Lose Belly Fat With Breathing Exercises: Amazing Science! Doctor Explains

hello health champions today I'm gonna go over the science of losing belly fat

with breathing exercises and this is not as something for nothing and if you

understand it and you apply it properly it can make the difference between

losing weight or not coming right up hey I'm dr. Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and

a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health by

understanding how the body really works make sure you subscribe and hit that

notification bell so you don't miss anything now I'm gonna go over five

different principles five different steps about how this science works and

if you don't catch all the five steps then it's not gonna make sense okay

you've got to get all of them and if you do then it's gonna really come together

beautifully for you and make sure then you stay to the end because I've got a

great bonus for you so whether you have belly fat to lose or not then knowing

this information could totally change your life so I know what you're thinking

is this for real there's so much talk about belly fat being dangerous and you

need to cut the sugar and you need to exercise and you do crunches and so

forth how could breathe in have anything to do with it so it is absolutely real

and you got to sort of understand the whole picture but before we get into it

I just want to emphasize some common sense and I know that you guys watching

this are really smart that's why you're on this channel that in order to get a

whole healthy body we can't just do one thing and ignore everything else there's

not like one thing can make up for the other stuff so there's no quick fix this

video is not called learn how to breathe a little bit and wake up with a flat

belly okay that would be insulting your intelligence so just to understand that

you have to have a good diet whole food not

producing too much insulin you got to have proper sleep enough sleep good

quality and you have to exercise not to burn calories but to activate the body

to give the brain some signals and create some circulation and some good

hormones in the body with that said it the breathing is a fantastic add-on but

it can't be the only thing that you do there is no quick fix this these

problems take years or decades to develop so you're not going to just flip

a switch and and be done with it alright but you guys know that so the very first

thing we need to understand is where belly fat comes from alright it doesn't

happen it doesn't end up on the belly randomly there's a reason we have

different hormones we have different mechanisms that have different results

and belly fat is a result of two hormones called cortisol and insulin

insulin is a hormone that rises in response to blood sugar it takes the

blood sugar out of the bloodstream puts it inside the cell and in the presence

of cortisol then it's going to end up specifically around the midsection and

we know this because there's a disease called Cushing's these people have a

pathology of some sort that produces astronomical amounts of cortisol and as

a result they have a very characteristic body shape they have a huge belly they

have a flat butt they have skinny legs and they have a big hump on their neck

they have a moon face and all these things are because of cortisol and

cortisol in turn drives insolence these the hormones work together but we know

because of that that this big belly is because of cortisol and insulin so now

we know we're belly fat comes from now we need to understand how does cortisol

end up being so high assuming that we don't have Cushing's which fortunately

it's very rare so most of you by far are not

gonna have Cushing's it's not going to be pathological it's going to be high

because of lifestyle and the thing that cortisol results from is stress cortisol

is a stress hormone and why does that happen well anytime that you have stress

then your body is anticipating having to do something

it's anticipating having to respond to something or to defend itself against

something and when that happens when you're threatened or attacked then your

body is going to need more energy you're gonna have to run really fast for a

while to get get away from the danger and that requires energy and cortisol is

produced during an emergency during a stress event because cortisol raises

blood sugar and blood sugar is the emergency fuel right your baseline

metabolism runs mostly on fat and that's how your body likes it slow exercise and

walking is mostly fat especially if your fat adapted but during an emergency your

body knows hey we're gonna need some extra that fat is great but it's not

gonna be enough because we can we can burn fat in the presence of oxygen but

once you start huffing and puffing and you reach a critical threshold in order

to go above that you have to have glucose you have to have carbohydrates

so that's why it's the emergency fuel because carbohydrates glucose can be

split and can create energy without oxygen that's where you get the lactic

acid so it's for short term bursts and it's absolutely essential it will save

your life so there are two ways that your body can raise blood sugar so when

you have a stress response then your body will raise cortisol that one way

and the other is to make you eat sugar all right that's why you get cravings

you're stressed this your body says hey this is stressful I'm gonna have to do

hard work give me some more fuel let's ramp up the fuel just in case so stress

creates cortisol now what is it that manages stress how do we balance and

regulate stress in the body how does that work there's something called the

autonomic nervous system and here's your third principle the autonomic nervous

system manages everything about you that you don't have to think about so your

your digestion your heartbeat your breathing your your circulation your

hormones your pH all of those things are managed by your autonomic nervous system

and it is a resource allocation system okay the body has limited resources

there's only so much so if you have resources over here and then the ball is

census we're gonna need more resources over here you have to pull you have to

borrow from one place and reallocate them to the other and this is what that

system does so if let's say that you're at a picnic and you're having a good

time you're relaxed then that's one type of resource allocation and then you're

sitting there enjoying your food digesting it making lots of nice stomach

acid and digestive enzymes but then the grizzly bear shows up and wants to join

your picnic now you're not so relaxed anymore so you quickly go from a

parasympathetic state into a sympathetic from a relaxed state to a fight/flight

state so the sympathetic is known as your fight/flight system the

parasympathetic is known as your feed breed or rest digest system so why does

it switch because you don't need the blood in your gut to digest the food you

need it in your muscles to get away from the bear so your body reallocates and

the first thing that happens is you make adrenaline and in a split second

have adrenaline rushing through your blood and as a result your blood

pressure goes up your heart rate goes up so you can send more blood out to the

muscles so you can run and fight climate REE

get out of there and then at the same time or a few seconds later your

cortisol goes up like we talked about so that you can make more blood sugar more

glucose so that you can make it so you can maintain that escape a little bit

longer and this activity is also known as catabolic meaning break down because

your body doesn't care about long-term health it will burn bridges it will

break down protein it will do whatever it can to get out of there right you

don't even feel pain you can get scratches while you're running through

the thorny bushes and you don't notice until later because your body has just

one priority to get out of there the opposite is called the parasympathetic

your feed breed and it is responsible for digestion it is powered primarily by

something called the vagus nerve that goes from your brainstem to your gut and

it's only with parasympathetic activation that we can digest food the

blood doesn't get to the gut without parasympathetic activation your immune

system your cell based immune system that fights off infections it doesn't

get activated unless you have some parasympathetic activity your

reproductive function doesn't work if you're stressed your healing doesn't

work if you're stressed so the parasympathetic is responsible for all

anabolic function all the build up all the tissue repair all making new tissues

and new body parts and better body parts is the parasympathetic it only happens

when you're relaxed so the way we want to think about this is like a seesaw

that when one increases the other decreases right so

these are essential but the sympathetic always comes first always gets first

priority because if you don't make it through the next few seconds who cares

about what might have worked tomorrow or next month so parasympathetic is always

put on the backburner the sympathetic is super fast the parasympathetic is much

slower and it only kicks in after the sympathetic has settled down and this

becomes important as we're going to see so now that we understand all of this we

also understand the real reason why they call belly fat bad why do they call it

dangerous okay is the fat dangerous no fat it's just fat the reason it's

dangerous is because of what put it there what hormones and what

circumstances put it there and if you have belly fat it's a result of cortisol

if cortisol is high then you have had your digestion decreased your immune

system decreased your reproduction decreased and your healing decrease

that's why they call it dangerous because the people with the belly fat

are sick because they don't have enough parasympathetic function number four now

we're getting to the really cool stuff so did you know that when you breathe in

your heart speeds up when you breathe out your heart slows down for real you

can verify this if you have a heart rate monitor or you have one of these little

pulse ox things then just start breathing really slow and you will

notice that it's faster on the in-breath and it's slower on the out-breath and

there's going to be a little bit of a delay because whatever readout it kind

of averages and it gives you a few seconds after but you'll start to see

this pattern and here's the thing when you breathe in

that's a sympathetic activity that's just a little bit of stress and when you

breathe out that activates the parasympathetic nervous

that's a sign that you are relaxing and like we said before the sympathetic

kicks in really fast so every time you breathe in you already have a little bit

of sympathetic activity but the parasympathetic is much slower so if you

just kind of breathe out for a second or two you just take then that's not enough

time for that parasympathetic nervous system to activate so what happens is

you activate sympathetic with the out-breath

but then you don't get any parasympathetic activation so with a

short shallow breath and lots of stress you just kind of add on to that

sympathetic activity you got to slow down the breath you got to breathe out

for about five to six seconds to allow that parasympathetic nervous system time

to engage because it's that much slower so once you understand this now we've

got the breathing tied in to the balance of your autonomic nervous system and if

you find a nice slow relaxing breath that we're gonna describe in a moment

then you can balance your nervous system alright how cool is that but then a lot

of people will object and say oh sure that's really cool we can start changing

things but how does that help me I have a busy life I can breathe for five

minutes here and there but I can't spend my whole life breathing what is that

supposed to do for me right and that's a good point and in

order to understand how to get around that we need to understand number five

which is neuroplasticity and this is so hyper cool it means that your brain is

always changing it's plastic it's rewiring itself they used to think of

the brain sort of like bone that it was just there the the cells were where they

were and they might replace a few molecules here and there but it kind of

was what it was they knew that the brain sort of changed while kids were growing

but they thought that as soon you were sort of teenager or adult then

it locked in forever and that was the belief for a very long time but there

were some people who did pioneering work and research and they had to really

struggle to get their ideas through and this research started in the 1960s and

continued in the 70s and 80s but it's as recent as 1980 1990s that we even

understand and accept the concept of neuroplasticity that the brain changes

and why is this cool because it means that if you can learn something at the

age of 80 if you can learn how to use a cell phone if you can learn a new

language if you can learn a new skill or a hobby or a new card game that means

that you can rewire your brain right every new thing that you learn means

that you rewire your brain you are physically reconnecting you're breaking

up old wires and contacts and you're pulling them off and putting them in new

places you're creating new neural networks at any age so your brain isn't

set it becomes what you make it so once we understand that then we understand

that we can change the balance of sympathetic parasympathetic the vast

majority of people are stuck in sympathetic there's so many things in

daily life like the screaming kids and the bills and the news and the traffic

that puts us in that fight flight response and it doesn't matter if it's a

real bear or an imagined bear we're still going to have that stress response

so most people are kind of stuck but if we understand the Rope lasticity then we

understand that with the principles we learned about breathing we can change it

right so when you breathe in you're activating sympathetics you're

strengthening the areas in the brain that mediate that sympathetic response

when you're breathing out you're strengthening you're activating your

parasympathetic and you're strengthening the area that handles parasympathetic

and these are physical locations that will grow if you do this their physical

pathways they're like wires in your spinal cord and in your brain and you

can change them so we want to understand that every skill you have the languages

you speak the way you walk the things you know how to do at work the way you

catch a ball they're all neurological pathways they're all patterns in your

nervous system so think of these skills as neurological habits and think about a

pianist and a piano right so some people say oh well I just can't change I am the

way I am well that's not true if you understand how a pianist has practiced

they have developed a skill and they're so good at it

that they can sit down and play something and they can think about

something else they can have a conversation they could mentally be

somewhere else but that skill is so strong it's so automated that it sort of

goes by itself that's what you want to do with your sympathetic and

parasympathetic you can practice it to get to that point but it's not gonna

happen overnight obviously right you're not gonna sit down to a piano and hit a

few notes and say okay I guess this didn't work for me because I don't sound

like that guy it's it's a habit it's repetition repetition repetition so how

much do you have to practice to automate this the more you do the better you get

so I would suggest you breathe you sit down you relax you do your breathing

exercise about five minutes at a time maybe 10 and you do it once or twice a

day right and in one week you'll make just

tiny little bit of progress if you do it once nothing's gonna happen you feel

good for five minutes after a week you'll start moving after a month you'll

get a whole lot better after six months or twelve months you will be a concert

pianist you be the an expert you'll be the equivalent of a pianist at

that point you can go through your life you can fight traffic you can manage

your kids you could have a boss scream at you and you still your your patterns

your pathways are so strong that you stay in balance you don't get stressed

you don't make cortisol you don't make belly fat okay and that is what it's

going to take this is how you develop a healthy body as you develop some good

habits and you do them over time so how do you do this breathing well there's

all kinds of breathing philosophies and patterns and techniques out there and

they're all good for something okay just try them see if they do something for

you but to balance your sympathetics parasympathetics the way we're talking

about it's about smoothness and it's about having about an equal pattern of

breathing in and out if anything you just make your out-breath about one

second longer so think about five seconds in and five or six seconds out

that's going to be slow enough for the parasympathetic to kick in and think of

it as a smooth wave okay so you start breathing in very very slowly and you

don't force it you you start with the belly and then you let it rise very very

gently into the chest so it's not a full breath your shoulders stay perfectly

relaxed as soon as you start pulling up your shoulders that's a stress response

right so very slow breath in let it rise into the chest and then at the top of

the breath there's going to be a moment where nothing happens and you're not

sure if you're breathing in or out but just wait a little bit and all of a

sudden you know you're breathing out and then same thing

at the bottom of the breath you let the breath out at the bottom there's a

moment you don't know if you're breathing in or out but before you know

it you're breathing in again and this should be so silent that if someone had

their ear to your nose they wouldn't hear a thing that's basically it's a

very calm very slow breath it should be a tiny little bit deeper than a shallow

breath but it's nowhere near a maximal breath it's not about filling your lungs

at all congratulations for sticking around this far the bonus is that not

only are you going to reduce belly fat like we talked about from reducing

cortisol but when you balance your autonomic nervous system when you start

improving your parasympathetic function you will get better nutrition how does

that work a lot of people come into my office and

they write down what were you interested in better nutrition they think that it's

all about learning the right foods to eat and yes that's important you want to

put good food rather than junk food but what if your digestion is so poor what

if your parasympathetic what if you have no blood flow to your gut and you put

really awesome food in there and you only absorb a fraction of the nutrients

right you're still not gonna be healthy so yeah you want to eat the right stuff

but what if you can actually send some blood to the gut and absorb a higher

percentage of those nutrients how about not getting colds and flus anymore

I used to get colds and flus a couple of three times a year and sometimes in the

fall I would get a really bad cough for three weeks and then it would stick

around for for several months after that well for the last three to four years I

haven't had a cold or a flu or a fever not even a sniffle and part of that is

good nutrition good food the other part is learning to balance

your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system it's

really cool to have all these sniffling people around you and know that you're

not going to get it you know the bonus is improved libido

right your body does not prepare for procreation if you're stressed if you're

being chased by a bear that's not the first thing that comes to mind so when

you get balanced in your body your libido will improve that's why they talk

about stress causing all these problems that's the mechanism that the stress

shuts down your parasympathetic nervous system and you just lose that function

you bring the parasympathetic back all this stuff comes back you will sleep

better because when you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind is

racing that's usually adrenaline and cortisol along with a stressed mind that

won't shut off you will have improved recovery the parasympathetic is

responsible for the relaxed peripheral circulation that improves oxygenation

and healing so you'll recover from exercise you recover from injuries

faster and if you have a disease you'd like to reverse then healing an anabolic

function repair it's basically only going to happen with a functioning

parasympathetic nervous system how's that for bonuses if you feel you learned

something from this video then you will definitely like that one too thanks so

much for watching and I'll see you in the next video