Are You Breathing Wrong? Rob Rea Reveals The Simple Habit That Could Change Everything | The SLMan Podcast

0:00This episode of the SL Man podcast is brought to you in partnership with Porsche and the all-new K &E. At SL Man, we're big on investing in things that look good, perform well and genuinely make life easier. Whether that's what you wear, what you drive or the products you use every day, the K &E fits that mindset perfectly. Combining Porsche's unmistakable design and performance with the practicality, space and versatility you want from an everyday car. whether it's the daily commute a weekend away the school run or simply getting from a to b it's designed to slot effortlessly into modern life while making every journey feel a little bit more considered and if you've never thought of porsche as a brand that fits your lifestyle the k and electric might just change your mind to find out more visit the porsche website this is what's coming up in the latest smr podcast a tech investment for this year's heat wave that is far Not better than your standard fan.

0:51That lie in this fridge. Like it's fucking amazing. Erling Haaland. Is he just my man crush or the world's coolest man currently? Crush! Because he's now the coolest man in the world. I mean, yeah, but crush! How a breathwork coach to business elites and athletes judges mine and Tunde's morning routines. Wake up, have a coffee and a cigarette and then I go about my day. The bar's quite low with me, Rob. Yeah, we can make big change quickly. Where do we start? We learned breathing techniques that you can start tomorrow and you can follow on with on the pod. Just follow my voice. We're going to breathe in for four and out for six.

1:27Breathing in through the nose. Inhale. Two. Three. Four and exhale for six. It's a great one. Lots of fun, but also so much info. Stick around and watch it. I think you'll enjoy.

1:45Welcome back to the SL Man pod. I'm your host Frankie and today I'm joined by SL man regular Tunday and we are very pleased to have breathwork expert and human potential coach Rob Ray with us to offer us lots of insight around how we should be breathing to enhance our performance and our day-to-day lives. As well as that and some live breathwork we'll also be getting stuck into the latest of fashion, culture and sports as usual plus what we're wearing. If I was to meet you in a pub just so people get the idea of what we're going to get from you this this podcast how would you describe what you do thanks well thanks yeah for that intro um i suppose i help people with their internal world so like understanding better what they're feeling in any given moment where we can become really disconnected from that so using breath meditation as the way in okay cool we'll get on to all of Rob's expertise later in the show but we've got our usuals together first fashion sport culture Tunde how are you I'm good how are you I'm all right yeah um nice to be chatting again yes feeling fresh after boxing yesterday yeah me and Tunde well actually no no we have to tell the whole truth really shall we go on go on I arranged to go for a gym session with Tunde yesterday yeah he turns up to the gym and I said gym and breakfast tells me he can't work out but he'll wait whilst I do then we'll go for breakfast after I felt really nauseous when I got there there's no way I could do the class and the way he came out I would have died so that was our two more years I obviously won this morning um looking stylish as ever thank you very much start with what we're wearing what have you gone on today so today my top is from coz literally brand new this morning uh then my jeans are from zara socks are from I think they company called pears i think and then shoes are sebago's and then my shirt is also from sara and my glasses are right bad letters love the jeans thank you for trousers jeans or trousers i would say a mixture of both yeah because they're even like a cargo sort of vibe as well but no i love them yeah really smart i'm not one green in ages so i've got one and what's on your fingers all the rings oh just my normal your usual bling usual being and then i've got my aura ring your or ring five which i'm absolutely obsessed with have you got one i don't i was using a whoop oh okay um but or a lot of my clients are using oh i love it it's now so thin so easy on that when you go to the gym and stuff rob how about you i am wearing so i'm a big orla bar brown man um i love it absolutely if i can i can ever afford it um yeah the uh the top is orla bar brown and um these trousers I think are Massimo Didi socks I've no idea sorry and Nike goodies and the timepiece this is a Rolex oyster date which I had to wait for like two years to get because I really love the green yeah I'd seen I'd seen different shades for the face and the dial but green I just waited out for my son's called Forrest and Forrest Green's a big big thing in my life no way my company's called Forrest too I love the name Forrest I always name my child Forrest too as well mental I'm a long way off having a chair and a Rolex for that matter I'm in an MPL shirt necks jeans John Foster loafers and the ever delivering Uniqlo socks which we bought together oh yeah we did things we are loving what stands out at the moment rob what's one thing that you are absolutely loving so right for me biggie because of the heat wave in london and i've been in london for the last like six weeks i've got eight sleep okay eight sleep have you heard of this so eight sleep is a mattress, essentially a smart mattress that you put on your bed.

5:55It's actually filled gently with water. You put like a modem beside your bed and it cools you depending on your body temperature and the ambient temperature. And it warms you in the winter. If you're cold, it takes your heart rate. So it's like a whoop, but while you're sleeping. I feel dreadful whenever i'm like putting my son to bed and 29 degrees and i'm like goodbye good night i like lie in this fridge for the night and it's like it's fucking amazing can you feel that you're on water no not at all okay so it's not like not at all yes the cold you feel like just you can it goes to minus 10 and you can put this thing like like actually you're like oh gosh like have i peed myself or like what is that sensation underneath me you can control it from like an app yeah yeah you can control it from the app or there's like a on the underneath the mattress on the side of the bed there's buttons that you can just like if you can't if you don't want to get your phone through the night which because my phone's not even okay yeah it's like a warm hug can you set it you can set it but it learns it learns your your rhythm sorry what i'm not hearing that would in my room right now if everyone's out buying fans trust me when you get the mattress I've been really fortunate to go with my clients to some lovely hotels and I'm like lying in bed going I can't wait to get home for my eight sleep eight sleep eight sleep how much it's expensive like three and a half grand what you need to start distributing it to hotels this is yeah this is something that I'll work on you need an affiliate link three grand for a mattress yeah no like it's it is an expensive piece of kit but worth it i would go to the point where like if they were to take it off me tomorrow i'd run say can i can i have another one yeah and i think like someone told me like that's the best way to know if a product's good yeah like if someone said take it away i'd actually go and spend the money it's me and my airpods once a month just buying them again and again lost another one yeah okay nice like that tinday how about you i i have something i just got this thing called skin fatigue they're like these like leg compression boots i don't know if i'm pronouncing is that the right term but i used to use them in the gym and i had them at home and they're just so good for recovery i use it every morning and every evening and i just think it's sick the like they they go you go over your legs and they're like breathe yeah and they inflate with inflate with air and like go like in and out it like pulsates like from the feet to the leg to the knee then the whole leg and it just keeps going around in a motion I love it so much did you do that yesterday after the workout you missed I did do it yesterday breakfast but I went on a long run over the weekend so I was still recovering from that and you think it helps yes I love it I love it so much and I also got this suitcase from July it was like a trunk it's like it's a weird shape it's like it's quite long and thin but it's quite deep I've never had a suitcase like before and I've always been so intrigued about carrying one wheels on the bottom tall yes exactly that yeah yeah yeah game changer and it has this thing in it which I read on the when I took it out that you can like connect to your find my iPhone so like if you lose it you can find it because I have air tags on my suitcases and now I don't even need that anymore so I'm quite excited to not lose it obviously because I want to not lose it but I'm quite excited to see it quite excited for someone to misplace my language so I can track them down no just to track it and know that it's with me when I'm out nice so yeah those are the things I'm loving where are you?

9:31mine's a bit different you've like got your wellness sleep you've got your a bit of a yeah your recovery mine's all day festivals in London right okay I was just well I've been to quite a few over the last couple of weeks and my entire Instagram feed seems to just be my friends at various festivals yeah and I was watching or looking at stories from my friend who went to Peggy Gu at Royal Naval College and just thinking we have such good event spaces in London yeah And we get all the best DJs from around the world. You can quite easily take it for granted that there's so much on your doorstep if you live in London.

10:08Loads of people are traveling to go and see their favorite artists pretty much through summer. Every single weekend or weekday, there's something going on. Royal Naval College being the one that I haven't yet done, which is on my radar. I think it looks so sick with the DJ centered between the two buildings. Burgess Park's got three weekends in a row of events. there was a couple of boiler rooms there last weekend which looked cool and then uh primrose hill pop-ups seems to have become a thing for djs where like last minute they just put on their story pop-up at 6 p.m top of primrose hill sunset dj set which looks unreal yeah so not necessarily a wellness hack but lots of fun things to do in london eastern electrics is is my next event which is this Sunday in Burgess Park, which fingers crossed.

10:57That's very ravey, that one, isn't it? Yeah. I actually went to a boiler room last Friday in Burgess Park, which was probably one step too far for me. It was quite a bit heavy, but Burgess Park's across the road from me. So I just thought, oh, a pop-up heading. Yeah. Wasn't really in the right frame of mind or set up for what I walked into, but it's good space as well. Yeah. Just cool spaces. Having a good summer, right? Yeah. Very good summer. Any on yours? Festivals? Yeah. You're a festival girl? I am but I'm probably more like a a glamping yeah glamping VIP area backstage kind of guy that is definitely my sort of vibe not amongst the world no way that is no way yeah I know I know I can't yeah yeah yeah VIP yeah VIP side of stage that's your vibe we know Rob are you with Tunday or with me yeah I'm probably along Tunday's space I must say but I've got a two year old and I've got a baby arriving in November and like there's negotiations always about what one can go to yeah yeah Rob's got his eight sleep in his backpack I'm ready to go exactly bringing it in my tent so yeah Wilderness I liked Wilderness yeah that was good a year ago and I thought that was brilliant fun not this year I think I'll miss them this year I'm travelling a lot yeah yeah no Wilderness good shout yeah

12:22fashion finds what have we got our eye on or purchased recently that we're loving i lose my sunglasses all the time yeah and that's like a real i love sunglasses and i've just been looking for this the ones that i've got are actually taylor morris nice and i love this kind of um you know kind of see-through and so i'm looking uh i was looking at a wee personal edition and I looked in the airport the other day couldn't find one that I loved love a good airport sunny's purchase yeah pretty much part of my departure process yeah yeah yeah tunday what are you buying mine isn't actually a fashion item well a grooming item okay that I found recently zing toothpaste um obviously toothpaste is normally minty they have this strawberries and cream toothpaste flavor which I find so bizarre but I am so intrigued by it because why why would anyone want to be brushing their teeth tasting joys and cream but I think it could work I don't know I'm not sure it's quite unsettling although I do chew bubblegum chewing gum yeah chew I think it would be quite nice I'm excited to try it I think it would be really nice Zing toothpaste is it like blowing up is it a bit of a thing at the moment I just saw it and I've got it at home so I'm just waiting for my toothpaste to finish and I'm going to use it shut up okay I'll come back and give you my review alright nice So I look forward to it.

13:47Yeah. I'm going to go with a shirt that I wore in the office and on a Five Finds video in a day's march just because it got lots of requests from where it was from. It's a Beaufort and Blake shirt. It's a herringbone, but it kind of looks like denim. I've been wearing it a lot. I actually ordered three shirts from Beaufort and Blake, a linen shirt, this herringbone one, and a granddad shirt. I love all three of them. I'm pretty reasonably priced as well. So if you're looking for a summer shirt, Beaufort and Blake, good champ.

14:24Celeb sports and culture. Who's got some gossip for us? Anyone been reading headlines or, well, I'll kick us off actually, because on my very first SL Man interview I did, I was asked who was my man crush. And I said, Erling Haaland. and I think I was I think I was ahead of the curve Crush because he's now the coolest man in the world I mean yeah but crush not necessarily for his looks just he's cool he is very cool and he's got ever cooler since the World Cup I mean he's just doing everything and is everywhere I'm fascinated my entire social media feed is mostly full of Erling Haaland I mean there's all sorts who was the goalkeeper I thought you were going to ask who he was though he played for Cape Verde Yeah, like he's just gone like...

15:1120 million followers on that. For being good looking, right? No, the oldest... He's like 40 or something. Okay. But he just like went completely viral. There's been a few, hasn't there? I suppose we're in... We've been in social media age for years, but even more so all athletes at any big festival. Big event and becoming stars. But yeah, I've been enjoying the Haaland Instagram frenzy where he just comments on everything. Like it'd be a nice... No, it's crazy. Everything. He's everywhere. I don't know if he and I kind of believe that he's doing I think he is I think he is because it's his humour I love his bag collection I don't know if you guys he's very fashionable his bag collection is on every Hermes bag he has really oh my god it's ridiculous have either of you been to Glorious Goodwood I know you've been to Goodwood for car racing yes Festival of Speed yeah okay Festival of Speed you've done Rob you are no Goodwood Virgin tell me about it okay I mean they have events year round the biggest being Festival of Speed yeah um goodwood revival which is old cars so they have loads of motor racing yes at goodwood they also have horse racing they have good woof which is dogs they have all sorts of events on the grounds of goodwood owned by the duke of richmond has a load of history to it but very unique in its style like if i was to describe glorious goodwood which is five days of horse racing 90 percent of gents are in panama hats and linen suits girls are in sort of garden summer dresses it's very old english garden party style everyone's very polite there's strawberries and cream at half time it's this unique feeling that you get and it's really really cool and i think you were saying tinde this year it sort of has traveled a bit on socials with people being like oh that looks really cool because it's not just another horse race or another event it comes with its own almost its own etiquette not as strong a brand as wimbledon for example but that sort of feeling um and i think they've really got it right this year i always get asked what's my favorite horse racing event to go to i think it's climbing the ranks rapidly it'll be up there as a as a cool event the only negative is it's kind of in the middle of nowhere yeah it's quite a bit where you want to stay and how you want to do it yeah um you've got to try and figure that out but it's it's very cool they do they do loads it's very like there's a lot of tradition to it which if you sort of unearth that yeah it's very cool and on the surface you go and drink champagne and dress up and have a bet I'll be going next year I think yeah you should yeah I do think the Panama hat thing is odd do you yeah I do think it's why is it odd very odd as in you don't like it I don't know I just I mean obviously the Ascot hat great right alright so Top Hat is Ascot's thing Panama is Goodwood's thing it's odd I think it's odd yeah because some people's like rings are too small and then it like flops down I don't know it just feels it's a more relaxed Ascot very odd do you see the Panama hat yeah I've seen it do you want your thoughts?

18:06yeah I mean some people say what you think Rob yeah alright hello I've got three

18:16I'll put it back in my bag I do like it I do like it some people don't pull it off as well yeah I feel like it's with this suit I don't know I weirdly quite like wearing a Panama hat and sunglasses because you kind of feel like not undercover I don't know if that's a ridiculous thing to say, but you know. Incognito. Yeah, a little bit. I think it's weird with a suit. I think it needs to be just on a t-shirt or an open-floor shirt. Oh my, a suit is cool.

18:50This is what we've been waiting for, really. This is why we've got you on, is for your expertise. I'm really excited to hear more about Breathwork and all that you do. Let's kick off, perhaps, then, with what you think is really important. something that people aren't doing enough of or something that you're a massive advocate for? So I always start with simply having awareness of the breath, like how you're breathing in any given moment. Literally that is, am I breathing through my nose or breathing through my mouth? You know, I see everyone going, actually, what am I? It was my mouth.

19:25But like the breath is absolutely amazing. Obviously, I'm going to geek out a little bit, but um how you breathe in any given moment informs how you're seeing the world and so whenever people start to bring awareness to this they start to realize that if they're starting to breathe really fast quick shallow this is kind of simulating what it feels like to be anxious or have a panic attack you know this kind of feeling if you like the the great examples if get into like an ice bath like how do your breath go you know and the idea is that we start to try to take control of our breath by by meeting it where it's at and then slowing it down so it's like one of the the fundamental things that i say to clients in any given moment is just become aware of how you're breathing in any given moment especially like in big business boardroom situations or um tennis like how you're how you're breathing in between the the the switchover of the game or during a sport or something so would you sort of think about it get it under control and then obviously you're not just constantly thinking about your breath yeah exactly so it's like i always say the physiology learns by doing not by us having a wee chat about it so like that's to say that it's all it's really good to like think yeah i'm i'm calm i'm i'm i'm feeling good i'm relaxed and confident but actually the way that you truly like shift the dial is by by using the breath that guide you there so whenever the physiology is learning if you do it like two minutes a day five minutes a day you know we fall to the level of our training rather than rise to the occasion type thing and and the physiology quite literally learns so like nasal breathing through the night sometimes people do this with nasal strips yeah yeah yeah yeah um that scares me yeah i know it's not the sexiest like you know you're like nice sweetheart um and uh but like even still it's it's a really good way of first for six seven hours you're you're just training the breath to go in through the nose and breathing through the nose it's like one of the best things you can do whenever you're just sitting here like chatting you know of course if you're running a marathon then it's different.

21:41Yeah. How'd you get into all this? On my honeymoon. Really? Not because I needed breath. What have I done? Your wife's put the mouth strip on. Shut up, Rob. We're going to bed. Exactly. Just a debout. No, it was like 15 years ago. We're together like 20 years and married 14, 15 and went on honeymoon and in Bali in Indonesia, there was a, there was a guy who was teaching pranayama, which is the yogic science of breath and body and uh i started doing it i was like this is absolutely class like love whatever initially i was i was like what am i doing it's 8 a.m on my honeymoon what am i doing and my mind's kind of going crazy and then you know during the 30 minute session whatever it was like you kind of felt high or euphoric or blissful and um little had some emotions coming through your life this pretty cool whatever was happening and then just went into a rabbit hole with it like dived into how surfers used it, how freedivers used it for lung capacity and stress.

22:44And then sort of talking a little bit about it. Some people were slightly interested in it. Kind of snowballed in there to like understand how we can use the breath to affect the physiology, which affects your psychology. So that's what I said at the start, you know, working with your internal world, like starting to understand a little bit more about the feelings that you're feeling. can you demonstrate how to breathe properly yeah properly yeah i suppose i i actually can um breathing ideally wants to be like a wave okay wants to come start from the belly to the mid chest to the upper chest right so there's a pranayam which is uh uh the yugic science of breath and body prana meaning life force or breath and yam meaning control okay so it's like breath control uh that is one of the most fundamental it's called three-part breathing part one is essentially at the belly button and around.

23:39Not just the front of the body, but the side of the body and the back of the body. Don't forget the lungs actually have more surface area at the back of the body than they do at the front. So whenever people are breathing, think about trying to breathe into the back body as well. I feel like I should be copying you. Should we sit up straight? If you think the diaphragm can move, which is your primary breathing muscle, it can move six inches, seven inches, up and down. So if you're like this, it's not moving so easily. So yeah, like that's why I wanted a nice way. So part one, part two is about the mid chest.

24:12Part three is the upper lung. So just like try to tune into part one. You can even place your hands like in and around the belly. Jesus Christ, look at that. That's Sally over here. Yeah, breathe in. Breathe out. Hopefully you're starting to feel the hands moving outwards and the hands moving inward with each inhale and exhale. If you're not, it's probably a good sign that you're not really breathing into the belly. And some people don't, I promise. It's like moving ever so slightly. Yeah, exactly. Come to the mid-chest. This is part two. Just breathe in here. A lot of people really connect into this part because most of us are breathing in about this stage.

25:02It's quite hard to actually breathe in the belly. as you breathe in don't just think about the front body think of the back of the body and then just bring like your fingers about a finger width below your collarbones and breathe in and what forget about the belly now yeah you forget about everything apart from there and try to feel that move and then exhale okay now I want you to think about breathing into part one part two part three in one breath in one breath inhale part one part two part three and exhale let part one start to deflate two good inhale part two part three and exhale

26:01last one breathe into part one that's the belly button that's the back of the body it's the side body part two part three and then exhale let part one deflate part two I'm sorry we're gonna put you to work I think and people can follow along if you want and maybe relate to either me or tunday yeah you're going to i suppose they're going to help us in some way hopefully with either our morning routines or something that we could do each day um i would probably say that i would be an easy client well no well i don't know if an easy client or a hard client there's probably a lot a lot of low hanging fruit with me put it that way because i have no i mean i certainly have no um cool bed no routine no routine no compression no uh no compression no focus on my breath i've got a congested nose i wake up have a coffee and a cigarette and then i go about my day so yeah the bar's quite low with me rob yeah we can make big change quickly where do we start yeah like listen i i i kind of think about this like household spirituality right so like my brother is five kids um uh shift work you know says to me rob i don't have two hours in the morning to meditate you know and i'm like please don't don't even think about it like two hours that you need or we don't need to go to the himalayas and sit in a cave right it's like i i'm traveling all the time as well at the minute and i have like an eight minute routine okay like quite seriously like and i do i do like two to three minutes of of literally sitting doing nothing whenever i wake up yeah and then i do about 30 seconds of like a few like moves in my back and my neck okay and then about four minutes of breath okay and what does so two minutes of sitting doing nothing literally doing nothing like so that's that that is what yeah like how are you thinking about your breath during that time if you're thinking you're thinking yeah exactly no no doesn't have to be thinking about your breath just do nothing exactly just don't fight any thoughts and just be like like you know eyes closed eyes open on a soft gaze if you wish like practice doing nothing practice human being not human doing and how do you know when the two three minutes is up do you have a little alarm yeah that's that's a really good point i i have been practicing with like having a little timer from eight minutes but my bloody phone just has the most obnoxious alarm but i still haven't figured out how to turn it off so like i i kind of do eight minutes and i i just kind of sense it and feel it whenever i feel like if i've kind of sat there what feels long enough and sometimes it might be six minutes sometimes it might be 10 minutes or 12 minutes that in itself is information whenever you're agitated it's like two or three minutes you're like oh everything's really pissing me off today like i just don't like this the the sitting doing nothing is quite seriously that and then um just a little bit of movement this is to wake up the respiratory system that your neck and your back lets the diaphragm move, which allows the breath to go, this is really, really good for us.

29:07So, and that can be literally as simple as like a neck roll and arching and bending the back. And then breath work. Now, like what does that mean, Rob? Like, it's like, find just nasal breath. In for three and out. In for four and out. You'll find the little, the number that feels quite good. what we've found clinically is that moving towards like a 10 second breath is so good for your physiology should we try it i'm doing it right now a 10 second breath 10 second breath so that means five in for five out for five or in for four and out for six if you're watching we'll do three yeah we'll do three okay i'll count you okay so just like if you're if you're not driving and if it feels safe allow the eyes to close and then just follow my voice we're going to breathe in for four and eight for six breathing in through the nose inhale two three four and exhale for six five four three two one inhale two three four exhale soften the shoulders four three two one One inhale, last one here.

30:23Two, three, four, exhale and allow everything to soften. Skin around the sides of the eyes, the shoulders to drop. Two, one, blink the eyes open. Wow. The whole time I was thinking I wish we could continue. Yeah, same. I'm like, no, stop. Please don't stop. Do you know what I really noticed when you said relax the skins of, is that what you said? Skin around the sides of the eyes. Yeah, geez, they were like, oh, scrunched. Yeah, yeah, scrunched out of the snow as mine. Yeah, yeah. So like sympathetic tone, which has nothing to do with sympathy, it's called the fight or flight response. Like that, that moves into our muscles.

30:56Right. So like there's a tone within our muscles, which creates tension in the body. So like one of the best ways to relax the mind is actually to relax the body. You might've heard this before, soften the mind, soften the body to soften the mind. But it's like a beautiful practice to kind of like, oh yeah, like I'm, I'm holding there. The jaw, obviously like what you notice whenever people breathe in the shoulders. Yeah, the shoulders. So if you just, people start to notice that contrast. Yeah. This is awareness. Like that's number one, awareness. And obviously it feels good. Like we've all just gone, oh my God, that was 10 seconds.

31:28Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what is the benefit? Like why, if you commit to this eight minutes? Yeah, so like I said, the physiology learns by the doing of, right? So if you think that whenever we're starting to do this, we're slowing the heart down. Slowing the heart down sends the signal from the body to the brain that we're safe physiologically. we're not in a in a fight or flight state right which which has a hormone release impact so if you imagine whenever you're in that threat response or the fight or flight response what it's called um cortisol is being released it's like the stress hormones help this increases um inflammation it mobilizes the body for action so adrenaline is getting ready to pump out but if we're like that all day long it never gets a chance to kind of close the loop so the idea is that it's like structured rest you know it's like through your day you just pop these in that was three breaths i've got some clients doing three breaths 10 times a day yeah that's you know it turns out to be three or four minutes a day but the physiology starts to learn that and then it's like okay i it's not about always feeling good actually or not about always you know trying to get yourself into zen but it's allowing your body to come down if you're if you've been quite activated for on some of my clients quite activated for 30 years you know so it's like okay like this is a new feeling that they have to start to to practice yeah actually and it's a practice in itself and that's the lifestyle aspect i go through phases when i'm traveling a lot presenting a lot which is obviously you're very switched on yeah have to be very um yeah i I suppose, very turned on, beating lots of people.

33:04And when I'm in those phases, I sort of stay in it 24 hours. So if I have a big festival or a big week of work that encompasses travel, lots of different things, I almost stay active the whole time. And I'm like flat out, even on my phone and text people and working out and smoking and drink, like anything that basically gives me any sort of hit because I'm up there the whole time. so I guess for me like that would be quite a good thing to do to reset the clock yeah absolutely Frankie the the body's predictive so whenever you've been doing it for for um weeks months years the those hormones get released even whenever that stress isn't present yeah which means that you almost have to practice and train the body to say ah like it's I don't need to be absolutely switched on right now actually noise of time for a little bit of rest and that again then that's three breaths.

33:57Like it's not, it's not a five day retreat. And, you know, I'll be there. I'm in awe of you. I'm like, what?

34:10You're looking fascinated over there. I am. I'm so fascinated. So would you say you like breathe the best of any human? Have you like adapted your breathing? No, like I work with some athletes and like their scores are way better than mine. Oh, how do you get a score? yeah yeah now we're talking now it's yeah essentially it's like breath holes um hrv okay like so you got hrv or rhr your resting heart rate which is like a really good indicator for how well you sleep but your respiratory rate how many breaths you take in a minute and like all these numbers there's there's not one absolute number to say i'm i'm 99 out of 100 at breathing but like all these different uh numbers help us tell the story of what's going on in a person's life what's the optimum breath then you need to be breathing in a minute yeah so this is a really really interesting question actually most people breathe about 14 breaths per minute right sorry this is actually the average adult let's say breathe 14 breaths per minute some of my really stressed clients rock in with 23 24 breaths in a minute oh so that's bad that's bad no not sorry let's move away from the good and bad, right?

35:19But let's say it's less efficient for what the body needs to do, right? And how do you, obviously you can test it, but I feel like if you tested me now, I'd be conscious to slow it down. Exactly, and it's like, you know, don't think of a pink elephant. And it's like, yeah. Actually, your whoop will take, that will have your respiratory rate on average. Yeah. Go on, please. This will be a really interesting one, actually. Some athletes might have eight breaths per minute. Wow. So like that's, if you might like, without going too much into the science i can work that that is uh changes blood gases levels in your body it changes hormone release in your body it has such a huge impact so i can i can very often you know like a client that's coming very stressed will will definitely have more than 14 breaths and that's 10 second breath cycle that's four in six so this breath that we practice that's obviously six breaths so if you imagine if you're training your breath your body to breathe six breaths per minute just for three times a day you know or three breaths and then three times for days then you're you're starting to change your physiology i think i think my score would be really i want to yeah i think well i might it's come out a good time for me i'm on a bit of a fitness kick i love it training a bit more i'm trying to sleep a bit better yeah yeah which is slowly getting there the sleep sleeps your performance enhancing drug yeah like that's that's the best have you got any cool client success stories or what i suppose of success i guess well yeah maybe not just i suppose examples of people you've worked with or um it might be a business it might be a retreat it might be an individual that has noticed a real impact from making changes so a lot of the clients that i work with i've got one actor who would have had to whenever they initially went to do award ceremonies they took beta blockers in order to calm okay and so nervous because they were nervous yeah they're actually quite shy person and i said you know why are you taking a bit of a person they said because it slows my heart down and i said what does that make you feel and they're like well it makes me feel not stressed i'm not stressed i'm like okay well we can do that with breath like that's why don't we practice that with breath so a big success there was they had to do another big event and nobody they didn't even feel like they needed to take the beat of blood that's like quite tangible the other ones are like kind of business leaders let's say hundreds of thousands of employees and quite high profile people who are maybe a little bit like you in a sense of like completely switched on all the time very very like they don't actually have any structured rest in their program at all and just to build that awareness that they start to realize whenever they're tense like you know since doing that i'm now understanding that i'm actually in a really agitated state because then whenever you're someone comes to you with something and says a comment that maybe triggers you you're much more aware of it that it's like it's more with how your state is rather than what they've actually just said i've got quite a road question but you can probably put it to bed quickly or not whether how you breathe changes the shape of your face is there any truth to that yes yeah yeah that has been clinically proved really yeah so mouth breathing with uh people would over like chronic mouth breathing let's say not just running running a marathon and breathing into your mouth i've got a long face um like that's it actually elongates our face yeah like uh squeezes the jaw makes you thinner yeah makes you thinner straight away which way hang on sorry no sorry yeah mouth breathing elong like okay makes the face a little bit longer and nasal breathing is gives you a better jaw better job more healthy looking so yeah genuinely that the nasal nasal breathing is really good for for aesthetics yeah i'll breathe like this from now on yeah you know what what you'll see what you'll see is like more efficient breathing let's say or like breathing to meet the moment more efficiently is uh helps with inflammation with helps with digestion with helps essentially the optimization of the bodily functions which means that we we don't have like the wee tuft so much in our bellies or you know everything is is kind of moved a little bit easier through so you can kind of see like the benefits over time because like stress has a real aging impact on it so breath can make you younger you know love that more Botox than me baby yeah just breathing it's much cheaper yeah it's way cheaper how do you breathe to get sleep for sleep yeah to get too sleep or while sleeping I suppose too sleep whilst you're sleeping so I always think about sleep it's so closely linked into your circadian rhythm circadian rhythm is like your your your body clock essentially like that is like the the two things that impact that are light okay food so light and food yeah like kick off your circadian rhythm everything like sunlight sunlight natural light yeah so like the first thing think about your bedtime routine as like what's the first thing i do in the morning is it like grabbing the phone and checking everything yeah i go for poo yeah well this is good that's what i do with With your phone?

40:37Yes, with my phone. With your phone, right. I normally, yeah, a little bit scrolling, telling Alexa to play some music and my housemate brings me a coffee. I mean, the music's probably quite good because it's like starting to move, but like scrolling, I change things as well. Once kind of learning how much the impact of like dopamine and all that has on the physiology. I try to not, and I try to get a natural light, which kicks off. Yeah, I've heard that, yeah. I think I spoke about this on the pod before. I did a phase when I lived in Wandsworth. there was a coffee shop stone's throw from my house and I used to put my phone on airplane mode I couldn't turn it off because I used the alarm the night before and I committed to not turning it off airplane mode until I'd been across the road for a coffee and read like 20 pages felt so good this is it but I couldn't stick to it and I don't know why stupid because it felt good this is strange I saw the results and then I went back on them but it was so good at the time I felt unbelievable I almost felt too calm well actually there are breath works to lift you up as well you know people always think oh like breath is all about calming like speeding your breathing up like in a voluntary way is really good for like putting caffeine in the nervous system that's why would you want to do that so like say you do you wake up and you're a wee bit sluggish you're like um or like you're just about to go to a function you're feeling crap um and instead of taking a um an espresso So you're like, I can actually go breathe quite fast, you know, and you'll, you'll feel it like by doing that a little bit of lightheadedness like that.

42:07You're, you're quite literally simulating the response of anxiety. But I think it was like Steve Cutler, these like big flu state guy, they find that the physiological biomarkers for anxiety and excitement are virtually the same. Wow. So like, so sometimes we, we perceive the feeling in our body as anxiety, but actually it's the same you know excitement as you know it might you might feel that if you do that those kind of fast breaths you know in out in out for like 10 or 12 breaths it's kind of like there's a little bit of sharpness that comes into the body and and that would be like yeah a way of of using the breath that isn't always calming like an easy rule of thumb here is to think about the inhale speeds the heart up you know tells the heart to beat a little bit faster that's that's your fight or flight the exhale essentially allows the conditions for parasympathetic which is your rest and digest so it slows the heart down so any time that you extend your exhale you're helping your body feel like it's ready for sleep so like inhale for three exhale for six inhale for four exhale for eight these are good sleep uh breath works that can start to sleep do you think you're going to take this up yes what what do you think you might implement into your life i i don't even know where to start i want to do all the time maybe you can give and viewers one thing that they could start tomorrow yeah so and me yeah so i would say like don't don't go for the eight minutes yet but go for two minutes go for two minutes of sitting maybe for the first 10 seconds just sit do absolutely nothing for the next minute 50 seconds breathe in for four and breathe out yeah just simply like just start really really make it so easy that like we've all got two minutes everyone's got two minutes i've got audio recordings that i use yeah sometimes like my poor wife like i'll wake up quite early and i just put my own my cell phone she's like what i'm like oh no sorry that's my recording do you do that i do can people like yeah subscribe or buy your um yeah yeah actually um on my website i have various different um recordings and ways in and i've built an app for for companies so employees can use and with about 400 different audio recordings but it's for exactly that it's for someone who wants to start to integrate a practice into their life and what i've found is that the two minute ones are the absolute most downloaded or or used ones some 20 minutes feels a wee bit daunting for people um but with that said uh a lot of clients start off with like i'm just going to do my two minutes and they go in for four one two three five exhale two three and they listen and all that stuff and then it kind of moves from that into it started to feel good so i just sat there for five minutes and i actually did more even though the recording stopped rob and that's what i love that like you know and it doesn't necessarily have to be in bed you know in fact i i i prefer like the whole idea around breath work right it's i'll say it again like it's not necessarily about calming yourself it's about shifting your internal perception of how you're feeling like just like being aware of your internal perception of how you're feeling yeah that makes sense right so for me being alert and calm are like the two things that i want so it doesn't necessarily have to be like sitting cross-legged uh on on uh on a yoga mat where if you're traveling all the time it's like oh i don't have my yoga bat and actually my knee hurts whenever i sit cross-legged i just i sometimes can sit you know just sit at the side of the bed or or go downstairs my son's two so i sometimes get downstairs before he's up um and and take my eight minutes and just do it i was actually thinking that i was thinking i don't think i can sit on the floor i do i used to edge of the bed is probably two minutes edge of the bed is probably my starting important when i broke up with my ex i was trying to think of all sorts of things i could do to sort of like because i was really anxious every single day i don't know there's an app and i actually did it like every day like i think they had like a daily thing you'd do it it was like between eight and ten minutes yeah brilliant put your phone to one side you just listen to this woman she'll just talk to her voice was like the most calming voice listen to her um and i really enjoyed it but like like like you said even though i felt so good after i finished i wasn't consistent so how do you like combat that yeah i for me it's like i have i have a client who is like her whole day is just blocked out with what she has to do she's like i can give you four minutes a day and she just committed to that for about 13 months she's done four minutes like religiously every single day like and we could we've got the data that the hrv has just like steadily tracked that's quite a good point yeah if i had if i had data i think that would keep me yeah like a lot of a lot of my clients like we we gamify it and we check it every week father's day was just um just passed you know and um like i had a lovely weekend with my with my family like lovely day my hrv was through the roof i hadn't done any breath work or or movement or meditation but actually she was like i was thinking about earlier whenever you're saying about day festivals like it's joy is a huge part of well-being being able to connect to joy like dancing music friends i'm gonna send you my data please and then how many weeks shall i give it a go so for what we've seen is um 10 to 12 minutes a day for six weeks yeah makes real like moves the on very many metrics so like respiratory rate your your how many breaths you breathe in a minute i can change this in a client session between minute one and minute 30 it's very very responsive resting heart rate is a little bit more how do you live your life yeah you know so like respiratory rate on hrv we can affect quite quickly and you start to feel the difference of that i would say within 10 days but six weeks would be a really good marker practicing 10 to 12 minutes a day uh every day you've obviously gone on this journey of doing it on your honeymoon and then learning more about it and now practice in it do you do anything that is deemed unhealthy oh good question or are you totally converted to the healthy like this morning i had a cinnamon bun on a pan of chocolate for my breakfast i've had three coffees today um i love a glass of wine uh like i love like joy is is a huge part of what i try to integrate with my work with clients and joy for different people is different things yes is the answer i like yeah great yeah just for people that might be watching or i'm sure you've had this experience before and they're turned off by the idea of oh that's not a life for me but it's normal life just with this yeah yeah yeah yeah right quick fire coffee or breath work first thing do you want to answer first breath work first thing uh breath work cold shower yes or no yes what's the biggest misconception about breath work that we're doing it wrong it's a it's a way to help your body or a way that is a bit of an obstacle one daily habit you never skip breath work one wellness trend you think is over hyped um supplements what's a wellness trend that's genuinely worth sleep what's worth investing your money in hate sleep i'm not getting anything from this by the way and what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given oh great question stay curious like it rob thanks very much that was very very interesting i'm sure everyone that's watching or listening has found that very beneficial i'm gonna get started myself before we wrap up make sure you're not only watching and subscribed but also to our smi newsletter so you don't miss anything that is coming up from all cool guests such as rob before you go yes two things from you where can people find out more my website robray or ea.co.uk or on instagram robray underscore underscore surely to wrap we should all close our eyes and take a breath three breaths yeah and you can talk us through it you can just be really comfortable if it's safe to do so close your eyes.

50:37Follow my voice. I'm going to inhale for four. We're going to exhale for six. Come with me. Inhale. Two. Three. Four. And exhale for six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Inhale. Two. Three. Four. And exhale. Soften those shoulders. four three two one last one guys all together inhale two three four exhale soften the skin around the sides of the eyes thinking about all the thousands of people breathing together two one gently open the eyes thanks for listening

51:42you