I share my weekly deep thoughts around breathwork, mindfulness, and movement topics to improve your life and live more intentionally.
From Evening Fatigue to Morning Energy
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Hey friends, Before we get into today's topic, a quick note. This Sunday I'm hosting a free live session on how breathing trains willpower. We breathe together and I explain what's happening in your body. You can save your spot here. Now, to the couch. Next time you're on the couch in the evening, count your breaths for one minute. Don't change anything, just count. Most people land somewhere around 15 to 17. That number is the reason you can rest all evening and still wake up tired. Your body doesn't decide whether it's safe by looking at your posture. It reads your breathing. Fast, shallow breaths high in the chest mean stay alert. Slow, deep breaths low in the belly mean we're safe, you can switch off. So you can lie there for two hours with your phone in your hand, and your nervous system spends the whole time on standby. The nerve that carries that message is the vagus nerve. It runs from the brain down to the heart, the lungs and most of your inner organs. What surprised me when I first read about it is that about 80 percent of its fibres run upward, from the body to the brain. It's less a command line and more a reporting line. Your lungs report on every single breath. On a slow, deep inhale, stretch sensors in the lungs fire. On a long exhale, the vagus nerve tells the heart to slow down. You can feel this if you pay attention. Your heart speeds up slightly as you breathe in and slows down as you breathe out. Every long exhale presses the brake a little. Normal couch breathing barely touches it. A study from Beijing Normal University together with a researcher from Harvard Medical School measured exactly this. Forty office workers sat in an armchair with their eyes closed. Resting normally, they breathed about 17 times a minute. Then half of them learned one technique, deep diaphragmatic breathing with a slow exhale. In the first session they got down to about 10 breaths a minute. By the fourth session they were under five. After eight weeks, 20 sessions of 30 minutes, their cortisol was clearly lower than in the group that only rested. Cortisol is the main stress hormone, and when it stays high for months it wears on sleep, mood and recovery. Negative feelings dropped significantly in the breathing group and didn't move at all in the resting group. Their ability to hold focus improved too. So here is what to do on the couch instead of scrolling. Sit up straight but not stiff. Close your eyes and breathe normally through the nose for a minute or two. Then slowly deepen the inhale into the lower belly. Don't just push the belly button out, aim for depth, so the belly expands to all sides like a growing cylinder. The chest stays quiet. Then let the exhale be slow and long. The most important part is to ease into it. If you jump straight to four breaths a minute, your CO2 climbs too fast and you start gasping for air. Let the pace come down over several minutes. If you land at six breaths a minute, that's fine. The people in the study needed a few sessions and a coach to get to four. Ten to fifteen minutes. When the mind wanders, and it will, bring it back to the movement of the belly. One more thing from the study. The cortisol shift showed up after 20 sessions, not after one. The point isn't a perfect session. It's doing this most evenings. And that is where most people get stuck. Not because they don't know what to do. The will to do it runs out somewhere around day four. Most of us don't lack willpower. We lack a way to get it back when it runs out. You already met a small version of this tonight if you tried the practice. The urge to speed up before the exhale is finished is discomfort, and staying with it for one more second is a tiny act of will. That is trainable, and the breath is the most direct place to train it. That's what this Sunday's live session is about. We breathe together and I explain what's going on in your body. You'll learn how deliberate breathing and breath holds train your ability to stay with discomfort instead of giving in. Then we practice it, guided step by step. No experience needed. Just a quiet spot where you can sit or lie down. Live workshop this Sunday: Build your willpower with your breath π₯β πΊπΈ Los Angeles: 12:00 noon It's free to join. Save your spot here π
See you on Sunday,
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Breathwork, Mindfulness and Movement Coach and Creator
I share my weekly deep thoughts around breathwork, mindfulness, and movement topics to improve your life and live more intentionally.
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