Here are two simple habits you can add to your day that may help you feel better overall. Deep breathing can support digestion, ease stress, and help your body reset by shifting it into a more relaxed state. It only takes a couple of minutes and can be done almost anywhere like when you wake up, before meals, or even while sitting quietly.
The second is grounding just spending a little time with your bare feet on the grass or dirt. It’s an easy way to reconnect with the earth and may help with balance and energy. If you're inside most of the day, grounding mats can be a helpful option too. Small changes like these can make a real difference over time.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:04 – Deep Breathing for Health
01:43 – Breathing and the Body
04:35 – When Breathing Reveals Issues
05:40 – Grounding: Reconnect with the Earth
08:59 – Daily Practice Tips
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] I got a question the other day, um, about, you know, workouts and stuff like that. You know, things that, you, someone should do every day that are quick and they're easy and things like that, um. As far as workouts, I don't really have anything that I tell everybody that you should do everyday that consider workout. However, I thought about it and the things that. You know? I do kind of every day is just as a quick thing. A lot of people have been talking about, um? So if you're not doing them, you might want to look into it. Uh, and I've found, you he's, he's one of the big things is deep breathing. Breathing exercises. Uh, and I've seen that this has helped with, uh, constipation issues. We've seen this help with, uh, gastric reflux. We've had it work with a couple of different issues in the gut. Um, it always helps kind of recenter and refocus and calm you down because this is very parasympathetic, you know, deep, deep breathing is a way to shift you from that fight flight, freeze, sympathetic nervous system back to a parasymbiotic function. So I usually do them in the morning. But, you know, they're great to do pretty much all the time. Uh, sometimes I'll do them during when I'm working out, but the, the first one is just deep breathing and. You know, there's all sorts of ways where you can set yourself up and make sure you do this, make sure to do that. The easiest way to explain it is you're going to breathe in through your nose, like you're trying to pop your lungs as much air as you can get in and a little bit more and you hold it for about three seconds and you slowly let it out your mouth. So, you don't, if you're gonna sit up, you're gonna take it in. That's basically all you're doing. Do you know, six, seven, 10 of those, give yourself a moment, do it again.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:43] You can easily do this while you're going to the bathroom. I've had people tell me that if they do this, while they're going into the bathroom, it helps with bowel function and bowel movement, which makes sense. Because as you fill up the lungs, the diaphragm moves everything from your chest to about here is moving. And so it has to obviously affect the lower intestines and things like that as well. So, uh, deep breathing is going to be a big one. A lot of people don't breathe enough Uh, you know, one of the things I do all the time, chiropractically is reset people's ribs so that the ribs can move. Remember the reason that you breathe isn't because of your lungs. It's because of you. And so your ribs will start to move out that it's called a bucket handle movement and as they move out, what ends up happening is it creates a negative pressure on the inside of your, inside of you lungs and air goes moving from the outside in cause there's lower pressure. And then as you start to breathe out, you slowly compress the musculature of the ribs and you go the other way and it forces the air out. So it's kind of a bellows if you will, uh, and moving the ribs and moving everything to its maximal peak of inhalation and exhalation. So the diaphragm is moving the entire function is moving in a full range of motion. We talk about that a lot when we're working out. Uh, that's really where you're trying to do. You want to get that, you want to those ribs, you want to the lung tissue.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:59] You want get the musculature to then exercise or at least move or stretch or however you're feeling it in the largest range of possible so that you know If we're only using this much of our lung range of motion, you know, again, you're only stable, strong and supported in the range of motion that you actively use on a regular basis. So this is where you sit. So your amount of oxygen that your body is naturally going to bring in is going to be lower the amount of carbon dioxide, the amount of waste gas that you expel is going to lower. And so if we can start practicing really getting expansive function in the lungs. The, your ability to breathe deep, exhale the white, the metabolic waste and inhale at least, you know, to a large degree, some oxygen, uh, is going to be more beneficial. So this deep breathing thing really, really is kind of important standpoint. Uh, when we start talking about things that you can easily do on a daily basis, if it makes you lightheaded, if he gives you a headache, if it gives you back pain, any of those things, you might want to get that looked at, um, oftentimes people tell me that they'll feel it over in the right side or in the center of their chest. Like there's a knot or someone kind of poking them with a stick. Uh, that's not always, but that can be gallbladder issues. Uh. So if that's gallblower issues, typically what we'll do for it is we'll start cleaning, uh, killing the parasites, but we'll also start doing stuff for common bile ducts. So common mildew stuff, coffee enemas, uh kidney, I'm sorry, liver castor packs, uh. Increasing my foot to be six is a big one. Biles salts follow the suspension. They get gummy without methyl to be sick.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:35] So adding the methyl to B6 is beneficial for that. Uh, so if you start noticing that these deep breathing exercises are creating something, like if it happens one time, you probably just slept wrong or whatever, if it's one of those things you're like, Hey, you know, three out of five times, I really feel it here, then that's where I would start trying to pull that apart and figure out what's going on and put it back together. It could be that you just need to go get adjusted, which is a very common thing. Or it could be that you've got some stuff you need to deal with biochemically with that common wild duck and gallbladder. Uh, the other thing that is really kind of funny, because when you think of how simple it is, uh, and how little people actually do it, it's kind of shocking and that is grounding. Um, your body is your body communicates, not necessarily with electrical impulses, uh what we're taught in school again is not accurate. Um, Your body creates electricity. However, your body's actually communicating with the. Electromagnetic frequencies that are attached to the, the, the peaks and the waves of that electromagnetic potential that your body creates. Um, the reason that's important to understand is that that frequency, uh, resonate that resonant frequency is the same as the earth's, uh. So we want to reset, depolarize, ground ourselves, however, electrically or electromagnetically you want to put it together. Uh, it's important that you do that on a regular basis. And it's funny cause I'll talk to my patients about it. And they're like, Oh, okay. I'm like, when was the last time you stood barefoot on the earth or set skin contact on the actual earth on the grass or on the dirt? And people, it's always funny because people go, Oh, it It's been a long time.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:14] And the reason for that is because you get up in the morning and you're in your house or in your apartment. And so you're not on the ground and then you put your, you know, get dressed, put your shoes on, you will go down to your car or, you know, and you drive to work and you get out work and there's concrete there and the parking lot and there is concrete in the building. And then you go to the store and there was concrete there. And so, you're actually touching the ground. And so a lot of people will actually come back and be like, man, it's been a lot long time since I've actually come in contact with the actual earth. Uh, and that's a big deal from an electromagnetic energetic standpoint, um, getting your body on the actual earth, you know, even for a couple of seconds every day, uh, is pretty important. So when we start looking at grounding, we started looking at that thing. That's important. That's why a lot of these grounding sheets are important. They're great and they're helpful. Uh, and I think that you should you guys should be utilizing them. Uh. Like for instance, Lou has a grounding pad underneath her desk so that when she's ever, she's at home on her computer. She's got her shoes off and she's, you know, with her feet on that grounding mat. And so if you guys are using grounding, that's great. If you guys using grounding sheets, that'd fantastic. One of the things I would tell you is that if you, if you realize, hey, man, I haven't touched the earth in a long time. And I've got some, I got some stuff I'm trying to do detox wise. I would, I would caution you about getting and then sleeping on a really good grounding mat all night long. I would do a little bit of grounding, kind of.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:38] Working up to it and then you can kind of go ahead and go all night. Uh, it's weird and it's rare, but I have read and talked to people who had detox reactions from, uh, doing that a lot of grounding. Uh, so keep that in mind. Like I said, it super rare and I still think it's, it a little bit odd, but it is apparently a thing that's possible. So if you're going to start doing grounding sheets and you haven't been doing any grounding at all, I'd recommend the first couple of days, just go spend two, three minutes barefoot on the actual dirt and you'll Dirt or grass, actual earth. Um, so those are the two big ones that, you know, I think that you could add into your daily function without a whole lot of problem. Um. Some of you might be a bigger problem. Cause if you live in a big city, you're gonna have to find a place to go put your actual feet on the actual grass. Um? But I would kind of try to work that in the breathing thing should be pretty simple. Like you can breathe no matter where you are. And so a lot of times it's pretty easy as you're, you're sitting on the toilet or as soon as you wake up or after you've had your coffee or while you're having your coffee to sit and do these deep breathing exercises. Um, if you want to, you know, combine things, you can always sit on the actual ground or stand on the actually ground and do your breathing exercises there. Uh, most people should be able to do breathing exercises, standing up. However, some people get lightheaded or dizzy from it. Um.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:59] So if you're just going to start doing the breathing exercises I would always sit down. If you never get dizzy, that's great. If you do get dizzy one time and fall over, it's not a good thing. So, um, that that's, you know, I would start doing those things, but do three sets of 10, like wake up one morning and just do three sets of ten. Shouldn't take you more than, you know, a minute or two and of those deep breathing, like I said, is as much as you can in through your nose. Like you're trying to pop your lungs, get full expansion and then slowly breathe it out through your mouth. Hold it for about three seconds. You know, do three steps to 10 of that. See kind of what it does for you. Uh, we've been noticing that it's, it's pretty, pretty beneficial, especially if you do it like in the middle of the afternoon. Um, if you really want to kind of a hack cause you always want to eat when you're in a parasympathetic state. So right before you eat any meal, it'd be great if you got to go out to your car, if you're at a work, visit, whatever, and do those, do the breathing exercises. It'll help move you back closer to that sympathetic parasymitic state, which is resting, digesting. So you're going to get more benefit out of the foods you're eating. Keep that in mind, try that out. And if you guys have any questions, hit us up questions at chalmerswellness.com or drop in the comments. Thanks for your time. Have a great day.
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Dr. Matt Chalmers
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