths and work your way up to where you're doing three rounds of 30 breaths with a breath hold in between. Let me explain. Remember that we can't just put gases into the human body, just like we can't put nutrients into the human body and assume that the body is just going to use these. You can't just eat a bunch of calcium and have strong bones. You can't just take a bunch of protein and have strong muscles. You actually need to tear a muscle and have the protein there to repair it. We need to load a bone and have the bone ask for calcium for it to be absorbed. Breath work is no different. We can't just hyperventilate and get the breath work benefits. We need to actually get oxygen in, get carbon dioxide out, and have the body asking, even begging, for oxygen. And so here's how we do it. You start off with three rounds of five breaths. Now, the way I want you to breathe does not concern you using your nose or your mouth. Just get the air in. You can use both. You can use your mouth if that's the easiest way. If you prefer to just breathe through your nose, that's also fine. But I want you to find a quiet place. Um, I would prefer you sit in a chair that has a back on it until you get used to doing breath work or even lay down. Because it is very normal for you to get lightheaded. It's normal for your fingers and toes to feel tingly. That's a very normal feeling. It's normal for you to feel the temperature change in your neck. Remember as we shift what's called the oxygen tension, as we change the ratio of gases in our body, we get these tingly, sometimes numb, sometimes lightheaded, sometimes temperature changing effects. So embrace those, breathe into those effects because they will go away. And when you're done your breath work, you're going to feel the benefit of having breathed through those kinds of sensations. So let's start by sitting comfortably, a chair with a back, or laying down. Put your hands on your knees and again, I want you to breathe in the most obnoxious form possible. I want you to think you've been underwater for a minute and a half. You never thought you were going to get your head above the water and you just broke the surface of the water. Breathe like your life depends on it. I want to get your diaphragm moving down, massaging your intestines. I want to get air into the lobes of the lung, keeping it out, out of the apex of the lung. I want us to use the entire lung and what's called all the muscles, accessory muscles of respiration in order to breathe. We're going to use our intercostals, we're going to use our diaphragm, we're going to use our lobes of our lungs, we're going to use the apex of our lungs. We're really just going to flood the blood with oxygen and we're going to do three rounds of five breaths. So they're going to look like this. Now notice that I'm raising my shoulders, trying to pull the apex of my lung up. And I'm also pretending like I have a string tied to my belly button and I'm pulling it out to the wall across in front of me. So I want to pull my belly out to force that oxygen down into the lobes of the lung to contract my diaphragm to actually begin to massage my intestines. On the fifth breath, you're going to exhale and relax. While you're relaxed, I want you to take your tongue, put it to the roof of your mouth. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to get outside of your head. In other words, I want you to find the noises in your outside environment. Find that truck going by on the causeway, that bird that's in the tree nearby, that airplane that's going overhead, maybe a children's voice off somewhere in the distance. And I want you to focus on the things outside of your head. I do not want you to sit there while you're holding your breath and think about the fact that you want to breathe. I want you to think about everything going on in your outside environment. This will actually lengthen the amount of time that you spend before you draw in your next breath. And the longer you go, the better, because we're creating this carbon dioxide deficiency that's going to have our body ask for that oxygen. It's going to demand that vital oxygen that we're about to put in. So as you sit there with your eyes closed, get outside of your head, find those noises, picture them. Picture that bird flying by. Picture that police car going down the road. Picture that child that is making noise in the. In the background. You know, listen for those things going on in your outside environment and try to form a mental picture of what they look like. What are they doing? Where are they going? What are they up to? And then when you can't hold your breath anymore, you breathe in, press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, and you're going to do the same thing. Get outside of your head, into your environment. When you can't hold your breath any longer, let that breath out and start again. Do three rounds of five. Work your way up to three rounds of 30 breaths every morning. Make this the one thing that you never, ever, ever, ever miss. Don't ever miss this. Miss a flight, miss work, miss coffee, miss taking your kids to school. Do not miss breath work. Four minutes to eight minutes. Promise. It will become your new drug of choice. It will change the trajectory of your life. It is free. If you actually want to put fuel on the fire, do it at first light, exposing as much skin to first light as possible, and you will get all the benefits. Sunlight, breathwork, regulation of your circadian rhythm, mood enhancement, emotional enhancement, ridding the body of disease, flooding the blood with oxygen, and changing the trajectory of your life. I hope you found this helpful because it's just science.
