Patrick McKeown – Why We Breathe: How to Improve Your Sleep, Concentration, Focus & Performance

so in terms of the breadth i think there's a lot a lot of misconceptions out there which for the last 20 years or so i've been trying to put a different slant to it back in 1998 i stumbled across breathing and i read it in a newspaper article at the time i was a chronic mouth breeder with nasal obstruction and because you're mouth breathing you typically breathe a little bit faster and chest breathing now as a kid growing up i had tremendous difficulty concentrating in school and i was the kid who was sitting in class and although i'm sitting there my focus isn't on what the teacher is saying partly because i'm living in my head but partly because i don't have the energy levels so at 14 years of age i left school all together i'm pretty stubborn and probably that's why i've survived in breathing i left school never to go back and i spoke about it the first time in this book and the reason being was because i was not like like there are millions of children in the same place as i am and in order to survive in school you need to have the power of concentration so in order to get through education we have to be able to concentrate but education does not teach us how to concentrate many of you here you've been to business schools how many of you come out of business school and you've been trained to deal with stress levels one or two but i'd say a very few a small amount of you so lo and behold life directs you in different ways i went back to school at 15 years of age and i studied hard and it could have been a lot easier because i was studying 10-12 hours a day getting mercy in dublin fairly collagen and i did my degree got into the corporate world and i could not cope with the stress levels and it wasn't because of the corporation it was because of my physiology when we talk about flow states and focus and concentration and attention span you will not achieve these if your physiology is in that increased stress response or if you're prone to sleep apnea or insomnia or snoring and when we look at the incidence of this in the population this has been overlooked when people talk about flow states they don't necessarily tell you how to achieve flow states i want to be able to change my states i want to be able to up regulate when i want to and i want to be able to down regulate when i want to and i want to be able to bring a balance breathing is not just about hyperventilation or long brett tolls it's not just about taking that full deep breath but breathing is something that we carry with us and it gives us the choice to change our states anxiety panic disorder is pretty high out there but the same tools that we use to develop our concentration and our focus are the same tools that we use to address anxiety and racing mind and panic disorder because a lot of people they don't want to seek help for anxiety because they may feel a little bit too personal but they will seek help to improve their focus and concentration so in terms of the breadth as i said back in 1998 i came across not breathing more air which was typically being taught and still is but actually breathing less air i never knew that my blood circulation the 50 000 miles of blood vessels in my body were influenced not by breathing more air but by breathing less air now this totally flew in the face of what has been taught to date and there is a lot of misinformation out there and there's a lot of harm when it comes to breathing and i have made plenty of mistakes i've put people one person into accident an emergency i've put people into panic attacks i put people into anxiety i've had people coming with chronic fatigue syndrome i have floored them that's what you learn with doing this for 20 years and from that then you have to change and you have to gear it to the individual in front of you breathing is much more complex than going into a room and taking this full deep breath and what about the very basic the fundamental of breathing is breathing in and out through the nose and i know if you talk to a medical doctor the medical doctor will say it doesn't matter whether you breathe through your nose or through your mouth it's unfortunate he's just after spending eight years at university and he doesn't know what his nose is for your mouth has no purpose whatsoever when it comes to breathing can you name any part of your mouth that's devoted to the breath your mouth is a hole but how many how many of you wake up in the morning with a dry mouth i would say of the group here 50 percent of you wake up at a dry out in the morning and if you've got to dry them out in the morning you're not likely to feel refreshed but you're also not likely to get that slow wave sleep that deep sleep for recovery you're more prone to sleep disorder breathing snoring and insomnia so these are simple tools and back in 1998 i started taping my mouth closed and the first morning i woke up i didn't really notice that much of a difference but i did it again the second morning it was the best night's sleep i had in 15 years now how many of your children are sleeping with their mouths open but also it's much more it's looking at it together but i make it simple as well so you can take some tools home at you now just as well i was talking off the cuff because now the slide presentation isn't working the first thing that i'm going to talk about is what is focus attention span and concentration concentration is your ability to hold your attention on one thing without distraction and i don't mean just merely looking at something but directing 100 percent of your attention on what you're doing and your attention span is the length of time that you're holding you're able to hold your attention on that one task in order to excel or to produce anything of quality of work but even just to live life you need to have the capacity to control the mind but we have been trained how to think and we have not been taught how to stop thinking we have not been taught to have that control to be able to direct our attention and no matter what you are doing whether you're a student a family person whether you're in corporate life police military it doesn't matter you need the capacity to change your states and direct your attention there's a three-way connection between breathing and sleep in the mind but so many of us we segregate everything or we see everything in separation so the psychotherapist is focusing on the mind but not taking into consideration the person's sleep can you really deal with anxiety and panic disorder and depression and racing mind if the person has sleep disorder breathing no the breathing instructor is focusing on breathing but not taken into consideration so often the mind and sleep but one affects the other because if your breathing is fast and shallow you're more likely to have sleep disorder breathing but if you're breathing as fast and shallow what information is fed from your body up to the brain if you were breathing during rest and your breathing is just that little bit faster and shallow your body is telling the brain that the body is under trash and the brain is here to protect the body and all the brain wants to do is to get you out of that situation now how many of you have been in uncomfortable situations and challenging situations and you respond by going into that natural and it's just something that throughout our evolution we have adopted and it has ensured the survival of the species but it's not working for us so well nowadays we go into that faster breathing pattern that shallow breathing pattern it's not a time for planning decision making it's not a time for coming up with good solutions it's a time for getting out of there so the whole wave of hyperventilation that's out there at the moment and it does absolutely have a role but understand what role that has that is a stressor that's a fight or flight now if you hyperventilate always think about down regulation as well if you want to think about changing your states and if you want to down regulate there are a few ways to do it i don't think any of us can down regulate unless we breathe in and out through the nose mouth breathing is activating the upper chest mouth breathing is fast breathing mouth breathing fast breathing upper chest breathing is fight or flight so to down regulate we're talking about breathing through the nose but we're also talking about breathing light breathing slow breathing low to bring balance in the autonomic nervous system you could do small breath holes or box breathing or something similar and if you want to up regulate you can hyperventilate do long breath holes or you can take a full big few full big breaths in and those are simple tools and as i prepare even for this talk and if i'm feeling that my body is just you know you're always a little bit on their edge you do want a certain amount of nerves coming out into a talk but that's what changing states gives you because you can prepare for it so oftentimes public speaking but even going into a job interview and never let your breathing let you down i remember a situation i was doing a job interview i was interviewing two females come in one female come in she was up her chest breathing and she was sighing fairly frequently now what did she tell me she told me that she was uncomfortable in this situation and then in my head i'm thinking is she going to be able to cope so i chose the other person never let your breathing let you down but also pay attention to other people's breathing because by observing somebody's breathing you will get us you will get some indication of what's going on in the mind and by controlling the brain you can control the breath and the problem with breathing is over the years it has had too many associations with beads and sandals and robes and all these positions there is nothing left afield about breathing breathing is something that you absolutely need to bring into your way of life every single day and that's what it's about we need to get it out of the left of field because the problem is when it's too left to field it's not going to get into mainstream i want children to be able to change their states i want sports people to be able to change their states people in the corporate world who are not able to deal with stress who are burnt out at the age of 40 and 45 years of age it's not the corporation not always but it's their physiology and that's one of the one of the advantages of changing state so the brett myth out there is that it's good to take a full big breath you know you're stressed take this deep breath i was stressed going into an exam one day and i took these full big breaths and i walked into the exam hall and i was totally spaced out and lightheaded when you hyperventilate or you take full big breaths are you improving oxygen delivery to the brain no because when you take full big breaths your blood vessels constrict and all it takes is 30 seconds to one minute of hyperventilation to reduce blood flow to the brain by half you're not just reducing your blood circulation by taking full big breaths but you're also causing less oxygen delivery which is based on the bohr effect if you want to improve your blood circulation for periods of time breed slightly less air at different periods of time during the day that improves your tolerance to carbon dioxide it reduces your sensitivity to the gas because carbon dioxide is the primary stimulus to breed you can improve your blood circulation you can improve oxygen delivery you can change your physiology you can open up your airways the human nose alone is about 30 functions and yet while you have your mouth closed now do you have your mouth closed when you go for a walk do you have your mouths closed when captioning not working with available they could not cope so well with mindfulness if your mind is in an emotional turmoil can you really pay attention to what's going on can you direct your attention to what's going on in the mind but if you have somebody with anxiety and 75 percent of the population with anxiety of dysfunctional breathing we need to go beyond mindfulness mindfulness is wonderful paying attention to the breath is absolutely wonderful but there is a time and place for us and if you have somebody with a lot of anxiety and you ask them to do mindfulness they may not even be able to pay attention to their breathing mindfulness was developed two thousand years ago life was fundamentally different then our breathing is fundamentally different now we need to be able to change our breathing if you don't mind moving it on thanks so what i would like you to do is i would like you to take this test and this test will give you some feedback of your your breathing and i'm going to give you a few breathing exercises as well time permitting don't worry about what you get by the way what i would like you to do here is if you have a timer you have your watch you have your phones take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold your nose and time it in seconds how long can you hold your breath for until you feel the first definite desire to breathe and when you resume breathing your breathing should be fairly normal so we shouldn't hear any gasps what does that test give you it's not a perfect test but it gives you an indicator of the degree of functional breathing and most recently in a study by professor kyle kiesel a professor of physical therapy david evansville university in the united states his conclusion was if your bold score is above 25 seconds there is an 89 chance that your breathing is functional how many of you have a bold score above 25 seconds don't worry i've had mma fighters i've had every walks of life with a low bull score but the issue with a low ball score is if your ball score is low your breathing tends to be faster your breathing tends to be harder your breathing tends to be upper chest you tend to have air hunger and if you're breathing that way what are you doing to the autonomic nervous system you're more likely to put it into that increased stress response and that's where a bold score comes in it's also a measurement of breathlessness during physical exercise this always will give you that little bit of feedback of how well you are doing in terms of breathing and if you're practicing breath work work to improve your both score there's a reason that people are breathing upper chest because they often breed upper chest when they feel air hunger but they feel their hunger when they have poor breathing from a biochemical dimension breathing is not just about the biomechanics breathing includes the biochemical dimension as well and the biochemical dimension refers to your tolerance to carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide in the blood i was listening to a podcast by dr rang in chatterjee he was interviewing a brain surgeon called dr rahul and dr rahul said he said when i get into a tricky situation the first thing i do is prevent myself from hyperventilating of course dr rahul knows this but how many other people know this not so many how many of you when you get into a tricky situation the first thing you do is prevent yourself from hyperventilating or could you deliberately start taking a few deep breaths that you hyperventilate further that you're putting yourself into that stress response so if we are getting into a tricky situation and we want to prevent ourselves from hyperventilating always think about the exhalation don't breathe out fast if you breathe out fast during rest or during sleep your body is telling the brain that everything is not okay if you breathe out slow through your nose and silent because you don't have to take a full big breath to engage good recruitment of the diaphragm you don't have to take a full big breath during the slowing down of the breathing because if you take full big breaths there's a risk that you over breed so we have to take into consideration the volume of breathing study just to give you an example in the business world slow breathing for two minutes before a stressful situation and they had 50 percent more correct answers than controls so that tells you something so when we're under pressure and of course this is going to be different person to person some people naturally have a tremendous capacity to concentrate and achieve flow states i had to develop it many of you will have to develop it but you can because this is absolutely trainable and it's trainable to be able to get into that state of mind when you're in balance and alertness at the same time you're relaxed and you're alert at the same time the hierarchy of needs needs to be revised and this is based on maslow's hierarchy of needs written back in the day he talked about human beings we need food we need clothing we need shelter well many of us are fortunate enough we have all those things but what we don't have is we don't have deep sleep how many of you wake up in the morning and you're absolutely fully refreshed and alert and you're able to cope with that day and unless you have deep sleep it's not going to happen so i would push the absolute crux is to get our sleep right first then our breathing from three dimensions slow biochemical biomechanical and influencing the autonomic nervous system and then we bring in breath aware body aware mind aware to achieve full full actualization can we really reach our full potential as human beings if our sleep is lousy 25 to 43 percent of men have sleep disorder breathing almost one in two that's what's out there and are sent into these stressful situations with poor sleep quality is not going to work about 20 to 30 percent of the normal population of dysfunctional breathing and as i said already 75 percent of people with anxiety do you work with clients who are stressed who can be anxious who may have panic disorder who have depression look at their breathing but the first question you asked him is there sleep next one sorry so the elephant in the room when it comes to sleep is breathing in and out with the mouth how do you know if you have your mouth open during sleep you wake up with a dry mouth in the morning and that would be the crux now as i said i've been taping them out but there are many types out there and we also have a tape that surrounds the mouth to bring the lips together so it doesn't cover the lips but this now has become quite fashionable and it has taken off and the reason being is because people do feel more rested it's a very very simple thing to do the mouth should be closed the tongue resting in the roof of the mouth and breathing in and out through the nose so for flow states we need concentration but for concentration you need functional breathing and deep sleep you need to be able to change your states and concentration i would say is by far the most vital tool that any of us have even just experiencing life if you're lucky enough and you go to a michelin star restaurant somebody puts a meal out in front of you in order to truly savor savor that meal in order to truly appreciate it you have to be able to see it with your full attention you have to be able to smell it with your full attention you have to be able to taste it you have to be able to feel it but if you're in your head and if you're wrapped up in thought and you're more likely to be wrapped up and taught when you have poor sleep and dysfunctional breathing that's why i say that mindfulness is not working for the very person it's not a criticism of mindfulness mindfulness is wonderful but the very person who needs it the most they need to go beyond mindfulness if you have that meal in front of you and if you're wrapped in your head you don't experience that meal you see the food in the plate you're not going to see it you may see it for a glimpse moment of time you're not going to taste it maybe for a glimpse moment of time more likely you'll pull out your phone you'll take a photograph of it so you'll appreciate some other time when you're looking at a photograph or you're you're in the restaurant to take a photograph to send it off to your friends to show that you're in the restaurant defeats the purpose so i'd like to do a simple breathing exercise just to show you how to decongest your nose those of you with nasal congestion you were two to three times more likely to have sleep problems nasal congestion affects about 10 percent of the population and if you have a stuffy nose you don't just have a stuffy nose don't do this next exercise if you're pregnant if you panic disorder anxiety or any serious medical conditions go easy enough with it yeah but since 1923 it has been known that to open up your nose you simply hold your breath since 1923 even for hay fever so take a normal breath in through your nose and a normal breath out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold your nose and just gently nod your head up and down holding your breath and continue holding your breath until you feel a mutter to strong air hunger but don't overdo it either continue to hold your breath continue to hold your breath continue to hold your breath until you feel a matter to strong air hunger and then let go but breathe in through your nose and if you then wait a minute and you do it again and you wait a minute and you do it again so we'll wait a minute we will do it once more but to decongest your nose you do that about five times or so now if your bowl score is up around 25 seconds you will have very good freedom of nasal congestion and especially those of you would ask me because if you've inflammation in your lungs it travels up to your nose and vice versa so let's do that exercise again whenever you're ready take a normal breath in through your nose out through your nose pinch your nose we shouldn't really hear anybody breathing gently nod your head up and down holding your breath relax into your body as you hold your breath hold your breath until you feel that it's a moderate to strong air hunger but don't overdo it when you need to let go then let go breathe in through your nose and then calm your breathing so even after just that i'm just curious can i get a show of hands of who feels that your their nose is getting a little bit clearer so you see it as a group of people and we did a pilot study on this back in 2013 and we showed that we could reduce nasal symptoms by 70 percent a three-month follow-up but we heard no interest after that because i suppose it's difficult to make money after showing somebody how to unblock your nose so that was the end of that one the next one exercise that i would like you to do is to show you if i feel stressed what do i do and this is going back to what dr rahul said he said when he gets into a tricky situation he prevents himself from hyperventilating what is hyperventilation hyperventilation is not when you're having a panic attack or a hyperventilation attack hyperventilation just means that your breathing has got a little bit faster and upper chest that's all it has to be because your breathing can be faster and upper chest and you can be breathing two times more than what you should be and there's also another discussion about the sigh when is a good sigh not a good sigh and don't have the idea in your head that it's good to be frequently saying and i'm only putting it out there because the people who come in to me with frequent signing very often they have dysfunctional breathing panic disorder so don't you know if you're taking a frequent side deliberately because you feel it's a very normal thing to do it's not it is normal to sigh every so eight minutes nine minutes maybe ten minutes it's not normal to say every one minute two minutes three minutes four minutes five minutes six minutes that's not normal so there's a point when breathing when it has to meet those basic parameters so coming back to when you get stressed what i would like you to do is put one hand on your chest one hand on your navel or you can just have your hands on your lap up to you but i would like you to take your attention out of your mind and onto your breathing i would like you to feel the slightly colder air as it comes into your nose and a slightly warmer air as it leaves your nose so bring your full attention onto your breathing and use this as a measurement of your concentration are you able to hold your attention to your breath or do you find that your mind is drifting off if your mind is drifting off just bring your attention back onto your breathing i would like you to take a very soft breath coming into your nose almost that your breathing is imperceptible and a very soft and light and prolonged breath out take a very very soft breath coming into your nose slow down the speed of the air as it comes into your nose and at the top of the breath bring a total feeling of relaxation to the body and have a really slow and relaxed and a gentle breath out just two key aspects to this one is the soft breath in and the other is the slow and prolonged breath out as you breathe in softer and you have a relaxed and slow gentle breath out it's likely that you feel air hunger air hunger is not a sign that your oxygens oxygen has dropped it's a sign that carbon dioxide has increased slightly in the blood and carbon dioxide will help improve your blood circulation but also stimulate the vagus nerve so you have this nerve throughout the body with 80 to 90 percent of the nerve fibers from the body up to the brain you stimulate your vagus nerve with an increase of carbon dioxide but also with that slow and relaxed and gentle exhalation but when you continue with the exercise remember i said about concentration are you able to hold your attention to your breathing for three minutes or do you have your attention on the bretons after a few brief seconds your mind wanders off and this is the capacity because if you can hold your attention to your breath you can then transfer that to any skill but even just talking to people even experiencing life how on earth can we experience life if we're stuck in our head and in that increased sympathetic drive so can we come back to our breathing take a very soft and slow gentle breath in and a relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out i want you to practice under breathing a very soft and slow gentle breath into your nose and a relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out soften your breathing so that it's difficult for me to see it but don't hold your breath or freeze your breathing just gently soften your breathing it's a soft breath in through your nose and it's a really relaxed breath out and you are doing it correctly if you have air hunger and i know by your eyes if you do or not so it's nice if you have the air hunger because i would like you to experience this this was the exercise that changed my life this one i always had cold hands and feet and it's common for people with dysfunctional breathing to have cold hands and feet i want you to practice what happens when you under breed what happens when you do the absolute opposite which is taught in most studios you don't hear anybody here breathing i'm not having you hyperventilate there's a role for hyperventilation but there's also a role for down regulation and in actual fact i wouldn't have anybody hyperventilate unless i get the functional breathing right because you could do harm as i have again taking that soft slow gentle breath into your nose and that relaxed and a slow and a gentle exhalation okay take a rest how many of you felt dear hunger by the way quite a few of you do you notice any change in the saliva in the mouth is your mouth drier is it the same do you have more moist moisture what does it tell you when you have an increased water slide in the mouth your body is ready for the digestion of food so think about how we breed when we get stressed when we get stressed our breathing is typically faster it's upper chest often through them out irregular breathing and it's harder breathing so how then can we bring the body and mind into relaxation we need to do the opposite we need to breathe slow especially the exhalation it's the speed of the exhalation which tells the brain where the body is under stress or not the speed of the exhalation not so much the speed of the inhalation if you breathe out fast your body is telling the brain that everything is not okay if you have that slow and relaxed and gentle exhalation even just for 90 seconds you're in a situation you've got an angry customer the customer is talking to you you're looking at the customer don't surrender your attention to the mood of the customer the customer is in a bad mood listen to the customer but bring your attention inwards and the customers they're giving out and you're seeing them out as opening and closing and you're hearing some noise but you have your attention on your breathing and you're taking a soft breath in through your nose and a really relaxed and slow gentle breath out and a soft breath in and a really relaxed and slow gentle breath out you will calm down the customer because the customer will soon calm down because you've stayed in that state but you've had control over your physiology and i think these are the basic traits that we all should do now i can only give you a small snippet of it so of course slowing down the breath is beneficial but if you're slowing down your breathing to between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths per minute always consider the volume of air that you breathe so the question that may be on your mind is well should i be breathing in for four seconds and out for six or in for five and out for five pay attention to the volume a group of you here if i said breathe in for four seconds and out for six seconds one person over here might be taking in a full big breath for four seconds and out for six seconds another person may be taking a normal breath in for four and out for six and another person is breathing very subtly there's a huge difference between those breathing and that's why it's a mistake to pay attention to the timing of the breath there is a role for it but if you're teaching breathing and breath work consider the volume because the role here and i see it in there's a tremendous role in certain modalities especially in yoga and i can see that there's going to be yoga instructors who will be fully informed about breathing from a number of different dimensions and students coming into that yoga and structure students coming in with asthma with rhinitis with poor sleep with panic disorder all of those things the students are going into yoga studios and that yoga instructor can transform that person's life and i'm not saying that this is a cure-all i've worked firsthand with about eight or nine thousand people i've written nine books on it i've seen the power of breathing i really genuinely have and there is something in this and we need to take it out of the left field but also we need to show that basic understanding of the physiology of breathing we cannot be teaching breathing unless we know what's going on it's very important and are simple just basic science so you don't have to you know turn into a total breathing nerd but just to have that basic understanding and has got a tremendous connection but it's coming back to this if anybody asked me what was the biggest gift that breathing has given me in 20 years it's the capacity to control my states because when you have control over the mind you can appreciate life and that translates into absolutely everything that you do but remember to have that we need to have deep sleep we need to have functional breathing then we bring in awareness thanks very much everybody [Applause]

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Id: 1kyZVJoK2dc

Length: 33min 58sec (2038 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2022