James Laughlin and Dave Wood lead quick breathing exercises to reduce stress. Start with a 6-second inhale and 8-second exhale, then try a 4-4-6 pattern with holds. Longer exhales activate your relaxation response.
Questions this video answers
6 second inhale, 8 second exhale (no holds).
4 in/6 out; 5 in/7 out; or 8 in/10 out (adjust numbers to comfort).
4s inhale, 4s hold, 6s exhale, 4s hold (notated as 4,4,6).
Apnea Trainer.
Chapters
Well, folks, a huge welcome back. If you haven't listened to the full feature length episode with Dave Wood, please go and do that. I'll put the link below, but Dave in the episode did promise to take us through a few breath work exercises. So please, if you're operating any machinery, a car, you're out walking or running, press pause, get seated, lie down, and I'm actually just going to hand it over to Dave and Dave's going to take us through a breathwork exercise.
Yeah. Okay. I'll take you through two breathwork exercises. Both are really simple. The key thing here is with the numbers that we're going to use, you can always change the numbers. So what I mean by the numbers is that there are four parts to the breathing cycle when we do what we call cadence breathing or breathing flows. And that is the inhale, the hold, the exhale and the hold. And so we can assign numbers to each part of that inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Now we may decide to assign zero to the hold to both the holds and just have the inhale and exhale and that's what we'll do first. So first we're going to do a breathing flow that has no holds. It is just an inhale, exhale. Now the important thing to understand here is that the inhale is more active, the exhale is more passive and creates more parasympathetic tone. That's the part of your nervous system that shifts you into a recovery state. So if we can prolong the exhale and relax into the exhale, we create a more relaxing state, more relaxing internal state. A few things you do before starting any type of breathing work. First is give yourself permission to switch off. I give myself permission for the next 10 minutes to switch off. Nothing else matters. I can get back to my busy life after the next 10 minutes. And the second thing is just to get into a comfortable position. I like to lie down with my feet up on the wall. But whatever's comfortable for you. So the first thing that we program is a 6 second inhale and an 8 second exhale. Now you can go on and get any sort of breathing counting app. I use one called apnea trainer and it allows me to program in the four parts of the breathing cycle. So I will just program in six zero eight zero and. And all you will hear is inhale.
Exhale, and you just follow it. But for the purpose of doing this, we'll just count it. So if I was instructing you to do this, I'd just say, James, we're going to start with the inhale in through your nose. I want you to bring a sense of relaxation over your entire body. So do a body scan, find where you're holding tension. Let it go. Normally we hold tension in the jaw, chest and shoulders. So relax the body. And then you're going to go into a slow inhale in three seconds. And it's going to be a six second inhale and I'll count you in. And anyone listening can do it as well at the same time. So on the count of three, you're going to go into a six second inhale. One more thing. If you inhale too quickly, so you inhale and you're full at four seconds, just hold your breath for a couple of seconds. It's all good.
And belly breathing.
You are. For the sake of keeping this simple, if you breathe in through your nose, soft, quiet and light and relax your chest and shoulders. You will be breathing perfectly. Don't focus on breathing into your belly. Soft, quiet, light. Relax your chest and shoulders. You'll be doing it right. On the count of three. 3, 2, 1. Inhale. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Let it flow back into the next inhale and through your nose. Four, three, two, one. Exhale. Seven, six, five, four, three, two. Drop it out. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six. Exhale. Eight, seven, six, five, four, Three, two. Drop it out. INHALE. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. EXHALE. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And you just keep following that cadence. Now, if you found that those numbers were too long, so you're struggling to get a 6 second inhale or 8 second exhale. You can make the numbers a 4 in 6 out or a 5 in 7 out. So you just change the numbers based on what you're feeling. Your inhales need to slow down, right? So the inhale is too fast, so you're filling up too quickly. So you just take your time, you soften everything. And I like to think of a pendulum or like that. I'm on a skateboard. Inhale up to the top, get to the top and then exhale. The key is on the last part of the exhale. You imagine you're melting into the ground. So for anyone listening, try a 6 in 8 out. If that doesn't feel right, too long, the numbers are too, too high. Then go to a four in six out. Or try a five and seven out. If a six and eight out was like you wanted longer on the inhale or exhale, go to an 8 in, 10 out.
Well, certainly I felt by the end of that I was starting to feel a little bit light headed. I felt very relaxed. That was, that was only. We only did that for 30 to 60 seconds there. It made a big difference.
Yeah. There's a lot of nuance in that breathing pattern where you're doing a six and eight out. You have to.
You have to let everything flow. You have to relax your body. And on the exhale, you have to find ways to, I use the terminology, melt into the ground. Or imagine a tire deflating, because it's on the exhale that you are getting really relaxed. Inhale more active. Exhale more passive. So try it 6 and 8 out. Or try a 4 in 6 out or a 5 in 7 out or an 8 in 10 out. Just, just make sure that the exhale is longer than the inhale and you'll be good.
I love it.
Thank you. Easy. So good. And then if we want to add some numbers in there so it can be really calming to inhale and just sit there and hold your breath and then exhale and sit there and hold your breath. Some people will find that after the exhale, holding the breath might be quite stressful. Then just have a hold on the inhale. So if we were to take you through.
A. Let's just try a really simple one. A 4, 4, 6. 4, 4 in, 4 hold, 6 out, 4 hold. Why do we have a 6 out? Why is the exhale longer than the inhale? Just engage the parasympathetic. Yeah. Engages the calming part of your nervous system when you prolong the exhale. So if we were going to do this in real time, I would just count you in. I'd use my apnea trainer on the phone and I wouldn't have to.
I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.
Yeah, it's a great little app, but there's. Yeah, there's. I think there's hundreds of them that you can get the breathing counters.
So if we're going to do this in real time, we just count down. 3, 2, 1. Inhale, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hold and relax. 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale, 6, 4, 2. Relax and sit at the bottom.
And inhale. 4, 3, 2, one, hold. We're just holding for roughly four seconds. And then exhale. 6, 4, 2. Relax into the exhale. Sit at the bottom for a few seconds and then inhale.
Inhale up to the top. Hold the breath, Just sit there, tap out, relax the body and exhale. Six, four, to drop it out, melt into your chair, and then flow back in to the next inhale. So while you're doing this, you can just go through and the numbers don't. You know, like, you could, on one cycle, you could hold your breath for four seconds, and then on the next cycle, you could hold it for six seconds. You don't have to use the apnea trainer, you don't have to buy an app. You can just inhale slowly, hold your breath and sit there. And if you feel relaxed, you can just keep sitting there. And it may get to 10 seconds and you have no urge to breathe. It may get to 20 seconds and you have no urge to breathe. And then you might just feel like exhaling, dropping it out, and then you sit at the bottom of the exhale. And that might be a couple of seconds, it might be six seconds. We're all different. That's the beautiful thing about this. Like, you just. You just play around with it. As long as the exhale is longer than the inhale and you're relaxing your body and you're going with the flow and you're finding out what works for you, it's just play.
Amazing. I love how you distill it and you make it simple. And again, as I've said in previous conversations we've had, you make everything accessible. So I just want to say a huge thank you and I'm going to again put in the show notes, links to the amazing work that you're doing so people can connect in with you via your website and your social media. And I look forward to having you back on the show again soon.
