👨‍🏫 Guest Masterclass: The Art & Science of Functional Breathing w/ Conni Biesalski

Okay, welcome back, everyone. Great to see all your faces. And before we dive in, I'd love to hear from just a couple of people, what are some questions that are alive? Like, what would you be curious to hear us or hear Connie talk about? Just get like, two or three people. You can raise your virtual hand or your physical hand, and I'll try and look out for it. John. Yeah.

So my intention would be, usually when I feel something uncomfortable, I tend to zone out and go through distractions, checking my messages, my mails, YouTube and all that. And I'm wondering, how can breathing really change my state? So I face the feeling instead of running away from it and then get on with what I actually want to do.

Beautiful. Thank you. And Pim, you've got your hand raised. Good to see you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good to see you.

I was in the breakout room with Claudia and we were talking about, like, the stuff we were learning in the first week, right, of the, of like, getting into dorsal mode and kind of like the shutdown stuff and more numbing down, dissociated, et cetera. And I was like, I, I, that's like, kind of like my habitual response of like, getting a lot of in. In that state. And I never really know reliable tools how to get out of it in the moment. I know how to prevent it more, but not necessarily how to get out of it. And then Claudia and I were talking about, like, well, for example, something like just meditation or like, something like that isn't really helping in that mode because you need something more active to, like, shift out of that. So we were just really curious how, like, using the ref might be helpful in, in shifting out of that state.

Beautiful. I actually experienced this myself yesterday, so we can dive into this later. All right, so before we, before we kind of dive into the Q and A side of things, Connie, for those of the people here who aren't familiar with you, with your background, with your story, could you give like, a brief, maybe a brief kind of introduction of like, your path to, let's say, greater regulation or your path to coming into relationship with your nervous system? And I know that's a big question, but feel free to answer with whatever comes to mind.

Answer really briefly. Just briefly, but no pressure.

Just sum up the last, like, 10 years of your life.

Yeah, no worries.

Cool.

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. This is wonderful. Hello, you all, great to be here, connect with you all and talk about breathing and everything related to it. So, yeah, my journey, I, I guess my journey into myself and sort of like the inner journey started about 10, 11 years ago now. After a life well lived, I eventually hit rock bottom after I really. Very, well, yeah, sort of unexpected breakup that really just tore me into pieces. And I didn't, I didn't have any idea about pain and suffering and what I was going through. I was very much. I was in my late 20s and yeah, I lived a life of having a lot of fun, traveling the world. And I didn't really know much about consciousness and I never heard about nervous system regulation or any of that stuff. And social media wasn't really where it is today, where everybody talks about nervous system regulation and breath work and whatnot. And so I stumbled into my healing journey via Buddhism and that really helped me in the beginning and dove into meditation. And over the years, as you know, things got better and then they got worse again. And my issues were mainly in relationships. And so I found myself in one dysfunctional relationship after another and lots of codependency, anxious attachment style on my behalf and just finding myself in a lot of depression and. Yeah. And anxiety and just struggles and, and.

Pain and suffering and grief.

And. Yeah, I tried everything. All the, all the therapies and all the coaching modalities and I went to all the, the workshops and did all the Tony Robbins and all the Dr. Joe Dispenza retreats and all the, all the ayahuasca and San Pedro and, you know, I mean, yeah, I, I tried really hard. No one can blame me for not trying hard to, to figure this thing out. And, and then I discovered the breath.

Maybe 2017 or so, and I'd done.

My yoga teacher training before and you know, and pranayama was part of it.

For sure, but I wasn't really that interested. I didn't really have much of a.

Connection to my body still, despite all the yoga, despite all the meditation, still my, my therapist was still trying to get me to feel stuff and I just couldn't.

Where do you feel the sadness?

And, yeah, and, and then I discovered breathwork and, and, and via breathwork and, and I started my journey into breathwork via transformational style. Breathwork. So conscious, connected, breathing, deep dive sessions.

Breathing for an hour or two.

And that really, really helped me as I was going through another breakup and, and then through that, I, I just wanted to learn more and discover what else there was to learn about the breath. And eventually I realized that there's a.

This amazing connection between the breath and.

The nervous system that also I never heard about before and, and that just.

I Don't know.

That got me into wanting to learn everything about it. And so I did several different trainings and certification programs and I, yeah. Found myself and I'm.

I still am on my own journey of regulation.

It's not something that just finishes one day, but it was really about changing my life in terms of how I approach my work, in terms of, yeah. My lifestyle, how I eat, how I move my body, and also making more conscious decisions about my relationships because still be in. In. In these toxic relationships. And I wonder why is my nervous system still so dysregulated? And I discovered.

Yeah.

Breathing techniques and other somatic practices that really helped to improve my interoception, which I think you guys just learned about this week. I think more and more.

And also doing.

Yeah. Different psychotherapy modalities, working with therapists who are trained in somatic experiencing and narm. And so it's a. Yeah.

It's a journey that continues to this day.

And I can definitely say that, gosh, if you met me even. Yeah. Just five years ago, you'd met a very different Connie.

Although you look quite similar in the photos, which is great.

You pulled out like. I was like, where did he get that photo?

Google. So thank you for. Thank you for sharing that. And what I'm hearing, what it sounds like, is that in some ways the breakups were like your catalyst for, let's say, like deeper introspection, deep kind of going into this work. And the question I have is why do you think that is? And do we need the kind of the pain or the heartbreak to actually take these things seriously? And then could you be more specific around how learning about the breath, practicing breath work in all its ways actually helped you to cultivate what sounds like is deeper regulation.

Well, I mean, to your first question, I wish it wasn't so, but I think for many of us, and maybe many of you can agree that it took some sort of crisis right in life that shook you awake and that put us on this journey to better regulation and that we, many of us probably had to either had, you know, maybe we had a really dark night of the soul or we hit rock bottom or any one of those that put. Put us on this path. And I don't think it's necessary. I mean, I keep meeting people who.

Have gentler stories to tell.

But I.

Think in the way that we're conditioned.

And considering the systems that we live.

In.

Where many of us just don't.

See how dysregulating these systems are in.

The lives that we lead, I think it's very hard to wake up to naturally. And my hope is that us doing this work. And there's a multiplication effect, right? We're all multipliers. We, many of you have an audience out there working with people. And so the work that we do for our nervous system helps, you know, every other person to be a little.

Bit more regulated in their nervous system.

By a co regulation. And. And so my hope is that maybe in a few generations, there'll be a lot more regulated nervous systems in this naturally, because as parents are more regulated, their kids will be more regulated.

But many of us grew up with disregulated parents, right, who didn't know how.

To be with their emotions, who didn't. Didn't know what a regulated nervous system.

Actually meant, who were very stressed out.

Raising children, stressed out making ends meet and whatnot, and having had their own traumas. And so, yeah, I just saw this, this reel on Instagram yesterday about Gabor Mate, talking about just that, right? How we pass on as caregivers, as.

Parents, the traumas that we haven't healed and integrated yet.

And so that's that. And then the second question was how the breath helped me in that regard.

Well, oh, gosh, I don't think I would be.

I mean, I can proudly say now that I am and have been for the last two and a half years in a very happy, healthy, beautiful, wonderful.

Relationship with my partner, who is also a breathwork teacher and facilitator.

And I don't think we could have met. Helpful.

Yeah, for sure.

We. I don't think I could have met.

Her if it wasn't for the breath.

I mean, disregarding the fact that we both, you know, work in the same department, but generally, yeah, it took a lot of breathing to get to where I am today and for us to meet. But I, I'm so grateful for the.

Breath in so many ways because it.

Truly transformed to how I relate to my body. It truly transformed how I relate to other people as a consequence. And, and just how much more regulated I am in my interactions and even just, you know, I remember when we started dating back then and I had.

My breath to regulate me because I.

Was a fucking anxious mess going on days, as, you know, also Johnny. And so.

Yep.

Yeah, and, and, and just having the breath, let it be in the capacity of a transformational style breath work session to. And we always say, you know, whatever pops up for us, whatever, you know, triggers us. There's always, I can always take that.

Onto the mat and Breathe with it. I always have that option.

Right. And of course it's nice to have.

A therapist and a coach and whatnot.

And read all the books, but I can always do the work right then and there and just get on the mat and breathe and see what happens and what wants to be seen, what.

Wants to be felt.

And so yeah, there's just, I mean, immense gratitude to the breath for sure in that regard.

Beautiful.

Thank you. And excuse me, what comes to mind is perhaps you could give an example of, I'm just dying over here, an example of how you mentioned anxious attachment as an example. How do you think working with the breath and maybe specific practices allowed you to move into a more kind of long term secure attachment over time? What is that process like and what practices specifically do you think enabled that shift from the dysregulation into the regulation?

Well, I think it starts out with the basis of the basics, interoception, even.

Just feeling my body and noticing when.

I'm spiraling into an anxious state. And so because anxiety is not something, or a panic attack is not something that just starts. There's, there is, there are signals from our bodies beforehand. Right.

And being able to notice them and.

To become aware of them earlier and sooner rather than later.

So then, because that's, that's the magic with breath work.

It's not about waiting until you have a full fledged anxiety or panic attack. And there are still breathing practices that can help with that.

Yes.

But it's about being able to, to.

Learn via the breath, which is where.

Breath awareness comes in and you know, other somatic practices, just learning how to feel our bodies. Learn like what you guys are doing with the NSDR practices. Right? Like body scans really.

And, and just actually being able to.

Feel what's going on inside. And, and I love what you, I think you always use the term, you compare it to like a chef and the different flavors and learning different flavors. And it really is like that. And I just thought about it this morning actually I was in the gym and, and just how much more conscious and mindful I am in the gym now even. But, and, and over the years and of practicing breathwork because breath work is.

A way for, it's the bridge, right? It's the bridge from our minds dance, our bodies.

And, and so for me it was a huge, huge facilitator in just starting to build that connection with my body. And, and so in that regard, I.

Think that's where it starts.

And, and I think the breath is.

An amazing tool to practice Interoception in the first place.

And then from there, yes, there are practices that help me to down regulate.

Or just generally balance my nervous system.

And let it be, you know, coherence breathing, which is I find the most effective practice out there. If we practice it on a daily basis. I don't think it needs to necessarily.

Be complex at all.

And I think that what happens, what happens to a lot of us is we go and we explore the wide variety of breathwork practices and you know, taste all the flavors and all the.

Different ways that the breath can make itself feel.

And, and then I feel like many of us then come back to oh actually the power and the magic is in the simplicity.

Super simple.

Yeah.

And. And then of course there's you know, the down regulating practices extending our out breath and just humming and, and or vooing that, you know, in moments of more intense dysregulation when it's already gone a bit too to intense that, that I use those practices. But really it's also been a combination of so many different factors. Breathwork being.

I always talk about the like a keychain that we like we all have this lock to our own healing or.

Whatever you want to call it. Okay.

And this lock needs a specific set of keys to be opened.

And so. But we all have different locks, right? Because we all have a different biography and different stories and different traumas and you know, whatever and different nervous systems as a result. And so we all need a different.

Set of keys to unlock that lock.

And for me it was breathwork I find should be a big key on anyone's keychain in any regard. No matter what all the other keys are. I believe breath work and functional breathing, somatic practices is something that we all need to come back home to our.

Bodies and to find safety in our bodies and.

And then for me, yeah, as I said, it was a lot of, a lot of therapy around developmental trauma, attachment issues that yeah, it, I mean it's been years and I find developmental trauma is very complex trauma because it's not something you don't, you can't pinpoint it. You can't say oh this is when it happened.

It's rooted so deep in your psyche.

You know, because it, yeah, it's, it's.

Like we're programmed right in that sense.

For years and years, in our first seven years and pre, like birth traumas and prenatal and whatnot that we don't even know about. Right. And the stuff that our parents pass on to us. So anyway, and then it was, you know, a lot of working with my nutrition that was huge as well, and really healing my gut and having like a customized supplement protocol that was also a huge game changer in dealing with the anxieties that came up in different situations in life.

But the breath was always like the constant.

You know, it's the thing that's, that's, it's always there, it's always available to us. So it was for me too.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that. And that's been my experience as well. So I know that there've been a bunch of questions that were submitted through Circle and I'm sure people in the room also have a lot of questions to ask. But before we go into that Q and A, I'd love for you to share briefly, kind of what is functional breathing kind of at its essence and what's wrong with over breathing? What's the right way to breathe? And what are some of the transformations that you've noticed in your students that have gone through this self paced course of yours? Just a kind of high level overview.

Cool.

Yeah, for sure.

So, functional breathing. Why do we even need to talk about functional breathing? And that's because there's a lot of.

Dysfunctional breathing patterns out there.

And I don't even want to talk about functional dysfunctional. I mean, we could say optimal and maybe not so optimal breathing because at the end of the day, every breathing pattern, no matter how optimal or suboptimal it is, is, Is perfect because it.

Developed for a reason. And we developed dysfunctional breathing patterns for a reason.

And based on, you know, the stressors in our lives, based on past experiences, based on how we grew up, based on how. Based on the breathing patterns from our parents. You know, I mean, we, this stuff.

Is passed on for sure.

And so.

But what's the actual problem with it? Well, when I talk about dysfunctional breathing.

What I'm really talking about is a certain breathing pattern. And there's a few things that would qualify for dysfunctional. And that is, for example, a lot of mouth breathing or mouth breathing at.

Night, snoring with an open mouth or sleep up.

No abnormal as we also call it. And then we have upper chest breathing, right? That's part of a dysfunctional breathing pattern. And then, you know, many of us have a breathing frequency that is way.

Higher than it should be.

So we should be breathing at a rate of somewhere between, I mean, the lower end is 10 is what they say. But I feel, I don't know, it's not so Easy to find people with a breathing rate of 10. I don't know about you, Johnny, but, but they say in between 10 and 16 is, is that's a healthy breathing rate.

It's like the, the upper end, I think. Yeah, like 10 to 14.

Yeah, that's, that's the upper end. But they have also extended it over the years. It, it used to be 10 to 14.

Oh, really? Dysfunctional breathing just like expanded. What's normal?

Exactly.

Let's just adjust this to the dysfunctionality out there and then, and so anything that's above would be just, would be considered dysfunctional breathing because we're breathing too fast. Also people who take big breaths a.

Lot, so we over breathe just by.

Taking in too much volume of air. And also people who sigh a lot or yawn a lot, we all sigh, we all yawn every now and again. And it's important. But if it's too regular and becomes chronic, and so I see a lot of that many of these dysfunctionalities as in combination. Usually upper chest breathing also means people.

Are breathing too fast.

Or mouth breathing also usually is in combination with chest breathing, fast breathing. So they're usually not isolated. But the actual issue with that is.

That we off gas too much carbon dioxide. That's.

And carbon dioxide, we usually think of it as like a waste gas is, you know, it's just we breathe in oxygen, we metabolize and then the CO2.

Gets exhaled and that's it. But actually CO2 is super, super duper important. It's way more than just a waste gas.

And so on the one hand, it's actually the primary trigger and the main.

Breathing regulator for us.

So it means, you know, it's not that if you guys can check it out now, you can just breathe out.

And hold your breath.

And then after a few seconds you get the feeling, oh, I kind of.

Want to take a breath now. Now what is that?

It's not the lack of oxygen. It's not that your oxygen levels are going down. Oxygen saturation always stays between 95 and 99%. But it's that levels of carbon dioxide that increase. And many of us, because of dysfunctional.

Breathing patterns, have a very low CO2 tolerance.

That means.

I, for example, my CO2.

Tolerance will probably be higher than many of you guys here. That means I can hold my breath longer. My sensitivity is not as high as yours, meaning if I hold my breath.

Now and the CO2 rises, the signal for me to breathe takes longer than.

It does for many of you. If you have a low CO2 tolerance.

Meaning the signal goes up quicker. That means that you're over breathing. We can test this via.

And I don't know if you introduce this in your course, but there's something.

Called the bolt score test or the.

Control pause and we can sort of gauge as to what our CO2 tolerance looks like and if I am over breathing or not. And so the, the issue is that knowing that we're over breathing and having a dysfunctional breathing pattern.

Yeah, you could say, well, whatever, you.

Know, I'm off gassing too much CO2.

What's the problem here?

Well, for one, carbon dioxide is.

Really.

Important to deliver oxygen to the cells.

And to organs, to your muscles, to your brain.

If there's not enough carbon dioxide in your body, in your lungs, in your blood, then the cells, the hemoglobin, and that gets way too technical.

But it doesn't actually release the oxygen molecules.

That's one thing that's really, really important.

But the other thing is, is that if I'm breathing through my mouth and if I'm chest breathing, if I'm breathing fast, that kind of breathing, what does that remind you guys of? How do we breathe when we're stressed? How do we breathe when we're anxious? That's how we breathe. That's essentially a stress response from our body. So many of us breathe when they're at rest, right? They breathe in a way as if.

They'Re in a, in a stressful situation, even though they're not. And so that means if my body is in a stress response because of.

The way that I breathe and the breath is directly connected to the nervous.

System, then I am producing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, more than I.

Need to and more than I should and more than I than is healthy.

And I see this in so many people. And dysfunctional breathing is more prevailing than I think the studies would suggest. They say that I think about maybe 30% of people have dysfunctional breathing patterns. But from what I see, it's more.

Like 70 or 80% of people, like.

Any, like, especially in the Western world, I would say in Western countries have dysfunctional breathing patterns. And so that means people are way more in stuck in a stress response than they should be. And that has obviously the domino effect in your bodies in terms of, yeah, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, but also physical health issues. And that is in a nutshell, hopefully explain in a way that people can actually understand it. But yeah, in essence, breathing and the.

Way you breathe.

Is directly connected to.

The state of your nervous system.

And so we like to say in. In Breathwork, how you breathe is how you think, and how you breathe is how you feel. And essentially. And ultimately, how you breathe is how you live. Because if you breathe in a stressful way, essentially, you get you pro. Like, if I look at your life.

In the set of your nervous system.

It'Ll probably represent that and the other way around.

So, yeah, that was awesome. Thank you, Connie. And for you guys listening, we're going to be covering this in a lot more detail in week three. And Connie and I also recorded a podcast where we kind of did a deep dive into functional breathing practices. And I'll share those links to the podcast in the chat afterwards as well. And Connie also has a fantastic course on this, specifically on this, that we can share a link to as well. But I'd love to get to some of the questions in the room and some of the questions that were submitted ahead of time and maybe let begin with. With pim's question, because I thought that was a. That was a really good one. Pim, if you want to unmute yourself and maybe reshare the question or share any additional context.

Cool.

I guess, like, the main question is that I know a lot of practices to calm myself down, but I don't know a lot of practices to, like, uplift myself or maybe if that's.

I don't know.

I don't even know, like, if that's the best strategy to get out of, like, the dorsal vagal stuff. How do I get out of the dorsal vagal stuff with.

With breathing techniques?

I guess that's, like, the most concise.

Version of my question.

Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to answer this one is that you'd need some sort of practice that's more activating. And as I said, the breath is.

Directly connected to your nervous system.

So what most of us need is.

More of a downregulating practice, because many of us are st. More in a.

Sympathetic nervous system mode, meaning we're more in a state of activation and not enough in a state of relaxation. And so generally, we would slow down your breathing. And if people are stuck in a.

Dorsal response, so they're more in shutdown.

Then, as you also know, because I think you've learned about the polyvagal theory.

Is that when we're stuck in dorsal.

We first need to get into sympathetic.

Mode right into activation before we can.

Then land safely in ventral mode, right.

Where we feel safe and connected and relaxed.

And so my suggestion would be to start out with a practice where you're.

Activating your nervous system first.

So that means you could, for example.

Do something like a connected breath in and out through the nose.

And you could also experiment with in.

Through the nose, out through the mouth. I wouldn't do it for too long. Even just 10 breaths might be totally sufficient. Right. So you could be like this.

May I have to change my audio settings here. There we go. Okay.

That would be through the nose.

I'm breathing into my belly. Right.

Using diaphragmatic breathing. I'm not breathing into my chest.

That's important when you do an activating breath like that. I can also do in through the.

Nose, out through the mouth. That's a little bit more activating.

So it would be like this. Okay. And as I said, watch out.

Breathe with your diaphragm.

So you want your lower ribs and.

Your belly to be moving first and then your chest. You could also do something like kabalabhati.

For example, or bellows breathing, the more yogic style pranayama breaths. I don't know if you already covered.

That in your course, Johnny, or if.

You'Re still going to, but those are activating breathing practices. Now, as I said, be careful with these activating practices, especially if you do them on your own without a guide or teacher guiding you. And I say this because there's a lot of YouTube practices out there and like breathe to activate your. Or to have a DMT release or to, I don't know, see stars and ride through the universe or some shit. But essentially people are selling you breathwork practices. Activating breathwork practices practices to get into an altered state of consciousness. Even just Wim Hof breathing as well. Like, I think it's way too activating.

For most people and it's not necessary. It.

It could be just enough to do 10 breaths and then take a break, see how you feel.

And that's where interoception comes in.

And. And then you could possibly maybe do another 10 breaths and then see how that feels. And then I would shift into a practice like coherence breathing, you know, four or five seconds, seconds in and out. Or maybe four seconds in, six seconds out, or maybe into box breathing.

So you do want to balance it out again with a balance in practice.

Yeah. Thank you, Connie. Just to add a little bit more context to that. So I yesterday morning, this hasn't happened to me for a while, but I had a conversation with my partner and I noticed a kind of disproportionate response in my system and I went into shutdown and I Kind of excused myself, went downstairs and noticed this. Like my body wanted to almost like collapse. I didn't want to kind of look up or make eye contact with anyone. And for me, I realized that I was in that state. And using breath, movement and sound are the three kind of key components that I would say. And for me, I ended up doing some, some yoga, stretching with some deep breathing and some kind of, some toning or some kind of sounding. And I felt this, I felt the energy like come back into my body. And with that came emotions as well. There were, there was anger and there was some, some grief there. And I ended up going into, into a kind of self guided journey and experienced a memory from when I was quite young. And this thing kind of surfaced and completed itself. But to your point, kind of some kind of activation energy needs to come into the body through either breath, movement or sound. And when it does, be prepared for emotions to kind of come with it. Because often when we go into the, into the collapse, it's like a way of our body protecting ourselves from feeling whatever the emotions that are there. And so just being, being conscious that these emotions may surface and they may also wish to, wish to move or wish to be felt. So I just wanted to add a bit more context to that.

Yeah, beautiful.

But thank you for the question.

I think also shaking is awesome. I shake every morning when I do my lymph activation practice and it's a lot of tapping and then there's a lot of shaking. Or bioenergetics is also a beautiful way to kind of get the, like especially to maybe release some stored anger.

Because usually when we're like, the question is why am I stuck in dorsal.

What is underneath it? What is an emotion that I haven't felt or that I'm suppressing consciously or unconsciously?

No one to blame here.

What is, what is underneath that dorsal.

Response and what really wants to be felt.

And so there's something to be said, I find about having a daily practice to just kind of get my nervous.

System going a bit like a Kickstarter.

But then like Johnny, like you were just saying, we also really need to get to a place where we go.

Into the layer of our emotions and.

And see what wants to flow through.

Us that we haven't felt because it.

Didn'T feel safe and how can I feel safe? And that might be with a, with a breathwork coach working one on one maybe, or it might be going to, yeah, a facilitated breathwork session. It might be working with a somatic.

Psychotherapist Any of the above. But if it's a chronic state, it's. It's worthwhile digging deeper.

Thank you. Okay, so I'm conscious that there are a lot of questions, so let's go to Tessa. Hi there.

Hi, Gani. Yeah, so my question is, I was really appreciating what you were saying with regards to, like, panic attacks. Not just coming out of nowhere, aware, because that very much makes sense to me. However, I definitely have had the experience where it seems like that is what happens. So I'm wondering if you have kind of like a roadmap or like some of the early signals that a panic attack is eminent, essentially.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. Thanks, Tessa. Yeah, thanks for sharing. Yeah, for sure. And sometimes we're not in a place where it's, you know, a panic attack is. Is. Is so obvious that it's approaching because we're maybe busy, we're out there, we're not as connected to our bodies. But for one, I mean, usually beforehand you would feel maybe that your breath is. Is getting more activated, maybe you're breathing a little bit faster, and you might feel. And. And this is really where the interoceptive practices come in of developing the somatic awareness and autonomic awareness of where am I feeling the activation in my body? Because what anxiety really is, it's.

There's charge in my body that wants to be released.

And what we often don't do is that we actually connect to that charge in our bodies.

And a lot of times it starts up here, right, because there's thoughts that.

Are being, you know, repeated or memories or whatever it is, and then. And then suddenly they're, you know, it.

Triggers a stress response in our bodies.

And so I think it's really about becoming more and more mindful. And it's a process. Like, it's. It's something that it took me quite some time to learn, and I continue to. And because interoception and learning how to.

Read and understand the language of our bodies, I mean, when so many of.

Us were so disconnected from our bodies and it's really.

It is like learning a new language. And that takes time. Time and being able to read the subtleties of the language that are in this. The.

The messages that our bodies are trying.

To send us, it takes time. And so to my invitation here is to be.

Be patient with yourself and to maybe notice it. Just maybe next time you'll notice it.

Just a little bit before, you know, and maybe next time a little bit earlier too.

And. And Then that your thoughts are changing, that maybe there's some charge somewhere in your chest.

Maybe it's in your belly.

Right. Maybe it's in your throat. And.

And learning to be with that charge and holding space for that charge and the breath can help you with that.

Let it be humming.

Humming or booing is.

Is a wonderful practice to calm our bodies down, activate our vagus nerve and then to actually, you know, you can put a hand on wherever the charges.

And to just be with it. Because a lot of times what makes.

It makes anxiety and panic attacks worse.

Is because we're trying to not feel it. Right. We're in resistance to feeling the anxiety and. But what would you do if there was a five year old coming to you and it's saying to you, hey.

Tessa, I'm really scared.

I'm really scared.

I feel like maybe I'm going to die or something. Why would you. Would you be like, yo, I don't want to talk to you.

Go away.

Make it go away. Can I do some practice to make it go away? You'd be like, yo, hey, I'll give you a hug. It's all good.

Right?

And so we really need to start.

Developing that kind of relationship with ourselves. And that's a step by step process because it's.

Yeah, it's learning and learning and unlearning and unlearning and learning.

Yeah. Hope that helps, Tessa.

Yeah, thank you. That, yeah, that is helpful. Especially like connecting to the charge rather than trying to squish it down.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

And I know it can be scary, but, you know, baby steps.

Beautiful. Thank you, Mattia. You've had your hand raised for a while.

Yeah, thank you. Briefly, the way I got to breathwork was it was a path for me to access locked emotions. Basically, that's how I got there. And I started practicing a bunch of different techniques from holotropic breathwork to up regulatory breathing and a bunch of stuff. Main reason to be here in this course is to understand a bit more of the science behind it. I heard you and Johnny talk on the podcast about, and you just made a comment to that effect a few minutes ago of people basically using breath work to getting high. And so what I'm trying to determine for myself is how much of that is actually what I'm doing versus accessing, like using this for regulation, but also for accessing emotions.

Right.

Because I mean, I did get really high. It was awesome. But also that's not really my goal here.

Right.

So I'm trying to. If you have any tips in that direction?

That would be great.

Well, why do you like being high?

The same reason why I used to like drugs when I did that. I just like the pleasure. I like actually that level of pleasure.

Well, and I totally get it.

That's also what I loved about these.

Deep dive sessions in the beginning and.

Got really stuck in that until I.

Realized being high, it.

It doesn't feel grounded, and I don't actually feel very connected to my body, and I don't actually feel very connected to my emotions. And so. And what we also often do is.

We use a wonderful sacred practice, right? Like breath work in a way that's.

Actually spiritual and emotional bypassing, which, hey, I was totally bypassing for years, you know, and that can be a very valuable stage in. In our development and on our journey, for sure. And so I'm not saying it's bad to get high. I just. My invitation for you is to inquire.

As to what that gives you.

And for me, you know, when you just said, well, it's kind of like back then when I did drugs.

Well, why do we do drugs? To not feel something.

So the invitation is for me. How can you get more into connection with yourself to feel safe and use.

The breath to actually feel yourself and to feel what's there?

Because if I can be whatever is.

There and enjoy it in a grounded state, then I don't need to get high.

Like, I'm done being high. Like, it doesn't give me anything.

I love being grounded in my body.

God, do I love the human experience.

As it is here right now, with.

Me, breathing with you, with me connecting to you, feeling my feet on the.

Floor and feeling my breath. That, to me, is way more valuable and worthwhile being alive for than chasing highs, right?

And that is something that took me many years. And I have my own history with.

Drugs and substances and all the ways.

To distract myself from actually being here right now and feeling my body and.

Feeling my emotions and being grounded and.

Actually feeling connected and safe in my body. And if that might be. If that is potentially your intention, then I invite you to set that intention. If you get on the mat next time and you want to do, you know, holotropic session or whatever, transformational style breath work, then do it with an.

Intention of connecting deeper with yourself rather.

Than, for me, getting high is up here.

It's right.

I'm like, no, low is the new high. That's how I look at it.

Let's get low. So anyway, yeah.

I want to leave.

Space I'll message you somewhere. But yeah, I have definitely thoughts.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome.

Yeah, thank you, Connie. And just to add my own kind of experience with that as well, I also had a similar kind of journey of like a year or two of just kind of almost checking out of my body and having wild, crazy experiences. But it is, I realized, in retrospect, a form of disassociation. Like I was outside of my body and having great experiences. But the real insights and juice and profound experiences came from learning to be in my body in the midst of this intensity and kind of building that, expanding my window of tolerance, essentially. Beautiful. So there is a question from Ronan. Had one. And Ronan, do you still have your hand raised?

Yeah, sure. I can go. Thanks. So I feel like this might be a very stupid question that I already know the answer to questions, but why not ask it? Because it's a pattern I get stuck in, which is like, I find it fairly easy to regulate most of the time on a kind of sufficient level through meditation, blah, blah, blah. But then I get into states when normally when I'm in dorsal, I guess when I feel very uninspired, unmotivated, unenergetic. And I know there are things I could do to improve my mood, but I deliberately don't do them because I'm basically sulking. I'm just like, I don't wanna. I don't wanna feel good. I wanna feel like basically. And is there any other solution than just will just stop sulking and get on with it? Or is there something a little subtler for how to treat yourself in those moments?

Beautiful. What are your thoughts like when you're.

Sulking in those moments?

Highly avoidant. Like they don't even want to be aware of themselves.

My invitation would be to get onto the level of your soma, of your body and to just be with any sensation that's present in there and to actually be with what's there.

And you can use your breath because it.

The breath can help us to feel.

Safer in our bodies and with any emotion that's there.

And I think there is a difference.

Between being with an emotion and sulking.

In it and disassociating from it, but it's still there.

Or.

And trying to sort of bypass what's there and trying to kind of motivate.

Myself to get out of it.

And I think what's missing in between there is to actually be with.

With what's there.

And whatever sensation is there, whatever emotion is there that just wants to be Felt like I said, like, I always feel like any emotion is like a.

Five year old or a three year old. It just wants to be seen, it wants to be heard, it wants to be felt.

And the more we disassociate, consciously or unconsciously, the more we.

The more we.

We ignore it, the, the louder it gets.

And then it'll come back.

So yeah, you can motivate yourself and try and get out of it or, and then it'll come back, right? Or you can learn to be with.

It and feel it more and just learn to feel the sensations of what's.

Present and to feel, to get to.

A place where feeling your.

And maybe you guys have spoken about this before, but you know, if we consider that any motion has roughly a.

Life cycle of 90 seconds, you know, we don't need to be with it.

For, for too long, but can we.

Give an emotion 90 seconds to fully be present with it and breathe with it?

Maybe we can try.

Does that help at all?

Yeah. And I particularly love the 92nd thing. I think I can handle that.

Just wanted to add a little bit of context from my experience yesterday, just because it's so fresh. I was in a similar state of like, almost like on that edge between realizing that something was here, but also wanting to avoid and kind of considering just like going into work and like distracting myself with the plans that I had for the day. But there was this point, and I remember it pretty vividly, where it was like, it was like a choice point. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna find the courage to lean in towards this and not go away into, you know, the work and the things I, that I had planned and the moment that I, I made that choice for, like, courageous curiosity was the phrase that came to mind. And as soon as I did, the. The emotion that I'd actually been kind of unconsciously avoiding rose to the surface immediately. And I was like, oh, there it is. And like, there's the thing to feel. That's what I'm being invited and called into right now. And that for me. But it, but it did require that kind of conscious witnessing of the state that I was in. And then the, the conscious decision to be like, okay, I'm going to choose courage in this moment and I'm gonna, I'm gonna move towards this thing, which isn't always easy, easy to do and it's not always possible. So kind of being kind with, with yourself as well. Beautiful. So, Connie, I just wanted to check in. Do you have, do you have to go Because I know we'd originally scheduled an hour or do you have a.

Few more, a few more questions.

Okay. Amazing. Yeah, thank you. So there's, there's a couple more here in the group and then there was, there was one or two from the, the circle as well. So Jordan, if you want to, if you want to share.

Okay.

I was about to leave, but I guess this is my moment. Thanks so much, Connie. That was goosebumps moments. I'm also a bread worker myself, so similar training like Johnny. So I totally relate to your journey. My only questions right now as I'm exploring the new frontiers of breathwork is how do we apply breathwork for relational intelligence? I know you said you're recovering from your anxious attachment style. I'm myself recovering from anxious attachment style now. I'm also in relationship. I'm also trying to apply this into relational setting in a workplace and I'm curious if you have done any of that or any insights on how do we apply this co regulating technique with breath in a day to day, more functional environment like work and relationships.

Thank you. Great question.

Yeah, thanks for your question.

I feel like it all comes back.

To maybe what I've already spoke about. But for one, it's about a daily practice.

Right.

I, I, I feel like sometimes we want to just use breathwork situational.

Right.

When we, when we kind of need it. But, but I think it comes down to having a daily practice that helps.

Me to set the foundation for regulated.

Nervous system to, you know, check in with my breathing, whether it's functional or dysfunctional, make sure and just getting, that's like the baseline functional breathing, nose breathing.

Belly breathing, slower breathing.

Right. And then having a daily practice in place. That can be coherence breathing, it can be box breathing, you know, something that's regulating and that's like baseline. Right. For any human should be baseline. And, and then when it comes to situational moments and you know, let it be and I don't know exactly what you mean, like at work, like do you mean before I go into a.

Meeting or to not be triggered as much.

So I don't know, I'm lacking a little bit of context here.

Mostly that like conversations. Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I just generally feel like by staying connected to our breathing, that in itself is, is very grounding. By really checking in with am I breathing with my diaphragm right now? Like is my, is my breath up here?

Is my breath down here? I can stay way more grounded being in relation with someone when I'm connected to the Low parts of my body. So diaphragmatic breathing, slow nose breathing.

Am I connected to my legs?

Do I feel my feet on the floor? This is the kind of stuff that regulates you and helps you feel grounded as you're talking to someone, as you're maybe in an argument or a conflict.

That's what I do when I have a conflict with my partner. I'm like, where are my feet?

Where's my breath?

Okay, let's do this and, and then from there.

And that in itself has a regulating.

Effect or co regulating effect in the moment. And because we're always regulating each other in one way, you know, or another.

Because our nervous systems are all connected.

And so, or even before you're going into a difficult conversation or a challenging.

Meeting or whatever it might be, using.

Your breath, your breathing practice, like coherence.

Breathing, box breathing, alternate nostril breathing, stuff.

That you're learning also with Johnny, and.

Taking the time of five minutes, even.

Just, you know, five rounds of box breathing or, or 10 minutes, whatever, how much you have and doing that with intention before you go into a challenging meeting or conversation. I think that really helps as well. But I find it's really about using.

The breath in a way that it grounds us.

And I think the, the, the best ROI is diaphragmatic breathing.

Slowing down my exhales, especially feeling my.

Feet on the floor and then going from there.

Hope it helps.

You have anything to add, Johnny.

Great, thank you very much.

What helps you when you're in conflict with your partner?

To stay grounded.

If I'm, if, if I'm not too far gone, then kind of staying there and kind of maintaining eye contact and connection and like leaning in to the degree that I can. If I'm like outside of my window, then kind of excusing myself essentially, and going outside, going for a walk, going downstairs, just like being in my own space for a while and then, and then returning. But it's, I, I find that Kelly and I actually talked about this in a podcast that we did. But I think being in intimate relationships is the kind of most powerful crucible that you can choose to be in for surfacing. These kind of unconscious patterns and habitual things that we, we generally won't see or won't look at unless they, they rise in the context of relationship. Because there's so much at stake for us.

I think that's an important one too, to actually to take a timeout and say, I need a nervous system regulation timeout, and then the other person doesn't take it seriously does take it seriously, but not personally. And knowing that it's not about them.

It's just my nervous system that needs.

A little break to get regulated. And then we can.

Yeah. And. And just. Yeah. To add to that, like, it's. It's almost. It's never productive if both sides are kind of shut down or disconnected in some way like that. It will just spiral from there. If. If one partner, like, has the presence to kind of hold the space to ask the questions, to be curious, to kind of help to elicit whatever's there, that's beautiful. But as soon as, like, both of us are even slightly kind of shut down, then it's just, like, it's time to. For us at least, like, kind of go apart for a bit of time and then come back together when we're. When we're more grounded.

Yeah. We always feel like we start talking gibberish. Like, you know, what happened when you're in a conflict and your amygdala is just, like, pumping your prefrontal cortex offline. And then whatever comes out is useless. And so by now we're just. Sometimes we start laughing because it's just like, this is just ridiculous what's coming out now. We might as well just talk gibberish at each other and just get on with it because usually it's not very productive.

What's being said.

There's a phrase that I really like from Joe Hudson that I know many of you are familiar with, and he says, we're not fit for human consumption when we're in this state. This is how I felt yesterday. It's how I think many of you can relate to this. We're just not fit to be around other people when we're in that state. And so it's kind of our responsibility to find a way to regulate ourselves and to come back into connection. And that might involve asking for help, it might involve asking for support. It doesn't have to be alone, but it is still our responsibility.

Yeah. When we have an anxious attachment style, we don't have a lot of capacity to stay in the window of tolerance.

When we are in romantic relationships and.

Things get a little turned on in our nervous system.

And so, yeah, it is really about building that capacity.

And that takes time and. But it's doable for sure.

Beautiful. Okay, John, you have your hand raised. Yeah.

I'm really glad for this workshop, so to speak, in the language of somatics as well. And in my first question, I like what John shared. So sometimes when I'm I have low capacity to experience feelings and I'm overwhelmed. Again, I use my phone as instruction or YouTube and I can see the moment where I, I can choose whether to sit and face the feeling or to choose a distraction. And most of the times the distraction wins. So I'm wondering how I can master that. Carrots to lean in. I mean, do you have a tool that you use or like a specific breathing pattern that can. Instead of me going there, you know, okay, I can sit and breathe at least and prevent that from happening because then it can go for a while and then we. Without knowing it, I can spend like 15 minutes, half an hour or more.

What is the situation where you would.

Be intentionally distracting yourself from, let's say when I'm feeling.

And so, and what happens with that? And I have a lot of experience and feeling lonely and sad from my own life story. But it's for our nervous system and, and generally for our system to feel those emotions. It takes a lot. And if we haven't learned how to self regulate in a healthy way and we don't have a wide enough window.

Of tolerance and enough capacity to be with those emotions in a way that.

Is productive in a sense where we.

Don'T get overwhelmed by them because we easily can. For me, it was always I was, I would get scared of fully giving.

Myself into these emotions because my fear.

Was I would get eaten up by.

Them and I wouldn't come out again. Literally, that was, that was my fear.

And so I would distract myself and avoid feeling those emotions for too much. By what you were doing, right?

Scrolling, watching Netflix, going out, drinking alcohol, whatever, to just not feel that. And however the problem is, let's say.

On a scale from 1 to 10, right?

10.

I'm gonna die because I'm feeling so lonely and sad.

One is, you know, I'm feeling okay. Maybe I would come up to a.

4 and when I'm at a 4.

I would already get scared even though.

I'm far away from a 10 and dying.

And so then I would start to.

Dissociate and which is what we do.

We dissociate by scrolling. What happens when we're scrolling?

We're up here, we're not in our bodies anymore.

I don't know about any of you.

Right now watching this.

How many of you are feeling your.

Lower legs or your legs, your feet?

How many are connected to your breathing?

It's hard when we're on displace. But anyway.

What would happen is at.

A 4, I would check out however when we actually start being with our emotions and actually be with it, whatever is there and we allow it to go to a 5, then maybe because what an emotion, it goes like this comes up.

It's like a wave.

It comes up and then it breaks. The wave breaks and then it goes down. That's usually how emotions work. The reason we get stuck in them is either we have a loop going on in our minds that keep repeating a thought or an experience or whatever.

Or we're just. We have so little capacity and we.

Fall outside the window of tolerance and.

We get stuck there and we don't know how to come back in.

But let's say I would allow myself to go to not to not dissociate. I would actually stay with the emotion that's there. And by staying with an emotion, what does that mean? Where is the charge in my body? Where is that charge? Maybe it's in your chest, maybe it's in your belly. And I just stay with that charge without getting up here, without getting lost in the story of it. I just stay with the charge with the sensation in my body. What does that sensation feel like? What is present? Where do I feel it? What's the texture of it?

Is there a color to it?

Is there images that come up? And all I do your job is to just be with it. That is all. I know it sounds super simple and we all know it's not. And so what then happens is eventually.

And you can use your breath, as.

I mentioned before, the breath is always your ally. It's always right there. You can use, you can extend your out breath, you can use humming or booing, right? To stay in a window of tolerance of being with it.

And at the same time, you can.

Also look for a place in your body or outside of yourself that feels safe. Maybe your feet feel safe in that moment, right?

Maybe you have a charge here in.

Your chest and your belly and it's terrible, all the sadness and the loneliness, right? But you might have somewhere players. It could be your right knee or it could be a left foot. That feels safe, that feels okay, right? Or it could be somewhere outside of you.

Maybe you have a pillow that you can take that makes you feel a.

Little bit more safe and comfortable to be with what is. And then you just stay with what is there. And eventually that wave, it will break.

And it will come down.

But the more you try to distract yourself. And we can dissociate and bypass with breath work as well. If we use breathing practices, because I.

Get so many people that ask me.

Connie, do you have a practice for xy?

Do you have a practice when I feel this, do you have a practice when I feel that?

What can I do when I'm angry, I'm like, hold on a second here.

This is not about getting rid of anything.

I want to use the breath to be with it more. How can I use the breath to actually feel safe enough to be with what's there?

And so I don't want to, I, I don't ever want to teach breathwork in a way where people think we.

Can use it to emotionally bypass because that is not the point. Not in my work. For other people.

They might teach it that way, but.

It will come back and then you're.

Going to feel it again tomorrow and.

The next week and whatever. What's the point?

The point is to get to a.

Place where we can build that capacity to be with whatever emotion comes up. And your sadness and loneliness comes back.

To what I said earlier.

It's that four year old, it's an emotion.

It's a four year old that wants.

Your attention, it desperately wants your attention.

And we have to learn and relearn.

And that's where therapies also like somatic.

Experiencing and narm or even hakomi come in. And that can really, really help on.

That journey of building capacity to be with, with these emotions.

Because it also really helps to be with someone that can co regulate you in way that you can, you know.

Go through the process together so that you can then learn to go through the process on your own.

And breath work can help you in a way where you can, you can create a sense of safety in your.

Body to be with it. And you can also do these deep.

Dive sessions like holotropic style breathwork where.

Things will be probably brought up to the surface in most cases and they.

Will be made bigger and so that you can get an opportunity to fully.

Feel the entire emotional stress cycle. But it's not something you do once. It's usually layer work.

Right.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And exactly. I, I wanted to feel safer using the breath to experience the feeling. So I get ruin coming. Extending the outbreath and finding like an object for outside safely.

Exactly.

And trusting that it's a wave. The wave goes up, it breaks and.

It comes back down.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Ride the wave. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that question too, John. And I wanted to add a couple of pieces to that one. Is that on the other side of that Wave. It's really important to have time for integration and relaxation as well. Well, and if we don't allow ourselves to, to really rest after these big experiences, they're not fully integrated in our system and the changes don't land in our nervous system. So that's why I would say breath work, journeys, there's always at least a 20 to 30 minute period of deep rest and relaxation after these experiences. And that applies even if you're not in, in breathwork. And then the other thing, I wanted to just kind of emphasize what Connie was saying in terms of what we're learning here with nsm, with, with the RISE framework. It goes interoception, self regulation and then emotional fluidity. And it doesn't end at self regulation because as Connie said, that's just often bypassing the emotions. But we do need to be grounded in our window of tolerance to have the capacity to then go into the emotions and to feel the emotions. And so that's why, that's why we're kind of going through the curriculum in this, in this order. And each stage is very important. So thank you. I wanted to close with one question from Ocean. She's not here right now, but she sent me the question privately and her question was, where do you see the art and the science intersecting in a meaningful way? And who are some people and maybe some resources who are attempting to bridge this gap that we could keep our eyes on, to follow, to kind of learn more about? Like where would you direct people? What kind of resources would you suggest? And you've already mentioned Hakimi, Somatic experiencing, narm, which I'm actually not familiar with, so I'd be curious to hear about that as well.

Narm is mainly.

Well, there's somatic experiencing, which deals a.

Lot with.

Shock traumas, but not just.

But it works really well for traumas that happened at some point in your life.

And you can not just.

But mainly.

And whereas narm is more directed towards developmental trauma and attachment injuries.

So it's a lot more, it's more with.

It deals more with complex trauma, complex ptsd.

Somatic experiencing.

Very helpful still, very much so when.

Dealing with developmental trauma. I think the two in combination are brilliant. And that's what I've done in working.

With therapists is combining. Combining the two.

And how. And I still think that many of us had probably a combination of both.

In our lives, to be honest, which.

Is why both are amazing. And I mean, even just being born is a shock trauma in itself. And many of us have had A traumatic birth and don't even know about it. Probably it's something that many of us don't really look to. And who else? Well, I mean, there's Johnny Miller, who is an amazing breath worker himself. Yeah, there's me. I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a little hard to recommend other people. It's one reason why my partner and I, we started a breathwork teacher training. And also the training that you did, Johnny, with our friend Ed in, in Bali with Breathwork Bali, that's definitely recommended. And there are. I mean, I think there's more and more trainings out there like ours, but I just don't know of them yet. And because a lot of the trainings out there, and thus a lot of the teachers that train with them, I don't find that they work necessarily in.

A way that's trauma informed and nervous.

System informed in a competent way. And so bringing the art and science together, because the art is like breath.

Work is and will forever be a spiritual practice.

It's, it's a breath, it's what keeps us alive. I mean, I don't know how we can separate the two. And I think it's important that, that we are, that we're cautious in terms of who we breathe with. And so I would say.

What would I say?

I mean, there's.

He was just here, he just said goodbye.

James Dowler, friend of mine as well. He's an, He's a wonderful breath worker. He does wonderful sessions on Instagram as well. I do sessions on Instagram currently. And, and then, yeah, we're gonna try and create an English teacher training next year. Currently it's in German only.

And other than that. Wait, let me.

There's this book.

I was gonna say, what, what books would you recommend from that pile?

Yeah, sorry.

For those of you interested in yoga, pranayama and in combination with science, and I can really recommend the book Restoring.

Prana by Robin Rothenberg.

She was trained by Patrick McEwen, also one of my teachers. Oxygen Advantage and Buteyko, those are two schools that I'm trained in or. And a few others, but that I'd.

Highly recommend if you're interested, to learn.

More about breathwork and especially functional breathing. Especially also if you're an athlete, if.

You'Re a high performer.

Oxygen Advantage is amazing. If you have any sort of more pathological circumstance. Snoring, mouth breathing, sleep apnea. No, what else? Or sleep apnea, I should say. And anxiety, panic attacks, that sort of stuff.

Buteyko is really, really good, but this.

Is a really good book. Restoring Piranha and generally Books by the.

Breathing cure by Patrick McEwen is.

Yeah, it's back there too. It's. It's definitely the Breathing and Functional Breathing Bible.

Oh, yeah.

It's also in your recommended reading. Wonderful. Yeah, that one. And yeah, I'd stick to whatever Patrick says. I think is probably the most researched.

I don't know anyone who's so well read and so deep, deep in the science of breathing.

And so that's really wonderful.

And.

Yeah, that's all I can say. So that's the stuff where I would put my name under, I guess.

What would you say?

Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. Patrick's been doing this for 20 plus years and he's so thorough and so methodical and he does his own studies and his own research and he's. He's fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Connie. This has been really fun. Is there anything that you would like to leave the students with? Any closing thoughts, any closing invitations, or any kind of resources that you'd like to direct people to?

Yeah.

So functional breathing, I think, is the.

Absolute foundation for a regulated nervous system.

So my invitation is nose breathing 24 7. I think you might also introduce or talk about mouth taping at night.

I tape my mouth at night.

Johnny tapes his mouth at night. Our partners tape their mouths. That's the only way we can definitely guarantee that our mouths are closed.

Our sleep is gold.

We have a cute ritual around it.

Yeah, exactly. Same here. So nose breathing 247 even. Especially when you're out there walking, going about your day, especially when you're working at your computer. Check in with your breathing. Are you holding your breath? Are you breathing through the nose or through the mouth? Are you breathing in your chest?

So check in with your breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing. So here are your lower ribs. You want your lower ribs to be moving and your belly and a little bit your chest.

So that's, that's like the 80, 20. And if you even just do five minutes of breathwork, practice every day in the morning and in the evening and just start there, then. Yeah, I think you'd already have a really good basis to, to work with.

And that's all.

Yeah. And if you want to dive deeper.

Into any of that stuff, then I.

Have a self study course called Breathwork.

And Nervous System Foundations and it gets.

Yeah, a bit technical and, and we.

Go deeper into the science of functional.

Breathing and, and how it all works and how it's all related to the.

Nervous system, that sort of stuff.

And other than that, join me on. On Instagram Tomorrow, 6pm is it. It's 5pm No, I keep forgetting. I think it's 6pm Berlin time.

Just check.

It's on my Instagram. And on Sunday, I'm running an online deep dive breathwork session that you can join as well.

It's a two hour breathing circle. So. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Here, Johnny.

Breathwork Alchemy on Instagram for people that want to. Want to find you there.

Breathwork Alchemy. Yes, on Instagram. That's right.

There we go. There we go. Everyone give Connie a follow. Her content's awesome.

Thank you.

Okay, well, yeah, thank you.

If anyone has any questions going over.

As well, send me a DM or.

An email or whatever.

And yeah, awesome.

And Connie's in our circle community as well, so you can reach her there. You can reach on Instagram, send her an email. Yeah. Thank you so much everyone for being here, for staying with us for the full 90 minutes. And yeah, maybe as you go, unmute yourself and say thank you. Say thank you to Connie as we as we leave would be a nice way to wrap up.

Thank you so much. Have a good evening.

Happy regulating your nervous systems.

Bye Bye guys.

Thanks for having me.

Johnny.