The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Stuart Sandeman on how to use your breath to help you parent

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit Anna chats to Stuart Sandeman about his One Thing - and it's an important one...... BREATHE.Stuart Sandeman is the founder of Breathpod and has worked as a breath coach to award-winning artists, Olympic athletes and top business executives.He's the host of the Decompression Session on BBC Radio 1 and Sunday Times Bestselling author of ‘Breathe In Breathe Out’ which you can buy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breathe-Out-practical-management-improved/dp/0008475377You can learn about Breathpod here https://breathpod.komi.io/?fbclid=IwAR1f9bQZBql9AiPe055B0THoi_sHuAyTu5Sp3y_7tggpn1XSytvYPtb6CjIAnd you can follow Stuart on Instagram at @breathpod

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist, mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to a guest episode of The Therapy Edit. today I have an absolute treat for you. I can reassure you that by the end of this 20 minute chat, I just feel, I know that your body and your mind will just feel all the more calm

and centred just from listening to our guest's voice alone today, let alone what he shares. I have with me, Stuart Sandeman of BreathPod. Stuart is a Sunday times bestseller. He is passionate about encouraging and equipping and inspiring you to use to use your breath. He's actually his book is called Breathe in, Breathe Out, Restore your health, reset your mind and find happiness through breathwork. And that theme is kind of interwoven through everything that he does and shares. He is BreathPod on social media. He has online courses. One of them you might love is the breathing basics. It's a five day mini series. He's got a show on BBC Radio one called the decompression sessions sharing breath work with the masses. What an absolute gift.

Here's on Insight Timer. If you happen to be on that meditation app, then you can find him on there. If not, download it. It's absolutely fantastic. Anything from kind of one minute meditation breath work, there's yoga on there up to kind of, you know, long, long ones if you've got, if you've got more time. And here's the global breath trainer for Nike. So, or Nike. Do we say Nike? Do we say Nike? I don't I should have Googled that one. But Stuart, welcome today. How are you? I'm really well. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me on. It's such a pleasure to be here. It's Nike. It's Nike. Right. Nike. I had to retrain myself to say it that way because I think in the UK we've always said Nike. Yeah. But it's Nike. But I'm pretty sure I've Googled that one before. It just hasn't stuck. It just gets overridden by Nike every single time. So yeah, you're just passionate about the breath.

Very passionate about this thing we do all day, every day, without really thinking about it. But it has the ability to transform, transform the way we feel, transform the way we think, act, perform, perform, perceive. Our breath is pretty magical. It is. It is. And is this always been something that you have been passionate about. I've read a little bit of your story, but some of our listeners will not know kind of how this, yeah, how this, yeah, how this. passion for the breath came about?

It wasn't something I set out looking for. I'd always spent my life a bit too busy to breathe. I hadn't thought about it as a tool. I hadn't thought about it as a practice. I hadn't thought about it as a means to change the way you think and feel at all. My backgrounds in many different spheres. I left school and was trying to pursue judo as a career. I was a Scottish champion for many years,

a black belt and judo, and I wanted to be Olympic champion, so I thought, this is it, this is what I'm going to do. But through injury, I kind of took a different direction. No one taught me to breathe during that time, which I found quite amazing, a high-level sport. We're still not often taught how to breathe properly. I went off to uni, end up working in finance.

Again, very busy lifestyle, kind of work hard, play hard. In London, over in Asia as well, I worked for a while. Nobody taught me to breathe. I was very too busy to breathe then. And then a big passion of mine has been music my whole life. And I was making a lot of music and signed some record deals. So I jumped ship this kind of corporate finance job into initially taking a year off. I thought, I'll take a year off.

And I'll follow my heart and follow my passion for music and see what happens. And then I started touring the world as a DJ. And so kind of went from the sport to very corporate. to very creative and breathing was not a thread through that of course i was breathing every day i was alive but never ever thought about it maybe if i was huffing and puffing through a workout i might think i'm out of breath but not any further than that it wasn't until this next pivot point my girlfriend at that time was diagnosed with terminal cancer so it really put the breaks on what i was doing and

ignited the judo player how do we beat this thing what is out there again I didn't find breath when I was looking for her cure to cancer I don't think I would have listened if somebody told me just to breathe enough enough yeah the response might not have been

people probably did tell me probably all sorts I looked at lots of different alternatives and lots of different practices that include breathing We talked about meditation and doing yoga and all these things that talk about breathe and breath and stuff, but not to the depth at which I started to uncover. And I started to uncover the depth of breathing when she passed away. When she passed away, it put me into a bit of a negative headspin, as you could imagine. I wasn't in a very good place.

And all that happened was I took my mum from Mother's Day to a breathing class. And I just, my mum's very much into yoga. And I thought my mum will love this. And we went together a couple weeks after Mother's Day. And I had this really, really profound experience, really powerful experience where I felt all this energy moving through my body. I felt like the weight of grief and all this tension and all this heaviness I was holding on to through the grieving process.

But even deeper than that is. well. It felt very, very cathartic release happened. And I just felt like the weight had been pulled off me. And I felt like my girlfriend was there holding my hand, which was extremely powerful and didn't make any sense at all. So I thought, something special happened here. Was it a one-off? What happened? Was there another question? And I set off on this journey to figure out, well, was that a one-off? That was my first thing. So I went and booked another session and had an equally powerful accession, just breathing. And then the more I practiced, the more I uncovered, the more I wanted to learn for myself, the more I wanted to apply breath and breathing

into other areas of my life, like sport, like keeping healthy, keeping fit, like managing stress levels, that being more creative, improving my sleep. All these amazing things, improving digestion. I started to understand that, wow, our breath is. the pillar for all of our health and well-being, whether that's physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. It's all linked. It's got this thread through it called breathing or breath that connects us all. So that was me. I sent off on this journey to figure out as much as I possibly could and apply it to my own life. And the more that I learned, the more I wanted to share, the more I saw these huge transformations, not just in myself, but then the first person I worked with,

the second person, the third person, the thousand other people that managed to reconnect them to the empowering tool that is breathing. So what a gift this tool was to you on the hardest lowest, lowest, darkest times

of your life and what a gift it is to us that you share it so passionately and continually. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. And yeah, we'd love to hear what that one thing is of the back of that that you would want to impart in all the mum's listening today. That one thing is just the one word, you could probably guess what it's going to be.

I can, I can stand against. Yes, breathe, absolutely. Breathe. And it's a one word sentence. You can put a full stop at the end of it. breathe, we have this thing called breath that we can use to regulate how we feel, regulate our emotions, calm ourselves in those stressful moments, regulate our pain if we stub our toe or bang our head or cut our finger chopping onions. First thing we do, we can naturally do it anyway. We change our

breath, but we start to use our breath in those moments. Our breath is an amazing tool just to when we calm our breath, our mind will follow. So if we simply calm our breath when we're feeling stressed or anxious, our mind will follow. If our mind is racing when we're lying in bed and we can't sleep, we calm our breath and our mind will follow. So just having that one word to know that you can do something in the midst of chaos, when nothing else is achievable, when you feel like the world is about to end, well, there's one thing you can do. and you can breathe and as soon as you take the power into your hand into yourself saying right I can breathe and if I breathe I change my energy if I change my energy I change my thoughts

if I change my thoughts the world starts to change around me so we can simply do that one thing that one word and it empowers us to feel a little bit differently whether that is turning our stress to come can go the other way we can actually create a lot of energy if we're feeling exhausted and flat and we need a bit of a boost. Well, we can use our breath to engage as well to get ourselves really flowing and get ourselves into that mode where it feels like we're unstoppable.

So it's, yeah, you mentioned that word, it's such a gift and it is. This gift of life, which is breathing, is like the secret that is right under our nose that has the ability to tune in into that physical body, the nervous system, the mind, the mental body, the emotions are all triggered by the way we breathe. So we can start to take control of that. And then this kind of more expansive part of breathing is we are all connected. It's said that in one day, we breathe

at least one molecule of oxygen of every single person on the planet. No, that is incredible. No. Wow. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, wild. Now there's a few assumptions in there with airflow, but statistically when we're looking at stats, I actually do the maths in my book and breathe in breathe out. There's like fact boxes throughout the book and I've got a fact box to say right, okay, maths geeks, here we go. This is how this works from a statistic perspective. But I just love the idea. And one day we breathe at least one molecule of oxygen that's already passed through the lungs and the heart, which is really nice. way to think about it.

When we take that breath in, that air has already passed through someone else's heart. And that's not just humans. That's everything, everything, every animal, every plant, the oceans, the trees. It's just this flow of air between us. So I like to think, when I think about that, I think about the magic that's there, that magic of pure creation, that magic that makes the tree grow outside. And we can connect to that when we breathe. So it's this really kind of from this very ground.

piece of breathing to this more expansive the grounded piece being very physical yes it brings energy yes it detoxifies my body but then it also triggers into how i'm thinking how i'm feeling what's going on for me personally but then it starts to elevate beyond that because we're all breathing and it's all connected wow so incredibly powerful and i think i mean that that's so beautiful to know those statistics and just those facts. That in itself is just so powerful. I think when you were talking about all those different things that breathing, you know, the breath can help and you're talking about kind of energizing ourselves. And I think, oh my gosh, how often do I recognize I'm low in energy and I just reach for a coffee or some sweets? You know, how often do I recognize

that I'm stressed and I just pick up my phone and scroll? You know, and we just numb so much, don't we? And we reach out of ourselves and scrabble around for anything or, you know, anything that will make us feel better. But how wonderful to know that there is something inside of us that is always there that we can just draw our attention to and change. And we don't have to always reach, reach out and scrabble around to find things that are only going to kind of half, half address. Yeah, well, I think that's the key thing. When we're reaching out for something outside of ourselves, then it usually is an avoidance or a numbing or it's not the empowerment of breathing is saying, no, I can do this actually. I can regulate my energy myself. I don't need that cup of

coffee. Amazing. And do you have, for those listening who are thinking, yeah, what, how can I start to breathe if I know that it's just, you know, the emotions there, or I'm holding my breath or I realize that I'm just breathing really shallow and I'm feeling really stressed? Do you have a kind of a really simple tool that maybe even people can do with their driving or they're doing the school run or just having a moment. Intuitively, you could let your breath do whatever it feels like it needs to do in that moment.

And that might sound quite abstract. But if we're angry, we might just want to go like this and kind of shake it off and just let it out. If that is a bit abstract, then I always go back. to something that calms the nervous system. That comes with a phrase, if in doubt, breathe it out. I often share this phrase

because a nice, long drawn out breath, so doubling your out breath to your own breath, flicks the switch from the sympathetic, the stress response to the parasympathetic, the rest, digest repair mode. So the simple technique, if in doubt, breathe it out, is in through your nose for four. We can practice together.

Pause and hold for four. and then breathe out through your mouth for eight and on that out breath just relax your shoulders relax your face relax your jaw so that's only one cycle you might have noticed the difference already but let's do two more so breathe in for four hold for four

and breathe out for eight through your mouth relax your shoulders even more good one more breathe out let everything relax so good yeah my shoulders just dropped loads and so that's in for four

hold for four and out for eight and you could totally do that on the go couldn't you just do that we did it in quite meditative way there i closed my eyes but yeah same i sometimes do it i'm feeling a bit nervous or anxious before sometimes before a radio show or something you're like oh we're about to go on and and just a couple rounds of that it just calms the system calms the nervous system even if you're in the the heat of conflict just kind of pulling yourself away breathe a couple of rounds and it just calms everything down so you you don't react

you kind of start to respond you kind of sit with it our brain is no longer kind of on the reactive more the limbic system the stress response we flick to the prefrontal cortex our more

the voice of reason our executive function so we can actually come, our words can come across the way we want them to come across in those moments it's kind of re-engaging that rational brain

so yeah so helpful and actually just you know, it doesn't take long, does it just to, just to tell your body that actually you're safe and to be able to be a little bit more intentional about how you're responding instead of that kind of reactive, fight or flighty response. So thank you. And you know, your book is just, it gives you all of this kind of knowledge and awareness plus a load of tools that you can use at different parts of the day, different seasons of your life. So thank you so much for that. and I really encourage people to go, to go and have a look, to download that,

maybe listen to it on audible, on audible. Are you reading it on the audio version? Yeah, I read the audio as well. Even, even better for it, even better for it. So thank you so much for that amazing tool that is just so accessible. And I would love to finish off with some quickfire questions. Okay, so, Stuart, what is a high for you in life at the moment? something that's just yeah wonderful but it's a high for me at the moment i've been taking every day

as it comes i had a bit of a slower start to the year and the high for me at the moment is actually just coming back to those little things that bring me joy so there's little things in the day that bring me joy and making them a priority um because it just makes me feel so good so there's little things for me is just the simple things again my my own practice sometimes it slips or it's breath work getting myself moving and just getting my flow in my day i've started cycling everywhere again and it's just making me feel so good amazing so putting those things as the building blocks rather than hoping that you'll be able to wedge them in somewhere and what's one what's what's a struggle or a challenge or a low for you at the moment the i started off i said a bit of a slower start

to the year and that was a challenging thing that happened i had a bit of a family of emergency and it was it really threw me off course because it came out the blue so it was something that happened that I felt really upset about but also just wanting to be there for my family so although it's it was a low but it's also this it's now come come out of it I've actually it feels like a blessing and I'm kind of avoiding now the answer by saying it was a low but it was, but it started making me to sort of feel grateful for a lot around me as well. Yeah. Yeah, just kind of puts everything into that kind of sharp perspective, doesn't it? And those, those curveballs can kind of swipe us, and we are more likely then to hopefully try and find

those things that feel anchoring and then make them more of a priority, which it sounds like. Yeah, that's exactly. That's what you're doing? And what's one thing that makes, what's another thing, because you've already listed a couple that makes you feel really good in life? Another thing that makes me feel really good is eating yummy foods. Oh, what's your fave? I have so many different faves. I do love my, yeah, I do love my kind of Asian fusion. I'm not sure it's quite Asian.

It depends if I'm making it. It's usually a bit of more fusion. But yeah, just I've been veering on the pretty healthy foods, but it's um yeah i just love it i feel like throughout the day my mouth gets bored and i'm like my mouth's feeling a little bit bored uh what can we do here let's let's beat this boredom with something that tastes good oh oh yeah i love Asian food as well i like specifically i like Thai Thai curries yeah oh you're making me hungry now and then finally how would you describe life at the moment in three words life at the moment in three words life at the moment in

three words flow happy content yeah everything feels good at the moment if you'd ask me last week i probably would have said a very different three words and i think that's what's quite key you've got me on a very good day today good but um flow happy content yeah i'm feeling feeling very much in flow at the moment, which feels good. Brilliant. What a lovely way to be. Well, thank you so much for sharing today, for your honesty, for sharing your story and your passion in such a warm and compassionate way.

And, yeah, I just encourage people to head over to BreathPod on Instagram, just absorb some of the work that Stuart puts out there because, yeah, it's eye-opening and you recognize that, you know, there is so much within you to use and to, to, to, to, access. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Oath and Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm

for new mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book. You don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a mum. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you.