Breath Tutorial

If you had to choose one thing to learn in your life, it's how to breathe correctly.

See video below

ENJOY!

In this video, I cover:

• Intro - We already automatically breathe. Why practice?

• 1:00 - Benefits of correct breathing

• 1:35 - The One Simple Breath vs Box Breathing

• 2:06 - The 3 things you need to know to breathe correctly: the 1st things

• 2:45 - Why you want carbon dioxide (CO2) - oxygen (O2) balance

• 3:53 - The 2nd thing to know

• 4:32 - The 3rd thing to know

• 4:59 - more benefits

• 5:38 - Five minute of guided breath practice (aka pranayam)

• 9:35 - Pranayam (conscious breathing exercises) is like a workout. When to practice, suggested goal, how to condition. We get into some numbers here.

• 12:39 - Posture for maximum benefit

• 13:17 - How to use breathing as a meditation

• 14:08 - Benefits revisited

Let me know if you have any questions.

Love, Savitree

Here’s the video transcript:

Hi, I’m Savitree, and I’m a breath and meditation instructor and Sustained Energy coach.

If I had to give you just one thing to learn, to make everything else you do easier, to feel calmer, better, more rested, to have more energy instead of exhaustion, it’s the One Simple Breath.

Coming to your breath is not just for Calm. It’s to become better at Life. The way you breathe reflects how you experience life. If your breath is shallow and erratic, your mind becomes shallow and erratic. When your breath has depth, your mind does too. And so becomes your life experiences. 

Your body follows your mind, and your mind follows your breath. So when you want to change something, begin first with your breath. 

The One Simple Breath:

• brings you into parasympathetic mode, which gives you ability to rest and digest.

• It soothes and strengthens your nervous system, 

• It helps move toxins - and toxic energy - out of your mind and body. 

• And it increases concentration. 

• It gets you out of your busy monkey mind and slows things down for you, as if you’ve just been given more time to respond to life.

The One Simple Breath is LONG DEEP BREATHING, which I’m distinguishing here from the BOX BREATHING method, which you might have heard of, has you counting for 4 seconds on each breath segment. 

[Box breathing] is a wonderful breath technique, by the way, but my goal for you, is to go beyond calm and to strengthen your lung capacity, and tune into your own rhythm.

There are just THREE THINGS TO KNOW.

FIRST, breathe through the nostrils. 

Even during a work out, as much as you can, try and breathe through your nostrils. 

You might have heard people say that a good way to stay regulated and in the right cardio zone is to make sure you can talk to the person next to you. 

The better test, and a more effective way to strengthen your lung capacity, is to build your stamina by breathing through your nostrils instead of talking. 

In doing this, you BALANCE YOUR CARBON DIOXIDE - OXYGEN LEVELS so that the oxygen can reach every tissue in your body, all the way down to your toes. 

The issue normally isn’t that we don’t get enough oxygen; it’s more often that we don’t have the right O2-CO2 balance. We often think we need more oxygen, but remember that HYPERVENTILATION is overconsumptions of oxygen and reduced levels of CO2, which leads to the narrowing of blood vessels, including the ones that supply blood to the brain. 

So instead, think oxygen-carbon dioxide balance. And you’ll get that by breathing through your nostrils. 

So unless you’re given a breath exercise that specifically instructs you to breathe through your mouth in a certain way, which has specific benefits, as a general rule of thumb, during the normal course your day, breath through your nostrils.

The SECOND thing to know is to take your inhale down past the diaphragm and into your solar plexus. 

You don’t have to take it all the way down into your sacrum. Just below the diaphragm is enough.

When you limit your inhale to stay in your chest, you’re shallow breathing, and that will put you in FIGHT OR FLIGHT mode. 

You want to be in a RELAXED-ENERGIZED STATE, and for this to happen, you want to breathe more fully by bringing that inhale down past the diaphragm. 

THIRD, make sure that your body expands on your inhale and, on the exhale, your torso contracts in towards your spine while your spine lengthens. 

It’s worth noting that while some breath exercises may have you do some mouth breathing, NONE of them will have you shallow or reverse breathe. Ever. 

Now when you put these 3 together:

• you’ll feel less overwhelmed, less anxious, and less exhausted. 

• The stress that’s stuck in your muscles and tissues begin to dislodge and move through and out. 

• You’ll begin to feel your natural healing ability get activated in your body and you get access to the wisdom - your deeper values and internal compass - that’s in your body. 

• And you’ll find greater capacity for Joy. 

Now let’s take a moment to practice the One Simple Breath. 

Close your eyes, or if it feels safer for you, keep your eyes just slightly open with a soft gaze looking down towards the tip of your nose. 

Sit with your spine tall, shoulders go down and back, and your chin is level. 

Press your sitting bones down into your seat to help lift that spine tall. 

Begin to notice your breath as you start taking your inhales and exhales at your own pace. 

As you do this, I’ll talk you through the three guidelines, and you’ll make the shifts as you go. 

On the inhale, take your breath IN through the nostrils, down your spine, and into your solar plexus, which is just below the diaphragm.

And then remember to exhale also through your nostrils. 

It’s not that there isn’t benefit to exhaling through the mouth. 

Again, the goal here with the One Simple Breath is to expand your capacities. 

Now, at the top of your next inhale, hold for a moment, without clenching your throat shut. Keep the throat mostly relaxed with maybe a slight constriction at the base of your throat.

Notice if your torso is expanded in every direction. If it’s contracted towards your spine, take note of it and on the next inhale, allow it to expand. (We want to REVERSE the reverse breathing!)

Take that inhale all the way up, making it full. You’re taking in life force. Vitality. 

And then pause for just a moment at the top before you begin your exhale. 

When you exhale, notice when you start getting ready to take your next inhale. Pause for a moment first and notice. You most likely have more left to exhale. So exhale a little bit more. And then a little bit more. And a little bit more. Squeezing your torso in towards your spine to get the air out while keeping your spine tall.

When you don’t have any more left to exhale, take that slight pause at the bottom, and then inhale.  You might notice how much more automatic and full your inhale becomes with the complete exhale. It feels effortless. 

Continue breathing this way for a few more breath cycles. Notice how this feels to you. 

Especially if this is your first time doing pranayam, or breath exercise, you might feel a little tingly or lightheaded. That’s perfectly normal. Your body is recalibrating. It may be getting the full breath for the first time in a long time. Just make sure you don’t get up too quickly. 

Now to end your practice, take a deep inhale and hold. And then, through the nostrils, slowly exhale. Aaaallll the way out. And then relax the breath. 

Now if you’re finding nostril breathing difficult, as with any workout, it gets easier with practice. In a workout, you build and strengthen the muscles you are using. In this case, you’re strengthening your respiratory muscles, which includes your diaphragm, the rib cage muscles, and your abdominals. You need strong respiratory muscles to stay healthy, especially as you age. Your immune system depends on it.

Practice this as often as you can so it becomes how you breathe. 

An average person takes about 20 breaths cycles per minute. 

A breath cycle is one inhale and one exhale. That works out to - and I pre-did the math - 1.5 second inhales and 1.5 second exhales. 

Now image doing that purposely. It would feel a little like hyperventilation. And this is why we’re all so stressed! 

A good goal is to work towards a norma breathing pattern of 12 breaths per minute or less. Which is 2.5 seconds inhale. And 2.5 seconds exhale. Still very short. Definitely attainable. 

To get there, you want to condition your body by slowing down and taking in less breaths per minute. Your start range may be anywhere between an inhale and exhale of 4-8 seconds each. 

If you take the average 6 second inhale and 6 second exhale, with the pauses at the top of your inhale and the bottom of your exhale, that’s about a 15 second breath cycle, or 4. breaths per minute. And when you’re doing that in life, you have total command!

When I trained, I was taught what’s called the one-minute breath, which is 20 seconds inhale, 20 seconds hold, snd 20 seconds exhale. Not easy. But it does condition your body to slow the breath down during the day. 

The great news is, this practice is super portable. It’s available wherever you are, which means you can practice the breath anywhere: while you’re folding laundry, chopping vegetables, taking a walk, standing in line, waiting in a elevator, driving. Instead of mindlessly checking in with your phone, or letting your mind wander wherever it wants to go, try checking in with your breath.

And remember to keep your spine tall as you breathe. It’s difficult to take full breaths when you’re slouching. 

If you’re sitting in a chair, uncross your legs and press both your feet down into the earth. Press those sitting bones into your cushion and maybe even tilt your pelvis slightly forward. This posture will allow energy to move freely throughout your body. 

So this becomes a POSTURE practice as well, which absolutely impacts your energy levels. 

When you use conscious breathing as a meditation practice,

I recommend closing your eyes or having them only slightly opened with a gentle gaze towards the tip of your nose, or on a spot just in front of you. Wandering eyes create a wandering mind. 

In the beginning, you might place your right hand on your chest and your left hand just below your diaphragm. 

• On your inhale, your torso expands first, before the chest lifts slightly.  

• And on the exhale, the chest goes down first, then the torso back in towards the spine. 

And of course, The spine remains tall. Like the royal being that you are!

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The One Simple Breath doesn’t just help you get calm. It increases your stamina, it strengthens your immune system, and helps you detox in real time, moving things through and out as they come, instead of storing the stress in your tissues and wreaking havoc throughout your body. It strengthens your nervous system, making life a lot more manageable, and your capacity for joy will be gained more easily through this One Simple Breath.