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

So what if I told you there was an exercise that was so powerful that it could

change

the pH of

your

blood? It could make it more acidic or more alkaline in minutes. What if this same exercise could improve

your

digestion? Lower your heart rate. Lower your heart rate. cortisol levels and help you fall asleep at night. What if the same extreme exercise practice could create LSD-like experiences? Out-of-body experiences. This exercise I'm talking about is something you are doing right now without even thinking about it. My name is Lucas Rockwood, as José mentioned, I am a yoga teacher and what I am talking about here are

breath

ing exercises and

breath

ing exercises done correctly and safely are one of the most powerful ways to control your mind in your body, your nervous system. endocrine system, but if you practice them recklessly, they can cause a lot of problems, you can faint, you can affect your digestion, you can also have anxiety attacks.

Now, for most of us, breathing is something that is completely automatic, in fact, it is controlled by our autonomic nervous system. It happens on its own, for example, you are crossing the street and a car swerves into your crosswalk and almost It hits you. My question is: what do you do? You inhale there, you exhale, you inhale, you cover your heart, you cover. Your crotch and you move out of the way, fight or flight, it's a response from the sympathetic nervous system. Now many people, in fact many of you, breathe this way, as if you were about to be hit by a car all day long.

Now imagine what that means. what it does to your mind, your body and your

life

, now on the other side of the spectrum, let's imagine that you are on a romantic date with that special someone and after dinner she leans in and whispers those three magic words that she says: I love you. right, what do you do, inhale or exhale, exhale, open your heart, open your crotch, fall in love, right, the response of the parasympathetic nervous system, now this is the sad thing, many people, in fact, many of you in this room do not have felt it that you haven't breathed that way in a long time, imagine that happening to your mind, 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 sweetheart, I have some Bad news for you, my friend, run well.

I'm sharing these examples with you tonight because it's important for you to realize that you already understand the autonomous part, the automatic part, correctly, inhale, fear, exhale, love, inhale, excited, exhale, peace, you understand that part, what You probably don't understand. What I don't understand is that you can override that part, which means you can take control over your nervous system and that's what I would like to share with you this afternoon with three simple concepts: water, whiskey and coffee, water breathing, water breathing. whiskey and coffee breathing, so water breathing is the the name suggests just like water is always good early in the morning late at night feeling stressed whatever it is water is always a good option is your practice come back to do it over and over again but you have to train it you're not doing it now we'll get to that in a minute now whiskey breathing as the name suggests a little whiskey from time to time no problem, you fall asleep no big deal, but if you overuse it too often you will get sick. groggy all kinds of health problems same with whiskey breath we use it mainly as a sleeping aid last but not least we have coffee breath and again as the name suggests a little coffee now and then when, no problem, right?

You have a long trip. you need to stay awake you have jetlag you need to get over it a little bit of coffee is no big deal if you overuse it all the time you can completely ruin your digestion you can have overwhelming anxiety you have that kind of tired feeling that none of us are looking for so these Those are the three practices that I would like to share with you today, but let's put aside the theory for a moment and if you would be so kind, we'll jump right into some practices that will hopefully allow you to really feel them in your body and then we'll come back to theory, so if I could, I would ask you to lean back in your chair, place your hands on your legs, relax your face, relax your shoulders, and close your eyes.

We will start with breathing in the water, it is a very simple practice, it is a count of four to four, you inhale for a count of four, you exhale for a count of four, don't worry, you don't have to count, I will come for you so you can relax, your eyes are closed, your face is relaxed and come on, 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 the nose four three two one you keep breathing I'll explain to you what's happening here this balance of breathing the most important thing is the rhythm we're four to six breaths per minute is about half your normal rhythm So we take the rhythm that you came in from the street, we cut it in half, we are between four and six breaths per minute and this is where we get that balancing effect on your nervous system.

If you are awake, knocking you down if you are down will raise you up really very powerful this is our practice. I'm telling you, you're not good at this. You have to practice this over and over again like water. Many of you are loading. a bottle of water with you tonight you also want to take this practice with you next let's take a look at the whiskey breath now the whiskey breath as we mentioned we use it carefully mainly to fall asleep, but let's do it as an exercise tonight in the same position relaxing your chair I can see that you are enjoying this your hands are in your lap relax your shoulders relax your face exactly the same as last time we inhaled and exhaled through the nose the only difference is that this time we will inhale towards the count of four and on the way out we will double it we will go to the count of eight I will do the count you breathe relax the body here we go inhale through the 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 keep breathing I will explain to you what happens after ten rounds of this whiskey breathing your heart rate decreases you can measure it it is very easy your heart rate drops your blood pressure drops and we stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and digest your fall and love your peace and relaxation side of your nervous system and that is stimulated, that's a big long explanation basically you get very tired you can fall asleep so the whiskey breath is very useful, but we want to use it carefully at the right time, we will practice one more tonight is the coffee breath, this is the one that people are most excited about, but we use The more moderate coffee breath is very different from the other two practices: We focus only on the exhalation and don't worry about the inhalation at all, we just blow the air out and it looks and feels like a sneeze.

I'll show you what it looks like hey, why are you laughing? So we exhale through the nose, we breathe quickly, you do your best to try not to move your face, your shoulders, your chest, you try to make all the energy happen from down here, at the bottom. abdomen is an unusual way of breathing remember we don't inhale we just exhale we will do 20 rounds together I will count you backwards close your eyes so you don't look so funny yes the relaxed shoulders of the body are relaxed 3 2 1 we exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 eyes are closed relaxed breathing of the body is normal eyes are closed relaxed breathing of the body is normal some of you were not participating, let's try again this time the shoulders are the relaxed chest is relaxed again it's a sneeze it feels like a sneeze just remember forget about inhalation just exhale 3 2 1 exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale exhale ten nine eight seven six five four three two one the eyes are closed the body is relaxed breathing is normal try to keep your face still this time shoulders still all the work happens in the lower abdomen it is a fun way to breathe we will do one more time three two one we exhale exhale 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 rapid breathing stimulates your sympathetic nervous system this is your fight or flight response this is the nervous system's response to cleaning the house and answering emails What we're looking for we want to use this very sparingly, if you do it too often you can get very agitated, but what we're doing here is getting our body going and we want to use it carefully, so what I just did here water, whiskey and coffee, the technical name for this is a yoga speedball, right, we basically mixed all these things together, normally you wouldn't do this, we did it in order to learn in our normal life, in our daily life.

We divide these three practices and do them at different appropriate times of the day, so when is the appropriate time, let's break it down. Breathing in water, as the name suggests, is always good anytime you need balance in your life. Go back to the water. breathing is to get in is to get out a stressful day at the office actually travel whatever it is you sit down you take ten breaths you count four on the way in four on the way out and again it's like taking a sip of water when you look at whiskey breathe mainly let's think in this while I go to sleep without alcohol or pills, this is what I will use this you come home from work and you are agitated your phone lights up with notifications your heads are buzzing I would like you to lie in bed and count inhale until you count four and exhale for a count of eight.

Inhale for a count of four and exhale for a count of eight. You can do it for ten rounds or just continue until you fall asleep. That works. very good too, last but not least his coffee breath, this is the one that excites you the most. I need to speed this up, you need to be very careful with this one, use it sparingly, here's your recipe, three rounds of twenty in the morning, three rounds of 20 right before exercise, the correct sympathetic nervous system response kicks in to start to move and three rounds of twenty at three in the afternoon, when you're usually looking for a sugary snack.

When we look at health and wellness, there are so many different things. we can optimize diet, movements and sleep optimization, all of that is wonderful, but none of it is as complete or as immediate as breathing, remember when you were born, when you came into this world, you probably won't. Remember, but when you were born, when you came into this world, the first thing you did was inhale correctly and when you leave us, when you die, if you die peacefully, you will die by exhaling correctly and between that first breath and the last. breathing, what most of us do is our nervous system just bounces back and forth, we are responding to our environment on autopilot all day long, so my challenge to you and my question to you is how could improve the quality of your life 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 that we have done today, water, whiskey and coffee, thank you.