How to Breathe (Critical Thinking)

Description

Although we share some breathing techniques, this video is really about breaking free of "expert hypnosis", where we mindlessly repeat a behavior or grasp onto an idea, just because some source we consider to be "expert" said it's so. This is about trusting your own discernment and inner wisdom, about experimenting, and about questioning things.

You can stand beside us as we make these videos by becoming a patron on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/rewilduniversity

Check out our online video course, "ReWild Your Mind", for many more methods of cultivating a clear, powerful, and positive mind-set. http://rewildu.com/online-courses/rewild-your-mind-online-course/

Visit http://rewildu.com/classes/ for unique educational opportunities in rewilding, wilderness skills, mindfulness, martial arts, primal fitness, and more.

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

[Music]

yep

this videos about breathing we're gonna tell you the absolute right way to breathe because there's only one way there's only one way my ways mine that's it starts to stimulate some of the mitochondria somebody that's a really good question about breathing what's the right way to breathe and you know a quick Google search okay there's a yogic breathing with three-part breath there's okay to mo that's a really cool one there's the wim hof breathing method there's if you're gonna do free diving that's a whole different want to have longer breath holds totally different way of breathing some people who feel we're getting breathing too heavily and getting too much oxygen all the time other people that say we should be breathing a lot less get less pretty confusing it's always confusing when you check research so thing you know we did a video a long time ago on diet right the true primal diet yeah same thing you go online then people will tell you that this food is going to kill you or this food same food it's gonna cure you is gonna yeah yeah and and you'll hear really good you'll see good research you'll see good um all kinds of anecdotal stuff about you know how this this diet just changed my life it's hard not to buy into that and believe it I mean this person will outline their whole journey in a blog oh yeah there's some incredible journeys out there and it's awesome that people are finding things that work for those I think that is maybe what we're really talking about while we're talking about breathing or diet exercise have anything right fill in the blank we're really talking about finding what works for you I'm not just talking about what works for you but I'm talking about what works for you right now because we forget sometimes that we are ever-changing creatures and that what worked for us this morning might not work for us this afternoon absolutely you know I was thinking about the state of knowledge we live in this time now vast knowledge at our fingertips and I think historically and very much though today everywhere you look there's gonna be people that want to tell you what is the right thing and they're invested in you believing that there's some different reasons for that I mean well okay obviously well one of the first reasons I always try to come from a positive perspective is that a person honestly wants to help you and what we were talking about they've detailed their whole journey and here's the food that's helped them here's the things that's helped them they want you to be healthy and happy too so I do believe that a lot of us fall into that category of wanting to help other people that's usually what it is you see one of those blogs you know they were diagnosed with cancer they started eating this way maybe they started this this breathing changing their breathing their cancer went away for them anecdotally it looks like this is the answer and they want to share that with the world there can be financial incentives to getting you people to believe the same thing that you do yeah I think we've all experienced that leg you're on the internet or wherever you're at and you're reading something and it's kind of interesting but you know underneath it all you sent something on at the bottom there's the by are whatever product

or they want you to either be scared into or convinced into there was the right way so that you will buy something from them and that's all fine and good then there are completely totally legitimate things out there oh absolutely but it is another reason why and then there's just that I ego eclis I feel better can you see that going you go I I don't think I've ever heard that it kinda reminds me of stoic but Jamie and it's irrelevant you going okay I feel better if you believe the same thing that I do it reinforces my belief and makes me feel you know I believe this thing and ten other people believe it what if 100 people a thousand people million people believe it I start to feel more secure it must be true yeah the more of us that believe it it must be true yeah and that's why I think you've got this you know so much effort going into convincing people that this is the right way as you're seeing this video is not really about the right way to breathe it's about how we gain knowledge you know although we actually are gonna share some breathing techniques and things that have worked for us well I want to say from a personal perspective with various different things I've experienced over the past few years of my life I've done some research online and it has been very confusing because you see something you think okay this sounds like me and if you want to be a informed individual as most of us do you go and you don't just read this one and you read that one and one from over here and but then you want to be really informed so you read the reverse side oh but that kind of sounds like me too and then or maybe you've been following something for a while but all of a sudden you find out oh my gosh coconut oil not as good for you as people say it is I eat coconut oil everyday I think it's a hot food so the truth its I want other people to believe me and I want there to just be one source that I can go to and here's the answer Rebecca this is what you do and you'll feel better yeah and so I understand why people want other people it would be so much easier if there was a verifiable truth and this is the thing that works for everybody all the time yeah it's it's overload I mean in a way back before internet which wasn't for you know a lot of you you remember this died you you'd have to go to the University or the library or something to try to you know learn and get an answer to your question it could take you days weeks you know to find an answer to a simple question that we now can type into Google and get 10 different sources showing us you know every facet yes that's more realistic so so what do we do yeah what do we do breathe breathe you know that's one of the magic things about breathing you know our friend Andrea Josie Moe who is a yoga instructor and she's always talking about breath and very inspiring ways and how that breath can call us into this moment and just developing mindfulness for instance paying attention to our breath we can start to tune in to our mind state into our body state so if if then I start trying out some breathing method that somebody's told me I can start to pay attention how does this make me feel when I'm doing it how does it make me feel later on how does it make me feel tomorrow I think it would be amazing if in today's world we can all be empowered to know that we have wisdom we have discernment we don't have to just look and accept somebody else's answer but we can figure things out for ourselves

and sometimes the answer is not going to be this is not for the lazy it's not going to be as clear cut as it might mean that what I'm trying to figure out do I breathe Mordor breathe las that changes throughout the day it changes according to my mood it changes according to Y how much I've been moving today so we are essentially guinea pigs and we can become our own experiment if you will and say okay and maybe you do go get some research because it's something you know nothing about maybe you don't you still know nothing about it but you're gonna somebody had to figure out initially to you can take whatever approach you want to say it's with the breathing try different things out okay I tried that but boy that was not nearly as peaceful as it was this morning maybe in the morning you need a certain kind of breathing when you're just laying in bed and you want to connect a little deeper with that kind of precious morning energy maybe you want to get energized you need different kind of breathing for that be an experiment you know experiment on yourself and decide hey if I do this kind of breathing all throughout the day how do I feel at the end of the day and it's so neat because that awareness can work for anything I can work for what kind of food should I be eating how do I feel about this you know meeting coming up how what approach do I want to take to it because I'm feeling stressed out but that experimental mmm mindset mm-hmm I think it's very valuable that this can be life-changing for us and world-changing

you know right now you look at our politics in the United States so divided so many people just grabbing onto a side and holding on to that so strongly they won't look outside of it and this is a call for us to say you know what I don't need to be part of a herd of any kind I don't need to just latch on to someone else's idea I can I mean who is sacrilege but I could feel that I agree with the Republicans in some ways and with the libertarians in some ways and the Democrats in some ways in Green Party in some ways maybe I don't have to be a Republican a Democrat a constitutionalist whatever it's gonna be what happens when we stop defining ourselves in that way and then you become you because actually probably if any of us really looks at things we're gonna see that it's our our feelings about something or what works for us is more organic and complex I am so glad you brought that up because I had wanted to say something which is when we're talking about any of this stuff it's not just what the truth is it's what we think the truth is our minds are so powerful that I I've always wanted to start a new diet fad which was the this is what's good about what you're about to eat right like here you're going to have insert food a red pepper here's all the good things for you and all you do is you take in what's good for you about it how much doesn't what we think about something really effect and that's another thing you can experiment with try looking at what you think is right and even though maybe mainstream's going this way if your inner talk is like but I feel like that try it once and see I know a lot of people we've heard from many of you when you choose to go the direction that you're being pulled you find out wow that's actually yeah what's tugging you in your heart wow that's actually where I feel fulfilled where I find my health where I find the answers to what

is that I need cuz you're all right in here the food talked about food right that's I often think about sometimes some unhealthiest people you know are the health food yeah we're so concerned with you know that red pepper there's lots of good things about it but I've also read you know it's a nightshade sensor yeah and so much as you say you're mine we know we can stress ourselves out yeah our mind is creating stress hormones and we're making ourselves sick by trying to be healthy and we can do it with anything you know don't research something for a while just let it go for a little bit try out some experiments yourself yeah we're talking about politics don't listen to the news or read about politics or go anywhere or even talk to anybody for a whole week just be like I am tabeling politics and do something else and then when you approach it again approached it with curiosity and say hmm do I actually really still agree with that how do I feel and it might be fun to notice the results this is about thinking for ourselves it's about awareness it's about mindfulness it's about we do not have to be followers just following this trend that you know we should get back to breathing alright okay so I'm just gonna say one thing that's worked for me you say one thing that's good for you and then you know if you came here just about breathing hopefully you get something that you can try and of course we don't want you to believe that this is the way to breathe we want you to test it see what you think of it and then have your own experience because our way is not my way go ahead oh okay one thing that's worked for me I feel in my life personally that I can get worked up about things that maybe I don't need to get worked up about and so it's probably cliche but the three deep breaths when you notice yourself revving up whatever even if it might be stress it might just be control it could be fear could just be it you're tired whatever it is I like to do three deep breaths and you know what I don't really follow a pattern I just make sure I get a good big inhale I kind of take a pause after I've had that inhale to just notice the space without breathing and I do a big and I make some sound and I just imagine in my body is melting and I do that three times and then I notice it's kind of a reset for me it's a message from my muscles to my brain hey maybe it's not as bad as you think it is and if it is as bad as I think it is at least I've calmed my system down right and I just wanted to say one thing getting back to our beautiful friend Andrea who's the yoga instructor one thing she would always say in class which I love is slow deep and wide hmm about breathing and it just it just gives you this since its little slow breaths they can calm us and most of us have a dressed-up a highly rugged system there's so much power just in breathing slow deep we have a little biofeedback the thing that we hook students up to sometimes out here and it doesn't actually monitor breathing but it shows very very my new shifts in our heart rate and through this breathing technique they find that they can smooth out their their rhythm in this way I'm not going to go into the details or try to explain it all but basically they can see on the graph what happens when they use this breathing technique and what happens when their breathing more shallow and high and it goes from a smooth kind of resonance feeling to really sharp and choppy and for me I've learned to you know from hooking myself up to that machine I've learned to be able to just access that really really quickly by the feel of it but basically it's I just do five seconds in five seconds out so it's the one-two

slight pause two down and breathe do my belly it's not a you know I'm doing it fast like two seconds in 80 seconds out here but it's just really noticeable you think that I'm breathing usually but there's a depth to it because I'm filling my belly and that just puts me into a calm state and when I try to do this throughout the day it tends to keep me I would say pretty mellow pretty aware when mine feels open and vibrant and alive and checked in where if I find myself getting in the routine or into autopilot my breathing's up here it's high shallow you know ii and ii and ii or two out and then i just feel i don't think so i think if you just you know i do it in through my mouth or in through my nose sometimes out through my mouth we're out through my nose and just five seconds in to you know it's about 80% capacity in five seconds out again did about eighty percent i'm not trying to force everything out it's a it becomes kind of a natural breathing after a while because it's not very forced like oh yeah do you feel can i I'm just gonna ask a few more questions do you feel that you're just focusing on your breath or do you hold something in your mind or have a certain feeling about you when you talk about that a little I would say when I started this out I combined it this is maybe an important thing I do this breathing more consciously almost sitting meditatively and I combine it with really strong feelings of gratitude joy love and now because I have it realized that when I take one of those breaths those feelings kind of automatically comment so there's no more mental focus on those because that you know I created that habitual bridge Wow so it's super helpful you know at home or in the woods or something like that where things are getting tense it's almost an instant relaxation because you form that little mind path Wow breathing you can take it with you wherever you go so that's kind of the neat thing about it being a practice I would love to hear from you if you experiment what you discover both with the breathing and just with your own truth-seeking and if you have any breath meditations or styles that you really enjoy you probably heard let's talk about wim HOF and all kinds of things so you know there's a lot more things that we experiment when it breathing wise but what have you done and and also about the larger context of this video how do you not get sucked into becoming very polarized very one-sided how do you keep your mind open how do you judge or juggle looking at research or its sources in a world where basically everything is so over research that yeah where everything is right and everything is wrong all right my friends yeah thanks for watching [Music]