Change Your Breath, Change Your Life | Lucas Rockwood | TEDxBarcelona

so what if I told you that there was an exercise that was so powerful that it could change the pH of your blood it could make it more acid or more alkaline in minutes what if this same exercise could boost your digestion lower your heart rate lower your cortisol levels and help you go to sleep at night what if the same exercise practice in extreme fashion could create LSD like experiences out-of-body experiences this exercise I'm talking about is something you're doing right now without even thinking about it my name is Lucas Rockwood as Jose mentioned I'm a yoga teacher and what I'm talking about here are breathing exercises and breathing exercises done correctly done safely are one of the most powerful ways to control your mind in your body your nervous system your endocrine system but if you practice them recklessly they can cause a whole bunch of problems you can black out you can scrip your digestion you can have anxiety attacks as well now breathing for most of us is something that's just totally automatic in fact it's controlled by our autonomic nervous system it happens all by itself for example you're crossing the street and a car swerves into your crosswalk and almost hits you my question to you is what do you do do you inhale there you exhale you inhale you cover your heart you cover your crotch and you get out of the way right fight or flight it's a sympathetic nervous system response now many people in fact many of you are breathing this way as if you're about to be hit by a car all day long now imagine what that does to your mind and your body and your life now on the other side of the spectrum let's imagine that you're out on a romantic date with that special someone and after dinner she leans over and whispers those three magic words she says I love you right what do you do do you inhale or do you exhale exhale you open your heart you open your crotch you fall in love right parasympathetic nervous system response now here's the sad thing many people in fact many of you in this room you haven't felt that you haven't breathed that way in a really really long time imagine that does to your mind in your body and your life just as a little side note here if the last time you fell in love you inhaled and covered your heart I have some bad news for you my friend run right I'm sharing with you these examples tonight because it's important that you realize you already understand the autonomic part the automatic part right inhale fear exhale love inhale excited exhale peace you understand that part what you probably don't understand is you can override that part meaning you can take control over your nervous system and that's what I'd like to share with you this evening with three simple concepts water whiskey and coffee water breathing whiskey breathing and coffee breathing so water breathing as the name suggests just like water it's always good right early morning late at night feeling stressed not whatever water is always a good option it's your go to practice come back to it again and again but it has to be trained you're not doing it now we'll get to that in a minute now whisky breathing as the name suggests a little bit of whiskey now and then no problem right you fall asleep no big deal but if you overuse it too much too often you'll get sick you'll get groggy all kinds of health problems same thing with whisky breath we primarily use it as a sleeping aid last but not least we have coffee breathing and again as the name suggests a little bit of coffee once in a while no problem right you have a long drive you need to stay up you have jetlag you need to overcome it a little bit of coffee no big deal if you overuse it all the time you can completely screw up your digestion you can have overwhelming anxiety you get that kind of wired but tired feeling that none of us are looking for so these are the three practices I'd like to share with you today but let's set aside the theory for a moment and if you'd be so kind we'll jump right into some practices which hopefully will allow you to actually feel those in your body and then we'll step back to the theory so if I could I'd ask you to sit back in your chair place your hands on your legs relax your face relax your shoulders and close your eyes we'll start with water breathing it's a very simple practice it's a four-four count you inhale to the count of four you exhale to the count of four don't worry you don't have to count I'll come for you so you relax your eyes are closed your face is relaxed and off we go inhale through your nose one two three for now exhale through your nose four three two one inhale through your nose one two three four now exhale through your nose four three two one inhale through your nose one two three four exhale through your nose four three two one you keep breathing I'll explain what's going on here this balance breathing the most important thing is the rate we're at four to six breaths per minute it's about half your normal rate so we've taken your rate that you walked in off the street we chopped it in half we're at four to six breaths per minute and this is where we get that balancing effect on your nervous system if you're up it'll bring you down if you're down it will bring you up really really powerful this is our go to practice I'm telling you you're not good at this you have to practice this again and again just like water many of you are carrying a water bottle with you this evening you want to carry this practice with you as well next let's take a look at whisky breathing now whisky breathing as we mentioned we use it with care primarily to fall asleep but let's do it as an exercise tonight same position relaxing your chair I can see you're enjoying this hands are on your lap relax your shoulders relax your face exactly the same as last time we're breathing in and out through our nose the only difference is this time we'll inhale to the count of four and on the way out we'll double it will go to the count of eight I'll do the counting you do the breathing relax body here we go inhale through your nose one two three four exhale eight seven six five four three two one again inhale one two three four exhale eight seven six five four three two one inhale one two three four exhale eight seven six five four three two one you keep breathing I'll explain what's going on after ten rounds of this whisky breathing your heart rate slows you can measure it it's really easy your heart rate drops your blood pressure drops and we stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system that's your rest and digest your fall and love your peace and relaxation side of your nervous system and that gets stimulated that's a big long explanation basically get really tired you can fall asleep right so whisky breathing is very very useful but we want to use it with care at the appropriate time well practice one more this evening is coffee breathing this is the one people get most excited about but we use it the most sparingly coffee breathing is very different than the other two practice is to do it we focus just on the exhale and we don't worry about inhale at all we just push the air out and it looks and feels just like a sneeze I'll show you what it looks like hey why are you laughing so we exhale through our nose make sharpshooting breath you do your best to try not to move your face your shoulders your chest try to make all the energy happen from down here in your lower abdomen it's an unusual way to breathe remember we don't inhale we just exhale we'll do 20 rounds together I'll count you down close your eyes so you don't look so funny yeah body's relaxed shoulders are relaxed 3 2 1 we exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 eyes are closed body's relaxed breath is normal eyes are closed body's relaxed breath is normal some of you weren't participating let's try again this time shoulders are relaxed chest is relaxed again it's a sneeze it feels like a sneeze just remember forget about the inhale just exhale 3 2 1 we exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale ten nine eight seven six five four three two one eyes are closed body's relaxed breath is normal try to keep your face still this time shoulders still all the works happening in your lower abdomen it's a funny way to breathe we'll do one more time three two one we exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale and ten nine eight seven six five four three two one eyes closed body relax let me explain this practice to you this fast rapid breath it stimulates your sympathetic nervous system this is your fight-or-flight response this is the clean the house and answer emails nervous system response that we're looking for we want to use this very very sparingly if you do it too much too often you can get really agitated but what we're doing here is cranking up our body and we want to use it with care so what we've just done here water whiskey and coffee the technical name for this is a yoga speedball right we basically mixed all of these things together you wouldn't normally do this we did this for the sake of learning in our normal life in our everyday life we'd break these three practices up and we do them at different times at appropriate times of the day so when is the appropriate time let's break it down water breathing like the name suggests always good anytime you need balance in your life come back to water breathing it's for on the way in it's for on the way out stressful day at the office actually commute whatever it is you sit down you take ten breaths count four on the way in four on the way out and again it's just like taking a sip of water when you look at whisky breathing primarily let's just think about this as I put me to sleep without alcohol or pills right this is what I will use this you come home from work and you're agitated your phone's lighting up with notifications your heads buzzing I'd like you to lie down in bed count inhale for that four count and exhale for that eight count inhale for that four count and exhale for that eight count you can do that for ten rounds or just keep going until you fall asleep that works really well as well last but not least his coffee breathing this is the one you get most excited about I need to throttle this you got to be really careful with this one use it sparingly here's your prescription three rounds of twenty in the morning three rounds of 20 right before exercise right sympathetic nervous system response get cranked up to start moving and three rounds of twenty at three o'clock in the afternoon when normally you'll reach for a sugary snack when we look at health and wellness there's so many different things we can optimize for right there's diet and there's movements and their sleep optimization all of that stuff is wonderful but none of that stuff is as our full or as immediate as breathing remember when you were born when you came into this world you probably don't remember but when you were born when you came into this world the very first thing that you did was you inhaled right and when you leave us when you die if you die peacefully you will die on an exhale right and between that first breath and that last breath what most of us do is our nervous system just gets bounced around bang back and forth we're responding to our environment on autopilot all day long so my challenge to you my question for you is how could the quality of your life improve if you stopped being on autopilot and started taking control of your mind and your body in your nervous system using these three simple practices we've done today water whiskey and coffee thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 459,749

Rating: 4.9241424 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Body, Meditation, Mindfulness

Id: _QTJOAI0UoU

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018