The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 087 Dr. Kimberly Hankins: Breathe Your Way to Better Musicianship

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast, episode number 87. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice and building a purposeful career. And now your host, violinist, teacher and high performance coach, Dr. Renée-Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you're doing great. Things have definitely been interesting, to say the least, in 2020. And it appears that they're going to remain interesting for at least a little while. But despite everything that's happening in the world, as I'm recording this in January 2021, I have high hopes for the year ahead. And I send you

Starting point is 00:00:55 my best wishes for the new year. It was pretty incredible for me to look back at the amazing guests that graciously took the time to speak with me over two and a half seasons. And if this is your first time listening to the show, I encourage you to check out the past episodes because this is an all-star lineup of incredible musicians offering amazing and priceless advice and insight. And for those of you who took the time to write a review or get in touch on social media, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your words mean the world to me, and they make all the hard work worth it. I want to share this review from Ralphinator, who writes this on Apple Podcast. I've learned so much from the conversations of Dr. Gauthier and her guests. Every episode is

Starting point is 00:01:53 packed with so much useful information and insights about practicing efficiently, loving the process, and becoming a better ambassador of music. If you are a musician, this is the podcast that you need to be listening to. Ralph, I truly appreciate your words. It's so great to be back behind the mic, and I'm really excited about what I'm working on for you in 2021. Starting with the podcast, I have conversations with amazing artists, including international solo bassist Leon Bosch, John Brussier clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony, and a second appearance by violinist Leila Josefowicz. I also speak with experts in the field of performance and MindBodyConnection, including mindfulness specialist Dr. Frank Diaz from Indiana University

Starting point is 00:02:49 and sports psychologist Dr. Amy Balzel from Boston University. Finally, I've created a four-part series all about building an incredible practice, and you can expect those episodes on the third Friday of every month. So in a nutshell, a lot of good stuff for you. I'm also really happy to announce that the Music Mastery Experience will be back in June. This is my life-changing, highly personalized group coaching program where I show you how to implement mindful and effective practice techniques, how to make them habits, and how to get results in the practice room, the teaching studio, and on stage. And I know that we're only in January, but it's not too early to save your spot. So go to mindoverfinger.com slash MME and let's talk. I'll also have some fun

Starting point is 00:03:50 challenges for you in 2021 and a few more things in the work. So stay tuned. And now for today's conversation, I'm so happy to bring you Dr. Kimberly Henkins. Dr. Henkins is a trauma-informed yoga teacher and breathwork facilitator, helping musicians find freedom while performing, through movement, meditation, and breathwork. As a musician's wellness content creator, she works to remove the stigma associated with playing-related injuries, chronic pain, and mental health-related issues. And this is a topic that I'm particularly close to and passionate about for a multitude of reasons. My love affair with breathwork started about 20 years ago, when I deepened my yoga practice, I realized quickly that the breathing exercises

Starting point is 00:04:47 were pretty much my favorite part of yoga, and that the classes that skipped them never felt the same. And I also realized that the most delicious meditations I had were usually the ones where I was fully connected to my breath. And I started getting really interested in how breath is its own modality. And sure enough, as soon as that thought popped in my mind, I started to hear about breathwork and I'm a convert. Think about this for a second. Outside of the womb, a human life begins with a breath. The act of breathing is both the most important and the most mindless we accomplish every second of our life. The speed and the depth of our breath is fully connected to our state of mind and it reacts to our first loves or the

Starting point is 00:05:46 stressful tests we take, our sport wins. In a nutshell, it adapts to all the situations we face in our lives. But science shows that the opposite is also true, and that learning to control our breathing has a powerful impact on our emotions, our state of mind, our health, and our ability to function and perform. We know this because we use it in our meditation, in our visualization routines, in our centering exercises, and when we're trying to calm down before a big performance. But we can take things even further by deepening our understanding of how truly impactful breathwork can be. So I cannot think of a better or more powerful topic to enter the new year than breathwork. A simple tool that can be such a game changer. Kimberly is going to tell us about

Starting point is 00:06:53 how she came to discover yoga and breathwork and how it helped her discover her own voice, how the breath is central to all systems in the body, and more specifically, how it affects the nervous system, why the goal is not always to be calm. The goal is to react to stress in an appropriate way. She's going to cover the different styles of breathwork, how it can help us in our various functions as musicians, and she's going to guide us through a couple of breathing exercises that you can easily replicate as needed. So I hope this episode gets you curious to seek and find a breathwork practice that works for you. Let's go to the show. Kimberly Henkin, so great to have you on the show.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Kimberly, as I said in the intro, you're a trauma-informed yoga teacher and a breathwork facilitator, and you're passionate about music and yoga and helping musicians. And I want to hear about all of this. But before, please tell us about you, your musical journey and how you got to where you are today. Well, it's a it's been a long journey, to be honest. And it's part of why I feel so passionate about sharing my own journey and trying to help musicians by making musicians wellness issues and mental health issues, something that we no longer associate as something stigmatized because, you know, music school is hard enough. Getting a career in music is hard

Starting point is 00:08:44 enough. We don't need to put extra pressure on ourselves or try to compare our own journey to others either. And I started out actually as an engineering major in undergrad and I became a viola performance major my junior year, and I always felt like I was behind. And I feel like that's really at the core and the start of this whole journey for me. I never felt like I was enough. I always felt like I had to do more in order to succeed. And that manifested as getting tendinitis in my shoulder as I was preparing for my senior recital, my grad school auditions, my concerto competitions everything that I had piled on to try to prove myself that I was worthy of getting this degree in music and having this as a career

Starting point is 00:09:38 so when I got injured I quickly learned how stigmatized injuries were especially back then this was in the late 2000s so I felt very isolated I felt like I had no one I could talk to about it. I ended up going to a medical professional and was like, Hey, I'm experiencing a lot of pain. That was when it was diagnosed as tendinitis. And they told me to consider quitting music. And I was heartbroken. But I didn't want to take that as a as an answer. So anyways, I ended up finding a local yoga studio. And it helped me so much on a physical level, but also on a mental level. And I went kind of on and off practicing yoga for the next 11 years. And, you know, every time that I came back to yoga, I felt like it benefited me in a different way. I worked

Starting point is 00:10:39 through performance anxiety issues. I'm a huge introvert. And I feel like yoga has really helped me to find my voice and to speak up about things that I'm passionate about. And yeah, yoga, yoga has been a big part of it. I started practicing a lot of and we'll kind of get into the different kinds of breathwork. But I started out, of course, practicing yogic breathwork. And now I am a breathwork facilitator in something called revelation breathwork, which is a form of conscious breathwork, which is kind of a different intention behind it. So it's definitely been a long journey. And that's just like a really quick overview. But I feel like every time that I practice yoga, that I teach yoga, or that I practice breathwork or teach breathwork,

Starting point is 00:11:30 I end up learning something new about myself or end up being able to work through something else that I never realized before. And I feel like that's something really beautiful about this practice. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. And I think that so many of the terms that you used are terms that are recurring in the conversations I have with my students and my clients when you talk about feeling like you're not enough. Also, I'm guessing as an engineering major, there's probably some perfectionism in the mix in there somewhere. And you talked about feeling worthy. I really feel that musicians experience this. I mean, I don't want to say we experience it more than in other fields. I don't think it's exclusive to musicians,

Starting point is 00:12:21 but it's a theme that comes back so much. So I'm so glad that you're telling us about it and feel comfortable to share that with us because it's a message that needs to be heard over and over again by young musicians, older musicians, all musicians. Oh, absolutely. It's a reason that I started my own podcast and I started just trying to get that message out there because I know that sometimes, yes, we have to hear it from a lot of different people at different times in our life in order for it to mean something to us. And what's interesting, I mean, I'm really new to breathwork, but I'm so glad to see this emerging as its own thing more and more. And I was so excited when you accepted to come on the show because I want to know more about breathwork

Starting point is 00:13:08 myself. And, you know, as part of yoga, we hear about breathing as part of Feldenkrais, as part of Alexander Technique. Everything comes back to the breath, but I feel like we always see it as, or meditation. It's always like a small part of these other modalities, but breath is the first and the last thing we do as human beings. And connecting to the breath can have such a powerful impact on everything we do. I had a great conversation with Kenny Warner about this before the holidays, about his method, or I should call it the state of effortless mastery. and it starts with the breath awareness but anyway i'm not telling you anything you don't know so i'm gonna let you tell us about breath and breath work and i'll ask you where would you like to start

Starting point is 00:13:58 to talk about this what a beautiful introduction into breath work too because it is so central to a lot of our systems in the body and how we interact with the world how we process emotions Oh my gosh, so many, so many things in our body and in our mind can actually be affected on a deep level through the breath. And I think the reason why a lot of these modalities start out with the physical movement practices, like in yoga or Feldenkrais or anything else, is because it's so much easier to try to move our body sometimes than it is to really focus in on our breath and try to be able to control it. especially if you've never done it before. And one of the main ways that breathwork that just breathing can affect our entire bodies is through the nervous system. And I feel like we can't talk about breathwork until we have some kind of understanding about the nervous system. And in the nervous system, we have the central nervous system, which is our brain or spinal cord, And then we have our peripheral nervous system. And this can be divided into what's called the somatic nervous system, which helps our muscles, which is how we move around throughout our day, everything that we have conscious control over, and the autonomic nervous system, which you can think of as being like automatic things that our organs do, self-regulation, hormone release, things that we don't normally think about.

Starting point is 00:15:36 and what's interesting is that the lungs are a part of both nervous systems we can actively consciously control our breath but throughout the day we're not thinking about it our lungs our entire respiratory system is doing its own thing and something that i've noticed which is that you know people that are under high amounts of stress especially musicians i'm working with musicians, it's normal to get into this breathing pattern where we breathe into our chest, into our upper parts of our lungs without ever actually needing to take a deep breath all the way down into the lowest reaches of our lungs using the diaphragm to help us do that. And it's so interesting because I'm a string player, I'm a violist. And, and I found such a huge benefit,

Starting point is 00:16:32 actually, to learning how to really truly breathe. And I'm not saying that if you're a wind player, or a singer, brass player that you don't know how to breathe. I'm just saying that through conscious breath work, we're actually learning how to use our diaphragms in a completely different way and it can help us gain control over the nervous system it's really really can be a very powerful practice and there's also within the autonomic nervous system we have what's called this sympathetic nervous system which you've probably heard before it's that fight or flight response if you've ever experienced performance anxiety and you are a string player and you had that like shaky bow, or you felt just like your knees were shaking, you couldn't stay

Starting point is 00:17:23 grounded. That's definitely a sympathetic nervous system response. And then there's also something called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for our sense of ease, our sense of calm. There's actually what's called the ventral vagus nerve, which is responsible for like our social interaction and then there's the dorsal vagus which is our freeze fawn response so a lot of times like these responses of fight flight or freeze get lumped in together and we're like oh yeah that's just part of our like stress response it happens but they're actually two separate parts of the nervous system and I feel like that's really important too so for most people, as we move throughout our day, we're exposed to stress. And if you have a healthy

Starting point is 00:18:18 nervous system, you're exposed to stress, your body releases adrenaline, you might have to get into a situation where, at least if we were living thousands of years ago, we might have to, you know, really use our muscles or whatever to survive. And that adrenaline keeps us alive. After that stress response, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and we come back to a place of tolerance and what it's often called a window of tolerance of the nervous system, place of ease, a place of calm. We're going, we're back to our normal state. What can happen is if you have chronic stress, so you're stressed out all the time, you don't find opportunities to really calm down your nervous system, or if you've been exposed to traumatic stress, then your nervous system can

Starting point is 00:19:15 get stuck in an over activated state of arousal. And so for you then to try to come back to a place of feeling calm can be really challenging. And the practices of yoga and breath work are just two ways that can help to regulate the nervous system and get you to get back to that place of feeling calm. In the same way, if you're someone that struggles with dissociation, I know I've experienced dissociation, not a lot of fun. That can be a symptom of your system being too far into the parasympathetic and you might need to get to a higher state of nervous system arousal to actually be in a state of calm or ease or just a regulated nervous system. And I also want to say that the goal isn't to always be calm. The goal is to react to stress in an appropriate way and then be able

Starting point is 00:20:18 to self-regulate. So through breath work, and I can actually share some practices, really easy, simple practices to help you regulate your nervous system. And you don't really have to know anything about breathwork in order to do those. We can get to that later on if you want, if you want to talk more about what breathwork is, maybe before we get into practices. Yes, I'd love to. And it's interesting that you say that. I knew this, but I've never really heard it as clearly as what you just said, that difference between the conscious versus unconscious action of breathing. Of course, I know this, but the difference that it makes in terms of you know regulating stress what you said too about the need at times to activate

Starting point is 00:21:08 for example Don Green has the centering down technique and he also has the centering up it's so true what you said the point is not to always be calm but to be in that best space that you're talking about but yes please tell us what is breath work because there are so many different types of you know breathing exercise as you mentioned to me also there's you know this difference of pranayama versus breathwork what is breathwork so breathwork can be just as you said so many different things and i believe through my own study and practice of yoga that almost every breath technique that exists out there today was originally part of a yoga practice called pranayama. And yoga dates back, I mean, some people date it back to around 3000 BC,

Starting point is 00:22:02 and it originated in the Indus Valley civilization, which is now India. And there are so many texts written down of yogic tradition. And there are so many oral traditions as well, that I feel it's humanly impossible to study all of yoga and to know what's out there. And I'm constantly being surprised by my own, um, research and understanding, Oh wait, that's yoga. That's pranayama because it really does cover so much. And, um, and so I just want to say that, that like, there is a good possibility that a lot of the breathwork techniques that may be quote-unquote discovered or just created in recent times there's a really good study that they're buried somewhere in some ancient text and we just don't know about it because the ancient yogis were

Starting point is 00:22:57 so thorough in what they did that being said pranayama it's a it's a it's a breath practice prana the word means in sanskrit pran or prana means life force energy and yama can mean control or restraint so some oftentimes this is translated into breath control the word ayama means expansion or extension so oftentimes this is also translated as expansion of life force energy which i think sounds really beautiful absolutely and traditionally this was meant to be practiced after learning asana so after you would learn your seated meditated postures, you would start to learn breath practices. And some common ones I find really interesting. One of the early pranayama practices, Sukha Purvaka Pranayama, which

Starting point is 00:23:54 translates to easy introductory breath practice. And you just breathe in for five counts out for 10 counts. And that's a pranayama practice. There's also Samavritti, which is box breathing. You breathe in for a certain count, you hold for that same count, exhale, and then hold. And there are many, many, many more types of pranayama exercises, but all of pranayama, the intention with it is to help prepare you for deeper levels of meditation so that you can really listen into your inner wisdom and therefore be liberated because you are your own healer. And that I think is the primary difference actually between pranayama and other styles because in other styles of breathwork, like in revelation breathwork, for example,

Starting point is 00:24:49 that I facilitate, it's a form of conscious breathwork. The intention is to really to just like bring any heavy emotions up to the surface so that you can release them. And that's a very different intention, still very helpful, but I don't know that I would consider that a pranayama practice. Just like there are people out there, there's Wim Hof method. There's, um, oh my gosh, there's so many other kinds of breath work people out there that are working from this, like really scientific side or, um, for a specific purpose, like to train musicians, to develop their lung control or to help athletes be able to have higher carbon dioxide tolerance. And all of those can probably be done with pranayama too, but that's not the intention of pranayama. So I

Starting point is 00:25:43 hope that makes sense. Yes, yes. And so I also have a yoga practice. And I remember doing all of these pranayamas in my yoga classes. I also remember a wonderful body mapping workshop at the Asta conference several years ago with Jennifer Johnson, where she taught us how to breathe by bringing our consciousness to the rib cage, expanding and feeling as though instead of us activating the belly or the muscles that we feel the rib cage as expanding and the difference that that was making and how it made me feel and I really see breath as the best way to connect to the present moment in my own life for sure but also in any circumstances related to practicing or to performing that's the one thing that we have absolute control of in the middle of practice or

Starting point is 00:26:43 performance you know what that's my that's my reminder to meditate i'm sorry i love that sorry for the alarm this is very timely i'm trying to make sure that it's not gonna go off again and i forget what i was saying oh yeah the the control for the breath um and it's just the best way to bring us back to that present moment and but anyway this is not about me I want to hear more from you because you were talking about the effect it has on our nervous system what are some concrete ways that us musicians can use this breath work in our day-to-day lives so I think that the first step in that is really understanding and listening to your body and knowing what nervous system state it's in right in this very moment. And there's some ways to measure that. I

Starting point is 00:27:43 know when I was first doing this type of awareness work, I had no idea what state I was in in terms of my nervous system. Some common things, if your pulse is really fast, you know, you can check your pulse. Is your pulse fast or is it slow? You can listen to your breathing, maybe put a hand on your chest and notice, is your breath shallow? Is it deep? Is it fast? Is it slow? And if your breath breath tends to be fast and shallow, you're probably in a more sympathetic nervous system state response. And I also want to say too, as I'm going through some of these, it's not like a light switch, like you're in a sympathetic nervous system state or you're not. It's much more subtle and there's gradients in between these states of nervous system arousal. Another

Starting point is 00:28:36 common one is hands. Oftentimes when we're stressed, our hands can get really cold or they can get clammy. Often that's a sympathetic nervous system thing. There's also digestive stuff. So if you're feeling like you have butterflies in your stomach, that's definitely a sympathetic nervous system thing. Um, and sometimes it just takes, you know, taking a moment to sit with yourself and listen to all of these cues that your body is giving you and asking yourself, am I in a sympathetic nervous system state, or maybe I'm feeling really foggy. It's hard to focus. Um, you might already be feeling some like dissociation, like you're spacing out. then maybe you're too far into the parasympathetic nervous system and those are just some common

Starting point is 00:29:30 bodily cues but you may have different ones and they may be different for you too just based on your own anatomy once you understand where your nervous system is right in a given moment that's when you can start introducing a very basic exercise so every single time that we take an exhale that's longer than an inhale that helps to engage our parasympathetic nervous system so that rest and digest calming um state of the nervous system if we take an inhale that's twice as long or just longer than an exhale the opposite happens we move further into the sympathetic nervous system state so that's just a really basic way and you can breathe in and out through the nose so that's yeah that's a great one to start with just starting

Starting point is 00:30:27 with you know an inhale for four counts exhale for eight to slow things down to calm or if you're needing more energy, more focus, you want to be a little more alert, then try the opposite. Inhale for eight, exhale for four. I really like that. Do you want to walk us through a breath exercise? Sure. Yeah. So let's start out by you can either be standing or seated. I recommend not doing this while you're driving or if you're listening to this podcast anywhere else. But you can just bring a hand to your heart, a hand to your belly. Notice where your shoulders are in relationship to your hips. Sit tall through your spine and just start to focus inward. And if it seems stressful or not safe right now for you to listen to your breath, you don't have to. You can focus on your

Starting point is 00:31:30 surroundings, noticing some colors, sounds, scents, anything in your surroundings. I invite you to feel grounded through your feet. Maybe imagine that there are roots extending out through the soles of your feet, deep into the grounds. And on your next inhale, see if you can send your air deep into the bottom most reaches of your lungs slowly filling up all the way to the top and as soon as you reach the top whenever that is start to take a gentle exhale take the exhale out the mouth or out the nose whichever feels better for you on your next inhale fill all the way up notice how that expansion feels within your body and on the release how there's a softness

Starting point is 00:32:26 as everything comes a little closer towards your spine we're going to try our first exercise we're going to do an inhale for eight exhale for four whenever you're ready inhale eight seven six five four, three, two, one, exhale four, three, two, one, inhale eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Exhale, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Last one. Exhale, 3, 2, 1. And let your breath return to a normal pace. You're welcome to keep your hands where they are or maybe rest them, palms facing up in your lap, and just take a moment to notice how you feel, to know what's true for you, and there's no right or wrong answer. We're just acknowledging how our body feels. We're going to move on to the

Starting point is 00:33:48 parasympathetic nervous system practice in a moment you can keep your hands where they are maybe bring one hand to heart one hand to belly again noticing your breath on your next exhale release the stale air from your lungs and inhale four three two one exhale 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Inhale 4, four, three, two, one, exhale, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and come back to your normal breath. You can release your hands, palms facing up. Again, taking this moment to check in with yourself, maybe comparing how you feel now versus how you felt after the sympathetic nervous system breath, or in comparison to how you felt before we started this practice.

Starting point is 00:35:23 and in your own time you can deepen your breaths as you draw your awareness back into your surroundings and if your eyes are closed you're welcome to open them how did that feel renee that felt amazing yes like i said i think that this connection with the breath is such the best way to connect with the present moment and tune in with yourself. And the other thing that I find so powerful too about breath work, I should say several things, one of them being the fact that, you know, I talk often about meditation to clients and students. Meditation can be kind of a vague thing for people to approach as breath work and any kind of breathing exercise is something that is I find a lot more approachable especially if it's guided

Starting point is 00:36:21 like in this case here when you are really directed your attention is very directed to your breath and there's no guessing game as in meditation for some people but it's also that everything else is put aside the worries the stress in that conversation I mentioned with Kenny Warner he said made me laugh. He was talking about how if at some point you're in a context where you can't breathe anymore, you realize real quick what's important in life. And I really feel like this brings back objectivity in our lives. It brings back calmness and attention to really who we are at the core, I think. So this is something that we can go to whenever we're facing a difficult choice, a stressful situation, or difficult feelings. Yes. Yeah. And I encourage people,

Starting point is 00:37:18 if this is your first time ever trying any kind of breath work or breath practices, get a journal and start journaling out in a few words, how you feel before you start a breath practice write down what breath exercises you do and then a reflection just a couple words of how you feel after that experience because I feel like there are so many different practices out there there's there's so much research that's coming out now about how these different practices affect our body or our psychology but I feel like there's nothing more important than how it feels for you and if you can map out for yourself when I'm feeling stressed this breath practice helps me more than anything else and I know that I need to do just five breaths of it

Starting point is 00:38:11 to feel better that is the most empowering thing I think you can do for yourself as a musician and then from there it's like well you know I can acknowledge that I'm feeling anxious and I'm about to perform. But I know that a sense of calm ease is on the other side of just five breaths. That can be such a powerful, a powerful thing. And also knowing that, you know, the practice we just did of taking longer exhales, you could totally do that in a performance and nobody would know. I've definitely done that and use that in my own performances when I'm feeling stressed, or I'm feeling like there's tension in my neck or shoulders, and I just want to feel more relaxed. And that's something that's often not talked about either is that the intercostal

Starting point is 00:39:07 muscles, you know, the muscles that exist in our rib cage, they're part of our respiratory system that help us breathe. And oftentimes, when we're feeling tight in our shoulders, it could just mean that we're breathing too much from the upper part of our lungs and not truly breathing deeply using our diaphragm. As I hear you speak, it really resonates with me on so many levels because, you know, I see the breath as the beginning of everything. Something I teach in the deep practice model to all my students is one of the mindset of beginner's mind. And yes, that comes with curiosity, with investigating, being excited about music making, remaining curious, but also monitoring the fundamentals.

Starting point is 00:40:00 And there's so many times when we're practicing or performing when things are maybe not going our way. And we try to get so complicated with our solutions when, in fact, we could just start with the question, am I breathing? and oftentimes this will solve the issue. I experience that so many times where I'm working on a difficult passage and let's say it's not working the way that I want. I'm going to try that first in my breathing and oftentimes I realize it's not working because I'm just I'm not breathing or my breathing is constricted therefore there's physical tension which

Starting point is 00:40:37 prevents me from having as much dexterity or as much fluidity in my bow arm. Breathing is that the core of so many solutions that we can have for either practice or performance-related issues. And it's so beautiful in its simplicity. I'd love to hear about Breathwork Facilitator. I know that you are a pedagogue, that you teach yoga, and you're also a Breathwork Facilitator, and you offer that as a service. What does that look like for a client when they first start working with you? What does a breathwork facilitator do? Yeah, so it's kind of different than yoga. And it really depends on the facilitator. Usually, the title breathwork facilitator refers to conscious breathwork. And conscious breathwork was something that was really popularized in the

Starting point is 00:41:34 1960s and 70s people finding that the breath was not just a way to feel better physically but that you could actually do some really deep psychological work to bring up emotions trauma whatever it is up to the surface so that way you can process it yourself through the breath work And it's a very intense practice. There was something so transformative about it. And it allowed me to release a lot of the stress that I was holding on to. It allowed me the space to process my emotions and try to understand for myself why I was feeling the way I was feeling. and it allowed me to do some really deep inner work and I it was just such a profound transformation that I was like oh my gosh I have to do this I I really want to do this to support others um so yeah so so when someone comes to me for a breathwork session um one-on-one there's a series of intake forms that you'll have to fill out just to make sure that revelation breathwork is a good

Starting point is 00:42:51 fit for you. Because there are some contraindications with that type of breath work. And it also because of the potential to really dig up those deep emotions up to the surface or memories. It's not always a great fit for people. Sometimes if you're like currently experiencing flashbacks, or you struggle with PTSD, in particular, it may not be the best fit. but I accept everyone who wants to have a one-on-one session with me so instead of revelation breathwork we might work on diaphragmatic breathing so learning how to really tap into your diaphragm how to breathe more efficiently and we might do some pranayama practices to help you feel more empowered and to gain control over your breath in a different way than you might be

Starting point is 00:43:48 used to. And with Revelation Breathwork, it is a difficult breathwork to continue and to practice on your own. And I'm speaking from personal experience, but also just because it is like 30 minutes of active breathing. And to do that by yourself without encouragement and someone there supporting you, it can be quite challenging. So that's why breathwork facilitation is a great way to practice and I also offer group sessions too so if you've already had a one-on-one session or if you just want to try it out and see what that style of breath work is like you can join for a group session and we all just breathe together for about a half hour and so it can be a really I've seen any number of things in my sessions of people just releasing emotions and

Starting point is 00:44:44 it's amazing because it's also a space where you don't have to hold back anything whereas like in a yoga class we may not feel comfortable like screaming or crying but in a breathwork session really any way that you want to express yourself as long as you're not hurting yourself is up it's you know it's there at your disposal if you want to scream for a half hour I'm there is revelation breath similar to slimhoff method yeah it is in some ways it's also similar to holotropic breath work all of these styles are what's called it's a category of conscious breath work and correct me if i'm wrong it's kind of a more rhythmical type of breathing exercise correct where there's some strong inhale and powerful exhales type of yeah so it's a breath practice

Starting point is 00:45:40 that's done in and out through the mouth. And that can be intense after a while, it's important to drink lots of water. And to listen to your body, I really encourage people that if they feel like they're getting too uncomfortable, they want to, you know, regulate their system, they can always return to breathing in and out through the nose, there's always options. And, you know, through breathwork, you are the one creating your experience, whatever that is. Even if it's just, you know, sitting at home and experimenting with different amounts of inhale, exhale and breath retention, you know, you can create your own breathwork exercises for yourself and see through journaling, you know, how do I feel before? How do I feel after? And yeah, I just feel like

Starting point is 00:46:33 it's such an empowering practice because you are really always in control of what you're creating for yourself. And that's not how we always feel, totally in control. Yeah, absolutely. It's so true that these exercises can trigger some powerful emotions. Yeah. And also, yes, yoga and breathwork, there's always the potential there for it to be triggering for some people. And, and yes, you know, heart openers, anything where you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position, or a position where you just don't feel safe. For any reason, I used to have panic attacks, honestly, anytime I went into an inversion or a backbend. It was so hard for me to get to a point where I could work past that. But I also feel like that's why yoga and breath

Starting point is 00:47:27 work are such powerful practices is because they do have the potential to heal because if you're already in a heightened sympathetic nervous state through the practices of yoga and breath work where you might be more activated or less activated in various different sympathetic and parasympathetic states you're teaching your nervous system to be more dynamic you're teaching that it's safe it's okay for me to go up here because I know that afterwards I'm going to come back down to here and that can sometimes be done in yoga just through like poses that increase the heart rate because again the heart rate and the nervous system are connected too so there's so many layers to it and as someone that is a trauma-informed yoga and

Starting point is 00:48:25 breathwork facilitator, um, it's just, it's a lifelong commitment to trying to understand, you know, how can I do better to make sure that I'm not, um, putting someone in a position where they feel unsafe and just providing as many tools, grounding tools and ways for them to feel empowered so that in the moment they can start to focus on their bodies and understand when they're starting to be uncomfortable and be able to come back out of it in a really gentle way and it's such an it's so amazing because working with that population they start to feel more empowered because they realize that oh my gosh I can have control over my body and I don't have to constantly feel stressed or anxious or whatever it is and so it's yeah I love what I do I think it's so

Starting point is 00:49:26 needed and especially to musicians because I feel like with the way music school is and our careers are we are exposed to so much stress so much anxiety and the more that we can learn to listen to our bodies and to gain control over our own bodies, the more empowered we'll feel. And then we don't have to be stressed nearly as much. At least we have more control over it. Yes. I'm going to put your information in the show notes. And I hope that people who are curious sign up, you know, to at least speak with you and see if breathwork could be something that could be valuable for them because I see it as being potentially such a powerful modalities for some people in dealing with so many strong emotions. I know that 2020 puts, it put all of us

Starting point is 00:50:23 through the ringer. So, but I really see how it could be so helpful for so many people. So I hope that some people click the link and check out your wonderful content and sign up. How about a round of rapid fire questions oh yeah let's go i'm ready do you have a favorite tool in the practice room oh okay so i love just first of all taking breaks i warm up and i exercise and i stretch pretty much every 15 minutes that i practice and i also have really firm boundaries with myself and i notice if i'm getting stressed or irritable or talking negatively to myself i put my viola down and i leave the room for like five minutes before I come back. And that's been such a powerful thing in my practice time for sure. I love that term boundary because self-compassion is at the

Starting point is 00:51:20 core of what I teach in the deep practice model. And we are so often lacking in this area of putting boundaries with how we behave with ourselves. I love that. How about a favorite book that you would recommend to our listeners? Oh, my gosh. Well, if you are interested in yoga, I would say Accessible Yoga by Jeevana Heyman, or Yoga for Everyone by Diane Bondy. Those two books for adapting the practice of yoga to meet your body have been just a huge mindset shift and a beautiful way to approach a yoga practice. I love those books so much. What do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments? Ultimately, I think every young musician needs to learn how to practice discernment

Starting point is 00:52:16 and how to understand what tools best fit their own body in learning, what feedback from their teacher is helpful and constructive and what they can just let go and not listen to because I do think there are things that are said in the teacher-student dynamic that often aren't helpful and so just learning how to practice discernment and self-study and learning for yourself what is the most helpful for you is incredibly important. Yes, I think that's one of my favorite answers to this question. And how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners could implement today in their musical lives? Quick and actionable tip. So I really love the practice that I explained earlier of just journaling and breathing and learning how different breathwork exercises

Starting point is 00:53:17 affect your body. I think we can do the same thing when we're in the practice room and use journaling as something that doesn't have to be extensive. We don't have to write paragraphs, but even just working on a passage and writing a couple words down about how that passage feels when you play it, what exercises or what approach did you take to improving that passage? And then how do you feel after? And just being able to see over time that you are getting better, that every time you practice, you're learning something about yourself. And it doesn't have to be this improvement on a grand scale for it to be meaningful. That's beautiful. Thank you for that. Kimberly, before I let you go, can you tell the listeners

Starting point is 00:54:10 where they can find everything about you? I know that you have so much wonderful content to offer and that you're leading some breathwork sessions. So you can find everything about me at thealignedmusician.com. There I have my breathwork offerings and workshops. Everything that I do is through that website. And you can also find me on Instagram

Starting point is 00:54:31 at thealignedmusician. If you have any questions at all, or if there was something that came up during this podcast you want to learn more about, please don't hesitate to reach out I'd love to connect with you Kimberly thank you so much for for this gift that you gave us today to raise our awareness on this incredible tool that breathwork is I really appreciate it thank you so much Renee I really appreciate being here on your podcast and for you taking the time to have me I'm just so honored to be here thank you

Starting point is 00:55:03 thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this conversation with dr kimberly hankins as you heard in the conversation breath work can be so incredibly powerful in helping us control our nervous system, boost our immune system, and it can have a great positive impact on our overall health. As Kimberly underlined, there are several types of breathwork, and I want to encourage you all to get more information, to experiment, and to find one that really works for you. Kimberly can help you with that for sure, so go to thealignmusician.com to find everything that she has to offer. And I'll put additional links of some helpful resources in the show notes for you. Kimberly and I would love to know what your favorite takeaways from today's conversation

Starting point is 00:56:08 were. So find us on social. I'm Mind Over Finger and she's the Aligned Musician. And let's keep this discussion going. As always, I'll have all the information related to this episode in the show notes. You can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com, where you can also find more information about mindful and efficient practice, performance preparation, and how to work with me. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter and receive your free guide to an exceptionally productive practice. Finally, I hope to see you in the Mind Over Finger tribe. That's my private Facebook group where I pop in once a week to talk about mindful practice and answer your questions. You can find that at facebook.com slash groups slash mindoverfingertribe.

Starting point is 00:57:04 So that's it for today. Again, thank you and à bientôt. Thank you.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 087 Dr. Kimberly Hankins: Breathe Your Way to Better Musicianship

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