0:01

Welcome to Feel Better, Live

0:03

More Bite Size, your weekly

0:06

dose of positivity and optimism

0:08

to get you ready for the weekend. Today's

0:11

Bite Size is brought to you

0:13

by AG1, one of the

0:15

most nutrient dense whole food supplements that I've

0:18

come across. And I

0:20

myself have been drinking it

0:22

regularly for over five years.

0:24

It contains vitamins, minerals, probiotics,

0:26

prebiotics, digestive enzymes and so

0:28

much more and can help

0:30

with energy, focus, gut

0:32

health, digestion and support

0:34

a healthy immune system. If

0:37

you go to www.drinkag1.com/live

0:39

more, they are giving

0:41

my listeners a very

0:43

special offer. Only

0:45

for the month of May, you can get

0:47

a free one year supply of vitamin D

0:50

and 10 free travel packs with your first

0:52

purchase. See all

0:54

details at www.drinkag1.com

0:57

forward slash live more. Today's

1:00

clip is from episode 278 of

1:02

the podcast with natural

1:04

lifestyle coach and

1:06

record breaking barefoot endurance athlete

1:09

Tony Riddle. The

1:11

Tony believes that through connecting with

1:13

nature and our natural state, we

1:16

can experience greater health and happiness.

1:19

In this clip, he shares a

1:21

simple daily habit to help us

1:24

calm the fight or flight stress

1:26

response system and manage the buildup

1:28

of daily stress. I

1:33

think a lot of us don't realize that our

1:36

daily experience of life is hugely influenced

1:38

by the state of our nervous system.

1:41

Right. And if you are constantly

1:44

up regulated, so your stress, you

1:46

know, your fight or flight system effectively is

1:49

on a lot of the time. You're

1:52

going to see things differently. You're going to be reactive.

1:54

You know, you're going to see danger when there is

1:56

actual no physical danger, but you are

1:58

going to see it and proceed. it and

2:01

just understanding that when you down

2:03

regulate when you do one or

2:06

two minutes of a simple breathing

2:08

practice, you just experience the same

2:10

situation completely differently. You're probably

2:12

not going to get as triggered. You're probably going

2:14

to make better decisions, all kinds of things. You've

2:17

used this term down regulation, up regulation.

2:19

What does that mean? Up

2:23

regulation is we could call it

2:25

fight, flight, freeze. If

2:28

the lion enters the

2:30

room right now, it roars us, we will

2:32

make a decision based on that. We haven't

2:35

even, I imagine, we

2:37

freeze and

2:39

assist the lion's digestion at that point.

2:43

That's the fight and flight response and then

2:45

through that, to simplify what can happen is

2:48

the immune system, there's no point in fighting off

2:50

a cold. The immune system drops

2:52

off. I need that energy elsewhere. Digestive

2:55

system is a huge cost for digestion. I'll

2:58

drop that one off because I need the

3:00

energy again perhaps to fight or run away.

3:02

Reproductive system is another one. No point in

3:04

reproducing another bam bam in the world if

3:06

I'm going to be eaten by a lion.

3:08

Those are very

3:10

costly systems. Those will

3:12

be dropped off to fuel my system to enable

3:14

me to fight or

3:17

flight. Then down regulation

3:19

is this rest and

3:22

digest. A

3:24

rested system more

3:27

associated with parasympathetic, that

3:29

calm response where those systems are almost

3:31

like rebooted in a way. If

3:34

you think about it, it should be our

3:37

normal growth state where we are down regulated.

3:39

Then a cute response would be this sympathetic

3:41

fight, flight as the lion enters because the

3:43

lion wouldn't always be in the room with

3:45

us. Unfortunately, our

3:48

lifestyles today, there's

3:50

an imaginary lion in the room. It's there

3:52

and that for some is even an email

3:54

or a phone call. They're

3:57

almost like bolt-ons, aren't they? It Could be a late night. It could

3:59

be a late night. Then a phone call. it

4:01

could be a half going to go

4:03

into a meeting on the unregulated about

4:05

the meeting and than other stuff might

4:07

be playing out from way back there

4:09

that we haven't process Stephen So the

4:11

down regulation been the book on bringing

4:13

those practices in so we can find

4:16

ways of getting pats that rest and

4:18

digest that crystal clear stay of mine

4:20

that growth promoting mindset. but I'm one

4:22

person I work for a terrible relationship

4:24

with a father. And.

4:27

Would. Have to don't see him certain time

4:29

to the year that was so stressed

4:31

about it. A nicer to stop outside

4:34

the house. Work

4:36

on the damage elation breathing techniques nested

4:38

long exiles the longer the xl the

4:40

load, heart rate, blood pressure, Let's.

4:43

Try four seconds in six seconds

4:46

out six rounds of that. He.

4:48

Already a minute. As a

4:50

minute he just take a minute. I

4:52

try. Let's do two minutes, Three minutes.

4:55

Whatever it takes, get to the door.

4:57

As the answer the door, you breathe out.

5:00

Are you into the house? You breathe out

5:02

and you maintain that the same rhythm of

5:04

breath by nasal breathing. Know in in the

5:06

room knows your nasal breathing or following a

5:09

four sacks. Damningly. And

5:12

she message back immediately afterwards and just

5:14

oh my god I saw The experience

5:17

has something completely different because her past

5:19

emotions weren't playing out in that room

5:21

for being a regular site. Simple down

5:24

regulation practice change to her experience with

5:26

her father. Ah yeah I think this

5:28

is so powerful. Tiny As a daughter

5:30

I know that arounds ninety percent of

5:33

what we see in any given days

5:35

and some way related to stress. I

5:37

just and people frady get stressed still

5:40

and understand how stress and how up

5:42

regulates. They are much at a

5:44

time and your experience: People who

5:46

comes your retreats, people who seek

5:48

you out for help, People you

5:51

coached, When.

5:53

They come and see you. What

5:55

proportion of that daily life to think

5:57

best spending. up regulation

6:00

compared to down-regulated compared

6:02

to, let's say, an indigenous

6:04

tribe who are living in nature with nature.

6:06

Can you sort of paint a picture for

6:08

us of what that difference might look like?

6:12

I can paint it from Bruce. So

6:14

Bruce Parry has been with so many

6:16

tribes now, documentary tribes, also TY. I

6:20

had a good chat with Bruce around the

6:22

book as well discussing Pennine

6:24

tribe and another tribe called the Benjali tribes. They're mentioned

6:26

in the book. They are. I love that bit with

6:29

a Pennine tribe. I just underlined it. I thought it

6:31

was wonderful. Amazing story. And he just expressed

6:33

his... He just said, look, you'll get

6:35

it, Tony, because of this right and

6:37

left hemispheres and being down-regulated and this

6:40

state of meditation they're

6:42

operating in 24-7. It's

6:44

like, even if they're in alert

6:47

states, it's like an alert

6:49

state that we would talk through the Wim

6:51

Hof method, let's say, where you're using an

6:53

up-regulating breath technique, but not to bring that

6:56

kind of up-regulation stress to become an alert state.

6:58

So there's a positive to that. It might be...

7:00

Say we're having a slump in the

7:02

afternoon, it's 3.30, I've got to jump on a podcast. I'll

7:05

use another type of breath practice to just pick

7:07

me up again. It just bricks me up into

7:10

an alert state. It doesn't mean I'm stressed out,

7:12

but it's an alert tuned

7:14

in practice. So like a stress

7:16

and focus as opposed to a

7:18

stress and anxious. Yes, it's

7:20

a different mindset. So that's what

7:23

Bruce was explaining, that these

7:25

indigenous tribes, again, they're moving through a landscape,

7:27

but they're not separate to it. They're totally

7:30

tuned into the frequency of it, right? And

7:32

that's where they're at. Again,

7:34

if we look at people that maybe turn up

7:36

on retreat, they've normalized

7:38

stress. It's like that's what they operate at

7:41

the whole time. So it's like these

7:43

indigenous communities that Bruce is talking about

7:45

are normalizing downregulation,

7:48

parasympathetic. And

7:50

some of the attendees I see

7:52

have normalized sympathetic. You can

7:54

put practices within your day, you just need little

7:57

reminders. And sometimes that's all it takes. It's a

7:59

reminder to... breathe. It's

8:01

a reminder maybe on the hour

8:04

to say everyone has a minute

8:07

out of your hour. Take one of the minutes

8:09

away and just say, okay, here's six cycles of

8:11

breath just to reconnect to the breath again and

8:13

to find myself within it. Let's

8:16

just talk people through that because a lot of

8:18

people have heard of breath work, they've heard of

8:20

practices, they've heard it on this show before, but

8:23

you mentioned one with four six. So

8:25

maybe just be super practical

8:27

people. On the hour, you're

8:30

recommending that they take a pause and do

8:32

four six? Four six, six cycles. And sometimes

8:34

you know what, don't even get obsessed by

8:37

the counting of it. There's a breathing app

8:39

I've recommended in the past, and

8:42

it has a sound that picks up for

8:44

four seconds, another sound that drops off for

8:46

six seconds. That's called breathing app. It's so

8:48

simple. That's one. Or it

8:50

can just be, if you put your finger on your pulse

8:52

for a moment and you just inhale up through your nose,

8:54

you'll notice there's a slight pick up of the pulse. As

8:57

you exhale and you exhale for longer, you'll notice there's a

8:59

dropping off of the pulse. So it's

9:02

as long as you can inhale for and

9:04

as long as you can exhale for, but

9:06

try and extend the exhale a little longer

9:08

and practice six cycles. You'll be around a

9:10

minute, right? Prior to that, just try this.

9:13

Wherever you're sitting, it could be on the

9:15

floor, office chair, wherever you are, just try

9:17

and relax the pelvic basin in your lower

9:19

abdomen, because we're also very tense down there,

9:21

right? So we're walking around very tense. So

9:24

try and relax that area to begin with. Allow

9:27

your jaw to settle and your heart to

9:29

settle. Just tune into that very simple

9:31

language. Relax the pelvic floor, the pelvic basin,

9:33

the lower abdomen, the jaw,

9:36

let the shoulders go and let the heart go. Even

9:39

that, if you just even think of that, you're already

9:41

a step there. Like immediately the moment I think of

9:43

that, I'm like, oh, I feel calm again. You know,

9:45

it just comes in and drops in and

9:48

then you breathe into that space. Breathe

9:50

into the relaxed jaw, breathe into the relaxed

9:52

shoulders, breathe into the lower abdomen, the pelvic

9:54

floor and just allow all that being of

9:56

you just to expand on the inhale and

9:59

then don't. push your exhale so you just allow your exhale

10:01

to go as if... So

10:06

it's just allowing your whole being to be inflated

10:08

with an inhale and allow the

10:10

breath just to leave you and that's six

10:12

cycles. That's such a simple practice. It's so

10:14

simple isn't it? So like an alarm on

10:16

the hour maybe on people's phones to remind

10:19

them even if they're stuck... Post

10:21

it, post it, no, boom, up on your screen, whatever it

10:23

is, just remember to breathe today. It's

10:26

just little reminders and we do need the

10:28

reminders because again once that

10:30

stuff starts kicking in the next email, the

10:32

next phone call and we find ourselves up

10:34

regulated, we're already operating from a

10:36

different system. So sometimes we just need that little

10:38

reminder like a little tap on the shoulder from

10:40

your favourite uncle or aunt saying just remember to

10:43

breathe now. Yeah. And what I

10:45

love about that practice is

10:47

that there's literally nobody who

10:49

is listening to this podcast right now who couldn't do that.

10:53

It doesn't cost any money, right? They don't have

10:56

to buy anything. They don't even need to get an app really. You

10:58

don't even really need to time it do you? It's

11:00

just a rough approximation, roughly in for

11:03

four, out for six and just do that

11:05

for a minute. And

11:08

what benefits is someone going to get

11:10

if they do that? Why should they?

11:12

I honestly believe that just those simple...

11:14

Not like the inner work I call

11:16

it but every relationship improves

11:18

from you doing the inner work including

11:21

the one with yourself, right? So

11:23

that would mean that every relationship within your

11:25

work environment, a home environment, will

11:28

improve by that. It could be

11:30

like with the lady I'm discussing you end

11:32

as a father's home, her relationship with her

11:34

father improves from that, right? Just

11:36

in that moment because again, she's

11:38

seeing him differently. She's not seeing him from what

11:41

might have been way back there in

11:43

childhood even because she's not operating at

11:45

that subconscious layer. It's now she's entered

11:48

as a conscious adult into that experience,

11:50

not operating as maybe the six-year-old or

11:52

the five-year-old back there. I

11:55

guess your ability

11:57

to think clearly, precisely. within

12:00

a work environment. What do we

12:02

want? We want to be on our game, don't we? We want

12:04

to be able to articulate, we want to be focused,

12:07

we want to be able to deliver on

12:09

time or targets and you

12:12

can do all of that. You could have worked better.

12:14

You just work more efficiently, right? That's it.

12:17

That's it in a simple form. But again,

12:19

I think it's really down to that. For

12:21

me, it's the relationship to every relationship improving.

12:24

With parenting, for instance, it might even be working

12:26

from home. I have a studio outside the house,

12:28

so I've had this really long commute these days

12:30

across the lawn, right? But it's

12:32

sometimes easy to forget that that's still a

12:34

work environment and I'd suddenly enter the home

12:37

and I'm still in the email or the

12:39

phone call. So what can we

12:41

do? Okay, we put everything down in that moment, breath

12:43

work, just for a moment, a minute, then

12:46

leave that experience and leave whatever it is in

12:48

that space before entering the new space. Because again,

12:50

the kids are waiting for you, they're waiting to see you.

12:53

And who do they want to see? They

12:55

want to see kind of, again, the up-regulated

12:57

pupper or the down-regulated pupper. Who have

13:00

they been waiting for? And believe me, an hour or

13:02

two hours is like a lifetime to kids if you've

13:04

been in that environment. It

13:06

could be, I just could do one minute of down-regulation

13:08

breathing where my out-breath is longer than

13:11

my in-breath in my car. And

13:13

then when you walk through the door, your interaction

13:15

with your partner, with your kids, it's going to

13:17

be completely different. It

13:19

can stop a lot of unnecessary

13:21

disputes or arguments. I think the other thing

13:23

for me, Tony, as I hear that, why

13:26

I think that's such a powerful practice also

13:28

is because we

13:30

get to work and we just start to

13:32

accumulate a lot of the time stress and

13:34

what I call micro-stress doses. And

13:37

if you don't do anything to

13:39

down-raking, you just keep going,

13:41

just keep going, keep going. And by the end

13:43

of the day, when you finished, you

13:46

may not have done anything to pause,

13:48

to bring everything back down again. So by the

13:50

time you then rock up

13:53

at home after work, whether you work from

13:55

home or from an office, your

13:58

state is completely different. arguably

14:00

not the best states who then I

14:04

was staying at my friend's space in Somerset.

14:06

We were there for six months so we

14:09

got to live in like a proper community

14:11

experience and there was

14:13

one morning I had a lot on and I'm

14:15

just going to go to the lake. I'm just

14:17

going to sit at the lake so I walked

14:20

to the lake, did some breath and

14:22

in that moment it was this simple

14:25

language of it's a

14:27

choice right? So you can

14:29

choose to do the breath and appreciate

14:31

the privilege or you can

14:33

choose not to and feel overwhelmed and

14:36

then I realized it was just a fine

14:38

line between overwhelming privilege and what can help

14:41

me navigate that path is just a simple

14:43

breathing practice. I hope you enjoyed that bite-sized

14:45

clip. Do spread the love by sharing this

14:47

episode with your friends and family. If

14:50

you want more why not go back and

14:52

listen to the original full conversation with my

14:54

guests. If you enjoyed

14:57

this episode I think you will really

14:59

enjoy my bite-sized Friday email it's called

15:01

a Friday 5 and

15:03

each week I share things that I do

15:06

not share on social media. It

15:08

contains five short doses of positivity,

15:10

articles or books that I'm reading,

15:13

quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research

15:15

I've come across and so much more.

15:18

I really think you're going to love

15:20

it. The goal is for it to

15:22

be a small yet powerful dose of

15:24

feel-good to get you ready for the

15:27

weekend. You can sign up for it

15:29

free of charge at drchastity.com/ Friday

15:31

5. I hope you

15:33

have a wonderful weekend make sure

15:35

you have pressed subscribe and I'll

15:37

be back next week with my

15:40

long-form conversational Wednesday and the

15:42

latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.