Exploring Functional Breathing with Ren

Functional Breathwork: The Science Behind Breathing for Health, Performance & Healing with Physiotherapist Ren Jones

Discover why 80% of us breathe dysfunctionally and how functional breathwork is revolutionizing approaches to chronic pain, sleep disorders, athletic performance, and overall health. Join physiotherapist Ren Jones for an eye-opening conversation about this accessible yet powerful wellness practice.

What You'll Experience:

• The shocking truth about how modern lifestyle affects our breathing patterns
• Why functional breathwork differs from relaxation or meditation breathing
• How nasal breathing acts as your body's natural filtration and healing system
• The three core principles: breathing light, slow, and deep (and why "deep" doesn't mean "big")
• Real-world applications from Coldplay's Chris Martin to Wimbledon athletes
• Practical techniques for improving sleep, managing stress, and reducing chronic pain

Episode Highlights:

• How breathing dysfunction connects to posture, chronic pain, and inflammatory conditions
• The BOLT test for measuring your carbon dioxide sensitivity and breathing efficiency
• Why your diaphragm is crucial for both breathing and core stability
• Client success stories: transforming sleep disorders and reducing migraine frequency
• Simple practices you can start immediately to improve your breathing patterns
• The connection between breathing and the vagus nerve for stress management

Timestamps: 

00:00 Introduction - What is functional breathwork? 02:00 Is functional breathwork just sitting and breathing? 03:00 How functional breathwork differs from other approaches 06:00 Ren's physiotherapy background and respiratory training 08:00 Integrating breathwork into personal wellness practice 10:00 Why breathing instruction can feel complicated 12:00 The emphasis on nasal breathing vs mouth breathing 14:00 Conscious breathing practices and mouth taping techniques 16:00 How posture and musculoskeletal issues affect breathing 19:00 Using breathwork in rehabilitation for chronic conditions 21:00 The vagus nerve: fight/flight vs rest/digest responses 23:00 How breathwork affects inflammation and healing 25:00 The three principles: light, slow, and deep breathing explained 28:00 Breathing demonstrations and practical techniques 30:00 Individual differences in breathing instruction and setup 32:00 Starting simple: noticing cold air in, warm air out 34:00 Client success story: transforming chronic sleep disorders 40:00 The diaphragm as both breathing muscle and core component 42:00 Ren's business philosophy and contact information

Perfect for anyone interested in natural pain management, improving sleep quality, optimizing athletic performance, managing stress and anxiety, or understanding how proper breathing supports overall health and healing.

Connect with Ren: 

Website: www.rootsandstars.life 

Facebook: Click Here

Instagram: Click Here

Contact Ren via social media or her website contact form for a discount code for Oxygen Advantage products that could support your breathing: https://www.rootsandstars.life/get-in-touch/

Important Note: If you're pregnant in your first trimester, consult healthcare professionals before beginning new breathing practices.

This episode reveals how something as fundamental as breathing can become a powerful tool for healing and optimization when approached with proper understanding and technique.

Thanks for listening.

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

What if I told you that 80% of us are breathing wrong? That this one thing we do thousands of times a day without thinking could be the key to managing chronic pain, improving athletic performance, and even helping sleep disorders. Welcome back to Exploring Ways To Wellness. I'm Sarah, and today I'm joined by Ren Jones, a physiotherapist who's discovered that functional breath work isn't just about relaxation.

It's a science backed approach that can support healing from the inside out. We'll explore today why mouth breathing at night could be sabotaging your health. How Chris Martin from Coldplay uses these techniques and why your posture right now is probably affecting how [00:01:00] well your lungs work.

You'll discover the three pillars of functional breathing, light, slow, and deep, and why Take a deep breath might not mean what you think it means Whether you are dealing with stress, chronic pain, or just want to optimise how your body functions. This conversation will give you practical tools that you can start immediately, because sometimes the most powerful medicine is already within us.

Sarah: So welcome back to Exploring Ways to Wellness. Today I have Ren Jones with me to talk about functional breathwork. So welcome Ren. 

Ren: Hello. Nice to be here. 

Sarah: I'm really looking forward to our chat today, Ren, because I think this is a really interesting and important . It's a, an accessible. Practice, but it's something that can have really deep lasting effects, and really benefit people's wellbeing.

So we are talking about [00:02:00] functional breathwork. Would you mind just letting me know is it just sitting and breathing? 

Ren: Well, it, it can be. It can be, but it's, it's really getting to the nuts and bolts of breathing. A lot of people have heard about breathwork over the last few years.

Probably most recently, people have been introduced to breathwork by looking at people like Wim Hof and using that with cold water therapy. There's a lot of breathwork workshops and experiences happening at the moment, and they're brilliant. They're all a little bit different. A lot of them will focus on breathwork practices from different cultures across the world and lead people through what we would call a heightened response.

So getting people to take lots of specific breaths that really activate their nervous system and then bring them back down afterwards to get that emotional relief 

Sarah: [00:03:00] this is what I find really interesting because I do EFT and in order to get people into, um, a relaxed state

We do a little bit of breathwork, but this is something very different to that, isn't it? It's not just about relaxation. 

Ren: No, no. So 

functional breathwork, the functional breathwork that I'm trained in. So I did my training with a, an organization called Oxygen Advantage, and we tend to use downregulation for a lot of our practices.

So we don't necessarily take people through a lot of stressful breathing practices to start off with, what we are about is understanding the mechanics and the science and chemical and psychological effects of breathing.

So it's very much in the moment. It can be part of a rehabilitation program. It's understanding how we can use our breath and use our bodies to decrease our [00:04:00] sensitivity to carbon dioxide. Okay. If we have less sensitivity to carbon dioxide, we're able to get oxygen around our bodies a little bit more efficiently.

And we can also help with the production of another gas called nitric oxide. But basically what we do is specific breathing techniques that help people in all walks of life. Whether it be people suffering from specific illnesses like allergies hay fever, it's helped me with my hay fever and migraine from asthmatic symptoms, a lot of breathing conditions chronic pain a lot of inflammatory conditions, it can help.

And then we go right through the age age span. So from children. A lot of children have what we might refer to as dysfunctional breathing. It's a very early [00:05:00] thing that people develop because of the way we live our lives now and right through to people in older age. We do err on the side of caution for people that are pregnant in their first trimester.

So anything that you hear today on this podcast, if you are in your first trimester of pregnancy, t ake it with some advice and maybe introduce it later on. At the other end of this, we've got people that are trying to improve their athletic performance, right? And we can essentially simulate high altitude training at sea level. Amazing. And take people through specific breathwork practices, lots of sports people that you've seen so far this year, especially over Wimbledon.

Have been using functional breathwork to improve their sports performance and also people in industries like musicians. So Chris Martin uses functional breathwork from Coldplay. 

Sarah: Wow. So that's such a [00:06:00] huge breadth there of, of different ways that it can help you. Is it because of your physio background that you came across it?

Or how did you start? 

Ren: What a lot of people don't know is that physio essentially is made of three pillars. We have musculoskeletal, which a lot of people are familiar with. So we've got a bad back or we've got sports injury. We'll see a physiotherapist for that. We also are trained in respiratory and cardio issues.

So we spend a lot of time helping people postoperatively, getting their breathing back again. We work on ITU, we help people use certain breathing machines. Some people might heard of CPAP machines and that helps people breathe. And neurological physiotherapy. So helping people that have had brain injuries and strokes, for example.

So the respiratory side of things for me has been evolving all of that time that I've been [00:07:00] practicing physiotherapy. And a lot of the physio that I used to do was with mid age and older people and frail people. And sometimes if they couldn't manage much at all, what I used to really find effective.

I was sitting with them and doing some breathing exercises and using that as a basis for rehabilitation. We'd move on to stretching and then gentle movement, but breathing was always part of it. So when I decided to leave the NHS last year and set up my own business, I was looking for what I enjoy about working with people and it's understanding what's at our core, trying to keep things simple, using what we've got in the here and now, integrating that with nature and integrating that with evidence led understanding of how we use our breath and that's when I came across the Oxygen Advantage, [00:08:00] um, training.

Perfect sense to me is a fantastic addition to movement and that we have this idea that, movement follows breath. And that's what I found in my practice. 

Sarah: Fantastic. And have you found that it's been something you've woven into your own wellness practices? 

Ren: Oh, definitely. With a complete understanding of it as well.

So lots of people come to breathwork through meditation or yoga or Pilates or some sort of activity, and that's been my understanding as well. And breathwork in those contexts is absolutely, you know, don't, don't worry about changing it. It's absolutely fine and it's it this, it's a good place to have some breathwork activity happening.

If you come to me and we look at how you are breathing and understanding how we can improve it, we might change some of the way that [00:09:00] you practice your breathing within the context of, for instance, rehabilitation. That's not to say that what you are doing in your yoga practice is wrong, it's just different in a different context.

So that's how I've been using it in my own practice originally. And then as I've understood more about the mechanics and the emergence of breathing as we know it now, I've been slowly changing my own personal practice to increase the strength of my diaphragm, for instance, and think about how my ribs and my shoulders are working and how I can integrate that into my everyday activities, how I can use it to manage my stress and how I can use it to even manage things like hay fever.

Sarah: It can sound quite complicated when somebody's talking you through when to breathe in. When to breathe out. Yeah. And it can actually cause a bit of anxiety when you're doing yoga or Pilates or something, and [00:10:00] I know doing some pelvic floor, uh, program I did. A couple of years ago and I was like, oh, hang on, I'm, I'm breathing in and out at the wrong time.

And it all just sort of becomes this complicated thing that actually we are doing 

on a daily basis. 

Ren: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's interesting because a again, a lot of what I do is, is evidence and science backed. A lot of the research that's, uh, come out over the last 20 years demonstrates that a good 80% of us have what we refer to as dysfunctional breathing.

80%, 80%, we we're just not using our breathing, um, apparatus properly. We're not expanding our lungs properly. We've got stiff ribs, we've got stiff backs. We're hyperventilating. We're breathing up into the shoulders.

Sarah: It's interesting, isn't it?

What, I wonder what has led us to this point where we're we are not able to do something that should be [00:11:00] natural. 

Ren: Yeah, I mean, that's a very good question. And you know, we even us just sitting here now recording this podcast you know, lots of people spend a lot of time. Sitting down, our activity levels have changed completely.

Even things going back to, um, how we eat and what we eat. A lot of the food over the years has become very soft compared to what we might have been used to. That changes our palette. There's lots of different things going on in the environment that have an effect on how we breathe. Lots of allergens, lots of toxic chemicals, um, going around.

It's our western lifestyle that has impacted the change in our breathing pattern. 

Sarah: Yeah. And I, I wonder you mentioned as well, with hay fever, I wonder if that's because of a change in, you know, the, the crops that we're growing or the types of plants that we're choosing to surround ourselves with.

Ren: It could be one of, one of the [00:12:00] key things that I, that I haven't mentioned about the breathing practice that I use is the emphasis is very much on nasal breathing. Okay? So a lot of people will mouth breathe or use their mouths more often than they realise when they're breathing. This is especially an issue at night.

So if you are waking up with a dry mouth. Or you're coughing or your nose is irritated, you've probably been mouth breathing throughout the night, and that means that your nose hasn't had the opportunity to do what our nose is supposed to do. Our noses are built to help us breathe and the reason it's so important that we use our nose to breathe is so that we can make use of what it does, so it helps to clean the air that goes into our bodies.

It helps to manage any bacteria that is foreign particles that are going into our noses. The membranes in our [00:13:00] nose help to get rid of a lot of the bacteria that is going into our bodies, right, so that we don't inhale it. When we're affected by hay fever and other allergens it's because our noses are not as effective as they should be.

Um, because we've become so used to breathing through the mouth. So if we can encourage our mouth to stay shut more often and we only really need to open our mouth, the very maximum level of exercise. Or if we're talking obviously, but if we're just breathing, if we're just walking along into town or around the park, most people should be able to do that very easily without opening their mouth.

And I would ask people to see what's going on, the amount of people that, um, are sighing constantly or have their mouth open a little bit. We're just not used to breathing through our nose as, um, as regularly as we should do. 

Sarah: Interesting. And I'm now suddenly extremely conscious of how [00:14:00] is open. But so is there something that we could do to change that?

Is that a series of exercises that you would need to, or is it that consciousness around and how am I breathing? 

Ren: Yeah, it, it's both of those things really. So, um, you people might have become aware of c ertain people on, on social media, for example, or on, on sports activities, wearing mouth tape. It's a growing practice.

People will tape their mouth shut at night to encourage basically nose breathing so they're not breathing through their mouth at night. I, I would, I would recommend that with caution. There are some people, some conditions where being able to puff gently through the mouth at night is helpful and actually not being able to do that can cause harm.

So we would recommend taping around the mouth [00:15:00] and there are specific tapes you can buy to help you with that rather than taking the mouth completely. Especially with, with children as well. So yeah, you can tape around the mouth. It gives feedback to the muscles around there to help try and keep the mouth shut at night so that you're more likely to breathe through the nose.

And then in terms of actual conscious practice, it's literally that you can think, right, I'm going to go for a walk and I'm not going to open my mouth when I'm breathing we do have a lot more specific exercises that we can take people through, and we would normally start by assessing somebody completely we would measure their sensitivity to carbon dioxide by a simple test we would also look at the biomechanics of people breathing. So what people may not know is that the lungs, the top of your lungs actually sit just here and they fill up the whole almost the whole of your rib [00:16:00] cage. So 

Sarah: for people that are listening rather than watching, that's right up near your shoulders.

Ren: Right up near your shoulders. So if you've got problems with your shoulders or problems with your neck. Everything is connected through the muscles and the facia of the body inside. So if you've got problems around here you are more likely to be protective of that area. You are more likely to squash down the space that the lungs have got inside.

If you are then sitting at your desk trying to do your work, you might be hunched over, you might be constricting that whole ribcage that your lungs are trying to expand in and out of. Your diaphragm won't be able to expand properly because you've got a hunched position. You've got a constricted position. So anybody that's got any sort of musculoskeletal problem around their shoulders, their rib cage, their neck, their arms, even down into their hips and their pelvis you will be affecting the [00:17:00] mechanics of your breathing.

So there's lots of things you might try but aren't working. Because there's something that else that needs addressing. So really interesting big picture. And it's very difficult to say if you do this breathing exercise, that's going to work for you, because it's not as simple as that. Yeah. So we consider the biomechanics of what's going on the chemical side of things in terms of your carbon dioxide, your oxygen, and how effectively you might be able to produce nitric oxide.

And also looking at the biopsychosocial aspects of things. So how comfortable are you with what you are doing with the breathwork practice and what else is going on in your life? What are the things you have to contend with if you are specifically stressed about something or finding something particularly traumatic in life at that particular moment that will affect your breathing?[00:18:00] 

We can explore all of that on an individual basis. 

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. We can take some really practical, useful learnings and tips from any of these t echniques that we've been talking about in the podcast, but often to take it to the next level, it's worth getting somebody such as yourself to sort of assess the whole picture because obviously you can't necessarily see that in yourself.

So, you know already from this, I'm taking the. Needing to be a bit more conscious. I, I'm probably am a bit of a mouth breather at night. I definitely relate to some of the things you talked about there. And now I'm sitting here hunched over, you know, bad posture and I'm thinking, right, okay. Posture.

Yeah. Breathing through my nose, you know, immediately. Those are two practical things I can take away. But in terms of, of properly understanding what's going on with your body and properly taking the maximum from a practice such as this, it sounds like it's worth getting [00:19:00] some advice. 

Ren: It is ab absolutely.

I have a couple of clients and seeing at the moment. So both have got some chronic health conditions. One of them has got, um, a systemic inflammatory condition and another one has got essentially a frozen shoulder.

But with both of those people I'm actually starting with some breathwork practice before we can get to a point where we can work a little bit deeper with them, with the specific nooks and bolts of rehabilitation. So breathwork, practice for me as a physio with the people that I see that do often have chronic pain and chronic health conditions.

breathwork for me is a really accessible starting point. Because again, if you are in pain you will hold a protective, constricted posture. So to then try and have somebody come in and say, right, let's do this exercise where we lift up here and, and walk over here and stretch [00:20:00] here. That can be quite unnerving.

And because although you are in a constricted posture, it feels safe. Yes. To start rehab, we need to bring people into a safe space where they feel comfortable and trust their own bodies, but also trust the person they're working with. So one of the first things that I might do if somebody does have chronic pain is work with their breathing.

And that has two things. It can actually, obviously bring about some sort of relaxation, but specifically what I'm thinking about is how the breathing practice then impacts the vagus nerve. And with the vagus nerve, again, a lot more people are becoming aware of what that is. Essentially has two strands to it.

It has the fight or flight, which we're all familiar which heightens anxiety and feeling nervous and cortisol levels will be high. And then the para [00:21:00] sympathetic side to it, which we refer to as the rest and digest part. So the breathing practices that I will work with somebody in, in a, in a rehabilitation context.

Be specifically trying to think about the effects of the vagus nerve and bringing themselves, bringing them into a rest and digest relaxed position. Before we start with anything else, 

 well, it sounds like it has a, a big impact, for of you to be able to do further things such as physiotherapy 

absolutely.

I just find it fascinating because it's, it's just such a fundamental part of who we are as human beings and what our bodies are capable of. A lot of, uh, medical issues now, um, again, this is emerging work, but a lot of it's put down to inflammatory responses and brought about, again, by Western lifestyling.

Sometimes trying to make things better, we've made things worse. And [00:22:00] that's not to say that that's the full cause I'm very, very aware of that, but that is a, a contributing factor. The breathwork practice that I do delivers oxygen more effectively, more efficiently to the tissues in the body.

We've got better delivery and more consistent delivery of oxygen to the body. We have a much better chance of affecting the inflammatory responses throughout the whole body. And so breathwork by using what we know about oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitric oxide can influence the inflammatory response in our bodies and bring about

improvements of symptoms to people. 

Sarah: Yeah, when you put it that way, it makes complete sense and it's, um, a shame we aren't making more of this. I mean, this, it [00:23:00] feels like it should be initial thing to look at. Yeah. Before addressing physical issues.

And, and 

On the, on the psychological 

level. 

Ren: I think, and I think to be fair, I think it is emerging and, and becoming a lot more, um, known that, you know, there's, there's definitely some people in the medical field that are using this as their practice.

Some GPs, um, and some consultants and researchers that I'm aware of that are integrating this into their practice. It's still fairly early days, but I, I bet you'll be sat here in 18 months and we'll all be a lot more familiar with it and it'll become a lot more mainstream. Yeah, I think it's really starting to people are really starting to recognise that actually we've got this really simple mechanism in front of us and why aren't we using it more often? 

Sarah: Yeah. It's hiding in plain sight, isn't it? 

Ren: Absolutely. 

Absolutely. It's what, what draw what's [00:24:00] basically what drew me to physiotherapy in the first place. I was just absolutely fascinated by what the human body can do to heal itself without anything else interfering.

And it's just being under being able to understand. How the body works, how it reacts to an external environment and how it reacts to an internal responses that we can we can help produce basically. Yeah. With really no equipment. I mean, there are, there's lots of equipment we can use obviously to enhance those effects, but we can basically do so much.

Just by the knowledge of the human body and get it to heal itself if we understand what's going on. 

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I touched on there about the psychological benefit as well. I was, it just made me think about the fact in our language or, you know, if you're nervous about doing something, someone [00:25:00] will say, you know, take a deep breath.

Ren: Take a deep breath, I that and that in itself. I mean, there's so much attached to. We say take a deep breath. So again, there's three, three components to the breathwork that I do. We think about breathing, breathing light. So we're actually taking less air than we think we need to. Okay. So, we go through a practice called air hunger.

So in the same way that you might be hungry for food, we will bring people to a place where they can experience what air hunger is like. So you want to take a deep, deep breath and take a bigger breath and take more air. You don't actually need as much as we do on a day to day basis. So breathing light is about creating an environment of their hunger.

And I would need to do that on an individual basis because as yes, of course. Yeah. We [00:26:00] need to be, be mindful of that. So we can create air hunger. So breathing light, breathing slow. And most of us breathe too fast, so we breathe. Take too many breaths throughout a minute. Some people might be taking 12 to 20 breaths a minute.

Ideally would aim for six breaths per minute and six breaths per minute is a fascinating number because. It's been shown that a lot of meditative practices that have been around for thousands of years and some chanting and some prayer, um, practices, they bring about a state of bringing the practitioner to six breaths a minute of breathing.

So it's, it's something we've instinctively known for a long, long time. 

Sarah: That is 

interesting actually. I have noticed when I've meditated in the past how it slows your breathing. 

Oh, it does. But I 

wonder where this, [00:27:00] the six has come from.

That's it. That's really interesting. 

Ren: It's fascinating. I don't think it was specifically thought of thousands of years of, we got to get to six breaths minute, I think it was that instinctively people knew that. Doing these practices, it brought about a sense of really restful meditative states that instinctively connected with the world, with nature and got us into that rhythm of our environment.

That is a lot slower to what we used to now. Yeah. And so breathe deep. A lot of people might confuse breathing deeply with breathing big. So sometimes we'll say, take a deep breath and we go, oh, 

Sarah: yes, that's what I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. 

Ren: So it's a great start. But what we're thinking about with breathing deeply in functional breathwork [00:28:00] is breathing slowly through the nose and thinking about expanding gently through the whole of the lung.

One of the ways you can practice that is maybe having your hand in between your navel and the end of your rib and taking a slow breath in. So I'm gonna demonstrate that now you, you are wanting that breath inwards to feel really, really gentle and really slow.

That was a deep breath, but it wasn't necessarily a big breath. Yes, and it was deep. I could feel my hand moving slightly, not over my tummy, but just at the bottom of my rib cage so that I can feel my ribs. Expanding outwards to the side and the [00:29:00] front and the back.

But the movement you're wanting is for your rib cages to move slightly outwards and smooth 

movement.

Sarah: many years ago I did a breathwork class they were saying about belly breaths or filling the belly and then the chest.

And I'm somebody who gets very caught up on the, yeah. On the detail rather than appreciating the, the practice itself. Yeah. But part of what I found interesting about that was this moving my consciousness Yeah. To how I'm breathing and how I'm filling my lungs. Yeah. Is that also part of it then the, the sort of directing your attention to it 

Ren: Absolutely. So what we've found as well with this particular way of, of breathwork words absolutely matter and different people will interpret those instructions differently, which is why it's so important I think. To work with somebody [00:30:00] in person that understands what's going on, that can see why it is or isn't working for you.

So like, like you say, some people will think belly breathing, what? Well, I'm breathing into my belly, but, but you, you could be, but you're probably still not using your lungs effectively. Somebody else would interpret that and get it absolutely spot on. So it, it really does make a difference. And also coming back to how we're all built functionally, so different people will be able to adopt those positions more comfortably than others.

Yeah. So it's about understanding what's going to enhance your breathing in that particular context. Is it that you need a cushion under your knees, do you need to have a cushion under your small of your back? Do you need to have your arms out at the side or do you need to have them slightly resting on your belly for example.

It will affect so many people in such a different way. And then the meditative side of things, not [00:31:00] everybody understands or can get to grips with meditation. So especially thinking of mindfulness, I know a lot of people but for a start off can't imagine things very clearly. So we might be taking somebody on a visual meditation and they can't see, they can't visual describe.

And they will feel like, oh, failed at meditation. Can't do that. Even where do I go from here? Breathing. So one of the, again, we start off at such a basic level because it's so important. I will often just ask people to sit there for half an hour, noticing the cold air going in through the nostrils, noticing the warm air coming out through the nostrils.

And that's all that needs to happen is notice the cold air going in, notice the warm air coming about, and just by doing that, people straight away have got a really tangible thing that's happening [00:32:00] for them. It doesn't matter what else is going on at that moment, it's just about getting into a different state and noticing something different about your own breath.

And then. We can start thinking about, okay, think you can just make that air that's going in a little bit less. We can just slow down the speed at which it's entering your nose, and then we can start building on it like that. 

Sarah: And I guess to some extent, some of that is as you are doing this practice,Naturally your body will be slowing down it's breathing. So actually you're not forcing it. Because that's another thing I've found is where you're doing a group session or where you're doing something maybe online and it's not personalised. Yeah. You can feel this sort of pressure, you, you're a bit outta sync with other people, or you're trying to breathe slowly. And actually then you're having to catch up so [00:33:00] I love that, that you can obviously you've got that one-to-one, which is the sort of ideal, but also by starting off so slowly, your body is naturally having a response that will lead you onto the next level.

And partially you, you are wanting people to be conscious of that response, but you can also give that suggestion that means that the body can relax into the next stage of the process. 

Ren: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Yeah. And e even if I'm doing group work I won't not have more than eight to 10 people. Yeah. It's, it's so important to start with the basics because we've got a lot of things to unlearn and this, it's not just about learning a new way of breathing, it's about unlearning what we think we know about breathing. 

Sarah: Wow. We started with this with, oh, it's so simple.

You're just breath in and out. Yeah. Actually I can see where all the study [00:34:00] must have come in and, um, and how much there is really to, to unpick with this. And it looks. Like it's been ideal, the fact you have that physio background, that means that you can really understand what's happening with the body.

Definitely. As well as appreciating what you've seen from a psychological sense of how people have on both, both sides they b enefit. Have you got any particular examples that stick out from your personal experience with breathwork and how it's benefit you? 

Ren: I guess, um, that there's one gentleman I was working with who, who just was not sleeping, uh, and hadn't done for years.

And tiredness was his default. Basically, he just accepted that he was always going to be tired. He didn't snore specifically, but, uh, so snoring is another giveaway. If, if you've got a partner that snores, you know, they're not breathing very [00:35:00] well. And sometimes people can actually stop breathing during the night.

So some people suffer with what we call sleep apnea. And so that's when the, sometimes it can be as simple as the mechanics of lying on your back and the jaw falling back and the, the tongue struck in the airway. And just not being able to regulate the breathing properly . So that there's different forms of what goes on at night that this gentleman was having what we think might have been some episodes of sleep apnea and also snoring and just in a vicious cycle of being tired in the day, not eating properly, getting quite stressed quite quickly, going to bed at night, not sleeping at night, and that the cycle would just keep on happening.

And just by addressing some. Simple. I would say lifestyle changes. One of those was breathing. And this is the other thing, that we [00:36:00] can't just focus on one thing and think that's gonna be the be all and end all functional breathwork is very much that it's functional. Uh, it's part of what we do in our day to day lives.

If you are to functional breathwork and think it's gonna make everything perfect without changing anything else in the same way that you can't change your diet without also addressing maybe some lifestyle changes. It's part of what we do. So we, we did have a look at some of the foods that he was eating.

We know now as well, and I think you've got a food background as well. So we know that some of the foods we eat cause inflammatory responses in the same way that some of our breathing practices are causing inflammatory responses. So there were some changes to his diet. There was some changes to his breathing was spent.

Ideally, we ask people to practice breathwork for an hour [00:37:00] minimum a day, and that sounds like a lot. We break that down into 10 minute chunks, right? So if you do 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes mid-morning, et cetera. And that was very much a case of taking this person through breathing light, understanding how their breath worked, understanding what their responses were to when they were being a little bit more active with their breathing.

A lot of the work we did with this gentleman was actually outside, so they spent a lot of time outside. So we thought, right, let's go outside and work outside. Practices such as practicing your deep breathing when you are walking sounds simple, but to do a proper deep breath, we demonstrated earlier.

So it's a slow, long, deep breath. Expand your lungs. Doing that as you are walking can be quite a challenge. [00:38:00] And I would probably suggest that people go out and have a go at that. You might need to change the speed at which you are walking to get the coordination right. But it's, it's a good one to start with.

Um, so back to this gentleman we worked on on. How he was breathing when he was walking, and that's all we needed to do. And bit by bit, we were talking three or four months to get some good breathing practices in. His sleep improved, his stress levels improved. We measure equal sensitivity to carbon dioxide by using something called a BOLT test that's, um, body oxygen level test.

And. Ideally we'd take somebody. Um, so I think he started off at, I think it was 17 or 18, and we got his ALT score to improve to, I think it was about [00:39:00] 26 that we got it to . But he's still working on that. That, that will probably go up to hopefully around 30 ish and I can give some information for people to measure their own BOLT score.

Sarah: Fantastic. 

Yeah. I mean, have you got a blog post or something we can direct people to? 

Ren: I have, 

yeah. I, I can, I can put a link in, um, in the show notes if that's, uh, okay with you. 

Sarah: Fantastic. Yeah. I mean, your example just there, I mean, that's truly life changing for the gentleman you're talking about.

Ren: It honestly is uh, there's another lady that I worked with suffered with, uh, migraines. The migraines haven't completely gone. But they have reduced in intensity and and frequency. And these people that I've, I've set them off on the right track and over time, because it will take time.

This is going to take months. This isn't a quick fix. You're not going to get a quick fix with some longstanding health problems. You'll get quick [00:40:00] changes. Because it does change quite quickly in terms of your body's response to your breathing in terms of how it affects longstanding systemic health problems.

It will change them, but it won't be quick. So people are I'll prepare people for that. Yeah. But if it's, if it's gonna improve your life, um, it's so worth it. And it's so simple still. 

Sarah: Yeah, it's so accessible, isn't it? If you know the right techniques and you Oh, definitely spend the time just dedicated to getting it right then.

And I guess it's almost like a muscle, isn't it?

Ren: It's a muscle practice in a way. So a, a lot of what we do is thinking about the, how the diaphragm works and the diaphragm is a muscle so that the diaphragm for people that aren't sure it sits.

Sort of at the bottom of your rib cage and it separates your, your lungs and your ribs from the rest of your body. [00:41:00] And it's the way the diaphragm moves in relation to all of the other structures around it that enable you to have efficient breathing or not. So most people's diaphragms aren't working as efficiently as they could be.

And so some of the practices that we go through with people will actually strengthen the diaphragm. The diaphragm is also part of our core. So when we are thinking about pelvic floor exercises, for instance, we need to consider what's happening with the diaphragm. And that's again why breathing and breathwork is so important to just about everything we are trying to improve or cure.

So you, if you are doing pelvic floor exercises without addressing your breathing, they're not gonna be as effective. The diaphragm is part of your core body, and if you are going to improve your pelvic floor, [00:42:00] you're gonna be working on your diaphragm as well. You need to working on your diaphragm .

Sarah: Ren, I could talk to you all day about this. It's absolutely fascinating. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will want to have more information about this fascinating area. Um, I know for example, you've got some things coming up. For both athletes and to aid people going through, um, menopausal symptoms.

Yeah. What's the best way for people to get hold of you? 

Ren: So, um, I've got a website, um, my business name is Roots and Stars because for me, everything is rooted in the, in the fundamental basics of, of who we are, and it connects what we are and who we are and what we do t o nature.

It's a huge part. It's, I probably haven't included that as much really because we focusing on the breathing, but understanding nature and how we interact with our environment is a huge part of my philosophy and understanding of how we as humans [00:43:00] interact with the world. So my business name is Roots and Stars.

That's www.rootsandstars.life I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. 

Sarah: Fantastic. I will include all of those links in the show notes to make it super easy for people to follow Ren and find out about any courses and things coming up. Sounds like you've got some fantastic blog posts on your website as well.

Thank you so much for today, Ren. 

Ren: Thank you Sarah. 

This conversation with Ren has completely transformed how I think about breathing. That statistic that 80% of us have dysfunctional breathing patterns. We are missing out on this incredible built-in healing system we carry everywhere.

I loved learning about the three principles of breathing light, slow and deep, that we actually [00:44:00] need less air than we think. Six breaths per minute, has been instinctively known by meditation practices for thousands of years, and that deep doesn't mean big, genuinely practical insights I can use right now.

The client stories were incredible. That gentleman who hadn't slept in years transformed through breathing practices. The connection between posture, pain, stress, and breathing, it's all interconnected and the nasal breathing revelation. If you are waking up with a dry mouth, you've probably been mouth breathing at night and missing out on your noses incredible filtration system. Practical takeaways, well start noticing how you breathe. Try walking without opening your mouth. Check your posture and remember, this work takes time, months for significant changes in long standing issues. Though you might feel [00:45:00] immediate improvements. Important note, as Ren mentioned, if you're pregnant in your first trimester, take extra care and seek professional advice before starting new breathing practices.

You can find Ren at Roots and Stars and I have all the links with her blog posts, courses, and social media i n the show notes. Here's my challenge this week. Pay attention to breathing. Notice when your mouth is open, check your posture and try a gentle hands-on ribs breathing that Ren demonstrated.

Sometimes the most profound healing comes from simply remembering how to use what we already have. Thank you for joining me today. And remember, there's many paths to wellness and sometimes the most powerful one is right under our nose. 

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