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I had an interesting conversation with my client Karla recently. She's absolutely crushing it and has already lost over 20 pounds on her road to her first Ironman 70.3 triathlon.
But she told me she sometimes skips her breathwork. Why? Because she felt she was already pretty calm and had her anger under control. I hear this exact same thing from my busy male executive clients. You think you're completely fine because you're not yelling in the boardroom. I told Karla there's a fundamental difference. There are actually three levels of calm. The first stage is looking calm. You don't yell, you don't overreact, and you stay looking controlled. The next level is being calm. You don't explode or roll your eyes… you just hold everything inside. The Ninja level is feeling calm. When you feel calm, the game changes and you become a black belt of the breath and emotional regulation. Most guys I coach are trapped at level two. You just hold it all in. But emotional regulation is the key to a good life. When you can't handle your emotions, you make poor decisions when it comes to eating. You snap at your kids, you're short with your wife, and you stay up all night because you're anxious. As a NASM Master Trainer and 7-time Ironman finisher, I can tell you exactly why people fail. You can't access true emotional regulation without regulation of your breathing mechanics. Diaphragmatic breathing is your Body's Throttle. In Phase 1 of my LivFit 365 program, we tackle The Domino Effect. The Breath Domino is the very first step. You'll die in 3 minutes without air, and it's the only way to manually pull back on the gas so your brain knows you aren't being chased by a lion. Let's stop holding it all in and start actually feeling calm.
PS: I was trying to teach my son, Jagger, about deep breathing today, but he was more interested in feeding his breakfast to our golden retriever, Kona… rats. |
