3:3 Breathwork and You

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

So I know we, you know, we're creating various collaborations and products to make it easy for people to read or listen to what happens, a tutorial. But it's really designed to be non complicated. You don't have to focus on your diaphragm. You don't have to focus on your belly. You don't have to focus on your clavicles because people say, oh, I'm a belly. Breathe. Oh, I'm a diaphragmatic breathing. Oh, I'm a upper, you know, high stress, anxiety breather. Yeah, I do this. You don't need to do any of that.

So that that makes people feel relaxed. I oh, it's nothing so scientific that I have to do not. Welcome to doctor talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors. If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions.

You've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Soraya Rahman. I am one of the two curious MDS on the two curious MDS podcast, and my partner Alia Ahmed is not here with me today, but I'm joined by Raj Cartoon from London, UK, who is an inspired manager at Keep Fit Kingdom, which has a mission to help a billion people reach 100 years happily and to realize the healthiest version of themselves.

He's an avid wellbeing and transformation coach, having specialized in relationship coaching for 15 years. The inventor of the three three metaverse breathing method, part of the seven Minutes to Bliss program, which dramatically reduces stress and anxiety within 1 to 3 minutes and is proving to be highly effective in healing insomnia. I can attest to this is infectious energy uplifts anyone because he's excited to make a positive difference while helping people fulfill their potentials and make dreams happen.

I am just so thrilled to have you on the Two Curious Minds podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to and hear what comes out of this. So I thank you so much. Wonderful, wonderful. And I know it's it's kind of late for you in the UK. So we are doing this kind of transatlantic here. So let's just write life. You know interestingly enough I mean I do coaching with Los Angeles and they're eight hours, you know, behind us. So sometimes I'm up to three, 4:00 in the morning doing sessions.

So you know, using the three three method I'm sure to cure that insomnia. So do you want to just jump right in? Yeah, I mean, sure. What would you like to know? A bit of background or what? Like what kind of what would be, you know, what brought you to the journey that led you to the three three breathing method? Like where, where did you. Yeah. Okay. So we'll I'll take you back to when I was a kid. That's a bit of a Genesis backstory. It'll give some context that when I, when I was three years old, my mother took me for the first time to nursery.

And in the library there, there were two things I did, and I don't know why. It was just so instinctual, what I did. I took two books off the shelf. One was about dinosaurs and one was about planets. And for whatever, I didn't touch Thomas the Tank Engine. I didn't touch, you know, the Mr. Greedy Mr. Happy, all those books. I didn't touch that. But for whatever reason, I picked up the dinosaurs books and the planets books. And these images from the front covers of these books are still etched in my mind like it was yesterday.

I can literally still see it in my mind. Right. So what I noticed is that these themes would accompany me throughout my entire life. Dinosaurs for evolution. In terms of how do species evolve and move from being a basic type of creature, and then to become more and more intelligent and then have a more expanded brain and then and then what? What happens, you know, versus how is this happening? It's just so curious and fascinating to me. Right. And I think most kids, they have this fascination with dinosaurs.

They go to the museums and they look at these big, huge creatures. I think that can't be real. Was it really real? The cow huge slayer.

Origins of the Three-Three Breathing Method 4:24

And he's just amazing, right. And the planet thing was again, it got me curious, asking questions of myself just within my mind. What are these planets doing? Like, you've got Jupiter, you've got sad looks, beautiful with rings around it. You've got mercury right next to the sun. Takes 88 days to go around it. Once you've got Mars, right. And they've got the satellites on their probes looking at the surface and moving over, and they have had for over a decade, and they still haven't found anything on there. Right?

No water, no plants, nothing. Just rock. And I'm thinking, why is an empty planet? What is an empty planet doing in the solar system? There must be a reason for it. Like what? I can't see nothing there physically with these eyes. But what is going on? So these kinds of questions were on my mind years, years and years. And actually those ideas served me even better than my education did. So there's a bit of a backstory of, yeah, I have a love for libraries that I cannot. So I'm just as you're talking, I am just imagining that when you enter that library, right?

And you like, have this confrontation with all the possible things, like you said, it could have been Thomas the Tank Engine. It could have been the Mister, the greatest. My, I remember those, by the way, we grew up on some of the Saints. No, we don't, but what got you curious? And you mentioned that word curious. And I think that's really like a kid with unlimited possibilities and that's just free flowing curiosity. And it's like you're not directing it. It's taking you. Right. Something is pulling you and you're responding to it.

As kids, we have so little barriers to that. Right? So even just the ability to pay attention to what is it that you pay attention to and why reveals you to yourself? It's like, yeah, Raj, come on over. Your guy who really is going to be interested in these ideas, we're pulling bones out of the ground and they're telling us a story. And this is a wild story, which any kid looking would be like. There are no dinosaurs right now. You're telling me they're all gone. So just like the ability to follow those ideas down and really connecting with yourself in that way, we discover right through, through the things that attract us.

That's beautiful. So tell me how that kind of evolved into the breathing method. Like that's that's right there. So I'm fascinating. It is. I mean, I'm even fascinated by it because I can't believe what's what's happening sometimes, you know, when you look at your hand and you think, how did I get here? Like, how was this made? I know I didn't make my heart, I didn't make my lungs, I didn't make my hands. How, how, how do I happen to have these ticks? It's it's it's kind of surreal, sublime and sometimes, you know, transcendent feeling you have that there's there's a higher intelligence governing all.

There's what is that I want to know. Right. So in terms of the breathing, this is fascinating because the more you study yoga, meditation and you realize that there are masters who have transcended the 3D world, and they go way beyond the physical and there was for me it was like, okay, study, yoga, study, you know, the physical postures, hatha yoga, downward dog, suns out of Syria, sun salutation, all those things. And they're good for mobility, for strength and maintaining your your posture and everything.

But then I realized that there's actually there's something else hidden that you can't see right in the atmosphere. And we're given to think. And I thought I was also stuck in that matrix as well, where it's oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, whatever. But then I realized, hang on a minute, there's this there's much more to it than that. It's much more to it than that. Because when I started doing breathing practices, I started to get all kinds of data and information that I never had before. And I said, hang on.

So people can receive information and data through what? What the invisible medium of the ether, right. Because we tune into certain frequencies of vibration to pull data out. And I'm thinking that that's the very core of my life, my perception, how I decide things. But why doesn't everyone connect with that? Like consciously? Unconsciously like what? What should be done? You know, how should you use it? So I, you know, working with so many people, I see that they have health problems, they have psychosomatic problems, they have emotional dysregulation.

And I was thinking, well, is there a way that you can utilize this atmospheric genius information? Yeah. Power, right. If nature is in a way, you can harness it and channel it into yourself. So to to boost your, your cognition, your receptivity to it, to information, to ideas, can you charge up your nervous system and your immune system? And I found that yes, you can you can do all of that. And that's what I've been dedicated my life last seven years on specifically on the breath. So during the pandemic, I had a lot of women who couldn't mix with men that, you know, relationships coach for women last 15 years and they couldn't mix with men freely.

They were upset that their relationships were on hold and the responses they were getting were not satisfactory. Women panic. A lot of them nothing. A lot, a lot of times men as well. But women, they're very emotional. So I set about teaching them how to regulate their emotions so they feel more calm and relaxed. I teach the methods like the box breathing and things like Wim Hof, similar kinds of things, and different types of sequences like for in hold for eight out, you know, ten and hold for 16.

And they would do it with me on the phone or on the session. But then when they would go back in their own world, in their own space and they would come across these problems again, it's not panicking and getting flustered and oh yeah, I'll have the next session with them on the phone. Did you do them? I said, oh no, I forgot, it's not part of my lifestyle is too complicated. There's so but you knew it worked. Yeah, I know it worked when I did it with you. But when I'm left to my own devices, I don't think about that.

Okay, let me think. It's a method as way to make it super easy and super simple. So the three three was born out of a desire to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. And the the three three method is soft, it's gentle, it's easy. It's easy to remember, it's nothing complicated. And we've tried it on people as young as five or up to 85, and it's working with everyone. Amazing. I love that. I love how you just took that and recognize that there's a hidden realm that we are connected to.

We're embedded in this matrix. And I really relate to that idea because that's what we see in psychedelic medicine. We that's one of the kind of moments that people have. Is this understanding that we're not these isolated, you know, islands. We're actually an interconnected web. We, you know, and then, you know, when you apply your your mind and you look at it from that perspective, right? It's that perspective shift. It's like, oh yeah, I've got micro-organisms, I've got a trillion cells, I've got this wonderful body and I don't even know how it works.

I don't even know how best to relate to it. And you're right that the systems that we're embedded in are so reductive and so kind of kind of materialistic, it's that if you don't see it, it doesn't exist. And so. Right, like it's like we're you do these, you do the breathwork with your clients and they feel it and they're like, oh, this is real. But when they're off by themselves as they can't see something tangible, it's hard to kind of believe that it even exists as well. Right? Like we're back in in the matrix in this fight flight mode.

And they realize that they're or they're not taught the importance of getting equally into the parasympathetic nervous system up to the sympathetic nervous system with adrenaline, cortisol, fear and all that stuff. They don't realize how important it is to consciously move to the parasympathetic.

Breathwork, Nervous System, and Flow State 13:00

So it's like a phase shift, right? You're like, everything in society is keeping us in the sympathetic drive and we get lost in it. And if we would just and that's why we all feel better on vacation. If we just get into the parasympathetic and it's not like, oh, you hate your work or you want to be on vacation 24 seven. It's just that our everyday work lives, our the lives that we live outside of those magical boxes that we we've said, oh, this is different from every day. It's just created to keep us in that sympathetic drive like work, to be upset, to to be overwhelmed.

And I think more and more we recognize that almost as like a tool of keeping the masses frozen. Absolutely. That's, you know, and the funny, the the interesting thing about all of this is that when people are stuck in that sympathetic mode day after day, it's a grind. It's they don't look forward to anything. They get sick, the immune system drops, the stress gets overwhelming, inflammation builds. They never have a chance to switch off or realize that you should spend three, four, five, six hours a day in Paris.

Empathetic in constructive activities. Not mindless activities, but constructive ways like reading, like art, like music, like any of those things that you that develop you and still evolve you, but that give you pleasure and joy. Absolutely. That, you know, not just, yeah, and you're not thinking of getting out of the present moment. They're not pulling you out. They're keeping you in the present moment. And it's almost like we can't even start talking about like, what is that doing? What's that breath?

So let's have done the breath okay? Okay. What's happening? Okay. Yeah. It's exciting. It is exciting stuff. And as you alluded to earlier before they before we started this interview, we talked about Flow state talks about the research from the that great Hungarian. Yeah. Holly chick. Summer. Holly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Great stuff. His books are still being read. You know, being born Amazon and read and everything. And to answer your question, right, that what's happening when you do this breath okay.

So it's the brain is activation of hormones in the brain which already there is such a shame that we're all very powerful. We all have very powerful brains, and we only tap such a small percentage of it in terms of its potential and its ability. It's just it's so saddening, you know. So what happens when you do this breathing method? You release endorphins from the brain, which pain relieving chemicals. It's, you know, serotonin and dopamine, which are feel good happy moments. And plus you also activate the vagus nerve, which is important for parasympathetic nervous activation in terms of rest, digest, healing, sleep and so on.

And because this method does all of those four things at once, that's why it has such a powerful leveraged effect in such a short period of time. But it's never been done before. This way people are shocked how they feel within 60s like this is flow state. I'm in flow state. I've never been in flow state. I thought I had to be a marathon runner or two to run for ten miles to get into flow state. Now I'm done like I'm. Yeah. Do you remember that first moment you felt that? Do you have a memory of, like what?

That was, like sublime. If I can say that. Sublime. It's like taking on an identity which is so vast beyond your body that you use. You never realize who you were or what you were before. And when. This method, when we if we talk about it, maybe we can even do a minute with you on, on a podcast. Through it, you you realize that you've never been taught how important it is to learn concentration or focus or breathing methods, or how important it is to your entire life to gain, to flow, state and stay there as long as you can.

So it's a surreal and sublime experience, and it's like with everything, you have to experience it for yourself to know absolutely. It's one of those things where and you're right, we've been doing, you know, I was just looking at the data on this and even as late as 2018, early as 2018, you know, systematic review, like how breath control can change your life. That's how they label this 2018 study. Right? So this is this is all where we're proving this, where we're looking at the EEG, we're looking at the fMRI eyes.

We're looking at what parts of the brain are being activated. We're correlating that to the actual experience that you're having and going like yeah, you're not imagining like, you know, this is this is I'm making this up everybody. And then you do this on 100, you know, brains and you're like, oh, this is a predictable response to this kind of method. Right. And then they're seeing like, oh, there's psychological and behavioral outputs. You know, the alphas going up and the theta you know, is going down.

They're they're seeing autonomic changes. Your heart rate, your respiration. Yeah. They're they're looking at like, oh, you've shut down your cortisol overload and you've got this beautiful serotonin starting up. So you've literally just flipped a switch. It's really like that right. To be out. And and it's possible. You know, we're even still now having to convince people that it's possible, even after they've felt it in their own bodies, like it's just because yeah, I it was, you know, was the amazing thing is because it's so not part of the narrative in society, they don't have anything to relate it to because they've never felt that before.

So it's difficult for them to connect and contextualize where this fits because it's completely unique. Absolutely. And let's also, you know, bring two things to the fore, which is nowadays in 2025, we are we've been we've been taught, we've been kind of led down to the evolutionary kind of place where if something doesn't cost money, it must not be really right. If it's not a product outside of myself, if it's not surgery, if it's not like something massive, you know, we devalue things that are maybe a little too accessible, you know.

Oh, it's the breath. It's the breath. It's just my breath. It's like what breath? Like if it's like that. And then I have to say, you know, we come from the South Asian heritage that explored all of this. Yeah. And wrote it down and and blended it with Sanskrit with an entire philosophy of being and technology, which is an oral tradition. And we know that those things are all so part of it, like music and sound and math and geometry and and all of that and connected to, to in the body. So it's like the only place you got to go is to access it in your body.

You don't need a yoga mat, you don't need anything else. You need only just this, that you already have. I mean, eccentric like you to explain it to them, right? Right. They knew it that that was like, imagine that. Right? Like a society walking around, which is where I think, you know, I always want to pause and give gratitude to our ancestors for, wow, like, I mean, to be one of the great cultures of of human history, to actually think about, put so much attention and care to human flourishing and to really recognize that that's possible, that there's some and and I mean, I think about I think about a society that systematically had to figure this out without all the tools and tricks and things that we have right now.

Right, right. And to communicate it and to encode it and to transmit it across thousands of years in a way that's lasted. That's right. And we're not doing any of that right now through the discussions that we're having, you know, and helping people to experience this, you know, people like yourself and, and if I may say so myself as well, like blending these ideas together and putting out there in the public. And even if the way people want to consume is lab products like apps like Calm, the Calm Apple, the headspace app, or whichever, I mean that that's okay as well.

But I'll tell you something really interesting. When we spoke to Novartis, the medical company, they they're very keen on learning. Certain people are very keen on learning about mindset because they always want to be at the cutting edge of technology. Neurotechnology and you kind of and they're like, I did the Andrew Shipman things, the sleep without, you know, the rest without sleep meditations. Did Wim Hof and when they compared out the three three, they were like, this is so much easier and it's more effective and wow, like, you know, so the point is that we're all human beings, we're all human beings.

And I always like to see the connectivity and the relationship between people rather than be disparate and separate and divisive, you know, unity. So we're getting it right. Yeah. That's where we're at right now, is that there's so many things that want to separate us. And here is something that's holistic, meaning comprising the whole. Right. And maybe we can lead it into the discussion or just a demonstration, because one of the ways in which I, as a psychedelic practitioner, am trained in these states is to actually participate in hello, Tropic breathwork.

Yeah. You know, there's a certain kind also, you know, using the breath to induce an altered state of consciousness or a non ordinary state of consciousness. And I can totally attest to like, you know, a room full of, you know, these are professionals in a training that have been professionals, people who've been in healing for so long have seen all kinds of things. Right. And all of us have our little skeptical brain. It's like, what it's not going to be. It's not going to be anything, you know, and like three hours later to kind of see what the conversation has turned to, which is like, oh my God, what just happened?

Because not only did I go into, you know, an altered state, but what was coming through, what is going through is what you're talking about is there's there's we become more aligned. Yeah. Right. It's like we're kind of we're kind of radios and we're on the wrong, you know, our dials on the wrong place. We dial it in and you're like, wait a second, I can hear what the universe has to say to me in a way that I otherwise don't have access to. And it cuts away that idea that I'm lonely, right? And just off by myself. Yeah, I'm actually not.

I'm kind of, like, embedded. Right. And it's just, it's it's a fascinating place. So maybe we can kind of connect over that. And. Yeah, absolutely happy to do the, you know, a little demonstration and see, you know, you're reacting to your, your peers, your daughter, peers who, you know, in the conventional space of healing and so on. Do they do they feel like you're you're too much for them, like your paradigm is way too vast. I can't quite connect with you. How does that go socially with you? I'm just curious about that. Right. Because I think I get the same thing you get about the birds of a feather flock together, right?

So how does it how do you navigate? Oh, true. So true. You know, and I think this is progressing I think we've connected on LinkedIn. So, you know, just even going to the place of seeing professionals

Live Three-Three Breathing Demonstration 25:00

are now connecting on professional platforms where, you know, these topics are at least bubbling up. Right? They're they're there. So there's there's a place being made. But yeah, personally speaking, I kind of have had I've been on a westward trajectory my entire life, from like childhood to middle of my life to like even west going west through the United States. And it really had to do with California and being in California and being part of a culture where, you know, yoga really embedded itself in the California kind of culture, right?

The mindset, the openness, the ability to and they've carried it really well. I think, you know, just to just to say that, you know, you can you can find the Self-Realization fellowship here. You have lots of history here, of lots of communities that have come together around these things. Right. And then you talk about, you know, the psychedelics are another thing which I think has led to a lot more cognitive openness. I mean, it's an open secret that Silicon Valley and some of the big, you know, kind of discoveries that we're making are really being supported by psychedelics that are by rampant psychedelic use and Silicon Valley, you know, so there is this kind of understanding that how do you I mean, just even think about where we are going with AI and the math and like, just quantum physics is like, how do you even understand those without an understanding of this?

Right. Yeah. Is that right? Is there like we've come full circle to where our science has gone to the place where it's like, yeah, there's spooky action at a distance. You know, quantum mechanics is like, yeah, if two variables are entangled, two particles are entangled. You know, they are constantly now aware of each other in some way. They're they're communicating with us. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the world is moving that way and some faster than others is what I want to say. But it is going rapidly.

And I think it's really growing in our, in our younger cohort, you know, in our younger generations who are, you know, really having to contend with this idea that, you know, you and I didn't really have this when we were growing up, probably of like the cell phone and how powerful a device it is and how perfectly it's aligned to take my attention. And isn't this technology that we're talking about really redeveloping your own relationship to your own attention? Yes. I had to decide. Yes. So nobody else.

And so I think this generation is going to have a huge backlash because they're going to recognize they are recognizing, you know, that. Yeah, this is we give away a lot when we give it away our attention. I don't think we realize how much we're giving. Amazing, amazing. It's you know, it's it's again, you know, you have some feelings at certain points of life where you connect with certain people and you're thinking, is this a clone of me? Like, this is what I think about all day, every day, and it's saying the same thing.

This is crazy, right? And this is the first time we connected on a, on a, on a call, literally our first conversation. Right. And mind blowing, isn't it? It's just crazy. You find your tribe. Yeah. Frequency and vibration. Not necessarily where you're born or the family you're born in, but the people that resonate at your frequency. I agree, I agree, and we're doing that. We're absolutely in the process of doing that. I found alien, alien. I found each other kind of through a similar thing. It was like, we are so similar that when we tracked back our life to medical school, we had actually been in the same place at the same time.

And then we're both pediatricians, pediatric hospitalist, generic medicine got involved in medical education. We were like looking at each other going, you know, and our first conversation was just like this mic drop moment of like, what's happening here? There's you, you exist, you're out there. And that brings so much like beauty and joy to the theoretical. So you both on the same kind of hello tropic and mind expanding. So the way that we both have the same kind of practice of psychedelic medicine, she's just jumped in a year before I did.

And so we're, you know, and it's rare to find pediatricians and we're also from the same part of the world. And you know, we kind of started this podcast going, there is something here. Yeah. You know, from our Western trained physician, science based, you know, she even did a degree in engineering. You know, like there is something really concrete here. And people need to be aware of it. People need to own it and learn about it. And so even just recognizing, I know we talked about this as like physicians are recognizing and all of us in science are recognizing is that our pace of discovery has grown so much that we need to update this meta update our operating system.

Right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And this is how we're doing it, right. This is how we're doing it. We're creating neuroplasticity because what you're doing with the breath too, is we're we're giving the brain something new to think about going, oh, I'm curious about this. I don't have a framework to understand what is happening in my mind and body when I go into this space. Exactly right. Let me figure this out. Yeah. Because when you when you open that neuro plastic window through these breathing methods, you've got now a vast space that you never had before.

And now usually when you're in action reaction mode, when you're in the parasympathetic, you don't think about your reaction. You just react. But when you open a neural plastic window, everything slows down. So then you can say, oh, well, there's no rush. I can think several options how to react from that particular action or whatever it is. And now from that point of view, you're more you're far more empowered, whether you're addicted to substances or you have serious, you know, emotional issues, emotions at a point of intense, hard to control anger or whatever it is, you can actually in that neuro plastic window, you can melt a lot of those old hard wired reactions to something more positive, constructive.

If you utilize that neuro plastic window. So. Right. It looks like the habits, the things we do, the more often we get into that rut and it becomes a very strong rut, right? That's what we know is the more the same habit you do that the next seven days, it's going to become like, yeah, it's not going to be new anymore. And I absolutely. You describe that so well that when we're given that opportunity of space and that neuro plastic window, it means that a new connection can be made and absolutely right.

The experience of it is like little time slows down. You know, it's like your brain is moving a little faster than it used to because it's not just got this one pathway. The rut that's been made of like, this is my trigger and responds, yeah, it's like, whoa, a menu just opened up right? Right. And eviction. See this all the time. Because this is exactly the experience of, you know, when you've had that reset where psychedelics people recognize they're walking about their everyday lives, they're not on any medication.

And yet they got their trigger and there's just a split second of going, oh, oh, there's a different possibility here. And oh, I can take it. And then they do that the next day, and then they do that the next day. And they're like, oh, this is now a real thing in my life. Yes. You know, that's a possibility that's opened up. I remember the first time this experiencing this was after a really powerful meditation when I was pregnant. And we know that, like, you know, pregnancy is one of those kind of places where you can kind of travel a little bit more.

Your mind body is really connected. And I did a powerful meditation, and it was about changing the narrative in my brain. It's like I had a very negatively kind of skewed, you know, self-image. And I was like really kind of praying and in meditation and, and going, I don't want this to impact my child. You know, that was my day. The next day, the thought comes and boom, it stops right here. Instead of kind of like getting a hook in me, I'm like, oh, but I don't have to think that thought right now.

I chose not to think that thought right now. I choose not to think that thought right now. And in that that space opened up. You know, I remember that that was just an I put it together way later of what really happened. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just kind of like in a state, you know, but to even recognize that, yeah, our bodies and especially female bodies, it's really interesting you say that you've worked with a lot of women, you know, because our emotions are openings, right? Our emotions, our information.

That's kind of what we also think about. I was like, oh, what's that emotion telling you? Oh, you're more open to that. Yeah. And well let's direct attention to that. What's that asking you? What does it want you to show up. So I actually yeah. Brilliant. What we can do I mean we can go through the method and then we have a good time to sort of debrief and kind of sense how you're reacting to it and how you're processing. I think that be interesting I be great. Thank you so and so I'll talk you through it briefly.

So first we do check the nostril flow. So we blocked the right nostril and breathe out the left once. And then we block the left nostril. Breathe out the right ones and get a sense of the balance. Or if one is more open in the other, what's yours? Right now it's 5050. Or is it 6040 or it's a little more closed on the left. Okay. So would you say 4060 then roughly, yeah. And on a scale of 1 to 10. Yeah. It's interesting. The navel flows in yoga. So interesting. On a scale of 1 to 10 where one is you don't feel that great in ten years.

You feel amazing. Where would you say you see on that scale? Roughly?

Applications for Stress, Sleep, and Healing 35:00

We did a wonderful we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation, so I'm feeling really good. Yeah, I was like eight, eight, nine feel so good. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so this this method, it's very gentle. It's very soft. It's designed to be as accessible to as many human beings as possible. So I know we, you know, we're creating various collaborations and products to, to make it easy for people to read or listen to what happens, a tutorial. But it's really designed to be non complicated. You don't have to focus on your diaphragm, you don't have to focus on your belly.

You don't have to focus on your clavicles because people say, oh, I'm a belly. Breathe. Oh, I'm a diaphragmatic breathing. Oh, I'm an upper, you know, high stress, anxiety breather. Yeah, I do this. You don't need to do any of that. So that that makes people feel relaxed. I oh, it's nothing so scientific that I have to learn. No, no, you're a human being. You're breathing. You have a brain. You're good. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, with this, if you can count to three, one, two, three, you can do it.

So there's no need to count me in. Box breathing. Separate counts. Nothing like that. So this one. That's right. You breathe in three times through the nose like sniff, sniff sniff like. And then it's three times out of the mouth like this. Yeah. So I know the mic won't pick it up because it eliminates the hall sounds and stuff like that. So it'll be like, ha ha, like you're saying, ha ha ha ha ha ha. Correct. Without the vocal stuff. Okay, like that, it's coming from the back of the throat. So take a little sip. Something.

Yeah. It's nice. So it's again, just so that people who are listening can hear it. So sniff, sniff, sniff through the nose, which is sniff, sniff, sniff and then through the mouth without the vocals. And it sounds like, like that. Okay. So what we'll do do for a minute together when I set the timer. And for this one, keep your eyes closed and you'll notice the kind of energy shifts and changes within. Okay. So 3 to 1 and go. Keep your eyes closed. Just relax. Just feel what's happening within. Just relax when you're ready.

See me keeping your eyes closed. Noticing how you feel. I went through like a couple of phases and just recognizing, almost like the blood flow in my body have shifted into more like my belly region. And I feel like a pins and needles in my feet, in my hands, and like a downward like if I were a to where all my energy of my blood was kind of like flowing into my head, it kind of shifted. And so accompanying that some warmth and cold, alternating wave of showing up in different parts. Interesting.

Yeah, I like my face and definitely feel a little bit of like I initially I felt like that I smelled the the smell of the earth, which to me is familiar feeling when I get into a state of more connectedness. It's like, oh, I can like breathe the earth more. You know, I actually like that, actually. Did you feel any cool sensations around your sinuses? Who knows, maybe right here. Yeah, yeah. The pleasant. Yeah, that was really nice. Oh, like, got some. Put a cold pack on my face. Exactly, exactly.

And would you say your your heart rate slowed down a little bit. I check that, but from the way I'm kind of feeling how my shoulders are down and I'm not as kind of constricted, I'm more kind of open in my muscles, you know? Yeah. Do the heart rate slowed down a little bit? Yeah. My respiration and my heart rate both slowed down. I even noticed, like towards the end, that the horse, kind of took a little bit more time. Yes, yes, yes. She noticed some mental chatter that most of us have the monkey mind.

You notice that quiet down. But like, I'm more here, I'm less centered. I'm not out there. There's nothing pulling me out of myself. Like I'm not worried about my phone. There's no. What's the next thing? Anxiety. Yeah, my anxiety is dial down. I don't mind, I'm more centered here. Could you say this or mental chatters decreased. There's zero. Wow. That's big because a lot of people can't switch that. Oh yeah. You feel to me that you've got a so expanded awareness like beyond the body, like a kind of expansion of being.

Do you say? Yeah, I feel like I've taken up more space in my body. Like I feel like I was only occupying a little bit. I feel like, yeah, I'm kind of like, in my body more. That's how I'm experiencing it. Like I been, like, wearing a coat, a little bit more comfortability happening. Anything, anything beyond the body is interesting today in your viewpoints. But do you feel anything like spatial awareness, like projecting beyond the body or anything like that? Yeah, definitely. An awareness came of where my feet were in space, my body in space.

I kind of really came into this idea that, oh, I am a body in space instead of like only in my head and only in my words. Right? I became, oh, there's the feet, okay. Feet are here to feel pleasant to over. Feels very nice. Yeah. If you can check your nostril flow. You said it was a 4060, I think last time. Can you check and see if it's changed? Breathe out once each each nostril. Oh my goodness. What do you say has really moved from the 40 to the. It's more open 5050. Would you say that. Yeah. Yeah.

Like 45 5055. Yeah. And I have a deviated is a so but yeah. Wow okay okay okay. Oh it's works really well with children who have a lot of mucus. And you know Qatar around that area because it helps to reduce the amount of that mucus build up quickly. Okay. Now, on a scale of 1 to 10, see me. How surprised are you, how quickly this worked? I'm just kind of want to check. Right. These are reds. Like it's amazing, right? It's like there's that moment of like, oh, something is happening. Let me pay attention to that. Yeah.

And as soon as I did, I started noticing and oh my gosh, I'm in a different place than where I was when I started. I'm truly in my body more and I'm in my body in a different way, and I'm breathing in a different way. I like more focused in on the sensations and aware of the pleasantness of being. Or before I was feeling a little bit of pre-lunch hunger. That's kind of awesome. Yeah. So I'm really surprised, like now that I'm kind of taking stock like I did not expect, you know, and sometimes it's hard to know where I'm going to go and the mind or the body, but it was nice to like drop into.

Yeah. So on the scale of 1 to 10, where would you say roughly how surprised you are. Oh goodness. Yeah. Like a nine. Like an eye. Yeah. Like blown away. Yeah. If you imagine you just did this for 60s, if you did this for 2 or 3 minutes, the effect will compound. How do you think you feel then? Oh my gosh. It's like a mush puddle. So you're just really in myself. Oh my gosh. I want to do this before I start journaling in the morning. Yeah. Or like just like, oh, I'm really upset by the news and I've taken in as much as I can.

I need to get out of this state that I'm feeling right now because this is a tick. Yeah. My gosh, how did I did the first? It it's a first because I can really connect with like I mean even our conversation was kind of like we we prepped it really well. So I feel like I did a whole three minutes here probably. And I'm already primed. But yeah, yeah, I'm really kind of seeing the uses of this and yeah, see now I'm like, now I'm back into starting to kind of come back to that other state that I was in before.

And I can feel that kind of like a little bit of reflux, a little burning in my chest. And then it's just crept back in as I'm kind of getting back into my brain, because now that my brain is working more and I'm back in our podcast, the blood flow is again shifting, right? Yeah, I think. Right. So interesting. Yeah. So three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. When you do this, you prolong that flow effect. And if you do it for seven minutes, three times a day, you'll be in flow all day. And you can have a successful podcast. But we had a woman from Dublin business to a very, very high level of business and lots of stress.

And she said to me, what happened? I did this message for three minutes before these meetings. Everybody, all the noise stops, all my inner resistance melts away. Everyone's nodding their head. Yes. In agreement. Yes, yes, yes. And but I didn't do anything. And she says, what is happening? I said, what happens is when you get into flow, you remove all negative static and people sense in feeling. You know intuitively that you are feeling great. And when you feel great, the energy conveys and they just tend to flow with you and agree with you.

That's what's happening. So yeah, well, this is making total sense to me from what we're learning about all these, you know, kind of studies that we're doing now in group psychedelic journeys. Right? So when we actually get into a mind state like this, like we could do this study tomorrow, you know, there's the EEG available, you can put on the cap, you put a whole bunch of people and really recognize, like, oh, we've just changed what is in between us, this intersubjective space between two humans and a human and a bunch of other humans, and how we've changed the nature of that is immediate.

It's impactful. It's energetic. It's without words. You've just done it with just creating the conditions in your body to tune in. It's right. Right. And then those bodies have kind of picked up on that subconsciously. They're not doing this consciously. Correct. Right. And it's replicable every single time you do it. It works every single time. Oh my gosh. Because then subconsciously they don't even know that they're connecting with you on that level. And and how the flow of ideas and how, you know.

Right. We're transmitting what we're all kind of hoping to hear in these groups. Right. We all get into meetings hoping to get to agreement, but we're like, oh, I want these people to be convinced by what I see is my vision. However, our mind and our preconceived notions and our judgments are getting in and we're cut off to the information down here. So we've just only been using a subpar channeled communication. And and now here we are going, oh, there's a whole other channel. We haven't even been communicating on.

I have a theory that this is how mobs form and this is how, you know, because this can't this is already like an action, right? This is something that I think exists in our world. Like I have seen, you know, I've been in in countries where it's like it hasn't taken more than like a second for whatever energy was having, you know, kind of happening in a mob to really get picked up by everybody so fast that it was nonverbal, it was nonverbal. It happens in violent states, you know, so just even thinking of anger and the way anger makes us breathe, right?

Like when people get angry, they're breathing, right. They are breathing like they're getting their body going and they get that channel right. So they're getting on a different channel and a different channel. And I really think that's one of the things is, is that we're unconsciously able to connect with people in these states, but how wonderful it is that we can get into these states for peace, for communication, for good luck. Absolutely. Because what you when you think about it, what you're saying makes again, great.

You know, adding to my stock of knowledge as well, because when we're in rhythm, the breathing goes like this. Now it's a soft, gentle rhythm rather than erratic like this, where it's illogical and it becomes unpleasant. It's more regulated and gentle and smooth, and your heart rate your, you know, organs also feel at rest, at peace. They're optimize. They're functioning well. You're digesting food well, you feel good. And I think I'm sure they've changed. And even like blood flow to the side of your brain until the networks of your brain, like we are talking about down to that level, right.

Because we know yogis who can do breath methods and sit in frozen cold with absolutely no clothes on for hours and hours and hours, not freeze. They're doing something. Yes. And they're controlling their mind body to such an extent where they're not freezing to death. So it's possible with training to even get to that level. And that's that mastery. So maybe as we kind of wrap up our our conversation here, and I don't know if you had something else to add to that, but just even like this idea that we can master this body and, and I think there is this huge call to human flourishing and evolution and really meeting our moment, right?

And recognizing that we are operating on an older operating system of, you know, maybe dualism, or maybe this constructed materialist Western mindset that breaks everything down, but then takes all the magic out. Right? And here we are going, no, you can actually feel the magic in your body right this minute right now, because it's here around us all the time. Because you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. None of us would be here. For example, it's so well said. And I think, you know, as you alluded to, the you could do it tomorrow, these tests and so on.

I would say let's, let's do it because then we could show people that this is real and you can feel this for yourself and go teach it.

Psychedelics, Consciousness, and Human Flourishing 50:00

We can go promoted to corporate. You know, so many organizations are stressed out that, you know, even between even reconciling relationship problems between husband and wife or partners and they go, kids, I feel sorry for the children. They have to bear the brunt of conflicts which could easily be resolved, you know, so it gets us out of that fighting mode and gets us into at least, you know, I mean, any time I want to have a really difficult conversation with somebody, I do want to make sure that they're ready to receive it or coming from their best place.

And I want to make sure I'm coming from my best place. Right. And what an effective tool to make sure that we know one we can get there. We can do that together. And if we can at least communicate from that place, you know, most people can resolve most conflicts from that. Just like I know what you're saying. Yeah. Do you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Because the chatter in my mind is gone down. Exactly. So you don't have that alter ego like that kind of monkey mind trying to jeopardize what you're trying to achieve together as a as a team or group or partner holding on to that story. Right.

Holding on to that horrible story. And that's where narrative medicine, I think social justice and all of that come in, which is just like we've been sold a story about ourselves, which is, you know, sin and redemption when we we're bad, you know, we got to fight our worst selves, blah, blah, blah. And it's like been created into this kind of matrix where we're always looking for the wrong in somebody because they wronged us. And I'm perfect, you know, because there's always this dualism that's like, you know, we're all flawed.

Nobody's perfect, you know, even in that. Or you can get to a solution here between the two of us that at least appeals to our higher selves, to our better selves. Absolutely. I would say we have people like you with the experimental side of the science. We can definitely bring that together with the experience, with the narrative, with the communication. I think I feel like we could do a lot in a relatively short time. Quite. It's very exciting, actually. It is. And I saw the just when you led me in that I just felt so held and so safe.

You like you dropped me in just exactly right. Like there's an art to this. And even just the way you did it is a science. You know, there's a process. And so just even training in this, learning in this, like you're a teacher, you take it to your classroom full of 20 rambunctious students, and you just do this for five minutes and you have a different day where they just take it over. And you're right. And you know to me that this with insomnia in the world, you know, 770 million people globally suffering with insomnia, it's about 10% of the world's population.

I'll tell you an interesting little slide, hopefully will give you something to think about. And I'm sure we'll continue this when people with insomnia do this method within 30 to 60 to 90s, they fall asleep and they don't wake up for six hours. Oh, I'm going to try this on my patients because I have we do yoga nidra, you know, which I think gets gets to that place. But this, this I did not know, you know and I, and I read your, your stuff, but it was just like, you know, these are the barriers in my mind, right?

These are literally the barriers in my mind that look at everything. And here I have this conversation. And then I have my actual literal patients who have insomnia. And they're on so many medications and they're right. They're chasing their tail. They're tired. The next day, you know, and it's that monkey mind. It's it's it's because our bodies have. And the more time we stay in a state like, I love what you said about we've got to spend at least 5 to 6 hours every day in an alternative state, our parasympathetic, and bringing that into our consciousness that that's what's happening is that when you can't sleep, it's because your mind is in the wrong mode, your body is in the wrong mode.

And yeah, you have the ability. And let's try this before we try medications. Right. And I know that there are pharmaceutical companies that are going to go ballistic hearing this. Right. Like there goes their sales cap or whatever it is. But I just love this idea of self-mastery because I really do think that change starts from the inside if we want to change the world. And I just love your message and I love your goal of a billion people, because that's how we change the vibration and the energy of where we are.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like this has been a very thorough deep dive and fun and entertaining conversation, and I hope we'll have, you know, a chance to dial in more science into it and maybe do maybe collaborate on talks or something that brings it to the masses. Because, you know, I think we've got the idea a little bit. You love to I really want to bring this to and I and I did start so during the pandemic, and I can tell you this is I worked at L.A. County, Los Angeles County Hospital. And, you know, I'm a medical educator, I'm a physician.

So I was in the hospital. And the well-being of our residents are trainees. Our medical students just tank. I mean, they went to isolation, right? Everybody is doing medical school on zoom. And so I got into I was already kind of doing some of this healing work for myself, doing mindfulness meditation, yoga, really delving into the science of like, oh, how do we teach this? How do we break it down? How do we make it so that, yeah, you don't have to know a lot, but you can bring it into your everyday, right?

That minute? Isn't even that. I would like stand in rounds and I'd be like, all right, we're going to take a minute of just getting with our breath. We're just going to do a box breathing and doing it with our patients and the patients being like, oh, the doctors are doing this too. So maybe that's that's something I want to get in on, right? Like they're like, if we value it, if physicians and medical students and trainees and nurses and everybody who is in the health care system starts to use this for themselves, you know, we we're the best example, right?

If we're well, they can they know that. We know what we're talking about. If we're sick, that's that's the billboard that's know you're marketing for that. You know, every time we say things like that, it brings to mind like what I brought into my experience as well, and I share it with people. I've not had to not take medicine for 20 years. I've not seen a doctor for 20 years. I've not had an MRI, an X-ray, an ultrasound for 20 years. And it's basically because I charge my immune system a nervous system with this atmospheric prana, life energy, life force which is all around us.

And the idea is you're electromagnetic, you're not sociable. And my the aim is to keep expanding your aura or your electromagnetic influence more and more and more, not contract it, expand it. So that's awesome. Absolutely. And and you know, this is connecting so well with my work in psychedelics. You know, I'm part of the Berkeley facilitation cohort. And when we do some breathwork and we do some meditation and we kind of drop in together, we're in a group of 6 or 8, I feel different. My aura is different, I present differently.

We're just different people able to think of different possibility is really connecting with our humanness. You know? And this is where psychedelics kind of, you know, we can do it through the breathwork and the practice. And, you know, meditators have done it for long periods of time. The science is actually showing that your brain on psychedelics and your brain on, you know, 20 years of meditation had a lot of correlation. And I'm sure if we did this breathwork and we kind of compared the brain scans, there would be some functional connectivity and actually, you know, yeah, prefrontal motor and, and subcortical areas and things like that.

And just to know that, you know, we are you know, we have now we're in the psychedelic renaissance and all of these, the all of this money is being poured into drug development. Right. But what is really, really sad is that we don't need it to pour into drug development as much as we need to pour into what's really happening, you know, because it connects with what you're doing with the breathwork. Yes. It's like if we investigate the psychedelic state, we get so much information about exactly what we're talking about.

You know, it's just that it's quantifiable. You can put it in an IV. You can, you know, kind of do the sciency part of it. Right? Because how do you dose breath? Right. You compare what's happening in somebody's body. You know, like, you know, your our bodies are all different. We're all reacting differently to breath. But I do believe that there is a thing happening here in human consciousness where we're ready to evolve. And and I do believe that in some ways, the psychedelic renaissance is responding to that and being fed by people's need to kind of experience what it's like to transcend this duality and, and connect with prana.

Because I'll tell you, in psychedelic journeys, people are open in that same way. And ketamine actually makes the breath a regular kind of increases the rating. Yeah. And nobody has investigated this to see if there is a component of that too, right? That it's not just the ketamine molecule, it's actually the way it's making people breathe. Yeah. So the up regulates your, your your breathing and you breathe deeper. And you, you really breathe in better than you ordinarily do. And so we, we do a lot of the prep work with some breath and okay.

And there in the ketamine. And then they start to feel the prana in their bodies. And it's stuck in where they had their trauma or, you know, it kind of really maps very well on to the chakra system, but it's really well into the somatic experience. It's like, what is that? Oh, your emotional experience of that trauma is stuck here in your shoulder. Let's put some pressure on that. And what happens, you know, and you release that. You release the story, you release the energy and that story and energy has less of a hold on you.

Yeah, I really believe that. That's how it works in trauma. You know, if we can disclose that we trained in Oracle, they, experimented with a lot of psychedelics. And they said on the podcast, actually, they said this life. They said, oh, I did this method with you. The three three. It felt like, come on, psychedelics. So again, as you're saying, the correlation between these things are very close and they're fascinating. Yeah. And I love that we're thinking about it from the perspective of human flourishing and education and learning and really kind of bringing back the sovereignty, right?

Like giving away our power so much to all these institutions. And we're recognizing that, no, it's time to reconnect with that power inside. So I've just been so thrilled to connect with you, Raj, on this conversation. Like, we we talked dinosaurs and we talked the planet and everything in between. It's been amazing. I didn't expect it to be such a, you know, full on dialog, you know, and it's been so entertaining. I didn't even look at the time because it was so engaging. But that's amazing. Thank you so much for bringing everything to bear, and I'm sure we're going to have more discussions.

I'm already having lots of ideas on what we could do next. So let's let's thank you so, so much. Keep fit kid Kingdom and Raj kid Caden from the UK no less. I know it's past midnight for you, so I'm going to let you go. Thank you so so much for for this conversation and I look forward to our next time. No worries. Take care. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being.

For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w ww di doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected, stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.