Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The New Addition To My Morning Routine: Master Your Mind Through Movement and Breathwork with Erwan Le Corre #348

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Today’s guest is someone who I have wanted to talk to for many years. I first came across him around 10 years ago and was fascinated by his approach to movement and, in particular, natural movement. Erwan Le Corre is the founder of MovNat, a school of physical competency entirely based on natural movement. Since 2008, it has quickly spread globally, with certification courses, weekend retreats and instructors all over the world. One of Erwan’s core philosophies is that many of us have become 'zoo-humans' and as a result, we are suffering physically, mentally, and spiritually. In his ground-breaking book, The Practice of Natural Movement: Reclaim Power, Health and Freedom, Erwan outlines a simple process to help us all get back to who we are meant to be. As humans, we are incredibly physically versatile. We can walk, run, sit, stand, jump, swim, dive, throw, catch, climb and more. But how many of these movements do we typically do daily? Why have we become removed from these intrinsic, functional capabilities? And does going to the gym or lifting a few weights at home, really compensate enough? Erwan currently holds the US National Record in STA (static apnea) with a 7 minute and 8 second breath hold. Over the past few years, he has been researching, experimenting with and developing his own breath-work practice, now named BreathHoldWork meditation. He launched his method online and I completed the course. It was one of the best courses I have ever done and it really has had a transformative effect on me. So much so, that what I learned has found its way into my daily morning routine. At the start of the course, I could only hold my breath for about 1 minute. Within 4 weeks, I increased that to 4 minutes and 20 seconds! It was not because my body had adapted physiologically, it is because he taught me how to harness the power of my mind. Erwan’s technique is completely different from The Wim Hof Method. In Erwan’s method there is no hyperventilation, which in his opinion means you can gain deeper insights, achieve greater calm and more quickly access a state of inner peace. By learning how to quieten your mind and nervous system, when your body is begging you to breathe, you learn something quite profound about yourself - and it is a skill that transfers into other parts of your life. If you can stay calm in this kind of environment, most things in life afterward appear relatively easy in comparison. This was a really enjoyable conversation, about inspiring you to rediscover who you really are - an innately capable and resilient human. I hope you enjoy listening. Enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. All other platforms https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/348 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast.

Of course you're going to become impatient. Well, perfect opportunity to practice patience. Of course you're going to doubt that you can. Well, perfect opportunity to practice self-confidence. Negative thoughts are going to arise. Well, perfect opportunity to clarify your mind, make it positive and confident and patient. We're always running our mind about so many things

and we have responsibilities, we have duties, we have concerns, we have problems. But when you do find that place, time is suspended. There's no worry. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. Today's guest is someone who I have wanted to talk to for many, many years. I first came across him maybe 10 years ago or so and was fascinated by his approach to movement and in particular, natural movements. Erwin Le Corre is the founder of Movenat, a school of physical competency entirely based on natural movement. Now, since Erwin founded it back in 2008,

it has quickly spread across the globe with certification courses, weekend retreats, and instructors all over the world. Many people regard Erwin as the godfather of natural movement in the modern age. And I would say that one of his core philosophies is that many of us, perhaps most of us, have become zoo humans. And as a result, we're suffering physically, mentally, and spiritually. You see, as humans, we are incredibly physically versatile. We can walk, run, sit, stand, jump, swim, dive, throw, catch, climb, and more. But how many of these movements do we typically do in daily or even weekly life? Why have we become so removed from these intrinsic functional capabilities?

And does going to the gym or lifting a few weights at home really compensate enough? In his critically acclaimed book, The Practice of Natural Movement, Reclaim Power, Health and Freedom, Irwin outlines a simple structured process that can help all of us get back to who we are meant to be. Now in our conversation, Irwin explains what exactly he means by the term functional fitness. Being fit for life as opposed to looking fit or simply being fit for a specific sport. We talk about the benefits of moving in more natural ways, and these benefits are not just related to our physical health. They help our mental well-being as well. The knowledge that you could rise to the physical

challenge of escaping if you or a loved one was in danger is actually a real source of inner confidence. Whether it's being able to run, swim, fight or climb free, there really is a freedom in knowing that you are a capable human. And this is something that gyms and many modern training methods don't necessarily equip us to do. Now over the past few years, Irwin has been researching, experimenting with, and developing his own breathwork practice that he has named breath hold work meditation. Now Irwin is someone who has always devoted himself to excellence and mastery, and he currently holds the US national record in something called static apnea with a seven minute and eight second breath holds. Now we launched his breath hold work meditation method online just over one year ago.

I signed up and completed his four week online course. And I have to say, it was quite simply one of the very best courses I have ever done. And it really has had a transformative effect on me, so much so that what I learned from Air One has now found its way into my daily morning routine. We get into all the details during this conversation, but to give you a little teaser, at the start of his online course, during session one, I could only hold my breath for about one minute. Within four weeks, I increased that to four minutes and 20 seconds. And it was not because my body had adapted physiologically. It's because he taught me how to harness the power of my mind. As you are about to learn in this conversation, Irwin's technique is completely different from the Wim Hof method that you may already be familiar with.

In that method, you hyperventilate at the start. In Irwin's method, there is no hyperventilation, which in his opinion means you can gain deeper insights, achieve greater calm, and more quickly access a state of inner peace. By learning how to quieten your mind and nervous system when your body is asking you and literally begging you to breathe, you really do learn something quite profound about yourself and it is a skill that absolutely transfers into other parts of your life. After all, if you can stay calm in this kind of environment, most things in life appear relatively easy afterwards in comparison. As a gift to my listeners, Erwin is offering you all a 30% off discount to both his online breath hold work meditation course

and his live program that is taking place in September 2023, all you need to do is go to breathholdwork.com and use the code livemore30. And to be clear, I have no financial affiliation at all with Ewan's course. I myself have experienced incredible benefits on his course and would love others who are interested to experience the same. For me, this was a really enjoyable conversation with someone who I have followed for a long period of time. At its core, it's about inspiring you to rediscover who you really are, an innately capable and resilient human. I hope you enjoy listening. And now, my conversation with Irwan Lekor.

I think many people regard you as the godfather of natural movement. as the godfather of natural movement. You had previously said that looking fit and being fit are two different things. They are. And they are not contradictory. You could be fit and look fit. You could also look fit without really being fit so you have to understand or to look at fitness in a different way than the conventional way which is mostly looking at the surface of the body the way the body is shaped which is legitimate it's good to have a

good looking body that's a it's a legit. But the way I look at it is, what is it that your body, a body, can do in the real world, in the real life? Not what it can do in the gym and then what it looks like as an outcome, as if that outcome was the only thing that really matters which is again it's it's alleged to want a good looking body but at the same time it's limiting what we have a body for originally is to be able to move in nature in ways that are adaptable to the environment,

environment that's often changing and sometimes unpredictable, to be able to operate our body in effective ways in the real world. So an example of that would be firefighters. They need a body that's functional so that they can save lives, literally. The size of the muscles does not matter. The shape of the body does not matter. Are they going to be able to climb up the stairs or the ladder fast? Are they able to be able to sprint, to lift or carry or drag a body to save a life, to jump over an obstacle. Those are real life movements. And those are natural movements that all the movements they do are natural movements, the skills, jumping, running, lifting, carrying, et cetera.

So for someone who heard that, Ewan, and was thinking, okay, I understand that for a firefighter yes i get it that's their job yes right they have to be able to go upstairs rescue someone put them over their back carry them away to safety what has that got to do with me in my life right right yeah how do you make that relevant for everyone rather than someone whose job depends on it true uh it is a mindset it's uh you you want to have the mindset of hey my desire is to be capable physically capable in the real world if the need arises. And it starts with some of the simplest movements. What is it to be capable in the real world? Well, can you, for instance, from a standing position, sit down without using your arms?

It's a very simple natural movement. Get up, get down. And maybe you try to do that and you find yourself clumsy, losing balance, feeling stiff and not able to just do that. That's the simplest level of practicality of movement, real-world movement. Now, what happens in more challenging situations?

Maybe you do need to run fast one day. You need to jump over an obstacle. You need to do that for yourself to get out of harm. Maybe to help someone, a neighbor, a child, your own child, your parent. There are situations of life that are unexpected. There are. And it's a good idea to prepare yourself physically to be able to, again, operate your body

in the most effective way in those situations. And even though such situations may never happen in your life, at least the knowing the awareness that you could respond properly effectively that your body is prepared for these movements it gives you self-confidence self-confidence is very important in life yeah if you if you believe if you know well, if that was to happen, I would be helpless. That's not really a good feeling to feel that way. It's good to feel that you're capable and to know that you're capable. So how do you know you are?

Well, you test yourself. Yeah. Self-confidence is key. Yes. And I think self-confidence in many ways sits behind everything you have been teaching and currently teach, whether it's natural movements or your new projects, the breath, hold, work meditation. I think self-confidence is key. Key. Because for both of those practices, you're not really learning by reading, you're learning by doing.

And so you have what I consider to be the most powerful form of evidence, which is experiential evidence. Yes. most powerful form of evidence, which is experiential evidence. And I think many of us, and I've been guilty of this before as well. So I'm speaking from experience that nothing builds that inner reliance, that inner confidence better than actually being able to do something and know that you can do it. You mentioned as a parent, right? Yes. This is a huge thing for me. You know, my kids are 12 and 10 at the moment.

And I don't know, I'll give you an example. This isn't, I don't think, directly connected to your work, but I'm sure you can make a connection. Maybe three years ago or so, I did a swim run event for the first time. And I had never, ever swum in open water before. No? Never. I could swim lengths in a local council pool. I'd never been into the sea. I could swim lengths in a local council pool, right? I'd never been into the sea, right?

It's not something my mom and dad took me to do as a child. You know, they're Indian immigrants coming to the UK. You know, going to the beach, going to the sea was not part of what they wanted to experience or show their kids. But I've always been someone who's willing to throw myself in at the deep end. Like, I'll try anything. And Vivo Barefoot were running the swim run events. I really liked the guys. I went down. I put a wetsuit on for the very first time that morning ever. I was thinking, wow, this is pretty tight. I don't know if this is what it should be. Everything feels a bit alien to you.

Everything was alien, right? But here's the thing. Swimrun is a bit of swimming, bit of running, bit of swimming, bit of running, bit of swimming, bit of running. It's an event that originated in Sweden. And the first swim was only 250 meters long. Easy distance, normally. Normally, easy distance. Normally. Right. I went in after about 50 meters. I had a panic attack. I was scared. I couldn't see the bottom,

couldn't feel the bottom. I was like, oh man, I'm in the ocean. I wasn't that far from shore. and the whole process, it was really scary. Somehow I managed to complete it. I thought if I ever get to dry land again, I'm not getting back in this water. But the reality is I did get back in. I thought I'll do the next run and then I'll see. But my inner desire to not be defeated meant I did go. I did the 500 meter swim. I did the one kilometer swim. I did all those things, but it was a struggle. When I completed the event, I felt amazing. Why am I telling you that story? The reason I feel that that story is relevant to what you just said about self-confidence is that I didn't like that feeling of being helpless in the ocean. I thought, I'm a dad. If I'm ever on holiday and my kids are in the ocean, I can't do anything because I can't even manage myself, let alone manage the children. And I'm a,

people would regard me as a fit, strong guy, right? I could go to the gym and work on the mirror muscles, right? And I could look good. But in that moment, I was powerless. So what did I do? A few weeks later on holiday, I got some open water swimming lessons. And now I'm a competent open water swimmer. I've taken my son on a swim run.

We were in Cannes in France, big waves, windy, gale conditions. I'm swimming with him, no problem. So why this is relevant to your work, I feel is that I wouldn't let it defeat me. I felt incapable as a father. And by conquering that fear, by now mastering it, look, I'm not going to swim the english channel anything like that but i feel now that if i'm on holiday this summer with my kids yes and something happens exactly i have no problem i will go in yes and i can save them yes and i think many of us don't have that inner confidence. I believe you have a, what I call, it's innately, intuitively, you have what I call physical morality. It's like, it's part of a sense of duty that you have to have a baseline of physical capability that applies to the real world, just in case you do not want to find

yourself helpless, not only to yourself, but also to others and those others being priority, your wife and children, the most loved individuals to you, the people you love the most, you want to be able to protect them, to help them, to rescue them if you have to. And you know that in order to be able to do that, there's some level of preparation that needs to take place. And you're not going to be ready for up in waters by just going to the gym. The context is completely different. The change of context is what caused your near panic attack on the first lap you know how to swim the distance is nothing

reasonably your reason assesses that as no problem but there's a part of you unconsciously that is unfamiliar with that open water context. It's wild. It's new. And therefore, it's intimidating and it's scary. And that takes away some of your strength, some of your confidence, and it weakens you. And at the same time, it challenges you. And because you have a healthy response to that deep in your psyche, and that's part of our evolutionary memory,

you're like, that's when I need to be strong. I must overcome this. I must show strength. I must go to the other side. And not only I must go to the other side, but then I must do that again. And you are in the moment where you needed to prove yourself to yourself,

to yourself, not to anyone else, to yourself. And here's the thing relating to the fireman or the person listening or watching who thinks, yeah, but I'm not a fireman.

I don't need to be able to swim in open water for my job.man. I don't need to be able to swim in open water for my job. I don't need to. I don't live near open water. So it's not relevant in my day-to-day life. But I think what it has given me, and I think that's what your work gives people, is something that you can't quite measure. You can't go, oh, I can lift 20 kilos now. I can now lift 25 kilos. Or if I do this, I'm going to earn this much. This immeasurable inner feeling of reliance, I think is what is missing hugely in society. Yes. It's not quantifiable. I think is what is missing hugely in society.

It's not quantifiable. Yeah. You know, there's that era or the era of a trend of self-quantification. You want to measure everything. You've got wearables on your body, trackers. You go to the gym, you have a program, you have data, you have this and that, evidence-based protocols, this and that. That's fine.

It can be useful. It has a place. There is all the immeasurable part of ourselves that is completely left behind in that approach. And what can you quantify? Like speaking about that specific experience of you throwing yourself in that water and it's wild and you feel the cold and it's dark or you don't know what's the bottom and there are a lot of unknown there and so now you're facing your legit legitimate fears apprehensions like what is what is this

how do how do i manage this your resiliency your psychological resiliency to overcome that and to anyways go through it. How do you quantify that? Is it even worthy of trying to quantify that? It's completely irrelevant. It's pure experience. We don't need data. We don't need evidence. We don't need any tracker.

We don't need any quantification of what's happening in your heart, in your brain, in your body and all of that. in your heart, in your brain, in your body, in all of that. Forget about that because the most important is how you perform, not just physically, but mentally, how you overcome. That's what is at the core of the experience. That's the beauty of it. That's the goal in it.

And you don't want to quantify that. You just want to experience that. It's very pure. Leave it that's the the goal in it and you don't want to quantify that you just want to experience that it's very pure leave it that way when many of us think of movement these days or fitness my feeling is that it's all getting a bit mechanical and a bit protocol driven yeah and i think we're missing the humanness the innate humanness of movement i wonder where this comes from i think it comes from sports from specialization it comes from the expectation of results and therefore if you have a protocol you aim at specific results there are limited results but they're quantifiable. There's a path.

Everything is like, you know, you follow a route. It's simple. You don't have to think too much. Just follow the program. And then you can say, hey, I've added 50 pounds. I've added that amount of time and this and that. and this and that. And that idea of it has to be the most effective program to get that aspect of my fitness, you know,

higher than what it was. Whereas what's the original human nature you're talking about is let's remember all of us universally when we were kids, where we, did we need a program? So a fitness program to, did we need to go to the gym and exercise on machines so we could stand up and walk? No. movement patterns, movement abilities, movement skills that we developed, the strength that goes with it, that's necessary for the coordination, the proprioception, interoception, all that. It's extremely sophisticated when we look at the science of it. And yet we didn't need even to

know how to speak to be able to speak the language of movement, to learn movement, to explore movement, to play with it and to become adaptable. That's the program. It's very intuitive. Then we can always become more technical and systematic in specific outcomes, specific aspects of progress that we want. But we want to give ourselves also back that freedom of,

I have that body, I want to explore it. And no, instead of that, sit on that machine. And that machine, it's an exercise machine, it's very serious. It's going to dictate the exact movement pattern that you can do in that machine. Your legs can move that way, not that way. Your arms can move that way, not that way. You're going to isolate your body in different body parts. You're going to work them out isolately.

They're going to be strong individually, but do they know how to work together? And then do they know how to adapt to a variation in the environment where you move? No. It's only if you practice natural movement that this is going to happen. As long as you place yourself in that environment where it's mechanical, the machines shape and dictate

and therefore restrict your movement and it's like work. Yeah. It's like work. Yeah. It's, it's like work. Now you count 10. Why 10? I don't know.

It's just convention. I'll do 10. 10 on the left, 10 on the right or 10 with my legs and 10 with my arms. Today I'm doing upper body. Tomorrow I'm doing lower body.

It's okay. It's, it's one approach of, you know, looking at the body, looking at fitness. My approach is very simple. How should the tiger train to become and stay fit? What's the program for them? Should we bring them into a gym and say, hey, you're going to do this for your strength, you'll acquire power, and then you'll do that for your cardio, add a bit of stretching and now you're good to go. We'll plunk you back in

the jungle somewhere so we can hunt animals and, you know, it doesn't make any sense. But we get that. It sounds ridiculous when you say that about a tiger. Yes. But many of us don't see that we as humans are animals as well, and we're living in a kind of zoo. Yes. Whereby- Yes, a zoo, a farm, whatever that is. But anyone with a cat or a dog will know, you know, cats will stretch, they'll stretch their entire body. Yes, since they're little ones, little cubs like baby animals or just like human animals,

like the cutest thing on earth, adorable. And what is it that they all want to do universally? It's the baby, the human baby, the little tiger, the little baby pet, whatever, whichever, whatever the species is. They want to play. They want to play. They want to move. They try, they experiment, all kinds of things. They roll and they fall and they fail.

And that's why they're so cute. And then they repeat a lot. They explore one thing. They're like, oh, oh, that was fun. That's new. Oh, I repeat a lot and fail and do it again. And that's how they learn to master their body, to make it become effective. And when you look at it, it's a program.

It's a drive. It's a universal drive. And they're going to have a natural movements. What is their natural movement? It's a whole scope of natural movements that are specific to their species. So obviously the natural movement of the dolphin is not the natural movement of the dolphin is not the natural movement of

the eagle not the natural movement of the giraffe and the natural movement of the human being you know we don't need to do bear crawls or crab crawls or whatever kangaroo why because we are not these animals it can be fun to pretend that sometimes that we're, oh, I'm a wolf. I'm a, all right, I'm a frog. Fine. But human beings are very versatile in the way they move. A few species on earth can do all the things that humans can do. We can run, we can jump, we can balance, we can move on all fours, we can climb things, we can lift and carry things, we can throw and catch things, we can fight, we can go in the water, swim, we can hold our breath and dive. It's incredible. And I ask a dolphin to climb up a tree, it's going to be alien to them. So we have an incredible potential for a

wide variety of movement abilities. And remember, you were saying, hey, when I was a kid, I wanted to do all these movements. And what limited you? Society, school, parenting fear, you know, the list goes on. Are you the only one? No. That's pretty much all of us in our civilized societies. I was lucky that not only I was permitted to do these movements, but I was encouraged to do these movements. When I was a kid, I lived, the house was right next to like a little fontainebleau, you know, like boulders, hills, woods. And my parents were like, no, no, you're not watching TV

or in fact, not much to watch on TV back then in the 70s. But like, you go outside and you go play and they would let me go miles away from home as long as I was back on time for dinner. Yeah. And as long as I'd already done my homework after school, and then I could go play and I would go climb those boulders and run and up and downhill, moving all fours.

So I'm very lucky that way. But that idea of natural movement was, look, it's part of you. And if you never got to experience fully that potential for natural movement in your body, if you were limited, if it wasn't part of your physical education, if the only physical education that you ever received was,

okay, learn to throw the ball that way and these are the rules of such game and do biceps curls. It's extremely incomplete. Yeah. You mentioned the word versatility. Humans are versatile. If we look back and how we've evolved,

that versatility would have been key to our survival. Completely. That's what makes us unique. And then I contrast that with you talking about that fixed isolating machine in the gym. Versatility is a word that evokes all kinds of different movements and different planes. Yet that isolation machine is very much one plane

it's it's the opposite of versatile isn't it it's very very specific and again you know it may have a role for someone

at some time for a particular thing that they're trying to do rehab or very specific sports and performance there's a place for everything but you want you want us all to have that natural movement base.

Because I believe it's the base. I believe it's the foundation. So you add on the specialization on top once you have the base, but don't specialize early and forget the base. Yes, because when you look at pretty much all sports, where are they based on natural movements? How do you play tennis? How do you play tennis?

How do you play soccer? Well, you have to run. Rock climbing, well, they made climbing on a specific type of surface a specialty. And within that specialty in climbing, you have bouldering, you have different types of competitions. Running is the same. You take running only, so you forget about all the other natural movement abilities, you forget about climbing, you forget about moving on all fours, you forget about

balancing, you forget about jumping, you forget about lifting, you forget about it all. You just focus on running. And then in that specialty itself, then you split that into more specialties. So marathon, half marathon, sprint, ultra marathon, trail running yeah cross you name it and you can specialize within that specialty and you do the same with lifting

and you do the same with jumping and you do the same with everything and then you have the the so those can be individual sports where you perform as an. And then you have the, so those can be individual sports where you perform as an individual and then you have team sports. You play basketball, what are you doing? You're running and you're throwing

and you're catching all natural movements and then you make it a game. But none of the sports would exist without the fact that we have natural body, we have natural abilities to move. So that's the foundation.

It's always there. We were querying where does this come from? Where has the drive or where has the impetus been for many of us to get so far removed from that natural human movement? You mentioned sport could be one of those reasons, but I think that's another reason. I think if I reflect on my own life, I remember being in my secondary school changing room. I was at an all boys school. And I remember getting ready for, I don't know,

football or PE or something and feeling really self-conscious. I was a skinny Indian kids that you could see my ribs. The same here. Yeah. Except not Indian, but yeah. So it's the same feeling inside. It's the same experience. There's something there where you think, wow, I don't like this. And I wonder if it was at the same time where men's health was starting to come out and be in prominence. I can't say it was a hundred percent, but I do remember around the time of 16, 17,

me reading mental health religiously. And I remember one day coming back from school thinking, right, I'm sick of being this skinny kid. And I became obsessed with doing press-ups and sit-ups pretty much every day. Sure, yeah, you build up pecs. A what age? I don't know, but I'm going to guess around 14.

14, 15. Something like that, right? But here's the funny thing is that from the outside, you could probably look good. You've got a good physique. But then in my 20ss I was crippled with backache right so I looked on the outside that I had a really good physique but functionally I couldn't do much right I couldn't lift chairs around the house sofas I couldn't move beds you know because my back would go and all these sort of things. So there's a long story there. But I guess the point I'm trying to get to is magazines like Men's Health with images of ripped men for many years will have driven many boys, teenagers, adolescents to go,

that is what I need my body to look like. And many people are trying to get those bodies. So they're getting gym bodies that look good, but aren't functional. And I guess if we expand that even further, Ewan, I guess women, some women would say, this is what women have had to put up with for decades you know these images of what a woman should look like being self-conscious about your physical uh yeah so so i guess that the point i'm trying to make which i feel speaks to your work is that i think many of us have gone for physique first function second yes instead of function first, physique second. Completely. Completely. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show.

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and looking good that way, looking stronger, is going to make you feel more confident. There's a level of it. You know, often we look at doing push-ups and working out in the gym as something entirely physical. In truth, the drive is completely psychological. It's all within. It's all about a perception of ourselves

that we find satisfying and reinsuring because we're like, okay, now I'm big enough. I look good. I look good enough to a certain standard. And now I feel that it gives me an advantage. It gives me a stability. It's all psychological. It's the psyche that drives that behavior and that expectation,

the expectation of that physical cosmetic outcome. And by the way, I like to say it is legitimate. Everyone wants to look good. A woman wants to it is legitimate. Everyone wants to look good. A woman wants to look good. A man wants to look good. Not everyone is confident that they can look like that or that they can put the work to look like that. And it's true also, and you pointed that out.

It's very true. It's a legit expectation to want to look good but if you make that your priority and only expectation then something is going to be missing when actually when you train for physical competency that applies to the real world that's movement that's natural movement. You will have the improvement of your body. You will also have more energy, well-being, and because you will become

really aware through experience, through verification, oh, I could jump like this. I could run that fast. I could run that long. I could do all these movements. It gives you that sense of confidence that stems not from the reflection of your body in the mirror,

that stems from the experience, the real life experience of I can do these movements. So I'm capable. So I'm self-confident. It's regrounded. These magazine images of what the perfect male or the perfect female looks like are incredibly problematic.

Yes. Because it keeps feeding, you know, that, you know, how can we get more? Oh, we need a better looking six pack now. You know, like many things that can be taken to extremes. And one of the things I've really enjoyed experiencing about my own body over the past few years is when I was getting into open water swimming and doing a lot of swimming. And just to be clear, I'm no expert swimmer. I'm just competent. I'm not particularly fast.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it, but I can get around a pool or an ocean, right? Yes. I'm competent. That alone is enough. That alone is enough. You don't need to be a gold medalist. You don't need to be ranking anywhere. There's no, it's a simple validation. It's that simple. The validation is I'm capable of doing that. Yeah. I've already done it for myself. Yes. And then the fun thing is that your body starts to change in response to what you do. Now, I know that makes sense. It's obvious when we think about it. But, you know, I have not for many years have I been to the gym.

But, you know, when I used to go to the gym, you know, I remember at uni in my early 20s, you know, we'd go, some of the friends, we'd go and work out and do stuff together. I've done that too with my brothers. Yeah. And again, they weren't particularly functional.

It was who can bench press the most and all this stuff. And again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but your physique has a certain look because those are the inputs. When I was swimming a lot, your physique starts to change. Your muscular starts to change. Lean physique, but in a different way. And then when you start swimming, you do a lot of running. Your physique starts to change. And it's, I don't know, I really like that to realize that my body, the way I look physically is a consequence of the movements I choose to do.

And I always remember this moment, Erwan, in Chamonix in France. In the Alps, yeah. Yeah, foot of Mont Blanc. I spent a lot of time in Chamonix. Oh, one of my favorite places. We went in the summer holidays, maybe five, six years ago. And it was hot And I think one day for whatever reason We went to the pool

Now this is really, really interesting And I think this speaks to natural movements We went to the pool in the summer, hot day So of course men and women are all in their Sort of swimming costumes And I like the swimming costume image. Swimming costume. I just like that. Yeah, what would you call it?

I don't know. It's just that I have a costume. When I hear the word costume, I imagine something really fancy. You know, it's interesting that, isn't it? Because I've never analyzed what a funny term it is, a costume to go swimming, but that's what we call it in England. But what was striking was that the physique of everyone. And what was striking to me was how fit everyone looked. Fit. These weren't gym honed bodies, right? You know what a gym honed body looks like. You do. We see it in magazines. We know what people are after. Some people had a bit of a belly or a bit

of this or a bit of that, but you could tell they were strong, functional mountain people, right? Mountain guides or there'd be ski instructors or they'd have a restaurant up in whatever. But these are guys who have to be able to get up hills, have to be able to carry stuff up, have to be able to navigate difficult situations of the mountains. And their physiques were strong and powerful, but they weren't gym-honed physiques. Yes. Yes, because depending on the type of physical activity that you do your your body adapts and transforms if there's the plasticity of the body accordingly and so there are body types and um sometimes uh i don't know i would i would see someone and say you do

triathlon how do you know just you know like in the in summer, you can better see bodies, what they look like. And so if you go to the gym, there is a way that you alter your body, that you modify your body that is specific. And you can see typically. The way I spot it is stiffness. Stiffness. Typically. I think you said once in an article I read that you've met guys who can bench huge amounts,

but they can't bend over to pick up a pen or something. Like, I can't remember what it was you said. Yeah, there's that. Or they would be out of breath running, you know, one mile, one kilometer or something. Because you adapt specifically to whichever challenge you repeat consistently. So, yeah, you've witnessed athletes. So people who were physically active, but in a way, and not only they were moving more naturally, they were also moving more outside. And not only they were moving more naturally, they were also moving more outside.

And which means also in environment that force the mind to be alert and to operate the body in adaptable ways. difference between repeating exactly the same movement over and over in a very specific way to work out um very specific muscles well and then you have you're outside and you have to move a different way a little when you do trail running it has nothing to do with running on a treadmill because up and down and going to the left, going to the right, you change angles. So all the joints are moving in a completely different way. So they become adapted and they evolve. And then you are outside and then there's the sun, there's the rain, there's the freshness of the air. There is your eyes, your vision is looking at a horizon,

at a change in luminosity. There's a lot of things. You're exposed to the forces of nature. You're not isolated indoors, surrounded by machines, being very strict about the specific movement patterns that you do. There's more freedom. There is more variety. There's more variability, you become more adaptable, you become more flexible, you become more alert.

And you want to look at the whole picture that way. And I like that idea of being versatile, more than overly specialized. And I do acknowledge the value of specialization, you know, including in sports, to become really good at something, you must specialize to some extent. I know what it is. I've done it.

I've practiced multiple specialized sports at different times in my life. But I never forget one thing. different times of my life. But I never forget one thing. My baseline is to be adept, capable, good enough. I have my own baseline at everything real world. I want to be able to run fast enough.

I want to be able to run long enough. I want to be able to climb these kind of surface and that kind of surface. I want to be able to hold my breath. I want to be able to climb this kind of surface and that kind of surface. I want to be able to hold my breath. I want to be able to swim. I want to be able to handle the cold. I want to be able

to handle the heat. I want to be able to handle not having food and to keep going. I want to be able to lift and to carry. I want to be,

I want to maintain that capability because I value it. It's part of who I am. Yeah. And I don't settle for less. I'm not telling myself, well, at this point, you know, I'm 51. Why care?

Why is this relevant to me? It's relevant to me because it is a part of me. Yeah. part of me yeah i cannot see myself not being able to do these things and not practicing those movements at all i enjoyed them when i was a kid i enjoyed them when i was a teenager i enjoyed them when i was a young adult i enjoy them today and i'll keep enjoying them for as long as i can yeah natural movement is fun right a? A lot of people will say, I find the gym boring. It's not for me.

Now, I also like you want to acknowledge that many people love the gym, right? Many people love going. They get camaraderie there. They enjoy the workouts that they're doing. And none of us, I don't think, are criticizing that. Satisfaction is more important than community.

But I do feel that natural movement is something that could bring a lot of people who shy away from movement into movement. Look, we talked about physiques. I'm not here to talk about physiques necessarily. I was using the swimming pool in Chamonix just as an example. Many people are very body conscious, right? They, for whatever reason, emotional reasons, physical reasons, behavioral, whatever it might be, have ended up being in a position in their life where they don't like the way they look, okay? They feel frustrated and then they might listen to this podcast or other podcasts or

hear people and go, right, I need to move more. And for that person who's listening here, one who goes, look, I don't look like you. You talk about running and sprinting and swimming. I just want to get some movement into my life. What would you say to that person? Yeah, well, it can be so simple. How simple? How simple is moving on all fours. It's balancing on a simple board. It's hanging and swinging. It's lifting objects and carrying them on a few steps, like the most simple, most basic. It's exploring a variety of movement patterns that have always been around in your life. The same way you did when you were a little kid.

Yeah. And if you have kids yourself, if you're a parent, just join them. You know, that's the simplest. It's like, why don't you participate? They're showing you the way, the way that you've forgotten. Then, of course, you can always, because what we teach, the move net method that I've designed was, okay.

Of course, it may not be sufficient to just tell people, oh, you just have to move naturally. It's going to happen. You're going to move better very quickly. It's going to reawaken to your birthright, to your natural potential. You'll move beautifully in no time. It does not always happen like that, in fact. So you can also approach it a little more like a martial art. And the idea, in fact, what is it a martial art?

It's the idea of defending yourself and to fight also when you have to. Isn't it an innate ability that we all have to defend ourselves? Don't we have some basic ability to kick and throw a fist or want to bite or want to grapple or something? We all played like that when we were kids, right? So what is it that a martial art is going to teach you? So what is it that a martial art is going to teach you? Efficiency, techniques, so that you can turn what's an innate instinctive ability into a skill, an ability to perform those innate movements in a way that's the most efficient possible.

And that's why when you show up to a dojo or a MMA academy or whatever, they're not looking at you and be like, a little skinny, or, you know, maybe a little overweight. How about you go to the gym and do some physical conditioning, come back when you're fit enough. That's not the, that's not the way it works. They just take you as you are. You practice the movements, you become mindful, you learn to better operate your body, you learn the sequence and the timing of the positions and all. And as you repeat mindfully the movement, you become more efficient in those movements. Physiological adaptations happen that you are going to lose that way. You're going to grow those muscles.

You're going to get stronger. You're going to get more flexible, et falls into place that way okay expand that idea to all the whole scope of natural movement abilities you can anyone has a basic ability to run or to jump or to move on all fours. What's there to learn? Well, you can do it. And then, similarly to a martial art approach, then you can learn techniques to become more efficient at those techniques. But first, have some fun. Just explore, move, feel free, feel amazing

because you're given permission to move in ways that you probably forgot and you haven't done in so long. And maybe you were prevented as a kid to do that. So what you said, joy, enjoyment, so important because you're very much more likely to stick to a practice of something that you enjoy doing. That's something that feels like a chore. And when you look at it, for most people, going to the gym feels like a chore. They have to force themselves to do it. It feels like a punishment for supposedly being lazy or whatever judgment they have about themselves or their body.

We want to inspire them to be like, look, you got it. You got a natural body. It has already amazing abilities. You just need to reawaken that potential. And then we'll support you. We'll teach you, you know, great techniques. You can really become great at those yeah i love that i mean it is thinking about how we make enjoyable movements more accessible to more people you can't really go far wrong with natural movement because you don't need to get anything you don't need to buy anything necessarily you don't need to buy anything necessarily. You don't need to travel to a specific location that is designed for movement. The more you start to analyze these things, the more kind of crazy they start to sound a little bit. We have to drive somewhere in order to move our bodies. If you go back a thousand years, and look, I get it. Society has changed. The way

we have structured civilized society, the way we've set it up means that actually we do need to help people now get back to moving more. So I do understand that, but it is a little bit crazy. But a lot of us who are listening to you right now, Ewan, could jump at home. Little jumps, big jumps. Deep squat, short jumps. When you say all fours, do you mean literally crawling around your living room on your hands and knees? Yes. And you can just do like a one, two, three, four forward, one, two, three, four backwards if you don't have a lot of space.

And when the weather is nice enough, in the garden, at a local park, maybe, you know, you're not too concerned about what you think people may think of you. You have to also give yourself permission. So if someone is thinking, Owen, that, okay, great. I need to move more. I keep hearing, we're all going to talk to guests. They keep talking about, we need to move more for physical health and mental health and emotional health. Okay, I get it. You're saying, in my living room, go on all fours, back and forth.

What are that person's thinking? Yeah, but what's that going to do for me? It's a departure from what most people deem normal. Because again, we're taught from a young age that, hey, don't do that, you're going to get dirty. Don't do that, you could hurt yourself. Or don't do that because it's inappropriate. It's inappropriate because it's not the right place. It's not the right time.

It's never the right place and it's not the right place it's not the right time it's never the right place and it's never the right time we're denying that freedom of movement that's innate in you that you want to express because you're just a kid that's what you want to do and have fun with it we're telling you from early on either verbally and directly we make you understand it's a no or just by looking at you or making you feel that it's a no behave sit limit your physical expression that's where it start and then once you have been limited that way and that you have consciously or unconsciously accepted that there's no it's a no that's it like i can't do that. No, I cannot vault over the table. I cannot crawl underneath the table.

I cannot jump off the roof and climb the tree outside. I can't do any of that. Otherwise, there will be consequences. Then one day, they, some adults, whatever, in school, they look at you and be like, hmm, you need some exercise, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah, now you need to be strong. All of a sudden, that physical education becomes important.

Oh, now you have to do and what? You have to do the push-ups. You have to do the running. You have to, oh, my God, I don't feel in shape at all. Well, yeah, you've been denied that freedom of yours of moving naturally since almost day one. And they let you do some until age three, four, five. And they start to be like, no, no, no, no, no. And then they're like, okay, now we're going to instruct you in what is proper movement.

So this is the proper way to do biceps curls. This is the proper way to make your abdominal stronger etc etc it's like really it's like it's the wrong way around i know it's like uh it's the same with food and all like you you take away all the native foods all the original food that are really nutritious and all and once you fed people with uh they're malnourished, overfed but malnourished, and then you're telling them, oh, okay, now you need to add that supplement. So it's the same idea. You take away all the richness, the wealth of movement, all that potential from the kids, and then you give them a little supplement. Oh, we're going to do those abdominal exercises.

Now you're going to do the stretches and we'll add a bit of cardio on the side and then that's it, that's enough. But it's important that you, it's like another chore. It's like, what is this? What kind of circus is this? It's funny, like abs are something that a lot of people want, right? A lot of people want abs. So what you realize is, and you will know this, but I've experienced in my own life,

like I've been working with this. I really dislike calling Helen a running coach because I think it is such a limiting label for what she does. And the impact she's had on my life has been absolutely phenomenal. Wonderful. But as she helps me to unlock more of how my body is designed to move, your abs just start showing. You can start to feel your abs because your body's working in the way it's designed. So we have never done a single ab exercise, but just by proper rotation with your torso as you're running, proper

muscle sequencing as you move naturally. Whole body movements. Whole body movements. And the abs are right in the middle, they have to connect. They have to connect. But this whole idea, well, I remember reading Men's Health as a 14, 15-year-old. And now with my understanding of the human body and biomechanics thinking, I will have completely messed up my body's movement by being in this sort of crunch position, trying to actively tense my abs so that I could look in the mirror and go-

So that they could show, because like people want abs. Like, what do you mean? You have abs, your abs are... It's crazy. They're right there. What you want is to make them visible so that you feel good about your body

and it makes you feel good in your psyche. That's it. But it's conditioning. It is conditioning. And the more we're having this conversation here, the more I think there's a real... I think there's a mental health component here. I also think something that's been coming up for me over the last five, ten minutes

is this idea that whenever we detach or separate the outcome of what we want from the actual natural process that would lead to it, we cause problems. So like with abs, right? We don't do the natural movements that would mean we end up having strong functional abs. We want to leapfrog that and do the ab movement. Just do the minimum. To do the, to get the abs. To get the specific. But then also, I had a patient once who had really bad body dysmorphia. Right now, I want to be really clear. I'm not an expert in body dysmorphia.

It's on the rise in men. It's on the rise of women. What was remarkable about this guy, lovely guy, absolutely lovely guy, bodybuilder, completely ripped, big pecs, big arms, big abs. But it's not enough. It's not enough. He thinks he's skinny. He thinks he's skinny. There you go. He would look in the mirror and say, all I see is a skinny guy. And I remember thinking, wow, you have bigger muscles than maybe anyone I've seen recently. Yet what you see is someone who doesn't have big enough muscles. You consider yourself skinny.

And again, I'm not here to say I know the exact etiology of body dysmorphia in every situation. Relating to this point, whenever you separate that end goal, which would have been a natural byproduct of certain natural evolutionary movements or practices, whenever you just try and get the outcome without going through the process, I think we run into problems. 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. And 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, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app and i suspect he did not find satisfaction and joy in the very practice of working out yeah that's the problem it doesn't matter how much he works out doesn't matter how much he way he puts on it's never enough so it's a deficiency issue so enjoyment is key because enjoyment means you expect instant gratification like Like, what do you mean? Like, no, no, no, I'm not supposed to expect instant gratification.

Like, I know I have to work hard and then I have to wait and be patient. Yeah, I understand that. This is also very important to delay gratification, means to understand just because you do one practice session doesn't mean that's it, you're done and you've achieved already everything. But instant gratification means you find a real measure of satisfaction as you are doing what it is that you are doing. And for instance, natural movement is very satisfying that way. And one of the reasons is because you must be mindful. Why?

Well, because you cannot close your eyes, listen to music, watch a show as you work out and exercise because you're doing it, but it's like chore, it's more work. I got to do it. I got to commit to it.

I'm a committed person. But I'm watching a show, I'm looking at my phone while I'm writing or something, whatever, because I'm here, but I'm not here. It's just, I want to do several things. The thing I'm doing in itself is not satisfactory enough for me to completely be in the here and now. In natural movement, let's say you jump from here to there. Now, if you don't open your eyes, if you don't focus, if you're not mindful, because you may operate your body, but the body does not operate itself. What drives the

movement is not the muscles, it's not the nerves, it's intention. And that intention to jump from here to there and to land in a way that is soft that is stable that is safe you'd better be present because you must be present because you cannot have a luxury of just looking around and thinking around and thinking about something else being absorbed in something and you must be absorbed in the very movement you must be in the here and now and that here now that is priceless it's that's really something that's rare and missing in today's society it is appreciating the now so in that mindfulness it's a demand of the practice of natural movement, of movement. You are really pulled into the here and now. And so, and it's just enjoyable. Like, oh,

I'm going to have to jump. And it's real. It's not just a jump for plyometrics. It's not just a jump count, count one to 10, do 10 reps, and then do another series of 10 reps because that's a program and that's for fitness and physiological adaptation is going to be triggered. That's all good and that's all true. But you forget about that. You forget about the repetitions. Every single repetition is just one moment that you try to achieve efficiency and you're in the moment and it's satisfactory, like deeply. So that is the instant gratification I'm talking about. If you don't have that in whatever practice you do,

then it's a chore, then it's work. Yeah, it's deeply satisfying. It has to be. That's the key. Fun, even when it's hard. Even when it's hard, that's a purpose. You've got to jump. You've got to make that jump, right?

Now, there's videos on YouTube of you doing some crazy stuff, which is phenomenal. And I watch it and I think, I want to learn that. I want to be able to do that. But it's simple stuff that, you know, you're a parent and you are going for a walk with your kids in the woods. And there's been a gale the day before. So there's a tree that's

blown or something and you have to take a different route or you have to make a little jump to get by. These things happen. That's real life. But we've been conditioned to think everything's safe. Everything's going to be tarmac for us. There's going to be a walkway. But as soon as you got into nature, you realize sometimes unpredictable things happen. You have to be able to respond and adapt. The other thing, Owen, is you were talking about making that jump. For me, I don't have any evidence to back this statement up. But I have often wondered, statement up, but I have often wondered, if you're in the gym, and let's take this out of the gym, this is not an anti-gym podcast or anything like that, right? If you are doing some form of, let's use the gym, so I think it's a

good example. I've trained in the gym sometimes and enjoyed the variety and, oh, that's different. sometimes and enjoy the variety and go, oh, that's different. It's good. Me too, right? There's many great gyms. And the point I'm trying to make is if you are, let's say you're having a 40 minute gym workout and you sort of want to do it, you're like, oh man, I need to do this because I said it to myself, I was going to do it. But to distract yourself, as you say, you put in the earphones so that you can get through the tedium of that workout that you are meant to do. Yes. I've often wondered about, surely the impact of that on our body, mind, and soul will be limited compared to being fully present it must be like as humans we talk about generalism versus specialism we are generalists right and we want

the all those inputs the eyes the ears the body when we're making this movement yes but i think many of us can't stand movements so much that we numb the whole process. Yes, and at the same time, you could also say, hey, I'm lifting that bar and it's heavy. I'm doing heavy squats or something, or I'm doing something else. And then I'm listening to that music and that music, it uplifts me.

I'm like, now it's like it makes the workout amplified. I'm re-enjoying it. It feels like I'm in a now it's like, it makes the workout amplified. I'm really enjoying it. It looks, it feels like I'm in a movie or, uh, you know, I'm it's it, it can uplift, uh, it can magnify a workout too. So, uh, it's not the music then is it? It's the intention. It's the, because the music isn't necessarily all the podcasts that they're listening to is not necessarily the problem. It's all you doing it to numb and distract yourself so that you can put up with it or are you doing it to enliven and energize the process could you be more raw and minimalist in your approach like would you feel comfortable um in fact for instance doing the same kind of movement the same kind of effort but

you don't have your fancy shoes you don't have your music you don't have the mirrors you don't have people looking at you maybe and you're outside and maybe it's drizzling or raining or windy and the surface is uneven and the object you're going to lift is completely natural you have no idea how much weight that is you can't possibly measure it and you're not in the optimum position or stance to lift it and yet it's the equivalent of being with your children and instead of going around in a park and everything is just a loop. No, you're getting on maybe off a track in the woods. And now you have to step over, step under, have to pay attention. And there's a whole variety and then you, it's live, it's real. And there's a whole variety and then you, it's live, it's real.

So it may be not always that either or proposition, but the idea is like, can you have adverse subtlety? Can you be comfortable when you're out of a context that you're normally familiar with and that makes you feel safe? And all of a sudden it's completely different and therefore challenging. It's like, can you get out of the swimming pool? No more chlorine. You can't see the bottom. There's maybe some waves, some wind, some current temperature is probably colder, et cetera, et cetera.

And now it's a completely different swimming experience. And now it's a completely different swimming experience. Yeah. It's the idea of exposing oneself to a greater variety of context so you can enrich your experience thanks to it and your ability, who you are eventually. I'm trying to think about practicalities and you're talking about the swimming pool. To make it really granular and specific, I guess if someone listening likes to swim, well, at the end of the swimming pool, instead of taking the stairs out, you could just practice pushing yourself up. Yes. I know it's a simple thing, right? But it came to my head to think, that's kind of natural movement. You're in a body of water and you are

using your arm, you have to coordinate everything in order to move your mass up. It is completely a natural movement. And climbing up the ladder would be a natural movement too. That's true. and climbing up the ladder would be a natural movement too. That's true. Standing, walking are natural movements. Sitting down, even on a chair is a natural movement. Carrying bags of groceries, those are natural movements. All those natural movements are everywhere in our life.

Since day one and every day, nobody's sitting on their couch all day and having no movement to do to be able to make a living or to take care of themselves, feed themselves, et cetera. The scope of the movements, of the natural movements that we perform on a day-to-day basis has been absurdly limited, absurdly shrunk to a strict minimum of what do you do? Okay, so you sleep on a bed all night, you're lying down, then you stand up,

maybe go to the shower, you stand, you shower, then you're going to sit and have maybe a breakfast. Then you're going to walk a few steps to go to your car or to your home office. You're going to sit again or you're going to commute. Sit while you commute in whichever way. Go to an office, sit more. And you walk a few steps to go to the coffee machine or something. And then you're done with your work. So you commute back.

You're probably going to sit back in some kind of train, metro. Then they're going to be back home, feel tired, sit more. And then occupy themselves, even maybe doing some more work, watching a show, going on social media, hopefully, you know,

having a relationship with someone or the family and, you know, having some interaction. And then it's time to go back to bed. So when you look at, if you were to film every single movement as a continuum and accelerate it and make, let's say, 14, 16 hours of wake life into one minute or two minutes, it goes super fast.

And then all you see is mostly sitting and a few moments where you stand up, sit back down, walk a few steps. How do you walk? With shoes on, on flat, stable, linear, predictable surfaces. Where's the challenge? Where's the variety? Where's the variability? Where's the intensity?

What's your body doing? Not much. And yet you may feel exhausted in your body. You know what? It's not because you do too much with your body. It's because you don't do enough with your body. So it doesn't have any more energy because it doesn't have to deploy anything. It doesn't have to adapt to anything.

And that is going to have an impact on your brain. It's going to depress you because the reason why we have a brain and neurologists will confirm that, explain that actually, of the wonderful things the brain can do is high level cognition, abstract considerations and interpretations. But originally, the reason why we have a brain is that we can move in adaptable ways through complex, changing, sometimes unpredictable environment. This is something that, you know, MIT, like they have in the robotics, they have a big challenge having robots doing that, even though they are like really making fast progress in that direction. That's really scary.

But the ability to do that means an amazing computer, which is the brain, because what is it that you do when you move in nature, not in our conventional, predictable, safe environments, indoors environment? It's fortune telling almost. It's like you have to predict where are you going, how are you going to get there, and adapt on the way because you have visual input, you have sensor input. Oh, I need to modify my position like this and like that. You can't think about that. Your thinking is too slow to handle that.

Oh, I'm going to extend my leg forward. I will place my foot there. This is too slow. You do not need to think to move well. However, you must be present and you must be aware and you must be alert and responsive by sensation. And your brain is going to compute all of that at an extremely fast speed. And that's how you move well. That's why we have a brain.

So there are those little organisms, I believe the name is a sea squirt. They're floating and they have a tiny, tiny brain, two neurons brain. And they're floating in the ocean and then they find a place on a rock where they decide to stick and stay. And then they become from somehow an animal creature,

they become vegetal. The moment they do not need to move anymore, they dissolve that brain because it's unnecessary they do not need that brain because they don't have the necessity for movement so that's the the original reason why we developed the brain was for us to be able to move in efficient and hopefully effective and safe ways um through complex environment so when you don't do it, back to the original point, when we don't do it, we may be occupied

with very reasonable, sensitive matters, work responsibilities, everything. We have to manage a lot of things in our life. We all do. But the physical expression is extremely limited. And therefore, the very reason, the primal original reason why the brain was evolutionarily built and developed is absent pretty much from our life.

It's depressing because we do not have a stimulation that our brain needs to perform optimally. So natural adaptable movement makes you smaller because it maintains the activity of a brain in the way that it's originally supposed to do and be. Yeah. Mental health keeps coming up for me here because... Yes. You know, let's take the, i guess a stereotypical view of someone who might be struggling with depression okay they're not typically going to be standing upright with an open chest

and an open demeanor they're actually going to be a lot of the time sort of hunched over, chest inwards a little bit, rounded back. Because our posture says so much about our state of mind and our inner world. And yes, there's a lot of research saying that walking or running or physical activity per se is possibly one of the best antidepressants that exists. It is. It is for sure. But I don't think it's just because of, oh, it's the movement and your heart rate going up. Of course, movement is three-dimensional, right? So trying to just reduce it down to what is it in movement? It's everything but walking and running. These are natural human movements that we have done for thousands of years.

And if you are not doing them, your brain is not being fully stimulated and expressed. So it's no surprise that certain parts of that brain are working suboptimally and we feel depressed and we feel anxious. Yes, there are other inputs as well, but movement is that fundamental. It's that fundamental. Yes. And the irony is when you are feeling depressed, you don't have the motivation to move. Yes.

That's the irony. Yes. And you're like, oh, well, I need to be fit first so that I can move. No, you need to move first and then you'll become fit. Yeah. But yes, completely on point regarding the mental health, because it's true. Again, there's a lot of conditioning of the way we perceive, you know, the world ourselves and what we're supposed to do and for what reasons, you know, get a bit in the sun for vitamin d get uh get movement do some movement for endorphins or whatever that is you know for your heart for your blood pressure etc there's much more than that is how you stimulate your

brain yeah um what it does to the brain um and not just releasing particular hormones and neurotransmitters, it's going to affect the structure of your brain. And then that's science that explains that. If you don't read about science, you may not know about that. But if you simply observe what happens when you move and also depending on the way you move, how you move, and what context, the whole context. And we typically don't look at the whole context. Exercising in a gym, exercising in the forest, in the woods, it's not the same animal.

It's the same body, but it's not going to be the same movement. It's obviously not at all the same context and therefore the outcome physically we're talking about hey if I do that kind of movement my body changes that way if I do that kind of movement my body changes that way it's different adaptation same will happen to your psyche to to your to your mindset to how you feel to your psyche, to your mindset, to how you feel, to your energy levels, because a lot of adaptations. So it depends on what context you expose yourself to. It's very important to have a, I would say selectivity

and maybe wisdom about that, because you may not realize that you go inside a gym and the air is stale. It's maybe polluted. There's a lot of indoors pollution that people are not even aware of. So you're not breathing fresh air. Okay. You're not looking at a horizon.

You're looking at walls. And then you're looking at yourself. And then you're not looking at trees. You're not looking at the sky. You're not looking at the ground're not looking at the sky not looking at the ground and all the variety of it you're not the you know all that stimulation um through olfaction for all your senses the differences of light differences of terrain all of that is going to stimulate stimulate you not just physically mentally emotionally every part of you in ways that are

natural in ways that are universal in ways that are original in ways that are very healthy i could talk about natural movement with you for hours but one of the reasons I invited you onto the show was because you have this new course, breath, hold, work, meditation, which has been transformative for me. I have done many courses. I've done a lot of studying around breathwork. I had done many breathwork courses. Your course was like nothing else I'd ever done, and the insights I gained from it were like nothing else as well. Fantastic. And the reason I invite you onto the show is because I want to talk about this course.

I think it's brilliant. I think more people should do it. I think there's so much learning to have, but we need to sort of go step by step so that people understand what it is. Yes. So from my perspective, I did a four-week online course with you twice a week, right?

Yes. And on the outside, it's about breath holds. But I don't really think it is about breath holds, even though breath holds is the mechanism, is what you experience. I think it's about so much more than that, but the breath hold is the practice to get you to learn all kinds of insights about yourself. But top line was that on day one, when you on the course asked everyone to take an in-breath and then to see how long they could hold it for, I could do one minute. Four weeks later, and I didn't do that much practice,

it was something like four minutes 24 minutes 30 something like that so over four times the breath hold time in four weeks i remember which was incredible and still is incredible and i know all the students who who go through your course double triple quadruple and more their breath time in just four weeks. So let's sort of unpick what's going on here. Now, long-term listeners to this podcast would have heard me talk about nasal breathing before. I've had James Nestron, Patrick McKeown, Brian McKenzie. You know, we've spoken about nasal breathing.

Great messengers. Why it's so important. Of course, let's recap some of that if you want. But what is it about your course that's unique? It's a meditation. So the same way I was saying, regardless of the physical program, the physical discipline that you choose, ultimately what you're seeking is an experience of yourself. So when we hold our breath, it's not just about, okay, how long can you hold your breath?

It's not just about, okay, how long can you hold your breath? It's what's happening to you when you do. What's the experience that you are having in your mind? What happens to your mind? And what do you make to happen to your mind? And so it's knowing oneself. Typically in meditation, you will be obviously in a quiet place, quiet time, maybe alone, maybe with other people. You may close your eyes or keep your eyes open.

It's stress-free. And you will use slow breathing as a way to quiet your mind, to calm down or down-regulate your nervous system, to access more clarity, to pace your mind, to pace your mind, clear up your mind, observe your mind. That's what meditation is about, know thyself. When you do that, holding your breath,

and everyone knows universally what's the response to not breathing, it's alarming, that's the least to not breathing. It's alarming. That's the least we can say. And if you keep holding your breath, it's more than alarming. It's unsettling. It becomes uncomfortable and pleasant.

And then you want to breathe really, really quickly. So you are under stress. You create a stress. How can you possibly meditate when you trigger that kind of stress? Well, precisely. Precisely. So normally there is a stress that normally when you meditate, you avoid stress. Here you trigger one.

You trigger a stress. It's self-induced. You do that to stress. Here you trigger one. You trigger a stress. It's self-induced. You do that to yourself. It's not external. You just by simply pausing the breath, but not just for a few seconds. You have to prolong that a little more. You create that stress and then you need to manage your response to it. And not only the fact that you are not breathing is triggering that stress, but you then cannot use breathing to downregulate.

You cannot use breathing to soothe yourself and to tranquilize your mind. So how do you tranquilize your mind? Yeah. How do you meditate? How do you meditate? How can you find centeredness, clarity, patience, all of those beautiful qualities of the mind that is stable, of the mind that is clear, of the mind that feels safe, which is the point.

You make things a little more difficult, but actually it's an advantage. You make things a little more difficult, but actually it's an advantage. Yeah, it really was absolutely incredible. I remember seeing the testimonials before I managed to sign up for a course, and I would see people were doubling their breath all the time, tripling. I was thinking, not me, I'm going to struggle with that. I never felt like I could hold my breath for long. And I knew a lot of the physiology. I do. I understand the physiology of the breath very well. We've covered it on the show. We've said many times before that the, or now I will reframe

that having done your course, one of the drives to breathe is carbon dioxide rising in our blood. Now, many breathwork practitioners will probably say that's the drive to breathe, but it's just part of the picture, which is what I've learned on your course, which was that you cannot go in, well, actually it was in under four weeks from one minute to close to four and a half minutes if it was just physiology. My physiology will not adapt that quickly, or let's put it another way, highly unlikely to adapt that quickly. And for anyone who's not following what I mean by that is simply me being able to tolerate higher and higher levels of carbon dioxide before I feel I have to breathe, that adaptation wouldn't happen that quickly.

No. And actually, by the way, it can happen even quicker because that was the online program, online course that you took. And it was designed to be two sessions per week over four weeks. All right. I've done retreats, five days, same results within four days already. And then on the five days, the fifth day, then attempting a new and a maximum breath hold double triple so physiological adaptations in five days no there's no there's no way they take place that fast and this is the uniqueness and the magic in the course

which is why for me it's been so transformative and why I've not come across anything like it anywhere in everything that I've done and I've studied and written about is because what happens is, first of all, it's very, very different from Wim Hof. And I think it's important to make that clear because I was at an event in LA years ago and Wim Hof was speaking. And he said to this room that, you know, within 20 minutes, I'm going to have you all holding your breath for three minutes. I didn't believe it was going to happen, but it did.

But that was all done because of hyperventilation. Yes. to happen but it did but that was all done because of hyperventilation yes so i think a lot of people don't fully understand that when you do uh the the hyperventilation method you do all these big in breaths and out breaths you're blowing off a lot of carbon dioxide yes so as i was explaining to my kids last night when you were with us over dinner. It's like, if carbon dioxide is one of the, rising is one of the drives to breathe, and you artificially lower carbon dioxide by breathing out in a fast fashion, like you do with his technique, well, it's relatively easy then to hold your breath for longer than you would, because you've lowered your carbon dioxide. So you're getting back to base sound and then rising. Whereas your method has none of that hyperventilation.

No. So it's a lot calmer. It's a lot quieter. And then I would say, certainly for me, the insights that I've gleaned are much, much greater. And I've spoken to other people who've done the course and they all say the same thing because I understand hyperventilation has its role for some people. Some people seem to get benefits. I'm not trying to underplay that in any way. And I think it's really key to explain that your method is very different from that. You're not tricking the system first. You're totally calm so that urge to breathe comes quickly. Sometimes I've been at 30 seconds, 40 seconds, again, oh, I need to breathe. But then by controlling my mind using the method you taught me, I can do another two minutes. I'm so passionate about it because what

I learned here, Juan, is, and why I think this crossover to every aspect of my life, and I think why people will get lower stress, lower anxiety, they'll be getting triggered less by the world around them, is because in that moment where your body is screaming for you to take a breath, you have taught me that even then, if you can quieten your mind and your thoughts and quieten your body and your whole being you can keep going me again sometimes another minute sometimes two more minutes i think how has that just happened i had to breathe but i didn't yes so i think the key thing for me is that ultimately you learn to master your mind in a very extreme situation, which means when I go back into everyday life, no problem.

Less stressful. You can see the reactivity around you. Yes. So that's my insights. What would you say to that? There are so many ways I could comment on what you explained. Holding one's breath, why would you do that? So meditation, meditation to take a moment to observe the experience that you are having. It's also the experience that you are in that moment.

And when you do that, while under stress, it's a physiological stress. So it becomes neurological, neurophysiological stress. It brings up a lot. it brings up the truth about who you are in the moment how you experience yourself in the moment how you respond to that stress in the moment it gives you the opportunity to choose what that experience is going to be not Not just like, well, of course it's unpleasant, therefore I'm all negative, I'm agitated, I'm emotional about it. That's the universal response for everyone. It was mine. Until you learn to master your inner experience,

which is in that context of, I'm on my own, there's no interaction with the world. can't blame i can't say well i'm upset i'm a negative because that happened to me that person said that to me have that problem now and this is no it's you and you so talking about hyperventilation, can you improve the length, the duration of your breath by hyperventilation, breathing really hard before? old trick that people do spearfishing, free diving, they all know it. And they also stay away from it because when you do that before diving, before swimming on the water, you can pass out. The reason is, just like you said, it's going to artificially lower your levels of CO2 in your body.

artificially lower your levels of CO2 in your body. And it's the accumulation of CO2 that's going to trigger your need to breathe. So if you lower those levels of CO2, and then you stop ventilating, stop breathing, your metabolic activity remains exactly the same. So you keep using oxygen. You keep creating CO2 at the same rate, except it's not exhaled. Therefore, the levels go up. It's picked up by your respiratory centers,

your chemoreceptors, and it's telling your brain and your autonomic nervous system, now breathe, breathe, breathe. You need to regulate this. You need to regulate this. them now breathe, breathe, breathe. You can't, you need to regulate this. You need to regulate this. So you flush out a big, big bunch of that CO2 beforehand. And I magically, wow, that's amazing. What a secret. Oh, that's magical. I can hold my breath longer, except that there's a moment where the accumulation of CO2 is still going

to happen. You still at some point going to become very uncomfortable with it. And then you do not have that advantage anymore. And then what do you do? How do you keep, how do you tolerate, how do you keep going? And you can't just tell yourself, well, I just need to relax. Everything's going to be all right. That's not the way it works. And then you start to be overwhelmed. So you haven't really learned to hold your breath. It would be the equivalent.

I'm going to use an image. Imagine you're going to say, hey, I'm going to train for cold exposure. So you're going to dive or you're going to soak in really cold water, freezing water for resiliency, physiological adaptations. Except you put an eight millimeters wetsuit beforehand. And you're like, wow, it's amazing. I can stay 30 minutes, no problem in the water. But at some point, you're going to really freeze your arse anyway. It's going to catch up with you

the cold is still gonna get in and you're gonna start to and then that's when the real work start anyways so how about you just

take off the wetsuit how about you just remove the hyperventilation and you just get to that point train the mind train the mind

to master itself to tranquilize by its own supply not just by manipulating the physiology and this is why i said before it's not about the breath hold really it's certainly not about the breath hold time yes because i think this relates to a lot of things we've been talking about throughout this conversation, right? About outcome versus process, or how do you stay present in the moment? You cannot be anything but present in a breath hold. If you've got a busy mind, if you've got a lot of stuff going on, hey, that's all great, but hold your breath. Suddenly you're in the moment. Because it's that primal the urge to breathe

right it's what we do day in day out without even thinking about it but i think this is a key point let's say you hyperventilate beforehand and you get to three minutes or you get to three minutes with your method two completely different versions of three minutes. But the point really isn't how long did you do? Certainly not for me. The point is at that moment when you have that strong urge to breathe, whether you've preloaded with hyperventilation or not, all that's doing is delaying the time to when that moment comes. The learning happens not by seeing three minutes on the clock. The learning happens from, oh, now I'm uncomfortable. What do I do? Yes. Do I shy away? I go, oh, I'm out. Yes.

And you know what? Completely. A few days ago, I did that. I wasn't feeling it. I just, I couldn't go there. And that's okay. I don't consider that failure. I consider that an education for me to go, oh, interesting.

Why was it today you wouldn't go there? Right? Yes. The learning is in that uncomfortable place. That's where the learning is. That's where you learn, oh, I still can control my mind. I can quieten down my mind. It's so profound.

Because comfort is actually the goal. But you're going to understand the path to comfort by going through a discomfort. There's no way around it. Master of a discomfort, you'll master of a comfort. There's no way around it. So you may delay the discomfort, but there's a point where you have to face that discomfort.

I like to use a kind of alchemical metaphor. It's like the lead in you and you have to turn it in gold and nobody else can do it. It's you have to alter your mind, but you who is you, the mind that you are has to be intentional about the response it's going to create. So it's beyond CO2 tolerance. It's tolerance. It's learning to handle a perception of threat because that's what it is. We all know that.

Why do we need to breathe? Well, because otherwise we die. So quickly after we stop ventilation, that's the biomechanical part of breathing, ventilation. Breathe in, breathe out, gas exchange, oxygen in, CO2 out, all good. Now pause this. in, CO2 out, all good. Now, pause this.

And then there's right away, we sense internally, this needs to be regulated. It's not normal. It's unfamiliar. It's uncomfortable. And if we keep doing that, it's not going to go very well. We feel threatened inside. to go very well. We feel threatened inside.

That is the real urge to breathe CO2 being only one of the cues that trigger that threat. What's the response to the perception that the threat is present, that it is conscious or unconscious? What is a threat? It's the perception that there is a detrimental outcome to a situation, to a context, that if we don't regulate that, or if we don't create a distance from it, if we don't make it stop, it's going to be a detriment to us.

And as long as that threat is around us or present and we feel it, there's no way we can be at ease. There's no way we can relax. We. There's no way we can relax. We are on alert and we need to regulate. Why? Because we're alive. All of us are a unit of life, a biological unit. And we're alive and we want to stay alive. So now there's a threat that's happening internally.

It's not a lion. It's not something. It's right inside. It's a biochemical change inside of a body. We want to regulate that. We are not going to find our comfort and our sense of safety until we have regulated that. How do we regulate that? We need to breathe again, simplest route,

or another route. Yeah. It's not a lion. It's not a predator. That really speaks to the stresses that many of us face these days. We're not out hunter-gatherers anymore, out in tribes, most of us at least. It's not a predator. It's our perception of the world around

us that's creating stress. It's our perception of our workload, our email inbox. It's how we view the world. It's how we approach conflict, it's how we deal with people queue jumping or cutting us up in the road, whatever it might be, we generate a lot of internal stress. And there's a real freedom when you realize that actually a lot of that is self-generated. Yes, the situation, the external situation is happening, but most of the time, if not all of the time, my response to it will determine what happens in my body. So what's incredible about the breath, hold, work meditation is that it is self-generated internal stress. You are creating internal stress for yourself. That's a guarantee by holding your breath.

Guaranteed. That's a guarantee by holding your breath. Guaranteed. That's the point. Quick and effective. But then by learning how to manage it and dissolve it and dilute it. Yes. You learn that, actually, I don't have to be stressed here you said this can be enjoyable some of the deepest yes and most enjoyable meditations i have ever done are with your breath hold work practice because like this morning before you know we did you know what

did i do five three minute session-minute breath holds with you. It was wonderful. And after I'd warmed up, it was a feeling of bliss. Like in the middle of the breath hold. Not at the end, in the middle of the breath hold. I can remember just feeling bliss. My body felt good. My mind felt good. I felt a real still. I felt a real connection to the world around me. It's such a beautiful place. It is. And I think everyone would like to live in that place or at least experience that

place. Yes. And some people will say they can get there through meditation. Yes, completely. It's interesting. You call it breath, hold, work meditation. Yeah. Most people, Erwin, I don't think would put the context of holding one's breath and meditation together. I do. Yes. Precisely because you create that stress,

which by the way, you create that stress and you are in charge of, you know, you are free to make it what you want, what you need to experience. It's not like a breath hold has to be a maximum breath hold all the time. In fact, most of the time, it's not even that. Breath hold practice, breath hold work practice is very gentle, very progressive. It has to be enjoyable. It has to have a measure of stress so that you

have to overcome, you have to practice the very response that you choose. It's like there's an antidote for everything. Of course, you're going to become impatient. Well, perfect opportunity to practice patience. Of course, you're going to doubt that you can. Well, perfect opportunity to practice patience. Of course, you're going to doubt that you can. Well, perfect opportunity that you create to practice self-confidence. Of course, all kind of potential negative thoughts are going to arise. Well, perfect opportunity to clarify your mind, to make it, to feel positive and confident and patient, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a practice of the mind.

The mind practices itself. It does not just observe itself. It gets to practice itself. So that bliss that you've experienced, that's really where the goal is. And it's not always like that. Yeah. But when you do find that place, it is really beautiful.

That is really what we expect from the concept of meditation. A place where we become free of concern time is suspended timeless there's no worry yeah to not be worried to not be worried, to not be concerned. How priceless is this? And what is it? What is a worry? What is a concern? What is an apprehension? What is it? We're always running our mind like really fast

and about so many things and we have to organize so much and anticipate so much in our minds and be so busy in our minds. It's because we need to regulate our whole world, our whole life. We have responsibilities, we have duties, we have concerns, we have problems. We all do. But we're doing that all day.

And it looks like there's no switch off. no switch off so we create a moment where we turn our intention inwardly that's the idea behind any form of meditation and there are plenty of forms of meditation they all have their own benefits we do not pay attention to the world around us anymore. It's an interaction with self. We gift ourselves with that moment to begin with. And then we start observing. Now, observing in the breathful work meditation, the mind observing itself is just like in any other meditation.

That's the fundamental. But that's not enough. Why? Because the response to the perception of threat is inherently by design, by default, it's all negative. It's panicky, it's emotional, it's agitated physically, emotionally and mentally in everyone and rather quickly, typically. So beyond the observation, it's easy to quickly observe, okay, this is what's happening to my mind.

Now, what do I want to, what do I want my mind to experience? That is the question. And that is then the intention and the choice is to establish despite all the physiological triggers that trigger our neurology to have that emotional response that turn into negative thinking, agitated thinking, agitated body. To intentionally, deliberately down-regulate all of that,

tranquilize all of that, which means to find a sense of safety, to reverse engineer that process, to find a sense of safety. Because when we feel safe, because we trust the experience, then we can relax. And that's when you are in that space

within that you experience that. Yes. Safety. Trust. This is what life is about, really. You know, that's what the nervous system is about. This is where many of the modern illnesses lie, is when our nervous system is out of sync,

when it doesn't feel safe, when we feel under threat. And as you say, we need to regulate. We will regulate in some way. We will take sugar, caffeine, booze. Coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms, whatever it might be. All it's trying to do is regulate your nervous system. Yes, because upregulation, that's not a skill,

except sometimes you're tired and you want to be alive. You're in a social environment. I got to be present. I got to be funny or something or interesting i'd be there it can be just like that okay you want to upregulate yourself but in most cases being agitated starting with the mind it's mostly the mind most of the time it's in the mind even when the person looks like they are composed and tranquil you have no idea what's running in their mind and that can be a lot.

And that can be overwhelming for a lot of people. And they are like, where is the switch off? Where is the switch off? So that agitation of the mind, that is not a skill because everybody somehow has it. There's also a lot of social cultural pressure that pushes us to always be like that. To be able to find tranquility and not

just to find it like where is it where is it just to establish it to yeah make it happen now that is the skill that tranquilization that down regulation that is a skill that needs to be practiced it's arguably the most important skill in the 21st century that any of us need. Arguably, anyone who lives in civilized culture, I even hate that word civilized culture. It's in some ways derogatory to people who live more natural ways that actually are more in sync with our biology, right? Yes, I see. Do you know what I mean? But let's let's say these modern, developed, urban-type lives that many of us lead, I think you can make a pretty good case that mastering the skill of down-regulation

is one of the most important skills to learn. And we can do that in a whole host of different ways. important skills to learn. And we can do that in a whole host of different ways. Having been a student on your course and experienced the benefits for myself, I want other people to experience it because I think there's something really powerful. If you can down-regulate when your body is screaming for you to breathe and get in your oxygen. I think you can downregulate anywhere. Yes, exactly.

In that primal moment where your body thinks something really bad is going to happen, I need to breathe. And that's what I think, if I was to summarize what I think the gold in that course is, there's many bits of gold, but for me, it's that knowledge that if I can control my mind there, I can control it anywhere. If the mind that you are can control itself, like manage, intentionally fashion the experience that he wants to be in that moment

and that can apply anywhere and what i've also found is that when i meditate when i'm not doing breath hold work meditation because i also enjoy non-breath hold related meditations, I have found that since I did your course, I'm able to access deeper meditative states much quicker because it's all on a continuum, right? It's not separate skill sets. If you can do it at that extreme end, you can quite easily do it in a non-extreme end. Absolutely. And by the way, in breathful work, there's breath work, breath work, breath work. I teach both.

And by the way, you remember in the course, we only start to more substantially hold our breath in the second week. Not even like the first week, the first two sessions were mostly uh explaining breathing the physiology of breathing uh you know some uh very um it was nasal breathing it was slowing the breath down it was really gentle yes and i think this is something that method, a technique, a course to be macho that, hey, I can hold my breath for four. I could do four and a half. I could do three. You're kind of missing the point.

That's the way in for many people. It's the means to an end. You prepare your conscious mind. You prepare your work with your limbic brain, you work with your limbic brain. You work with like deeper aspects of your cognition. You work with your nervous system. And then, whoa, all of a sudden you become somehow, I like to use that word, timeless. Yeah.

Detached from time and patient and tranquil in trust and that magic happens for someone who's interested yeah or and they're thinking about maybe doing your online course right but they want to give it a go first themselves right is there a simple practice that anyone listening to this podcast can actually experiment with themselves? Yes, actually on the breathholdwork.com, on the breathholdwork website, we have a free initiation to video and that's one exercise because there's a variety of exercises. There are diverse ways to hold your breath. It can be on full lungs.

It can be after an exhale. It can be pushed to a certain degree. It can be a short recovery. It can be longer recovery. It can be, you know, there are diverse ways, you know, to structure the time that you spend holding your breath so that free initiation is one simple exercise 10 minutes and during these 10 minutes um you will breathe uh you will uh breathe slowly you know hold your breath it's it. I'll let people just go there and discover the exercise. It's great to do, by the way, before you go to bed.

I've heard a lot of people fall asleep. They're like, it's incredible. I realized after doing that exercise, I fell asleep like a baby. I slept like a baby a whole night. What's interesting about that for me is that when I spoke to James Nestor and Patrick McKeown, one of the things that was coming up was how, and I know you talk about this as well online on your course, that many of us are breathing too fast. We take too many breaths. Yes, we're breathing more through the mouth. We should be breathing predominantly through the nose and we should be breathing in a lot a lot slower than we

do and we did this on the course but what i found that i know you found with most of your students is without trying to actively slow down our breathing by doing the practice by doing the practice, by doing the breath hold work, your breathing rate naturally comes down. Yes. So we're talking about our respiratory rate. We're talking about how many breath cycles we take per minute at rest. So a simple way to calculate that, one breath cycle is one inhale, one exhale.

You start a timer. You inhale, you exhale, one breath cycle. And without trying to change anything, we're trying to consciously change the way you naturally, spontaneously breathe. You count how many breath cycles you take in one minute at the end of that course with that breath holding practice all the students notice except those who already had a naturally low respiratory rate but all those and that could include young individuals fit that do you know they run they're physically active and they had like 17 breath cycles per minute 14 and then they're down to eight yeah or less what should you have so james nester uh talks

about that yes he does and he says it's like 5.5 i remember all right that would mean you know uh five full breath cycles and then either you have an extra inhale, an extra exhale at the end of it. I think that's a good number, but I would say anywhere below 10 is going to be good because it also depends on when you measure it. Is it in the morning right after you wake up, or is it at the end of the day? Depends on the state of your nervous system, on your metabolic rate. There are plenty of variables that can impact that.

But, you know, you lack sleep, you're stressed out, heart rate goes up. Because when you're stressed, heart rate goes up. You breathe faster. Anywhere below 10, well, personally, at the altitude where I live in Santa Fe New Mexico in the US it's 2,200 meters altitude 7,000 plus feet elevation in the morning my respiratory rate is around 3 it can be five around three and that's uh just relaxing sitting like this and just breathing breathing slowly yeah it's it's uh you know i've seen a lot i do a lot i explore a lot i talk to a lot of people i i i love trying things, but I got to say it really is something quite

unique, original, and special. It's a very, very good course that has taught me so much about myself. I think that's a key thing that I like to highlight for people is that you learn so much about yourself. You learn about when you don't want to go there. You learn that emotionally, doing what? Doing nothing. Doing nothing. Just hold your breath and just wait. Just wait. And sometimes it's not very long

and you feel a bit of discomfort and then where do you go? Yes. You know, the other thing I love about the daily practice element of it, and I think we should all have a daily practice of some sort. Whether it's this or something else,

it doesn't matter to me, but a daily practice, because what this daily practice does for me is that on one day, let's say, if I'm holding my breath, no problem for, let's say, two and a half minutes. Let's say it's feeling easy. The next morning, one and a half minutes feels really hard yes i've done it enough times out to to realize oh your mind is busy you're completely you're worried about this happening later or your

workload or you have a podcast guest arriving shortly or you start to learn how much your mental state affects your physiology. Yes, exactly. Which is incredible. Yes. If it was all CO2 tolerance, then why would you have a lower tolerance that day and the next day you have a completely different CO2 tolerance? So it's not just about that. It's about tolerance.

And what's going to determine your tolerance? Well, it's the state of your nervous system. Is it feeling really relaxed on that day? Free of concern. But then another day, things come up, and then you have a night that's not that restorative, and you're agitated, and there's so much at the back of your mind. You have concerns. come up and then you have a night that's not that restorative and you're agitated and

there's so much at the back of your mind, you have concerns. And concerns are what? It's, if there's something I need to regulate in my life, otherwise I don't feel safe. That's what it is. It's that simple. It's that simple. It's so binary. Hence, sympathetic, parasympathetic. That's it. No resistance. That's it in a nutshell.

Either you agitate or you tranquilize, you calm down or arousal mode or relaxation mode. Why? What determines? Well, either there's a threat or something to do, including even something you enjoy to do. So you need to agitate yourself to go dance or go workout or go just work or relaxation downtime so you feel

safe that you can allow yourself to take that time yeah down free of concern tranquilize restore your energies and that feels good and that's healing and that's very important and you it's a almost i would say it's uh it's self-care and self-love to take the time ideally sometime every day just do that just put your hands on your on your chest and feel yourself, feel how your body feels, feels how inside of you, your emotional self, your mental self. Give yourself some support, give yourself some attention. And then maybe also give yourself some practice. So you practice because, you know, with that practice, I would love to be patient.

I would love to have a more quiet mind. I would love to be patient. I would love to have a more quiet mind. I would love to think less. I would love to think more positively. I would love to have less anxiety. Everybody does because it feels good. It's goodness. We feel golden when we feel that way. when we feel that way.

But if we wait for the world, for our circumstances to be perfect around us, it's never going to happen. There always will be some problems to take care of, some concerns to be had. So there's a point where we have to decide that, hey, you know what? I'm closing the doors, closing the windows.

I'm one with myself. And I'm going to just give myself some attention because I need to regulate, not just the outside world, not just to clean things and to organize things. I need to reorganize inside. I need to clear it up. I need to clear it up. I need to balance it out. I need to pacify it. It's practice.

It's practice. And then it becomes second nature. If you practice with enough consistency, it becomes not just something you do, it becomes who you are. Because some real structural changes happen neurologically in your brain, in your nervous system. And when we talk about the nervous systems and emotions,

it's completely physical, isn't it? Yeah. And so it goes through the body. You get to know yourself so well with this practice and just completing the circle from the start of this conversation the inner confidence you have in yourself on the other side of this. Money can't buy that. No, no. You can't read that in a textbook or in a blog or in an article. You can read about, this is why breath work is good for me. This is why meditation is good for me. But you do the practice, you go to that slight zone of discomfort you learn how to calm everything and come out the other side and realize wow my mind is ultimately dictating most if not all of

how i feel and i actually have more power over that mind than i previously thought yes that's priceless yes you recondition yourself you're shaping that is called the inner self what you're going to experience because that's what we are in the end. We are in charge of intentionally impacting that experience that we are. That's the meta scale. That's a supreme scale. Otherwise we are, you know, subject to all kinds of influences

and we have little power over, again, the experience that we're having. That's the experience we choose to be. You could say it was philosophical, psychological, that's also spiritual, in fact, it's all of that. And in the end, it's all simple. If you ask me, what's the secret to holding your breath a long time? Is there a breathing technique? Is there like a long time? Is there a breathing technique?

Is there like a mind technique? What is the mind technique? I want to tell you what the mind technique is. And it's trust. Because trust will give you all the relaxation, the patience that you want. If you trust, you can relax. When you trust, some people call it faith. When you trust, that's the supreme feeling.

That's where the peace comes from. That's where the patience comes from. That's where the clarity comes from. And that trust, again, when you go through the world there are plenty of things that are going to unsettle you are going to startle you are going to make you alert and maybe anxious and everything when you are within it's an interaction with yourself anything that happens anything that you will experience is on you. Any thought, any visual that comes to you, any subject you think about,

any emotion, any feeling, they don't come out of the blue. They come from you. You as a nervous system, not just having a nervous system, you as a nervous system generate that. You as a mind, you as a brain, you as a soul generate that. Why? Well, you're telling yourself a story. You're interpreting the world.

You're interpreting yourself. You're making sense of that experience that you are. are now if you're going to experience that trust it's because you establish it you want it you desire that experience you invite it you establish it and you delve in it as in an inner space, and then you dwell in it, and then you magnify it. And that requires impeccable intention and prolonged, also impeccable attention. And it's very pure that way. And it's either that or like, oh my God, there's no way I can do this.

I have to wait longer. I don't feel good. Okay, well, which way? What experience of yourself do you want to be? Yeah. It's a simple choice. And it's on you. Yeah, it's on you. Yeah, it's on you.

I think that's where the difficulty comes, but that's also where the gold comes. Yes. We can confront the limitations inside our mind. We can sit next to them. Turn that lid into gold. And who wouldn't want that? Ewan, it's been such a joy Likewise. Lead into gold. And who wouldn't want that?

Ewan, it's been such a joy talking to you on the show. It's been great hanging out with you. You're someone I've been watching from afar for many years. I know you've inspired previous guests on the show. Tony Riddle, The Foot Collective. Great work, great messengers. And you've done a great job at bringing the message of natural movement to so many people and inspiring many others

to keep sharing that message, which is wonderful. And I really feel now, I don't know if I'd call it a reinvention or a iteration. Like I know you're still passionate about natural movement, but I feel that this fits very much alongside it, but is again something very fresh and exciting that people can engage with if they choose it. So I thank you for that course. Thank you, Rangan. Thank you.

Well, you know, I'm a human being. I, like all human beings that we are, we face challenges in this life. We do our best to make the sense of this experience that we're going through. And we all need tools and practices and, you know, there are ways to optimize that experience, to make it better. That's what we want. It's a good life, a good experience. And so through natural movement, what I realized, okay, this is missing from society. Where's the freedom to just do the things that we all want to do when we're kids? And then, already then, it was never just physical. And that's why in my book i say when i move naturally

move in the woods when i move away i'm designed to move it's um it's a physical experience or expression of my spirit and it's a spiritual experience of my body and and then with that breath forward practice, it becomes even more this inner journey, inner exploration, inner practice, but it's still through the body because the body never goes away. Everything that we experience is through the body.

So, what I believe I've found through my experience, through my quest, through my personal research, I am eager to share for others to benefit as well. That's what I'm teaching, what I'm teaching. Well, we appreciate that, Ewan. That's coming on the show.

Thank you. Thank you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation as always do think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life and if you are interested in giving Irwin's breath hold work meditation course a go don't forget he is offering my audience a 30% off discount to both his online course and his live program that is taking place in September 2023. All you need to do is go to breathholdwork.com. That's B-R-E-A-T-H-H-O-L-D-W-O-R-K.com and use the codes LIVEMORE30. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free

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