*If an exhale for six seconds is too much for you right now, is it can be for many first timer breathers, then you can start with a inhale to exhale ratio of 2:4 instead, which would look like an inhale for two seconds followed by and exhale for four seconds—and slowly work your way up to 3:6 slowly over time.

Twice per day for 10 minutes

The easiest method for practising cadence breathing is to sit upright or lay on your back. This gives you the best access to your spine (straight spine) and allows you to fill your lungs more completely.

If you feel like you might not be breathing fully into your belly a tip would be to start off lying down and place a small weight, perhaps a stone or something that weighs a kilo or two on your lower belly to create downward pressure on the lower diaphragm.

Personally I like to practice in the morning, after some kind of movement or stretching, sitting upright on a couple of cushions with my spine straight in the morning and then practice laying on my back in the evening when I'm unwinding with an emphasis on breathing into my lower belly, but I invite you to experiment here.

It also helps to set an external timer for this practice. I typically use the gong sound on an app called InsightTimer, but really anything will do.

You can also listen to binaural beats whilst practicing, I've recommended Cory Allen's beats or an app called Endel, both of which you can find a link to in the on-boarding guide.

Increases blood oxygen saturation during rest, builds CO2 tolerance and also exercises baroreceptors which in turn increases heart rate variability.

There are three aspects that you need to remember: your breathing should be Light, Slow and Deep. I'll say that again. Your breathing should be light slow and deep.

Why light? Well as mentioned above, the lighter breathing increases CO2 in your system which improves blood circulation, 02 delivery and also increases the concentration of nitric oxide which leads to a heightened feeling of calm.

Okay, second: why breathing slowly? The so-called perfect breath is actually about 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out for 5.5 breaths per minute. However most of us have a breathing rate of 14 breaths per minute or higher and studies have shown that this has actually been increasing over the past couple of decades.

If you have an Oura Ring it will tell you your respiratory rate per minute. If this is higher than 15 it's a sign of some dysregulation. When we breath more slowly, our vagus nerve is stimulated and what's known as 'baroreceptors' are stimulated which improves your heart-rate variability, which we'll be returning to in week 3.

Finally, why do we want to breathe deep—or breathing into the lower diaphragm. Well from the bio-mechanics, it not only helps with the slow breathing but also increases our lymphatic drainage and the muscle movement actually stimulates tiny neurons by the muscle movement in our lower belly and pelvic floor that signal a relaxation response. I'll add that many of us habitually do not breathe into our bellies or may be unsure how to even do this.

inhale left for 3, hold 3, exhale right for 6.

inhale right for 3, hold 3 exhale left for 6

repeat x 4-6 rounds

twice per day for 10 minutes

brings the nervous system into as state of balance, increases HRV & nervous system resilience over time.

"the eyes are actually two pieces of brain. They are not connected to the brain; they are brain. During development, the eyes are part of the embryonic forebrain. Your eyes get extruded from the skull during the first trimester, and then they reconnect to the rest of the brain. So they’re part of the central nervous system. Having the eyes outside the skull orients the organism to the time of day. But it also means that you’ve got two pieces of brain that can register events in the environment at a distance in order to adjust the overall state of alertness in the rest of the brain and body." – Source

Produces nitric oxide

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papers to support this and go deeper