By Ben Mooney
•
August 9, 2023
I have grown to love The Huberman Lab Podcast and Breathwork. I had such profound experiences with breathwork that I decided to take the training to become a breathwork facilitator. I believe breath is such a powerful tool to regulate our nervous systems; perhaps one of the most powerful ones we possess. The Physiological Sigh is something that everyone can use in real time. It works, and there is a great biological explanation. Andrew Huberman PhD. talks extensively about the Physiological Sigh in The Huberman Lab, and I am so excited to share this information! If you are stressed, it’s great to get a massage, soak in hot springs, go for a run, or go to yoga, but in reality, you often experience emotional turmoil in the moment. Which is why it's so important to have a tool for that moment. It is very hard to control your mind when you are in intense states of stress. Good luck being intentional or channeling inner wisdom of mindfulness at the exact moment something is driving you crazy. What do you do? Perhaps you have just enough mental capacity to temporarily think about your response before you react. You need a real time tool. I will try not to get too geeky, but there is a great biological component to this. First, a simple explanation: If you want to slow down your heart, lengthen your exhales in relation to the inhales. Calming your nervous system can happen quickly through a long exhale. Priming the exhale with an oxygenated inhale will help deliver oxygen to your blood and eliminate carbon dioxide. Finally, using the skeletal muscles of the diaphragm is a tool to fast-track this process. If this information is good enough, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs, and jump ahead to learn how to incorporate the Physiological Sigh as a reaction to in-the-moment stress. Breath controls heart rate through reactions between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. When you inhale, your diaphragm moves down as your lungs and heart temporarily expand. As a result, the blood in your heart is at a lower volume than prior to your inhale (in relation to the space in the heart), and your heart moves more slowly. The SA (sinoatrial) node in your heart registers the rate of blood flow, and acts as the pacemaker for your heartbeat. The SA node is constantly trying to achieve a balance of pressure and optimal oxygen distribution of blood throughout your body. A longer inhale causes the SA node to send a signal to your brain that blood is moving more slowly to your heart. The brain sends a return signal to the heart to speed up the heart rate to produce more oxygenated blood flow to muscles throughout your body. Therefore, if you want your heart to beat faster, inhale more vigorously than your exhales. Additionally, if inhales are completed over longer time periods than your exhales, you speed up heart rate. This creates a sympathetic activation response and is a great tool if you need to increase your attention or if you are tired (Journal of General Physiology, 9/13/10 136(3) 237-241, H. Peter Larson). The opposite is also true. If you want to slow down your heart rate and calm yourself, capitalize on the relationship between heart rate, diaphragm, and brain. When you exhale, the diaphragm moves up and gets smaller. The blood volume of the heart is flowing faster through the heart, and the SA node recognizes the faster flow of blood. The SA node sends a message to the brain to slow the heart rate. The parasympathetic nervous system is activated in your brain, via the vagus nerve and baroreceptors in the arteries as well as its relational connection to the diaphragm, and it sends a return signal to slow your heart down. Take a long exhale to calm yourself. Now, let's focus on your lungs for a moment. Think about how you breathe when you experience stress - often it is shallow. You have tiny sacks in your lungs called alveoli. The job of alveoli is to expand and contract as oxygen is inhaled and circulated into your blood. When you are stressed, the alveoli tend to collapse and are not as efficient. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide builds up in your bloodstream, increasing agitation. Your body will want to replenish the blood with rich oxygen and clear out the carbon dioxide at this time. Finally, the diaphragm is unique because it has the ability to be subconsciously controlled through natural processes similar to your spleen, pancreas, intestines, or stomach, AND as mentioned earlier, you can also voluntarily expand and contract your diaphragm with skeletal muscle control. You don't need to think about breathing, but you have the choice to override and manipulate your breath. As a result, you can do double or triple inhales and control the timing of your breathing for speed, capacity, and duration. Through a double inhale, you can efficiently re-inflate the alveoli, and cue your nervous system to focus on intentionally moving out of the shallow breathing pattern. The Physiological Sigh: Double inhale - first for one second, with your second inhale shortly after for ½ to ¾ of a second - to sneak in more air. Hold for several seconds, then perform a long exhale. Through my breathwork training, I learned if you combine your long exhale with a hum or audible sound, and you recruit the superpowers of the vagus nerve (your 10th cranial nerve and the longest and most complex of all cranial nerves) for a deeper calming effect - but this may not be appropriate in the middle of a staff meeting. Repeat this 1-3 times, or more until you gain your desired result or at least enough to find mental clarity to calm your reaction. The double inhale reinflates the alveoli fully in your lungs and the long exhale rids your body of the carbon dioxide, modulating your stress response through slowing your heart rate and calming your nervous system. This is a fast, hard-wired way to lower your internal reaction to stress the moment you experience it. I would recommend practicing it so it becomes immediate. Think of moments where you find yourself to be stressed and imagine using your physiological sigh as you proceed through that moment. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse so it becomes more instinctual. This can be applied during weight lifting, at times of the day when you intentionally want to relax, as part of a calming routine before sleep, and certainly if you are triggered in the moment of a life stressor.
