In this empowering episode of PCOS Unfiltered, I dive into one of the most overlooked — yet most powerful — tools for healing PCOS: your breath. More than just automatic survival, the way you breathe has the power to regulate your nervous system, balance hormones, improve digestion, and support weight release. I break down the science of how intentional breathing influences insulin resistance, stress, inflammation, and reproductive health. I also guide you through three simple techniques — 4-7-8 breathing, box breathing, and 5-5-5 breathing — that you can use anywhere, anytime. You’ll even experience a short guided practice to calm your body and shift into healing mode. Whether you’re struggling with cravings, fatigue, or hormone imbalance, this episode shows you how one minute of mindful breathing before meals can make all the difference in your PCOS journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Breathing techniques covered:
4-7-8 Breathing → stress & inflammation reduction
Box Breathing → focus, grounding, and calm (used by Navy SEALs!)
5-5-5 Breathing → digestion and blood sugar regulation
Try this tip today: Take 60–90 seconds to breathe intentionally before your next meal. Notice how your digestion, energy, and cravings respond.
If you loved today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an update, and leave a quick review to help more women discover this powerful, healing practice.
Check out these studies for more info. 👍
(0:03 - 0:26) Welcome to PCOS unfiltered, nourish, heal, thrive, the place where real talk meets real healing. I'm your host, Lindsie, a health and nutrition coach, mindful eating advocate, and fellow health warrior. Each week, we're diving deep into the truth about PCOS, from nutrition and mindful habits to emotional healing and everything in between.
(0:27 - 0:44) All without the filters, the fads, or the shame. If you're ready to ditch the diets, listen to your body, and finally thrive, you're in the right place. Now, as a reminder, the content shared on PCOS unfiltered is for informational and educational purposes only.
(0:44 - 1:05) The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are not intended to serve as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, exercise, or treatment plan. The information shared is based on personal experience and expert interviews and is not a substitute for professional medical guidance.
(1:11 - 1:27) Today we are diving into one of the most powerful, most overlooked, and honestly, most free tools you have for your health, your breath. Now you might be thinking, okay, Lindsie, breathing is just breathing. I do it all day, every day.
(1:27 - 1:36) I don't even have to think about it. How could it possibly be that big of a deal? But here's the thing. The way you breathe can actually change how your nervous system works.
(1:37 - 2:07) And that nervous system is what's telling your hormones, whether it's safe to release weight, regulate cycles, and even digest your food properly. So today we're going to talk about how breathing influences your nervous system, why this matters so much for women with PCOS, the science behind it. And then I'm going to walk you through not one, but three powerful breathing techniques you can use anytime to shift your body into healing mode, including before meals, when it can make the biggest difference in your digestion and your blood sugar.
(2:08 - 2:20) Let's start with the basics. Your nervous system is like the master switchboard to your body, and it has two main settings. That's the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
(2:21 - 2:29) You might've heard about fight or flight response at some point in your life. That's the sympathetic nervous system. This is your stress mode.
(2:30 - 2:45) This is telling you to run from that tiger, basically, you might've heard something like that in the past as well. And then the parasympathetic nervous system is also known as the rest and digest system. And this is your healing mode.
(2:45 - 3:28) This is what your body needs to feel safe and do all the things that it needs to do. So when you're living in fight or flight, rushing through your day, running on caffeine all the time, juggling work, answering emails constantly, answering messages constantly, you know, family life, running the kids all over, whatever it might be, in addition to maybe worrying about your health, your body's main job is survival and not healing. So when you're doing all those things, it's trying to keep you in that survival mode, like running from a tiger, and it's not keeping you in a healing mode.
(3:29 - 3:48) So for women with PCOS, staying in this state makes insulin resistance worse. That term keeps coming up all the time. It can also disrupt ovulation, just fuel inflammation, and make weight loss feel absolutely impossible.
(3:50 - 4:05) Here's the magic of intentional breathing. It directly communicates with your vagus nerve, and that's the body's calm command center. If you want to think about it like that, to flip that switch from the fight or flight to rest and digest, again, that's where healing happens.
(4:05 - 4:21) You can literally use your breath to tell your body you are safe, you can heal now, you can release the weight now, and that's what we need. The science on breathing is surprisingly deep. These are just a couple studies.
(4:22 - 5:02) A 2017 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that slow, deep breathing at around six breaths per minute significantly reduced cortisol levels, lowered blood pressure, improved heart rate variability, which I have talked about before as well, and these are all signs of nervous system regulation. A 2020 review in Complementary Therapies in Medicine concluded that diaphragmatic breathing improved not just stress, but also blood sugar and inflammation. Again, blood sugar, we're talking about insulin resistance as well.
(5:02 - 5:34) Again, it kind of ties into everything. Research on the vagus nerve shows that activating it through breathing supports better digestion, which I'm going to talk a little bit more about later, improves insulin sensitivity, and even reproductive hormone balance, all essential to PCOS healing, as you may know, or as you've been learning in other episodes, these are all essential. The bottom line is that these techniques are not just relaxation tricks, they are real physiological tools.
(5:35 - 6:03) Here's a tip that most people miss. Breathing before you eat can dramatically improve your PCOS results. This is step number one in my 90-day program, and it carries on throughout the entire program, but before we even start diving into nutrition and eating and all that stuff, I focus on breathing with all of my clients.
(6:04 - 6:29) I also run the Hunger Boss Challenge, which is a mindful eating challenge, and breathing is the foundation of that. When you are stressed at mealtime, checking your phone, rushing, eating on the go, then you're going to stay in that sympathetic mode. This shuts down optimal digestion, slows stomach emptying, and can spike your blood sugar.
(6:30 - 6:58) If you take even just 60 seconds, 90 seconds to breathe before you take your first bite, that parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, and it improves stomach acid production and enzyme release. You digest food even more efficiently, and I've done this myself, and that was one thing I noticed. I also noticed that I actually felt fuller faster.
(6:59 - 7:23) You can stabilize post-meal blood sugar by breathing for just a minute before your meals, and you avoid bloating, fatigue, and cravings that can happen after eating in that stress mode. Think of it like telling your body, okay, we are safe to take in nourishment now, which I've also talked about on other episodes. I also have a focus episode on that, which is what we need.
(7:23 - 7:41) We need to nourish our bodies in order to heal, not even removing things, but a part of that is that you're telling your body, yes, we need the nourishment. We need these nutrients to heal and do all the things that we need to do. We're going to cover three techniques.
(7:42 - 7:50) So you can choose the one that you like best. You can also rotate them. Again, I do this myself, so I don't know.
(7:50 - 8:03) Sometimes I just feel like doing one over the other. Don't ask me why, but you can choose whatever works for you. Do these, like I mentioned, at least two to three times per day, ideally before meals.
(8:04 - 8:23) After you kind of master that habit, you could maybe add on to first thing in the morning when you wake up or right before bed as part of your wind down or bedtime routine. So the first breathing is four, seven, eight breathing. Again, some of these you may have heard before, some may not, but these are still pretty basic ones.
(8:24 - 8:39) And so this one can have more of an effect with the hormones. So what you would do is inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, and then exhale slowly through your mouth for eight seconds. Repeating this about five times, which is going to give you that minute.
(8:41 - 8:59) And what this does is it reduces stress and inflammation pretty quickly. Box breathing is another technique, and this can kind of be a little bit of a reset. So you're going to inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and then hold again for four seconds.
(8:59 - 9:17) Repeating again about five times or so, five to six times maybe. And this helps with grounding, just being present, improving your focus, and calming some of those racing thoughts. Bonus tip, Navy SEALs actually use this before high stress missions.
(9:18 - 9:31) So you have to think if it works for combat, it can definitely work for stressful work days and PCOS flare ups and all the other things we have going on in our lives. A third technique is the 5-5-5 breathing. This is a pretty simple one.
(9:31 - 9:52) This is also one that I use, and you would inhale. I should also say there's a couple different ways to do this one, but this is the way that I do it and the way I teach my clients to do it. If they choose to do this one, you inhale through your nose for five seconds, exhale for five seconds, and then just breathe normal for five seconds.
(9:52 - 10:05) And then you would repeat that again about a minute, maybe five or six times. This is a quick nervous system reset before meals to support digestion and glucose control. But again, you can pick any of them.
(10:05 - 10:20) Even if you just take as deep of a breath as you can, and then exhale forcefully. It doesn't have to be even anything fancy, especially if you're starting out, whatever it might be. So you can pick one of these or kind of just take some deep breaths.
(10:20 - 10:32) If that's what you're feeling, that's fine too. So let's do a short guided session together. Um, you can pick your favorite pattern, but I'm going to lead you through the 5-5-5 breathing.
(10:33 - 10:53) Um, because I do feel like this is just a really good starter. Now, if you're driving and listening, of course, keep your eyes on the road. Um, and for this one, you could actually, because you're not holding your breath, you could kind of follow along, but otherwise I would say sit comfortably, just relax your shoulders, close your eyes.
(10:53 - 12:44) Um, again, if you're breathing that or breathing and driving, then, um, wait to do this until you, you have the time to do that. But either way, sit comfortably and you're going to inhale for five seconds and exhale, relax and breathe normal for five seconds, two, three, four, five, and then repeat. Inhale for one, two, three, four, five, and exhale one, two, three, four, five, breathe normal for five seconds, two, three, four, five, again, inhale one, two, three, four, five, exhale one, two, three, four, five, and breathe normal for five seconds, two, three, four, five. This is number four. Inhale one, two, three, four, five, exhale for one, two, three, four, five, and breathe normal, two, three, four, five. Last one, big inhale this time, two, three, four, five, big exhale, two, three, four, five, breathe normal, two, three, four, five, slowly open your eyes, maybe just kind of move your shoulders a little bit.
(12:44 - 15:30) I even feel calm after doing that. And I wasn't doing the full breathing as I was guiding you. So yeah, it has a great effect. You should feel that. And notice how your body feels right now after doing that. Maybe your shoulders dropped, maybe your jaw unclenched. I know one thing is I tend to bring my tongue to the roof of my mouth. So even just relaxing and relaxing your tongue even, all of that's going to slow your heart rate. And hopefully you're feeling that shift and that's your body switching into that healing mode. So to kind of wrap this up, remember that healing PCOS isn't just about what you eat or how you move. It's also about how you breathe. This is a tool that you can take anywhere. So even if you can't be on point with your nutrition or your workouts or whatever it might be, this is something that you can take anywhere, do anywhere, and it costs nothing. So I encourage you to try practicing this for just a minute, being intentional, starting with before meals and don't fret. Don't worry if you're a three meal a day type of person and you don't get it in before each of those three meals, maybe it was just one meal, then that's still great. That's still putting you ahead of the curve. You're still helping your body heal. But if you want to work up to doing it before each of your meals, get consistent with that pattern. Just give yourself some grace. You're building a habit here. So maybe once you are consistent with doing that before each meal, then try adding one of the other breathing techniques or maybe the same technique you use before meals, but add it in to maybe your waking schedule or your bedtime routine as well. And then just note, how is your digestion? How are your cravings? How is your energy responding? Mentally, how are you feeling? All of those things. Just take a brief note of that after doing it for a couple days, after doing it for a week or a couple weeks. Are there any changes at all that you are noticing? And yeah, just watch how your body responds. I think you'll love it. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of PCOS Unfiltered. If today's episode spoke to you, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing. And if you loved it, a quick review would mean the world to me. Remember, healing is a journey, not a destination. And you deserve to feel empowered every step of the way. Until next time, nourish your body, heal your heart, and thrive like the boss you are.