Breathwork Secrets: The Fastest Way To Regulate Your Nervous System | Sachin Patel

What's the ultimate health flex? 2 things, presence and equanimity. Everyone's talking about living longer. Yeah, that's great, but are you stuck somewhere in the past or stuck somewhere in the future?

How does someone get into that mindfulness?

The doctor's gonna do 80% of the work. I'm gonna do 20% of it. So we're basically delegating away our power. What I actually teach people how to do is how to breathe when they're not doing breathwork. That's the fastest way to relax your nervous system.

As a chef of 20-plus years, I've always been about taste, But it was becoming a father that made me really start to think about function because I want my kids to thrive and I want to be around long enough to witness it. And it was when my daughter became ill, my wife and I, we struggled to get the right nutrients into her. It was a true wake-up call. That experience is why Pluck was created. So Pluck is a superfood seasoning made with 100% grass-fed beef organ meats blended with organic spices and herbs. The beautiful thing is it doesn't taste like organ meats. It just tastes like the seasoning you're already using. But better, because when you add it, you're adding these bioavailable nutrients that your body can actually use. If you can salt it, you can Pluck it. Learn more at eatpluck.com and save 15% off your first order using code EA15. Satchin, welcome to Everyday Ancestral. So you often say the body is designed to heal. It just needs the right environment. For the person who feels like they're doing all the right things and yet still feel off, what does that actually mean?

Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And as you were even asking the question, the visual I got is imagine you get a cut or somebody gets a cut on their hand. You know, the first thing that happens is the body immediately sends healing cells It sends additional blood to the area, creating a positive pressure, pushing anything out so it doesn't get into the body. And so it's got this innate wisdom to protect us. And then as soon as we create the right environment for it, it starts to heal. But the wrong environment would be if we don't clean off the cut, if we make it dirtier than it was before, or we have poor circulation, right? Or we keep touching it and it gets reinfected. Then we're not creating the right environment for our body to heal. So I think innately we all know that to be true, that our body heals. Now, what we also have to realize is there's more to us than the body itself. So it's not just the cells, but it's the state of the cells. And the state of the cells comes from the signals that we're sending to the cells, which a lot of that comes from our mind and our environment and our interpretation of our environment. So our body has to be in a healing state in order for it to repair. See, there's something called the autonomic nervous system, which right now is regulating your respiration, your heart rate, your digestive rate, all the repair that's happening in your body. It's all happening automatically for you. It's not through your governance, although we can directly impact it through our breath. It's happening automatically for you. Now, that system can be divided into 2 divisions, one being the sympathetic division, which is the fight or flight system, which is a survival system, not a repair system. It's a survival system. And we have the parasympathetic, which is basically the rest, digest, repair, regenerate, rejuvenate, restore, and relax system. And so if we're stuck in fight or flight, our body's going to function. We're going to get through the day, but we're not necessarily going to heal as efficiently, as effectively as we could versus somebody who's in a more relaxed state, somebody who's in that parasympathetic state. They're telling their cells, I'm safe and it's okay for me to heal. You can't heal if your body feels like it needs to fight or run away from something. It's kind of like this. Imagine there's a home, this imaginary home, of course, and there's a fire in that home. If you were painting a wall, you know, your favorite new color, and a fire breaks out in this house, you're probably going to put the paintbrush down and focus on putting the fire out, right? No matter how good you are at painting and how awesome you are. And maybe later on that day, somebody might come over and they look at the wall and be like, James, you didn't finish the wall. Like, what have you been doing all day? And then they look on the other side and like half the house is burnt down, right? I've been putting that fire out all day. That's what I've been doing. So We have to really like think about it from that perspective. And of course it's way more complicated than that. I'm oversimplifying, but at the same time, it's, it's also that simple. You know, the body takes care of all the complexity that allows us to live simply and think simply and get all the benefits of that innate intelligence.

One of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast though, is that in many ways, modern life is not simple. We may be in our autonomous state, you know, just living and breathing. But then there's traumas, there's toxins, there's all these outside, you know, modern stressors that are somehow causing restriction or true kind of autonomy. And so then you have shallow breathing, you have, you know, people that are tight, tight-bodied, but they don't even realize it. So how does someone decipher their inner symptoms or their inner kind of dialogue to what's going on outside of them.

There's a famous quote from the Dalai Lama, and I'm sure he's quoting a text on the Buddha and, or quote from the Buddha, which is that pain is something we will all experience, yet suffering is optional. And so we're all exposed to toxicity. We're all exposed to stress, of course, varying levels. I want to be empathetic towards that. However, how we perceive it, how we handle it, how we release it, these are things that we can modify, right? These are things that we can modulate. Yes, we have exposures and yes, there are discrepancies in what's available to people. And some people live in really clean parts of the world and some people don't. But I think life is really more about what we make it and make from it than what's simply handed to us. So you could have 2 people in the exact same situation. Their perception of the situation obviously is going to play a huge role. But there's also genetics, right? There's a lot of variables that can be at play here. And we have to really, as people who are navigating whatever path we're on, we have to learn how to make the best of every situation that we're in, right? The situation may not be perfect, but are you making the best of it, right? You go to a restaurant and may not have your perfect diet stuff that you require, but what's the best decision you can make? When somebody gets mad at you or flips you the bird or cuts you off in traffic, what's the best way you can handle that situation? There's a worse way you could handle that situation. What's the best way you can handle that situation? When you meet somebody new, right? What's the best possible interaction you can have with that person? I mean, if we just start focusing more on the positive and giving ourselves more control and more permission, right, over the situation that we're in, Then we can navigate it in a much more positive light because it's easy to be Debbie Downer, right? It's easy, especially with all the things you hear on the news and all the things you see online. And, you know, one day this is good for you, the next day it's going to kill you. One day, you know, this, this is the latest miracle drug. The next thing you know, there's billions of dollars of lawsuits. I mean, you know, life is going to come at us and it's going to come at us pretty fast. And I think the The ultimate flex right now, James, if you were to ask me, like, what's the ultimate health flex? To me, it's really 2 things, presence and equanimity. So, can you be present in this moment right now, or are you stuck somewhere in the past or stuck somewhere in the future that no longer exists or doesn't exist? And can you be equanimous to whatever's happening around you, or do you have to judge everything that's happening around you? Because if you have to judge it, then you have to decide, is it happening to me? Is it happening for me? And that creates this whole altered reality that we can get stuck in. So equanimity and presence are the 2 things that nobody's talking about. Everyone's talking about living longer. Yeah, that's great. But what if the longer you live, the more you think about the past or the more you think about the future that never comes, right? Really, the greatest gift you can give to yourself, to your nervous system, to your family, to the people you love and care about, for all the reasons you want to live longer, is to learn how to be present first. And then living longer makes sense. But everyone's so focused on this unachievable idea that's somewhere in the future, and that creates shock value, right? Being present and equanimous, there's no shock value in that, right? But that's why it's the ultimate flex, because no one's going to tell you to do it. You're not going to hear about it in the news. It's not going to be trending on social media. And maybe people are hearing it right here for the first time, you know, that this is a thing, right? To be neutral about whatever situation's happening, because that keeps your nervous system, you know, really dialed in instead of going through these wild swings throughout the day? And can you learn how to be present? And there's definitely ways that you can do both of those.

And I'm hoping that we can support everyone in this episode where they leave with some real exercises or tools that they can do to help support that. But before we get there, like where my brain goes is like, well, this is great in theory. I'm sure you had this discussion before, because this is the common dilemma of like, oh yeah, this is great in theory. But the reality of actually recognizing in the moment and not just being reactive, but actually being mindful of response is incredibly challenging for people because you only know what you know. So how does someone who isn't in touch with this kind of mindful reaction or this mindful non-reaction, right? How does someone get into that mindfulness?

Yeah. You know, the word react and create are spelled with the same letters. So, if you're somebody who's reactive, you find yourself reactive to situations, how can you, instead of being reactive and being on your heels, because that's a decision, how can you be creative? How can you create the situation? So, instead of, you know, when your spouse comes home being in a state of reaction, how can you come home And create the situation. And that'll change that person's state as well. Of course, it's going to change your state and you're now more in control. See, reaction means we're a victim. It means that things are happening to us, but creation is, hey, I'm co-creating this reality, right? I'm actively taking part in the quality of my life. And it could start with really simple things. How we do one thing is how we do everything.

Right?

If you want to feel in control, start doing the things that you can control and do them well. You can clean up your desk, do it amazingly, extraordinarily well. You can go wash the dishes, do them like they've never been done before. You can brush your teeth every day, right? And do it with intention and do it with presence. So you have to practice, right? It's like a muscle, just like social media and the television and, you know, everything that's trying to distract us. It's training us on how to be distracted. But nobody's teaching us how to be present, how to be focused, right? So it takes reps. You don't destroy somebody's ability to focus in one day, which means you don't teach somebody and gift them the ability to focus in one day either. And so it happens with the little microscopic things that we do when we're in full control. And then we start observing when we feel like we're not in control, and we ask ourselves, how can I create this situation? How can I play a part in turning whatever this situation is in, I'm in right now, this present moment, how could I turn it more positive? Then the answer is always available. It says we already intuitively know what to do. I don't have to teach that to you. What we have to do is just bring awareness to, am I reacting or am I creating? And then we get to choose.

What I hear you saying is that you can do that with brushing your teeth. You can be present and meditative to brushing your teeth. And that, that right there is a good first step, that it doesn't have to be separate from your everyday life.

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny because people ask me as a breathwork facilitator, they ask me, what's your breathwork practice like? They want to know, they're curious. They imagine that I probably take an hour out of every morning, I'm laying on this cushion and breathing intensely all morning. I'm like, no, I actually, What I actually teach people how to do is how to breathe when they're not doing breathwork, because that's the part that people forget. That's where you spend 99.9% of your day is not in that isolated meditative state or not in a room doing breathwork with a blindfold on.

Right.

I need to teach you how to regulate your nervous system and be present in your body and present in this moment, in all of those moments, which are the most important moments. Because it's kind of like, imagine you exercise and you go super hard for 10 minutes a day, and then you sit the other 99.9% of the day, right? What good did the exercise do? You think it did you some good, but it's really how you move your body throughout the day that is more important and predictive in terms of long-term health outcomes. So, it's really how we navigate through life, not the isolated things that we do that creates the long-term outcomes. You see, some people think that, oh, I didn't eat perfectly and I didn't exercise. So therefore I'm going to throw everything else out the window when there's literally a million things you can do to be healthy today, right? To be in control today, to be present in your body today. And so we don't want to, you know, give away our power to things that are separate from our day-to-day activities. We want to feel empowered in our moment-to-moment activities. And that's why, for me, breath is such a great way to check in with our bodies and such a powerful tool that it allows us to create the moment. It allows us to create the emotional state we want to be in. It allows us to create presence. It allows us to create safety for other people who are around us as well. And it allows us to knock down that one domino That when done correctly knocks down 1,000 other dominoes when it comes to our health.

Why is it you think that breath is so powerful? Like, of all the different modalities or mechanisms we have, why, what is it about breath specifically?

To me, breath was the most boring thing on the planet. And I've had thousands of patients over the years and, you know, people will tell me all kinds of things. Have you done this? Have you tried that? And whenever someone would tell me about breathing, I would just kind of like, get out of here, man. I'm looking for super advanced biohacking technology and alien technology for health and healing. And it was so funny because now it's the thing I'm most obsessed about. So, it was just kind of like this universe playing this joke on me. And the reason I think breath is so important, such a valuable tool when it comes to our health and healing, first of all, It's like the first thing we celebrate in life, right? It's literally the first thing we celebrate when a baby, when a child is born, that cry is breathing. Crying is breathwork. Laughing is breathwork. Sighing is breathwork. There's so many components to what we do that are breathwork. We just don't— or our breath working us or us working our breath, vice versa. Breath is such a huge part of our life, and it doesn't get a lot of attention because it's like this invisible life force. Just like if you asked a fish about the water, the fish would say, what water? But we know that outside of the water, the fish dies. It doesn't live very long. And the same thing with us, like we don't see the air around us, but it's literally our life force. And 5 minutes of not breathing, you're finished, right? And of course, there's people that can hold their breath much longer than that. But for the most part, within a few minutes, most people are vegetables. We breathe 30 pounds of air a day.

30 pounds.

30 pounds. So, we consume more air in a day than food in a week. Your nose has 35 unique functions. So, the way we breathe, breathing through our mouth versus our nose, actually purifies and perfects the air before it goes into our lungs. It pressurizes the air, moisture regulates the air, temperature regulates the air. It slows down the air, which allows us to get into a more parasympathetic state, right? Anything you do fast, Just think sympathetic, you know, fast breathing, you're sympathetic, fast walking, running, you're sympathetic. Just by breathing through our nose slows down our respiratory rate, which puts our nervous system into a more parasympathetic state. When our tongue is positioned correctly in the roof of our mouth, it literally changes the shape of our face. So children, as they're growing up, are never taught where to place their tongue, right? We've got this thing in our mouth our entire life and nobody tells us where to put it. When your tongue is placed in the roof of your mouth, it acts as a spacer and spreads out your hard palate, creating nice open airways, reducing the risk of adenoids and tonsil infections and sinus issues and allergies and all kinds of things. But that nice open airway allows us to breathe more effectively. And studies have shown that lung capacity is actually one of the greatest predictors of lifespan. So, if your goal is longevity, Then you want to make sure you have good lung capacity. It makes total sense because without a few minutes of breathing, you know, you're not very— you're none of the other things in your body work. Think of it this way as well. If you have a car and I plug the air intake, what happens to the engine?

Yeah, it overheats. It stops working.

It's not going to work, right? There's nothing to combust the fuel. You need oxygen. Same thing with us, right? So if we stop breathing, Then our mitochondria can't live without oxygen for 5 seconds.

It's automatic for us, so it's easy to take it for granted, right?

I'll share this because I want people to see the domino, right? So, our breath shapes our face, it shapes our sinuses. Your immune system starts in your nose. Everyone's talking about the immune system. Where does it start? It starts in your nose, right? So, the air that you breathe in, that 30 pounds, if you're not filtering it before it goes into your lungs, That's a problem. That changes your microbiome in your lungs. It also is important to note that our diaphragm is the only muscle that works 24 hours a day that we can control. And when you control your diaphragm, you actually control your emotional state. So, the diaphragm is the seat of our emotions. Our emotional hard drive is our myofascial system, which is where a lot of people experience pain throughout their body or in specific parts in their body that they can't quite put their finger on. All their scans and everything come back negative, that we can find anything wrong with them. It's an emotional issue. And our lungs is where we store our grief. Underneath our diaphragm, we have some of our biggest lymph nodes. 70% of our detoxification takes place through our lungs. The pH regulation of our blood doesn't happen through our food. It actually happens through our lungs. When we exhale CO2, that buffers the acids and bases in our body. So there's all these things that are happening as a result of how we breathe, which means that if I taught you how to breathe, I could change your core temperature. I could change where blood flow is going in your body. I could get increased blood flow to your brain. I can lower your blood pressure. I could raise your blood pressure. I could lower your heart rate. I could raise it. I can enhance blood flow to your digestive system. I can enhance lymphatic function. I mean, there's so many things that I can do. Through teaching you how to breathe in specific ways that can completely change your life. And when I learned all of this, I started connecting so many dots, the anatomy, the physiology, the spiritual, and the mental aspects of what breathing can do for us, but nobody was sharing it. So, I became a reluctant hero in the sense that now I'm the guy sharing it. And for years, I had a hard time even accepting that It was me bringing this information to the world and bringing all my different worlds of, you know, of training and, you know, anatomy and physiology and bringing all these things together. And I'm just trying to bring it to as many people as I can, because it's literally something that puts you in control in the moment at any time. It's like the steering wheel for your nervous system.

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Breathwork is a part of my life still, and, you know, I'm, uh, trained at Traditionally as a chiropractor, then got really into functional medicine and root cause wellness, started a branch of that called Precision Wellness, which is really geared towards, you know, looking at genetics and lifestyle and nervous system regulation to teach people how to live with precision. And what we do is we create a personal operating system for our clients using their genetics. We know exactly what foods they should and shouldn't be eating. Like, we come up with a personal blueprint for each person that we work with. And then we teach them how to drive, right? So it's one thing to have the owner's manual for your car. Reading the owner's manual doesn't make you a better driver, right? You've got to learn how to drive the car. So we give people their personal owner's manual and operating system, and then we teach them how to drive and we coach them and hold them accountable to that process. And the process became so effective and so life-changing for people that we now license it to other practitioners. And so, we offer practitioners literally an entire business in a box where they get all of our assets that we use to deliver our program are offered to them on a silver platter. And then, we coach them and teach them how to drive the same outcomes that we get. So, we're teaching people their personal health operating systems, then we're teaching practitioners their business operating systems. And then, somewhere sprinkled in between, I help facilitate breathwork experiences for people and I do clinical education on it.

The Sachin that I know is very grounded, very even keel. Was there a time in your life where this was not true, that you were more tumultuous in your, in how you showed up and how you presented yourself?

You know, I grew up with parents who had a very calm demeanor. My mom is very gentle. My dad is very gentle. And that was modeled to me from a young age. It was rare for there to be shouting matches and things like that. You know, I, I got spanked when I needed to, but I was definitely not in an abusive relationship with my parents. So we had really good family structure and a family unit growing up. I feel like that really makes a big difference. I don't want to discount that, but I've also done a lot of work too. There's ancestral traumas that we have to process, and there's things that don't involve our parents that happen to us, or things that we do to ourselves, or situations that we're in where We can spiral out of control. And I am by no means a saint, James. I want to be very clear about that. I've learned a lot of lessons along the way that have shaped me into who I am today. It's an active practice of being present. Being present is the hardest thing for people to do. And it's very difficult being equanimous, not attaching emotion to the world as it unfolds around you and not making up stories about what's happening. That may or may not be true. As I'm saying this, it's just kind of interesting to think about it. Think about how much energy we dispense each day making up a story that is likely to be 100% false about the world and the people around us.

Most people don't realize they're doing that though. They don't realize they're creating a story. They think, well, this is how life is. And as you said earlier, it's like, well, life is happening to me.

Yeah. And you know, there's a famous quote from Hanuman, if you could see my screensaver, I have Hanuman leaping across the ocean. And Hanuman's depicted as a half monkey, half man. And he is the son of the wind. So he's literally our breath, our life force, as a metaphor. And there's a quote from him where he says, when I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you. When I think I know who I am, I serve you, right? So that's ego, because I see you as separate from me. And so my ego separates me from everyone, every interaction, every animal, every bug, every plant. The ego is what creates separation. But if you could look at the world through the lens of when I truly know who I am, I am you, then everything is an extension of you, right? Even though you're hundreds of miles away from me, there's a part of you that's a part of me. And if I do something nice for you, I'm doing something nice for a part of myself. And so if we go through the world through that worldview and through that lens, it just immediately changes how we see people. And when somebody's struggling, instead of making up a story, if we see their struggle as a part of our struggle, because we all struggle, right? But if we just see their story as a part of our struggle and we see that, you know, in some way, There is a small representation of that in my life. And if I could help that person, you know, you don't have to help people financially. You can help them just by saying something positive, right? The same effort that it takes to push somebody down is the same effort that it takes to pull them up. And so how we interact, a gentle smile, right? A few nice words, like those are things that are enough to lift up people's hope in humanity. But also if we recognize that As being a part of us, it heals a little bit of us every time we do it. That's how I look at the world. And, you know, that's kind of been an evolutionary process for me to get to that point. And, you know, a big part of it is, you know, forgiving first ourselves and then, you know, forgiving, or really not even forgiving, thanking people around us for all the lessons they've been able to teach us. So that we can, you know, build the mental faculties, right, that we need to navigate the world, but do it with an open heart. Another thing is a lot of people navigate the world with a heart that has a wall of bricks around it. So nothing gets in and nothing gets out.

So something you've said in the past is the doctor of the future is the patient. And I hear that and I said, well, that sounds really empowering. So this idea that that we have more answers than we give ourselves credit for. For many people, they feel the burden of, oh, you mean someone else isn't going to help me? Someone else doesn't have the answers. I have to have the answers.

I don't think you have to have the answers because I don't have all the answers, but you have to be willing to do your part. Let's just say somebody gets a cut, right? And they go to a doctor, they need stitches. The doctor is going to do their part, right? They're going to You know, clean up the wound, put the stitches in. But then as a patient, you've gotta do your part as well, right? You've gotta make sure it stays clean. You've gotta apply the, you know, bandages to it. You gotta keep it outta the water. If, you know, whatever the instructions are, you have to do your part. When I say that the doctor of the future is the patient, what I want people to know is that right now, the way the medical system is set up and the way people's psychology is set up, is 80/20, right? The doctor's gonna do 80% of the work. I'm gonna do 20% of it, right? So we're basically delegating away our power. I'm suggesting let's flip that and let's go 80/20 where you are in control of 80% of the outcome and the other 20% is gonna come from outside sources, right? And maybe we, you know, me being in the healthcare space, maybe my ratio is a little bit different. Maybe mine is like 95/5, right? Where I'm way less dependent because I'm more self-sufficient. And so, it starts by just understanding your role in the journey. We can't delegate everything.

If someone wants to do their part, create a better healing environment, where should they start?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, it really starts with the belief that we are capable of healing, which I think we established already. And then, it starts with the understanding that It's not going to be one thing that you do. It's going to be all the things that you do. You see, people are looking for a magic bullet and there actually is a magic bullet, but most people are probably not willing to do it, which is to basically live in the wilderness. There's a part of us that's dormant, James, and maybe you've experienced this, but genes are activated through our environments. And so if we've never been in certain environments for a certain period of time, There's a part of us that we've never actually met. There's a version of us that we've never met that exists already, but the switches haven't been flipped on yet. So every year, about maybe 2 to 3 times a year, I go on a 4 to 7 day trip and I go completely in the backcountry, off the grid, not quite living off the land. We bring our own food, but we light our own fires. We make our own shelter.

Do you go with your family or do you go solo?

I do a father-son trip every year, and I go with practitioners every year, and I go with a group of friends every year. So that's usually the 3 trips that I do. On day 1, your body arrives and you're just kind of like, okay, just orienting yourself. You're like, where am I? Day 2, your mind arrives. You start to settle in a little bit. And on day 3, your soul arrives. Okay. And then, on day 4, your primal state arrives. Now, you've basically, because of the circadian rhythms being activated, because of your connection with nature, because of the reset of your entire microbial system with the air you're breathing and the bacteria that's getting into your body, because of your constant movement, you're activating all of these genes all at the same time that have been dormant. Usually when we work out or if we go for a walk, we're outside for 15, 20 minutes and we're back indoors again. If we go for a walk in the woods, we're just there for maybe half an hour and we come back. But when you're in the woods for 72 straight hours, there's a total transformation that takes place for you. When you're guided by the rising and setting of the sun for 3 or 4 days, there's a part of you that awakens. And so most people don't realize that that's available to them. Given the right conditions and given the right environment. And I suggest that everyone make it a point to at least do that for 3 to 4 days. Just go out into the wilderness off the grid, and you will see how capable you are. You will awaken a part of you that's been meaning to be awoken for a long time, and it resets you. It's really quite fascinating.

Are you able to, on those trips, to take that ancestral self or those discoveries or those awakenings and actually integrate them into your day-to-day life? Yeah.

You know what? Every time I come back, I realize how much I love the outdoors and how stressful it is to be indoors. So, I'll give you a simple example. Normally, my office is outside. So, right there, you can see the green space. It's a little windy today for the podcast, but normally, I'm out there when the weather is appropriate. So, I spend my entire spring, summer, and fall working on it from an outdoor office and we have a forest right behind us. So it's blowing in all the beautiful microbiome of the forest and you hear the rustling of the trees and the wind. So it's really soothing to the nervous system. In nature, there are no straight lines. Whereas if you look around in a typical household, right, unless there's textures on the wall, like you have brick behind you and I've got a brick fireplace here, everything is straight.

Yeah.

And so it's actually very jarring to the nervous system, something as simple as that. And you start to become sensitive to the way the lighting is. You become more sensitive to the shapes of things around you. You become more sensitive to the closed nature of, you know, not having a sky above you, right? And having a ceiling above you. So it's quite fascinating how it sensitizes you to those things. And then, you know, after a few days, it starts to wear off again. But I would say what I appreciate the most is the awakening that takes place. At first you feel out of place, but then you feel right at home.

I used to live in an apartment building many, many years ago, and in an apartment building you can hear the humming of the refrigerator in any room you're in. And I used to think about that. I'm like, what does that mean? Because your body starts to desensitize to it, right? It stops hearing it. But when you're away from the apartment, you're, you're very aware that, oh, there's no humming. And, and so I do wonder about those, those little things that our bodies are no longer sensitive to inside our homes, but that are constant. I hear your point about just getting, changing that environment and letting your nervous system recalibrate to nature.

Yeah. You know, we, we are fractal by design. And so a fractal pattern, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a self-similar repeating pattern. And so a self-similar repeating pattern is kind of like that brick wall behind you, right? Every brick is self-similar, very similar to one another, and it's a repeating pattern. Nature, if you look at the trees behind me, they're self-similar and repeating. Bushes, grass, the sounds of birds, right? They're a little bit different, but they're self-similar. That's the fastest way to relax your nervous system is within spaces that have a fractal nature to them. Self-similar repeating patterns. Clouds are self-similar and repeating. Staring at trees, same thing. Staring at the ocean waves, self-similar repeating. Staring at mountains, self-similar repeating. So we don't even realize the math that's happening to us, right? There is a mathematical organization of matter. that our brain really resonates with, because our brain is also a fractal structure as well. That's why when we look inside of our body, like when we look at a tree and we look at the bronchioles in our lungs, they look very similar, right? It's because we're built using the same mathematical architecture. And in that architecture, nothing is flat, right? There's nothing flat about your body. But if your environment is now flat, our nervous system immediately knows we're in the wrong place.

Something's off. Yeah. That's so interesting. So what's one daily habit everyone should adopt?

You know, I think the best thing that people can do to really get their day started right is get morning sunlight exposure that activates your cortisol response, which sets the stage for the rest of your hormones for the rest of the day. And it also anchors your sleep timing as well. So, if we can get morning sunlight. The other thing I would say, even before we wake up, maybe it's something that we do at night, is mouth taping. So, we should wake up with a moist mouth every morning. If your mouth is dry when you wake up in the morning, then chances are you're breathing through your mouth, and also chances are you're waking up in a fight-or-flight state. When there's saliva production happening in your mouth, it means your nervous system is parasympathetic. That's an easy way for us to clue in into the state that we're in. Waking up with a moist mouth, making sure you're mouth taping while you sleep, just a piece of tape vertically. Assuming you're not a mouth breather, about 66% of people are a mouth breather at nighttime. So odds are most people are. And then get some morning sunlight. Just 5 minutes is all you need. On a bright sunny day, 2 minutes is all you need. You don't have to stare at the sun, just be outside. And you can let the sun's warmth hit your face, rain or shine, sleet or snow, getting that morning sunlight's crucial. And then the other thing I would say that's really valuable for people is really tuning into their breath throughout the day. And the way I recommend they do that, because when somebody told me, you got to focus on your breath, I like, man, I have so many things to focus on. So I came up with a smarter way to look at it and I adopted it from BJ Fogg. It's a behavior map. So behavior changes when we first have the motivation to change it. So we need to be motivated. We have the ability to change it and we have some sort of prompt. So the thing that's missing for most people isn't the motivation or the ability. It's the prompt, something that engages them and says, hey, I should be thinking about this or doing this. So for me, what I would invite everyone else to do here is think about the thing you think about the most. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your wife, maybe it's your phone. Maybe you drive a lot and maybe it's a traffic light, right? And anchor your breath to that. And then you ask yourself, am I breathing in a way that serves this moment? So let me explain. If I'm checking my email, am I breathing short and shallow, or am I breathing in a coherence breathing pattern? If I'm driving down the road, What's my breathing pattern, right? Is it short and shallow because I'm stressed out, or that's the energy I'm giving off? Or can I control my breath and lengthen my exhale to get more parasympathetic? Every different type of activity has a different optimal breath associated to it. So, there's an optimal way to breathe when you're running, when you're lifting weights, when you're recovering between sets, when you're trying to fall asleep, when you're trying to increase your focus. When you're trying to increase your energy, when you're trying to warm up your body, right? There's a breath for each of those things and more. And so, once you know what that breath playbook is, which I'm happy to share with your community, then it becomes so much easier to self-regulate and bring yourself into this present moment with the way you're breathing. So, the motivation, ability, and prompt, those are the 3 things that people can do to change any behavior, really, not just breathing.

Is the playbook something that they can get as a PDF or something?

Yeah, I actually have a whole series of breathing assets that I share with people. So, I'll send that link over to you. It's breathworkwithsachin.com.

Perfect.

And, when people go there, they'll get a whole— I believe that the best things in life are free and the best thing I've discovered is teaching people how to breathe. So, they have breathing experiences, they have breathing tools and gadgets and strategies and techniques. It's all for free and available to them.

Thank you. That's such a lovely gift. Now, if they want to work with you, learn more about you, what's the best way to discover more of Sachin?

I proudly check every single email and respond to each one. So, if anyone has a question for me or wants to get in contact with me, email just cuts right to the chase. So, you can email me at sachin@becomeproof.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, And certainly you can follow our work at thelivingproofinstitute.com and learn more about how we help people. And if it makes sense, how we can help you.

One final question. One I ask every guest, if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be and why?

I think it already happens and maybe it's, it's really on me to engage and seek it out and participate more. But I would say drum circles. I have always enjoyed when I sit in a drum circle and it's just a really magical experience when you're in sync and in rhythm with, you know, dozens and dozens of people.

And when you say when you're in it, are you talking about actually participating where you're drumming with everyone? Okay.

Oh, of course.

Yep. Well, Sachin, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom. I had fun asking the question of what's, who is Sachin before he was all grounded. I was just trying to imagine like, What does a chaotic Sachin look like? Because I just have never seen it and it's hard to imagine because you are such a lovely presence.

Thank you. Thank you. You know what? I'm trying to even think of the last time I yelled because sometimes I'll speak loudly and my son will be like, Dad, you're yelling. I'm like, dude, you have not heard me yell. And I'm hoping I don't have a reason to. We all have our own 10 out of 10 version of what stress and trauma is for us. Right. And what might seem like a 10 to me might seem like a 2 to somebody else, depending on what they've gone through. If it's helpful, I've been trying to figure out myself for a long time. And one of the things that I realized is I have a very fast COMT gene, which means that for me, if I do experience stress, it washes through my body very quickly, almost like it never happened. So some of us have certain chemistry that, you know, allows us to handle more stress or not be as fazed by stress as other people might be, depending on how fast their genes are, you know, metabolizing adrenaline and noradrenaline.

We'll have to reserve that for another talk, I guess, because that's opening up Pandora's box in a good way. You know, like I thought that would be a fascinating topic. Well, thank you. Thank you again for your time today. And thank you all for joining us on this journey. I can't thank you all enough. I mean, I truly, truly love delving into these conversations with these fantastic guests and just being curious, being in my curiosity. And I hope it's inspiring you to be in your curiosity because I believe that's what we need more in this world is curiosity, not as Sachin said earlier, judgment and scorn or lack of presence, but just curiosity. So please be curious and thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.