Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Reduce Stress and Anxiety With These Powerful Breathing Practices | Dr Nicole Le Pera #435

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Breathing is information for our brain and body, and stress and our breath are intimately linked.  Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests.   Today’s clip is from episode 318 of the podcast with clinical psychologist Dr Nicole Le Pera. In this clip, she shares some simple yet powerful breathing techniques that can help us reduce stress. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/318 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel

packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 318 of the podcast with clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole Lepera. In this clip, she shares some simple yet powerful breathing techniques that can help us reduce stress. You have this concept which you talk about a lot, which is feeling safe in your body. And I really wanted to go in here a little bit to really help people understand what that means. And I know for you, maybe this is one of the first practical things we can talk

about. I know your breath for you was one of your ways in. Yeah, absolutely. Stress and our ability to cope with stress is going to play a huge underlying role because that determines how safe our body feels. And when our body doesn't feel safe, I mean, we even referenced some of the systems that become immediately dysregulated. My breath doesn't become calm and even and deep from my belly, which sends my body signals that it's safe, that it can relax. When my breath is shallow, when it's barely there, when it's constrictor, I'm holding my breath. If my muscles are feeling tense with blood pumping through them, right, my body is probably telling me that it's getting ready to fight or flee a perceived

threaded hand. So when we drop into our body, we can get really practical here. Maybe even while I was talking, some listeners are able to be like, oh, wow, I can attune to how do my muscles feel right now? Can I be consciously present to how my breathing is? If when we're dropping into our body, again, we notice that our body is feeling tense, our breath is feeling really quick, our heart rate is feeling really elevated, then we might have indication that our body isn't feeling safe in that moment. And for some of us, we might not ever have a moment where I feel calm, open, receptive, present. And again, for me, that indicates as I once never had those

moments, that chances are, again, because your body is not yet feeling safe. And this is again, where we can begin to talk about intentional practices to create safety with the breath, going back to that, being one of them. My breath is something that all of us have that we carry around with us day in and day out and learning how to intentionally teach my body how to send signals of safety through my breath.

So for me, I learned how to teach my body how to send signals of safety through my breath. So for me, I learned how to teach my body how to do deep belly breathing, that deep, calm, even breathing that will send that signal that my body is safe enough to inhabit. And I share this because it was really hard in the beginning, all of my posture, all of that tension. And I made a daily commitment to practice by laying down, putting a hand on my belly and just making the commitment before I got out of bed every morning to take five deep belly breaths. Now that did two things for me. First, that taught my body and was five moments of breathing where my body was getting a new signal that it was calm, that it was peaceful, that it was safe. And it also primed my awareness of the

tool because the first thing, and the thing I like to reiterate all of the time, whenever I'm talking about these tools, whatever it might be, breath work, journaling, they are not magic. It is not one and done, right? Those five breaths in the morning are helpful. Though, if I'm not calming my body down, regulating myself throughout the day, especially as I start to feel myself fall into a reactive state, then those deep belly breaths really didn't help me, right, in the moments where I really need to change. So reminding myself then that practice, I built a foundation. I began with that as a small daily promise because I had never practiced breath work. So making a promise that seems so small that it can be manageable. So I got really

consistent with those five breaths every morning until I started to feel confident that I knew how to breathe from my belly and that I could then take that tool with me. And then I built on that foundation because my breath was something that I could sit here if I'm even talking to you and I start to feel myself be activated, right? I'm talking about something emotional and I'm starting to feel my heart rate get elevated or I'm with my partner and I'm starting to feel myself get agitated. I want to scream and yell right now. Those are the moments where no one even has to know necessarily that I'm intentionally and internally regulating myself, helping myself stay grounded in this moment so that I can retain the choice for what happens next. So for me, the breath was a go-to, like I said, because it was something I could carry along with me and I could use in those

moments, both consistently all the time, because we need, again, that foundational practice so that then I can, in those moments in real time, create that regulation. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that. I mean, three key things there for me, which really, really landed, which I've also found to be incredibly helpful personally and professionally with patients. First thing is that you started really small. I love that language of a small promise. I often use that sort of language myself. You make that small promise to yourself and you keep it. Just that small one, don't make it too big because then it gets harder to keep. So I love that it was five

belly breaths, which it's going to take under a minute that probably, depending on how fast you're doing them. Everyone's got time for that. Second thing, I love how you acknowledge that even something that sounds so simple can actually be very difficult if you are tense and tight. Actually, if you've never ever breathed all the way down into your lower abdomen, it can be, am I doing it right? I feel there's an obstruction there, right? So I love the fact that you acknowledge that because I think sometimes people will hear these conversations or see things on Instagram and go, yeah, but I know they said it's really easy, but I'm really struggling to do this basic thing. So I really appreciate you highlighting that. And the third thing for me there was this idea that it's not magic, right? That that in isolation is not going to transform your entire life.

Yet, although it's not magic, I kind of feel the effects of it are magical. Because if you do it first thing in the morning and you just give yourself that awareness that you've maybe never had before, when the day gets busy and stress comes in and obstacles arrive, you may at some point go, hey, wait a minute. Why don't I just try what I did in the morning? In some ways, it sort of primes you. It doesn't mean it's guaranteed you'll use it later on in the day, but I think when you do these things in the morning, you're much more likely to tap into them later. So yeah, those are three, I think, very powerful messages that I resonated with there. So thanks for sharing that. In your latest book, you also talk about the physiological sigh as well as many other breath practices. And I wonder if you could talk

people through that, because that's something that I think is so calming, so easy, and so effective that I'd love people to start implementing it straight away, basically. Yeah, absolutely. And my intention is always quick and easy, right? Because to speak to the point, we really do want to set ourselvesself up to use these, right? As a lifestyle tool to have those moments of memory. So one of the reasons why I'm always doing bite-sized practices, and again, there's several different types of breath work,

they feel more approachable and that make us more likely to be able to then integrate them because it's about the habit of using them, the consistency of making that choice. So one of them is a consistency of making that choice. So one of them is a practice of a physiological sigh. Generally, or our body, something you said earlier, how wise our body is. I couldn't agree more. Our body is so much wisdom. It is a self-regulating machine.

It has ways. It naturally releases tension. Sighing is something that naturally our body does even outside of our own awareness. We can, though there's an intentional practice of a physiological sigh and the sigh again is a natural way that generally that kind of self-regulating machine that is our body that we're both acknowledging our body does in and of itself outside of our awareness to calm our energy. And of course we can intentionally practice a physiological sigh by, we can just do that right now. We just take a moment. If anyone is, you know, feeling safe and settled into their seat, to their bed and to wherever they are listening to this. Sometimes if we're kind of working with our body,

I like to personally close my eyes and you put a hand on my chest, on my thighs, wherever it's comfortable, just to ground me in the fact that I'm in a body right now. And again, if we feel safe for me, I like to close my eyes, really turning my attention away from the very distracting external world and turning my attention into my physical body. Maybe before we even get started doing a quick sigh, we can just tune in. Maybe if you did make a choice to put a hand on your chest and on your belly, we can just do a little quick self-assessment around some of the concepts we were just talking about. And I'm just going to get quiet just for one second

while you just turn your attention and see if you could just try to feel your physical body breathing. And if you did choose to put your hands on your chest and a hand on your belly, maybe use that as a marker for where your breath may be coming from. Is it coming from shallow in your chest? Can you even feel it? Is it coming from shallow in your chest? Can you even feel it?

Is it coming from shallow in your chest or is it coming from even deep in your belly? So I'm just gonna fall quiet just for one second. We can do that quick assessment. All right. Now that was just a little self-knowledge, self-inventory. And again, practice that, this even simple drop in practice right here, right now, attuning to where you're breathing from. And now together we will do a physiological sigh. And what that looks like is we're going to,

we can, whatever is most comfortable. I like to breathe through my nose. So let's say we'll breathe in for four seconds and then we're going to breathe out for double that for eight seconds. We'll make that manageable. So in a second, we're going to breathe in one, two, three, four, and then breathe out for double that. Letting all of that air out. And again, you can play around a second time. Maybe we want to breathe in for three if that felt long, breathing out for six. Really the focus here is elongating, sighing, all of that breath out of your body. You can experiment with that for a bit, for a bit, breathing in and then out, sighing it all for double the amount of time you've chosen, giving you some individual choice in this. And of course, taking a moment to drop in with your body, noticing shifts in tension, release. But that is a general, just again, a self-assessment,

drop into our body, attuned to how it is that we're breathing. And then the practice of this physiological sigh, we're going to double that out-breath again, producing that sigh-like experience. And then always dropping in, checking in over time. Some of you beginning to notice actual shifts and changes in tension, our shoulders may be dropping a bit down, maybe our jaw releasing a bit. And again, it doesn't immediately happen overnight miraculously, but the more we practice whatever type of breath work it is, it might even just be checking in belly breathing. I urge everyone because it can be such an important foundational practice to find, because there are so many different versions of breath work practices, foundational practice to find, because there are so many different versions of breathwork practices,

find the one that resonates, that works, and that is more most likely for you to be able to utilize throughout your day. Yeah. Thank you, first of all, for sharing that. It's incredible, Nicole, just how powerful these things are. Because I do lots of breathwork myself. I have a variety of different practices I'll be building up over years. But even with that, in the middle of that conversation, stopping to do it, I realized how much tension I was holding. different signal, a different message to tell me, which is, oh, maybe you're not. Maybe you're nervous. Maybe you want to make sure the conversation is as good as it can be, that it's going to be as helpful as it possibly can. And I think why I'm sharing that is that none of us are perfect, right? Even if you know this stuff and practice it, you can still utilize these simple, free tools to create that self-awareness to help you you know balance your nervous system to be aware of where you're holding tension

so i think they're deceptively simple breathwork practices you know i think i know it's easy to get oh what tell me you're gonna tell me to breathe are are you? You know, and I, you know, I get that we've probably all had that response at some point in our lives, but yeah, you know what? We are going to tell you to breathe because it's that powerful when you do it with a bit of intention.

Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back next week with my long form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.