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Learning how to calm the nervous system is very powerful two inhales followed by an exhale Some people are so agitated the monkey mind you got too many things going on They're trying to sit down and write wait I've also got this person I need to connect with and I'm kind of being drawn off course by not being able to put the blinders on for people that have that issue and the best way that I know how to do that is based on two studies one publish in nature one publish in cell reports recently showing that Physiological sighs are one of the fastest ways to bring our overall levels of autonomic arousal down a physiological Sigh is a two inhales followed by an extended exhale.
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So it's like It's not just a deep breath it's two inhales Followed by an exhale Okay And what that does and this has been shown several times now in humans and other species as well as it dilates the little sacs Of the lungs and that second inhale dilates a little bit more and it pulls a little bit of carbon dioxide out of the bloodstream so that when we exhale we offload the maximum amount of carbon dioxide and it perfectly adjusts the ratio of carbon dioxide and oxygen in The bloodstream and lungs and sometimes it only takes one of these double inhale exhales Sometimes somebody needs to do two or three that's the fastest way to bring the autonomic nervous system down a lot of people need such a tool because I think we talk a Weekend and get a massage.
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I'm gonna feel very good.
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But then when I'm thrown back in real life I need something that's gonna work in real time the diaphragm.
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It's a skeletal muscle organ.
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Unlike the spleen the liver the heart, etc It was designed to be moved voluntarily and these physiological sighs are actually occurring fairly regularly during sleep To adjust our levels of carbon dioxide and there's a recent study showing that in claustrophobia This is the breathing pattern that people default to to try and offload that carbon dioxide The diaphragm is real-time control over your brain state The brain knows what the body is doing by how fast the diaphragm is moving.
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It knows its overall activation state So when you breathe quickly those 25 or 30 breaths the brain says, oh I must be alert I'm gonna start secreting some noradrenaline and when you breathe slowly that level of noradrenaline drops down It sounds so simple but I think it's only in the last two or three years that my lab and Mark Krasno's lab at Stanford and other labs elsewhere in the world have started to identify the neurons in the brain that are linked To breathing and how those two things relate to one another and I think everybody should have a kit of tools Yeah that they can use to bring themselves down and ramp themselves up
