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Paced Breathing: Creating Balance With Your Breath

Paced Breathing: Creating Balance With Your Breath

Are you ready to take charge of your health? Schedule your free 20-minute discovery call with our New Patient Coordinator to see how you can become a patient at MaxWell Clinic and start your healing journey today.


Breathing is so natural to us, we rarely give it a second thought. But there is immense power in your breathing – if you know how to harness it.

Did you know there are simple techniques you can learn that alter the pattern of your breath, and produce changes that seem almost miraculous? These techniques are called paced breathing, and they’re powerful, simple, free, and easy for all ages.

Watch the video on paced breathing:

  • Discover what it is and how it works to rebalance your autonomic nervous system
  • Learn several different breathing techniques that you can start using right away
  • And uncover the many benefits of paced breathing, including control over your mind and body.

Are you aware that simply changing your breathing pattern can significantly impact your overall well-being? Breathing is a fundamental and often overlooked aspect of our daily lives. In this blog post, we’ll explore the power of conscious breathing and various techniques to help you reduce stress, enhance your mood, and improve your emotional well-being.

Why Breathe Mindfully?

The act of breathing is something we do effortlessly every day. But have you ever stopped to think about how you’re breathing? Most of us breathe shallowly, primarily using the upper part of our lungs. This shallow breathing can activate our sympathetic nervous system, often referred to as the “fight or flight” response, leading to increased stress levels.

The good news is that we can change this by incorporating mindful breathing techniques into our daily routines. By doing so, we stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and calmness. Here are some techniques to help you get started:

Box Breathing

Box breathing, also known as square breathing, is a simple and effective technique. Here’s how you can do it:

  • Inhale through your nose for a count of four.
  • Hold your breath for a count of four.
  • Exhale through your mouth for a count of four.
  • Hold your breath again for a count of four.
  • Repeat this process for several cycles.

This technique can be used anywhere, anytime, and is excellent for managing stress and improving focus. It can also be used as a quick remedy during stressful situations.

The 4-7-8 Breath

The 4-7-8 breath technique, popularized by Dr. Andrew Weil, is particularly useful for enhancing sleep quality. Here’s how it works:

  • Inhale quietly through your nose for a count of four.
  • Hold your breath for a count of seven.
  • Exhale audibly through your mouth for a count of eight.
  • Repeat this sequence for a total of four breath cycles.

Practicing the 4-7-8 breath can be a powerful tool for promoting relaxation and achieving a restful night’s sleep.

Visualization and Relaxation

Incorporate visualization techniques with your breathing. As you breathe, imagine something soothing, like ocean waves. The idea is to let go of your thoughts and allow your mind to focus solely on the breathing and the calming image. Visualization, combined with mindful breathing, can help you manage stress and find serenity.

Consistency is Key

To reap the full benefits of these breathing exercises, consistency is crucial. Making it a part of your daily routine can help you take charge of your emotional well-being. Start with just five minutes each day, setting a positive tone for the day. As you get comfortable, extend the practice to ten minutes.

Remember, it’s a practice, and like any skill, it takes time and dedication to refine. The more you engage in these techniques, the more naturally they will integrate into your life.

Additional Tools and Resources

Here are some additional tools and resources that can help you in your journey to mindful breathing and improved emotional well-being:

  1. Heart Rate Variability Monitors: Devices like HeartMath, FirstBeat, and heart rate variability monitors can provide valuable insights into your autonomic nervous system. These tools measure your heart rate variability and help you understand your stress levels.
  2. Mobile Apps: There are several mobile apps available that guide you through breathing exercises and meditation. Some popular ones include Headspace, Insight Timer, and Waking Up. These apps offer a wide variety of guided sessions for different purposes.
  3. Wearable Devices: Many wearable devices, like Fitbit and the OURA ring, can provide continuous monitoring of your heart rate variability. These devices can help you keep track of your daily progress and offer insights to improve your overall well-being.

Challenge Yourself

Let’s wrap up by issuing a challenge. We encourage you to give mindful breathing a try for the next 30 days. Allocate just five minutes a day to practice these techniques, and focus on making it a daily habit. Over time, consider extending the practice to ten minutes. The power of consistent mindful breathing can be transformative.

Breathe Your Way to a Better You

In summary, the way you breathe can have a profound impact on your emotional well-being. By practicing mindful breathing techniques like box breathing, the 4-7-8 breath, and combining them with visualization and relaxation, you can reduce stress, enhance your mood, and increase your overall sense of calm.

Remember that it’s crucial to practice consistently. Just as with any skill, regular practice will yield the best results. You can also explore various tools and resources, such as heart rate variability monitors, mobile apps, and wearable devices, to help you on your journey to better emotional well-being.

Now that you’re equipped with these breathing techniques and tools, it’s time to take action. Begin your 30-day challenge, and watch as your world transforms, one mindful breath at a time.

For further information and research on the benefits of mindful breathing, please refer to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Their resources can provide you with additional insights into relaxation techniques.

Start your journey to a better you today. Breathe, relax, and embrace the incredible power of mindful breathing.


Are you ready to take charge of your health? Schedule your free 20-minute discovery call with our New Patient Coordinator to see how you can become a patient at MaxWell Clinic and start your healing journey today.

i am um ashley woods i’m a physician here at the maxwell clinic and i’m gonna
wait just a few minutes to let people get logged on um i hope you’re having a great day
um it is a rainy day today if you’re if you’re
joining us live you might be listening to this on a recording and
i want to welcome you to our group visit i appreciate you taking time out from your busy schedule to
spend just 30 minutes with me learning about breeding that doesn’t sound like an
exciting topic but i promise you it is worth your time um just a couple of housekeeping uh
things remember during this group visit your microphone is muted so if you have a question please
put it into the q a section of the toolbar and i will answer those questions at the end of our
time together also if there is any internet connection issues which i’m not expecting please
stay logged in and we will switch over to a hot spot as soon as possible i’m
not expecting this but you know technology and it is rainy today so who knows um
anyway but let’s get let’s get started
okay before we start i don’t wanted to let everybody know this is going to be a little bit interactive so if you’re
listening to this while you’re driving that’s cool just don’t practice some of the breathing
things while you’re driving because i am going to ask you to close your eyes a few times in it so i just want to
put that as a cautionary thing but for the first a few minutes i just want
everyone to just take a minute to pay attention to their breathing um don’t try to control it
just notice it at least for the next four breaths
is it fast is it slow are your breaths
deep are they shallow before i mention this you were likely
not even tuned into your breathing at all because it’s automatic it’s a system
that runs on all about on autopilot um from your first breath of life when
you were born until your very last breath at the end of your life um and it’s great that we don’t have to
remember to breathe um what if you had to remember to breathe i mean you had to put it on your to-do list i’m going to
do this in this i want to have to breathe um well actually that’s exactly why i’m doing this webinar because i
want you to remember to take some time out of your busy day to just sit and breathe
um and i’m going to show you why that’s important and how you can improve your health and quality of life by doing so
um now um this may sound like a bit of a hassle
but uh again i promise just a few minutes each day with practice it’s not gonna be
an automatic thing um just tuning into your body and your breath will bring you um lots of good
benefits um and so we’re going to spend our time doing that together
here are our objectives or my objectives is to just keep some very simple breathing techniques that
you can balance your nervous system with and improve your overall well-being and
to connect the dots between why these techniques work and what exactly is happening in the body
so here we are most of us or at least me some days um and i think probably
most of us in our current society we’re busy hectic scattered unfocused
maybe even overwhelmed or anxious um and in this pandemic
for the last after 18 months of us wearing masks we could all use a little bit of a breath
of fresh air um so breathing as a practice is
is part of many ancient cultures and even religions it dates way back in time
in lots of writings spiritual writings
christian writings buddhist writings it’s you can find that that information it’s out
there um it’s also deeply rooted in yoga practice and paired with postures a lot
of people when they start yoga get very hung up on the postures and the flexibility and all that but actually
yoga is based in breathing and it’s also considered
well breathing is also considered a preliminary step for meditation
pranayama that’s what this word says and it is the conscious awareness
and manipulation of breath the life force that both energizes and relaxes the body
and to do this you do not have to sit as this woman is sitting in the picture i mean yes that’s great and that’s what we
think of when we think of meditation or breathing or even yoga perhaps um the term pranayama is uh from uh
sanskrit roots prana meaning vital life force yama meaning control and ayama meaning
extension or expansion and that’s kind of what we do at maxwell clinic is max
well it expansion and contraction towards
wellness and the practice can be used for purification
breathing toxins out of your body achieving liberation focusing the mind
and steadying the body so let’s start with some anatomy and let me talk about briefly how this works
okay so these little cartoons here um just simply
uh give you a idea of the inhalation and exhalation i mean we all know we breathe in air or
oxygen we breathe out carbon dioxide that’s pretty basic um but if you notice
on these little cartoons there is what appears to be an esophagus trachea
lungs which are pictured in sort of a red rose color and then there is a
purple sort of arch at the bottom that’s the diaphragm and we all have a diaphragm
and it is innervated and controlled by the vagal nerve which we’re going to talk about because that’s what we’re
going to sort of exercise with the breathing you can think of your lungs as two big balloons they don’t move without
the help of your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles intercostal muscles are the little muscles in between each
ribs um and those do contract and expand um
and so this diaphragm this in the first one on inhalation you notice the the u
is is sort of flattened allowing for inhalation so everybody
take a deep breath when right now your diaphragm just went down
and then to exhale it relaxes and comes back up pushing on
those balloons of your lungs to expel the air or the carbon dioxide out
of your nose or your mouth and this diaphragm again is under both
central nervous control and autonomic nervous control central
meaning you know if you think of the nervous system having two branches the central part which is your brain and
spinal curve or peripheral in other words you want to pick up your phone you reach and pick up your phone your brain
told you to do that that’s using the the central nervous system or the control part of the nervous system where
you use your peripheral nerves but then there’s also the autonomic nervous system and that’s
what we’re going to talk about a lot today about um and so you can think
about taking a deep breath and will yourself to do that so you do have control over the diaphragm but it’s also
automatic if you’re not thinking about it it’s still going to work for you and
right now we’re going to turn our attention to the autonomic nervous system and the diaphragm and the vagus nerve
because that’s what runs on autopilot but we’re going to talk about how to shift that ever so slightly with a
little effort so breathing is a power switch to a
vastnet or called the autonomic nervous system so we measure the autonomic nervous
system at the mexico clinic if you are a patient which i assume you are because you’re watching this you have had a
heart rate variability test when you very first came in where they hooked you up and you laid still real quietly and
and things were measured and then your clinician probably went over that with you and they may have said oh it looks
great or they may have said you really have a sympathetic dominance or you have a foot on the gas and a foot on the
brake those are words that i use i don’t know what everybody else’s uses but it tells us within that quick five
minutes kind of what’s running for you in the background um and it’s running for all of us in the background and we
can control that with practice um and that’s again what we’re going to be discussing now if you miss dr farris’s
recent webinar on heart rate variability that is the name of the test that we do
because we’re measuring heart rate variability and for those who missed his webinar just a
oops very brief recap on that is that is measuring the beat to be beat
variation the heart doesn’t beat like a metronome like boom boom boom boom or it’s the same all the time there’s
milliseconds difference between those beats and that variation the more variation there is between those beats
the better the better your longevity the better your overall well-being the better your overall health and so we
really care a lot about that um and so if you’re someone who
has more of a sympathetic dominance that is more
one side of the branches of the autonomic nervous system and then there’s the parasympathetic which is the other side
and we’re going to talk about that but if you want to recap on a lot more science about the heart rate
variability please go back and watch dr ferris’s webinar it was quite excellent with a lot of data um there and then he
did another follow up on recently on heart math which pairs with what i’m saying here very nicely um
okay brief recap sympathetic again i think of this as a seesaw now we’re not
always on one or always on the other ideally in a perfect world we’re sort of in the middle we bounce from one thing
to the next throughout the day and sometimes we need to be super focused and super alert and ready for action
that would be the sympathetic side and you can see my slide here sympathetic is fight or flight sort of 9-1-1 foot on
the gas revs up the body systems ready to take action and it revs up all the systems
parasympathetic is more rest and digest think of a nice massage or getting ready for bed or a warm bath that’s the
parasympathetic um here i’ve listed rest and digest because it has very a lot to
do with your digestion and your ability to digest food we need to be relaxed when we eat we know we aren’t always
relaxed it interferes with digestion feed and breed it actually has um
feed which we just talked about digestion but breed has to do with our sexual function libido um if you’re you
know running from a saber tooth tiger or you’re running late for work you’re probably not
in the mood for sex so it has to your parasympathetic nervous system has to kind of be engaged
prefer all the things to work properly there so it’s a relaxation and restoration
another slide saying more of the same things but this is really talking more about the
body systems so what happens in your body when your sympathetic nervous system is really turned on
your heart rate is higher your breathing rate could be increased you’re more likely taking shallow respirations and
you see at the bottom there it says branches at the top of the lungs are more sympathetic
in the top half and then the bottom half the the branches are more parasympathetic and so
to stimulate those you have to breathe into them make those balloons big and take big inhalations to kind of help
turn that on um and so sympathetic again can be very helpful if you need to focus you have a
deadline at work you got to get things done um you know
that’s when the sympathetic tone is helpful but to live there not so much and we’re all having a little bit
of increased sympathetic tone going on with our culture and society now there’s always a mean and one things to do
and um we we tend to lean more towards the sympathetic but we
really need to have balance for overall wellness parasympathetic you have a lower heart rate slower breathing
helps with digestion and elimination people that are really constipated um
you need to relax to poop pretty simple it also helps with sleep a lot of people
complain that they can’t fall asleep um and preparing your body for sleep is turning that parasympathetic
stem of the autonomic nervous system on uh and again branches at the top
branches at the bottom so when you think about the breath think about you’re kind of extending that
um more the vagus nerve what does this have to
do with anything well the vagus nerve is actually one of those cranial nerves that that is part of the central nervous system and it extends it’s the 10th
cranial nerve and it extends from our brainstem all the way down to lots of different
systems in our body in fact the vagus nerve is involved in nearly every physiological action in the human body
and harnessing its power can have an immediate dramatic impact on your overall
well-being so you know it’s like when you take that deep breath your vagus nerve
moves the diaphragm down so you’re expanding your turn you’re getting oxygen down to that that
parasympathetic lower parts of the lung expanding those balloons or lungs if you will and you’re
really um stimulating the vagal nerve
this sends little little signals back up to the brain that hey we’re relaxing now well this is good
we’re taking deep breaths have you ever been in a argument with somebody you’re frustrated you just
you take it you just instinctively take a deep breath um or a deep sigh
that’s that’s your body needing to kind of balance things out i thought this was a funny quote that i
found when i was looking up things that i wanted to add on my slides is what happens in vegas
stays everywhere so that’s a true statement because if your vagal nerve is not you know turned
on you’re not relaxing your everything is tense and it affects all
of our systems it’s um it’s like the it’s like a symphony conductor um it directs how fast how
slow how loud or quiet our nervous system is at any time and that kind of helps regulate the emotions um it also
you know kind of coordinates a lot of moving parts it’s sort of like air traffic control um
and it provides information not only from our body back up to our brain
it also connects our heart and brain so that that mind-body connection
and that heart heart mind or brain heart connection has
to do a lot with that increa increasing that
heart rate variability because you want a big coherence there as dr ferris referred to
um so it’s like an information highway information is going up information is going down like what’s going on in the
body it’s going back up to the brain whether we pay attention to that or not that’s what i want you to learn
so again this is our busy brain a lot of stuff going on all the time so i want you to
go from busy brain to this um so everybody take a deep breath with
me right now let’s do one more that felt good
okay now i’m going to go over three very very basic breathing techniques and i
will tell you that i am going to do a part two of this because in preparing for our time together i
read an amazing book and i want to share some of the other types of breathing that is very popular and also very well
researched but it was too much to put on here so this one is part one very basic
um so we’re gonna start out just talking about pace breathing it’s the most essential and basic technique it helps
all body systems work efficiently um and basically with this you just saw
softly inhale it’s not forced very soft gentle inhale for a count of five
to six seconds and in doing so you’re going to expand the belly and feel the lungs
and without pausing sometimes we pause but on this one we’re not gonna pause without pausing we’re
gonna exhale for about five to six seconds um as you exhale the belly comes in and
it’s just like a circle we’re gonna go in and out and we’re going to repeat it we’re not going to do it five to ten
times just do the sake of time but i want everybody to participate if you are at a safe place not if you’re
driving i mean you can breathe where you’re driving but don’t close your eyes so i am in a strange room of my house this
is where i sit to kind of get in touch with my body i also do some exercises in here and i’m
actually sitting on the floor you do not have to sit on the floor to do this so don’t worry about getting it right we’re
just gonna one run through a couple of cycles of breathing here for this um
this first part so it is important that you sit up straight with your back supported or not i’m
actually sitting on a yoga block right now because it’s easier on my hips but if you don’t have a yoga block you get a
fold of a blanket a towel whatever you can sit on a cushion you can sit in a chair it doesn’t matter just sitting
straight up and down um and it’s not limited to that you could do this while you’re lying down or
walking around but for this exercise we’re sitting and if it’s safe to do so please close your
eyes and let’s work on getting out of our heads
so let’s also check in with ourselves imagine all of your thoughts are
in a balloon and they’re on a string and the balloon is floating above our heads
and we want to cut the string and let those thoughts just float away
now just focus on your body is what you’re sitting on soft
how does it feel release your tension in your jaw
release your shoulders pull them back down onto your back
and just relax your abdomen relax your arms just let them fall
softly in your lap we’re going to take some deep
slow not forced gentle inhales um
for this i like to tell people to put their hand on their chest and the hand on their belly and i
really want your belly hand to move so we’re gonna inhale
and breathe oxygen deep deep down into our bellies to a count of five here we
go one two three four five
out two three four five
in two three four five out two three four five
now doing this i had my hand on my chest and a hand on my belly and i was inhaling through my
nose and exhaling through her mouth um you can close your mouth and do all of
this through your nose let’s try that one time
and again
when you blow that breath out through your nose with your lips sealed you can almost make a little audible
darth vader sound inside your head um and it’s kind of nice so that’s it
wasn’t nothing that was difficult or hard the hard part is taking time in
your day to sit and do that um but what you’re doing during that time
is you’re not making your grocery list you’re not thinking about who you need to pick up at school or what project
needs to be done at work you have cut the string on the balloon and let those floats those thoughts float away and
you’re only focusing on your breath um you don’t have to count if you’re a
numbers person and that helps we’re about to do another um one that helps with people who really need to count
because they can’t focus otherwise but during this breathing time you can focus on a color an image i have a beautiful
ocean picture up on the screen um whatever brings you peace and comfort
i recommend that you spend at least five minutes doing this once a day
and i challenge you to do it once a day for a month for five minutes at the beginning of the day helping set your
intention for the day and help your day start out on a relaxing
parasympathetic um you know platform um you there’s no
limit as to how many times you can do this you can do it you know up to 10 minutes um and i’d
like everybody to actually work towards doing 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night it’s a great way to
relax before bed so this is just one very simple example in through the nose out through the
mouth no pause in between um a normal cycle is about five or six
seconds for each breath um but you can you can
choose your own numbers now this is called box breathing some of
you may or may not have heard of this it’s an inhalation for a count of five hold for a count of five exhale for a
count of five and then hold for a count of five again it’s very
simple can be used anytime anywhere and you don’t have to close your eyes you don’t really have to close your eyes
with the first one but again there’s no real rules here we’re just i’m just showing you different examples so with
this next one i have a video so instead of watching me breathe you
can watch this cartoon there are times when we all experience
feelings of stress or anxiety in these moments you can use your breath to help calm those feelings
box breathing is a simple relaxation technique that can help you reset your breath
and return to its normal rhythm you can do it anywhere anytime
box breathing can help reduce stress and improve mood it can also help with
controlling and managing emotions it’s very easy to learn
imagine breathing around a box inhale
as you visualize going up one side of the box gradually filling your lungs with air
when you reach the top hold your breath for one to five seconds
as you picture going across the top of the box exhale gradually as you imagine
traveling down the other side of the box pause again for one to five seconds
as you go along the bottom of the box then repeat
this can be done seven to ten times in a row focusing on the breath
if you can do it sitting down with your feet grounded that will help too but really it can be done anywhere
box breathing has physiological and psychological benefits physiologically it regulates breath
increases oxygen to the lungs and can help reduce blood pressure and lower heart rate
box breathing can help psychologically by providing focus to your breath and
removing attention from the things that are causing feelings of stress and anxiety
the repetition of box breathing can also help reduce stress
so in moments when feelings of stress and anxiety are overwhelming
remember box breathing and the power of your breath as a simple way to relax
and breathe a bit easier
okay so that’s very similar to what we did before but a lot of times people really
need some structure around the breeding because they start breathing and they get lost in their thoughts and just
guess what that’s normal so if it helps you um say there’s a panic attack happening
and you can’t even remember what to do or what to count remembering a box five five five five
it’s an easy visual that that it can be helpful in certain situations
um
next um you may have heard about and i think one of our handouts at the office
is entitled 478 breeding this was popularized by dr andrew well
um and we have a clinic in the clinic we have a handout that describes this type of pace
breathing it’s a different count this one is great for sleep and it places the body into a state of deep relaxation now
we’re going to do it a few times you’re not going to immediately be deeply relaxed um but i’m going to show you a
video of dr well doing his own breeding techniques um so
that you can get an idea
the 478 breath that i teach is the most powerful relaxation method that i’ve discovered it’s very simple requires no
equipment takes very little time costs nothing and it is a practice it’s something that you have to do regularly
so in this technique you breathe in through your nose quietly to a count of four hold your breath for a count of
seven and then blow air out through your mouth audibly and forcefully and you do
this for a total of four breath cycles so i’m going to show you what this looks like
wow
and that’s all it’s a bit hard for me to come back and talk to you after i do okay
so we have gone through three very similar but different
breathing techniques and here is a summary of what we have just covered um
there’s no right or wrong way to do this um it’s a matter of finding what you can
focus on what you can practice and to practice it regularly it’s a practice
you’re not good at golf or tennis if you go out and do it once um you you don’t even enjoy it because you
can’t hit the ball or whatever um it’s a practice and so just dedicating five
minutes a day to setting your intention for the day with a routine where you sit
quietly put your thoughts in the balloon cut the string and let it float away
and just sit and breathe you can set a timer on your phone um
you can count um you can you know use other
types of of things which i have a slide about that in a minute we’ll talk to help you focus
when you’re sitting and breathing you could also be meditating this is not a video about how to meditate
um people have a lot of questions about that this is just about breathing and
what that breathing is doing for you and why it’s important to do that um yes we all breathe all day every long
but we breathe in the top part of our lungs it’s very shallow it’s turning on
that sympathetic drive and really you want to
take a big breath and you can go in through your nose and out through your mouth and then mouth out through your mouth
and then sew your lips and put in from the teachings of yoga you can put the
the tip of your tongue touching the roof of your mouth see your lips and then inhale back through your nose um those
are the beginning practices of yoga and meditation and this is a sort of a very
very basic part one um and it’s something so simple to do and it’s free and the cool thing about this
is that you can also teach this to your children um and if if
your teenager is is having a minute just go you know what i want to hear about this and let’s talk
about it but let’s breathe for a few seconds you can do this with toddlers um
you know i mean not when they’re coming include but you can teach them in a moment where you know like hey let’s learn this and
then in that moment just hang on just take a deep breath you know take three deep breaths count with them breathe
with them it’ll help you calm down too um because you know in those situations that’s that’s a lot going on if you’re
at work and you know you didn’t have to time to breathe that morning but you have to run
to the bathroom ladies if you’re sitting on the toilet to go to the restroom you can sit and
breathe just take three breaths it doesn’t even have to be five minutes you can use this anytime anywhere you’re in
traffic the traffic’s not moving you’re to be late well you clearly can’t go anywhere
but you could breathe again you don’t have to close your eyes i’m not recommending you do that while you’re behind the wheel of a car but if you’re
stuck you can certainly practice your breathing and pay attention to it at night when you’re trying to fall
asleep you’re like oh i could sleep i’m tossing turning um this kind of practice is really really
helpful um i personally do it i don’t count anymore i just
i just started my breathing routine because it’s come kind of kind of routine
and i close my eyes and i imagine ocean waves kind of going in and out
and in and out and i visualize that while i’m doing my breathing and
literally it puts me to sleep really quickly um and so that’s kind of that’s kind of a
neat tip for sleep um so we talked about making it a daily
habit um and you know our routines shape us and
by doing this we’re flexing a mental muscle as well as our breathing muscles some people say i can’t even in health
to a count bigger than than four um these are muscles you have to exercise
them and with practice that’ll change um and you can also do breathing exercises
you don’t always have to be stationary while you’re out walking in nature that’s an awesome way to do it but again
you got to cut the string on the balloon and let the thoughts fade away and when the thoughts come in because they will
our minds are busy and they’re they’re intended to think it’s just acknowledge it it’s like oh that’s an
interesting thought i’ll think about that later and let it go like cars passing by on the street um don’t get in
the car and go with them and figure out where they’re going and what are they doing today um just
let it pass by um it takes practice and you’re not going to get it right every time and that’s okay it doesn’t have to
be perfect start somewhere um and if you’re struggling here are some outside tools
um first beat was mentioned in dr ferris’s webinar um
and that is something that we can actually do with you in the clinic if you’re interested please talk to your
clinician first be instead of a five minute measurement that we do on the table is
something you take with you and you wear uh it gives you your 24 7 for three days
so it’s not 24 7. 24 3. but anyway three days of continuous monitoring you
do take it off the shower but you can wear it while you exercise it it
will measure your heart rate variability while you sleep it will measure your recovery states
and it it’s really a pretty amazing tool so if you’re interested in having that
measured please let your clinician know and have a discussion about it and that’s something that can be done
um heart math dr ferris mentioned that is an online platform um where you it’s
sort of like sort of like a biofeedback but it in a way of um for your autonomic nervous system
um these others on here are apps that i’m familiar with i am not familiar with
all the apps that are exist because there are so many but these are the ones i’m familiar with and that i personally
like the weltory is interesting if you have a smartphone you can put your thumb
and get your thumb i haven’t used in a while but over over the camera piece and it takes your pulse and you just sit and
breathe and let it measure your heart rate variability in the moment and it gives you automatic feedback
um headspace.com insight timer waking up are all apps that you can
download and or purchase that will lead you through guiding meditations and breathing
as a as a another place to to investigate and explore and i just
invite you to um play with this on your own and then if you need help um or you want to take it
to another level and you want to change the breathing into more of a meditative state um that takes practice too so these are
great apps that you can that you can check out if you’re interested and then of course there’s wearable devices i
have a fitbit watch that um i use that does give me a hurry variability
throughout the day gives you a score at the end of the day i know the aura ring does it while you sleep i’m not sure
if it does it throughout the day or not um there’s a lot out there you don’t have to spend a lot of money again breathing
is free um just give it a go just practice i challenge you everybody
that’s on this call live or if you’re listening to this because it’s recorded i challenge you to
change your breath pattern and change your world do it once a day five minutes a day or longer for the next 30 days and
again it’s consistency that matters it’s like going to the gym you’re like oh i gotta go to the gym and then you get
there and you do it no things that went so bad it’s five minutes and then extend it to ten minutes i have found that the
more i practice the more i want to do it um because it really does give you a um
amazing sort of relaxed feeling uh at the end and it definitely will
take you down off the edge if you’re if you’re having a moment and you just need to to take a breath um
so i am going to see if there are any questions in the q
a it takes me a minute so bear with me so i can figure out where this i have to
put this
i don’t see that there’s any questions today i hope that um
that you enjoyed this this webinar and or this group visit and um
can refer back to it in case you forget what we talked about and again i encourage you to check out dr ferriss’s
webinars um because they do go into a little bit more depth there oh wait okay question popped up
hold on for some reason it is not opening
let me stop sharing and see if that fixes the problem
ah that worked oh you’re welcome i hope you all enjoyed
everybody uh two people just thanked me so i appreciate it i appreciate your time
and go out there

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Ashley Woods, MD

Dr. Woods' focus is on her patients and their wellbeing. She believes in the innate intelligence of the human body and its capacity to heal given the correct environment, nutrition, support and tools. She seeks to find the root cause of patients’ symptoms in the context of each individual’s unique genetics, environment, and lifestyle.