Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #278 How to Transform Your Lifestyle for Optimum Health, Happiness and Vitality with Tony Riddle

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

What does it mean to be a thriving human in the 21st century? The way we currently live is very different from the way humans have lived for the bulk of our evolution. As humanity has evolved and developed technologies to make us more comfortable, many of us have lost our instinctive connection to nature and this has had profound consequences on our physical and mental well-being. So what can we do about this? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. My guest today is Tony Riddle. Tony is an ultra-endurance athlete and goes by the name of the natural lifestylist. He has spent the last decade developing and refining a robust way of life based upon the principles of a natural lifestyle. He's hosted retreats and workshops, where he has taught thousands of people around the world to live more naturally.   Tony has now written his very first book, Be More Human: How to Transform your Lifestyle for Optimum Health, Happiness and Vitality. The beauty of Tony's natural lifestyle philosophy is its simplicity, rather than a long list of things to incorporate into your busy life, it's actually all about stripping back and simplifying; removing what's not serving us in order to get back to a natural state of well-being. A good way to start is to learn how to ‘down-regulate’ – to calm the fight-or-flight system that’s switched on when we’re under chronic stress. It can be as easy as a minute or two of breathing, exhaling for longer than you inhale. Or a few moments spent in nature.   But he also wants us to experiment with discomfort and inconvenience, antidotes to modern life that will keep our muscles and mind from atrophy. We talk about the benefits of cold immersion and some simple ways in which we can start to bring this into our lives.   We chat about the importance of good quality sleep and why we all may not need the mythical eight hours. Tony describes some posture-enhancing positions we can all adopt, including squats and heel sitting to liberate our joints and spine. He explains why our foot strength dramatically increases when we transition to minimalist shoes and spend more time without our shoes on.   We finished off talking about Tony's deep relationship to running and why he describes it as a spiritual experience. The truth is we are never going back to being hunter-gatherers. But it doesn't mean we can't learn from them. Tony says we don't have to live in the wild to re-wild. This is such an inspiring episode, packed with practical tools that you can try right now. Tony is passionate and knowledgeable and I hope this conversation will help you become happier and healthier. Thanks to our sponsors: https://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore https://www.leafyard.com/livemore Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/278 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified health care provider with any questions you have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

If you wear compromising footwear, you're going to remove 60% of your foot strength and 40% of your balance. Can you imagine a world where we haven't been divorced from this huge capacity to move well or be well? So with Yehudi, foot strength had improved, balance had improved. Did Everest Base Camp, did Mount Kenya, Bhutan. In his late 70s. In his late 70s, this is closer to 80. And here we are witnessing empowered 70 to 80 year olds doing quite profound things, but that's where you can take it. We live

in an amazing time, right? We just need to learn how to balance our needs within it. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better Live More. What does it mean to be a thriving human in the 21st century? You see, one of the big problems is that the way we currently live is very different from the way humans have lived for the bulk of our evolution. As humanity has evolved and developed technologies to make us more comfortable, many of us have lost our instinctive connection to nature with profound consequences on our physical and mental well-being. So what can we do about this? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. My guest today is Tony Riddle. Now online, Tony goes by the name of the natural lifestylist, and he has spent the last decade developing and refining a robust way of life based upon the principles of a natural

lifestyle. He's hosted retreats, workshops, worked one-on-one with clients, and has now taught his philosophy to thousands of people around the world. Now, if you're a longtime listener of my show, you may well remember Tony's first appearance on the podcast, all the way back on episode 71, which proved to be a big hit. The reason for Tony's return to the show is the publication of his very first book, Be More Human, How to Transform Your Lifestyle for Optimum Health, Happiness, and Vitality. The beauty of Tony's natural lifestyle philosophy is its simplicity, rather than a long list of things to incorporate into your busy life. It's actually all about stripping back and simplifying,

removing what's not serving us in order to get back to a natural state of well-being. In our conversation, we talk about how everything in our modern lives is now engineered for comfort and convenience and what the inevitable consequences of that are. And we talk about a variety of practical tools that can help us all thrive. We talk about simple breathing practices that can help us reduce stress and feel calmer and less anxious. We talk about the benefits of cold can help us reduce stress and feel calmer and less anxious. We talk about the benefits of cold immersion and some simple ways in which we can start to bring this into our lives. And we talk about the importance of good quality sleep and

why we all may not need the mythical eight hours. We also spend a lot of time discussing natural movements. What are some posture enhancing positions we can all adopt including squats and heel sitting to liberate our joints and spine and why our foot strength dramatically increases when we transition to minimalist shoes like Vivo barefoot shoes and spend more time without our shoes on. We finish off talking about Tony's deep relationship to running and why he describes it as a spiritual experience. The truth is we are never going back to being hunter gatherers, but it doesn't mean we can't learn from them. Tony says we don't have to live in the wild to rewild. This conversation is full of practical tools to help all of us tap into our innate natural needs,

even if we're living in urban settings. Tony is passionate, he's knowledgeable, and I'm pretty sure his words today will help you become happier and healthier. I hope you enjoy listening. And now, my conversation with Tony Riddle. Tony, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me back, man. You got the new book out, which is super exciting. And I went for a walk this morning and I was thinking about your work and the kind of messages you put out to the world, which I think are very, very necessary. And I really like that quote that you have, which is, we can't all live in nature, but we can all live naturally.

I think it's really, really powerful. I thought to start with, we could really unpick what that means. really, really powerful. I thought to start with, we could really unpick what that means. And maybe the best lens to do that through is, I don't know, you see a lot of clients, a lot of people come to your retreats. What is the typical morning, would you say, of Joe Public today compared to, let's say, the typical morning of a hunter-gatherer in Africa?rica doesn't even have to be the hunter-gatherer in africa you know it can just be someone that's aligning their physiological kind of social spiritual needs right within any habitat that's the idea of this we can't all live in nature but it doesn't mean we can't live naturally um the last retreat i held were the very first morning

i went through this we we covered kind of what were people's morning rituals what was their morning experience and it was in a yurt so in one big yurt sitting in a circle and there were some there that were already on the path so there was tongue scraping and you know cold immersion and breath work and and but then my conversation even with that was well what does it feel like if you don't do those practices? You know, because because what can happen is we can also get so attached to these practices. Oh, my God, if I don't do that, what happens? And again, is that living naturally within any environment to become stressed if we miss something out? I think so. I was addressing that on the last retreat.

But if we unpacked kind of even a nighttime ritual or a morning ritual, even looked at a landscape. So if we stripped away everything right now, you know, the lighting, the furniture, the noise, the sounds, the sound pollution, the noise pollution, the air pollution, and just stripped it right back. And just think what that might look like and what we might be ingesting through all our senses, because it's about our senses being open visually, what we can smell, what we can taste, what we can hear, what we can feel through everything we're doing, right? There's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It's a great template in looking at your most basic fundamental needs at the bottom of the pyramid, right? And we can put food in there, so food being one of those very basic needs um and i held a retreat recently and there was a foraging expert

there tasha brilliant foraging expert um we had this conversation of how i would like to take things with foraging and it would be very much about senses and feeling and smelling and tasting the foods that they were picking and if we looked looked at that versus what could be, it's the rush hour, right? And I'm maybe a bit late. I've skipped breakfast, so I'm going to run into one of the coffee shops. I'm going to grab a croissant and a coffee. I'm going to smash it back on my walk, but it's not really a walk. It's like a speed walk, so it's not like I like i'm down regulating foraging and walking with my senses open i'm really up regulated which probably means that

my digestive system isn't really activated to receiving or absorbing and then we could say well out of that maslow's hierarchy of needs at the food pyramid which which one is getting their food need met so it's even down to that looking at, well, if that's where it is in nature and this is where we're at, how can I look at getting my needs met in my everyday environments? And just understanding that this is the natural template, that's how it looks. And that's the premise of the book, really. It's just this idea of giving people an understanding that this is how it looks in nature and this is where we're at. And it's not demonizing where we are in the city. It's just understanding that just understanding that well actually we can be doing better here we can we can there is a there is perhaps space to get our needs met if we just looked at the environment differently

i think that's a powerful example and it makes me think of this idea that so much of what we do in life or the way we think about life and we think about health and wellness is about what you know what should we be eating what movement should i do for example but we don't really think about as much you know how should we be doing this or how might we want to do this and what you just said there about the digestive system is something I'm incredibly passionate about, that you can sit there, you know, rushed, stressed out of your mind, you know, trying to fire up a few emails at the time with your beautiful whole food organic lunch, but you're probably not going to digest it as well. Well, not probably, you are not going to digest it or extract enough nutrients or the same amount of nutrients if you had in your words down regulated first right and you've used this term down regulation

up regulation what does that mean up regulation is we could call it fight flight freeze and so if the um lion enters the room right now raws us we will make a decision based on that we're either i imagine we're freeze yeah um and assist the lion's digestion at that point but that's that's the fight and flight response and then through that to simplify what can happen is um the immune system there's no point in fighting off a cold right so the immune system drops off i need that energy elsewhere digestive system is a huge cost for digestion so i'll drop that one off because i need the energy again perhaps to fight or run away um and then um reproductive systems another one right no point in me producing another bam bam in the world if i'm going to be eaten by a lion right so those are very costly systems so are those will be dropped off to fuel my system to enable me to fight or

flight right and then down regulation is this rest and digest so um a rested system more associated with parasympathetic um that calm response where those systems almost like rebooted in a way and that should if you think about it should be a normal growth state where where we are down regulated and that's and and then an acute response would be this sympathetic fight flight as the line enters because the line wouldn't always be in the room with us right unfortunately our lifestyles today there's this an imaginary line in the room right it's it's there and that for some is even an email or a phone call and they're almost like bolt-ons aren't they it could be a late night it could be a late night then a phone call it could be i've got to go into a meeting i'm a bit upregulated about the meeting and then other

stuff might be playing out from way back there that we haven't processed even. So the down-regulation in the book, I'm bringing those practices in so we can find ways of getting perhaps that rest and digest, that crystal clear state of mind, that growth-promoting mindset back, and that's before going into things like digestion yeah into sleep um i i work with ice baths and and offer cold immersion part of experiences but it's not the it's the application of that isn't to go and do another ice bath how many ice baths are people are going to go and do post retreat

some yeah take it on they might be doing them every every morning even but others it's just a rite of passage and what they take away from it is that the ice bath is now the stressful phone call the stressful email um one person i worked with had terrible relationship with her father um and would have to go and see him certain times of the year but was so stressed about it and i said okay stop outside the house um work on the damn regulation breathing techniques let's do the long exhales the longer the exhale the lower the heart rate blood pressure um let's try four seconds in six seconds out six rounds of that you're already a minute that's a minute just take a minute okay let's do two minutes three minutes whatever it takes get to the door as you answer the door you breathe out as you enter the house you breathe out and you

maintain that same rhythm of breath by nasal breathing no one in the room knows your nasal breathing or following a four six but you're keeping down regulated and she messaged back immediately afterwards and just oh my god i just saw the experience as something completely different because her past emotions weren't playing out in that room from being upregulated it's just like simple down regulation practice changed her experience with her father right yeah i think this is so powerful tony because i think a lot of us don't realize that our daily experience of life is hugely influenced by the state of our nervous system, right? And if you are constantly, you know, upregulated, so your stress,

you know, your fight or flight system effectively is on a lot of the time, you're going to see things differently. You're going to be reactive. You know, you're going to see danger when there is actual no physical danger, but you are going to see it and perceive it. And just understanding that when you downregulate, when you do, as you say, one or two minutes of a simple breathing practice, you just experience the same situation completely differently. You're probably not going to get as triggered. You're probably going to make better decisions, all kinds of things. And, you know, I want to talk in this conversation about a lot of daily practices that people can do, because I think you have so many to share. Before we do that, though, I kind of feel I want to pause at this point to do with stress and

up-regulation and down-regulation. You have spent a lot of time studying, I know, indigenous tribes. How do people live in natural environments? And then how can we bring some elements of that to the modern world? As a doctor, I know that around 90% of what we see in any given day is in some way related to stress. And I just don't think people really get stressed still and understand how stressed and how upregulated they are much of the time. In your experience, people who come to your retreats, people who seek you out for help, people you've coached, when they come and see you, what proportion of their daily life do you think they're spending up-regulated compared to down-regulated compared to, let's say, an indigenous tribe who are living in nature with nature? Can you sort of paint a picture for us of what that difference might look

like? I can paint it from Bruce. So parry um has been with so many tribes now documentary tribes also ty um and i had a good chat with bruce around the book as well discussing um pennantribe and another tribe called the bengelli tribes they're mentioned in the book they are i love that bit with the pennantribe i just underlined it i thought it was wonderful amazing story and he you know and he just expressed his he just said look'll get it, Tony, because of this right and left hemispheres and being downregulated and this state of meditation. They're operating in like 24-7. It's like even if they're in alert states, it's like an alert state that we would talk

through the Wim Hof method, let's say, where you're using an upregulating breath technique, but not to bring that kind of upregulation stress to become an alert state. So there's a positive to that. It might be, oh, I'm having a slump in the afternoon. Say we're having a slump in the afternoon and it's 3.30, I've got to jump on a podcast. I'll use another type of breath practice to just pick me up again. It just bricks me up into an alert state. It doesn't mean I'm stressed out, but it's an alert, tuned-in practice. So it's like a stressed and focused as opposed to a stressed and anxious.

Yes, it's a different mindset. So that's what Bruce was explaining, that these indigenous tribes, again, they're moving through a landscape, but they're not separate to it. They're totally tuned into the frequency of it, right? That's where they're moving through a landscape but they're not separate to it they're totally tuned into the frequency of it right that's where they're at um and if we again if we look at people that maybe turn up on retreat they've normalized they've normalized stress it's like that's what they operate at the whole time so it's like these indigenous communities

that bruce is talking about are normalizing down-regulation, parasympathetic. And some of the attendees I see have normalized sympathetic. And what we then do is things like ice baths or breathing techniques enables us, or the ice bath enables us to go up, we get a peak, and then they can drop back under again. So suddenly it's like, like ah there's a stressor because i've just been operating at stress almost need a even more of a peak of stress to be able to drop back under again to recognize where my parasympathetic my more crystal clear state of mind would be um and i see it just from taking people again like with the blindfolds on into

the forest you can just see a complete shift in that person's state. You can feel it. It's not just seeing it. You just feel it from their whole aura. There's something changing within their energy. I guess people know that, don't they? Most people will probably recognize the feeling, I guess, on a Sunday maybe when they haven't got to go to work

and they haven't got anything to do. Or even on holiday, how just they feel. And maybe a few to work and they haven't got anything like to do or even on holiday how how just they feel and maybe a few aches and pains aren't there you know just there's a relaxedness and your experience of the world is very different when you're in that state and I guess many people think though I can only be in that state when I'm on holiday or on a Sunday, right? Many people will listen and go, yeah, that's all right for you maybe. But I've got a busy life. I've got a busy job. It doesn't apply to me. What would you say to them? I have a coaching business. I hold retreats. I've just produced a book in lockdown, which is a hats off to anyone that produced anything in lockdown, I believe.

And did two major endurance events, built a documentary around that. We unschool our kids as well. So we've been doing that for many years and still managed to operate in a downregulated state. So there is this, oh, it's okay mate but there i i totally i'm totally there with you you know i i live it as well i live that environment um it's just you can put practices within your day you just need little reminders and sometimes that's all it takes it's a reminder to breathe you know it's a reminder maybe on the hour to say everyone has a minute you know out of your hour take one of the minutes away and just

say okay here's six cycles of breath just to reconnect to the breath again and to find myself within it so let's just talk people through that because a lot of people have heard of breath work they've heard of practices they've heard on this show before but you mentioned one the four six yeah right so maybe just be super practical people. On the hour, you're recommending that they take a pause and do four, six? Four, six, six cycles. And sometimes, you know what, don't even get obsessed by the counting of it. You know, there's a breathing app I've recommended in the past, and it has a sound that picks up for four seconds, another sound that drops off for six seconds. That's called

breathing app. It's so simple, right? That's one. Or it can just be, if you put your finger on your pulse for a moment and you just inhale up through your nose, you'll notice there's a slight pickup of the pulse. As you exhale and you exhale for longer, you'll notice there's a dropping off of the pulse. So it's as long as you can inhale for and as long as you can exhale for, but just try and extend the exhale a little longer and practice six cycles. You'll at around a minute right prior to that just try this wherever you're sitting it could be on the floor office chair wherever you are just try and relax the pelvic basin in your lower abdomen because we're also very tense down there right so walking around very tense so try and relax that area to begin with allow your jaw to settle and

your heart to settle just tune into that very simple language relax the pelvic floor the pelvic base and the lower abdomen the jaw let the shoulders go and let the heart go even that if you just even think of that you're already a step there like immediately moment i think of that i'm like i feel calm again yeah you know it just comes in drops in and then you breathe into that space breathe into the relaxed jaw breathe into the relaxed shoulders breathe into the lower abdomen the pelvic floor and just allow all that being of you just to expand on the inhale and then don't push your exhale so you just allow your exhale to go as if yeah otherwise it turns into and then we're tense again in the lower abdomen the jaw on the shoulders so it's just allowing your whole being to be inflated with an inhale and allow the breath

just to leave you and that's six cycles that's i mean it's such a simple practice it's so simple isn't it so like an alarm on the hour maybe on people's phones to remind them like even if they're stuck post it post it note boom up on your screen whatever it is just remember to breathe today you know it could be it's just little reminders and we do need the reminders because again once that stuff starts kicking in the next email the next phone call and we find ourselves up regulated we're already operating from a different system so sometimes we just need that little reminder like a little tap on the shoulder from your favorite uncle or aunt saying just remember to breathe now. Yeah I mean what i love about that practice is that there's there's there's literally nobody who is listening to this podcast right now who couldn't do that

it it doesn't cost any money right they don't have to buy anything they don't need to get an app really you know you don't even really need to time it do you it's just a rough yeah um approximation you know roughly in for four out for six and just do that for a minute and you don't even really need to time it, do you? It's just a rough approximation, roughly in for four, out for six, and just do that for a minute. And what benefits is someone going to get if they do that? Why should they? I honestly believe that just those simple,

not like the inner work, I call it, but every relationship improves from you doing the inner work, including the one with yourself, right? So that will mean that every relationship within your work environment a home environment will improve via that and it could be like with the lady i'm discussing you enters her father's home her relationship with her father improves from that right just in that moment because again she's seeing him differently she's not seeing him from the what might have been way back there in childhood even because she's not operating at that subconscious layer it's now she's entered as a conscious adult into that experience not operating as maybe the six-year-old

or the five-year-old back there right i guess your um ability to think clearly precisely you know so within a work environment what do we want we want to be on our game, don't we? We want to be able to articulate, we want to be focused, we want to be able to deliver on time or targets. And you can do all of that. You're going to work better. You just work more efficiently, right? That's it. That's it in its simple form. But again, I think it's really down to that. For me, it's the relationships, every relationship improving with with parenting for instance it might even be working from home i have a studio outside the house so i have this really long commute these days across the lawn right but it's sometimes easy to forget that that's still a work environment and i'd suddenly

enter the home and i'm still in the email or the phone call so what can we do okay we put everything down in that moment breath work just for a moment a minute then leave that experience and leave whatever it is in that space before entering the new space because again the kids are waiting for you they're waiting to see you and who do they want to see they want to see kind of again the up-regulated papa or the down-regulated papa you know who have they been waiting for and an app but even in like an hour or two hours is like a lifetime to kids if you've been in that environment. It could be, I just can do one minute

of down-regulation breathing where my out-breath is longer than my in-breath in my car. And then when you walk through the door, your interaction with your partner, with your kids, it's going to be completely different. It can stop a lot of, you know,

unnecessary disputes or arguments. The other thing for me, Tony, is I hear that. Why I think that's such a powerful practice also is because we get to work and we just start to accumulate a lot of the time stress and what I call micro stress doses. And if you don't do anything to down regulate, you just keep going, just keep going, keep going. And then by the end of the day, when you've finished, you may not have done anything to pause, to bring everything back down again. So by the time you then rock up at home after work, whether you're working from home or from an office, your state is completely different and arguably not the best state to then interact with

loved ones i had this moment i was staying at my friend's space in somerset we were there for six months so we got to live in like a proper community experience and there was one morning um i had i had a lot on and i'm just all right i'm just i know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna go to the lake i'm just gonna sit at the lake so i walked to the lake do some breath and in that moment it was this simple language of um it's a choice right so you can choose to do the breath and appreciate the privilege or you can choose not to and feel overwhelmed and then i realized it was just a fine line between overwhelm and privilege and what can help me navigate that path is just a simple breathing practice. But equally, being out in nature, you know, just as we're discussing breath,

just a walk within a green space or taking shoes off and going for a walk on the lawn, you know, the study suggests that 20 minutes in a natural environment will lower heart rate, blood pressure, and drop us into parasympathetic as well. What equally has to highlight, though, a bit like the morning practice, is why are we upregulated? What is it within this everyday environment that's doing this? And what are the other things I could be addressing? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven

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all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. You know, that could be, again, getting out to a green space might be one, spending more time outdoors. We're known as this indoor species, right, this urbanite species that spends 90-95% of our time indoors so we can look at stretching perhaps try and find more time outside or from that natural experience of being outside and recognizing that just a small percentage of time outdoors will lower heart rate and blood pressure what can I learn from that can

I perhaps journal what that experience is and what it is I'm feeling what are those things that that I feel drawn to that are doing, that are lowering the heart rate and blood pressure? And what can I bring into my everyday environment from that? What can I learn from this out here to bring into the everyday environment? Because for some, again, it's all right for you, Tony, you might get to spend more time outside, which I get. Others, it's not so simple.

They maybe can't get out today or can't get out tomorrow. What if, you know, it's dark so simple they maybe can't get out today or can't get out tomorrow what if you know it's dark immediately afterwards you know and outdoors doesn't mean um the tube the car or the shopping center it means actually outdoors right and so where the sky's above your head yeah so you know what can i be doing maybe try and stretch it you know make the next tube stop to walk to or you know just try and try and work with that but ultimately try and stretch it you know make the next tube stop to walk to or you know just try and try and work with that but ultimately try and bring more of that organic experience inside the home in those everyday environments that might be what you see and what you taste and what you smell and what you feel within those environments but it's also how we move in those environments how can

how can we move more organically within an environment right including the home yeah it's you know getting off the tube one stop earlier often the narrative i think in society around health is okay well you can get more movement and then you know let's say you can you can get a 20 minute walk in now great and then people naturally often go to oh i'm ticking off my physical activity parts. How many calories is that going to burn? Or whatever it might be. But again, it's very reductionist, isn't it? Because that 20-minute walk could be many things. It could be you're getting natural light exposure. You might be getting a bit of sun. You might be hearing the birds, depending on where you're walking. You could be doing some breathing

at the same time. It's not just one thing is it that 20 minute walk actually can hit multiple primatists you can get many knees met right rather than just the the want or the desire to get to work on time you could flip it and just think well okay what can i receive from that experience how many of those boxes those natural needs can i take off um It can be then, oh, I feel so amazing for just doing a 20-minute walk. I tell you what, I'm going to get up a bit earlier now and maybe walk for a bit longer. And that's what can happen through these experiences and become more of an opportunist even along the way, right? Once you really open things up, what does it feel like? Oh, maybe I'm going to balance on the curb stone today and get some balancing in.

Or I'm going to balance on the wall or you know use the stairs down to the tube instead of escalating just add more things on like yahoodi i describe in the book yahoodi's like he's 82 now um i think i discussed him on the last podcast but his commute right was that he'd wake up in the morning anyway he'd have his whole practice at home and so he'd have um an office experience at home where he'd set it up. There were mats there, so he had no chair. He'd ground sit. He'd answer his emails either on the ground or standing.

He'd have a pull-up bar so he could hang from before entering the office. It was in one of those positions where it's always there, so he knew he would do it. Kitchens are great for that, right? You can pull up bar in the kitchen so you know whenever you enter, oh, I can hang while the kettle's boiling. And then he'd walk in his vivo barefoot shoes right so he's getting his feedback from his feet and his feet can behave how they're meant to behave get to the tube people normally say um what would you like would you like a seat and he went no no i'm okay and as soon as the train starts moving he's either hanging off the rail above right so he's hanging while the train's moving or he's surfing right so surfing would mean not holding on to anything and just working

like so the tube becomes like a huge power plate right where you have to stabilize great for the hips and that would be his experience and then he'd walk up the stairs and this you know it's just that's that's where you can take it and And that started happening for him when he was 78 and he's now 82 and he's thriving in terms of his capacity to move now, right? I mean, that is, it's such a powerful story. It's empowering for anyone who thinks, you know, is it too late? Have I lost a lot of my natural movement?

You know, what can I do? You know, when did he start seeing you? Did you say 17? No, he actually started seeing me. It's a big 17 no he actually started seeing me there's a big journey he first started seeing me when he was 72 and he wanted to learn how to walk so he was and why did he want to learn how to walk did he feel i can't walk properly anymore well this is a massive story to unpack but he um he had a stooped posture you know like really head chasing collapsed in the chest from sitting i didn't realize this at the time but anyway he wanted to learn to walk so i said okay let's pop you up on the treadmill and

i'll record you because unless someone shows you a video of you walking you really have no idea you're kind of subconsciously incompetent at that stage and what the video will do is just make you consciously incompetent and then we can do some practices and then readdress it and then you know and then record it again a bit later and then suddenly that becomes your new template your new subconscious competence let's say through that model um introduce him to ground sitting um vivo as i mentioned so those studies are profound aren't they that we know that um 60 percent of foot strength um notice it's professor dort i think his name is from university of liverpool right within six months of wearing vivo barefoot shoes their foot people's foot

strength had developed by 60 percent right but also balance had increased by 40 percent and i just want to because i love that study and i you know i'm a huge fan of vivo barefoot shoes only once i wear my wife my kids i'm either barefoot or in vivos, probably very much like you. And that study, what I love about it is it wasn't about running. A lot of people hear barefoot shoes and they think, oh, I've got to be able to run. It's like, hold on, hold on, this is just living in barefoot shoes, you know, going to the shops, walking around.

Yeah, within a six-month period. So if you think about that from a parenting perspective, what that means as a parent, okay okay and we want the best for our kids and we want to create these solid foundations for our kids and foundations for life right um it's saying that if you wear compromising footwear you're going to remove 60 your foot strength and 40 your balance essentially that's what it's saying right right? It's also saying that after billions of pounds that's been spent in the sports science world for developing footwear, which is mainly for aesthetics and not athleticism, let's say, if we can understand this model,

is where has that got us? But I think for this parental thing, it's like understanding well you know think about the potential that's perhaps lost right and if we look at things like physical education we already know that if you're the youngest in the class you there's a you're at a disadvantage for the older kids when it comes to physical education and pe right so there's already this feeling of inadequacy when it comes to sports perhaps and pe in later life but then we're saying we're removing also 60% of foot strength 40% of balance you know but with Yehudi's case he um he yeah so introduce him to vivo so again again foot strength would improve balance would improve of course naturally without working on it just just by actually not compromising your footwear

and being in touch with the grounds. So that's removing. So that's operating at the cause level, right? You know, and really understanding that. Because you can do all the foot practices you like, strengthening your feet, balancing work. But if you keep putting them in the same environment that compromises in the first place, it's mini symptom relief and quick fixes of further distractions from the truth. You need to get into the real cause. And often it's simply the shape of the foot. You know, it's the environment really that we need to work at and the environment for the foot in modern society is the shoe is it not right so with yahudi that foot strength had improved

balance improved his overall understanding his posture had improved because it removed the chair and got him back to mobilizing areas that are designed to be mobile and creating stability in areas that are essentially designed for stability and also bringing the squat back. So squatting instead of sitting so that his mind could understand where his weight should be when he stands up even, let alone when he walks, right? But later on, as times passed, Yehudi then said, well, the reason I wanted to learn to walk was because I wanted to go to Everest Base Camp for my 50th anniversary with my wife so that's why he'd taken on that challenge did Everest Base Camp did Mount Kenya Bhutan Atlas in his late 70s in his late 70s closer to 80 and then at 79 he came on a workshop of mine, which was originally, it's now called the 100 Human Experience, but originally it was called Move, Breathe, Chill, which was movement and play and breath work and then ice baths. And Yehudi was terrified, right?

Properly terrified of the cold. So it took me about an hour the night before the workshop. I mean, he'd agreed to it days before, but an hour the night before to convince Yehudi to come the next morning Yehudi also lived the closest to the workshop it was in Camden he lived in Hampstead people traveling from all over and he was still managed to be late right but once we got him through the breath work and the play and the play is great for that because it enters this playful state of mind and it breaks down all the armor in a way and we become much more open and we become much more open to the breath so the breath goes right in very quickly and he was first in the

ice bath right first one in and he let out this huge primal roar i mean like screaming from the belly was coming out of this man then stepped out and he thought it was done i said no we're going to go back in again i think we need to go back and got him in again and then since then um yahudi has been going to um either hampstead ponds or the river lee five mornings a week um for two years now right so he's 82 so like 80 again like the practice is like you know and we think oh it's too late for me or it's too late for them i can't start start this now. We're talking about something in the late 70s. He's not alone. I mean, there's a number of my clients that are past their 70s,

mid-70s pluses that have been told not to take their knees past their toes and they're now in deep range squats, low gate walking, balancing on rails. And for me, again, it's incredibly inspiring because it changes my template even of what the 70s and 80s are. Because my personal understanding of the 70s and 80s is looking at my grandparents or even 50 pluses at one point. It was just normal to groan as you sit back in the chair or something or groan to get out of the chair. And here we are witnessing empowered 70 to 80-year-olds doing quite profound things. But are they that profound?

Or are they, again, naturally normal? Just we've become distanced from the path, perhaps. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I'm so on board. I can't shake this idea of an 82-year-old chap on the tube in London in between stops hanging from the rail or squatting. I think it's wonderful. And I think that, for me, brings up some interesting points.

Monday night, I was at Edinburgh, last night of my book tour. And I was coming back on the train yesterday. And the train got cancelled. And there was all kinds of, I had to take three trains instead of one train it was all unplanned and yeah I was pretty chilled about it actually which is you know when you practice these sort of things I feel you naturally you know I feel I'm a lot more down regulated these days naturally and therefore I just be a lot more and I'm like oh train's cancelled okay cool well it's going to be what it's going to be. And then in the final leg, I thought, actually, Tony's coming tomorrow.

Let me get back into his book a little bit more. I'd been reading it over the weekends. And I was reading about Yehudi. And this was a busy kind of local train. It was coming into office time. A lot of people, there was no chairs and stuff. And I thought, yeah, Tony's coming tomorrow. I'm going to squat. there was no chairs and stuff and i thought yeah tony's coming tomorrow i'm gonna squat and so for the last hour um i in between the uh you know sitting carriages you know i was squatting

against the wall and just reading your book and then listening to some music or whatever i was rested against the wall and you know after about 10 minutes was a bit stiff so i'd stand up for two or three minutes and then i popped back down again the thing is a lot of people will think oh my god what would people think people are gonna stare at me i don't recall anyone looking at me like genuinely like people are so tied up in their own worlds on their own podcasts and their own music in their own butts i think that's empowering that actually no one gave two hoots you know i go, it's none of my business what other people think of me, right? And also, you'll be surprised if people are looking at you, how do you know that they're just not being inspired by you? Why do we immediately go to the negative of, oh, they're going to think I'm this crazy man on the tube?

They might be inspired, you know? And again, I'm inspired by someone like you who'd be hanging off the tube rails and squatting. How could you not be inspired by that? You're not going to look at someone in their 80s and go, that crazy 80-year-old hanging off the rails and squatting. You've got to think legend. Exactly. And there's that.

And I think also it's a cultural thing. Our kids are now going to this forest school. It's a group of parents that live where we live. And we've kind of done something together and created something for them to attend on a thursday and um one of the dads was there and he'd listened to our podcast way back and said oh no way you're katarina antonian was talking about ground sitting fantastic and again was discussing this oh how do people react to it and katherine said well it depends where you are where you are in the world because some cultures that's what they do it's just our where we are in the west perhaps it's our own lens of how we see it you know yeah has anyone

ever said anything to you negative not negative i've never had anything yeah even walking around you know and being better i mean sometimes i mean i have had kids kind of be like well papa why is that man running around with no shoes on and and but nothing really not really negative sometimes some strange i guess strange kind of looks of what's he doing over there but then again it's how it's received right again what if we're receiving the upregulated versus receiving it downregulated how about try and do the practices but work on your breath while you're there and it might change the lens of which you you're receiving that look it might be suddenly that's a positivity look rather than negativity look a judgmental look.

And when it comes to judgment, more often than not, we're judging others for judging us, not them judging us. You know? You know, when you are concerned or overly concerned with what other people think, usually, if not always, it comes from a place of insecurity, doesn't it? When you don't think enough of yourself. You know, for me, as a fellow barefoot shoe wearer and someone who literally has his shoes off as much as I possibly can, it's really interesting. A lot of people who listen to this podcast now wear Vivos because Vivos have been supporting the show for a few years and I talk very passionately about them. And what's really interesting for me at the event in Edinburgh on Monday night, a lot of the time in the book signing keys afterwards,

people show me their Vivos and say, hey look, you know, I'm wearing it. It's really nice. And they're like, oh man, I don't have my back pain anymore. I don't have my knee pain. afterwards people show me their viva so hey look you know i'm wearing it's really it's really nice and they're like oh man i don't have my back pain anymore don't have my knee pain thank you so much all this stuff brilliant right there was two really lovely women at one point he said you know they've just got to make better looking female shoes you know then i'll wear them and first of all i you know this is a there's something i had with my own wife a few years ago she's like you know but she's been wearing them probably four or five years now and wouldn't go back once you experience them. And I think they do look really good now, actually.

I think compared to maybe 10 or 15 years ago. Oh, yeah. But I think this is a really interesting point. If you look at the research on minimalist shoes, you've mentioned one of those studies from the University of Liverpool. mentioned one of those studies from the University of Liverpool. I think it's Professor Irene Davis in America talks about as soon as you put a human in a cushioned shoe, their gait changes straight away. You denormalize, you're changing how you walk. It's come through animal studies as well, they show it. Yeah. And then you think, well, I think well i think well once you know that and i want to

talk about feet in just a second and they're so important to every aspect of who we are it for me through the lens with which i look at the world which is well why on earth would i wear cushions every day if i know what that's doing to me but i understand and many people yeah they're persuaded they give it a go and they're like oh man you know i'm actually enjoying walking more now because i can feel the ground a lot more and then they're not quite as disconnected but some people are still very much off the view yeah man but they don't look normal they don't have that kind of pointed end that i'm used to or and i guess what i'm trying to get to, to be as inclusive as possible, you know, I think everyone should try at some point minimalist shoes. Viva or whatever brand you want, right? Try and just see it for yourself how you feel. Have you had resistance

to that? Have you had clients who come in and go, look, I'll do the other stuff. Oh man, that's not my thing. Or does it almost self-select when people want to work with you that they're already in tune with that way of thinking yeah i have much more compassion these days like in my coaching when i first started out on this journey i used to be quite strict it used to be well you know if if you're not prepared to change shoes then i can't really coach you because the whole point is that you know if we understand the behavior of the foot, 33 articulations, 26 bones, 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and all the receptors within the feet, 200,000 extra receptors, and how that feeds and nourishes the whole posture and all the joint actions above it and the muscular actions above it in tune with that, then you'll be super efficient and minimize the risk of injury. If you're not prepared to do it,

then we're really just offering symptom relief. I'm happy to give you symptom relief, but really this is where it's at. And I think over time, it's just, here's the conversation, this is it, you know, and allow it to just settle a bit, plant the seeds at least, you know. and the beauty of this work now is we do have those studies there you know not many people have heard of that study and for me that's it's quite profound to understand that 60 your foot strength will improve over a six-month period that can be okay if you're not prepared to change it and i get it even my lola and millie and talula have started putting lego blocks in the back of their socks to be like high heels right and they're unschooled it's not like they're even in a school environment katarina doesn't wear heels just it's it's within it's just within it they're observing

it somewhere um and am i gonna say no take those blocks out of your heels and of course i'm not you know it's just an experience they're playing with something um but it's also understanding that probably a large proportion of the day they are barefoot or they're in vivo barefoot so what can you do okay um could be an unavoidable sitting scenario like now right we're sitting right um do we alienate sitting or it's the devil's work sitting smoke sitting is a new smoking it's well there are unavoidable sitting scenarios drive a car get a flight you know in an office environment it's not appropriate to sit on the floor and for some environments they won't even allow a standing desk so what do we do it's what we do outside of that the the places where we can possibly take

responsibility or control of what we can take control of so when you arrive home and you're behind the door then get the shoes off and then there's certain toe practices or what we call toga or yoga for your feet that you can then do which will then help unravel or deconstruct some of that um yeah that environment you've created which unfortunately does compromise the foot and the behaviors above it you know but it's amazing how much the environment influences our behavior doesn't it not only the environment we see around us and what we think is normal um or typical i should say rather than because you obviously talk a lot about this concept of biologically normal yeah um but culturally you

know we may have touched on this when you came on the show a few years ago but in most Indian families you take your shoes off before you come in that's obviously my cultural upbringing which a lot of people certainly in the UK and America don't have it it's it can be very different right and so have you found there's a difference do you do you get clients from different cultures different parts of the world and have you found that actually their willingness to and they respond engage is different depending on their belief system yeah it's an interesting one with footwear in the home isn't it you know and some some haven't actually taken their footwear off it could be a a whole day experience. So even that, as I say, it's suddenly changing that template that within the home, let's just at least try and get that barefoot environment.

Change, flip the perception of that one environment. And yes, some people are much more responsive to others. It's what's normalized. It's whatever those templates are and how long you've had that experience or what you've observed in your earliest years even play out within that yeah i mean there's even you know we say you said office environment where you can't do that much you know we thought long and hard you know in this new studio it's like okay well i'm gonna sit here maybe for two hours with someone having a deep conversation i don't want them to feel uncomfortable i don't want to feel uncomfortable myself

um yet there's also a certain expectation of what should a chair be in a studio where someone's coming right and so i have this uh move man here i don't know if you know move man but it's awesome because it's an unstable seat yeah so i have to by default for this hour two hours my postural muscles yeah i think it's m you've yeah move my exactly i have to move i have to move and and this is i think a lot about movement i'd love your perspective on this but the fact that i can't slump and stop engaging my muscles yes it means that whenever i finish, I've never had an ache. Like never. I just simply walk up. It's like, yeah, I feel great because my muscles have been engaging the entire time. But I also think that this helps me think more clearly throughout the

conversation. So I'm not, you know, if I'm stagnating into a chair, my lymph, my blood, everything's sort of stagnating, right? And then that chair that you're sitting in, you know, we got what we consider the best ergonomic chair for people to at least, because I thought, like in my guest, the Moveman, I thought, wrong, what the problem is, is if they're not used to that, it could be really uncomfortable. So instead of engaging with the conversation, they can just be thinking about how they're sitting and they know there's cameras here generally how would you think about that i've with someone at the moment um i had someone come and see me about your height stewart his name is and um he had a furniture business like auditorium kind of lecture chairs and um i'd seen his sister originally she was

like this yogi living off grid in portugal came with a back condition very quickly one session out the door done i need to send you my brother brother come stewart and he just said um do you think there's a chair in this stuff tony because i took him through simple ground resting positions that are in the book they're just a simple series of ground sitting from kneeling to sitting cross-legged to shin boxing to um and each one of those you know a prerequisite almost of how we stand let's call it they're almost like the motor skill milestones of what it is we do as children before we stand up so we then we parked that conversation and it must have been two years went by i said i have the idea he's like what i said i know the chair

so we're gonna i have it so we went through this whole design so at the point we're ready to launch that very soon um and that then is a platform that's at normal seat height and you can perform six different rest positions that you could normally perform on the ground and you're 100% right it's about move man it's like this understanding that well there should be certain signals to move anyway you know if we've been in a position for too long yes we're stagnating what does that mean for think of flow states what does stagnation have to do with a flow state you know i'm stagnant versus flow and then they're completely different ends of the spectrum right so it's enabling i guess that movement to be really fluid um which then ticks the box of earlier conversation about

within an environment of work what do we want to be on our game don't we want to be super sharp um and i think with this sitting conversation it's it's yeah it's individual specific again isn't it there's a template there of what we've normalized so what we've tried to do with this particular chair is you can sit on it like an everyday chair but equally you can be in certain positions which if you don't have the mobility it can be adjusted and then over time you can start to gain the range one of them being the squat that has a central sitting pillar that and the base goes up and down so you'll start to gain more more range in the ankle and the hips over time um but yet you can always be at desk level so it then brings that ground sitting conversation into every office environment you know yeah and and then and then where do we go from that then we have standing

desks i think you know it can be just as detrimental to stand with poor posture as it is to sit with poor posture so the standing desk isn't always the answer if you look at my dad's an engineer um precision tool maker and the most shocking posture from standing all day working over screens and working over and and working with materials that he has to for his trade um if you're still working over a desk and you're still stooped, where does that lead us? So it's just understanding there's certain postures or shapes that we should be adopting which help as prerequisites to standing. And the other conversation is around muscles need to learn

how to switch on and off. So it's not great to be in one rest position for too long whatever that is whatever that is so it's choosing a different shape and normally as i say in ground rest position you get a signal it will be a signal oh this is a little bit uncomfortable now let's move and you shape shift in this in a normal chair or on a sofa we don't necessarily get that yeah and we start to stagnate as you say so that means that there is no muscles or muscles off we've just it's either on incredibly on to try and stabilize something or it's just off and both states over time can lead to atrophy if a muscle

is on for too long on on on on on it will atrophy over time um swiss balls were like an example of that where people are just sitting on swiss pool for a period of time you'd be so on to try and stabilize that you're not giving yourself the rest opportunity within that so it's with your movement it's the cues there it's moving yeah i'm moving constantly and i find that you're then within that system the muscles are on the muscles off that's that's yeah and it's what's it's been it's been amazing actually uh using this for the podcast because i know i can't move too much because i won't be in the camera shot i won't be on mic um so this will stay relatively uh you know my mouth my face will stay relatively close to this mic that's not moving but i know my hips back, everything else moves a lot of the time, yet

I'm still able to have a podcast conversation with the chair. And I guess I've found a solution that works for me in this particular aspect of my work. And I guess, you know, a key sort of message I get from all of your work and in the new book is that we don't all have to go and sell our house and live in a forest. Actually, there's lots of little things that we can do and bring into our normal lives, whatever that is, just to start optimising a bit. And you mentioned ground living a few times. Can you explain what ground living means for people, particularly in the context that the hadza tribe are actually they're also sitting a long time right but they're not sitting like us yeah so the studies around the hadza are really quite fascinating i mean all the studies around the hadza are fascinating aren't

they microbiome um just remind us who the hadza are um they're a nomadic tribe that have been living the same lifestyle really for what would be tens of thousands of years. So there isn't anything that's changed within that environment. So if you wanted a good template of how things look, that's the place to go really. And I think with the studies around sitting, the Hadza are sitting for 10.5, 10 to 10.5 hours a day. So they're just as sedentary as we are in that respect. They're just not sitting in chairs.

So they're interacting with their environment, the ground. So there's grounding within that. We understand now grounding, the charging of one from the mother of all batteries, right? Mother Earth. There's also the microbiome. So they're having a interaction with the biodiversity of their land right being part of that um and as the squat is a major rest position out of that 10 and a half hours they're also experiencing the same weight through the soles

of their feet as if they're standing so that means there's a metabolic chemical cost for that that's an endurance event in itself you know just to be able to squat for large periods of time with the same weight with all your segments um upon that base of support being the foot so if you're barefoot within that conversation that's the 33 joints 26 bones 100 muscle tender ligaments and those 200 receptors feeding and nourishing that framework but also the superstructure above it understanding how to be organized perfectly above the base of support so that when we stand up everything is organized to support this huge weight being the human head above it which makes them incredibly efficient yeah um so if we think

of me for an endurance event let's say and i'm asked well how has it turned you run for like 12 hours a day well i i spend 12 plus hours experiencing the weight in the soles of my feet be it through standing or squatting there's other rest positions in there but the majority of it so you're not so basically what you're saying is the mainstay of your life is not spent sitting in a chair. You're in either the squat, other ground resting positions, walking or running. So therefore, even when you're resting, your movements and patterns are feeding the same kind of awareness

in your body and the same patterns as when you actually get up and actually move. Whereas for most of us, we're sitting in compromised postures. We are sitting in fixed, rigid chairs, which allow no movement. And therefore, when we try and go for a walk or a run, we feel our knee, we feel our hip. do you know what i mean is that is that with the point you're trying to make yeah so there's certain areas of the body that are designed for locomotion or let's call it even mobility and certain areas that are designed for stability and so if you think about the foot it's a huge supportive structure um incredibly strong as a

foundation it has multiple characteristics as well. You can grip with your foot and you can balance with your foot around different objects. But in the linear aspect of our world, it really only expects that flat plane. But you can climb with it, you can balance in trees with it. But if the foot's incredibly strong as a foundation, the ankle joint can be mobile, the knee can then be stable, the hip can then be mobile, the pelvis and core can be stable, and the thoracic spine can be mobile and the neck can be stable. So it's like this joint by joint approach. But what it can also be is a culprits and victims model. So if the foot, for instance, is being shaped like a shoe shape, pointed,

instance, has been shaped like a shoe shape, pointed, no longer wide in its toe box area, the great toe, which can cope with, which is like four times denser and thicker than all the other toes. It's a huge lever, foundation, anchor, and pivoting tool. If that's been compromised, then that then becomes the culprit and the ankle can become the victim. The ankle then becomes a culprit for the knee and the knee becomes a victim. And we can go up that chain like that. So sitting, where does sitting lie? If that's the shoe and what that does to the foot, what does the chair do if I'm compromised and sitting in that rigid form? Well, again, we get stagnation and pooling in the hips and the hips should be, well, they're incredibly strong and stable, but they're also incredibly mobile, right?

They're a ball and socket. And in running, they have to understand extension. And when we're sitting for long periods of time, where are they experiencing lots of flexion, and they're compromised and stagnant in that position. Then what tends to happen is because we're in these incredible beings for efficiency, we're always trying to find ways of burning less fuel in terms of survival, let's say say and this is where that conversation around there's a chemical

metabolic cost for squatting or experiencing your feet weight on your feet the whole day therefore you get stronger at that whereas in a chair we can get even more efficient even more efficient even more efficient we start to collapse then in that very framework in the mid-back that should be able to be extended and open to support the head above it so then that what happens is the head starts to drift forward of the base of support the further forward my head is when i'm walking we give us like the case of yahudi discussing earlier um when the head positions forward we have to stride more so the foot has to be further out in front of us otherwise we would fall over so it creates a longer lever which the longer levers are more vulnerable but it also then means that i spend more time on the ground which means i'm less efficient which means i'm using more muscle action to support the fact i'm on the ground for longer

so there's there's many factors in it so sitting in a chair for long periods of time yes will compromise the way i stand the way i walk the way i run um taking that taking time out of that again there's unavoidable sitting scenarios right what are the environments i can take control of and responsibility for well the home you know even if it means we discussed this on the last podcast it's like it might mean netflix okay let's see if i can do a number of rest positions while netflix binging i'll do some shin box sits or just sit on the floor i guess exactly just get on the floor and just try to naturally move won't you and again you'll get cues to move so you just start and then there might be points where it's just it's how this is challenging of course it is because you have to go it's mobility you have to go through the

stage to begin with where yes it might be awkward play with the edges of discomfort though don't get out of there immediately just play with the edges but also use supports you can use a cushion underneath your butt for certain rest positions you can put a little support behind your heel you can use something to hold when you're squatting and then over time what happens is your mobility and strength will improve but ultimately that will overlap and overlay into your everyday practices you know i guess the the kind of overarching point for me there as i hear that is comfort versus discomfort and how you know we can compare a modern hunter-gatherer tribe to a modern industrial human living indoor in artificial lights and one of the key differences is that the way we live or what is normal in western society now is everything is engineered for comfort right

there is no need anymore to become uncomfortable, whether that be in movement. You get these ergonomic chairs and these things that you can slump in and you can't feel anything anymore. You don't have to have uncomfortable emotions because you can go to whatever your drug of choice is, whether it's the smartphone or whatever, you can straight away- Pacify it. Pacify it. So you don't need uncomfortable movement. You don't need uncomfortable emotions. You don't need an emotion like even hunger anymore. Hunger is something that very few people actually know what feeling hungry, real hunger is anymore. Because for many people, clearly not

everyone, there's no need. You can just distract it away or quickly snack or get a quick sugar hit or whatever. And it's very hard, isn't it? Because you spoke about the ice cold immersion before, but it's this idea that many of us don't need to engage in any part of our life with discomfort, yet there are so many benefits when we do yeah it's discomfort and convenience isn't it yeah it's like choosing a way of living that in our modern sense would be considered quite inconvenient you know but the stairs are inconvenient my um my parents are looking to choose a new house they're moving and so they were discussing bungalows and my mum said no i'm not choosing a bungalow because if you move into a bungalow you'll get but she called it bungalow legs and i said what do you mean so well if you stop using the stairs then the stairs become incredibly difficult so you develop bungalow legs you know smart mum that

was smart mum right yeah moment i was like oh wow okay she's speaking the same language this is the convenience and inconvenience right so think of let's look at what um food would have looked like right in terms of let's call it pushing and pulling patterns right okay so um let's go way back let's look at the foraging and the hunting experience maybe pulling a bow throwing an out throwing a spear right pushing something pushing carcass pushing whatever it is like now vegetation right okay foraging what that meant over a landscape right pulling things pushing things climbing and then we go way to where we are now you can literally just pull your screen down and push a button that's the that's where

we're at so there's this still pulling pushing we're just pulling pushing but it's and we're still hunting in a way we still get this set with huge amounts of dopamine involved with both practices right but it's just again it's understanding that well if i stop walking to the shops perhaps um then the shops are going to seem further away. If I stop climbing the stairs, the stairs are going to feel more steep. You become divorced from it. And I think the key is in Yehudi's case, and in many cases, is imagine a world where we don't become divorced from those practices. Can you imagine a world where we haven't become divorced from that 60% foot strength and 40% balance? We haven't been divorced from this huge capacity to move well or be well, right? And again, I think there is this huge amounts of convenience which drive more want. And I think if

we can understand, well, what are the fundamental needs, even within this environment where it's incredibly convenient, then imagine how it would look. Because actually, we live in an amazing time, right? We just need to learn how to balance our needs within it. And then we've made an advancement because at the moment, it doesn't really look like an advancement when you look at most of the stats around health. advancement when you look at most of the stats around health. And even why something like running, something that is considered to be a natural human movement, the way a lot of people end up running now is resulting in a lot of injuries. I'm not saying the running is causing the injuries, it's that compromised posture, it's that compromised system that we now have compared to what is biologically normal biologically

optimal but but then let's take something like a squat tony so you mentioned your hoodie now squats yeah on the tube i squatted yesterday for a bit but i couldn't really do more than sort of 10 minutes and then i had to stop for a few minutes and move and then get back in it but again that's just maybe a bit of a natural discovery. Maybe that's good. Instead of being in a squat for an hour, I would move my posture. Many people might go, okay, all right, I hear you, Tony, I hear you, Rangan. I'm going to start squatting.

And they're going to really struggle. They're going to struggle. It's going to be painful. They're going to maybe get their heels down, but they're going to arch their back. It's going to be totally rounded over in order to do that. So is there a point at which like our movement is so compromised because of the chairs we've been shoved into when we were at school for hours on end because of these cushioned shoes that we've been wearing since we were kids right you've got all these positions

in the book and some of them are going to be easier for people than others squatting for many people is quite hard though isn't it i mean what would you what would you should the goal be right should the goal be i must be able to get to a squat within the next year because for many people that's off-putting because they they feel like they can't get there and maybe they'll never get there or is there some sort of halfway house i just want to be able to pull a screen down and push a button and get a squat because we that's where we're at now so we want things very quickly right and the squat will come but it takes time and it takes practice maybe a few more pulls down and presses of the button of the screen right it just takes a longer practice but there's stuff that you can do around the squat to assist it you know um you can put

heel supports in like wedges um i've got you know in the kitchen i've got this uh like weight bar yeah because i i can squat all the way down but my my upper back will be arched yeah yeah and i don't particularly want to be in that position so i will uh i'll often just sit in the house in a squat but on a on a little exercise bar so i've just got a slight heel elevation and i and i can keep a nice straight yes so what does that tell us is it the posture that's affected or is it ankle function so it's ankle function affecting the rest of the frameworks then we can suddenly understand well why is it important to then have strong foundations and mobile ankles well even that has an effect on the superstructure above it the biostructure so more often than not it is it's ankle function it comes down to so i

would say use a support behind the heel so you can rest in the squat ultimately the squat is what it's a rest position we turned it into physiological exercise right doing reps and getting doms and filling your quads and your glutes for days on end. But the reality is it's a position of birth, pooping, eating, and resting, right? So it's right. I would work with heel supports. And then with those heel supports over time, they can get lower and lower and lower. So with your hoodie, for instance, your hoodie had to have a heel support. It was like a wedge.

You can now buy cork wedges that are like a slope so you could start at the thicker end and then over time you get to the thin slope of that wedge um and then you set a timer perhaps and what is someone right someone maybe someone heard the first podcast we did i don't know two or three years ago right and they've been trying on and off yeah and they're gonna tell you listen i've been doing it for two, three years. I'm way better than I was, but I still can't go all the way down. Maybe they've not practiced as much, or maybe they spend eight hours in an office chair and they practice in the evening.

So, you know, one's working for them, one's working against them. Is it necessary, optimal? Should that be the goal? Or is the goal really to say, listen, even small improvements from here will actually already start to make a difference for you? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make

meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health, and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three

Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal. And as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening.

Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question

journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, episode 413 of this podcast but if you are keen to check it out all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app 100% it's small changes every day incremental changes right and it's stuff that we might not even pick up on is even happening but it will be happening elsewhere yeah like just by bringing the heel support in already you're noticing the posture can be better yeah so what have we increased there well the posture is better so it's a trade then isn't it well i might not have the ankle function what about if i've had my ankle fused well you're not going to get to a flat footed squats and then use a heel support,

use something behind the heel that would enable the ankle to behave how it needs to behave so it can get to a point where it's rested. I think ultimately get to the point where the squat can be resting for you. So that means put whatever needs to be behind the heel to get to the point where the squat is restful. And then the more restful the squat can feel, the more range you're going to develop over time anyway. If it's uncomfortable, what are we creating more there? We're going to get more tension. We're going to get more stress within it. We're then going to feed this sympathetic parasympathetic divide, right,

just to get stronger. So it's, well, what are other things we can do? Well, we can be breathing to offer more relaxation within it. We can think like even within a meditation position, you're looking to relax certain parts, aren't we? We're looking to have that checklist of, can I be relaxed in the hips, the chest? Try and find the same thing within the squat itself. But also there's kneeling positions within the book, which are prerequisites of squatting. So there's a single leg kneeling position in there, which is the equivalent of doing a single

legged squat. And what you can do then is play around with range within that one leg support underneath you the range within the ankle and ultimately open up more dorsiflexion what's dorsiflexion for people um plant if you imagine you're standing now and you point your toes down into the ground think about you're planting your toes that's plantiflexion and dorsiflexion is you're looking to, say, pull the bridge of your foot and your big toe up towards your shin. And it's important, dorsiflexion, when it comes to practices like walking and running

because there's certain rocking actions in the ankle that need to be honoured to be able to keep your feet within a certain range underneath you. And also to help then with knee stability and hip function as well above it so i would i i would say work between the kneeling positions that are prerequisites of the squat put a support behind the heel and also um you know just play with those edges of discomfort and remember the convenience versus inconvenience yeah because sometimes we might think well i've been doing this for two years but it's maybe time to maybe up the practice within the day is how much we're doing yeah you know and maybe just put more into it and that could be

movement based it could be sleep it could be digestion whatever it is just become very skilled at that thing for that time because it could be the squat would then improve the way i run the squat would improve the way i stand if it was digestion work on down regulation because we talk about food being my medicine but really digestion and absorption is the ability to allow food to be its medicine you know so it's you mentioned the squat is a rest position for many cultures you know i every other summer we'd go to india as kids and i remember in my you know family's house if there was helpers there you know literally be sat on a squat for hours like cutting vegetables and peeling things and just totally i mean it normalized they

wouldn't even be thinking oh how, how am I squatting? I am now on a squat. Am I stacked? No, it's just because obviously that's the natural movement. They're barefoot a lot of the time. They haven't got the compromised movement in the first place. In one of my auntie's houses, actually, I remember, there was a kid who got there and there was no Western toilet.

Like, if you wanted to go to the toilet you had to squat it's not like you had a western toilet with a squatty potty yeah and so of course if you grew up in that environment not being able to squat means you can't go to the toilet so of course everyone can squat um which it which is really fascinating because many people just will not have had that experience and not know that is the norm for millions, billions of people around the world. For thousands upon thousands of years. Yeah. So that is a, and you mentioned it's a pooping position.

Well, how common is constipation? And there's so many causes for that. And there's so many causes for that. Of course, the poor diet, the chronic stress state, you know, the sub-regulation, which that's not the state your body wants to be in when sort of letting go of stuff that it no longer wants, right? But there's also posture. Have you seen with some of your clients,

you know, because we know anatomically, physiologically, what does a squat do for your ability to, you know, have a number two? It's pretty significant, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. absolutely i love all the stuff on squatty potty it brings your feet up as if you're squatting but you can still have your butt on the toilet right but it just brings your knees up so it just helps open up what would be as as you say it just makes pooping more comfortable yeah um and aligned with how nature intended it to be. So there's less strain, right? I think that's the understanding of it again. I think with constipation, hemorrhoids,

all of those issues can be aligned with that too. You have got this new book out, which I think people are going to find incredibly helpful. I know what it takes to write a book. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of time not moving when actually writing, right? So for most people, that looks like sitting at a table, hunched over a laptop, typing away.

What did it look like for you? There were still moments like that because I was traveling as well. So there was still moments like that, but the majority of it was spent on the ground. So yeah, I have a ground sitting desk. I have ground sitting tables at home. So they're low tables. So I would have spent that kneeling, squatting, shin boxing, standing though as well. And presumably in that time, maybe you're lost in thought in your head, trying to articulate an idea. But at some point, as fit and as mobile as you are, I'm guessing that that ground resting position would have become uncomfortable. So you would have naturally...

And that's what I want really. I'd want that. Otherwise, again, it gets to that point where you're stagnating you're in that same position and you want to allow muscles to be on off on off on off so there is a a nurturing that comes with that you have to be in tune with it and pick up on the signals um some of those positions i can be in for 20 minutes you know like kneeling i could be longer but it would get to the point where my feet will be numb it's like i can't feel my feet now okay time to move then yeah you know so you get just subtle cues you know yeah but it is it's um there's still unavoidable sitting scenarios within that. And then what I do is I then offset it. So I say, okay, I've been sitting for this period of time.

Is it great for me to just walk now immediately afterwards? No. Let's try and reset at least the locomotive joint actions. So I'll hold the desk, squat, allow my heels to come up so I don't have to worry about that ankle position or trying to have a flat-footed squat. I'm more concerned with posture. So keep my chest up look at the horizon drop bounce stand walk done you know cold immersion is something that is uh all the rage these days right people see it they hear vim hoff doing it you know he's certainly popularized it for many

people i don't say people have been doing it for years but obviously he's brought it to the masses massively let's just go into cold immersion because i know we've been through a few practices so far right you're sort of making the case that many of us are up regulated for the majority of the time whereas it's more natural to be down regulated in that kind of rest and relax state and many of us are not so therefore what are some of these practices we can do to help down regulators you know you mentioned you know breathing every hour the four six breath um nature immersion nature immersion um and then even this sort of movement kind of down regulation i guess you could you could argue what you sort of about grand resting positions and squatting where does cold immersion

fit into this kind of framework as i explained a little earlier is that if you think about the cold being um a stressor let's say and so i will breathe before going in um to change my perception of the cold to start with so i can become become more down-regulated before I go in. So I'm just going to pause you there because that was interesting. Change your perception of the cold, right? So the cold water is still going to be cold, but you're doing something that's going to change your experience of the cold, right? That's powerful.

Yeah, so Lola and Mini, I take through this practice. How old are they? So they're now, Lola's about to turn 13, Millie about to turn 11. We were staying at our friend's estate, they have a big lake, all through the winter, thick ice, you know, smashing through the ice to get in. Lola and Millie there as well in their swimsuits,

teaching them breath, shot an amazing video with them just to say, you know, this could be for Lola and Millie. They're on school, but let's say if it was school was school for instance and they're about to walk into an exam the icy lake is the exam right so what am i going to teach lola millie right i'm going to go for breathing now so the breathing cold represents whatever the stressor is anything could be anything could be the phone call the meeting could be the school exam going back to school for the first day for some right here's a breathing technique to change your perception of that environment and then we continue the breath when we're in and we work on down regulation with breath whilst we're in the water to remain calm in the stressor so it's like here's the stressor

let's do this before entering and here's the stress let's do this here's the stressor, let's do this before entering. And here's the stress, let's do this whilst in the stress, what we perceive as the stress. So it changes our perception of that. But it also does something else in terms of, I'm a bit of an adventurer, endurance athlete. So there's the recovery aspect of it, but there's also changing my mind's perception of cold. So it's not so extreme and i think that level of convenience and inconvenience we've normalized room temperature so anything outside of room temperature seems like an extreme yeah um once you start to then go into the cold or into ice baths doesn't have to be an ice bath could be cold shower or cold bath right um you

change your mind's perception you'll change your template of that yeah you know it's it's it's like to ice baths doesn't have to be an ice bath could be cold shower or cold bath right um you change your mind's perception you'll change your template of that yeah you know it's it's like the cold is the stress and you're practicing with a particular stress that i guess you can control in some ways depending on where you live and what you have access to and by practicing that you're practicing for life yeah because again or you can change your perception of a stressor right and then it gets to the point where the cold is the cold that's stressful right because you're doing it for so long but i think it's never the same like even a cold tub one day will never be the same as the next day right so don't even like to put pressure

on of timing just look for the present best in that moment yeah how can i be doing my best within that moment and yeah that's so powerful isn't it this idea that it's never the same twice so even if it was a temperature controlled ice bath and it was whatever temperature you've set it at your perception of that is going to be different yeah depending on how you slept i guess your stress levels how you're feeling you know what you've got going on that day and that's individual specific right it could be two people queuing up to go in the same ice bath they're both having a completely different perception of what's going on in that moment

and time anyway right of that reality right so when it's not the winter and when someone doesn't have access to a lake what might this look like for them is it a cold shower once a week every day cold shower it can be a cold bath it can be starting off with warm in the shower switching to cold at the end to finish the shower and for some that's where it has to start some people will say and they've said it before when we've covered it on the on the show i can't do cold showers you know they're not for me i don't tolerate the cold which i find quite interesting in in and of itself yahudi yahudi's 79 year old terror terrified of the cold so when you started with it he was terrified i mean they had trauma around cold to the point he wouldn't go near any cold and then since then it's been that's his experience

but for him that this is different i think with doing an ice bath and going into cold showers and building it's it sometimes takes that level of experience almost like a rite of passage because then it takes us outside of our everyday experiences and our everyday behaviors and sometimes social templates. And sometimes when we do step outside of that, we can then bring around change. So for Hudi, it was stepping outside everything that he'd known to go to a new experience, being a rite of passage, being an ice bath. And then that completely changed his perception of his world even to the point now he's you know at the ponds or the river lee five times a week right and making the effort to get there

in the morning first thing gets there does it feels empowered for it he messaged me one of those days just to say thank you tony i finally found peace you know imagine i mean that's that's really quite deep it's quite profound isn't it so yeah i get it if you know i can't do cold i can't do it it's that there's a there's a language there and it's an internal dialogue and we can change that and we can change that through breathing so again i would start with breath first start with the breath try and tune into what that language and what that is and just enable that release that first right at least yeah um work through the breath don't just jump in the cold shower or the cold bath because what you're going to do is just create an emotional reaction to it which is only going to feed then even more fear of the cold or the experience so understanding there's a skill

to it really and the breath enables us to really access that so okay just just be super practical someone's standing in their warm shower that they're comfortable with totally relaxed chilling singing away whatever they might be doing right and they're thinking okay in a few minutes i'm gonna turn it to cold for whatever 10 seconds 20 seconds 30 seconds whatever what might they do specifically to prepare themselves for that cold whilst we're in the hot shower is that is that how it would work yeah i yeah i'd avoid like the really up regulation of the breath because you're standing up in in a shower so that vim hof type hyperventilation you're standing you could get lightheaded you could fall out of the bath right out of the shower so um i would work with again

just long inhales up through the nose exhale exhale, longer on the exhale, downregulate. Don't upregulate, actually, just downregulate. So four, six? Four, six. If four, six works, you don't have to obsess over counting. It could just be an inhale and exhale. Try and go, you could even try, I call it we will rocky breath, where you do like a, you know, we will we get so um you can practice that and do that whilst you're in your preferred water temperature right and then adjust the water at the temperature as you go you don't have to go

straight to cold it can be just bit by bit by bit but keep working through the breath as you're going so you're putting your focus and your attention on your breath not on the cold rather than how we started the conversation was oh in two or three minutes i'm going to go in the cold that just feeds the beast right it's like okay let's not i'm not going to go in and see the lion right now i'm going to breathe so let's focus put all the attention on the breath keep going through the breath four seconds in six seconds out or long inhale long exhale longer on the exhales and then incrementally work on the temperature until you get it where you are another great

practice is the bath and you because you can sit by the bath you can breathe by the side of the bath you can use the handles on the bath at the side you can lower yourself in you can get your belly button exhale every time you enter into that or put more of your body parts into the water exhale do it on the exhale you know because again with the exhale we get if you put your finger on your pulse you get in pick up of the breath on the inhale and you get a lowering of heart rate blood pressure on the exhale work with the exhale and put all your attention into the exhale as you get in so as you start to immerse more in the water, just breathe out, breathe out, breathe out, and focus on the exhale.

And that then is an overlap again into other experiences of stress. Exhale. The worst thing you can do is tell someone if they're having a really stressful, anxious moment is to breathe because chances are they're already... So if you get them to breathe out first, you then give them a space to breathe in again yeah

one of my favorite chapters in the book is one on sleep and clearly when you are up regulated the entire time you know sleep is i guess the ultimate down regulation it's going to be very very hard to sleep and we know that many people struggle to sleep so i guess a lot of the practices we've already mentioned are going to help people with sleep one of the things i really liked in the book was you talking about how we may not all need eight hours of sleep and how that may not be biologically normal could you speak to that a little bit yeah it's a fantastic subject isn't it the sleep because i went on a path i've got to get eight hours and it's got to be this and i

you know you can get so upregulated and stressed trying to get eight hours and you know when we're not achieving it we end up more stressed right and i think as a i'm a father to four right and so it was very important that i could remove myself from the eight hour language really um and so where can we look and again we look to um indigenous tribes to look at what's a natural template of sleep removed from our everyday environment of what we have today and it's professor siegel university of california looks at three independent tribes three separate geographic locations, and they look over a period of time and they observe that no one in those tribes are getting

eight hours. It's between 5.7 and 7.1 hours sleep. And when they pull away and they look at the Hadza and it's over 33 members of that tribe over a 220 hour cycle period of time um they're only ever asleep together like 18 minutes all of them at the same time yeah so they're basically sleep waking all the way through and it helps you maybe understand the sleep wake cycle because if we were in hostile environments um and we were all asleep for eight hours would we be here right it's like you know so it's looking at the sleep wake and but what's different and we touched on this at the beginning and the difference is the air quality the air temperature um the information they're receiving so the lighting is different right they don't have the ability to switch,

to create sunrise at sunset by switching a light on. There isn't this huge cascade through their hormones by playing around with lighting and temperature. So it's really, for me, it became very much about the environment. It's creating a sleep habitat that would then drive the habit of sleep. So not even just sleep

hygiene, just understanding, well, if I change the environment of which I sleep and I look at the air quality and I look at the lighting and I look at the temperature, then surely I'll get more of a natural outcome of how my sleep would be. And that's where that study just blew my mind because it was the ultimate template of that it's like saying okay right okay we don't we don't need eight hours but also there's other markers within that and we look at like um ghrelin leptin don't we around digestion and then we see that melatonin is actually a driver of that as well so it's like well if lighting comes in and it suppresses melatonin i don't have some of these digestive kind of influences in place, right? Yeah. I love that focus on the environment.

Instead of focusing too much on the sleep and what's going on with the sleep, it's like, you know, let's focus on, you know, light, temperature, and air quality. Yeah, and information, right? What we're absorbing. So that's kind of three, four quite tangible things. Yeah, yeah. Let's just go through those because so many people struggle with sleep. So many people beat themselves up that they're not getting eight hours. Many

people get eight hours and are still knackered afterwards, which is super fascinating in and of itself, I think. But if we just- But quite common, right? Very common. Very common. And you you know, sleep quality versus quantity can come in. Or I guess also, I sometimes think, and I know you share a similar perspective, that if we are chronically upregulated and chronically stressed, well, there's more to recover from. That we need to sleep, well, we need to sleep, rest, downregulate, do something to recover from that we need to sleep well we need to sleep rest down regulate do something to recover

from that but if your life is inherently not that stressful you you actually probably don't need as much sleep or rest because there's nothing there's not as much to recover from which again is sort of flipping things on their head a little bit around the conversation with sleep i think yeah i i think also then part of that understanding the sleep environment can also be adding to the stress so it's changing the sleep environment will improve the sleep habit but also the environment itself could be leading to the stressor so if you're in eight hours of your experience because you've been trying to achieve eight hours sleep and you're inhaling the same air that you've basically, windows are closed, you've got central heating on, let's say. Well, what are we inhaling for those eight hours, right?

In and out the same air, right? We've been kind of maybe hypervisual kind of stuff going on with our screens. So we're up-regulated from our screens. So we have fight and flight responses kicking in. We haven't managed to down-regulate before sleep. Don't even understand there is down-regulation before sleep or that that would be appropriate for rest and digest. And then thinking about the quality of that information i'm receiving and then we know that studies suggest that um there's a huge influence of dopamine by typing swiping and getting likes on your screen

dopamine isn't conducive with sleep either um and then there's the light that's pouring into our eyeballs again which will kind of suppress melatonin right so then and then it can take another hour to three hours to get that melatonin anywhere near where it should be to perform its task which isn't just sleep i mean it's you know that's another podcast in itself just understanding melatonin it's phenomenal it really is and you write about a study there about light in the book um which is really pretty stark for people you know and i think the research about that study like like many researchers feel that actually some people think that the most important factor for obesity is light exposure at night yeah yeah you know what i mean light exposure yeah so melatonin will suppress and it's the regulatory systems of your digestion are all affected by melatonin

so if you remove melatonin from the subject, we're still going to be hungry. So we're still going to start looking for food, right? We haven't had that suppressing kind of hormone coming in. So normally when without that light in the evening and in a more natural environment, without the sunlight, without the natural light, without the blue light from our screens, melatonin will start to go up. And you're saying that actually, if we don't have melatonin, then a lot of the cues to our body are the same as they were in the day. Exactly. Yeah. So imagine there's daytime hormones that are in place. Again, you need things like the moment the light comes up, the sun comes up and we're out there and

we're moving around underneath that light. We haveotonin serotonin helps synthesize melatonin for the evening right so that's one cycle then we get to the and then once melatonin starts to pick up in the evening cortisol becomes at its lowest right and melatonin should be at its peak and it starts to be introduced from 6 p.m 7 p.m 8 p.m 10 p.m buyers should be at its peak by 10 p. If you're, as in some of the clients that have come to see me at the beginning when we had the news at 10, it'd be like, well, yeah, I watch news at 10. I like to watch the news at a certain time. So at 10 o'clock, the hours, their melatonin, how you're expecting your melatonin to be at its peak by 10pm, right? The campfire in the evening would be storytelling, romance, humour. What part of the news

at 10 is storytelling, romance, or humour? Yes. And the spectrums of light are different. Firelight is amber tones. It creates biological darkness. Biological darkness is starlight, moonlight, firelight. Whereas we have the light bulb. A light bulb moment came in, and then that light bulb moment means that we can create bright experiences in the evening with that bright experience in the evening it doesn't give any count for what might happen hormonally right and what might happen throughout that system what do you do at home because i think many people who listen to the show now are aware that you know artificial light exposure in the evening is not that helpful yet it is one of the hardest things to persuade inspire empower people to do because these devices are so so

addictive and our entire lives are on them right so what does it look like for tony riddle in his house because we can say the science. I mean, one of the things I've done, because I sometimes get tempted, even though I know I've written books on this stuff, I have to put in some quite strict measures in place. One thing that's been really, I mean, a simple thing, like not having your phone in your bedroom,

keeping it downstairs. We live in a two-story house. We'll leave it downstairs. That helps. I have these like low blue light bulbs now in all the bedside lamps in the kids room in my room so if we're reading at night it's not a bright bulb that we might use in the day it's a sort of amber tone uh you know there's very little blue light in that i found it's made a huge difference what what does it look like for you in your house it's similar i think the studies are suggesting that it's between it depends on the

study there's one that suggests anything about 60 lux but it's 60 lux to 600 lux which is spectrums of light of blue light that will be emitted from a light bulb right um and that will then is enough to suppress melatonin right but? But again, it's directional. So whereas new lighting is very different, it's directly in the eye. That then is through the suprachiasmatic nucleus, stops that melatonin production, right? So there's types of light you can get. You can buy amber lighting. You can buy Bluetooth amber lighting. You buy um bluetooth amber lighting you can buy wi-fi amber lighting you know then you what what are you then emitting around your home at the

same time so it's then it's then a trade-off between more electromagnetic chaos around your home versus blue light um we started using like himalayan salt lamps in the kids' rooms. Yeah. Nice red, reddish tone. But then you can also change the bulbs within those so you can play with the lux of light. These are quite simple things, aren't they? And they're not that expensive, right? Yeah.

You could also say candles, but again, you have to be really mindful of those. So I would go tea lights inside jars. Yeah. That's quite a nice light. And then again's firelight it's amber light um but obviously that that can help but still people might be on the smartphone in bed and the other thing of a smartphone you can wear stuff like amber glasses but that's dealing with the with the light spectrum but you're not dealing with the dopamine right yeah the stimulation the emotional stimulation from you know the news or the likes you really want that kind of healthy

dopamine in the morning when you wake up kind of get out in the natural light with serotonin have a little bit of move around get that kind of the the motivational molecule seeking hormone going in the morning and have that as a healthy kind of balance throughout the day it's just not conducive with sleep so just being mindful of that then i guess being mindful of the information that you're receiving yeah can you put uh can you put a cap on it can you say right okay here's the time this is um this is my sleep time this is what i take into the bedroom bedroom is for sleeping for sex it's not for working typing and swiping and have that kind of language um that you adopt yeah um you can also why not switch wi-fi off in the evening at a

certain time yeah you know and kill it that way um it's very powerful when you do that or if you have a timer like we we used to have where it would just go off at a certain time yeah um we had a we're living in somerset now we had a massive power cut and it wiped out um wi-fi in our house and i have like a a mast on my studio because the whatever wi-fi we had anyway wasn't strong enough really for zoom calls or anything in the house um but since then we didn't we didn't switch it back on again so we kept that away from the house and so we only have it in the studio so if anyone wants to watch anything we still have movie night with the kids um if they want to do any work on their ipad or want to research anything we just we now have a completely different location to go and do it which is in the

studio so it keeps it even out of the house that is really powerful i mean even even beyond wi-fi and electromagnetic radiation you know the brain is an associative organ we associate certain behaviors in certain environments and so this is why what you're saying about not bringing you know your work emails into your beds and this is why i think over the last couple of years when a lot of people be working from home and they're working in the same environment in which they're trying to switch off and relax incredibly problematic for many people because your brain is associating that environment with a certain task and if you just want to chill now and switch off it's like wait a minute something so that's i think that's really really great um it's almost like creating again like i discuss ritualistic spaces ritualistic spaces

for meditation or breath work or movement it's the same within work it's like well if you're working from home you have to create an environment or at least a place which is the work experience you know it's even we're sitting in this podcast studio you know we haven't just stumbled into it being of this design right it's like well what do we want what do i want out of this conversation or the conversations i have i want warmth vulnerability intimacy authenticity okay so what sort of environment do you need to create in order for that to come up well some nature uh nice tones know, we've got a very thin desk here on purpose. So that actually... It's more intimate, right?

It's more intimate. This is, I guess, a much broader theme in your work, I think, for many years, including in the new book is, you know, the environment influences us so much. You have gone to what many people would regard as an extreme by having no chairs in your house now i happen to not think that's extreme although my wife has certainly not agreed to that in our house right so that's just the way it is but i i try you know my morning routine when i get up and when i'm doing my reading or meditation i'm on the ground you know i've been doing that for years i don't want to sit in a chair at that point it doesn't feel like i just don't want to do that um but

i guess what you're saying a big theme for me which is why i think your work is helping so many people is that it's just saying look just be a bit more intentional with how you're living to be a bit more aware and here are a few small things you can do to your environment that will naturally mean you live better is that a fair reflection absolutely it's just again looking at needs i guess within that environment yeah you know how can i get my needs met within everyday environments yeah i want to just at the end of this conversation tony move on to uh running yeah um you are a very accomplished endurance athlete you've done all kinds of uh what many people would

consider crazy and wonderful things. Running the length of the UK completely barefoot, the three peaks challenge, running up these mountains and these rocky terrain barefoot. And I know you're not suggesting that everyone has to do that in order to live naturally. What I'm interested in is, in Be More Human, when I was reading about running, you described it as a spiritual experience for you. And I'm really fascinated by what you mean by that. A big sort of feature of this conversation today is about sensing more, being more, of this conversation today is about sensing more, being more, really leaning into the experience that you're having within your life. When you say running's a spiritual experience for you, what do you mean by that? Do you run with a watch? Are you tracking minutes per mile?

Share a little bit with us about what that looks like for you i'm training for um a big event in september which is um i'll be running 100ks a day for 10 days and shoes on no shoes i'm wearing so i'm not sure it's it's as close as you could possibly get to being barefoot okay so it's a i'm having some i'm working alongside vivo barefoot at the moment with something like a prototype and we just i'll be able to discuss a bit more on it a future date i guess um but it means that my feet can pretty much perform how feet should be performing but just a little protection okay um and very bespoke in that sense it's my feet rather than off off the off the shelf shoes um and with that experience i've been really working on firstly getting out in the environment so it's along the southwest coastal path so parts of that terrain are just incredibly empowering anyway. We've talked about nature immersion.

We've talked about breath work. We've talked about movement. So that trifecta alone has been met, you know. Yeah. And how can you not feel amazing after that? So already it's a heightened experience for me. It's beyond kind of a physical experience of just mileage or what my what my heart rate might be so am i wearing a garment no do i track mileage i tend to use strava on my first run of a new segment just to map it so

i have it and then after that i ignore it why why do you not run because the norm these days is to run with a watch and track everything right i don't but i'm interested as to why you don't um because i can make it more playful and i'm not performing for whatever it needs to be or i also the ego doesn't need to be posting about what mileage i'm doing or or what my timing is i'll put one up and this is a new part of the journey. This is it. And I have that so I can map the range and the distance of it. So I know that.

And I know where I've kind of come in and I can play with that. So I can just refine the experience in amongst that time. And it can be more playful. So I don't need to keep looking at my my um strava my phone or my garmin or whatever it is at that time i can just be focused on breath and the path itself you know and my practice is really about refining the technique of running yeah so i'm always trying to improve and improve and improve and improve and refine things while i'm out there yeah and i think it becomes a huge distraction from that if i'm looking at a device or looking at you know how's my time comparing to this whereas i can every step and every breath becomes part of that

you know the present best conversation earlier rather than trying to achieve a personal best every leg i'm out there whereas when you're doing a big endurance event like that i can't operate at that level i have to just it's whatever's presented in that moment and that's part of that spiritual self as well it's it's present best it's being really present and tuned into what i'm doing and what i'm expressing at that moment and that's where running takes me it's a real heightened states kind of profound states when I'm in it, you know? Yeah. Now, I really appreciate you sharing that. The truth is I'm eschewing tech more and more.

I understand many people are really attached to tech and everyone can have a different relationship to it. And some people can use devices and not let them, you know, overly obsess them and actually drive their entire life. And I totally, I want to be respectful of that. I've just found what I'm moving, walking or running or a walk run or whatever it might be. I just find it so much more enjoyable when I don't have something on my wrist that i'm looking at where you're competing with in a way yeah and even if you think you're not you just it's very hard to not and and then you don't take into account as you say every time you go into that cold plunge or the cold bath or the cold water even if it's the same temperature your experience

of that's going to be different and let's say you're running i don't know 10 minute miles for example someone's used to seeing that pace or they've just hit that and they're dead excited or nine minute miles or whatever and then on another day actually they're only doing 11 minute miles often that's a tool to beat themselves up like they don't recognize failure right yeah yeah and it starts that negative dialogue oh why can't i do that you know they don't recognize well you've been on the roads you didn't take a lunch break today um you know you didn't sleep as much whatever yet you're trying to compare yourself to the external metric and i i do think for some people it's harmful yeah i it stops us tuning into all the amazing skills that we have within

you know we have everything inside of us right to be simply or inspiring i personally believe and i think we have all the gear but unfortunately the more gear that's being developed over here the less idea we have of our own potential you know i use i'll use breathing really to understand where i'm at so nasal breathing will be one if i'm pushing too hard i'll have to mouth breathe okay i need to tape things back tape it back again let's get back to nasal breathing um and the breath tells me so much more when i'm out there running will you whilst you're doing 100k is your goal

with the understanding that at various times depending on what's going on you may have the changes is your goal to be pretty much exclusively nasal breathing yeah well i train only nasal breathing so um and there's along this particular path there's four everests involved in it in terms of the ascent and descent of that along the path. For Everest. For Everest. So the southwest coastal path is- It's supposed to be pretty brutal, that path, isn't it? 630 miles or 1,000 k's. And the record at the moment is 10 days, 12 hours. So I'm attempting that in September.

And so, yeah, you're then looking at nasal breathing throughout that. So most of the legs I go out and do, even a 10- mile you could come back and you've your ascent is like 2360 feet on one particular segment and then you're looking at doing um six of those in that day now i understand nasal breathing when you are on flat terrain when you you know you've trained you you've practiced you know you sort trained you you've you practice you know you sort of okay cool i've gone through that process now my body's comfortable with that and it keeps you in a aerobic sort of zone i get all that when you're now going on an uphill like it sounds like quite a steep uphill or a prolonged uphill yeah of course many people

are not trained to be able to do this your goal is still to maintain nasal breathing while you're doing that, or do you then allow yourself a little bit? Actually, if I have to open my mouth a little bit to get up here, that's okay, but then I'll return to it as soon as I can. It's been present best, but the majority of it now, just like you were trained to run on a flat and nasal breathe, I'm now training to do a sense like that. But there are moments when I joke one one day and you know i said it was

particularly hard day and so i said there was there was nasal breathing breathing majority of the way but i was also mouth breathing and i think i might have been blowing out my ass at one stage you know because it was just intense but the majority of it is then back to nasal breathing and just trying to just maintain um the form that i need and the form being the technique as well but also the technique within the breath and you know the studies are on um vasodilation bronchial dilation but the vapor loss is also something quite profound right i understand there's 42 percent more vapor loss through mouth breathing yes you need more water you need to you need to be running with all

these more right you need all these energy drinks alongside you because you're losing all through your mouth again it's just when you when you look at that study it's a bit like going to barefoot at one stage you go aha why would i do that then okay and if i've got to basically go and run what is 100k a day i need to become incredibly efficient at doing that. And for me, that's technique. It's refinement of technique. And nasal breathing comes into that just as much as running form itself. We covered a lot on nasal breathing. First time we spoke, the squat, all kinds of things,

which I hope people revisit that conversation. There's a lot of gold and wisdom in there. The book says, Tony, I think it's going to help a lot of people um you know you're really inspirational tony i love what you're doing how you do it likewise man thank you and it's you know been a real pleasure to talk to you again on the podcast um to finish off podcast as you know it's called feel better live more yeah um your book's called be more. When we become more human, of course we're going to feel better and get more out of life. For people who are feeling inspired,

they're kind of like, okay, Tony, I'm hearing you. I'd like to live a bit more in tune with my biological heritage and biological normality. You've given me quite a few ideas today, but I don't quite know where to start how would you put it together for people at the end who feel inspired to take that next step where to go firstly um pre-order the book out on the 26th of may um i think firstly just compassion before you enter any of this work right

um compassion for others because if you're going to bring around change it's going to challenge I think firstly, just compassion before you enter any of this work, right? Compassion for others, because if you're going to bring around change, it's going to challenge others. Compassion to yourself because you're going to be challenged when taking on change. And patience, being patient with ourselves, being patient with others. Yeah, love it. Through a compassionate lens. Yeah, fantastic advice that's helpful for anyone no matter where they are on their journey good luck with the book thanks man and uh good

luck with the run really hope you enjoyed that conversation as always do have a think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. Always remember, you are the architects of your own health. Making lifestyle changes