The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
From Burnout to Balance: Your Journey to Sustainable Energy with Rich Ellis
What happens when your energy plummets to a mere 4 out of 10?
Rich Ellis, "The Energy Coach," faced this exact challenge during an 18-month energy crisis that disrupted his life and relationships.
In this latest episode, Rich opens up about the unexpected factors that led to his burnout and the pivotal moments that sparked his journey back to vitality. We delve into the science of energy management, uncovering simple yet powerful techniques that can transform your daily life.
Curious about the strategies that helped Rich reclaim his energy and passion? Tune into for an enlightening conversation that might just hold the keys to revitalizing your own life.
Links to Rich Ellis
For me, energy was a real challenge. A few years ago I actually went through a self-induced energy trough. I've been pushing myself too hard too long and not giving my body enough time to recover from the things that I was doing. I didn't do the things that I now tell everybody they need to do Recovering the adrenal glands, the journey back from that.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Super Soul Model Series. This week's guest is Rich Ellis. Rich is widely known as the energy coach, who is a leading expert in energy optimization, energy performance and, of course, well-being. With nearly two decades of experience, rich has helped thousands of people and business owners unlock their full potential by making small, sustainable habits create big results. He's here to share his wisdom on avoiding burnout, building high-energy cultures and how tiny daily habits can lead to massive transformation. Welcome to the super soul Model, rich Ellis.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Thank you, James. Very, very good to be here and great to connect. Thank you.
Speaker 2:It's a joy to have you so Rich. You built a reputation as the energy coach and so what's inspired you to focus on energy work and you know how's that affected your personal journey, because you know this is massive about your approach of how you've been helping people.
Speaker 1:you know what's your background on that yeah, I think I think the reason that that sort of stuck and has remained so is that for me, energy was a real challenge. A few years ago, I actually went through a self-induced energy trough and I just realized that it was the things I was doing that had put me in that place, and I realized that I needed to find a pathway out of that, and that pathway involved a whole bunch of self-discovery and research and understanding how the body worked better, and so that took me down that path of….
Speaker 2:What part of the body was not working for you? Because you know audience members are chilling and they're thinking God, you know, I've had that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so specifically the HPA axis. So that's a technical term which I don't like to use, jargon. But you know, when you start off the explanation you need to, I think, and then you can simplify that into understanding that our adrenal glands that sit on our kidneys are responsible for a lot of. They do a lot of work and their job is to fire the right hormone levels into our bodies to create energy for us. But the messages come from the brain.
Speaker 1:So the hypothalamus is the, is the master clock. It tells it sort of it's on duty, making sure it's aware of what's going on. It then communicates to the pituitary gland and the pituitary gland then talks to the adrenal gland. So there's this chain of of communication through from here to to the adrenals and essentially I'd been pushing myself too hard, too long and not giving my, my body enough time to recover from the things that I was doing. It was a combination of of of work and a combination of of training for events. Um, I've always been into, into exercise, and that that, that enthusiasm was, was too much.
Speaker 1:I, I, I didn't realize where the off button was and, um, so you're an overachiever well, you could say that, you could say that, but um, it was, it was I, I just think and the way I describe it.
Speaker 1:I was my own worst coach. Yeah, I, uh, I. I didn't do the things that I now tell everybody they need to do and I suppose the journey back from that recovering the adrenal glands and and to explain a little bit further about how that works when our cortisol levels are are higher because of the stress we put our bodies under, there's a feedback loop in our, in our system that says oh, those those like levels are sitting quite, we don't need to manufacture as much. So the brain then down-regulates the manufacturer of that cortisol, and so what ends up happening is, once you've got to a point where your cortisol is high, it then starts to drop off, but the manufacturing facility has been down-regulated.
Speaker 1:So you then get to a point where you don't have any energy and you sort of drag yourself out of bed in the morning, you drag yourself through your day, and then you get to the end of the day exhausted and start the process all over again. And so I wanted to work out how on earth I'd got to this place, but also how I could get myself back out of this place, and so I ended up doing things like yoga, more restorative activities that pushed me into a parasympathetic state rather than a sympathetic state. So that's the two sides of the autonomic nervous system and so yeah, and so the energy coach just stuck because I had um, I had been in this place where I had none, got back to a place where I had had a healthy, more, more balanced hormonal profile can I just interject there?
Speaker 2:this is quite an important thing because I I believe that lots of people find themselves in in these types of uh situations but aren't fully uh conscious that that this is how they're feeling. Well, they, they know they're not feeling great, but at the same time they're like I don't know what, the symptoms of what's going on. And you've been able to quite understand, like the science and some of the symptoms here. So, out of 10, if 10 is like high energy, where were you, were you like at one or two question?
Speaker 1:yeah, question uh, if 10 is bursting at the seams, I was probably about a four right, so I could man, I could operate, but I wasn't operating with enthusiasm and I wasn't operating with the joie de vivre that you know I should have in a role where energy is is a really important component and it's a. It's a tool for enthusiasm and passing on you know the, the things that that people want, and it is a. It is a currency, really. It's a currency of health, and when that energy isn't there, then you feel like your wallet's empty and you haven't got. You're not really sure where to turn.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you're right, people do experience it and people do not necessarily know what it is, why it is how it is, and it can affect their brain as well. So it's not just a physical thing, it can be a mental thing as well. So, yeah, so my mission is to empower people with this knowledge so that they can tap into all of that learning that I had to go through and look after, protect their energy so that they never gets to a four. They're always sitting at an eight or a nine or a seven or an eight or you know, it's always going to fluctuate, but but pushing yourself to a point where you get down to a four.
Speaker 2:Something's gone wrong so a question like I guess one of the first things that that help us restore is sleep. May I just ask you know some of these challenges that you were having, because you know I'm fully aware the audience could also be thinking oh yeah, how's this going for me, how was?
Speaker 1:your sleep during this period? Yeah, yeah, really good question. My sleep was okay. I certainly wouldn't say it was poor, but I think what I didn't realize, what I didn't know, what I didn't know, and so I wasn't as aware of the importance of sleep and the components of getting good sleep as I am now. And one of the things that I did was I bought myself an aura ring, and the aura ring gives me a whole bunch of data that I never had previously.
Speaker 1:It's a useful wearable and having got those insights insights I realized that I just I just wasn't sleeping enough. So I was going to bed half past 10 11 o'clock, but I was getting up at 5, 5, 30, and that's just not a big enough sleep window, so I wasn't giving my body enough time to restore itself and get back to 100 for the next day, so I was always starting on the back foot, and so, you know, it was about understanding that and realizing that I just needed to make a few changes and, as a result of that, that did make an enormous difference. So, yeah, the sleep wasn't as good as it could have been and I was just, you know, just not regarding giving it the respect it deserved. I was just you know, just not regarding giving it the respect it deserved.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the question really now sort of is is how long did this period of you know operating at energy levels of four and perhaps below on some days? How long were you living in that period? Because you know some people find themselves in that.
Speaker 1:How long was that for you? I would say that was a good year or so, before it was distinctly different, um, and that four was sort of you know a thing of the past.
Speaker 2:So yeah, a good 12 months, maybe even 18, before I was in a place where I felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do without thinking twice about it yeah, and you know, these are the kind of, again, some of the symptoms that people you know like write in and and speak about, because energy obviously is a currency, and I love the way you brought that up. But how are the other areas of your life flowing? Or should I, yeah, or not flowing during that period of time? Because you know the, the red flags are up there and you're thinking, oh, what's going on? Yeah, so can you just give me just a general? How did the? What was the rest of your life? How was that, how? How was how was that going at that time?
Speaker 1:yeah, really good question it was. It was quite challenging at that time because there wasn't enough energy there. I'd burnt the candle at both ends. I didn't have the reserves and the calmness required to have good conversations, to treat my family with respect, to not lose my temper really quickly. Those were things that I noticed. I was quite snappy. I couldn't see the wood for the trees sometimes in terms of, let's say, walking into a kitchen that needed all the dishes doing, you know, like someone hasn't done the dish, you know, and so I'd just lose it.
Speaker 1:And you know, just simple things like that that when I look back, it like, oh, my god, I was horrible to be around, that's not a nice person, and and I think that's a sign and a symptom of of the state that I was in and and at the time I didn't really think about it too much. But now I look back and, you know, having had some time to reflect, I realize really where, where my, my, my energy was at, my personality was at my demeanor, my day-to-day demeanor just just wasn't balanced and I was just sort of scraping through and losing my temper at the most ridiculously small things and, yeah, it's not a nice place to be, and I think you know when you start to see those things happen, they're good signs that something else is going on, that you need to step back and go hang on a minute. This is not how I normally operate. What what's going on here?
Speaker 2:I need to do something different yeah, thank you so much for your honesty. The audience can relate to unconscious behavior because you don't even know that you're doing it. When, when I first started meditating over two decades ago, I didn't recognize or realize that I had an alcohol addiction. I didn't know I was only 26 or 27. I didn't even know because it was just something that we did as a society and as a group of friends. But when it just got way too much, I was like I'm doing the same thing every week and I'm feeling this low and then, just as I'm coming around that evening, I'll do it all again and you're thinking.
Speaker 2:This is a loop of lunacy and we as human beings find ourselves often stuck in it without knowing what to do, until we have some self introspection to go. I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want more out of life, but I'm not feeling it right now and I don't know what to do. I guess one of the things that came to my mind, which is what I want to ask you, is in my own experience, I found that energy is closely tied to mindset which is kind of what we've just been talking about and awareness. So how do you integrate mindset shifts into your coaching and how you've been helping people, and how can that sort of mental awareness help improve someone's energy? That's listening.
Speaker 1:I think it's about asking the right questions. So, as a coach, it's about understanding where somebody is at and then asking the right questions. Because, as a coach, it's not your job to tell them what they need to do, but it's to identify where you think there may be some opportunities, but then lead them down the path of self-discovery by the right question. And so, from a mindset shift point of view, it will be questions like well, where are your energy levels at? How does that feel for you? Is that, does that feel optimal? And and, and I think if they're answering those questions in a sense of no, I'm not where I want to be, then at least they're, they're identifying the gap themselves. And then, when that gap's identified, then as a coach, you can lead them down. Well, what sort of things do you think we need to do to help restore that, to fill that gap, that energy gap, that that mindset gap, and so that asking them to think about it is usually enough of a mindset shift for them to be able to see what's missing, find the behaviors that need to occur to to to plug the gap and for them to then understand that that's the sort of person that they need to be, to have those behaviors in place and in a sense the mindset comes with that, because they have to start behaving like somebody different, and so the mindset shifts along with that process.
Speaker 1:They become, as james james clear talks about, in atomic habits. You know it's about. It's about identity, so it's a vote for the person you want to be, and so every time you practice those habits, you're voting for the person you want to be and that mindset goes with that and that personality or that new behavior becomes part of that person. So that's usually the process that I follow. It's just about drawing it out, asking the right questions and helping them realize that you usually know, as the coach, they'll tell you why they've come to see you, but they don't necessarily know the path to get to where they want to go to. Of course not. They come to see you. So yeah, I think does that answer the question, james?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. I mean, I'm always thinking with the audience. You know someone listening right now, you know like they're thinking well, I might be at about five, you know, and it's just like, well, what do I need to do? I know I need to do something and I'm hoping that by listening to this conversation I might have some practical tool. You know, I've said thousands of times across all my content you know, the thing that jumped me from being on an addictive, unhealthy route was starting a meditation practice.
Speaker 2:And I didn't even know what meditation was. I just thought it was something someone might have done in a cave. I hadn't a clue and I just didn't know what it was. But I didn't recognize it. It was just being able to sit still for a segment of time every day and I just thought it was the most rebellious thing for me to do, because I was like sitting still, I ain't gonna do that. I've never sat still.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, probably in my youth I could have been called adhd, uh, but didn't know it.
Speaker 2:I just had copious amounts of energy, but it was all over the place and I found for me, when I sat down to learn how to meditate, all this resistance in my body just began to dissipate and this mind just became open and receptive to really good ideas and phenomenal amounts of energy, more so than I remembered as a kid, and I was able to focus for such longer periods of time.
Speaker 2:But at the beginning it was like a rocky road, like the airplane taking off, you know, shaking, shaking, shaking, resisting the change, of moving to this healthy version of myself rather than the unhealthy version. But it was so quick because one habit led to another and led to another and led to another, and before too long still, two decades plus later, I'm still doing all these lovely little small habits and noticing my vitality and energy has been phenomenal. So I guess my next question to you, rich, is you know, you've just mentioned that changing one identity to the next is really really powerful for someone who is starting their transformation or wants to get out of that perhaps four or five uh level of energy, to, to get to at least the higher echelons of energy and good feeling, right. So what are some practical steps could they take if they're at a five, and then maybe there's some different ones if you're at a six or a seven, right, you know? Or even higher?
Speaker 1:I think the important thing is to make it as easy as possible. So, you know, not looking for five things to do, but looking for that one thing to do, and it's going to be different for everybody. But you know, not looking for five things to do, but looking for that one thing to do, and it's going to be different for everybody. But you know, we've talked about sleep already and it is the foundation of health and well-being, right? Everything else that we do builds on top of a solid night's sleep, and Matthew Walker, who's kind of one of the world experts, says that you know, it's the tide that raises all health boats. So that is the place that I would start with most people not and not necessarily everybody, but at least I need to find out about it, because there's no point in talking about nutrition if sleep's poor. Right, because that has a big impact on the results you get with the right nutrition. I love the way I love that.
Speaker 1:That's so true yeah, yeah, can you?
Speaker 2:just tell us why. Just tell us why. Yeah sure, it's really important, because I think everyone needs to know this yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So. You know, when we're underslept, the impact that that has on our next day or or days, uh, is phenomenal, and there have been studies to show that people who are underslept eat more food the next day, and usually the wrong food. So not only will your brain be searching for energy in the simple carbs, but your brain will also be, you know, preventing you from stopping doing that as well. So you've got ghrelin and leptin. So your two hunger hormone, your two sort of satiety and hunger hormones that play a really important role in what we eat and when we eat it and when we stop, those both go out of whack. So you get a double whammy. The other reference that I had in my mind, related from a nutritional point of view, is that when we're underslept, our brain sacrifices muscle before it sacrifices fat. So we want to lose fat if we're getting healthy typically, but our brains won't let us do that if we're underslept, because it's harder work to break down fat than it is to break down muscle. So, in the attempt to eat healthily, we are restricting calories, but if we're underslept, we're actually losing muscle mass, which means that our metabolism is slowing down, which means that over over the period of time we we aren't going to be able to lose them, the the fat that we want to.
Speaker 1:So it's it's a really critical piece to get the sleep part right. First, before you start layering on what interventions need to occur from a nutritional point of view, and second to that is the exercise side of things. So we've always thought exercise and nutrition are, you know, the most important levers to pull from a health and well-being point of view. But you've got to start with the sleep first. We're less likely to go out and do the thing we should do to move our bodies. Uh, when we're under slept, we just aren't going to have the same amount of energy and therefore, if we don't do it, we're not going to have as much tiredness physical tiredness at the end of the day to have a better night's sleep, because that physical tiredness plays into having a good night's sleep. So, um, it's a that becomes a vicious cycle as well.
Speaker 1:We don't get the energy, we're not going to do the thing and the thing isn't going to help us get the better sleep, and on it goes. So those are two, I guess, answers to that question.
Speaker 2:Nice to explain, but if we're going to do it, so if we really need sleep and that's going to help the nutrition which will also give us the energy, hopefully, to move the body, do you have any practical tools that get a good night's sleep, because it's more so than just getting in your bed. There's got to be something. What are Rich's practical tips.
Speaker 1:When I present on some of this stuff, I always put this 8-8-8 up on the slide. I've got 8-8-8, so we've got 24 hours in the day, eight hours of work, and and people sort of start scoffing. They're like really eight hours of work, but eight hours of work, eight hours of me time and eight hours of sleep. And I and I put that up and I say which is the most important? And 90% of the people go sleep, sleep, sleep. Everyone realizes the importance of sleep and I say, no, that's not the most important one. The most important one is the me time, because the me time is what helps set you up for the sleep. So, to answer your question, one of the things that I do is I make sure that I have a. I like.
Speaker 1:I like this analogy of how does the pilot get the plane on the runway. He throttles back. So how do you throttle back? And for me it's about turning all the devices off, getting into bed and finding a book that I enjoy. That's not not a horror, it's not nothing too stimulating, but a book that's useful, that's going to take me to another place, it's analog. There's no screens, there's.
Speaker 1:You know, I've probably got my blue locking blue lock, blue blocking glasses on, so I'm filtering out all the all the blue light and I'm just taking that time to to wind the brain and the nervous system down so that I'm more likely to drop off and stay asleep, as opposed to wake up in the middle of the night and the brain's ticking and you know, thoughts are going through my head and and that's normal. That'll happen to everybody at different stages. But my answer to that question is how do you throttle back? So that's how I throttle back, but it's going to look different for different people. Somebody might go for a walk, someone might go for a hot bath, because that helps bring core temperature down and sets you up for a better sleep. So different courses for different horses.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, different horses, different courses for different horses, but find the thing that works for you. That is your throttle back, because that's the bit that sets you up for the good sleep is, is that wind down. You might journal, so obviously, meditation is the thing that that works for you, james, and I've tried meditation, and it's not something that I'm very, uh, practiced at and it's not something that I'm very practiced at and it's not something I've sort of kept chipping away at. But journaling is an alternative way of having that introspection, so you can get your thoughts down onto paper, you can empty your head a little bit. So that helps set you up for a better night's sleep. But it also helps you think about yourself as that metacognition, thinking about thinking and how your day went, what went on, what things are coming up. All that sort of stuff is another nice way of getting an opportunity to throttle back so that when the head hits the pillow you're more likely to drop off and have a good sleep.
Speaker 2:I love that. It's a really nice analogy and even though I have been meditating, you know, lot longer, uh, than probably most people, just because it's the the ritual that really works for me, I love that there are different other rituals that people can use, like the journaling and the reading, and it just settles the mind down quite a lot. I think that's really, really powerful. Can I ask a quick question because I just but sleep hill. I think so important it's underrated. Um, what, what about temperature of the room and things like that? You know, this is important, I believe yeah, yes, it is.
Speaker 1:The sweet spot is between 17 and 19 degrees celsius. Yeah, so it needs to be john slightly on the cool side can you just tell us why?
Speaker 2:because I know you're a man of like stats and stuff and I love this, tell us, tell us why 17 to 19 is this sweet spot?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah so my understanding is that it relates to, uh, body temperature and sleep. So to drop off we need to be about one degree cooler than we normally are, and so that helps us drop into the different brainwaves and the whole alpha, all that stuff. I can't rattle all of those off, but essentially it's about getting that body temperature down a little bit, and that's why a hot bath or a spa works so well, because you bring the blood to the outside of the body, which means your core temperature is going to drop a little bit, and that's a lovely way of setting yourself up for a good night's sleep, so you feel clean and you're getting into your crisp sheets and then your body temperature drops.
Speaker 3:And hey presto, you're getting into your crisp sheets and then your body temperature drops and, hey presto, it sets you up for a nice easy drop off. So I think the room temperature just plays into that as well. Yeah, I, I, I'm, I really I believe that big time, because two years ago I was. I remember it was a very hot summer in spain and I found it very difficult to have air conditioning on all the time. I just felt like it just didn't feel like flow of air through breathing. So I remember waking up in the middle of the night, having a cold shower and two minutes later after I got out of that, I was deep, right, deep sleep. Obviously the air temperature outside was warm, um, at that time of year in the summer, but I remember just going oh my golly, I was couldn't fall asleep and and then wake up, have a quick, cold, cool shower and then off. I went really, really quickly and I know that that played into the part of a successful next day, especially when you need to perform, you know. So I really really think this Are there any other practical tools aside from sleep with you and your clients and the people that you've been helping you thinking, hey, we can turn this around if you're struggling right now.
Speaker 3:I was talking to a guy yesterday, actually on a call, and he's going through some challenges with work and energy and one of the things that I suggested was that he get outside barefoot and walk around the garden just to connect with the earth. So it's that grounding component where you're balancing the ions in the body. So you've got negative and positive ions in the body and so by grounding yourself, you are able to pick up the negative ions in the soil if you like, and the positive in the body rebalances. So you can do that in your back garden. You could walk to the ocean, walk along the beach in the ocean. So you've got the blue gym and the green gym and those are really nice ways of helping balance the nervous system out. And the other thing that I suggested to him was that he, while he was doing the grounding, that he took the opportunity to observe nature around him. So we know that the Japanese sort of came up with this term, forest bathing and essentially it's about just being outside in nature but observing things through all five senses. So what can I see, what can I hear, what can I smell, taste and feel, and so that might mean brushing up against a leaf, but at least immersing yourself in nature for just a few minutes. It doesn't have to be a long period of time, but just enough time that that will help reset the cortisol. That will bring the cortisol down. So if you're having a stressful day, get outside at lunchtime. You don't necessarily have to take your shoes off, but if it's convenient and you can take your shoes off, even better, because that's just a real simple, easy one that you can add into your day and help balance things out a little bit. I love this. The negative ions really help also reduce inflammation in the body, and inflammation is one of the number one killers and stress-related diseases that we have.
Speaker 3:I had a little challenge this afternoon. I was feeling a little stressed for a period of time and I couldn't even drive home because they're resurfacing the road where I live. I've just moved, moved out. It's not a big deal, right, and I don't really see things as a big deal, but when they said it was going to take some time before you can actually drive, you know, another 100 meters before you you can get home. I was like, oh, do you know what? There's something better I can do with my time. So I decided to just drive to the beach, because the beach is like five minutes from my house. So instead of waiting potentially for half an hour for them to resurface the road which I'm grateful for I could have just turned the car engine off and just sat there and just waited. But my, my body was saying I think I need to just deeply relax rather than just sit here and think come on, hurry up, how long is it going to take? How many of us all been in some sort of situation? That's fairly similar.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I went to the beach. I was there for 20 minutes. I even jumped in the water because it was a lovely day today and within 20 minutes I'd just gone. Okay, now I reckon I can go back and obviously the road had been paved on my way back. Happy days, less stress, less cortisol in the body. Is it that easy, rich, to be able to reset? That's my question to you, because I know you come across a lot of people with all different types of challenges. But is, is it that easy to reset? Is what I'm asking. Well, does it take? You know, a lot of consistency. That was my experience, right, and that's you know, yeah, yeah, I've got a phone call.
Speaker 3:I've got business call. I've got emails to send. You know I've got people I have to speak to. I need to be on form. Usually I'm gonna just push, push, push through. And how many of us do that? That was me once upon a time, you know hands up, but I don't do that anymore. I think the answer is yes to both. You can reset very, very quickly in the moment and I think breath is probably the quickest and easiest way of doing that. Let's say you're in a traffic jam and you can't jump out to the beach.
Speaker 3:Using your breath obviously, meditation is a great way of doing that because you focus on your breath, but you can do it anytime, anywhere. I've got an anecdote, actually. I was working with a guy this morning and he said Rich, that breathing technique, I tell you why it stops me punching people in meetings. Rich, that breathing technique, I tell you why it stops me punching people in meetings. He said, when you hold that breath before you breathe out again, honestly it's making such a difference. And I was like I had a little chuckle to myself, as I'm glad you're not punching people, but yeah, it's that powerful that you can shift from that parasympathetic, from the sympathetic, into the parasympathetic extremely quickly. So momentarily it will make a big difference, like it did for you, James, and everybody can. But that's that's sort of on a continuum of where you're at in the bigger picture From my point of view.
Speaker 3:historically, I was high with my cortisol, but I was there for so long. I then crashed and it was low and that's not going to bounce back quickly.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:But if you're feeling like you're in a stress state, if you're feeling like things are slightly slipping out of control, doing something like what you did you know, getting yourself to the beach or just having some moments to take a breath is a nice quick reset.
Speaker 1:May.
Speaker 3:I ask what that breath technique that you shared with your client or your other person you were speaking with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been doing it for a long time and it's with it. There's a guy called Dr Andrew Weil. Yeah, w-i-l. W-e. I've been doing it for a long time and it's with it. There's a guy called Dr Andrew Whale yeah, and he's a. He's a kooky guy. He's a really interesting guy. He's based off the north shore in Oahu, not in Oahu in um, in Hawaii. I've been, I've been, I've been up there Princeville, yeah, but I've been Kauai. He's a good guy. Um, he, he's even older than he looks. Yeah, he looks like he's about, he looks like he's about 18, he's nearly 100, but um.
Speaker 3:So he came up with this breath technique, which you probably know. What I'm going to say is uh, four, seven. So you breathe in for a count of four, you hold that for a count of seven and then you breathe out for a count of eight, and the particular message with that is that the out breath is twice as long as the in breath. So we are signaling back to the parasympathetic nervous system that we're safe, we're fine, we're calm, we're in a good place, and that seven in between just delays that process. So it's giving time for pressure on the diaphragm. The diaphragm is linked to the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve obviously helps push that parasympathetic state. So yeah, four, seven, eight, it's a winner this is it yeah a lot.
Speaker 3:I love that. Could you just tell us why the it's like eight on the exhale and why that's important? You know, because people think, okay, I can breathe in for four, hold for seven and exhale for eight. Why double on the exhale?
Speaker 1:why is that?
Speaker 3:important. So when we breathe in, we signal our sympathetic nervous system. So imagine if you had a scare. You're watching a horror movie. That elevates your nervous system, so you go into that sympathetic state. When we breathe out, we signal to our parasympathetic nervous system. So what we're doing is we're biasing the breath technique so that we are pushing into that parasympathetic state more than the sympathetic state you can't breathe without breathing in. So what we are doing is we are using the out breath as the signal to our nervous system to say calm down, everything's fine, chill, um. And so yeah, it's a winner.
Speaker 3:And I often will have clients lying on a shakti mat and they're they're, you know, they're all nice and relaxed. And I go right breathe in, breathe in four, seven, eight, do it for three or four rounds and that will settle their nervous system and happy days away they go. The other trick is dropping off to sleep. So if you're rolling around in bed and you know that's not a great thing because you're training your brain to this is the place you roll around in bed rather than fall asleep is the four, seven, eight technique in bed. So if you can't drop off because you've got a busy mind and you may not have throttled back quite as much as you could have done four, seven, eight for about two, three, four rounds and 99 of the time I've dropped off. So okay, I'm gonna try that tonight actually. So just doing it before you want to fall asleep will get you into perhaps a lower brainwave frequency yeah, yeah, and, and I think pulse is a component of it as well.
Speaker 1:So if you've had a heavy meal or of any alcohol, of course your pulse is going to be slightly elevated and your brain's not going to let you drop off if you've got a racing pulse. So exercising too close to bedtime may not be great, but also food and drink can have a plat can play into that, but a busy mind can too.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, um, if those things are eliminated, this is actually a really good question, right, but you know you, having studied energy in the, in the, the science behind it. Um, a busy mind. Is that because you've eaten at all, exercised or had stimulants before bed? Is that the reason why the minds busy before bed? If it is.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily. No, no, I think the busy mind is more about your thinking patterns, as opposed to the eating and the drinking. Yeah, so how you process information, what meaning you give to your day, your interactions, the meaning that you make of everything really is. What then means whether you've got a busy mind or a less busy mind? And I find my mind is busier when I've got a lot on my plate, when I've got a lot of work coming up, multiple things to to to be working on at the same time. If I've got a new challenge or a new project starting, then I've got a busy mind because my mind's going solution, solution, solution, solution, rather than one step at a time. You know, take it, take it gradually. No, no, no, no, no, we're just going to fix this all up in one go.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's, it's, that's, that's how it works for me I just want to say thank you, because that's a really uh, a great answer. I'm thinking about the, the burnout that people have been challenged with. That seems a bit more socially acceptable, but it's not really something that we really have noticed in the last 20 or 30 years. It's just been a lot more recent people having this burnout. Why is that?
Speaker 1:generationally, people who people who sort of grew up in the 70s and the 80s and whose parents were, you know, at work and working really hard, picked up this work ethic that you know you work yourself into the ground because that's what gets results and gives you the lifestyle that you want. And I think the next generation so my children and their friends and colleagues are our next generation on going. Why are you killing yourself? You know they actually see it like that and I think that that's the generational difference. And, to answer your question, it's already been the way in which we operate as a generation Generation X of which I am but rolling over the top of that, a pandemic, lockdowns, the lack of certainty, the unpredictability, which the brain doesn't like. Right, that pushes us into that sympathetic state again.
Speaker 1:Then you've got the fallout of the economic conditions that have been the result of COVID. So we've got businesses that were struggling through COVID. We've got businesses that are struggling because of COVID and the fallout of it now and the economic corrections that have occurred, and so there hasn't really been a time in the last five years for people to stop. And I think that, on top of the mentality of push anyway, is a large contributor to why people are at where they're at, and I think you know it's been a badge of honour, you know? Oh yeah, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Well, that might be sooner than you'd like it to be, so I think it's a whole combination of factors, but I think those are the big ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great point, and I'm just, you know, a massive advocate of well-being as a youth rich, and I'm, you know, fascinated to see what other little small things we could be adding to ourselves to improve the quality of our life, our family's life, just to be those examples of someone who's always got energy. Because the quality of our life is determined by our health really, and we can't enjoy life if you ain't got your health. The difference between someone who's got incredible prosperity is looking at the same sunset as someone who has nothing. And, ultimately, if you're doing that from a hospital bed, it's not quite the same thing. And so I'm really conscious to share as much of this energy information, which is pretty free, you know, and simple. It just requires you showing up for you. And so, you know, I'm fascinated by your work and what you've been doing.
Speaker 2:And is there any other types of, like practical tools? You think that would really help people if they're at six, for instance, or a seven, and you're thinking, oh, I could do with a little bit more energy. You know I'm not bad, but you know I could do. I could do. Everybody wants more energy, because I believe on the other side of a lot of energy is all the things that you want. It takes a lot of energy to do really, really well and have all the things you want show up. You have to be an energetic match. So what are Rich's tools, aside from the ones you've mentioned today that you think, hey guys, you really want to be thinking about doing this?
Speaker 1:I think the simple things, hydrating well, you know, again, it's something we take for granted because you can just turn a tap on, but I'll get to three o'clock and go, oh, I haven't had any water, you know, and I'll be downing two pints of water just to play catcher, which is the wrong thing to do. Um, but you know, hydration plays a massive part in in our energy, in terms of how, how well our brains are working. You know, cognition even just I think the stats are something like a two percent drop in in hydration is like an 11 drop in performance, something like that. Um, so, you know, looking after the compounded is big, by the way yeah, yeah, exactly that, so on one of your videos, rich.
Speaker 2:I really like this. Just share with some of your little hacks that you have for people to be able to be reminded of certain things.
Speaker 1:Okay, so my water one. Yeah, that's one of the ones I see.
Speaker 2:You know what I like? These little hacks, it's all these little things that make us have to go. Oh yeah, oh yeah, Because you know like I have a certain alarm that I have, which is a bird tweet that wakes me up. I choose not to have an alarm that scares me because I don't want cortisol running when I wake up. I actually sleep with an eye mask, on a silk one, but I leave the curtains open or not so wide, but so I wake up with the sunrise.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that gives me this beautiful entrance into the new day, and it's just oh, and I can just feel the sun coming up, the birds tweeting, and it's a lovely entrance into the new day, but you've got your hacks and I like it when I want you to share your hacks, yeah.
Speaker 1:So normally if I'm sitting at this chair, I've got a pint glass sitting next to me on this mat, and it's not there today.
Speaker 1:I love that it's not there today See you know, there's always opportunities to improve, right, Anyway. So my pint glass is almost stitched to my hand most of the time. I have to, uh, admit. I've got about five or six of them in the cupboard just waiting to be filled up, but I keep one of them in the fridge. And the reason I keep one of them in the fridge is is more than one reason.
Speaker 1:A we're in a reasonably warm climate, like you are, so it's nice to have a cold glass rather than a warm glass but, the other thing is, every time I open the fridge for breakfast or to grab some blueberries or whatever it might be, there's that glass staring me in the face, going time for some water.
Speaker 1:So I'll take the glass out, I'll fill it up with water and I'll carry on with my day. And I take the pint glass because it's a big vessel, it's not going to run out and I don't have to go back every five minutes, and so that's my hack the glass stays in the fridge, and so it's always there reminding me every time I open the fridge door. And if it's not in the fridge, I've already got it and I'm already on my my my day with with my water. So so the point being is that reduce the friction. How can you reduce the friction to do the thing you want to do, so that you stumble over it every day? And the other classic example is if you want to become a runner, put your running shoes out the night before. It's the same sort of principle, so you can apply that to everything it's basically intention, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's massive intention, yeah, and I think that you know I've got little notes that I leave around my house about what my goals are. I've that. You know. I've got little notes that I leave around my house about what my goals are. I've got, you know, I've got I have my, my environment set up so it's neat and tidy, so my mind is neat and tidy, um, but I like these little hacks of like the water and stuff. You know, like I have a. I I watched your little hack the other day. I was like I quite like that. You know, like I'm always looking for.
Speaker 2:I'm always looking for new reminders, right, always looking for new reminders. And I think that we constantly needed to be reminded as a human species, because we don't have it all sussed the whole time. You know, every day is a new day, have you shown? Are you showing up as that best version of yourself again tomorrow? You know, and excellence is is a series of habits and a series of choices made over and over again. Um, you know, and I can tell that because I was very dysfunctional years and years ago, uh, with being having zero good habits. I was absolutely scattered, and now it's just that's it, and I just find myself with so much freedom. So, operating at those higher levels of a seven plus is, I think, a really, really beautiful way to have greater success, a great happiness and greater fulfillment. And I, and I love, and I love, like your, your technical and scientific approach as to understanding a bit more of the adrenals, because we don't recognize what's actually going on with us sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right, and the way I got that tested was through a saliva test. So the trick with um, understanding where your your cortisol is is to to see the pattern. Understanding where your cortisol is is to see the pattern, not to see one particular number in isolation. So often the doctor might get it tested, but that might have been at 11 o'clock in the morning. Well, that's great, at 11 o'clock in the morning, it should be about here. But how does that correspond to what it's like in the morning, in the afternoon and the evening? So there are ways and means of identifying these things without it being too invasive.
Speaker 1:That was a real shock. Horror to me and that's actually one of my slides in one of my presentations on energy is this is where I was at and there's a black line across the bottom of the graph and I should be up in this green bit here, yeah, and it's a real wake-up call for people to say, oh, crikey, yeah, well, if I was a, if I was down there, I'd be a four as well. So, um, you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's not too difficult to find these things out and once you get that information, it really is powerful yeah, I think that once you see that, you go hey, I can, I can something I can do when there's something I need to do because you're being told now, biologically as well.
Speaker 2:yeah, so if there's one key bit of advice that you'd like to share, but just in closing, what? What would it be to people going yeah, I love what Rich has said. It makes so much sense. Of course it makes sense. Energy is, you know, our most greatest asset that we can have. What's one key bit of advice that they could have in thinking I could improve the amount of energy that I'm allowing with your work and what you share, rich?
Speaker 1:It's one that we haven't talked about, but I think it's one that has so many other benefits and you hinted at it with your curtains the fact that you allow the light to do its job and to set your circadian rhythm for the day, and that is just to get outside into natural light in the morning once the sun has come up, because it plays such an important role in what happens at the end of the day, it bookmarks your day. So you get outside, you get the natural light into your eyes. That makes you less sleepy in itself, because it washes away the melatonin from the night before, because sometimes, if you don't you melatonin from the night before, because sometimes, if you don't, you know, you go from the car to the office, office, car, home, particularly in the morning, you could be quite sleepy and groggy and be grabbing for that first cup of coffee because you haven't got that natural light into your eyes, so that natural light could be where you have your first cup of tea, or you might eat your breakfast outside or even go for a walk, and that bookends your day. So your brain says, ah right, beginning of the day is now 16 hours later.
Speaker 1:It goes okay, it's probably about time for bed now, and so I think that really helps reinforce the circadian rhythm so that you've got a really strong reference between when you've woken up and when you're going to bed, and and that will help design that sort of that wind down the throttle back at the end of the day, because your brain will be communicating to you. It will be telling you it's time to sleep, it'll be telling you that you're tired because it's 16 hours since you saw light. So I think that would be my, my go-to would be to get that light. In how long?
Speaker 2:how long? How much light do you actually need? Rich, real morning slot yeah, not long.
Speaker 1:I think the, the science says somewhere between seven and ten minutes, so you're not talking significant amounts of time. And also it has to be outside. You can't do it through a car window, you can't do it through an office window. You have got to be out there because the lux, the measure of light between inside and outside is significantly different, so between, let's say, a hundred inside and 95,000 outside. So you've got to be out there and um and let your brain, you know, let the, the, the nature take its course, because the blue light that comes with the natural light from the sun, even an overcast day, is sufficient. It makes a big difference to, to how things go from what's actually happening to the brain then during that time?
Speaker 1:so light is always on a spectrum, and so blue light is the most stimulating to our brain, and so what it's doing is it's signaling to our brain that the day has started and the night has finished, and so part of that process is that melatonin is. Then the blue light signals to the brain oh, we don't need any more melatonin, because that's a sleep thing and it's not sleep time. So melatonin then gets reduced, which immediately increases your alertness, because melatonin's job is to help you sleep. So it's not um, it's not uh, something that you can take for granted, because at night time, if we've got all the lights on and the TV on and the screens on, melatonin is less likely to build up to the level that's going to help you set yourself off for a good night's sleep. But blocking that light at night time will help set you up for a better night's sleep.
Speaker 1:So in the morning your brain's getting that blue light from the sun and the atmosphere and saying right, it's daytime, and so the clock starts ticking, and what happens then is adenosine, which is another signaler in the body, starts building up, which helps create sleep pressure. So you're getting rid of melatonin and you're starting the clock on this adenosine, and the adenosine builds up over the course of the day and it creates what's known as sleep pressure. Now we can block adenosine with caffeine, so it's got the same. Imagine a piece of lego slotting into your brain. It does the same thing as adenosine. So if you drink lots of caffeine, that will slow that process down. So if you've got some work on and you need to really focus, then caffeine can be useful.
Speaker 1:But if not, it's going to, it's going to prevent you having a better night's sleep. So there's a couple of things going on there. The, the, the, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is the master clock in our brain, then sends signals to other parts of the brain, other parts of the body, because all of our cells have their own sort of circadian rhythm. But that bright light signals that master clock and then the master clock controls everything else that goes on in the brain and the body. So it's a really powerful one and it's one that we kind of take for granted. We don't really think, oh yeah, I'll go outside, or if we don't, then we're missing an opportunity side, or yeah, if we don't, then we're missing an opportunity.
Speaker 2:Amazing rich. It's been an absolute joy speaking with you. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your wisdom, and I'd also like to say I really appreciate all the science behind it and I find it really fascinating. So thank you for sharing. This week's super soul model is rich Ellis. Thanks Rich. Thank you, james.