Every topic felt too small. Or too big. Or not quite right for the occasion. And if that doesn’t feel enough like Goldilocks for you, I started drafting this post multiple times and kept changing it.

I considered writing about the history of breathwork, or listing 100 things I’ve learned, or saying something exceedingly profound trite about the breath as a metaphor for life.

And then somewhere around draft four (maybe five?), I noticed what my body was doing while I was overthinking this.

My stomach was in knots.

And so it turns out that that is exactly what this post is about.

If you’ve been here for any part of the ride, thank you. Now let’s get into it.

Your Gut Has a Brain of Its Own

Your gut contains anywhere from 200-600 million nerve cells. Scientists call this the enteric nervous system. Some of them call it the second brain, and even though that’s not literal, it kind of is.

It’s a separate, complex neural network lining your entire digestive tract, from your esophagus to your rectum, capable of operating largely independently of the brain in your skull. (Let us take a moment to note that this 100th blog is also the first – and surely one of, if not the only – times I’ve ever written “rectum” in a post.)

Your two brains are in constant communication. Their primary channel is the vagus nerve, which is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It runs from your brainstem through your chest and into your abdomen.

What’s even more wild is that about 80% of the signals on that nerve travel upward, from gut to brain, not the other way around. Your digestive system is constantly sending your brain information – about your physical state, your environment, and even your emotional experience.

Gut feelings are not just poetry. They’re neuroscience.

Digestion is the First Thing to Go

When your nervous system shifts into sympathetic mode – the activated, alert state that high achievers spend a meaningful portion of their day in – digestion is physiologically deprioritized. Blood flow moves away from the digestive organs and toward the muscles and systems needed for immediate response. Motility slows. Digestive enzyme production drops. The gut goes into standby.

This is why, in the middle of an intense workout, you’ve probably never had to stop to use the restroom. Your body is very much focused on the work at hand.

And it’s also why stress shows up as bloating, cramping, acid reflux, constipation, or my personal favorite, that vague, low-grade digestive wrongness that’s hard to name. It’s not psychosomatic. It’s your body doing exactly what it’s designed to do… and what it’s designed to do under perceived threat is incompatible with digesting your lunch.

The problem is that most people spend a chunk of the day in a state the nervous system reads as active pressure. Even when the actual threat is just a full inbox and a looming deadline, digestion suffers accordingly, and for some, chronically.

Give Your Internal Organs a Massage

The diaphragm is the primary muscle for breathing. It sits directly above your stomach, liver, and intestines. When you breathe shallowly (the default under chronic stress), the diaphragm doesn’t move much. When you breathe slowly and deeply, it drops with each inhale and rises with each exhale, making direct physical contact with your digestive organs with every single breath.

This does two things at once. The mechanical movement of the diaphragm gently massages the stomach and intestines. And the slow, extended exhale that comes with deep diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, shifting the nervous system from sympathetic to parasympathetic – that is, from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.

You are using your breath to bring your gut back online.

Sounds like a strong statement, but the research is there. A randomized controlled trial found that slow diaphragmatic breathing significantly improved both symptom severity and bowel function in people with IBS. Separate research showed that it reduces acid exposure in people with GERD. A 2025 study found that three minutes of breathing exercises three times a day, practiced over six weeks, meaningfully improved bloating symptoms.

The most practical time to apply this is before you eat.

Most of us start a meal already in “go” mode: still in the last meeting mentally, checking something while we chew, eating standing at the counter. But your digestive system needs a parasympathetic signal before it can do its job well. A few slow, deep breaths before you pick up your fork is not a wellness affectation. It is a physiological primer.

Before You Take a Bite

Sit down. Place one hand on your belly and one on your chest. Take a slow breath in through your nose; let your belly push into your hand first, then let the breath expand your ribcage outward. Your chest should stay relatively still. Exhale slowly through your nose, letting your belly flatten all the way. Completely exhale before the next breath begins.

Try it for two minutes, keeping the breath slow and full.

It’s not about trying to relax (though you probably will). It’s about giving your nervous system a signal it already knows how to respond to: that this is a safe moment, digestion is allowed, and the inbox will still be there in ten minutes.

Your second brain is paying attention. Give it something useful to work with.

Last Gasp

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, there’s much more in my free weekly newsletter, The Full Exhale. Sign up and I’ll send you three breaths you can use to change your state on the go, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Grab it here →

It’s late, and you’re tired. Truly tired, not just telling yourself to go to sleep. You get into bed… close your eyes… and then your brain announces it has 23 things to discuss.

Tomorrow’s meeting. The thing you said in that conversation last week. Whether you turned off the downstairs light. A memory from 2011 that has absolutely no reason to surface and yet whoomp, there it is.

You tell yourself to stop. You breathe (kind of). You check your phone, feel guilty about it, put it down, try again.

It’s not a character flaw. This is your nervous system is doing its job. The job happens to be wildly inconvenient at 11pm.

Your Nervous System Can’t Tell Time

The autonomic nervous system – the part running your heart rate, digestion, breathing, and most of what happens in the background of your daily existence – doesn’t operate on a schedule. It responds to signals.

During the day, most of us spend a good stretch of time in sympathetic activation: alert, responsive, ready to handle whatever shows up. There’s an extent to which that’s necessary and useful.

But this state is not one your nervous system exits automatically just because you changed into pajamas and turned off the light.

The system needs a cue.

Convincing yourself “okay, I’m going to sleep now” is not a physiological cue. It’s a thought. Thoughts are sentences that move through the prefrontal cortex. Meanwhile, the autonomic nervous system is based in your hypothalamus – a different part of your brain.

This is why so many people struggle to unwind at night. They’re trying to shift a body state using thought alone. And then they feel guilty when it doesn’t work!

Why Thinking Doesn’t Cut It

Your prefrontal cortex can read every sleep hygiene article on the internet, understand that you need at least seven solid hours, and sincerely intend to wind down. None of that changes your heart rate, your cortisol levels, or where your nervous system is sitting.

And being based in two different parts of the brain means the cognitive layer and the autonomic nervous system don’t always operate in tandem. Remember how your nervous system doesn’t calm down based on a schedule? It also doesn’t calm down just because you tell it to.

What the nervous system does respond to is physiology: muscle tension, breath rate, the length and pace of your exhale. These inputs travel through different pathways and speak a language the body actually understands.

A Weird Way to Settle In for Sleep

Chandra Bhedana translates to “moon-piercing breath”. Sounds poetic, but not especially meaningful until you discover that it’s left nostril breathing. This is one of the more “feels weird at first” techniques I teach. It’s also one of the more consistently effective for sleep.

The practice is exactly what it sounds like: closing off one nostril and breathing only through the other. Preliminary research (alongside the anecdotal evidence that comes along with thousands of years of practice) suggests that left nostril breathing activates the parasympathetic (rest and digest) branch of the nervous system.

Ready to stop your brain from bouncing around like a pickleball?

Find a comfortable position. Lying down is perfect, especially if you’re getting ready to sleep. Use your right thumb to gently block your right nostril. Your left nostril stays completely open.

Inhale slowly through the left nostril for a count of five or six. Steady and even, no forcing.

Exhale through the left nostril for the same length of time, a count of five or six. Let it go all the way before the next breath begins.

Start with six breaths, and if you like it, add a few breaths at a time, aiming to get to 10-15. If you care more about duration, start with a minute, then work your way up to 3 minutes by adding a few breaths at a time.

Try it and see if you notice a shift: muscles loosening, eyelids getting a little heavier. That litany of thoughts running through your brain getting slower and quieter. A lot of people find that this technique helps them feel a little cooler as well if they’re running warm.

You don’t have to believe this will work. Your nervous system doesn’t require your buy-in; it just responds to input! Go for it and see. You have nothing to lose but a few restless minutes when you’re not sleeping, anyway.

(Note: avoid this technique if you’re pregnant or have heart conditions, low blood pressure, asthma, bronchitis, or a cold.)

Last Gasp

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.” — Homer, The Odyssey

The Breathing & Balance Hub includes sleep-specific breathwork sessions that are short enough to do at 11pm, and practical enough to actually work. Ready to start sleeping better this week? Join here.

The difficult email. The conversation that didn’t go the way you planned. The unexpected news, or the small but sharp thing that landed wrong. The situation is technically resolved. You’re fine... yet something hasn’t quite returned.

You’re still carrying the charge of it. Still a few degrees off your own axis. You know, intellectually, that things are okay – and still, you don’t quite feel like yourself.

That gap, between the thing resolving and you actually feeling like yourself, is where nervous system regulation lives.

Most People’s Idea of Regulation is Wrong

Regulation has become a fixture in wellness language, and most people have inherited a flawed definition of it.

They think it means staying calm. Not reacting. Rising above the fray. Managing your emotions so gracefully that nothing much seems to reach you.

That’s not regulation. That’s performance… or in many cases, suppression.

A regulated nervous system still responds to stress. It still activates when something requires activation. It still goes quieter when it needs to recover.

The difference isn’t the absence of a reaction. It’s the speed of the return.

What regulation actually describes is the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems operating in balance. One branch activates when a response is needed, the other brings the system back down. A healthy nervous system is able to surf those waves and return to neutral, rather than remaining flat all the time. (Dysregulation is what happens when that return gets disrupted – when activation keeps outpacing recovery and the system stays stuck.)

It’s Not Just About Calming Down

Here’s something else that often gets missed: regulation isn’t only about coming down from too much.

It also applies to coming up from too little.

The flat feeling after a long stretch of depletion. The emotionally checked-out afternoon. The version of you that’s functional but not quite present. That state also represents a nervous system that’s drifted from center. It’s just gone in the other direction.

A truly regulated system has flexibility. It can activate when activation is useful, settle when settling is needed, and, crucially, find its way back to neutral in either direction. Not suppressed calm. Not forced energy. Just you, returned to yourself.

As the primary part of the autonomic nervous system you can consciously work with, your breath can help you access this. And you can breathe in certain ways that don’t necessarily push you in either direction, but into neutral balance.

A Subtle Return to Equilibrium

Dirgha pranayama (or three-part breath) is different from diaphragmatic breathing, which focuses primarily on the belly. This technique engages the entire respiratory range in sequence, returning your breathing to its complete, natural state.

Here’s how to do it.

Sit comfortably with your spine upright, or lie down. Place one hand on your belly and one on your chest.

Breathe in slowly through your nose. As you do, let your belly expand first. You want to feel it rise gently under your hand. Then, continuing that same inhale, let your ribcage expand outward to the sides. Then let the breath travel all the way up through the chest and into the collarbones, filling from the bottom of your lungs to the top. The whole thing is one continuous motion – belly, ribs, chest – not three separate steps.

Then exhale from the top down: chest releases, ribs draw in, belly falls. Let all the air go fully before starting your next breath.

Do 6–8 full dirghas. Slow and complete on each one.

You might not notice a definitive shift towards calm or a surge of energy. It may be more subtle, like something settling back into its right shape. That’s because when you’re activated, breathing tends to contract up into the chest, shallow and tight. When you’re flat, it also shallows out, just differently.

In either case, the three-part breath returns your breathing to a fuller state. And you start to feel a little better without necessarily being able to clarify why.

Like all my favorite breaths, you can do this one anywhere: in your car, at your desk before a meeting, in bed when you’ve realized you’re still carrying something from six hours ago. (I personally dig this one lying down.)

You’re not trying to change how you feel. You’re just breathing… and somehow, the change simply happens.

Last Gasp

“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”

— Aldous Huxley

P.S. The Breathing & Balance Hub includes dozens of short, practical practices for returning to yourself after whatever the day brings. Sessions start at 2 minutes and go up to 58 minutes. If you’ve been thinking about joining, there’s a special offer open until Friday, May 8. Get the details here →

The tension is thick with some combination of unspoken conflict, bad news, or just too many people running too hot. But then someone walks in, and without seeming to do anything beyond that, something shifts. Not entirely. But noticeably.

It’s not a personality thing. It’s not charisma – they may not have even spoken. It’s that their nervous system broadcasts a signal other nervous systems respond to.

Some people are able to do this innately, without being aware of it. If that’s not you, though, you can train your nervous system to be able to do it.

How?

And more importantly, why would you want to?

What makes people feel safe

Most people have heard of the two classic states of the autonomic nervous system: fight-or-flight (your sympathetic, high-alert branch), and rest-and-digest (your parasympathetic, recovery-mode branch). But psychiatrist and neuroscientist Stephen Porges identified a third state that doesn’t just calm you down, but actively signals safety to the people around you.

He called it the ventral vagal state, and it operates differently from either of the other two. It governs the muscles of your face, the tone of your voice, your ability to hear and process human speech clearly in a noisy environment. It’s the physiological foundation of what we experience as genuine presence – the condition under which real listening, real connection, and real trust are most possible.

When you’re in this state, you’re not just regulating yourself. Your nervous system is broadcasting.

Porges described this in The Polyvagal Theory (2011), and the research that followed has continued to build the case that the ventral vagal state is social by design and evolved specifically to support human connection. And accessing it isn’t a matter of deciding to be calmer – it requires a primarily physiological shift over a cognitive one.

Nervous system states are contagious

Your nervous system state isn’t a private experience. It’s social information, and it moves through a room before your words do.

Neuroscientists use the term “co-regulation” for the way human nervous systems influence one another. In many studies, when people interact, their heart rates, breath rhythms, and even neural activity can begin to synchronize. Research suggests this alignment comes more quickly and easily when one person is in a more regulated state.

This is why certain people make a room feel different when they walk in. Why the regulated parent can de-escalate a meltdown not by saying the right thing but by arriving in a different state. Why some people leave you feeling clearer and more settled after a conversation, while others leave you vaguely depleted.

Good news: the ventral vagal state is accessible on purpose. Your breath is the most direct route in.

A breath that soothes like the ocean

The vagus nerve is the primary pathway into the ventral vagal state. It’s the longest, most complex cranial nerve in the body, running from the brainstem through the heart, lungs, and gut. This nerve responds measurably to slow, controlled breathing patterns.

Most breathwork techniques work mainly through breath rate and ratio. The one I’m about to share adds a physical element to the mix.

Ujjayi breathing, or ocean breath, creates a slight constriction at the back of the throat during both the inhale and the exhale. This narrowing produces a soft, steady internal sound (kind of like the ocean, or maybe Darth Vader), which seems to provide additional vagal stimulation.

Here’s your how to:

Sit comfortably with your spine upright. Close your mouth. Take a slow breath in through your nose, and gently narrow the back of your throat. Not a full closure, just a slight constriction, the way you might fog a mirror but with your mouth shut. You should hear a faint, even sound. Inhale for 5–6 counts.

On the exhale, maintain the same gentle constriction. Keep the sound even and steady as the breath releases, again for 5-6 counts. Let the exhale complete fully before the next breath begins.

Start with a minute or two. If you dig it, keep going.

See if you don’t notice a gradual slowing down, a quality of settling, a sense of actually being in the moment you’re in. That’s your ventral vagal state doing what it was built to do.

One other thing worth noting: this technique can be invisible in context. The throat constriction doesn’t show, and it doesn’t have to be loud. You can use it for 30 seconds before a difficult conversation, in the moments before you walk back into the house after a long day, at the top of any situation that asks something of you. No one will know, but the people around you may very likely feel it.

Last Gasp

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” — Peter Drucker

P.S. The Breathing & Balance Hub includes on-demand sessions – short, practical practices that fit into real situations, not just quiet mornings. Sessions start at 2 minutes. If you’ve been thinking about joining, I’ve got a special offer coming next week. Sign up here for 3 of my favorite breath techniques (it’s free) and I’ll add you to the waitlist →

It’s not bad advice. You may want to punch them in the moment, but it really is not bad advice. Deliberate breathing during a stress response absolutely can help.

But there’s a part of the explanation that almost never gets included. And that part? It’s not about the breath you’re taking in.

What Makes Oxygen Work

Oxygen gets all the glory.

We talk about it like it’s the only thing that matters in a breath: the prize, the point, the reason we bother. Carbon dioxide, meanwhile, we treat as waste. The exhale’s job. The byproduct.

But CO2 does something critical that most people simply don’t know about.

Your red blood cells carry oxygen through your bloodstream, but they don’t release it automatically; they release it in response to carbon dioxide. This is called the Bohr effect, described over a century ago by Danish physiologist Christian Bohr.

Ultimately, your tissues don’t just passively stand by taking in oxygen like a plant does sunlight. Your cells receive the oxygen they need when there’s enough carbon dioxide present to trigger the handoff.

So CO2 isn’t just a waste product. It’s a signal that helps your body to actually use what you’re breathing in.

A Silent Pandemic

Here’s where this gets relevant to everyday life.

Chronic stress – the kind that runs quietly in the background for months – drives faster, shallower breathing. Not dramatically. You’re not hyperventilating. But the speed creeps up, the depth shifts, and over time that pattern becomes a kind of default.

Faster breathing blows off more CO2 than the body needs to lose. When CO2 drops below optimal levels, a predictable set of symptoms follows: a higher heart rate, light-headedness, brain fog, vague restlessness, a low-grade sense that something is off without a clear reason why.

Sound familiar?

These are the same symptoms most people attribute to stress or anxiety.

And they often do arrive during stressful periods… but a significant part of what you’re feeling may be due to what the stress is doing to your breathing, which is in turn affecting your blood chemistry.

The practical implication: when you’re already over-breathing, taking a big deep breath blows off even more CO2. It can feel like relief in the moment, but won’t do anything to address the underlying issue.

How Long Can You Go?

Soviet physician Konstantin Buteyko began developing his method in the 1950s after observing that many of his patients with respiratory conditions and anxiety were breathing too quickly. His central argument was that over-breathing underlies a wide range of symptoms, an idea which was very controversial.

Dr. Buteyko’s core practice is simple.

Sit comfortably. Take one normal breath in through your nose, then let it out normally through your nose. Gently pinch your nose closed and hold your breath, counting the seconds until you feel a definite signal that your body wants to breathe.

You’re looking for the first clear sign. You’re not waiting for it to become an urgent, pressing need. Don’t push for a specific number – you just want to feel that finite nudge to take in some air.

That’s your stopping point. Release, breathe gently through your nose for :10-:30 seconds, and then start again. The break should be long enough that by the time you start your next hold, you’re back to breathing calmly and lightly.

Repeat this three to five times.

That comfortable hold gives you a window into your current CO2 tolerance. A number in the twenty-something-seconds range is typical. Forty seconds or more indicates a well-adapted system and good breath control.

(If you’re surprised by how short yours is, lots of people are, so don’t feel bad!)

And you’re not just taking a test for the hell of it. Breath holds trains your body to become more comfortable with slightly higher CO2 levels. Your breathing starts getting more efficient without you even knowing it. The effect over time: less background noise, clearer thinking, a nervous system that isn’t running a low-grade alarm beneath the surface.

It’s as if your breath is asking you, almost paradoxically, to do a little less.

Last Gasp

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

P.S. Want more surprising tips to improve your everyday life? The Full Exhale is my free newsletter. Get a breath technique, a perspective, and a little bit of practical wellness in your inbox every week. Subscribe here, and I’ll send you three of my favorite breaths the moment you do.

P.P.S. You probably know this but I am not a doctor, I’ve never played on one TV, and what I say is not medical advice.

Apparently we were both startled. After a beat, it took a flying leap into the pool.

The edge of the pool has a lip. The iguana couldn’t figure this out and thrashed around a bit before deciding to chill at the bottom. At which point, I did what any sane person would and called for help.

In Florida, iguanas are an invasive species. Removal is both legal and, in this area, not even slightly remarkable. My neighbor arrived with what I will call reinforcements and a plan. (Yes, he’s a very good neighbor, I know.)

The details involve a very undignified iguana. I’ll leave it at that.

What I will tell you is that by the time I was cleaning up, I still felt edgy and jumpy. My heart rate was up. I was laughing, and also somehow still wired.

The iguana was gone, but my nervous system had not gotten the update.

My Body Staged a Full-On Emergency

When something unexpected and alarming occurs, your body stages an acute stress response. Doesn’t matter if that “something” turns out to be fine. Is it a funny story by the next day? Great. But in the moment? Doesn’t matter.

This is your threat-detection system doing exactly what it was built to do.

As soon as your brain registers something alarming, your hypothalamus fires. Stress hormones start flooding your bloodstream. Your heart rate climbs, blood vessels constrict, digestion pauses, and your muscles prime for action. Your body does not wait for additional information. It responds first and processes later.

This is the system that kept our ancestors alive.

The problem is that it makes no distinction between threats that require sprinting and threats that require standing in your backyard watching your neighbor show an aquatic rodent who’s boss. The cascade is the same. And once you’re activated, the recovery often takes longer than the event!

Adrenaline has a half-life. Once it’s in your bloodstream, it doesn’t disappear the moment the stressor is resolved. It circulates and eventually dissipates until something comes along to bring it back up.

Of course, something always does.

This is why you can know, intellectually, that everything is fine but still feel edgy or off, after the “threat” has passed. You’ve still got more adrenaline coursing through you than you did before encountered that threat.

“It’s Fine” is Not Medicine

The instinct after a stress spike is to reassure yourself. It’s over. I’m safe. That was nothing. And while that’s true, it’s directed at the wrong audience.

Because the amygdala – the part of your brain managing the alarm system – doesn’t simply respond to rational reassurance. It responds to physiological signals more easily and quickly.

This is why you can’t simply decide to stop feeling anxious. The cognitive layer and the nervous system layer are running separate processes. To actually bring the stress response down, you need to send a signal the body understands.

The most direct signal available to you is your exhale.

A Signal That Actually Works

Nadi Shodhana, a Sanskrit term which translates roughly to “channel purification”, is one of the most studied yogic breath techniques for reducing acute physiological arousal. It sounds complicated, but really, it’s just alternate nostril breathing.

Mechanically, the alternating pattern creates a slow, deliberate rhythm that engages the parasympathetic branch (the “rest and digest” side of your autonomic nervous system) while the nostril switching requires just enough focused attention to interrupt the looping thoughts that often follow a stress spike. Some studies have even shown that it can lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

Here’s how to do it.

Sitting comfortably, your right thumb to close your right nostril. Inhale slowly and fully through your left nostril.

At the top of the inhale, close your left nostril with your right ring finger, releasing your thumb. Exhale slowly through your right nostril.

Then inhale through the right nostril. Close the right nostril again with your thumb, release the ring finger, and exhale through the left nostril.

Keep going back and forth for 5-10 rounds. If you like it, then keep going.

How many counts per breath?

Start with 4 in, 4 out. You can extend the exhale to 6 counts if you want to go deeper; the longer exhale increases the parasympathetic signal. To go even further, once you’re a little used to it you can start adding a brief hold between each inhale and exhale.

You’re likely to notice a gradual slowing. You might feel your heart rate drop and your thoughts cycling a little less fast. Not because you talked yourself out of anything, but because you gave your body a signal it actually responds to.

Try it the next time something alarming happens. Your nervous system will catch up. It just needs a little help getting started.

Last Gasp

“The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.”

— H.G. Wells

P.S. If you’d like more practices for the moments when your body needs a signal – not a pep talk – my free newsletter goes out each week with science, techniques, and usually something that makes you think. Get it here.

And then you go inside, open your laptop, and the feeling mostly disappears.

What’s up with that?

A lot of people are still running on winter settings. Physically and mentally, we’re still in the mode that got us through the dark months: contracted, efficient, low-grade enduring. It’s as though the body adapted to the conditions... and now the conditions have changed, but the body hasn’t gotten the memo.

The gap between what spring is doing outside and what you actually feel on the inside isn’t a personal failing. It’s a biology problem. And there’s something you can do about it in about two minutes.

Why your nervous system didn’t get the memo

Your nervous system adapts to your environment, but it doesn’t automatically notice when the environment has shifted.

Over months of shorter days and reduced light exposure, your circadian rhythms recalibrate. For a lot of people, melatonin production starts earlier. Cortisol peaks differently. Your body builds a new version of “normal” based on what it’s repeatedly experiencing. When spring arrives and the light changes, the recalibration starts to reverse, but gradually.

Your body was designed for a world where seasonal transitions meant weeks of outdoor exposure. In spring, that means getting used to dawn arriving earlier each day and more light accumulating. Most modern lives don’t provide that same signal at full strength. You commute indoors, work indoors, and exist mostly under artificial light that doesn’t change with the season.

Add to that the accumulated stress that lots of people have been carrying the past few months, which trains the nervous system into a low-grade holding pattern. Slightly contracted breathing. Subtle vigilance. That pattern doesn’t automatically dissolve just because the weather turns.

So if you’re feeling a little off but can’t quite put your finger on it, consider this: most of us are very good at “functional.” We’ve built sophisticated workarounds (coffee, momentum, the next deadline) for getting through the day at something like 70%.

What we’re less good at is what it actually feels like to be fully switched on. Not wired, over-caffeinated and grinding, but awake. The version of awake where things are clearer, sharper, and there’s a quality of presence that’s more than just the absence of distraction.

You don’t have to wait around for your circadian rhythm to catch up to the weather to feel this way. Your breath gives you a built-in shortcut.

Skull shining what?

Skull Shining Breath is translated from the Sanskrit word Kapalabhati: kapala means skull, bhati means to shine or illuminate. It sounds like an odd name, but it’s called that for the sense of clarity it brings to both your mind and your sinuses.

The mechanics are simple. You want to do rapid, sharp, rhythmic exhales through the nose, each one with a deliberate pull of the lower belly. Meanwhile, the inhale is passive. You clear the air out in quick pulses and let the lungs fill automatically between each one.

It’s the inverse of how most people think about breathing. Ready to try it?

Sit comfortably in a chair, on the floor, wherever, making sure to keep your spine straight. Take one full, normal breath in through your nose to start.

Then release a short, sharp exhale through your nose as you pull your lower belly in. Let the inhale happen on its own. Exhale again, belly in, then let it fill gently. Keep the rhythm steady: it’s a pump, not a sprint. Find a pace that feels controlled and consistent.

Do 30 pumps. Then take a full slow inhale, hold briefly at the top, and let it out completely.

That’s one round. Rest for a beat or two, then repeat. Do three rounds total.

You might notice warmth spreading through your face and chest. Heightened mental clarity. A particular kind of alertness. Some people describe it as the feeling right after a cold shower, but without the shock. Sharp, clear, unmistakably present.

What’s actually happening: the rapid exhalation clears carbon dioxide faster than normal, altering your blood gas chemistry. The abdominal contractions generate metabolic heat. And the repeated activation of the respiratory muscles sends an energizing signal through the body as you engage your sympathetic nervous system, voluntarily, on your terms.

This is a morning or midday practice. Try three rounds before coffee. You might decide you don’t need the caffeine after all.

Last Gasp

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” — E.B. White

P.S. Want more practices for whatever state you find yourself in? My free newsletter comes out each week with more techniques and more news than you see here. Sign up and I’ll send you three of my favorite breaths right away.

For most people, the answer is close to zero… because that’s how breathing works.

Breathing doesn’t need your attention. It just happens, whether you’re in a meeting, asleep, mid-sentence, or completely somewhere else. Your lungs have been running without supervision since the moment you entered the world, wailing at everyone in earshot.

Here’s what makes breathing unlike anything else your body does, though. It’s the only automatic function you can quickly and easily take over whenever you want. Your heartbeat doesn’t work that way. Digestion doesn’t work that way. You can’t lower your blood pressure just by thinking it.

But you can consciously control the breath – slow it down, deepen it, adjust the rhythm entirely – and something measurable shifts almost immediately.

That’s worth looking at once. Here’s what’s actually happening.

What Happens When You Inhale

Your diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle sitting just below your lungs. When you inhale, contracts and flattens downward. This creates a drop in pressure inside your chest cavity, and air rushes in to equalize it. You’re not really pulling air into your lungs; you’re creating the conditions for it to arrive.

That air travels through your trachea (windpipe), branches into the bronchi, then narrows into bronchioles (smaller branches) until it reaches your 480 million alveoli. The alveoli are tiny air sacs but you’ve got so many, they take up a surface area of around 750 square feet! Within the alveoli, oxygen passes from the air into your bloodstream and carbon dioxide moves out.

The whole exchange takes less than a second.

Meanwhile, your heart does something most people never notice: it speeds up slightly on every inhale. Only a beat or two, but it happens consistently, reliably, every single time. This is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which sounds terrifying but is actually a sign of a healthy, responsive nervous system. A heart that adjusts freely with your breathing is a heart in good communication with your brain.

What Happens When You Exhale

When you exhale, your diaphragm releases and rises back to its resting position. The air, now carrying carbon dioxide collected from your cells, moves out the same way it came in.

And your heart slows back down. Again, subtly, but measurably, on every single exhale. (You’ve been doing this 20,000 times a day, your whole life, without knowing it!) If you lengthen the out-breath, that helps to stimulate your vagus nerve. In turn, this activates your parasympathetic nervous system – the part associated with rest, recovery, and calm.

Don’t forget the pause. Most people think they breathe in a continuous loop with the inhale immediately flowing into the exhale, leading right into the next inhale, again and again with no real gap. But there’s a natural resting point at the end of each, a moment of stillness before the breath completes (after the inhale) or begins again (after the exhale).

Most of us move through it without stopping. But that pause is worth noticing. It’s a moment of quiet that’s always available to you (and only you!).

Try It Once

You don’t need a technique for this. You’ve done it thousands of times today already.

Just take one deliberate breath. In through your nose, slow and full, all the way to the bottom of your lungs. Feel your diaphragm drop. Notice the brief pause before the exhale wants to begin. Then let it out completely – and find the quiet at the bottom before the next one starts.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Not because it will fix anything, or because you needed something else to add to your day. Just because it’s been happening inside you, reliably and without complaint, this whole time… and it’s worth noticing at least once.

Last Gasp

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

P.S. There’s a lot more where this came from: unboring science, a weekly practice to try, and usually something that makes you think. The Full Exhale newsletter goes deeper every week, and it’s free. Subscribe here.

Most people use breathwork the way they take aspirin, reaching for it once the headache is already there. And fortunately, it works! But that’s a very limited way to use this powerful resource.

In 2026, breathwork and nervous system practices are “no longer fringe ideas” but are considered legitimate tools. The way I think about it? Same logic as training in the gym. You don’t work out only when you’re already out of shape for something; you train so the hard thing doesn’t wreck you when it arrives.

Using breathwork in the moment is only part of the puzzle

Most people discover breathwork when they need rescuing. They’re burned out, can’t sleep, or finally hit a wall, and someone suggests trying box breathing.

It works. You feel better. And this act gets filed in your mental cabinet under things to try when other things get bad.

But here’s what this rescue-based model misses: your nervous system isn’t just reacting to the world. It’s adapting to it based on what you put it through, repeatedly.

A nervous system that regularly experiences high activation without recovery becomes more reactive over time. Quicker to move into the stress response. Slower to come out of it. Harder to settle. Not because anything is wrong with you, but because that’s exactly how biological systems work. They get good at what they practice.

The reverse is also true. And this is my main point.

What is fitness, really?

Fitness doesn’t happen by going to the gym when you’re already too out of shape for something important. It works by training before you need it, so when the hard thing arrives, your body meets it from a different baseline. You’re already fit for it.

The same principle applies to your nervous system.

Research into nervous system regulation consistently shows that the benefits of regular breathwork aren’t just in the moment, they’re cumulative. Short, consistent practices done daily, even for a few minutes, can produce changes in your nervous system over time. You become harder to knock off balance – and faster to return to center when you do get knocked.

The fitness metaphor isn’t perfect, but the logic is the same. You’re building a capacity that’s there as a baseline.

Three places to start

Here’s how a proactive practice actually fits into a busy lifestyle. It’s easier than you might expect! The highest-leverage moments in any day are the transitions.

1. The morning baseline

When you wake up, before you start checking news/email/texts/your horoscope, spend two minutes breathing evenly through your nose. Try five counts in, five counts out, no holds, no technique. Just 12 cycles of steady, resonant breathing before you let the world in.

This won’t feel dramatic. But done daily, over weeks, it can support better nervous system regulation.

2. The preload

Before you do anything that you feel like requires some effort from you (shuttling your kids around, jumping into a last-second meeting, figuring out dinner) take three minutes to breathe. This time, add some holds. Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold again for four. That’s one full “box” breath. Do a set of 12 total before starting your activity.

You’re entering your situation already regulated, rather than catching up to it from behind. Traffic is traffic; the meeting is the same meeting. But by planning proactively, you won’t be.

3. The consistency principle

This is less a practice than a premise: a few minutes daily may do more for you than twenty minutes in a crisis. Why? Because biological systems adapt to what they experience repeatedly. It’s evolution!

I know you may be skeptical, so try the preload three times this week before the same activity each time. Set a reminder now if you need to. And notice what changes – not about the stressor, but about how you arrive in the moment – after spending just three minutes tuning in to your breath.

Last Gasp

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” — Viktor Frankl

The Breathing & Balance Hub has dozens of short, consistent sessions designed to create that space, while still fitting into a real workday. If you’ve got two minutes to do each of the exercises above, then you’ve got time for many of the trainings. Get all the details here.

P.P.S. If you enjoyed this article, you’ll like my full newsletter even more – delivered free to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up here.

Heavy limbs, blurry eyes, yawning every few minutes – your body’s sending all the signals.

Yet the moment you get horizontal, your brain turns up the volume. The mental recap starts. Tomorrow’s list assembles itself. You find yourself relitigating a conversation from 11am.

This isn’t insomnia, exactly. It isn’t anxiety, necessarily. It’s its own animal: hyperarousal. And once you understand what’s actually happening, it becomes much easier to do something about.

Your Stress Response Has Been Multitasking All Day

Your autonomic nervous system operates in two modes: the sympathetic branch (alert, activated, ready for action) and the parasympathetic (rest, digest, recover). Achievers often operate from the sympathetic lane, because they’ve got a lot going on. Like a deadline that shifted. An email that required careful wording. Back-to-back calls with no real transition between them. Kids to pick up.

Here’s what people don’t realize: your nervous system doesn’t weigh the severity of the demands it’s managing. An irritating work situation activates many of the same physiological pathways as a physical threat, just at a lower intensity.

But wait, there’s more! Those activations accumulate. After a full day of being “on”, the sympathetic system doesn’t always reset cleanly when your calendar runs out. It keeps going.

So you’re exhausted and wired. These aren’t contradictory. They’re both true at once, and they explain each other.

Relaxation Isn’t the Same as Regulation

The standard wind-down advice – dim the lights, stop the screens, do something calming – isn’t wrong. But it misses something important: if your nervous system is still in activation mode, passive relaxation is like trying to stop a running engine by walking away from it. The engine doesn’t care. Hell, it doesn’t even realize you left!

What’s happening in your body during hyperarousal is the synthesis of a few different things. Cortisol is still elevated from earlier. Heart rate variability, which is a key marker of nervous system recovery, is low. The prefrontal cortex is depleted from the day’s work. But the amygdala, which manages the alarm system, is still running. The brain becomes simultaneously too tired to think well and too activated to stop.

This is why you can be yawning on the couch at 8pm and staring at the ceiling at midnight. Your body wants to sleep but your nervous system doesn’t know the threat level has dropped. It needs a signal.

A Breathing Ratio Your Nervous System Understands

This one may look familiar if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while. There’s a reason it comes back.

4-7-8 breathing works especially well for the hyperaroused nervous system because of its unusual ratio. Most breathing techniques use even or mildly extended exhales. This one goes significantly further, and the mechanism is worth understanding.

The 7‑count hold helps you slow down and deepen each breath, which supports the calming effect of the extended exhale. That exhale activates the vagus nerve, sending a clear parasympathetic signal through your body. Together, these create a genuine physiological shift, and you might notice yourself feeling more relaxed in just a few rounds.

Here’s the how-to.

Breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of four. Full breath.

Hold at the top for a count of seven. Let it be comfortable.

Exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of eight. Fully empty.

That’s one round. Do a set of four. Start again if you want, taking a break after every fourth round.

Want to get fancy?

Put the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth where your two front teeth meet. Inhale through your nose and hold. Keeping your tongue in place through the exhale, make a whooshing sound as the air comes out.

It’s a little weird and a little fun and it just might bring out your inner Darth Vader.

Try it lying in bed, or sitting quietly before you get there. This isn’t a technique for the middle of a hectic day; it’s for times you want to bring yourself down quickly. Perfect when the day is genuinely over and your nervous system hasn’t caught up to that fact yet.

You can’t talk your nervous system out of treating your notifications like a mortal threat. This is your nervous system trying to protect you! Give it some love for doing its job.

And then do some 4-7-8 breathing to send your body a clear physiological message that the threat level has actually dropped.

Rest well. You’ve earned it!

Last Gasp

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” — John Steinbeck

The Breathing & Balance Hub includes sessions built for exactly this: the transition points that a busy day doesn’t build in. Get all the details here.

You might not even realize you’re doing it. You’ve probably never thought of it as a wellness practice. You definitely haven’t thought of it as a cognitive one.

But what if it were both?

Bhramari pranayama – also known in breathwork circles as Bee Breath or Humming Bee Breath – has been practiced for centuries. It shows up in ancient yogic texts as a technique for quieting the mind before meditation. More recently, it’s started appearing in research labs.

Scientists studying the physiology of sound have found some genuinely interesting things happening inside the body when you hum. And I’m here to help you take advantage.

What Humming Does to Your Brain

When you hum, you’re not just making a sound. You’re creating mechanical vibration that travels through your skull, your sinuses, and down your vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is the long, wandering one that connects your brain to your heart, lungs, and gut. It has a lot to do with how regulated your nervous system feels at any given moment. And you can stimulate your own vagus nerve to impact how you feel pretty quickly.

Ever notice that low-grade internal noise that piles up before a focus block? The background anxiety, unfinished thought loops, and compulsion to check your phone one more time have a physiological root. Humming addresses it directly. Not by distracting you from it, but by shifting your nervous system out of the mode that produces it.

There’s also a brainwave angle worth knowing about. Research links Bhramari practice to increases in alpha wave activity — the state associated with relaxed alertness. This is the zone where absorbed, sustained focus tends to happen most naturally. If you’ve ever been so into something you completely lost track of time, that’s roughly where you were.

It’s not the only way to get there, but humming seems to be a reliable door into it.

“Clearing Your Head” Isn’t Always a Metaphor

Here’s where it gets a little strange.

Humming produces nitric oxide in your sinuses at roughly 15 times the rate of normal breathing. (Yes, that’s a real thing. It’s published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and everything.)

Nitric oxide is a vasodilator, which means it relaxes blood vessels and increases circulation, including to your brain. This helps explain why people who practice Bhramari regularly don’t just feel calmer. They feel clearer.

More blood flow. More oxygen. More of whatever your brain needs to do actual work.

Vibrate Your Way to a More Focused Day

I’ll be honest: some people find Bhramari slightly awkward the first time. You might feel a little silly, so try it out somewhere private if that helps. The self-consciousness fades once you notice how good it feels and what it does.

Here’s the technique:

1. Sit comfortably with your spine reasonably straight.

2. Take a full, slow inhale through your nose.

3. On the exhale, keep your lips closed and let out a hum. Any note, any pitch. Don’t overthink it. The goal is not to sound like a professional musician but to feel the vibration in your face, your skull, your chest.

4. Let the exhale and the hum run their natural course. Don’t force the length.

5. Start over. Repeat for 5–8 rounds. Keep going if you dig it.

Optional upgrade: gently press the cartilage flap of each ear closed with your index fingers during the exhale. That cartilage is called your tragus, and pressing it closed will noticeably amplify the internal resonance you feel. Worth trying at least once.

So give it five minutes, or less if you’re an impatient type (I see you). Remember, the goal isn’t a meditative state. It’s a quieter, more available starting point for whatever’s coming up that requires your attention.

Try it before your next deep work block. Before a meeting you need to actually be “on” for. Or before any conversation that requires you to listen more than you talk.

Five minutes of buzzing. Everything after it lands differently.

Last Gasp

“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.” — William James

If you want a whole library of practices like this one — techniques that work with your nervous system instead of just telling it to calm down — I guide you through them inside the Breathing & Balance Hub.

Most of my time of course means “not always”.

Because there are moments when advice to calm down, well-intentioned as it is, can actively work against you.

(As a brief aside, a male should virtually never, under any circumstances, tell his female significant other to “relax”. Unless he’s being paid as her professional hypnotherapist, in which case they probably shouldn’t be dating? I digress.)

But before we get into this, a quick acknowledgement: the world feels heavy right now, and many people are facing challenges far greater than nerves before a presentation or tough conversation. If that’s you or someone you love, my heart is with you.

Now, let me explain…

Anxiety and Excitement are Two Sides of the Same Coin

In 2014, Harvard Business School researcher Alison Wood Brooks published the results of a series of experiments on what happens when people face something that makes them nervous: a high-stakes karaoke performance, a public speech, a difficult math problem.

Before each one, she gave participants a single instruction. Some of them told themselves, “I am calm” while others thought, “I am excited.”

The calm group tried to suppress their arousal. The excited group reframed it. And counter to what you might expect, the excited group performed better across the board. Higher singing scores, more accurate math, more persuasive speeches.

What made the finding even more striking: their physiological arousal going in was nearly identical. The biology was the same. Same elevated heart rate, same adrenaline, same heightened alertness. What changed was the story they were telling themselves about what their body was doing.

That story changed everything about how they used their energy. By telling themselves their physical sensations were excitement rather than nerves, those participants felt more excited and had more of a growth-oriented mindset. The result? Better performances.

In other words…

Anxiety and excitement have many of the same markers and may feel the same physiologically. What separates them isn’t your nervous system. It’s your interpretation of it.

Trying to Calm Down Can Rev You Up

Emotional suppression is expensive. Telling yourself to calm down requires cognitive effort from your prefrontal cortex – the part of your brain you actually need for the task ahead. You’re spending resources just to contain the activation before you’ve even gotten to what matters.

For most people, trying to go from a 10 to a 0 in the minutes before something important doesn’t work. You land at a tense, effortful 7.

And for high achievers, there’s an added layer: you’re already used to performing under pressure. Your nervous system has done this thousands of times and it knows how to operate in a high-arousal state. The activation you feel before something that matters is your body doing exactly what it’s designed to do. The machinery isn’t the problem. The question is just where you’re pointing it.

Trying to shut it all down before something important is like starting up a race car to let it sit in park. The power is already there… is this really the best way to use it?

A Simple Way to Redirect Your Energy

Here’s where breathwork comes in. Not to suppress arousal, but to redirect it.

Think of the technique below as taking the raw energy your body has already generated and sharpening it into something useful.

Here’s your how-to:

• Inhale strongly through your nose for two counts. Full and deliberate, like you mean it.

• Hold at the top for two counts.

• Exhale firmly through your mouth for four counts. It’s not a gentle sigh, but a full, intentional release.

That’s one breath. Try it for a minute and go from there. If you prefer counting breaths, start with a set of 10.

This isn’t a relaxing breath, but a clearing breath. Ideally, you’ll end up feeling fully present and sharp, rather than scattered and bracing. The idea is: the sharp inhale activates your system, the brief hold builds productive tension, and the firm exhale converts it into focused readiness.

Use this before something that matters. A difficult conversation, a pitch, a decision you’ve been circling. Not to stop feeling the nerves, but to give them somewhere useful to go.

Last Gasp

“Pressure is a privilege.” — Billie Jean King

The Breathing & Balance Hub includes techniques for your full nervous system range – calming, activating, and everything in between – and sessions start at just 2 minutes. Curious? Click here for all the details.

These are not the same brain. And it’s not because you’ve had a bad day.

The judges demonstrated something we don’t want to admit

In 2011, a team of researchers published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that became rather famous in productivity circles.

They analyzed over 1,000 parole board decisions made by a group of judges across the span of 50 days. What they found was uncomfortable. At the start of each session, and right after a food break, about 65% of rulings were favorable. But by the end of each session, just before the next break, that number dropped to nearly zero.

Same judges. Same types of cases. Different outcomes based almost entirely on where they fell in the sequence.

The judges weren’t making worse decisions because they were bad at their jobs. They were making worse decisions because their brains were depleted. And a depleted brain has a very strong default position: no. Not now. Whatever’s easiest.

This is called decision fatigue, and it doesn’t only happen in courtrooms.

Character flaw… or biology?

Your prefrontal cortex handles your heavy cognitive lifting: planning, judgment, impulse control, weighing trade-offs, seeing the long view. It is also the part of your brain that gets progressively more fatigued the more you ask of it in a given stretch of time.

When it starts running low, your brain doesn’t announce this. It just shifts strategies. Complex thinking gets replaced by heuristics – mental shortcuts that conserve resources but sacrifice nuance.

In other words: you default to whatever’s familiar. You avoid choosing when you can avoid it. You become more reactive and less deliberate.

You might recognize this as the feeling of I can’t make one more decision today. That’s not drama simply for its own sake. That’s your prefrontal cortex doing exactly what it’s designed to do under load: protecting its remaining resources.

And now for the tricky part. By the time you notice, you’ve usually already sent the email you’ll wince at tomorrow.

You’re two minutes away from a better decision

Here’s the thing about your brain in this state: it doesn’t need a nap (though I do love naps). It doesn’t need a walk (though that helps, and I love walks too). What it needs is a break from decision-processing. A few minutes where it isn’t being asked to do anything.

That is, essentially, what two minutes of simple, even-paced breathing does.

Breathe in through your nose for a count of four.

Breathe out through your nose for a count of four.

Just a steady, balanced rhythm for about two minutes, or about 15 cycles.

That’s it. You’re not trying to relax. You’re not trying to activate. The even ratio creates a kind of neutral state. Your nervous system isn’t being pushed in either direction. And in that neutral state, your prefrontal cortex gets a genuine break without you having to go anywhere or do anything elaborate.

Want more intensity? Add a four-count pause at the top of the inhale, and another at the bottom of the exhale. You’ve just turned it into box breathing. The brief holds deepen the effect by gently shifting your CO2/oxygen balance in a way that supports focus and calm attention.

Two minutes between major decisions or sessions of focused work. Before a difficult conversation. After a long stretch of email. Any time you notice the quality of your thinking starting to slide.

The judges got their reset from a snack and a break. You can get yours from fifteen breaths. Zero disruption to your day.

Inside the Breathing & Balance Hub, you’ll find dozens of sessions built specifically for moments like this: short, practical, and designed for a real workday. Curious? Start today for just $44.

Last gasp

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”

— Tony Robbins

Your eyes open. Whether natural or electric, the light feels aggressive either way. Your breathing is a little fast, a little shallow. There’s a subtle sense of readying for action – like a computer booting up, fans humming before the screen fully loads.

No wonder it’s disconcerting. There’s a lot going on here before your feet even touch the floor!

Then, about 30–45 minutes after you wake up, your cortisol awakening response kicks in. This huge hormonal spike (an increase of anywhere from 50-160%!) is part of your circadian rhythm, and it’s an important part of the shift from sleep to wakefulness.

So as you get going into your day, you start feeling alert. Your heart rate and blood pressure rise.

We tend to read these as signs of stress.

What it really is, is sympathetic nervous system activation.

So instead of spiraling into anxiety, urgency, and bracing before anything has even happened – easy as that may be – what if we leaned into that activation?

The Point Isn’t Calm, It’s Control

You’re already waking up. Your nervous system is already shifting toward alertness.

The question isn’t whether that should happen. It’s about how you decide to participate in it.

Most of us opt out by default. We either ignore this moment and launch straight into movement, coffee, email… or we immediately try to calm it down.

I’ve got a better idea for what to do with this time:

Set the breathing pattern that will likely carry into the first hour of your day.

Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?

And also like work. But I promise, this is easy – and worth doing.

When you move from lying down to sitting or standing, your breathing mechanics change. Gravity shifts how your diaphragm is loaded. Blood pressure regulation kicks in. Your body activates slightly to help you get upright.

In making that transition, breathing often becomes a bit quicker and a bit higher in the chest. It just happens automatically.

If your first upright breaths are small and upper-chest dominant, that activation can persist. You may find your neck a little tight, your jaw already working, your shoulders subtly elevated before you’ve even brushed your teeth.

Nothing catastrophic… but also not how you’d ideally want to feel at the beginning of a day.

I Don’t Recommend This Very Often

Before coffee. Before your phone. Hell, before you even stand up if you feel like it:

Spend one minute focusing on taking some deep nasal breaths.

On each one, let the inhale be fuller than usual. Feel your ribs widen. Let your diaphragm descend and your chest expand without forcing it.

Then allow the exhale to fall away naturally. Don’t control it. Don’t lengthen it. Just let it go.

Optional: stretch your arms overhead as you inhale. Lower them as you exhale.

That’s it.

90%+ of the time I tell you to focus on the exhale, this time I’m telling you to pay attention to the inhale. Breathing this way at this point in your day is aligned with what your body is already doing, but now you’re setting the pace.

Giving the diaphragm the first move instead of letting accessory muscles take over. Establishing a steady rhythm before posture, movement, and screens speed it up.

You’re not wrestling with your biology, but guiding it. Just starting the day with mechanics that support you instead of letting your default take over.

Small difference. Noticeable impact.

Being Activated Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

Nervous system activation is not the enemy. It’s fuel.

But fuel without direction can feel jittery.

So for the next few days, when you wake up, give yourself this super simple objective: to breathe in attunement with what your body is already doing anyway.

And see if you notice any changes.

If your first half hour feels less bleary…
Or if your breathing stays fuller…
Or if there’s even the tiniest bit less neck and shoulder tension by mid-morning…

Those are subtle, yet very practical wins.

Simply from working with your physiology for a change.

Want more everyday tools that work with your nervous system instead of fighting it?

Download your free 5 Breaths in 5 Minutes kit here.

Last Gasp

“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”
— Oscar Wilde

Your heart’s not racing. Your irritation isn’t spiking. There’s no obvious stressor.

Yet you notice things like a slightly clenched jaw. A faint sense of holding – somewhere in the chest, the belly, the throat – that you don’t fully notice until it’s named. A pause between breaths that lingers a beat too long.

It tends to show up in the most unremarkable moments.

At your computer.
While reading something mildly interesting.
Waiting for the light to turn.

Nothing is outwardly wrong, but the body is still holding. Bracing for… something.

It’s Not About Anxiety

Subtle breath holding doesn’t automatically mean anxiety. It doesn’t automatically point to trauma. And it definitely doesn’t mean something is broken or needs fixing.

What it often reflects is something much more ordinary: attention.

When you’re thinking, focusing, reading, or waiting, your nervous system naturally shifts into a mild state of readiness. That state often comes with tiny, nearly invisible changes in breathing – a pause here, a shortened exhale there, a momentary hold you don’t consciously choose.

Over time, those patterns can contribute to stress physiology if they’re constant. But in the moment? They’re not dramatic. They don’t feel like “a problem.”

This happens a lot for highly capable, focused people, not because something is wrong, but because attention and breath are tightly linked.

Now, this is not a diagnosis or a universal rule. But it IS a signal.

Breathing isn’t just about oxygen. It’s rhythmic, responsive, and deeply intertwined with what you’re doing and anticipating. The inhale often pairs with effort, preparation, or interest. The exhale tends to accompany release, completion, or settling.

So when you’re mentally engaged – reading, listening, waiting, thinking – it’s common for the breath to subtly pause or shift. For some people, those pauses function like a readiness cue. A quiet “stand by” signal from the nervous system.

Why You Don’t Notice What’s Happening

Because it’s boring!

It doesn’t spike your emotions or register as discomfort. It just blends perfectly into what we call “normal focus.”

This pattern may have begun during periods of pressure or intensity. But then it sticks around long after the context has changed, at which point it becomes background noise – something the body does while the mind is busy elsewhere.

And because nothing feels urgent, there’s no signal telling you to intervene.

Which is why most people don’t.

Disrupt the Pattern

I have something for you to try.

A full exhale.

(Which happens to be the name of my newsletter. The newsletter has a lot more content than this blog, and it just might become your favorite Sunday read. Sign up here – it’s free.)

You can’t mess this up!

All you need to do is sit or stand as you are. Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose.

Don’t try to control anything. There’s no need to slow down your pace or try to relax. Simply notice whether your next exhale is being cut short, and if it is, allow it to finish.

That’s it.

You’re not changing the breath so much as allowing the part that was interrupted to complete.

It’s a micro-adjustment: subtle enough that no one around you will notice and different from stronger down-regulation tools.

And it’s great during in-between states:

When you feel fine… but maybe a little bit tight.
When you’re mentally “on,” but not stressed.
When you’re waiting or concentrating.
When you’re concentrating.

Think of this as an everyday go-to move. It’s not meant for big emotions or high distress. Nor is it meant for when you’re trying to ramp up energy. It’s simply a way to interrupt unnoticed bracing before it compounds.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is finish the breath you didn’t realize you stopped.

Last Gasp

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
— Simone Weil

And yes, I live in Miami, so let’s get that out of the way right now.

Miami cold means people panic-buy sweaters, break out the earmuffs for a walk on the beach, and talk about the weather with the intensity usually reserved for hurricanes.

Is that as cold as it’s been for some of you? Absolutely not.

Does my nervous system know that? Also no.

That first step outside in the morning still comes with the same reflexive response: a quick hitch in the breath, shoulders shooting up to my ears, my jaw tightening before I’ve even finished thinking “brrrrr”.

Cold – whether it’s real or relative – always gets your attention.

Why Cold Sharpens and Warm Soothes

Physiologically, cold nudges the nervous system toward alertness. Dopamine (the pleasure and motivation hormone) and norepinephrine (an action hormone) production increase. As a result, your focus sharpens and you wake up.

That’s why a brisk walk helps when your brain feels like oatmeal. Why people voluntarily sit in ice baths and talk about it as character-building.

Cold air can feel clarifying. Heat, on the other hand, does something else entirely.

Heat supports endorphins (your pain relief and well-being hormones). It signals safety and tells the nervous system it can soften its grip. That’s why we reach for hot showers, blankets, and warm drinks when we’re overwhelmed or wrung out.

Different inputs. Different chemistry. Different states.

Now, as your mom always told you, you can’t control the weather (or was it just my mom that always said that?).

But you can work with your biology to mimic some of the state shifts cold or heat create within your nervous system. And your breath can help.

Get the Effect Without the Experience

Let’s talk about two different breaths.

Not to “lean into winter” or “pretend it’s summer”. But to choose the nervous system state you want to inhabit.

Borrowing Cold’s Edge

Here’s a breath for clarity, motivation, and that snap-awake feeling we associate with cold. It’s a great one for when you feel foggy, flat, or mentally sluggish.

Inhale through your nose a little more briskly than usual. Be assertive with it. Let it lift your chest a little. This is a short, shallow inhale.

And then exhale through your mouth with a little bit of force. Imagine letting out a quick puff of air to be able to see the vapor.

Try it for a set of 20 breaths to help your nervous system come back online. Keep your breathing controlled, not frantic, and if you feel yourself getting too lightheaded, stop.

Notice what shifts.

Heat Without the Blanket

This extended box breath is for creating the internal conditions we associate with warmth: steadiness, containment, and the sense that nothing is urgently required of you. It’s a simple rhythm:

1. Inhale through your nose for 5.

2. Hold gently for 5.

3. Exhale through your nose for 5.

4. Hold again for 5.

5. Repeat for a minute or three.

You can adjust the count if you feel strained, but the shape of the breath matters here. Everything is even. That symmetry gives the nervous system a clear signal of safety and support – the same signal physical warmth tends to provide. You’re giving your system a stable, enclosed rhythm and letting it respond on its own.

How Do You Want to Feel?

When people seek out cold exposure, they’re often looking for dopamine, clarity, and momentum. When they crave warmth, they’re wanting relief, endorphins, and ease.

Whichever one you’re looking for, breath gives you choice. Instead of leaving regulation to chance, you can meet your nervous system where it is and guide it where it needs to go.

Even if it’s “freezing” in Miami… or actually freezing where you are… you can work with your biology to feel however you want to feel.

Any day of the year.

Last Gasp

“You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.”
— Cora L.V. Hatch

For more simple, practical ways to tune your nervous system quickly with your breath, download your free “5 Breaths to Change How You Feel in 5 Minutes” kit.

For some, it’s a constant simmer: tight jaw, clenched gut, that feeling of bracing even when nothing is technically happening.

For others, it’s loud. Volcanic. Ranty. The kind of anger that spills out mid-sentence or mid-scroll and surprises even the person having it.

Both reactions are real. Both live in the body.

This is why people can sometimes feel anger before they can explain it. Heat. Pressure. Muscle tone. That charged sense of *#$(^)@!& that doesn’t wait for permission to show up.

This is what it feels like inside a nervous system that’s felt pushed, constrained, or activated for too long and is done pretending otherwise.

Now, here’s something you may not have considered. And that is: anger is information.

It’s “action” energy.

And while it’s absolutely something we want to resolve (most of us don’t want to stay angry), resolving it doesn’t start with talking yourself out of it or treating it like a behavioral error.

Anger isn’t evidence that you’ve failed at regulation. It’s a sign that your system has moved into action.

And that happens in the body first, not the brain.

Nature’s Catalyst for Action

Feeling anger doesn’t mean you’re an angry person; it simply means your nervous system is mobilized.

That’s an important distinction, because when we confuse anger with identity, we start trying to fix ourselves instead of working with what’s actually happening physiologically.

Anger shows up as heat, tension, vigilance. Muscles ready to move. Your breathing gets sharper or shallower. Attention narrows. Your system shifts into do something mode.

Which makes sense. Anger evolved to create action.

The problem isn’t anger itself. The problem is what happens when that mobilizing energy has nowhere to go.

When we’re told to calm down, breathe softly, or think differently before the body has discharged that energy, the system often pushes back.It’s not resistance – it’s biology.

Think of it this way: unexpressed anger doesn’t vanish. It leaks.

And when it spills over, it looks like exhaustion. Or burnout. Numbness. Maybe snapping at the wrong person. Or that low-grade, ongoing irritability where everything feels like one more thing you don’t have the capacity for.

It seems like it might be a “mindset issue”, but there’s really something else going on.

Regulation without direction can feel invalidating.

If your system is activated and you immediately try to downshift with slow breathing, soothing cues, and reframes, you may end up feeling worse, not better. Not because those tools are useless, but because the body hasn’t had a chance to discharge anything yet.

Anger needs an outlet before it can soften. The goal isn’t to eliminate it, but to let it move.

Think of anger like pressure building in a sealed container. You can’t reason the pressure away. You have to give it somewhere to go.

Once some of that pressure is released, regulation becomes possible. Sometimes surprisingly quickly.

Outlets for Anger in Everyday Life

This is not a checklist but a short menu.

~ Physical effort.
Go for a little exertion. I mentioned push-ups last time but you could also do sit-ups, wall sits, or squats. Or maybe some jumping jacks or a brisk walk. Let the body do what it’s already preparing itself to do.

~ Sound or voice.
Rant in the car. Growl. Sigh audibly. Sound helps discharge pressure.

~ Breathing to release pressure.

This is an active letting-go breath, not a calming one.

You’ll start by inhaling normally through the nose. Hold your breath at the top for a beat or two, letting the tension build the tiniest bit. Then exhale forcefully through the mouth. Sound is encouraged. Imagine fogging a mirror with intent.

Try it for a minute or two. However long feels good at your natural pace. Then return to nasal breathing.

That’s it.

The idea is to let pressure out of the system so regulation becomes possible after. To notice what shifts when you stop trying to think your way out and let the body participate.

Serenity Now?

So… shake it off, move on, feel blissful? Probably not.

But if you:

• Don’t detonate when you normally would

• Don’t swallow your anger and force yourself to move on while it festers

• Stay in your body long enough to choose your response instead of reacting

Then that’s a win.

Your anger may still be here tomorrow. That doesn’t mean today was a failure. It means you’re learning how to work with your nervous system instead of against it.

And that’s a skill.

Last Gasp

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“Anybody can become angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power.”
— Aristotle

It’s not “I stayed up too late scrolling” tired. It’s not even “January is long and gray” tired. It’s the tiredness that comes from being alert all the time.

From carrying opinions, concerns, conversations, and consequences that don’t neatly clock out at the end of the day.

The news. The tone. The constant edge in the air.

Something is wrong. And your nervous system knows it.

I’m not here to give you a civics lesson or a hot take.

But I am going to say this plainly: when the world feels unstable, your body pays attention.

It might come across as shallow breathing. Jaw clenching. A low hum of irritation. Trouble focusing on things that normally feel easy.

Guess what? That’s biology doing its job.

Your nervous system evolved to respond to threats. As for what it interprets as a threat, it doesn’t differentiate between a saber-toothed tiger and a nonstop feed of uncertainty.

“Feeling Better” is the Wrong Assignment

On genuinely hard days, “feeling better” is a tall order.

It implies a tidy emotional arc with resolution. Things were not ideal → now they’re better → onward. And if not, there’s a subtle pressure to boot (“why aren’t you feeling better?”).

But days don’t always work like that. Especially not right now.

What is more realistic (and far more helpful) is asking a different question:

What would make this day more livable?

Not productive. Not inspirational. Just more “this-is-doable”.

It’s a lower bar and therefore much easier to hit.

What to Do When Your Day Seems Unfixable

I don’t have a system. I don’t have a morning routine that magically inoculates me from reality. (If I did, you’d know by now!)

What I have is a loose collection of things that help me stay in my body when my mind wants to sprint ahead, spiral, or brace for impact.

Some days that looks like:

Letting myself rant for sixty unfiltered seconds out loud without turning it into insight or action. Just pressure off the valve.

Putting on one song and I love and doing whatever I feel like – lip syncing, movement, whatever I’m feeling called to do at that moment.

Taking a news diet either by topic or duration because my nervous system has hit its quota.

Push-ups. I’m a big fan of push-ups. Just a set of 10 here and there throughout the day and before you know it, you’ve made it to 100.

What Breathwork Is (and What It Isn’t)

Let’s be real. None of these fix anything.

They just keep the volume from staying at eleven all day long.

Same with breathwork. Breathwork doesn’t make the world calmer. It doesn’t solve structural problems or cancel out bad news.

What it does do, when used well, is help you stay present enough to metabolize what you’re carrying.

I think of it less as a cure and more as a container.

A way to say to your body: This is intense. And we’re still here.

One of my go-to breaths on days like this is what I think of as a pressure-release exhale.

Nothing fancy. Just inhale through your nose – normal, unforced. Then exhale through your mouth, long and audible. A sigh is perfect.

Do that a few times. If you feel compelled to keep track, try it for about a minute. Stop before it turns into a project.

And then notice what shifts.

Not because everything’s better, but because you’re a little less braced for impact.

Some Feelings Don’t Fit on a Day’s Agenda

Some emotions are too big to be “worked through” in a sitting. Trying to resolve them quickly can backfire.

But big emotions do need places to land.

Tiny releases aren’t meant to erase what’s happening. They’re meant to help you live alongside it. To keep going without hardening or numbing out.

So on days when you’re just. Not. Feeling. It., here’s what I count as success:

• You breathe a little more fully than you were.

• You don’t abandon yourself to stay functional.

• You find one moment of honesty, whether it’s internal or in conversation with someone else.

• You let the day be what it is without making it mean something about you.

That’s not settling. That’s resilience in real time.

If you want something simple to reach for on days like this, two things to do:

First, hit the subscribe button so you get easy, actionable, surprisingly effective advice like this every week straight to your inbox.

Second, download your free “5 Breaths in 5 Minutes” kit, which gives you simple, doable ways to shift your state without needing perfect conditions.

Last Gasp

“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.” — Ashleigh Brilliant

Is it just me, or does January taste like cold coffee, half-dead houseplants, and the weird guilt of not wanting to “crush your goals” yet?

It’s a bit of a paradox…

The holidays are over. The slate is “clean.” You’re supposed to be refreshed, motivated, ready.

And yet even if nothing is technically “wrong”, you feel weighed down. Your brain feels foggy and your ambition? Still in holiday mode.

Cue the self-talk: What is wrong with me?

The short answer is, nothing!

January isn’t exposing an imagined character flaw. It’s exposing your nervous system.

The Real Reason for Your Post-Holiday Crash

People don’t crash after the holidays because they’re lazy. We crash because December is basically a month-long overstimulation experiment.

Lights. Noise. Sugar. Socializing. Travel. Deadlines wrapped in tinsel.

Even if you love the holidays, your nervous system has been running hot: high alert, high output, high cortisol.

Then January hits and the stimulation drops off a cliff.

Now you’ve got shorter days. Less light. Fewer plans. Updated routines. And a sudden expectation that you should focus on “optimizing your life.”

Your nervous system doesn’t interpret this as a fresh start. It interprets it as whiplash.

Physiologically, energy dips after high-stimulation periods because cortisol and adrenaline don’t just politely reset themselves. Add in changed sleep schedules, darker mornings, and reduced daylight (hello, melatonin shifts), and your system is desperately trying to recalibrate while you’re yelling at it to perform.

This is a regulation issue, not a motivational one.

And Then We Make It Worse…

January goes off the rails because we try to force productivity back online. Stacking new habits. Shaming ourselves into action. After all, we were “resting” over the holidays, so now it’s go time.

Many of us treat low energy like a personal failure instead of a biological signal. But forcing output when the nervous system is still in recovery mode is like revving a cold engine. It might move, but you’re doing damage.

When the system feels unsafe or depleted, it resists. And the more you push, the more stubborn it gets.

This shows up as scattered focus. More procrastination. Stronger fatigue. A general sense that everything is harder than it needs to be.

This is why “just add discipline” advice feels particularly cruel in January. It ignores the fact that your body is still unwinding from weeks of sustained demand.

Breathwork Can Help You Have a Better January

Breathwork is extra powerful right now not as a way to get revved up, but as a way to re-establish baseline safety.

The first few weeks of the year aren’t asking for intensity. They’re asking for steadiness.

There’s zero need to be aggressive or to feel like you’re actively trying to override how you feel. The nervous system doesn’t respond well to being yelled at, even when the yelling is internal and well-intentioned.

The idea here is to slow things down just enough for your system to remember how to function normally again. This isn’t about chasing a feeling, but restoring your rhythm.

Here’s a simple place to start:

Inhale through your nose for four seconds.
Exhale through your nose or mouth for six seconds.
No holds. No pauses. Just smooth, effortless breathing, turn over turn.

It doesn’t feel like it, but that longer exhale is doing some heavy lifting. It’s helping to stabilize your stress response and rebalance your carbon dioxide tolerance, which directly affects how calm, clear, or wired you feel.

Try it for two to three minutes at a time. Give it a shot during your next Zoom call, or at that traffic light that only lets 6 cars through at a time.

The point isn’t to think of this as a serious “practice”, but as maintenance.

A New Return to You

January is not the time to become a new person.

It’s the time to get back to yourself.

Back to your natural energy and normal attention span. Back to making decisions without everything feeling so fraught with effort and loaded in terms of meaning and failure.

When you support your nervous system first, motivation doesn’t feel forced. It comes back online as you stop fighting your own biology. Things begin to feel doable again.

Exciting? Maybe not. Optimized? Nah.

But manageable, definitely. And manageable is how momentum actually starts.

Therefore: Stabilize first. Progress will follow.

Ready to Walk the Talk?

To calm your nervous system in real life (i.e. not on a mat, not in silence, not later) download The Silent Reboot.

It’s a free toolkit of quick-and-quiet breath techniques you can use anywhere to help your system settle and get you back to yourself when things feel off, foggy, or louder than they should.

No hype. No motivation talk. Just something practical to use when you need it.

Download your Silent Reboot kit here.

Last Gasp

“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.”

— Mark Black

No elbow, no sleeve, no closed fist near the mouth. No shame! Just vibes… and surely some droplets.

Cue the collective inhale of panic – and along with it, a whole lot of mouth breathing.

January does that. Everyone’s either sick, recovering, or silently negotiating with the universe about when it’ll be their turn (please, no, not me, not now!). We stock up on supplements, side-eye every cough, and brace ourselves.

But in all that preparation, we skip one of the simplest, most effective lines of defense we have. You know, the one that’s been on your face the whole time.

Cold and Flu Season May Suck, But There’s a Reason It Happens

Regardless of what the sky is doing, winter illness season is a perfect storm. It’s a melange of cold outdoor air, dry indoor heat, short daylight hours, long to-do lists now that life is back in session, and the pressure to make the shiny new year feeling last.

And when your system is tired or overloaded, the body does what it always does under pressure: it defaults to efficiency over elegance. Fast breathing. Shallow breathing. And often mouth breathing.

Stress nudges us into survival mode, where the mouth feels quicker and easier than the nose. The problem is that when everyone around you is spewing germs, that shortcut works against you.

Your Nose is Doing You a Favor (or a Few)

First: filtration. Your nasal passages are lined with tiny hairs and sticky mucous membranes that trap dust, pathogens, and other airborne freeloaders before they get anywhere near your lungs.

Doesn’t that sound delightful? Well, mouth breathing skips that entire checkpoint. It’s like waving everyone through security because one person is late for their flight.

Second: temperature and humidity control. The nose warms and humidifies incoming air so your lungs don’t have to deal with cold, dry shock. Dry air irritates the respiratory tract, which makes it easier for viruses to get comfortable there. Warm, moist air keeps those tissues happier – not to mention better protected.

And then there’s the overachiever feature: nitric oxide. Your nasal passages produce this gas which helps dilate blood vessels, improve oxygen uptake, and (winter bonus!) has antimicrobial properties.

When you breathe through your nose, that nitric oxide gets carried straight into the lungs. But mouth breathing bypasses the whole system. Which means no nitric oxide delivery and no extra protection.

This isn’t mystical. It’s plumbing. So why do so many people keep defaulting to mouth breathing?

Because it’s easier!

Remember that whole “survival mode” thing I mentioned earlier. Stress, fatigue, and distraction pull us out of body awareness. When your nervous system is running hot, your breathing speeds up and sneaks into the chest and mouth.

Add in poor sleep or congestion, and nasal breathing starts to feel like an inconvenience instead of a baseline.

The irony is that the very moments when nasal breathing feels hardest are the moments when it’s most supportive. (Barring those instances, of course, when you literally cannot nose breathe due to illness, sleep apnea, or structural issues.)

The good news is that most people don’t need a whole new immune protocol. They just need reminders and gentle cues and better habits to help deflect germs. Slowing the breath down and bringing it back where it belongs can definitely help.

A Slightly Weird, Fully Accurate Perspective

I don’t think of nasal breathing as a technique for transformation to something new. I think of it as a return.

A reset to how the body is designed to take in the world: intelligently, and a little cautiously. With built-in protection.

During the day, that might look like noticing when your mouth is hanging open while you answer emails. Closing it. Letting the inhale travel in through the nose. Sending it deeper comfortably, without force. And then back out the same way.

At night, it might mean paying attention to how you fall asleep. Mouth breathing often starts before you’re unconscious. A few minutes of calm, nasal breathing while lying in bed can set the tone for the hours that follow.

No heroics. No breath holds. No fixing anything. Just choosing the front door instead of the side entrance.

Because if everyone around you is sick right now – or even if it just feels that way – you may as well stack the smallest, most supportive habits in your favor.

Try This Tonight:
As you’re getting ready for bed, place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Breathe in through your nose as if you’re fogging a mirror: slow, warm, quiet. Let the exhale fall out through your nose too. Do that for a minute or two. That’s it. You’ve reminded your nervous system what “safe” feels like.

Your nose doesn’t need you to believe in it. It just needs access.

Last Gasp

Cknd: Am I the only one that finds it weird that I can transfer data from my brain to someone else’s by opening my mouth and pushing air with vibrations in their direction.

Lesshi: How high are you

~ Spotted on Reddit

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