hi this is brian welcome back to

philosopher's notes tv

today we've got another great book the

power of your breath by anders

olsen the power of your breath the

secret key to reshaping your looks

body health and weight

anders olsen is one of the world's

leading thinkers on

breathing and teachers and practitioners

of the art and science of breathing we

actually

talked about him briefly in our pn tv on

james nestor's great book

breath in which

we discussed the fact that anders and

james did an experiment together

they went to stanford they had a surgeon

plug up their nasal passages

such they couldn't breathe through their

nose for 10 days they wanted to see what

were the effects of mouth breathing

spoiler alert it was terrible they said

the anxiety the irritation the fatigue

etc they came from breathing through

their mouths was horrible they couldn't

wait to get the stuff out of their nose

so they could breathe properly

aka through their noses so

i'm a huge fan of breathing as you know

if you've been following along i'm a

huge fan of breathing

aren't we all but i'm a huge fan of

doing it right we're going to talk about

why it's important and how to do it

should it be easy to breathe right yeah

of course it should be easy to eat right

it should be easy to move right it

should be easy to focus our minds right

but you know what

modern society for all of its amazing

benefits and improvements isn't helping

us with the basic fundamentals so we got

to revisit this theme again and again

now we have a broad collection of notes

on some of the pretty near complete

collection of notes on the best books on

breathing

check it out at optima optimize dot me

slash breathing we also have a class

optimal breathing 101 and then we go

deeper into it

in our optimized mastery series for our

coaches and really move from theory to

practice to mastery

and it's funny because um i joined one

of our

um our our coaches have like

zoom meetup groups like virtual meetups

right and i got invited

to join one thank you again khalid and

asthma i went there there's a couple

dozen optimizers

and we connected and it was awesome and

at the end we took a little screen grab

right to capture the moment and i

printed it out because i love to capture

these moments and connect

the work i do in the studio as a hermit

with people whose lives

matter to me and who are being impacted

by our work we talked about this in

life's great question

make the connection between the work you

do and the people you're serving

super important so i do that all the

time i cherish all the little notes

and comments i print them out often put

them on my desk and look at them

so long story a little shorter i printed

out this screen grab of our coaches

and emerson saw it coming out of the

printer

and he brought it to me and we looked at

it together and i said hey buddy you

notice anything about this picture

and he said yeah they're all wearing

optimized t-shirts right because they

were the ones who had been through

optimize coach class one

we're wearing the shirts they got a

graduation weekend right we did a

spartan race together they got a t-shirt

and they were wearing it optimized

t-shirt as they came together and then

there were some others in the group who

were just wearing a plain blue t-shirt

they were in coach class two right we're

now in coach class three

you can sign up for coach class four

which starts on january 1st optimize dot

me slash coach

but i'm looking at the picture and i say

yeah you're right they do all have

optimized t-shirts on

except for these people you know who

aren't quite graduating yet but you

notice anything else

and he looks more closely and he saw

what i saw which is every single one of

them had their mouths shut

their lips were closed which we're going

to talk about in breathing posture

that's a very important thing

they were breathing through their noses

and i said he said yeah they have

their mouth shut they're breathing

through the noses i said that's exactly

right why do you think they're doing

that

and he says in his almost seven-year-old

almost eight-year-old away because they

want to live longer

because they want to be healthy exactly

buddy

theory to practice to mastery for the

win go optimize coaches so

why is it important to breathe properly

well let's remind ourselves actually

let's take a breath

right now then we'll remind ourselves in

through your nose we're going to talk

about proper breathing

one two three in through your nose

always

down into your belly your diaphragm

always

exhale slightly longer than your inhale

the fastest way to slip your pa

switch your parasympathetic nervous

system your relaxation response

let's take a breath together now

one breath it's always so amazing i did

a video a number one video where i put

my pulse oximeter on my finger

my pulse was at a at 70 or something

because i'd just done some burpees i was

excited talking
it's probably where it is right now and

in one breath

dropped boom 10 beats if we wanted to do

a few more breaths boom we can drop it

more

a deep relaxing we'll talk about the

parameters

into your nose down into your belly

exhale slightly longer the fastest way

to slow yourself down

calm your nervous system etc so why is

breathing so important

well again we can live for weeks without

food days without water but only

minutes without oxygen it's a core

fundamental

every single cell the trillions of cells

in your body

need oxygen to function the only cells

in your body

basically that don't need oxygen to

function can you guess what they are

all healthy cells need oxygen can you

guess what cells

don't need oxygen to function and

replicate cancer cells

they're anaerobic oxygen is important we

need oxygen healthy cells and oxygen

breathing properly is super important

and then you know breathing

accounts for 70 percent of your

detoxification

sweating and and um elimination it's

only 30 percent

70 percent of your detoxification

comes from your breath which is why

james nestor says and all the great

teachers you can eat all the organic

food you want

you can do x y and z but if you aren't

breathing properly

good luck this is a fundamental skill

that's why we need to learn

how to now james has a big five

and i like to think of it as a big three

to boil it down but with his big five we

can do a big three times two and i

should also say that patrick mcgowan

the oxygen advantage is another one of

my favorite books um

which i absolutely love and patrick has

been one of my deepest inspirations

he's coached me personally a number of

times he's joined our luminary

guest faculty with our optimized coach

program and that one session

literally changed people's lives just

learning how to breathe properly people

with asthma who struggle with running

simply getting this basic stuff right is

where it's at so he tells us there are

five things

in through your nose we all agree on

that down into your belly

agree on that as well and then he says

you want to relax

and slowly breathe so it's not quickly

it's nice and slow and relaxed

and then he says you want to be rhythmic

everything in nature is rhythmic

and then he says you want to be quiet if

you can hear you

yourself breathing too loud and you want

to reduce your breathing volume now well

that's great but i'm going to repeat

our big three here these are the basic

80 20 fundamentals

in through your nose always the only

time we used to breathe through our

mouth was when we were in the most

extreme fight or flight situation

now it's all day every day and we suffer

the consequences of a sympathetic

nervous system

over taxed the simplest way to to flip

the switch to your

parasympathetic and to go on

to off and relax is breathing through

your nose

down into your belly and then you

exhale slightly longer than your inhale

now

anders didn't include this in his top

five although he talked about it a lot

about the importance of extending your

exhale and he also tells us

exhale through your nose which is

interesting so i'm going to read the

little passage there people often ask

as i take another nice little breath

should i exhale through my okay i

breathe in through my nose should i

exhale through my mouth or through my

nose now again there's different

practices

that you can choose to follow but the

general principle that i followed that i

i love how anders described it

compared to breathing out through your

mouth exhaling through your nose

increases the pressure in your lungs

which provides better oxygenation

end of discussion for me so in terms of

my own personal practice

nose belly exhale then we can add quiet

slow

rhythmic and then we've got our big

three times two but this big three

is huge that's a very quick tutorial on

how to breathe

than breathing posture we talked about

this

in our note or pntv on james nestor's

breath as well

if your posture is bad which most

people's

posture is bad right we're kind of in a

s shape we're sitting down in a chair

that somehow captured did i disappear

sitting down in a chair

as an s shape and we're looking at its

little small tablet you know what

happens when you do that

you restrict your diaphragm so you

actually can't breathe into your belly

you can only breathe shallowly and

ineffectually so we want to have the

right posture

again pull the thread through your head

lengthen and widen your spine chest up

chin down

when you're sitting when you're standing

when you're walking strike that power

pose clark kent

to superman transformation

and boom you've activated your best self

we call that high optimus flipping the

switch and you've also given your

opportunity to breathe

give yourself an opportunity to breathe

properly now your diaphragm can do its

thing

you can breathe down deeply that you

can't do here

it's important and then the other thing

to think about is

where you put your old lips and your

tongue so

look around you you'll see a lot of

people just during the day

gave your mouse in their s-shaped gaping

mouth another way james nestor said

was be like a greek statue a j rather

than an s

right and then close your mouth if you

close your mouth guess what you can't

breathe through your mouth

which is why lips closed magic spot

is how we described with emerson based

on patrick mcgowan's kids book

always breathe correctly highly

recommend it little wizard teaches you

to find the magic spot in your mouth put

your tongue

up on the roof of your mouth and then

approach the front

teeth don't quite touch him but right up

there is your magic spot

touch it close your lips

sit stand walk tall boom

that's our ideal breathing posture

practice it

all day and all night which leads us to

your sleep

most people aren't breathing properly in

their sleep he talks about the issues of

being overweight and how that

also reduces the flow of oxygen

in unhealthy ways so another reason to

get your weight right

is that's going to help you get your

breathing right so if you do struggle

with your weight you almost certainly

struggle with your sleep

so we want to deal with these things

systemically

and this is another reason why

optimizing our weight is so important

and that's primarily done again via our

nutrition check out all the stuff on

that

so at night anders echoes

patrick mcgowan's wisdom taping your

mouth i use some 3m

surgical tape i've used it for years i

have not missed one night in years

simple little thing boom rip off the

tape put it on my lips emerson uses it

mommy uses it eleanor is starting to use

it although she's still too young to use

it

all the time right asterisks don't use

it if you're drinking or you have

serious breathing issues or whatever

but otherwise experiment with it it's a

great way to make sure you're breathing

properly at night if you snore

if you wake up with a dry mouth you're

breathing through your mouth almost

certainly

and again we want to stop doing that

it's triggering fight or flight we want

to get relaxed your sleep matters

he also has some great wisdom that we

reflect on in the note

on the fact that if you are blowing up

your brain

all day with input input input input

input and you're redlining at the top

and you never give yourself to come down

and relax time to come down and relax

of course your mind's going to race at

night of course you're going to wake up

at 2 a.m or 3 a.m

whoa what's going on your mind's still

digesting all of those inputs

if you want to sleep well at night which

is a very high priority

a la why do we sleep the second pntv we

did

in our return series here sleep is huge

so we need to oscillate and really

restrict

digital minimalism style to go to cal

newport's book that we also covered

restrict our technology use it wisely

it's a great tool

but don't use it addictively and

obsessively otherwise you can have a

tough time sleeping

which leads us to the fifth and final

idea which is the hero's journey

again now i love reading these books

because i love reading these books and

pulling out the wisdom but often the

most powerful wisdom

is the author's own story there's a lot

of people that we can take for granted

who had to give up a lot

to do the work that they do and they had

to take a lot of courageous heroic risks

to do what they do

and anders tells his story if he just

knew that he was called to study

breathing and optimize his own

breathing and then share what he learned

that so radically changed his life with

as many people as he could

so he dedicated himself to this and he

ran a workshop

right with a colleague of his you know

how many people showed up to this

workshop he was so excited to

produce what would you guess

one person one person what do you say so

that's fine

i know this is what i'm supposed to do

second event how many people showed up

two people kept on going kept on going

he sold his house to finance

his continued study and his continued

development of his craft and of his

business

so we can get to a point where he now

has hundreds of people at each of his

events and he's

thriving as a breath teacher but it was

a hero's journey for him

and again it's easy to take those things

for granted but we need to take them

as granted celebrate the teacher both

for their wisdom and for their exemplary

heroic creative engagement in their own

entrepreneurial pursuits

and then decide what are we here to do

are we going to have the courage to move

past the veil of the known as joseph

campbell said tells us in a hero with a

thousand faces

getting comfortable with being

uncomfortable and being grounded about

it

i'm not suggesting you go fly away into

manicville

ground right uh barbara frederiksen love

2.0 positivity

you could be too positive we're not

looking for that have levity

and have gravity then she says you have

what she calls buoyancy i say be

inspired

and be grounded then you have calm

confidence and then also be anti-fragile

about it

so you want to be simultaneously this is

a nasty talib idea

simultaneously super conservative know

exactly what could go wrong how what the

bills are that you need to pay etc

right and find ways to make that work in

a way that works for you in a

conservative

perspective and at the same time be

super aggressive hold these big dreams

if i think i can do this

and you're simultaneously super

conservative i got to make sure i make

this much

or i'm going to have to sell the house

in order to do this simultaneously

conservative and aggressive that's what

he calls his barbell strategy to be

anti-fragile and then to extend that one

step further you want multiple options

you don't want one thing that has to

work for you to

succeed in your creative endeavors right

that's fragile you don't even want two

things you want an infinite array

of things that you can do optionality

nasim tavab calls it the hope scientists

call it pathways

you have a target you have agency and

you're willing to take multiple pathways

hero's journey how is yours looking

let's get on it today and celebrate

those who are going for it as we get our

sleep dialed we get our breathing

posture dialed check it on your posture

throughout the day

know how to breathe one two three

repeat all day every day why

breathing's kind of important and i

didn't mention but breathing

optimizing my breathing i had done a lot

of things in my life from meditation to

optimizing my diet getting rid of some

inflammatory stuff for me grains

etc that calm my mind but i still had a

baseline of anxiety because that's just

how i was growing up super anxious kid

throughout my life

meditation helped quite a bit but didn't

take care of all of it nutrition

helped even more shockingly dropped me

down when i removed some of the stuff

that didn't work

but it was meditating it was it was

breathing and i do a breathing practice

in my meditation

but it was the breathing and really

mastering this that just

dropped me down to a whole new level of

calm

confidence energized tranquility where i

could flip the switch

and boom oscillate the way i talk about

here that energized tranquility

which again is a big theme of our work

in these discussions in the optimized

community in general and optimized coach

program etc but breathing is big hope

you enjoyed
what's the one thing you got out of it

how can you make it a more practical

part of your life today

get on that one breath at a time see you

tomorrow

hey guys this is bry i hope you enjoyed

that video we have a lot of people ask

us what optimize is all about so i just

wanted to give you a super quick

tour of our site tell you what we do we

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coach there you go hope you're doing

great look forward to sharing more with

you soon

have an awesome day see ya

you