Should I Delete That? - Breathe In Breathe Out with Stuart Sandeman

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

This week, the girls speak to Stuart Sandeman of Breathpod. He teaches them the basics of breath work, despite their initial trepidation, and details why these basics could be the unexpected practice that helps you in the most surprising places... In the Good, Bad and Awkward, Em traumatises Alex with her hair, they celebrate the Lionesses and I think Em says the plural of sheep is sheeps? Anyway, you decide, and let Daisy know in the emails… I may have misheard. Enjoy!Follow Stuart @breathpod on Instagram, buy his book Breathe In Breathe Out, and catch Decompression Session on BBC Radio 1.Follow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] & edited by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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com forward slash Alex and M. Oh my God, why did I post that? Ah, I don't know what to do? Should I delete that? Yeah, you should definitely delete that. Hi, Em. Morning, Alex. I can't see you.

We're going to start this episode off with a bad. And we're just going to rip the band-aid off, okay? Because I think this might be the end of our friendship. and I don't want to drag it out any longer than what we have to do. I did something last night just because I wanted to try it for myself. And if anything, you should take it as a compliment because I was so inspired by you. I was so influenced by you. I bought the product that you bought.

And I'm sweating. I'm nervous to tell you. But last night, I tried to eatless curls, Al, and I have to show you what happened. And I just, I have to preface this by just reiterating my love for you. I just think you're a great person and a great friend. Are you ready? Go on. Show me.

Oh, fuck off him. Oh, fuck off. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You look like you've been in the hairdressers for like six hours. I'm so sorry. I can't tell you how big the part of me was that wanted it to fail. I'm just, I'm so happy for you.

just so sad for myself. My DMs, Al, it's like I feel like we're divorcing and the listeners, the kids are stuck in the middle here. They are devastated. They don't know whose side to take. If I were there, I take your side. Look at that hair. Bloody hair.

I'm so sorry. That's like better than you get with a tongue. Well, if this side went a bit flat. Oh, piss off. Piss off. This side went a bit flat. Oh, go. swivel. I'm so sorry. But you know what? I've been thinking about it. I was thinking about it in bed

this morning about how I was going to tell you. You can speak French. You can sing. You came second at the football championship. There's loads of stuff. And I can't do any of that. I'm completely hopeless with kicking and I can't speak French and you know I can't sing. So let me have this. I'm thick of shit but I've got good hair. You have got really good hair. Look at that. It looks like Farrah Fawcett her. It looks absolutely stunning. I have to concede. Absolutely stunning.

Congratulations. I'm so pleased for you. I was so, I was crushed. I hid my stories from you on Instagram this morning. I was like, oh my God, I've been lucky. I'll unblock you, but I thought, I was like, you know what we always say about, like, in the morning, you have to like set yourself up for a nice day and it's like you shouldn't do things. in the morning that are bad for your mental health so i heard my stories because i was like it wouldn't be

a very nice thing for al to see when she first wakes up it's like let her start a day like seeing betty seeing dave like have a nice day and then like she's got some like positive like foundations for the rest of the day i don't want to just like upset her so early i literally woke up and was like oh i wonder how it went okay i've i've unhidden it you can go you're welcome back in it's like just like these beautiful, luscious locks. Just because I want to celebrate myself a tiny bit and I know that this is just salt in the wound

and I apologise. But I've never been able to do a hack before. You know when you see those like hacks and it's like, do this easy thing to like, like people show it for like wrapping presents or like putting elastic bands around the buttons of your jeans to make your jeans bigger or like there's always like little hacks in the world that you see on TikTok.

And I'm like, these are literally here. to make me feel like a moron, because they surely aren't possible. And everyone's like, what, this easy hack to, like, change your life. And I look at it, and I'm like, there's nothing about this as easy. This is probably the first time I've ever succeeded on following a tutorial. Like, I can't do, like, the flip with my eyeliner, because I follow tutorials and I can't do it. This is, this is the first time a hack's gone well for me, I think. Do you know what?

I was watching your, you sped up the, you put, you applying it. I thought, that looks really like. good like professional like you did it like how they do it in the tutorial first of all I watched a lot of tutorials second of all I did it much better on the right hand side which I this side does look better because I did it really tight so yeah yeah I know I see what I mean there's room for improvement for a first time as a first fucking go it's absolutely stunning well well done thanks Al I'm so happy is that now you bad too it is now actually yes it is now my bad so I'm so sorry It's your good, though, right?

It should be a good. Okay, because you've affected, impacted our relationship. Yeah. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. I know, and I'm making such good headway on my life, in my life's journey of, like, un-people-pleasing, like learning not to be a people-pleaser, but stuff like this, these are the conversations,

these are the teachable moments, because this is killing me. This is killing me. And I have to keep reminding myself that I deserve to live my life and I'm not responsible for your emotions, but fuck Alex it's killing me I am so sorry

fine I will forgive but in the words of Lauren Conrad I probably won't forget do you want to put that on a magnet would that make you feel better I would quite like that yes someone sent me a DM saying you need to send Alex a fridge magnet as an apology person oh my god so everyone's been seeing this

and I've been just not depriving my DMs Al I've never had anything like it I had, my DMs were my alarm clock this morning. I had hundreds of DMs being like, wake up! Well, you've inspired me to try again. Do it. Which is annoying. Can you try the dressing gown cord?

I've tried all of it. I've tried everything. One thing I haven't tried that I bought ages and ages ago and that I never tried because I was like, this is never going to work. It's an octo curl. Have you seen that? So it like sits on your head and it looks like an octopus because it's got eight strands coming off

and you wrap a piece round all of them. I'm so excited. Please do that. That could be the next try. Did you have another bad now? I did, but it's escaped me because it was obviously nowhere near as bad as this. Fair enough. We can leave it.

We can just, you can be broken hearts enough, to be honest. And the bad also is that you've made me want to try again. And I don't know why, because I do not have the hair that you have at all. I have very, very thin hair, and it's impossible to do anything. I just want that moment of waking up and looking in the mirror and slipping this thing out and having that slow motion like flick my hair thing you know

like you had this morning I'm sorry have you anything for me I have my awkward which I actually didn't get to rectify so I still feel really uncomfortable about but we went to a shoot yesterday

and it was a been a shoot and when I arrived there I was really flustered because I was late and it was all a bit chaotic and I just was very flustered anyway the guy that greeted me was a producer and he said hi I'm Alex

and I said hi I'm Venus because we were there for the Venus shoot I don't know where that came from but I was like hi I'm Venus and then I went no no sorry hi I'm Alex and he said no I'm Alex And I said, no, I'm Alex. And then it was, we just stared at each other for a few seconds.

And my sister was with me and she was like, are you okay? What was like, I don't know. Incredibly uncomfortable. So, yeah, that was my little awkward. Hi, I'm Venus. Like, how embarrassing. I like those moments, though, because that will live forever in your head. You'll hate yourself forever because of that.

And he will literally never think about it again. oh my god oh my god that's just reminded me of something that's reminded me of something too it might have reminded us of the same thing i think so right guys so you know well i don't know if everybody listens to the thursday episode we're just going to you know live with our big egos and assume that everybody does we did the Thursday episode a couple of weeks ago where we talked about or maybe it's last Thursday about all the embarrassing parts of just being a human being which are plentiful as case in point by like every single thing that we do and the story that Alex just told and we basically just went through a massive list of all the things are just embarrassing for no reason and yesterday

actually was a really good example because we were playing with a football and I was chasing a football which is one of those things that's just so embarrassing for no reason like why is chasing a ball is just so embarrassing because like there's just something about it it's just like running away from you literally yeah and I can't like because obviously it's me so like I wasn't able to make the ball come back to me or anything like and so i just i was spending you were good out you weren't there when i was doing all the stuff on my own in the morning and no but they said you were good i i got better but when we first started there was a big crowd for me not for me but there was just a big crowd of people there for me you pulled a big crowd out well you know um yeah

there was there was there was there was there watching and i just kept having to chase after the ball that's probably my fucking awkward. Just like, it's just so embarrassing. And then, what, are you trying to get it with your foot? Because at what point do you reach the leg out? Do you know what I mean? Like, how do you know when you're close enough to stretch out to get it? Because you've got to stop running.

And if you miss it, that's embarrassing. Or do you go with your hands? In which case, running bent over is embarrassing. It's like, so right, right, you've got to overtake the ball, really. That's the ideal situation. So then you can stop it with your feet and then bring it back however you want. But the ball's going quite fast. It's just every, yeah, that's my.

awkward. Everything about that was awkward yesterday. I actually might contact Venus and just ask them for the takes of me just chasing the ball like 50 times just running after a ball going up here and really trying to pass it off. It's like fun. Whereas in actual fact, I'm just wasting everybody's lives. Oh my God. Anyway, right. So there are just embarrassing parts of being a human being and we talked about them at length in last week's episode and we received this email. Hi guys. I'm going to sound a bit mean and half. saying this. I'm listening to your latest, is it just me, Evan, and you're talking about being embarrassed by doing very everyday stuff in public

like me need to go to the loo. I just have one bit of advice. No one gives a shit. You've got to stop going through your life, overanalyzing every move you make and feeling embarrassed by simple actions, like getting a head massage at the hairdresser. Headdresses will have 10 million clients a day and will not remember you or find giving you a standard head massage in any way embarrassing. No one cares if you go to the loo. They won't even notice. They don't care about you. No one cares. who was first with team meeting, just sit there and make a cup of tea. I know the social anxiety can be debilitated,

but this just sounds like an unnecessary overthink more than anything else. You'll be a lot happier, and it will be so liberating if you just stop giving a shit about what anyone thinks. You both do a great job of teaching people to be comfortable in their own skin, so extend that to these situations. No one cares what you do. Emboving that notion and life will become more open and free. Great work on the podcast.

but great work on the podcast she's not wrong she's in no no she's completely right she's spot on but we read it we were like oh but I think we know that

like we're more just like taking the piss right it's not something that like luckily we don't have social anxiety these things aren't like little things social situations aren't debilitating to us luckily but it's just like little things, like human things about being a human that just are like a little bit awkward.

I also think it's so unifying. It is. Yeah. It's just like a bit of a laugh. I don't know. And also, I know, like this will stemmed from the fact that when I was sitting on the ferry the other day, that when the woman next to me went to the loo, I felt like I couldn't go to the loo for 40 minutes afterwards because she'd think that I'd copied her. And obviously, when I say that out loud, bonkers like I'm well aware of that she is not gonna sit back down and be like oh my god get your own like do your own thing like oh who do you think you are I can't believe this girl has bodily functions as well yeah oh my god like what what a loser like Jesus how on original obviously

that's not what's happening but you when you're by yourself you really can like spin into these like like oh there's just so many things in but the other day I was walking with my I don't you know what, this is going to annoy this girl even more, but I just have so, I have so many examples of things that embarrass me. I went to Whitstable at the weekend and I had to get out the sea. Have you ever got out the sea on a pebbled beach? Mortifying. Yes. Mortifying. Are people looking at me? Probably not. Could they be? Could they be thinking that's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen? Quite possibly. Also, you know, oh, this, this should be my bad actually. You know how much I love my chili bottle? Yeah. Well, it's done me dirty.

to three times now where I'm walking along and I've got friendly chili fans out there I've got the one liter generation two chili bottle love of my life absolutely great anyway it's got a little handle on top of the lid and the other day I was walking in front of all my friends friends trying to you know my friend my friends Ellie's mates trying to be cool right Ellie's always been a bit older than me and she's always a really cool friends I was trying to be cool and I was like swinging my little chili bottle along with me and the fucking lid out of nowhere just pins off. How embarrassing. How embarrassing. And a

litre of water just, and the bottle, listen, metal goes down with a clang, water goes everywhere, everyone goes, ooh, because we're British, I could have died. I literally could have died. That is embarrassing. It is embarrassing. Just being a human being

it's just so embarrassing. Everything about everything is just embarrassing. Do you know, speaking about the Pebble Beach reminded me of years ago, we went to the beach loads of us went to the beach i think it was brighton beach or somewhere near brighton and we i was in the sea with someone and i was trying to get out but it was completely pebbled when you can't you know when you can't walk because it hurts so i was trying to do that

and then the waves were really bad and they kept crashing into me and i kept going down and getting back up and trying to get out and the wave would crash it i couldn't catch up the wave would catch up with me and then I go down again and I spent about three minutes trying to get out that everyone's crying laughing at me because I'm like every time I get up I go down very embarrassing that was that has brought me back out in a hot flush I wonder if I suspect like we might get a concession from the email there to the point of that to to to concede that that is embarrassing because there are some things that are objectively embarrassing that's one of them My granny once got out the sea

and she'd lost her bikini bottoms and she hadn't realised. Oh, God. Oh, God, love her. So good. Yeah, look, we know, okay? We know that this stuff doesn't make logical sense. But that's the point.

Whenever we talk about this stuff, it's illogically embarrassing. Everything I can think of if I think about it for too long is embarrassing. and I literally mean everything. Even breathing can be embarrassing if I think about it for too long. Oh, that's topical. It is topical, actually, considering today's guest.

But everything's embarrassing. And that is just something that you're going to have to accept if you're going to be part of the gang. We're an embarrassment for no good reason. But, yeah. But it's who we are. What's he good? I hope we have the same good.

I think we do. That's our good. That's our good. Oh my God. How much did you cry? We sobbed. We absolutely sobbed. Oh my God.

It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. 56 years and the women's team brought it home. Honestly. We had, I had the. best times we were watching it on Elle's birthday um on the 30th and she's never even cared about football I don't think she's ever watched it she's one of three girls she's

never been slightly bothered and the two of us and she's also nails you know like she's she's not a crier and the two of us were there like I mean we weren't the only two people watching it but both of us just like oh my god and I can't explain like the tears watching the celebrations it was just one of the best things I've ever seen in my entire existence, I loved it. And I can't, I still can't explain why it's so emotional to me, but I just was, or to all of us, it was just unbelievable. It was so emotional, like, I couldn't stop crying.

And then, you know, you do like a really, like, you suddenly realize that you can't catch your breath and you do like a choke sob. Also topical. Also very topical. I'm guys, spoiler alert, today's episode is about breathing. Yeah. It was so good. It was just so good.

And Dave was emotional as well, which I never thought I'd see because he never gets emotional. No, wow, an Aquarius man. He didn't cry, but I could see that he was emotional and he was just like, this is so fucking cool. And I was like, this is so fucking cool. That also...

The other thing was watching it with men. I felt sad for Germany. Oh, well, yeah, but that happened. That made me cry as well, because I was like, oh, I just feel sad for them. But yeah, that has to happen. They win all the time. They do real all the time.

Also, I don't know this with any confidence, but I do feel like English football culture is so misogynistic and so rotten that we needed this. Like, for the good of sexism and all feminism. And, like, we really, really needed this win. And it represents so much. And it's going to be a legacy on which so much is built. And, like, yeah, so, like, sorry Germany, but we need this.

Thank you for letting us have this one. No, they didn't let us. They didn't let us anyone have this. You know what I mean. But yeah. But yeah. I still feel a bit sad for you, but that's okay. We can feel both.

Yeah. I've honestly, I've loved this. And we did touch on it in like last Thursday's episode, obviously, because a lot of the years it just means about like sexist comments and misogynistic observations and what it was like watching the euros of men and stuff. But I think like putting aside the negativity, I did a big Instagram caption about this. Like these men, the euros was not for these men. like this this wasn't ever about them this was about so much more than that and like that's what this really feels like now like you know we remember after um the world cup how england fans

treated their black players who missed a goal like the racism was disgusting the misogyny is disgusting this is the same sport that for the most part pushes women out of it all the time like I always supported football as a kid and I I've said it once I said it a million times that always said the same thing to me, oh well, you think you like football, then who's named the whole starting line, who's on the bench today, and what's the off-side rule, and who won the FA Cup in 1972? Like, it's like you're giving a quiz if you even want to be part of it. Like, this is, so this was never about them, and we don't have to prove anything to these men. This was a very different sport, very different atmosphere. And I loved, like, I have loved

the comments on my Instagram post from so many men who were like, no, it was amazing. I've loved seeing all the lads out celebrating. I shared something on my Instagram earlier this week of like this guy absolutely shit face. God knows what time of day it is with a flag on his face, like big up the galvan because the nine them couldn't do it. And like I've loved all of that. And even watching it with the boys like at

the L's birthday and like it was exactly like watching, you know like football like I've seen it before in that when we scored the winning got, everybody stood up and was like air punching and yelling like the guys were like yelling.

Sarah said she went to work on Monday. and three people, three men were like, congratulations, she was like, thanks. Thank you, I've worked so hard. I've made so many sacrifices, thank you. So funny. But I do know, I've loved it from like that perspective so much.

Like, just seeing the, because there are bad apples within football, like football cultured can be pretty rotten. But seeing the men that have been in support of this, be in support of this, has been one i've loved it absolutely loved it and like ian wright's enthusiasm as well and just how obsessed is i love ian right me too i love him yeah and i was like texting my brother like is it like which we never do you know we've never had we watched the grand prix so we talk about

the grand prix me and my brother and my sister but in our family WhatsApp group we were talking about the game like oh my god and like when we when england scored finno's like fucking yeah get in and it's like this is the enthusiasm that he shows for like you know his teams and stuff and it's like it just felt really great to see them accepting us as what as their team somehow so yeah yeah it was really really cool and it's just the start isn't it it really is just the start like god knows where it's going to like be five years from now I'm goosebumps again every time I know it's so cool it was so great it was so great what like what a win what a day What a win, what a day.

Shall we go into the episode? Yeah, we need to calm the fuck down going into this thing. And deep breath. Everyone take a deep breath yet, actually don't take a deep breath yet because you're probably not doing it right. Wait for sure it to tell you how to do it. I was skeptical about this episode, but I'll suggest it because breathe, I think I say it in the episode. But breathing always panics me again. or the person who took that email

and said, me and said Dave's going to unplug her headphones and be like, for fuck sake. But breathing always overwhelms me a bit because I find it like if you focus, it's like if you focus too much on walking, you can really convince yourself

that you're doing it wrong. Or like if you think too much about drinking, you're like, fuck, this is weird. Or if you think about a word too much, then it sounds odd. Oh my God, literally it sounds so odd. Yeah. Like, think about the word Portugal.

Yeah, weird. Sounds like a bird. Yeah, Portugal. Yeah. Portugal. Yeah. It does sound like a bird. Or like money.

Money, I always think. Money. I don't know. But I know what you mean. The concept of just like. Why is it an individual tooth and then a teeth? I don't. Sheep and sheep.

You're right. Everything anything. Look, I take you to original email. It's possible to overthink anything if you try hard enough. Yes. We put that on if I'm buying that down. that on a fridge magnet you can overthink anything if you try hard enough um a story i didn't get to tell in the episode was that my little sisters they were my sisters who are the twins they were in

r e class and they were with their best friend in r e class and the teacher said i don't even know what they were talking about but the teacher said like try not to like focus on your breathing um and the twins and their best friend then just started panicking and their best friend literally had to have like two weeks off school after that because she couldn't stop like thinking about her breathing and panicking which is like so so bad isn't it like it's so sad but it's a thing it's very much a thing i find breathing very stressful if i overthink it then i think oh god what happens when i stop thinking about this how will i carry on breathing how will i keep on being alive

because i'm having to think so hard about it right now so what happens when i stop thinking about it. Like, how will my body know just to keep breathing? And I get into a real spin about it. Look, God. I'm so aware of that email sender listening to this. I'm embarrassed to tell you that, but it's true. She hates us. No, no, no, she doesn't. She just thinks it's absolutely ridiculous. Which is true. Anyway, so I was a bit skeptical about Stuart coming, just not because he's not great, but just because I was like, oh God, like, I don't want to pick this scab because I feel like once I start picking it I'll never stop and sure enough I've now signed up to go to a breath workshop and like I've bought his book so I knew this would happen but I absolutely loved it

and I felt like it was a very useful resource so I did really enjoy it I was basically if you're listening to this feeling skeptical then you were me and I was proved wrong so I hope you are too okay so without further ado here's Stuart Sanderman get yourself a cup of tea get into a nice comfy position and go ready to take a few deep breaths but let's Stuart teach you how to do them properly and let us know what you think. Hi Stuart. Hi. Hello. How are you? I'm very well thanks for you guys. Terrified. I'm scared that I'm about to realize that everything in my life is a lie. I'm on death door. I'm barely I'm a corpse. I don't know. We're terrible breathers. We can't catch our breath um so for a bit of context we just met literally last weekend at your brother's

wedding yes so your brother is one of dave's mates from uni and when we were at your wedding it was actually people on my table were talking about oh roy's brother stewart um does like breathing stuff and like i like i love his sessions like they really help me with stress and stuff so i's like as someone who is like recently converted to breathing. That's the word. As a new breather. Breathwork. Well, I'm not a very good one.

But I've recently, okay, like discovered the power of it. Whereas I always used to kind of like just think it was a bit bullshit. It was quite cynical. I'm so sorry. Me too, actually. So that's good. So that's good. Yeah, we're on the same boat.

Okay, cool. I was a skeptic for what it's worth. Great. Okay. We can convert the skeptics. That's what I fight myself in. That's good. Because it is something pretty powerful.

So yeah, then I met you and you told me about your book, breathe in, breathe out. And we found out we got the same publisher, which is so, so random. And then, yeah, so I bought your book and started reading it. I was like, okay, we need to have him on the show. We need to talk to him. So thank you for being here. You're like wedding crashes, but like for podcast guests instead of being like. I'm always on, I'm always on.

Networking, networking. I've always got my eyes on the prize. I'm like, who's my next victim for the podcast? Who can I get at this wedding? Scanning the room. Bringing like the bride. So you are the founder of BreathPod, a breathing expert. And you have a show on BBC Radio One called Decompression Session.

Can you tell us how this all came about for you? Like how does one become a breathing expert? Yeah, I shared him as a bit of a skeptic. And like many, people's lives takes twists and turns. is the last thing I thought I'd ever be doing would be a breathing expert or helping people breathe I thought I mean a bit like yourself

breathing I think we can all do that we're doing it all day every day but before becoming or understanding a bit more about breath I was touring the world as a DJ before that I worked in finance before that I was an athlete I was a professional judo player

so I've kind of taken a few leaps from a very diverse Yeah, kind of sports, injured, then went into, went to university, went into finance, decided that this wasn't the route I wanted to take anymore, managed to sign some record deals, music was always a hobby, and went off on this, kind of wild ride as a DJ in touring and producing music. My girlfriend at that time was then diagnosed with terminal cancer. So it really put the brakes on what I was doing and started to explore health in every shape and form looking at conventional treatments for cancer, looking at all the alternatives.

At that time, I wouldn't have listened if somebody said, oh, just breathe, you'll be fine. I probably would have stuck my fingers up and said, speak some sense. And sadly, that part of the story was she passed away after about 18 months battle with cancer, ups and downs, thinking it's going on good. then not so well and sadly she passed away

and it put me into a bit of a bad headspace as you could imagine yeah and I moved back to Scotland I didn't know what I was doing I felt the weight of my or the world on my shoulders a lot of guilt should we have done this instead of that a lot of anger at myself anger at the world there's a lot going on it was kind of outbursts

or just complete withdrawal I didn't want to speak to anybody do anything didn't want to get out of bed and all that happened was for Mother's Day I was meeting my mum and something popped up online I didn't have anything for her

and I was meeting her that day and something popped up online on Facebook breathing class I was like breathing class perfect my mom loves yoga this would be great it was the week after Mother's Day quick online bye

go meet my mum with this lovely present so we went along to this breathwork class and it blew my socks off and that was it it was a really really powerful experience completely off guard I was grieving of course but I felt that my girlfriend was with me

holding my hand and I had this almost an outer body experience so much so I thought I'm either going mad I've lost the plot completely or then I thought maybe they spiked my drink before I came in that sounds like a classic breathwork technique

I was like, just as something they'd do as you walked in. Yeah. Well, it didn't seem the type. I was not sure about that. Or something special just happened just by breathing. And that was what I followed. I thought, let's do a bit more of that. Let's uncover what just happened and try and make sense of what just happened in my own mind.

And the more I started to work with that particular way of breathing, initially the more confused I got because I was having these powerful experiences, and it felt like the weight of grief and the guilt and the sadness and it just gave me such solace and allowed me to bring more energy back. I felt more in tune with myself. The voice in my head was kinder to me. I was sleeping better. All these kind of like tick, tick, tick boxes.

And then I was like, what else can we do with breathing? Why has no one never taught me to breathe? Well, I didn't know and teach me to breathe when I was anxious before gigs or when I was stressed out working in finance or when I was training to be Olympic champion or even through school or anything. Breathing is quite important and it's linked to how we think and feel. And it has this amazing ability to work with our emotions and clear out our emotions. So that's what it was initially just a big self-discovery that, wow, this is really quite special. and the more I worked with it I often find that with different facilitators

it's something that's transformed them and they're like, the world needs it I need to go and share this with others and that was certainly the case with me it was something that initially helped me through grief but then I realized wow there's way more than just this context which I didn't even think was a context of breathing

it was like therapy without words for me and that was it I kind of got so excited about breathing that I went off to find out as much as I possibly could and learnt the very scientific side of application, how breath flows,

the mechanics of breaths, the chemistry of breath, what that means, how that interacts with our emotions, how we can take control of it to control our day. But also then this kind of more magical side that is harder to quantify which is to do with

what happened in my sessions, my early sessions, was that real? Was that not? It helped me through grief kind of help others and going through kind of in the book I talk about this research project that have been ongoing to try and uncover that. And then the other aspects that is really measurable is the sports side which I get excited about because it's all about performance and improving performance for not just athletes, but anybody that wants to, you mentioned you did the marathon, but if somebody is doing any kind of sporting context, we can improve their

breathing to improve their fitness. Oh my God, my breathing when I run is so bad. It's embarrassing. I had surgery last year because I couldn't breathe through my nose. So you know when everyone says like, breathe through your nose and out through your mouth, and for years when I tried breathing, I was like, and I just couldn't do it. I was like, this is stupid, but I didn't realize I couldn't do it. I just thought that breathing through your nose was shit.

I was like, I don't seem to be getting the most out of this. I'm just going to keep breathing through my mouth. And I mean years, you know, they tell you at school, like breathe through your nose. I don't know why they tell you that, but they just did. And I just couldn't breathe through my nose. and it was only after I had the operation. And I ran, I did three marathons and an ultramarathon with the nose thing. And then after my surgery, I was like, oh my God.

And now I can breathe through my nose for the first time ever. I'm like, this is amazing. I still forget that I have that available, so I don't use it much. But it's fun when I remember it. I'm like, it's really, really amazing. I think you shared, was it a deviated septum? Was it a structural issue? It actually wasn't it.

I had my jaw broken. So my top jaw had moved forward. I knocked my head when I was a kid, explains a lot. And my top, my top jaw was seven millimeters forwards, basically. And it was pushing into the airway going into my nose. So they had to break it back. They had to break my top door into three pieces and reset it back, basically, and put it seven millimeters back again.

Yeah. And then when I came out, and now I've had a bit of problem, I've had a massive problem in that my sinus all exploded on this side. So I've got like, I'm going to say too much air, because when I breathe in sometimes through my right nostrils, that gets a bit cold up in there but it's pretty cool like having this it's like you know not being able not having I didn't know that this was something that I could have had so now I've got it I'm not taking it for granted I just don't really know what to do with it yet like I always

look at my mouth as closed and I can still breathe does that make sense I'm like oh my god because I never would have been able to do that before yeah probably why I always had my mouth open looking gormless well I think as well because we're doing it 20,000 times a day we form a habit is that how many times we breathe in. Yeah, roughly speaking depends on the, obviously, the speed of that. But if we are, our nose is designed, our nose is designed for breathing, it filters the air, gets the perfect moisture and temperature to your lungs, flushes the air and nitric oxide, which opens up our airways. But it regulates our breathing as well because our nostrils are much smaller than our mouth, so that we feel calm and relaxed. If you are breathing through

your mouth, it's maybe a bigger, a quicker fix of air, but it's the mouth breath is, what we would use in those times of need. So if we stepped off the pavement onto the road in a car or a bike was whipping around the corner towards us, we'd gasped through our mouth. Yeah, it would be weird if you did that through your nose. Yeah, it wouldn't quite happen. So the mouth breath links to our stress response. Wow. So you'll find that people who breathe through their mouth are more susceptible to feeling a little bit stressed.

This makes a lot of sense for my entire existence. Yeah. What I like to do when I work with groups or individuals and people and what we talk about a lot in breathe and breathe out in the book is it's like detective work. How are you breathing right now and what does that say about how you're thinking, feeling, behaving, acting, performing and understanding that each way of breath is sending a different signal to our brain about our environment, both like external environment, what's happening around us. Are we standing in the middle of the road? or are we in our internal environment what's going on in our mind so if we're breathing through our mouth a lot through the day it's in essence telling our mind that we're standing in front of oncoming traffic and the unconscious mind the bit that works of the background doesn't know the difference between our thoughts so our internal environment versus our external environment it triggers the same response so you'll find that a lot of people who may talk a lot as well. They'll talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, big gas of air through their

mouth and talk, talk, talk, talk, big gas of air through the mouth. And we form these habits and the habit can be muscle memory, but it also can actually be to do with the chemistry of our body and the chemistry of how our breath interacts with chemistry. Because our breath is much to do with carbon dioxide, if not more than oxygen. Obviously we need to get air into our body and lungs. But it's carbon dioxide that triggers our brain to breathe. So when carbon dioxide increases, that's what tells our brain to take a breath. It's not lack of air. That happens way later. So if we are the other flip side, if we're breathing through our mouth a lot, we're burning off carbon dioxide quicker. So we drop carbon dioxide, which means our body becomes a little bit

more alkaline because carbon dioxide is acidic. And the body doesn't really like veering too far out of its pH range, so it holds onto acidity, we don't get rid of it when we go to the loo. So we then reset ourselves at a rate of breathing. Does that make sense? I know a lot of information there, a lot of kind of science, but we reset ourselves at a faster rate of breathing because we, in essence, become more sensitive to a change in carbon dioxide. So we get stuck in these patterns of breathing. And that pattern of breathing is just ringing alarm bells all day to our brain and body that

were maybe under stress. So taking some of that information, and for yourself as well, if you had an accident and then breathe through your mouth for a long time, then it's likely that you would reset your whole system at that new rate of breathing and that new style of breathing using your mouth to breathe. So that even when you have the operation, it's really important that you start to rehabilitate using your nose. And I'd even say trying to run using your nose.

As I do it, I try. And I'm like, oh, like, because I actually breathwork was really, sorry, breathwork was really important for me when I started running. My husband's like really into his, like he does Iron Man and stuff, like he's a tank. And nothing seems, he doesn't seem to find anything difficult, which is so annoying. But whenever we used to run together, and he really got me into running and, like, trained me into my running. And he always said, just breathe like you're walking, which I was so stupid. I was like, I'm not fucking walking though, like I'm running and this is killing me and whatever. And he always said breathe like you're walking.

And it's probably the best piece of advice I ever got because it basically slowed my running down because I wasn't, because I had to, if I wanted to breathe like I was walking, but it also made me think about my breathing and made me slow my breathing. And it really helped. And then from there,

I was able to pick my pace back up kind of in line with how fit I actually was rather than pushing my body, I guess. But yeah, still now instinctively, like I was all right. I'm not a breathless runner particularly because I like to be able to, chat as I go.

But yeah, I still forget that I have my nose available. Is it better when you're exercising to use your nose? Yeah, as much as you can. And it's more challenging, of course. But what happens over time is what you shared, what your advice for your boyfriend is very good. I often say to people, yeah, tape your mouth up. It looks a bit weird when you're running in the street with a mouth taped.

People think, don't use duct tape. Who is what she running from? Yeah. It's like you're just casing a kid in that up and tucked out. Yeah. Yeah. All you need to do is put your hands behind your back and put your hands behind your back and put you to believe in people.

Yeah, you might get some funny looks. But no, literally I do that with a lot of athletes. Tape the mouth up and train. It forces the nose to do its thing. But what actually happens is our training or fitness is to do with aerobic respiration, which is using oxygen from the air to create energy. Then we have anaerobic respiration that you've probably heard about,

which is using our own glucose stores to create energy, which is less efficient and creates lactic acid as a result, so our muscles get sore. So, for instance, if we're running and we are not very fit, that we won't get oxygen quick enough, so we'll switch to anaerobic respiration, and then we'll get sore legs and sore muscles. But if we can start to push our aerobic threshold,

then we can just keep on going, like Forrest Gump, for as long as we need to. because we're getting enough energy from the air that we breathe. And that's something that we can work with. That's to do with EPO production in your body. And that sounds very technical, but it's how we create hemoglobin, how we can improve the red blood cell count in our body as well.

And it's a really, really effective way. I often say to people, just go as far as your nose breath will take you. And if that means coming down to a walk when you get to that hill, or not being able to sprint round your run, forget about the time, just train your nose to breathe as much as possible, especially if you're going distance running.

So it's, yeah, a really, really interesting way to look at it. So I thought it was you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, but is that not the case? Is it just best to breathe with your nose in and out as much as possible and kind of forget the mouth? Yeah, no, I get asked that question a lot. I was actually talking about in breath,

in breath only through your nose. Out breath, we can use nose or mouth. the out breath the nose just captures moisture and heat on the way out it also slows the rate of which we breathe so we do feel a bit calmer so day to day when we're breathing through our nose

as much as possible but now like we're chatting so you're breathing out through your mouth as you make an audible speech are you really good at breathing all the time now so when you go to like these breath sessions obviously you're really good at breathing

in the breast session because it's probably guided right when you leave the breath set and probably for you now obviously like it's your life so are you just really good at breathing all the time or do you still have to concentrate because I'm really good at breathing for like the two breaths that I take and now fuck knows what's happening because I'm speaking again and it's anarchy like can you just are you just like super good at it all the time no I think everyone's human life still happens

and and what's interesting about breath we kind of talked about the sports context is it links is linked to how you feel so when we're laughing our breath starts to move if we're crying it starts to move. If we're stressed, we create tension in our body and our breath starts to contract as well. So, I mean, we go through all these different emotions throughout our life and our breath flows, ebbs and flows with those emotions. I've certainly got better at letting my breath flow through emotion, which is another big thing I talk about in breathe and breathe out, is how do we get better at feeling? Because a lot of the time we hold our breath and contract our breathing to stop herself from feeling.

So we hold back the laughter or we hold back the tears or we hold back the anger, we hold on and we don't allow ourselves to breathe through it. But the natural cycle of emotion, which is energy emotion, actually just takes it whole. It's like a 90 second process from reacting to whatever that is that's emoting

and allowing ourselves to feel it, which, and that feeling process is a move and an expansion of our breath. nine times out of ten in our modern world we go oh it's not appropriate right now to laugh and scream or have a tantrum and like a toddler in Sainsbury's um i mean i give it a go but yeah well that's not a bad thing it's not a bad thing and allowing ourselves to get better at feeling which is really allowing our breath to flow as much as possible so back to your question am i really good at breathing I'm very aware of my breath when it's flowing, when I feel constricted, when I feel stressed, feeling that tension and taking a moment to then go, I need to go and actually just do a couple of breaths. And it only takes a couple of breaths. That's the nice thing. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be like, right, I need to go and sit cross leg for 20 minutes and do, you'll notice a difference in one breath cycle. And that's, I feel, that awareness I've got really good at.

but I'm the same as anybody you'll sometimes you'll get anxious before a public speaking event or a radio show or something in your breath because you're feeling anxious you're thinking anxious thoughts oh my god am I going to be good or what's going on here and the thought is triggering your body like the tigers in the room so that still happens for me a lot of the time the mind might jump in and start throwing another anxious thought in there or catastrophizing or worrying or thinking about the past or the future and causing our body and breath to tighten up as a result which is all just to do with safety

like our body and brain is always want the best for us it's always trying to keep us safe and alive and it does its best it can with information that is given and if that is the anxious thought saying oh my god it is like the being in the bus lane or having a tiger in the room but in that moment we can start to use our breath to calm herself down and yeah that's really what I help people do and like giving them tools and techniques for the tool belt to manage their day to take control of their day to empower them to make a positive change so they don't have to be gripped or controlled by the world around them.

They can take a bit of control of the day. And then understand that we can actually work through some of these deeper aspects as well. Can I ask, when I do the deep breath, like if I sit and try and focus on my breathing, it makes me feel anxious in my tummy. Why is that? Do you know? Or is that just a me thing? Like, as I sit here.

I know what you mean. Because then I think, what should I, and I'm an overthinking. but I'll, I breathe in through my nose and I go, I'm like, okay, I'm doing a deep breath, but then I think I think I'm panicking that I haven't got anything to think about, or like, am I thinking the right thing, am I doing it? I can't quite work out what the thoughts are, but as I, as I try and focus on my breathing, I find myself probably more inclined to panic. I feel calmer in my head, but my body is like, I know what you mean. It's, it's kind of like I can't catch my breath. Yeah. Situation. Yeah.

Suddenly when you're thinking about breath, then. Yeah, and then I'm like, what's going to happen when I stopped doing this? Did you do your, this is on topic, but did you do your audio book? Did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did mine, and it was chaos. It was actual chaos.

I was like on the verge of a panic attack almost the whole three days because you're suddenly aware of like, I can't keep going into the microphones, then you're thinking about your breathing, and then suddenly I was like, I can't catch my breath, like whatever I'm doing, I can't catch it.

And every 15 minutes, I'd have to stop and do like a breathing exercise to try and calm it down but yeah it's that like thinking about it and then being aware of it I think being aware then suddenly makes you feel like oh my God I can't catch it yeah so a couple of things there

just being aware of your breath and coming back to your breath you will depends how you're breathing when you did your deep breath there it looks like you're a chest breather yep which yeah

again I talk a lot about in the book like finding your breathing archetype everybody breathes in different ways and there's a reason for that happening yeah you're definitely a chest breather so yeah so we'll will be okay we'll fix that quite quickly hopefully now we will fix that it's quite easy to fix if we're breathing in our chest is a shorter shorter shallower breath it's the breath we will take again back to that kind of stressful breath when we're gasping for air it's just a quick fix quick hit um we're going to be using your diaphragm to breathe as much as possible. So that was kind of the observation there. Bringing awareness to your breath as well might just, you shared that you were a overthinker or

worrier in that sense. And you're probably used to that train of thought just moving the whole time. So that stillness then just creates another thought. And we're thinking, what am I going to get this? There'll be a link between the stillness of that and getting comfortable with it, but also the mechanics of how you're breathing and what that signal is saying. For yourself with the audiobook, I wasn't in the room so I won't know exactly, but just my observation of you chatting and breathing right now without doing a full analysis. I'm enjoying this, by the way. Yeah, you breathe through your mouth in between your sentences, which I'd see nine out of ten people do when they come through the door,

which is fine throughout your day, but if you're doing, the audiobook is a lot of talking. maybe a couple of days, full days speaking. And the likelihood is you'll talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Talk, talk, so you'll start to hyperventilate. You're shifting the chemistry of your body. It starts to feel a little bit weird. It feels exhausting. It's like you've been running from the tiger for eight hours that day as you've been speaking.

Plus, you're wanting to get it right. So there'll be a mental aspect as well. But if you breathe in through your nose and then talk out through your mouth, and then breathe into your nose and talk out through your mouth. Not all the time, it's quite out yet and then carry on talking. It feels really, really weird

when you switch. Yeah, it does feel weird. Can you breathe in through your nose and talk at the same? I'm going to try, I can't... Nope. No, that's... I mean, most of the time,

unless you get excited and you want to get your point of course and you get a bit excited, start mouth breathing. When I say breathing through your nose, I'm talking about just your in breath. So in between sentences, you breathe in through your nose,

carry on chatting, breathe in. carry on chatting. So it's retraining ourself to breathe, especially if you do, if you've got a job where you talk like a podcast or if you work in sales or if

you on the phone a lot, if you are doing an audio book, you're going to be speaking a lot and it gets really taxing and tiring, especially if we're kind of breathing in our mouth the whole time through it. But if we can breathe through our nose and learn

or teach ourselves how to do that, again it's habit that we've maybe had from a very very young age we might have even learnt those bad habits from our teachers our parents our carers um so yeah it's really uncovering what is making me feel this way what is happening with my breathing what is my breathing archetype and can I um notice when I fall into these different breathing archetypes through different times in my day when I'm at rest is the first place to start because it was If it's out of whack at rest, it'll be out of whack in other spaces. How am I breathing when I'm at work or chilling?

Or how am I breathing when I'm sleeping? How am I breathing when I'm engaged in exercise? And the likelihood is if we got tension in our body, either because of a habit or could be a clothing choice, it could be just tension. If we're not using our diaphragmatic muscle, then it's just going to freeze up like any other muscle. So for yourself, it's really about getting your breath

right the way down how how how okay just sitting up straight is that a prerequisite posture nudges us

yeah posture nudges us into certain categories for sure if we're sat hunched if we're sat at our desk if we're in the car all day the likelihood is that our breathing

will clap slightly could be your clothing choice if you've got really really tight belts or jeans or even tight bras for women it might be constricting our breathing in some way it looks like you're not breathing at all over there now I know I'm really able to

fill the context guys M and I literally sat up like straight as dominoes with all I'm not breathing at all I've been trying as you were talking to breathe into my tummy and I mean really trying and it's just I can't like it's in my chest this is when I get panicked

I'm like oh my God so you I'll call the ambulance yeah well we need to get our diaphragm engaged so we can start off just as if this works place your hands on your belly and now breathe in to your hands on your belly so they rise before your chest

into your nose okay that was good over there you're still chest breathing okay that's I don't know how to do it I'm really panicking I've got to calm calm down don't panic because it's actually this is I get so excited because you're going to once we nail this

you're going to feel calmer you're going to have more energy you're going to sleep better you're going to be I want all these things yeah so and it's going to really affect you're running in a good positive way

because it's a primary breathing muscle it doesn't fatigue like your intercostals your chest muscles that you're overusing that are too small to take that 20,000 breaths every day imagine breathing into your hips let's try this first of all imagine breathing into your hips

okay it's moving into your hips okay it's moving a little bit more now, but still your chest is still coming up. So you might just have a bit of a tight, paralysed diaphragm. So we need to get that. Diaphram's up here, is it, would it down there? No, the diaphragm is the primary breathing muscle and it separates your chest from your lower torso. So if you imagine your rib cage as a bird cage, okay, inside that bird cage, you've got your lungs, you've got your heart. The diaphragm is the base of the cage. So it's right across the, it's a massive muscle, across the whole body and it connects to your rib cage just underneath it.

So right the way down here. So I'm kind of grabbing underneath my rib cage. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to just massage some of that tension out. So this doesn't feel comfortable just to let you know. It will feel a bit tight and tender. So let's start just one side. So you can get our left hand on our left under our ribcage.

just hook it round, even a bit further. No, it's close. And then from there, breathe in, but try and breathe into your pubic bone. So we're kind of exaggerating that movement, but breathe into your pubic bone. And it's probably feel a bit of tension there. So we're just massaging out that tension

because if you've not been using your diaphragm, it's just going to, it's like if we haven't stretched any other muscle, you know, everything just gets tight and sore. Yeah, I can literally feel knots. on the muscles going around there. Yeah, so you want to just hold it there, keep your hand in the point of tension and breathe into that. And it will feel painful and a bit uncomfortable

and then just work your way down one side. It's actually opening up a little bit now. I can see it. It does feel like when you've got like tight muscles and you rub like. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it does. So breathe in, concentrate. Oh, that felt opening there as well.

Good. and then work it's opening up I can see your breath opening into your low torso I can feel the difference in there I can't get it so much up here and then going down the other side

this side'll be better my left side's all fucked out and let go so it is something that you need to practice if you are stuck in a breathing archetype or I call them holding patterns often as

well because there's a reason that your diaphragms close down now it can be habitual over time just breathing in your using your chest muscle which is that stressful breath so at some point it might be the stressful job that stressful day becomes a second stressful day becomes a third stressful day becomes a week becomes a month becomes a year and we just get that becomes the normal pattern of breathing because it feels easy and the the the chemical balance. It's working good. That's so cool. And that's like, what, a minute. That's really cool. So once we switch it and get your breathing with your diaphragm, it's going to change. It's going to be way, even way better. Some of the research we did at Olympic

level, like work with the Olympic Roars, I worked with the Olympic judo team, I worked with Olympic gymnasts, some of the UFC fighters as well that are still competing in the UFC at the moment. And I get so excited by this stuff because they're top level athletes. And sometimes I've gone in and gone, whoa, you're not breathing right. And the level of increase, usually at that level, they're looking at these little, little bits. How can we get 1% here or 1% there? How do we fix the bicycle just to get that little bit faster flow? And rugby sevens, I worked with the US Rugby Sevens teams as well. The research has shown that when we work with some of this stuff,

we can increase repeat sprintability so that level to keep on going, like the bleep test, up to 30%. Wow. 30%, which is like I'm like, I get so excited about it because we can potentially reach these superhuman moments when we make sure we're maximizing the way that we're breathing, both the mechanics, the chemistry of that, but also pushing, like your V or 2 max will go through the roof. The thing is you'll probably notice a massive decrease in performance initially.

Oh, good. Initially. So don't be worried by that because it might, it will take maybe like four weeks to learn and get your body to adjust to this new way of working and breathing. And so it might even feel, because you're used to that quick fix, you might even feel like you're not getting enough air. When you start to breathe with your diaphragm or through your nose, you might have that uncomfortable feeling of, oh, I feel like I'm not going to. getting enough here, if you think like almost constricted or claustrophobic in our own body

and that's actually just because carbon dioxide's increased and the brain's kind of screaming at you to take a breath. God, I feel self-awareness has gone through the roof today. You know, you said before, like, my entire body is a stress response the whole time, just to life. It's just how I exist. And I actually kind of thrive on it in,

like, probably not breathing. I probably won't live very long, but I kind of like operate quite well with like perpetual anxiety which is fine and I don't mean like I used to have very bad anxiety then I had live coaching and I feel very calm oddly but I still kind of exist as quite like a I can't sit still I don't sit still I like moving and doing and so so we can you can keep all that bits that you think is like getting stuff done and working being motivated getting up and go but we can amplify that and create a lot more flow in your body and your mind that perpetual

anxiety state it will be held because of your breathing as well so working with your breathing to start to release these holding patterns releasing the tension in your shoulders releasing the tension in your diaphragm you'll start to feel a lot more grounded you'll start to feel more balanced physically mentally and emotionally how do you get your shoulders down because they won't go down yeah so when you breathe out just let them drop and but don't pull them up when you breathe in as well so just keeping them relaxed breathe out to your mouth slow relax them further further that's where they go okay so again where we hold tension can also be linked to our past and that is where this is the stuff that i found i get so excited and interested by because where we hold tension is our bodies

safety mechanism as well. And so for something like your diaphragm, I was saying it could be the habitual chest. It could be the, when we get a fright, our diaphragm tightens up. So you even find it in a big city, like London, siren goes past. What happens?

We go like this. So you get these shock, you get this fight or flight response throughout your day until it just tightens up. And then that becomes normal. And we're in this kind of height. in alert state the whole time, which is tiring for the body. It's exhausting for the body and it isn't sustainable as well. So for yourself, working out, spending a couple minutes a day,

probably in the morning to work out that tension, make sure your breath is starting to flow down. It started to move already, which is like, let's have a celebration about. But if you practice that for like every day for a month, your muscles start to move. and you'll start to flow. Sometimes we can be holding on, our diaphragms completely closed down, or parts of our body have closed down because of an experience from our past.

So for myself, this is what the big revelation for me with breathing shared my story earlier. Now, to most people, I was breathing quite well. My diaphragm, belly was out, I was breathing in and out my nose-ish, but I had zero breath

the secondary muscles weren't moving at all for me. My whole chest closed down. Now, my whole chest is closed down because of grief. I didn't want myself to feel. My unconscious mind said, don't feel this. This is not, we don't want, A, we want to protect you from feeling. But B, my conditioning, my brain had been conditioned from a young age,

doing martial arts. Growing up in Scotland, Teddy Bear was called Tough Ted. I had this whole notion of strength or big boys don't cry. So when I went through grieving process, it was anger or withdrawal. There was no tears. I didn't cry at all. Whereas once I started to open my breath up into that space, I had this huge big cathartic release and my breath started to open and flow.

So we'll find using that example where you're holding tension. So for yourself, tension around the diaphragm, tension around here, not breathing into the lower torso there might be a reason for that happening and it might be an event that's happened as an adult but most likely whatever that is will link back to our childhood what happened between zero and seven when we're making sense of the world around us it's like in breathing breathe out I talk about like we download our manual on how to operate in our world so if we're downloading this manual on how we operate and we all have to download that manual to make sense of the world that we live in. But we start to create these things that will tell our

brain to react a certain way in a situation. So I often talk about the tiger coming in room. We see the tiger, we hear the roar and the fight or flight kicks in and we run to safety or we try and fight it off or we freeze completely. But if that tiger was a dog, some people might be excited by a dog and some people might be petrified by a dog and that's down to their human experience what happened to them younger or did a dog bite them or bark at them why what's made them scared of the dog and why do they then react that certain way so that's a very basic example but we can have experiences in our life that kind of create who we are and it's all linked to how we breathe and how we hold our breath so it's I just find it so fascinating because when we can

start to understand, well, how am I breathing? Where am I holding my tension in my breathing cycle? And when you start to release it, then you start to create more flow in your life. You create more energy. You create more calm. And everything else falls into place. You find a bit more flow throughout your day. The end of the day, you sleep well. You digest your food better because you're not in this stress state either. So it's kind of this full circle piece of understanding the link between our breathing, what's going on for us and how we can use our breath to uncover maybe some of our past so that we can kind of optimise our day moving forward.

It's fascinating. And what I find so interesting as well is how skeptical we all are, like human beings are of something. I just say cynical as breathing, yeah. I mean, as same as you. I've suffered with anxiety all my life. And when I was old enough to go to the doctors about it, and I was having panic attacks, and he printed me off a sheet that it was like breathing exercises,

and I obviously discarded it. And at various points throughout my life, people have said, try breathing. I'm like, how can something that feels so debilitating and feels so all-consuming to me, how can that be managed or tackled by, breathing and like doing something that I'm doing all the time anyway like shut up that's stupid you know like I took absolutely no no notice of it and and recent and like I said it's like very surface level what I've been doing with I literally downloaded an app and I was doing this just this like three minute thing where you like breathe in hold breathe out and the power of that and I mean initially I get that like I can't do this I'm too anxious for this and then if I find like I can just hold on and keep going then suddenly it's It's like, that is so powerful.

Yeah, and that's that, again, it's the science of our body. It's to do with the nervous system. And when you breathe in, you switch yourself on. It's like energy in. When you breathe out, your body switches off. So when you are feeling anxious, the alarm bell has gone off. Your body is just trying to get more air into your body so that you can run, fight, fight and get out of danger.

but if we realize that there is no danger the danger is the to-do list what I've got to do today what I should have said what I could have said oh my God look at my diary or what are people going to think of me today whatever it is that our mind just goes into that kind of negative spiral about which is kind of human nature again to keep us safe we're kind of wired with negative bias but in those moments having that nice long drawn out breath like you practice on your app is it's like just turning the off switch. Our body goes from sympathetic stress mode into parasympathetic rest mode

and we start to feel calm. But then it's in that moment that the brain pipes in again with another thought and goes, oh my God, no, whatever it is. And so we just need to carry on a couple of rounds, a couple rounds, and then just start to feel that sense of safety in your body and mind.

And the anxiety starts to move or starts to at least reduce. in those moments. Can I ask about the hold breath, when you hold your breath? Is that a good thing to do when you're practicing breathing, to breathe in and then hold it and then release? Does that serve any purpose, the holding? Yeah.

So breathwork exercises are really about chemistry, like chemistry, nervous system, and when we breathe in and hold, then we're allowing carbon dioxide to increase. Yeah. So if you are having a panic attack, you know the kind of old school traditional way was breathe into a paper bag

yeah yeah and that is because we end up changing the chemistry we're letting carbon dioxide increase again because if you've hyperventilated because you're panicking if we breathe too fast carbon dioxide drops and then we might faint until we start to tense our whole body

sometimes cramps up completely in those moments of panic is that why we get tingly and your face gets tingley and is that the face yeah it's respiratory alkalosis it's called when the body becomes so alkaline, the face gets tingly, and then it spirals more panic because we feel out of control of our body. So that's why breathing holds, the hold will just allow the natural balance of carbon dioxide to increase again. The nice long, drawn out breath will tell the body and mind that you're safe and then just continuing that practice. I often say

like breathing for four, hold for four, out for eight is my go-to for stress, anxiety. I mean, I still use that on a daily basis. You know, you're saying, you must be great at breathing. I'm like, well, life still happens. We still have moments in your day that you feel like the days kind of jumped in and overrided how you were feeling or interacting in that moment. Is there any point in doing, I'm feeling very like aware that I can't breathe? Is there any point in doing like the breathe and a whole thing if I'm still chest breathing?

Or is it only work if you're getting it into your tummy when you die from? It will still allow you to slow the rate of breathing so it will help for sure But we Because some of the fixes will be really quick Yeah Like for some people

Just start breathing down here And it will happen straight away Other times it takes a bit longer It really depends on what has caused And when you have started to breathe that way Do I have to work out what's caused it Or can I just fix it? The nice thing is you don't need to work out.

And that's the good thing about breathing is we can just fix it. We can just go in and fix it. But what tends to happen if it is an emotional component, why you've held that is you usually have to feel that emotion. What tends to happen is it happens all by itself when we start to breathe into that space. So often I'll find that when we start correcting someone's breathing, they feel that could be laughter. They've held their breath there because,

as a child they were told to be seen and not heard or not to find things funny so they've held on and they've not allowed themselves to feel that laughter or it could be tears or it could be something else what i think it's very deep from whatever day it is but i feel oddly emotional trying to breathe through my tummy like as i do it i'm like i feel like i could cry which is really strange yeah it's really weird and what's then the natural reaction when you feel like you'll cry. Shut down. Shut down.

Hold your breath. Okay, so we worked it out so I can just fix that. This is a space time. I just have to breathe and cry. Breathe. Breathing cry. It's funny.

I'll get home and Alex I'll be like, what's wrong with you? I'll just be sitting at home like so big and breathing. I've been breathing. And that's, yeah, it's about breathing into the space that you've closed down

and allowing yourself to let go of whatever that is that's caused you to hold on. And that is really amazing and really, really empowering because once you let go, it happens really quick. You have that big cry or sob or that big laughing moment and the breath just goes, it's like.

I wish it was a big laugh. I want a big laugh. Yeah, well, it can be a bit of everything. But yeah, exactly that. Once we can breathe into that space, you release that tension. And the body, so I'm jumping around a little bit, but the body doesn't really have an idea of time. I'm going really deep now.

is the time happens in the mind if you like go that was yesterday that was two weeks ago that was three weeks ago the body is just energy in the moment what I mean by that

I know that sounds very abstract but our body's made of cells cells are made of atoms atoms are just different densities of energy the seat that we're sat on the bones in our body

is a bit denser if we create intention to stop our energy flow then we create attention in our body and the body's holding on like it's happening right now. It says like right now, that is still happening.

So once we release that, the body lets go and the breath resets itself. So it can be quite a powerful reset for people when they feel like they are stuck in a certain way or stuck in a certain way or behavior. I share early on in the book like a feeling. if our breath is triggered by our feeling and triggers our feeling and a feeling lasts a week

we call it a mood and that mood then lasts months we call it a temperament and a temperament that lasts here as we say is our personality so when we go backwards we find out well that all happened by the way I was breathing in that moment

so we can actually access parts of our self that we thought were just our personality. I mean, there's more to our personality than just our breath in those moments, but we can start to change when people say I'm just this type of person or I'm just, I'm just an anxious person. A lot of people say that that's just me. And in some cases, of course, we can have anxiety disorder, just, I mean, which is separate from that kind of low level anxiety that happens daily. But a lot of the times it can be fixed and it can be fixed by something as simple as breathing which blows my mind because we're often searching for this magic thing outside ourself and that was that was certainly the case

with me with cancer um looking at the like what can we use what can we find what can we and there is sounds so cliche but we have this magic thing within us that regulates how we feel regulates our motion regulates our energy calms us down when we need to go to sleep so allowing yourself to feel into that and get better at feeling whatever it is that's caused your breath to close up. And if that brings tears to the surface, I just celebrate those tears. Allow them to flow, let them go. And once you move through that, your breath will reset itself. Do I need to do this publicly or like, how can I do it at home?

We need to do one of your workshops. Yeah, but it's just going to make me sit and cry. Am I going to just be like a wreck? That's fine. I can be a wreck. Yeah. in our workshops there's a lot of a lot of cathartic release a lot of tears um a lot of emotion of all sorts it can be quite wild in that room but it's a safe space to do it and that's what it i guess

comes back down to we do live in our world where it's not always appropriate to feel and we do have meetings that we can't burst out and cry or we don't feel it's safe to burst out crying on a podcast or whatever it is it's about well can i we've done like quite a lot of it yeah can i can i can i create a safe space to do this in breathe in breathe out for this kind of deeper release i break it down to a 10 minute practice for 40 days so can i do a certain type of breath practice that evokes this shift to allow ourselves to feel to create this expansion in our breath and breathe into the spaces we close down using a few mind tools as well so using words or phrases that resonate that will start to help release some of

those points but ultimately going through a process like that creating a safe space to do it and creating that dedicated time and practice for 40 days to allow yourself to feel to work through it and afterwards we'll just feel a lot better and that's that's the beauty of this stuff I'm so I'm going to do it how I do it I don't know how I do it. You need the book. Is that? Yeah, I've got the book. Have you converted a skeptic?

Yeah, 100%. It's actually like it's really distressing. I'm not distressing. But when you sit here, it's like I can feel something that it's not happening. Like I can feel there's two halves of my body and I'm literally only breathing. No wonder I hate it because it's like my breath only goes so far. Yeah. So yeah, like I would like to be able to breathe the whole way through my body.

I feel like that would be good for me. So yeah, I'm, consider me converted. Yeah. I'm going to breathe now. Yeah. Yeah. Can we go to work? workshops, work through the book as well, you've got the copy and just working through that

process, getting in there daily. The workshop is great because we're diving quite deep and we have a reset and it's a bit like Control Alt Delete on your computer like the brain breath connection has a reset. The likelihood is like if you go and see a chiropractor or fix your spine but then you're stretched for something a few days later and it'll pop back where it was from. It's really about your home practice. And yes, coming to a workshop will be amazing. You have a big release and a very powerful release like I did. That's why I'm here and doing what I'm doing now.

But then it's back down to you to make sure your breath is opening and flowing and using it as a practice in the morning to set yourself up for the day. So make sure, I often say as well to skeptical people. I'm like, well, if you're doing something 20,000 times a day, you want to know if you're doing it right or if you could do it a little bit more efficiently yeah that's what I feel like almost embarrassed about I'm like oh my God I just have to keep doing it badly now

like how annoying just to go and like how embarrassing just to be really bad at breathing you don't need to keep on doing it badly because we've already had a little shift in this short time together so it's like anything like riding a bike or driving your car like you can do it so unconsciously and it's about how do I practice consciously to make that an unconscious process

with something like our breathing our body does want us to be in a balanced calm relaxed optimal state so it does move quite quickly but it's it's then not falling back into old habits so that just happens if we I like to just jump on someone's shoulder

like a little parrot and just be there saying remember to breathe in your belly using your nose and that's again what the book's there for like for your anchor to come back to pick up the book be reminded that, oh, as you read the book, am I breathing the right way as I'm reading? Have you even thought about it before?

Can I then bring that into my day, into my conversations? What happens when I, in a moment of conflict, what's happening to my breathing? Is it gone all real tight and tense? I'm trying not to punch somebody in the face or start to get really, really aware. And that awareness, which I can see you've definitely got now, there's almost too much awareness over there. I'm hyper-focused on it now.

But once we have that real awareness and bring that into our day, then with awareness, we have a choice and we can make a positive change. And that's what's so empowering because it's you making a positive change by you taking control of your breath. And if you take control of your breath or let go of control of your breath, I know that sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but letting go of the reason that you're held on in the first place, then everything will just start to flow.

And that's ultimately what I teach and what the book is all about as well. Amazing. And it's really cool that people can access that via the book. And it's on Amazon. It's called Breathe In, Breathe Out. Yeah. We're going to put a link in the show notes as well. And you are on Instagram at BreathPod.

At BreathPod. Everyone go follow him. And you do live sessions on? Yeah, do lots of live sessions. we do morning sessions on Instagram like 30 minutes in the morning to start your day which might be a good place to... Yeah, I see you there.

Yeah, me too, see you at 7.30 a.m. until 8. Stunning. Can you do it when you're out and about? Do you've got to be sitting at home? It's funny because it's called a business called BreathPod and the Instagram handles BreathPod. But there's a really nice community. I started doing the live sessions during COVID in lockdown.

I thought, let's just do some sessions to help empower people to start their day and feel good. And there's built this beautiful sense of community as well there. So we have sort of three to 500 people all breathing together every morning. And everybody's kind of like, hey, if somebody feels a bit anxious, everyone's high-fiving and saying, we're there. And it's such a nice way to start the day. Some people also do it through like, I'm in the cab, I'm on the way to work. And people are breathing doing these different exercises, not just sat at home. Some people are in their bed.

Some people are out and about and the go. That's what I struggle with, like, setting time. That's why I never got on with yoga or anything because I just can't be bothered to just like sit at home and you can do it on your walk. Exactly. If I'll do it on a walk, then I'll be fine. 100%. And that's the beauty of it is you're doing it already.

So if you're doing it already, can I just be more aware of how I'm doing it in different situations? Whether that is a reminder when you go to the toilet or whether you walk to the toilet or whether you walk to the other room kind of make sure I'm breathing in a certain way. Amazing. Well, thank you so, so much. This has been so cool. I think for Emma especially, this is kind of a...

I'm going to unlock a new world that we're going to need a moment to explore here. Thank you so much. Yeah, everyone go by Stuart's book. The link is in the show notes and... We'll see you all for the live episode, the live friends every morning. The nice thing about the book as well is the audio version.

full exercises. Stunning. So yeah. So the actual book book has got visuals and then the audio book instead of in the book where it says repeat this four times. In the audio book we have the exercises full form where I'm actually running through the exercises as if we're doing them together. That's cool.

Okay. That's good. Okay. I'm going to get the audio book as well. Perfect. We're going to be so good at breathing out. So good at breathing. Smash life.

Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, Stuart. Thank you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Should I delete that is part of the ACAST creator network.