Tony Winyard has lived in 12 countries, visited 80+, DJ'ed for the world's richest man, won UK Wedding DJ of the year, interviewed scores of A list celebrities on radio and now helps people to do the things they want to do, but are unable to get themselves to do.
Connect with Tony Here:
www.tonywinyard.com
https://www.facebook.com/TonyWinyard.HabitsAndHealth
http://www.instagram.com/tony.winyard/
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonywinyard
https://www.youtube.com/Habitologist
Free quiz: https://habits-health.com/
We discuss Topics Like:
Why are habits so important to achievement?
Why is a Kool & The Gang song so central to dialling habits in?
Is there a habit I can develop that will help me in stressful situations?
Why is sleep the number one priority in your life?
What tips do you have that might help people who have problems with sleep?
Are there any fun ways to increase energy?
.
.
.
SHOW NOTES AT
Thinking about using nutrition and holistic health for restoring thyroid function? Learn EVERYTHING you need to know by joining our Free Facebook Group. Thriving Thyroid Balance Community.
Are you interested in learning more about your thyroid and finding answers?
We got you!
We have several different opportunities to work with us at several different price points and opportunities.
Our signature 6-month program is called The Hansen Method, we offer this in a VIP setting with personalized plans and protocols, individual one on one coaching and incredible bonuses that change regularly. You can schedule a complimentary thyroid breakthrough call with one of our thyroid advisors. Click here. If you have questions about the Hansen Method and want to discuss your specific situation and make sure this is the right program for you you can schedule a complimentary thyroid breakthrough call with one of our team members. schedule here. Hurry, my schedule fills up quickly and we only work with limited amount of women at any given time.
Join hundreds of women who have improved their symptoms by 80% and lose on average 30lbs in the 4 months.
Not ready to schedule a call, no problem. Learn more about the Hansen Method to see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to learn more.
We also offer The Hansen Method as a Self Guided option.
Option number 1 for self guide is where you are totally on your own to go through the program content, make the changes and execute them on your own. Click here to purchase.
Option number 2 includes group coaching and access to our members facebook group that will allow you access to our Thyroid Success Coaches and testing with personalized protocols. Click here to purchase.
But one of our favorite ways to work with us is our Thriving Thyroid Coaching Membership Opportunity. This is where many of clients first begin working with us. It allows you to get to know us, our system and start making changes before making a larger financial investment. Click here to learn more.
CONTACT LINKS
DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES
PAID RESOURCES
AFFILIATE LINKS
Xo,
Shannon Hansen
P.S. Make sure to schedule our Thyroid Breakthrough call with one of our thyroid advisors.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION
(00:03):
This is episode 81 using breathwork to restore the body.
(00:09):
Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast, where we choose to become empowered patients and take our health into our own hands. Hi, I'm Shannon Hansen, a Christian entrepreneur, a mom of three. And after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid. I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more. After that, I founded the revolutionary thyroid program, the handsome method as a health professional and a mom. I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a responsive thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once. And for all each week, I will be here for you along with my guest experts, we will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the thriving gyroid podcast.
(01:29):
Welcome back you guys. I have Tony Winyard on the call and on the podcast with me today, I'm super excited to be talking about growth work and using this to help manage stress because with our earth thyroid, we deal with a lot of stress overwhelm frustration. I find that a lot of our clients also don't take deep breaths and breathe very well. So this will be a really impactful episode for you guys. So welcome Tony,
(01:59):
How you doing Shannon
(02:00):
Doing well? So give everybody a little bit of back as to what, what you do and kind of how you got to where you are now.
(02:11):
Well, so what I do now is I'm, I'm a health coach and I've done some sort of specialist, I guess, studies over the last few years in breathwork in, in habit formation like behavior science and also new. And I've kind of brought all that together, but my background is completely different. I was a, I was a DJ for many years at working all around the world in, in clubs and, and on the radio as well. So it's very different to what I do now.
(02:39):
How did you get started in doing breath work?
(02:42):
So the, the, I got started in it because I've a history of, of asthma and I suffered from asthma as a child. And when I started to, to DJ in many other countries and I was working abroad for a long time for about 12 years, I was living abroad and it didn't occur to me at the time. I didn't suffer for asthma once in, in any of those countries. And then when I returned to England, the asthma came back and I was curious as to how come I didn't have it all that time in, in different climates. And in when I've come back to England, it is come back again. And my whole life, all the doctors ever, it was just simply prescribed me inhalers and steroids and stuff to manage the asthma. And one day about, oh, wow, I guess it about 7, 8, 9 years ago, I found out about it was a Facebook post.
(03:33):
A friend of mine posted something on Facebook about something called B Takeko, who was a Russian dot who developed this method, a breathing practice that you could follow that would kind of you know, it would resolve your asthma symptoms. So you didn't need to use an inhaler. And I became really curious to this because I'd never heard anything like this before. And at first it sounded really strange. And so the more I looked into it, it it, and I found it, it worked. And then I went and actually studied with the guy. There's a guy called Patrick McCuen who had studied with this Dr. Botte in Russia. He brought it to the west and I went and did a, a workshop with him was impressed with it so much because it just completely solved my asthma. You know, I didn't have any asthma symptoms anymore. And then it also solved my hay fever as well. And I became a, an instructor in it, and now I help with many other people to, to get relief from asthma and hay fever.
(04:33):
Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the hay fever. Would that, was that seasonal for you? Was that kind of something that would come up all the time?
(04:44):
For me, it was more seasonal. Yeah. I used to mostly get it in like spring, early summer.
(04:51):
Okay. And was that also being managed by steroids and things?
(04:56):
I, most of the time, I, I didn't, I don't really, I've never liked taking medication whenever possible. I try not to take medication. So at times I would be taking kind of antihistamine and stuff, but I didn't enjoy doing that. So I tried not to take medication and just suffered. But since discovering this, then I just simply by doing some breathing practices, I don't have to worry about it anymore.
(05:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I think this is really interesting cuz what I've been taught as a practitioner is that hay fever, seasonal allergies, that kind of thing is associated with gut health. So, and you've been using breathwork to help with that. So this is kind of like an interesting thing for me personally, to learn to learn about. So let's kinda dive into breathwork what is it, how do you use it, all of that.
(05:58):
So to breath book essentially. Well, so the oxygen advantage, which is what I'm, I'm trained in it, you could say it's got two pillars. So the first pillar is all about functional breathing and the majority of people are actually dysfunctional breathers and they're not breathing as efficiently as they could be. And then the second pillar is more a performance breathing. So this is a athletes, very high, competitive a athletes, really. So the performance sorry, the functional breathing, which is where I help people with various little chronic issues and not just simply respiratory related issues. It's not just people with asthma and C do it's D and whatever, but it's also other people who are just short of breath or maybe because they're aging or various other things. And it's just about helping people to breathe more efficiently. I mean, you mentioned before about taking a deep breath, there's actually a big difference between taking a big breath and a deep breath. And, and often when I, when I say to people, well, what is the difference between a deep breath and a big breath and people kind of look at me much as you are looking at me now. So , I know
(07:07):
What , what is the difference? Well, and I'm thinking about the stomach expanding to fill up the lungs, but I don't know how you would categorize.
(07:20):
So a, a big breath is simply just taking in as much air as you can. And typically people just try to expand their chest.
(07:27):
Yeah.
(07:28):
But a deep breath is trying to really go down and take the breath down into your abdomen, down into your kind of belly button area. And even if you can feel it in your back and your, so when you take a proper deep breath, your ribs expand out to the side, it's not just simply your stomach expanding, but your ribs are even expanding and that's a proper deep breath. And that the prob one of the things is about our, our main breathing muscles are a diaphragm, which is, you know, just around a sort of belly button area, that muscle, that be big muscle, we have there, but also the Intercos muscles, which are in our, in our ribs. And most people never work. Those muscles. There are two muscles, which very rarely get worked because a lot of people breathe very shallow just into their upper chest, which means they never often use their diaphragm or their intercostals, but they're very important muscles. So when we learn to breathe affect, we, those muscles get work more. But more importantly, it means by deep breathing deeper, it means we get a better gas exchange. So we get more oxygen going into ourselves. So that means more energy.
(08:37):
Okay. So I had all of these thoughts running through my head. I was thinking about when in, and when I took a deep breath listening to you I was like, my belly is bigger, right? Us as women, we want the thin shaped waist. And by breathing deep, I think I correct me if I'm wrong. You, you know, I would love to hear your opinions on this or thoughts or experiences. Women don't wanna breathe deep because they don't wanna look bigger, wider than they are, you know? Have you had any experience with that? Have people said any with that to you
(09:19):
Breathe and deep. That is not, it doesn't mean breathe deep and big. So it doesn't mean breathe deep and expand your belly as far as you can. And it, that, that's not what it means at all. Okay. So it means taking a deep breath into the diaphragm, but it doesn't mean expanding the belly necessarily. And in fact, it's quite the opposite because when we, you really get into it and we, we, we won't have time to go into this properly. But when you really breathe effectively, you're actually taking in a smaller volume of airs. You can, but you are also taking it deep. So typically people breathe too much and that may sound be are, how can you breathe too much? Because most people think, well, we need to get as much oxygen in as we can. And so I need to breathe more, but there's, there's a fine balance between carbon dioxide and oxygen. And when we exhale too much, we typically Excel too much carbon dioxide. And that upsets the balance. And if we have not enough carbon dioxide, then it means we don't get enough oxygen actually going into our ourselves. And so we don't have as much energy, which sounds it's very paradoxal.
(10:26):
This is so mind blowing to me and interesting because I feel like what I've been taught with breathwork is you wanna breathe in deep And then you wanna breathe completely exhale.
(10:44):
Yeah. And many yoga instructors. And it are, how do I, without being, without people, yoga instructors, haven't been taught properly about breath. If, if you actually explore pro Yama, like from ancient yoga origins, and the way they teach you to breathe is very different to how many current yoga instructors tell you how to breathe because they haven't properly studied breathing. They've just done some yoga training, but they haven't properly done. They haven't studied Yama, which is how you're supposed to breathe in yoga and PR Yama. And what I teach Austria advantage is all aligned as far as the sort of science is, is concerned.
(11:31):
Interesting. Okay. So you've talked about breathing the context of more energy. How can someone use their breathwork to provide extra energy to them if they're having maybe a midday crash or they're finding that they're waking up feeling tired? Well actually I feel like there's a couple questions here, so I'm gonna stop there and then I'll ask my second question.
(11:59):
Well, so one question you said there, but if someone's feeling stressed, there's something known as the physiological SI is the most effective me method to reduce stress. And it also, cuz it reduces the heart rate and the way to do the physiological sign is you take a breath in for your nose. So you take a normal breath in for your nose. And then almost as you finish that breath in, you take a second breath at the same time. So it kind of goes like this, they go, and then after you've taken that second breath, then you take a long exhale for your mouth. So it goes like this and the exhale is much longer than the inhale. And that is the fastest way to reduce stress, to reduce your heart rate. And if you do that a couple of times, most people find that they de-stres very quickly.
(12:51):
Interesting. So would you use that for like an acute stressor or a long term kind of chronic stress? Like if let's say so acute meaning you're driving down the road, something, somebody almost hits your car and you're like, ah, you know,
(13:07):
Perfect, perfect situation for acute stress. Like, like what you just described. Yeah.
(13:11):
Yeah. And then chronic stress, meaning my kids are in the hospital are really sick. We don't know if they're gonna make it, would that
(13:21):
Technique. It still works there, but it can also work you. I mean, I just showed you how to do that one time, but you can also do that more than once. So what some people do, you know, if you wake up in the middle of the night and many people have trouble getting back to sleep, a great way of them back to sleep is just repeating that maybe five, 10 times, and that calms you down so much reduces the heart rate. Many people are able to fall back to sleep just by doing that for say 10 times, not just simply going back to sleep. Some people use it to get to sleep in the first place, but it's very effective for getting back to sleep. If you've woke, woken up in the middle of the night,
(13:58):
I love that. Well, and that was gonna be the next question I asked you is how do you use breathwork to improve your sleep? Because a lot of the women that I, I work with, they have a hard time falling asleep. They wake up multiple times in the middle of the night. They wake up feeling tired, dragging, you know, not like themselves. So yeah.
(14:20):
So yeah, that's a, that's a great method for those kind of situations that you just described. Yeah.
(14:25):
Yeah. So why is sleep one of the number one priorities that we should be focusing on in our life?
(14:35):
Because it's so important to everything that we do. Like it's important. It helps. It helps us with reducing stress. It helps if we do any kind of movement, any kind of exercise, if you haven't slept properly, you're not gonna be able to perform as well. So anything health related is fundamentally sleep is so fundamental to everything else. That's health related with in, in the studies that I've done over the last few years, once I've realized just how important sleep was. I may, I prioritized it in my life and since then I, and so I've got like a, a wind down routine and it, as many other things that I do and my sleep now is, is so good. And it's, I just, I wake up with so much energy every day. I wake up in a good mood. I never feel down. I'm always full of energy. And I think a lot of that is because I, because I've made sleep such a priority.
(15:29):
Yeah. And, and I did too. this is embarrassing to admit. But several years ago I was sleeping four or five, maybe six hours a night. And I found that simple tasks were just taking me so much longer to get through when I was just kind of dragging through the day and, you know, similar to you as I made sleep more of that per for me and developed, you know, my own wind down method with gratitude and you know, just some relaxation and meditation, you know, whatever, whatever it is and my sleep changed. And I, now that I'm thinking back, I'm like I, because of the meditation, I think I was also probably a little bit different, not consciously . And then I did start finding that my energy felt better. Hormones started balancing, you know, I was a happier mom, all of those fun things. But you did talk about using a different method for like sports related or movement related breathing. So tell us a little bit about how that differs and some ideas for that.
(16:43):
So the second, the second pillar of the oxygen advantage, which is performance related. So this is more about it's deliberately stressing our breathing muscles. So our di and are intercostal muscles. And so the way this is done is by a series of breath holding, you're holding your breath for a certain amount of time. So there's something known as the bolt, which is your body oxygen level, test your B LT. And the way to find out your bolt score is to just take a, a stopwatch that my, as people have on their phone. And what we're trying to ascertain is not, how long can you hold your breath? We want to see how long it takes before you get your first physical sign that you need to breathe. So what, what maybe you want to follow along here? So if you get a step watch, and what I want you to do is, is to take a small breath in your nose, and then you take a small breath out through your nose.
(17:38):
And as you breathe out, you start to stopwatch and then you just keep on holding your breath until you get your first physical sign to breathe. And normally the first physical sign you'll feel in your diaphragm or maybe in your chest, or maybe even in your throat, as soon as you feel, you need to breathe, you stop to stopwatch. And we wanna see what that score is. For most people, it will be under 20 for people who have score over 20. That's a sign of very good physical fitness. Most people are, are what is termed as dysfunctional breathers by being under 20, it's actually dysfunctional. And most people will be around 10 or 12 or even even low and 10 sometimes. But by whatever the score is then by doing regular breath hold. So you would do something along the lines of it could be.
(18:27):
If you go for a walk, you just simply you hold your nose, you take a breath in, and then you, as you breathe out, you, you hold your nose and you hold it for maybe five steps, five paces as you walk, and then you breathe normally for a minute and then you repeat, and then you breathe normally, and you do this, repeat this maybe six, six times. And at first that might be quite difficult for some of people forever. It, depending on the level of fitness for some people, that would be very easy. But the idea is to gradually increase that. So if you do start at say, five, five paces, maybe you after a week or so, you increase that to six and then you increase it to eight and, and so on. Or another way you can do it is rather than when you're walking or running, you could just do it sitting in front of a TV or whatever, or as, as part of a meditation process where you just simply hold your breath for maybe six seconds.
(19:22):
And, and then you repeat that five times and you have like a, a one minute break between each of those times. And then after a few makes you increase that to seven or eight seconds and so on. And by doing this, you're putting a little bit of stress on your breathing muscles, and you'll find your bone score. If it started at say 15, a few weeks, that will increase to maybe 18 and your breathing will be much easier, much lighter. You won't hear your breath. So which is always a sign of great, like functional breathing, much better fitness levels. Really.
(19:58):
This is really interesting. So as let's say an athlete, whether they ride, so I cycle, I have a Peloton, I ride if, if they were cycling or doing yoga or would they find that their performance is better, maybe they're riding faster or their endurance is longer. Like, what would they be able to expect from that?
(20:21):
The endurance would certainly improve. So if, for example, they would get out of breath. Now say they go for a long, a physical bike, but quite a hard bike ride. And after to, and minutes, maybe they find they're working so hard that they're having to breathe and through their mouth, that's not a good sign. You ideally, you want to always try to breathe your nose when you can, by improving, by doing these breath holds. They'll probably find that. Whereas now maybe that's happening after 10 minutes. They'll find actually now it's not happening until 14 minutes and it's not happening until 18 and 20 into. And it just improves your aerobic performance. So you don't need, you're able to breathe far longer aerobically, which means just breathing for your nose, not breathing for your mouth.
(21:05):
This is so cool. I am loving all of this. what are for someone who is just getting started with breath work, what would be some techniques or strategies that you would recommend that they start with? Would you recommend they start with the bolt test to kind of get a baseline, to see where they're at and then start to exercise their lungs in terms of being able to hold their breath? Like what, what would you recommend?
(21:35):
Yeah, I think the bold test is probably a good place to start. And, and it's, I would imagine there's probably some people listening who didn't quite catch what I said. So what maybe that a good thing that they can do is just simply go onto YouTube type in the bolt score or type in the oxygen advantage. There's lots of videos. There'll be many videos from the creator of this method, a guy called Patrick McCuen explaining, showing this, you know, demonstrating exactly how to do this. That, that is probably a good way for many people to start. If they're looking at performance breathing, okay. If someone has more dysfunction of breathing, if they get outta breath quite quickly, even just from maybe from standing up from a chair, they get outta breath. Mm-Hmm , they, oxygen advantage will also help them, but we are not looking at the performance aspect. We're looking more at a functional breathing aspect of, of the oxygen advantage.
(22:27):
Okay. So for that functional breathing, maybe speak into that a little bit. How would you get started with, with that part
(22:36):
So that it really depends on what level someone is at and how so if someone score. So for example, I, I have different exercises that I do for people who score is under five people who score is between five and 10 people. Who's between 10 and 15, between 15. And I have different exercises depending on what level. So I don't really want to say one exercise because everyone's going to be very different. Yeah. But you can, again, you can just look on YouTube or, or Google for the oxygen advantage, or even a boutique ever, or, you know, go into my website and working with me or working with an oxygen advantage instructor and by finding out what level someone is at, then giving appropriate exercises for that level. Really?
(23:26):
Yeah. So do you have a quiz online?
(23:30):
I do.
(23:31):
There's take, okay. Yeah. Tell us about that.
(23:33):
Yeah. There's a quiz on my website, which is not just aimed at the breathing cause I'm also a habits coach. I'm, I'm a tiny habits coach. Anyone who's familiar with a book, tiny habits, I'm, I'm a tiny habits coach. And the reason for that, cuz I realized I had great knowledge around breathing and nutrition and sleep, but having good knowledge doesn't necessarily mean you can help someone implement that knowledge. And by, by taking the tiny habits course and helping understanding behavior science, it helped me to actually help people to create habits around breathing and sleep and nutrition. And so I was far, it was far easier for me to actually help people to use the knowledge and make, you know, and implement it in their lives. So the quiz is all about establishing, how good are your habits? What is your breathing? Like, how is your nutrition? How is your sleep? So it's around these different areas.
(24:24):
Perfect. Well, and I love that you talk about how all of this is kind of interconnected, right? The breath breathwork goes with nutrition and sleep and movement and you know, all of those different things. Before we wrap this up, Tony what, is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience and then, and we'll let them know how they can connect with you and work with you if they decide or take your quiz or all of those fun things?
(24:53):
I think the one thing is because I sort of I've got qualifications in many different areas. Well, I think the thing that I've realized the most over the last few years is every special in different areas. We'll always tell you that what they do is the most aspect of health. So a sleep specialist will tell you sleep is the most important thing people in breathwork tell you breathwork is the most important thing. People in fitness or nutrition. And what I've realized is it's not any one of them. It's all of them together. They're all so important and just focused in on one and neglecting others is often a, quite a big mistake.
(25:32):
I would have to agree. I think really addressing everything from that mind, body spirit connection is really where people have the best changes and find the, the homeostasis and the, the life happiness and contentment in those areas. So I, I fully agree with that. So where can people find you connect with you?
(25:58):
So my, well, my website is Tony winyard.com and Winyard. So if I have a race, I win by a yard. That's how you can remember Winyard. And my on the, the front page of that site, you'll see the link to the quiz. And then I'm on social media, under Tony Winyard and Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and so on as well.
(26:17):
Perfect. And we will have all of those linked up for you guys in the show notes. So you guys can go check those out. Thank you, Tony so much for being on. I feel like I learned a lot and I'm gonna have to go do the bolt test and check out the oxygen advantage. And I'm sitting here thinking, oh, how could this help me for having a baby? You know, I'm gonna have to be really mindful in migrating.
(26:44):
There's actually a great book called the breathing cure, which is by the same author, Patrick and the same ort as the oxygen Avanti and the section in here about women in pregnancy and, and how to breathe around, around all of that as well.
(26:59):
Okay. Well, I might have to pick up that book. I mean, I have a very short time before, before this baby's supposed to come, but maybe I can gather some information, but thank you for sharing that. And we will see you guys on the next,
(27:15):
Valerie. Thank you, Shannon
(27:21):
Subscribe. If you found value in today's episode, leave us and share on Instagram and please tag.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free