This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 104.

Editor’s Note: Please know that this podcast transcript is automatically generated and may contain minor errors such as typos and word switches. For more information, be sure to listen to the podcast here.

Unknown Speaker 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman. And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:28

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. This week we are going to be covering breathwork is a topic that we talked about a lot, but we haven't had any experts on yet. So we are super excited to have Steph magenta with us today. Steph is a breathwork facilitator and teacher. She's the co founder of integrative breath facilitator training school. Steph places great importance on the integration aspect of any somatic practices which have the potential to elicit significant significant change or breakthrough for the person experiencing the work. Step is a licensed bodywork therapist and shamanic practitioner with a background in substance misuse and addiction research. She also holds over three decades of work in detox and healing from running her own juice bars and plant based cafes. Steph is passionate about healing through somatic practice, which informs her grounded heart centered and trauma aware approach to the practice of breathwork. She's an award winning advocate of sexual freedom advocacy and has trained and Dr. Betty Martin's wheel of consent. And she is currently training and TR e trauma release exercises.

Unknown Speaker 1:38

So we are excited to have you here with us. Steph, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm very curious about what's about to unfold. And it's always a delight to chat with people who are also invested in wellness.

Unknown Speaker 1:51

Yes, we're so excited. This is a topic we talk about a lot. And we're just excited to have you here to give us all the expertise because we are both very much into breath work and our listeners, I think would love to know kind of all the basics around it. But before we get started, we are going to do our nirvana of the week which is really just something that brought us joy this week made us happy. Put a little smile on our face. Good time to reflect. So I will let Katie kick us off with that.

Unknown Speaker 2:20

Thanks. I think my nirvana of the week was without a doubt seeing my daughter in her school play this last weekend. She has been working so hard for the last two months. And pretty much the whole family came in Amy and her boys came in and the grandparents came in and we went to three shows. She did. She performed for one, three of the public and she did a great job. And it was just fun. She's very comfortable on stage. She lights up on stage. It was really a joy seeing her artwork. She's only nine. So it was it was pretty. I was very proud of her. It was a great moment. What about you? Me? Yes. And I will attest to that because I was there in real life. And she was phenomenal. She's a star. She did great. So congrats, Katie, I would say mine this week. There were a lot, which was nice. But I was just saying to Katie, before we got on that I was at an event this week, an all day event. And it was a no cell phone event which before the event I was quite anxious. But then when I left my cell phone on home, and I was at this event all day, it was truly incredible to be without a phone all day. It was so nice. I felt like I was in the moment I was present. I was having conversations with people I was enjoying the weather. And I mean sad to say that we can't live without our phones. But like honestly, it was a really good reminder to leave my phone at home more. So that brought me some joy this week. What about you staff?

Unknown Speaker 3:50

Well, in the deep end, I

Unknown Speaker 3:53

like you. I've had many and thank you for sharing yours. I always love hearing about other people's appreciation and gratitude. So that's a big part of my practice. I suppose the first one to say is that it's my son's birthday today. He's 23. So that

Unknown Speaker 4:10

is a kind of Nirvana moment where I'm going wow, you know, he's come through a lot. And he completed his degree in psychology during lockdown. And yeah, young people were put under a huge amount of pressure. So I feel really proud of who he is. And I'm happy because the sun is shining here in the UK for possibly the first day.

Unknown Speaker 4:34

And he's out enjoying it. So I get thing that's a significant one for me. That's wonderful, happy birthday to your son. Thank you. Alright, well let's get started because we use this term breathwork a lot and I think Amy and I both have kind of done small breath work self taught that we'll see that we learn from from social media for people like yourself that are but we've never really dove into

Unknown Speaker 5:00

The subject ever talk to an expert about it? So I think a great place to start is is why? Why try it? And why does it work? So well?

Unknown Speaker 5:10

I love this question, because it's like such an elevator pitch question in a way, and I go, Oh, right. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 5:17

And that was the first thing I want to say in response to that is there are so many forms of breath work. And so when you say why breath work, there are multiple answers to that question. Because on a day to day basis, breath work, as many people will know, and some may not is one of the most quickest, most accessible, easiest ways that we can support our nervous system coming back into regulation. So the primary answer to why breathwork is because actually, it relates to what you shared about your Nirvana, because most of us are overstimulated these days through constant availability, accessibility, stimulation, comparison, etc, etc. So anxiety is rising, depression and mental health issues arising. And the more we can find the ways to use embodied practices to help us actually ground and center ourselves, the better for the kind of breath work I teach. If you say why breath work is open, mouth connected breathing, on a day to day basis, it's not what we want to be doing far from it. But for expanded consciousness and trauma release, it's really, really powerful. So why breath work, because it's a readily available tool where we don't have to ingest anything or go outside of ourselves to actually present what's happening for us and learn how to self regulate.

Unknown Speaker 6:42

It's very interesting how powerful the use of breath can be. I know there's so many different types of breath work. And I didn't even know that there was.

Unknown Speaker 6:52

It was like sort of specialized like yourself, but you said you treat to help heal trauma and things like that teach rather to help heal trauma. So

Unknown Speaker 7:03

maybe we should start with the basics. Like, what is what's a simple way that we should be reading on the day day? And so really great question, because I already mentioned, you know, on a day to day basis, we want to be nose breathing, coming into what we call functional breathing, as opposed to dysfunctional or dysregulated breathing, but an awful lot of people breathe in dysregulated ways, then their mouths might be open, they might be not getting the benefits of nitric oxide that only comes through the nose, maybe there's not as much oxygen that's crossing the blood brain barrier going to the vital organs, which when we're mouth breathing, because it's kind of more shallow breathing in a way isn't happening. And also the kind of nose breathing and the slowing down the breathing. To answer the question about what do we want to do on a day to day helps us

Unknown Speaker 7:59

regulate the heartbeat, it helps when we can slow down the breath with intention, we can bring onboard the parasympathetic part of our nervous system. So the part that's involved in rest and digest the part that knows how to feel safe and connected socially and isn't constantly in fight and flight or perception of threat or hyper vigilance, which many of us go into when we're not feeling safe in the world. So the day to day breathing that we want is to learn how to breathe primarily through the nose, and how to slow down the breath so that in times of stress, when our breath will typically increase in pace, and become more shallow, we can go, Oh, I'm feeling anxious, I'm going to just stop, take a breath, maybe put a hand on my heart, feel the breath coming into the belly, it doesn't want to be coming from this upper chest, which is kind of anxiety patterns of breathing.

Unknown Speaker 8:56

Thank you for saying that. Because I have to say, I would imagine most people are breathing through their mouth because I learned about this a few years ago, because I have similar migraines. And when I was talking to someone about it, a doctor, they were like, think about your breathing, because you're probably not breathing most of the day. And I noticed that now, sometimes if I'm talking, or if I'm just sitting there and I'm feeling a certain way, I'm like, wait, I'm not actually breathing. I'm holding my breath. And I notice I'm more aware of it now. So I'm intentional. And I'm like to your point, try to slow down and breathe through my nose. But I noticed a lot of people are just kind of like holding their breath. And now that we're saying it just for anyone who's listening, think about the way you breathe, because that's to your point, a basic principle of just breathing through your nose that I think most people aren't doing and it really makes a huge difference if you think about it, but I feel like half the time I'm talking and we're just holding my breath and holding my breath and you just kind of feel off and then you take a step back and then you breathe through your nose and you're like, Okay, let me calm down but it's such a basic thing that no one

Unknown Speaker 10:00

thinks about.

Unknown Speaker 10:09

And, you know, in part, I think it's because we've got used to having to kind of fight for our space and fight for our words to be heard, because we've, we've lost the capacity for presence in relational experiences, you know, so you'll notice because you interview people, but if you're interviewing somebody, and they're nervous, or they're not regulating their breath, maybe their speaking is rapid and fast, and you'll be kind of feeling it in your own body, like, Oh, I really want this person to take a breath.

Unknown Speaker 10:39

I really want to take a breath, you know, as you're speaking to me, because I work with this all the time in myself noticing, I can in the pauses, slow down my breath with intention. And again, just give myself that capacity to calm myself. Because when we're in situations that bring about slight nervousness, because they're new, or we don't know the people, which is this, you know,

Unknown Speaker 11:03

it's normal that people might feel some nervousness or anxiety. And so just becoming breath aware, literally, the practicalities of slowing your breath, of breathing through the nose of feeling the breath in the belly, will alleviate some of that kind of sympathetic nervous system activation, which then can spiral into kind of much more rapid breathing. And then of course, it's a chain reaction anyway, because then everything starts to move in the body. Because it's all related. You know, it's like our blood vessels are changing. Our heartbeat is changing our palms go clammy, you know, things happen in the body when we're in a sympathetic nervous system, activation, sympathetic, being that fight flight part. So even if we're nervous in a conversation, that might be starting to happen. But if we don't know that, that's what it is, we can be like, Oh my God, why do I feel so strange? Oh, my God, why am I feeling lightheaded? I feel dizzy, I feel clammy. And those enormous, sorry, normal nervous system responses in that part of the nervous system. So once we know that we can work with it. Yeah, I mean that people have to train themselves to breathe through their nose, because I find that I sort of had to train myself,

Unknown Speaker 12:20

I would say so yeah, I certainly had to do that. For me, a lot of the time it was at nighttime, I had kind of mild sleep apnea, or I would wake up with a very dry mouth or not feeling well rested. And so I started training my sleep at nighttime, my my friend got me onto it, because she was using micro porous tape at nighttime, which is a bit it's not, don't just use any old tape. If you try this, by the way, it has to be the pharmaceutical grade micro porous tape that is breathable, and you only need a tiny piece. But she would go to bed, she'd put her earplugs in her eye mask on the tape over a mouth. And she was in a relationship. And I used to laugh and say, Oh my God, you know,

Unknown Speaker 12:59

think of this kind of no intimacy there. She was getting herself in this position where she could really like take care of what she needed to go into deep rest and sleep hygiene is fundamental to good breathing as well. So I tried to and although it felt really challenging the first few nights that I tried it because I didn't like this sensation of having something on my mouth, I noticed that I would wake up, I wouldn't be waking in the night to go to the bathroom, I would be feeling well rested. I would be dreaming and sleeping deeply. And it just felt good. And I carried on and I feel as though I've definitely retrained my breathing now to breathe more in and out through the nose. And if I default from that, I noticed it very quickly.

Unknown Speaker 13:45

That's interesting. I have mild sleep apnea as well and everything you just said like the waking up and going to the bathroom frequently in the middle of the night and everything. It's bothering a lot lately, I was nervous to try the mouth taping but I'm going to try it now. So so it's worked well for you. Oh my gosh. Honestly, it's I mean, it's widely been researched and studied and a lot of dentists now use it because a lot of children will be kind of doing stuff and mouth breathing and it changes the physical structure of the jaw and the face and the teeth and oral hygiene as well because these noses are designed with filters designed with the nitric oxide to help us breathe well. And to do what they're supposed to be doing to get that oxygen through into our system in more effective ways. When we mouth breathe and it's much more shallow our breathing and it's only reaching the top part of the lungs and it's changing the structure of the face. Absolutely without doubt and you only need you know a thin little strip maybe just like five millimeters wide that you can put down this way so that you can still start off by you know, you don't need these great big pieces. It doesn't need to be something that feels really challenging. Yeah, cuz I'm so glad you said that. That it's just in the center because

Unknown Speaker 15:00

I've heard people talk about this. And I envisioned it to be your whole mouth, which like, feels scary. But if it's just in the middle, that feels less intimidating. So that's really good to know. Yeah, I mean, I do. Now I use, if I use it, I don't have to use it very much now, because I have retrained my breathing. And I noticed that I can just automatically sleep more deeply. And occasionally, I'll bring it back out again, if I feel that I'm not breathing well, but people have lots of different capacities for breathing, it might already be compromised by mild asthma or something like that, in which case, you obviously need to consult a physician or an expert who can help you. But otherwise, it's kind of like, yeah, you put the piece there and you're effectively still breathing through the sides of your mouth, but people can feel psychologically more comfortable. And the first put it on I did put it on the whole part. And I had lots of kind of triggers and flashbacks. That didn't feel so great. However, I persevered. And it worked. And I would recommend it. You just don't need huge pieces, though. You know? Yeah. Now that's good to know. Okay, Steph, so do you have some a couple practices that our audience could use, I know I saw your Instagram, you have all these great, different things we can do. I know ones, the hob wrath ones, the box breathing. So maybe there's a few that you could give our listeners, whether it's something they can do at night to kind of get situated and relaxed or during the day, if they just need a little breather like couple little couple little hacks.

Unknown Speaker 16:31

Well, I guess it depends on what you want it for. Because you know, you talk about at night. And I think at night, basically, the most simple thing to do there is simple is simple coherence breathing. So an equal length breath in and out and in and out through the nose. But for some people, if they're experienced, experiencing tension and anxiety, focusing on the breath can amplify that. So I always say to people just do what feels good, adapt to what feels good. And just practice because we don't expect to get good at anything. without practicing. We wouldn't expect to be good at sports, we wouldn't expect to be good at, you know, playing piano if we weren't practicing. And yet breathing is something we just take for granted. So practice, and go slowly and be kind to yourself. So coherence breathing would be just as I said, an equal breath in and out. But when I first came across breathwork, one of my friends pointed this out to me because we were paired up in an exercise and she said to me, are you aware that your exhale is significantly longer than your inhale. So if we were in this exercise, and I was breathing in, I'll give you an example, I hope your listeners can hear and it would be like

Unknown Speaker 17:47

the exhale basically would be kind of two to three times as long as the inhale. And if I tried to bring it into balance, it started to create stress and tension and my breath came up to my upper chest. And what that was because at the time I was doing this I was in burnout from the running of the some of the businesses use described in my intro. And I think it was my body's way of trying to come into parasympathetic, rest and restore from being more accustomed to being in fight and flight, sympathetic activation. You know, go go go stress achievement, busy, busy, busy. And, and so when you start to notice your breath, you go, Okay, so my breath is trying to do that, so I can work with that. So one simple way for people to actually create calm in moments of stress would be to breathe in through the nose, for example, for a count of three or four or whatever's comfortable, and then to use a longer exhale. So intentionally an exhale of say, eight, or breathing in through the nose and on the exhale, creating a sigh of physiological saya.

Unknown Speaker 18:56

And then yes, you're expelling through the mouth, but the physiological side which again has been researched and studied, activates the parasympathetic activates the vagal nerve increases what called vagal tone, which is our capacity to move through different kinds of layers of emotion and experience and feeling. Another really good one for vagal tone is what they call the breath. So you inhale, and then on the exhale

Unknown Speaker 19:27

and you're making a humming noise. What that does is on the one hand, the humming is quite literally stimulating the vagus nerve as it comes down through the neck. But also, the nature of it is a really quick hack to slow down your exhale, because if you both tried that, you would find that if you're humming for as long as it's comfortable, your exhale is automatically become longer. So that's kind of straight Katie.

Unknown Speaker 19:58

Um,

Unknown Speaker 20:00

Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 20:04

Yeah. And it's funny, because kids can play with that, you know? Yeah, that's a good one for kids. D exhale with the spy. I've heard about that one. And I have done it in moments of just being like flustered or on the go, and then you know, and then I hopped in the car and I'm trying to regain my composure, I try that I go.

Unknown Speaker 20:27

And it does, if you do it multiple times it, it relaxes you, is I also heard there's something to the breathing in, almost to fully fill your lungs and then taking another short shot of a n and then sign out is that something? Yeah, that's the kind of double breath intakes where you take a breath and you might breathe in as deeply as you think.

Unknown Speaker 20:57

Right.

Unknown Speaker 21:00

Anytime you're breathing exactly, and you know that that can be a more energizing breath as well, though, and you know, I mentioned at the beginning about depends what your end goal is. So if you're, if you're kind of feeling sluggish, and you need some energy, and I posted this one on my page recently, there was one called the heart breath, where you're standing with your elbows, your arms are at right angles to your body and your, your palms are up loosely.

Unknown Speaker 21:26

You know, just holding them out in front of you and you're inhaling.

Unknown Speaker 21:30

And you're pushing the arms forward and turning the hands over as if you're shaking off water from your fingertips on the exhale. If you do that for a few minutes.

Unknown Speaker 21:41

That really starts to energize you. But people shouldn't do that if they've got some of the Contra indications for breath work, because it can make you lightheaded very quickly.

Unknown Speaker 21:52

And there was a fantastic woman who did a lot of tantra work who worked with Mindvalley. Sam is a Dora who sadly took her own life and passed a few years ago now. And she used to use a version of that hot breath where she would bring her arms down and go yes, yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker 22:13

Yes, yes. To bring in a kind of affirmation with the breath as well. So there are many ways that you can use the breath according to what you need, what you want, how your energy is, you know, and what your current mood is, what your requirements are for the way that you want to either up regulate or down regulate your nervous system, as we call it, because people are different, aren't they? Yeah, I love that. And it's funny, because a lot of the things that I've done a really to relax, but I didn't know that you could use breath to actually energize yourself. So that's actually great. What are some of the contraindications for people that should not be doing breath work? Well, I'm going to reframe that question a little bit. So the contraindications for people who shouldn't be doing open mouth dynamic forms of breath work, because normal functional breathwork is pretty much good for everybody, in fact, is essential. At the open mouth breath work, which is changing our physiology and stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and is connecting every breath will send us into that fight flight response. When we go into a fight flight response, we are discharging a lot of carbon dioxide from the body because there's much more

Unknown Speaker 23:34

than you would normally discharge. So oxygen is coming in. But on a more shallow level, it's not getting delivered through the nitric oxide in the nose, or through the balancing of co2 across the blood brain barrier and to the vital organs because it's basically the same as it would be if you were activating the sympathetic to go into confrontation, fight or flee or flight running away from something. So you're not the same things are happening in the body. But that's preparing you to use up that oxygen by getting away or fighting. And if you're not doing that, because you're lying down in a breathwork session, the oxygen will then bind to the hemoglobin in the blood and restriction start to happen. So you get restrictions of that oxygen getting to other parts of the body. So if you've already got seizures, heart conditions, pre existing lung conditions, high blood pressure, what else low blood pressure, if there's a fainting history, if you're in a delicate pregnancy, if you've had recent major surgery, you've got PTSD, untreated or a history of psychosis, and there's a few other country indications then you don't want to be doing things that are putting you in that highly activated state or that are creating restriction and tension in the body and reducing the flow of oxygen to where it wants to go.

Unknown Speaker 25:00

because then you could elicit seizures or heart issues, you know, people with arrhythmia as well shouldn't be doing that kind of breathing. So those kind of people do come to my breathwork sessions, but they're always given a modified practice. Their advice to get people in this should be taken very seriously, by the way, you know, people go to a breathwork session, and the facilitator is doing connected breath, work, open mouth, breath work, isn't talking about contra indications isn't getting you to sign a waiver that you've taken responsibility isn't telling you how to modify your practice, then walk out the door. Because, you know, come across people who go to these breathwork sessions that are really encouraging catharsis and, you know, come on, and you can do this. And people are in what we call respiratory alkalosis, with their hands in cramping, and they're going and you know, they're really uncomfortable, and they're in a hot sweat. And they're being told that it's because they're holding on to something in that life, and they should just push through it and, and their own boundaries and their own body autonomy and their own self awareness is being ignored in favor of, you know, some cathartic response that actually isn't very healthy. And so I think, you know, that's for me why it's also so important to have trained breath workers who understand, first of all, what's happening physiologically, but also what's happening psychologically and emotionally, because trauma will come up, because the things that we suppress that still in the body, that have come through moments of sympathetic nervous system activation, tend to surface again. And so people can find that they go into spontaneous trauma release a bit similar to what we can go into in Tre, actually. So shaking, quivering, tremoring, jaw, all sorts of stuff that gets stuck in the body. Because we're not like animals who go and find a water spot and shake it all off after they've been, you know, hunted or scared. And we tend to hold it all in, you know, put on a brave face, don't make such a show of yourself, you know, get over it. All those kinds of comments that we get told about things that have actually impacted as deeply just get stored up in the body. And then we get a moment to kind of stop, activate the sympathetic, and those things start to come up again, because the body is always communicating with us. Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. But it's interesting. I've never heard that. No, and it is good to know. Because, you know, yeah. Yeah. And that, and that is your specialty is working with people with the open mouth breathing to tap in and to help heal trauma. Yeah. And such is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. I always say to people, and they say, but I thought you shouldn't breathe through the mouth. And I say, Well, you shouldn't on a day to day basis, and it's very helpful to see them as very different modalities, because day to day functional breathing, which is imperative for you know, good sleep, good digestion, good health, immunity, etc, etc, is completely different to the way that we can unlock trauma and open consciousness in different ways through breath, you know, where we can activate the body's natural systems, you know, DMT, and things like that, so that we can have awarenesses that we wouldn't normally be happening, you know, that, that we are starting to, they call it switching off the default mode networks in the brain. In other words, the habitual response patterns, something happens in these sessions, like over and over and over again, I've seen people heal remarkable stories that have been stuck in their bodies for a very long time that perhaps they wouldn't get to through regular slow nose breathing, for sure. So it's a it's a tool for trauma release. But it isn't only for trauma release. It's also for fun, it's also for exploring consciousness. It's also for, you know, what's what's in my body, what needs to come up, and it could be the tiniest thing, you know, I've spent 40 minutes in a breathwork session, though that not much is going on. And then towards the end, a little tear has come from my eye, and I've released a memory in the most gentle way. But it's never come back and troubled me again after that in the same way, quite literally. That was my story with a memory from when my children were little. And I didn't even know that that was happening in the breathwork session, I just carried on breathing in that way, had this awareness come up right near the end and released it. And literally since that day, it's it just it's like, I made peace with it. And I think wow, you know, things quite miraculous really what I see happening for people. Yeah, it's a really, really impactful way to deal with trauma versus, you know, other methods. So it's another tool people can use if they are struggling with some kind of trauma they want to release. I wanted to go back to the nose breathing because I had two questions. So I've heard or I learned at one point of

Unknown Speaker 30:00

brow about putting your finger on your nose and then breathing through one side and then putting it on the other side. What does that do? Is that or is that a good practice to do for? Again, relaxation? Well, what I want to say there is, you know, I mean, that's typically a yogic practice the alternate nostril breathing is a yogic practice the,

Unknown Speaker 30:20

what do they call it? Front, Z, Ma, I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, I used to do that in my yoga back in the day before lockdown.

Unknown Speaker 30:30

I don't pretend to be an expert on every breathing practice across all kinds of different types. So I can't say all I know is that it tends to be activating the different sides of the brain. And and the people that I've been taught by who've done alternate nostril breathing will say, when you notice that one side is particularly blocked and locked up that it might be that you're aware that that hemisphere of the brain is not as open and clear as it might want to be. But you know, that sounds a bit woolly? Because I don't know is that yeah. Okay, good, good answer. And then what is I always hear about box breathing? What does that mean?

Unknown Speaker 31:07

That's one that is typically used by the Navy Seals and people in combat. And again, in a way, it's just another way to bring awareness to the breath of box breathing is quite literally, you imagine that you are breathing around a box, and you breathe in for, say, a count of four. And you hold for a counter for you're going on the top of the box, you breathe out for a counter for,

Unknown Speaker 31:30

and then you hold for a count of four. So you're studying the breath, and you're also giving the body the chance to build up carbon dioxide, increase oxygen uptake, and you're it's supposed to include increased mental clarity, performance, et cetera, et cetera, which is interesting. Military people use it. And yeah, you know, it's funny, the first time I even realized with breath work was was I don't know, probably five years ago, when I couldn't fall asleep. And I'm a pretty good sleeper, and I was just like, couldn't fall asleep. And I just Googled something. And I found,

Unknown Speaker 32:06

I think it's 47478 breathing. And I started doing that and train myself. In the beginning, it was really hard. And this is when you, obviously, you know, but for the listeners, you breathe in for four, hold it for seven, and then exhale for eight. And it was pretty hard in the beginning, but I really trained myself every night to do it. And then I was getting to a point where I would do one cycle of it and be asleep. And in the beginning, I had to do like three or four cycles, just to kind of like, and I found that that kind of breathing helps me because you weren't just breathing, but you were also counting. So it's a little bit of a mental exercise too. And you just, I mean, it was a great one to, to practice and learn over the years. So that's another tidbit for our listeners. Yeah, yeah, fantastic one that you brought in there. And sometimes I think it's just bringing the mindful awareness to the breath, you know, like you say, is it the counting? Is it actually noticing what's happening in the body and distracting the mind, you know, our ego mind, our brain mind is very, very busy a lot of the time. So some of these embody things, you know, when people are struggling in breathwork sessions to let go, I just say, if you find that you're getting distracted by you know, the shopping, or what you've got to do later on it, just come down to the breath, you know, just come down to focusing on the experience of the breath, entering and leaving the body, the sound of the breath, the texture, whether it's cool or warm, and just

Unknown Speaker 33:30

take a moment to just slow down, you know, I mean, that's what we need in this life, isn't it kind of to slow down to reconnect with, you know, stillness to come more into this inside that moves away from constant stimulation and constant achievement and productivity? Yeah, that's a great reminder that we all need daily and stuff. Thank you so much for your time. You've been very generous with us on your I know, your Fridays are very sacred to us very incredibly grateful. But before we let you go, where can listeners find you if they want to want to work with you and do prep work with you? Well, the the quickest place is probably my website, Stephen magenta.com. Because that links to my social platforms as well. I'm very active on Instagram, as you know, because I think that's how you found me as integrative at integrative breath. But sometimes people go, Oh, what is that but if you just type my name and Steph magenta, and you know, you'll find the main page I do have a backup account because somebody tried to clone me once in that very annoying way.

Unknown Speaker 34:35

Stressful, but the backup accounts got about four posts on it and practically nothing there. But my other pages is very busy. So those are the best places and then we have a breathwork I run a breathwork training program for facilitator training as well. And that's integrative hyphen@breath.com.

Unknown Speaker 34:54

So much I hope everyone that is listening is now breathing better, because I know I am

Unknown Speaker 35:00

I've been paying attention this whole time and I'm like, Okay, let me breathe through my nose. Let me breathe through my nose. It's actually really helped me slow down today. So yeah, thank you so much for being with us. It was so nice to meet you and we're so thankful for your time. Likewise, thank you both a pleasure.

Unknown Speaker 35:17

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