3 breathing exercises for better health with James Nestor | BBC Maestro

[Music] we're going to be talking about slow breathing right now the benefits of doing it and how by breathing slow you actually get more oxygen and more energy I first heard about coherent breathing from Dr Richard Brown at Columbia University he's been a psychiatrist for decades and the very first thing he has his patients do when they come into his office he sits them down doesn't matter if they have anxiety or gor phobia if they're anorexic if they have PTSD whatever he sits them down and he has them breathe in that slow Rhythm many of them cannot comfortably breathe in to a rate of 5 to 6 seconds in 5 to 6 seconds out so he starts at 2 seconds in 2 seconds out then he goes to 4 seconds in 4 seconds out and finally maybe after a few weeks or months of training he gets them to breathe at that coherent rate and he told me he said I have seen people absolutely transformed by adopting healthy breathing practices he even used this coherent breathing rate for people with this heinous condition called ground glass lungs nothing else worked for them but by breathing at this rate of 5 to 6 seconds in and 5 to 6 seconds out it allowed the lungs to purge out the toxins just by breathing at that rate so not only do you get more oxygen more easily not only do you calm yourself down you're able to get rid of more Gunk when you're breathing at this slow low coherent [Music] rate the key with coherent breathing is you shouldn't have to think about it this shouldn't exert really any effort on your part it should be smooth easy and very nourishing to your body so if any point you're actually struggling to inhale or exhale go back breathe at a slower Rhythm and you're going to be just fine so for this one we're going to do it for about 3 to four minutes of just breathing into a count of six just breathing out to a count of six you don't have to sit in one place to do this you can do this exercise walking around you can do it doing dishes is whatever the point is you are acclimating your body to breathing at a slower Rhythm and once you get the hang of this your body will adapt to it and naturally unconsciously breathe at this slower better relaxing Rhythm which is exactly what you want I'm going to lead you off here and then Mark is going to step in we're just going to follow with his rhythm here we go in 2 3 4 5 6 out 2 3 4 five 6 and in 2 3 4 five 6 and out 2 3 4 5 6 and in 2 3 4 five 6 and out you can pay attention to the inhale and the space between the inhale and the exhalation try to make your breathing like a circle it's okay if there's a little pause in between that inhale and exhale and that exhale and inhale but it'll be more calming to you if this is a pattern that was breathed in a cyclical fashion almost like a [Music] wave as you're breathing you should relax the belly area and the chest area should feel your rib cage slightly contract and extend on each of these [Music] [Music] breaths [Music] if you feel a little breathless at the end of that exhale try to breathe in a little more and exhale at the top [Music] down [Music] [Music] we're going to do this two more times and in and out one more time and in and out [Music] and [Music] rest so if coherent breathing isn't relaxing enough for you you can add on to it and a great add-on is something called UI breathing that means one who is Victorious and this has been used for centuries and centuries and yoga and Tibetan Buddhist Traditions what it is is you just constrict the glotus at the back of your throat and it makes this sound like that sounds a little perverted that's okay because what you're doing is you're benefiting your body even further calming yourself down calming down your nervous system creating more blood flow by increasing more carbon dioxide which we will be hearing all about later on in this program but for now let's just focus on this breathing into a count of six through the nose with that UI breath and out to a count of six through the nose with that UI breath so you can use UI breathing anytime it doesn't have to be tied directly to coherent breathing you can can just breathe this way into whatever count you want and breathe out that way in the same fashion making that sound I like to add this to coherent breathing if I'm on a flight if I am very tired but can't seem to fall asleep if I really want to Mellow myself out the last time I would want to use this coherent breathing is when I want to get pumped up or activated to do something that will really require all of my mental and physical [Music] capacity so here's another old classic technique that helps mellow us down it's especially effective to use before you go to sleep because it puts you in this deep state of calm it is called 478 breathing that four is how long you are going to be inhaling the seven is the hold the exhale is to a count of eight this one is a little confusing but I promise you'll get it there won't be any problems so Dr Andrew wild made this very popular a few years ago he was a Harvard doctor pretty famous guy out here in the United States he found that breathing this way was able to reduce stress in his own body and produce this feeling of clarity and focus while also being very relaxed what can it do for you you can find out in this next exercise so this 478 breathing technique it's great people seem to love it right it's been around for a long time the one little problem I have with it is that seven really messes up the Rhythm and I know this cuz I was hanging out with my good friend Mark we were jamming on this trying to figure out out some music to put along with 478 and it starts sounding like prag rock nobody wants that so what we did is we changed it just a little bit to 488 breathing I'm so excited to chrissen a new breathing technique I introduce to you 488 breathing let's get going inhale 2 3 4 hold 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 out 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in 2 3 4 hold 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 out 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in 1 2 3 4 hold 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 out 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in 2 3 4 hold 2 3 4 five 6 7 8 out 2 3 four five 6 7 8 in hold five 6 7 8 out 2 3 6 7 8 [Music] in hold seven eight [Music] out in hold 7 8 [Music] out into 3 hold out 2 3 4 five 6 7 8 in hold 7 8 out in last round [Music] hold 7 8 last exhale just let it all [Music] out and rest

Channel: BBC Maestro

Views: 61,304

Keywords: bbcmaestro, bbc mastro, maestro

Id: 8qOMTqedPrk

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024