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Breathing Techniques To Reduce Stress with Todd Steinberg - E53
22 Plays3 days ago
Could the best way to calm your mind really be as simple as changing the way you breathe?
This episode explores how shifting from unconscious to intentional breathing can disrupt our tendencies to get stressed and have difficulty thinking clearly. We go into how such an accessible change can help lower stress hormones, restore mental clarity, and help you approach daily challenges with more resilience.
Todd Steinberg is the founder of Komuso, a company dedicated to practical stress management and mindfulness through breathwork. Formerly a high-performing entrepreneur driven by what he later identified as high-functioning anxiety, Todd shifted his approach after discovering simple breath techniques, an experience that became the basis for his company’s signature breathing necklace. Today, Steinberg’s tools are used by individuals seeking accessible solutions to stress, emphasizing simplicity in optimizing healthspans.
“When you're returning yourself to that state, you're able to again wash out the cortisol and then come back to just feeling good and okay.” - Todd Steinberg
In this episode you will learn:
- How high-performing anxiety can show up as constant drive and stress, and how Todd realized it was impacting his daily life and health.
- The science behind straw breathing and how simple, deliberate breathwork can reduce cortisol, support clearer thinking, and interrupt negative thought cycles.
- Practical breathing routines for different situations, including preventative breathing first thing in the morning and rescue breathing when stress hits.
- Why most of our daily thoughts are negative and repetitive, and how breath awareness offers a way to break unhelpful patterns.
- The connection between mouth versus nose breathing, physical performance, and long-term health, with easy experiments to try while exercising.
- How using physical cues like the Komuso necklace can help build the habit of mindful breathing and improve emotional resilience throughout the day.
Resources
- Connect with Todd on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/todsky21
- Learn more about what Komuso has to offer: https://www.komusodesign.com/
- Shop all the products Todd mentions in this episode: https://alively.com/products/todd-steinberg
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Breathing and Stress Reduction
00:00:00
Speaker
When you breathe first and you breathe in a way that's intentional and deep, then you're gonna make a better decision, full stop, because there isn't that cortisol. I know that everyone's been in in an argument and said that thing that they're like, you know, if I could do that over again. Yeah, it's because you weren't thinking clearly. You were in your own head because of that cloud that was blocking your logical sensors, right?
00:00:25
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:38
Speaker
Todd, welcome to the Home Healthspan podcast. How are you today? i'm great, Andrew. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to have you here, and I know our listeners are going to get a treat.
Meet Todd: A Journey of Self-Discovery
00:00:49
Speaker
But before we jump in to everything you've done and are doing, how would you describe yourself? I am a lively entrepreneur, father, husband, and more than anything, I think a work in progress.
00:01:04
Speaker
But considering that, I've come a long way since what I like to call a previous life that I lived prior to my little discovery. Yeah, and and that's actually a fantastic jumping off point because, you know, as the the founder of Camuso, I think you have an interesting story. There there are a lot of people that we have on this show that They're kind of a couple of big buckets. So there's one of like the lifelong athletes, the world champions, the Olympians, right? That they they have a profile.
00:01:33
Speaker
ah They come in. And then there's others that had some kind of wake up call. And you know they diagnosed with something or some scare and it it put them on this new path.
High-Performing Anxiety and Realization
00:01:42
Speaker
And this is now a big part of their life.
00:01:45
Speaker
So tell me about that previous life and kind of where you are today. Thank you for that. And I consider myself, I've always considered myself high performing, it was always near the top of my class or in sports. I was always the first or second to be picked type thing in gym class.
00:02:03
Speaker
And was kind of in my early thirties where I started to realize that that switch was never really toggled down. It was always go, go, go. And i had to optimize each day and it was checking so many boxes What I came up with through a friend of mine who's a therapist, he's like, look, man, I i don't know how you're going to take this, but I think you have like high performing anxiety and otherwise known as high functioning anxiety. And it was something that at the time he said it, I was I was still kind of proud of it I was like yeah, look at me. I'm able to, you know, work through all of these mazes of my life, but do it in a way where I'm high performing. So.
00:02:40
Speaker
It felt like I was in this race against myself. And i think at that time, I started to think through it more and I felt a little bit pointless. Like, what's what am I winning? what What's the medal? Like, who's watching me do this? Nobody. And it was great because in that moment, I could then put my guard down and say, OK, well, what would happen if I slowed down?
00:03:03
Speaker
What would happen if I didn't feel that way?
Managing Thoughts for Mental Clarity
00:03:05
Speaker
And that's that's when things started to reveal themselves to me. I mean, this has the the danger of becoming a self-therapy session, which happens a lot on this podcast, but it's like looking in a mirror, everything you're saying right now. So, okay.
00:03:20
Speaker
So you asked this question, what would things look like if I slowed down? Yeah, well, that was that was the continuing conversation I had with my friend. And I i i owe it to him because he we would just have these conversations and the conversations revolved around how we think.
00:03:37
Speaker
Right. Because we're not no one teaches us to think. No one teaches us to manage these thoughts. And when you get into the statistics, gets a little little heavy. Right. Because we have 50,000 thoughts a day. and That's a real number. And it sounds wild, but it is a real number.
00:03:51
Speaker
And then there's a study done by the American Psychological Association that found that 80% of those thoughts are actually negative. And some of those thoughts are helpful and negative and just being you know worried about the future is okay.
00:04:03
Speaker
Right, good. Look both ways for it, cross the street, good, right? But not when it gets carried away. And then the statistic that grabbed me was that 90% of those thoughts carry on the next day and the next day. They just were in this cycle of stress and we don't know how to break out of it. Right. So it's like we go into every day, like just look at take a quick audit of your life right now. What are you thinking about every day? And if you could do that, I promise you, you're worried about the same stuff over and over and
Preventative Breathing Techniques
00:04:31
Speaker
over and over. It's work, money, relationship. fitness, it's like there's there comes a point where you have to ask yourself, like is this working for me? Am I getting what I want out of this?
00:04:40
Speaker
Going back to my high performing anxiety, thought it was working for me. I thought that was a good thing. But it's a well, what percentage of this am I actually enjoying? Right. Because I'm 47. I'm starting to get to a point where all right, midlife.
00:04:54
Speaker
i need My days are starting to become more numbered, especially having children. It's like, all right, I need really like soak up the quality of this. It was through that conversation that cause like I kept asking, you know what what do I do? What what can I do? what What kind of program can I get on? and you know How do I practice mindfulness in in a better way? because I was into it. i understood it. I respected it.
00:05:15
Speaker
but He's like, can I kind of give you something super simple to use? I said, yeah, anything. He's like, well, in therapy circles, we use this this little hack before they actually get going with a patient.
00:05:27
Speaker
They will use a straw breathing technique. was like, OK, cool. So he hands me a straw. And I breathe through the straw feeling a little bit ridiculous because I'm breathing through a straw. And I'm realizing that my exhalations are going like seven, eight, nine seconds.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it was about 20, 30 seconds later, I could feel my heart rate coming down. And I could feel my shoulders release. And I kind of felt this this floating feeling, like a little bit of a buzz.
00:05:52
Speaker
And it felt so good. It felt warm. And I felt like, OK, well, what just happened? And why am I not doing this more often? Why is this the first time I'm i'm hearing a this or learning about this? So it's just straw breathing. And that unlocked everything.
00:06:04
Speaker
Is that in and out through the straw or in through your nose, out through the straw? Good question. So, no, it was it was an inhale through the nose to expand the diaphragm. And it was at that point i was realizing, OK, I'm not even breathing the right way. ah i was I was a mouth breather for so long, not realizing ah really until I read if you haven't read James, James Nestor. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
unbelievable life-changing stuff. yeah Yeah. Right. So it's like, all right, so now I'm going to change my breathing. But then with that, it was when you are aware that you have stress, you can then change your breath to change your mind as opposed to what I was doing, which trying to change my mind with my mind, which is like fire on fire. It's not really, not really getting anywhere. And obviously there's a combination of that that works.
00:06:47
Speaker
I just found that breathing with a physical thing made it easy. And with 50,000 thoughts a day and all these things we have to do, it's like, all right, you know, I could use a little easy. And it was the first domino that tipped off all the rest.
00:07:02
Speaker
Because really what we're talking about is at the top of the pyramid is awareness, right? Mindfulness is like what's happening. Who's the person observing the person thinking, right? I think Jim Carrey said that. like To observe the thoughts is to understand that there is something bigger, right? You're you're seeing yourself thinking.
00:07:20
Speaker
Not to get too deep into that, but... we can get into these rabbit holes. So it's like, all right, what if we can zoom all the way out? You know, everyone listening is like, what is your method of zooming out? And for me, I didn't have one until this point where it's like, all right, well, going to call it a breath break.
00:07:34
Speaker
And the breath break allows me to focus on my breath, which then recenters my thinking to the present moment. And then physiologically and neurologically, I am washing out all the cortisol, the stress hormone in my brain, and I'm relaxing my muscles and I'm allowing myself to be relaxed,
00:07:52
Speaker
And I'm not going to say calm or happy or anything that's ah that's exaggerated.
Health Devices and Supplements Discussion
00:07:57
Speaker
But the the priority for me was just clear. I want to be clear and focused so that I can understand what's in front of me.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah. And so there are several questions I have on this. I mean, do you have any wearable devices? Like, did you have, for example, ah benchmark on your resting heart rate or HRV or something before you started this practice and then after? Because that's ah an objective metric that I could see using a large impact over time with something like that Yeah, so I started to wear one.
00:08:30
Speaker
And i'll be honest, this was my experience. It drove me crazy. I was I found myself this is just my personal experience. I found myself observing it too much. It was taking it was stealing a little bit too much of my attention in terms of, OK, what's my HRV now? And what is it in 10 minutes? And know what's my heart rate?
00:08:45
Speaker
It became ah little bit of an obsession. i think that the heart of it is sleep because you get to understand your sleep patterns. And I have since then, and this is just one of the one of the pillars that I've installed, is sleep-wake time being the same week. I mean, that that is a standard practice. Everyone should be observing and practicing. But for me, it was just too much of a distraction. i didn't want to be tracked. I wanted to feel better.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah. And I could just notice and my wife noticed, she's like, you just seem a lot more like yourself and a lot less tense. You know, I think when something is simple and someone can relate to this is I have to open my front door. i have to hit a code.
00:09:26
Speaker
And for some reason, that code. it just scramble sometimes and you have to do it like three or four times. And so something like that would have driven me to, you know, an expletive. And after it was like, all right, I'm going to punch it in it again. It's no big deal.
00:09:41
Speaker
So it's like because you carry that with you, you carry these anxious thoughts and that stress in your chest or really in your mind. And then all it takes is, you know, that one thing that allows it to release and usually the wrong way.
00:09:55
Speaker
So what I observed was kind of as a before and after case, because there is no biometrics here. There's no data that I can present on myself. But I just know that ah when it comes to a negative thought that enters my mind or negative experience, I'm able to neutralize it a lot faster and move on.
00:10:13
Speaker
And that's something I wasn't able to do before. I mean, I'd be curious like to to try it because I have my Apollo Neuro. And when I did it within the first month, My HRV went up 5% to 10%. My resting heart rate went down kind of 4% or 5%. Then I got a Sensate. And within the first week, went 30%. Like it was crazy. How often were you checking it?
00:10:32
Speaker
crazy how often we like I mean, I see it every day so because it it it checks it at night. And so you say, hey, here was your HRV, your recovery score. I do a woo. And so I have kind of my baseline before an intervention.
00:10:46
Speaker
And so this is where I like, you know, i take AMLA. And so I tested my APOB before and whoa, it went from X to now it's 30% down where it was. That's awesome. Because APOB, that's like obviously that's life and death type stuff, right? With cholesterol. And so that's, I mean, literally in the past two weeks, I've been giving it to more and more people. It's my most gifted item is amlip powder because it's Indian gooseberry. It's dirt cheap for like a year's supply and it just stomps on your AFOB.
Breathwork for Better Decision-Making
00:11:12
Speaker
I want to try that. You told me. yeah I would definitely recommend it. So I want to come back to when you start feeling it, you go, you have this device and they're there are two pieces. There's one knowing and noticing when it's a time to use it.
00:11:30
Speaker
or setting a reminder so for example like i try to get better at noticing if my shoulders are going up or my but i'm not always great at it so in my calendar have two reminders each day to do a four seven eight breathing break right so it's my self-pleasing and don't do it 100 time when when it pops up but it is this hey you know this would be a good time but just take a break and breathe. So how how do you incorporate it So I, again, I like to simplify it. And that's with, cause there's a lot that can happen with breath that gets into all of these really dense, like hypertrophic breathing and and some of them are so cool. Right. But yeah to the novice or to someone that's just coming into it, i just explained it as preventative breathing and rescue breathing.
00:12:17
Speaker
Preventative breathing is first thing in the morning, instead of reaching for your phone, you you're, you're, you're coming out of these brainwaves that are still kind of adjusting into the waking state. Instead of immediately, you know, knocking your mind with 40 notifications and texts and emails and all that stuff, ease your nervous system into the moment. And that's with a two minute breathing technique that's just equal breathing. It's four in and four out.
00:12:41
Speaker
You think about a wave, right? Waves look nice and smooth. That's how you're breathing when you're sleeping. So when you wake up and you introduce... you know, 10 different things to it at the same time, you're going to get to a point where you start to hold your breath or your breath gets shallow.
00:12:55
Speaker
So now you're jumping into fight or flight first thing in the morning and you're probably doing it every morning because that's what the addiction to our cell phones are. I'm I'm one of them. Right. And this is why I had to intervene and ah introduce some sort of barrier before I i touch my phone.
00:13:09
Speaker
And that's where the four in four out or five in five out. And that's again, that's a breathing technique that's described in Nestor's book. But that sets up the nervous system to prepare for stress. Because what I like to say is that bus is never late. You know, stress is coming.
00:13:22
Speaker
Don't be surprised by it. Don't don't be upset by it because, you know, you're going to get that email or that text with a notification or someone saying something in a certain way, whether that's your kids, your significant other, your boss, your partner, or anybody.
00:13:34
Speaker
It is coming. And if you are set for it, I like to call it a hockey stance, like you're you're wide and low kind of base stance, right? Because you get hit like that. You can absorb it. But if you're not ready for it, you're going to get knocked over.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's not about avoiding the things we're going to interact. It's about resilience in the face of the things you know that you're going to face. Beautiful. Yeah. So it's like if we know it's coming, then what are we going to do about it? And that's the preventative side because then you can absorb it and kind of like wash it away faster.
00:14:01
Speaker
Then there's rescue breathing, which is the most important for me because I found myself and I still find myself as the founder of a breathing brand. I find myself. shallow breathing or holding my breath for short periods of time. And I'm most guilty of it when I look at my phone or my computer screen, whether I get a new email or whatever it is, I call it anticipation anxiety. But your brain sees something and it anticipates it being negative, right? Like, oh, well, what if it's this or that? You know, I'm checking my investment portfolio. What if it's down today? You know, what if this is a ah ah bad message from from from, you know, from my wife?
00:14:36
Speaker
And so, Then your heart rate jumps and you hold your breath. So now you're going into fight or flight and the cortisol starts to build up. You can't think this clearly. So again, coming back to that word clear, the rescue breath comes in and the rescue breath is so simple and that it's four in and instead of four out, it's eight out.
00:14:54
Speaker
So you're extending your exhale 2x. And when you're doing that, you're triggering your vagus nerve, which is then which is the largest nerve network in your body that touches every organ.
00:15:05
Speaker
And that's what calms you. And if you want to add a little bit of ah an extra pulse into it, it's you can hum as you exhale, or you can do the physiological sigh, as Andrew Huberman talks about, where it's the double inhale and then a long exhale.
00:15:18
Speaker
And that's where... To me, that after doing that for a minute or two, there is a significant shift from that heightened, you know tight shoulders, tight upper chest feeling into this, okay, I can do this. I can handle this and I'm clear.
00:15:34
Speaker
So those are the two types of breath that I practice and recommend. Great. You're this high-performing overachiever, kind high-performing anxiety consistently. have this wake up call, realize breath is the foundation, come back into my body, come back into presence.
00:15:49
Speaker
And then you described it as the domino that knocked down the others. So yeah what what were those dominoes? Like what what did those look like before and what do they look like now for you?
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, the easiest way to answer that is that that first domino knocked them all down in that it allowed me to zoom out and see things it shifted my perspective and the perspective is everything because as opposed to seeing you know it's like a mindset theory right like if you're if you're in a growth mindset you are seeing things as happening for you and when you're not you're in a mindset of well that this isn't fair right like what why is this such bad yeah happening to you look at the control exactly And that's stoicism, too. It's like if you embrace it, if if the obstacle becomes the way, then you see opportunities. Right. So it's like I go through a typical day and it's like, OK, open my fridge.
00:16:43
Speaker
What's the choice in front of me? I can have the cookies or I can have the yogurt. Right. They're both sweet. So make the good choice. Do the right thing. And usually when you're in a heightened state or when I was in a heightened state, it was.
00:16:56
Speaker
The body or the mind craves dopamine, right? And dopamine, man, it gets you in so many different problematic situations because it craves some enjoyment. like I want the ice cream. I've had a hard day or I want to lay down instead of going into the gym or I want to watch the junk TV or stream this or whatever it is.
00:17:14
Speaker
And that gets you in trouble because habitually when you do it, It leads into a lifestyle that ah is not making you healthy with nutrition, is not making you active with exercise, is not making the active decision to spend time with your kids or your family because you'd rather scroll. Because you know what? Scrolling is easy. And I can just use a break right now.
00:17:36
Speaker
So with what breath did was it's the first thing that I do before I make a choice. And like these moments, these are days are filled with thousands of these little micro decisions.
00:17:47
Speaker
They're not really micro, right? Because they all compound.
Breath Awareness and Stress Control
00:17:50
Speaker
But when you make these decisions, you you make them in a way that they're healthier for you. When you breathe first and you breathe in a way that's intentional and deep, right? With the exhale, if you need to, then you're going to make a better decision full stop because there isn't that cortisol I know that everyone's been in in an argument and said that thing that they're like, ah, I, you know, if I could do that over again. Yeah. It's because you weren't thinking clearly. You were in your own head because of that cloud that was blocking your you know logical sensors. Right.
00:18:20
Speaker
So when you breathe intentionally and when you breathe deeply and you use that rescue breathing technique or the preventative breathing, the dominoes fall in your favor because then you're making all these little micro decisions better. So like the floodwaters rising, it's like it raised everything because of that. So that's why I saying, I know it sounds crazy and like, oh, this guy just started breathing different and everything changed.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, it it kind of did because that one thing, when things seem out of control, when you come back to that one thing to breathing like that, It just makes it easier to climb out of that that dark moment or that stressed out moment.
00:18:57
Speaker
If you do that over and over again every day, and you have a lifestyle. Yeah, I mean, it I don't know if this is fair, but it sounds very much like Danny Kahneman's type one thinking, type two thinking. So you you have our default patterns, like the quick answer that's unthinking, like, okay, the dopamine, the cookie, that's what I'm gonna grab.
00:19:15
Speaker
But by working on the breath, coming back into our body, coming back into a state of presence, you're able to make that in a type two, I'm actually thinking through what do I want?
00:19:26
Speaker
Not just reacting, but thinking through, hey you know, I actually i feel really good after i eat a yogurt an hour later and I don't want to have the cookies. So maybe let me do that because it's going to feel different.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think about this way. You're doing it all day. We're taking 23,000 breaths a day, right? That's a real number. 23,000 times we're taking your breath in and out. How many of those breaths are you aware of? So when you're aware of more of those breaths, even becomes a sensor for you.
00:19:50
Speaker
Because for me, I'll just be, i don't know, writing an email and I'll notice that my breath is shallow and it's like, whoa, drop everything. What just happened? Why am I breathing shallow? And immediately it gets me in a position of discovery, you know, investigation of, ah, that's what it is because,
00:20:06
Speaker
I was worried about how this person was going to perceive this email and and it kind of influenced the way I was writing it and that I was writing it in kind of a defensive posture. So just being aware of your breath, which is hard to write. It's hard because you're doing it, you know, ah unconsciously. It's have it's part of your autonomic nervous system.
00:20:26
Speaker
And that's why we made the necklace. Right. It's physical. You're wearing it. It it it It'll it'll make you aware because it's physical. So going back to the straw breathing, it's like I'm not going to carry a straw with me all day, but there's this magic that happens when you're able to practice. And it's a muscle, right? When you practice breath awareness, you become aware of all these all these moments throughout the day where.
00:20:52
Speaker
You're you're able to step out like until you're observing your thoughts, you're observing what's happening. And then when you do that enough times, you can catch something. You can catch fight or flight right in its initial stage before it balloons into a bigger moment or into anger or into emotions where now it's going to take you like 20 minutes to get back into it.
00:21:11
Speaker
So it's kind of like guardrails keeping you in the middle lane. Right. Like like every car has now, like it kind of buzzes if you kind of start to work. That's what breath is for me. And that's what the awareness of breath does.
00:21:22
Speaker
And so you you mentioned when you wake up, kind of the the practice, the four in, four out. Do you have one before you go to sleep that helps kind of, hey, get me in the the body and the mind of this is now a time to just shut down?
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important, right? Because I know when I forget to do it, I'm laying there with my eyes open and And I'm like, what are you doing? Why aren't you doing the breathing? and And so it depends on my state, right? If I go to sleep after, let's say working, and I know that it's fresh in my head, i can feel my breath a little bit shallow, right? Not fight or flight, but I'm just not in a relaxed state.
00:21:59
Speaker
So with that, I'll do double breathing, right? Or I'll do the physiological side, depending on my state. Now, if I feel like I'm just kind of, which is most of the time, I lay down and my head hits the pillow,
00:22:10
Speaker
There's a little bit of a flicker of ah ah a press conference, right? Of like all the questions that come in. What happened today? What's going on tomorrow? How many meetings do I have? And what what if I do this? What if this happened? It's like, all right, guys, like lights out. We're not doing that right now.
00:22:22
Speaker
And that's where I will start the equal breathing. I'll start there. And then I'll shift my thoughts to ah to gratitude. And not the flowery, oh, my my family and whatever. It's more just like...
00:22:36
Speaker
man, I'm just, I'm so glad this pillow feels so good or, or, or, you know I'm not hungry right now, or I'm just, I'm just happy that I'm able to get eight hours of sleep tonight, whatever it is, I'll come up with something.
Breathing in Physical and Daily Activities
00:22:51
Speaker
And I can feel my mind kind of moving into a, I don't know, just a more relaxed and comfortable state. And it doesn't mean that that that happens all the time, right? Like sometimes that press conference will come back on And those questions will peak on. It's like, and it's the way I do it is I just, I see it and I kind of like welcome it to say, okay, I see you. I see the question. I understand.
00:23:10
Speaker
And like a cloud passing, but let's just keep moving here. And then we're going to move into the next thought. So the breath is kind of, i toggle the techniques based on what I need in that moment. And then how about when you're working out? I mean, one, like what kind of workouts do you do? How often? But two, I remember i was a swimmer, so I was very much a mouth breather like you because that's that's the only way you're breathing when you're going through the water.
00:23:33
Speaker
And so I would hear on shows, they oh, those mouth breathers. i was like, I don't understand what's the problem with that. And it was only i did an event. It was 2018 or 19 with Andrew Huberman and... Rich Devaney and other people that were training on different things. And they were like, oh, no, no, you need to breath through the nose. was like, well, not when you're working out. They're like, no, definitely when you're working out. And he gave this example of the Spartans.
00:23:58
Speaker
They would hold a little mouth and a little water in their mouth when they'd go off and fight. and And part of it was for hydration, but one was to just make sure you kept it and you kept the right pace that you're breathing through your nose. You're not pushing too hard or anything.
00:24:11
Speaker
And so it's been years the working, but now when I work out, other than when I'm swimming, I very much breathe through my nose. So I'm curious how all of this has changed how you breathe when you work out.
00:24:21
Speaker
Those are great examples. And it was actually Michael Easter that got me into the, it's that Spartan technique with the water in the mouth because I didn't really respect the, because run, I'm not a runner, so to speak. i'm not competing or anything anything of that nature, but I do like to run and, you know recreationally.
00:24:36
Speaker
And that's where I started to test my times when, and you know me, I'm not exactly, you know, ah measuring every step, but I started testing my times with my with my mouth closed and I started realizing that,
00:24:48
Speaker
my times were gradually improving and it was just oxygenation of your, of your, you know, your blood vessels. so So when I run, i close my mouth when I'm exercising, sorry, when I'm weightlifting, I'm practicing certain techniques where if I know I'm going to lift max weight, I'm going to be doing huge inhales.
00:25:08
Speaker
You know, getting getting really into I don't want to call it fight or flight, but getting my body. so you know just now I do. Yeah, it's like adrenaline. And I'm going to need that because I'm lifting heavy weight.
00:25:20
Speaker
So again, aware of that. But yeah, if I catch myself and I look around the gym, I see everyone's mouth open and it It really, if you can practice it and it's uncomfortable at at first, the air starvation, but if you can, if you can slowly just start to guide yourself into it, you're going to see improved performance. And that's not coming from me. That's coming from, you know, the Dr. Atiyahs and Hubermans of the world. They they've studied this and and by all means, it works.
00:25:44
Speaker
The other thing I would say on it is having mouth breathed for years, I had a constant stuffy nose. So, when I first transitioned, it was real oxygen starvation because I couldn't breathe that well. And James Nestor has some good things on how to clear nasal passages, like magic.
00:26:01
Speaker
But now being kind of five years into this practice, Unless it's all out sprints, and even then I just try to breathe out through my mouth and it's still in through my nose, it's not an issue. I mean, I keep my mouth closed when I'm lifting weights, whatever it is, because I'm able to get way more oxygen now that I'm doing it more consistently through my nose.
00:26:24
Speaker
Well, there's that. and And look, sometimes I'll cheat, right? If I'm at the end of my run or end of my workout and I'm i'm just gasping for air, i will I'll get that, you know, that that big one and it helps me. But anyone who's just starting out with that, what I was doing was I was practicing with three, three to one. So three inhales through the nose and then one in inhale through the mouth just to kind of keep me regulated little bit and then I would i would try to push it.
00:26:48
Speaker
But one thing I realized too is, especially for somebody that is meeting a lot, um or do you have a job that requires that, like right now, by talking and by having a conversation, you're breathing the wrong way, right? you're So you're kind of entering this dysregulated state physiologically because you are breathing that way. So if you ever, and probably have the feeling when you get off of a a podcast, a meeting or whatever it is,
00:27:12
Speaker
I feel tired. I feel like, oh, like what? And it nothing emotional happened. Nothing crazy difficult happened. But because we're talking so much, you know, we're breathing in these erratic states and it starts that you start to come back soon after.
00:27:25
Speaker
But that's where if you see the breath experts, they'll they'll they'll physically show you after they after they talk, they'll do one of these.
00:27:34
Speaker
And it's kind of strange to having a conversation with someone who's doing that, but they're doing it just to to return the you know the oxygenation into your blood cells. so Do you do, so we talked about kind of before bed, after bed, or if something comes up and bring it back.
00:27:49
Speaker
What about before you eat? you know that They talk about mindful eating and being able to really taste and be there, especially with a family, right? Being present at the table. Do you have any practices around your breath tied to mealtimes?
00:28:05
Speaker
So what i used to do was basically like I was an Olympic eater. I was just trying to finish as quickly as possible just to satisfy the hunger.
00:28:16
Speaker
And so I think like the first trick to unlock mindful eating is not to wait until you're really hungry, right? Is is you feel that hunger pang? try to get to food so you can eat it in smaller doses.
00:28:28
Speaker
And that's not always possible. I get it. Life gets in the way. But for me, it's okay. Even if I'm hungry, it's making sure that I'm chewing at a normal pace. Because if you're not chewing, it I used to have horrible indigestion and ah heartburn, all of it.
00:28:44
Speaker
And part of that was because part of it was just you know having the having the genes, right? But big part of it was that I was wasn't chewing enough. Yeah, you're asking your body to break down food that's not been chewed off yeah It's just that simple, right? So then I was like, what what would happen? Let's do little experiment here. what would happen if I started to chew slower?
00:29:02
Speaker
And i did that and the heartburn was minimized by like 70%. It was crazy. So I do catch myself ah racing sometimes, especially if I'm like in the car eating and you know those moments where you just have to rush a meal in. but right But when you're sitting down with either your family or anyone else or just yourself,
00:29:22
Speaker
it's important that that, you know, if you're, and I find myself rushing into it if I'm watching something, right? If my mind is taken to a video or TV or whatever it is, I'm mindlessly eating because my mind is on the on the program, right? So if you're,
00:29:38
Speaker
If you're eating in silence, then it's just a lot easier to do. But once you get into it, like the nose breathing, it becomes habitual. And that's the whole point here, right? Is to introduce these wellness concepts so that you're going to practice them on a daily basis so that you don't, it doesn't have to feel like a great, I have to work on mindful eating now, or I got to, you know, then I have to work on breathing through my nose and then i have
Mindful Breathing Tools
00:29:59
Speaker
to work.
00:29:59
Speaker
It doesn't become a list of chores. It becomes just this, active lifestyle that doesn't require active thought. It's just doing it because of the muscle memory.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we've referenced it. You talked about the necklace, but you haven't kind of shown it and demonstrated. Would would you mind for those watching as well as listening the Kamuso?
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to. So this is the breathing necklace, right? We call Kamuso because it harkens back to the 17th century Kamuso monks, actually, who brought meditation to Japan because they used a flute to practice meditation. So we kind of took that and said, OK, well,
00:30:37
Speaker
Can we modernize it a little bit so that we can wear it? And wearing it makes the difference between you actually breathing consciously and not, and not just consciously, deeply too. So just like the sharpening technique, you're going to deep inhale through your nose to expand your diaphragm, pause, and then you just exhale through the necklace.
00:31:01
Speaker
And just that one breath feels so good because the exhale went so long. And when you, we can do that three, four, five, six times, you're then entering a new state because you're doing something so good for your nervous system.
00:31:15
Speaker
And that's something that is kind of like resetting your breath to that relaxed state so that you're not breathing into your upper chest. A lot of people do that, myself included. We were just taking little sips of air.
00:31:26
Speaker
um So when you're returning yourself to that state, You're able to again wash out the cortisol and then come back to just feeling good and OK. And that's again why wearing it is a difference maker because I'll just be again typing and then I'll just play with it and just touching it brings my mind back to OK. What am I doing with my breath and then I'm able to reset.
00:31:47
Speaker
So it just and it happens four or five times a day. It could be in traffic. Could be you're waiting online, you're just annoyed. Could be you're tense before a meeting, anything. But if it can bring you back to a calmer state you don't need to like dial into Wi-Fi or take a pill or ingest something to do it and it works in seconds, it just makes a lot of sense.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, without any negative side effects, right? There may be pills that do different things, but who knows what the side effects, how they interact, but your breath, you're never going to be sad that you came back to that. Yeah, and like I think our overall mantra is just slow down.
00:32:20
Speaker
you know I think there's there's hustle culture where it's go, go, go, and that's the state I was in. i think that our culture is is predicated on that, right? Like we we we beat our chest on that. Like, look what I was able to do and accomplish. And I'm i'm hustling.
00:32:34
Speaker
ah woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning to to get all my stuff done. OK, cool. But are you getting your eight hours? Are you happy? Are you content with your life? And that's where I feel like if people just took a step slower, just just slowed it down a little bit, they'd be able to realize that there's more to be done in a mindful moment than there is with, you know, a list of accomplishments or efficiencies that they're trying to optimize.
00:32:59
Speaker
And that's where, again, the necklace is just that wearable reminder and that cue to slow down, eat mindfully, breathe mindfully, think mindfully, communicate mindfully, and just be in
Mindfulness for Happiness and Contentment
00:33:14
Speaker
a state.
00:33:14
Speaker
And I call it like your best self because your best self is someone that's calm. I mean, going back to Cesar Millan, right? The dog whisperer. He talks about being calm assertive. You know, what does calm assertive doesn't mean that you're this Buddha on a mountain. It just means that you are yourself, you're calm, but you're also in control.
00:33:32
Speaker
So that's That's what we're trying to do with Camusio, and i'm I'm happy that somebody allows you to be touched by it, by a simple necklace. Yeah, and I'm happy as well. It's, as you said, you know one of those dominoes that knocks down all the others. And so a common question we ask our guests is, we talked about a lot of things, but what's the one place to start? And I think I know your one place is coming back to the breath. But what what is the simplest, right? Like you we talked about in the morning, we talked about once you notice something is off and kind of the the rescue or ah reactive side,
00:34:03
Speaker
What would be one practice you say, hey, if if you wanted to start seeing and feeling what this looks like and the difference it can make, here's one way to do it? Yeah, I'm glad you asked because that question forces people.
00:34:15
Speaker
But what the technique that I'm about to present here is, is when you look at your life and you zoom all the way out and I and i said, hey, take the last 30 days of your life. What is the most stressful point of your day?
00:34:26
Speaker
And most people are able to identify, well, it's definitely like, you know, for me, it's my morning with the kids. It's just a half hour of just absolute craziness because they're young kids and it's just like brushing teeth and eating in shoes and things are and there's crying. and They don't understand how clocks work. And you're like, but this time matters. Yeah, I had this conversation this morning. I totally was there.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah. I'm asking you to put your shoes on. Right. So it's like so but I know that. Right. So I know that. So I like I try to get into that in a calm state before that so I can absorb it or so I can not absorb it. Right. So I can let it roll off. So it's like once you are forced to observe. Ah, OK, so there is this one point where it's it's always when I'm about to do a Zoom meeting or I'm about to whatever it is. And it's always the commute.
00:35:09
Speaker
but Once you identify that, I want you to try this breathing technique, because what you realize is is that when you do that technique, you're going to go from this frantic or frenzied or just, you know, moderately stressed state to a calm state.
00:35:23
Speaker
And that calm state is going to allow you to flip that negative into a positive within seconds. I mean, this is not a what if this is not an experiment. This is all physiological science is all proven. You are going, this is what he even talked about with the physiological side, testing better than meditation as the most effective way to calm the nervous system.
00:35:40
Speaker
So it's something that Stanford agrees on, which is good, but it's also something that is so easy and can improve your life starting right now. So that's where I did the the technique for you just so you could hopefully do it with me and just try to apply it to that one thing, that one moment during your day, every day that kind of, you know, rubbed you the wrong way and see what happens because you just might realize that that could be that domino for yourself to push you in the right direction.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I really appreciate not just the time today, but the the work you're doing and the lives that you're touching. Well, likewise, Alively is that that mission is part of something that of a bigger plan. Right. And we're just glad to be a part of it. And I really appreciate your time.
00:36:25
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other Healthspan role models on Alively.com.
00:36:37
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.