074: Enhancing your well-being using breathwork, ft. Jamie Clements

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Hello everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope that you're all well. Thank you so much for joining me on another episode of Canny Crystals, the podcast. As you all know by now, my name is Mart Tweedyedy, I'm your host, and this week I'm joined once again by yet another amazing guest. You'll know that for months now I've spoke about like how we underestimate the power of breathing and those ice cold showers for grounding you and improving your mental well-being. So when I came across my guest profile on Instagram a few weeks ago, it just made total sense to reach out to him and to ask if he would come on the show. So he's a breathwork coach and facilitator whose ultimate goal is to provide us with all the tools that we need to add breathwork into our daily lives, as well as creating an environment to go deeper and understand all those other elements of ourselves. So please give a very warm welcome to Jamie from The Breath Space. Jamie, thanks for coming on the show.

How are you? Yeah, really well, thanks, Mark. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited for this conversation. Really excited.

Amazing. So do you want to start by just telling us a bit about yourself? Kind of what's your story? How did the breathspace come about for you?

Yeah, absolutely. So I never know quite where to begin with this question, but I had a pretty relatively normal childhood and upbringing. I had decent education. I played a lot of sport growing up as well. I played a lot of rugby growing up and went and studied for 3 years and got a degree in economics I'm still not really using in any way, shape, or form. And then went into the corporate world. I was working in tech for about 6 or 7 years in tech startups and that landscape. And I guess the reason that this context is semi-relevant is that throughout my late teens and early 20s, I had a lot of challenges with my mental health. So I had some really difficult times with depression, with anxiety, and then in my early 20s, pretty severe anxiety and panic attacks that became a little bit debilitating and overwhelming and came up in a lot of different forms. And I went on a bit of a, as we tend to, a little bit of a journey to see how I could support myself and dived into a bunch of different practices. So I got very into yoga, got back into exercise, meditation, And all of these practices are still, you know, part of my life and things that are personal practices for me. But breathwork was the thing that really took me, I believe, kind of in combination with a lot of the other things as well, in general self-care and self-awareness. But breathwork was the standout for me in terms of what made the biggest impact, um, in terms of general sort of management and healing around my anxiety and panic attacks, but also connected me to my spirituality in a way that I'd never been connected before. And really just opened up a new way of living for me. And so from there, sort of went down the rabbit hole, um, and still going down the rabbit hole, um, but really came to a point about 2, 2 and a half years into practicing breathwork where I felt like I wanted to be able to share it with other people. Um, so started training, started learning more, um, about being a facilitator and a coach in that, in that realm. Um, and yeah, we're now about 2 and a half years in I'm sort of coming up to 3 years of the Breathspace and being in business and being a practitioner and a facilitator.

Incredible. I mean, it's weird, isn't it? Because people have these spiritual awakenings and yours, you wouldn't necessarily say is a spiritual awakening as such, but it has kind of led you, like you said there, down the rabbit hole of what else is out there when it comes to mental well-being and stuff. So, I mean, my experience was very traumatic. Mine was all brought on by the death of my granddad. And then when that happened, it kind of led me on a rabbit hole of like going down, you know, crystal healing and what other alternative therapies there were, because I was literally on the verge of suicide. So I want to know basically what exactly you define as breathwork and how that can help transform like our physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

Yeah, it's, it's the, the best place to start, I find, um, is what actually is it, because, um, I think while it has come a lot more into our awareness, as you were saying to me before we came on air, and, and as you said at the start there, you know, there's a lot of chat around it at the moment. It seems to be the thing that everyone is talking about in the wellness space, in the, in the health and well-being space. So with that, I think there's a bit of a lack of clarity around what it actually is, and it can mean a lot of different things to different people. So the way that I approach breathwork in, in my work and, and with my clients is, is through this lens of what I like to call full spectrum breathwork. So looking at breathwork as an umbrella term, that is any way we can use our breath to shift our state mentally, physically, emotionally. Um, and then within that, because that doesn't really narrow it down at all, we've got these three pillars of the spectrum that I've kind of carved out and defined, um, based on my learnings and my kind of trainings as well, which are at one end we've got functional breathing. So actually looking at how do you as an individual breathe day to day, moment to moment? How are you breathing right now? How are you breathing while you walk, while you sleep, while you exercise? What is the unconscious sort of natural state of your breath that will have developed habitually over the course of your life? So that's sort of the first pillar is actually how do we look at that through the lens of your biomechanics? So how functionally kind of within the body do you breathe, but also your biochemistry as well. We then have the middle pillar, which is nervous system regulation. So actually looking at how the breath as a part of the nervous system as a whole can be used as a tool to bring us to a greater state of regulation, of balance, of calm, really using the breath proactively as a tool in your kind of toolkit to create a change in your state. And that could be into a desired state, or that could be out of an undesired state. And so really viewing it as a bit of a a remote control into our nervous system and our health and well-being. And then we have the deeper end of the spectrum, which is where, for me, the conversation of spirituality started to arise, because we can use the breath in certain ways to create these transcendental states, to create altered states of consciousness, to have cathartic experiences, very interconnected experiences as well. And the reason that I like to set it out in that sort of tiered, sort of pillared spectrum approach is that, you know, if we were to have a conversation, as I do with a lot of my clients, about, you know, how do you breathe day to day, moment to moment, how long can you hold your breath for, we're very much talking about like physiology, respiratory function. It's pretty science heavy and science led, and it's, um, yeah, not necessarily going to connect you to your spirituality. But yeah, that could almost be a gateway into getting in some of those deeper realms where all of a sudden you are connecting to your spirituality and having these deeper experiences. And so they are distinct, but they all sit under this banner of breathwork as this sort of overarching term. Um, so yeah, that's sort of how I have now come to approach it, but also how I experienced it as a, a participant as well.

Yeah, I was going to say, those three pillars, now that you've mentioned them as well, that kind of It just helps you get your head around it, doesn't it, and understand like the science, the spirituality side, and things like that. So what I'm trying to get my head around is, you know, like I work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, so how can I then incorporate breathwork into like my already hectic life? Like how do we make this more of a habit than just a one-off practice?

Yeah, absolutely. So it's a great question, and you know, a lot of my clients are very, very busy people. You know, I work with mums, I work with CEOs who are probably equally as busy in very different ways. And so it's really about, okay, how can we meet someone where they're at and actually help them in really simple terms? And we can sort of return back to those three realms. So from a functional breathing perspective, my encouragement to you and to anybody listening to this is the first step is just a greater awareness, as it is with you know, life as a whole, but a greater awareness of how you're breathing in any given moment, because that's where we can start to make sure that we're breathing in a way that is supporting us. So bringing more awareness to it and then doing it in a way that is healthy and optimal, which is really just about breathing through the nose, breathing with the diaphragm down into the belly, and breathing nice and slowly and gently. That's kind of the fundamental principle of healthy, optimal breathing. We could then say, okay, Mart, we've kind of ticked that box and you're a little bit more aware of how you're breathing, you're thinking a little bit more about it. Let's look at nervous system regulation. And with this, this is where we come back to, okay, throughout your day, sort of moment to moment as you go about your day, starting the day, ending the day, whatever it might be, where and how and why can you use the breath to create a shift in your state? So that could be at the end of the day to calm the nervous system, say, okay, I've been on all day, but now I want to relax and I want to get proper sleep. I'm going to use 5 minutes of breathwork to calm the nervous system, calm the body, calm the mind, make sure I have a relaxing evening, make sure I sleep well. It could also be before a podcast to focus you and to energize you if you're feeling a bit of a slump after lunch. And so really it's just about I actually wrote a post about this yesterday that I put out today about this underlying understanding that the state that serves you in a podcast, for example, within the nervous system, is not the same state that serves you while you sleep or serves you while you relax. We want to be able to move between those, and the breath is sort of our tool for doing that. And so once you can learn those principles, of these little techniques and tips that you can tap into, you, again, you have this ability to shift how you feel, to change your state kind of on cue. And that's really powerful when it comes to all kinds of different situations and scenarios. So, yeah, I always encourage my particularly busy clients to build in breathing breaks between meetings, between clients, between calls, between podcasts, whatever it might be. And that's just a nice way to get them into this habit of using the breath as a reference point, but then also using it as a bit of a tool. So those are sort of the daily habits that I have and that I encourage people to build. And then for that deeper end, those tend to be more standalone experiences. So that could be going to a class or a workshop once a week or once every couple of weeks, once a month. And you go in and you have this experience and you take things from it, you integrate it,. But that's not something that I'm telling people to do on a daily basis. It's more kind of a standalone experience that can be really powerful, but is made more powerful by having those other two parts under wrap and sort of locked in first. So, yeah, I think that would be typically how I'd approach it in terms of just starting to build a bit of a breathwork habit.

I was going to say, that's really interesting because every now and again, my Apple Watch will literally ping up and it'll be like, time to be mindful. Do you know what I mean? You get like a 1-minute breathing exercise. And I was a mindful teacher in the NHS. I taught mindfulness for like 2 years in mental health, and I found that that just kept me on track every time it pinged up. Basically, it was just bringing my attention and my focus to the breath. And that's just one mindfulness kind of technique and scenario. But it really does help, doesn't it? It's mad. But yeah, basically, I was watching one of your reels yesterday on Instagram. And I know you mentioned that you tape your mouth up in bed at night, which helps to regulate your nasal breathing. And at first I was like, you what? But within 5 minutes I'd ordered this mouth tape and these nasal strips to help us dilate the airways. So if anything, I think it's just going to stop us from eating that block of cheese at 03:00 in the morning when I let the dog out for a wee. But how long have you been doing that? And what are the benefits of taping your mouth up at night?

I love that you've gone out and bought the stuff. It's brilliant. It's one of the things that I almost forget to talk about, but then when I mention it, people are like, wait, what? Say more about that, because what on earth? They just can't quite wrap their head around it. But it's an interesting one. So I guess the message here, and I guess some of the theory here is that optimal breathing, whether you're asleep or awake, 90%+ of the time is through the nose rather than through the mouth. Now, when you're awake, you can sit there, not all day, obviously, but you can more often than not consciously choose to breathe through your nose. Even if you catch yourself breathing through your mouth, if that's a bit of a habit for you, you can go, oh, realizing I'm doing that, I'm going to breathe through my nose. You could do that for 16 hours a day. Okay, we go to sleep for 8 hours. You have zero conscious control over how you breathe. And so if you are someone like I used to be, I had a lot of sinus issues and issues with nasal congestion where I just fell into this habit and pattern of breathing through my mouth. And the reason why mouth breathing can be, I suppose, harmful feels a little bit strong, but it's probably appropriate. Kind of less than optimal is a number of reasons. So it's incredibly dehydrating. So you lose on average 42% more water breathing through the mouth than breathing through the nose, which is why you wake up with a dry mouth and feeling dehydrated and a bit fatigued. When we breathe through the mouth as well, we're actually— again, it's not traditional hyperventilating, but you are hyperventilating in the sense that you're breathing more than you would be if you were breathing through your nose. And when we kind of overbreathe or hyperventilate in that way, you're offloading more carbon dioxide than your body ultimately needs to, which can reduce blood flow to the brain, can reduce, especially to sort of the prefrontal part of the brain, can also sort of minimize or inhibit the release of oxygen from your red blood cells into your your tissues and your cells. And so there's sort of just— and the other side, I guess, of mouth breathing is that it can lead to faster breathing, which can overactivate the nervous system. So there's a few different angles to look at as to why nasal breathing is preferred to mouth breathing. And so to come back to that earlier point, to, I guess, make sure or give us the best possible chance of breathing through the nose while we sleep, a little bit of tape over the mouth, and it just channels the breath back through the nose, helps to slow the breath down, filter the air that's reaching the lungs. And really, it comes back to this old saying of the nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating. That's really ultimately kind of what it comes down to, is it can just really— it's low-hanging fruit. It's simple and effective ways to optimize your breathing, to optimize your health.

It's really interesting because as soon as I saw your post, I went straight onto Google and I was like, surely that can't be safe and stuff like that. There's like a vast amount of information out there because I struggle to breathe through my nose. So taping my mouth up was quite a scary thing for me. But I've already tried one of the mouth strips now. I sat there like this morning packing orders for like 2 or 3 hours with it on. Must have looked like a fucking idiot, the people going past. But it really helped to make me notice how much I actually do breathe through my mouth. And you're right, I do it all the time. So is it something that we can learn? Will this kind of train us within a few weeks or months to actually train ourselves to sleep, like breathing through our nose, basically?

Yeah, I think in an ideal world, what we're looking for is sort of a combination of your breathwork practice that you can develop while you're awake and sort of things that you can do on a daily basis to optimize your breathing combined with the mouth tape. We would hope to get to a point where you are comfortable breathing through the nose and your body almost relearns breathing through the nose. It's hard to put a timestamp on that. I wouldn't say it's going to be a particularly short amount of time, but what I would say is kind of related to that is if you've been doing it wrong, quote unquote, for 20, 30, 40 years, then it might take a little bit of time to go back in the other direction. There are, as you kind of alluded to there, I work with people who have deviated septums, people who have kind of issues with allergies and these things that are sort of external to us that do impact our ability to breathe through the nose. And so there are obvious kind of caveats and disclaimers and things that we need to be aware of with it. But it is a really simple way to start engaging with this kind of thing. And what I noticed, and I would sort of say this to anybody who is thinking about doing this, is probably for the first 2 weeks,, I struggled to fall asleep with the tape on because I just kept feeling like I wanted to take a bigger breath. And so it was not particularly relaxing. It didn't really help me sleep. And basically what's going on there is my body isn't used to having that amount of carbon dioxide in my system. And so I feel like I need to take a bigger breath to get rid of some of that CO2. But your body actually adapts and adjusts over time to tolerate higher levels of CO2, which also has a number of benefits. To sort of functioning in general, physically and mentally. So I'd say to people, if you try it and you don't feel comfortable with it, I would stick with it because actually that is a sign that you could really benefit from it, as if it's uncomfortable to begin with.

And what do people think that you bring home, or your partner, for example, if they wake up in the middle of the night and you've got this tape across your mouth?

So I actually I dated someone. I'm single now. I dated someone last year who also did it.

Wow.

We both actually. So we'd be like, we'd be chatting, we'd be saying good night, and then we'd be like, grab our tape, tape on, and straight to sleep. But now I used to sort of find it a little bit more uncomfortable, like the prospect of bringing someone home or dating someone new. But actually, I think because of what I do, I think people know what they're signing up for. There's going to be some interesting stuff going on from a kind of health perspective. The only funny one, or not the only funny one, but one of the funniest things that I've had is sometimes unknowingly during sleep, you can take it off or it will come off. And I've woken up with it and got in the shower and it's been like on my back. Or on my arse or just like somewhere on my body, like not my mouth, basically. So, yeah, the tape can get everywhere, but mostly it stays on.

Thanks for that advice. I'll make sure that I put mine on firmly tonight. So I know you mentioned earlier as well, don't you, that you do yoga? So my best friend Josie, she's a yoga instructor, and I did it quite a lot last year, and especially during the pandemic as well, when we were all doing home workouts and stuff like that.. And I know in yoga they're always telling us to belly breathe, aren't they? Have you heard of that? Are there different ways of breathing? People say when you're singing, you should be breathing from your diaphragm. When you do yoga, you should be breathing from your belly. So what's the difference in breathing from different areas of your body?

Yeah, absolutely. It's a good question. So I typically find singers, especially opera singers and classically trained singers, and yogis tend to be pretty, like, good breathers. They tend to have really good breathing function, good respiratory capacity, things like that, especially if they're long-term kind of practitioners. So the conversation really around functional breathing, so breathing in an optimal, healthy way at a very basic level, splits into two discussions. So nose versus mouth, which we've kind of touched upon. Nose is best, majority of the time, and then also belly versus chest. So there's really two kind of ways that your breath can be in terms of biomechanically where it's flowing to in the body. In an ideal world, we want to be breathing primarily with the diaphragm, which is really what belly is referring to, is diaphragm, breathing deeply and breathing slowly. So when we breathe into the chest, we're just there's a few different things going on, but we're not using our full respiratory capacity, full lung capacity. We're not going to be breathing as slowly, and we're also going to be stimulating the stress response, usually more often than not within the nervous system. So we can actually, through breathing kind of short, shallow, and fast into the chest, we can be creating stress on our nervous system, creating stress on the mind and the body. Belly breathing, deep breathing, on the contrary, helps to calm the nervous system. It helps to settle our overall system. And so, yeah, in an ideal world, we want to be heading for that sort of slower, deeper breath just to help keep us in a more balanced state.

I noticed while following you as well that I noticed that you do retreats as well, don't you? Does that include yoga, or is that just mainly around breathwork and stuff like that? Tell us a bit more about those, like what do they involve?

Yeah, for sure. So, um, I started running my retreats last year, uh, in the UK and, and abroad, and that really is an opportunity for people to dive a little bit deeper into breathwork as kind of a full spectrum of practice. Um, but also I have, I guess, complementary practices there as well. So I have yoga, um, usually have some kind of sound healing, gong bath, that sort of thing too. But I like the, the centerpiece, I guess, is, is the breathwork, and it typically based around those more healing kind of deeper end of the breathwork spectrum. So the conscious connected breathing and more transformational styles of breathwork. There's lots of other bits kind of dotted around, but that's sort of the main piece.

And you also have your 21 Days of Breathwork online course as well, don't you? So does that cover like all the different styles of breathing, things like that? Is that available like at any time, or is that like on certain dates?

Yeah, so the, um, the 21-day course is totally self-service. So that's like, you get access for 100 days, so you don't have to do it every single day, one after the other. Um, and it takes you on a journey through those three areas of the breathwork spectrum. So starting off with the basics of functional breathing, then going into calming practices, then going into more energizing practices, and then finishing with the more transformational practices. So yeah, that, um, I, I'm— yeah, I'll say it, I'm, I'm very proud of it, kind of as like a, a way for people to get a handle on how I approach breathwork and, and sort of that full picture of, of what breathwork has to offer. Um, so yeah, no, it's, it's, it's proving to be, you know, really helpful for a lot of people. Um, and just, yeah, it's a nice, um, entry point, I think, for, for people wanting to get more into breathwork.

Definitely. I mean, like I was mentioning here before we got started, the only kind of person I've talked like passionately about, like in terms of breathwork, has been Wim Hof. Because obviously like there's the whole Wim Hof Method. He's like brought it to the forefront of the agenda and about like how breath can, can get you through anything. And I mean, he's rolling around in the snow in his underpants, do you know what I mean, half the time, just through breath. And I just think it's fascinating. But I think like I commend you for like putting that course together because like you say, it's an entry point for people who are interested in it. They can get into it and educate themselves, you know what I mean, without actually needing to bother other people. So it's great. So can we also discuss, while we're on this subject, um, kind of cold water swimming and ice baths? Because it's something that I've done myself with my gym friends, and although I was doing it for spiritual and mindset reasons and they weren't like the only thing I really got from it was like me willy shrinking down to like a midget gem. So I know some people do it for things like muscle recovery and improving the resilience, but how can exposure to cold water help our mindsets?

Yeah, it's another area that is getting a lot of attention at the moment in terms of just every man, woman, and dog getting into an ice bath. The Wim Hof effect in full force. I'm a big advocate in the same way I'm a massive advocate of breathwork. I'm a massive advocate of breathwork and cold water in a safe way because I think there's a lot of hype out there and it can potentially not always be delivered in the most safe and responsible way. But from a mindset perspective, I love cold water simply because it is— I don't believe anybody who says I want to get in the ice. You might know that it's good for you, and as a result, there's a part of you that wants to get in. But when it comes to standing in front of an ice bath, I don't think there's anyone going, yeah, let's do this. You get a lot of people hyping themselves up, but I think deep down we get that resistance. And that resistance is why it's good for mindset, because you have to— I always like to say there are two nos that show up when you get to an ice bath. There's the no that comes when you are about to get in, and there's the no that comes up once you've been in for about 30 to 60 seconds. And the power of learning how to say no to those two nos, if that makes sense, is incredibly powerful for mindset, for resilience. You're essentially building this bank of evidence that you can actually overcome that resistance in your mind. And that resistance shows up in so many different areas of our lives. And so I think all of the very well documented physical benefits of cold water aside, in terms of recovery, in terms of circulation, reducing inflammation, in terms of the increase in dopamine, all of this stuff that you hear talked about really widely, I do think the psychological kind of overcoming resistance and doing hard things and proving to yourself that you can do hard things that perhaps you didn't think you could do before, is so powerful. And I think that is why we're seeing a lot of people going down that route at the moment, because we're enjoying doing hard things to sort of support ourselves and support our bodies and our minds.

That's a great way of looking at it, actually. I've never thought about it as if you're actually becoming more resilient by overcoming your fears and things like that. When I did it, there was a group of 10 of us. We went straight from the gym one Saturday morning and we went straight to the beach and everyone ran in and within about 10 seconds everyone had ran back out other than me and one other guy, and we stayed in there for maybe about like 90 seconds or something. And it was like the start of April, it was like last year, it was absolutely freezing in the North Coast as well. And after like 60 seconds, I started getting this pain in my feet. And then when I came out, my body was like red raw, like you could tell where the water had gone up to and stuff. Um, so what is that?

Is that just like the blood flow, or like had I stayed in too long, or It's a really fine line, I think, in terms of, I suppose, this idea of staying in too long. I'm a huge believer that less is more when it comes to this stuff. There's people always trying to hit their personal bests and really push themselves, and there's a fine line between overdoing it. I'm a big believer that just because something's healthy doesn't mean that there's no upper limit to how much you should use it or how long you should do it for. The redness is from more of like a circulation thing. The pain, I honestly wouldn't be able to give you a kind of firm answer on that. I think 90 seconds is a good amount of time. That's certainly not overdoing it. I think the thing that I always encourage people when I'm working around cold water with them is your breath, just sort of bring it back around to breathing. Your breath is a really good marker of how you're doing in the cold. So you get in and you get that initial gasp response, you get your breath trying to go really short back into the chest. And if you can manage your breathing, slow the breathing, settle that kind of initial shock response, then you've sort of overcome that initial hurdle where a lot of people will get in and go into kind of that panic and that gasp response, maybe not be able to get a handle on it and need to get out. And then if you can get past that, you're then really looking to see, okay, how slowly, how much control can I have over my breath? And then also looking at things like your shiver response. If you're in there and you start shivering and you can't get control over your shiver response, then that's probably time to get out.. And so it's a funny one. I don't always think time in the water is the best metric because everyone's starting from a different place within their nervous system, a different place kind of on that day as well. But I'd be fairly confident saying 90 seconds is probably not overdoing it. But yeah, just always— you'll know later in the day as well because some people get this big kind of spike in energy and then a huge crash, and that's sort of a sign that you've probably gone a little bit too far.

Just because I remember I got this huge hit of dopamine when I did it and I was like on top of the world and I was like, I can't believe I've stayed in longer than you lot. Do you know what I mean? These were proper gym buffs as well. And then there's just me. So a lot of people send me messages daily and they're basically looking for help with mental well-being or anxiety and stress. So how can we use the breath to kind of release anxiety? I know a lot of people often say, like, oh, slow down your breath. I don't know if you've ever had a freaking panic attack, but it's impossible to slow down your breath, isn't it? Like, when you're mid panic attack. So how do we learn to control it and to use the breath to release that anxiety from our body?

Yeah, it's such a good question. And it's something that is one of my big gripes with my area of work, is seeing people say, if you're having a panic attack, what I'm going to tell you to do is to breathe in for 10 seconds and breathe out for for 10 seconds and you'd just be sat there going, I'm having a fucking panic attack, how am I supposed to do that?

And I think hyperventilate.

Yeah, exactly. And that advice is well-meaning, it's well-intentioned. I understand why they're giving it as advice, but it just slaps of people who have never had a panic attack. And I think that's important context to be able to say it's not always just as simple as slowing down your breathing. And so In an ideal world, I'm going to slightly contradict myself here. In an ideal world, your goal is to slow down your breathing. And so that is going to support us in calming the nervous system, moving us out of that initial moment of panic and anxiety. If that isn't possible, there are two things that I try to work with when it comes to panic attacks for my clients, which is something called a physiological sigh. Which is a breathing technique and breathing exercise that Andrew Huberman's a big advocate of. And so this breath is a double inhale through the nose. So it's a big breath in through the nose, a little sharp one at the top, and then a sigh out of the mouth. And that just helps. It's been proven to be the most effective short-term way to alleviate stress on the system. So that's a really good one just to sort of go into that exercise. And it's a little bit more manageable in the moment than really slow, long breaths. And the other thing is using breath holds. So when you can't get control of your breath, actually holding your breath for 3 to 5 seconds, then trying to breathe slowly, then holding again. There's a few physiological things going on there, but mainly it's a nice way to get a hold of your breath. So that's really, I guess, in the moment. And then outside of that, if you are someone who suffers with severe anxiety and panic attacks, there's things that you can and should be doing day to day when you're not having a panic attack that can actually decrease the likelihood of you having a panic attack. So actually using things like extended exhale breathing, box breathing, coherent breathing, really simple, mostly free resources for 10, 20 minutes a day, a few times a day, And what you're doing with that is working proactively with your nervous system to bring it to a greater state of balance and regulation so that the likelihood of you experiencing really severe anxiety is minimized. And that's not to say that the anxiety is just going to disappear, but you're just creating a nervous system that is able to manage higher levels of stress. So that would sort of be my advice. There's things that you can do in the moment, but also things that you should be doing around that sort of day-to-day that can be really helpful.

I was going to say, is there any specific exercise that we could do, like, right now in this moment for anyone listening? Like, is there a little breathing exercise we can do as a collective?

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love that. I'd love that. So I think, um, we'll bring in a few of those different things that we mentioned there. So there's a technique that I really love personally called 4-4-8 breathing. So it's going to be really simple. In through the nose for 4, hold at the top for 4, and then we're going to blow the exhale out of the mouth like you're blowing through a straw for a count of 8. So that's kind of the basics of it. In, hold, and out. In for 4, hold for 4, and out for 8. So I'll just count us through maybe like 3 rounds of that. Yeah. And hopefully people can get a feel for that. So you can close your eyes for this as well, if that's more comfortable. And then you can just breathe in, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. In, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4.

Out.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Breathing in, holding, and exhale. And then just let the breath come back to flowing in and out of the nose. Take a moment just to notice how you're feeling. Yeah. How did you find that?

I feel a little bit lightheaded, if I'm honest.

Do you?

Yeah, but in a good way. Like, it's a nice buzz.

Yeah. So that could be either from that little breath hold. Some people get that from the breath hold. It could also be from the extended exhale. So, yeah, could be a couple of different things. But as with all of these exercises, there are different ways, different ways that they'll affect individuals in different kind of circumstances. So always best just sort of just like tweaking things, playing around with things to kind of get that outcome that we're looking for. But that typically, that exercise is great for just calm, just relaxing the nervous system, nice long exhale to soften everything.

So I think breathwork, really, it's like this new movement, isn't it? So What's next for you? Where are you wanting to take this movement? What's on the cards for you? Where could you go with this?

Yeah, I think there's things that I ponder on quite a regular basis, and I think there's sort of two possible kind of directions, and maybe I'll end up going in both directions because that's the sort of thing that I would probably do, which is I definitely want to develop kind of a very community-focused, community-led app and sort of platform that is combining the in-person work that I do because I love my retreats. I love getting people together in person because I actually find the community is so healing in whatever form. And combining that with recorded content that people can access from home that they can use to actually build that habit and build really healthy tools to support themselves when I'm not around, because I'm not always going to be there. So that's sort of one side, and that's something that I'm actively, I guess, working towards and working on at the moment. And then the other side is something I get asked about a lot as well, which is like teacher trainings and certifications. And that is something that I would love to do in the future. It's not something that I think will happen for at least sort of 2 to 3 years. I really still feel like I'm growing into the business, growing into kind of the space as well. And I think there's a lot of shiny opportunities when it comes to teaching teacher trainings. And there's a lot of questionable trainings out there, in my opinion, and I wouldn't want to be one of those. So I'm definitely committed to continuing my own education as well, but ultimately just looking to kind of get the word out there, get as many people thinking about their breathing and understanding their breathing and their nervous system as possible, with a big emphasis on community. Healing, getting people together to live sort of healthier, happier, more balanced lives as well, I think is really key.

You kind of remind me of the male equivalent of Poppy Delbridge. I don't know if you know who Poppy Delbridge is. She's an EFT practitioner.

Yeah, I've met Poppy.

Oh, have you?

Yeah, she's great.

Yeah, she was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. And seriously, everything that she's got going on right now, it's very similar to that. Like, she's got her own app. That she helps people do EFT and tapping. And then as well as that, she also does her in-person events and things like that. So it's, it's a great combination, I think, and it's, it's a winning combination as well because you're getting the best of both worlds. So where can people find you if someone was wanting to take this to the next level and go deeper? Where can people find you online?

Uh, yeah, so the, probably the two best places are, um, Instagram and my website. So the website is thebreathspace.co.uk, and the Instagram is @the_breathe_space. So yeah, those are probably the two best places to go. That's all of the retreats, the courses, just general sort of content. I'm being worryingly consistent with my social media content at the moment, so there's lots of hopefully useful stuff on there. And yeah, I'm always happy to chat to people as well if they have specific questions, anything that we've talked about on the podcast as well.

Amazing.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the pod. It's been so interesting to hear everything breath-related.

Thanks for having me. No, it's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you having me here.

And for anyone wanting to find Jamie and his amazing work, I'll pop all of his links and the show notes, uh, below this episode. And don't forget, if you've enjoyed this episode or any past episodes, please just leave a quick 10-second review wherever you're listening to this from. You can even now leave a comment underneath each individual episode it if you're listening on Spotify. We're living in the future, people. I will see you all next week for another episode of Candy Crystals, the podcast. Have a lush week, guys.

Bye!

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