It was a lovely Saturday morning in San Diego. The sun beat down as I heard “1 minute 30 seconds” faintly in my ears.

Submerged face-down in the pool, I was half-way to a 3 minute breath hold.
 
As part of this 3-day introductory course into free-diving, we had learned the day before how incredibly well the human body does in water. How our own physiology is beautifully designed to hold our breath for much longer than we ever try. 

We learned breath holds of 7-10 minutes are now common place, with the world record being around 12 minutes.

At the 2 minute mark, my body was yelling at me. Give me some oxygen please! As we also learned in class the day before, as CO2 in the blood builds, it becomes very uncomfortable. This is exactly what was going on. 

“2 minutes and 30 seconds” I hear. 

Fighting the urge to breathe, my body starts convulsing. Again, we learned this was normal. I think to myself, you can do this. 

“2 minutes, 50 seconds. 10 seconds left everyone.”

I reach for the side of the pool with my hands, my body screaming at me for air. I remind myself 10 seconds is nothing.

“3 minutes!”

I pop up out of the water and gasp for air. “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!” Mike yells in my ear. “You ok” he asks.

I give the ok signal. I’m light-headed and feeling a little goofy.

New Normal


What’s not to love about the camo wetsuit!?

My whole world has been flipped upside down. 3 minutes under water, holy crap. How did I just do that?!

Up until that moment 3 weeks ago, I never held my breath for more than 45 seconds, maybe 1 minute if I was lucky.

What I learned was that we have SO much more control over our own body and mind than we think. Through simple breathing techniques (which anyone can learn in a day), I was able to triple my breath hold

It shows how powerful the breath can be in changing what’s possible. 

I’ve been obsessed with this breathing thing lately.

Yoga, Wim Hof, and Laird Hamilton

Yoga has known this power of breathing for 5,000 years. I needed to see and find out for myself what’s going on there so I hit the yoga classes hard.

Just yesterday, I did my 54th yoga class in 85 days. It has been amazing and as someone who has always been tight, I feel as supple as I’ve ever been. I’ll more sharing more about this soon, but my mind and body has never felt better.

And about a month ago I found this guy Wim Hof, a dutch guy who is changing the game when it comes to breath work. He climbed Mount Everest in nothing but shorts. He ran a marathon at temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit in that same outfit. He holds the world record for being submerged in ice for almost 2 hours.

He’s able to manipulate his physiology to withstand the brutal conditions –  all by using specific breathing techniques. The coolest part is that these incredible feats are available to every single person on this planet.

If you want to learn more about him, watch this or listen to this.

Laird Hamilton, the iconic surfing legend, uses breath training as a core foundation of his fitness practice. He is one of the fittest men on the planet. 

It is the new frontier and I’m excited as hell. Can’t you tell?! 

I’ll be sharing tons more with you as I learn more.

Try This Simple Breathing Technique

For now, here’s a simple way to see how your breath can directly impact your state of being. I want you to try a little experiment for the next couple of days.

Before bed, try this breathing exercise shown here. Do it for 5 minutes. You want deep inhales in and out of the belly. You can also read the whole article here. 

This simple breathing technique will literally change your nervous system and make you more relaxed.

I want to know how it goes, come over to our Facebook post here and join the conversation!

I look forward to hearing about your experience.

Nick

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