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I think most people have heard that
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mindfulness and meditation is good
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exercise is good for us we all need to
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be getting enough sleep Etc but life
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happens we are very alert we're very
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sleepy it is very hard to use these
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so-called top-down mechanisms of
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intention and gratitude but it's very
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clear that the physiological Psy is the
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fastest
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hard-wired way for us to eliminate this
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stressful response in our body quickly
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in real time
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it turns out you're all doing this all
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the time but you are doing it
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involuntarily and when you stress you
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tend to forget that you can also
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activate these systems voluntarily this
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is an extremely powerful set of
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techniques that we know from scientific
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studies that are being done in my lab
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Jack Feldman's Lab at UCLA and others
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that are very very useful for reducing
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your stress response in real time and
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here's how they work as far as I am
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aware of the best tools to reduce stress
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quickly so-called real-time tools are
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going to be tools that have a direct
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line to the so-called autonomic nervous
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system the autonomic nervous system is a
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name given to the kind of General
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features of alertness or calmness in the
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body typically it means automatic
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although we do have some control over it
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certain what so-called levers or entry
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points and the tool that at least to my
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knowledge is the fastest and most
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thoroughly grounded in physiology
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Neuroscience for calming down in a
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self-directed way is What's called the
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physiological Psy these days there seems
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to be a lot of interest in breath work
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breath work typically is when you go and
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you sit down or you lie down and you
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deliberately breathe in a particular way
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for a series of minutes in order to
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shift your physiology access some states
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and it does have some utility that we're
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going to talk about that is not what I'm
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talking about now
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what I'm talking about when I refer to
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physiological size is the very real
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medical school textbook relationship
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between the brain
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the body and the Heart let's take the
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Hallmark of the stress response the
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heart starts beating faster blood is
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shuttled to the big muscles of the body
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to move you away from whatever it is the
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stressor is or just make you feel like
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you need to move or talk your face goes
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flushed Etc
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heart rate many of us feel is
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involuntary just kind of functions
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whether or not we're moving fast or
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moving slow if you think about it it's
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not really
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purely autonomic because you can speed
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up your heart rate by running or you can
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slow it down by slowing down but that's
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indirect control there is however a way
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in which you can breathe that directly
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controls your heart rate through the
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interactions between the sympathetic and
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the parasympathetic nervous system
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here's how it works
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when you inhale
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so whether or not it's through the nose
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or through the mouth
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this skeletal muscle that's inside your
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body called the diaphragm
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it moves down and that's because the
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lungs expand the diaphragm moves down
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your heart actually gets a little bit
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bigger in that expanded space there's
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more space for the heart and as a
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consequence whatever blood is in there
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is now at a lower volume we're moving a
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little bit more slowly in that larger
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volume then it was a before you inhaled
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okay so more space heart gets bigger
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blood moves more slowly and there's a
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little group of neurons called the
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sinoatrial node in the heart that
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registers it's believe it or not those
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neurons pay attention to the rate of
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blood flow through the heart and send a
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signal up to the brain that blood is
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moving more slowly through the heart
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the brain then sends a signal back to
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the heart to speed the heart up so what
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this means is if you want your heart to
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beat faster inhale longer
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inhale more vigorously
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than your exhales now there are a
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variety of ways that one could do that
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but it doesn't matter if it's through
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the nose or through the mouth if your
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inhales are longer than your exhales
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you're speeding up your heart now the
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opposite is also true if you want to
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slow your heart rate down so stress
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response hits you want to slow your
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heart rate down what you want to do is
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again capitalize on this relationship
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between the body the meaning the
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diaphragm and the heart and the Brain
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here's how it works when you exhale
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the diaphragm moves up which makes the
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heart a little bit smaller it actually
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gets a little more compact blood flows
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more quickly through that compact space
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sort of like just a pipe getting smaller
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the sinoatrial node registers that blood
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is going more quickly sends a signal up
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to the brain and the parasympathetic
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nervous system some neurons in your
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brain stem send a signal back to the
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heart to slow the heart down
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so if you want to calm down quickly you
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need to make your exhales longer
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and or more vigorous than your inhales
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now the reason this is so attractive as
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a tool for controlling stress is that it
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works in real time this doesn't involve
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a practice that you have to go and sit
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there and do anything separate from life
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and we are going to get to emotion
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emotions and stress happen in real time
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and so while it's wonderful to have a
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breath work practice or to have the
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opportunity to get a massage or sit in a
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sauna or do whatever it is that you do
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in order to set your stress controls in
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the right direction having tools that
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you can reach to in real time that
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require no learning I mean I had to
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teach it to you you had to learn that
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but it doesn't require any plasticity to
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activate these Pathways so if you're
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feeling stressed you still need to
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inhale of course but you need to
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lengthen your exhales
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now there's a tool that capitalizes on
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this in a kind of unique way a kind of a
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Twist which is the physiological PSI the
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physiological side was discovered in the
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30s it's now been explored at the
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neurobiological level and
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mechanistically in far more detail by
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Jack Feldman's Lab at UCLA also Mark
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krasno's Lab at Stanford and the
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physiological side is something that
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humans and animals do anytime they are
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about to fall asleep
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you also do it throughout sleep from
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time to time when carbon dioxide which
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we'll talk about in a moment builds up
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too much in your system and the
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physiological side is something that
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people naturally start doing when
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they've been crying and they're trying
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to recover some air or calm down when
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they've been sobbing very hard or when
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they are in claustrophobic environments
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however
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the amazing thing about this thing that
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we call the diaphragm the skeletal
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muscle is that it's an internal organ
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that you can control voluntarily unlike
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your spleen or your heart or your uh
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your pancreas where you can't just say
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oh I want to make my pancreas turn out a
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little more insulin right now I'm just
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going to do that with my mind directly
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you can't do that you could do that by
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smelling a really good donut or
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something but you can't just do it
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directly you can move your diaphragm
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intentionally right you can do it
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anytime you want and it'll run in the
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background if you're not thinking about
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it so this incredible pathway that goes
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from brain to diaphragm through What's
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called the phrenic nerve
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p-h-r-e-n-i-c phrenic the phrenic nerve
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innervates the diaphragm you control
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anytime you want you can double up your
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inhales or triple up your inhales you
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can exhale more than your inhales
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whatever you want to do
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such an incredible organ and the
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physiological Psy is something that we
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do spontaneously but when you're feeling
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stressed you can do a double inhale
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long exhale now I just told you a minute
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ago that if you inhale more than you
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exhale you're going to speed the heart
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rate up which would promote more stress
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and activation now I'm telling you to do
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a double inhale exhale in order to calm
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down and the reason is the double inhale
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exhale which is the physiological PSI
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and
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takes advantage of the fact that when we
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do a double inhale even if the second
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inhale is sneaking in just a tiny bit
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more air because it's kind of hard to
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get two deep inhales back to back you do
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big deep inhale and then another little
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one sneaking it in the little sacks in
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your lungs if you only have the lungs
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your lungs aren't just two big bags but
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you've got millions of little sacks
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throughout the lungs that actually make
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the surface area of your lungs as big as
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a tennis court it's amazing if we just
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spread that out what those tend to
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collapse as we get stressed and carbon
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carbon dioxide builds up in our
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bloodstream and that's one of the
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reasons we feel agitated as well so and
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it makes us very jittery I mean there's
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some other effects of carbon dioxide I
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want to get into but when you do the
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double inhale exhale the double inhale
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reinflates those little sacks of the
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lungs and then when you do the long
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exhale
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that long exhale is now much more
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effective at ridding your body and
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bloodstream of carbon dioxide which
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relaxes you very quickly my lab in
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collaboration with David Spiegel's lab
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David's the associate chair of
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Psychiatry at Stanford are doing a study
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right now exploring how physiological
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size and other patterns of breathing
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done deliberately can modulate the
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stress response and other things related
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to emotionality those work are ongoing I
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want to be clear those studies aren't
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done but it's very clear
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from work in our Labs from working Jack
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Feldman's lab and others that the
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physiological Psy is the fastest
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hard-wired way for us to eliminate this
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stressful response in our body quickly
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in real time and so I'm excited to give
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you this tool because I think most
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people have heard that mindfulness and
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meditation is good exercise is good for
00:09:33
us we all need to be getting enough
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sleep Etc but life happens and when you
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find yourself in a position where you
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are more alert and activated than you
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would like to be regardless of whether
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or not the stressor is relationship
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based or it's Financial or it's physical
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or anything like that you can look to
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the physiological side because it
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bypasses
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a very important feature of how we
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function which is that it's very hard to
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control the mind with the Mind
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especially when we are in heightened
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states of activation we are very alert
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we're very sleepy it is very hard to use
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these so-called top-down mechanisms of
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intention and gratitude and all these
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things that are really powerful tools
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when we are not super activated and
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stressed or not super tired but when we
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are anywhere in the range of very alert
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and stress to very sleepy physiological
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size are a powerful way of bringing our
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level of so-called autonomic activation
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which just means our level of alertness
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down and so whether or not it's in line
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at the bank or whether or not you're
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wearing a mask nowadays or you're not
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whatever you know whatever the
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conditions may be where you're at and
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your needs when you're feeling stressed
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the physiological side done just one to
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three times so it'd be double inhale
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exhale double inhale exhale maybe just
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two times we'll bring down your level of
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stress very very fast and as far as I
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know it's the fastest way to accomplish
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that
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[Music]
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