Join me for a class on breath through an autonomics lens (Saturday July 25)
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class or sat in meditation you have been sensitized to the power of the breath, and its fundamental relationship to our moment-to-moment experience of wellbeing.
You may have a sense already that deepening or extending the inbreath increases arousal, and that deepening or extending the outbreath increases settling. Perhaps you are acquainted with the pause at the end of the inhale, and at the end of the exhale. Maybe you’ve had the experience of putting in earplugs and surfing your breath. Or maybe you’ve noticed its sensitive correlation to mood. That you cannot get anxious or angry without it impacting the breath. That the movement into shutdown states always includes a suppression of breath.
While Heart-rate variability has been the de facto non-invasive autonomic signal for three decades– sensors that track it are built into just about any health-tracking device you can think of, from the Oura ring to your Apple watch, what you might not realize is that HRV is not the optimal autonomic signal. Breath is.
For the past several years we worked with a small team to refine an autonomic diagnostics technology that centralizes respiration in autonomic measurement.
On Saturday July 25 I’m going to teach a deep-dive into breath through an autonomics lens. We will
explore the distinct features of the neuroanatomy of the breathing Central pattern generator in the medulla
examine its sensitivity to endogenous opioids and what this implies about working with shutdown
look at tracking the breath from an autonomics perspective, and explore various information that the breath can give us about global autonomic states and organismic functioning
take a look at various kinds of spontaneous non-ordinary breathing patterns that have an autonomic component
we will explore various breathing practices, both new and ancient, from the perspective of their effects on the autonomic components of respiration and the unique location of the breathing mechanism at the interface between autonomic and voluntary control
I will also take whatever questions you want to throw at me about this topic, clinical or otherwise...
Saturday July 25, 8 -11 am Pacific time. 11-2 pm ET. 4-7 in the UK.