Performing 25 repetitions of cyclic hyperventilation increases alertness and body warmth by raising epinephrine and adrenaline.

“And it's because that pattern of breathing, rapid movements of the diaphragm will liberate adrenaline from the adrenals. So, it's the release of adrenaline.”

“You're heating up, that's the release of adrenaline. It's caused by that breathing pattern, and then exhaling all of one's air, no speaking in between like I'm doing.”

“Another potent tool that's purely behavioral, but is known to work, based on excellent studies in humans. And actually my laboratory has been doing similar types of studies that are soon to be published, we hope, is so-called cyclic hyperventilation. Some of you may be familiar with Wim Hof breathing. There's also Tummo breathing, which is very similar, Kundalini breathing. All of those styles of breathing involve cyclic hyperventilation, deep inhales, and either passive exhales or active exhales, but repeating, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, in a very deep and repetitive way. If you were to do that right now, doesn't matter if you do it through your nose or mouth, although ideally you would do the inhale through your nose and the exhale through your mouth, if you did that for 25 repetitions, 25 inhales and exhales, you would feel more alert. You'd also feel more warm, why? Because you increased epinephrine, adrenaline release in the brain and body.”

“If you were to do that right now, doesn't matter if you do it through your nose or mouth, although ideally you would do the inhale through your nose and the exhale through your mouth, if you did that for 25 repetitions, 25 inhales and exhales, you would feel more alert. You'd also feel more warm, why? Because you increased epinephrine, adrenaline release in the brain and body.”

“And I do think there are benefits to practicing cyclic hyperventilation because it does allow you to learn how to self-deploy adrenaline and epinephrine from locus coeruleus and from the adrenals. Or I got that backwards-- adrenaline from your adrenals and epinephrine from locus coeruleus. And it allows you to explore what it is to maintain calm state of mind and body when you have a lot of adrenaline in your system, which certain studies are starting to show can allow people to be able to lean into the stressful aspects of life.”

“It involves inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale very deep. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, and then every 25 or 30 breaths or so, doing a full exhale and holding one's breath, lungs empty for about 25, maybe 30, maybe even 60 seconds, and then continuing until 5 minutes is up. Subjects report and our data indicate that people feel a heightened level of autonomic arousal. In fact, I can feel it right now even from that very brief uh cyclic hyperventilation bout I just did. You feel a heating up. You feel a um uh some people will persspire. Some people get wideeyed. Some people feel agitated. That's adrenaline being released into your system.”