Transcript

00:00:03 Alison

Welcome to mental wealth, the podcast to invest in your mind. Here I will help you make sense of your mind and behaviours, giving you the tools to have your best life. There is so much to share, so let's get into this episode and explore another great topic.

00:00:22 Alison

Welcome to Episode 21, and in this episode we're going to explore, sleep and breathing and all these things that we know we need to do. We don't necessarily do them well, and there's definitely, definitely things that we can do differently to help ourselves and in this.

00:00:41 Alison

Episode I am delighted to say that I am joined by a good friend of mine, Joel, and he is definitely got loads of brilliant things that he can share with you, which is why I wanted him to be part of this episode. So welcome Joel, please introduce you.

00:00:56 Joel

Thank you. So I'm Joel Jelen, and many years ago I was very fortunate to appreciate the values of breathing properly, breathing optimally, breathing functionally so.

00:01:11 Joel

You're thinking why?

00:01:13 Joel

Am I saying that there must be a reason for that?

00:01:15 Joel

Well, yes.

00:01:16 Joel

And at the time.

00:01:18 Joel

And good things come from uncomfortable situations. At the time, I was poorly for a few decades, actually, and.

00:01:28 Joel

I didn't realise that what had happened to me was going to be the best thing that happened to me and would shape the rest of my life and it would be to help.

00:01:37 Joel

Others more importantly.

00:01:39 Joel

Help others become aware of how they will breathe and its impact on their health, their well-being, their mood, their relationships and their sleep.

00:01:50 Joel

And I've literally, slowly, slowly.

00:01:55 Joel

Trickled my way to getting a following.

00:01:59 Joel

And I spent many years thinking about.

00:02:02 Joel

The best book to write or the.

00:02:04 Joel

1st of a few.

00:02:06 Joel

And I came to the conclusion that.

00:02:09 Joel

I thought I'd approach it from a kids angle so very young people if they appreciate how we breathe, they'll tell Mum and Dad. They'll tell people they look after them, they'll tell their teachers.

00:02:22 Joel

They'll tell everybody.

00:02:23 Joel

Because I've worked with young people before junior secondary school.

00:02:28 Joel

And they are.

00:02:29 Joel

The most fantastic, the most enthusiastic when it comes to knowledge and education. OK, later in teens, you get a bit more grumpy like I was. That's fair enough. There's loads of hormonal.

00:02:44 Joel

Stuff going on.

00:02:45 Joel

Which I also cover in breathing, but I mostly talk about initially the awareness of breathing and how important it is and how well it can make.

00:02:56 Joel

You when you breathe.

00:02:58 Alison

Lovely. I love the first bit that you said and something that I'm really passionate about talking about when there has been a challenge, something that hasn't been very easy, something that's been incredibly difficult and actually that's turned into something so.

00:03:17 Alison

Magical in the end and and again. Similarly for me. And I think that's the first thing that I just wanna highlight is that, you know, anybody listening in when things are difficult, it can and usually means that something new and exciting is coming to hang in there. So that's the first thing which is slightly separate to the topic. But I think it's just.

00:03:37 Alison

A great example of remembering that we can gain some great things and your life can have a different turn just because of something like that.

00:03:49 Joel

When you are poorly, you have time to think. You have time to read and ponder, and you can be full of self pity. Humans are good at that and you know this better than anyone because you know all about the negativity bias that we have in our brains and you spend your life helping people understand the.

00:04:05 Joel

Brain, I just wanted to look at things.

00:04:09 Joel

From a mindfulness point of view, you appreciate that and say what's the best thing that can happen as a result of this, and did and started to read about lots of to do with holistic look at our lives. And I think that when we're poor.

00:04:29 Joel

When we can sleep well and I know this from science now, having studied for many years, we give ourselves the best possible chance.

00:04:37 Joel

Of being healthy through the day and recovering from conditions. So it was my ambition initially to work out how I could sleep best to repair myself and I started to see sleep as an event rather than ohh you get tired at the end of the day and you.

00:04:55 Joel

Go to sleep.

00:04:58 Joel

No. You actually spend an hour, maybe a bit more preparing for this event called sleep and what's involved in the preparation.

00:05:08 Joel

It's not just in that moment, it's also what you've done during the day and bear that in mind if you're thinking about why you can't sleep well, because that's huge.

00:05:20 Alison

I love that. I love the thought of it being an event, actually creating your mind and preparation to to see it as an actual thing. And I think for some people who do struggle with sleep and I do have some listeners who definitely identify themselves as poor sleepers.

00:05:39 Alison

Thinking of it as that, preparing yourself for an event. I love that I never even thought that I talk a lot about sleep hygiene. You know, thinking about how are you going to?

00:05:49 Alison

Have that really healthy preparation for sleep, but I never thought of actually seeing it as the preparation is part of the event and then the main event.

00:06:00 Alison

You're gonna have a a decent night's sleep, so let's.

00:06:03 Alison

Have a think.

00:06:03 Alison

About what kind of things do you think people need to pay attention to, Joel, when we're talking about getting ready for this main event, which is now called sleep, cause the other thing I want to say is some people see sleep as a bit of a nuisance, don't they? It's a.

00:06:17 Alison

Bit like oh.

00:06:17 Alison

I'm so busy, I don't want to.

00:06:20 Alison

I've got time to sleep because I'm too busy and I'm trying to pack too much in and actually it isn't healthy to see it like that. I know I fall into that trap myself sometimes. I'm like, I could just do without having to go to bed here because I've just got too many things I'm trying to achieve, and that's actually just rubbish, isn't it? Cause you're just not gonna be able to.

00:06:38 Alison

Produce good stuff if you haven't had a good night's sleep.

00:06:43 Joel

I asked people what's going on for you.

00:06:46 Joel

If you feel like you don't need to sleep.

00:06:50 Joel

And after sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's much longer. We get to the point where they admit that they're living in the fast lane, or, as I will put it, they're living in sympathetic nervous system mode.

00:07:06 Joel

You know, some listeners may not know that you've got two types of mode you can listen and and operate in. You can listen in on the sympathetic and just live your life in sympathetic nervous mode. Or you can look at the parasympathetic.

00:07:22 Joel

And you can.

00:07:23 Joel

Have a balance between living in the two. You know the system will loves the balance of the two and people who I work with.

00:07:30 Joel

It's often more prevalent in companies who are in.

00:07:34 Joel

A big growth.

00:07:35 Joel

Phase, and it's often the CEO who.

00:07:38 Joel

Comes to see.

00:07:38 Joel

Me after a workshop and says quietly.

00:07:40 Joel

To me, I'd love to.

00:07:41 Joel

To you, we talk about sleep. We talk about why they can't switch off.

00:07:47 Joel

It's adrenaline based, but from my point of view, it's how they're breathing because.

00:07:52 Joel

As soon as you.

00:07:53 Joel

Relax and slow someone's breathing. It changes their brain, it changes their mindset afterwards. So the key thing is to establish a baseline for anybody who doesn't think sleep is a good idea.

00:08:07 Joel

Or it's getting in the way.

00:08:08 Joel

And see how they change.

00:08:10 Joel

Which it's happened time and time again. But how you breathe is the baseline. So a lot of people come to me.

00:08:17 Joel

With lots of different symptoms.

00:08:19 Joel

To do with coarsely to do.

00:08:21 Joel

With health, where they're not ill, but they're not well.

00:08:25 Joel

And I say to them.

00:08:27 Joel

Don't focus on the symptoms. Focus on establishing, as I call it, that baseline. Get your breathing right and watch all that stuff. All those symptoms fall away.

00:08:38 Alison

Love it. So you mentioned.

00:08:41 Alison

Go to, do right breathing. It'd be brilliant if you could share with people what you mean by right breathing.

00:08:49 Joel

So I see breathing in terms of concept as being light, quiet, effortless through the nose, tummy based, rhythmic, gently paused on the exhale. So inhale, exhale, always make sure the exhale is.

00:09:07 Joel

Longer than the inhale.

00:09:08 Joel

Then a pause.

00:09:10 Joel

And it's how we breathe until the comforts of modern life came along, until the pace of Western society came.

00:09:17 Joel

And it's about.

00:09:18 Joel

Breathing so softly, the person.

00:09:20 Joel

Next to you can't hear you breathe.

00:09:23 Joel

It's about breathing so softly and you can't hear yourself breathe.

00:09:30 Joel

If you breathe like that.

00:09:33 Joel

You won't have the mood.

00:09:34 Joel

Swings that are associated with dysfunctional breathing. The tiredness.

00:09:39 Joel

The feeling of being gassed, the lack of stamina when you partake in sport and when you do that event that we refer to as sleep.

00:09:49 Joel

You won't struggle with sleep because there's not a huge difference between your breathing rate during the day.

00:09:56 Joel

And at night.

00:09:57 Alison

I love that. I think it's so important this conversation because so many people are hung up on that, they're bad sleepers or that they're not fit or they're not happy. All these things that they're sort of focused on and actually you're telling us today that the sort of gateway to having good sleep, having happiness, having good exercise or.

00:10:19 Alison

Is to breathe properly or to to pay attention to your breathing. And I think you know, since I've known you, I know I've become more aware of my breathing.

00:10:30 Alison

You you've you've shifted something in my own psyche and you know, obviously I'm fairly tuned into a lot of this stuff, but you've really shifted my attention since I've started talking to you because, yeah, I'm. I'm more aware of, you know, is my mouth open or what? What am I doing? What am I doing? A little bit more and.

00:10:50 Alison

And I guess that's the first thing, isn't it? Is for people to start to just be aware of what kind of breathing they're doing so that they can then make that change.

00:10:59 Joel

Yeah, it is very much so. So. So. Yeah. Thank you for the compliment, Allison. Yes, awareness is the number one thing. So once you have the awareness, you can start looking at all the different traits that you may have, which tell you that you're a dysfunctional breather and something that you can look at to change.

00:11:19 Joel

And the changes are quite simple. It requires some commitment, but if you notice your mouth breathing, stop mouth breathing. If you can hear yourself breathe during rest.

00:11:31 Joel

Something I talk about a lot because it's in my company name sniff. So you're if you're regularly sniffing sign and you're owning with big breaths, you're actually hyperventilating, you're over breathing. You take large breast prior to talking something. Lots of radio broadcasters, especially on breakfast shows, do take these huge breaths.

00:11:52 Joel

Before they speak, that's hyperventilation. That's not good. That adds to.

00:11:56 Joel

Your stress load during the.

00:11:57 Joel

OK.

00:11:58 Joel

Lots of upper chest and visible movement. Same thing should never be seen that you should always be invisible to the person opposite you.

00:12:06 Joel

When you breathe.

00:12:08 Alison

So powerful, isn't it? And one of the things I think is really important to remember or is almost a resource in itself is that, you know you to your brain and to your body, your breath.

00:12:19 Alison

Is the ultimate and it's the thing that it's always known, always, you know, even all of us are more.

00:12:27 Alison

Us the person that brought us into this life, we heard her breath first, didn't we? Before we lived, made our connection.

00:12:34 Alison

With our own.

00:12:35 Alison

And it for me that it feels like we're all walking around with this incredible resource and yet.

00:12:42 Alison

What you're highlighting for us, Joel, is we don't use it to the best of our.

00:12:49 Joel

Well, I I think that we've.

00:12:51 Joel

Got to be kind to ourselves here and and say that as lay people as majority people, our lay people, when it comes to bringing education.

00:12:59 Joel

If we look at.

00:12:59 Joel

How we're nourished in terms.

00:13:02 Joel

Of our education around health.

00:13:04 Joel

Well, aside from the pharmaceutical stuff, when you get into.

00:13:07 Joel

That I mean.

00:13:09 Joel

What are we taught in terms of what to do? We're taught to watch our weight.

00:13:16 Joel

Eat Whole Foods, go to the gym, exercise, sleep well. Except all these things. And this is the stuff of PT's. The stuff of yoga, the stuff of mindfulness and meditation, teachers, GP's, the NHS and the whole heuristic world. But the thing that's always been missing that.

00:13:37 Joel

Well, about it's about 1995. You just make me sound cool is you can do all those things. And I've worked with so many individuals. I got into companies done the same thing, but the individuals who tell me they're usually stressed out.

00:13:51

00:13:53 Joel

They get up in the morning, they do the gym.

00:13:56 Joel

They have their usually, for example, they go to work, they smash it, they love work, they smash it, they have their organic salad and chicken for lunch, carry on, smashing work.

00:14:09 Joel

You may go swimming after work, followed by a very healthy meal, more organic salad, some organic fruit.

00:14:16 Joel

They tell me about this beautiful piece of fish they made and they tell me about their sleep, which sometimes is good. Often it isn't, but they never tell me how they breathe.

00:14:27 Joel

Until I ask them.

00:14:30 Joel

And then the penny drops.

00:14:31 Joel

And they realise why they.

00:14:32 Joel

Need to come.

00:14:32 Joel

And see me and the.

00:14:34 Joel

Likes of people like me.

00:14:36 Joel

So you can do all those things that you.

00:14:38 Joel

Don't breathe properly.

00:14:39 Joel

I'm not saying you're wasting your time, but.

00:14:42 Joel

You will never.

00:14:42 Joel

Achieve what you want to in terms of your, your overall life and terms of your health goals and gains until you agree correctly.

00:14:51 Alison

I love that.

00:14:52 Alison

And I think for this episode, for people listening in, you know.

00:14:55 Alison

For me it's.

00:14:56 Alison

That just start to be more aware of the things that we've talked about today. And if your sleep is affected, if you aren't got the energy that you want, if you don't feel like your fitness is going in the direction you want, then maybe there's a route here that you can explore.

00:15:11 Alison

But for me it always I'm always saying what she wants. Small thing, you know, taking that awareness piece. Take on that idea that I'm just going to note.

00:15:20 Alison

This what my breath is doing. Where is it? Am I high up in my chest? Am I down in my belly? Am I doing the big sighs and I yawning all the time? Whatever it is that you're doing for me, I'd love people to just pay attention to start with, and then they can start to realise that. Yeah, what you're saying is true. They we are doing these things.

00:15:41 Alison

And then you can decide what you're gonna do about it.

00:15:44 Joel

I think the.

00:15:45 Joel

Easiest way to look at this in terms of the awareness that you need to have. It's gonna massively help your health is to maybe look at say 4 things you do during the day. Most people do during the day.

00:15:57 Joel

Unless they're retired.

00:15:59 Joel

Of course, when you retire, you never have a.

00:16:01 Joel

Day off but.

00:16:03 Joel

If you look at eating, if you look at at work, if you look at exercise, you look at relaxation those four areas. So when you eat a lot of people will.

00:16:13 Joel

Hyperventilate when they eat.

00:16:16 Joel

They're using technology for.

00:16:17 Joel

Example. They're on their phone or they're walking.

00:16:19 Joel

Along, so the rest and digest thing.

00:16:23 Joel

Pay attention to that. Relax. Help your body get the nourishment from the food. It's eating. Yeah. Eat great food. Definitely. Stay away from highly processed food. We know it's bad for us. Your breathing rate increases, by the way, far more when you eat highly processed food.

00:16:42 Joel

It increases with all food intake drink intake, but with alcohol and highly processed food.

00:16:52 Joel

The rest of digest when you eat, relax.

00:16:55 Joel

Breathe. Breathe from your tummy.

00:17:00 Joel

Secondly, at work, if you weren't think about how you use technology if that's a.

00:17:05 Joel

Thing for you.

00:17:06 Joel

Make sure you don't mouth be when you use technology. Have that J shape posture when you sit up right in your chair. Make sure that your mouth close. Your tongue is on your palate, so tongue postures.

00:17:19 Joel

Huge thing cause it stops your mouth breathing, OK?

00:17:23 Joel

Verbally relaxation. If your posture is correct. If you're not mouth breathing, if you're breathing nicely from your tummy, through your nose when you're relaxed, you won't start to suckle with your sleep.

00:17:37 Joel

And that fourth thing, exercise when you do exercise, if you're struggling with your sleep, don't try and smash the gym. Don't try and smash a flying cake around around the.

00:17:48 Joel

Be gentle on yourself because your sweet dysfunction is telling you that you have a breathing dysfunction, and if you have a breathing dysfunction, be gentle on yourself. When it comes to exercise, because it will only add an accentuate your sleep issues. So this is about being more kind to yourself.

00:18:09 Joel

It's about being more gentle with yourself. It's about observing some rules about posture to do the tongue to do it, tummy breathing, to do it, nose breathing, but being more gentle on yourself and mindful of what?

00:18:22 Joel

You need to do.

00:18:24 Joel

If you add those four things together.

00:18:28 Joel

Your relaxation, your eating, your work, your exercise. Put those four things together in the way I've described.

00:18:37 Joel

You then get a great equation for sleeping better.

00:18:43 Alison

Such a great list of things to pay attention to, so thank you for summarising, for everyone, and just hopefully for people to feel enlightened, really, to think that maybe their problem that they think they've got their sleep their.

00:18:59 Alison

Diet, whatever it is actually, isn't that.

00:19:03 Alison

Or might not be as.

00:19:04 Alison

Solid to that as as they think.

00:19:07 Alison

Brilliant. Please tell everyone where they can find you, Jill. Because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who've listened to this thinking. Wow, I need.

00:19:14 Alison

To learn more about this.

00:19:16 Joel

Look, they can find me in schools helping children and helping teachers understand how to breathe better. They can find me in the workplace. They can eat the find me in the High Street watching the world go by, having a coffee with a friend or a business colleague watching people's mouth breath as.

00:19:35 Joel

They walk along.

00:19:37 Joel

That's the kind of thing I do that's a little bit niche. That isn't it? They can find me online on social media. Joel Jelan sniffs eye your and I've always got something I like to think helpful to offer people, which has helped me over decades to become.

00:19:53 Joel

A more relaxed person I was never a hyper individual, but I've become more relaxed. I've become more fulfilling. Everything I do and my sleep is really good because of how I observe my breathing and how I breathe during those four elements during the day to help.

00:20:10 Alison

Brilliant and definitely if you are in this space where you're curious about this stuff when you do start looking into it, I can highlight it does start to really help you notice what you're doing, cause that's what I'm definitely doing. As I said before, since I've got to know you and freely being more aware of what I'm.

00:20:30 Alison

Doing and thinking about my own position in my own breathing, etcetera. So if you are sitting there listening to this thinking, what we're doing, I've got my mouth open. I've got.

00:20:42 Alison

I've stuffed my face with my dinner and.

00:20:44 Alison

I've not really breathed while I was eating it, etcetera then hopefully this is a good space for you to pause and think about what's next for you.

00:20:54 Alison

So thank you so much Joe for your time today for coming on and sharing your wisdom with everyone.

00:21:01 Joel

And welcome. Thank you. I'll give you one final tip that seems to be many people's favourite tip of all the things I.

00:21:07 Joel

Talk about so people know people joke cause I'm not a drinker. I love drinking sparkling water and people say you.

00:21:13 Joel

Always drinking sparkling water. Why is?

00:21:15 Joel

That so it gives me a chance to talk.

00:21:17 Joel

About very quickly.

00:21:19 Joel

The CO2 in sparkling water which makes it carbonated CO2 is not a waste gas only it's also an energy driver.

00:21:27 Joel

And lots of people in sales, jobs, in jobs, in education, teachers, et cetera.

00:21:32 Joel

Because they love drinking sparkling water, and they've said to me they've never understood why. Well.

00:21:38 Joel

If you talk.

00:21:39 Joel

A lot. You're blowing out lots of oxygen.

00:21:41 Joel

And lots of CO2.

00:21:43 Joel

It reduces your energy levels. The CO2 in sparkling water cuts the energy back.

00:21:49 Alison

Wow, now I did not know that I would definitely need to.

00:21:53 Alison

Get some sparkling water.

00:21:56 Alison

Brilliant. Great little tip there to finish off this episode, so thanks again to Joel. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening in. And next week we will be focusing on purpose and I have a special guest, Marcus Matthews. So I hope you can join us then.

00:22:18 Alison

For listening and sharing in this episode of Mental Wealth, Remember You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. My last question to you is what is the one small thing that you can take action on from this episode?

00:22:33 Alison

Message me on Instagram or through our website with questions you'd like me to explore.

00:22:39 Alison

We'll find the links in the show.

00:22:40 Alison

Notes. I'll be back with more tools and tips to make sense of your mind in the next episode. In the meantime, be kind to yourself. Bye for now.