Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the daily grind? If you’re looking for a simple yet powerful tool to manage stress and anxiety, look no further than breathwork for stress and anxiety. The latest episode of the Self Love and Sweat podcast dives deep into the transformative power of 4-7-8 breathing, a technique that can help you find calm and focus amidst the chaos.
The Benefits of 4-7-8 Breathwork Technique
This episode explores the science behind 4-7-8 breathing and its practical application. This technique involves inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and exhaling slowly for eight seconds. The emphasis on longer exhales is key, as it helps clear your mind and promote a sense of relaxation.
Lunden also guides listeners through a series of breathing exercises, allowing them to experience the calming effects firsthand. Beyond stress reduction, breathwork offers a range of benefits:
- Increased Oxygenation: Deep breaths bring more oxygen to the brain, boosting cognitive function and mental clarity.
- Altered Brainwaves: Breathwork can shift your brainwave patterns, promoting a calmer and more focused state.
- Stress Release: Slow exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system, counteracting the stress response and inducing relaxation.
Transitions Made Easy with Breathwork
Transitions between tasks or life stages can be challenging. London emphasizes how 4-7-8 breathing can bridge these gaps seamlessly. By focusing on your breath, you create a sense of calm and clarity, allowing you to navigate your day with greater ease.
Breathwork Techniques for Beginners
The episode delves into the importance of slow exhales. This simple act that includes breathwork for stress and anxiety activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and lowering your heart rate. Slower exhales can be particularly helpful during stressful situations or when you need to focus intensely. By practising this technique regularly, you can unlock a calmer, more focused, and stress-free version of yourself. So, take a deep breath, tune in, and embark on a journey of self-love and well-being.
Full transcript episode 184
Lunden Souza:
Welcome to Self Love and Sweat THE PODCAST, the place where you’ll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I’m your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, have you grabbed your free Self Love and Sweat monthly calendar yet? This calendar is so amazing. It comes right in your inbox every single month to help you have a little nugget of wisdom, a sweaty workout, a mindset activity, just a little something, something to help keep you focused and motivated and keep that momentum towards your goals. So every day, when you get this calendar, you’ll see a link that you can click that will lead to a podcast episode or a workout or something that will be very powerful and quick to read. And then you’ll also see, on the top left corner of every single day, there’s a little checkbox in the calendar and what that is is that’s for your one thing. You can choose one thing every month, or it can be the same, something that you want to implement and make this something that you can easily implement, like daily meditation or getting a certain amount of steps or water, for example, and staying hydrated and even taking your supplements. This can be something if you want to get more regular, doing a particular habit and routine. You can choose what that checkbox means. So if you want your self-love and sweat free monthly calendar delivered right to your inbox every month on the first of the month, go to lifelikelunden.com/calendar, fill out the form really quickly and you will have your calendar in your inbox within a few short minutes. That’s lifelikelunden L-I-F-E-L-I-K-E-L-U-N-D-E-N dot com forward slash calendar. Go, get yours for free and enjoy this episode
Lunden Souza:
Welcome back to the podcast. Again, we are breathing together. On this episode today we’re doing four, seven, eight breathing. So that’s going to be a breathing technique where you inhale for four counts, hold for seven counts, exhale for eight, four, seven, eight breathing. So I really love this technique, like all of them, to access anytime, any place and anytime that we’re doing slower or longer exhales. That’s really going to help us ground and come down and relax and reduce our heart rate and just wind down a little bit. Whereas some of the more um, you know, aggressive breath work uh, techniques, if you will, the ones where you’re inhale, exhale really fast, really, um, yeah, those, those styles are going to be, yeah, increasing energy, increasing blood flow, in a way that’s going to be a bit more energizing and awakening, whereas those longer exhales are going to be more grounding and help you focus and just land and feel good, clear the mind, all of those things. So that’s what we’re going to do today for four, seven, eight breath work and, as always, we’re going to do it together. So, yeah, like I said, you’ll feel relaxed, calm, grounded, a little bit less stressed, a little bit more focused.
Lunden Souza:
I like this breathwork technique as well to transition. I talked about this in one of my most recent episodes on ways to like rock your day and crush. It is to like really understand the power of that transition from one activity to another. And I like four, seven, eight breath work, um, to do. I like to do that during my transitions. It gets you counting numbers, it gets you connecting with your breath, and so I find myself doing this technique a lot during those transitions. So, uh, clear the runway really quick.
Lunden Souza:
We’ll inhale, inhale through the nose, exhale through the nose, and then we’ll inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. We’ll just do like a full kind of cleansing breath. Here we go Inhale through the nose, exhale through the nose and big inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. All right, here we go big inhale through the nose for four, three, two, one. Hold at the top seven, six, five, four, three, two, one Out the nose eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, two. One. Inhale four, three, two, one. Hold seven, six, five, four, three, two. One. Exhale eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Inhale four. Hold seven, inhale four, hold seven, exhale eight, inhale four, hold seven, exhale eight. Two more rounds Inhale four, hold seven, exhale eight. Last one Inhale four, three, two, one. Hold seven, six, one. Exhale eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. Let it all go and then big inhale all the way to the top.
Lunden Souza:
When you get to the top, hiss out just a little bit of air and have just a cushion and hold it at the top with that little cushion that you just exhaled, but still hold it. Relax your face, relax your shoulders. If you feel like you need to breathe, maybe you just need to swallow. Try that. You’re welcome to exhale at any time or release that hold, but if you can stay with it for another 20 seconds, you got this. But if you can stay with it for another 20 seconds, you got this.
Lunden Souza:
I love these breath holds to just oxygenate the brain and the body to alter those brain waves, to give you a different perspective, a shift. Five, four, three, two, one exhale so amazing. I hope you enjoyed breathing with me today. Remember, you can access four, seven, eight breathing and any style of breath work at any time. Um, and if you want to breathe with me one-on-one on zoom, I do one-on-one breathwork sessions. You can find that by going to
lifelikelunden.com/shop and in there you’ll see your ability to grab breathwork sessions and I would love to breathe with you. Have a beautiful day. See you at the next episode.
Lunden Souza:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Self Love and Sweat THE PODCAST. Hey, do me a favor, wherever you’re listening to this. Hey, do me a favor, wherever you’re listening to this podcast, give us a review. This really helps a lot and share this with a friend. I’m only one person and with your help, we can really spread the message of self love and sweat and change more lives all around the world. I’m Lunden Souza, reminding you that you deserve a life full of passion, presence and purpose, fueled by self-love and sweat. This podcast is a Hitspot Austria production.