Ep 18 – The Mystical Power of Breath

Summary

Breathing comes naturally is automatic, but what if you could modify your breathing to go to sleep faster, energize yourself, overcome anxiety, and even generate a mystical experiences with sustained breathing experiences. Breathwork practitioner Kay Walker (Andy’s producer and wife) shared how she came to become trained in breathwork, what it can do for business leaders and entrepreneurs.

WooBiz+ extended episode

In the extended segment, Kay provides WooBiz+ subscribers to access to two guided breath sequences, each set to music and designed for daily use:

• Energizing Breath Sequence (5–7 minutes): A focused breathing practice to boost alertness, focus, and confidence before meetings or creative sessions.
• Calming Breath Sequence (5–7 minutes): A gentle, restorative routine to quiet the mind, lower stress, and prepare for restful sleep.

Kay also walks listeners through the BOLT Test, a simple one-minute method to assess breathing efficiency and identify patterns that may affect energy and performance.

These tools help you integrate breathwork into everyday life—whether to recharge midday, release tension, or reconnect with clarity.

Sign up for WooBiz+ and see extended episodes every week: https://patreon.com/woobizplus

Detailed Summary

Here is a breakdown of the episode:

• Understanding Breathwork
  Breathwork uses intentional breathing patterns to shift physical and mental states. Techniques range from gentle relaxation to deep, trance-like states.
• Varieties of Breathwork
  Gentle breathwork helps release stress, while deeper practices such as holotropic breathing can produce visionary, psychedelic-like experiences.
• Science and Spirituality Intersect
  The discussion touches on the release of DMT — a naturally occurring compound in the brain — and how certain breath patterns may activate it to induce altered states of consciousness.
• Practical Benefits for Entrepreneurs
  Kay explains how breathwork can sharpen focus, reduce stress, improve decision-making clarity, and enhance creativity — making it a valuable tool for leaders and innovators.
• Everyday Breathing Techniques
  • The Perfect Breath: Inhale for 5 counts, exhale for 5 counts.
  • Energizing Breath: Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth as if through a straw, 20 times.
  • Calming Breath: Make your exhale twice as long as your inhale (e.g., inhale 2, exhale 4).
• Kay’s Bridge Story
  Kay shares how she overcame her fear of driving over bridges using breathwork to control panic and train her body to stay calm.
• Health and Evolutionary Insight
  Kay highlights how modern life and diet have affected our breathing efficiency — including a term called email apnea, where people unconsciously hold their breath when reading emails.
  Her mantra:“The nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating.”

Kay’s Breathwork Website

https://lumahealing.com

Kay’s Bio

Kay Walker is a writer, coach, and producer of the WooBiz podcast, as well as the founder of Luma Healing, where she helps people restore vitality through breathwork, cold immersion, and holistic wellness practices. With over 15 years in the personal development industry, she has worked with top leaders including Vishen Lakhiani, Naveen Jain, and Dave Asprey.

Formerly Head of Online Programs at Mindvalley, Kay co-authored The Buddha and the Badass—a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller—and has ghostwritten more than fifteen transformative books in wellness, business, and self-mastery.

Certified in breathwork and cold therapy through Sherpa Breath & Cold, Kay blends science, spirituality, and practicality to help others unlock their full potential. Through Luma Healing and WooBiz, she inspires individuals and leaders to illuminate from within and live with clarity, energy, and purpose.

Additional resources

Resources Mentioned

• LumaHealing.com – Kay Walker’s official site for online and in-person breathwork facilitation.
• Email Kay: [email protected]
• The Bolt Test: Breathing Efficiency Assessment
• WooBiz Plus Members:
  Visit patreon.com/woobizplus to access exclusive guided audios from Kay:
  • Energizing Breath Sequence (5–7 minutes)
  • Calming Breath Sequence (5–7 minutes)

Transcript:

[00:00] Andy Walker: If you’re looking for an easy way to get to sleep or to rev yourself up, or even better, have mystical experiences without alcohol or drugs,

[00:10] we’re going to learn about breath work with Kay Walker today on Woo Biz.

[00:40] Hello and welcome to another edition of Woo Biz. My name is Andy Walker and this is a show that meets at the nexus of the extra sensory, the weird, and all of those types of skills that we can all learn and use in our business.

[00:55] And today I have a very special guest.

[00:58] You’ve met her before, perhaps if you’ve heard previous episodes.

[01:01] She’s my wife, my producer, and she’s the magical Kay Walker. How you doing, Kay?

[01:06] Kay Walker: Hey Andy. Happy to be here.

[01:09] Andy Walker: Hey. So you became a breath facilitator. We’re gonna be talking a bit about breath and breath work today.

[01:15] And one of the few things, maybe so a well kept secret,

[01:19] but you became a breath facilitator,

[01:23] uh, so you could actually conduct your own breathwork sessions.

[01:26] And I’ve watched your journey and I’ve been a guinea pig too. Right.

[01:31] So let’s start with what, what is breath work and how did you get into it? Why did you choose it?

[01:37] Kay Walker: So breathwork is this all encompassing term that we use to talk about just using specific breathing techniques to engineer certain states that you may want to feel. So if you want to be energized, you can use certain breathing techniques to energize yourself.

[01:55] You can also use breathing techniques to calm yourself down if you can’t go to sleep at night.

[02:00] So breath work is a large term that covers a lot of different things and I think we’ll talk about that today in our, in our conversation.

[02:10] Andy Walker: So,

[02:10] so walk me through those. So I hear, you know, so I see a lot of like ads for this. You see a lot of yoga studios offer this.

[02:18] If you go to a metaph, metaphysical studio like I do in Hamilton. The, the, you know, with Andrew, he runs Energy Awaken on his curriculum. He offers breath work, it’s in his version or his facilities versus called breath magic.

[02:31] But essentially it’s a variation of breathwork. So breath, breath work, my understanding is a collection of different modalities that uses your breath to,

[02:40] I guess to create an alternative state perhaps.

[02:44] So if I’m going to attend a breathwork session,

[02:48] what, what can I expect for somebody who’s never been to one before?

[02:53] Why don’t you give them a sense of what happens in that hour when you go and you engage in a, in a breathwork session?

[02:58] Kay Walker: As a general rule? Because there is so many different types of breathing and breathing techniques. But as a general rule, if you’re going to a breathwork session, you are going there, you’re going to lie on a yoga mat,

[03:12] you are going to listen to music and you’re going to have a guide, your breath work facilitator, that is going to guide you through specific breathing sequences.

[03:23] You know, breathe four in, four out and do that pattern. And then maybe they’ll tell you to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth very fast and speed that up with the music.

[03:36] And they are guiding you through a journey. All journeys can be kind of different and can have different reasons for doing it. But generally you’re going to kind of relax yourself or purge anything that you’ve been carrying with you throughout the day.

[03:55] Any type of stress,

[03:57] you will purge that through your breath work because you have, have an opportunity to lie down quietly and listen to music and let yourself just kind of relax.

[04:11] But, but yeah, it’s, it’s an interesting question because there are so many different types of breath work out there. But generally if you’re going, it’s going to be a 45 minute session, there’s going to be music, you’re going to be lying on a yoga mat and you’re going to get some type of release.

[04:28] Some are more gentler sessions where it’s very relaxing and therapeutic. And then some are sessions where there’s a great deal of emotional release happening.

[04:40] Andy Walker: Right? So I mean, in on its basics, you’re going to lie on a mat for an hour or 45 minutes, you’re going to close your eyes and you’re going to breathe in different patterns.

[04:48] That’s going to create some sort of phenomenon in your head, right? And so tell me what the experience is for most people. I mean, and I get, and I get that there’s a bunch of different techniques and things you can do.

[04:59] I mean, I mean, relaxing makes a ton of sense, right? And I understand that. What else can I experience? Like, why is this considered quote unquote, woo? Like, what’s the wooness of it?

[05:09] Kay Walker: In certain types of breathwork sessions, there’s a type of breathing that is called holotropic breathing.

[05:16] And that type of breathing can bring you to a place where you feel like you’re on psychedelics. You feel like you’ve just had a good trip or you’ve had a few cocktails and you can connect and see visions,

[05:35] have, have connections spiritually.

[05:38] And really there’s,

[05:40] there’s no science to know what’s really going on when we have these kind of breath work moments. But what we do know about it so far is that dmt,

[05:52] which is a chemical that is endogenously created in our brains,

[06:00] is activated when we do certain types of breathing.

[06:05] So it, it,

[06:06] it’s similar to say, going and doing ayahuasca.

[06:11] You could get a similar effect. Not as,

[06:14] as wild as doing a, a drug like that,

[06:19] doing just breathing. And that can give you a same kind of emotional release.

[06:26] Andy Walker: Actually, you know what, I was reading it recently about this and, and the guy that invented holotropic breathwork,

[06:33] apparently he was using lsd, right? Which is sort of hallucinogenic drug that was popularized in the 60s, but it became outlawed because it was considered obviously a drug and people, and I guess the governments didn’t want you to use it, so eventually they banned it.

[06:48] And so the guy that created a hella holotropic breath work was looking for a substitution that he could do legally. That was my understanding of it.

[06:55] So this DMT in the brain must create some sort of chemical reaction, some sort of sense of high. I know, certainly. And just to share with everybody who’s listening, I, you know, I was your guinea pig and then I, and I, and I went through my own experience when we were in Sedona during the retreat.

[07:13] And I gotta tell you, it starts out being very weird. Like your eyes are closed and you’re breathing and you’re breathing and you’re breathing and you’re like, okay, what am I doing here?

[07:21] Like it feels like meditation. Then all of a sudden you get the sense of well being and you’re panting and you’re breathing and whatever. And then all of a sudden now your, your brain, no matter what it does,

[07:31] maybe the DMT stuff kicks in and then it, it starts to give you,

[07:37] I mean, you see things. I, I, I saw your, your father who had passed at that point a year before,

[07:43] right? And I started having conversation with him. It was very trippy, right?

[07:47] So I mean, I guess that all of that, you know, that’s the experience that people can have. So, but why would I, as a business person or an entrepreneur, why would I engage in, in breath work?

[07:56] What’s the advantage to me? What, what would I get out of it besides having a bit of a weird, trippy experience without booze or, you know, illegal drugs?

[08:03] Kay Walker: Why would you not, it’s like refragging the system,

[08:06] you know, like if you talk about computers, but that’s like,

[08:11] that’s the experience of if you’re carrying A lot of stress, which a lot of business people are.

[08:19] And you’re in environments with a lot of human beings who are complicated, and you have a lot of,

[08:26] you know, maybe major business goals that you’re after. It is high stress. And oftentimes you’re not dealing in the moment with what you need to deal with.

[08:35] You know, for instance, you might be working with a colleague, you might have an issue with them, but you’re not going to deal with it in the moment. You’re going to pack that away and you’re going to go home and you’re going to have some stress there.

[08:48] So it’s a great release.

[08:49] I do it every other week. I don’t necessarily recommending doing it all the time for 45 minutes and doing something completely intense. But that’s one reason to do a. One of the more deeper breath work kind of sessions that we’re talking about.

[09:06] There are other very practical applications, though, of breath that we should talk about today as well. So you can use breathing techniques to energize yourself. Imagine that it’s 3pm, you have been working all day, you’re getting tired, you’re getting the afternoon wall.

[09:21] You can do a few breathing techniques at your desk to energize yourself, refocus and feel good.

[09:29] And you did that without going to eat a chocolate bar or drink some sugary soda or something like that. And then also falling asleep at night,

[09:38] breathing two martinis in the middle of the afternoon.

[09:41] Right. There are great breathing exercises for getting to sleep that we’ll talk about too,

[09:49] because that is one of the best ways. So breathing is like flipping a switch on your nervous system.

[09:56] So meaning that you can use specific breathing to energize yourself, or you can use breathing to calm yourself.

[10:03] Andy Walker: Right. So you can use these techniques outside of class. I mean, if you learn these techniques, right,

[10:07] you can use them basically for relaxation. You can use them to rev yourself up, I suppose,

[10:14] and you can use it to go to sleep too. Right. I mean, all of those things are reasonable activities that you could use with this skill.

[10:21] Kay Walker: Yeah. And I think I got into breathwork because I was introduced to it by a friend who was becoming a breathwork facilitator. She needed some people to guinea pig on at a workplace retreat.

[10:33] And I said, okay, I’ll do this.

[10:35] Even though breath work sounds kind of lame or boring,

[10:39] it sounds kind of weird, like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. And then I went into this room,

[10:45] laid on a mat, listened to music,

[10:47] There was breathing techniques and by the end, I was crying my eyes out. She was holding me. I was in a fetal position. It. It. You know, it sounds kind of gruesome.

[10:57] And sometimes you see that online with breath work. You see these kind of videos of people crying and having these emotional releases. But I also walked away having an emotional release that I needed at that moment.

[11:11] And I had some trippy stuff going on. Like, I saw visions of myself, of when I was being born, and light around myself. And I saw my. My. My Alma, who.

[11:21] Then she passed a few weeks later. And I felt like I was getting a message, like she was gonna pass soon.

[11:28] I don’t know if that’s actually true. And that’s that kind of spiritual encounter that people get when they have this.

[11:35] All I knew was when I walked away from that moment was I just felt like I had had some weird, psychedelic, trippy thing go on.

[11:44] And it was like I was doing drugs. And I asked myself, how is it possible that we can achieve that through breath? How is it possible to get that? And that’s what kind of sent me on figuring out why.

[11:58] Why people are using breath. But that’s when I learned more practical techniques. And that’s the practical techniques is what I think is more important almost, and what I’d love listeners to take out of this,

[12:10] that just some basic breathing techniques can help energize you or help you get to sleep, then that is extremely valuable. So, Andy, I think you know this as well. When we moved, we.

[12:21] We were living in Malaysia. And when we moved back, we settled in a town in Ontario that is near a bridge,

[12:32] near a city called Burlington, where they have a very big bridge there. And I had to drive on that bridge. And I have a fear of driving on bridges.

[12:40] So I was terrified.

[12:42] And the problem is that if you have a fear of driving,

[12:45] it’s kind of scary because you kind of. It’s tough to face that fear because it’s so biologically,

[12:52] you know, hardwired into you. Like, anytime I would. I would be approaching a bridge and my whole body would get hot.

[13:00] I would start to just, like, you know, have all these fears. And I just couldn’t even get myself to get on a bridge. And so I was thinking, how am I going to overcome this so that I can live my life?

[13:13] And I ended up getting a job that was also on the other side of the bridge. So I really had to learn how to drive across that bridge. And it was breathing techniques that I used that trained me to be able to do that.

[13:26] So there’s a breathing technique where you breathe in and you breathe out with a sigh.

[13:32] Like,

[13:32] and anyone who’s listening can do this with us. Just inhale and then breathe out and, and sigh. And if you do that 20 times,

[13:42] you will feel very relaxed because that’s naturally what we do when we’re trying to relax is we sigh. You, you, you might notice that you naturally do that when you relax at the end of the day, you might sit down and go,

[13:56] well, that breathing technique is what I did when I would approach the bridge. I would do my 20 breaths holding onto the steering wheel, getting ready, starting to feel nervous, and then I do my breathing and I was able to go over the bridge twice.

[14:11] I had to do it with the breathing. And then after that my body was starting to feel relaxed and I realized that driving on the bridge wasn’t so scary. So that’s just one practical application that if you have any types of fears, you can use breath to overcome those fears.

[14:26] Andy Walker: So if somebody was watching you and another car going over that bridge, they’d kind of look like you were kind of in a Lamaze class about to birth child grunting and groaning as you went over the bridge.

[14:36] Kay Walker: Maybe. But it, but it worked. And then that said, yeah, it demonstrated for me.

[14:42] So I’m always,

[14:43] I’m always into all these things that’ll make our life better, right?

[14:47] And after doing the crazy breath work, I was like, okay, that was cool. It was trippy. But like, I don’t know, I guess I get a good stress relief from that 45 minute session.

[14:57] But how practical is breathing techniques? And the bridge experience taught me just how incredible breath is as a tool that we can then use to really help ourselves overcome fears and be energized.

[15:12] So also when I’m giving talks now,

[15:14] if I’m feeling like I need to energize myself, there’s a specific five minute sequence that I’ll go through.

[15:20] If I can’t sleep at night, there’s a specific five minute sequence that I go through that I will, that I’ve taught you even to help you fall asleep. I’d even taught to Carter, our son,

[15:30] to help him fall asleep.

[15:32] So it’s very practical. And then why is that not incredible? In business, you know, if you’re heading into a negotiation where you’re feeling nervous, you can do some breath work before.

[15:42] If you are heading in to give a talk, do some breath work. If you can’t sleep at night because you’re stressed, do a little breath work.

[15:48] Andy Walker: If you can’t drink two martinis in the middle of the afternoon, do some breath work.

[15:53] Kay Walker: It’s better than two martinis. It’s even better because it’s healthy for you.

[15:58] Andy Walker: Very good. Okay, good.

[16:00] So, so really we can use it for multiple applications and essentially it’s just different techniques of breathing. You know, a class you could go deep, right.

[16:08] In the exercises you’re talking about, you’re talking about a five minute like brief aside where you do it by yourself and you can achieve different states. I know, like the technique you showed me was brilliant because I would tend to have,

[16:19] you know, we all tend to reprocess the day at the end of, you know, when you’re in bed at night, just before you go to sleep. And sometimes that anxiety,

[16:26] you know, if I’m dealing with something stressful,

[16:28] would keep me awake. And so that technique you showed me was really simple. And for whatever reason, it, it brilliantly works and it resets, I guess your nervous system calms you down, I guess your heart rate drops, your blood pressure drops.

[16:40] And however it works, the mechanism allows you to kind of drift off and, and, and to reset and,

[16:48] and to, I guess to temporarily suspend that sort of built in anxiety, anxious reaction that we all have. So I suppose this would be really good for anybody, you know, suffering from anxiety.

[16:57] For example, if you have a, some sort of anxiety disorder or just the occasional anxiety from say, circumstantial situations,

[17:04] you know, in your work, you know, as you grow your company, as you engage, you know, with your colleagues,

[17:10] perhaps even if you have to do some, you know, public speaking or whatever, anything that would cause anxiety,

[17:16] this would be a good application for.

[17:17] Kay Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because your, your breath is the first kind of marker of what’s going on in your environment and connects you to how you feel.

[17:27] So if we were in a forest and we saw a bear, our breath would change pretty fast and it would send a message to our entire body to engage and run and be energized.

[17:37] Right.

[17:37] So if you think about that again, it’s like a switch to your nervous system. And so you can use it very intentionally. Now.

[17:45] When I went deeper then and really started to learn breathing techniques and started to use them, I was like, okay, I see the value here. This is getting really interesting.

[17:55] I’m able to use it. I just cured myself of a fear of going over bridges. How cool.

[18:01] And this could really benefit a lot more people. And so many people don’t know about breath work or don’t know about breathwork sessions, like those 45 minute things and what’s actually possible there.

[18:11] So I started to dive a little bit deeper and that’s when I became a facilitator and then really started to even learn the health benefits. And I think that’s also really important today.

[18:22] We,

[18:23] we live at a time where a lot of us are over our computer screens or our phones. There’s even a term now called email apnea where there’s a tendency for people to hold their breath when they’re checking their emails.

[18:36] And I’ve noticed this about myself. So I’ll be sitting there writing a book and then check an email and I’ll hold my breath. I’ll imagine doing that on a daily basis.

[18:45] You have bad breathing patterns and there’s a. It’s a pretty impactful thing. If you are not breathing in proper ways, you can develop sleep apnea. Obesity has been linked to bad breathing habits and many other health issues, cardiovascular issues.

[19:03] So it’s not just about us being able to control our moods and our emotions.

[19:11] It’s also just about having great health. Is our body getting the oxygen it needs so that we can have energy,

[19:19] so that our organs get what they need to thrive and for us to live our best lives. And as I’ve delved deeper and done more training, one thing that I’ve also learned is that from an evolutionary perspective, we used to have different sized skulls and different airways and nostrils.

[19:40] We used to have bigger nostrils and then we started eating mushier food. Our and we got bigger brains and so a lot of us just don’t have the nasal passages that are benefiting us to be able to breathe like we used to our breathe in our best way.

[19:57] Andy Walker: So if you’ve got a big nose, it’s a good thing for you, right?

[20:00] Kay Walker: Right.

[20:01] Well, yeah, it might be. It might be a good thing for you. Yeah,

[20:05] it. We have a saying in breathworks circles. The the nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating.

[20:14] So that’s a good mantra to keep in mind as well. If you notice that you kind of open your mouth and start breathing through your mouth,

[20:22] you want to close that immediately and start breathing through your nose. It’s better to breathe through your nose because your nose was designed with a filtration system.

[20:32] When air enters through your nostrils, it warms as it goes through your nasal passage and into your body.

[20:39] And also it’s just better for your body.

[20:42] Andy Walker: It’s very interesting. So, so we tend to be, because of evolution, we, you know, mushy food, small nostril type people are, you know, At a disadvantage. Right. Whereas if once upon a time, I suppose, our distant ancestors had, you know, they had to chew harder because there was no fire to break down our food.

[20:58] And they had, I guess they had big nostrils. In fact, if you have. Look at a picture of sort of Neanderthals and stuff, they, they, they do seem to have like a larger sort of sinus kind of idea.

[21:07] Right. So that. It kind of makes a bunch of sense.

[21:10] Kay Walker: Right.

[21:10] Andy Walker: Well, that’s really cool. So it’s nice to chat with this. And, and I know that we’re all crummy. Breathe as a rule. Can you teach us something? Can you. Can we jump into a little exercise here that somebody can do right now or at least or maybe do later after.

[21:25] After they listen to this to help them get an experience of.

[21:29] A little experience of breath work? What do you think?

[21:32] Kay Walker: Yeah. So there’s a couple things that I want to teach you today.

[21:37] So first is there is a scientifically optimal way of breathing. That is the perfect breath, the perfect breathing sequence. And if you learn to just practice this for, say, a minute a day, or two minutes a day,

[21:54] you can start to train yourself to be a better breather. And it’s really, really very simple.

[21:59] It’s inhaling to five counts and exhaling to five counts.

[22:05] So let’s just do that now together, andy. So inhale,

[22:09] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[22:14] And exhale,

[22:15] 4, 3, 2, 1.

[22:21] Okay, so you’ve just taken a perfect breath, and you could do that a couple times a day and start to train yourself to breathe in an anatomically correct way, and that will be good for your overall.

[22:33] Andy Walker: So I do that, what, two or three times?

[22:35] Kay Walker: Yeah, do that. I, I would say do that five times.

[22:38] Take a, Take a moment out of your day each day, especially if you have a routine where say you, you meditate five, ten minutes a day,

[22:46] stack on a little breathing exercise.

[22:48] Andy Walker: All right, so that, that’s the basic.

[22:50] Kay Walker: Right? Yes. So there are two types of breathing that I’m going to teach you today. One is to energize you. Anytime that you need to energize yourself, you can use this specific type of breath where you breathe in through your nose and then out through your mouth like you’re breathing through a straw.

[23:07] Do it 20 times and then pause.

[23:11] So let’s do it now together, and you’ll feel immediate results.

[23:15] Okay. So it’s in through your nose and then out as you’re breathing through a straw.

[23:23] Andy Walker: Okay.

[23:23] Kay Walker: Do that for 20 times. Now pause.

[23:28] Andy Walker: Okay.

[23:28] Kay Walker: And you might feel you Might feel this kind of sense of, like, floaty, tingly sense.

[23:34] Do that round of 20 counts two more times,

[23:38] and you’ll. And then pause, and you’re gonna feel so energized.

[23:42] That’s a great one to do before you’re going into a meeting when you really want to be present with somebody or if you are giving a talk.

[23:50] Andy Walker: Okay, yeah, that’s like a neat, neat technique there.

[23:53] Kay Walker: The second one that I’m going to teach you is to calm your nervous system. This is when you can’t get to sleep at night. And the simplest rule to follow is that your inhales need to be half the size of your exhale.

[24:09] So if you inhale for two counts, that’s. Then you’re going to exhale for four.

[24:13] You could also do this by inhaling for four counts and exhaling for eight. Right. It depends on your lung capacity and what you can do. So right now let’s just do one of these breaths.

[24:25] It’s. It’s in for two counts and out for four counts. So in,

[24:32] out.

[24:38] And you can do these just in through your nose and out through your nose. And then as you. If you do, say, 10, like that,

[24:46] then you can do in through your nose and out through your mouth as if you’re breathing out a straw.

[24:52] And you will see that you will immediately get more relaxed and calm. This is a very good one to go to sleep at night. And it really, like it really, it’s a game changer.

[25:03] If you can’t sleep, sleep. This one is the technique to use.

[25:07] Andy Walker: Great. You have a couple of recordings that you’ve done. Right. That we’re going to. Actually, I think you’re going to give these to the. To our members. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that before we jump in to the end of the show and we flip into the members mode.

[25:20] Tell us what you’re going to give our members today, because before we go. So everybody can hear what’s available.

[25:25] Kay Walker: Yeah. So I just trained you on those very. Two very practical breathing techniques. One to energize you and one to calm you down.

[25:33] I’ve created breathing sequences that are set to music.

[25:37] They’re about five,

[25:39] five, seven minutes each,

[25:41] and you can use one of them to get energized anytime you need it and one to calm yourself.

[25:49] So that’s a gift for our subscribers.

[25:52] Andy Walker: Great. Okay. And in the meantime, for those that,

[25:55] you know, won’t hear that won’t get that gift,

[25:57] what.

[25:58] What’s your advice in terms of what their next steps are for they want to explore this a little bit more. Besides becoming a member, of course.

[26:04] Like, what would you tell them to do? Like what, what would they do once they finish hearing this and then they’re ready to go? Like, I want to learn more.

[26:11] What do they do? Where do they go?

[26:12] Kay Walker: Yeah, well, start to use some of the breath techniques that we use today because it, it becomes very impactful when you start to put it into use in your daily life and get results.

[26:25] The second is I would suggest going to a breath work session if you find that in your area.

[26:32] Also do a little bit of asking some questions and some research just to find out whoever is leading the class and what the experience of the class is, because it’s different in all kind of situations.

[26:45] And just know that if you are going into a breathwork scenario,

[26:50] know that you might need to expect a deep release,

[26:54] which means maybe crying a little bit.

[26:57] Um, and. And it does take a little bit of work, right? They call it breath work for a reason because you’re sitting there and you’re breathing and there’s a bit of work.

[27:05] I would also say that if you go to a breath work session, try it a few times.

[27:10] The first, what I’ve experienced and what I’ve experienced as well, watching other people do it,

[27:16] is that the first two times it can feel very intense.

[27:22] The third, third time you do it, it’s less intense and more of this wonderful, relaxing, experiential thing. And then it can be like this habitual thing that you want to do all the time because it feels so good and it’s so stress relieving.

[27:36] I think the first few times you do it because it’s new and because the body is adjusting and it, and it. And because maybe you are carrying a lot of stress and haven’t been doing it regularly, then it can be quite intense.

[27:49] Uh, I think, Andy, you had a very intense experience.

[27:51] I know that when we went to a Sedona. Very therapeutic, great experience.

[27:56] But I would say it was quite intense where it felt like you were like having a, a breath, like birthing out a baby of energy or something during your experience, which is a typical experience that you can have when you do a breathwork session as well.

[28:10] So just be mindful of that.

[28:12] Andy Walker: Yeah, for me it was the. Let me just jump in and I’ll. I’ll give Everybody just a 30 second thumbnail of what I went through just so you can know what you could expect in the first few sessions that you do this.

[28:22] For me, I know I lay there And I was doing the exercise, breathing in and out. The facilitator was giving me, you know, my breath sequences, and I was following along.

[28:30] After a period of time, you know, I. You kind of click into, like, relaxation, which is great, and a rhythm. But then what was happening for me was I felt like it was full up of toxic.

[28:40] Don’t know what a toxic effluent. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like my body was full of this unpleasantness and I just energetically had to push it out.

[28:51] And it was.

[28:52] It was. I mean, I can only equate it to what I would imagine it’s like to push a baby out of your body, you know, given,

[28:58] you know, the childbirth process. It was very unpleasant, you know, And I’m almost like trying to drive this nastiness out of me. And I’m breathing and I’m breathing and it’s going.

[29:08] And it’s slowly dropping out of my body. It’s going down to my waist, it’s going down on my knees, and finally it comes out of my toes.

[29:15] And I just had all this, like, crazy release of like, oh, my God. It was hard work, but I couldn’t, like, not like, stop breathing. I couldn’t stop, like,

[29:24] and come to and. And. And do the, you know, kind of come back into the room. I had to get rid of this. This goo that was in me. And then at the end, I started to see mystical stuff.

[29:34] I mean, I had people coming into my awareness.

[29:36] I had. I mean,

[29:38] people like your dad who showed up and had a conversation with me and delivered messages for your mom who was grieving him.

[29:45] It was just the most weird thing. And it went on for. I mean, she let me go on for, I think, 90 minutes, which was,

[29:51] you know, but I. We had to, because we couldn’t stop in the middle of it. It would only be just strange to suddenly stop there.

[29:56] Kay Walker: So.

[29:57] Andy Walker: So that was my first intense breath work experience.

[30:01] Very mystical,

[30:03] very weird,

[30:05] completely unexpected.

[30:06] But that said, afterwards, I felt really released. I felt really chill. I felt like really good.

[30:12] So I can. I’m a testament to the. That it works.

[30:16] Just caution, people.

[30:17] You can expect you’re going to go through a bit of wooness doing this thing, or you may, anyway, like I did. So that. That was my. That was my.

[30:24] Kay Walker: So what I’ll say to that too, Andy, is that I felt that with my first two to three breath work experience.

[30:31] I still get those kind of trippy things, but now I would say that I do the breathing for clarity. Anytime I go into a breathwork session, I might be dealing with some sort of, like, business question that some decision I’m trying to make.

[30:48] And afterwards, when I come out, I know the answer, right? So there’s just this clarity that happens. And maybe it’s because my conscious mind is. Is less in the way and I’m a lot more relaxed, but I have complete clarity.

[31:00] And I’ve had those. Yeah, those kind of trippy things, but also moments where I’ve received or had ideas during the breath work and then later acted upon them and had results in my life,

[31:13] like, you know,

[31:14] so I don’t know.

[31:16] It’s one of those things where we don’t know what we don’t know yet about it. One last thing that I will give to everyone who’s listening today, and we’ll put this in the show notes, is there’s a test called the bolt test that anybody can do to see if they currently have dysfunctional breathing patterns and to improve their breath.

[31:38] And I think that’s a really good one. It doesn’t take that much time to do. It takes about a minute to do it. And we. We’ll post that in the show notes because that’s another step for people if you want to see how your breathing is and then if you want to work on improving your breathing from a health perspective.

[31:55] Andy Walker: Okay, wonderful. That’s great. You’re going to put a. So we’ll put a link in the show notes so people can check that out.

[32:00] Um, and in the meantime,

[32:03] we are going to say goodbye. But did you. Are you still doing remote breath work type sessions? Can people hire you for this?

[32:11] Kay Walker: I certainly am and would love to consult with anybody if you have questions about breathwork. I’m happy to chat and also lead group sessions online.

[32:21] Andy Walker: All right, well, we can put your. Your email address in. In the show notes and then people can reach you that way. Yeah. Uh, and Kay, you have a website, right?

[32:28] Kay Walker: Yes, lumahealing.com to find out about my breathwork services. And my email address is k a yberwalker.com. we’ll put that in the show notes for you.

[32:39] Andy Walker: All right, brilliant. Okay, well, thanks for jumping in this week and. And giving us a little bit of expertise and who. Who knew it. Breath. Breath is. Can be a mystical experience and one more.

[32:51] One more skill that we can put in our esoteric tool belt to make life easier at work and in life in general.

[32:58] So that’s that. All right, well, with that,

[33:00] we’re about to hop on over to the Woo Biz plus segment where Kay is going to share some of her amazing tools for members. So if you’re interested in that, you can visit woobiz.

[33:10] Net,

[33:11] click on the subscribe to Woo Biz plus, top right hand corner and you can, for a few dollars a month, listen to all of our extended episodes. And there’s a bunch of other benefits as well.

[33:21] So if you’re interested in that, go on over there. But in the meantime, thanks Kay for joining us this week. It was really fun to talk about breath again,

[33:27] as mystical as it is and weird it is is very practical as well. So you want to learn more about Kay and what she does and or reach out to her.

[33:36] Check out the [email protected] in this episode and you’ll find everything you need to get hold of her. But in the meantime,

[33:43] we’re going to call it.

[33:45] Thanks for joining us this week. We really appreciate that you’re sitting there listening to us talking about all these crazy things because it is would be silly for us to sit here just talking to ourselves.

[33:56] All right, well, that’s it for me. I’m Andy Walker, this is Woo Biz. Don’t forget, stay in the woo.