Discover the Power of Your Breath

In this enlightening episode, we delve deep into the transformative potential of something we often take for granted: our breath. My guest, Kimee McCarthy, and I explore the science, philosophy, and practical techniques behind harnessing the power of your breath. You'll discover simple exercises can improve your physical health, reduce stress and enhance mental clarity. Breathe in, and join us! 

@coachkimee
Facebook: Kimberlee McCarthy
http://mayyoubewellness.com

Thanks so much for listening!

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome to The Seed Project. It's a podcast that nourishes your heart, mind, and soul. I'm your host, Charlotte Edwards. I believe everyone plants a seed in each other, whether it's a seed of knowledge, inspiration, or impact. I created this podcast so we could have real conversations, create connections, and grow into the best versions of ourselves. Everyone has a story to tell, so let's share ours together to empower, heal, and grow. Laugh and learn. Grab a cup of coffee and let's start planting.

Charlotte 0:42

Hi, everyone. I'm excited to have Kimberly McCarthy on today. Kim has more than 25 years of experience in the field of health and wellness as a peace Corps volunteer educator of incarcerated students. Psychiatric registered nurse serving adolescents with behavior and neurological challenges as well as a certified nurse coach kim was first introduced to mindfulness in 2012 and found the practice to be so transformative. That she sought and obtained training through Jon Kabat Zinn. Mindfulness-based stress reduction program at the university of Massachusetts medical center. In addition to being an RN, a certified nurse coach and holding a master's degree in education. Kim has also been trained in Satori alternatives for managing aggression, therapeutic communication and mindfulness in the classroom. Kim credits her mindfulness practice with not only helping her navigate life's challenges, but also encouraging her to live in the present with gratitude. She considered it to be a superpower and is passionate about sharing these skills tools with her students patients and clients Hi, Kimmy. Kimmy, welcome on. I'm so glad to have you.

Kimmee 2:03

Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks for, thanks for having me here. I feel really honored.

Charlotte 2:08

Well, I'm excited to learn about breath work and how it can affect your body and help your mental well being. I've kind of played around with it, but not something that I know too much about.

Kimmee 2:21

Yeah, you know, I think honestly, for me, I feel like everyone knows about breathwork and everyone should, but in reality, I think that I find that more people, the more I talk to people aren't as familiar with it as I, as I would think. Maybe it's just because it's in my, it's in my world. It's something that I've taught a lot about. So I make that assumption, but you're right. So thanks. Thanks for being honest about that.

Charlotte 2:42

It's interesting. We all breathe every day, but when I started really diving into breath work and understanding it for myself, I realized how much of a shallow breather I am. It really was a lot for me to get in the moment and Have a deep breath because we're all just so busy and go, go, go, go that we really don't breathe into our lungs and into our diaphragm. And I think it's just kind of that fight or flight, we're just always on the go. And I think it's really important to sit into your body and really understand the power of your breath and how it can benefit you.

Kimmee 3:18

It's interesting that you say that about, you know, kind of being a shallow breather. The more research I've done, the more I've discovered that, you know, it's just something that we're kind of taught. we tend to be vertical breathers. So when you go to the doctor and they put the stethoscope on you, they say, take a deep breath and you'll notice that a lot of people, their shoulders rise So they're breathing into the top part of the lungs, whereas we really kind of, like you said, we want to breathe deeper into the body, into the lower lungs. We can talk about it now, diaphragmatic breathing. Um, and so when I teach people about breath work, I tend to teach them to really focus on their belly and on their diaphragm and expanding that area because we're not using our full lung capacity when we do the shallow breathing that you mentioned.

Charlotte 4:01

Let's go back a little bit. How did you actually get into breath work? What's your background and what excites you about it?

Kimmee 4:10

My background is I was a health and wellness teacher for 25 years. I spent my teaching career working with at risk youth. And then I. Probably about 12 years ago. I went through a really difficult time. I was in the middle of a divorce and I was really struggling. and so I started seeing a therapist and this therapist, I'll probably send this to him at some point when it comes out just because he, I always say Bob Dingman saved me. I started seeing Bob and bob kind of just started to ask me questions and realized that I was believing everything I think and I remember him saying, you know, do you really believe all of this? I was feeling a lot of shame I was really embarrassed. That my spouse, was, Seeing another person and it just brought a lot of discomfort and a lot of anxiety. Yeah, so anyway bob, I would make statements about, the way I was feeling or what I was thinking and he had challenged me one day and just said, do you really believe all of this? And I was of course I do. It's coming from inside. So of course, why wouldn't it be true? And that was my introduction to mindfulness. And so he introduced me to challenging that internal dialogue. We all have this internal dialogue. And so me believing it was definitely very detrimental. I started to explore mindfulness. I did a mindfulness training mindfulness based stress reduction. It was done by John Kabat Zinn in Worcester, Mass, Massachusetts, actually where I'm from. I did a training there and that's was my introduction to mindfulness. I took that course, got really into it, started doing retreats, doing silent retreats, doing guided retreats and just found myself falling in love with mindfulness. And so to get to the breath work, really, when you're thinking about mindfulness, it's about noticing the thoughts in our heads and a big piece of mindfulness is the breath work piece. So, a lot of times when we're trying to meditate, or be in the moment, we want to bring it back to the breath. That's the the anchor for us during meditation and mindfulness is the breath. Does that answer your question? I know that was kind of a mouthful.

Charlotte 6:15

No, it good. It gets you to see what was going on in your life and then how breath work helped you to tap into your mind and into your body. And it was life changing for you. Going forward, did you implement that at all with some of your kids that you work with in your practice as a nurse and now with your own

Kimmee 6:33

so it's really so going back. It was really helpful for me because I definitely started to practice mindfulness myself I started to practice breath work and for me what better way to practice it and to really embody it was to teach it. I actually I again, I worked with incarcerated youth. So I brought this as I was a health and wellness teacher. And so this became part of my curriculum. Breathwork, mindfulness guided meditation, yoga became part of our curriculum. And I found it was really pretty surprising. I remember when I first introduced my students to it, they were like, Oh my gosh, no, we're not going to do this. This is weird. It's uncomfortable. And from there on, I would find that every time I would walk into one of our classes, they would say, are we going to do mindfulness today? Are we going to do breathwork today? And it was really helpful for them. And for me, I just feel like it's a major connection between getting you out of your head and into your body. One of, there's a really great quote that I love by Tina Hahn. He says, breath is the bridge, which connects life to your consciousness. It unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as a means to take hold of your mind again you think about in our, in the average day, the person has 30,000 thoughts. We're just constantly scattered and bombarded by all of these thoughts. And so really when we know we need to get out of our head, an easy tool is just by taking a breath. So I know that we think we're really good at multitasking. But if I were to ask you right now, Charlotte, to take a breath, you know, you might be able to say, yeah, I can do two things at once. But really, if you really take a breath and focus on your breath, you're going to get out of your head for a minute. That's really the key. If we can get out of our heads for just a moment and slow things down, we can slow down our response time, our reactions. It just gives us control. It's really powerful.

Charlotte 8:25

It's interesting you say that because then all of a sudden I was listening to you, but then all of a sudden I was starting to pay attention to my own breath. And I think that's what I was kind of, Hitting at the beginning is I really noticed how shallow my breath is because I am always on the go and multitasking and doing way too many things at one time.

Kimmee 8:45

Yeah, and I think it's a matter of kind of training ourselves and practicing like anything. I think breathwork is a practice and you're right. So we have our day to day breathing, part of the autonomic nervous system. It's just natural that we breathe and breathwork or pranayama is more of an intentional practice. And using the breath, controlling the breath for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits. But I do think there's something to be said for, like you said, kind of training ourselves. I had mentioned earlier if you look at, if you look at children, or if you look at animals, their bellies are kind of extended. And around the age of five or six when we started going to school and we started sitting a lot when we started becoming, teenagers, when we become more conscious of our bodies, what do we say? Sucking your gut. You don't wanna have your belly sticking out. We're taught to like, strengthen our core to do exercises around the core. We kind of do have this habit of. Breathing more shallow into the lungs because we're not breathing as deep into the belly So we're trained to breathe that way to be more vertical breathers. It is a practice you know as we sit here You know just talking, just seeing if you can let your belly be a little more loose we have again this tendency to kind of suck the belly in and and have For muscles being engaged, but seeing if you can kind of let the belly be soft and let the belly be loose and trying, intentionally to kind of send the breath a little bit further down into the belly. Another, I'm a big fan of quotes and sayings. Another one that kind of resonates with what you just said is ancient yogis believe that we only have so many breaths in our lifetime. And if you like you said, if we're breathing quickly, and we have this really shallow breath. If we want to extend our lives, we want to breathe more deeply and more slowly and be more thoughtful, intentional about our breath work and about our breathing.

Charlotte 10:36

When you said, this shows you my lack of knowledge, what was it you say? Pariyama?

Kimmee 10:41

Yes.

Charlotte 10:42

Okay. what is that?

Kimmee 10:44

It's just the traditional term for breath work.

Charlotte 10:46

Okay.

Kimmee 10:47

Yes. And some people would call it, when people talk about breath work, they would use pranayama instead. Like you said, there's a difference between our just, respiration and breathing every day, and then that intentional breathing. It's the intentional breathing that, would be considered pranayama.

Charlotte 11:02

Are there specific Breathwork techniques that help more with anxiety and depression.

Kimmee 11:08

Yeah, I think one thing I don't know if I mentioned right now as a nurse. I work in a residential facility for kiddos with neurological and behavioral issues we have a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. Just a lot of self harming behaviors that our kiddos are really kind of stuck in these repetitive thoughts and motions. I will try to engage them in breath work as a coping skill. And I think one common theme is belly breathing. So again, I try to get them to breathe deeper into the belly maybe even putting a hand on the belly to really feel the breath kind of come into that area. Feeling their hand or their belly expands and then feeling it fall again, but also extending the exhale. If you go online and you look at different types of breathing techniques, you'll see 4, 7, 8, I mean, there's so many different types of breathwork exercises out there. But one common denominator is it's extending the exhale. I know for me anyway being a novice breather, I, when people always said take a deep breath, I would put so much emphasis into the inhale. It was like, and then just a quick sigh out. And what I've learned over time is that we really want to extend that exhale. The exhale has a lot of power in it. If I said to you right now, breathe in, Comfortably, you might breathe in for a count of two or three and that might be comfortable for you. And then maybe you want to exhale for four or five. Again, it's really extending the exhale. 7 11 might be extreme for me to say to someone, Hey, breathe in for seven, exhale for 11. They might not have that lung capacity, but that's something that they can kind of build. They're way up. you might start with breathing in for three exhaling for five. there's the benefit of that lengthening the exhale. We know that the vagus nerve travels throughout the body. And so when we have that extended exhale, we're triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. And so we all know the fight or flight, um, is the sympathetic nervous system. And just so you know, I have a crazy dog in the background and I apologize if he jumps in here and there.

Charlotte 13:16

You're good.

Kimmee 13:17

He's he's very triggered. He's easily triggered. We're trying to work on breath work. It's not going that well. But yeah, so we all know that when we get anxious and stressed, we kind of come into this fight or flight, we start breathing more quickly. And so the goal of the breath work is to do the opposite for the most part. And I can get off on another tangent in a minute, but The goal is to slow it down. When we extend the exhale, we're triggering the the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest. That's when we're slowing down the heart rate, we're decreasing our blood pressure we're improving circulation. These are the things that help us feel more relaxed. When someone's having an anxiety attack or a panic attack. we want to teach them to breathe in and really extend that exhale. that answer your question?

Charlotte 14:01

I think it's great. It's really just understanding breathwork A lot more people are getting more in tune to mindfulness and meditation and how important it is to realign your body. And truly understanding the power of your breath cause I. While we sought the inhale, to breathe in, make sure it gets all the way to the belly. That was the most important. And I did exactly what you did, or I did a quick exhale. That's probably done probably counting to two. And understanding that's really what's reset your body And gives you the benefits of breath work.

Kimmee 14:35

And I think it just like you said it's It's starting small. I realize for me now, I'm really grateful. I've been doing it long enough that for me, it just comes naturally. And it's something that I incorporate into different parts of my day. But yeah, I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there oh, breathwork and mindfulness. It's so hippie, mystical, woo woo, new age. Some people think of it as a spiritual practice and it can be for sure, but it doesn't have to be. they're using breath work for people with asthma they're using breath work for COPD patients to improve respiration. They're using in the classroom for kids with ADHD, just to be able to focus. I definitely think there is a lot of benefits and go online and do just a quick research the question on what are the benefits of breathwork and there's just so much research out there and I'm so grateful for that because I feel like, a lot of people do need that research, they need to see numbers. They need to see proof that this is really working. For me I didn't need that I just knew it was helpful. I knew it was helpful for me getting out of my head. It's helpful when I lay in bed at night and I can't fall asleep. It's helpful. Just before we got on this podcast, I had to sit and I had to take a few breaths because Speaking to anyone around anything just in general is nerve wracking for me. For me, I had to take a few breaths this morning when I went out to walk my dog. I purposely close my eyes. I let the sun hit my face and I take a deep breath and it's a breath of appreciation. And I breathe deep into the belly or when I'm running, I might coordinate my breathing. It's something you can play with. I like to think of the breath as You know, life begins with an inhalation and ends with an exhalation. And just that in itself, the breath is so powerful. Think about that. Your breath is always there with you. So even when you're feeling alone, Hey, I'm feeling really anxious. I'm feeling really alone. Oh, there it is. I'm going to tap into my friend, my breath, my refuge. So yeah, it's just, it can be really powerful. I think you can make a breathwork practice anything you want. It can be a few minutes. It can be, 30 minutes. It can be an hour. I think there's just a lot of room to play with it and to experiment and see what works for you.

Charlotte 16:46

I liked that you acknowledged how important breathwork is for kids. But then also kids with ADHD. I have a teenage son. That has ADHD and deals with anxiety from time to time. I think it's really essential for kids to start learning coping skills and emotional regulation at a younger age. There's so much pressure on. Them right now to figure out what they want to do to get in college. All these expectations of sports and activities. It's so much more competitive than when I went to school. And maybe that's why I'm focused on it because it's the season of life I'm in right now. But goodness, the amount of pressure on them. Is extremely high. I think introducing them to breath work. At this stage of their life. Is very meaningful. Because it doesn't matter who you are. Life is always going to throw you a curve ball but if you can start figuring out a way to calm your thoughts and to get out of your head and reduce your anxiety. It's a really important skill to have at a young age

Kimmee 17:56

for sure. I completely agree with that. And again, having taught for 25 years and working with the same population now, it's just so disheartening. I mean, honestly, I am so thankful that I grew up when I did. I can't imagine what it's like, to grow up in this day and age. And I have a lot of my patients, uh, that are with me now, I'll ask them, when did this anxiety start? What's going, and some of them have had a lot of trauma. Don't get me wrong. we know that trauma, can cause a lot of, PTSD, anxiety, depression, but even just some of my patients who, are here with me for,, anxiety and depression not related to trauma. A lot of it started during COVID and it was being isolated. I don't know, and I'm not trying to, talk negatively about social media, but I think there's also the social media aspect, the comparison, there's just so much, uh, life is so different than when I was growing up. people always you hear kids say, don't you wish you were young again? And I'm like, Oh, hell no. I feel every decade my life has gotten better. I've gotten more grounded. And, I wish I would have known one of my favorite quote, don't believe everything you think. That's one of my like my top three pieces of advice, challenge your thinking. And then the other thing would be, use your breath, use your breath, slow it down. and I think, you know, as a parent for you, I always suggest the parents, like one thing that you could do is when you're feeling anxious, say oh my gosh, hold on, this is too much, I just, can we just wait a minute? I need to take a breath and model that. So you Charlotte, taking a breath, slowing it down and saying to your son, hey, you know what? I'm really stressed out right now. I'm just going to take a breath and modeling that, you know, you're showing him that you're using that as a coping skill, that's a tool that he can use. So we want to model these behaviors as well. We can't just tell our kids to use coping skills if we're not using them ourselves.

Charlotte 19:47

And we're all rattled and frazzled in ourselves and

Kimmee 19:49

right. Running around. Yeah. we have to really use these skills ourselves in order to really show people the benefits and to have them see that, hey, this does really work for people,

Charlotte 20:00

that's a great idea because, I definitely need to practice what I preach, especially, and not to say that I don't do it. when I get home, from a stressful day, I will sit in my car and take a couple deep breaths before I, walk in the door. That's not, modeling it. I'm doing it by myself, but at least being better at acknowledging it. I also think it's good for them to see everyone has stresses. it's not like all of a sudden you're adult and you've got the whole world figured out. I'm happy to see your kids are receptive to it. That's very. Hopeful. It's sad they already have so much anxiety and depression, but I think it's very hopeful that they are already learning these, important coping skills.

Kimmee 20:41

my God. Yeah, I completely agree.

Charlotte 20:44

If someone was starting to begin breath work, what would you say would be, one or two things of how they can start to implement it in their lives?

Kimmee 20:54

I guess I would say, just starting a, by setting a reminder. Setting a reminder on your phone. I like to associate my breath work with certain activities. when I'm running, I might take a breath. When I walk out the door to take a run with my dog I take a deep breath. Setting a reminder. Layering it with another activity. Maybe when you're at a stoplight, like you said, when you pull into, before you go into the house for the evening after work on switching it up, so I do have people say Oh, I tried this, I tried it and it doesn't work for me and I'm it's like anything you need, you can't just expect, breath work is not going to make your life, unicorns and rainbows. it's not going to solve all your problems. You got it. You got to give it a practice. And that's why I love when people talk about practicing yoga, practicing breath work, it's, it's all a practice. We need to get more comfortable with it, switch it up, try different types of breath work and use your resources. There's so many, it's overwhelming. Actually, the number of resources out there, if you go to YouTube, there's so many free apps. I have insight timer is on my phone. I love insight timer it's a free app. there's a paid version, but I use the free one they have just a timer there They start you out with a quote every day and it shows you how many people you're meditating or breathing with And it's so cool to feel like you're part of this bigger community. You're not so alone there's Life is we're surrounded by community and we should feel like we're part of the community. So I really like that one. there's smiling mind. There's breathe and relax. one that I really liked for my students that I used to use was, stop, breathe and think. I really encourage parents before you put your kids to bed at night, instead of reading a story, maybe you download a five minute app or use an app and do some breathing exercises with them. I just think there's just so many, things that you can do to kind of get yourself started. I'm starting small,

Charlotte 22:44

Yeah. Just like anything. It's not like you're going to start running and then go run a

Kimmee 22:48

right. Yes, don't sit down for a half an hour and focus on your breath. You're going to hate it. I will make, maybe you'll like it. But for the most part, most people would hate that. So yeah, starting with one minute, one minute of breathing is awesome. It's a great start.

Charlotte 23:02

I completely agree, Kimmy. I think that's great advice to start small. Start with. A minute. There's been many times that I tell myself that I'm going to start meditating and I will try a 20 minute meditation, but as I'm laying there, I cannot turn my brain off. I just keep thinking of my grocery list or all the things that I've got to do. So starting small with one minute and just building up your practice is great advice

Kimmee 23:28

and again, I will say that the apps really help. So for a lot of people trying meditation on their own I feel like guided meditation, hearing someone's voice and having someone guide you through it kind of keeps you on track, keeps you focused. It just makes it, it feels like it goes by a little bit faster. And so I think guided meditation is a great place to start. So using an app or something like that to start is really helpful.

Charlotte 23:50

Now, this is wonderful. This is a great intro into breath work. And maybe one time I'll have you back on here and we'll actually do some examples of. Breath work. Maybe we'll do a little mini episode and have it all

Kimmee 24:01

that would be awesome. I'd love that.

Charlotte 24:02

Breath work and we can all be breathing together.

Kimmee 24:05

Yeah, I would love that. I'm going to tell you a secret. One, one thing that I love about teaching breathwork is it not only benefits the people I'm teaching, but it benefits myself, so I get a lot out of it as well, so I would love that.

Charlotte 24:17

Okay. That sounds great. Well, thanks so much, Kimmy. I really do appreciate it and we'll have you on again soon.

Kimmee 24:22

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Charlotte.

Charlotte 24:27

I appreciate you spending this time with me until next time, keep sowing the seeds of love in your life and those around you.