Hello and welcome everybody to this talk on breath work for veterinary professionals. I'm delighted to be giving this in honour of Mental Health Awareness Week 2022, sponsored by the webinar vet, and we have decided to come together to bring you a little talk and a little practical, component on how to fit in. Some simple breathing techniques into your busy working days.

So without further ado, let's get started. So why am I talking to you about breathwork? If I'm honest, I could talk about breathwork all the time.

From now on, I'll probably be referring it, to it as Pranayama, which is a Sanskrit name, and in Sanskrit means extension of the life force. Of our prana. And breathwork is a really ancient practise within yoga.

It goes all the way back to Patanjali's yoga sutras, and there were writings there on Pranayama and breath control, so how to control and extend the breath. The reason why I'm talking about it to you today is because, I am a vet. I work in practise, I've worked in practise in multiple different clinics over my almost 10-year career now, and I'm also a qualified.

Yoga and meditation teacher. And a lot of what I do, as a yoga teacher involves teaching Paayama, and, and incorporating breathwork into what we think of in the West as yoga practise. So, overall, I'm here just because I, I know how difficult it can be to remember to breathe, which sounds silly, but when You're having a really overwhelming and busy day in practise or in your place of work.

Even though it's second nature, and we need breathing to live, we don't always remember to take deep, good quality breaths. So, I'm just gonna give you some tips on how we can try and do that, whilst we're busy and whilst we're at work. So, before we get into the benefits of Paniyama and why we should be trying to remember to take nice deep breaths or making it a habit so that we do so, I just wanted to touch a little bit on what happens if we just allow ourselves to continue a cycle of shallow breathing, because of stress.

So, I've got this little diagram here that shows what happens to us on a physiological level. So we're at work, we're busy, we may get a call that an emergency is on the way, or we have something else added to the ops list, or we've just had a dealing in a consult that has really put us on edge. So we're feeling stressed, we're feeling anxious.

What can typically happen then is our sympathetic nervous system is activated, and our acute stress response kicks in. We tend to take, shallower breaths and more rapid breaths, and quite often you'll hear yoga teachers, talk about whereabouts in the body our breath is, and we'll get to that a little bit later. But if you've ever noticed, When you're really stressed, your breathing will tend to be up, here in the upper part of your chest, and it'll be really difficult for you, unless you're conscious of it, to draw in those deeper breaths down into the abdomen.

So we then start to take these little rapid, shallow breaths, developing hypopnea, Ventilation. And then we get all of these physical effects, from the shallow breathing, and then the cycle just continues because if you've ever been in a situation where you feel like you're not getting enough breath, you know how scary and how stressful that can be. So it just perpetuates, we feel more anxious, our breathing gets worse, if anything, and it just goes on and on and on.

So if we allow this cycle to continue. What do we experience in the short term? And I'm sure many of you will have felt this.

I mean, you could even try it now if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it if you want to feel nice and relaxed. But you could try just for a few seconds, taking really short, shallow breaths, and seeing what effect it has on you and in your body, even just, in the moment.

So short term, Our respiratory rate's going to go up. We've already said that because we're taking these little rapid shallow breaths. Our heart rate is increasing, our blood pressure is increasing, our cortisol's increasing, but also all this breathing into the upper chest is really creating a lot of tension in our shoulders, our neck, our.

Back. It's not allowing us to fully expand our respiratory accessory muscles, our ribs, so they're getting contracted really quickly, so they're going to fatigue. It can lead to panic attacks if we're not oxygenating ourselves properly, and it can affect our cognitive .

Impairment leads to cognitive impairment, and there's all these things that even just in the short term can be not ideal for someone who needs to be sort of functioning well in a critical environment. If we don't address it, and we take that home with us, and this is happening day in, day out, weeks on end, months on end, longer term, This cycle of shallow breathing can affect us even more so disrupting our sleep. It can lead to postural changes because of that muscular tension and the effect that these shallow breaths have on our bodies.

So you can find that you're getting a little bit hunched over, you're restricted across the collarbones. You're not able to actually expand your chest to full capacity. You can get injuries from shallow breathing long term, believe it or not, as your muscles undergo .

Chronic strain, cardiovascular disease. I mean, that makes sense. This is why I love talking to a clinical community, because hopefully you guys will understand why.

And then, if you have existing respiratory diseases, it can actually exacerbate those and make them worse. And so this isn't something that we want to be blaming ourselves for. I don't want anyone sitting there thinking now, oh God, like, I've been doing it wrong.

I've been breathing wrong. It's not, we're not here to judge ourselves what we've been doing. We're just here to reflect on the fact that we are part of, a very busy and often stressful profession, and these things can happen to us, initially outside of our control.

So it's just making you aware so that when we do, gain that awareness and understanding of what's happening to us, we can then hopefully start to Shift ourselves into healthier breathing patterns. Because over time, this is becoming habitual. So even if you're not stressed, this sharp, short, shallow pattern of breathing becomes habit.

It becomes what your body, feels OK doing, and actually taking these big, deep breaths can feel like an effort when you first begin. So that's where the practise comes in. So, you know, with practise, it gets a little bit easier.

So that leads us on to the benefits, or at least some. There are so many benefits of Paayama, but I've picked a few here that I think are essential for veterinary professionals. And the reason I put this little diagram up here is because when we talk about yoga, in the Western world, I think we've become very fixated on the physical classes, the, the sort of stretching component, the ascena, which is Only one limb of yoga.

So from Patanjali's yoga sutras, we have the eight limbs of yoga with Pranayama down there as the 4th limb. So a really important part of the practise overall, can be a stand-alone practise, can also be incorporated into your physical asthma practise. So, obviously just wanted to highlight that twice for you.

So benefits of Payama, or at least just some of them. We know there are so many studies out there. If you're interested, a quick search in PubMed, we'll bring up these results for you.

Stress and anxiety reduction, so we have a direct effect from regular Pranayama on our HPA axis. Our cortisol levels. We can improve our concentration span, and attention span, and actually in the study that I, saw that was from as little as 4 days.

There are other types of breathwork and panorama practises that are, Recommended by associations like the Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation, and because they've been shown to help with memory and in slow down cognitive impairment in adults, with specific types of breath work that engage both hemispheres of the brain and often involve. A little bit more like Mantra and Mora, which we'll get on to a little bit later. You can have significant benefits and improvement in your sleep from a regular breath work practise.

It can help you to control pain. So if you suffer with any condition where you are in chronic pain, incorporating ranayama into your daily routine can really help you. To manage that.

Obviously, we can't wave a magic wand, but it's such a simple tool to be able to add in, or even if you're just feeling, you know, aches and pains from a long day over the surgical table, or if you're a large animal vet and you've been out and about, doing quite physical things, breath work can also help us to, decrease our physical pain and release tension. So overall, you know, I've been practising. Yoga and Paniyama for many years now, and it does get easier the more you do it.

But I've definitely seen an overall improvement in my mental and emotional health as well. And on the days where I don't prioritise myself, I don't prioritise my, practise. I, I also notice a decline.

So lots of benefits. And as I said, there are way more than these, but these are just a few that I thought, would be good to highlight. So how do we go about finding time to build in yet another thing?

And this is, as well, you know, I'm so keen with, vet yogi that we don't want to be adding yoga or something in as an extra chore that you have to be fitting into an already packed day when you're tired, and you just want to, you know, get home, have dinner, a shower, and go to bed. So, how can we realistically start to build a regular Panayama practise into Working day. Well, the good thing about breathwork is you don't need any kind of accessories or kit.

You've got everything that you need for it right there in your body, so you can fit it in just doing short bursts throughout the working day. And one way that I kind of build it into my day, or at least try to manage my own stress levels, On busy days is to remember to breathe at key points. So I've put up some ideas here, because even just taking sort of 3 to 6 deep breaths, that's been shown to have enough of a psychological effect and physiological effect to start calming you down and make you feel safe.

So I will frequently take a deep breath that I I have now just automatically started linking with common tasks that I do when I'm in practise. So, for instance, I put these pictures up here. Before I'm about to make a phone call, it doesn't matter if it's a difficult phone call or not, before I make that phone call, as I'm dialling the number, deep breaths.

That way I'm centred before the client even answers, and I'm ready to go. If you're monitoring your anaesthesia or you're in surgery, and you know, everything's going well, so you, you can check in, taking breaths when your patient breathes can be a really nice physical reminder. You know, you're paying attention to them, you're also paying attention to yourself, and when you see them take a nice deep breath, you also take a deep breath.

If you're writing your clinical notes, and this is my little helper here now. Taking breaths while you're writing your clinical notes, you know, whilst you're thinking what to say, don't forget to breathe, you know. Check in if you're finding yourself doing those short shallow breaths as you're trying to get everything down from that consult.

Every time you draw up a drug for injection, take a deep breath as you're drawing it up. Simple thing. I like to, you know, when I'm examining patients, especially if they're nervous, actually centering yourself and taking deep breaths and trying to go nice and slowly and steadily, and can also help them to relax as well.

And often animals will respond to us if we take deep breaths in their presence, and they can start to relax and you'll see that they actually respond in kind quite often. If you're looking at X-rays or images, and if your colleagues pulled in and pulled you in to, you know, get a second pair of eyes on it, taking a deep breath quickly before you review that X-ray. So these are really all common things.

You can remember to breathe whilst you're scrubbing up for surgery, . As you're getting everything ready. So it really is about making it a habit, so that even on days when you don't have the time or the will, frankly, to, you know, sit down and do a full yoga practise or get on your mat, you can still bring, these nice deep breaths, make them a habit, build them into your day alongside these common tasks.

So I thought it would be nice if we tried 3 simple techniques together so I could introduce you to them. You could have a little go whilst we're here, and then at least you have an idea of what they are. And when I'm talking about building deep breaths into your day, it really is as simple as just inhale.

Deeply through the nose and exhaling deeply through the nose, or even sighing out and letting it out through the mouth. But these are just some simple techniques for if you want a little bit more guidance, or you have that little bit longer if you're on your lunch break, or you have a moment between consults, and you can do a few rounds of a specific panyyama. So the ones that we're going to try together are Samaridi, Adam Pranam, and Nadi Shahama, and I'll go through them in a little bit more detail, and we'll do a few rounds of them together so that we can settle in.

Before we do that, I think it's really nice to check in with what your breathing is doing in this moment. So it's a really good habit to cultivate if you're feeling stress or a surge of emotion. It doesn't matter what emotion it is, it can be a happy one, can be, you know, slightly, more impactful one.

Taking Notice of what's happening with your breath and can just be a really nice way to come back to your centre. And when we're noticing our breath, we're not trying to change it in that moment. We're literally just observing, we're just noticing how am I breathing, am I breathing?

You know, deeply or shallowly, slowly or quickly, whereabouts in my body does my breath feel like it's going to, where can I feel tension in my body? So I've said about being an observer there, and no, we're not after these just quick vet looks, although it will get easier with practise. We actually want to properly observe how our breath is in that moment.

And as I said, because we're not trying to change it, initially, we are just noticing, just avoid temptation when you do bring your, awareness to it, to suddenly start taking deep breaths if that's not what you were doing before, because then you'll get a better idea of actually what your current status quo or your go to breath is, which will help you to change it over time. And remember not to bring judgement to how you're breathing, we're not here to beat ourselves up. We're just here to observe so that we can really get a better awareness and understanding of what our breathing is doing and how it may be affecting us physically and mentally.

And I've just put this lovely quote up here because I think it's really nice wherever you are, breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. And you can always, come home to yourself no matter where you are or what kind of day you're having. So, The first technique we will try together, is Samariti.

Samariti is equal fluctuations in Sanskrit. So essentially what we're trying to do is just balance the breath and match the duration of our inhalations to our exhalations initially. And then with practise, it may be that you can even increase the duration of just your.

Exhalations, which is what we're doing to really engage our parasympathetic and let that start to dominate. And so I love this one because it sounds really simple, but it takes a little bit of concentration initially. Anyone can do it because all you have to do is be able to count and breathe, which I'm pretty sure all of us can do.

So it's a really simple one and it is one that you can just do. I was doing it here whilst I was recovering. This particular patient who is the dog you saw earlier, now, so this is my godparents' dog, and I spayed her, and I definitely needed a few extra deep breaths with the pressure of operating on family pets.

I'm sure you guys have it as well when you're treating family pets or colleagues' pets. There's always a little bit of an extra amount of, pressure or stress there. So extra deep breaths in those situations.

So you can do this anytime, anywhere, and I've put 4 seconds up there, which is what we're going to start off with, because I think it's something that most people can, can manage. If you're finding it a little bit tricky to get to that 4 2nd point on your inhalations, just change it to 3 and match your exhalations to that. So.

There's really no right or wrong answer. After a few rounds of 4 seconds in, 4 seconds out, you can even then start to increase that to 5, maybe 6 seconds, and there really is no kind of limit, to this technique. As you practise it more, you'll find that it gets much easier to inhale and exhale for longer, and then again increase just those exhalations.

Before we get started, just quickly clear my throat. OK. So The Samariti.

We just want to come to a nice comfortable seat, so you can be on a chair with the soles of your feet grounding down to the floor, and elongating through the spine, out through the crown, relaxing neck, shoulders, and the back. Just making sure that your seat is not creating tension anywhere else in the body. And then if you'd like, you can also sit cross-legged on the floor, or you can be lying down as well.

So we're gonna do a few minutes together trying this one out. So just gently closing the eyes down or bringing your gaze to a very soft focus. Before we begin, we'll just take a nice deep inhale together through the nose.

And exhale. Sizes out. So we've hopefully already checked in with our breath.

My natural breath, but you can do so again now. Just noticing. How am I breathing in this moment?

Whereabouts does the breath feel in my body? No judgments, just observing. Many areas of tension that you can soften.

And then when you are ready, go to your own count, so I'm going to go for 4. If you'd like to do that, you can join me. So inhaling 234, and exhaling 2.

3 So Inhaling 234. And exhaling, 234. Carry on just keeping your own count silently.

Feeling the chest expand as you inhale. And for this, we're exhaling also through the nose. Although if those deep Exhalations out through the mouth feel good for you.

You can of course do that as well. No, you continue. Just count and breathe.

Hopefully, you'll see it starts to feel a little bit easier. A little bit more natural. You can keep your mind on the counting.

Also just allow it to scan over the body. Allowing you to release anywhere. You can let go of.

We're observing how the air feels as it flows from outside through the nostrils, and down through your respiratory tract into your lungs. And then again, how it feels. As the breath exits your body.

Making its way. Back up and out. And if this is feeling comfortable for you.

You can try to Start inhaling. And exhaling maybe for 5 or even 6. See if we can elongate the breath.

Or if that's too much, maybe just try elongating the exhalation, so continuing to inhale for a count of 4, but maybe seeing if you can exhale for 5 or 6. Just take 2 more rounds of whatever count you're working with. Inhaling deeply.

Allowing the chest to expand. And exhaling fully. Maybe prolonging.

In your own time. When you finished. Allow the mind to just be still.

Take a nice deep inhale through the nose together. And exhale Sigh out through the mouth, gently opening the eyes. I'm coming back.

I'm just pausing for a moment to just see how you feel after even just a few moments. Oh some free running on. Hopefully, a little bit more relaxed.

And so that's a really lovely one for you to take with you if you enjoyed that one. And you're not necessarily gonna enjoy every technique we try, so that's why I like to offer a variety because there really is something out there for everybody. So the next one that we're going to come to is one of my favourites, if you've ever done one of my yoga classes, you probably will have done this with me because I teach a lot.

Adnumranium, otherwise known as belly breathing, sometimes, referred to as diaphragmatic breathing, cause that's what we're doing. So these are really deep abdominal breaths where we're trying to fill the belly as much as we can when we inhale like a balloon, and then we just allow the exhalation to be passive and the abdomen to return back to its, normal state. So as you can see in my really sophisticated, diagrams here, we've got a big, rise of the belly as we inhale and then a gentle flattening as we exhale.

In these pictures, I have my palms just slightly resting on my lower abdomen because that can be a really nice physical guide, particularly when you're new to the practise, so that you can really feel the belly expand underneath the hands. So again, you can be lying down if that's comfortable for you. You can be seated.

And I've also popped a picture of me and child's pose here because I commonly do this breath when I'm in certain yoga poses and child's pose is a really nice one because your belly is kind of hidden, so it feels really nice and safe, to be doing. It can be quite hard, I think sometimes in our society where we're, you know, taught that flat stomach is what you want and everything, and to actually really release the belly in our breathing. But it, it's something I'd really encourage you to do because there's so many benefits.

If we can really, expand that abdomen, it's going to stimulate our vagal tone again, taking us out of that, sympathetic, mode of fight, flight or freeze, and moving us more into our parasympathetic. So I also do this one if I'm struggling to sleep for whatever reason, because it's a really nice one to do in bed lying down. So if you have problems drifting off or you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night.

And the mind is just whirring away with all your cases or what you're doing tomorrow or whatever. Really just mindfully, focusing your attention on the movement of your belly and your breath, and can be a really nice way to ease yourself back into sleep and not allow yourself to wake up too much. So, let's also practise this one.

So for our belly breathing, Making yourself comfortable again, either lying down or in a nice comfortable seat on a chair, cross leg. You can even get into child's pose if you'd like for this one. Extended child's pose really gives the belly room to expand.

The choice is yours. And then again, before we begin, let's just take that nice deep cleansing breath together, so closing the eyes down. Inhaling deeply through the nose and then exhaling.

Sighing out through the mouth, allowing the shoulders to come down and the neck and jaw to relax. And then if you would like to, placing your palms ever so lightly on your lower abdominal area. Making that connection.

Feeling the warmth from your palms. Or maybe your hands are cold like mine, just to let them warm up from your belly. And then again, Just first of all, checking in.

What's my breath doing at this particular time, before we do anything else. How is my breathing? How am I feeling in my body as that breath flows in and out.

And then in your own time, drawing those deep inhalations through the nose, allowing The belly to fill. Rise, expand under your palms. All the way until you can breathe in, no more.

And then Exhaling. Also through the nose, but again you can sigh out through the mouth if that's what you need. But getting used to inhaling and exhaling through the nose.

Be really helpful, especially for if you are wanting to delve a bit deeper into yoga practise. Cleaning that belly and it's important that even though we're trying to inhale. To our kind of full capacity that we're not allowing ourselves to create any extra tension in the body whilst we do that, so we don't want to be clenching anywhere.

In order to, to get that deep belly breath, you want the rest of the body to relax and the movement just to travel down. Through our chest and into our belly. And then again the exhalation is a passive return to normal, if you're not sucking the belly in at all.

We're just allowing it to float back down as the breath empties out. Just take a few rounds for yourself. Breathing, your own rhythm.

And at your own pace. You may notice over time. Your inhales and exhale just naturally get a little bit longer.

Which is great. If they're not doing that, don't worry, just keep doing what you're doing. Keeping your awareness on your own breath.

But if this is something that you start to practise on a regular basis. You begin to see how. More easily you slip into doing the breathing.

And then how quickly those breaths will start to elongate and expand. 2 more rounds. So like a balloon.

Exhaling and turning December. Nasty round. When you're ready, a deep inhale through the nose.

And exhale So right now. Gently opening the eyes. And again, just pausing.

Letting that settle. Noticing how you feel. Any thoughts about Whether that one felt like it resonated more with you, maybe you like them both.

Allow any thoughts to just lightly wash over you. See if you can just Maintain that connection to your breath. I love that one.

That is one of my favourites. So the last one, we're going to practise together is one that I just thought would be good to teach because it's a little bit more involved. If you are someone who needs a little bit of movement or engagement, to feel like you can settle into a, a breathing technique, this would probably suit you because we are moving the hand and using that to help us coordinate the breath.

So Nadi Shaha, in Sanskrit means channel purification because we are purifying the nadies or the infinite number of channels that we have in our bodies. It's also known as alternate nostril breathing, so you may have done it before under that name. It's a really good one if you're needing to bring some focus into your day, getting a bit of clarity, so I will often do this one.

If I'm revising or studying for something, or if I have a big op and I really want to be, tuned in for and focused for, and yeah, it's a really good one because we're going to engage both hemispheres of our brain. And so, just before we get into it, I'll just, go through the little written description here. So, we're going to use our hands, and the, best way, is to use the hand, your dominant hand.

So I'm right-handed. That's what I use. If you're left, you just switch it around.

So you can take your index and middle finger lightly together and just place the tips of them at the third eye space in between your eyebrows. We're then going to use our thumb and the tip of our ring finger to alternately close our nostrils as we go. So I'll just talk you through a couple of rounds, and then I'll let you have some space to explore it by yourself.

So again, you can close the eyes down, find that nice elongated spine, comfortable seat, relax the body, bring the, index and middle fingertips to your third eye space. And whilst we're doing this, just really make an effort to relax the shoulder. And the elbow of the arm that you're using for the nostril closing because we don't wanna sort of create any tension in that area.

So, Take a deep inhale. And then close your right nostril with your right thumb or if you're left-handed the other way around. Exhale out through the left nostril.

And then keeping your right nostril closed, you're going to inhale through the left nostril only. Hold that breath, quickly close the left nostril with your ring finger, opening the right nostril and exhale fully. Through the right nostril.

Inhale through the right nostril. Close with thumb, open left nostril. Exhale through the left.

Inhale through the left, close left with the ring finger, open the right. And exhale. Through the right.

So we've just done 2 rounds there together. So 1 round is an inhale. Exhale through the left nostril, inhale through the left nostril, exhale through the right nostril, inhale through the right and exhale.

So that is a round of navishadha. So if you're trying to fit it into your day, you can do, say you're gonna do 5 rounds, or you can just do, set a timer for 2 minutes and say you're gonna do however many rounds you can fit in 2 minutes. So it is an easy one to fit in once you've got the technique and once you're comfortable with the breathing pattern.

And it does get easier, you'll then be able to kind of switch off and your, nostril closing will just sort of happen automatically as it becomes habitual. So. Let's do a few rounds together, so I'll keep talking you through it gently, and then we might just have a couple of rounds quiet for those of you who've got it to be able to do it by yourself.

So resuming the position. Taking a nice deep in how. Closing right nostril, exhaling through the left.

And how through left. Closing left with ring finger, opening right. Exhale through the right.

And how right. Closing right nostril with thumb, opening left. Exhale.

To the left. Inhale left. OK.

Exhale, right. Inhale, right. No.

Exhale. Inhale yeah. Because Exhale, right.

Just keep going for another couple of rounds by yourself. If you get muddled up, don't worry, just keep breathing. And your own pace.

Finishing the round. Your own Taking one more from the feet round. So When you're ready, just returning to natural breath.

Relax the hand down. Keep your eyes closed for a moment. And then inhale deeply through both nostrils.

And exhale lay out. Gently opening the eyes. And again, just checking in.

How was that for you? Did you find it tricky? Did it start to flow?

These ones can take a little bit more practise. And how do you feel in your body after trying all three and doing. Quite a decent amount of breathwork.

See how you go. Oh, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling good. So coming back to your natural breath, and this is something I keep mentioning, but it's always good to check in before you start any planning on practise.

But it's also a really nice thing to do at the end, just a little bit of reflection. It's not gonna be the same every Day. It's also good practise.

You know, some days you'll do your panorama practise and you won't necessarily feel as great as on other days, and that's OK. So this little reflection time of acknowledging that actually I've still done it and it can only benefit me. Is there any areas that I need to let go of that I'm holding tension that I wasn't aware of before?

All of these things, The more you practise, the more you reflect, the more you get to know your own breath and body, will really help you to be able to just switch it on when you need it in practise or in your place of work. And if you did find any of those tricky or you're a visual person and you'd like to See a step by step guide. They're all available at vet yogi.com under the meditations and Panayama tab, and there's also free yoga and meditation and videos and content available on the Beyo YouTube channel.

I couldn't resist putting a little picture of this little girl who I was obsessed with. This was a little puppy that I rescued and fostered, and she went off to her good home. But this was her, watching me, do some of my, yoga practise.

And she was so funny. She was just Like drawn to it like a magnet and you'll frequently find if you have pets at home, that if you settle down to do your rannyama or your meditation, they'll appear and they'll settle in with you. So it's a really nice, thing to be able to share with them.

So, that concludes our bite-sized, breathwork for veterinary professionals talk. I'd like to thank once again our sponsor, the webinar vet, for allowing me to share these techniques with you, on behalf of our mental health awareness week this year. My name is Chloe again, from Vet Yogi.

If you ever have questions about Yoga, meditation, Payama. Please feel free to contact us. We're on all the social media.

You can email me, chloe at beyogi.com, or just get in touch and let us know if there's any particular content that you would like to see. But a huge thank you, for your time and joining me for this session.

I hope to see you again soon. I must stay.