Welcome to episode 258 of Live Happy Now. This is Paula Phelps, thanking you for joining us for another episode.

If ever there was a time to take a deep breath, I would say it's right now. And we have just the woman to walk us through that.

Victoria Albina is a functional nurse practitioner, certified breathwork meditation facilitator,

life coach, and host of the feminist wellness podcast.

She not only understands the mind-body connection, but she has great tips for helping us

use our breath to calm our stress response, boost our immunity, and enjoy each moment

just a little bit more.

Victoria, thank you so much for coming on our show today. Thank you for having me.

Well, we wanted to talk to you because there's a lot going on right now. And you bring such a

unique perspective because you understand both the physical and the mental health aspects of

everything that's going on. And I wondered if you could start by talking about perspective because you understand both the physical and the mental health aspects of everything

that's going on. And I wondered if you could start by talking about how does the physical and

the mental work together. Absolutely. So this is my passion to talk about the psychosomatic

mind-body connection. To do so, I'm going to nerd out pretty hard. We love nerd. Great. Make sure your

pocket protector is firmly in place. Is that all set? You got your safety glasses on? I got my

safety glasses on with the scotch tape. Yes. Oh, I'm so glad the scotch tape really adds something,

you know. It's styling. The mind-body connection is a huge one.

And to talk about that, we need to talk about the nervous system.

So we talk about the autonomic nervous system and something called polyvagal theory.

Have you heard about that?

Yes, but why don't you talk about this? So we understand that the nervous

system, the autonomic, which I remember as automatic, it controls your heart rate, your breathing,

...