Ep. #84 Transformative Breathwork with Céline Fontaine

Have you ever paid attention to your breathing during times of stress? Most likely, we don't, yet it's a powerful tool we can harness to maintain calmness within ourselves. Meet our special guest Céline Fontaine as she shares how conscious breathing impacts creativity, mindfulness, and well-being. Discover how controlled breathing enhances leadership and personal development, inviting you to experience its transformative power firsthand. From practical methods to integrating breathwork into daily work routines, Céline Fontaine guides you toward a more present and focused self.

Meet Céline Fontaine
Céline Fontaine is an executive coach, facilitator, and certified breathwork practitioner with over two decades of corporate experience across Europe and Southeast Asia. After years in high-pressure corporate environments, Céline pivoted to focus on her well-being and embrace her full potential outside the traditional workplace. 

For Céline, It was love at first sight with breathwork, a practice she describes as her "holy grail." Breathwork proved to be a transformative tool, helping Céline calm her mind, release emotions, and reconnect with her highest self. Her journey into breathwork deepened her understanding of its power and potential, making it an integral part of her mission to help others. Céline believes breathwork is the antidote to our relentless, fast-paced world and is passionate about sharing this extraordinary art with as many as possible. 

Currently based in Phuket, Thailand, Céline leverages her extensive background in Learning and Development to integrate breathwork into her coaching and leadership development practice. She works with corporate professionals, educators, parents, and anyone curious about enhancing their health and overall life satisfaction, guiding them to unlock and harness the extraordinary power of their breath. 

Céline is a certified Advanced Breathwork Practitioner by the Global Breathwork Professional Alliance.

Céline has 2 breathwork demonstration videos which you can use to help you in your own breathwork quest. Links below!

The Grounding Breath - https://youtu.be/07WCFZ08JC0

The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique - https://youtu.be/jdoghm0bTdY 

Visit her LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/celinebousquetfontaine/

Visit her LinkedIn Page for Breath@Work - https://www.linkedin.com/company/breathatwork/

Vist her Website at https://breathatwork.net/
 

Experience an Introduction to our Coach Training Programmes with our Free Taster Course: https://courses.baileybalfour.com/course/coach-training-introduction

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You are listening to Making Sense of Work with Jean Balfour. Hi everyone, and welcome to Making Sense of Work. For the first time in a little while, I'm very happy to introduce a guest. Celine Fontaine has come to join me in conversation today about breathwork. Welcome, celine. Hi Jean, so before we get going, let me tell you a little bit about Celine. She is an executive coach, facilitator and certified breathwork practitioner with over two decades of corporate experience across Europe and Southeast Asia.

Speaker 1: 0:41

After years in high pressure corporate environments, many of you will connect with that Celine pivoted to focus on her well-being and embrace her full potential outside the traditional workplace. For Celine, it was love at first sight with breathwork, a practice she describes as her holy grail. Breathwork proved to be a transformative tool helping Celine calm her mind, release emotions and reconnect her higher self. Her journey into breathwork deepened her understanding of its power and potential, making it an integral part of her mission to help others. Celine believes breathwork is the antidote to our relentless, fast-paced world and is passionate about sharing this extraordinary art with as many as possible and today with us. Currently based in Phuket, thailand, celine leverages her extensive background in learning and development to integrate Breathwork into her coaching and her leadership development practice. She works with corporate professionals, educators, parents and anyone curious about enhancing their health and overall life satisfaction, guiding them to unlock and harness the extraordinary power of their breath. She is an advanced breathwork practitioner by the Global Breathwork Professional Alliance. So, celine, welcome again and thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Thanks for having me, Jean.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Let's start with how's work at the moment.

Speaker 2: 2:13

How's work? Work was very busy at the start of the year far too busy, actually far too busy in the last 18 months, and it's starting to feel a bit better, jean, to be honest. It's starting to feel a little bit more spacious. I've got a big project I'm working on that is giving me a lot more sort of freedom to use my time, and that's that's corporate work. By the way, that's not so much the breath work, um, and the breath is sort of there. It's happening, it's growing gently on the side. So right now, work feels good, great.

Speaker 1: 2:47

I love this idea of spaciousness in our work and how we could all look for finding that, because in that spaciousness I think we work really well. We're able to create and do work mindfully, meaningfully.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Yeah, yes, yes, and yet I I would say it's, it's lovely when you get these big assignments that give you that freedom right, that give you that sort of flexibility of working at your own rhythm. Um, but yeah, it doesn't happen all the time, and a lot of the last 18 months we're taking on a lot of assignments, little assignments and having to do a lot all the time. But it does feel delicious when you, when you find that spaciousness, I agree.

Speaker 1: 3:31

I shared a bit about your career story and, of course, we met when you were in your corporate job and when you began your coaching journey, which I was really happy to be part of. But it would be really lovely if you could share a little bit about your journey. How did you come to be here doing this work? What happened along the way to bring you to this point?

Speaker 2: 3:55

so I've got background in learning and development. So I've sort of always worked in learning development, hr and I've worked in several industries. I've always worked in learning development, hr and in several industries I've worked in hospitality, I've worked in professional services. My last job, which is where we met Jean, was I was working for a law firm based in Singapore as a regional head of learning and development, and I owe you a lot actually, jean, because indeed when we met, we initially met, I think, to talk about training. I think that was almost I guess I feel like saying it's probably about six, seven years ago now.

Speaker 1: 4:33

I think it's probably eight years ago, yes.

Speaker 2: 4:37

And then I remember you turning to me one day and saying I'm starting up this coaching school uh, would you like to be part of the first cohort? And I'd always thought about coaching um. Hadn't made any sort of plans to go into any coaching training at that point in time, but when you offered that I, it was an immediate yes. And and that was the beginning of the love story as well a love story was coaching um, probably one of the best courses I've done. I love stories, coaching um, probably one of the best courses I've done and I so then trained up as a coach, continued my corporate job, full-time corporate job and then, during COVID, just before COVID, I had made a decision that I was ready to sort of step out of the corporate world, of the full-time job let's say, not corporate, well, but full-time job of my L&D role, and start setting up my private practice as a coach. And that, of course, was came with some careful planning and some transitioning.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And then, during Covid, when everything went online, I came across this kundalini yoga teacher that was teaching out of London and obviously everything had gone online, so she was teaching this online, and kundalini yoga has a strong emphasis on breath work called pranayama, right in the yoga tradition, and she was doing these little breath work 6 30 am breath work sessions on Monday morning, 6 30 am UK time, so that was afternoon and I had obviously the freedom to come online and do them in the afternoon in Singapore and I was blown away by. I was blown away by how half an hour of just conscious breathing was just making me feel so different and just the effects were immediate. So from there I joined a course. She offered a course like a two, two to tie, like a four-day course over two weekends. I joined that, loved it, and then I just got more and more interested in breathwork and and life is funny how it puts you, you know, it kind of guides you into the right direction.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Again, lots of synchronicities happened. I found myself a few months later in touch with a breathwork school called breathwork Africa, placed in South Africa, that also just gone online because of COVID and that ended up being one of again another extraordinary training on breathwork, like amazing teachers, amazing breathwork practitioners, and. And that's when the whole love story just began and it just continued and continues because I'm still very connected to them. I've done a foundations course, an advanced, and now I'm still sort of on monthly sessions, so it hasn't stopped ever since.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Amazing and I mean I can see, just looking at you, how that is a love story, how there's something that's really connected with you and who you are and what matters to you. And for those of us who don't really know what breathwork is, would you be able to explain it so that we can kind of connect with it?

Speaker 2: 7:31

yeah, of course I'd love to. So breathwork I love this definition. It says it's breathing with attention and intention. What that means is breathwork is about bringing, first of all, awareness to your breathing. Right Starts with bringing awareness and then it leads on to taking control of the breath. So taking your breath, controlling your breath, changing your natural breathing pattern in order to reach an outcome. So it's I'll say it's um, it's bringing awareness to your breath and taking control of your breath to reach a specific outcome.

Speaker 2: 8:11

And the extraordinary thing about the breaths is that it is actually the only autonomic system in our bodies over which we have voluntary control, meaning we have control over it. There are no other systems in this body that we can control and will also function, no other systems in this body that we can control and will also function without us controlling them. So, if you think of it, you can't control your digestive system, you can't control your heart rate, you can't control your immune system. All the other systems in the body function on an autonomic basis, but the breast has boost, and that's what breastwork is all about. It's about taking the unconscious and making it conscious that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 8:49

So this is the attention and intention. I'm curious about the intention. So you said towards an outcome, what, what might be an example of an outcome that you might be working towards in doing breathwork?

Speaker 2: 9:03

so the usual outcome that people are looking for is like I just want to feel relaxed and calm. Right, and that is one of the outcomes, of course, that breath work can do. It can calm the mind, it can calm the whole nervous system within just minutes and make you feel just relaxed and peaceful. Now, that's not the only outcome. Okay, that's the one that most people are looking for, but there are lots of other outcomes. The other outcomes we get is that you can actually build up some energy and like lift yourself up. So if you're feeling very sluggish or you're just feeling you know you're not finding your drive unmotivated, there are specific breathing techniques you can use to just lift yourself up and just give yourself that boost of energy.

Speaker 2: 9:40

There are some breathing techniques that can help find focus and find your grounding and find focus and concentration. So when you feel that your mind is all over the place, you can't seem to concentrate, certain breathwork techniques can help you come into that really, really focused mindset. So usually we say it can be energizing, can be calming or it can be balancing. These are sort of the three outcomes where you're using breath work to regulate. But breath work has more than that.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Breath work can also be a tool to bring sort of awareness to what's going on inside of you. So there is there are some techniques in breath work which is just watching your breath, you watching yourself breathe. A lot of people would say that sounds like mindfulness and yes, it's close to mindfulness, uh, if anything, that's where mindfulness and breath work overlap and it does allow you to sort of get in touch and just feel into that natural breathing pattern of yours. And it's important to know this because I thought that was fascinating when I learned it is every emotion, every thought, every physical state has a corresponding breathing pattern. Our breathing pattern is constantly changing throughout our days. It's constantly changing with our emotional states, mental states, physiological states. So bringing awareness is fascinating because you get to know yourself from sort of the inside.

Speaker 1: 11:07

That's amazing, that idea that everything that's happening to us brings a different breathing pattern. Now that you say it, it makes absolute sense, but I've never really thought about it like that. So we could be tuning into what's happening with our breath as a clue to where our emotional or thought patterns are, or where we are in that moment yeah, and then and then, from there, be able to ask yourself what do I need?

Speaker 2: 11:35

so I mean a perfect example. People get that when you say to them, well, how do you breathe when you're really angry with someone? And people will quite easily say, well, you know, I'm breathing sharp, shallow breaths quite high up in my chest. And then you say, well, how do you breathe when you're sort of sitting on the beach and it's sunset and you're surrounded by your loved ones, and people will say, well, my breathing is calm and it's slow and it's probably quite deep. So these are extreme examples, but, as you can see, your breath is mirroring your experience and, of course, there's everything in between. That right, it's a spectrum, um, so everything in between that is possible. And, yeah, the more you, the more you understand your breath, the more you can sort of understand what's going on for you inside and then, from there, change the breath and that changes how you feel how you think that's amazing, that's really magical.

Speaker 1: 12:25

So so, um, in linked to that a bit, what impact do you see focusing on breathwork having? So you've kind of talked about what we can do is. But what do you see with the clients you're working with or with yourself in working with breathwork?

Speaker 2: 12:41

so the first thing I see when I introduce it to people for the first time and these might be people that are coming to you know, they might be on a leadership development course, they might be coaching clients or they might be coming for breathwork Again, all of these are possible. Generally, the first reaction I get is people are blown away by how calm they can get in just minutes of breathing, and that's often blows their mind, I have to say. They've been looking to find a state of calmness and presence. I've had people say to me I just understood what presence is, um. I've had people say it just, everything goes calm, I just want to stay there and and I think people are just people are just so surprised by how quickly and how easily they can get there. And that's, that's the main takeaway when people do it for the first time and I always make sure I choose a breathing technique that sort of it will work for the majority of people.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Now it's important to know that with breath work, every technique can have a slightly different effect on different people, just because we're made up differently. Some people, if you slow down their breaths I'll give an example for some people when you slow down their breathing consciously, um, if they are people who are very anxious, um, and they're always on alert, that can be very triggering for them because they're always kind of looking out for danger. So kind of calming down the nervous system and calming down the breast is actually dangerous for them and that can send them into a bit of a kind of spin. That can happen. That's rare but it can happen, um. So that's the main reaction.

Speaker 2: 14:15

And then I've had clients I've seen a few times and I've worked with, who just have this experience of just connecting with themselves. And, of course, the more breath work we do and the more and I haven't spoken yet about techniques where we do prolonged breathing practices, so like over half an hour or 45 minutes we go to deeper states of consciousness. In these practices people just have a real sense of connecting with themselves and coming back to the sort of authentic self. Um, they're amazed by how much more breath they can take. That is another big one that comes up is I didn't know I could take so much more air and, um, I realized that when I really fully sort of use my diaphragm and breathe fully, there's so much more available to me.

Speaker 1: 15:02

And that's just beautiful. It's really curious. As you're talking about, I'm noticing myself being incredibly aware of my breathing and just then I know you use your hands to kind of open up when you're talking about the expansiveness.

Speaker 2: 15:14

So I was thinking about myself and thinking, wow, I don't think I ever breathe into my sides and of course or I'm not conscious of consciously breathing into my sides and of course that is one of the expansive places, I guess, yep, and and that's important to know is, most of us are breathing sub-optimally and I see it just all the time now when I look at people, when I work with people. Um, just various reasons. One is lifestyle, just the fact that we're sitting you and I are sitting right now in front of our laptops and we're sort of crunched over, sort of pressing down on this diaphragm, which is our main breathing muscle. The fact that we're quite sedentary, the fact that, um, we are very stressed, so we're breathing quite high up in our chest, we're breathing quickly. And there's a whole other thing. This thing for women is like we're wearing tight clothes, so that, again, is not helping us breathe fully. We're wearing the bras. So there's lots of things that come into play and why we're breathing suboptimally.

Speaker 2: 16:06

A lot of us are breathing, mouth breathing versus nose breathing, um, but what you referred to about the expansion in that sort of the side expansion is is, yeah, a lot of people even think that we're taking a deep breath is sort of lifting up the shoulders or pushing out that belly. What most people don't understand is actually it's a whole movement, like 360 degree movement, and what you should really be feeling in a deep, deep, nice, full breath is you should feel everything sort of moving out, sideways and frontwards, backwards. Everything should be moving and it should be just like a ball that's expanding, like going from a marble to like a football marble to football. That's the kind of movement you should be moving and it should be just like a ball that's expanding, like going from a marble to like a football marble to football. That's the kind of movement you should be feeling happening when you're breathing fully.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Of course, not all the time, but when you're breathing fully and there's opportunities for us to think about how can we bring more of that into our day. How can we do that? Yeah, before we come on to think about that, because I would love to think more about how can we do this at work, is it possible for all of us to engage with this and to learn and really, I guess, play with our breath.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Yes, and this is the great news. Right, and, by the way, I should have mentioned I didn't say at the beginning, when talking about breathwork to breathwork obviously has its roots a lot in Eastern tradition. This is why we find a lot of references to breathwork in yoga or in Tai Chi Qigong. So in a lot of Eastern traditions there's been a big emphasis on breathing and moving energy through breath. Now the West is now becoming very interested in breathwork, so it's becoming very trendy. But the good news with that is that the scientific world is getting very interested in breathwork and so we're getting more and more um sort of findings around uh, what goes on in the brain, what's going on in the whole body mind system when we're breathing, and the effects of it on our physiology. Um, with that we also are. We know very we know that we can actually help people um back to a natural breathing state, so an optimal breathing state. It can be trained.

Speaker 2: 18:04

So our breathing relies very much on our diaphragm. Well, very much. It relies essentially on our diaphragm. Our diaphragm is a muscle and it's this muscle. I was blown away.

Speaker 2: 18:13

I always show people what a diaphragm looks like because when I saw it the first time I was, I just I'd never seen the thing. I never, ever in biology class, never come across this image of a diaphragm. And it's this beautiful dome-shaped muscle that is huge, that sits under the rib cage and it's the main breathing muscle. Without moving the diaphragm there is no air going into the lungs. And often I get people that their eyes just should open, you know, just open wide when I say to them your lungs are not bags that open and close by themselves, your lungs just sort of, you know, air sacs that only fill up because the diaphragm is pulling down and with the pressure it expands the lungs and it draws the air in and then when the diaphragm goes back into its default position, which is like a dome shape, it pushes out the carbon dioxide, it pushes out the air, and so if you understand that, I think that is transformational, because when people see that and understand that for the first time and for most people it's the first time, like it was for me a few years ago when they understand that it is this muscle that is doing the breathing and that actually they haven't ever paid attention to this muscle.

Speaker 2: 19:20

They might have heard about the diaphragm sometimes in the yoga class, not really knowing what it was, or if they've done some singing, they might have been told to use a diaphragm.

Speaker 2: 19:28

But most people don't know what the diaphragm is, and so when you explain this to them and you start showing them how to use this diaphragm, this muscle, which has just got lazy or very tense over time, it starts working again. So it's a bit like someone saying you can sort of move your elbow and bend you know, bend your arm up, and actually you say, wow, I didn't even know I could do that with my arm. So if you show people how to use a diaphragm unless there's something there, you know, something in the muscular system or a tension that's so strong that we it might take more time to work on, most people will start breathing well, and that's where people sort of just wake up to breath and realize how good it feels. They start seeing these. That rib cage that was very constricted for many people starts opening up and it's absolutely beautiful when you see people's rib cage start moving on every breath that is amazing, and I am one of those people who did not understand that diaphragm until you described it.

Speaker 1: 20:24

Then I had assumed it was kind of somehow more connected or higher up around my lungs, and so, as you were talking, I just kind of tuned into it and thought, oh hi, you've got some work to do. I suspect I need to learn how to connect with you, and you know I've had singing lessons and no one ever described where my diaphragm was sitting, in that place below the lungs, in that beautiful dome.

Speaker 2: 20:49

So how gorgeous, um yeah thank you in in singing classes because I know they probably make.

Speaker 1: 20:56

They probably speak about the diaphragm but it might not tell you where it is or what it looks like no, or how it functions, so that it's functioning as a muscle in that way, um supporting the lungs, but separate from what's most connected.

Speaker 2: 21:10

But yeah, how amazing that's really interesting, yeah, and then it goes further, because then once you go into really the physiology and this is why I'm I have to give credit to this breathing school that's been extraordinary, teaching us like the whole, not just these breathing techniques. A lot of schools teach breathing techniques and and you know people love this kind of the hacks and the techniques, but when you understand the world of breath work and the world of breathing, it is absolutely fascinating and you understand. The diaphragm is connected to the pelvic floor. It's connected to your transverse abdominus, which are your abdominals. In fact, it all works together and if some of this doesn't work, the diaphragm doesn't work, probably everything else is impacted.

Speaker 2: 21:48

Um, and the diaphragm is connected to the heart because it's got this connective tissue attached. So every time you have your diaphragm you're actually pulling down on the heart so the heart can expand, and the diaphragm is pushing down on digestive organs, so it's massaging your digestive system. And again, when you go into and that's why I just I'm getting goosebumps talking about it it's everything we say somewhere everything comes back to the breath. And if you breathe better, you breathe optimally and you pay attention to your breath and repattern your natural breathing pattern, rewire yourself. You can actually see lots aside from the outcomes I gave earlier of karma and the giant. You can get a whole load of outcomes on like better health, a better functioning of immune system, better digestion, um, more heart rate variability.

Speaker 1: 22:35

So there's so many other benefits, oh, I can hear that I'm really excited by this possibility and you've really brought that to light, so there's a kind of segue. I guess, then, is how can we learn to do this better, how can we embrace breathwork? And I guess I'm particularly curious about how we can build this into our working lives, which probably have a terrible impact on our breathing actually. So, yeah, could you share a?

Speaker 2: 23:09

bit about that. Well, answer your first question. The first question was sort of how do you get into kind of breathwork? Um, the good news is there's lots of resources out there now and if you go on youtube and type breathwork or introduction to breathwork, or if you Google it, you'll find lots of different resources out there. A lot of it is going to be these little techniques that people are going to tell you how to breathe and they'll give you these little breathing patterns to do to feel calmer.

Speaker 2: 23:34

But if you're really serious about it like actually this is really interesting I want to find out if I'm breathing well, I would advise anybody to go and find a breathwork practitioner near you or online. A lot of us can do it online as well. It's always better in person, but you can do it online and and and bring this to a breathwork practitioner. Find out if this breathwork practitioner, first of all, um, is going to help you with optimal breathing or they're just going to give you sort of techniques and so find out a little bit what they're into. Then what was the breathwork practitioner? Just to get sort of familiar with what should you be feeling into? And a breathwork practitioner who knows about the sort of whole physiology and physical aspect of breath will really be able quite quickly, to sort of put you in the right direction and ask you to pay attention to certain parts of your breathing. Um, so that would be my recommendation if you really want to go into it seriously.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Um, other than that, again, lots of resources online. If you go to insight time, for example, there's lots of breath work there. Now there used to be a lot of meditation there's lots of breath work there. So the question about the work day, because I think that is the one which is like it's all great to sit on your cushion or to lie down on your bed and do some breath work um, and I'm very passionate about bringing breath work into everyday life, because I think it's great to, you know, start your day off with, you know, meditating or doing some breath work. But how about using breath work when you just come out of a difficult meeting or your kids are driving you crazy and you'd like to sort of just gather your thoughts and just ground yourself and calm yourself down? Um, and that again is, I think, extremely simple.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Um, there's a lot of breathing techniques that are very easy to do standing up on a bus, you know, sitting in your office, um, again, this is I mean because the breastwork field is is going wild right now. There's a little bit of everything out there and I would say again, the best way, of course, is, if you want to know particularly what breathing techniques should I use, to make up a little schedule for myself. Again, a breathwork practitioner would help you do that. But if you don't want to do that, then again, you know, type online breathwork to calm the mind or breath work to do, um, I don't know, in office. There must be some resources out there and you'll find these little techniques that really just take three, four, five minutes max and we'll give you that. And there's a few techniques which are in.

Speaker 2: 25:52

The box breathings become highly popular. A lot of people have heard of I think a lot of the coaches are listening or have heard of box breathing. It's become, uh, it's been popularized by the navy seals who use it to ground and um. So these are simple techniques. There's another one, called physiological side, that is very popular nowadays, um. It was studied by stanford stanford medical school last year, um showing that it's the most effective way to calm the mind and to reduce stress could you say a bit about that?

Speaker 2: 26:22

you can definitely. That is actually my go-to breath. I show everybody the first time. So it's a breathing technique where you breathe in through your nose twice to like a double inhale, with no exhaling between. So it's a bit like and and.

Speaker 2: 26:38

At the top of the inhales your lungs are pretty full with oxygen and then you move to your mouth and you exhale very, very gently like you're sighing, but it's a controlled sigh. So it's a double inhale and a very long, extended exhale, and if you do this one for three to four, five minutes, this is the one that just is unbelievable, because people get into a state of calm and groundedness that they find very hard to get into and because there's some research behind this one. Now, anybody who's interested, I would refer them also to listen to the podcast by Andrew Huberman, who is a very popular host. He does amazing podcasts on health and wellbeing overall and he did a brilliant one on breathing, where it's quite long. It's about three hours long, but it goes into all the details of functional breathing and it talks about this physiological side breath as well.

Speaker 1: 27:34

So can you explain it again, just so that we can capture it.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Okay, so it's a double inhale. So it's going to be we're going to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. That's the first rule. And the inhaling is done in two parts. So it's inhale pause and inhale again. So there's a micro pause between the two inhales and then it goes straight into the exhale through the mouth. So we inhale twice through the nose and we exhale through the mouth, and the exhales are going to be as long and slow and as controlled as possible.

Speaker 2: 28:17

And this is the interesting fact about breath. Going back to the question about how we can incorporate it into our days, it's important to understand and this is fascinating that inhales are energizing. Inhales tap into the sympathetic branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system. Exhales tap into the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. So what's really interesting to know is, if you extend exhales and make your exhales longer than your inhales, you are putting a foot on the brake. In other words, you're actually triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. And if you want the opposite, so if you want to energize yourself, you will do longer inhales and shorter exhales. So usually the ratio we say is one to two. So you'd inhale for two, you'd exhale for four if you wanted to calm yourself down. Or inhale for three, exhale for six.

Speaker 1: 29:08

now, if you want to energize yourself, you flip it around and you make your inhales longer, and that again, I think, just blew my mind when I found out about this it's so simple and, yeah, I can feel as you're talking about, as we're doing these simple exercises my whole my spine is calming, I can feel it running down the back of back of my neck. Amazing, beautiful. Yeah, it's amazing. I've heard uh about the exhale for a long time, but not in that context of uh, both the science, but also the bit about the double breath in, and that makes a lot of sense because I think then you're really feeling that you're full of oxygen and so then you have that opportunity for the long exhale.

Speaker 2: 29:50

Yeah, and that's yes. You didn't explain why the double inhale. So because you could say well, why don't I do just one inhale? The double inhale is exactly what you just said, jean. It's actually about expanding to the max your lungs. So if you think of it in terms of physiology, you're really sort of packing your lungs with oxygen and because you're exhaling very gently, you're letting all this oxygen beautiful oxygen sort of, go through your, your blood system, into and it's reaching everything, will sell in your body and and the longer you exhale, the more oxygen is getting to your system. So you've got full lungs, your lungs are full, all this oxygen packed, and then it's diffusing through your system and that gives you this relaxed feeling and grounded feeling as you said it's so simple, and that really is what fuels me.

Speaker 2: 30:35

I think it's. I don't know why. Everybody should know this. This is part of who we are. We are designed to take control of the breath. If evolution gave us control of the breath, there must be a reason. Evolution doesn't do anything by accident and, given it's the only system over which we have control and when you think of it, there's no reason for us to have control over the breath. The body could have left this as an autonomic function, and every time, I ask myself this question is why? Why on earth would evolution have given us access to the breath if it wasn't to use it in some way? And the scientists don't know, by the way, the answer to that question oh, amazing.

Speaker 1: 31:12

Yeah, it's a beautiful mystery in the story of our evolution. I like that, I like a mystery. Oh, celine, I'm feeling so inspired by by you, by how you're sharing this and by this idea of breathwork. I have a kind of final question, because some of the listeners um are coaches and I was wondering if there's any ideas you have about how a coach or a leader actually could work with just a tiny breathwork exercise or something to help people at the beginning of a conversation or the beginning of a meeting or the beginning of a coaching session that's.

Speaker 2: 31:54

that's been a question I've been reflecting on a lot and I haven't brought breathwork into all my coaching sessions. Um, I brought into a lot of coaching sessions but when it was needed, when I felt that the client was sort of coming in and super scattered or just wasn't landing in the session, um, I think I'm going to introduce it more and more because I do want clients to walk away with this um, and if you don't like it, then don't do it again. Um, so for coaches, I would say I think starting off in general, a grounding and embodied practice is always great. When people come into the sessions, we know what it's like. They've just been in calls and meetings and giving them just that extra little space, whether it's even just a mindfulness practice or a breathwork practice, I mean again, if you think of it, I prefer working with a client who's regulated. So if you can give them a little breathing practice that just helps them ground and regulate and come into this full presence, that just helps them ground and regulate and come into this full presence. Now I would probably recommend something like the physiological sigh, because that's so fast and so quick and works on 95, 99% of people in general, very few people don't like it or don't react well to it.

Speaker 2: 33:00

The box breathing is another typical one. Any breath, that sort of balances. So you don't want your clients to be too calm. So I wouldn't do the racial one, two racial in a session, because that's more of a calming, slowing down breath. And don't forget that this thing with breath work is. You also don't want to put a foot on the brake when people have been very adrenalized, very energized. You don't want to push the foot on the brake too fast. So you want to give them more of a practice which is balanced, right. Meet them where they are, calm them down, meet them where they are so physiological side, box breathing, great practices, or even just breath awareness, just bringing in and just saying a hand on the chest, hand on the belly, just getting in touch with your breathing. Where's your breath right now? Can you feel it is your breath fast? Is it slow? How about slowing down your breaths?

Speaker 1: 33:49

even just a simple practice like this can be amazing giving them an embodiment right, an experience of embodiment so I love this idea and I feel like just in this time that we've had together what you've shared today and I love the idea of this and I feel like I thought I knew a little bit about this and now I feel like I knew very little, a tiny bit, and I'm now really curious and intrigued about this whole concept and how we can work with ourselves differently in our breath and I will put a link in the show notes for anyone who's curious about working with Celine and having an experience, an embodied, lived experience, of exploring our breath and thinking about how it can help us to be well in our working lives. And I really just want to say thank you so much for going on this journey and I can see that it's bringing you to life in such a beautiful way and I can see that it's bringing you to life in such a beautiful way.

Speaker 2: 34:45

Thank you so much, jean, and I'll just add that I am currently in the spirit really of sharing and getting the word out there. I'm offering sort of to do 13 minute discovery sessions of breath work. So if anybody was just curious and sort of, what's the thing about? You know, I'm kind of intrigued about this whole thing, so there'll be a link, think, in the show notes as well. Sort of to book a session, if you want um with me, where I'll take you through sort of just an introduction to breath work and get people doing one or two techniques, um to get a feeling of it, because the best way to understand breath work is to experience it.

Speaker 1: 35:18

I believe that and I encourage everybody to go and do some work with Celine. Thank you so much, celine, and I hope that we might actually have you back for another conversation sometime, because I think there's so much richness here. Thank you so much, jane. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining this episode of Making Sense of Work. If you enjoyed it, please go and subscribe, rate and review. If you have a topic you'd like me to explore in the podcast, please follow the show notes and send me a message.