Far 2 Fabulous

Beyond the Scale: 7 Simple Ways to Measure Your Health & Vitality

• Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 86

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Episode 86

Have you ever wondered what your body is really telling you about your health? Beyond the numbers on a scale or your clothing size, there are simple physical indicators that reveal far more about your longevity and quality of life.

This week, Julie and Catherine dive into seven DIY health assessments that provide valuable baseline information about your overall wellbeing. From the surprising importance of your waist-to-hip ratio (ideally under 0.8 for women) to the revealing chair stand test that predicts lower body strength, these simple checks require no special equipment and take just minutes to complete.

The hosts share their own experiences trying each assessment, including the eye-opening moment when Catherine discovered how challenging it is to balance on one leg with her eyes closed - a key predictor of fall risk as we age. They explain why upper body strength matters (can you do 10-20 proper push-ups?), how your breath-holding capacity relates to lung health, and the fascinating phenomenon of "screen apnea" - unconsciously holding your breath while focusing on digital devices.

What makes these assessments particularly valuable is their direct connection to maintaining independence and vitality as we age. As the hosts candidly discuss, the ability to get up from a chair, recover quickly after exertion, or maintain balance directly impacts quality of life in our later years. Yet these functional abilities respond quickly to consistent practice - use them or lose them!

Try these simple tests yourself, then join the conversation in our Facebook group where Julie and Catherine are sharing videos and continuing the discussion. These aren't measurements to judge yourself by, but valuable information to guide your wellness journey. Where will you focus your efforts first?

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.

For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing.

Speaker 1:

Let's dive in. Do not make me laugh. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Far Too Fabulous podcast. You can't do that when I've got a glass of water in my face.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Party Fabulous podcast. You can't do that when I've got a glass of water in my face.

Speaker 1:

Couldn't resist. I thought it's coming in a minute. I'm not going to. I'm going to side eyeing her slightly to see what she was going to do. Yes, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. This week we are talking about some simple health or self checks that you can do to see where you're at with your health, just to see what your baseline is, what you need to work on. They're really relatively simple to do, I would suggest, and if you can't do them, it's just. It's just an indicator or a baseline based on I like that a baseline of where you're at and then you can use it as information to go forward with things I love this and it's and it really literally is really really simple health there's a word health self checks.

Speaker 2:

You should got to stick your teeth in for that one. Yeah, for women over 40, and I don't know how do you feel about this whole women over 40 thing, not just women over 40, that old over 40 thing? I don't, I don't feel like. I don't feel like 40 is a fair measure of old anymore or is that just?

Speaker 1:

is that just me? I think you're getting confused with the term. So it doesn't mean you're old, okay. It just means that there is an age where we know that things change in the body and we've got to take account of them. I'm with you on that one. Yeah, there's nothing to do.

Speaker 2:

You're not getting old, I won't take it personally don't take it personally.

Speaker 1:

You're not getting old and when we talk about it, it's because they're. These things are different if you're 30, yeah, than if you're 40 so we've got to be yeah and we. We can't hide from it, but we can embrace it and work with it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, that is true, and I definitely. I spoke about that when I did my podcast last week, all on my own, and I have to say I'm really pleased to be sat next to you again. I really don't like doing it on my own. Don't make me do it on my own. I don't like it. And I felt very sad for all the podcasters out there that have to do it on their own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, they don't get to have as much fun as us, do they? No, it's much more fun. Okay, so the first one that we're going to talk about is the waist to hip ratio. I'm glad we didn't do this one.

Speaker 2:

Well, we could do. You did it. Well, I did mine.

Speaker 1:

So you take a tape and you measure around your waist, which is the part that goes in on your body, okay, so the smallest part, your waist, wherever that may be and then you measure your hips, which is the biggest part around your bottom and across the widest part, and you divide the small number by the big number and then you get a ratio ways to hit ratio. Now we should be under 0.8, mine was 0.78, and the reason for this is that when we're measuring that particular area, that area is where we lay down that fat. That's not good for us. It's where we lay down fat. When we're stressed, it's a really good indicator for metabolic syndrome. So metabolic syndrome, where things get dysregulated, like blood sugars, you get high cholesterol, high blood pressure those kind of things.

Speaker 2:

Yes, when that heart disease and and, like the, the danger of heart strokes and things all increases.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you want to aim for that ratio to be 0.8 and below. That's basically a healthy area. If it's not, then you've got to look at lifestyle factors. Am I stressed what's going on, you know? Am I piling up weight around that middle area? Am I at risk of those things?

Speaker 2:

and then you can just use that information to work on helping that ratio become better yeah, and again, don't use this like people use the numbers on a scale, yeah, to sort of beat yourself up. Don't add any meaning or any emotion to the 0.8. It is just, it's a measure for you to have a look where you're at and then if you need to do something about it. This I like this because it's it is really really super simple. So I have on my body comp scales. I have visceral fat, yeah, which is the, the fat that we're talking about, and for that it's the. It's a scale of between one and ten is normal levels, and then anything above 10 really needs to be addressed. However, with the, I think, with the visceral fats, I think that you just need to have it as low as possible, whereas this gives you like an achievable measurement yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So when I'm, when I measured mine, my, my waist was 32 and my hips were 42, I think. So, yeah, just want it to be below 0.8, and if it's not, then we've got to look at the reason why what's going on there?

Speaker 2:

yeah, absolutely, and always looking at that, that visceral fat. You're always looking at making sure you're keeping those stress levels down and that you're and I mean everything plays into that you're eating healthily, your hydration, your sleep, all of that it's quite a good indicator for hormonal imbalance as well, because that fat around the middle is directly linked to things like cortisol, stress, oestrogen and I guess that, depending on where you are in the sort of perimenopausal journey will also depend on on your thickness.

Speaker 2:

I think that that whilst you are in the storm of it all, there is definitely a likelihood that your waist area is thicker.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, mine definitely is To measure at a 32 waist. That feels quite big for me really when I think about it, but at least that balance is there and so it's actually okay.

Speaker 2:

As far as health indicators concern, yeah, that's it so you've remained healthy, even though for you it might be slightly, slightly higher. And then who knows what the next six months, year, two years, five years in the way of hormones it's gonna do?

Speaker 1:

yeah, exactly, isn't that exciting yeah, okay, so you can do that. You can measure your waist to hip ratio, one that we've spoken about before, and I know that one of our lovely listeners posted a video in our Facebook group about it was getting up off the floor unaided yeah, so without using your hands or knees. Yeah, can indicate that there is actually quite a lot of links between this particular exercise and future health outcomes, which is really interesting. But it's basically looking at your muscle mass and your bone density.

Speaker 2:

In fact, lots of things your core strength, your flexibility, your balance body strength, everything to be able to get up off the floor yeah, and this is a huge thing when they are looking at um, the blue zones and they're looking at the centenarians centenarians, is that the right word the the a high number of proportion of people that are over a hundred in an area. Yes, that was a big thing in japan, was that that they didn't have normal seating? Everything was down, very low or nothing at all. Yeah, and so their, their flexibility and their mobility they used constantly. They didn't deteriorate. Yeah, use it or lose it. Right, exactly, and and I didn't realize until I started teaching pilates and I, so I can down, so I can remain on my feet, bend my knees and crouch right down without taking my heels off of the floor. Yep, and again, this is another measure of your flexibility, which, in turn, shows your longevity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, get yourself on the floor and then get up and see how well you can do it, and then again, if you can't do it without holding on to something or pushing up off your hands and knees, it's just practice, yeah absolutely, and maybe you need to come and do a Pilates class.

Speaker 2:

Okay, oh, push-ups was the next one. So the measure for this is again reminding you that it's for women over 40, is 10 to 20 push-ups, depending on fitness levels. Now, so we did this, we had a go at doing. We did 10, didn't we?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think we were, because we are both very fit. 10 wasn't an issue for me. It wasn't an issue for you, was it?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean it's doable. That said, it was a challenge. It definitely made us.

Speaker 1:

It's a strong exercise.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it made us very hot and I think 10 to 20 push-ups is a lot for most people. Let me know what you think. You guys out there in the facebook group come and tell me. But I think that 10 to 20 is is quite a lot. It's definitely a challenge. I like. I like a push-up.

Speaker 1:

It makes me feel, makes me feel badass if I'm, if I'm being really honest yeah, and if you think about it, what that exercise is doing is checking your upper body strength. You've got to look at where in day-to-day life nowadays are we actually using our upper body strength, unless we're intentionally doing things, and I think this is half of the problem. Why a push-up may be difficult for a lot of people is because when do they ever use their upper body strength?

Speaker 2:

Well, in day-to-day jobs, manual labour has truly reduced. You've got the well. Perhaps it'll be the Tesco delivery guys.

Speaker 1:

That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 2:

They're the ones that have got, they've got all the upper body strength and we've got none, because they're bringing it in for us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we're not doing that, walking to the shops and carrying our shopping back and all of those kind of things, are we?

Speaker 2:

no, absolutely well, that's so. There's um. There's a specific exercise now in the gym that you'll see people doing um. I think mark said it's called farmer's carry. Yes, the farmer's carry and they're just walking along with with kettlebells or something yeah, whereas yeah, I mean in days gone by we would just be doing that every day up and down to the shops and what have you?

Speaker 1:

Or carrying logs, or whatever it is you know, yeah, yeah, we don't do it anymore, so we've got to intentionally do things. And this is where push-ups, because we just did them on the floor in my bedroom. Yeah, we didn't need a lot of space.

Speaker 2:

So, so simple. That is I. I'm gonna. Shall I say this out loud? I probably have said this at some point in the last year out loud I would love to do a push-up challenge because it's just, it is indicative of strength and when you learn to be able to do it, you, you feel good yeah, and there's loads of variations you can do, depending on where you're starting at.

Speaker 1:

So if you can't even get on the floor and get into a plank because you're weak, do it against the wall against the wall.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, really really good start. And then, when you want to drop down onto the floor, just make a start on your knees and, um, we've videoed ourselves doing it, so do come into the facebook group and see them. But um, you reminded everybody not to stick your bottom up because, like, don't forget, your body will take the path of least resistance. It doesn't understand why you are doing a push-up.

Speaker 2:

It's got it's got no idea that you're trying to strengthen yourself. So, yeah, just making sure that those shoulders are tucked down and that you're breathing.

Speaker 1:

Please breathe and I think because it it's such a full body workout when you're in a proper press up position and we talk about plank in a minute, but when so again, if you are, you know, over 40 and you literally can't do a press-up.

Speaker 2:

This is an area that you might want to focus on yeah, and muscle mass, we're losing that from a really scarily young age, like 25, 30, it starts to reduce and unless we are doing something actively about it and we've gone on about it it's. It's out in the out, in the open now that having that like increasing your muscle mass is really, really important and and particularly for women over 40, as you go into perimenopause, as you go into sort of full-blown menopause so important it just it can't be underestimated yeah, and you're not going to look like arnold schwarzenegger, which is always the thing that you'd hear like.

Speaker 2:

I mean, arnie puts a lot of work into those muscles.

Speaker 1:

We're not going to do that so hard to put muscle mass on. So yeah, that's not going to happen. No, so yeah, let's talk about planks then. So one of your favorite exercises. I do love a plank I do as well actually I find that quite satisfying. The same as the. You know the exercise where you sit against the wall in a squat position yeah, I like that one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there was a lady when we went up to the london marathon exhibition to go and get our numbers. There was a lady with a prosthetic leg as well doing that, doing sitting against the wall. I don't think she had, we would just got there at the end and I think she'd done an hour and she'd sort of broken the guinness world record for an hour with them with one prosthetic leg wow, that's, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so with a plank, again, we've done a video so you can go and have a look at that. It's important that you get the right position, isn't it? For the plank?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, yeah definitely again, body's going to do partholese resistance, going to want to stick your bottom up in the air and, yeah, just making sure so. For me, because lots of people talk about their wrists as well being quite a weak part do you know what? Since I have been doing weight lifting, my I mean my wrists and my forearms feel very weak. They're the, they're like the weak link when I'm weight lifting. However, they have definitely got much, much stronger. So digging your fingers in or your middle finger and thumb in, so you feel like you're scooping up through the middle, is a really good way, rather than just sinking into your wrists. It's engaging your forearms and and stack yourself like make it easier for yourself, stack yourself up over your arms and use your bones, because it's even like even a few millimeters of you dropping back behind your hands. You're having to use your core much, much more, so being right over your hands and using your, your arms and your bones to do it so you're aiming to achieve at least a minute here and then.

Speaker 1:

The reason for this is that it's really focusing on your core and if you've got a weak core, that, in terms of stability, is going to and balance and things could be an issue when you get older.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've talked talked about falls before falls prevention. It's a. It's a huge danger. As we get older, as we get more and more like frail, it's an indication of frailty. It's, you know, not being funny. It costs the nhs a lot of money. So if we, if all it takes is a few planks and a few squats, a few push-ups, just to just to make this a bit better, then uh, we're winning, yeah balance.

Speaker 1:

Talking about falls, balance is really, really important, and do you know what I find this one. So we're looking at an exercise where you stand on one leg for 30 seconds and then you swap and stand on the other one for 30 seconds. At karate, we do in warm-up, this very exercise every time. You will not believe how many, especially the younger kids, are hopping all over the place. They cannot do this and be still it's hilarious.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, isn't that funny? And more the younger kids you think the younger ones.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, got far less to balance than I have, but there there is. There is some research around this, because kids don't generally not all of them, but generally kids are not playing outside. Or physically playing.

Speaker 2:

They're not physically active.

Speaker 1:

because they're sat on computers and things, they are not building their core strength.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting, so this is actually a real thing.

Speaker 1:

That's happening and that's why that's really interesting.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting and scary to watch that kind of play out as they get older. Hopefully they'll all find sports and it'll all be fine. I found that I mean I was okay balancing my balance like we use balance in puloxin. There are lots of exercises in the choreography of puloxin that require us to balance and from day to day mine will change, but I found that that was okay.

Speaker 1:

Stood on on one foot and the other it was when I closed my eyes yeah, so for the purpose of this, we keep eyes open for 30 seconds on each leg, but if you really want to challenge yourself, shut your eyes, and it is so much harder and I definitely did it on my like my better leg.

Speaker 2:

I stood on my my right leg and did it. God, I wouldn't have made 30 seconds on my other leg. Yeah, you were really wobbly, weren't you? Yeah, it was hilarious. If again, if you fancy a laugh, I videoed it. You can come into the photo group and watch it.

Speaker 1:

So the reason why we want to make sure that we've got balance is because it does reduce our risk of fall, and we already know that. That the the stats on recovery after a fall once you get older is it's shocking actually when you look at it. It's scary, isn't?

Speaker 2:

it. It really opens up a can of worms. It's yeah, you might think that, like you know, they've broken a leg or a hip.

Speaker 2:

Generally is what what happens and that gets fixed, but it often triggers off all sorts of other illnesses and things and balance declines with age, unless again, you're actively targeting that yeah, I wonder if just doing must do, just doing that maybe once a day, is a way to improve it, not just a measure that if you I mean, perhaps you could just keep extending that time so you could try and balance on one leg. So somebody says about balancing whilst you're brushing your teeth.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, to form a habit of it. So again, it's, it's helping you to, it's it's a longevity exercise and it's tying it in it's habit stacking yeah with with cleaning your teeth I can't think who it is that says to balance it, though, or to do the balancing so yeah so then, in theory, you're balancing for two minutes, so maybe you do it in the morning on your right leg and in the evening on your left leg, and you you've then done that, yeah, seven times in a week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's incredible yeah, yeah, and it's got to improve things and you and you're looking for that flexibility test. This one I find quite interesting because, as a gymnast, this is dead easy for me to do. I can easily touch the floor. With both my legs straight, I can get my hands flat on the floor. It's not an issue because I'm doing it on a regular basis, but the reason it's got nothing to do with fact.

Speaker 2:

She's close to the floor.

Speaker 1:

I think to do with that. So the reason why this is a good indicator is because it is directly linked with joint mobility. Yeah, and that's the factor here you know, with that, we want our joints to be able to correct things for us and be able to move and things, and we need our muscles to be flexible to allow that to happen if they're too tight. Yeah, and you think?

Speaker 2:

you've got there, you've got all the big players there, you've got like your hamstrings, you've got your hips, you've got your, your lower back is part of that, so it's it's a really good indicator of of how flexible and then your, your longevity it's really interesting. I remember covering I was covering some pe classes, um in a local school and um we so I was doing pilates for them and it was really interesting how many kids and so it was a primary school how many of those kids could not touch the floor and you'd think, so that's how old were they? Maybe seven or so, seven or eight, and you'd think that they would just automatically have that. And at one point they did, or automatically have that and already they've lost it. And so, again, it's another thing if you don't use it, you lose it.

Speaker 2:

Yogis love that stretch where you're just sat um on your on your bottom with your legs out straight and you fold, folding forward. Just a fantastic one. You can't like. Great flexibility, great stretch for your hips, great for your hamstrings. Mine back of my legs are crying today because I was doing deadlifts. Actually, I was doing deadlifts two days ago, it wasn't even one day ago, but yeah, again, use it as an indicator, uh, use it as a, as a baseline, and then decide what you need to to improve it. Do you need to do some weights? Do you need to do some pilates? You need to do some yoga, I mean, and it's so easy in this day and age to just stick youtube or something on and just do do sort of 10-15 minutes every single day or every other day. Make it realistic, but it's, it's really easy to do absolutely your heart rate.

Speaker 1:

So there's two particular markers that you want to look at. So your resting heart rate is how many beats per minute your heart is doing when you're relaxed and at rest and you haven't just rushed and sat down. You give yourself a chance to see what that is. It should be between 60 and 70. Should be between 60 and 70. If it's above that, it can indicate poor cardiovascular fitness, stress, potential heart, you know concerns, and then it can be linked with changes in hormones. So we can see a raised heart rate at rest if you're perimenopausal, which I find really fascinating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is fascinating, isn't it? Definitely. I mean, I'm just looking at mine now. Well, I was looking at mine now until kitty sent me a message. But mine's, yeah, mine's sitting around 80, I am blooming hot yeah, and there will be.

Speaker 1:

You know, things that come in, come into that. If it's really low but you're not fit, this is also not good. Yeah, so you know you've got to be. It's always about being in balance, isn't it? Yeah, so, and then when you exercise, you want to be able to drop your heart rate by 20 to 30 beats per minute within a couple of minutes yeah, that's really important to feel that like.

Speaker 2:

So lots of the exercises that we should be doing as as women over 40, are those like blasts of energy that really really create a challenge in your body, and then you should be able to stop and just just breathe fully, catch your breath and recover, like you said, within, I mean ideally, sort of 30 seconds to a minute is what you would love to be able to do to fully recover, maybe two minutes to then go and do it again. But you can again. This is something you can really really easily practice, even just like running on the spot, just going like full pelt and then totally stopping and just breathing and then, but consciously, like breathing nice and full into the belly and just completely relaxing yourself down, to then go and do it again so have a have a look at what your resting heart rate is and then the next time you're exercising, if you have got a tracker, you can have a look and see if it's dropping quickly enough.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting also I mean, I don't know I think blood pressure being you have a better access to getting your blood pressure taken. Lots of people have at home monitors and I know that lots of gp surgeries have the blood pressure monitors um like in their waiting, just go in and use them, yeah that is a really good indication of of how your health is, and I don't think I can stress enough that sort of keeping a keeping a gentle don't get um obsessed with it, but keeping a gentle eye on it is another.

Speaker 1:

Really it's a really great thing to do just check it every now and then and it's in fact it's the bottom number that is more important. Yeah, that that is a nice stable number within the range. The top number is really influenced by your emotions or what you've just been doing.

Speaker 2:

So if you've just run to the doctors, for instance. That is your pressure as your heart is actually pumping, Whereas the lower number is at rest and that's the one you want to keep really stable. Somewhere around 80 would be lovely. It does go up naturally as we get older. It does go up naturally as we get older. However, if you are keeping yourself nice and fit, there is no reason that it creeps up into dangerous levels.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's good to know now what your baseline is, because in a few years' time, when you are getting these things monitored, because you're a certain age, if your blood pressure has always been that number, has always been 90 or 85, then that's not an issue. But if you were running at 70 and then suddenly it's up to 90, then you're like what's going on here?

Speaker 2:

and, yeah, you're absolutely right. It is really good to have an idea, because your body is going to do everything that it possibly can to to create this homeostasis within your, within it, and often these are the last things to go, and so they're really good indicators that you need to do something and sometimes you need to stand up for yourself when you go and have appointments and check-ins, because we are all individual and the reference ranges are just an average, normally, aren't they?

Speaker 1:

so you could be someone that is just generally and naturally has high cholesterol, for example, so it might not be an issue for you. I think that's what I'm trying to say. If you know, and you've tracked it over time, especially once you get over 40, you've got an idea of where you're at, you know. So the next one we actually did a video of this and we will put it in the facebook group again that I think this video is going to look quite funny because we're just bobbing up and down, but basically this is the chair stand test and it's going to measure your endurance and your leg strength and you're looking. Basically you sit on a chair, your feet must be able to be nice and flat and your knees at a 90 degree angle, and you literally just stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, and you'd want to see how many you can do in 30 seconds and you're looking between 15 and 25 of those.

Speaker 2:

See, I didn't realise that it was 15 to 25, although I was just going a bit mental. And we got what did we get? 235 or something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but you want to be able to do as many as possible. Yeah, but you know you, the ideal you want to do at least 15 to 25, because fewer than 15 stands is really going to give you poor, lower body strength indicator, and we want to maintain our independence. You've spoken about, you know.

Speaker 1:

You've said I want to be able to wipe my own ass on the toilet yeah, absolutely yeah, we want to be able to get up off the toilet when we sit down, and this actually is a major issue with people. As they age, they lose that lower body strength and you need those legs to be able to lift yourself up off the toilet, right, yeah, so in order to maintain your independence and for preventing falls, you want your legs to be strong yeah, you want.

Speaker 2:

You want to be independent, you want to be able to walk around forever, like until you're in a box. Yeah, absolutely. And it's again, if you don't use it, you lose it, and it's quite simple to maintain and gain it. So, yeah, it's a good. So give it a go and if you're on the lower part of that ratio, just have a think about what you can do. Come into the facebook group and say, ah, you know, I've only got, only did 15. What can I do? I need help.

Speaker 1:

Happily, happily, will help you absolutely breathing tests, because you know we haven't got any life without our breath right, so our lung capacity and our respiratory function is really kind of important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the marker here is that you can breathe in and hold your breath comfortably for 10 seconds. Now, we find this so easy, but then we are both qualified in breath work. Yeah, so you know, if we couldn't do that, it would be a bit embarrassing, wouldn't it? Yeah, but there are lots of people that can't do it. The most common reason is because you're in constant stress and you shallow breathe or you're anxious. That could be an issue. There are obviously medical conditions that would make that more difficult, but if you can't do that, there is. This is an indicator for poor lung health, and you do not want poor lung health.

Speaker 2:

And I think, actually even before we even go down the poor lung health route, people don't tend to breathe well, no, very breathe, very shallow, very up in the top of their lungs. They don't take big breaths, they don't allow themselves to relax. But you just don't breathe fully and for all number of reasons, because you don't think about it, because we're rushing around all the time, because we're stressed and I can really relate to that actually that when I felt very anxious it was like gaspy breath and and actually holding my breath for 10 seconds at that point probably would have been a real challenge. However, I think that 10 seconds should be doable for most people without any kind of lung conditions.

Speaker 1:

And it should be something we can do in our present moment, like we're conscious to it, because there is something else where we can hold our breath for other reasons that isn't good, like there's this term now called screen apnea. Have you heard this? No, so screen apnea is where, if we are opening an email or we're playing on our phone, we tend to hold our breath and the research shows that we hold our breath in a negative way and it has impact on our recovery time through having enough oxygen going through our blood. All these things. It's so fascinating, yeah, so when you you do it without realizing yeah, if you're going to, you know you're like, right, the next hour, I'm just going to open my emails and deal with them. You've got to be really conscious about taking a breath and taking a break and breathing Because we hold our breath, and it's called screen apnea.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting. Yeah, because you're just concentrating on whatever you're doing or you're fearful about what that email's going to say. Or you're kind of you're completely into that game that you're fearful about what that email is going to say. Or you're kind of you're completely, you're completely into that game that you're playing and and so then it starts tapping into, like the sympathetic nervous system, into that stress, into that fight or flight.

Speaker 1:

You can see why it's not good yeah, but just to measure your ability to, for your lung capacity, when you're fully aware of what you're doing and you just take a nice breath in and you hold it for 10 seconds without loads of force or pressure. If you can do that, that is a good indicator of your lungs are working well.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting. Sleep, not sleep screen apnea.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it is a bit like sleep apnea, but it's the same mechanism you hold your breath without knowing, without realizing, and yeah, you'll. You'll notice it now because I noticed it when, like I do my duolingo every day, and there's a timed element where you've got to match the words okay, right I do not breathe. Yeah, why I'm doing that. Yeah, and I do feel slightly anxious because I can see the clock ticking down and I need to match all these words.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's really interesting yeah so let us know. That's the first time I've ever heard of that. So if that's the first time you've ever heard of it, the next time you were on your phone scrolling away or duolingoing or I don't know what's Mark, do Times word, crossword, Wordle or something? Yeah, all the wordle things. Yeah, I bet. As I'm searching for words on that, I bet I hold my breath as well.

Speaker 1:

I will try and find the link to the research. This lady who's done it. It's so fascinating and I'll put it in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting. So please play along with us at home and have a go at each of these things, and then come into the Facebook group and let us know how you went on, and then we will put our videos into the facebook group. I will warn you that we didn't plan to actually do this, so I mean, at the moment I'm in a boob tube and a pair of dungarees, so it really wasn't. We didn't have our uh, our sports bras and uh and shorts on no, I think we remained fairly decent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think we just about got away with it, but that's really interesting. Like we've said all the way through this, no judgment on the results that you come up with right now. Just use them as baselines and then work out what you can do to improve everything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just know where you're at, and then you've got somewhere to go.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining us today. We love creating this for you.

Speaker 1:

We'll be back next week with another great episode. Until then, we'd be beyond grateful if you'd subscribe to the podcast and leave us a glowing review, if you've already done this.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much please do share the podcast with friends and family. You never know which tiny piece of information could be life-changing for someone you care about. We absolutely love hearing from you.

Speaker 1:

So connect, comment or message us on our social media channels.

Speaker 2:

You'll find all the links in the show notes and, if you haven't already, come and join us in our free facebook group, where we continue the conversation and you get to connect with like-minded women. We'd love to welcome you in until next time stay fabulous.