The Art of Manliness - #323： Improve Your Breathing, Improve Your Health

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So stop what

00:00:18.500 you're doing right now and take a deep breath. Okay. Did your chest go up and down when you

00:00:24.200 did that? If so, congratulations, you just failed at breathing. But don't worry, my guests

00:00:29.180 today on the show will set you straight. Her name is Belisa Vranich. She's a clinical

00:00:32.420 psychologist who has made a career retraining people on how to breathe correctly. And in

00:00:36.500 her latest book, Breathe, she provides a step-by-step program to help people breathe better. Today

00:00:41.360 on the show, Belisa explains all the ill health and psychological effects of poor breathing 0.98

00:00:45.200 like increased stress, poor sleep, poor mental function, and even poor digestion, as well

00:00:50.520 as why so many people mess up the seemingly simple and automatic bodily process. She then 1.00

00:00:55.800 walks listeners through how to take a proper breath and even share some exercises you can

00:00:59.940 do to train yourself to breathe better and improve your all-around health. This is an extremely

00:01:03.980 practical podcast and trust me, you're going to feel great after you do the breathing exercise

00:01:07.760 Belisa lays out and you're going to feel really great to take your first proper breath, probably

00:01:11.520 since you were a baby. After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash breathe

00:01:15.940 where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:01:22.120 Belisa Vranich, welcome to the show.

00:01:23.740 Thank you for having me. I'm psyched to be here.

00:01:26.160 So you wrote a book called Breathe, the simple revolutionary 14-day program to improve your

00:01:30.980 mental and physical health. It's all about breathing, which is this bodily function that

00:01:35.460 we all take for granted and you think you can't screw it up, but you can. We'll talk about how you

00:01:39.880 do that. But you're a clinical psychologist and sometime in your career, you got into researching

00:01:46.820 the importance of breathing and how to breathe effectively and how to retrain people to breathe

00:01:51.060 effectively. I'm curious, how does a clinical psychologist start studying this body function

00:01:56.380 that most of us just take for granted?

00:01:59.200 Well, not only was I dealing with my own stress, so I eventually got to look at my breathing as part

00:02:04.460 of what was affecting my stress, but I was always looking to see as a psychologist how you make that

00:02:11.260 mind-body connection. So most of us go around and we have the labels for all the things that are wrong

00:02:17.500 with us. We have lack of closure. We have learning disabilities. We have daddy issues. Whatever it

00:02:24.480 is that's going on with us, we know the words for it. We really don't integrate it and fix it as well

00:02:31.760 as we could. And I've always said to my patients, believe it or not, my clinical patients, that

00:02:37.100 understanding is overrated. If you take the understanding about what's going on with your mind

00:02:42.280 and don't actually change it and integrate it with your body, then all you're doing is having

00:02:47.660 the same problems, but understanding it intellectually. So I found that using the breathing

00:02:53.780 clinically helped you be able to actually gain that closure or heal from that trauma. Or most importantly

00:03:03.500 for me is take that anxiety that now you understood so well and actually calm your body and get over it.

00:03:11.200 So that's actually where it came from.

00:03:13.520 Wow. And you also mentioned before we got on the show, your father actually had some health

00:03:19.100 problems because of poor breathing.

00:03:21.380 Yes. Well, older adults, this happens to most older adults, is that they end up having a lot of

00:03:26.800 residual air in their bodies because they don't exhale well. So they always feel this feeling,

00:03:32.900 it's called air hunger, like they can't take a deep breath and it's just because they haven't

00:03:37.360 exhaled well. My dad ended up getting what's called vascular dementia, which is not enough

00:03:42.820 oxygen to the brain. He was a history professor and a writer. So if you can think about getting

00:03:48.340 dementia is for someone who lives off his memory and facts and history is really, really tragic. And it

00:03:58.880 was an excruciatingly difficult situation to see him deteriorate. And as I was sort of healing from

00:04:08.000 that, I really studied what was going on with vascular dementia and how are we breathing? Are

00:04:15.880 we breathing enough? Do we just give it lip service and not really do it well? Is it just breathe like we

00:04:23.500 hear in songs or is there something that we could do better? So that's actually the personal part of

00:04:29.840 it. Well, let's talk about it. So how do we screw up this thing we don't even think about doing,

00:04:35.460 right? And we do, we really screw it up. Right. So what does a wrong breath look like?

00:04:41.640 So we screw it up by making it anatomically incongruous. We actually screw it up by not using

00:04:48.280 the muscles we were designed with to breathe. And we start using other muscles that were never meant

00:04:55.020 to be primary breathing muscles. So, you know, it's, it's not, um, I tend not to be very woo woo. I

00:05:02.040 tend to be very practical and science driven in what I do. And if you look at human anatomy, we're built

00:05:08.680 to breathe in a way that we're not breathing anymore. You look at the rest of the planet, it's breathing

00:05:14.120 the right way. I mean, the rest of the planet, meaning, um, all the other animals on the planet.

00:05:18.700 Um, and they're breathing, widening in the middle where the biggest part of their lungs are,

00:05:24.100 and then narrowing in the middle where the biggest part of our lung, where the biggest part of the

00:05:28.720 lungs are. Um, and we have taken the breath, which should be a horizontal breath, meaning expanding

00:05:34.940 and contracting in the middle. And we've pushed it to the tops of our bodies and we use our shoulders

00:05:40.840 to inhale, which is completely ridiculous. So we're taking more of a vertical breath than we are

00:05:47.600 a horizontal breath that makes sense with our bodies. So we've completely screwed it up. And

00:05:52.580 because breathing is so important, it's really the baseline for your health. It screws up everything

00:05:59.120 in our bodies from our pH and acidity to our back health and stomach health and ability to sleep and

00:06:07.720 relax. It's really kind of fascinating the way the whole thing crumbles when you take the base away.

00:06:13.680 So, yeah, we'll get into some of these, these downsides more in specifics, more in detail here

00:06:16.540 in a bit. But so, so our listeners, they can do like a little, I guess a quick exercise for them to

00:06:20.900 take a breath, right? And if their shoulders and chest are rising, that means they're, they're failing

00:06:26.900 at breathing, right? So what it is, is what I want you to do. So Brett, you can do this in listeners as

00:06:31.800 well is come off the back of your chair. So don't lean on the back of your chair. So come so that

00:06:36.560 you're sitting up nice and straight at the front of your chair and take an inhale, take an inhale

00:06:41.840 through your mouth, big inhale and feel your body. It's probably going to go up on the inhale,

00:06:49.480 inhale. And it's like this vertical breath, your shoulders go up and everything kind of stretches

00:06:53.840 upwards. So take a look at that. That is a vertical breath. And that's how probably nine out of 10

00:07:00.620 of us breathe that vertical breath. So how you should be breathing is actually shoulders, not

00:07:06.820 moving, not stretching upward. You should inhale and expand horizontally. So it's that vertical breath

00:07:14.640 that nine out of 10 people take that is creating all these problems that is really a fail when it

00:07:20.680 comes to breathing. Okay. We'll, we'll talk more about the correct breathing method. So these downsides,

00:07:26.280 so one of them, like the exhale part for your father led to a form of dementia. You talk about

00:07:33.320 pH balance, people not being able to sleep well. Like how does like our breath, our poor breathing

00:07:38.800 lead to poor sleep? It's incredible that it, it goes from how badly you breathe to not being able to go

00:07:46.080 to sleep at night. So the way you breathe is, is tied to your neurology. So the only way your brain

00:07:53.580 figures out how it should feel or what should, should be telling the rest of your body is

00:07:57.600 neurologically. And the neurology is the breathing. So when you think of the link between your body and

00:08:03.660 your mind, it is the breathing. So when you're breathing vertically, your vagus nerve tells your

00:08:10.340 brain that you should be on high alert. So it really doesn't matter what you're doing in your life. If

00:08:15.540 you're continuing to breathe up and down, your neurology is on high alert, which means pretty much that

00:08:22.040 your heart rate is higher, your blood pressure might be higher, your cortisol stress hormone may

00:08:27.660 be higher, and your immune system is lower just because you're breathing up and down and not in a

00:08:34.100 horizontal way. So what happens is that your body's on high alert all day long. And then when you want

00:08:41.280 to flip the switch and go to sleep, it's saying, uh-uh, I've been on high alert all day. It's going to

00:08:47.120 take me a lot longer than you want to be able to go to sleep. That's interesting. And so like that

00:08:52.380 increased cortisol level as well, like causes, just wreaks havoc on lots of other things. It

00:08:58.380 doesn't allow you to recover from exercise as well. Exactly. It does a lot of things to your brain.

00:09:03.320 I mean, so isn't that all goes to poor breathing? Exactly. Because that is the link between the two

00:09:08.140 things. We always think that, well, you know, it might be a supplement, which there's some amazing

00:09:12.100 supplements out there. It might be, you know, more water, being hydrated better. Yes, that's good.

00:09:17.180 But the one main thing it is, is how you're breathing. It's how you're breathing because

00:09:22.280 your neurological system, your vagus nerve is going to see where you're breathing from,

00:09:27.300 where in your body, not how much oxygen is in your body, not necessarily the pace of your breath as much,

00:09:34.180 but it's more about, are you breathing using your diaphragm? Are you breathing using the biggest part

00:09:41.480 of your lungs that are in the middle of your body? So that's how your body calms down. And if you're

00:09:46.560 on high alert all day, breathing vertically, there's no way you're going to be able to turn

00:09:50.660 yourself off and sleep at night. There's no way you're going to be able to get your cortisol down

00:09:55.400 quickly because it's been jacked all day long. And that's probably why you might feel chronically

00:10:01.440 stressed out too, because you're just breathing in that upper part of your chest.

00:10:05.080 Sure. And because your body's hearing that you need to be stressed out because, you know,

00:10:09.000 no matter where you are, it's thinking you're in a war zone. And again, the fatigue comes because

00:10:15.360 not only is our acidity thrown off by that, our pH thrown off by our bad breathing, which makes your

00:10:21.660 adrenals work over time, but also because you're in high alert all day long, which is exhausting.

00:10:28.080 Right. So this is kind of interesting. So the vertical breathing is a breathing that we do

00:10:32.020 for like fight or flight situations. It's not necessarily that it's bad. It's just bad that you do it all

00:10:38.020 the time. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, if you're out, you know, doing something where you need to be

00:10:44.680 taking small breaths and paying attention intently. So think about, I mean, there's lots of situations

00:10:50.540 where you have to take small breaths and think about what you're doing intently. If you're a surgeon,

00:10:55.780 if you're a tattoo artist, if you're a sharpshooter, there's lots of careers that require you to be able

00:11:02.560 to take small breaths and have intense focus, but you can't breathe that way all the time.

00:11:08.160 You actually have to take breaks and go back into an expansive breath that calms you down and calms

00:11:15.200 your blood pressure and your heart rate, or else your body's going to suffer and it's going to

00:11:18.960 complain. Right. And in addition to these, you know, physiological bad effects of poor breathing,

00:11:25.540 you know, people forget that our brain, like the thing that makes our body work and gives us

00:11:30.500 consciousness and everything like it runs on oxygen, like uses most of the oxygen. And if

00:11:35.120 you're not getting enough, then you're probably gonna have. Yeah. Oxygen is cell fuel. So you can

00:11:40.440 be eating all the best things out there, but you need oxygen to be able to break down nutrients. You

00:11:47.700 know, you run on it for sure. Although I don't focus as much on oxygen because most people, I'd say

00:11:54.560 most people, if you use, if you look at their oxygen, they're in the high nineties, but you do

00:11:59.820 have folks that have very constricted breathing that it does take an effect on their oxygen. For me,

00:12:05.680 what's most important is your neurological system and your breathing muscles. And in general, you never

00:12:11.920 hear about breathing muscles and you do have breathing muscles. In fact, you have lots of them and they're

00:12:17.440 really important. Yeah. And you mentioned one of the diaphragm is a big one. Diaphragm is a huge

00:12:23.280 one, metaphorically and physically it is. And most of us don't even know exactly. We know sort of where

00:12:29.620 it is in the body, but we really don't know what it looks like. If you look at pictures of it, it just

00:12:34.740 looks like this weird squid with a lot of tentacles and you just can't figure out exactly where it's

00:12:38.840 positioned in your body. Or if you look at, you know, Heimlich maneuver posters in your, in your

00:12:43.560 takeout, you know, how to, how to do the Heimlich on someone, it's got like a little red line. So

00:12:48.060 most of us don't understand. And you can do this right now is that if you put your fingers right at

00:12:53.400 the bottom of your ribs in the front of your body, your diaphragm is connected to the very bottom of

00:12:58.640 your ribs. So keep walking your fingers around the outside of your ribs and you can actually walk

00:13:04.400 them all the way around. Once you get to your back, you're going to hit some, you know, back fat or

00:13:08.280 muscles, but your diaphragm really goes all the way around your body and it separates

00:13:13.140 your thoracic cavity from your digestive organs. So it really is a cross section of your entire

00:13:19.100 middle of your body. So think about that. I usually use a vegetable strainer when I'm talking to people,

00:13:24.440 when I'm teaching, take a vegetable strainer, turn it upside down and flatten it. That's how big your

00:13:29.820 diaphragm is. It's a small pizza or a Frisbee. The thing is huge muscle that's right underneath your 0.93

00:13:36.660 heart and right above all your digestive organs. It's, it's really the starship enterprise of your,

00:13:42.700 of your whole body. Right. And besides the diaphragm, what other muscles do we use when

00:13:46.920 we breathe or should be using when we breathe? Should be using. Well, your intercostals are

00:13:51.240 one of them and we don't think about intercostals, but they're the tiny little muscles that there's

00:13:55.560 two layers of them in between all your ribs. So your intercostal muscles, they work a lot. They

00:14:01.780 work with the inhale, but more with the exhale. Your obliques, certainly all your abs and even

00:14:07.620 the mysterious pelvic floor should be engaged when you breathe. Right. So it's a lot of different

00:14:13.480 muscles that go, you know, all over the very middle and underneath of your body. Okay. So let's

00:14:19.300 talk about like how, okay, breathing, like we come out of the womb knowing how to breathe. And you talk

00:14:24.760 about in the book, you look at most kids or toddlers or babies, like they breathe like they're

00:14:29.700 supposed to. It's a horizontal. They don't do the vertical thing. So how do we go from that

00:14:34.000 to becoming adults that just don't know how to breathe anymore?

00:14:38.680 Okay. So usually I say that the changing point is between ages of five and 10. So I've spent,

00:14:46.100 you know, a lot of time looking to see when these things changed because babies can't breathe with 0.89

00:14:53.460 their shoulders. They can't breathe vertically. They have no choice. So I never use them as an example.

00:14:57.400 I say, look at a five-year-old or a six-year-old. Usually they're still breathing well. They're using

00:15:03.620 their diaphragms. They will expand in the middle and contract in the middle like they should take

00:15:09.360 that same child four or five years later, and they're breathing vertically and they're bracing

00:15:14.400 their bellies. So a series of things happens. And I want our listeners to think about their own

00:15:20.440 lives. And I want you to think about yours as to what could have happened to get you to be a

00:15:25.520 vertical breather. So one thing that happens is that you start sitting a lot. Think about you're five

00:15:30.400 years old. You go to school and that's when sitting starts happening. Before that, you're rolling

00:15:34.800 around. You're in the sandbox. You're, you know, having a good time. You start sitting. And once you

00:15:40.340 start sitting, you get less air in your body. You get less movement in your body. And it almost starts

00:15:46.260 pushing your breathing from the middle to the top of your body. The posture in which you sit,

00:15:52.620 usually with your shoulders internally rotated, maybe a little bit of forward head posture,

00:15:57.600 also affects your breathing. And they say posture affects your breathing up to 30%. And then starts

00:16:03.960 the gripping of your belly. And it could be that you're bracing because you're trying to feel

00:16:09.240 prepared. It could be that you're sucking it in because you feel chubby. Or it could be fear where 0.99

00:16:16.880 you're gripping your body out of fear of what's going on around you. So those types of things, in addition

00:16:24.480 to waistbands, bra straps, having injuries in the middle of your body, just little ones like

00:16:31.640 falling off a skateboard or a, or a sled or something where you hit the middle of your body

00:16:36.180 and you don't want to take a big inhale because it hurts. You look at your parents, they're breathing

00:16:41.260 vertically. You look at commercials, everyone's breathing vertically. You look at fitness magazines,

00:16:47.340 no one's ever taking a lower body breath in a fitness magazine. So the narrowing of the

00:16:52.960 waist that you see in your parents, that you see in advertisement, as well as your own gripping,

00:16:58.080 your own little belly, and then waistbands, compression garments, you end up with a vertical

00:17:02.620 breath. Wow. So we've talked about what a vertical breath looks like. And let's go into detail what a

00:17:07.920 horizontal breath looks like. So you told us to kind of breathe in your lower body. Is it a matter

00:17:13.880 just filling your belly with air? Is that like a good cue to start off with?

00:17:17.360 It's a good cue, but I also like to back up because the first time I was told to take a

00:17:21.900 belly breath, I did was what most people are going to do, which is say, why would I ever want to do

00:17:27.560 that? Why am I actually going to want to poke my belly out and look heavier? You know, good grief.

00:17:33.820 I've been sucking it in for two decades. Why would I ever want to let it out? What happens if I can't 0.96

00:17:39.000 suck it back in again? So the point is that when you take a belly breath, there's no air actually going

00:17:44.960 into your belly. All you're doing is letting the middle of your body, your belly expand because

00:17:51.600 that way your diaphragm gets engaged, lowers and makes more space inside your thoracic cavity for

00:17:59.400 air. So the belly breath is really in getting your diaphragm engaged because your diaphragm will follow

00:18:06.240 your belly and flatten out and create space inside your thoracic cavity. So it's not that you're

00:18:11.700 breathing into your stomach. It's not that you're actually would be make your middle and your abs

00:18:17.160 stronger by breathing this way. But the belly breath is the beginner's breath. But keep in mind that

00:18:24.240 later on, much later, once this becomes more natural, and it will, you'll just want to expand your body

00:18:30.240 360 degrees all the way around. So your back opens up a little bit, your sides definitely open up,

00:18:38.140 your middle opens up a tiny bit, but not to the extent of that beginner's belly breath.

00:18:43.040 But your goal is to have 360 degrees all the way around widen with your shoulders not moving at all.

00:18:50.300 Right. And when you look, you said that in the book, when you look at animals, like that whole part of

00:18:54.560 that core basically expands when they take a breath. And that's what makes the whole thing really

00:18:59.800 riveting for me is as animals on this planet, like we are, we're the only ones that are breathing in

00:19:07.420 this crazy ass backwards way, using our shoulders, the smallest part of our lungs and wreaking havoc 0.95

00:19:15.500 on everything inside of us. So all you have to do is look at, you know, go in your backyard and look at 0.90

00:19:21.800 your, your cat, your dog, your goat, whatever animal you have in your backyard or in your house,

00:19:27.180 it can be a fish, it can be a bird. They're all breathing with the movement being in the middle

00:19:32.180 of their bodies, where the biggest part of their lungs are. We're the only like dumbest ones on 0.99

00:19:36.660 the planets that are moving our shoulders, trying to get oxygen in by shrugging up and down and up 0.99

00:19:42.660 and down. So you talk about in the book, a good way to become aware of this lower body breath when

00:19:46.980 you first start out is, you know, lying on the floor or your bed and putting books on your belly.

00:19:52.420 Yes. And just, and if you can see those rise up, it means you're, you're doing a good job.

00:19:57.900 Excellent. That's exactly it. So because I come, I I'm a gym rat. I come from a gym background

00:20:02.800 and I want to know about muscles. So when you start treating something that's always been a little bit

00:20:08.580 vague and mysterious, like breathing, and you start talking about muscles, it makes a lot more sense to

00:20:14.000 people. And to me as well, when I inhale, I want to be able to be using my diaphragm. So if you inhale

00:20:20.760 and push those books away from your body, just like any sort of rep you would do at the gym on the

00:20:27.380 exhale, you let them fall and you start thinking, Oh, this is engaging my diaphragm. I'm using my

00:20:34.220 intercostals, my obliques. So it becomes a muscular workout, not this vague, just breathe,

00:20:41.140 you know, kind of thing that you do. It's more about, I'm actually working out my muscles. I'm

00:20:46.500 doing something that feels more like, like PT or like a gym workout. And how do you move on from,

00:20:53.020 you know, you know, filling, doing the belly breath, like what's the next step, like in your

00:20:57.700 training regimen to get you to the point where you're using your back or your obliques as well,

00:21:02.500 letting those expand and fill out. Great. Well, one thing you just said, that's really important is

00:21:06.900 the first breath you should take should be on the ground because when you lie down, it's really

00:21:12.340 hard to take a vertical breath. You're almost forced to take a horizontal breath. So your breathing at

00:21:17.660 night actually should be a little bit better than your breathing during the day. Even though since

00:21:22.600 we're not sleeping, you know, way enough, more than, you know, as much as we should, um, it's not

00:21:28.280 really helping us for during the day, but you should start on with your back on the ground where you

00:21:33.140 inhale, you fill your belly. If you'd like that analogy, you push the books away and on the exhale,

00:21:38.880 you're letting it fall and you're almost squeezing your middle and squeezing out all the air. So once

00:21:44.340 that starts making sense, you can come up and I have people often do cat cow from yoga and cat cow.

00:21:52.200 If you're not familiar with it is that cow is letting your belly, you're on all fours. You're letting

00:21:57.780 your belly drop. You're looking up towards the sky. It looks a lot like the cow creamer that 1.00

00:22:03.040 a lot of people have, uh, you know, for your milk or your almond milk or your soy milk, whatever it

00:22:07.720 is. Um, exhale is cat. It's sort of your scary Halloween cat. And again, these are not my words. This

00:22:14.980 actually comes from yoga where you arch your back, you look down towards your belly button, you squeeze

00:22:20.760 your middle and you exhale. So you alternate between those two where you inhale, you drop your belly, you

00:22:27.260 expand your body, you look up, you take an inhale, you roll your back, back goes up towards the ceiling.

00:22:33.440 You look like a scary Halloween cat. Look at your belly button and exhale. So that's almost exactly

00:22:38.740 the same movement you should have when you're lying on your back. You take that and then do it in a

00:22:44.720 chair. So all these things are exactly the same. As far as the movements, they're just in different

00:22:49.500 positions to see which one sticks with you. So when you sit up and go to a chair, you're thinking,

00:22:55.400 this is like cat cow, but seated. It's sort of like being on my back, giving a big belly breath

00:23:01.720 and then exhaling, you sort of lean back and squeeze belly button towards your spine. So what you want to

00:23:09.100 do is think about breathing horizontally. You tip forwards, you let your belly go, you inhale, you

00:23:15.980 expand your body. Then you roll back, you roll your hips underneath you, squeeze belly button towards 0.99

00:23:22.200 your spine. So now you've got it so that you know how to breathe when you're lying down, you're retraining

00:23:27.860 your body to breathe the way it used to now when you're seated. And the hardest one to do, so I don't

00:23:35.040 tell people try this one first because it's the hardest one, is standing up. When you stand up, you do the

00:23:40.360 same movement as you do when you're sitting, which is that you bump your butt back as if you're doing

00:23:45.320 Valsalva when you're lifting or, you know, if you're taking this, if you're a girl and you're 0.73

00:23:50.460 taking a selfie, you'll see everybody bumps their butt back, selfie butt. So you inhale, tip your butt 0.97

00:23:55.720 backwards, fill your belly up, and then on the exhale, take your hips and put them underneath you 0.96

00:24:01.060 and squeeze. Now granted, in the beginning, this is a very big movement and you look a little crazy

00:24:06.920 doing it. So I recommend when you're by yourself to do this big movement of moving forwards and

00:24:12.980 expanding, exhaling and squeezing. But then when you're in public, you just do a small movement.

00:24:19.320 Your shoulders don't move. You inhale, let your belly go, or if you're really thin, you have to

00:24:25.040 actually push your belly out. Exhale, you narrow your body. And that's how you do it standing up.

00:24:31.320 So once you have that lower body breath and it starts to make sense and it starts to feel more

00:24:37.140 natural, that's when you can start doing the harder exercises and start getting your breathing

00:24:42.240 muscles to be strong. I love that. Yeah, I'm doing the butt back thing. It's the same,

00:24:46.500 I guess the same movement I would do when I'm setting my back for a deadlift. That's kind of

00:24:50.640 what I imagine. Exactly. It's Valsalva. I usually say Valsalva butt or selfie butt,

00:24:54.780 and everybody in the audience understands one or the other. Gets it. All right. So besides, 0.86

00:25:01.020 okay, let's talk about, we've talked about inhaling. The thing I have trouble with, because I don't think

00:25:05.620 about it all that much, and you mentioned your father's experience of not exhaling enough as he gets

00:25:10.240 older, and that's a problem that all older people have. It's like exhaling, right? Is it just like, 0.97

00:25:15.320 usually I just think it was just like letting the air out, but the way you describe it, it's more of

00:25:19.220 forcing the air, actually using your muscles to force that air out of your lungs.

00:25:24.100 So I've got two things going on here with the exhale. Is that one, the idea of exhale and let go

00:25:30.940 has screwed us. Because exhale, let go means you just open your mouth or just let air go out of your

00:25:37.480 body very passively, right? It's not really an exhale. And the fact is you should be inhaling and

00:25:44.620 relaxing your body and exhaling and giving it a squeeze. It's the opposite of what we've been

00:25:50.180 taught. So just let me go into that a second in that usually you're told exhale, let go, and that's

00:25:56.600 when you'll let your body relax. And sometimes people even let their bellies go on the exhale,

00:26:02.840 which makes no sense at all anatomically. So what I want you to do is inhale, relax, and expand,

00:26:09.900 and then exhale, actually squeeze. That let go is an intellectual let go, not a physical let go.

00:26:19.320 It's let go of tension, let go of irritability. It's not let go of the middle of your body,

00:26:26.580 because if you just let go of the middle of the body, you're not exhaling well. So you can try this

00:26:31.320 right now is that take an inhale any way you want to. And now on the exhale, just let go.

00:26:37.820 And now actually at the end of that exhale, stop, and now squeeze your belly and get all the rest of

00:26:45.020 the air out. You're going to notice, oh my gosh, I had so much extra air left. Did you do that?

00:26:51.060 I did it. No, but you're right though. Whenever I've noticed myself when I exhale is I'll just relax

00:26:56.700 my stomach. That's what I naturally want to do, but that's not.

00:27:00.820 So the exhale, if you're a vertical breather, the exhale is collapsing.

00:27:06.480 Right.

00:27:06.960 When you're a horizontal breather, the exhale is narrowing and wringing out. So it's a completely

00:27:13.600 different concept. And you can think about that right now, because anybody who's listening and

00:27:19.120 you, Brett, is that you used to be a vertical breather. And after this podcast, you are going

00:27:23.620 to be well on your way to being a horizontal breather. So before, when you were a vertical

00:27:28.520 breather, you would inhale up and you would exhale down and collapse. Right?

00:27:34.160 Right.

00:27:34.780 Now I want you to inhale and expand and exhale, try to squeeze the air out of your body and make your

00:27:42.240 middle narrower and actually use your abs a little bit, which by the way, this is the reason why you

00:27:49.080 end up having a much stronger core when you're a horizontal breather.

00:27:54.220 Because you're getting an ab workout while you're exhaling.

00:27:57.780 But ab workouts the way you never have before, because I have people who come in to see me and

00:28:02.100 they're shredded. They have nine packs and just like beautiful, beautiful abs. And they're completely

00:28:08.360 just shredded and have gorgeous middles, but they can't inhale because they have a muscular core set 0.80

00:28:15.100 and they can't exhale because they can only go to bracing. They can't actually go to squeezing

00:28:20.200 out. So you end up having a really strong core where it matters deep down inside. So for instance,

00:28:27.200 if you plank, and I plank all the time, is that you'll find your plank gets much longer and it's

00:28:32.840 much easier if you're a horizontal breather.

00:28:35.660 And you also mentioned one of the muscles we bring in when we exhale is these, you know,

00:28:40.240 as you said earlier, the mysterious pelvic floor muscles. What's going on there?

00:28:46.000 Exactly. What's going on there? Well, let me, let me ask you this. How many muscles in your pelvic

00:28:51.300 floor? I have no clue.

00:28:53.000 Uh-huh. Most people don't, or they say one and they make a little squeezing motion with their hand.

00:28:57.260 And the fact is that there's about 20 muscles in your pelvic floor. There's your proper,

00:29:03.160 your small pelvic floor, which has a few muscles. And then there's all the muscles that attach

00:29:07.460 and support your pelvic floor. So altogether you have about 20 muscles. That is a lot of muscles in

00:29:14.620 your pelvic floor. And your pelvic floor is not as big as your diaphragm, but it's almost as big

00:29:22.140 as your diaphragm. So if you're thinking that your diaphragm is the size of a Frisbee, your pelvic floor

00:29:27.740 is a little bit smaller. And it's actually connected to your diaphragm by your psoas muscles.

00:29:35.640 So it's interesting. You'd never think that your pelvic floor has anything to do with your

00:29:40.780 breathing. It's so far away from your lungs. Why would you ever have to think about your pelvic

00:29:45.360 floor when you're breathing? But the fact is that when you're breathing well, you're using your entire

00:29:50.840 body and so many muscles to inhale and exhale. So just think about this. When you inhale, I want you

00:29:58.840 to relax your glutes and relax your pelvic floor. Okay. And on the exhale, I actually want you to

00:30:06.500 squeeze your lower abs and contract your pelvic floor. And let's back up for a second. When I say 0.99

00:30:12.640 contract or expand or relax your pelvic floor, I'm actually talking about your bicycle seat.

00:30:19.420 So it's the part of your body that hits the bicycle seat. And the beginner's pelvic floor

00:30:26.260 contraction, it's not the perfect pelvic floor contraction, but the beginner pelvic floor

00:30:30.640 contraction is you can squeeze as if you're trying not to pass gas, or you can squeeze as if you're

00:30:36.000 trying to stop urine midstream. Right. The urine one, the cue works for me.

00:30:40.740 Yeah. And that's a couple muscles. But as you get better at doing this, you'll realize,

00:30:46.120 oh my gosh, I have muscles in front of that. I have muscles to either side. I have muscles in back.

00:30:52.460 You really have, again, visualize that smaller Frisbee. There's a lot of muscles that have to do

00:30:58.720 with your pelvic floor. It's interesting with pelvic floor muscles is that we're seeing so much pelvic

00:31:05.320 floor dysfunction right now, and we're not getting good instruction on how to take care of our pelvic

00:31:10.320 floor. And if you're someone right now who's saying, oh, pelvic floor, mine's fine. Or I haven't had a

00:31:16.160 baby through a vaginal delivery. I don't have to worry about this. You're dead wrong. Pelvic floor

00:31:22.540 problems and pelvic floor herniations affect people who are long distance runners, who lift weights or

00:31:29.660 CrossFit, who are overweight or obese, or who are smokers. So that's a lot of people who end up having

00:31:38.060 dysfunctional pelvic floor muscles often and who need to know how to breathe to strengthen their

00:31:44.540 pelvic floor muscles. Right. And so you're contracting those pelvic floor muscles to sort of

00:31:48.740 squeeze that air out. So I mean, I'm imagining it's sort of like your diaphragm and your pelvic floor

00:31:54.380 muscles acting sort of like a billows a little bit, right? The diaphragm expands to fill your lungs up

00:32:01.180 with air, and then your pelvic floor contracts to push it out. Yes, it does work that way. And if you

00:32:06.440 were to put your hands one, you know, with some space one on top of the other, when your diaphragm

00:32:11.280 flattens out, when your top hand flattens out and makes space in your thoracic cavity, it also pushes all

00:32:17.900 your digestive organs down. So your pelvic floor has to relax to accommodate for all those organs. So you're

00:32:25.580 already doing this, by the way, when you're doing a belly breath, you're already doing this, but I want to

00:32:29.600 bring more attention to it. On the exhale, your body narrows and your pelvic floor muscle comes up

00:32:37.400 in your body. So your whole body narrows and your pelvic floor contracts as well. And it should feel

00:32:43.680 synchronized. So on the inhale, I want you to think about rocking your hips forward. You inhale, you relax

00:32:51.380 your glutes, you relax your pelvic floor, you relax your belly. Exhale, you squeeze your ribs,

00:32:58.380 your abs, and you contract your pelvic floor. It actually should make a lot of sense. And one of

00:33:04.740 the reasons most women haven't done Kegel exercises, although we know we should, as you're told by your 1.00

00:33:11.720 gynecologist after birthing, is that we're not told where the breathing happens. And if your diaphragm and

00:33:18.360 your pelvic floor are connected, you have to know in which direction each of them are going. So it's pretty

00:33:24.460 complicated unless you have a picture in front of you. I do have a picture in my book. I forgot on

00:33:29.000 what page. But all you have to know is that on the inhale, when you rock forwards, you relax your glutes,

00:33:36.620 relax your bicycle seat, relax your belly. And on the exhale, when you sort of roll back and tip your

00:33:43.280 whole body back, you squeeze your lower abs and you squeeze your pelvic floor, almost pulling it away

00:33:49.640 from your seat. Okay. So you just now, you gave me a glimpse to another insight or another benefit of

00:33:55.560 proper breathing is this idea that your diaphragm pushes down on your intestines when you breathe in

00:34:01.480 and then your pelvic floor pushes up on them when you exhale. It's like you're giving your intestines

00:34:05.340 a massage. I'd imagine that helps with digestion, right? I am loving you right now. Exactly. It's

00:34:12.780 exactly it. So when people say, you know, how is my breathing supposed to affect my digestion? It's

00:34:18.720 not a miracle. It's not magic. It's really just anatomy. Exactly what you just said is that your

00:34:26.540 diaphragm supports something called peristalsis. And peristalsis is that wave-like motion that has to do

00:34:32.700 with digesting that your organs do. Now, if you're not using your diaphragm to breathe, if you're using your

00:34:37.980 shoulders, your stomach isn't getting that supportive massage from the diaphragm that's right above it

00:34:43.580 and your pelvic floor that's right below it. So think about how happy your digestive organs get when

00:34:50.160 all of a sudden they're getting massaged from the top and from the bottom of you breathing with the

00:34:55.220 horizontal breath. One of the things that happens almost immediately is that your acid reflux can actually

00:35:01.600 go away or get much less because now you're using your diaphragm like the secondary esophagus that it

00:35:09.880 was meant to be. That's awesome. That's really interesting. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Well, so

00:35:14.880 besides, we've been talking about breathing technique, but in the book, you also talk about breathing

00:35:18.440 patterns and that you can screw that up too. What are some examples of poor breathing patterns? So

00:35:24.260 this is someone who's doing the vertical breath probably, but the way the cadence of breath might be

00:35:30.060 messed up as well. Sure. Well, when you're breathing vertically, you have no choice but to breathe

00:35:35.700 in a faster, shallower way. You just can't help it. If you're going to get the air that you need,

00:35:40.720 you have to be breathing faster. So most of the time when someone's told to breathe slower and breathe

00:35:48.180 in a pattern that helps, for instance, their heart rate variability, it's hard to do continuously

00:35:55.020 because they are continuing to use the smallest part of their lungs. So that's why I teach you

00:36:00.480 should breathe. Your style of breathing needs to change so that then you can support that slower

00:36:06.760 breathing pattern. And a slower breath usually is a better breath. The best breath, the most coherent

00:36:13.420 breathing pattern is five or six breaths per minute. That's actually the perfect breath. That's what you

00:36:20.200 want. But you can't do that unless you're breathing horizontally with the biggest part of your lungs.

00:36:25.660 So once you have your style of breathing to a horizontal breath, getting your breath to be as

00:36:31.640 slow as possible, that five or six breaths as a goal, that's what you should be aiming for perfectly.

00:36:38.380 That's awesome. Well, Belisa, I'm curious. You've worked with lots of clients on their breathing. Do you

00:36:43.060 have any stories of people whose lives were changed because they just focused on their breathing and became

00:36:48.540 more mindful of it? Oh, so many and so many different ones. I mean, one of the reasons I get

00:36:54.020 up every day and I love what I do, I absolutely love what I do, is I never know who's going to walk

00:36:59.000 in through the door and what problem they're going to have. And for me, it's a challenge. As soon as I

00:37:04.060 get someone and they have something that I don't know why it is, or they've been perplexed, or they've

00:37:08.560 seen so many people, trying to figure it out is kind of like a medical mystery, trying to move them

00:37:14.760 around, figure out if their diaphragm is locked up, if they're traumatized so they're not breathing at

00:37:20.100 all, looking at their style of breathing, breaking that down, and then trying to figure out how I get

00:37:25.460 them to have that aha moment where they fix their breathing and they do it all the time. So I don't

00:37:31.780 know if I can give you one story, but I can tell you that the range of stories has really been

00:37:36.560 fascinating for me. So I've gotten everything from someone who works in a precision sport or a

00:37:44.600 precision career that all of a sudden they're able to do it better. So for instance, putting. If you're

00:37:51.800 a golfer and you don't know how to exhale and you don't know how to breathe horizontally, it's going to

00:37:57.880 affect your short game. If you are an MMA fighter and you don't know how to breathe horizontally, it's going

00:38:05.640 to affect your center of gravity and it's going to affect how quickly you recover when you go to your

00:38:12.080 corner. If you're someone who has panic attacks or anxiety, unless you change your style of breathing,

00:38:20.520 you're going to be on medication and you're going to be struggling with anxiety forever because the

00:38:26.780 medication can help your anxiety, but your neurological system is going to keep you in that anxious state

00:38:32.600 unless you change your breathing. So it's really about the range of people that I've worked with

00:38:38.540 that blows my mind every single day. That's awesome. No, I'll admit I've been doing this for

00:38:44.440 probably about two weeks now, trying to be more mindful about my breath, working on through the

00:38:48.560 exercise and it's helped out a lot. I love it. I do these exercises before I go to bed.

00:38:53.040 And even like when I was in the post office today, standing in line, I was like, all right,

00:38:57.240 let my belly relax a little and then like do the pelvic floor thing when I'm exhaling. So

00:39:02.320 it works. So for those of you who are listening and want to check this out,

00:39:06.660 where can people find out more about your book and your work?

00:39:09.300 Sure. Well, the breathing class is my website or drbelisa.com. And the book is anywhere you buy

00:39:15.840 books. I usually tell people to support their local bookstores. It's also on audio. And then I do

00:39:22.360 Facebook lives and I answer questions when people email all the time. So there's lots of ways to find

00:39:28.300 out about it. You can also go to your public library and take the book out there. I've actually

00:39:32.560 recommend that people do that too, to support their local libraries. And the book pretty much has

00:39:38.180 everything in it that you need. It's not that it's a commercial for breathing. It actually starts,

00:39:43.220 it gives you all the tools that you need, all the exercises that you need from beginner to

00:39:47.560 intermediate to advanced for anyone who either feels like they're not breathing well, intuitively,

00:39:53.600 they know something's wrong, or they just feel like breathing better because they're struggling

00:39:58.400 with COPD, anxiety, or trying to get to sleep at night. Awesome. Well, Belisa Vranich,

00:40:04.400 thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure.

00:40:06.200 Thank you. My pleasure.

00:40:07.780 My guest today was Dr. Belisa Vranich. She's the author of the book, Breathe,

00:40:10.920 the simple revolutionary 14-day program to improve your mental and physical health. It's available on

00:40:15.380 amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can also find out more information about her work at

00:40:18.920 thebreathingclass.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash breathe,

00:40:24.020 where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:40:38.320 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:40:42.560 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. If you enjoy this

00:40:46.540 show, have gotten something out of it while you've been listening, I'd really appreciate it if you

00:40:49.480 take time, a minute, give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It really helps us out a lot. As always,

00:40:53.760 thank you for your continued support, and until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay

00:40:57.340 manly.

The Art of Manliness - July 20, 2017

#323： Improve Your Breathing, Improve Your Health

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