Episode #26 Breathe More Efficiently, Race Longer: Optimising Breathwork for Endurance Athletes

Breathing is the foundation of life, yet many athletes overlook its impact on performance, recovery, and longevity. 

In this episode, we sit down with breathing expert Dr Louise Oliver to explore how female triathletes—especially older women—can optimise their breathing to enhance stamina, reduce fatigue, and improve overall well-being. 

We discuss common breathing mistakes, techniques for better oxygen efficiency, and strategies to manage stress and recovery. 

Whether you're training for your next triathlon or looking to boost your daily well-being, this conversation will give you practical tools to improved breathing and perform better.

🎧 Tune in to unlock the power of your breath!

Find out more about Louise at

https://www.drlouiseolivertherapeuticlifecoaching.com/

Menopause specific

https://www.drlouiseolivertherapeuticlifecoaching.com/post/stress-menopause

https://www.drlouiseolivertherapeuticlifecoaching.com/menopause

Follow Dr Louise on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/drlouiseolivertlc/#

The book Breath

https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/breath-book

--------------------------------------------------------------


Follow Celia at Love The Rain Triathlon Coaching

Website: https://ltrcoaching.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovetheraincoaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltrcoaching

If you find value in what I share and want to support my work, your contributions mean the world. They help me continue creating helpful content, and inspiring others to chase their triathlon dreams.
Buy Me a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lovetheraincoaching

Transcript

[Music] hi I'm Celia Boothman founder of LTR Coaching and I'd like to welcome you to the Inspired Triathletes podcast where I'll be bringing you stories from female triathletes and taking on topics that are important to women in the

sport Hello and welcome to today's episode Today I'm here with Dr Louise Oliver who is a GP and a functional breathing practitioner and therapeutic life coach So welcome to the podcast Louise It's great to have you on I'm really excited to chat with you Um so first of all if you could just share your journey into learning about breathing and what it was that brought you to this area Fantastic Um so yeah thank you for the introduction I love I'm really pleased that you invited me to speak Um I mean essentially um if you want the truth I came really disillusioned with medicine probably about eight to nine years ago Um I felt I came a doctor to help people and I genuinely felt like what I was doing was not really helping sort of um sometimes in complex medical problems you you get to the point where traditional medicine runs out of options And um I just randomly chose to learn about mindfulness and I've gone on this really unstructured journey learning about neuroscience the mind body breath connection And then along the journey I started snoring in my permenopause and then recognized my body was trying to tell me that I wasn't breathing efficiently Um and obviously my sleep was awful when I was snoring And I I improved how I breathe and for me my snoring stopped My sleep is like the best it's ever been um and I can like exercise with greater ease and I just feel so much calmer So like why doesn't everyone know this so um so that's why I've started um running courses to help people breathe as nature intended Yeah And so you you knew you were breathing in your sleep You were snoring Was that cuz you could tell or did someone else tell you about that how did you find out that your breathing wasn't optimal yeah And and we we don't talk enough do we about the sleeping partners because obviously my sleep was disturbed and I was grumpy and all the rest of it I knew I was waking up and like going to the toilet a lot and um and but yeah he told me like you know and then you end up in separate bedrooms don't you and then they're grumpy because you've disturbed their sleep So um you know and you know it affects both of you and and I see this all the time with people Um and when we're asleep that is our unconscious breathing pattern So it is giving you some feedback on how you're breathing So if your if you're sleeping with um your mouth open your breathing is noisy you're stopping breathing during sleep your body is trying to telling you that your unconscious breathing pattern is not efficient So it's not as efficient as nature intended it to be So I would take some note on that and and sort of think about how you're going to deal with that M and so yeah my h my my mom's partner snores like that and she has to sleep in another room when she go she doesn't live with him so it's only like a few times when she goes and visits but she's always complaining about it and she's like oh you know I have to go and sleep somewhere else and it's really disruptive but you know it's it's like how do you so how do you deal with that how do you change because it's unconscious yeah what what can you do about So if if so I think the first concept is for people just to realize that um just because breathing is generally automatic it doesn't mean it's automatically efficient and and it partly because you know we are living in a world um that um and we're living in a world that we're not living as biologically programmed essentially are we so you know we're not we're not living as our like ancestors have been programmed to live And so we're not necessarily breathing as nature intended Um people sometimes think it's a weird concept but if you think about a baby when it comes into the world it is nasal breathing You know that is how we've been designed to breathe Um and we can we can breathe through the mouth and we can breathe noisy in upper chest but it's inefficient So that's going to affect sport and it'll affect sleep So just having that concept helps So you know how efficient is my breathing um so I think you know people need to be aware about the concept and then think about how to assess themselves So obviously if they're noisy breathing stopping breathing during sleep it's clearly not efficient But you can get some clues in the day as well You know if you're if you see your shoulders move well and you're breathing you're breathing through your mouth When you're at rest your breathing's noisy your breathing's irregular or you're holding your breath a lot um you sigh a lot you yawn a lot you've got nasal congestion all these things suggest you're not breathing as well as you could do Um and then when people are ready to take some action you know the the the simplest thing is can you bring yourself back to nasal breathing you know um just intermittently you know I'd say like every time you get a drink every time you go to the toilet you know how about just saying to yourself is my mouth open is my mouth closed and and just bring yourself back to nasal breathing Um but it involves lots if you're trying to get rid of snoring it involves lots of things We need to get the mouth closed the tongue needs to be in the correct position We talk about strength training but are we talking about strength training the respiratory muscles so the muscles around the throat so the muscles around the breathing tube that we breathe through and the muscles that bring the air in So our diaphragm which is the big muscle underneath our ribs and also the muscles So yes and the muscles in between the ribs they get weaker unless we're unless we're strength training those So um and one simple way of doing that is trying maintain nasal breathing with exercise because you're having to pull that air in bigger volumes of air through a narrow airway Um so are we strength training those and are we over breathing and this is the massive thing that I see um is a lot of us are breathing in excess of what our body needs So breathing in a bigger volume than we need biologically at that moment in time And that's a big problem for sport um because you're over breathing at rest So you're going to hit your maximum breathing capacity earlier than you would do if you were breathing a a normal volume at rest And obviously if you're shifting a bigger volume in and out of your airway it is more like likely to rattle So that's snoring And it's more likely to collapse That's obstructive sleep apnnea So um so there's lots of different aspects to it Um and improving how you breathe is one aspect to it there are other lots of different people specialtities that can help Um and it sort of depends on the the person It needs almost like a personalized multi-disiplinary team approach to it Um we're not there in the NHS yet but hopefully one No it's like M it's really interesting because we talked briefly about the book um Breathe by James Nester before you I pressed record and you said that you thought everyone should read that and it lays out a lot of this stuff about nasal breathing that you mention When I read the book I was like wow you know you read it and you're like oh my god what happens to them when they just mouth breathe they did an experiment didn't they and it was horrendous what what they ended up like It sounded awful Um and so I was you know implementing it into just my daily life And I I was I'm not too bad in daily life but I tried it when running and it's just it's really hard to do So someone came back to me they said I read that book and I tried it and they were like it's really hard And I said just start you know very slow and just don't you can't go out and expect to be nasal breathing the full run because it's just not going to happen And you have to be running quite easily to to be able to get that pattern started in the first place Have you ever tried nasal breathing when exercising or have you got any recommendations for that so so the the exactly as you say so um there's there's various considerations So obviously it is normal when we are exercising for our breathing volume to increase So that's normal Um but but people really need to understand what's my baseline So if you're already over breathing at rest that's a problem for sport and it's massively you know we talk about nutrition and strength I mean I'm not a sports I'm not a sports coach Um but you know there's a lot of particular with professional athletes you know the psychology the strength training um nutrition sleep etc etc But the thing that stops them you know once they hit their peak breathlessness they can't push any harder but then I think there's this complete lack of recognition of how my baseline breathing at rest and while sleeping how good is that and if it's if you're breathing quite fast and you you make it more efficient and you bring it down here so it's really efficient you can so if you start at a low pace you can do so much more exercise before you hit that peak Whereas if you're already sort of short of breath or slightly breathing too fast bigger volume at rest you you can't do as much before you hit that So I think I think in sport a real you know if if you're if someone's a sports coach and you're taking people away for I don't know an event and someone's snoring your athlete is shouting at you I am not breathing efficiently it's a problem because they'll gas out too soon when they're doing their exercise but it's also a problem because it's affecting their recovery when they're asleep their body's pri their body will be prioritizing breathing um rather than repair and recover and that's a problem Um and I think hopefully over time that will come through in the sports world Um so it's much easier to do it at rest and trying to make sure that you're um you know you're you're breathing lightly and gently We shouldn't be hearing ourselves breathe at rest You know if you're sat next to someone I hear it all the time and that Yeah and you can hear them breathe at rest Obviously if they've got medical problems I guess that sometimes even with medical problems there's an element of inefficient breathing that can be removed and even though they've got asthma or whatever um how much of it is asthma and how much of it is inefficient breathing and it can be quite amazing Um so and so think about how you're breathing at rest and think about how you're breathing when you're asleep Um as soon as you open your mouth one study said um you instantly start breathing an extra 800 milliliters of air per minute I mean you know that you know a pint that's that's over a pint and you should you're getting it through an airway If you've got an airway the size of a thumb you're lucky Um and you're shifting the effort involved in that that's a problem So try and make sure that you're definitely um nasal breathing with lips sealed um at rest and while you're sleeping Um and um the other aspect with sport is it depends on the size of your nasal cavity So we not the size of your nose So the nasal cavity is the area behind the nose And you get an you you get the the idea of the size of it If you put your tongue on the behind the top of your front teeth and run your tongue all over the back of your hard pallet that's your nasal cavity So the hard pallet the roof of your mouth is your um floor of your nasal cavity And we've all got different shaped pallets We've got different amount of how far our cheekbones are out So you will it depends on the size of the nas nasal cavity as to how much air you can shift in and out before you're forced to go to nasal breathing So there's that aspect But I've seen people sprinters at the Olympics if you were looking very carefully and that they had good facial structure um some of them were winning medals with nasal breathing if you looked very very carefully Right so you can um you can but you would need a really good nasal cavity and you would need to have trained yourself so your brain's really efficient at rest So there's there's different aspects to it Yeah definitely I think it's you definitely have to build up and I do I do all my all my running is nasal breathing now So I I don't even up even up hills Um yeah so I do it and now obviously I'm not at the level of the athletes that you work with but um but yeah all my sport is nasal breathing So um but obviously if you're an elite athlete they there will be you will switch this potentially will switch to mouth breathing um at at some point Um but it's not as efficient But obviously as an athlete you you you want to get that last bit of performance out don't you to cross the finish line Um whereas me at my stage in life I just want I don't want extra oxidative stress or anything like that So my my nose is my barometer in my uh my activity Yeah I tried it with intervals um cuz I do like it you know interval training sometimes and I was doing it on a threeminut interval and I thought right I'll try for the first and I could manage about a minute of hard running before I had to switch on on the intervals So it was quite interesting It's kind of an interesting experiment to do because it's like it forces you to think and and actually some of it is a bit of panic I think we we kind of get in a panic And the other thing that I've done and which might be interesting to to think about is in swimming obviously we have to breathe you know from side to side we have to be comfortable breathing fully out in the water exhaling you know fully because a lot of people don't do that and then they'll sort of take another breath before they're ready So another thing that I was doing when I'd read that book is trying to like swim along the bottom all the way along just kicking and holding my breath for that amount of time And there is talk in the triathlon world sometimes of hypoxic breathing you know like limiting the amount of times you breathe so that you improve your lung capacity and things Is that something that you think is helpful and and can help people so um so the first thing with swimming obviously with swimming um you breathe through your mouth in the water and that's just you can't you can't breathe So and I always get I always forget to say that So um but but remember with swimming you you often don't over breathe with swim because you've got the pressure of the water around you It limits how much over breathing you can do And it's interesting how sometimes you get athletes who are very athletic and then you get them to try and swim and they they can't cope They're feeling quite breathless Um and I would say to those like just have a little think about how efficiently you're breathing because is it that you're struggling with the swimming not not because of just technique but is it because your breathing's restricted and that's what's making you feel slightly panicked But on land you're fine because you can compensate by basically over breathing But in the water you're struggling because because of that Um there can be other reasons for it of course but um but yeah so with swimming mouth breathing is absolutely fine Um and um the but but definitely so these um what people don't realize is and I got taught this at medical school but I didn't understand the practical applications of it And I literally when I when I did my breath training I got my 30-year-old medical school book out I was I'm sure I taught this was looking through it but essentially we no one should ever say take a bigger breath to get more oxygen because biologically and physiologically that doesn't make sense because I breathe in so at sea level I breathe in and 21% of the air is oxygen I breathe out and 16% of the air is oxygen so I have not used up all my oxygen so I'll just say that again 21% % as I breathe in This is at rest at sea level and I breathe out 16% is still oxygen in the out breath So I have not used all my oxygen So taking a bigger breath will not help I'm I'm throwing out I'm throwing out the excess Even at full you know peak capacity it's not zero oxygen on the exhale So So big bigger breaths get more oxygen is just untrue That's one aspect So what helps release that oxygen to the tissues because that's obviously what we want in sport isn't it and there's three things So one is heat and you know you'll know that the importance of warming up the muscles to help performance and essentially you've warmed up your cold muscle and that's going to help um your the oxygen that's on the blood cells release into the tissue So we know that um the two other things So one is to do with um sort of altitude training So when our body adapts to altitude or low oxygen we we we create something that helps release it So definitely hypoxic training um can help and we know that don't we because athletes go off and do altitude training Um and but the other aspect is acid So essentially um our waste product carbon dioxide is an acid and when we've got more carbon dioxide around it helps release oxygen to the tissues Um and I and I think this is the bit this is the real this is the bit that is fascinating and I see makes such a difference So when so exactly what you were doing with the interval training So if say like we were both doing that and I said to you let's do the interval training and keep your mouth closed and that time when you're like I have to open my mouth um uh just stop and let's see and I may be able to do more than you now because I've worked on that but I would initially I would have had to stop very quickly because what happens is we've all got personal tolerance to our waste product So you're as you're exercising you're producing more carbon dioxide That's normal Um that that extra carbon dioxide is a signal that you need more oxygen to the tissue So it helps release it But you've got chemo receptors So receptors in the back of our um back of our brain so in our breathing center And when you hit those receptors you get a feeling of air hunger So I call it air hunger Um and that people experience it differently So some may feel slightly suffocated Some might feel that they're not getting enough air in they need to take a big gasp or they feel like um they they need to um take a big breath So it feels like there's some sort of uncomfortable panicky sensation Um and obviously there's a there's a layer of psychology that can go on there as well if that that's that maybe we can talk about at another point but but you hit your tolerance to it but we can train that and you can train it so that you um that feeling of suffocation that air hunger it comes in later so it allows more carbon dioxide into your muscles Um and I think as as women particularly as women transition through permenopause and menopause this is my own personal observation I've got no data apart from my clinical experience to say this but I think women become more carbon dioxide intolerant as they go through the menopause Um and the way that they cope with that is obviously if you feel slightly suffocated what do you do to make that feel better You just start to over breathe don't you because you want to get rid of that sensation but that over breathing is actually making your breathing worse and you unless someone tells you you just go in a downward spiral with it So um yes So I think um I think hypoxic training is very useful but you can do and this might get a bit too technical you can do hypoxic training where you're doing it with um higher carbon dioxide levels So you're working on two of the three we've just discussed or you do hypoxic training and some people do seem to do it with low carbon dioxide But for me that doesn't quite make sense because then you're you're only working on one instead of you could be working on two on that two of the things that help release the oxygen to the tissues So how do you do that what's what's the kind of method or is this going to get really sweet it might it might get it might get So essentially so first of all I the for me hypoxic training is that is really high level stuff you know like yeah want to do hypoxic training you need to breathe efficiently first and just just because people are athletes it does not mean they're necessarily breathing efficiently because you know you can over breathe with exercise and there's a stress that comes with um competing you know and sometimes that stress means that people's pushes their breathing pattern towards um a more um inefficient pattern So the first thing is because hypoxic training is like an additional you know what I mean it's a really high level So work on functional breathing first You are you breathing are you breathing efficiently at rest while moving and sleeping Um and actually then the exercises that I teach on my courses are it's about we actually practice essentially under breathing during the exercise So we we almost induce a sense of air hunger but but comfortably not it's going to cause a panic and essentially during the exercise you are under breathing There's different ways to do it and you're sitting with a you you're sitting with a carbon dioxide level that you're thinking oh I'd quite like to open my mouth feeling slightly suffocated But it's okay I can sit with it And you're training your body to be more tolerant to it And obviously the more you do that the more you reset your tolerance to it And then obviously you make sure that you you're breathing functionally you know your tongue's in the correct position and you've got your mouth closed and all that sort of stuff Um and then when someone's breathing functionally then you could bring in the hypoxit training So that's the way that I would do It sounds kind of similar to what what we do in swimming is we get people to breathe So most people breathe like as long as they can breathe to both sides they'll breathe every three strokes Yeah Yeah So we introduce like breathing every five strokes or every seven strokes and eat up to sort of like nine I think Um but you could probably go over but that's you know just to feel that like I want to breathe but and then cal you know a lot of it is like calming yourself down it's okay I don't need to breathe I can and sometimes you can think like the psychological side of it that you brought that you brought in earlier remembering actually I on dry land or whatever I've held my breath for and people can hold their breath for I don't know how long it is that most people can hold their breath breath for but it's quite a long time isn't it compared to well it might it varies and it depends how you do the breath hold as to how long you can hold um but exactly so that training method that you're doing is training someone to do more with less aren't they because you're asking them to hold your breath um they're holding their breath they're not releasing their waste product so their carbon dioxide will be going up and obviously when they're feeling that oh gosh I've got air hunger you are training them and like you say trying to relax into it And what's really really unusual about carbon dioxide is it induces that sort of slight fear panic response that air hunger But actually if you relax into it it's a central nervous system suppressant So it's a narcotic gas it can actually calm the um brain and spinal cord So actually if you can sort of relax into it um actually it's actually quite nice Yeah

I know Yeah It's like and it's there's the point when you have to go through it as well because I was doing the stuff on the bottom of the pool and it's like the first one I don't I get like 3/4 of the way and I'm like have to come up and then the next one I'm like okay and go a bit further and then when you do it you're like ah I could have carried on That's fine you know and it does feel you get a little bit of a hype off it as well So I think definitely Yeah you're right with that It's really interesting and nice to Yeah it's just it it sort of works on all sorts of different levels doesn't it that kind of breathing and that breath work because I mean you're you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone as well And actually there's this that's that's a power isn't it to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable So that and there's there's that that's definitely something and um but what I see what I'm seeing with my work is it's really interesting So sometimes so I'll do I start very gently So I'll start generally with the same exercise and I see one person like yeah I felt a bit uncomfortable and I see a startle response same exercise different person and you do it and oh that was horrible I didn't like that and the there's a very much I think it's about a tolerance to the waste products that feeling of being uncomfortable but it's about how reactive our system is so it's completely normal to react to our waste product you Carbon dioxide is our primary driver to breathe Our body sends a suffocation signal because it's worried that we're not breathing So it is right and normal It does that but it should be something that comes in at an appropriate time And it almost should be like a oh oh you're not breathing What's going on what's going on giving a warning giving a warning And then if you don't act right oh you need to open your mouth now Um but some people's for various reasons system becomes really um like sort of sensitive or overreactive to it And that's not it's a physiological thing It's not that they're making it up It is it's a purely physiological reaction And sometimes I get people who suddenly remember um they suddenly remember when they were five how they nearly drowned and that they had that feeling I've had people who said that was how they felt when their child got seriously ill her father died maybe some abuse in the past etc etc And that feeling of air hunger gets tied up with that event And there's almost I think what I've se have to be so gentle when when we're in that situation with somebody but almost learning then to become more tolerant and more normalizing the reaction to it I think sort of I've seen people where they've been able to sort of separate that event from that feeling and almost like a bit of a healing response Um but you have to be very careful Um but but yeah I think this so in some people that feeling is really tied up with um some potentially negative event in the past that's happened in their life Yeah I can imagine that definitely because yeah we attach things don't we is to when they happen and and you don't even know sometimes until you do something like that and you're like oh okay like you're saying people come up oh and they remember things so definitely really healing work as well for people that's amazing um oh for now I think it was about recovery so you mentioned recovery a little bit earlier about sleeping better and that impacting our recovery and especially as we get older as female athletes You talked a little bit about how we probably have a little bit more stress response to things So how can our breathing and how can we how can we think about our breathing in that stage of life and also does it ch you know can it change from day to day as well with things I've had people you know I've said it can do that when we're doing those breathing exercises sometimes you go in and you're like fine and sometimes it's it just doesn't work Is there anything that we need to be aware of with regards recovery and also our stress how those two link oh ma massively So if I um I don't obviously apologize to people if this is on teaching them to suck eggs but I don't know where your audience is knowledge Um so essentially all our unconscious processes um are controlled by what we call the autonomic nervous system So I was taught this at medical school an amazing system You know if we truly truly truly think what our bodies doing now So me and you are here We are not thinking about our blood pressure our pulse our saliva pupil size bowel bladder genitals um how much stomach acid is being produced whether your food's being digested your hairs whether they're flat or temperature control you name it it's all happening in the background You know it truly amazing Um and it's control it This is a simplistic explanation It's two two aspects of that So we've got the fightlight freeze response which medically we call the sympathetic nervous system and when that's so when the body perceives a threat all those processes in the body are shifted more towards short-term survival and um and like inflammation goes up and the body's like trying just to sort of keep us surviving like minutes that type of thing Um and what people don't often realize is how we breathe can shift it into fight flight freeze So I got um a dog got a dog got let off the lead accidentally and I literally thought I was going to be attacked There was no thought process in this I breathe like like this So I was breathing open mouth big upper chest holding my breath on the inhale and my fear center So or I should say the amydala which which has a rolling fear was looking at my breathing center and it saw me change to that pattern and said "Oh she's in trouble." Louise is in trouble Quick fight flight free system up Put all those things into short-term survival Luckily the dog managed to get the dog and I was fine And I knew because of my breathing right I've got to tell my body I'm safe So I breathe the opposite way and to turn on the parasympathetic nervous system So this is the system we don't talk enough about So the lay terms for this will be rest and digest feed and breathe or relaxation response So the parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system and when the body's when this the dial on this one turns up the body feels safe The body can go into repair and recovery and um inflammation comes down and we breathe the opposite So it's closed mouth We breathe gently and silently and using the diaphragm And so when the amygdala sees me breathing like that oh she's safe She's okay Right body everything can go into more long-term survival And it's more complicated than that This both sides are on and it's just about the dials Um but all sorts of things So if we're not living as we've been biologically programmed to live so not having enough sleep not being in nature not having connection with others eating processed food or drink that your body feels a bit of threat with that because it doesn't recognize it and that will put the fight flight up If you're I don't know in a toxic environment at work that will put it up Hormones affect it So there's all sorts of things So it will vary daytoday Um but what's your unconscious breathing pattern so when you're at rest when you're on the computer when you're in the car when you're asleep is it like I used to snore like

this that's telling my body I'm in threat That's turning up my fight flight I've now trained myself to breathe

and that's turning up my repair and recovery and safe system So it's as profound as that you know how are you breathing when you're asleep how are you breathing when you're resting are you driving a fight flight response by the way you're breathing and I think this is my passion the unconscious 24-hour breathing pattern Um so it's so it's really important So it it's very much tied up and then how your breathing is then manipulating your um essentially your autonomic nervous system And do do your clients do they do heart rate variability tracking they tend to do that or not sometimes Yeah I it depends what they're using as well like some is more accurate than others So I I use it in the morning I use that heart rate variability on my phone It's like pretty good to to measure like when I'm ill In fact it's interesting actually because I've been tracking it for years and it's gone down since you know through parameopause and to what I'm sort of late menop late par menopause now I think Um and it's definitely reduced over that time Yeah And you don't think that's due to changes in your life you think that is because of permenopause um there's some changes like I'm not training as much So I'm training less for endurance stuff So it was quite you know it was pretty high I was on the sort of high end of the of the well I don't know what those graphs are called you know when they have the meme Yeah Wherever you are on there whereas I'm back towards the medium So it could be that but it's been much more variable as well Like it just changes a lot more than it used to So this this ties into so heart rate variability is is sort of a it's a marker of the autonomic nervous system So generally we've been designed to be more parasympathetically driven most of the time but we still need flexibility to go between the two though because um you know say with blood pressure the fightlight system puts blood pressure up but the um the parasympathetic puts it down but say like you had someone who'd been swimming and they were relatively cold and then they came out and obviously they're hotter when they're running their body needs a really flexible autonomic nervous system to cope and adjust their blood pressure to cope so they don't pass out And if you've got high heart rate variability that's shown your autonomic nervous system is more parasympathetically driven but but also flexible And what um I've got a blog on this on my website that perhaps you can tag in but there was a paper that I read and I've sort of did the sort of wrote the blog based on that is they think that our autonomic nervous system becomes more fightlight driven So more sympathetically driven as we go through permenopause and menopause Um so obviously heart rate variability based on that then would potentially drop but then but that gives us choices then doesn't it if we know that you know right I might be more biologically programmed to be fight driven so what can I do about it so I think there's three things one is there anything in my life that I can reduce the fightlight response so um can I say no to people can I delegate can I get somebody else in to do it do I need to change jobs so I'm in a more um less toxic environment that you know that type of thing The second one do I need to do more parasympathetically driven um you know putting some regular stuff to to bring in the parasympathetic relaxation response So do I need to do want should I introduce some yoga some meditation just going for a walk and being in nature um connecting with others that type of thing And then the other thing is consider your unconscious 24-hour breathing pattern Is it driving a parasympathetic response um and particularly think about that when you're resting and sleeping or is it driving a fight-flight response because you can change that and that so I think that's really powerful for women to know actually Yeah because it's always all the negative things that happen but there is a lot that we can do as well and we can it becomes quite like a lot of work to do like and sometimes you don't feel like doing it but if you can do it most of the time then I think that's really good it would make sense as well because you know I I rock climb as well and I've heard climbers say that they get more scared as they get older you know they get more anxiety and they don't want to do do the same things that they used to when they get over a certain age and things and and it's it totally makes sense you know got a 15-year-old son that climbs and he just throws himself at everything not concerned about falling off or and I'm

like so yeah there's a bit of a contrast between us at the moment But yeah it definitely makes sense that that we would have that if people are reporting that they're feeling more anxious and it'll come out of nowhere sometimes as well It's just like why am I even feeling anxious i don't really know why Which is confusing when you've been used to what you know your cycle and your your rhythms So it's and we need more research on that don't we because obviously I I it was a brilliant paper I think it's a really good paper Obviously that it's a sort of suggestion that this is happening but like you and I have said it just makes sense You know we're you know we're experiencing it We know that Um but then the question is why you know what is it you know why is that happening and obviously it'll be related to hormones won't it and we know that estrogen is a well there's all sorts of you know it's really interesting with hormones we just haven't got enough research in hormones and it absolutely needs to happen you know estrogen is an anti-inflammatory calming hormone um and it does seem to have a powerful effect on um you know helping does So and uh they talk about rats in the in the study about how they um when you suddenly remove estrogen from rats by taking their ovaries away it has a really detriment detrimental effect on their autonomic nervous system And I see at work when when I start HRT um particularly if we do it with the the HRT that that's more natural actually their blood pressure improves often So it does estrogen seems positive on the autonomic nervous system Um and I don't know the other thing I don't know whether most most people know this but progesterone um is is an interesting hormone but from a breathing perspective it's a respiratory stimulant So it makes us breathe faster So this is a problem for athletes So and athletes that are menrating before they have their period they'll have a peak in progesterone which is normal because ovulated Um this is assuming the the athlete is ovulating and this is assuming the athletes not on a contraception that's Yeah that's stopping them ovulating If they're menrating normally and ovulating normally they'll have a peak of progesterone before before they have a period but that makes them breathe faster So obviously they're going to be at a slight disadvantage competing at that point because they're already slightly breathless or more breathless at rest compared to if they've been at another part in their cycle Um but obviously the more efficient their breathing is the less that they would notice that So um so I think yeah I I I think we need interesting Yeah Yeah interesting And yeah you you definitely need more research on it because there's not it's just like what's happening We don't really know We know We know And we can see the see the symptoms feel the symptoms And it's just confusing because you I like to know why I I always like to know why is this happening why do I feel like this and yeah and you we don't we can't always know either you know with things So it's okay not to know as well otherwise it's going to cause even more stress Yeah Um so we talked about breathing within athletics and another thing I wanted to ask you was if you know before races and events where people are anxious are there any exercises that we can do that reduce that pre-race anxiety are there anything that you would recommend doing so so obviously the I I think um because because you can feel different things can't you so obviously I I what I really try and promote is actually having that mind body breath connection that you can actually look into your body Um how is my autonomic nervous system so you might not understand why it's a certain way and like like you say it doesn't necessarily matter but actually thinking right how does my body feel is my body more fightlight driven or is my body more relaxation response driven because then then you can choose do I need to upreg because if you're a bit like oh I'm really chill Oh I feel a bit tired I can't be bothered Actually you're feeling a bit too relaxed You need to get you need to get going Um and what about if you're there and you're feeling butterflies and you're feeling anxious Now obviously that means you actually want to downregulate a little bit isn't it so it's it's knowing I think first of all to read your own body to then know what you want to do And I think not everybody always knows that So I think if you're feeling really really anxious notice how you're breathing If you're feeling anxious often what happens people the lips just come out a little bit a little bit more open You just start to breathe just a little bit faster Maybe that you're starting to feel the shoulders move a bit because you're feeling more anxious Or you might even be holding your breath you know a bit like you hold your breath on the inhale because you're feeling anxious So could you just really simply just just close just close your mouth and it might even just be that might be enough because you just close your mouth Your nostrils are smaller than your mouth So you're just starting to slow down and soften your breathing If you can you hear yourself breathe again you that you if you're and you're breathing you can hear yourself breathing It's fast and upper chest Could you just slow it down close your mouth and just just just gently soften and slow it down Um just just bring your lips together and just slow it down Um the um humming could be a good one couldn't it because humming when you hum you stimulate the back of the uh back of the vagus nerve So

and you're just slightly prolonging that exhale So that can be a good one as well Um I mean there's lots of different other techniques depend sort of slightly depends on someone's underlying breathing efficiency Um but but just generally I'd say you know if you were if you notice you're breathing um quite fast and big can can you just start to soften and slow down because I think what a lot of people don't realize is they say take a take a deep breath to calm down What do you see people do yeah So I've just if if people are listening to this and not seeing the the the footage I'm taking a big breath I'm using my upper chest I'm not using my diaphragm You're actually turning the fight flight response on with that And that's why before I understood the the type of breathing that I do which is more of breathing technique Um I used to think breathing for me didn't calm me down at all It made me feel wound up and I understand why because I was I was doing exactly that I was taking big breaths upper chest and that actually stimulates the it stimulates the um the fightlight freeze response plus blows off carbon dioxide which is not what you want when you want to um be having that to help release oxygen So I think if people are taking big open mouth breaths to calm down actually just knowing that's actually you're doing the opposite you're actually stimulating you're actually driving that fightlight response and you're blowing off some of that carbon dioxide So could we just simply get the the lips sealed and just slow and soften it down um yeah So I think that was probably my tip with that Yeah I remember this just reminded me of the first time I did Iron Man and we were kind of like you have to walk down to the start and you walk through the town and there's like drums playing and there's people kind of watching and it's kind of like oh my god what am I doing and I was standing next to some guys I knew and everyone's kind of looking terrified just I said just like breathe in but then breathe out really like fully like just take a big exhale out breathe out long and you know make your out breath longer because that's what I was doing at the time to calm myself down And I saw these people sort of like looking at me and they they were all everyone it I I could feel everyone just go relax when just two of us did it to relax but you could feel the sort of energy around us change as well like people were like oh okay I can relax it's all right and you're dead you're dead right the the the the inb breath is thought to be more fight flight fight driven and the outreath more relaxation response driven So exactly If you can breathe in and sort of a relaxed breath out through the nose just and and just just slightly extend that that definitely is is more relaxing So if you're too relaxed what can you do then cuz I get like that I'm like I'm not really bothered I just go and you know yeah I don't not always I mean it's it's a it's a little bit so the you're you it's a little bit more complicated because you might be doing it before a race but for me I I do some breath holds um before um so if I want to upregulate I'll breathe in breathe out and then I'll hold my breath after the exhale um to because if you hold your breath for a while it generates a bit of a fight response Um but obviously you're holding it after the exhale so it's driving a little bit more of a parasympathetic response So I I would just do I would just do some gentle breath holds just to um make me feel um a little bit more like awake Um you wouldn't want to do lots of really strong breath because you you're you're bringing up your carbon dioxide just before a race which which will be good Um but there's a there's a bit of an art to how you do that before a race but you but you could certainly do it um just to sort of just to wake yourself up a little bit So um but definitely um yeah so I' I'd sort of be thinking that you for me I' I'd if I want to wake myself up I breathe in breathe out pinch and hold and I just do a little bit more of a prolonged breath hold just to sort of generate that sort of a little bit of a like fightlight response but not like too much or anything like that Yeah Yeah Know that's fine I'm just thinking well it's I'm I'm thinking about it from a different perspective anyway because I was thinking it's normally when I do like climbing competitions or something or like a bouldering competition which is very short They're kind of short powerful you've got to kind of like go like that And sometimes I'll be kind of because I get nervous Yeah I calm myself down almost so much I'm like well I'm not It doesn't really matter It's fine And you know which is kind of good but also means that you don't always have that power and that sort of psych to really go for things So but in triathlon it's totally different to to that sport because you're going for a long amount of time So it's not quite so important that you get off to a really fast start or anything like that you've got time to kind of find your feet in during the race So you could kind of different you know I know some people sometimes do say like box breathing um cuz cuz box breathing um you're um you're sort of hold you're holding you're doing a breathe in hold breathe out hold So you're sort of you're shifting the autonomic nervous system a little bit So um that would just be you can do box breathing differently So um obviously box breathing you can do box breathing and over breathe whilst you're practicing the practice or you can do it where you're not over breathing depending on how big a breaths you're doing it with Um and I suppose before a competition I wouldn't um I wouldn't want to be like over breathing because you're already then sort of setting your base like higher but you could just do some gentle box breathing Something like that I think would be quite helpful Yeah And then people don't cl don't actually breathe when they're climbing quite often You sort of forget because you're holding your breath I'm like telling breathe out because that helps to sort of get you Yeah to help you breathe in I think breathing out can help you Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah It's interesting Anyway that's on a different topic Selfish because I'm like I've got a climbing competition going on I mean there's so many things you this this there's nuances to it and and this this is the bit that I struggle on on aspects like this because it very much depends on the person because you it's how how they want to steer their autonomic nervous system but it also depends on their underlying breathing efficiency as to what they're capable of doing and what will be helpful and what would be unhelpful So there is there is nuances to it cuz if I do I if I did box breathing with some of my clients at the beginning of my program there's no way that they could do it because their breathing is just cuz with box breathing you automatically slow your breathing rate You know if you slow it down to um if you did four seconds in four seconds out um you've gone to eight um yeah four If you do four in hold four Oh you'd be you'd be 16 seconds for a breath cycle wouldn't you because you'd go breathe in for four hold for four breathe out for four hold for four So one breath cycle is taking 16 seconds So you you're going down to about four breaths per minute which if you're doing that and not over breathing you have to have quite an efficient breathing pattern to cope with that And most of the people that I work with wouldn't be able to cope with that at the beginning without over breathing on pensate So there's there's there's such nuances in it that um it's really difficult to sort of explain Yeah you can't Yeah you can't kind of give this is a a great exercise But I think you know I over the years I've experimented with stuff and I've done yoga breathing practices and um like meditation and just like read lots of things as well and experimented and found things that work and and played around with that But there's always more that you can learn and more that you you can understand So it's great to have you on and talking about this Is there is there anything else that you would like people to know about or that any last kind of tips or advice for people um I think I think just just I would just say just notice how you breathe I think I think just notice how you breathe particularly when you're at rest and consider how you breathe when you're asleep And I think if um perhaps yourself or any other coaches that are listening to this start asking your athletes how they breathe when they're asleep And literally a simple question Do you sleep with your mouth open um do you have heavy breathing um or noisy breathing or do you stop breathing during sleep and it and just watch the response And if they don't know then obviously they need to do a bit of observation or use the snoring app to record it or whatever Um but I have to say most probably 80% I'd say if I had to guess people you ask how they breathe when they're asleep and they know Um and if your breathing pattern is like that that that's that's that's impacting your sports performance Um and there's different levels of how you tackle that Um I've got there's lots more information on my website about um and I've got there's a podcast with Liz Earl that we specifically talk about snoring So that might be one to listen to as well and that's on my um my website But um but but it's a problem and you know to to tackle how we breathe when we're asleep you know you know it might be you need to have a sleep study and it might be if you've got obstructive sleep apnea that needs treating with a CPAT machine or a mandibular advancement device So there's there's a spectrum of it Um you know I see people more uh well I work with people with those devices and they still get benefit from improving their breathing They might still need the devices but they get better outcomes with it if you're breathing efficiently But but it's a spectrum Um and you know in my mind no stone should be unturned to get that person back to breathing in and out of the nose slowly gently without stopping breathing and it might involve multiple people to get try and get that person Um and unfortunately some of it isn't isn't necessarily available on the NHS but if we want health and wellbeing we need to breathe efficiently when we're asleep Okay So that's your takeaway Breathing it breathing when you're asleep and tuning into that and bringing it into your daily life as well Awesome Well thank you so much you've given loads of really interesting information and I'll link to your website below Um and people can find you there and and read your blog I'll link to that blog that you talked about with the study with parameopause and all sorts and they can they can reach out and get help as well from you can't they so yeah Yes If they want to improve their brain efficiency with me I've got a group program and individual program and I run retreats as well So Lovely Oh that sounds nice That's great Well thank you very much and you have a lovely day Thank you Cheers Thanks for listening today Have a great day Take care Bye for now [Music]