The physiological sigh, a breathing pattern of a double inhale followed by an extended exhale, can reduce stress in real-time.

“A brief, data supported protocol for reducing stress around the clock is 5min/day of physiological sighing (double max inhale via the nose, then exhale to lungs empty via mouth; repeat).”

“The two that I've spoken about previously on various podcasts, and I'll just review them really quickly, are the double inhale exhale. So inhaling twice through the nose and exhaling once through the mouth. This is not some yoga trick or some hack. This is what's called a physiological sigh. It offloads carbon dioxide from the lungs, it has a number of different effects. These were described in textbooks dating back to the 30s and a number of laboratories have explored the neurocircuitry underlying these so-called physiological sighs. That will calm you down faster than anything else that I'm aware of.”

“the physiological sigh done just one to three times, it will be double inhale, exhale, double inhale, exhale maybe just two times will bring down your level of stress very, very fast.”

“When you are stressed in your mind and body, so you're feeling really agitated, activated, and worried, and you use a tool like the physiological sigh or exhale-emphasized breathing, you will notice that then your brain and your mind becomes more available for controlling the stress response and reacting to it.”

“But when we are anywhere in the range of very alert and stressed to very sleepy, physiological sighs are a powerful way of bringing our level of so-called autonomic activation, which just means our level of alertness down.”

“So, and it makes us very jittery. I mean, there's some other effects of carbon dioxide I don't want to get into, but when you do the double inhale-exhale, the double inhale reinflates those little sacks of the lungs. And then when you do the long exhale, that long exhale is now much more effective at reading your body and bloodstream of carbon dioxide, which relaxes you very quickly.”

“But it's very clear from work in our labs, from work in Jack Feldman's lab and others, that the physiological sigh is the fastest, hardwired way for us to eliminate this stressful response in our body quickly in real time.”

“the best way to do it would be double inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. But if you can't, and you can do that through your mouth, just do it through your mouth. If want to do all through your nose, do it through your nose.”

“The best way that I am aware to do that is called the physiological sigh. A physiological sigh is a pattern of breathing that involves two inhales followed by an extended exhale.”

“So the fastest way to calm down is to emphasize exhales.”

“That's two inhales through the nose, back to back, [sighs] and then long full exhale through the mouth. I just did it partially there for the sake of time, again. So a big deep inhale through the nose and then sneak in a little bit more on a second inhale to maximally inflate the lungs and the alveoli in the lungs, and then a full exhale of all your air via the mouth to empty your lungs. That's the fastest way that we are aware of to calm your nervous system down.”

“The fastest way we to buffer stress and calm down is the so-called physiological sigh, big Inhale through the nose till your lungs are empty, but then sneak in a little bit more air by second inhale, maximally inflate the lungs, then a long exhale until you're lungs are empty.”

“so five minutes a day of sort of standard if you will forgive me meditations so just sitting no instructions about how to breathe just focusing on um closing your eyes and focusing on focusing yep um another group did box breathing y inhale hold exhale hold for equal durations the duration of each of those inhales and holds was set by their carbon dioxide tolerance so somewhere between 3 and 8 seconds depending on how well they regulate carbon dioxide another group did cyclic sighing so this would be double inhale through the nose so big inhale through the nose followed by it to lungs empty exhale that second inhale after the first big lung inhale through the nose is really important because it makes sure that all the collapsed avoli the lungs totally snap open and then the exhale you offload a lot of carbon dioxide”

“this is two very deep inhales through the nose. So the first one is a long inhale [INHALES DEEPLY],, and then the second one after that is [INHALES SHARPLY] a quick, sharp inhale to maximally inflate your lungs, followed by a full exhale through the mouth to lungs completely empty.”

“Now, we know that one single physiological sigh of the sort that I just described performed at any time of day under any conditions, whether or not you're about to walk on stage to give a talk or you're in a meeting and you're feeling stressed, or you're in a conversation that's very stressful, or you can feel stress mounting because you're in traffic or any number of psychological or physical stressors that may be approaching you or you feel are oppressing you, doing one physiological sigh of the sort that I just described is the fastest physiologically verified way that we are aware of to reduce your levels of stress and to reintroduce calm, that is, to shift your autonomic nervous system from a state of heightened levels of autonomic arousal.”

“One physiological sigh, meaning that big, deep inhale, short second inhale also through the nose, and then long exhale to completely lungs empty, is known to restore the level of balance in the sympathetic-parasympathetic neural circuitry and is the fastest way to reintroduce calm.”

“When you do a physiological sigh, you're doing two big inhales, which is going the speed your heart rate up just a little bit, but then a long extended exhale. The exhale in the end is much longer than the two inhales even when combined. And so you get a net decrease in heart rate, the calming effect.”

“Showing that the physiological size among the different deliberate respiration techniques, one of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce levels of autonomic arousal a.k.a. anxiety or stress.”

“There are a couple of different patterns of breathing that will work best, but all of them emphasize exhales. OK. I want to repeat that, all of them emphasize exhales. So for instance, you could just choose slow, deliberate breathing. How does that emphasize exhales? Well, ordinarily when we breathe, we inhale actively and we exhale passively. Whenever we deliberately breathe more slowly, we are actively exhaling. OK, so active exhales really promote the calming response in brain and body.”

“two inhales through the nose and a long extended exhale through the mouth, the so-called physiological side not named by me but rather named by physiologists in the 1930 is as far as we know, the fastest way to shift your nervous system from so-called sympathetic drive to more parasympathetic drive, from a state of greater alertness to a state of greater calm.”

“So the double inhale through the nose, long exhale through the mouth but repeated for say 3 minutes. That's another version.”

“Is something that you do voluntarily the double Inhale through the nose and then a long exhale in order to rapidly reduce your level of stress. As far as we know, that's the fastest way to deliberately lower your level of stress.”

“you simply do a big inhale through your nose try and maximize the inflation of your lungs and then before you exhale sneak in another brief inhalation even if it's just a tiny micro inhalation to maximally inflate the lungs and that has an important effect on the little Sachs in the lungs called the avioli of the lungs it's going to open up whatever avioli we collapsed in there and then you're going to do a long extended exhale through the mouth”

“so it's like this and indeed I feel calmer and indeed if you do it you will feel calmer you'll notice that second inhale through the nose was kind of sharp in the sense that I had to really push um put some physical effort into making it happen and you know my shoulders jolted upwards if you just listening to this and not watching my shoulders jolted upwards that second inhale through the nose is important for a variety of reasons I've talked about elsewhere so the physiological sigh is going to be the go-to protocol for you again not invented by me this is not huberman breathing this is a pattern of breathing discovered in the 1930s by physiologists it's hardwired into our nervous system and that's what makes it so great it works the first time and it works every time so that's to my knowledge the best way to control your stress in real time”

“the best way that I'm aware of that's grounded in excellent physiology and Neuroscience to reduce your stress in real time is the so-called physiological side I did not invent this pattern of breathing it's not breath work per se this is a pattern of breathing that we all naturally do in our sleep to restore carbon dioxide and oxygen levels to their proper ratios indeed we have a defined or specific neural circuit in our brain that extends to our diaphragm and communicates with aspects of our heart Etc that allow physiological size to calm us down faster at least in my knowledge than any other directed protocol”

“how do I enter the rest and digest State and exit my constant fight ORF flight State well the fastest way is going to be physiological size probably repeated two or three times in a row if you don't experience that the first time the second would be to combine that with panoramic Vision”

“extend your exhales that's that's the most basic way um physiological size two inhales followed by a full exhale to lungs empty um these are core physiological mechanisms known to activate the Vegas and lead to calming”

“the double inhale exhale so inhaling twice through the nose and exhaling once through the mouth this is what's called a physiological sigh offloads carbon dioxide from the lungs”

“If you want to be more calm, emphasize exhales. And the simplest way to do this is to emphasize exhales through what's called a physiological sigh. Two inhales followed by a long exhale.”

“That is indeed the fastest way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and to tilt that seesaw from levels of high sympathetic nervous system activation, to lower levels of sympathetic nervous system activation.”

“If you want to calm down fast, the physiological sigh is still going to be your best tool.”

“So, use breathing as a way to deal with stress in the evening. Again, it's a potent technique and it's one that then puts you into the mental frame of being able to do the other things that you need to do in order to keep your cortisol low, like make sure that the lights are dim, to make sure that you're not engaging in any kind of texting or online activity late at night that's going to further exacerbate your stress.”

“exhale emphasized breathing slows your heart rate down through a process called respiratory sinus arrhythmia and exhale emphasized breathing engages the diaphragm which helps balance levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in your bloodstream and brain in ways that bring your levels of stress down all very quickly in fact”

“The whole thing, as you just saw, probably takes about 30 40 seconds, maybe a minute maximum. And it is the fastest and most effective way to calm yourself down in real time.”

“I do deploy the physiological sigh which sounds very technical but inhales through the nose followed by a long exhale to lungs empty”