How to take a perfect breath - with Patrick McKeown on Optimize Coach

The content you're about to hear was captured during a live coaching session in the Optimize Coach program multiple times every month. Coaches Connect Live with Brian, Michael, Alexandra and members of our World Class Luminary guest faculty for wisdom, guidance and encouragement. For more head to Optimize Me Coach.

Basically just setting normal. Or you could do it standing, but it's probably a bit more comfortable in sitting. And you imagine that there's a piece of string just gently pulling you up from the top of the back of the head. Lengthen the distance between the sternum and navel. Widen the distance between the ribs. Bring your attention from the mind onto your breathing. You're feeling the slightly colder air coming into your nose and you're feeling the slightly warmer air as it leaves your nose and use this as a measure of your concentration. Use this as a measure of your attention span. Can you hold your attention to your breathing for a period of time before the mind wanders? You're taking a very soft and slow gentle breath coming into your nose about the speed of my finger and a very relaxed and a slow, gentle exhalation. It's not about taking big breaths, but it's about breathing really lightly and a really soft, gentle breath coming into your nose and a very slow and relaxed exhalation. Normal exhalation, but it's slow. And then a very light and slow breath coming into your nose and a relaxed and normal exhalation and slowing down. The speed of the air coming into the nose almost at the breath is imperceptible that your breathing should be so smooth that you feel hardly any air coming into your nose. Can you breathe in so light almost that you're feeling hardly any air coming into your nose at the top of the breath, a total feeling of relaxation that you're having. A slow and relaxed exhalation. And again bringing your attention from the mind back onto the breath, feeling the slightly colder air coming into your nose, slowing down the speed of the air as it comes into the nose. Top of the breath, a total feeling of relaxation to the body and a relaxed and slow exhalation. You're doing it correctly if you feel air hunger, and air hunger signifies the carbon dioxide is increased in the blood. And the reason that carbon dioxide increases in the blood is because when you breathe less carbon dioxide does not leave the blood so quickly through the lungs, so it's not removed from the blood so quickly through the lungs. So the whole objective there is breathe less air for about three minutes. Check if there's any change in the Saliva in your mouth, Is your mouth, Is it drier, is it the same, or is it more moist? What you're looking for is to have a watery saliva in the mouth. And a watery saliva in the mouth indicates activation of the vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve is stimulated by doing a few different breathing exercises, but it's stimulated even with that last exercise. Breathing light, stimulating the vagus nerve is going to increase heart rate variability. Because heart rate variability is an objective measure of vagal tone. How well is the vagus nerve working? Heart rate variability provides you good feedback of how balanced are you in terms of the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. We want to be in balance. We don't want to be switched on all the time. We don't want to be switched off all the time. We want to optimize hrv. So you can do that by breathing light, which is strengthening the sensitivity of the baroreceptors, which is increasing vagal tone, increased heart rate variability. Okay, so that last exercise, it's very simple. Focus your attention on your breathing. Slow down the speed of the air coming into your nose. A really relaxed and a slow, gentle exhalation. Feel air hunger. Now, if the air hunger gets too much for you, take a rest. And for some people prone to panic disorder, yes, the air hunger can get a little bit strong for you. Take a rest if that happens. So anytime it gets too stressful, just take a rest. Take a rest for 15 to 20 seconds and do it again. And you're gently slowing down your breathing without holding the breath or anything like that. If you feel drowsy, great, because now you know it's a down regulator. The second one that we spoke about is hands on either side of the lower ribs. So you have your hands either side of your lower ribs. And as you breathe in, to feel that your ribs are gently pushing the hands outwards. And as you breathe out is just gently press your hands against your ribs. So feel your hands pushing the ribs inwards. During the inhalation, feel your ribs gently pushing the hands outwards. And during the exhalation, just gently press your hands against the body, guiding the ribs inwards. So as you breathe in, your ribs are gently moving out. And as you breathe out, your ribs are gently moving in. Breathing in, ribs are gently moving out. Totally silent breathing. 80% of the movement should be driven by the diaphragm, 20% from the upper chest. As you breathe in, the diaphragm is moving downwards. You will have some movement to the Front, some movement to the sides and some movement to the back. It's the movement of the sides that's the gauge for the generation of intra abdominal pressure. It's IAP that's providing stabilization for the spine and, and the relationship with functional movement. Now, with the hands continued on the sides. What I would like you to do now is to slow down the speed of breathing, but we should not hear breathing. And we're going to breathe in for 5 seconds and breathe out for 5 seconds and breathe in for 5 seconds and breathe out For 5 seconds.

So to breathe in to 3, 3, 4, 5. Out, 2, 3, 4, 5. In, 2, 3, 4, five. Out, 2, 3, four, five. In, 2, 3, four, 5. Out, 2, three, four, five. In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, Five. In, two, three, Four, five. Out, two, Three, four, five. In, Two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, 5.

So just to continue with that, so breathe light. As you breathe in, take hardly any air into your nose. Breathe deep, but light at the same time. So this way then we are targeting and bringing together all three dimensions. So breathing light, light breath of air coming into your nose. As you breathe in, the lower ribs move out. As you breathe out, the lower ribs move in. And breathing in very softly for five seconds.

In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five. In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.

Okay, so that's kind of, for people starting off, it might be a little bit confusing because there's three different things going on there. If you're starting off and if you just want to go into it, just focus mainly on the biochemistry for the start, air hunger, and gently practice that. And, you know, for people who really want to make progress with it, I would say practice it for 10 minutes, three times daily. The air hunger, what it's doing is it's reducing your sensitivity to carbon dioxide. This will translate into a higher bolt score, but this will translate into slower breathing. This will translate into deeper sleep. When you improve the biochemistry of your breathing, you're also increasing blood flow to the brain. I'll come back to this, Michael. 75% of the anxiety population have dysfunctional breathing. 75%. Now, you can imagine, I don't know the statistics of people in the normal population have anxiety, but it's fairly substantial. These people are going to various healthcare professionals who is looking at their sleep quality and who is looking at their functional breathing. And you're not going to have calmness of the mind. You could do all of the cognitive behavioral therapy in the world. You can do all of the mindfulness in the world it comes back to. It's not just about anxiety, but even a racing mind. Here we're coming in with again, tension span and concentration. I'm focusing on attention span and concentration because I'm not focusing on anxiety and racing mind. However, if there is anxiety or even a racing mind, attention span and concentration are impacted. And I'm going to go back to the hierarchy of education. Good sleep. Functional breathing. Breath aware. Body aware. Mind aware. We're putting mind awareness. Once you get your sleep right, your breathing right and then focusing on the breath which you've been doing anyway with the breathing exercises. Body aware. Bringing your attention out of the mind and into the body. Holding your attention in the body, not just being ahead. Mind aware. Paying attention to what you're thinking about as opposed to just starting off with mind aware. Mind awareness. But physiologically in a state of fight or flight, something is missing.

We hope you enjoyed that. Part of a live coaching session from the Optimize Coach program. For more info, head to Optimize Me Coach.