Breathwork Magic
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, a podcast dedicated to exploring the life-changing power of Breathwork. Discover how conscious breathing can unlock inner peace, resilience, and clarity as we dive into inspiring stories and practical insights. Whether you’re new to Breathwork or looking to deepen your practice, each episode offers wisdom to help you connect more fully with yourself and the world around you. Everything starts and ends with the breath.
Breathwork Magic
Where Science Meets Spirit: Breath as a Bridge to Balance
What happens when functional medicine meets the healing power of breath?
Breathwork isn’t just a wellness trend, it’s a powerful bridge between the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms.
In this inspiring episode of Breathwork Magic, Amanda is joined by Dr. Lara May, a functional medicine pharmacist, Reiki master, and certified life and health coach, who shares her personal and professional evolution into the world of breath.
Listeners will discover how Lara blended her Western medical background with Eastern practices like Kundalini yoga and energy healing to uncover the transformative effects of intentional breathing. From balancing pH and calming inflammation to overcoming emotional blockages and releasing trauma, Lara offers both science-backed insight and heart-centered wisdom. This episode is a guide to reclaiming your breath, your power, and your peace.
🔹 In this episode, listeners will learn:
- How Lara discovered the true power of breath through yoga and clinical experience
- The link between CO2, oxygen, and inflammation and why breath matters
- How Breathwork supports detox, adrenal health, and nervous system healing
- Kundalini yoga’s impact on energy, awareness, and even caffeine addiction
- The role of intention, forgiveness, and journaling in emotional healing
- Simple breath practices to downshift at night and realign with calm
- Why Yoga Nidra and "brain breaks" are powerful tools for stress relief
🔹 Connect with Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess:
~ Sign Up for Virtual Mindful Mindset Mondays HERE
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, the podcast that explores the life-changing power of your breath. Breathwork isn't just a practice. It's a gateway to healing, transformation and shifting to a new mindset, by letting go of the past and embracing the possibilities of the present moment and embracing the possibilities of the present moment.
Speaker 1:I'm Amanda Russo, your host, a certified breathwork facilitator, level two Reiki practitioner and creator of the Mander's Mindset podcast. On my own journey, breathwork has been a powerful tool for releasing what no longer serves me and shifting my perspective to step into my fullest and greatest potential. Each week, I'm joined by inspiring guests, blood work facilitators, healers and wellness enthusiasts who share how this practice has helped them and their clients heal, grow and embrace lasting change. So take a deep breath in and out, settle in and let's explore the magic of your breath together. The transformation starts now. Welcome to Breathwork Magic, where we explore the life-changing power of your breath. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I'm here today with Dr Laura May, and she's a functional medicine pharmacist, a Reiki master and a certified life and health coach. Thank you so much for joining me. Hi, thank you for having me. So can you tell me when you discovered the power of our breath?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I've been practicing yoga for a very long time, like back and since college, and so I guess it's honestly probably something I even took for granted way back then too, you know. I mean, you know they tune you into your breath at the beginning of the practice but and then of course you're always directed to come back If you find yourself holding your breath or maybe if it's a power or invigorating vinyasa or Bikram or whatever you know, then you can find yourself getting winded and come back and slow the breath. But I think I didn't really understand the power of it until I probably took my first yoga teacher training, which was a vinyasa yoga teacher training, and since then I'm alsoundalini yoga teacher as well.
Speaker 2:And it's funny too, like with all of my scientific education, knowing even from the critical care aspect of how we monitor co2 and we monitor oxygen saturation and all of these things we oftentimes have patients coming in essentially hyperventilating for whatever reason, if it's that they can't grasp their breath because of a COPD exaggeration or it could be something like in a panic or an anxiety attack.
Speaker 2:But we oftentimes don't coach them through it. We give them a medication, we put an oxygen mask on them. Or we give them something called a BiPAP oxygen mask on them, or we give them something called a BiPAP or a CPAP, or sometimes we have to intubate them if they're not protecting their airway. I think it is really interesting that the more I have brought in other modalities outside of my traditional training, I have really started to appreciate the power of our breath and how it can, you know, alter our pH balance and what does that mean for our physical health. In addition to you know how we breathe and how it influence our emotional and mental well-being, and so if we're not breathing correctly and our pH is off, then that's going to lead to inflammation in some way, shape or form, which is going to lead to imbalance or some sort of disease state manifestation. So it's really interesting, I think.
Speaker 1:Now I'm curious yoga teacher training. Did you do that before or after you were working as a pharmacist?
Speaker 2:Oh, way after. So I think it was actually around COVID. I think it was 2019, right before COVID is when I did my first one, and then I just completed my Kundalini teacher training a couple two years ago now, and so that was also one of the things that drew me to yoga was how they used the breath to get closer to source. So you speak, and or the source within you, you know, because obviously, like we are, we're not separated from source. In my personal belief, like we are, you know, we came from source and we'll go back to source, and I think that during this life, we are also a you know it's connected to, ideally connected to source and are a part of it, and so I think that's also something that, early on, we're sort of maybe conditioned out of by society or whatever social structure we're born and raised into, but it's a good reminder we're born and raised into.
Speaker 1:But it's a good reminder.
Speaker 2:Did your first yoga teacher training change how you looked at your role as a pharmacist at all? I mean, it definitely deepened my belief that everything that manifests in our physical body does have an energetic root. I was already moving down this path with other teachers that I've studied and followed for years. Carolyn Mace was a big influence in terms of my spiritual journey and connecting that to the healing and or lack thereof of our physical body, thereof of our physical body.
Speaker 2:But moving deeper into understanding the entire practice of yoga, not just asana the postures and the movement is the asana, and the breathing, the breath work, is pranayama, and so, you know, yoga has eight limbs, and so the asana is just one piece of it, and it's really a way of living and a way of conducting your life in an intentional way. And I think that's the other thing that's super powerful about whatever type of breath work we choose to partake in or to implement, it's the intention behind it. What is that intention? Is it stress release, stress relief? Is it healing emotional imbalance that we have? Or maybe it's calming nervousness or panic, or maybe it's, you know, like whatever it is maybe we're even breathing to to complement our detox pathway that we're on. So there's so many different things and yoga definitely and the teacher training definitely took me to that deeper understanding and again, just the holistic view of it, that it's not just one thing, it's very many things and it does have the implications that transcend from what we the unseen into the seen.
Speaker 1:The unseen to the seen. I like that phrase. Now I'm curious. You mentioned how, when people come in and they're hyperventilating or they're not breathing, that it's typically a medication that's given to them. Have you found with any of your own clients that you are working with them on breathing practices?
Speaker 2:Oh for sure. Yeah, you know, and it can be very many different contexts, whether we're working with a detox protocol and I might give them something that's a little bit more active to practice, or maybe their root of inflammation is coming from something like anxiety, depression or something like that, and so we're just working on calming the body and calming the inflammation in the body with the breath and really rebalancing the ratio of oxygen to CO2. And so, hopefully, bringing that pH level in the body back into homeostasis and also teaching them. It's so empowering to know that we have this tool within us. That is number one. It's automatic and we can't live without it. Like, as soon as we stop breathing, our heart stops, wow, yeah. And so it can be purposeful and intentional and we can control it.
Speaker 2:Not everything in our body is like that. A lot of the things in our body are just automatic. They happen without us thinking about them. But in this way we have that control if we choose to step into that power and that decision making and that intention and take control and make the decision. Okay, I'm going to do this because A, b or C and this is how. And so, yeah, I definitely do work with my clients in a variety of different breathwork tools. So much of our inflammation comes from stress and not being conscious or having the tools at our disposal to manage our stress, and so the first step usually that I take with all of my clients is addressing that. So where are we, where do we need to go and how are we going to get there? A lot of it is just long, slow, deep breathing, because that is simple, but it's so effective and helpful.
Speaker 1:Now I'm just personally curious why is it that it's the breathing that stops before the heart?
Speaker 2:It can be a variety of reasons that it doesn't always happen that way. But if someone's having a respiratory difficulty then if it's not relieved then it can lead to the cardiac arrest, the heart stopping, because it's the oxygen that helps power the muscle contraction. As soon as your heart doesn't have that oxygen then it essentially ceases to contract the way it should for functionality. That's sort of like a very simplistic way of explaining that pathophysiology of the why. There's a lot of other reasons that could stop the heart, but like it took respiration and breathing. That's the why of that one.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, that makes sense. Wow, that's so interesting to me because I never realized that a lot of times it was the breathing that stopped before the heart itself did, like COPD or asthma.
Speaker 2:If the body is not able to get that oxygen, the brain is also impacted extremely significantly as well. But it's the heart that will cease to beat. And then, because your blood is what carries your oxygen throughout your body, once your heart stops beating, the blood also stops traveling to the brain, and then you'll start to have brain cell death and eventually total brain death as well. So Oxygen's important. We need oxygen. We love our brains, we love our whole bodies. That's so true. So many of us.
Speaker 2:Just, you know our daily default is fight or flight, and so we are on high alert as soon as we wake up in the morning and you know we wake up a lot of us maybe are inherently late.
Speaker 2:I know I myself used to be, and still sometimes can definitely be, guilty of that as well.
Speaker 2:And then we may or may not have a stimulant first thing in the morning, usually coffee or some sort of caffeine, even if it's, you know, tea with caffeine.
Speaker 2:And so we really make our adrenals, you know, we really make them work for us, and you know, eventually they just can't keep up.
Speaker 2:There are these tiny little glands on top of our kidneys. They're not very big but they're very powerful and very impactful and we really need to send love back to those little adrenal glands and help them regulate the release of cortisol in a natural way that's in alignment with our circadian rhythm. There is a natural spike as soon as we wake up, but then it should slowly decline over the course of the day. A lot of us, if we have an imbalance, we'll have that afternoon lull and then maybe sometime after dinner you'll get a secondary spike and you might be wired before bed or if you're ever feeling usually tired and wired, that's usually a sign of some sort of stress response, cortisol imbalance. And so those long, slow, deep breaths just really help bring our brain and our body and our intention back into that heart coherence and in alignment with our heartbeat and our breathing rate, and so it really helps calm the adrenals and rebalances. It can help rebalance those inflammatory responses that are happening in our body.
Speaker 1:Now, do you start your day with any sort of breathing practice?
Speaker 2:Honestly, mine is attached to what type of meditation and or yoga practice I'm doing. If I'm starting my day with a kundalini yoga practice which I do enjoy doing because it does incorporate multiple different types of breath work then it can be. It'll start with a long and slow it'll and then moves into coordinating the breath with the movement. If anyone listening is not familiar with kundalini yoga, it is very much a coordination of breath pace with your movement pace, and so you know there's a lot of spinal movement, whether it's arching and flexing the back or moving to left to right and twisting, flexing the back, or moving to left to right and twisting, and it's done usually at a pretty quick pace. And so you're coordinating your inhales and your exhales with which whichever direction you're moving, for usually any a period of time from one to three minutes for each little Kriya, as we call it. And then I always, especially first thing in the morning, I like to end my kundalini practice with breath of fire, which is a very fast pace, breathing in through the nose and out through the nose, and one could call that more of a hyperventilatory breath, because it is, but it really energizes and awakens and brings the body, mind and spirit alive all together, and so I think that's a really good thing for first thing in the morning, and then usually after that I don't need any coffee, so but then also too. You know if I'm, if I don't have time for that, I'm just doing, you know, a meditation practice.
Speaker 2:I am a student of Dr Joe Dispenza's work, and so he incorporates several different breathing practices, again, from the long and slow, the steady to also it's more of a he calls it more of like a pineal gland, like meditation with the breath work. So you draw in your breath deeply and you hold it at what we would call the top and you contract your pelvic floor and all of those muscles down by your perineum and then, with intention, bring your attention from down there all the way up your spine to your pineal gland, which is, you know, your third eye space, and you hold it there as long as you can, and then you exhale and you do that. You know we repeat it anywhere from three to six times, and again it has a differing intention and impact, but still very powerful.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I'm curious have you done any sort of breath work outside of like a yoga practice?
Speaker 2:yes, I've been to, you know, and besides the Joe Dispenza work there, locally, we have a beautiful community of practitioners and we do have several breath work practitioners, so I've been to a few of their classes and I just you, you know, I love it. It's not something I do on a regular basis, but yes.
Speaker 1:What kind of breathwork was that you did in?
Speaker 2:I know a couple I've been to have been very much like, so integrated with somatic practices too. So again, like sort of coming back to the body, because that's also part of our. You know, our fight or flight, or you know, just so much of our Western lifestyle is like we're so focused on everything out there that we forget to bring the attention and the intention back inside, and so a lot of that is, you know, so bringing the intention and attention not only to our breathing but again to our heart, to where are we holding tension in the body? You know, what is the texture or the what would you say? What does the energy feel like? What does it? You know, when you think about it, what does it look like? Does it have a color? Does it have a temperature? Does it have a certain feeling to it? And so that's the practices I've done with our local practitioners here around the Lake Tahoe area.
Speaker 1:I like that. Does it have a color? Does it have a feel? You know, I really like that bringing it back into the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and getting curious because I think you know that's the other piece of this whole connection between the physical and the energetic, especially when it comes to healing is that you know, we talk about the science behind it and we talk about the pathophysiology, but we also really need to tune in and start communicating with our own intuition about what's going on there. What have we unconsciously stored and or not processed, and why and what could we do to help ourselves process, release, transmute and move?
Speaker 1:forward. I like how you mentioned what have we stored, because I'm not a doctor, I'm not a pharmacist, I'm not even anything like that but I completely agree with you in terms of it showing up, like energetically and then physically. You know, emotions, thoughts, things we're not paying attention to and we're just pushing down, is going to somehow physically show up in the body. A lot, even if it's something as simple as stress, like then stress is going to show up as something else. Maybe it's an autoimmune. It's going to show up in some way. You know, I really believe that and you can only push down stuff for so long you know what I mean Before it's going to be something else know, at some point get angry or, you know, maybe it'll come up as a panic attack.
Speaker 2:It's got to come out in some way, shape or form, and usually it comes out in those ways that we've labeled it negative emotion. But it's really just an emotion. It's a vibration. It's a release of the vibration that we haven't allowed processing prior, and so I think that's the other thing too. It might affect ourselves and or those who are projecting it on negatively, and so in that context it's a negative emotion. But really it's just no emotion. It's just a vibration. If we can stop judging ourselves, forgive ourselves and then look at it objectively, that's where the empowering process and practice really starts. That's like where the magic and the healing is too.
Speaker 1:I completely agree. Now I'm curious do you have any tips for people listening to us to look at things, especially if they consider it like a quote, unquote, a negative feeling? I'll say that.
Speaker 2:And the more you do it, the better you'll get, and the more you do it, the better you'll get. But I think also too is, you know, set aside some time with place. To start is just like AI, chat, gpt or Grokker whatever you like to use, gemini, whatever one you like to use but ask it like what would be some questions I could ask myself to address, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever that is for you on the day. And then, you know, create a nice little sacred space for yourself and make the intention that you're not going to judge that whatever comes up, you're just going to see it for whatever it is. You're also maybe going to be willing to take responsibility for the role that you played, because a lot of times we get wrapped up in this pattern of victimhood Like I'm the victim. A lot of times we get wrapped up in this pattern of victimhood Like I'm the victim. This happened to me and there are definitely some things that you know we never would choose for ourselves. However, we're a participant in everything that happens and so if we can come to that place of self-forgiveness, self-compassion, self-love, then even if it was truly something that happened to you, because, if you think about it a lot of times when we are a victim of some behavior that was unwanted, we still blame ourselves, you know, we still judge ourselves for how we reacted or did it in the moment, and so there's still that aspect of self-forgiveness and self-compassion, and so, again, it's a practice. It's not something, unfortunately, that comes easy to most of us, and so I would just say just start with where you are, be compassionate, love yourself for where you are now and know that, with your intention and with moving forward and coming back to this regularly, that you will sort of grow that muscle of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I heard many years ago that I love and I still say to this day is that forgiveness is a selfish act. You forgive others for yourself. Act you forgive others for yourself.
Speaker 2:Because if we don't forgive others, even for the things they've quote unquote done to us, then we carry that resentment, we carry that anger, we carry whatever that frustration, whatever that emotion is, it's still carried within us and that's what can become the physical ailments. And so if you love yourself enough and you want to heal truly heal and release and get rid of these physical ailments, then you have to release, let go, transmute these emotions, and that requires forgiveness. Now, that doesn't mean you condone. It, just means that you've said, okay, I'm ready to release, I'm ready to let go, I'm ready to move on. I am no longer willing to let them have that power over me by me being angry at them, frustration or whatever it is. Then we're giving our power away to the person that's not even there anymore, like it's not affecting them, it's only affecting us. So forgiveness truly is a selfish act, and it's one of the most self-loving selfish acts you can do, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I like all of that advice and I think the journaling is a great, a great aspect, and I love how you mentioned about asking AI like questions you can ask yourself. I've done that myself personally, even with journaling. You know, and I think I had somebody mentioned this to me on a podcast recently about, you know, even reminding ourselves when it comes to journaling, nobody's going to see this, not even your therapist, not your best friend. If there's something that you want to get out of your mind, that's the best place to do it, because it's just you in this book. It's a space for you to fully let go, and I don't feel like a lot of people, even a lot of women, really feel like they have a place to do that. You know what I mean Whereas we're going to judge themselves and nobody has to see it.
Speaker 2:Well, I noticed too that one of the first things I recommended was creating that I said, sacred space, but really a safe space. So you're creating that time and period and place where you feel safe, and so that also, too, is immediately bringing down a layer or a layer of the wall that we've built around ourselves as protection, and so for sure. And there has, there is something to be said for putting that pen or pencil to paper too, for you know the release, the understanding, the evaluation of what's going on up here, because this brain of ours, if we don't move into the conscious, the intentional, it will run wild all on its own. And usually those of us that do have a lot of panic, anxiety, depression. A lot of that can be traced back to uncontrolled mind chatter, like you're living your past every day, because you're bringing everything that happened to you in your past forward into your present day, and so, therefore, you're just reliving yesterday every single day, because you're unconscious, you're unaware, and that's what our brain does, like the monkey mind does that because we survived, and so then it creates this pattern of, well, this was the pathway of our survival, so that part of the brain just wants us to survive and so to keep us surviving. It'll keep us in that pattern, even though it's a pattern that's not serving us to the max. It kept us alive and so that part of the brain will keep repeating that.
Speaker 2:But our power is in our intentional, conscious mind and brain, and so we have to, with intention and these practices, start doing them and implementing them to get ourselves out of those patterns, out of that repeat and, with purpose and intention, asking ourselves well, what do I want? What does forgiveness look like? What does happiness look like? What does health and wellness look like for me? Because that's the other thing is you get to decide. Whatever that is, you don't have to go off of somebody else's definition, society's definition. You get to decide, and when you've figured not even figured it out completely, but just come up with even a couple things, then that's your guiding light and your pathway forward.
Speaker 1:No, I completely agree with all of that. I love how you mentioned some of those questions like what do I want? What does forgiveness look like to me and like everybody's different? But asking those reflective questions and sitting with yourself in that safe space and seeing what comes up, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, like I think another good example too is and it's funny because this has come up with a couple friends of mine and just also like different things I've been listening to lately is like family dynamics, and so if you have a parent or a sibling or a cousin or whoever an in-law, you feel like in some way, shape or form, they have betrayed you or done you wrong, and maybe it's a pattern, a behavioral pattern, that continues to happen and you know, at some point you have to decide. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to? But again this comes back to like we are the ones holding on to the concept of the victim, to the concept of I was wrong, to the concept of I was taken advantage of or manipulated or whatever, and so we hold emotions in our body towards others and again we're giving our power away to them.
Speaker 2:When we do that, are you going to approach them? You can, you don't have to, because, however you're thinking about, the whole dynamic ultimately has very little to do with them and everything to do with you, and so, really, this is an internal journey. When we start down this path, we don't realize how much of our own side of the street that we're going to have to sort of own up to and at least become aware of and acknowledge. And so much of this work is self-forgiveness. When we think we're forgiving someone else, we probably are, but there's a lot of self-forgiveness that comes with that too.
Speaker 1:No, I like how you mentioned that. You know, and I think it comes up for a lot of people with the family dynamics, because a lot of times it's not like a relationship that you're necessarily going to just end. A lot of times your family dynamics you're not necessarily going to end or not as easily going to end them, you know. So, are you going to speak up? Are you going to not Like, how are you going to handle that? But I love how you mentioned like it's a reflection of you, like however you are feeling about the situation. It's a reflection of internal, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just recently had a QHHT session, so it's a quantum healing. Hypnosis technique is what that stands for? And one of the messages that came through from my higher self was that everything in our lives is a reflection of our internal state. Everything so your financial status, you know, your relationship with debt and income, your relationship with other people, your familial balance all of those things, everything in your life is a reflection of us internally, because what we put out is what we get back, and that's also been confirmed by physics. And so that's like one of the universal laws of thermodynamics is for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, and so when we just start to think about it that way, it's like what about me? Attracted this into my life? But then there's also the choice of okay, this into my life. But then there's also the choice of okay, well, with that, knowing how can I shift and change and become intentional about my vibration, intentional about my inner state, my inner balance, so that what I am putting out is exactly what I want back.
Speaker 1:I like that. That makes a lot of sense. So it's what you want back. It's so true. I'd love to transition a tad Now. We talked about breathing practices for the morning, and I've done Breath of Fire myself plenty of times. But I'm curious if you have any breathing practices you do to unwind at the end of the day to unwind at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:I think again, just the long, slow, deep breath is a great one. I also think box breathing could be a good one to bring down, you know, and sort of allow your body mind to come back into that homeostatic circadian rhythm. So box breathing is where you have an equal count of inhale, hold, exhale, hold, inhale, hold, exhale, hold. So most of the time you start with a count of four, and so you inhale for a count of four, you hold for the count of four, you exhale for the count of four and you hold again for a count of four and you just repeat that. And it's interesting too, because notice what your mind does on the holds, you know it's funny what can come up and what you can notice about what you're thinking or how you're reacting when you're holding the breath, especially after you've exhaled and held. So I think that one can be very helpful.
Speaker 1:Okay, and now you also mentioned the long slow exhales. Now are you extending the exhale compared to the inhale?
Speaker 2:A whole difference. That's not exactly a box breath but you totally can. Yeah it. Just it depends on where you're trying to bring the intention and attention. And you know, I think, especially when we're getting ready for bed, we're wanting to just release the day and come back to us. You know sort of prepare our body for rest back to us. You know sort of prepare our body for rest. And especially if we're feeling wired or if our mind is still racing from the day and or we're already amping ourselves up for tomorrow, I that's where I really go to just the long, slow, deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. You can even do in through the nose and out through the nose. That's totally fine too. Really, it helps calm that vagus nerve, and the vagus nerve goes all the way from tip to tail, if you will, and so it can have full system implications when it is calm and relaxed.
Speaker 1:Now I'm curious do you do some sort of breathing practice or a meditation every night before you go to bed?
Speaker 2:I have sort of gravitated to a yoga know already, projecting myself into tomorrow, into the future, which, if you're doing that with intention, can be really powerful, but if you're just stressing about what's on your to-do list, then not so empowering.
Speaker 2:So I have found that the guided yoga nidra practice and honestly, like it's one of these things like once you get used to it you can sort of guide yourself through it. You don't need to listen to something, but you totally can. But you know it's that intentional bringing attention to different parts of the body and relaxing them, bringing your attention to different parts of the body and noticing what's there and then, with, with intention, letting it go. I like to also infuse light work with this meaning that I connect myself to source light and bring light into my body. I'm also asking for that source light to clear and transmute anything that no longer serves me, to bring the functioning part of that body back up to 100% functionality. That's for my highest and greatest good and just trusting that connection with the divine and that divine light is doing all that work for me.
Speaker 1:I really like how you pair that with different things that you say. With that, would you consider a yoga nidra similar to a body?
Speaker 2:scan? Yes, so most yoga nidras incorporate some sort of body scan as part of the systematic sort of relaxation there are. I mean, sometimes you can do the full body contraction and then the release and that's great. But there's still that systematic full body awareness to your scalp, awareness to your ears, awareness all the way down to your toes.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense because I've heard the Tome body scan and I've done a lot of body scans myself and even without a guided anything, I feel like some people may have not heard the Tome Yoga Nidra, because that's a little newer to my realm and, like you, just you're bringing attention to like all of the body parts you know, and I think the term is pretty well known, even for people who might be like what's a yoga nidra? So I was curious, as a yoga instructor, if you consider them like similar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I would say just to like we can talk about. So yoga nidra is also considered yogic sleep, and so there are different aspects of yoga nidra. Not all yoga nidra has the intention of bringing you into deep sleep. I actually really enjoy yoga nidra for my breaks at work too, actually, like eat my lunch while I'm working and then I can have my break time to not have to eat. Then I will go to my car or some quiet place a car is great. Give yourself like 15 to 20 minutes and have a quick yoga nidra, because it can be such a fabulous reset for your brain and for your energy for the rest of the day. You know, you can kind of think about it as a little power nap, but you're not technically going to sleep, you're just I also like to call it a brain break, like I need a brain break. And again, yes, you're doing the body scan, and so that's one piece of it Using the body scan and that intention to relax every single part of your body, and whether or not you move into a state of sleep is honestly up to your intention, because at the beginning of every yoga nidra practice you repeat your sankalpa or your intention, and so it can be.
Speaker 2:You know, my Sankalpa can be. I am, you know, completely relaxed and I am resetting my nervous system now, and you repeat that three times at the beginning, or it could be I am now moving into a deep state of rest and will awaken in the morning fully rested and reset. So, and usually if you're listening to a guided one, they'll give you examples of a Sankalpa. So, again, like you don't have to like get in your brain and be like, oh God, I don't know what my intention is, so you can just repeat what the guide or the instructor, the teacher, is saying and then just go with it.
Speaker 1:I love the term brain break.
Speaker 2:Yes, and especially too. So usually for those where I'm on, like if I'm doing it at work, I most always listen to a guided one so I don't fall asleep because they will guide you out of it. And there are I wouldn't say subliminal, but there probably is an aspect of subliminal. I mean it's conscious, out loud words that you're hearing, but they're, you know, little cues that are, you know, integrated throughout of you know, like you are like, even if you tell your brain like this is just for 15 minutes, then your brain knows and so then, if you like, from your brain will keep that awareness and so when you hear certain cues you'll come back. So there is also a little bit of, I would say, probably like a hypnosis piece to it, but I mean you're not going into super deep hypnotic state.
Speaker 1:No, that makes a lot of sense. I was just curious because I've personally only done a yoga nidra at the end of the day. Even when I've gone to yoga classes and done it in person, it's always been an evening class that I would attend it.
Speaker 2:I think it would be good to do a little, you know like five-day experiment too.
Speaker 1:Instead of having that after lunch coffee, have your after lunch yoga, nidra and see how refreshed you feel, and maybe it can avoid that extra cortisol push that we get from the afternoon coffee. Now, this is kind of off topic, but you've mentioned coffee a few times. Has the yoga nidra, or yoga in general, helped you like, stop coffee or reduce your caffeine intake?
Speaker 2:I would say the thing that probably helps me the most was kundalini yoga in general, because it does incorporate both the, the movement and the breath together in a very like quick, most of the time, a quick pace of higher tempo. And so you're all of those things that the chemical of caffeine would give you. You're producing naturally in your body. I like that, I will say. However, I've had a challenging relationship with caffeine my whole life. I mean, just for, I would say, at my worst, which was during my residency, I was up to like two to four rock stars a day, and if you guys know like the big cans of rock star energy drinks and how much caffeine is just in one of those. And so by the time I was done with my residency, I got my first job and I went to the pre health screening. You know that, like, if you've ever worked for any sort of health system, they always give you a health screening before they hire you or as part of the hiring process, and the nurse practitioner was like you didn't put down on your chart that you had a cardiac arrhythmia and I said I don't, and she said you do, and I'm like huh, like that's probably all the caffeine. So I didn't stop cold turkey, because we all know if we've ever tried to do that, they're raging headaches that come with it. But I did cut down quite a bit and then back in 2000, trying to think 21, I did a week-long Ayurvedic retreat and to prepare for that I was encouraged to stop if I could, and so it probably took me about two to three weeks prior to that retreat to taper myself down. And so when I got to the retreat I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't have any during that week. I did well, and because I had tapered down enough, I didn't have any rebound headaches. Week, I did well, and because I had tapered down enough, I didn't have any rebound headaches or anything. And so then I thought, well, I've been without this for a week, let's see if I can go back to regular life and not have any. And so I did.
Speaker 2:For like two years I went with no caffeine at all, no coffee, only decaf tea. And so because, again, for me it was very much about healing my adrenals, like I had been a shift worker you know my whole career and so, on top of my relationship with caffeine, the shift work had not done me any favors and so I was really trying to heal, help my body heal and allow it to heal, give it that space. Now I've come back to coffee. But I found a really clean, organic water process, decaf, that I love and so that's, if I have coffee, that's what I drink.
Speaker 2:It's funny, my sister came to visit and she didn't know this about me and she was like rummaging through all my like, where's the caffeinated coffee in this place? I'm like, oh, I'm actually might not have any, sorry, she's pretty appalled. She's like what's the point? Like, well, I like it, you know. I mean, if it's a good coffee, it tastes good, so, and there is a little caffeine and decaf, but you know it's not. I don't get the jitters, I don't get that high, you know I'm it's. I'm very much more, even keeled, which was the whole point, the goal.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and the kundalini yoga definitely helped me with that too.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious did you stop the energy drinks completely?
Speaker 2:Oh, you're sure I have not had an energy drink since then. So that's been over 15 years, wow, yeah. Well, I also once I went down my path of functional medicine and integrative nutrition education, like just all the toxic bad crap in there. I finally got my husband off of them, but he still likes his caffeine, which is fine, no judgment. So we transitioned over to Yerba Mate. What is that? So it's a. It's a tea that is native to South America, to the Amazon, and they actually make it in the tall cans, like the same size cans that you would get as a rock star or whatever. They make mates now and that, and so the caffeine is less but still comparable. I mean it's not quite as high as a, you know, rock star monster or whatever, but anyway it's a cleaner form of energy, doesn't have all the other stuff, it's just the tea and then whatever sweetener they put in there. But I try to encourage him to go for the sugar-free ones. I do my best.
Speaker 1:no, that's fair, I get it. That's amazing, though, that's that the kundalini yoga has helped you with that. And then the retreat that you went on Wow, I know, I love that. Those little synchronicities that, like, got you to slowly wean yourself off and then step away from them and reduce that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, and that retreat, too, was a total body cleanse retreat. So it was marma, which is where they pour the oil over the top of your crown. It was daily massage and then also bhasti treatments, which are Ayurvedic enemas. The enemas are actually oil-based enemas and they're infused with different herbs and so, based on your plan in terms of what you're rebalancing with your Ayurvedic practitioner, that will determine which herbs are essentially marinated in the oil, and then that is placed in the enema bag which you partake in daily as well. Wow, that's literally full body cleanse.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me this has been fun. We've covered a lot it has been fun and I feel the same now. No pressure, but I do just like to give it back to the guest. Any final words, anything else you want to share with the listeners?
Speaker 2:I would just always recommend and advise and remind to just be gentle with yourself, no matter where you are on your journey, whether you've been on this road for a while or you feel like you're just at the beginning. Be gentle with yourself and remember that forgiveness is the most selfish and self-loving thing you can do and that every day is a new day and you have the power to choose. What you put out is what you get back. So, like you know, reminding ourselves like well, that means I have power and I get to decide how I'm vibrating, how I am showing up in the world, and you know so, even if someone is nasty to you, if you can show them a smile or at least not flip them off, then you know it's a step forward. Right, we are going to start somewhere.
Speaker 1:That is so true. Well, thank you so much, laura. It was so nice to speak with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you as well, and thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Breathwork Magic. Thank you for tuning in to Breathwork Magic.
Speaker 1:I hope today's episode inspired you to connect more deeply with your breath and embrace the transformation it can bring. Remember, as long as you have your breath, you have options. You're not stuck. You can make a change, you can make a shift. Each inhale is a new beginning and every exhale is a chance to let go of what no longer serves you.
Speaker 1:If you're craving a reset, I'd love to invite you to Mindful Mindset Mondays, now held on the last Monday of every month. It's a virtual pay what you can breathwork session designed to help you recharge and realign. You'll find all the info in the show notes and if you're ready to go even deeper, you can always schedule a one-on-one breathwork session with me. This is your space to work through what's coming up and move energy in a more personalized way. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world if you shared it with a friend or left a review. Your support helps more people discover the magic of breathwork and the shifts it can bring. Until next time, keep breathing, keep breathing, keep shifting and keep embracing the magic with inside of you. I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this.
