Hey Fam, I hope everyone is doing well and had a beautiful start to the year. This month is about moving and focusing on NASAL BREATHING. I'd like for y'all to challenge yourself to do 20 mins of cardio (bike, run, ski, row, walk, jog, hike, ruck) but focus on breathing in and out of your nose. During the 20 mins, I'd like you to intensify your movement 5 times for 1 min and then down-regulate only using Nasal Breathing, I'm excited for this one. Enjoy, and let me know how you do.

I was reading about DaVInici and came across his seven principles for embracing innovation and creativity to drive progress and solve complex problems. These principles can be applied to innovation, creativity, and life. A key takeaway for me is that if you can accept that failure is a part of the process and navigate your stress response to these failures, you can grow both professionally and personally. Applying the Breath 2 Thrive protocol of stress response analysis is integral. IDENTIFY DECONSTRUCT RESPONSE As you read through the principles see how you would apply breathwork to each (or all) of the principles. Let me know you thoughts. DaVINCI's 7 PRINCIPLES: - Curiosita: An insatiable curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning. After all, have you ever met a successful person who does not claim to be a veracious learner? - Dimonstrazione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence and a willingness to learn from past mistakes. This is pretty much the scientific method applied to everyday life. Thinking back to our WD 40 example in an earlier discussion, it wasn’t the first effort that worked, it was the 40th. - Sensazione: Continual refinement of the senses as the means to enliven experience. To be innovative we must be aware of what is going on around us. One of the important business topics that it relates to that is active listening. Far too often in business we only listen passively and as a result miss vital information that could serve as the inspiration for some new idea. - Sfumato: The literal translation for this term is going up in smoke. It is about our willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty. As the old saying goes, the only two things that are certain in business are uncertainty and change. - Arte/Scienza: Developing a balance between logic and imagination. After all, imagination without logic is daydreaming, and logic without imagination is boring. Other terms for this are balancing between art and science as well as whole brain thinking. - Corporalita: This is about maintaining a healthy body as well as a healthy mind. Have you ever seen a really unhealthy person who was creative? While there are a few exceptions here and there, they are very rare. One of the core concepts of da Vinci’s approach is keeping our bodies fit being a function of keeping our minds fit. Fit minds lead to more innovative and creative solutions. - Connessione: This is the simple recognition of the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. As we talked about early on, it isn’t always just an issue of coming up with something totally new, sometimes it about seeing the links between how to use old things in new ways.

Today's focus is on relaxation. We will do 7 mins of the following breathing technique (morning and afternoon or in response to a stressor): 4 second inhale 5 second hold 6 second hum with your mouth closed ( you should be allowing the air to exhale through your nose as you hum, you will feel a vibration in the back of your throat) Humming is important in breath work practice to help stimulate the vagus nerve, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to relaxation, stress reduction, improved mood, and potentially even better breathing and cardiovascular health by increasing nitric oxide production in the nasal passages; essentially putting your body into a "rest and digest" state.

Today's breathing exercises are based on PERFORMANCE. We will do 6 rounds of breath holds to improve our Co2 Tolerance. *Please do not do any of these exercises while driving or operating heavy machinery. Round 1: 1 min breath hold Round 2: 1:15 min breath hold Round 3: 1:30 min breath hold Round 4: 1:45 min breath hold Round 5 : 2:00 min breath hold Round 6: 2:00 min + breath hold Recovery between sets are 1:1 (Thank you to @Megan Trombley for reminding me about this) please share your best times. Also, the best way to do this breathing practice is lying down on the floor and focusing your mind on a special event or day, something that brings you joy or for me, I recall names of people using the alphabet.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving Weekend. Here is a little CO2 table workout for you all to try. If you don't finish the table, do it every day until you can hit the last set. *Please have a journal close to you so you can note what you felt not just of your body but your thoughts and emotions. 1 min Recovery Breathing :30 second Breath Hold 1:30 min Recovery Breathing 1 min Breath Hold 2:30 Recovery Breathing 1:30 min Breath Hold 2:30 Recovery Breathing 2 min Breath Hold