When I first confided in Andy about the maze my mind wanders through, thanks to ADHD, I never imagined how gadgets like the Sense AI and Muse headband would reshape my world. This episode is a deeply personal journey, where laughter intertwines with revelations, as I lay bare the trials and triumphs of mental wellness. We share answers to your burning questions, sprinkled with our own stories, discussing the wonders of meditation technologies that have helped in sculpting a more focused and serene mind.
Ever pondered if your brain could do with a diet plan? Twenty years of meditation practice have taught me just that – nurturing the mind is akin to feeding the body right. We wander through the landscape of neurofeedback and meditation devices, highlighting their role in personalizing mental health care. From boosting IQ to supporting ADHD management, these tools aren't just about silent reflection but tangible improvements in stress, sleep, and focus. And for those skeptics out there, yes, we've got anecdotes and science to back it all up.
We wrap up not just with thoughts but with actionable insights on physical well-being, discussing the rapid recovery perks of hyperbaric oxygen chambers and the subtle power of peptides. But it's not all about gadgets and gizmos; we also touch upon the transformative experiences at retreats like the Path of Love and the Hoffman Process. As we round off, we share a heartfelt perspective on the need for a more compassionate societal view on suicide, especially within contexts like travel insurance. So join Andy and me, as we explore the intricate dance of tech, personal evolution, and wellness – it's a conversation you won't want to miss.
2.54 - Link to Sens AI - https://sens.ai/
4.31 - Link to Breadface (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvPtl4Z4h4w
5.20 - Link to Mynd Lift
https://www.myndlift.com/
- Muse Head Band- https://choosemuse.com/
13.39 - Link to Brain Tap - https://braintap.com/
18.12 - Link to Sensate Pebble - https://www.getsensate.com/
21.04 - Link to Apollo - https://apolloneuro.com/
26.39 - Link to Headspace - https://www.headspace.com/
26.59 - Link to Calm - https://www.calm.com/app/meditate
27.41 - Link to Oak - https://www.oakmeditation.com/
28.17 - Link to Sam Harris app - https://www.wakingup.com/
33.19 - Link to Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber? - https://hbotusa.com/
35.17 - Link to Thomas Effect - But is actually Henry's law - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54103/
40.00 - Link to LivHealth - https://livhealth.com/
41.45 - Link to Spiro Health - https://www.spirohealth.co.uk/
42.00 - Link to Whte Oak Chiropractic - https://whiteoakchiropractic.com/
50.10 - Link to Hoffman Process - https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/the-process/
52.55 - Link to Path of Love - https://pathretreats.com/
Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
Please leave us a review, like and subscribe.
When I first confided in Andy about the maze my mind wanders through, thanks to ADHD, I never imagined how gadgets like the Sense AI and Muse headband would reshape my world. This episode is a deeply personal journey, where laughter intertwines with revelations, as I lay bare the trials and triumphs of mental wellness. We share answers to your burning questions, sprinkled with our own stories, discussing the wonders of meditation technologies that have helped in sculpting a more focused and serene mind.
Ever pondered if your brain could do with a diet plan? Twenty years of meditation practice have taught me just that – nurturing the mind is akin to feeding the body right. We wander through the landscape of neurofeedback and meditation devices, highlighting their role in personalizing mental health care. From boosting IQ to supporting ADHD management, these tools aren't just about silent reflection but tangible improvements in stress, sleep, and focus. And for those skeptics out there, yes, we've got anecdotes and science to back it all up.
We wrap up not just with thoughts but with actionable insights on physical well-being, discussing the rapid recovery perks of hyperbaric oxygen chambers and the subtle power of peptides. But it's not all about gadgets and gizmos; we also touch upon the transformative experiences at retreats like the Path of Love and the Hoffman Process. As we round off, we share a heartfelt perspective on the need for a more compassionate societal view on suicide, especially within contexts like travel insurance. So join Andy and me, as we explore the intricate dance of tech, personal evolution, and wellness – it's a conversation you won't want to miss.
2.54 - Link to Sens AI - https://sens.ai/
4.31 - Link to Breadface (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvPtl4Z4h4w
5.20 - Link to Mynd Lift
https://www.myndlift.com/
- Muse Head Band- https://choosemuse.com/
13.39 - Link to Brain Tap - https://braintap.com/
18.12 - Link to Sensate Pebble - https://www.getsensate.com/
21.04 - Link to Apollo - https://apolloneuro.com/
26.39 - Link to Headspace - https://www.headspace.com/
26.59 - Link to Calm - https://www.calm.com/app/meditate
27.41 - Link to Oak - https://www.oakmeditation.com/
28.17 - Link to Sam Harris app - https://www.wakingup.com/
33.19 - Link to Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber? - https://hbotusa.com/
35.17 - Link to Thomas Effect - But is actually Henry's law - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54103/
40.00 - Link to LivHealth - https://livhealth.com/
41.45 - Link to Spiro Health - https://www.spirohealth.co.uk/
42.00 - Link to Whte Oak Chiropractic - https://whiteoakchiropractic.com/
50.10 - Link to Hoffman Process - https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/the-process/
52.55 - Link to Path of Love - https://pathretreats.com/
Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
Please leave us a review, like and subscribe.
Hello and welcome back to Laughing Through the Pain Navigating Wellness with me, richard Albaik and Andy. He's Sam co-host, and it is just the two of us. Today We've got a kind of listener Q&A episode for you. So, andy, how's it going?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really good. Thanks, Richard. Let's be straightforward with the audience. A guest dropped out, so and Richard and I are arrogant enough to think that we're worthy of listening to, so we're going to go through some questions from you on Instagram and some hot topics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Richard's refreshingly laid back for a man who's been let down the last minute.
Speaker 2:It's also the one guest that I've actually organised, so it reflects badly on me, but luckily you're such a zen character you don't mind.
Speaker 1:Agreed, agreed, I don't mind. I do mind actually. No, obviously, if you're listening guest who's cancelled, we don't actually mind. But it does bring up this idea of inflexibility. I am quite an inflexible person. Some people call me rigid Blake rather than Richard Blake. Oh, I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I'm quite rigid and with plans, and actually I found out that that isn't just a personality trait, that isn't just me being like I get annoyed.
Speaker 1:Basically people mess me about like really annoyed. If you're one of my friends, you'll know that and if you don't know that you've been late and I've been really angry at you and that's why I've been off with you for the rest of the meeting. But I actually found out this is a symptom of ADHD, because I have a meditation device called the Sense AI and, yeah, one of the topics we're going to be talking about today is meditation devices, because we've been having quite a few questions about this or people have been sending me messages about the best meditation device and, yeah, one of the devices I have called the Sense AI has a questionnaire about your mental stuff and it asks you if a plan gets canceled, how do you react? Does it ruin your day? Do you flow? Do you feel like it's okay, or does it mess you up? And for me it really messes me up and apparently that's the symptom of ADHD.
Speaker 2:Oh dear. Okay, well, so are you going to go for the full diagnosis, or are you just going to let that linger?
Speaker 1:I have a full diagnosis of CDD concentration deficit disorder. That's a type of ADHD where the harder you try and concentrate, the sorry, the harder it is for you to concentrate. So, for example, if I this is a kind of in joke, but when Andy and I are some friends were on a sort of lads holiday, a five-star drunk, basically you can look this up it's called bread face. Basically, a friend of mine was threatening to throw a loaf of bread at my face and he was like okay, I'm going to throw it at your face, okay, concentrate. And then I couldn't concentrate and then he threw the bread and it hit me right in the face. And that was because I have CDD.
Speaker 2:The sound is really satisfying on that video. It's so good. It's just the perfect contact with the bread and the face. So, going back to the sense AI, what is that? What does it look like? How do you apply it or wear?
Speaker 1:it, or yeah? So I'm going to put a link to bread face in the show notes if you want to see it, you must see that actually it's fantastic, yeah.
Speaker 1:Another problem it causes is, if you try and tell me directions, I'm like, yeah, tell it to me, go. And then it just goes in one ear, out the other. But the way I had that diagnosis was from a quantitative electroencephalogram, which is QEEG. Might have heard of those things. Some people say they're not that useful. But one person I spoke to, a neuroscientist, said they're not that useful because they're all kind of open to interpretation and very subjective. But, yeah, what they can do is show your brainwave patterns and tell you, okay, yeah, this is why you have problems, this is why you're anxious, this is why you have depression, this is why you have ADHD. And that was with a company called Mind Lift and that's about M Y, n, d, l, I, f, t, and they use the Muse headband. Have you heard of Muse, andy? That's for.
Speaker 2:I have not no headband, meaning what literally just work across your brow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's. It's an EEG, just a very like cheap EEG relative. It's cost about two 300 pounds and it's just like. It kind of looks like a crown or like a princesses tiara and it reads your brain waves at the front of your head and behind your ears and it uses neuro feedback. So neuro feedback is basically an advanced way to meditate. So this is does.
Speaker 1:The Muse is designed as a meditation device. So you put it on, you wet it a little bit, because the sensors need a little bit of moisture, and then that starts reading your brain waves and you listen to sounds like it will be the sound of a forest or the sound of waves crashing, and when your brain waves go into the appropriate target, where you're targeting. So with Muse you can only target alpha brain waves. Alpha brain waves are the ones that you're in when you're in that relaxed focus. That's what you're going for when you're doing mindfulness meditation. Beta brain waves are the ones that are really fast paced and those are the ones you would use for planning the future, for doing sums. Those are the ones that would be making you anxious if you're too much in your beta brain waves. That's where anxiety can come from, and by doing meditation, just like simple mindfulness meditation, you are training yourself to come down into this alpha brain wave frequency.
Speaker 1:And the way the Muse does this is, yeah, it plays sounds like rewarding sounds. When you go into these alpha brain waves, so it'll be here. You'll hear like birds chirping when your brain waves go into those relaxed alpha brain waves and when you go into beta if it's waves you're listening to the waves will get like more violent and more aggressive and it just subtly change your brain. I don't like those sounds. That the aggressive way. That sounds a bit dangerous, although I do like those chirpings. And so it just it trains you without you really having to do anything. It's almost, it's really passive.
Speaker 2:So presumably the aim of these, all these meditation tools, is to get you off them so that you don't require you know, don't want to wear a princess tiara when you're out on a bow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, exactly, but it's like taking your brain to the gym. Obviously, you know you don't go to the gym to just to build muscles. You go to the gym to get stronger, so you can lift heavier weight, to walk further or whatever it is you need to do, you know, improve your sports performance. So, yeah, you would do the muse for like 20 minutes. But meditation is like I see your question there is quite like a Western one, like okay, so how long do I have to do meditation, whereas a Buddhist thing would be like well, I'm going to do meditation for the rest of my life, just like I'm going to eat food for the rest of my life and I'm going to be healthy, a healthy diet for the rest of my life. I believe that meditation is a lifelong practice. Yeah, I certainly have been doing it for at least coming up to 20 years now.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so what about all these apps Like? I see a lot of targeted ads for things like calm headspace.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, before we go into the apps, I want to talk a little bit more about the devices I have, because I bought some for you. You've got multiple devices, okay, so yeah, as I said, I've been doing this stuff for 20 years, so I've collected a lot of devices. So the Sense AI, this is it. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:This is obviously a visual feature, but it's you can see it's got basically just big headphones with like an extended middle bit. Yeah, cover your entire head.
Speaker 1:And then it's got these sensors here and you have to part your hair and wet it and yeah, it's a little bit fidgety, but you have to get contact with the skin and the Sense. Ai is really cool, by the way, I'm really I'm having amazing results with it. It does have the ability to do a QEG and then you do something. What's that Consistency of an electroencephalogram? I did mention that earlier. Keep up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know what it was then and I don't know what it is now.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, clarifying question. Then you are keeping up, it reads your brainwaves and it shows, like, where blood flow goes and it shows, yeah, which parts of your brain are active, got it? And the Sense AI is particularly cool because, well, while the Muse can just do alpha and beta brainwaves, the Sense AI can do all of the brainwaves. It can target theta, high beta, the three phases of beta, gamma and delta, and it can. When you do this survey, this questionnaire, it'll pick a plan for you.
Speaker 1:And then also they have like a little gamepad where you wear the EEG and you have to do a test where on this little game it's like a little gameboy an arrow will will flash up and it'll either point it from left or right, and there'll also be some other like arrows trying to distract you and you have to press. If it's from facing left, you press left. If it flashes right, press right, and if it flashes like straight, you have to not press, which is really difficult because you're always expecting it to go left and right. So it tests your impulsivity as well, which is another sign of ADHD.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking of Guitar Hero at this point, but yeah, it's kind of similar to Guitar Hero, but much more basic, and you have to do it like 10 minutes. It gets a little bit boring, but it's also just testing your concentration and then it'll recommend a program for you. So it'll recommend like a resilience program if you're someone who just gets really stressed and then gives up things really quickly. It will do a test. If you have problems with sleep, it'll. It has sleep programs, it has focus programs, it has anxiety programs. It has, yeah, many more that I haven't even gotten to grips with. But you retest after, like every month. You retest and you see whether or not your scores have gone up in these tests and mine have every time. And also, I did like a before and after IQ test. They don't advertise it as being something that'll improve your IQ, but I did improve my IQ score by about eight points in just a couple of months, so a good job. Yeah, oh, you went from 50 to 58.
Speaker 2:Well, I was literally about to say that tip of my tongue, yeah no, sorry, no, slightly higher than 58. Excellent. Okay, and I mean these. Bear in mind, I'm sat in the London and you're sat in California. Are these just American type startup things, or are these actually widely available?
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure they're widely available. I met them at the Health Optimization Summit in London actually, and that's when I first trialed that. I met the founder and I had a little go on it there and I was very impressed because one of the problems with EEG and other things like transcranial direct current stimulation so that's another device that kind of came out a few years ago is called the Halo. It was another headset and it would do this. Tdcs basically sends pulses to your brain and activates various parts of your brain and then you would go and do things like go to the gym or play guitar and it actually I actually did get benefits from this thing. I PR'd squats, I PR'd my snatch. It really switches on the part of the brain that's involved in this movement. But it was so fiddly, I was so annoying. It would take me like an hour to get it on, and then I've missed my CrossFit class and the Mind Lift as well.
Speaker 1:I mentioned the Mind Lift earlier. They were also a little bit fiddly. I love them. They have such great customer service and what, as I mentioned, they use the Muse and then they add in an extra electrode. They send you an extra electrode and then you pay an extra subscription to work with them and they will also do things like target your ADHD, target different brainwaves, and you work with a neuroscientist and you have a monthly meeting with them to coach you through your results and things like that, which was awesome, because the neuroscientist was awesome and he even helped me with my PhD for free. He just had a nice school with me. So I love them. I love how helpful they were and it really helped me with my with my ADHD.
Speaker 2:Okay, so now on to the apps. Nope, we've got more.
Speaker 1:There's more, there's more. I get a lot of questions, andy. A lot of people into devices. How many? What was the one I tried on? Was it the brain?
Speaker 2:tap or something.
Speaker 1:The brain tap. I think I used the brain tap the Sense8 and the Apollo. We've got to go through them as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, because the brain tap was the white one and it had. It's like a goggles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker 1:Again, it's headphones, and this one has blue lights. You can kind of see they flash. And then they also have LED lights in the earphones and these lights kind of they flash at certain frequency to put you into different brainwave states, and it does really, I think, send you into these non-ordinary states.
Speaker 2:So why would I put that on? I know why I put that on because you told me to, and I think I was in a car and I think I'm not driving, clearly and I think I fell asleep. Actually it was quite relaxing at first. It's a bit confusing because there's all these lights kind of even when you close your eyes, obviously the lights flash through your eyelids, and at first it was kind of a bit unsettling, but then in no time I found myself seriously relaxed and fell asleep. So what's actually going on? Why are you putting these things on?
Speaker 1:So it's using a combination of things. Obviously there's a guided meditation in there and they also use like dual voices and binaural beats, and what these things do is kind of trick your brain into going into a certain state. So theta brainwaves, those are the brainwaves that you have when you're dreaming and those are the ones also that you would have on a psychedelic experience or a conscious, connected breath work experience. And that's supposedly where trauma resolution happens as well, memory consolidation happens, and you can enter these states with the device like the brain tap through, as I said, binaural beats, dual tones, as well as those lights. What they're doing is using something called the principle of entrainment.
Speaker 1:So it's a bit like you know, you've probably seen on YouTube where clocks are all ticking separately and then if you leave the clocks over time, they're all stuck ticking in the exact same rhythm.
Speaker 1:And that same kind of thing can happen with our brainwaves. So with those flashes of the blue light, our brainwaves will synchronize to those flashes. So if we're in really high beta, which is, you know, really high frequency brainwave, you can use those flashing to bring the brainwaves down, to slow them in line with the theta and then an alpha as well, maybe gamma, and then you have this theta brainwave state during this relaxed state and what the brain tap does. They have all these different packages. So they have obviously just like mindfulness, meditation ones, but they also have ones for like pain management and weight loss and career goals and sleep, and so when you are in this really suggestible state this is kind of how you know you get someone inside really relaxed state and the kind of rational mind, the prefrontal cortex, the skeptical mind, gets down, regulated a little bit. So you're yeah, you're suggestible.
Speaker 1:And this is what they can seriously theorists say about TV is TV will put you into that alpha brainwave state where you're really relaxed and not very skeptical. And then they'll come on with these advert being by this medical product and your brain goes okay, I will buy this new prescription that has a thousand side effects. What at least in that?
Speaker 2:is that what's happened to you, that you now own seven or eight of meditation?
Speaker 1:devices. It is, yeah, it is, I've been hypnotized. They're all a big cabal of meditation devices where one of themselves, you, the other one, and, yeah, you eventually get tricked into that. But I mean, yes, I do this stuff because I like exploring new things, but what it shows is kind of like you remember what I was like? I was a mess 15 years ago. You know, I couldn't, I couldn't concentrate in class. I was the joke in our master's program because I would fall asleep all the time and I couldn't, I couldn't focus. And now you know I'm just about to finish your PhD and you know I'm able to function much, much, much more easily than I used to be and I think a big part of it is because of these neuro-rebalances.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, yeah, incredible progress, mate. I mean I think you're unrecognizable from the master's course. I wonder how much of that was just aligning your interest and following your heart. But yeah, certainly certainly unrecognizable from the fresh-faced 22 year old who turned up at our master's course.
Speaker 1:Yes, indeed. Then the last two are haptic feedback ones, so these ones have been getting a fair bit of press recently. The Sense 8, I don't have it here, but I did buy one for my brother. He's never taken it out of the box because that's just the type of guy he is, so anyone wants one?
Speaker 2:What is? The Go to his house and ask him for his, because he's just sitting in his closet. Go over those words again, haptic, haptic.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, haptics, you know, when you're clicking, you're typing your iPhone and it vibrates. Oh yeah, that's haptic feedback, so it's a vibration, so it kind of yeah, it works with vibration. So the Sense 8 is a little pebble that you put around your chest and you would like lie down or you'd wear it as a necklace, and those vibrations work with the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is this wandering nerve vagus from the word vagrant. It wanders from our brain down to our gut and it kind of works along with the HPA axis, the hypothalamic pituitary axis, which basically goes back and forth between your brain saying is everything okay down there? Yeah, everything's fine, everything okay up there? Yeah, everything's fine. And they had this two-way feedback of saying, like, are we safe? Are we, can we relax?
Speaker 1:And what the Sense 8 will do is vibrate in a way that calms the vagus nerve and allows us to get into these meditative states more easily. Because you know a lot of people, the biggest problem with meditation is is they just can't do it. They just won't do it, they just are. You know, I tried to sit down for 10 minutes but I just couldn't. I just, you know, I started thinking about it something and then I grabbed my phone. What these devices are doing are helping you get over that barrier, that initial resistance, by using other things like like the different sounds, the vibrations, the blue light, the entrainments. So it's getting you into that meditative state quicker.
Speaker 2:So is your position that anyone and everyone could enjoy meditation if they found the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:Almost anyone. Yeah, people with severe PTSD. I don't recommend meditation too. More and more research is coming out to show that people who you know really really have actual PTSD, horrific stuff, not just like. I heard someone's different opinion and then I got PTSD from a college class that you hear about these days they have something their inter-receptions just so overwhelmed, they get emotionally flooded and they can't focus on things inside their body, so focusing on their breath and causing more distress. But for most of us who don't have severe PTSD, yeah, I think meditation is. It's just like. You know, exercise. You know everyone should be exercising. Everyone can benefit from meditation. It can make you like that in so many ways and with all these new devices, they're just, it's just a hack effectively.
Speaker 2:I'm reluctant to move on to the apps in case there's another device. There is one more. There's one more device I knew there would be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course there is the Apollo, the Apollo Neuro. So the Apollo is another wearable. I don't have it, but you kind of wear it like a wrist, like a watch. You can also wear it around your ankle. I don't know where my knee is, unfortunately, otherwise I would show you.
Speaker 2:That vibrates as well.
Speaker 1:Presumably, then, Exactly that vibrates as well and again, that works with the nervous system. It relaxes us. It also has different frequencies and settings, so you can have like an awake one, you can have a focused one, so the frequency will be really high and it'll get your body well-entrained to that high frequency. One their most interesting research is they've done a lot of research with some autistic and ADHD kids and found that they are able to perform much better in class and tasks when they're wearing these devices.
Speaker 2:Wow. So it sounds like some of them are kind of deliberate hours, half an hour sessions, and then some of them are kind of you wear the entire time.
Speaker 1:So I would say all of them are like All but one are things you would do just for 20 minutes a day. So, apart from the Apollo, Apollo is something you can just wear around with you and go to a meeting. It has a setting for socializing which helps you. If you have social anxiety, you can wear that around your ankle. No one can see it. Sometimes people see it if you're wearing it around your ankle. Some people Prison tag. Yeah, prison tag.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I was thinking that it's a conversation starter If you wear it around your wrist, then it just looks like a wrist watch, but the other ones are all things you would do for 10, 20 minutes a day.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:We can move on, yes.
Speaker 2:These are the only things I know about, because I've tried both calm and headspace and it's very difficult to pinpoint the point where I lost interest in both, but I obviously I don't use them. So, yeah, I mean, and presumably there's more kind of personal focused ads coming forward as well. I know we were speaking to James Dower about him launching a breathwork app, but I think that's probably their meditation practitioners, who are launching their own kind of brand to compete with these kind of the bigger ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. There's plenty of apps out there. And yes, james Dower, he has a good breathwork app and platform. His is already launched Breathe with James check that out. But the big is his. He's doing breathwork, which is slightly different to meditation. You could say meditation and breathwork are the same thing or come under the same umbrella. You feel like meditation is more passive and breathwork is more active, but there are forms of breathwork there at the passive as well. But meditation, specifically meditation. The reason I think people are very excited about meditation is just because it has a lot more research. It's got thousands and thousands of studies showing increases brain matter. It reduces ADHD, improves sleep, improves negative affect. It improves all sorts of things. It's almost unlimited what it can do. But knowing that, as you probably do, andy, why did you stop?
Speaker 2:I honestly can't tell you. I think it was just probably just lost its impact on me, or perhaps I didn't just change my environment and didn't follow through with it, but I honestly don't know. It's just at some point I just stopped doing it. I think it can be a bit repetitive. Perhaps I probably didn't help myself by doing it in different locations and trying to do it quickly, or do it maybe not on the tube but in environments that are probably not conducive to meditation, and then I think, just gradually it slips out of your routine.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Speaker 1:Definitely yeah, as I say, I think it's a real challenge is to getting people to be compliant with it, and I think you can do meditation anywhere. I do it on the tube when I'm in London. I do it in challenging situations. You can do it standing up. I do it standing up in front of my red light in the morning. I do it in my ice barrel. You can do it in many different situations and that's kind of further strengthening your meditation muscle. If you can meditate and be calm in an ice barrel or in a sauna or the tube in a stressful situation, that's just adding to the challenge and strengthening that muscle.
Speaker 2:I'd ask you, as a personal favour, not to put any of your meditation devices on while you're on the tube. Why? Not I just feel your safety. We're not very accepting in London.
Speaker 1:You might get a few. I wouldn't be the weirdest guy on the tube, though, would I?
Speaker 2:Probably not. No, that's fair, fair comment.
Speaker 1:Second, weirdest. Obviously, a lot of people are asking me questions about this because they know it works. If you look at the happiest people in the world, they are all lifelong meditators. I think that's kind of something that people know now. The world's happiest monk, or studies on the brainwaves, the world's happiest people? They're not the richest people, they're not the people with the most Grammy Awards or trophies or things like that. They're just people who have trained themselves to be happy. I think we can do that as well with a lifelong commitment to meditation.
Speaker 1:Coming on to the subject of apps, people ask me which apps I meditate. I meditate two, which ones I've tried and which ones I like. The first one I would suggest is Headspace. I like Headspace one. It's a big one. It's an English company. I like Andy Perdicombe. Some people don't like him. Some people find his voice really annoying. If that's the case for you, try a different app. I like Headspace because it's really simple. It's really basic. They have really good explanations. I think it's just a really good way to start.
Speaker 1:Calm is another app which has like a $1.4 billion valuation. It's extremely valuable. Again, they have nice programs. They have nice courses. I do think you need to a fair bit of psychoeducation around this stuff. You need to explain to people why they are meditating, why they should meditate, how it's going to improve their life and how long it's going to take. I think something's happening, but I'm not really sure, whereas if they have this story and education behind it, I think that's really valuable If people are already quite familiar with meditation, know what they want to do and they don't want to pay any money for it.
Speaker 1:Oak is the one I recommend. It's super simple, oak, and it has two meditations. It has just a mindfulness one which has a lot of research, and then the second, most research one is a loving gratitude, loving kindness meditation. So they have those two. They have a few different settings where you can choose how long you want it to be, from like five minutes to an hour. They have different voices, a male and a female voice, and then they have different backgrounds, so you have like chanting, guitar music, forest sounds, rainwater, and so you can kind of customize it and it's free. And then the last one I recommend is Sam Harris is waking up up to Sam Harris, neuroscientist, a controversial figure, it seems. These days he's a bit of a cultural warrior, but his app is very good because he explains things in a very uniquely understandable way.
Speaker 2:Very good and, if I can recommend meditation apps as someone who's just admitted to losing interest, I do think the good thing about Headspace was it is very obviously tiered. So you start on a beginner's course, work your way up to intermediate and so on and that's like quite a nice way in. And also on calm, I believe they have celebrities and famous people guiding certain meditations, which might also be quite fun for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know another thing you know might think our celebrities what are they going to do? Hearing familiar voices does signal to our nervous system, or we can trust this. I recognize this Well, even if it's someone you don't even know. There is some. I don't know the studies, but I can remember someone saying like when you hear a familiar voice, you're more likely to let it in, to let that suggestibility happen, and so the more familiar the voice, the more likely you are to relax to it.
Speaker 2:The David Attenborough effect as I call it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, there you go, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's just very trustworthy. He's been on TV for about 60 years, so anything he says I would immediately trust as gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, indeed, indeed, all right. Should we move on then? We had enough meditation chat, yes.
Speaker 2:Although we do want links to the best devices in the show notes, because, part of many else, I'd quite like to see them, the ones you didn't show.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, absolutely yeah. I don't think I have any referral codes to these things, but yeah, I'm just recommending them because I like them and I want these campaigns to succeed.
Speaker 2:That's more genuine, though, isn't it, if you don't make anything from these endorsements.
Speaker 1:You could say that, but I think they're. I do recommend a few things I do have a fair few codes on my website, but that doesn't mean anything other than I like them and you should get a discount. Win, win, you get a discount, I get a little bit of pennies and it looks normally as pennies, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, I would like to know how it says here how you healed your hamstring in record time. Record time and also I would encourage anyone to challenge this and any physiotherapists, anyone listening who thinks that they know, I don't know. Say, a premiership footballer who's got ever a hamstring injury faster than Rich? Please do message him. Because Rich thinks this is a world record. We will find out if he's right. Go ahead, rich, all right.
Speaker 1:It wasn't record time, but my physical therapist did say wow, you healed from that very fast, so that'll do for me.
Speaker 2:What? How long was it from tear? Did you tear it?
Speaker 1:I tore it yeah, I tore it pretty bad.
Speaker 1:They grade the tears Grade three, grade three tear Okay and it was bad and I was on the couch for several days and I was on crutches for several days and couldn't move for for quite a while. It was pretty severe and when it was looked at by a couple of physical therapists I said, oh yeah, two months of recovery, but it's February 20. Now this is week six, effectively, of my recovery and I just PR my clean and jerk a couple of days ago. You need your hamstrings PR being personal record. Thank you, the most I've ever lifted with a torn hamstring. No, it's in. It's not my PR for how much I've listed with a torn hamstring, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean overall PR. Yeah, oh, good for you. So what are we at? Six weeks, okay, fine. Yeah, I know from fancy football that if a premiership footballer tears the hamstring you kind of think six weeks, but I'm sure you did it more convincingly.
Speaker 1:And I'm 37, and they're 20, 20, and they've got very good medical teams and, yeah, okay, fine Not as good as me though.
Speaker 2:Okay, your own medical, your own medical team.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I my my wife's uncle is a physical therapist for the Manchester city group, so I do have access to to high level knowledge.
Speaker 2:So are these secrets that we can all share in it, or is this kind of like you have to be in it?
Speaker 1:No, I'll tell you what we have to do. How I did this is I injected all of my money into Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1:So a little bit like how magic Johnson healed from AIDS in South Park episode by just injecting dollar bills into the body to cure himself. Yeah, what I did? You know I'm very privileged. I'm doing this acknowledgement. I'm very lucky. I'm not very successful, I just had a rich dad. Sorry, listeners, I, yeah, I acknowledged my privilege and with that privilege I did manage to buy myself a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. So it's not like I'm super smart, it's. I have a very extensive device to order hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which massively speeds up recovery because, yeah, a lot of celebrities have them. Michael Jackson was the most famous person to have one.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you should be referencing him as a particular.
Speaker 1:I'm just referencing other weirdos.
Speaker 2:And so is this something you can use. If you, I mean, what's the the value to that purchase? Now, you don't have a torn hamstring Is this something you can use, just everyday recovery?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Okay, hyperbaric oxygen chamber, as I say, lots of people have them Tom Brady, cristiano Ronaldo, justin Bieber, they all have them. For it's Cris Tiago silver, that was the breath geek. The breath geek, ben Greenfield all the big top buyer hackers have them. So what is? It's a pressurized chamber, so it looks like a big kind of space age pill type thing. That's big enough for you to get in. And I have a softshell chamber so it goes up to two atmospheres of pressure.
Speaker 1:You can get hardshell chambers in hospitals. They're not available for private use. They cost like hundreds of thousands of dollars. They will go down to like four atmospheres of pressure and they'll be in hospitals. For one one they were invented for bends. So the bends is that disease you get if you come up from scuba diving too deep and you get problems there. But then they also found that people, when people were in there, they were healing from other things much quicker. They were healing from my skin lesions. They were healing from wounds. They were healing from cancer treatments much quicker.
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you're unfortunate enough to have cancer but you get a more holistic care as well as doing chemotherapy, people will now recommend people do hyperbaric oxygen chamber to support the processes of the coverage.
Speaker 1:So what happens in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber is pressure. So there's this thing I've got in the name of it now I think it's like Thomas something effect. I'll have to look it up but basically the blood can only carry a certain amount of oxygen. So if you have ever had a pulse oximeter on your finger which probably have ever been to the doctor you'll see that your blood is carrying about is about 95 to 99% blood oxygen saturation. And if you did a few rounds of Wim Hof or a few rounds of deliberate hyperventilation, you could get that oxygen saturation up to 100%. So the blood can't really carry any more blood. When you go under pressure, your blood can carry more oxygen and the hemoglobin can take a bigger load of oxygen. So it's effectively you're creating an environment in your body where there's more energy to do things. Oxygen provides energy. So whatever your body needs energy for, it will have more. So for recovering from a hangover, for recovering from jet lag, from recovering from a workout.
Speaker 2:It's feeding all those things up. Say you were climbing up a mountain at altitude.
Speaker 1:Presumably that would have the effect of that's different because that's not pressure, so there's less oxygen in the environment. So what happens there?
Speaker 2:No, but your oxygen saturation level drops quite significantly.
Speaker 1:It does and in response to that, your body recreates more hemoglobin and red blood cells to carry oxygen. So that's why athletes will do that. So it's creating more hemoglobin to carry, as they go, boats effectively. So if you think that hemoglobin is a boat that carries oxygen from the blood to the cells, going to altitude training is like building more boats. Doing hyperbaric oxygen is like building bigger boats effectively or increasing the capacity of those boats. So that is the main thing I did.
Speaker 1:I was in there almost every day for a couple of months and I would definitely notice before and after changes. So if I was in there like two hours and I went in first thing, I'd be like I can actually feel my hamstring slightly better very marginally better, but considering it was a pretty severe tear, those things definitely made a difference. They are expensive and, as I said, very privileged and lucky to have them. Thank you, god and Father, for those types of things. You can go to clinics though. Certainly in London and all big cities there are hyperbaric oxygen clinics popping up all over the place and you can go and do two, three hour sessions of those if you want something you would like to try. The other thing I've done is peptides, so you had a peptide before.
Speaker 2:I have not had peptides P-E-P-T-I-D-E-S.
Speaker 1:No, I've never Peptides are short chain amino acids so you might have had a collagen peptide. Collagen is very popular. I've had collagen in my coffee. Yes, a lot of people are taking collagen for the skin benefits and actually, slightly off topic, I did post on my story yesterday. A lot of people previously were saying like, oh, collagen just gets broken down and it doesn't get absorbed by the skin. But they have just done a study that found collagen does increase skin hydration, so it is actually a hidden skin.
Speaker 1:So there you go. You do keep putting the collagen in the skin.
Speaker 2:So it's good for the appearance of the skin. So less wrinkles. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so hydration was what they looked at basically, which is going to help with longevity and wrinkles and things like that. Okay, so that is a type of peptide. The peptides I'm talking about are even shorter chains and you inject them or I inject them into my injury. So the two most common ones for injury Some of the people call them the wolverine peptides, because it makes you heal like wolverine One's called BPC-157 and the other's called TB-500. And they are, yeah, you get them in little vials and then you reconstitute them and inject them into yourself.
Speaker 2:When you say you get them in little vials, I mean this sounds like I can't go to boots and get this stuff. No, you can't, no.
Speaker 1:Where on earth are you finding this stuff? Compounding pharmacies, okay, so where you would? Yeah, you go straight to the source of compounding pharmacies. They make prescriptions. So wherever you get your prescription for whatever that you pick up in boots, one step up from that is a compounding pharmacy. And yeah, the reason peptides aren't more in mainstream is because we make them BPC-157 you find in your stomach and you can't patent things that are found in nature. So they haven't had big pushes from pharmaceutical companies because they haven't found a way to monetize it yet. But biohackers and other doctors or functional medicine doctors and naturopathic doctors are prescribing. I get mine prescribed by a functional doctor. I see out here in the US with a company called Live Health. I really like them. L-i-v-h-e-l-t-h and, yeah, live Health are kind of a concierge medicine practice and they will do things like hormone optimization and peptides and things like that. So what are they actually doing? So that might be the question.
Speaker 1:The pericrine effect is what's happening in the body, so it's basically signaling to your body hey, there's an injury over here. Let's send all the healing stuff to this injury white blood cells, stem cells if we have them, blood flow, all these things to that area to recover more quickly. And yeah, I've been. You know, a lot of people message me about this and they're like oh, I don't feel comfortable injecting myself. How do I know that everything is going to be okay? And I say I don't know. There are a lot of risks with this stuff. It's definitely not as trustworthy as going to a regular doctor. But I've been doing this stuff for eight years and I'm still here.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then just putting the usual stuff physical therapy, foam rolling. What kind of?
Speaker 1:stuff. Yeah, physical therapy. So yeah, I've been seeing Sarah Groman out here. She's a great physical therapist. Go see her. They call her. She calls herself a PT Andy. It's very confusing for us English people, so PT is a physical therapy isn't it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Physio is what a physical therapy is. Yes so yeah, I get confused sometimes when she says I'm a PT.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know, you're physical there, you're physio. Anyway, I also have seen I continue to do ABC chiropractic. So this is my favorite form of chiropractic. It's very different from traditional chiropractic and you can go see in London Natalie at Spyro Health. If you're near Pup, I 100% recommend going to see Natalie as Spyro Health. If you're in Northern California, go to Vacaville to I've got to say Light Oak Chiropractic is the name of the place there. Go see them for chiro. They will really do like structure or changes.
Speaker 1:And then exercises people have asked me what exercises have you been doing? So, oh yeah, foam rolling is a big one, obviously, just getting you know, the myofascial release, getting blood flow into the area. That's going to speed things up. Exercise obviously, stretching. Static stretching is just an absolute must for those types of things.
Speaker 1:And then other things I've been doing are things like V-ups and planks and sorry, not planks, pikes piking up, so on a what's it called rowing machine, putting your feet on the rowing machine, hands on the floor, and then piking up and using the hamstrings there to go into a sort of V-shape, so your butt is up in the air and your head is down.
Speaker 1:And also Chinese plank, so Chinese plank. This one is actually really challenging for me. You get into a bridge so you're lying on your back, you're looking up and you bring your heels up towards your butt and then you lift your butt off the ground. So you've just got your back, your head and your feet on the ground and then you slowly walk your feet out until you're almost parallel to the floor. So at that point, just your still just your heels and you're at the back of your upper traps are touching the floor and then you walk them back in and that's a real challenge for the hamstring. So I definitely recommend people do that, but I definitely recommend it doing it slowly because it's a hard one.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations on your heel hamstring and we're, yeah, we continue to look forward to your PB's or PR's, whatever you call them, pb's with my PTs.
Speaker 1:With the PTs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep posting. In fact, it's now is your opportunity to tell us what your next targeting, and we will hold you accountable.
Speaker 1:In terms of a lift, lift, I lift. Well, I don't know if anyone saw yesterday, but I posted a front squat PR slash, not a PR. It was, yeah, 134 kilos, not. I'm not very good at squatting, so some people would be very much, but for me it was hard. Sounds like a lot Relative to you can't be.
Speaker 2:What would you weigh?
Speaker 1:I weigh 80 kilos. Personal question Sorry, okay, yeah, that sounds pretty good. Thanks, but I didn't get deep enough. Did not get deep enough. So for in CrossFit, your hips have to go below your knees and mine were just right on the cusp, right on the cusp, and I put it out to a vote. What did I go below parallel? Does this count? Did I get a PR?
Speaker 2:What was the?
Speaker 1:result the vote was 60 40 in favor of PR. Wow, people who I know are honest, who are not necessarily most honest, but the best judges, the ones who know about these things. They message me privately. Sorry, mate, no, you can't have that one, so I don't think. So a front squat PR is what I would like.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That's sufficient depth.
Speaker 2:I look forward to seeing that mate and I will judge. Don't worry, you don't need to vote, just me. Okay, good, we're now going to talk a little bit about retreats. I guess you could call them the value of doing these and what we've benefited from them. I know you you'll load, say that you've sent me on some, but you've guided me to a couple of very good ones, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean there are a lot of I would like to send on retreats.
Speaker 2:Maybe we could publish the list.
Speaker 1:Check back on our website if you've been sent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, but I suppose more generally, I suppose you're either inclined to do a retreat where you kind of take time for yourself and you meditate and you do yoga or you do some deep psychological personal work, or you're not. Is that fair to say? Because I've got lots of friends who are like very interesting, very kind of seemingly self aware, but they've got absolutely no interest in doing any kind of structured week looking at themselves basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess there's kind of two ways of looking at that, and one is like a lot of people are not sick, they are not pathologically unwell, whereas when I was doing these things I was, I was depressed, I was addicted, I was anxious, I was insomnia, I was suicidal. So for me it was like an obvious need to do those things. Thankfully I haven't been that state for for many years now, but I still continue to do personal development stuff more from a optimization standpoint rather than I'm sick and I need to get well. So I think also, people don't like change. You know, people find ways of being in the world and they work for them and they get through life and they're generally happy. And when you've got something good, you know you've got a good job, good family life, good social life. There's probably no need to really mess things up or potentially jeopardize those things. So I can certainly understand why not everyone is ready for a hugely transformative process or have no need for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny that one of the closest people in my life, when I was going on on this, the only advice was don't come back a knob. Basically, as in you know, they're quite happy with who I am at the moment and therefore any change would presumably be negative. But I mean, everyone I've spoken to who's done the particular retreats I'm thinking of, which has had such a hugely positive and impactful experience. But I just I just find it fascinating because when I started speaking about this in a sort of corporate environment, I mean, the different reactions are really really noticeable. Some people just sort of don't want to know. I can't believe you open that kind of worms of who you are and all this kind of stuff. But then some people kind of come out the woodwork and say, actually I'm really interested in that and I've done this and that I'm quite, I'm quite game for more, and I just find it I suppose it's quite narrow minded of me, but I find it really interesting that you wouldn't be more intrigued to find out more about yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a few good points there and I think the one about your friends saying don't come back a knob. It sounds funny and yeah, I can understand why people would say that. And also that can be the type of thing that an abuser would say in the. I'm sure this friend isn't an abuser, but what you find in a lot of these situations is people who do go into things like the Huffman Park of Love. They they are in abusive relationships, they are unhappy and then they go to do these things and then they come out and they change and they're more, you know, self confident and they don't take so much BS and other people, their family members, who are used to not necessarily abusing them but dominating them and getting what they want out of those things. They don't want people to change.
Speaker 1:And the analogy people often uses lobsters in a net. You know there's a story, the stories like fishermen, when they catch a load of lobsters they don't put lids on the lobster buckets because they know that if one lobster tries to climb out, the others will pull them back in Because once they're all in this bucket they don't want anyone to escape that. And yeah, often, you know, you find people sort of collude together. They're all miserable and they want to stay miserable. And this is kind of what happens with incels, and the boys on the internet have given up on women You'll hear people talk about someone, will be on an incel chat forum and be like oh, there was a girl at Starbucks today and she looked at me and smiled and people will be like you can't do that, don't ever. Don't think about women, though. They're bad, they're bad for you and like there's one person who's just thinking oh, I got a little bit of intention from a lady and that was really nice and exciting. All their friends are like trying to pull them back in.
Speaker 1:No don't trust them. You want to be miserable, like us, and so, yeah, I do. I do think it's important to be aware of other people who try to stomp progress when you come out of these things.
Speaker 2:Well, I do want to talk about two in particular We've both done, one being the Hoffman process, which I believe is a 50 years old at least, start in California and I think he's been going in the UK for about 30 years Nothing to do with Wim Hof, by the way. That's. People often mistake the two. Yeah, let's talk a bit about the Hoffman process. So I would describe it as a deep dive into your childhood patterns of behaviors, and it's a sort of very deliberate journey from A to B to better your understanding and help you to break negative behavioral patterns. Is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's fair. I think you have to say that it's very much about your parents and primary caregivers.
Speaker 1:You know if you've got brothers or step parents or boarding school, boarding school, absolutely yeah, I would say that some you're going to have to face those things and you're going to have realizations that things you thought were normal but potentially not normal and even worse than not normal, and you're going to have to reckon with that and you're going to have to confront that and you will get to get taken through those processes.
Speaker 1:I think, a lot with you know they work a lot with anger in the Hoffman process because certainly in the UK we get socialized out of being angry. But as I say and I've said, I don't say it, but I've heard it and I'm repeating it Anger is a really appropriate emotion at times. You know, at the right time, at the right person, in the right amount anger is really useful and valuable and if it's pressed at least it's all sorts of negative outcomes. And I love how the Hoffman process works with those things. We can't say too much about how they do it because we kind of sign a confidentiality NDA type thing. But I would say it's an active process. You use your body and it's usually transformative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was seriously impactful. I did that one two years ago. He must have done it many years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, about 14 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say that very broad range of ages I was actually one of the youngest when I did it 34. And I think we went right up to 66. Yeah, a real range of people from all over the world. It was absolutely fascinating and I think in those environments you also get a lot of strength from other people. The bravery they show in confronting some of their stuff is kind of empowers you to do the same and takes you further than you probably think you would be able to go. So that was really powerful. And I think the one I've just finished, which again you sent me on path of love, do you want to speak a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just going on, it kind of occurs to me we should explain why people should do this. Obviously, if you're not mentally ill, you know. You know depression, anxiety or ranges of mental illness, these things are amazing for that. But if you're just sort of, you know, healthy, normal, slightly neurotic and maybe just a little bit miserable, maybe don't have some sort of joie de vivre that you would like or vitality, these things are going to help you get that sort of fall in love with life again. You come out and you just the expansiveness, you know, things just are better, everything is better, just nature looks better. You feel happier, you can feel joy, you can feel excitement to degrees that before I had never done.
Speaker 1:And I can remember there was a guy who was like relatively famous, but there's a lot of famous people going these things that you're not allowed to say who they are because of NDA. There was a famous person who said I never knew you could get this high without drugs. And it's true. You get you to these states of euphoria and bliss and gratitude and love just with these exercises that don't involve anything too weird, you know, it's not like you'll have to dance around naked and hike nonstop and things like that.
Speaker 2:There are other courses for that, yeah, there are.
Speaker 1:We can talk more about those ones, because I've done some of those as well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, going to the path of love, I think Interesting what you say about who could consider going on them, because I genuinely signed up for that one without having a clear reason. To be honest, I just thought I want a bit more here. I want to explore this and that.
Speaker 1:We have a list of who should go on it.
Speaker 2:We have. This one is actually yeah, but yeah, the um, but I think that that was kind of the the. The barringer for me was I was thinking, oh, you know why am I actually doing this? You know, I feel I feel fine, like you know, I'm not, I'm not in trouble in any way um, but it's just amazing what comes up, and I think even people who are looking for something in particular, very particular, or to overcome a particular hurdle, would have got way more out of it than they would have possibly imagined. So it's almost impossible to have one takeaway from these things. I think so many different things open up for you, you have so many realizations and it's it's a really, really powerful, impactful thing to do yeah and saying like, oh, who should do this?
Speaker 1:I think it depends who you speak to, because I think generally my, my circle now are an r circle. Generally people are okay, you know, they're quite happy with their lives, they're doing well, but I I think that's that's not necessarily normal. I think most people these days I think it's only the year it's like 40 people have diagnosable clinical levels of anxiety. So for those people or people with depression, people who feel no meaning or purpose in life, this is absolutely the type of process that would be relevant for those type of people, people who just feel like you know what's the point? Life is rubbish, I don't want to be here, I'm miserable, my my life drives me mad. These types of processes will can turn all of that around.
Speaker 2:I think another theme that was very interesting on both of them was that a lot of people might be suffering perhaps with a lowercase s, you know, without really knowing it, as in living kind of slightly out of alignment, or you know doing lots of things in their day to day life because it's the societal norm, without actually giving much consideration to it and it's kind of slowly making them quite sad, really, and and you know, maybe suffering is too, too strong a word, but that certainly it's a good sort of recalibration of you know, aligning yourself to your, to your goals.
Speaker 2:I suppose your your true self. I think that was quite a powerful message, was kind of like you might not be looking for anything in particular, just a sort of factory reset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and it's not just like let's just talk about our problems, let's talk about how bad our childhood is, the certainly the path of love and the hoffman process. There is a big aspect of celebration and play and dance and music and funk on these things, and it's like once you release some of the burdens that you carry you know anger, grief, hatred, whatever it is you are free to experience unbridled joy to levels that I had never experienced until I've done these things Well, I'd like to finish, maybe, this episode with a bs of the week, if I may.
Speaker 1:Do the do yes of the week I'm.
Speaker 2:I want to go into too much detail on this, but it's one for another. Another episode, but I wanted to bring attention to the fact that insurance companies Do not cover and for suicide. So that is, if you are on holiday, on a trip, with someone who takes their own life, you will not be covered to come home as a grieving friend, family or whatever. And I think in 2024 you can make your own mind up about that. But I think the the bit that's quite jarring is how much some of these big companies profess to care about mental health issues and how much they're very glad to sort of post about, you know, mental health awareness and the partnerships with mental health charities, and I just think I am currently challenging the association for british insurers that's the a, b I To change that frankly, because even if you take the very harsh view that suicide is self inflicted, it is no fault of the remaining people who are on holiday and or on a business trip or whatever. And so my challenge is is very much saying let's change the way we think about this.
Speaker 2:Clearly, insured suicide is excluded from Life insurance policies because you don't want to financially incentivize someone to take their own life. However, that does not apply when you are on holiday with someone, and I've read some shocking stories relating to to claims turned down. One company was expecting a father and mother to continue their holiday when their son has taken their own life at home. They should just carry on and not come home in that circumstances. So I think that is more than worthy of bs of the week and I will be accountable in my fight against the a, b, I to change the way we think about travel insurance in that regard. It's 2024. We care about mental health let's level up, please.
Speaker 1:Yes, indeed, absolutely well said, and I think it kind of goes back to that kind of an acrolytic belief that committing suicide is a crime and using the word like committing suicide as if it's a crime, whereas I think people are trying to change that to be like um, I can't remember the word now, but it's like passing suicide or just attempting suicide yeah, like that yeah and yeah, I mean I I don't mind talking about this, but you know I I had two suicide attempts and there was a part of me like god, have I committed a crime?
Speaker 1:am I going to go to jail for being in such despair and such distress and such pain that I'm going to get locked up for that?
Speaker 2:um, but yeah, it is ridiculous that, uh, someone can commit suicide and then the family members don't get money towards, you know, repatriation, towards canceling their holiday, those types of things just seems like it's incredibly callous and and yeah, as I said, I mean you can take the the self-inflicted route if you like, albeit it's it's often a multifaceted um cause of a mental illness, um, if you like, but it's still no fault of the um, of the uh of the remaining passengers and I think it's watering on shameful that they don't put more pressure to change that.
Speaker 2:So I suppose I'm um, yeah, I'm challenging the abi to do better and I will let you know how I get on power to you.
Speaker 1:Come on, let's make some changes. That's what we're here for. Rough, positive impact. Yes, yes, good, good cool.
Speaker 2:Well, always a pleasure to talk to you, rich, and congratulations on the fastest healed hamstring I know I never thought I'd break the record human history. Um, and yeah, we will reconvene when we've got a guest. That doesn't cancel, but bless her. She is unwell, so yes indeed, we won't name her.
Speaker 1:But we won't name her, we'll never say never know, listener, they'll never know um. But yeah, that's what I said. Lesson that we need to record two episodes at least in advance, just in case someone, someone there, isn't able to make it. Lesson learned, yeah fair enough.
Speaker 2:Where can they find us rich?
Speaker 1:oh, podcast places yeah, just a bit ones, all of the good ones spotify, and the bad ones and the rubbish ones, laughing through the pain, navigating. Well, because apparently there is another laughing through the pain on apple podcast, so they only did like three episodes. Yeah, I guess they couldn't laugh through the pain. The pain was too much for them.
Speaker 2:They found it too serious it was too well, this is yeah, it's a heavy topic sometimes and, um, we need to get to 21. Is it to be in the top?
Speaker 1:top like 1% I think yeah, 21% only 99% of podcasts stop after before 20 not exactly before 20, but somewhere somewhere around there one and 20. So, yeah, no, we're going long haul, we're going, we're going to rich challenging joe rogan, aren't we?
Speaker 2:we're getting challenged, accepted? Yeah, absolutely thousands. All right, mate. Well, thanks for listening everyone and, um, yeah, stay well stay well. Follow us on instagram follow us, leave good reviews leave good, leave good.
Speaker 1:Leave good reviews. Definitely, we would love a review. If you write a review review, we will read it out, so we will get named. There you go. Oh yeah, so do that and follow me on instagram at the breath. Geek and andy, you're doing linkedin stuff yeah, I'm really linkedin stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm also toying with the wellness warrior, or wellness wanderer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, warrior, it's got it's.
Speaker 2:I've levelled up, yeah, okay yeah, doing the part of love big time okay yeah, yeah, wellness challenge meet your perical. I actually need to check if these are used, but wellness warrior sounds seriously good. It does um disingenuous a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, disarming, be like he's the wellness warrior I'm really. I thought he'd be bigger all right, mate well see you soon, yeah, thanks everyone cheers.