DEEP BREATHING EXERCISES FOR ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION WITH BREATHWORK EXPERT ABBEY DAW #Chapter2 #27

Deep breathing can extend your life by a decade or more! In this "deep" conversation, Jennifer Stirling-Campbell and breathwork expert, Abbey Daw, explore the profound impact of breath on our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. They share personal stories, the science of breathing, proper breath techniques, and how breathwork can significantly improve mental health. 

Work with Abbey: https://www.abbeydaw.com/magikmembership

Work with Jennifer: https://imaquarius.com/ready-to-overcome-depression-and-change-your-life-book-a-session-with-me/

View all LINKS and supporting content mentioned in this episode HERE: https://imaquarius.com/deep-breathing-exercises-for-anxiety-and-depression-with-breathwork-expert-abbey-daw/

This Overcome Depression Podcast is for you If You Want To:

• Learn how to live longer and add ten years or more to your life
• Learn how to breathe properly
• Improve your mental health and overcome depression
• Calm your nervous system and allow vegas nerve reset
• Get free breathing excercises!

Chapters:

00:00 The Importance of Deep Breathing
04:59 Breathing for Mental Health
09:49 Breathwork Sessions: What to Expect
15:03 The Science of Breathing
20:01 Lifestyle and Breathing Patterns
24:21 The Correlation Between Breath and Health
30:04 What is the Meaning of Surrender?
34:52 Free Deep Breathing Exercise
38:00 How to Track Progress Towards Healing
44:40 Breathwork Techniques for Mental Health

Chapters

• 0:00 The Importance of Deep Breathing
• 4:59 Breathing for Mental Health
• 9:49 Breathwork Sessions: What to Expect
• 15:03 The Science of Breathing
• 20:01 Lifestyle and Breathing Patterns
• 24:21 The Correlation Between Breath and Health
• 30:04 What is the Meaning of Surrender?
• 34:52 Free Deep Breathing Exercise
• 38:00 How to Track Progress Towards Healing
• 44:40 Breathwork Techniques for Mental Health

Transcript

0:00

Breath is life, which tells me that's pretty important. When we stop doing it, we are no longer here. And so it is my opinion that it not only affects our physical well-being but also our emotional, mental, and spiritual health as well. Today we have Abbey Daw, my good friend. She is a breathwork coach. which is why I wanted to have her on today. I am not an expert in breathing. I know a little bit, but I would love for you, Abbey, to tell us everything you know, basically, about breathing. Why is it important? What is the science behind it? So I've learned so much about breath just in the last four years because I've been a mindfulness practitioner, yoga teacher turned somatic coach, meaning somatic is by and through the body. Everything through the body is somatic, just to be clear on that for those listening today. I love talking all things breath, I didn't realize how actually breathing correctly really determines how long we live. And people need to know this because people are walking around erratically or out of balance, reverse breathing and they're shortening their lives. Meaning when we're born, we're born as balanced breathers because we're not coming into the world. Well, we automatically are traumatized going through the birth canal. But when we come out, we aren't traumatized and stressed out and full of cortisol where we, we, we breathe first to the belly. So we should always be breathing through the diaphragm, which is belly muscles that help extend the belly first. So breathing into the belly, then filling up the entire lung capacity, lower lobes and upper lobes of the lungs. And we breathe to our full capacity up until maybe 20s, 30s. And then we stopped kind of breathing to our lungs. We only breathe to maybe a third of that because we stopped sprinting, we stopped moving as much. so we also become stressed out with life and the anxiety of the world. for a lot of our lives, then we turn into out of balance reverse breathers by not breathing to the belly anymore. And we actually become shallow breathers or we just breathe to the chest. So we bypass the belly altogether, which is not good. another way that I see people and I know they're stressed is when I watch them breathe, cause I always look at every client. I first observed their breath and I can always tell if somebody is stressed out just by the way they're breathing or how fast paced their breathing is. And a reverse breath would be, for instance, like normally you would take a breath into your belly and then up to your chest and exhale out. But what I see now is people breathing to their chest. when they breathe into their chest, they're actually pulling their belly in. So not only are they bypassing their belly, but they're sucking in because we're always taught, suck in, suck in, suck in. And we've trained our muscles to always be sucking in. But what we need to do is relax those muscles and use them to extend the belly. So we're not extending the belly anymore is basically what's happening. Is that, would you say, a more female teaching that does suck in? Or is it guys do this too? Well, I think for females for sure, it's all about like, second, we take a picture, make sure we're not, you know, spilling over whatever but I think in it would help my posture if I sucked in. Yeah, Looking good in life and so we just want to suck in we've been taught to suck in but I tell people Relax your belly and then they think they're relaxing their belly and they're not they're still sucking in and so they've got so used to sucking in-- yes men too; Most of us are not breathing correctly, and they're like, but I am relaxing my belly. I'm like, you're really not You're not, you've trained yourself to pull in all the time that you don't even know how to relax your belly. But we need to be. I actually, you said 20s and 30s. I feel like when I was depressed, I wasn't breathing very well. And I mean, I was depressed from the time I was very young, but I even noticed as a child that I didn't breathe very deeply. I was very shallow breather unless I was getting ready to run a race and then I would almost hyperventilate sometimes because I was so anxious. So I'd have the opposite problem. So when it comes to depression and anxiety, how does... Yeah. Breath come into play and how does breath work help? we are an anxious culture and we think, it's the same thing. I'm breathing fine. My belly is extending. Same thing. Oh, I'm not anxious. are, you're just high functioning. And what the breath does for us is it, activates the parasympathetic, the calming nervous system, part of our nervous system, right? And it gets us out of a stress response. So by breathing correctly, automatically, we have this free thing that we have every day and it automatically calms our nervous system, gets us out of that cortisol stress response. I've also heard that there are two things that we can control that are also part of the autonomic nervous system? that, did I say that right? It happens automatically. It's blinking your eyes and breath. So these two things are the things we can actually control that are also subconscious that are just kind of happening, but we can also control them. And I... I would go out on a limb to say that I think it is possible to control some of those other systems that are parasympathetic if we trained ourselves to do so, because I know people have done it, including Wim Hof, right? He's one of the gurus of breath work. Amazing, like he can slow his heart down. He can withstand freezing cold temperatures because he can tell his body what he wants it to do in those situations instead of just letting it go on auto. Again, when our systems are so damaged, traumatized, or our society at large is quite toxic in a lot of ways, again, all of that stress, and our breathing is out of whack, it's not just enough to breathe. We have to intentionally breathe. And I know my dad talked about this when he was a teacher, actually, in order to project, he taught himself to through his stomach. So he actually was a really good breather. He had a really good projecting voice. I never did quite get that down. I'm still working on it. So what does a breathing session do or what do you do in one of your breathing sessions and how do people normally tell you they feel before and after? How can you tell that it's working? I can tell it's working because I observe their breath, and what I first notice is how fast they're breathing. People are breathing way too fast. We're getting way too much oxygen. oxygenating our body too much. Sorry, that was a tough word to get out. which most people don't know. Most people think, no, more oxygen is good, but there's a lot of research on carbon, right? CO2, carbon dioxide. that's what people don't know. Like oxygen is actually killing us. Isn't that crazy? It's killing us. We're getting too much of it. That's like people don't know it's like mind blowing. And so when people come in and they're laying down, like, Oh, I'm just so relaxed. I'm sitting here in your meditation and I'm relaxed. But meanwhile, I'm observing their body and it's just up. in and out in and out like they're not taking any pause in their breath and so as they think. usually. as relaxed as they think like you could be like, Oh, my shoulders are relaxed. But then it's like, that's because I've been holding my shoulders like this for a freaking decades. And then when I finally am forced to push them down to like, Oh, okay, we just get so wound up and we don't even realize how wound we up we are saying with our breathing, our breathing, we're getting too much oxygen in. The rhythmic breaths you got to start with the rhythmic breaths and then by that it trains the body to breathe more rhythmically but then I can notice okay it's working because now they're taking a small pause in between the exhale and the inhale It doesn't happen overnight, but you can have an immediate change in the way you feel in your body just because when you breathe mindfully, science, the body responds and the nervous system responds and it just tells you to get out of fight flight freeze mode and it activates that calming side of the nervous system, especially this is important: extending the exhale. When you extend the exhale out longer than the inhale, that's what calms down your nervous system and activates the calming part. pause a little bit at the end of the exhale before you take your inhale. That's going to also make it so that your body slows down and you don't need to immediately breathe in and get more oxygen. if that makes sense. When, how long does one of these sessions usually work? Like I've, I've met some people, this absolutely changes their life. And I know for you, this is why you do it because it is such a huge turning point for you in the way that you felt, your health.... So I'd like you to talk a little bit to that as far as how often does it require, I guess to get that training to where you're actually doing it on your own without having to get help to breathe. Kind of like the best case scenario and I don't want to say worst, but like your clients that maybe took the longest, what's kind of the range. So what I would first say to somebody who's needing to know more about this and wants to start a breath and mindfulness practice. First, I would say order the book Breathe or Breath by James Nestor. That's a great resource to start reading. And he always says, just get your breath in. The moment you start being more conscious of how you breathe, that's amazing. So awareness is key. Now, how long? It can take a minute for you to start feeling the effects of mindful breathing. Like if you just know one exercise and you just go with that one exercise, that's what I did. Okay, so this is my experience. I was going through postpartum, severe postpartum anxiety. Nothing was helping. Nothing was helping. Not even SSRIs were helping for me. I even tried. I tried it all. And then there was one breath that changed my life and I did it. 30 days straight. Okay, I think in order to really make a shift, 30 days is great, but six months is a game changer. So I tell people, yeah, they always say break a habit in 21 days. I think you're just barely scratching the surface. I think if you can commit to 180 days of better health practices, That's when you're going to really notice a huge change. I tell people it's not going to come overnight, but by breathing correctly and just being simple about it, choose one breath you do every day for a couple minutes, six months, you'll notice some really amazing life altering positive changes. Yeah, and I actually play an instrument that requires very controlled breathing. And so from the time I was nine, was at least in band class, I would have to take a very conscientious breath in of the right amount and it would come out usually very slowly because of how you have to play. they actually recommend trumpet playing for people who suffer from asthma, different things, because it requires that kind of breath control or you can do breath work. as well and it would probably have a very similar or possibly better effect because you're more mindfulness in the actual breathing. Whereas trumpet, I was more interested in the trumpet. I wasn't thinking about the breathing even though I was doing it. The other thing comes to mind is the study someone did or studies over time that have shown that if you are an athlete, particularly runner, and you run every day for a year.... Doing this starting out is torture. I mean, I don't know anyone who's never run, who enjoys running starting out. It's awful. I mean, it's just awful. But once you start getting past that first month, two, three, and you start, it starts to get easier and start to enjoy it. If you do it every day for a year, your body will know what it is to be a runner. And it's, I'm not in shape right now, but if I wanted to get in shape, it would take me a few weeks because my body is so... acclimated, like it knows what running is and how to get in shape. And so if you run for that year and then you stop running for a year and you start getting back into it, it comes back very quickly. It's almost like if you run for that year, you're a runner for the rest of your life. Not that you're doing it all the time, but that it's in your system. You know how to do it. It comes back very fast. And I would imagine that's similar with learning how to breathe. If you kind of fall off the bandwagon, you get stressed again, learning, relearning how to breathe again would come back more naturally if you're making it a practice on a regular basis, even if you fell off the bandwagon after six months. So I would say 100% absolutely an amazing investment in your health just to commit for six months to make this a part of your life and to make that a goal to to do because again it's not like after six months it would just stop working. You could revisit it. from time to time. And if you're Abbey, you'll do it every day for the rest of your life because you love it so much. So why? I'm human and I don't do it every day, sometimes. I'm a mom and I give myself grace, but you're absolutely right. If you make it a habit for a good year, six months to a year, yeah, you train your body differently. Yep. no, no it's fine. What got you into breathing in the first place? why do you love it so much? Why have you continued to do it? Well, I credit my, by the way, I'm a post runner too. So marathon runner like you just runner athlete. I would say. first effective breath practice by my older sister who is not a breath person when I was running and would get side aches training for my marathons. You know, when I was in my early 20s, really, you know, a bike racer and a runner and I'd say I'm getting these side aches and she's like, I heard this method you just you take in a breath for three seconds. or four seconds, and then you hold it and then you take one out for three, four seconds and you hold it. And every single time I would practice that on my run, it would always just go away. So that was like the first time I was like, wow, this breath thing really works as my side ache is gone. I'm a yoga teacher of 20 years. And so by I give my yoga practice mostly the credit for teaching you how to breathe to my belly. like you were talking about with your dad, he intentionally did that. I was intentionally breathing to my belly for so many years because that was the training I got in yoga. So my running and my yoga practice, which then led me to a deeper dive when the COVID pandemic hit, because I was going through a divorce. I was postpartum in the midst of just this heavy energy trying to get my life together. Nothing was helping. And I'm like, I stumbled across this podcast where I heard about a breathwork technique that I had never done as a yoga teacher or nor taught as a yoga teacher. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to really see if this works based off of the science that she explained about it. And that's when I decided, okay, let's try this. And like I said, I tried it and I was like, what the sun is coming out blue skies in my mind and my body feels great. I'm getting the buzzy feeling. What is this? Everybody needs to know about it. And then obviously with the brain I have that hyper focus, I just wanted to know more and more and more because I'm like, people are not understanding this. And I'm kind of lucky in the way where I've had this foundation and this knowledge. And I sort of got onto the breath train way before it got really popular. It's kind of trendy right now. And I've been doing it for a long time. And so I feel like I'm ahead of the game and I have some information that I'm like, yeah, people it's trendy, people have to be learning from the right people, Jen, because people don't understand the importance of like that carbon dioxide and what it does for the body. So if you are going to, There's a science to it. science and people are just, you know, I'm gonna go teach this breath experience but there's contraindications with it and you have to do it safely. And that's where Yes, it was helping my body a lot. And I got through postpartum and I did it for those six months. But then after that, I'm like, there is more to this. And then that's when I became that real expert. Yeah, and I've done your Wednesday night breathing group sessions. They are amazing. I also remember the first time that I experienced breath work was in college and wasn't very good at it. The tuba professor was teaching it to all the brass and I just remember going, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm going to pass out. And it was kind of hard. What is that? What's going on when you feel like you're going to pass out? breathing exercise. Too much oxygen? is... What it can do is it can make you feel like you don't have enough oxygen because you've been getting too much oxygen. So it puts your body in a panic state, almost like you're suffocating even though you're not. So what I think what was happening to you is what I feel is your body was showing the anxiety you were having in your body. You know, your body was panicking. Like, where is it? Where's all the oxygen I usually have? Yeah. And so how many years of our life would you say are taken off by just not breathing properly? I could say a decade to a decade at least. We can lengthen our life by more than a decade. People, if you notice Jen, they are dropping dead earlier now from heart attacks. I tell people we're speed walking to our graves. because, okay, something that's so beautiful is whales. They are the longest living creatures or one of them. I know there's like all these creatures in the ocean that live for. So many years but whales.... let's just talk about whales. They live some for 200 years and they only take a breath once every four minutes. Their bodies are slow. They take intentional breaths and they are slow creatures and they live really long there's I had no idea. That's incredible. Once every four minutes. And mice breathe really, really, really fast. And they live a year. They live under that. They are the fastest creatures and they are the fastest breathers and they live really short lives. Yeah, interesting. We need to slow down. We are in the hustle culture and we think the more we get done, we're gonna just this is what we do. I could talk about this all day. We're just gonna get up in the morning, we're gonna drink our caffeine and then we're gonna go get another latte about two o'clock because we're starting to crash, right? Our blood sugars are all over the place. Our cortisol is all over the place. We're not moving enough. We're eating too much sugar. Oh, I'm just gonna go home now. I'm gonna just get into bed at 10 o'clock and I'm gonna fall right to sleep. No, that's not how our bodies work. And we're like, why can't I sleep at night? What's because you are you are over medicated, overstimulated, overworked, overstressed, you know, all the things and then you expect your body to lay down at night and just calm down automatically. You've trained your body not to do that. then what happens is, we created sleep disorders, insomniacs. We're all expecting our bodies to just why can't I sleep? Well, look at your lifestyle, look what you're consuming, look how you're moving in the world. And so we need to take a page out of the whales book and just know that being faster is not more productive, but being slower, slows our body down, And we'll be happier and healthier, and we'll still get a lot done. We'vejust been taught that the more we do, the more successful we are. Yeah, we can sleep when we're dead. I've heard that before. Right? Page from a book. know when people say that I'm like, that's funny but not really. You make me want to put a picture of a whale in my space, just to remind me to be a whale. I'm going to do it. I'm seriously going to do it. What do you have to say about CPAP machines? Is there a correlation there between us not breathing properly and... always. I don't have a lot of research for CPAP. I should, but I do know that sleep disorders come from an unhealthy breath pattern, erratic breathing. which makes sense. I actually have a few study, like just little things I wanted to kind of cover just because I wanted to include in this podcast and see you had heard of any of these before, but that breathing can change your blood pH in minutes. No food, exercise, or can act as quickly is what I learned. You can often determine your dominant nervous system state simply by placing your finger underneath your nostrils and exhaling. I'm sure it would take someone who knows what they're doing to understand what that means. Reduced rate breathing can stimulate a rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system state to help with sleep, stress, and anxiety. Rapid pulsed breathing stimulates a sympathetic nervous system response to increase energy, prepare for exercise, or boost the body's natural defenses, while diaphragmatic breathing massages the vagus nerve, which is really important for healing from depression, and reduces heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress. And what were you going to say? That's it, Did you research anything with breathing strictly just through your nostrils and what it does for us? No. Nasal breathing. People are like, well, I do nasal breathe. I'm like, until you fall asleep and your mouth hangs open in the night, you're not, you're breathing through your mouth. And that's what happens is we need to not breathe through our mouth because it just shows we're not getting enough oxygen. So we need another way to get oxygen. So we're breathing through nose and mouth, which means erratic out of rhythm breath immediately. If you're a mouth breather, which I would say honestly Jen, probably 80% people are breathing out their mouth in the middle of the night. And to long term problems with the health and the heart. And so if we learn just to breathe through the nose, first of all, unless it's intentional, like the style of breath I teach, right? That's a whole different thing. Just breathing in the day, we should not be breathing through our mouth at all because when we breathe through our nose, it reduces the amount of oxygen we need A and then there's, this molecule called nitric oxide that is released through nasal breathing that is the overall wellness molecule for the body. There's so much more with natural breathing. If some of you guys want to just go Google and why natural breathing is so good, you should. So we release this, molecule called nitric oxide. This wellness molecule that we need. And we also get that through humming and singing too, nitric oxide. That's another thing that we need to learn about. the nitric oxide important? It's so good for our, cardiovascular system. It's so good for our blood. Eeverybody needs to go read about nitric oxide. It's the wellness molecule. We're not getting enough of it is the bottom line sounds like. We're not. And also hum in your car or sing in your car when you're driving to work, because that also gives you nitric oxide. Hmm, and that's a happy thing. Hope I can release some endorphins. Yeah. Breath. Breath makes you feel better. When you feel better, you live longer and you call in better things by breathing better. When you're living, you're living a better quality of life. And I think that's what people want. At least I do. I would be, I mean, I think we can have it all, but I would rather live a short life feeling healthy than live a long life feeling sick, even if I could prolong it with prescription drugs. So it's not worth it to me to go that route. I want to die a natural death and whatever that looks like, we'll see. But I love the natural ways that we can keep ourselves healthy. it's so, you wake up in the morning wanting to wake up in the morning. Yeah, but I wanted to clear something for people that might be a little confused because I said, you know, oxygen's killing us and so they might be like, well, why are we breathing then doing breath work if oxygen's killing us, right? Okay. By choosing to intentionally rhythmically control our breath every day, that is what gets our body back into rhythm. So I call it a dose of breath a day. Maybe. 10 to 15 minutes, guys, that's all you need to get a dose of breath of hyperventilation. So intentional oxygenating the body. Then when you do that rhythmic intentional breath time, that's when after that you've built those muscles like you do in running. And then you're teaching your body on like default setting to go into a rhythmic slower state. So you intentionally breathe in the oxygen to intentionally slow down the body and get your body to get into a better rhythm. Awesome. I wanted to clear that out in case people were like, well, then I don't want to do breathwork if oxygen's killing me. I think the point is to breathe correctly so that we're getting the right amount of the chemicals and such that we were intended to ingest and thrive instead of just survive every day. Which leads me to my next exciting announcement. Abbey will be participating in the workbook for this chapter. She's going to be offering a free session essentially in this workbook and then if you want to subscribe to more of her sessions or buy more of them or do her group sessions or even an individual session with her. Her individual sessions are awesome. She also does Reiki and you can do Reiki remotely and she does a fabulous job. I always feel so much better after working with you. So anyone who's interested. at you though. You're talented too at what you do, by the way. Thank you, thank you. So get the workbook, take advantage of this offer, and then work with Abbey some more if you feel like this is a route that you want to take. Lastly, I want to ask you, because I ask this of everyone who I interview, can you describe what you think surrender is, as well as how it is applied to in your life? Is there a moment that you experienced a change of heart, soul, that moving forward everything was different because you chose to let go of your previous self. Yeah, surrender is a word that I've felt has had so many complexities for me as a mindfulness teacher because I get that asked a lot like what is surrender? And quite frankly, it's taken 43 years of my life to really understand what surrender is and what I first will say about surrender you guys. Surrender is just about relaxation into the heart. So I say if you want to surrender, place your hands on your heart, as simple as that, and feel that you have a heart, and close your eyes. And now it's like the from the head to the heart. So I say, tell people, by moving to your heart and relaxing it, and a great way to do that is by having gratitude. Gratitude will help you surrender because gratitude is presence. Because we're not thinking about all the other things on our plate and all the things that could go wrong all the time. So I tell people surrender is gratitude. Surrender is present moment. Surrender is relinquishing control and just being in your heart, like being in your heart and being in relaxation. So what breath does is get you into a natural state of off the default mode network in the brain. So think of it as like the CEO of your brain and taking that and switching that off. That's surrender because then you're not like, you're not in the saboteur. You're not in the fear. Whenever you can get out of fear and return to love that is surrender. Now for me, I would say I've just been in a moving prayer my whole life and by adding breath to my practice has helped me to trust and have faith that whatever is watching over me has got my back and Breath has truly gotten me to a place where I can trust that invisible force of love call it what you may, God, love... has got my back because when I'm not in my breath, I don't trust that anymore. And so the more that I have breathed and gotten out of that Eagle mind or that default mode network in my brain, have learned to surrender and trust more. And I think the more that I breathe, especially in this year, I've really broken through more barriers because you're gonna just think, my gosh, I'm just doing a breath work, nothing's happening. But I tell people when nothing is happening, everything is happening when you're breathing correctly. You may think these moments where you're taking a mindful breath in like, oh that was fine. That was good. I'm calmer. But there's so much more coming from that than you can ever, know, but it may show up. I don't worry about that like I used to or I respond and don't react like I used to; I respond differently. Oh, I'm a better listener. I'm not so angry in traffic. Oh, I'm more compassionate breath. day you do it, helps you to be better at having faith, less worry, more love and in that place of relaxation in the present moment, which is the ultimate surrender. And for me, I've been a control freak my whole life. And I'm not anymore. And it took years of breath to really not be a control freak, honestly. Yeah, I'm there on that train getting away from Control Freak. The more I let go of Control, the happier I am. mean, I mean, it's just incredible. Yeah. Yeah, it is when you can know you're okay. And you can just let that greater loving force you and know you're being watched out for. And you can just set down the baggage or the I've got to orchestrate this perfectly. So I'm safe. So I'm secure. So like I'm okay. But knowing that you are okay is what breath has done for me. I am okay I can let go of this worry or I can let go of trying to control this outcome because we're not really in control like we think we are breath teaches me that we're only

control of minor things: 32:10

the way to respond to people the way we treat people the way we treat ourselves how we breathe really and the rest is in beyond our control. beyond our control and sometimes I would say understanding. Most of us, I would say everyone here probably does not understand the depth of this life experience, what a gift it is, and how much we are loved. And I... We are so loved. We ARE love. Yeah, we're all connected I want to speak a little more to what you said about how some people don't realize until a year later that, Oh, I'm feeling better. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen people that do things and then dismiss the thing that actually resulted in them feeling better. Like they don't even make the correlation. And so how important it is to, in this program, week to week take notes of how your week was, how you're feeling, 1 to 10. That's part of this process because people who are struggling with mental disorder, especially depression, tend to be very down on themselves. And so when they see progress, lot of the depression mindset is to dismiss it. Like it's not that great. And when you keep can't dismiss the data where you look back and see that you are making progress. So. I just, think. doesn't show up in ways we think; it's very subtle, very beautiful. had some big moments, but most of it, it's slow and steady. And then one day I go, wow, I'm not doing that thing that I used to do anymore. And so it's fun. Yeah. So thank you so much, Abbey, for being with us today. How can people reach you? So you're welcome, by the way, you're the best. I love you and your whole family. You can have me anytime, I will be there. You can find me on my website. My name is just Abbey Daw; A-B-B-E-Y-D-A-W, so Abbeydaw.com. I've just updated my website. It's really cute and really beautiful, so you go look at it. it looks really good. just New imagery on there and stuff. You can go to my website and then Instagram. That's @ abbydaw.com, but you can find resources on either of those places or you can just message me and say, Hey, I have question about breath. I'm here. I'm really easy to access. Like I'm very open. I want to help people. So please reach out to me. Don't be scared. I will answer you, I will help. And to end, would you be willing to teach us one breath exercise? of course. So you can do this if you're driving, but just keep your eyes open. Cause I know a lot of people listen to podcasts while they're driving. I do for sure. But this is also a safe breath to do while you're driving. But just make sure you are in control of yourself. And like, if something doesn't feel comfortable in this moment, then don't do it. Okay, please. So. You're going to want to first close your eyes if you're not driving. And if you're driving, just keep your eyes open. Everybody send an exhale out. So the one I was talking about is in a long extended exhale. Send out it out all the way out until you're empty. Hold it. Two, three, four. Now inhale through your nose. Two, three, four. Hold your breath. Two, three, four. Out your mouth. Two, three, four. Hold. two, three, four, in, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, in, last one, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, hold, two, three. Now take a big breath in. And then sip again. Yep. And then out. So we did that for about a minute, right? I want everybody to just know you can change. Jen, do you feel different after one minute? When I started, I noticed immediate difference. Just the first breath. My whole system just kind of... I'm very sensitive energetically so I could feel everything just kind of twinkle down to my toes and leave. It felt really, really, really good. It's safe for everyone if you're pregnant, if you have like a terminal or chronic disease, like something like that. It's safe. In four, hold four, out four, hold four. Just do that. sorry, you inhale through your nose or your mouth? Like one nose. full inhale and then a sip at the end. And the reason why I like that breath is that one's a really fast acting, like let's get you out of stress breath. So when you go. That's a good one. Full inhale, sip.... get you out of any stress response. How many breath exercises do you teach? What is your... many, I mean, so many, there are so many breaths to do, but I have like about 15 that I go to, my go-to 15. I do pranayama; what's pranayama? That's a limb of yoga. And that's think of it as more controlled breaths where you actually like do the alternate nostril breathing or the reduced breathing exercises where it's more controlled. And then I teach more brain transformational breathing where it's non-stop, very circular, Wim Hof style, where you're not taking pauses, where you're hyperventilating. That's another style of breath that I teach that I love for more like of a buzzy transformational experience. So there's lots, basically. The first exposure I had to Wim Hof was on another podcast and he taught a breathwork exercise where you breathe in and out really quickly, 20 times, and then you do as many push-ups as you can. I was floored. I was doing like 20, 25 push-ups at a time without breathing like that. And when I hyperventilated through his exercise, I could do 35. No problem. And you can hold your breath as you're doing the push-ups. was intense, but you felt you took this massive breath after you were done with the pushups because you're like, I want to breathe and it felt so good. So again, Abbey, I love your work. I hope this podcast brings many to you who want to better their life. Is there anything else you want to say before we leave? Deeper breath, deeper life guys. Live your life, be alive. Don't just sleep walk through life and think that your body's working for you. Cause it's not, it can't, you gotta take care of your inner house. You just have to, if you wanna live a long life, slow down. That's the new cool. Take care of your temple. Physical body needs lots of TLC. Well, thank you again. Thank you to all who are listening, who made it to the end of this podcast. You're amazing. We will see you next time.