Hack Your Body

You are failing.

At the most basic thing ever:

Breathing.

How?

How is it possible to suck at breathing?

Why does it matter anyway?

Here is what you’re doing wrong, how to fix it, and you can hack your body in real-time.

The breath and breathing system in our body is unique.

It combines the unconscious and conscious perfectly.

Think about it:

Your breath runs on autopilot most of the time.

That is your unconscious mind taking charge.

If that didn’t happen, we’d be fucked when going to sleep.

A LOT of systems run unconsciously though, including:

• the cardiovascular system (heart rate, blood flow & pressure)

• the autonomic nervous system (balance between arousal and calm)

• the immune system (response to infection, healing processes, and inflammation)

You can control (or rather change) and improve your heart rate through exercise.

You can boost your immune system by eating right and taking cold showers.

The breath is different.

We can take control of it whenever we want to.

By breathing differently, we can control:

• the cardiovascular system

• the autonomic nervous system

• the immune system

Wait what? (It’s the same list as above, in case you didn’t notice)

Yes.

We’ll get into the how.

But an interesting question also is: Why?

Why can we control these systems via the breath, but not consciously?

→ Your heart rate is too important to control conciously.

I’d guarantee you’d fuck up instantly.

→ The immune system is too complicated, the nervous system too broad.

But controlling the breath is fail-safe.

Easy, no risk attached, the unconscious can always take back control.

Plus:

Read that again.

By changing your breathing pattern, you can change what your brain is capable of

• doing

• experiencing

• learning

and so on.

And breathing can be controlled by the brain.

To control the brain.

It’s just hilarious in a way.

How Breathing Works

There are two ways you can look at breathing:

• from a mechanical perspective

• from a chemical perspective

The mechanics of breathing are pretty straightforward.

Imagine your lung as a pump:

1. It expands = It pulls in air.

2. It deflates = It releases air.

The lung doesn’t have muscles itself.

It can make use of:

• the diaphragm (sits above the liver)
  → regarded as belly breathing, taking deep breaths

• intercostal muscles (seated in your ribs)
  → regarded as chest breathing or shallow breathing

These can both expand the lungs, leading air to come in.

Belly breathing is superior to shallow breathing.

Another mechanical aspect is about how you inhale.

Through mouth or nose.

Most people know by now that nose breathing is simply better, for a variety of reasons.

More on both in a moment.

The chemical POV is about two molecules, O₂ (Oxygen) and CO₂ (Carbon dioxide).

I hope you paid a bit of attention in school.

We need to get O₂ into our cells, it’s necessary for energy production.

We inhale, our lungs are filled with air, and O₂ is transferred into your bloodstream.

The transfer happens in millions of little lung bubbles, called avioli.

They have super, super thin walls connected to capillaries (small blood vessels) so that molecules can pass through.

The breathing reflex isn’t triggered by a lack of oxygen though.

It’s triggered if too much CO₂ is detected in your blood.

As a waste product of our energy production, CO₂ is made.

Which we get rid of by releasing it from our blood into our lungs.

Visualize it like this:

Inhale ➡ Oxygen intake ➡ Oxygen distributed to cells ➡ Energy production⬇
⬆ Exhale ⬅ CO₂ delivered to lungs ⬅ CO₂ is made as waste

Important to note:

We don’t want too much CO₂ in our systems.

→ High CO₂ levels cause panic and anxiety.

But, we also don’t want low CO₂ levels.

→ Low CO₂ levels ALSO cause panic and anxiety

It’s a constant balance our system needs to control.

The last important aspect of breathing:

How it’s connected to your heart rate.

When inhaling, your heart rate speeds up.

Here is a visual explaining how:

In short:

If you want to activate: Focus on longer, more vigorous inhales.

If you want to relax: Focus on shorter, more vigorous exhales.

The difference in heart speed between in- and exhaling is the basis of the recovery metric HRV (which you want to be high).

With all of this said, let’s go into detail how you can fuck up breathing.

What You’re Doing Wrong

There are exceptions to these rules.

Exercise for example.

Mouth breathing and over-breathing, they’re fine when doing it because of physiological effort.

Just keep that in mind.

Mistake Number 1 (the most common):

Mouthbreathing.

You might as well sign up for an early death.

Inhaling through your mouth leads to:

• dental health issues

• sleep disorders (like sleep apnea)

• increased risk of infections

• inferior oxygen intake

Plus, of course, the issue everybody dreads:

The facial changes.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google search:

“Mouth vs. Nose breathing face”

Nose breathing is a must.

More on that in a second.

Mistake number 2:

You overbreathe.

You inhale and exhale too often.

Healthy breathing requires:

• breathing through your nose (as I said above)

• inhaling ~ 6 liters of air/minute

The second one is hard to measure, the following is a good rule of thumb:

Take ~12 breaths per minute.

60/12 = 5.

One breath every five seconds, sounds reasonable, don’t you think?

The truth: The majority of people overbreathe.

The problems?

Not enough CO₂ (exhaling too much = losing too much CO₂) in your system.

Which in turn leads to:

• anxiety and stress levels going up

• reduced blood flow (CO₂ = vasodilator) → dizziness & lightheadedness

• impaired cognitive function

In short, it’s not great.

You could be walking around with those symptoms daily.

Example:

When texting, people tend to switch to mouth- and overbreathing.

Imagine the average person

• grabbing their phone

• checking notifications

• heart racing as they see a message pop up

They’re mouth-breathing, starting to pant a bit, getting all excited for a little digital dopamine hit.

That’s the key:

Stay aware of that relationship, and control your breathe in those moments.

Mistake Number 3:

Very closely tied to number 2, so I’ll keep it short.

You’re chest breathing.

Shallow breathing like a scared cub.

Your power comes from your belly (from a spiritual perspective).

Use it.

You should be breathing deep into your stomach, with your belly bulging outwards, taking slow and controlled breaths.

All the time.

As motivation:

This is how you become more confident and relaxed.

Deep and calm breathing.

People pick up when you are excited to talk to them and start breathing like a little bitch.

It’s true.

Don’t be a shallow breather.

Mistake number 4:

The last one.

You’re even breathing wrong at night.

You may be mouth breathing at night and have no idea (we’re going to fix that).

This will lead to the same problems I talked about before.

Another problem arises though.

Interestingly enough, during the night, people tend to start underbreathing.

This will disrupt your sleep, as you’re forced to wake up and regulate your breathing.

You won’t even remember it happened.

To regulate this, you have to train your unconscious to breathe better.

Here comes how.

Fix Your Breathing

Luckily, we can combat all the mistakes I mentioned (and more) through some pretty straightforward protocols.

Please, don’t think you have to incorporate every breathing exercise I list.

That’s unreasonable.

Pick the one that sounds the coolest, give it a try (daily), and revisit this article whenever you feel you need to.

The Physiological Sigh is the best-proven method to instantly reduce stress.

There you have breathing hack number 1:

Do this to become calm instantly, use it whenever you want.

By making your exhales longer, you slow down your heart rate.

With the double inhale, you “revive” some avioli (the lung bubbles where O₂ and CO₂ transfer take place) that may have collapsed throughout the day.

Cyclic Sighing is hitting the repeat button on this, for 3-5 minutes.

Sit down, as you would for meditation, and perform the Physiological Sigh for an allocated time.

This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, aka your rest-and-digest system.

Benefits include, but aren’t limited to:

• lowering stress levels

• reducing resting heart rate (good)

• enhancing HRV (very good)

These are the effects you get throughout the day (and night), not during or immediately after you perform the exercise.

Just 3-5 minutes of cyclic sighing daily is enough.

Immediate effects also include:

• clarity of thought

• sense of calmness and control

• a feeling of peace

This is a protocol aimed at improving your CO₂ discard rate and therefore CO₂ tolerance.

What?

To not go into detail: It’s important.

It further enhances other benefits of overall better breathing.

Remember that the breathing reflex isn’t triggered by a lack of O₂ but too much CO₂?

Your CO₂ tolerance determines how long you can hold your breath.

Freedivers for example have amazing CO₂ tolerances, they can hold their breath for minutes on end.

And you can train this aspect of your breath through box breathing.

It’s called “box” because you’re breathing in squares, so to speak.

Here is how it works (also do seated):

The 5 seconds are not the rule, you decide how long you want your exhales, etc. to be.

If you have a low CO₂ tolerance, you might not be able to go for that long comfortably.

If you have a high CO₂ tolerance, the 5 seconds might be too easy.

You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable while performing it.

This is a breathing protocol to reduce stress, not make your lungs explode.

Box breathing is also used to train your unconscious breathing to be better regulated and to stop over-breathing.

I’m sure you have heard of the “Ice-Man” Wim Hoff, he does loads of cool stuff with cold.

He is also the inventor of Wim Hoff Breathing, which he uses to stay in ice-cold environments for longer.

The breathing protocol can be practical for tons of different situations though.

Mainly, if you want to:

• get yourself activated

• reach a state of mental clarity

Here is how it works:

(CAUTION! There is a risk of passing out doing this protocol! No joke. Do it in a safe environment → Not near water!)

You can repeat this for another 1 or 2 rounds.

How does it work?

1. First, by emphasizing your inhales, you speed up your heart rate
   → your body and brain get activated
   

2. You overload your system with oxygen
   → which is a good thing every once in a while, considering your brain is O₂-deprived from all the shallow breathing you’ve been doing
   

3. Adrenaline and endorphins are released
   → leads to even more activation and an increase in alertness and energy, as well as mood elevation
   

4. CO₂ levels go down because you exhale a lot as well
   → temporary shifts are fine and can cause the body to readjust a fucked up CO₂/O₂ balance
   

5. Multiple other benefits
   → including improved immune system function, better cold resistance, improved focus, etc.

With the breath holds and the rapid in- and exhales, the method takes advantage of many breathing aspects.

This protocol is literally hacking your body.

Just with 3-5 minutes of breathing, you completely alter your brain state.

Try it out.

This is repeating what I call “purpose breaths” for a few minutes, similar to the cyclic sighing protocol.

Remeber I mentioned that our (spiritual) power comes from our bellies?

This is how you train to access it.

From a scientific standpoint, you are training diaphragmatic breathing, which is also healthier (in resting states) than chest breathing.

The concept is very simple.

This is how it works:

Again you can repeat this for 3-5 minutes.

By forcing the breath into the belly FIRST, you train belly breathing.

It’s also kind of meditative, as it requires some level of focus to breathe correctly.

This isn’t about a specific protocol.

It’s a few tips on how to use breathing in everyday situations.

You can do these whenever you remember to.

1. Check if you are nose breathing.

Whenever you catch yourself mouth breathing, switch.

By consciously making that decision over and over again, you train your unconscious to nose-breathe more.

“But wHAt iF iT’s HaRd”

Shut up. You train nose breathing by simply forcing yourself to do it more often.

It’s going to get better, during the day and at night.

2. Check if you are belly breathing.

Works the same way.

Whenever you notice you’re breathing like a b*tch, force yourself to inhale DEEP.

Can’t emphasize this enough.

Again, the more often you force yourself to do it, the more habitual it becomes.

3. Exercise

You will logically breathe differently during exercise.

First thing:

→ when doing light cardio, try to nose breathe as best as you can

Second:

→ when lifting heavy and going hard, alter your breathing patterns.

How?

In those cases, you want to get your heart racing.

Breathe faster and take forceful inhales.

When inhaling before going into a set, take a deep belly breath and tense your abs.

This will force pressure on your core, making you more stable, therefore giving you a strength boost.

Don’t forget to exhale when executing the hard part of the rep and inhale when you’re in a neutral position again.

4. Sleep

You can’t queue your breathing during sleep.

Sleep-breathing problems stem mostly from mouth breathing, so

• nose-breathe more during the day (makes it easier to do it at night)

• tape your mouth shut lightly with medical tape at night

There should only be a slight resistance when trying to open your mouth.

If you do struggle with nose-breathing, you’re going to wake up if you run low on air, so don’t worry.

Do some research on how it’s done correctly if interested.

Thank you for your attention!

Breathing is much cooler than we think it is, and so useful when used correctly.

Until next week,

~ Improvement Wolf