Chatting with Dr. Belisa Vranich in the latest episode of The Adiel Gorel Show, we took a deep dive into the specifics of breathing and the impact this has on our mental and physical wellbeing. As she had been explaining, breathing the right way is a forgotten art. She tells the story of a high functioning military vet, a chopper pilot who was relearning how to breathe. This pilot found it surprisingly hard to learn how to do it right – simply because it was so different from what he had grown used to doing!
Breathing IQ is a thing.
Dr. Vranich urges people to get their breathing IQ to understand what they are doing wrong or right. She explains how we are not supposed to be softening parts of our body and engaging other parts of the body to breathe the right way. The way she explains it is great, with such detail, and I ask her: so we inhale as a cow and exhale as a cat? That is precisely it, she says. It was so interesting the way she described it, because I was doing it exactly as she described it, right there, sitting in my chair!
One of the things we discuss during our conversation is how singers live up to 8 years longer. It is the extended exhale that is beneficial here – the extended audible exhale. This improves lung capacity and function, and lung velocity corresponds to a longer life she says. According to Dr. Vranich, conductors also tend to live longer because of the movement of the thoracic cavity.
The good news, says Dr. Vranich, is that we have all the tools within our efficient, powerful bodies to withstand a serious situation. All we have to do is to relearn how to use it as it was designed to be used. She believes that we don’t need to read many books or attend a lot of classes – just learning the basic techniques is enough to bring about real change.
During our conversation, we also speak about the Warrior Breathing habit (Breathing for Warriors is a book co-authored by Dr. Belisa Vranich). She speaks about her certification courses and about books she has authored, including a rather interesting one about younger women dating older men. Watch the video and be entertained as well as enlightened!
