The Empowerment Couple
Ready to supercharge your life with a symphony of laughter, wisdom, and transformative insights? Welcome to The Empowerment Couple Podcast, where entertainment meets empowerment, and education expands your world! Join Zuri and Mikey Star, your empowerment and expansion coaches, on a power-packed journey each week. Laughter and wisdom collide in a perfect blend, creating a space for the empowered posse to play. Dive deep into personal development, relationships, spirituality, career strategies, and other crucial topics that will inform and allow you to co-create your most beautiful life. Featuring top guest experts, every episode is crafted with your empowerment in mind. Subscribe now and let The Empowerment Couple Podcast be your soundtrack to happiness, transmuting your worries and filling you with an abundance mindset.
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The Empowerment Couple
Breathwork Medicine: Unlocking the Hidden Pharmacy Within Your Next Breath
Could the solution to your stress, anxiety, and disconnection be as simple as changing how you breathe? This episode unveils breathwork as powerful medicine that's accessible to everyone, completely free, and backed by both ancient wisdom and modern science.
Discover how your 20,000 daily breaths might be working against you if you're breathing shallow and unconsciously. We break down the neuroscience behind breathwork's incredible benefits – from stimulating the vagus nerve that regulates digestion, mood, and inflammation, to increasing prefrontal cortex activity for better decision-making and focus. Studies show that just 5-6 mindful breaths per minute can dramatically reduce anxiety and improve emotional regulation.
We guide you through five practical breathwork techniques you can implement immediately, including box breathing (the Navy SEAL technique), 4-7-8 breath for sleep and anxiety, lion's breath for tension release, diaphragmatic breathing for emotional grounding, and alternate nostril breathing for balance. Each technique serves as a key unlocking a different door in your nervous system.
For couples, we share how synchronized breathing creates powerful co-regulation during tense moments. Instead of telling your partner to "just breathe" (which never works!), learn how holding hands and breathing together creates a sacred pause where peace lives in the inhale.
Fresh from our experience at the Art of Living Retreat Center in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we share insights from intensive breathwork practices that left us completely stress-free and deeply connected. Unlike pharmaceutical interventions with their lengthy side effects, breathwork offers only benefits – the medicine is within you, and it rides on your breath.
Take a moment right now to inhale presence and exhale peace. Your breath is your spirit's language – it's time to learn how to speak it.
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We're already giggling.
Speaker 2:This is going to be fun, I'm telling you that the best way into happiness is through the breath.
Speaker 1:You're telling me.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I feel like I need to explain this extra bit of information that you already know.
Speaker 1:You love doing that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to mansplain this honey Great. First you inhale and then you exhale. That's it, you're done.
Speaker 1:Okay, welcome to the Empowerment Couple Podcast, where your path to self-mastery expands.
Speaker 2:My co-host is empowerment coach Zuri Starr.
Speaker 1:And he's expansion coach Mikey Starr.
Speaker 2:Together we are the Empowerment Couple.
Speaker 1:Our mission is simple to serve you, love, so you can make informed decisions to regain and maintain your personal power.
Speaker 2:We'll take you on a journey to a life filled with purpose, passion and limitless possibilities, while sharing stories of transformation, wellness hacks and healthy habits backed by science and ancient wisdom.
Speaker 1:Plus, we'll keep you entertained with engaging games, banter and funny innuendos along the way. Each episode is an exciting blend of education, entertainment and empowerment designed to help you create a mindset to be a magnet for more love, happiness and abundance.
Speaker 2:Together with our special guests. We are dedicated to sharing information that empowers you to create your most beautiful life A one Z and a two Z and a three Z your most beautiful life.
Speaker 1:I got nothing I got nothing, you're supposed to say something I forgot. I forgot, Michael. Are you breathing?
Speaker 2:I am currently struggling breathing, but that is going to change very shortly.
Speaker 1:My favorite kind of breathing is laughing.
Speaker 2:You know what? That is my tried and true, and laughing definitely cures a lot of things. But as we jump into our episode, we're going to realize that there is a right way and a wrong way to breathe.
Speaker 1:Wrong way.
Speaker 2:A wrong way to breathe. You know what I'm saying, so let's talk about breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about breath, baby. So I've recently had an awareness that I am holding my breath a lot and when I so like when I work out, for example sometimes I'm holding my breath. So, like this morning, I was doing my my morning routine and I was jumping on the trampoline and I was like why am I holding my breath on the trampoline? Like like, I'm just really why am I holding?
Speaker 1:my breath on the trampoline, Like I'm just really noticing that I'm holding my breath more. So if you struggle with anxiety or you're feeling disconnected or overwhelmed by life, this episode is for you, honey.
Speaker 2:We are going to be serving you all kinds of breathing love.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're going to unlock the healing power of your breath. And what do we always have? Our breath.
Speaker 2:As long as we have our breath, we have an opportunity.
Speaker 1:Right, and so what if the medicine you need isn't in a pill? Ha ha, like all of our free medicine episodes, we are never just saying, hey, get this supplement or go to your doctor and get this pill, but what if it's in your next breath? Okay, your breath is your built-in pharmacy.
Speaker 2:Really Like use it wisely. I love that your built-in pharmacy.
Speaker 1:So we're going to discuss breathwork as medicine. Breathwork is a powerful, ancient and scientifically backed tool for regulating your nervous system, shifting emotional states and expanding consciousness. Breathing is life prana, as the yogis say. We just came back from the Art of Living Institute in Boone, north Carolina. Mike and I were invited there as content creators for a creator's retreat and, based on her experience, we decided to partner with the Art of Living Retreat Center, because I'm always looking for resources for you guys, the Empowered Posse and our coaching clients. And if you're a longtime subscriber, you may remember like we did an episode about inhale happiness. But that wasn't about breath medicine. That was about the benefits of making sure your indoor air quality is great. So right now there's probably pollen where you are, because we're still in the thick of spring, inching up on summer and, yeah, it's pollen season. So we did that episode about indoor air quality. If you have time, go back and listen. If not, it's basically if you're not filtering your air, you become the filter, correct?
Speaker 1:And we always recommend the IntelliPure air purifier devices for the best indoor air quality. We have one running right now. Thankfully, when we were in Boone at the retreat, the air was super clean. But if you're in the city or dealing with a lot of pollen allergies, get an IntelliPure. You will not regret it, and you also can save 10% off on any device using Zuri 2024 and the link in our show notes. So we have a packed show for you today, and we are even going to demonstrate a couple of breathwork methods. So let's dive right in shall we?
Speaker 2:Let's breathe our way into happiness. Let's get it. So why? Breath is medicine and, to quote Thich Nhat Hanh, the breath is the bridge between the body and the mind.
Speaker 1:Very, very interesting.
Speaker 2:So we take over 20,000 breaths per day, but most people are breathing shallow and unconsciously right. That's what I'm saying. If you're experiencing anxiety, depression, that means you're breathing wrong, right. That means you're breathing wrong right and, according to Harvard Health, deep, slow breathing can stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation. Yes, yeah, breath work can reduce cortisol levels, it can lower blood pressure, it can increase heart rate variability, also known as HRV, which is a key sign of nervous system resilience.
Speaker 1:Yes, so when you?
Speaker 2:change your breath, you change your brain. So when you change your breath, you change your brain, and when you change your brain, you change your whole life. So, getting into your breath is key to happiness.
Speaker 1:So let's just talk about the science of breath work. So here's some neuroscience nuggets. So here's some neuroscience nuggets. Breath affects the vagus nerve, which regulates digestion, mood, heart rate and inflammation. And there's this really cool study in 2017, frontiers in Psychology. It showed participants practicing slow breathing five to six breaths per minute experience greater emotional regulation and reduced anxiety. And there's brain effects that come from deep breathing. So deep breathing increases prefrontal cortex activity, enhancing decision making, emotional clarity and focus. And breath work can be used to induce altered states of consciousness similar to meditation or psychedelics, and there's like holotropic breathwork, for example. If you just look into breathwork, it's kind of fascinating how many different methods there are, but we're going to give you some quick facts so that you can understand them. Let's start with physical.
Speaker 2:Okay, so for the physical, your body knows how to heal, but your breath, literally, is the password. So here's some quick facts regarding the physical processes that your body goes through when you go into a breath work. It increases oxygenation throughout the body. It strengthens the immune system. It relieves tension and detoxifies the body. It greatly increases your energy. It stimulates your circulation, improves respiratory capacity. It improves well-being for many conditions and ailments, such as stress reduction, respiratory ailments, headaches, low energy, psychosomatic illnesses, anaerobic diseases and many others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that could be a whole show.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's that powerful. And then let's talk about the emotional quick facts. So it reduces worry, stress and anxiety, enhances the awareness of self-sabotaging patterns, it relieves depressive and negative emotions. It improves mental and emotional clarity, increases creativity, improves self-esteem experience You'll just generally experience more peace, joy and compassion from breathwork, and I will just say that breathwork is free. It is instant access therapy.
Speaker 2:You have it on you at all times. Let's get into the spiritual aspect. So your breath is your spirit's language, right? So you need to learn how to speak it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So, when you get into your breathwork, it's going to allow a deeper meditation and a connection to your true self, which is, let me tell you, it is lovely You're going to have to connect that that's something you want to do on a daily basis, not once a month, once a week.
Speaker 2:You also experience greater awareness and love. So the more you breathe, the more you get to enjoy life. And then it also strengthens your connection with spirit. Again, the more you breathe, the more you're connected. So essentially, again, it's your spirit's language. So as you breathe you are also connecting with your spirit.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. So, instead of just talking about breath work, we're going to lead you through a little bit of breath work, just so that you have the awareness and that you can build something on this while you're listening and if you're driving. Obviously, some of these you don't want to do when you're driving, but even when you're driving you can actually practice intentional breath work.
Speaker 2:Correct, that is correct.
Speaker 1:So let's start with box breathing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, box breathing is literally the easiest breathing exercises to get into. It's also known as the Navy seal technique. They use it for stress and essentially, if you think of a box, or also a square, and each square has a point right, so each point would be where you are transitioning from inhaling and exhaling. So if you start at the top of the box and you go from the top to the left, you inhale on the top, you inhale for four and then you exhale for four, and then you inhale for four and then you exhale for four. It's very, very simple. So inhale.
Speaker 1:Two, three, four.
Speaker 2:Exhale Two, three, four. Inhale Two, three, four. Exhale Two, three, four, Super easy. And you want to do that five, six times and that will allow you to at least connect with your breath, sink back into your body and again it's a great starter into breath work.
Speaker 1:Yes. So the next one that you may have heard of is called 478, and it's the-8. Breath is good for sleep and anxiety, and you can perform the 4-7-8 breathing technique just by breathing in through the nose for a count of four. So one, two, three, four. Hold the breath for a count of seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Then you're going to part the lips and exhale loudly for a count of eight One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now you can see which one of these two that you like, and we're going to go on to the next one.
Speaker 2:Then there is lion breathing. This exercise uses breathing along with face stretches to relieve stress and tension.
Speaker 1:So it's like breathing and face yoga.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So imagine a lion waking up in the morning and the first thing it does is it yawns, it opens its mouth and it unfurls its tongue right. That's essentially what we're doing. So to perform line breathing, a person should breathe in deeply through their nose and then breathe out forcefully with the tongue, with the mouth wide open, sticking out the tongue right. So you want to stretch out your tongue and you want to roll the eyes upward while breathing out, to stretch the face and then repeat the exercises three times for maximum benefit. It looks funny, but let me tell you it is wonderful. It literally. It's a great way to connect with your throat chakra.
Speaker 1:And this is one of those that you don't do while driving, because you need your eyes on the road, that is correct, but you might need when you pull over from some road rage. I like this one Anytime. I'm really stressed. I'm like lion breathing. I like kind of even make like the sound of like a hissing cat, because it feels so good.
Speaker 2:I envision people like you know. You're about ready to have a huge presentation, you jump into the bathroom real quick, you're in the stall, boom, you get your three lion's breaths right, Kind of connect with your inner roar. It's great if you're in an elevator or you're transitioning from one to the next and you have five to 10 seconds. That's a great way to connect with the lion's breath.
Speaker 1:Yep. So next we have coherent breathing, which is really good for HRV, as Mike was talking about earlier, and it helps with creating a calm state, and so this is called. The one of the coherent breathing exercises that I like to do is called diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing, and it's a breathing technique with plenty of research supporting its benefits. Like we were talking about, that frontiers in psychology. It can reduce negative subjective and physiological consequences of stress in healthy adults. It's also what I use as a singer prior to going on stage to perform, and all you have to do is to practice this, is you take a seated position or you can lie down. Lying down really allows you to focus on the belly, going up and down, which is where you want your breath to come from, especially as a singer, because we sing from the diaphragm. But all of us and even if you aren't a singer, public speaker, all of us can practice this and it's really relaxing.
Speaker 1:So you're going to place one hand on your chest and one hand just below your ribcage, on your abdomen.
Speaker 1:You're going to slowly breathe in through your nose and you're going to feel the air move down to your abdomen.
Speaker 1:So, instead of raising your chest and your shoulders up, you're going to push the air to your stomach, to your belly, and as you do, your belly will expand and push outwards, but your chest should remain relatively still. You're pushing all of the air into your stomach and really this is the way that we breathe when we are sleeping, we don't breathe in our chest and raise our shoulders when we're sleeping, we breathe into our belly. So then, once you have all of that air in your belly, you're going to purse your lips and you're going to blow out on an exhale, slowly, for a few seconds, and throughout I want you to take note of how your stomach expands and contracts, but your chest really should not move and it will make these little micro movements. But belly breathing is super powerful for singers, for going on stage, but if you are somebody who has the need to get into a calm state or right before you're about to go to sleep, diaphragmatic breathing is really powerful.
Speaker 2:So one easy way to get into this type of breathing is to assume that you have a string tied to your belly button and as you inhale, you're pulling the string so your belly button raises up to the sky, and as you exhale, you're pulling the string closer, so that your belly button is getting closer to your spine. Right so, inhale, your belly button gets pulled up. Exhale, your belly button gets closer to your spine. Yep, nice and easy.
Speaker 2:Another really easy breathing activity is called the alternate nostril breathing technique, and a person can perform alternate nostril breathing by following the following steps right, so you close the right nostril with the thumb of one hand and then breathe through the left nostril. And then you close the left nostril with the forefinger and release the thumb and then breathe out through the right nostril and then breathe in through the right nostril, close the right nostril with the thumb and release the forefinger and then breathe out through the left nostril. So the trick is I mean there's ways of holding the nostril. You can do with two hands, you can do with one hand, but essentially you are closing off one nostril inhale, exhale. Close off the other nostril, inhale, exhale and you're going to want to do this. I'd say four or five rounds to actually experience the benefits.
Speaker 2:You can certainly do it longer, but four or five and you'll be pretty good to go.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there are so many styles of breath work, really, but every style of breath work is like a key it's unlocking a different door in your nervous system.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and at the Art of Living retreat we were just at, we learned a new breathing technique that they teach at the retreat called Sky Breath, and they have all kinds of different ways of teaching and some of the breathing techniques they taught I knew, and some of them are specific to their guru, which is Guru Dev, and I really enjoyed all of the breathworks the breathwork that I knew and the breathwork that was new. I felt like it's definitely life-changing. I had some moments where I was like damn, like I went deep, really deep.
Speaker 2:And what's interesting is it wasn't just the breathing right, it was the proximity, it was the location, it was the actual setup that they had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the food. It was just like what was your favorite experience.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to say the round of Kriyas that we did, which is a specific breath work that they teach there. And then what happened after that, like immediately following, and how it changed the physiology of my body, how it changed my thought processes. That was critical for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember you saying that you didn't have any stress in your body.
Speaker 2:None.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that, because that sometimes can be an impossible feat.
Speaker 2:And it becomes a point of reference, right? Because if you go so long in a state of stress, you no longer have a point of reference of what relaxation actually feels like, right? So you normalize stress and then, when you have that experience where you're totally blissed out, you realize oh wait a minute, there are extremes, right. So for every super stressful situation that I find myself in, I want to balance it with those moments of bliss and I have a point of reference in order to reach for now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also I feel like that really hits me because it's the awareness that I didn't have, that I was not breathing during activities that I like, just not. You know, I've normalized not inhaling and exhaling.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I had a good experience after the second Kriya was like oh crap, like my whole body just changed, and so these retreats are like yoga and meditation and breath work and sound baths and it's very introductory level. So you know like anybody anyone listening can go to one of these retreats. They have signature retreats but they do start you at the very beginning, no matter your skill level, and they teach life-changing like we're talking about breath work techniques and they're backed by over 100 independent studies paired and they pair it with like yoga and these beautiful temples. Essentially they are created for monks that the monks have since left and the art of living took over, and they created these programs that help you drop limiting beliefs, regrets and worries and tap into a bigger vision for yourself. We've really found that there was a lot of love, there's a lot of desire to help people be happy, and we partnered with them because we're on the same mission and the beautiful thing is that we went.
Speaker 1:There's retreats all over the world, but the one we specifically went to was in Boone, north Carolina, and it's in like almost 400 acres of the Blue Ridge Mountains and so it's right on top, so you're really high elevated and it's just the perfect place to connect with nature and dive deep into healing yourself. There's a spa, the food is vegetarian and a lot of Ayurvedic, and we went on a hike. It was just a beautiful experience. We'll share more on our social about it, but you can use our link in our show notes to join in our experience. Go to an Art of Living retreat in Boone and we can't recommend it enough. We just had an amazing time together.
Speaker 2:And on top of that, there's the other part that I wanted to mention. That I'm now remembering is that the staff are the real deal. They've all participated in the same programs that they're offering. They've all participated in the same programs that they're offering. A lot of them are volunteers and they're there just to volunteer, so that they can be part of this process, so that brings in an additional level of spirituality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're in service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. You're not talking to just someone who's 9 to 5 who doesn't really care. You're talking to someone who's actually going to be like, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:This is their lifestyle, this is my lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And on top of that, the Blue Ridge Mountains are the oldest mountain range in the world, even older than the Himalayas. So energetically that location is like it's. Just being there provides you with energy. Just being there allows you to connect.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really quite powerful yeah.
Speaker 1:I felt that. So let's talk about how breath work in a relationship can be healing and can help you with co-regulation. So there have been times Once or twice, once or twice. Once or twice where Mike and I get moments of tension or emotional dysregulation or just like off, you know, and oftentimes in the past I would have said like breathe, like it's okay breathe. And let me tell you that doesn't work. Don't do that, don't do that, that's been tested.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the fight word. Oh, just relax. No, yeah, don't do that. That's been tested. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the fight word. Oh, just relax.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, don't tell me to relax and don't tell him to breathe. Okay, we have tested this. Those are not the ways to go. You tell someone to breathe and they are seeing you as the problem of their issue. It's not going to work well. Okay, so you can't be the breath work facilitator for your partner, but you can grab their hand and say, can we find some co-regulation, Can we do some synchronized breathing together? And you know, really connect and just hold each other's hand and say like, no matter what we're going through, we can get through this.
Speaker 1:Let's just breathe together for a minute, and so breathing together is a great technique to master, because if you can breathe together, you can get through anything. You can get through hard moments, you can get through sad moments, you can get through moments where you want to strangle the motherfucker.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can get through moments where you are looking to get higher, elevated, in a intimate way as well.
Speaker 1:So if you've ever synced your breathing when you are making love, that is super powerful as well. So get into breath, work with one another, find what works for you. The only thing that has worked for us is not telling the other person to breathe and not telling them, you know, just saying match my breath. Or you can say like let's sync breaths for a moment, or let's just pause and breathe together, or also you can breathe separate. If you're really that tense or that disconnected, you can go breathe separate and then come back, but you'll find that your brain gets flooded with some oxygen and you're all of a sudden not as angry or not as uptight or whatever the emotion that you were feeling before. You're not in your pain body anymore because you've breathed.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's easier to get on the same page if you're on the same breath.
Speaker 1:So if you have an argument, let's say you know you're about to get into an argument or you know they're like can we talk?
Speaker 1:And you go to sit down. I recommend starting with three deep breaths together before speaking so that you can get at least on the same page with your breath. You don't have to see each other's reality or perspective, but if you get in with each other's breath, you're going to find healing faster and you're going to realize like oh like, we're working with the same tools, we're working with the same you know desire to be in unity. And then it sets the stage and we call it the sacred pause, because sometimes peace lives in the inhale.
Speaker 2:And when this is normalized right, when you have the ability to, anytime you guys are in some conflict resolution or you guys are going into a major decision, if you guys both agree to enter into that sacred space together, your outcomes are going to be in alignment.
Speaker 1:Because peace lives in the inhale.
Speaker 2:In the inhale exactly.
Speaker 1:So let's play a game. We're going to play a game called Name that Breath. Name that Breath.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:It's going to be also what you're going to use for your breath work medicine toolkit.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to describe the issue and then give you the prescription of what you can do for said issue, and then Mike is going to come up with a funny name. Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I can come up with a funny name Give, give.
Speaker 1:I mean, cause some of these are so boring, these names of of the breathing techniques it's, like you know, might as well get a giggle out of it, because you'll get an extra breath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's also a way of remembering which breathing technique to use, right, so you don't have to go through the Sanskrit name or the scientific name It'll be easy because— or the proprietary name of somebody, exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for the issue, let's start with the first one. I have five here.
Speaker 2:Okay, ready for it. You got five, five deep breaths.
Speaker 1:Go. Okay. Well, you have five good names for these. Okay, so anxiety or overwhelm. What do you think the prescription should be for anxiety, overwhelm Not the name, but first give me the type of breathing.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say the 4-7-8 would be great. That's a nice entry to having the anxiety.
Speaker 1:Inhale for 4,. Hold for 7,. Exhale for 8.
Speaker 2:Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight.
Speaker 1:That's the breath that really kind of connects you with your vagus nerve which is why I call this breathing technique. The vagus puff, vagus puff, I love that. The vagus puff. Okay, good, good, I like it.
Speaker 2:There's also box breathing, but there's nothing better than box breathing. It already works.
Speaker 1:Or you can call it how about I come up with something? How about like chill box?
Speaker 2:Chill box. Yeah, that's cool too. It's a chill box, chill box, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or the square breath.
Speaker 2:No Square pants breath Square pants Box breathing sticks with me because it you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sticks with you because it sticks, it's sticky, it's sticky. There you go. Okay, but I like the Vegas puff and I also like chill box, but anyway, okay so the next issue is brain fog or fatigue.
Speaker 2:Brain fog or fatigue. I'm going to go for either. The lion's breath.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, or the breath of fire.
Speaker 2:The lion's breath is the breath of fire. The lion's breath is the tongue out. I call it tongue yoga because your tongue is actually getting some stretching right and it's connecting with some of the lymph glands that you have in your mouth too, so it's very powerful Lymph nodes in your throat.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, yeah, and then there's the breath of fire, which is the quick inhalation and exhalation. I literally call that the flamethrower, because I feel like, as I'm exiting or exhaling, what's coming out is just tension and anxiety, and I see that as, like you know, flames just fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of times when you have brain fog or fatigue, it's really just like trapped energy and emotion that hasn't been resolved. So I like that All right. Next up is emotional shutdown.
Speaker 2:Well, anytime that you are emotionally shutting down, you are probably in your head. So you need to get into your body, and I would say that the diaphragmatic breathing technique would probably be the best. Diaphragmatic breathing yeah.
Speaker 1:Belly breathing.
Speaker 2:I call it the belly button breath because it's easier for me to say than diaphragmatic breathing, but essentially you're dealing with pulling your belly button up and pulling your belly button down in regards to your breath, instead of your lungs right your chest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I teach that, it's always like filling up a balloon and then allowing the balloon to deflate, and so I would call that balloon breathing.
Speaker 2:Oh, balloon breathing, that's nice Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, so sleep issues. What do you have for that one?
Speaker 2:My tried and true is going to be the alternate nostril breathing.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I like it best because I can literally do it while in bed and it's quick and easy. I don't know if a really funny word or funny term for that would be, but I got you, I got you. You got me honey, what do you?
Speaker 1:got yeah, so you're talking about alternate nose breathing Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Naughty Shona, whatever you got.
Speaker 1:Naughty Shona, is that what it's called? Yeah, it's the Sanskrit. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. I was like, what's the Sanskrit? Um well, how about like naughty, no, no.
Speaker 2:Ooh, the naughty no. No, that's like that or naughty nose Either, or Actually, naughty nose is good.
Speaker 1:Naughty, no no.
Speaker 2:That's mine, naughty nose.
Speaker 1:You have naughty, no, no.
Speaker 2:I'll have naughty nose.
Speaker 1:Um, it also reminds you not to get stuck in your head, naughty. No, no, I'm going to be breathing this out, okay, okay. So next issue and the last one is what about couple tension?
Speaker 2:So, like what we just talked about, yeah, that's, you know, taking a couple deep breaths together in sync. I'm literally going to call that the buddy breath. It is just a quick way of being like, hey, we're buddies, we're on the same page, we're on the same breath, we're also on the same wavelength. Yes, same page, we're in the same breath, we're also on the same wavelength, yes. So you know, anyone who is who's interested in breath work, you can literally uh, google it and it will. It will just give you a huge running apothecary of ways of connecting with your higher self, right, letting, letting go of things and like this was the highlight reel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the highlight reel exactly, and the funny thing is it's like if you liken breath work to say, pharmaceutical medications, the pharmaceutical medications will provide you with some temporary relief, but then the other effects are going to, like you know, cancel those, those benefits out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can have. You can have no eczema, but you're going to have anal linkage, may cause fainting, may cause death, may cause you know what I mean? Like, it's like the amount of extras that happen because you take this pharmaceutical of like, oh yeah, these are the side effects. They're just side effects. They're no big deal, just death. Yeah, just death. But your skin's going to look great.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, once you're dead, as you're being embalmed, you're not going to have eczema. You know what I'm saying? Well, with breathwork-.
Speaker 1:There's no side effect.
Speaker 2:The benefits of breath work are literally happiness.
Speaker 1:Right, but there's no side effect, and so they're just benefits instead of the side effect.
Speaker 2:What benefits have you experienced with breath?
Speaker 1:I think it's been great for me with stress, I think cortisol I had some high cortisol stuff in my blood work, I think great for just grounding and great for self-love. And so I feel really taken care of by myself when I do breath work and the feeling I feel after is like euphoric. I feel like I have everything and more to get what I need done that day or what I need to, you know, for my purpose work Like I feel like empowered by my breath and it's intentional, it's habitual now you know, like doing it every morning and feeling like ah, it's just, I mean, what more?
Speaker 2:can I say, ah yeah, for me, I feel like breath is, is like the fulcrum right and on. Balancing on that are going to be all of the stress and anxieties that you have with living, and then all of the, the fantastic moments, the, the, you know feeling loved and feeling, uh, elated, and you know you want to spend so much time feeling loved and elated and not spend a bunch of time feeling stressed, but you still have to take care of business, right, you still have to find that balance and the breath is that balance. The breath is going to allow you to experience joy and happiness while you're dealing with stress and anxiety. And when I think of those commercials, if I were to listen to a breathwork commercial, it would just be all benefits and the only thing that would be wrong is, by the way, you could die if you stop breathing. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:If you stop taking breath work.
Speaker 2:Exactly Breathing, you can experience longevity, happiness, joy, connectivity, empowerment. You can reach your higher self. You can sing, you can dance, you can exercise. You can do all these things better. If you stop breathing, you're just going to die. That's it.
Speaker 1:it's just yeah if you stop breathing, if you stop taking breath work medicine, you're gonna die you're gonna begin to die it's like, oh, that's funny. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that we um the things that we prescribe on our podcast are like smiling medicine, kissing medicine, breathwork medicine, touch Touch medicine.
Speaker 1:Communication Boundaries yeah, you know, boundary medicine Like these are the real medicines. They are free medicine and they are not owned by pharma. They're not owned by and patented by anyone. They are literally human, it's part of our DNA and it's a gift.
Speaker 1:Like don't stop using your gifts and don't reach for what your doctor is telling you is going to solve all your problems, because it's probably not. It's probably going to cause more problems and you know that's a generalized statement. But we have the ability to heal so much and our body regenerates every night and all you have to do is take care of it with what's already been given to us Nature, food, clean nature, good food, clean water, clean air, breathing, being in harmony with your partner Everything that we talk about on the show is free.
Speaker 1:And that's why we wanted to do the show, and that's why we launched during the pandemic, because we're like no people need to know that. There's information in our bodies that are like there's information about our bodies that they are self-healing and they can figure out a way to heal. And yes, sometimes you need additional support, but there's so much free medicine available if you tap into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you don't always have to be a patient, you can just be empowered.
Speaker 1:You can just be empowered. Love it, okay. Well, if you enjoyed this episode about breathing, all of us breathe, we all have the breath. You always can come back to the breath. If you're alive, you're breathing. Thank your heart for that beautiful breath that you get to breathe every day. I feel very connected to myself when I practice breathing and try one of these breathwork rituals today and then tag us on the Empowerment Couple, tell us if it shifted your day, your mood or your connection, and a journal prompt for you would be to how can I connect deeper to my breath? Ooh, once again.
Speaker 2:How can I connect deeper to my?
Speaker 1:breath. Oh, once again, how can I connect deeper to my breath? Beautiful, and we've given you the tools, but ask your, your body, what it wants, because if you're holding your breath or if you maybe are panic breathing, you know you're breathing really, really fast and shallow, um shallow. Find out what's happening. Kind of do a little assessment and see where am I not breathing or where am I breathing too deeply, et cetera. The medicine is within you. Like all of our free medicine episodes, the medicine is within you and it rides on your breath. Inhale presence, exhale peace.
Speaker 2:Exhale peace, sending you the highest vibrations. Exhale peace, exhale peace.
Speaker 1:Sending you the highest vibrations.
Speaker 2:You are held.
Speaker 1:You are loved.
Speaker 2:While we were at the Art of Living, I had a fear because we were all kind of together and we were doing breath work and I was like, oh my God, is a room literally going to be filled with like halitosis and garlic breath and all that stuff? But there was no garlic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they don't serve garlic, they don't serve garlic.
Speaker 2:They don't serve onions, you know things. That was like the heat of the body or something like that and doesn't allow you to get into the meditative state, and that was great. But this morning, when I was doing my breathing activities, I realized like last night I had a bunch of garlic, so I was like killing myself breathing. At the same time I was like no Breath of garlic, it was just too much. It was just too much, it was just too much.
Speaker 1:Okay, you gotta demonstrate right here. Homie, I got it gross.
