One of my favorite tools for enhancing a breathing practice is by using instruments. Being an musician from an early age I’ve come to learn to play quite a few instruments.
One of my favorite instruments to use while guiding breathing sessions is this magical UFO you see in the thumbnail, AKA the handpan.
Furthermore I’ll talk about how to use rhytm to enhance your breathing practice.
Also, if you are interested in my playlist with all kinds of ambient tracks which I use to guide and practice breathwork click here.
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what is this magical ufo that i use to
guide breathwork
why do i use it and how can you use a
rhythm to guide
your own breathing practice for yourself
what up humanoids my name is casper at
casper’s focus aka the breathwork
biohacker and i would love to
share some of my thoughts on these
frequently asked questions
let me start with the first one this is
called a handpan
it’s a percussion instrument hand
hammered
notes on a metal ufo
shaped sheet of um metal like i said
and it is melodic and percussive so you
can play melodies
and tones in rhythm it is
tuned in a certain key so you can’t hit
any wrong notes so literally
all of these notes match
um so it’s very difficult to play a
wrong note on this
it is an extremely joyful instrument to
play it’s very meditative it sounds
beautiful especially if i use it
to guide breath work in a live setting
with a full room of people
it really sets an atmosphere and really
almost like
sucks people into the practice you don’t
need to have somebody guide you with a
handpan in order to use
rhythm to enhance your breathing
practice and today i want to talk
a little bit more about how and why to
use rhythm
for your breathing practice whether
you’re a coach teaching breath or
whether you’re just a practitioner who
wants to
improve their breathing practice with
rhythm especially self-guided rhythm
now i first started teaching breath work
about six years ago
i started practicing about seven years
ago and when i started i realized music
is a great way to enhance a breathing
practice just like a meditation practice
and the first kind of frame of reference
i had
to think about in regards to using music
for breath work was ambient music and
ambient music is very well known
in as meditation music maybe you’ve
heard it in a guided meditation
video or even in a meditation workshop
it’s this really long
slow drones there’s not much enough of
an attention curve it just
sets a beautiful atmosphere it’s very
spheric this generally works way better
for meditation and breath work than for
example pop songs because pop songs are
made with attention curves and they’re
made to kind of hijack your attention to
listen to the song while
ambient music is there to kind of just
support um
i won’t go into much of ambient music
right now but if you’re interested in
practicing breath with
ambient music i have collected all of my
favorite ones that i use to guide and to
practice breath work
in a playlist on spotify and just search
for casper’s
breathing playlist and you can find it
and i’ll link to it below also
but for now let’s look at rhythm because
when i started
teaching breath work i was using these
ambient soundtracks and it was very
powerful it really provided a great
space for people
to focus on their breathing but after um
a few hundred uh sessions like few
hundred people in my sessions and my
in my group work i wanted to
find something that really invites
people to
enter a very specific rhythm because i
realize
the more you can control the rhythm of
your breath the more you can control the
rhythm of your heart rate but also the
state of your nervous system and the
rhythm of your brain even right
so breath is in itself a rhythm and
you know your heartbeat is in itself a
rhythm and those two are very intimately
linked to each and every
state that you can experience so every
um emotional state has a breathing
rhythm right you can
at a very large distance like around the
corner you can hear a breathing rhythm
and you know
whether that person is crying like
everybody can recognize the breathing
rhythm of crying or
of laughter or of a relief or you know
so you can go on about this for hours
but the point is
states mental emotional physical states
go with breathing states with breathing
rhythms so i was like if i can
use rhythm to get people in sync then we
can all enter a state together and this
was for me a very breakthrough insight
when i started to use it in my breathing
sessions and the first thing i used to
guide that was
the the shaman drum and the frame drum
which one of which you can see behind me
this very big thumping sound i also use
the gem bay which i really loved
and i started to use it for breathing
practice and i just noticed that
as soon as you start to invite people
into a specific rhythm
they find it much easier to tag along to
focus on it and they kind of just
surrender to it
and let their body breathe in that way
which means that their those states are
much more available
to them and this is also available to
you in your practice now
the most well-known breathing technique
that uses rhythm is box breathing it’s a
very simple breathing rhythm where you
go in
two three four and hold
two three four and breathe out
two three four and hold
two three four now this is something you
may know
you can kind of try that for yourself um
one way that you can enhance a breathing
practice like that with rhythm is to
actually tap your fingers but you can
also do a little bit of body percussion
this is something that i really love to
do like for example
um put a hand on your chest and just tap
your chest as you’re doing this
and i mean i have a microphone here
so it’s probably very loud but i like to
tap my chest as i breathe in and they go
for example like that or i like to stand
outside in the morning
and do a breathing practice where i
bounce my feet on the floor
and that creates a rhythm of just kind
of like standing and shaking it out
and then i breathe for example
like that or even go in out in out so
there are many ways to do this and then
the question is what is the ideal rhythm
what is the ideal pace and uh how do you
determine this well
there’s not one specific answer to this
and i know like i’m known for using
science and like very uh specific
pinpoint
precision to say exactly use this
breathing technique for this amount of
counts in and for that amount can’t hold
and yes
it is possible to work with precision
like that and to kind of explain that
scientifically but it’s not necessary
for your own practice
so what i love to do is i like to see
where my body is in the moment and how
it likes to breathe
so for example if you want to calm
yourself down with a breathing technique
you can first of all take a breath that
feels calming to you
like a sigh of relief
okay let’s do that again and just do a
few counts with it and see what happens
okay so that was three well actually
four counts in
three of which were nasal one of which
was mouth and six counts out
okay so now i have a breathing rhythm so
let’s say i make a little metronome for
myself
or i tap my hands or i tap my chest or i
tap my whatever right so let’s make a
rhythm
and now i’m going to repeat that
same breath that my body wanted to
breathe right so i start where i am
see what my body feels like is relief in
that moment
and then i patronize it with rhythm so
now it goes
and i can repeat
so what i like about and this is
incredibly simple right
but it is a paradigm shift for a lot of
people because many people think
i need to know exactly how many counts
to breathe i need to know exactly how
long to inhale how long to exhale
precisely what the ideal rhythm is but
your body knows this
and if you practice this way then you
can start where you are listen to your
own body really tune in with your
biology
what do i need right now what to me
right now
in my body feels like a calming breath
well you take that breath
you count it out you turn it into a
little pattern right you create your own
little rhythm it’s a very creative
process
and then you repeat it and you will
notice that
it can take a little bit of time to
coordinate your motor skills of tapping
or
drumming or whatever with your breath
control but if you do it you’ll notice
that you’ll
very easily link into that rhythm and
that your body will kind of glide
into that pattern like i said it takes a
little bit of practice but the more you
practice with this
the better you will get at really
locking your system
into a rhythm and especially if you
learn
which of your personal states fit which
specific breathing rhythm
you will have way more self-regulation
and self-control
over how to enter those states at will
by using a breathing technique in rhythm
now this is just one example
i can talk about this for hours i
definitely suggest you try it out if
you’re a breathing coach
try this out with your clients it’s an
amazing way to give people their own
personalized breathing technique and
especially
pick up a drumming practice if you’re
not making music yet especially if
you’re a breath coach
it’s so important to be able to guide
music with your clients this is why in
my breathwork master class i even teach
people how to build their own drum and
play it
for their clients because it really
expands
your awareness of breath your ability to
guide breath and especially the impact
that you have on your clients and
if you’re not a coach the impact you
have on your own breathing practice
and if you want to go next level pick up
a handpan
develop your rhythm because the more you
develop your motor skills your breath
control
your self-regulation your ability to
self-guide breath
with rhythm the more you can master your
breath and this is really what it’s all
about well actually it’s about mastering
life
but it starts with mastering breath
alright that’s enough for today thank
you so much for watching
don’t forget to subscribe to my youtube
channel and i will hopefully see you
very soon