Lecture Notes

Introduction

• The speaker begins by reflecting on the challenges of maintaining a consistent practice, especially with new life events like childbirth.
• Emphasizes the need for flexibility in practice routines amidst life's chaos.

Adapting Personal Practices

• Discusses personal adjustments to breath work practice with a new baby at home.
• Highlights the challenge of sticking to a structured routine and the importance of adapting practices.

The Paradox of Waiting for the Right Time

• Addresses the common mindset of waiting for things to calm down to start or deepen practices.
• Suggests that building a practice during intense times ensures sustainability when life calms down.

Key Components of a Minimal Practice

1. Mini Power Naps

   • Not literal naps but intentional short periods of restorative breath work.
   • Focused on down-regulation using extended exhales to calm the nervous system.

2. Resonance Breathing

   • Practice involves slow breathing, approximately four breaths per minute.
   • Adjusts breath pattern based on CO2 tolerance and avoids high-stress practices like Wim Hof method.

Concept of Energy Borrowing

• Compares quick energy boosts (up-regulating practices) to coffee vs. naps (down-regulating practices).
• Encourages choosing practices that recharge rather than borrowing energy from future reserves.

Co-Regulation with a Newborn

• Discusses the impact of a parent's nervous system on a baby's regulation.
• Stresses importance of self-regulation to indirectly influence the child's state.

Nervous System Awareness and Breath Control

• Highlights the concept of neuroception and how our environment affects our nervous system state.
• Recommends becoming aware of nervous system states and using breath to self-regulate.

Practice Adjustments

• Details a practical approach to modifying breath work based on current nervous system states.
• Suggests meeting the nervous system where it is rather than forcing slow breathing.
• Highlights the importance of conscious breath control during anxiety or panic attacks.

Tools for Anxiety and Panic Attacks

• Focus on controlled, conscious breathing rather than trying to directly calm someone in a panic.
• Emphasizes incremental change in breath patterns to align with current nervous system state.

Preemptive Anxiety Management

• Discusses the anticipatory anxiety often experienced before events like flying.
• Suggests breath awareness and regulation in the lead-up to such events to prevent panic.

Emotional and Physiological Anchoring

• Using past positive experiences to generate desired emotional states during stress.
• Practice involves linking specific breath patterns to desired states for future recall.

Conclusion

• Encourages flexibility in practices and awareness of internal states.
• Highlights the importance of adapting practices to fit current life circumstances and personal needs.