This is a recorded interview (Josh Trent with Belisa Vranich) about using breathwork to reduce both physical and cognitive fatigue. Key points: poor breathing contributes to cognitive fatigue because oxygen fuels cells; breathing (ventilation) is powered by muscles (intercostals, diaphragm, core) rather than the lungs themselves; weak breathing muscles can cause unexplained fatigue; simple practices—daily 5–10 minute routines, brief trampoline/rebounder sessions coordinated with inhale/exhale, or short breathing meditations—are recommended to release tension and improve energy, mood, and resilience.
Chapters
When we look at fatigue, yes, there's physical fatigue, but most people forget, like there's cognitive fatigue as well. If we're not breathing properly, not only do we get physically fatigued, but we get cognitively fatigued. Can you talk about this fatigue component and how breathing actually gives us more of a bandwidth for energy?
Well, think about the days that you're in front of your computer all day long. And there's plenty of us that work in front of a computer all day long the end of the day, but.
I got my trampoline, so I jump on the trampoline, I breathe, I do my push ups and I do my yoga.
Well, the being exhausted that you get at the end of the day and sometimes it's puzzling. I've been sitting on my ass all day long.
So tired.
Why am I so tired? And that's brain tired. But a lot of what that tired is is that you're sitting and you're not moving. Okay, so you're sitting and you're probably not sitting in a good posture, but, but you're not breathing. So you get energy from your breath, just from oxygen. Oxygen is cell fuel. So if you're not breathing between the work where you're sitting is that you're going to get tired. So there's that kind of tired. There's the tired of I haven't moved and I haven't been breathing because I'm not moving. And then there's the tired that has to do with your breathing muscles not being strong. And that's a different kind of tired. That's the tired that Vince Lombardi was talking about. That's the tired that. I also have a quote from Sam Sheridan's book, I think it's a fighter's mind where you have an athlete that's an incredibly well trained athlete that's young and strong and they get fatigued and it's puzzling like why. And everyone who coaches has this person on their team where they're like, you know, he or she is so talented, they're so driven, they're so this and they're so that. But I don't know why their cardio is bad or, you know, what, what happens that they give up. You know, maybe they don't have heart and what it is is that they might have good cardio, but if your breathing muscles aren't strong just like any other muscle in your body, you're going to get tired. But since there's no burn like the burn of fatigue in the rest of your body, Is that you're not going to know why you're tired and you're just probably going to think, oh, I don't want it enough, or gosh, I'm such a punk, I'm such a wuss that I, that I'm not pushing myself harder. And it could simply be that your breathing muscles are just not trained and they're not as strong as they should be.
That's profound because I think about the breathing muscles. Most people think, oh, it's my lungs, I gotta strengthen my lungs. No, there's a lot of cast of characters, right? Intercostals, diaphragm, tva. There's a lot that goes on there. So can you talk about the biology of the breathing musculature that makes us strong so that we can be less fatigued?
Sure. So it's interesting because people think, oh, I need stronger lungs. Or they say like I'm working out my lungs. Or they actually think that the lungs are a muscle. And you know, it's not your fault if you think that because usually when you see an image for respiration, for breathing, you only have the little lungs. You have those, like, you know, have some clip art of little lungs. You never show the diaphragm or if you do, it's just a little line. So your lungs are pretty much like slabs of cake. So, so if you were to make like a little slab of cake, that's your lung, it does nothing on its own, nothing. So what happens is that it's in your thoracic cavity, it's in your rib cage. And your rib cage expands with muscles that pull it apart. And now air goes in and that's how it gets into your lungs. And then the rib cage squeezes together if it's working well. And your lungs, the air comes out of your lungs. So that's how you breathe. So your breathing, your ventilating is actually powered by the little muscles that are between your ribs, which are called your intercostals, the diaphragm that's below and all your core muscles. And if those aren't strong, then you're going to get, they're going to fatigue and they're actually going to take up more oxygen than you want them to. If all stressful jobs did breathing, wouldn't it be better? Wouldn't they be better at their jobs? Wouldn't they be better at communicating with each other? I mean, think of the days when you're frustrated and how much that person who's walking too slow or driving too slow annoys you. And then the days when you're kind of happy or fine, that person driving slow in front of you, you think, my mom drives just like that. Or, you know, gosh, I wonder what it's like not to have to be rushed. That must be great. Or you just kind of blow it off and you keep moving. And that's just a tiny little description of what we could feel if we had a breath routine that we did every day just for our souls and our brains is here. I'm going to do my. I'm going to make sure my breathing is a good, deep breath and work on that if it's not. And then I'm going to do five or 10 minutes of a breathing meditation just to let off steam. And I usually talk about things in a very physical way, very physiological, very practical, is that you get stressed throughout. Throughout the day. So we don't growl at each other. We don't shake it off. Like, we don't have these things animals have. We just push it down, push it down. So all the annoyance of all day long, you push it down, you push it down. It's terrible for you. I wish we could growl and just shake it off or, you know, do what animals do, but we don't.
We can. If we have a rebounder, we can go jump on the trampoline.
In the trampoline, the research shows that repetitive motion that's jarring in that way up and down.
It is my favorite. I've actually been cueing my inhales to the back. So I'll go while I'm on the trampoline for three minutes, and I'm like, wow, I just changed my whole physiology. But I digress.
No, no, but that's perfect. So point here, and let's make that a practical takeaway is that, you know, if you can bounce on a trampoline, it's great for you. Five minutes a day, that's it. Even less if you want to start with less and make it so that your breath goes along with the movement and then switch it. Maybe your inhale is up. Go exhale on the up and make it an exercise that's good for releasing tension. We have so much tension. We're suffering so much because of it. Saying, okay, five minutes a day. I have to jump up and down and make sure that I inhale and exhale with the jumping or I have to do my meditation. We'd all be so much better. We'd all be so much more tolerant, more flexible, more loving. Yeah.
Wow, this is like emotional intelligence at its finest. But just like always, it's fed through a lens of physical intelligence and somatic awareness. Awareness. If we're aware of what's going on our body, then we can be more aware of how we're treating other people.
