In this fascinating topic today we hear from Tom Herron, Hypnotherapist and Buteyko Breathing Practitioner and Expert. Have you heard of the expression, "being out of your head?"
Listen as Tom discusses being out of your head and getting into your body. In Tom's version of being 'out of your head, we discover it's a place that's way less destructive than what's ordinarily understood to being 'out of your head'.
When we indulge in 'destructive' behaviour, it may seem we cannot do anything about, finding it difficult to chart a way out of that 'destructive' behaviour. Tom teaches us a method of resourceful breathing leading to a parasympathetic response.
Finding other ways of soothing yourself can lead you into a path of self fulfilment and life enhancing behaviour by learning the importance of the role of Carbon Dioxide: it's value in enabling us to self regulate our emotional states.
UK Phone Number: 0044 7734345163
ROI Phone Number: 086 8050604
Hi there, thanks for listening and please like this podcast where you listen to your podcasts.
The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.
Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie
We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie
In this fascinating topic today we hear from Tom Herron, Hypnotherapist and Buteyko Breathing Practitioner and Expert. Have you heard of the expression, "being out of your head?"
Listen as Tom discusses being out of your head and getting into your body. In Tom's version of being 'out of your head, we discover it's a place that's way less destructive than what's ordinarily understood to being 'out of your head'.
When we indulge in 'destructive' behaviour, it may seem we cannot do anything about, finding it difficult to chart a way out of that 'destructive' behaviour. Tom teaches us a method of resourceful breathing leading to a parasympathetic response.
Finding other ways of soothing yourself can lead you into a path of self fulfilment and life enhancing behaviour by learning the importance of the role of Carbon Dioxide: it's value in enabling us to self regulate our emotional states.
UK Phone Number: 0044 7734345163
ROI Phone Number: 086 8050604
Hi there, thanks for listening and please like this podcast where you listen to your podcasts.
The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.
Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie
We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie
00:01 - 00:10
This is the professional hypnotherapists podcast, a production of the European association of professional hypnotherapists. That's the EAPH.ie
Aidan Noone
00:23 - 01:46
And a very warm welcome to you to session number 20 of the professional hypnotherapists podcast in this fascinating subject today, we hear from Tom Heron, hypnotherapist and buteyko breathing practitioner and expert. Have you heard of the expression being out of your head Listen, as Tom discusses, being out of your head and getting into your body in Tom's version of being out of your head, we discover it's a place that's way less destructive than what's ordinarily understood to being out of your head. When we indulge in destructive behavior, it may seem we cannot do anything about it. Finding a difficult to chart, a way out of that destructive behavior. Tom teaches us a method of resource for breathing, leading to a parasympathetic response. Finding other ways of serving yourself can lead you into a path of self fulfillment and life enhancing behavior by learning the importance of the role of carbon dioxide it's value in enabling us to self regulate our emotional states all on today's professional hypnotherapists podcast. Tom Harrison, welcome to the professional hypnotherapists podcast.
Tom Herron
01:47 - 01:53
Thank you. And thank you for inviting me. It's a privilege and an honor to be here.
Aidan Noone
01:55 - 01:56
Alright, thanks Tom,
Aidan Noone
01:56 - 02:01
how did you get into the whole area of therapy and therapy work, Tom
Tom Herron
02:02 - 03:05
Well, I was in the bookmaking and pub business for about 25 years and there was a bit of a mad scenery. It was an adrenaline fueled lifestyle. I feel like, and I seem to be always on the road. I was at racing animals at all sorts of things like that, in the business that I was in. And that was also looking after different shops in different places. And there were quite a bit of parks, so there's quite a bit of traveling. So it was all a bit manic. It also left me unavailable for a lot of the time for family and that sort of thing as well, which I really, you know, I felt guilty about it, I suppose. However, it was a sort of a lifestyle that I didn't know how to get out of it. So I wanted to find out if there was something wrong with me.
Tom Herron
03:05 - 03:52
So basically, I went to do some self-development courses and that sort of thing to, to find out, is there something wrong with me So I really enjoyed them. And the first thing that made any sense to me was hypnosis and that was way back in the late nineties. So from that, I just decided that's it, that's what I'm going to do. And I wanted to use it to find out what was wrong with me really. And that's what started my journey because I had a really good subject to work on because it was plenty going on with me. And that brought me into the whole area of self development into trauma work and into psychotherapy.
Aidan Noone
03:54 - 04:07
Right. And as the matter of answers, Tom, you being located where you're located in Northern Ireland, did the troubles have any con contributory factor to, how you were living your life
Tom Herron
04:07 - 05:12
Well, it's strange when you're talking about that. One of the biggest things that life-changing things for me at that time was a bookmaker friend of mine. Des Fox was killed and then going to the curragh in 1990. And that sort of really hashed my thinking because I just said there's nothing worth that. And he was shot in a robbery and basically it was very traumatic for me because usually I would have been with them and it changed my attitude towards, you know, the, the value of life. So that was a big impact. And I sold up shortly after that and decided to find out what was making me tick to see if I could, understand what was going on with me, because I was suffering from serious trauma. I didn't realize that at the time, I hadn't even heard the term
Aidan Noone
05:16 - 05:23
And that, how did that, if it's okay to ask some, how did that trauma manifest itself in you
Tom Herron
05:25 - 07:03
I suffered from severe anxiety. I also was drinking the head of myself. So I find later on that I was using alcohol to sooth, to sooth what was going on in my head. And while I was feeling so trauma as a leader, find out what, wasn't, what I thought it was. Because if someone had said to me that I was traumatized, I would have questioned that. So what I learned was that trauma is when the word is, you know, what has been changed without your consent. And that might ring true to somebody as being trauma with a small T rather than what we are used to like post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, however, yeah. Trauma with a small T happens as so often in our lives. Like, just imagine when the word is, we know what has been changed without our consent, that covers quite a scope. So as far as I'm concerned, we're all traumatized in some shape or form or to varying degrees. it affects our behavior. It affects our thinking. It affects what we do, and it affects how we think about ourselves, feel about ourselves and look at other people.
Aidan Noone
07:07 - 07:19
And you mentioned there about, you know, what you're saying to me is conscious up a notion in my mind that it's all about being in control or this control come into it. And, and to any degree,
Tom Herron
07:20 - 08:31
Well, rather than being in control, it's monitoring yourself, being out of control because anxiety comes on without any real, apparent reason initially, because we don't know why we're feeling anxious. Sometimes, obviously anxiety can be very useful because it can get us out of the way and dangerous or life-threatening scenarios. However, there's a lot of us that feel anxious doing relatively mundane, everyday things. And we don't know where it's coming from or what's causing it. However, there certainly is a reason for it. And it's useful to, to find out what's going on with us and then what we can do about it. So that's why I wanted to find out how I could manage my feelings, manage my thoughts, manage my behavior, because it was not a nice place to be my head. Wasn't a nice place to be in.
Aidan Noone
08:35 - 08:39
And where does the consent come in, Tom or the lack of consent
Tom Herron
08:39 - 09:18
For example, if there's a death happens, you know, it's traumatic, the world has changed, but we didn't consent to that happening if you know, so an accident or your best friend lets you die, or you have fallen off your bicycle and you've been seriously embarrassed. No, it might only be something trivial to someone else, but to you, it's awful. It's really traumatic is the only word I can use. And It's very subjective.
Aidan Noone
09:18 - 09:51
Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. You mentioned there about falling off your bike. No, I know anyone can fall off their bike, but invariably children fall off their bikes quite often. And in terms of trauma, you know, maybe you'd speak to that about the child's mind and not necessarily falling off their bike, but other things happening in childhood that can lead to a trauma. whether it be in childhood or indeed in later life,
Tom Herron
09:51 - 11:02
Let's look at the playground for example, where we have children playing and they're all noisy and they're having fun. And then this wee fellow falls and costumes, he cuts his knee at that point in time, his word has changed. So he's feeling the pain, he's screaming, the house down and nothing else matters except this issue that needs addressed immediately, which is the knee. And he doesn't know what to do. So he looked, try not on the runs to someone that he knows, like possibly his mother or his carer. And she sees him in distress and she soothes them. She looks at the knee to see if there's any damage. Usually there's not a pilot damage. However, the soothing allows that child to come to terms with what happened and very quickly he can go, he gets kissed better on his way about his business. Again, plan again from that moment on the ,cut knee doesn't matter.
Tom Herron
11:03 - 12:06
Now, can you imagine if that child was caught a snake and it looked for someone to soothe it and there was no one there no parent there, no Cara there, Nick doesn't know what to do. He has to invent very quickly somewhere to sooth himself and he can do that on a variety of ways. He's crying and the body that's looking on a modern what's wrong with him. He's not crying. So possibly the hit that other young fella thump and get him crying because it doesn't feel as bad when the Ella young founders crying. So he has learned that one way to soothe themselves is to get someone, to join him in his grief, as it were. Now, this isn't conscious, this is all subconscious, but it shows you how we can learn behavior that, you know, we, you know, if we are, if we are hurting, you know, we want to burn the timeline.
Tom Herron
12:07 - 13:05
So it's interesting how that soothing is so important. So we find that the absence of soothing can be more damaging than the actual event. So we have to find our own ways to sooth. I find when I start the drink, I find the absolute best remedy at the time for me, I thought all my problems were solved because it got me out of my head that made me feel better and things were completely different until the next day. But for that particular period of time, everything was Rosea. So basically that was my soother. And then I got to depend on that soother. So that became the issue. However, the dependent, this was only like a symptom of the actual trauma. So it was the absence of soothing in an appropriate way, but it was the issue
Aidan Noone
13:09 - 13:27
And the whole area or concept or the idea of, you know, behavior. So that what I, what I'm hearing from your Tom is that, you know, given the circumstances of the context that unconsciously, we come up with a behavior that as you mentioned soothe us,
Tom Herron
13:28 - 13:29
Absolutely
Aidan Noone
13:30 - 13:30
That'd be correct.
Tom Herron
13:31 - 14:22
And it works. And you know, we become very familiar with it and that's why we continue with it, you know, all the time. And we become addicted to whatever that is. So is it any wonder that we, you know, we turned to drugs or alcohol or sex or work or exercise because our food, so you see how, you know, we talk about comfort eating, you know, where's the comfort, it's just something that we've learned. You know, we have learned that from a very early age that, this helps us in when we feed the body when we are emotionally, feeling something negative.
Aidan Noone
14:25 - 14:34
Yeah. And I know, I can know, see Tom, what your, what you're getting at the whole connectedness between trauma and addiction.
Tom Herron
14:34 - 15:35
And it's a symptom of the trauma. Now when we talk to people and we see people, those shows that they have been traumatized by their behavior. And it's very easy to notice. And some of the are like the addictive behavior where like my head, wasn't a nice place to be in. So I wanted out of my head. So I'm sure you heard the expression that someone was out of their head with drink or other, the head with drugs. So the head, isn't a nice place to be in when you're in that state. So you'll do whatever it takes to get out of the head. So we have to find ways that we can get out of our heads. That's less destructive as it were. And that's where the breath work came in for me, because I'd like me to give it in my head so easily.
Tom Herron
15:37 - 16:58
And that it allowed me to get into my body. That's why people exercise with great vigor. It gets them out of their head, into their bodies. It's why we like massages is why we like body work. It's why we like music because it gets us out of our head. It's like trans induicing. And all of those things are so useful to us. However, when we, when we are doing something that's destructive, it becomes something that we think we can't stop or we can't quit, or we are addicted to it. You know, and addiction is for me, quitting alcohol was actually easier than taking alcohol when I changed my attitude towards it. If you can understand that Because the drinking was just hassle made me feel awful. It was hassle, but it was a driver there to sooth. But when I got all the ways to Soothe alcohol became just no interest to me whatsoever.
Aidan Noone
17:00 - 17:29
no, we, you mentioned a little while ago, Tom, above the boy in the school yard. And you know, we have now from my understanding of what we've been talking about that big boys do cry, you know, and my question to you is, and I don't, it doesn't necessarily have to be a big philosophical question or answer. Is there a need for a rethinking about masculinity
Tom Herron
17:29 - 17:48
Tall I think that, you know, one of the reasons why we have tear ducts is to allow us to cry. So it's a great release. They know that it's perfectly all right to cry and to feel bad in bad situations. That's pretty normal. There's nothing wrong with crying.
Aidan Noone
17:48 - 17:48
Yeah.
Tom Herron
17:49 - 18:31
However, we can cry and appropriately and we can feel embarrassed about it. We can feel very self-conscious about it. And you know, when we take the inverted commas, the John Wayne sort of attitude towards it, it makes us less than masculine as it were. However, to me, I have no issue with anyone crying. I have no issue with anyone, releasing in fact, I would encourage it because what's wrong with crying. What's wrong with feeling bad in a bad situation. And it's a, it's a wonderful way to release things.
Aidan Noone
18:34 - 18:51
Yeah. So it's a case, Tom of us finding a way of soothing ourselves. So that, that that's soothing provides for us that need that we, that we have.
Tom Herron
18:52 - 20:24
Yes. And that soothing can come in many ways. Like I work with athletes, sometimes teams sometimes, and these guys are, they're so dedicated that they, they overdo it. You know, they might've over-training that goes on is, is quite remarkable. And it's certainly detrimental to the main body and spirt. However, they have a drive to do it. And there's that competitiveness. And it's, it's a sort of, a culture that has grown up. And I don't think it's that healthy. You know, I think we can have lots of fun and lots of competitiveness without putting ourselves or someone else in danger. So I look at, you know, when people that have to trend to such an extent that it becomes detrimental to their health and it happens regularly. And we tend to think that someone that's out training is definitely better than being out drinking. However, it can have detrimental effects as well. And it's as big an addiction as the alcohol or can be.
Aidan Noone
20:25 - 20:30
Yeah. So there's a balance there, Tom, and there's a balance that's necessary.
Tom Herron
20:30 - 20:44
Well, there's a balance in everything. Yes. So it's, it's knowing when the balance, what the balance is and breath work helps us there as well.
Aidan Noone
20:47 - 21:01
And that's my next, as we move on, in terms of, you mentioned about your own trauma and as you discovered, hypnotherapy, and then at what stage did you venture into other discover breathwork
Tom Herron
21:03 - 23:02
I was with a client one day and they handed me an old tiape and sounds ancient now. When you think of tapes. And it was from the trees that heal clinic, which is a wellness clinic in central London. And it was about, a method called the Buteyko method. And I looked at, well, I play that. And I looked for the book that, that recommended, so about the book, which was written by Teresa Hale. And she mentioned the guy that was working with our call stal Matzke who was a Russian man. And he was over training people in the Buteyko method in London. So rang and was totally interested in it because, I'm a judo player and I had great difficulty, basically breathing under pressure. I was probably as fast as anybody in the club and, probably trained as much as anybody and more than a lot of them. And I did gym work to supplement it, but when I was running and stuff, stuff like that, I felt there was something not right. So I got tested for asthma and the ruled that out. And then when I listened to this tape, it started to tell me that I was breathing more than the body needed, which needed exploring, because it was aware to explain why I couldn't do what I wanted to do. I don't want it to get,
Aidan Noone
23:05 - 23:21
That's an interesting point, Tom, because if I may interrupt you, because we all think that, you know, okay, oxygen, oxygen is oxygen is necessary. but, but there's, there's a, you're going to tell us no, if there's a case of having breathing too much.
Tom Herron
23:21 - 23:26
Yes. My breathing more than the body needs. You see it's,
Tom Herron
23:26 - 24:29
You can imagine eating more than the body needs. We all know the consequences that that could have, but breathing more than the body needs. Can it easily make you under oxygen It, the body it's times like a contradiction. It's not, however you see when we breathe in with filler lungs full of air, 21% of that is oxygen. The oxygen is carried by the red blood cells around the body and the cells ticket as in when the needed. So the red cells, the hemoglobin part of that bonds to oxygen and carries it around the body. And the sail is taken as, and when the need is a hemoglobin and oxygen are bonded chemically bonded together. So we can't use oxygen. If it's bonded to hemoglobin, that bond must be broken. And the only thing can break that bond is a mixture of water and carbon dioxide.
Tom Herron
24:31 - 25:50
So if we breathe too much carbon dioxide out through our mouths, we won't have sufficient to take the oxygen from the hemoglobin. So the fact is that when we breathe less, we build up CO2 in the body. So therefore oxygen has been released much more readily, so breathing less oxygen into your body more. And it sounds crazy, but it's true. And there's only 0.03% oxygen or CO2 in there in the air that we breathe. We need it at 6%. So we have to create our own that mechanism. And by the way, or that theory that's, alluded to is called the Bohr effect to be a way a char. And it was, it was discovered by Christian board. I think it was 1902. So when you look at the Bohr effect, which means oxygen is only released from hemoglobin in the presence of CO2. So when you, when you take that into a kind, you realize that we need to breathe less to oxygen the body more. We always have enough oxygen in the body. It's the CO2 that we need increased.
Aidan Noone
25:53 - 26:24
That's a very interesting point, Tom, because, you know, we're, we're, we, we have to breathe, but it's a case of no regulating our breathing, to such an extent that we build up that 6% of CO2 that we need, as you say, now let's marry all of this. If you will please, to trauma and this, the connectedness between breath, work, trauma and soothing, if that's possible.
Tom Herron
26:26 - 27:39
Well, one of the things that's encouraged is to breathe in and out through the nose. And that's the most natural way to breathe baby. Some until about six months old are what we term as obligate nasal breathers. They breathe in and out through the nose because they're nursing. So when a baby's sucking, it's breathing through to nose as soon when it nose gets blocked, that it has an issue. And when the nose gets blocked, it doesn't know what to do because it hasn't learned to breathe through the mouth. And then when it does count, breathe through the nose, because it's blocked, it starts to cry. And then it forces itself to breathe through the mouth. And it can hardwire actually the notion of stress and anxiety from my breathing, from that moment on. And it's, it's, it's amazing how, we learn things like that.
Tom Herron
27:39 - 29:21
Child, if it could breathe through its nose would never breathe through its mouth and the see us breathing through the mouth. We talk when we have to breathe through the mouth and athletes regularly said to me, like I was taught to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, see the nose is a great filter. So it makes no sense to bypass the filter. But when you breathe out through the nose, you reduce dehydration by 42%, which is quite significant. So when the athlete's running, it reduces dehydration dramatically by exhaling through the notes. Now, Yes. Go ahead of the, when we, when we take that, when we breathe in through the nose, that will, that will activate the parasympathetic response. So when we breathe in through the nose, it'll activate the parasympathetic response. And when we breathe in through the mouth, it will activate the sympathetic response. So at shows you that we can, you know, we can change our states just by changing our breathing.
Aidan Noone
29:24 - 29:35
Maybe Tom, at this juncture, you might explain to us the difference between the sympathetic response and the parasympathetic response. Just sort of, we know, have a better understanding these
Tom Herron
29:36 - 31:04
Well, the sympathy, the sympathetic response is also known as their nervous system responses that happens to us in certain situation. So when we get scared, we need the energy. We need the, when we get into a state that allows us to fight our runaway flight. And sometimes we freeze because we feel scared. We don't know what to do. So there's a fight flight or freeze response in the sympathetic response. The parasympathetic response is the opposite, which is rest, digest, and repair if you like. So, and when we, when we breathe through the mouth, it's all filtered. It can cause us to go into the sympathetic response and therefore keep us anxious and sustain that anxiety. So the brain is getting messages to, to fight or run. So we are in a state of anxiety when it's inappropriate.
Tom Herron
31:06 - 32:20
So when we breathe through the nose and especially when we exhale through the nose, we can, we can stimulate, I think, called the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is like a break on the sympathetic response. So the sympathetic response is on all the time as it were. Sometimes it gets greater than others, especially if you get scared and the parasympathetic or vagus nerve response breaks that. So it slows it down. So when we breathe in certain ways, we can stimulate the vagus nerve to such an extent that we stay more often in the rest digest and repair. Now it's not that one status better than the other. See, we need both states on this, as you said earlier, we just have to get that balance. And it's, it's triggering that balance, but there's nothing as, as empowering for me not to go into a scary situation on being able to control how I feel it's amazing.
Aidan Noone
32:21 - 32:42
Yeah. And that's, and that's what it's all about. It's, it's actually, you know, invoking that power we have within ourselves of that capacity to invoke the parasympathetic response so that we're able to be perhaps calmer than we would previously have been if by breathing through our nose, being calm, rather than breathing through our mouth.
Tom Herron
32:42 - 33:35
That's exactly. And we can breathe less, you know, we can do all of these things very simply, you know, you can imagine worrying about something in the car and it's doing your head in and, and you, you know, when I see me at times, things get overwhelming and the thumping the steering wheel and stuff like that, you know, because things were really bugging me. So what I started to do was I started to pick a landmark ahead of myself, you know, like a tree or a lamppost or a bridge. And, you know, just as I was driving and, you know, it's not too far away, but something in the distance that was, I thought that it could breathe in through the nose, out through the nose and hold my breath to the reach that point and then to recover and then pick another one and do it again and continue that the whole journey.
Tom Herron
33:36 - 34:39
And I was so caught up with doing that, that nothing else was getting into my head. I was out of my head, I was in my body and it was only through breathwork and I got out of the car. So calm, relaxed, and, you know, find that what I was worrying about just disappeared because this took precedence and with little practice, you can do that all the time. It's fascinating how powerful that can be. And anytime I see a flight of stairs, I breathe in through the nose, out through the nose and hold my breath and walk up the stairs without breathing. If you notice of emphasize that you hold the breath after exhaling. So usually when we were kids, we learned maybe to hold our breaths when we were, when we breathe in, we hold our breath. But for the Buteyko method, especially it's in, through the nose, through the nose, hold your breath and walk up the stairs without breathing.
Tom Herron
34:40 - 35:47
Or as far as you can get up, I'm not asking anybody to do any heroics whatsoever. I'm asking them to practice at home. They get really good at it. When I met for a walk, I walk at a particular pace that it can breathe through my nose. If it gets too difficult, I slow down. If I'm running, I run with the piece that I can breathe through my nose. If it gets too difficult, I slow down and opening my mind is never an option for me. And when it gets easier, I'll do small breath holes. So that I always feel an air hunger like the need for air. Like I would like a really big breath, but I don't have to my mind, I can tolerate that air hunger. So it's just, so once we are, once we feel that air hunger, and it's a challenge, that's enough to engage the brain to get rid of ruminating thoughts. So we challenge it with the breath work rather than challenging it with ruminate thoughts.
Aidan Noone
35:50 - 52:37
would it be true to say Tom, that, you know, with this method that we have a ready-made soothing method,
Tom Herron
35:59 - 37:05
It's certainly, it's certainly you want to leave the house without it, so I'm gonna have to breathe anyway. So we might as well breathe in a way that's useful to us and do breath work, doing the things that you do normally anyway, so you can integrate it into every aspect of your life. You know, when I'm talking to you now, I am very conscious of the fact that I'm closing my mouth between sentences. I'm keeping my sentences short. So don't run out of breath and I have to breathe in through my mouth. And when you listened to newscasters and listen to people that are talking for a living, listen, how Iould their breathing is. And any of them that I have worked with they're on inhalers simply because of the job that they do, because it leaves them shortness that leaves them short of breath, listen to it, and you see it.
Tom Herron
37:05 - 37:52
That's amazing. And when you look at someone, when someone comes into me and I check their breathing, just look, I see where they're breathing from. I noticed how often they're breathing. I can see if they're sighing a lot. I also encourage people to close their mouth when sleeping and I do it by taping it with micropore tape on it, just tip it. Like, if you can imagine the best way in this audio to describe it would be like, take a, like an inch of tip and put it like a Hitler mustache that has just dropped over the two lips.
Tom Herron
37:54 - 38:49
And that's all you need. You need very little to discourage you from breathing through the nose or the mouth at night. And as strange as it may seem, it's about two and a half times or something around that more difficult, or there's two and a half times more resistance breathing through the nose and through the most when you're operate or sitting, but when you're lying down and it's actually about two or two and a half times more difficult to breathe through the mouth. So it's actually easier to breathe through the nose when you're lying down. And it's one of the reasons why we, we make so many loud snores because we have to really force ourselves to suck the air. And,
Aidan Noone
38:51 - 39:17
all very, very interesting Tom, really fascinating. As you know, I would find all of this fascinating now in all your years of experience and working with clients, is there any, anything, any particular incidents of where you've worked with clients and say, well, you know, that was amazing. And if, if there is, maybe you just give us an exact examples of that
Tom Herron
39:18 - 40:49
We're working with serial Re-offenders. This story comes to me so easily. And I remember writing to the judge because it was involved. And I was asked to get involved in setting up a program for Serial re-offenders. At the time I, these were all young men who had great difficulty staying out of jail. One particular guy, he wasn't jailed until he was 18 years old, but by the time he was 32, he was 26 times in jail. So I was asked, I wrote to the judge and I said to the judge, look, we're setting this up. Why not send them to us So we were working with that, an institution that was dealing with people that were near the end, people that were in jail, but then near the end of their term on the were very low risk. So it was a bit of a stretch for them to accommodate these guys that were anything but low risk. But to me, it just showed that jailing, them was not working for them.
Tom Herron
40:52 - 41:59
And one of the tragedies, where was that these guys would make plenty of enemies when they got out that made plenty of enemies because they'd be in trouble all the time. But the guys that knew that they were on parole would go out of their way to get them to the trouble, to get them arrested again, because they wouldn't get arrested. The guy that was in parole would get arrested, you know, so it was a vicious circle and nothing was working. So we decided to hit them. And I spoke to this guy and he just kept looking at the ground and he comes to see me in a Tuesday. And we were doing other things like we had a big middle, like, an old linen mill that was disused. And we were given them cleaning up projects to do. And some of the things that they had to do was creative because we had an artist there on a sculptor there that was showing them how to do things.
Tom Herron
41:59 - 42:55
And there were, some of them were interested in us. There was a big river there as well. So some of them was getting the boat, you know, trying to get a book together, get a boat, hinted to get a boat that was waterproof and that sort of stuff. So we're giving them things to do. And that the role on some sort of substance at the time. So we had to work with their doctors to take them off those as well. But this guy came on, he just kept looking at the ground to me. And he says, I said, how did you get on at the weekend He says, I was out of head. So I said to him , so what do you mean you were out of your head So it was drink and drugs. So that was fine pain killers. He was taking loads of them. So when he says, how would you like to get out of your head nine And that's the first time he looked me straight in the eye and he says, I,
Tom Herron
42:57 - 44:10
So I have got a massage chair in my office and I says, okay, we'll get, get you out of your head Now. So I'll put them on the massage chair, put headphones on. I'm going to start to talk to him. And I asked him to close his eyes. And all I could hear was once I put the massage chair going, I could hear him feeling the massage chair. And he was, oh, so that went on for, I think there's the cycle is 15 minutes or something like that. And we did a second cycle. So we're about half an hour on that. And he gets off and I says, did you enjoy But out of your head, he says to possess a great chair. So he came Every week just to use the chair. So it kept him coming. Whereas he had a great history of not keeping appointments. No, the next thing I started to talk to them about breathwork And he started to find that the breath work would get him out of his head. Now that took a bit of bit of practice, but he found it worked for him and
Tom Herron
44:12 - 45:04
He came on Tuesday and he says to me, I was in the town on Saturday evening. He says, and his mints came out of the pub And he says, I was looking around for something that I could brain one of them with. So we just look around looking for it d so the next thing. And he says, well, how come you're not arrested He says, I remembered my breath. And I walked on. So to me, that was amazing. And, he remembered his breathing and he walked on. So it was enough to get them past that whole years of trauma, just at that second. So to me, that was something very special.
Aidan Noone
45:07 - 45:18
Hmm. Excellent. Well done. in fact, it's amazing how, you know, he, despite all his drug abuse and he remembered, actually taught him.
Tom Herron
45:19 - 46:22
And I had a lovely story recently where a humble I'm working with that an 82 year old. And she was very ill, so showing me and she says to me, her daughter was with her and she said, is there anything you can do for my husband He says, well, look, let's have a go Niesha has bronchiectasis. And she has COPD and she has asthma. And she has a list of respiratory conditions that one of them is bad, but all of them is very debilitating. So last week I'd seen her and she does everything that I asked her to do. She's really, really diligent. So she had great difficulty getting up mucus and that she would have to make herself practically, physically sick in order to get mucus up on a regular basis, which was very distressing for anybody watching her and very distressing for her.
Tom Herron
46:23 - 47:19
So said look rather than do that, just to have a go with this. Now I says, it's going to take a bit of a bit of homework on your behalf, because what I'm asking you to do is breathe in through the nose, out through the nose and hold your breath for a count of five. She couldn't hold her breath for any longer, without getting into coughing. So smaller breath in through the nose, which means just fill the nose with air, breathe out, hold the breath after exhaling, hold the nose for kind of five and do that for 10 minutes every hour for five hours a day. And I should see the two, it was quite a big tall order, but it was something that she had to do in order to, to build up the CO2 enough so that it would loosen the mucus and she could bring it up herself.
Tom Herron
47:21 - 48:27
So she did that and I didn't see her for a few weeks. And she was telling me that was the first time that, that the ice says, I know that she's been very diligent and she's doing it. She's also, she was telling me that she started to ride a bike for five minutes a day and more and lights closed. She tips her mouth at night. Now this is somebody with serious respiratory issues. And then she told me last week, that 20 years ago, she had, she was diagnosed with cataracts in her eyes. And the total of that, the were too well embedded for her to have the surgery. I'm sure surgery has come on leaps and bindings. And they said that her physical condition wasn't fit for her to get the operation basically. So she told me last week that she had had it last week and that she had got rid of her cataracts because she was fit to have the operations and that's 20 years later. So that was an amazing story as well.
Aidan Noone
48:29 - 48:56
Yeah, absolutely. It's the whole, the whole concept. The whole idea of what you're telling us today about breathing and trauma is, as I said, fascinating, and who would have, who would have thought, Tom, that simply by breathing the way you have described the scribe to us would actually be so beneficial to so many people.
Tom Herron
48:56 - 49:48
Yes. You see, we have got well and we have good, well drilled into us. The fact that CO2 is a, is a waste gas that needs to be and reduced. We can't breathe without it. And it's a visual dilator and as a Bronco dilator, so anybody that's having issues, any of your listeners is having issues, finding a vein to give bloods, breathe in, breathe out, hold the breath. And the, and the, the, the blood vessels will dilate. So even something as simple as that, your breathing can help you to find a VIN. You know,
Aidan Noone
49:50 - 50:05
It's definitely all encompassing. It covers a huge part of our lives and how we live and how to live more productively, more healthy, et cetera. Now, Tom, how can we contact you What are your contacts
Tom Herron
50:06 - 51:22
I have a website it's called Tom Heron experience. So www . Tom Herron, , experience.com. And you can also call me. And my phone number is 07734345163 zero seven seven three four three four five one six three. That's from that's Northern Irish one. And my Southern Irish number is 0 8 6 0 5 0 6 0 4. And, it's interesting that if someone was driving for example, and I just want to mention this in case I forget someone was driving and they were having issues with ruminating thoughts, get into the habit of breathing in through the nose and how mine cause your out-breath will always be longer than your in breath when you're home. So when you've got a longer, in-breath a longer breath, sorry, a longer exhale, you will, you will stimulate the vagus nerve, which would bring you into parasympathetic response and into rest and digest response. So you can hunt. It can be a song or can just be humming
Tom Herron
51:27 - 51:31
So now you see why now you see why the most chant and things like that.
Aidan Noone
51:34 - 51:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That Tom Tom Heron, that was fascinating. And indeed, they are, lots of people are there to contact you and learn this, this fascinating yet. Life-giving process of learning how to breathe correctly
Tom Herron
51:51 - 51:55
For your, for the privilege of doing this. So God bless. Bye-bye
Aidan Noone
51:55 - 52:26
Thank you for listening. And I do hope that you've received some benefit from today's podcast. I have been your host, Aiden noon. You have been listening to the professional hypnotherapist podcast, a production of the European association of professional hypnotherapists. That's EAPH.ie. Why not pop over to EAPH.ie, where you will find solutions for you right there right now.