Breathwork for performance

Breathe in, breath out. There is so much to benefit from breathing rather than holding your breath through lifting, running and life. Blanche and Esther discuss the role breath has in performance and how to increase your capacity with breathwork exercises.

Weekly update
00:53 Blanche's update
05:25 Esther's update

07:22 Let's talk about how breathwork can help performance
08:12 How we breathe matters: nose-breathing vs. mouth-breathing
08:44 Mouth-breathing decreases CO2 tolerance
11:14 Why do we breathe through our mouths if it's inefficient?
15:04 Mouth breathing creates an environment in which we're not well adapted to respond to load and stress, resulting in lower performance and increased anxiety
16:55 How do we get better at breathing
17:08 Exercise #1: Practice nasal breathing
18:11 Exercise #2: Practice breathing through each nostril
19:37 Exercise #3: Apnea walks
20:26 Exercise #4: Paced breathing
22:06 Exercise #5: Apnea sprints
23:36 Exercise #6: Dry swimming

Applicable tip
25:12 Pick a breathing exercise to do this week

Get moving
26:10 Apnea walks

Additional resources
For more information on the benefits of nasal breathing, check out Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Related episodes
Episode 75: Breathwork for stress management
Episode 71: Putting in the work
Episode 4: Train your mind-body connection