Full transcript of “10 Years of Breathwork Advice in 11 Minutes”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 I studied deliberate breathing as a tool from the time I started traditional martial arts more than 20 years ago. And I've been teaching deliberate breathing techniques for the last 10 years of my life, experiencing the transformation it can have in people's physical health, fitness, and mental resilience. And today I want to share my 10 years of teaching experience with you. If you're new here to my channel, my name is Karo, a former traditional martial arts teacher who transitioned to a breath work and mindfulness coach. Most people just jump right into a breath work session without a second thought. My first advice is to build a habit of becoming aware of your
0:45 breathing multiple times per day. This sounds very basic and simple, but hear me out. Our breathing reflects our inner state. Whether you're stressed, anxious, angry, afraid, sad, or tired, our breathing serves as an embodied mirror to the less tangible manifestation of our emotional state. And our state is the main driver that we act impulsively and don't do something we want to do. We normally call it a lack of discipline or a lack of motivation. But I don't like the tone and judgment of these words. Why not see it as mental friction? So when you become aware of your breath, you become aware of the present moment and disidentify with the emotion or
1:31 worry that has trapped you in the future or past. So focusing on your breath creates space where you can think rationally. Directing your awareness inward instead of being trapped by your emotional state and focusing on external things is called introsception. There are multiple studies showing that people with good introsceptive awareness make better long-term decisions, act less impulsively, and are generally happier. So, make it a habit to take two to five minutes throughout the day to get aware of your breathing. Focus on how the air enters and leaves your nostrils. How your belly and chest expands and falls when you breathe. Yes, it will feel
2:18 boring and you will be pulled back by the attention grabbing pool of the external world. But this is the point. Resist it and direct your view inward. It will make you a calmer, emotionally resilient person who is much more in control. Many people have this prescription mindset of when I feel X, you should do breath work Y. With this mindset, we often just treat the symptoms and don't dig deep enough to create lasting change. And this is also true for breath work. Deliberate breathing can be a wonderful tool to enhance well-being, but we should treat it as a toolbox, not as a hammer. Often we need to dig
3:04 through multiple layers until we can solve the root problem and understand the mechanism of our current state. So one deeper layer that I like to become aware of is the energetic charge of my current state, my arousal level. So how energetic or actiondriven do I feel? And my arousal level can feel pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. So underneath every state that we have is a spectrum ranging from high to low energy. So for example, anger has a high energetic level. This high arousal level drives me to action and I act impulsively saying and doing things that I might regret
3:49 afterwards. Excitement has a similar arousal level, but unlike anger, it feels pleasant. Yes, it can still lead to impulsive actions when we don't control it. On the other hand, when we have a low energetic state, like feeling exhausted, sad, or depressed, we have trouble doing anything, just getting out of bed can feel so hard to do. So by viewing my internal world as a reflection of these two layers of happiness and energetic charge, I can disidentify with my current state and become more strategic rather than being controlled by it. As my breathing is directly connected to my autonomic nervous system which governs the second
4:35 layer of arousal level, I can influence it deliberately through controlled breathing and therefore control my state. If we focus for example on the inhalation, meaning increasing our respiration rate and inhaling more vigorously and exhaling more explosively, we bring our arousal level up. When we focus on slowing our breath down, focusing on long exhalations and calm inhales, we bring our arousal level down and calm ourselves. So, this is the foundation of all breathing techniques. If you have a favorite breath work technique, check if it supports your fundamental goal of calming or energizing yourself. Now,
5:21 nowadays, I often almost automatically do calming or energizing breathing in a moment when I need it. I find it usually much more effective than having a breath work morning session only. Your diaphragm is a muscle and therefore you can make it stronger and control it better. Instead of just thinking in breath work techniques to make you feel better, go a level deeper and think of breathing as an art form. Just like many traditional practices like kung fu or yoga, breathing is an integral part of the practice itself. If you practice gymnastics, you don't just work on the performance that you show in a tournament. In fact, you spend so many
6:07 more hours on things no one ever sees. stuff like strength, flexibility, isolated elements, and integrations that culminate in a short performance. So, if you truly want to master your breath to access deeper states of your consciousness, you need more than just following some breathing pattern, you need to strengthen your diaphragm, learn to control it correctly, and cultivate your awareness. They all play a key roles in how effective a breath work technique will be and more importantly they will improve your normal breathing. So the following is a simple routine to increase the strength and control of your diaphragm.
6:54 Note that this exercise is not designed or supposed to feel good but to develop and maintain good breathing health. Step one is the full diaphragmatic breath. Inhale through your nose and focus on expanding your whole belly like a growing cylinder. When you reach full capacity in your belly area, transition your inhale to your rib cage and chest. Try to expand your rib cage laterally like opening two swinging doors. In contrast to just lifting your chest up through the inhale, you should keep your throat area soft. Don't initiate the breath with a sudden contraction of the muscle around your throat.
7:42 It will feel more dramatic, yes, but you will limit your diaphragm's ability to descend fully. So, after you reach full capacity in your chest area, then do another sharp sip or gas of air in by contracting the muscles around your neck to fill up the upper area of your lungs. Step two is the first breath hold. After you have fully inhaled, hold your breath and brace yourself by pushing your breast downward to your belly, creating this isometric intraabdominal tension around you. While holding your breath, keep this tension active as if you were to exhale, but hold your breath in. Hold it for about 10 to 15 seconds. Step
8:28 three, exhale and hold. Exhale by releasing the air lightly at first. Then increase the intensity of the exhale until you reach the natural end. You don't empty your lungs completely, just enough to have your diaphragm relaxed and it's in its natural position again. Then explosively move your belly inward to push another gush of air out and hold your breath. Then step four, embrace the hold and do urge surfing. This breath hold will feel uncomfortable and your urge to breathe will increase very fast. Try to accept this discomfort and do something called urge surfing where you feel this urge to breathe and ride it like a wave. Try to relax into it. Don't
9:14 push too far. You want your next inhale to be controlled, initiating the inhalation with your diaphragm and not gasping for air. Do three to six rounds of this which will only take a couple of minutes and repeat this session every other day. Optionally, you can do the 3x3 foundational breathing exercise. Do this exercise first with one nasal hole for three cycles, then with the other nasal hole for three cycles, and finally with both nasal holes for three cycles. After a couple of weeks, you should feel the effects on your regular breathing and suddenly experience a boost in effectiveness in other breast techniques as well. By the way, if you want to have
10:02 a free guided video on this exercise that you can follow along, please follow the link in the description. Now you understand some of the most important pillars I wish I had known sooner in my whole breathing practice. But knowledge alone is not skill. You need to put them into practice. As breathing is an automatic process, it's very easy to let it escape back into the background of our busy daily lives and forget about the powerful effect a deliberate breathing practice can have in our lives. This is why I've built my breath work and mindfulness academy and community. An online community with weekly live breath work sessions, indepth and structured courses and
10:48 guided breath work videos for all levels. I'm very confident that having a consistent breath work practice and mindfulness practice enhances your well-being in all areas and can change your life. And if you want to learn more about breath work and mindfulness, check out one of these videos here. As always, thank you for watching and supporting this channel. See you in the next one. Bye.
