Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
This is the official podcast of the Bulletproof For BJJ movement. Hosted by JT & Joey. Each episode the founders break down problems that Jiu-jitsu people experience, giving guidance and tips to improve your training for BJJ. With the goal of helping every body on the Brazilian jiu-jitsu path reduce their chance of injury, improve their strength and mobility to become more resilient.
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Breathing for Peak Athletic Performance w/ Brian Lai
Imagine transforming your athletic performance just by changing the way you breathe. Join us on the Bulletproof for BJJ podcast as we welcome breathwork expert Brian Lai, also known as Primal Breathwork. As a jiu-jitsu brown belt, Brian shares his profound insights on how dysfunctional breathing can affect every aspect of a grappler's life, from athletic performance to sleep and cognition. Discover the five-gear system for breathing and actionable drills specifically designed for grapplers, and learn how dietary and chewing habits since the Industrial Age have influenced our breathing and jaw development.
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Welcome to the Bulletproof for BJJ podcast. Today you've got just me. Unfortunately, jt couldn't be here, but we have a guest. We've got Brian Lai, better known as Primal Breathwork, joining me on the show to talk about the importance of breathwork for grapplers. Now rest assured, you can trust all the shit he says, because Brian is a jiu-jitsu brown belt. But, more importantly, this guy works with everybody when it comes to breath training, from elite athletes through to general population. Brian teaches people how to breathe optimally, depending on whatever that is for them. Today we go into that. He breaks down the whole concept of breath work and optimized breathing and where people go wrong with it, but then he breaks it down specifically for us, for grapplers.
Speaker 1:I think you guys are going to get a bunch out of this. A couple of things you're going to learn in today's show. He's going to tell us about the five gear system for breathing and how you can switch between them and use those to your advantage. He's going to talk about how dysfunctional breathing affects your airways, facial development, your sleep and also your cognition. And he's going to give us a handful of drills that you can use right away in your training. One of my favorites here is a really simple breath drill. He takes us through towards the end of the ep that he likes to use to shortcut the post-training cool down and this gets you into a recovery state fast so that you can be bouncing back better to train the next day. Super excited to share this one with you guys.
Speaker 1:One small favor to ask before we jump into the episode. Jt and I put these bad boys out episodes that is a few times a week, in the hope of making you guys enjoy your jujitsu journey more and for longer, and all we ask in return is that you like the show and you subscribe and you leave us a five-star review. So if you're watching on YouTube, hit the subscribe thing. If you're listening on an audio platform, do that five-star piece. It goes a really long way, helps other people find the show and we appreciate you for that. Let's get into the app.
Speaker 2:Better listen very carefully.
Speaker 3:A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready.
Speaker 2:Essentially, at this point the fight is over, so you pretty much flow with the goal.
Speaker 3:Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limit this power? I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Can you start by telling me where and let's, let's, let's just talk humans right before we get into grapplers, but let's just talk humans as a as a species? Where do we go wrong with breathing? Because, as I understand, it is something that, like chronically, we suffer with um. Can you talk to me like kind of give us an overview of the dilemma?
Speaker 2:yeah, so they.
Speaker 2:What they say is that roughly eight out of ten or nine out of ten people breathe dysfunctionally, and so there's two different reasons for it. I mean there's two different kind of one is more systemic, where it impacts everybody, and the other one is more how we've learned to breathe or not learn to breathe throughout our lives. So, in terms of like systemically, that pretty much impacts pretty much everyone in the west I mean most people actually is that over the years, what's happened is the way we use our mouth has basically shifted. So one of the key factors was basically during the industrial age and industrial age what happened was the food became much more processed and because of the food being more processed, we weren't chewing it as much, or there was no need to chew it as much. And what would happen is that because we don't use our jaws and our mouths as much as before, they say that before the industrial age we, on average, chewed about six hours a day our food. Six hours, six hours a day, on average Fuck right, that's like so much jaw training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, six hours a day. So you can imagine now you can just go to a local store and just wolf down a meal with barely any chewing so over. I believe. I think it was like three generations basically. Everybody's mouths and jaws started to shrink and that impacted the airways. That started to get tighter as well. So if you actually look at um, if you go to like, say, like a tribe that's been untouched by western diet, they're actually their teeth, their jaws are perfect. There's no need to remove any teeth, wisdom teeth or anything like that and it looks like a toothpaste commercial. It looks absolutely perfect. Wow, whereas we go to the west or even the east, um, you'll see that basically everyone has to take their wisdom teeth out or they have crowded teeth and that's be and that's not normal. If you think about, like every animal in the wild, they don't need to do that yeah so if you're humans, why is that the case?
Speaker 1:it's because of, basically, we're not, we're no longer using that part of our body as much as we used to use it, and so over time everything compensates and everything gets smaller and tighter, and then we're stuck in this situation where just by just humans in general, our whole system is kind of not aligned to how it used to be, and then so that's more or less systemic, that kind of fundamental issue that impacts almost everybody and just before you go into the second half of that, um, does that mean that, like, is there a genetic component to that whereby, like, if I raise my son and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna make you chew like fucking sticks all day, and like, like I raise my son and I'm like, no, I'm just gonna make you chew like fucking sticks all day, and like, like, really build your jaw and make you chew hard stuff, does that fix the problem? Or is it the case that he's been handed down like dna, that is, is already has been affected by this? Yeah, it's, it's a bit of.
Speaker 2:It's a bit of both okay, so you can do things to train your, your jaw, your mouth, to widen it to um, to basically correct this, but there's still going to be usually still going to be something that's it's not completely optimal okay so.
Speaker 2:But if you look, if you go to like for, for example, functional dentist, they have, for example, expanders where they expand the whole jaw and the skull. It widens it and that also, in turns, widens the airway, and I've seen people that, like functional dentists, that have shown me how they can increase the airway by, like, I think, 100%, 200% within a space of like two weeks.
Speaker 1:Jesus Make a permanent change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:And so then I cut you off, go into the second part of that. So the first was like the systemic aspect and then the second facet of this kind of breathing dilemma, the second thing is basically we just never learned, we're never taught how to breathe properly.
Speaker 2:We just assume it's something that by default we do, perfectly well and optimal. But that is probably the third thing from the truth. So there's a breathing coach called Dr Melissa Ranich and she does a lot of work with fighters. She works with Baz Rudin a lot, and so what she says is it's between the ages of 5 and 10 where you will see a kid or a baby or a kid go from a functional breath where they're breathing in through the nose, it's breathing nice and deeply and it's a lateral expansion, 360 expansion all around. And between five and 10 is roughly when they start to transition to a dysfunctional breath, like shallow breathing, chest breathing, maybe mouth breathing, and for most people, once they shift to dysfunctional breathing, they're never really taught that their breathing is off and it becomes a lifelong habit basically so does that imply that sort of in more like going back to a more like ancient lifestyle, that we had structures in place to teach young people how to breathe?
Speaker 1:or was it not necessary back then because we didn't have the kind of systemic issues?
Speaker 2:I think it's a bit of both. I think, um, there wasn't as much need for it, but also they were also aware of it as well. Like, I believe, uh, there's, I think, tribes in africa where, as soon as they see a baby start to mouth breathe, they'll close the mouth. Yeah, make sure they continue to breathe through the nose. So there is, there is some sort of wisdom there, ancient wisdom, that they are aware of this. Maybe they don't, they don't know it on, like on the scientific level is you know how we understand it now, but they don't. They do understand that there is like a difference between nasal breathing and mouth breathing yeah, okay, um, man, it's, it's such a um, it's so close to my heart.
Speaker 1:I've been a, like I've been a mouth breather forever and I've always kind of been aware of it, but it was probably not until about 10 years ago that I I recognized like this is actually really not great, like this is problematic. You know, but growing up I'd always get like tonsillitis and, you know, like constant kind of throat infections and sinus issues. And you know, go see an ent and they'd be like, oh, your sinus is all fucked up. And, um, you know, I remember them telling me like your sinuses are so narrow, like I can't believe you can't get any air in there. And so I thought like, yeah, like I've got these sinus issues.
Speaker 1:But then I started taping my mouth a couple of years ago when I would sleep and all of a sudden, like my sinus started working better. And you know, like our whole philosophy in this gym right is that our bodies, like, require a certain stimulus which our natural environment used to provide, and the natural environment doesn't give us that anymore. So we need to come to a place like this to train the body in a way that kind of replicates that.
Speaker 1:And this is where the fight, lift, move thing comes from right. This is my, this is Jungle Brothers. We train barefoot. You, you know lack of accessories, you know big movement patterns, etc, etc. And so thinking about, like once I started to think about the breath I'm like it's the same shit, like it's totally the same shit, you know, like our bodies have, just we've adapted. Like the modern lifestyle has had a negative effect on our species and it's, you know, I've always thought like the modern lifestyle has had a negative effect on our species and it's, you know, I've always thought about the mechanics, but I'd never thought about the breathing aspect of it, and what's wild to me is that shouldn't be wild is, once you start exposing yourself to the stimulus, the body improves, like the breathing mechanics can get better.
Speaker 1:Do you find that your, your message is like are people aware of this or is what you're putting out there? Because obviously I've you know, I follow a lot of your stuff on instagram. Um, is this really like, is it new information to a lot of the people that you coach and work?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's been. I mean, this stuff has been around for thousands of years, but it's been mostly lost in in in modern society. I mean even like, for example, a lot of breathing methods, meditation methods. It came from the east, but largely, for example, in hong kong, where I'm based normally. Um, most people are completely unaware of it. So it's yeah, it's been largely been lost.
Speaker 1:Um, do you think that it is the like it's more of a western issue? Would you say no?
Speaker 2:no I think also like, if you just in like being based in hong kong, it's, it's everywhere, it's, uh, even in china, hong Kong, asia, yeah, everyone's breathing is dysfunctional.
Speaker 1:Wow. So take me to how you started in this realm, like what drew you towards it and like you know what's the journey been Okay?
Speaker 2:so I started about 10 years ago on this journey and, honestly, I had no clue that this stuff even existed. So I came across it because I was going through my own battles. So I was going through a pretty rough period, I was going through depression at the time and and I was looking for things to fix myself, basically to get myself better, and so I stumbled across meditation first, and then, about a year after that's when I discovered Wim Hof, and Wim was the first person that I had any exposure to in terms of breath work and luckily, this was kind of before it blew up and he was my first teacher, basically. So I trained with Wim in, I think, 2016, and that was basically what really opened my eyes towards like the breath basically in the human body and what could be done with the human body that I previously thought was just didn't even know existed. It was impossible, just didn't even know existed. It was impossible.
Speaker 2:So once I once training with whim, it completely opened my eyes and then since then, I've just been exploring more and more, more and more methods and techniques, even outside of breath work, just to how to basically hack the human body, get the human body to its optimal, optimal state. Basically, in terms of coaching, breath work, that's a bit of a different story. I didn't, I never really had any intention of being a coach, because growing up my growing up an introvert, and also growing up just my biggest fear was public speaking. So I never thought I'll, you know, I'll be up in front of you know, a large group of people talking about anything really. So what happened was I continued to train with whim and became, uh, the first certified instructor in asia wow, how was that training taking place?
Speaker 1:was it online or were you seeing him?
Speaker 2:in person. That was in person. It was actually in australia. Oh wow, it was um down in victoria. Um, oh, you know, mark clue, don't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, he's a tiger, yeah, he's awesome yeah yeah, and josh as well he was there as well, so okay, so that was like early days, yeah, that was the first, first group of uh instructors out of uh southern hemisphere, I believe.
Speaker 2:wow, okay, so I was part of that group and, um, and yeah, so I did. The training was over a couple of years, over three programs, over the two years, and I became certified, I think, in 2017. And it was really just for myself, just for my own interest, my own curiosity, but you know, wim being, you know, so inspirational, I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to go teach. But then, as soon as it kind of clicked like how much I hate public speaking, I'm I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to do that, um, but what happened was I don't know if you know much about william's story, I do so his wife committed suicide, yeah and uh, and that was his catalyst for really pursuing this path.
Speaker 2:So what happened was, uh, I basically mentally decided that I wasn't going to teach, I was just going to practice for myself. And I was on the flight back to Hong Kong from Australia. And when I got back to Hong Kong the next day I went out just to grab some lunch with some relatives, to catch up. And after lunch, as I was walking back home, this woman jumped off the top of a building and she landed almost in front of me. She landed like almost in front of me, like maybe 10 meters in front of me. Oh, fuck, yeah, it's pretty, pretty gnarly right. Yeah, um, it was kind of traumatized for a bit, but after I kind of got through that, I kind of just like what I how I saw it was okay.
Speaker 2:There's all these people in hong kong that are suffering from mental health, from depression, anxiety, from the things I was going through myself, and I felt kind of a duty to at least share what I'd learned with people in Hong Kong. So I started to. I just basically was thinking I'll do a workshop, maybe once a month, just to kind of give back to the community Because I had my own businesses and that kind of thing going on there. And eventually, eventually, over time it just kind of took over my whole life. So even the first workshop I launched in Hong Kong, I was expecting maybe three people, four people to show up, but it was like 30 something people completely sold out and then pretty much most workshops after that just kept filling out and filling out and filling out. And then it just took over my life and I think about a year or two after that that was basically what I was doing full time.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's funny, man. We were chatting about Bruce Lee before and you were in the Bruce Lee shirt, Bruce Lee behind me. I was just thinking of, like the scene I was watching Dragon recently and the part where he opens his school in America, like at the college or whatever, to teach. Was he teaching Wing Chun at the time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, wing Chun yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like one or two people show up, and it might have even been the dudes that wanted to challenge him, and then he kicks their asses and then, like the next week like 10 people and the next week like 30 people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, know, but it's kind of there's a parallel there. So you'd hit on this thing that like was resonating with people. They needed it. You were like passionate about it. What? What was it that you were teaching them like? Were you was it? Were you talking to them about the importance of this stuff, or was it like were you doing breath drills, like was it stuff? Or was it like were you doing breath drills like was it workshop or was it and was it just purely Wim Hof, or did you have other sort of elements in there?
Speaker 2:So at the very beginning the only thing I learned was Wim Hof method.
Speaker 2:So at the beginning probably the first year I was teaching purely Wim Hof method and a few other little things I picked up on the way cold exposure, ice bars, those kind of things and and this is like not a diss on the Wim Hof method, but what I realized is just like, for example, martial arts, that was just one discipline or one type of breath work and after realizing that was just one type and after teaching people, I realized that you know, this one method wasn't necessarily the best for everybody.
Speaker 2:It's great for some people but other people might do better with other other methods or other other breathing techniques. So I realized after teaching for about a year that I was really, really um, I needed to learn more, and so since then I've just learned, probably every year or two. Since then I've gone and learned a new method or with a different teacher, master or expert and just kind of over the years, over the last nine, 10 years just keep accumulating new knowledge, new methods, and what I teach now is kind of an amalgamation of everything and it just really depends on the person I'm working with, what they require and I just go from there that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the whim, the whim method to me does seem quite extreme, like at least the thing that is put out, like the thing that's put out there in, like the come and have a 90 minute whim kind of thing with with the with the breathing and the ice bath and stuff, like I've.
Speaker 1:I've enjoyed it a lot over the years, but it's not the kind of thing I want to do often and it feels like a very extreme kind of experience, Whereas when I think about breath work to me, I feel like what I need is something gentle, like something soft that is repeatable and like far from extreme. What for you was like the. If you were looking at Wim, like cool, that's one tool. What's the vibe of those?
Speaker 2:other tools. I mean there's ones for example, bidoco method or Auction Advantage, which is kind of the complete opposite. The Wim Hof method is about a lot of breathing in and charging your body up and then you have like, for example, auction advantage would be Durkin method, which is the opposite of breathing as little as possible and developing a high su2 tolerance, which is a lot of athletes are training now, like, for example, the.
Speaker 2:There's this guy called Dave Wood in, uh, new Zealand, and he trains his city kickboxing team you know I've seen some of the videos with izzy yeah, izzy and kai and uh dan and those guys so, and they're training mostly that like auction advantage budeko method, where it's minimal breathing, breathing less and making the breath more efficient yeah and there's.
Speaker 2:there's all kinds of uh breathing methods. There's ones, for example, you see, like shamanic breath work, where people are just lying there and they're breathing for two or three hours and they're like yelling and crying and all these kind of emotions are coming out. You have those kind of methods you have I've trained in, like other ones, for example, rebirthing method. That was with Dan Brule and he's been doing this for 50, 60 years and he's the coach of, like tony robbins, some navy seals in breathwork and um, and that, for example, that method is they believe that a lot of trauma, a lot of blockages happen during your birth, your early years, and that method is similar to the shamanic breathwork, just non-stop, circular breathing, and, for example, that is supposed to get you back to that birth period where you re-experience it and you clear out that trauma so you have things like that.
Speaker 2:You have like holotropic breathwork, which is like stan groff, which is very similar breathing method but they use a lot more stimulus and that is supposed to basically supposed to put you into like almost a psychedelic state. Uh, and I believe like he developed this when, like you know, mushrooms and acid and that kind of stuff got banned and he was trying to develop something that would create a similar state and that was breathwork.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that type of breathwork so say, look, looking at all those things, do you, do you see them as all trying to achieve the same kind of result, or are they all trying to chase different things?
Speaker 2:I think they're all trying to chase different things, but I think ultimately, if you really follow all the way to the end, it's all going to bring you back to this one point. But in terms of just these different types of modalities, now they're marketed to achieve different things, but they are quite different in terms of like like holotropic or rebirthing or circular breathing. That is very different to maybe doing like, say, box breathing, where you're just trying to calm down your nervous system. So they are quite different. Um, but in terms of if you really go deeper into the breath, if you look, look into like Taoism, buddhism and Pranayama and all that kind of stuff, it's all leading to like a spiritual side, like leading to like enlightenment.
Speaker 1:It's funny to me that, like how we meet these concepts and philosophies, because we meet them through people like McCune, right Oxygen Advantage Is Patrick McCune, yeah. Or that Wim Hof, right, and you've mentioned other names and then often it's like Eastern systems of martial arts or like yoga or martial arts or like. I'm trying to think of what we did. It'll come to me later, but we had a black belt from China, stanley Tam, come to our old gym and teach us his system, which was an ancient like a soft martial art, and I'm like all of that stuff was already there, but because that shit to us in the West is so mystical and kind of a little bit like it's it.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit silly for most people. I don't know what's going on with that, but when a guy's like, hey, try this breath drill, it's going to make you better breathing, it's like, okay, I'll listen to that dude. Um, do you what's your thoughts on that? Like is it? Is it kind of the case that this stuff has been around for a long time. It's just now being repackaged up in a way that's a bit more digestible for folks in the West and stuff to wrap their head around?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the breath work has been around for a long, long, long time. It's probably been around for thousands and thousands of years. Even in Taoism, for example, there's seven books that they've found that are purely dedicated to breath. So it's definitely been around for a while.
Speaker 2:Um, I believe that everything like what you say, everything we're learning, is it's already been there. So it's more like a remembering something that we've kind of forgotten and lost, but it's always been there. So I don't, I don't think it's like learning anything new. I mean it is you know, because you don't really know about it, but it is tapping into something that is already there, we already have. So, yeah, I think in, you know, in the West now, in modern society, there's all these different methods, and I don't believe that any of these methods are new. I believe they've already existed for many, many years or a long time ago, and now it's just it's a resurgence is coming and different people are packaging it in a different way, marketing a different way, but this stuff is it's been around for forever so talk to me about, um, you're a jiu-jitsu guy, obviously brown belt people.
Speaker 1:people need to know that because I can fucking trust this guy now when, like, surely you observe breathing with the people that you train with. I'm guessing you can't not be aware of it. Give me your thoughts on it. You know the people you train with other jiu-jitsu competitors and what you see. Do you find you get thirsty at training? I do.
Speaker 3:I do all the time. I you find you get thirsty at training. I do, I do all the time. I'm a sweaty human and I need to hydrate. Now the biggest problem is, by the time you're thirsty, it's a little bit late. You need to hydrate and that's why we got Sodi. Sodi is sponsoring the show. We've got all the colors of the rainbow, great flavors here. We've got salty citrus, salty pineapple, salty berry and my favorite, salty grapefruit, and they will be releasing two new mystery flavors soon. So why do we need this? It's going to prevent our muscle cramps, it's going to help our energy delivery and it's also going to mean you're less tired, which is an advantage when you're training. If you want to maximize your jujitsu and feel good when you're rolling, you need to get SOTY, and when you purchase SOTY, enter the code BULLETPROOF20 at checkout for 20% off. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it just reflects society in general. Like, most people in the jiu-jitsu gym are breathing dysfunctionally. So most people, you know they have no control of their breath and they just, you know it's just like their breath leads them instead of them leading the breath. So, you see, most people are just, you know, as soon as they get a bit tired, they're mouth breathing. And there's a lot more to it. Like, for example, when you start to mouth breathe, that's when you know someone's you know getting tired right. Like, if you look at, for example, professional sports, when do they start to usually make mistakes? You know, usually in the championship rounds or in the fourth quarter, when they start to get tired and you'll see a correlation between when they're tired and breathing through the mouth. So, when you understand how breathing impacts performance, how I see it is like you know, when you're playing street fighter, you're playing games, you have that, you know, energy bar at the top, so it adds that extra dimension to the whole fight, basically, and you know, like you could have a you know brown belt or purple belt, but as soon as they're completely exhausted they turn to a blue belt yeah and it's if you can learn to manage your like, micromanage your breath and your energy and your heart rate, then it can really shift, like improve your jiu-jitsu not in terms of, like you know, your actual skill and technique and stuff, but your cardio, how you think your nerve system, how to regulate it, your stamina, your endurance and those kind of things which impacts everything yeah
Speaker 2:decision-making. Yeah, exactly like I think Hickson said, like once he like started training the breath, work or breath or everything, not just jiu-jitsu, but everything in his life improved by 40%. Wow, this is Hickson Gracie, like one of the best ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's a big claim, right 40% improvement in life. It's like who wouldn't want that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you never hear that kind.
Speaker 1:It's 5%, but you never hear that kind of 5, 10 or even 1 these days. Yeah no, it's such a good point. It makes me, I don't know. Her put a post up yesterday talking about um, I like making good decisions when you are rolling like that's. That's kind of what it all comes down to like of course you got it. You got to have the options to make those decisions. But it got me thinking like, yeah, decision making, and when you're tired, you do make.
Speaker 1:You make silly mistakes, you do silly things exactly you go for a shit, take down, you pull guard loosely and get passed right away. You know you jump on a footlock or something and you're like yeah you're like, yeah fuck, that's actually massive to that point. Um give explain to me why mouth breathing is not optimal.
Speaker 2:Look, it's not that mouth breathing is not optimal, like there's a time and place for everything. It's more so understanding how mouth breathing can impact your performance. So there's Casper, one of my mentors, and another guy called Brian McKenzie and he works with Johns Jones and McKenzie. But what they've done is they've put breathing into a system which I believe is a very good system in terms of understanding for athletes and combat people. So how they've basically structured the whole breath is that basically throughout our lives, throughout our day, we breathe like a full spectrum of our breath, and they've put it into like a gear system, like driving a car, so going from gear one, two, three, four, five, maybe six gears, five to six gears usually and so just understanding, like, for example, how the let's just say they're using the, the structure of five gears that would have, for example, the first two gears is nasal breathing and then the third gear is, uh, transitioning between nasal and mouth, so breathing in through the nose and start to breathe out through the mouth because you need to start to offload more CO2. And then it gets to a point where you know if you're completely exhausted, then you are going to move into gear four or five, where it becomes mouth breathing because you need to get more air in and the mouth is a big opening so you get more air in and you exhale more because you need to dump more CO2. So there is a time and place for everything. But it's just understanding the why you're breathing this way and the structure of your breath, so that you understand that. Because if, for example, you're driving a car, if you know how to work the gears, then you know, you know how to drive better. But if you have no clue and you're stuck in gear one or stuck in gear six and you just you know you're just revving it and stuff, then it can, you know, go all kinds of. It cannot go this way, it can go that way, it can it can burn out. So, just understanding why you, you know why it's better to breathe through the nose and even if you are breathing through the mouth, just understanding that as well, like I think hickson talks about, he doesn't really care how he's breathing, as long as he's breathing in a lower gear than his opponent In terms of because your breathing is directly linked to your heart rate.
Speaker 2:If you look at your heart, it's in that side of the pericardium, it literally sits on top of the diaphragm. So if your breathing is slow, your heart rate slows down. If your breathing is faster, your heart rate speeds up. So it's all connected. And when you, for example, when you want to recover between rounds or between fights, what do you want to do? You want to slow your heart rate back down. So how do you slow your heart rate back down? Is you slow your breathing down? And if you have this structure of the gears and you realize that, okay, you know, I'm in gear five right now I'm getting four, then I can go back down to gear one, or you know gear one or gear two to recover, yeah, so just having that understanding, this structure, which is just a more modern understanding, I like that gives a kind of it's a nice way to wrap your head around it.
Speaker 1:Um, that's a really good point, right, that there's no like. Nothing is inherently bad, it's just what's optimal for the scenario you are in. I guess you know where. Guess. Where I tend to notice for myself that there's a problem is when I'm like mouth breathing during a warm-up or I'm like I don't know a minute into the role and I'm mouth breathing and I'm like that doesn't seem like I should be here yet I shouldn't be on this gear To that point. I'm guessing anyone that's hearing this right like you, can't you listen to two people talk about breathing?
Speaker 1:you can't help but start to get aware of you, like I'm being aware of my breathing right now right um, and so people are probably gonna go fuck yeah, I'm not gonna open my mouth at training tonight, I'm just gonna I'm going to nasal breathe like Hickson and be a god. Or like Izzy right, you see it very clearly when Izzy fights for the most part that he's like hardly ever opens his mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, we can't just go and do that right, like we need to build the capacity to be able to do that. What is it that stops someone from doing that? Like what would make it impossible for me to go and do six rounds of training tonight and just breathe like through the nose for the whole time?
Speaker 2:Just like anything, it takes time to work towards it. So, in terms of, like, fixing your breathing or making your breathing better, it's not just the mechanics of breathing. Yes, we need to fix the mechanics of our breath. A lot of people, for example, they breathe very shallow, they breathe into their chest, they have a vertical breath so that when they breathe in there they're kind of lifting their shoulder, using the accessory muscles and neck the shoulders, those kind of muscles to breathe, which are your accessory breathing muscles. It's kind of like the support breathing muscles and they're not using, for example, the main breathing muscles, like your diaphragm, intercostals, and they're using the support breathing muscles to do the heavy lifting. Yeah, so in terms of how some like one of the first steps I would say for someone that wants to improve their breathing is looking at the mechanics of their breathing and then secondly, basically also the chemistry of your breath which is.
Speaker 2:You know, it's all. It's all linked because, for example, what izzy is doing is he's training himself to have very high co2 tolerance. So, and that is for a lot of people think that, for example, when you hold your breath and there comes a point in time maybe, you know, maybe for the average person, 40 seconds or something like that then they need to breathe. They have this urge to breathe, like if they don't breathe they're going to suffocate or something right. So a lot of people think that the reason that that happens, the reason that they feel like they need to breathe, is because of lack of oxygen. Oxygen is being used up. That's not actually the case. Oxygen saturation is actually still very, very high if you measure it. So what is happening is that co2 is actually rising and once co2 rises and it hits a certain level, everyone's got a different threshold or a different level. Once it hits that, then that's what triggers you to breathe. So what, for example, izzy is training? He's training budeku oxygen advantage and what they do is they're trying to minimize the breath and getting people used to having a high level of co2 in their system and adapt, adapting to that.
Speaker 2:Basically, so you, you know, like you mentioned. You'll see easy. I think he's been working with dave for maybe the last I don't know five fights or something like that. I could be wrong, but I think it's around there and you'll see easy. Like he will probably never go past gear three, he'll breathe through the nose and out through mouth. I think his last fight against, uh, dracus, I think I did see a bit of mouth breathing, um, that was why he lost, maybe yeah right, yeah like, yeah, he got pushed right but yeah, it's a great point you never see him like redlining in that way, exactly, exactly and I think you mentioned.
Speaker 1:Like you know, whether he wins or he loses, he knows that he's always got his energy covered yeah he's always managing his energy properly and I think a lot of fighters, athletes or people in general aren't unaware of this no, I mean I'm, you know I'm more aware of it these days, but you know, I think I use myself as an example because I'm I consider myself generally pretty self-aware, but I know that, like in the, you know, when it's like time to scrap and it's, we're three minutes into an eight-minute round and, you know, someone's kicking my ass, like all that goes out the window. There's an interesting kind of thought there which is like you know, like, say, with Izzy, like if he's always in gear three, you're like, is he holding himself back from? Like, is he like, because sometimes redlining is how you get that top five to ten percent. Well, this is this is one way to look at it right, like, when you redline, like that's you pushing things to the absolute limit, um, so you could.
Speaker 1:You could interpret that as like, oh, he's like actually holding himself back, like he's never letting it all out. But then the flip side of that is well, he's always, he's always making the best possible decisions and he's always as present as he can be, because he's holding back on the redlining piece. I don't know what. What's your view on that? Uh, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't think, like redlining it, to give four, five, is necessarily going to give you better results. Um, I think it can. For example, some people, I think. I think, for example, cory sanhagen. During his fight with aljo, I think he got choked up like really really quickly and I think in afterwards he said that his nerve system was not switched on quick enough. He was still in that very calm state, whereas algebra was already switched on. So you can look at things like when you go into higher gear, you're creating more arousal in the nerve system, getting you more fired up. But in terms of pushing like, for example, is he or any athlete pushing themselves to give, like redlining themselves, give four or five? I don't necessarily think that's going to produce better results.
Speaker 2:I think if you can stay within, if you can nasal breathe as much as possible in a fight, I think that's actually better because you have your mental faculties there. You can make better decisions. You can because, for example, when you start to move into from nasal breathing and mouth breathing, that's when you start to have, for example, when you start to move from nasal breathing to mouth breathing, that's when you start to have, for example, lactic acid start to build up, for example. So if you look at, for example, the best marathon runners, they breathe through the nose from beginning to end.
Speaker 2:Or if you look at a racehorse, they're breathing through the nose. Look at a cheetah, they're breathing through the nose. And if you see an animal breathe through the mouth, it generally means that they're breathing through the nose, and if you see an animal breathe through the mouth, it generally means that they're sick. So I think peak physical performance it's uh, you know you want to use mouth sorry, nose breathing as much as possible. And uh, and you know someone like izzy, then if he is able, if he needs it somewhere in the fight, then he can, you know, kick in a gear four or five, but he doesn't need to yeah, yeah, it's there if you need to fall back on it yeah, and, as I said, I don't think it's going to produce better results.
Speaker 1:I think that's when things start to fall apart, actually yeah, yeah, I would agree and I guess, like, particularly in his style of of fighting which that last fight with dracus isn't is an interesting like case study there, because Dreykus is, I think he had nose problems, right, I think he had some nasal surgery, but like he's mouth breathing in like halfway through the first round and he looks pretty scrappy and like he looks pretty uncomposed.
Speaker 1:Not throwing shade on Dreykus I know we have some South African listeners and the guy's a fucking animal. But you know is he's like I don't know Beethoven, and then Drikus is like ACDC. It's like kind of night and day in that sort of way, but Drikus gets it done right.
Speaker 2:Like that's his style.
Speaker 1:So I'm guessing like, yeah, different things can work for different people in that sort of sport yeah, 100.
Speaker 2:You look at like, you look at, for example, like a cardio machine, like a max holloway, and you see, in breathing through the mouth quite often so it's. It's not like a fixed kind of thing where like, oh, if you nasal breathe, your mouth breathe, it's going to make you, you know, like a world champion or anything. It's just, um, everybody's different. Some people can, you know, breathe through the mouth and still and still perform very, very well, like when I think jan beat uh izzy. You could see izzy was breathing through the nose but jan was breathing through the mouth pretty early on from my first or second round. Yeah, but he got the job done yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me then, like from a grappler's perspective and I guess, like to clarify how we see things. Like we talk about peak performance, right, and we've discussed that a bit, and we talk about that in the jiu-jitsu realm and strength training and all of that sort of stuff, but really like, at least for JT and I, like our message is about health and longevity in the sport of jiu-jitsu and that means like, yeah, like good performance and like constant improvement on the mats. But it also means like living a healthy life and doing it in a sustainable way that you can keep training and doing this thing for many, many years, which is kind of different to to like peak performance right. Um, for the standard grappler, that's like, yeah, you know that's hearing this, and like, yeah, I think my breathing is a bit rough, like I've never paid much attention to it. Definitely, mouth breathe sometimes.
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Speaker 1:I've never paid much attention to it. Definitely mouth breathe sometimes, et cetera. Like, if you're working with someone like that and you're trying to help them become a better breather that can transfer to a healthier life and better mental faculties. While training jiu-jitsu, where do you start with someone like that?
Speaker 2:I think one of the most important things in someone learning to start to really improve their breath which a lot of people tend to neglect because it's not really the sexy part of it is just having awareness of your breath. I think most people just don't even have awareness of their own breath, because if you're not even aware of your own breathing, your own breathing patterns, it's hard to know when to actually implement these different breathing methods and so on. So there's definitely like, for example, more beginners out there or people that just haven't learned about awareness. They might, for example, you know, wake up in the morning, do some sort of practice, like a 20-30 minute practice, and they feel great for that period of time, but then, for example, once the afternoon hits, then they're just back to normal and they're just reacting and, and you know, getting angry and getting frustrated and so on. So I think one of the key things in breath work is really developing that awareness and and that is just something that I mean there's no easy route to it's just really checking in on your breath. For me, for example, how I developed it over time was just setting an alarm clock on my phone and just every say one or two hours just check into my breath. How am I breathing? Is it doing well? Is it functional breathing or is it dysfunctional breathing, and just correct course as you go? So I think, functional breathing or is it dysfunctional breathing, and just correct course as you go. So I think, for me personally, that was my journey. I started with having a specific practice. Every single morning, I practice like half an hour an hour, two hours sometimes, but then I started noticing that, you know, later on the day I would still be my old self. So now, after doing this for a while, I don't really have a practice anymore. So what I more, it's more. I have an awareness of my breath and I'm basically almost constantly aware of my own breathing patterns. And it's not something I'm just consciously focusing on, because you know that would take a lot of time and effort, but it just becomes almost like another sense, like if you feel hot or you're cold, and I'm just aware of my breathing is it shallow, am I holding my breath or is it flowing? And and I just correct it in real time. So that's where I'm at in my journey. For someone that's, um, starting out, I would start with breath awareness and then work on breathing mechanics.
Speaker 2:Uh, like, for example, work with uh, I think, hong kong's top professional boxer right now and someone like him. I mean, he's already great at what he does, but because he's never been taught how to breathe, he's very tense, always has his hands up, everything's tight, you know, he's always like, you know, his core is super tight, you know. So his diaphragm is like stuck almost, and he couldn't really move his diaphragm all that much. His intercostals weren't really like it wasn't really flowing, it was very. Everything was really just stuck in that position. Um and same with. I worked with uh, uh, the guy from one fc, elaine nagalani. It's big, big, uh, big african dude, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's in hong kong, so, um, okay, yeah I love that dude's instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so when I worked with him, it was just a long time ago, but he said, growing up, he, you know, he grew up in a family of you know brothers just as big as him and they would just, you know, as a prank, just gut, punch, each other punch each other in the
Speaker 2:in this in the gut. So he basically grew up always tensing his core. Yes, so for someone like him, um, he's just learned to basically brace his core, which leads to, you know, not the deepest breath. So for these kind of people I would work with, firstly, like just loosening that up, uh, working with your diaphragm intercostals and getting that moving and having more room for expansion. So getting a getting more better at the biomechanics of the breath, getting into a sound biomechanical breath, and from there I believe that those are the most important, because that's really day-to-day breathing, which I think is, you know, 99% a day. And then from there you start to implement different breathing methods, different techniques, because I think, for example, if you don't even have the fundamentals right and you add on top of it like a advanced breathing method, you could actually be making your general day-to-day breathing even worse, like you're making habits even worse yeah, right, that's.
Speaker 1:It's a really yeah, it's a really good point, because I I can sense that, like with a lot of things, people be like I'm inspired, I want to do it, and then they jump in. At that level that's like some advanced shit and like yeah, let me do that.
Speaker 1:When I bought, you know, the captains of crush, the grip trainers, they come in like seven. Well, they come in like 14 different strength levels and I think like the number seven is the top one. They go in half increments and the it's only ever been closed by like three people on earth or some shit.
Speaker 2:Right, I think I bought that one because I was like I want to fucking give that one a go and if I can just get strong on that, then we're there and then I got it and I couldn't even budget and so it just sat on the shelf and got rusty right like but it's kind of that absurd thing of like, I want to just get to the advanced level now so I'm just going to jump in there and figure it out yeah, but the reality is it's it's actually going to hold you back.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, like I didn't train my grip for years as a result of that still don't really full disclosure, sorry, jt um whereas like, yeah, if you go, okay, start with this, this is something that's more appropriate to where you're at, and then layer on top of that as you get more into it and you feel like you know whatever, you want to progress to the next level yeah, yeah, 100, I think.
Speaker 2:Also just adding to your question before, what should kind of beginners or people look at in terms of breathing? I think there's a few key things for the listeners out there. Just to start, you know, aside from the awareness is the basics of breathing through the nose and not the mouth, and also just checking are they breathing, are they expanding vertically or horizontally when they breathe? And they could very easily do that when they're at home by themselves or just listening to this podcast. Just take a deep breath in. And when you take a deep breath in, are your shoulders, is it like lifting up, like that your shoulders lifting up? Then that's a vertical breath and that's generally dysfunctional breath. You're breathing into the upper chest, whereas then that's a vertical breath and that's generally dysfunctional breath. You're breathing into the upper chest, whereas if you're up, a functional breath is you breathe through the nose, nice and deep breath, and what happens is your lungs expand 360, all the way around, so it's not just in the front but all the way around. So that's one of the key things to to notice is just that nasal breathing, mouth breathing, and if you're a vertical, vertical breather or a horizontal breather. And then, secondly is I mean, when you start to breathe deeper and a more full expansion, automatically your breathing is going to slow down because each breath is going to be more efficient and more optimal, more efficient and larger than you know shallow breathing. So just by that, your breathing is going to have a calmer pace and then your heart rate is going to slow down because of that.
Speaker 2:Another very, very important thing that a lot of people tend to overlook is that, for example, you were telling me that you started mouth taping.
Speaker 2:So there's a bit more to that than just putting some tape over your mouth. So some people I've had clients where you know they have sleep apnea and snoring and just by placing some tape over their mouth, they still have snoring. So there's a very important key piece of information that a lot of people miss and that is the position of your tongue. So that's a very, very important tongue posture which I believe a lot of breathwork coaches actually also skip as well. So you're like, a lot of the reason as to why, for example, people's breathing might be compromised or they're snoring or maybe sleep apnea, is that their tongue is not sitting in the right position. It's like lazy and it's dropped down and when it drops down, it's, it falls back and starts to block your airways and that's the reason for one of the reasons for snoring, for example, when you have your mouth open when you're sleeping and the tongue just drops down and falls backwards and kind of blocks the airway.
Speaker 1:Is that kind of a symptom of sleep apnea? Is that what's happening there, or is that a different thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, snoring will. Then, if it gets worse than snoring, it will lead to sleep apnea, right, and that's when it's just complete blocks. For like, for example, my dad has sleep apnea, has one of the c-pap machines yeah and like it's scary.
Speaker 2:You listen to him, like you know, when I was living him with a long time ago back in hong kong, you just see him just stop breathing, you just hear him stop breathing for like 30, 40 seconds, wow, and then he would just almost choke himself back to back awake and start to breathe again, wow, um. But even, like you know, on a on a boy strip a few years ago, one of my best friends, who's, you know, in his 30s, he's, he has that he has sleep apnea, which you know you really shouldn't have at that age. So, uh, in terms of um tongue posture, how it's supposed to be is that it's supposed to be sitting at the roof of your mouth. So, and I can do, I'm going to tell you how to do it do it talk text.
Speaker 2:Imagine that there's people listening this, going fuck yeah, let's drill yeah, okay, so where your tongue wants to be, sitting at the very roof of roof of the mouth that seals the power of the mouth.
Speaker 2:So, firstly, the tip of the tongue needs to touch a certain part of your inside the mouth. Okay, supposed to be kind of at the front, above the teeth, where the gums meet. So how you find that that place is basically? You just say, for example, the sound ta ta ta ta. You see where the tongue, the tip of tongue, touches there. So when you say something starting with t or ta ta ta, you'll find that spot of where the tongue is supposed to sit. Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's there and it's also touching the back of the front teeth. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, okay. So once you've found that point, you then close your mouth and just make sure your lips are sealed and then. So a lot of people think, a lot of people have heard, and they try to push it up like a muscle. That's not going to work. I mean, it might work for a brief period of time, but you know it's going to get. You're not going to do it the whole day, so it should be effortless. So and this is coming from, uh, dr john mu and mike mu uh, who people that brought this into the world so mu is their last name, m-e-w.
Speaker 1:Is that where muing comes from?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly, exactly so it's from the john, john and mike mu right on. So once you found that spot, the ta-ta-ta, you found that point close, seal your lips, close your mouth and then just let your tongue relax, keeping the tip where it is. But then let it relax and then what you do is you swallow the air out of your mouth, maybe just one or two swallows. What happens? I would swallow the air out of your mouth and it creates a vacuum and then the tongue would just suck and sit to the roof of the mouth. And it should be effortless, yeah, but after you do that, you don't want to open your mouth that's right, like I fucking nailed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay and so and so is the idea.
Speaker 2:Then, obviously, during times when you're not talking or you know whatever, in the middle of a fucking 20 minute roll or something like that, that would be the default position yeah yeah, that's where your tongue should be and that's one of the reasons why, um, because when the tongue sits at the roof of the mouth, when you, when someone's growing up as a kid, it applies a certain pressure to the skull and it allows the skull to develop in a certain way. But if it drops down and it doesn't have that pressure there, then you'll see certain people develop a certain facial profile where they start to, like, look a bit droopy, their neck falls forward and the whole facial structure shifts and changes, simply because their tongue is not in the correct position.
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Speaker 1:I'm using expanders at the moment. I'm not wearing them right now because I have a funny lisp when I've got them in. But precisely for that reason I went to see a friend of mine who works with a functional dentist and I kind of told him the scenario and I'm like you know, I'm doing this taping blah, blah, blah always been a mouth breather, getting better at it, and he looked at me and was like, yeah, your upper jaw, like your maxilla, is underdeveloped.
Speaker 1:He said I can see and he said you know it could have happened for a bunch of reasons, but he's like that bone is small. So the whole point now of using these expanders is to grow that bone. And actually it's been a few months and I can look at myself and detect that like that is a bit more prominent now than it was. Really minor change. But this speaks to me Like, because I've then thought about that like, oh, okay, so if that's a bit underdeveloped, then my palate is narrow and high right.
Speaker 2:And then that also your airway is also more narrow because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that's. I mean, that's the same bone. Like that top jaw bone is the same as like the top teeth. That bone also forms your sinus, doesn't it? I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm 100% sure.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, so he's like that bone that your like front teeth, top ones are plugged into is like the whole kind of it's your nose, it's your sinus, it goes back into the skull and it's like it has an effect on the development of the back of your cranium, he's like. It's so central to your head and breathing mechanics.
Speaker 1:I was like fuck me like that's super fascinating. I never would have thought that, but I do feel like it's been's super fascinating. I never would have thought that, but I I do feel like it's been slightly easier to put my tongue into that position since using the expanders. I think maybe in the past it just would have been futile for me you can also do.
Speaker 2:I mean, expanders are great. You can also use uh methods, for example, like my functional methods, where they're just tongue exercises and there's you can even google there's a bunch of them out there and you can use those tongue exercises to help also expand that as well yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think using both yeah expanders is obviously an investment and quite a process, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and you'll see, actually, some people that they do this mewing and they do these my functional exercises. What is mewing, tell? I don't know what it is. It's just what we did, like getting the tongue to the roof of the mouth.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's some exercise that they do.
Speaker 1:And then is there an opening of the mouth. Is that a drill, where you hold that position but you open the mouth and close.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of different ones. There's like these things called tongue push-ups and and taco tongue.
Speaker 2:There's all these different ones you can google and there's a bunch of them out there. Yeah and um, yeah, they help with. They help with that process, basically, um, but just also, you mentioned sinuses, so there's something really cool. Um, it's like almost a little like a hack to the human body that a lot of people don't realize. I don't know. Basically, okay, is that?
Speaker 2:Um, usually over from the age of 30 around 30 and older is majority of the the gas nitric oxide is produced in the paranasal sinuses and I don't know if you know much about nitric oxide, but it's a vasodilator so it opens up all your blood vessels. So you know, when you're playing, when you're doing sports or rolling, you know you want, you want your, your blood vessels to be open, more open. Why? Because your blood oxygen can flow through your body more efficiently. Yep, so, and you have, for example, a lot of pre-workout supplements that are to increase nitric oxide production in your body.
Speaker 2:So a natural way to do it is basically humming. So how you do that is basically you close your mouth and you just hum. They say the optimal is a B note, 120 hertz when you hum. I'm tone deaf, so I don't really know what that is. But um, but what happens when you hum is that it creates vibrations within your, within your mouth. And then what happens is they've they've done a couple of, they've done, I think two or three uh science tests on this, and what they found is that, for the average person, the release of nitric oxide increases somewhere between 8 to 21 fold really yeah, an average of 15 fold when they're doing the humming.
Speaker 1:So you know, as a practical way to incorporate a bit of that, would you say like, like I, I think it's. It'd be great right for people to just go and get a bit more of that into their day-to-day. But at least in my experience, the way my, my mind works, if it's not structured in in some way, especially when I'm new to a thing- I won't do it kind of like training.
Speaker 1:It's like if I just have like 90 minutes where I know I'm lifting weights or whatever, I'll get it done. Would you say that like creating some kind of regular practice, maybe a morning thing and having a couple of minutes of humming in there would be a great way to go about that yeah, yeah, I mean you can just, you know, in the shower just hum your favorite song, yeah, or you know.
Speaker 2:And if you're not, if you're not too self-conscious, you know, maybe in between rounds, when you're sparring, you can also hum to recover.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I whistle a lot and I'm thinking that whistling is probably like an inverse of this, because your mouth your mouth breathing and you're just expelling air the whole time okay and you also find that when you're doing, for example, breathing methods, if someone, if you go to, say, yoga class or breathwork class and they try to breathe in and then a slow exhale, you'll find that if you actually hum on the exhale, your exhale can last.
Speaker 1:It can go a lot, lot longer is that because of the concurrent nitric oxide production?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that's got to do some to do with it. But just humming it just it just makes a lot longer if you, because if you can just, for example, the average person can exhale for, like you know, five, ten seconds. If you hum, they can probably do it for 20, 30 seconds yeah, nice, it makes sense to me.
Speaker 1:It is actually quite hard to do a long exhale generally isn't it? Yeah, yeah yeah, like I find, if I'm trying to do some sort of box breathing, that's the most challenging phase of it is the exhale can you give us that?
Speaker 1:I like that tongue drill. Um, we've talked about the humming. Let's say someone's like fuck yeah, brian, super inspired, gonna nail this breathing shit. I'm gonna get up 10 minutes earlier and I'm gonna do something about it. Tomorrow they're gonna hum for a couple minutes. Could you give like a good starting drill or couple of drills that they could throw into that mix?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would start with, yeah, a bit of humming, and I would say it really depends on what the person needs. But if someone, for example, is more stressed or anxious, then I would recommend doing some sort of down regulation breathing method. So something I find great is like triangle breathing or box breathing. So triangle breath is basically you breathe in through the nose, so box breathing, triangle breath, is in and out through the nose, so triangle breath would be you breathe in for, say, four seconds, you then pause for four seconds and then you exhale through the nose for four seconds, so it's like a triangle, whereas box breathing is like a box. So you inhale for, say, four seconds, pause for four, exhale for four and then pause for, say, four seconds, pause for four, exhale for four and then pause for another four, and that's one round and do a few rounds of that.
Speaker 2:So they're pretty simple and pretty easy and you can do it, you know, in the morning you can do it sitting at your desk at the office, you can even do it while you're walking, while you're communing as well, and, for example, box breathing is a breathing method that's it is from pr pranayama, but it's been used by Navy SEALs as well, and the Navy SEALs use it to basically calm and control the nerve system, get it to a place where it's back into balance. So I find I don't know how it is in Australia, but in Hong Kong I work with a lot of CEOs and those kinds of people and they're very highly stressed, highly strong people and straight away they wake up, even before they go to bed. They're just in that sympathetic, dominant state of the nerve system. And so a lot of people they don't really sleep well, you know, they're sleeping one eye open or they just you know they're not really resting because their nervous system is still wired, it's still in that stress state.
Speaker 2:So I'll recommend, even like before sleep and also before food actually, because you want your nervous system to be in the parasympathetic state, that's, a rest, digest and rest and digest state. So that's the optimal state to be in when you're, for example, eating food as well.
Speaker 2:So before, for example, things like eating before sleeping, and you know when you first wake up doing you know a few rounds four, five, six rounds of something like triangle breathing or box breathing, I feel really brings someone back into that kind of calm state to just start the day or to enter sleep that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:I um, I mean, it's my observation that the majority of folks are on that side of things Too highly strung, too stimulated.
Speaker 2:Be it.
Speaker 1:CEO work stress or too much time fucking around on TikTok or Instagram and you're just watching TV Like you're up. So I think that, like I can't really think of anyone, I know that needs to upregulate if I'm honest.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And I can say, like for anyone that's like here and there, I consider that, given this go, I did that sort of thing where I carved out 10 minutes in the morning because I knew that the morning was like, if I just stack this in on top of like my regular get up routine, I'll do it, and did some breath work for I don't't know on and off for a couple of years and I feel like it really set me up to be more aware of it and kind of like you said, like get to a point where I don't have to have a specific practice around it, but I now have a much better awareness of it and so in a sense, I can practice it all the time yeah, I would.
Speaker 2:I would recommend, like, just even for people that are a bit more advanced, is just to do it throughout the day, because your nerve system is going to be fluctuating between, you know, parasympathetic and sympathetic and, as you said, a lot of people more on the sympathetic side of the nerves, the more stress out of the nervous system. But just, for example, instead of waiting for something to happen, just do it preemptively. You know, maybe every couple hours, just do four or five rounds of box breathing and just bring your nervous system back to that kind of more calmer state. So if you just keep bringing it back to a calmer state throughout the day, it's never, it's going to take a lot more for it to get to that state where you, you know it goes into a panic attack or anxiety or something like that. So I mean, they did.
Speaker 2:Actually there's a study that they did, um, where I think it's about 10 years ago, 2011, 2012 or something, where, for example, a panic attack right, a lot of people that experience panic attacks they feel like it comes out of the blue, it just hits them out of nowhere. But that's actually not the case. Up to one hour before the panic attack hits, the body is already starting to show signs of it, but it's just that people are so dissociated, they're so disconnected with their own body they're not even aware of it you know, it's so easy to distract themselves right, hop on your phone, hop on the computer, do something else to distract themselves from this uncomfortable feeling.
Speaker 2:But there's a saying the body whispers before it screams and you got to learn to listen to the whispers. So if you learn to, you know, have this breath awareness, because your breath is connected to everything your nerve system, your heart rate and everything. If you have a better awareness of it throughout the day, then a lot of times it doesn't really get to that place where it begets to like a panic attack or like an anxiety attack or something, and you can kind of regulate and keep it in a more stable state throughout the day, throughout your life.
Speaker 1:Man. I love that. I want to just tie this in for folks listening, and we mentioned there that most people are pretty upregulated, more towards that stress state. I think for grapplers, like people who are training a lot of jiu-jitsu, I think that they are just like generally in that state, but with like petrol poured onto it Because, like, as we know, like jiu-jitsu is super fun and you feel really great and kind of somewhat euphoric after a hard session. But what's actually gone down in most of that session is you've just been highly fucking stressed and so hyper focused on like whatever winning or not getting your ass kicked or, you know, not tapping or whatever. That that's very meditative in its own right and has a huge amount of benefits.
Speaker 1:But I do feel that neurologically it is also very stressful and this is why we have this whole fucking podcast about teaching people how to not, you know, cop all the injuries and not struggle with a lot of those sort of downsides that come about from jiu-jitsu. Our recommendation has always been that you should spend like 10 minutes after class having a little stretch, keep it gentle and focus on nasal breathing and that, like if anyone hadn't connected the dots. That's totally in line with what you're saying, where it's just like have something in there that's going to bring your nervous system back down to a parasympathetic state so that you can start recovering. You can go and have a meal, you can enjoy it, you can have an appetite, you can get the benefits of it, versus you get home and you're still super highly strung and you can't, you don't feel like eating, but you force the food down anyway and then you have a shit sleep and poor digestion and it just rolls on to the next day yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I 100 agree with that is just even after like an intense breathwork session, when someone does. You know, some people go to these breathwork sessions where they just say circular breathing, mouth breathing, and they're just, you know, really in that stress state and, same as jujitsu is, I would spend you know, the last tiny bit of time, or after the class, after this session is just to do some slow breathing, just to land your nervous system, get it back down to a calmer state, because, as you said, when you're in that calmer state, that parasympathetic side of the nervous system, that is when recovery is optimal. So your sleep is going to be better, your recovery is going to be better.
Speaker 1:How long do you think someone would need to sit and just practice their breathing after finishing a training session? Are we talking a couple minutes?
Speaker 2:10 minutes, yeah it probably won't even take that long, even just doing some slow breathing, some longer exhales, like breathing through the nose, long exhales out through the mouth, or a few rounds of box breathing, a few rounds of triangle breathing or something like that, honestly you can probably get. You can probably land someone less than five minutes that's so cool, man brother.
Speaker 1:Thank you appreciate you sharing your expertise with us today. Um, can you? Where can people find your stuff? Give us your instagram. If you've got any events coming up, let's hear about it sure, sure.
Speaker 2:So, uh, my website is primalbwcom bw for breathwork. My instagram is where I do most of the stuff is primal breathwork, uh and um. Yeah, I've got some training programs, but I have a really cool retreat coming up and I'm doing it with some of some some best instructors in the world and we're doing one in Thailand and it's going to be a six-day retreat, five nights, and we're just going to go through various different breathing methods, build on like, have a strong fundamental base and build off that and also have a lot of fun, have adventures. So we're going to mix education and learning and breath work, but also immersing it into the local culture and all the activities that they have in thailand cool bambi rafting, visiting elephants, uh, all that kind of stuff as well when's
Speaker 1:that, uh, that's november 10 to 15 okay, and if people want to info on that, they can find it on your website, it's on yeah, my website, but the direct website will be beyond-breathcom.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Brian, thank you, man.
Speaker 2:Thanks, joe, thanks for having me on Cheers.
Speaker 1:Fam Catch you guys next time.
