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The Importance of Deep and Conscious Breathwork · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, when you're tuning in to this episode, I want to say thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend with me.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So something that I haven't actually talked about on this podcast before, um, and and I I maybe you know about me, maybe you don't, is one thing that I'm also uh certified in and work with people on is breath work.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so recently I was actually getting ready to hold a breathwork class and I was putting together the playlist for it, and my daughter actually teased me and said, Mom, don't your clients know how to breathe?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you already know how to breathe?
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  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is we do breathe, we breathe every day, but so many of us breathe in a pretty shallow way.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to talk about what breath work is and how it can promote healing because I don't know that enough of us understand that there is uh a way that we can truly breathe and allow for some deep healing to occur.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I often will talk about the connection between mind, body, and spirit.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that's true is our body does hold on to trauma, our body holds on to experiences that we've had.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we need to find a way to release that so that our body can actually heal, which allows for the cognitive space to also start healing through past experiences that may have been traumatic or maybe holding us back going forward.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when we're stressed out or we're frustrated, one of the things that we do is we we pause for a moment, we try to take a deep breath.
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  SPEAKER_01: What most of us don't realize is that we probably take that deep breath still in our chest area and we raise up our shoulders when in fact what we really ought to be doing is breathing as deeply as we can into our core, into our belly.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the term breath work really refers to a variety of breathing techniques.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just really one breathing technique, let's just be clear about that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's um diaphragmatic breathing, which is known as belly breathing.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you belly breathe, you use your stomach, your diaphragm, and your abdominal muscles instead of just your lungs and that upper area of your body, that chest area.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when we breathe this way, we're actually allowing more oxygen in and out of our lungs.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is more oxygen is coming in, more carbon dioxide is being released.
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  SPEAKER_01: And these breathing exercises involve a mindful awareness with each breath.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, if you deep breathe and you pay attention to each inhale and exhale, you're controlling the flow of breath, and it's also allowing you to be present in that moment and allowing for that relaxation and calming to overcome both your body and mind.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And studies show that breath work has many emotional, physical, and spiritual benefits.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, when you're focusing on your breathing, you distract your mind from upsetting thoughts.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, I say the word distract, but truthfully, what it is is it's a refocus.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a choice point of where you're gonna put your energy for that moment.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not about pushing those thoughts away or pushing the emotions away.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's about in this moment, in this present moment, I am focusing and choosing to put my energy on my breath.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the breath is a life force.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many different types of breath work practices.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's shamanic, there's transformational, there's intention setting, there's chakra aligning, there's different methods to it.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's the box breathing method.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just there's so many options out there.
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  SPEAKER_01: Really, what this comes down to is a common denominator of breath work, does involve the ability to shift and change things for you.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It involves the ability for you to consciously breathe for a certain amount of time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It allows us to go from this shallow in the chest cavity area down into our belly, inhale as much oxygen as we can, allow for some carbon dioxide to release, and then allows us to be able to re truthfully rebalance that constitution of the inner part of our body.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Deep breathing exercises can help us balance our breathing, it can decrease stress levels, it can allow us to improve our focus, it allows us to release those negative thoughts, process our emotions, improve our self-control, build self-esteem, heal emotional pain.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, the class that I just ran the other day was all around emotional detox.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does, because if for those of you who aren't familiar with, you know, just how breathing the these breathing exercises work, the one that I use is very circular, so it's a deep breath in through the belly, through the chest, and then out through your mouth in a methodical way.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when we think about it, those emotions that we kind of push down, a lot of us will hold in that solar plexus area, that belly area.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when we're able to do this breath work, what we're really doing is allowing space for it to come up and out.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we have seen that breath work can increase the ability to manage uh anxiousness.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it has shifted people out of a depressive state, it helps manage grief, um, it's a way to uh work through stress and burnout, it's a way to manage anger issues, uh, it can be a reduction in pain, especially chronic pain.
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  SPEAKER_01: When you're facing PTSD or C PTSD, that's complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
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  SPEAKER_01: Breath work can be really helpful in that too.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because what we're doing through the process of breath work is we're really we're improving our awareness of self.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when we're practicing breath work and we're focusing on the moment and we're paying attention to the inhale and exhale, we are focusing ourselves on the ability to uh recognize what's happening for us in that moment.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when we become more aware of that and we be we give ourselves that space, what we're really doing is that we're opening up the door to more self-awareness.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when we have that self-awareness, I've said this time and time again, it's it's our doorway.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's our doorway to then make a choice as to how we want to shift and grow.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, breath work can help us with our focus because, again, as we're learning that habit of focusing on our breath, we're actually becoming more mindful, more presently aware, which can then translate into our everyday where we are showing up and being more focused and more presently aware of what's happening in our world.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It does reduce our stress and anxiety because as we increase the ability to deep breathe, even in our everyday, when life is throwing those challenges at us, we are starting to train ourselves to be able to, in those moments that we're triggered or were cued by stress or anxiety, we can learn to take a deeper, more um focused breath even in that moment.
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  SPEAKER_01: Why?
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  SPEAKER_01: Because the breath work practice has started to create that habit and created that muscle.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So then when we're in the thick of it, we're able to call on that.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get started with breath work?
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  SPEAKER_01: There are so many different options, as I mentioned.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one way, or a very simple way, and a very simple breath work practice to just get you started is the box breathing method, which is to uh give yourself the space to just sit quietly, uh, pay attention to your inhale.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna inhale through your nose, you're gonna count to four as you inhale, you hold that for four, you exhale for four, and then you wait for four and you do it again.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's you're essentially creating almost if you were to close your eyes and imagine that inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, wait four, do it again.
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  SPEAKER_01: You're essentially drawing a box with your breath.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's a very simple way to get started.
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  SPEAKER_01: As you investigate it, there are other breath work.
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  SPEAKER_01: So the one that I mentioned too uh for me and the one that I practice with my clients is this real circular deep breathing where you're you're actually breathing through your mouth.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: With breath work, there are some caveats to it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, if somebody has uh health conditions or issues that might um uh be, you know, you might have like especially like heart conditions or real true anxiety conditions where you might go into a state of panic.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: The the breath work that I uh teach, which is that open mouth breathing, might be a little too much, but the box breathing might be enough.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really about finding what works well for you.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just important to go ahead and give yourself permission to learn uh or to give yourself the ability to explore how to pay more attention to your box or more attention to your breathing.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because what that does is it allows you to focus for a minute, quiet yourself from distractions, allows you to really just get back into uh this place of being in touch with yourself.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about breath work, by all means visit my website.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a page dedicated to breathwork at comedywood.com.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I'm always available to have a conversation.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can put book a time anytime at chatwithcomedy.com.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay well.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, live joy your way.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Username it's authentic me.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.