An interview segment where Jane Hogan teaches accessible breathwork practices for relaxation and pain management. She recommends starting with an exhale and learning belly (diaphragmatic) breathing to engage the vagus nerve and parasympathetic response, then leads a HeartMath-style heart-focused breathing visualization to expand a feeling of love and anchor it in the heart.
Chapters
Is there a particular breathwork practice that you do. You do every day or every week that. That you really like that you could share with us?
Oh, gosh.
There's so many great breathwork practices. I mean, and it depends where someone is, too.
Heather.
Like, if someone. Most people with chronic pain, so I'm assuming maybe that might be the people that are interested in this show right now. But most people in chronic pain tend.
To hold their breath with pain often.
Tend to be chest breathers because they're in. Their nervous system is in the stress state. When we're in a stress state, we tend to breathe more in our chest. We breathe quickly, and we may even be holding our breath. So all of those things, if that's where someone is now, then they might probably want to just start with something kind of basic, and that is learning to breathe down low in the belly. So if that's where someone is, I would say begin with belly breathing. Now, here's the thing.
I heard this.
I had all those. That dysfunctional breathing going on, and people would say, breathe in the belly. And I'd be like, I can't. I just couldn't get the breath down there. And so if that's you, then I would suggest you, the listener. I would suggest starting with an exhale. To me, this changed everything. So. And what I mean by that is we want to start by exhaling. And then when you're doing that, imagine and actually physically pull the belly button button back towards your spine. So exhale. And I'm doing it now. Pulling the belly button.
I'm doing it, too, Jane. I'm doing it, too, because I am definitely a shallow. A shallow breather. And belly breathing always feels heavy to me.
Like, hard.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, because it feels like I don't know where to start, right?
I can't.
I can't. I can't get this going. So we start with that exhale, pull the belly button back towards the spine. Now when you inhale, push that belly button out. Now, naturally, just because we are doing that down in the belly, we're going to breathe slower. So we're going to have the slow breathing, which is much better. We're going to be belly breathing. When we do that, we're activating the vagus nerve and the lower lobes of the lungs, which actually activates the relaxation response. So I'm using relaxation and stress response, like parasympathetic and sympathetic. So but we just want to activate that relaxation parasympathetic response.
And we will.
When we're breathing in low. So I find that is just a great place to start. Just try to do that. You could try it lying down on your belly. You could try it looking in a mirror. And once you've kind of. When you practice it more, you'll start to pay attention to it more and you'll notice, oh, I'm. I'm breathing up here again. All right. Just take a moment. Start with that exhale.
I love starting with an exhale.
I.
To me, like if I for fun. If I wanted to create deeper meaning out of that.
Right.
We're letting go of the excess, we're letting go of the clutter, the pent up breath that isn't starting with the release. Starting with the release.
Yeah.
Starting with subtraction instead of addition.
Beautiful, beautiful. I love that. And then if someone wanted to go a little bit further, what I find is a beautiful breath work. It's well studied by the Heartmath Institute. And that's a heart focused breathing. So I don't know if you want. Do you want me to do that? Do it with your breath.
Let's do that.
Definitely.
Okay.
All right.
So let's do a heart focus breathing. So I don't. Even if you're not a belly breather, let's just don't worry about that for now. We just want to focus on just breathing. Just breathing in a way that's comfortable for you.
Okay.
So just, you can relax. You don't have to close your eyes, but if you feel more relaxed closing.
Your eyes, you can do that and.
Just let your hands relax by your sides or on your lap. You could do the sitting or lying down. And first of all, just notice that your breath. Just notice the inhales.
And the exhales.
You may notice some movement in your body. You may notice as you're inhaling and exhaling the feel of the breath as it moves through your nostrils and airways.
And then just imagine that as you inhale, you're inhaling into your heart area. So just inhale into the heart area.
Just imagine that it's the air is swirling around there. And then you can exhale again.
And then inhale into the heart again, the air circulating and swirling around your heart. And then let it go again. Another inhale into the heart area. Air coming in, swirling all around your heart, filling up the heart, And then release. And now I'd like you to think about a time when you felt love. Maybe you felt love towards a child or a pet or another person. Or maybe you felt someone loving you. Just take yourself back to that person. Time, place. Just imagine that you're there. Now see if you can notice the surroundings around you. Who's there? What colors do you see? What sounds do you hear? What do you feel on your skin? Do you feel any warmth or air moving or the touch of your clothes? And notice that this feeling of love, you can feel it in your heart. So switching from thinking about this to feeling this in your heart. And as you breathe, imagine that this feeling in your heart is expanding. With every inhale, it gets bigger as if you were blowing up a balloon. Another breath, and it gets bigger again and bigger again.
You could let it get bigger than your body.
You can let it get as big as you want. You can even let it fill up the room that you're in. So beautiful, this feeling of love. Just notice how good it feels. And then pull that feeling back to your heart again. As if you're saying, this is mine. Pull it back and tuck it away into your heart, knowing that you can come back to it whenever you want. All you have to do is breathe into your heart. And just like we did before, you can use your inhales to let it get as big as you want again. And you can pull it back again anytime you want. It's always there for you. And then now just notice your breathing again. Notice your hands and feet. And then when you're ready, you can open your eyes again.
