The Breathing Room

About The Breathing Room

The Breathing Room is for high‑functioning women who do “all the right things” and still feel tired, anxious, or disconnected. I’m Lovisa Engstrand - a nervous system and stress specialist, and each episode translates modern science into bit-sized, practical steps that actually work. We name the patterns, explain what’s happening in your body, and teach small, repeatable practices that rebuild safety and capacity. No moralising, no quick-fix hype - just clear education, compassionate truth, ancient wisdom, and usable tools so you can sleep deeper, feel calmer, & feel save in your body.

Publisher

Lovisa Engstrand

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Apr 2026

Latest episode

26 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   26 Oct 2026

   Why Stress Is Making You Constipated — And What to Actually Do About It

   You've tried the fibre. You've tried the probiotics. You've cut things out, added things in, downloaded the apps, tracked the symptoms. And you're still bloated. Still uncomfortable. Still not going the way you're supposed to. Here's what nobody has told you yet: this isn't a food problem. It's a nervous system problem. If you've been dealing with chronic bloating, constipation that nothing seems to fix, or that heavy sluggish feeling that follows you through the day — this episode is going to reframe everything. Because the reason most gut protocols don't work long-term isn't that you haven't found the right supplement. It's that your gut cannot function properly while your nervous system is running in fight-or-flight mode. And for most high-functioning women, that's where the nervous system lives — almost permanently. In this episode, I break down exactly what's happening in your body when stress slows down your gut, why mornings are actually your best window for a bowel movement (and why most of us are accidentally sabotaging that every single day), and what you can start doing — right now, tomorrow morning — to shift this. In this episode you'll learn: Why you can only poop when your body feels safe — and what that actually means physiologically The stress-constipation loop that keeps you stuck, no matter how much fibre you eat What the gastrocolic reflex is and why your morning routine is either working with it or against it A simple breathing technique that activates your vagus nerve and signals to your gut that it's safe to go The three things to do tomorrow morning that begin retraining your nervous system and your bowel — without adding anything complicated to your day "Your body isn't failing you. It's been trained — by years of stress and rushing — to hold on instead of let go. That's a learned pattern. And learned patterns can be unlearned." Ready to work on this at the root level? This is exactly the kind of deep, nervous system-first work I do with clients. If you're done managing symptoms and want to actually fix what's driving them, I'd love to talk. Book a free discovery call here — I work with a small number of women each month and spots fill quickly. Book your free discovery call (https://calendly.com/hello-theexhalecollective/free-discovery-call) Want to start on your own first? Download the free Constipation Reset guide — a nervous system-first approach to restoring your gut rhythm, with the exact steps I walk clients through. Free Constipation Reset guide (https://www.theexhalecollective.co/constipation-reset-a-nervous-system-first-guide-to-restoring-bowel-rhythm) Free breath practice (https://www.theexhalecollective.co/the-digestive-breath-8-minute-deep-dive-science-breath-and-a-longer-reset)

2. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Calm Is Not the Goal — What the Wellness Industry Got Wrong About Your Nervous System

   You've done the meditation. The breathwork. The journalling. And you're still getting triggered — still reactive, still emotional, still not arriving at the unruffled calm you were promised. Here's what nobody told you: that calm you've been chasing might not be regulation at all. It might be your nervous system playing dead. And those are not the same thing. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT The wellness industry handed us a definition of health that is, neurologically speaking, backwards. We've been told that the regulated nervous system is a quiet one — that the goal is to feel less, react less, need less. That somewhere on the other side of enough breathwork, you'll stop getting angry, stop getting anxious, stop being moved by things. That's not what the science says. And in this episode, I want to pull it apart completely. Polyvagal theory describes three distinct states your nervous system moves between — and one of them, dorsal vagal shutdown, is responsible for a lot of what wellness culture is calling peace. That spacey numbness after a long meditation. The "I don't really care about anything" flatness. The feeling of getting through the day without feeling too much. That's not healing. That's your ancient survival system doing what it was built to do: survive by disappearing. True regulation — ventral vagal activation — feels nothing like that. It feels like aliveness with steadiness underneath it. Curious. Present. Connected. Able to feel fully without being swept away. And getting there requires something very different from what most of us have been practising. I also want to say something in this episode about anger, about intensity, about the emotions we've been taught to regulate away — because dysregulation is often a normal response to abnormal circumstances. Your anxiety in an unsafe situation isn't disorder. Your rage at something unjust isn't instability. And your inability to just breathe through something genuinely harmful isn't failure. It's your body refusing to call harm normal. IN THIS EPISODE The three nervous system states — and why most of us have been confusing one of them for healing What dorsal vagal shutdown actually feels like (and why it's not the peace you think it is) Why genuine regulation feels like aliveness, not emptiness The case for your anger — and why difficult emotions are information, not symptoms to eliminate A simple breathing practice that activates the part of your nervous system where real capacity lives "The goal was never to feel nothing. The goal is to feel everything and still have ground beneath you." Longer guided practice: 5:5 Perfect Breath (https://youtu.be/K69eftvweuE?si=cP4jXlwgxjB4CCff) CONNECT AND NEXT STEP If you want to build real nervous system capacity — not flatness, not numbness, but the kind of steadiness that lets you feel fully without being swept away — Calm and Resilient is where to go next: theexhalecollective.co/calm-and-resilient (https://www.theexhalecollective.co/calm-and-resilient) Find me on Instagram: @lovisaaengstrand (https://www.instagram.com/lovisaaengstrand/)

3. 

   13 Oct 2026

   Your Brain Is Addicted to Your Problems — And How I Manifested My Husband

   You know that feeling of being stuck — not failing, not falling apart, just... not quite arriving? Like the version of your life you can almost picture keeps not becoming real? That's not a motivation problem. It's not a mindset problem. It's a brain chemistry problem. And once you understand what's actually happening inside your nervous system, a lot of things start to make a very different kind of sense. WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT I'm going to tell you something that sounds a little wild: I manifested my husband. Not in a candles-and-crystals way — in a specific, intentional, neurologically grounded way. And I did it years before I even knew what a nervous system was. In this episode, I want to explain why that works — not why it worked for me personally, but why it works as a mechanism. Because here's what most people don't know: your brain is genuinely, chemically addicted to its own familiar stress patterns. And that addiction isn't a flaw. It's biology. It's also something you can change. The key is a small cluster of neurons at the base of your brainstem called the RAS — the Reticular Activating System. It's your brain's filter, and it determines what you notice, what you move toward, and ultimately what you create in your life. The problem is that when your nervous system is stuck in stress mode, your RAS is calibrated to find evidence of danger, not possibility. Which means no amount of positive thinking or visualisation will work until you address the underlying state. This is the missing piece. This is why nervous system regulation isn't just about feeling calmer — it's about creating the conditions in which something different becomes actually possible. IN THIS EPISODE Why your brain gets addicted to its own stress patterns — and why that's not your fault What the RAS actually is and why it's the real science behind manifestation How Joel arrived in my life — and what was actually happening in my nervous system during that time Why you can't hold a clear vision when your body is locked in survival mode (and what to do instead) A simple breathing technique that shifts your nervous system state in under two minutes "Joel didn't arrive in my life because I wanted him enough. He arrived because I had built, slowly, the internal conditions that made it possible for me to recognise him — and to show up as the person I wanted to be in that relationship — when the moment came." Breathing Technique - straw breathing https://youtu.be/kiMDCHMAJFA?si=HfEdtsTQzsa_hBMi (https://youtu.be/kiMDCHMAJFA?si=HfEdtsTQzsa_hBMi) Relationship Roadmap exercise: https://www.theexhalecollective.co/attachment-as-a-nervous-system-adaptation (https://www.theexhalecollective.co/attachment-as-a-nervous-system-adaptation) CONNECT AND NEXT STEP If you want to start building those internal conditions — working through your stress patterns, understanding your nervous system, and creating the foundation that makes intentional living actually possible — Calm and Resilient is where to go next: theexhalecollective.co/calm-and-resilient (https://www.theexhalecollective.co/calm-and-resilient) Find me on Instagram: @lovisaaengstrand Keywords: manifestation neuroscience, RAS reticular activating system, how to manifest your life, rewire your brain for success, brain chemistry stress, nervous system and manifestation, physiological sigh technique, negative thought patterns, visualisation science, nervous system regulation women, calm nervous system, stress and manifestation

Contact The Breathing Room

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.