So today, I want to show you something pretty cool and how to make some slight changes

in your breath, your breathing to help you lower cortisol and pull yourself out of a stress

strength anxiety and even a panic attack.

Now you can also use this if you have asthma or if you're just not able to sleep.

I use this technique every single night before I go to bed to just put myself into a deep

sleep pretty fast.

All right, so this entire topic revolves around one muscle called the diaphragm, which is a fascinating

muscle. The diaphragm is the only skeletal muscle that has both involuntary and voluntary

function. In other words, it can run automatically without you even thinking about it.

That's called involuntary and you can also control your breathing so you can bypass this involuntary

mechanism. All right, so this diaphragm, it's right underneath your lungs. And if you ever

look at what happens with the diaphragm, it acts like a parachute. So when it contracts, the

parachute goes down and it pulls oxygen into the lungs and they expand. And then when it

releases and relaxes, passively, you can actively relax it. And then the pressure of your lungs,

once you get this oxygen in, will release mostly passively and allow CO2 to exit your body.

A lot of times people when they think about stress, they think about needing more oxygen,

but you really don't need more oxygen when you are in stress. You need a balance of that

CO2 and oxygen to allow oxygen into the cells. CO2 is needed. So let's say, for example,

you have someone in a panic attack, right? What are they doing? The hyperventilating, they're

getting a lot of oxygen with very little CO2. So what can they do to pull themselves out of that

state? They can breathe in a paper bag to get more CO2, which can help the absorption of oxygen.

So it's not just about increasing oxygen. It's about putting in this balance of oxygen and CO2.

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