{"id":"1775589068370-UmLdukkI0IU","videoId":"UmLdukkI0IU","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmLdukkI0IU","title":"Why You Can't Relax, Sleep Or Focus!  - Do This 5 Minute Habit To Feel ALIVE Again | Brian Mckenzie","type":"youtube","topicCount":15,"segmentCount":305,"createdAt":"2026-04-07T19:11:08.370Z","uploadDate":"20250416","chunks":[{"title":"The Root of Emotional Pain and Breathing","summary":"The host and Brian discuss how breath is intimately linked to metabolic, cognitive, and hormonal health. They explore how unresolved childhood pain and trauma create defensive behavioral patterns that cannot be bypassed with superficial breathwork alone.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Breathing is not just about your ability to run a fast 5k on Saturday or your ability to relax in yoga. It is metabolic health, it's cognitive health, it's hormonal health. Like, your breath is at the center of everything. And therefore it's striking that so many of us don't pay attention to our breath, or even know how to manipulate our breath to change our states, right?","offset":0,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. Yeah, yes, and the real thing that I feel would benefit most people is being aware of it, right? And my understanding of really being aware of one's breathing is, if you can be aware of it, you can let it happen and pay attention. And there are times, yes, you can use breathing to regulate and and become more aware of what's going on.","offset":26,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: But if you're not willing to confront the pain that has you in this reactive state to stress—from wherever that originates, typically childhood—um, and you don't that doesn't mean you need to go relive childhood, it's like \"Well, oh, I was in a defensive pattern because my environment was incredibly hostile and everybody was fighting when I was young, so no wonder why I've got my dukes up all the time in anything in what I do,\" right?","offset":54,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Um, I'm really at a point where it's like if if you're just going around that shit, if you're going around that and just trying to control breathing and and go about it that way, you're not going to find that root. The root will be disguised. It'll be camouflaged.","offset":81,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: You've said, haven't you previously, there is no amount of breathing that will change the pain you are not willing to confront.","offset":103,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: Yeah.","offset":108,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is this idea that our breath is intimately linked with our nervous system and how we then view the world. So if we talk about the pain that we are not willing to confront, right? So let's say there is pain from childhood because of A, B, and C, right?","offset":109,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: That can then result in some sort of dysfunctional breathing patterns potentially, I'm guessing, as a consequence. So then if you have compensatory breathing patterns because of trauma, let's say, then it can be hard to address the pain sometimes if you're in this constantly wired state.","offset":131,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: So presumably, being able to work on your breath and maybe change things a little bit can change the state of your nervous system which might then allow you to go inwards and confront the pain.","offset":157,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Yes. What you first touched on when you when you began the question was, you know, we we've gotten to a place where we're kind of just we want to just fix the problem or we want to fix how we feel. That's what I run into is people just want to feel differently. People don't want to actually change their behavior.","offset":171,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Um, and what we're talking about right now is a behavioral pattern that breathing follows and although you could there there is some school of thought that breathing is behavioral, I'm far more under the impression that that physiology has more to do with it.","offset":197,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: What does that mean for people?","offset":216,"duration":1}],"startTime":0},{"title":"The Hardwired Stress Response","summary":"Brian breaks down the three stages of the body's natural stress response, contrasting life-or-death situations with modern stressors like being cut off in traffic. While physiological reactions to stress are automatic and universal, our subsequent behavior remains a choice.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: So, uh, you know, if pretending that a, you know, lion walks into the room, there is a heightened arousal state, there is a sympathetic response to that. Um, and the first stage of that is there is the stimulus, right? So we've got some sort of stimulus. Somebody cuts in front of me while I'm driving. There's a stimulus.","offset":217,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: Um, the second part of that is the nervous system's response to that. My sensory system which operates through communication through an electrical network that is firing things, it goes on high alert pretending as though somebody cut in front of me. The first thing anybody does when they're driving if they see that is they grab the wheel and they hit the brakes, right? That is your nervous system responding, reacting to that stimulus.","offset":240,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: After that, the third part of this is the physiological processes involved in that and and the driving of behavior. So my sympathetic nervous system goes up. I'm releasing neuro-neurotransmitters and hormones, adrenaline, right, norepinephrine—these things are released real-time. And so that third part of the stimulus response now becomes the first part of the stress reaction.","offset":266,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: And each of these is universal to us all. And I've got this happening and somebody cuts in front of me and this stuff happens. So all of these chemicals in my biochemistry is changing in order to manage what it is my system is putting off, right?","offset":294,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian: So let's just go with adrenaline as an easy one. My response to adrenaline in anything when I'm not prepared for it is \"dukes up,\" per se. It's confrontation, it's personal. So then the second part of that is the recovery phase should happen.","offset":312,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: So it's like if somebody cut in front of me and I didn't actually get pissed off, I'm like \"Oh, whatever, let them go.\" That is a response that's like going and lifting some weights and and resting between sets.","offset":332,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay, let's just pause there, Brian, because this is really interesting. Yeah. Our stress response is hardwired within us. Okay, so—","offset":346,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: No avoidance.","offset":354,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Yes, if there was a lion that just came into this room now, we probably would change quite significantly in terms of how how our being is, how we're interacting, our posture, our muscle tension, everything will change, okay. You're driving on a road, wherever you live in the world, and someone suddenly cuts in front of you, so you slam on the brakes, okay. That's an automatic response, right? You've slammed on the brakes.","offset":355,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Is it possible to get to a point where that doesn't even generate the physiological changes? So if you work on this enough—and we're going to through loads of practical things in this conversation—is it that everyone will have the physiological response and then we train ourselves to not respond to the adrenaline, or is it different?","offset":381,"duration":24},{"text":"Brian: Here's what's, you know, so funny enough, you know, part of Andrew Huberman's research before he had his podcast at his lab when I was involved with his lab, they were in that they were in his VR looking at stress from everybody. From people who were who are on anxiety medications all the way up to like Navy Seals.","offset":405,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian: Everybody responds to stress. Everybody responds to the stress. In what capacity and how they come off that stress is the important part.","offset":427,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Okay, so even if you're a calm, non-reactive person—","offset":438,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: You're going to. The when the lion comes in the room or somebody cuts you off, you will, your body naturally reacts to it. It's the behavior that you choose to follow as a result of that.","offset":442,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Got it. So it is what Viktor Frankl says. Um.","offset":453,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: This is where choice happens, right?","offset":456,"duration":1}],"startTime":217},{"title":"Breathwork and Cognitive Reframing","summary":"The conversation explores how breathwork and cognitive reframing can disrupt chronic stress patterns. By pausing to breathe and observing the stories we attach to triggers, we can choose to respond authentically rather than reactively to the world around us.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Is that where breathwork can potentially come in for some people?","offset":457,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: A hundred percent. This is where, this is where breathwork does come in. So this is where intervention comes in. When I have an emotional reaction to something that I don't like or I don't like the way I feel, or I don't like what I said, um, and I want to work on that, that is where the opportunity for intervention comes in.","offset":461,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: So I can take a breath, I can take several breaths, I can come down. And if I can bring myself down, then I might have the opportunity to bring reality on. Did that person who cut in front of me start their day by going \"I'm going to go find Brian McKenzie and I'm going to cut in front of him today and I'm going to intentionally piss him off\"? No, that is not what happened.","offset":480,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: In at least in my this world I currently live in, now the old world I existed in, I might narcissistically have pulled that one off, right? But in the moment you will start to arc stories for the emotional reaction that you have to things and that's where the breathing is starting to get away from you as well. So my breathing tends your breathing will do things in these places. It's simply responding to the activity and the change that's going on.","offset":506,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: These things are so linked, physiology and psychology, psychology and physiology. Oh, yeah. And the thing I've really been thinking a lot about, Brian, and I'd I'd love to hear your perspective on this, is I feel compared to who I was five years ago that I interact with the world in a completely different way. Most of the time I actually feel really calm and I feel that when the stimulus is happening, I seem to have this ability now to know that there is a space and go \"Yeah, I'm not reacting to that,\" right?","offset":535,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: Now people will say, like, I've covered trauma on this podcast on many occasions with people like Gabor Maté, Dan Siegel, Bessel van der Kolk, all these kind of greats in the trauma world, right? And a lot of people will say, and I agree, that trauma can be stored in the body. Yeah. With our certain patterns, our breathing patterns, maybe we're slightly more flexed, whatever it might be, we have these patterns.","offset":577,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And so there's a school of thought saying that you can't change that trauma with the mind, you do it through the body. And I believe for some people that is the mechanism to change it, not that you can separate the body and the mind, okay. I feel in my life a lot of it has been cognitive. So I had a conversation a few years ago with an Auschwitz survivor, Edith Eger, when she was 93.","offset":598,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: That conversation changed my life, Brian, because she was able to reframe her whole existence in Auschwitz to the point where she said to me that the greatest prison you'll ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. And that's from someone who lived in the hell of Auschwitz, right? So that really landed for me.","offset":630,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: So I would for years practice if I ever got emotionally triggered in the day—I perhaps couldn't do it in the moment—that evening I'd reflect and go \"Ah, that situation was not inherently triggering, that situation was not inherently offensive, if it was, everybody would get triggered to it, everyone would take offense at it. No, no, there's something in me that is being activated by that stimulus. So if I want to change, I have to find in me, instead of putting the blame elsewhere, externally, I have to figure out what insecurity, what inadequacy, what is being triggered inside of you.\"","offset":648,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: And by doing that regularly, I now feel that it's become my default response. Now at the same time, I also do work on my body. I have an amazing movement coach, I work on my breathing. I now have access to certain movement patterns that I didn't have five years ago, so I can't say what exactly it was. But I don't buy that it necessarily always has to come from the body or always from the mind. These things are connected. Does does that make sense, Brian?","offset":685,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Oh, yeah.","offset":711,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Because I don't know, people say \"Well, how how come you're so calm these days?\" I'm like \"I have done a combination of things. I've done the work, I've constantly looked inwards at my triggers.\" Now breathwork, I would say that's a very big term that people interpret, you know, in all kinds of different ways. Yeah, for sure, that has helped me as well, but so has cognitive reframing.","offset":712,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Yes.","offset":735,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So I don't know if you can sort of pass through that through the lens of what you're saying now about we encounter a stressor and our stress response goes up. So how come I can be calm now?","offset":736,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: The simplified version of, you know, how I was getting complex is, is it's like if I choose not to respond to somebody cutting me off—and this is just you know insert whatever you want, insert whatever you want: your father saying something to you you know or what your—","offset":746,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Whatever it is that triggers you.","offset":764,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Your wife or your husband saying something to you that's popping you, right? If you choose not to allow that to go beyond that moment, you've now learned how to adapt. You've now learned how to stay with it and and you don't have to take that personally, right?","offset":765,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: So if I choose to let the guy cutting me off go, I now adapt and I now am over here in the logical side of something, real I'm rooted in reality. And I think what what's really important here is that over here my core values are are the anchor point. For me, my core values sit with things like authenticity. It's like \"Just be real, just be authentic and you're in my world if we meet.\" And I'm I'm happy to in and if it's just if it's not authentic I'm out, I don't have time for that right now.","offset":788,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Here's a question, Brian. Yeah. If your nervous system is constantly wired, uh chronically activated, and you've never learned how to switch it off or calm it down, is it even possible to know what being authentic is?","offset":828,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: No, not in that state, no. Because you're in a chronic stress response.","offset":847,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah. And then if everyone's if everyone's walking around in a chronic stress state, of course no one's being authentic.","offset":851,"duration":5}],"startTime":457},{"title":"Chronic Stress and True Performance","summary":"Brian uses the analogy of continuously squatting to describe how high achievers often stay stuck in an unyielding state of chronic stress. He shares his experience working in San Quentin prison to illustrate how true performance involves internal growth and mental freedom.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: I mean a lot of my this is what a lot of my clients actually—not the professional athlete side, I mean although on occasion I'll get a professional athlete that's dealing with something like this—but most it this is more of the you know private the clients that are like the executives, right? These are the guys and gals that are functioning up here all day all night and then they go and train and the way they train mimics the way they work and and they don't realize that they're they're in this heightened stress state, right?","offset":856,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: And so the third part of that stress reaction—so let's just pretend you I didn't let go of the guy cutting me off. I've now brought in more hormones and neurotransmitters that are now blocking an adaptive process. Now we've onboarded adrenaline again because we're now making up a story about what we're going to do to this person, or they're taking advantage of me, or they're doing this to me. I'm essentially victimizing myself in some capacity, right?","offset":884,"duration":35},{"text":"Brian: And so I now go at this with a non-adaptive process that if I repeat this enough and I don't let that go, I remain in what's called chronic stress. That does not allow for that parasympathetic arm of my autonomic nervous system to come back online as well. And that if that goes on long enough I can have a multitude of different responses that occur with that. I can stay in a heightened stress state or I can actually retreat and then be pulled down into this more depressed nervous system state where I I can't get out of bed, I can't do these you know.","offset":919,"duration":39},{"text":"Host: You you say it's non-adaptive, but could we not make the case that we're always adapting, the question is what are we adapting to and what is our response?","offset":958,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. So the new adaptation becomes this heightened or or whatever state that is now not allowing me to recover. It it'd be the equivalent of just lifting weights. Like I I go to lift weigh—I just go I go squat. And I just keep squatting all day. And I keep every set after set after in I'm fatigued but I'm still going and I'm still going and I'm still going.","offset":968,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian: And then I might let off the brakes that evening and decide to go home and sleep if I can because my nervous system's now just torched and I'm hungry and I gotta eat, and then I'll wake up the next day and I start doing it all over again the moment I get to the gym.","offset":998,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Yeah. This is such a great analogy because what you just said through the lens of you squatting is how many people are living their daily lives. Now through the lens of what we've just been talking about, you're known for many things around the world. Um many people would regard you as a expert in human performance. What does human performance mean to you?","offset":1011,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Um, well, I don't think I'm an expert, I'm more of like a specialist. Um, I'm still learning every single day about this. Um, performance for me is a path towards growth. And most of what I've found even at the elite level is that if we can unlock a lot of the mental constructs that we've built, then there's a freedom in that that allows us to really see where the limitations are in what we're doing.","offset":1036,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian: When I went and worked at San Quentin Prison for six months, I ran a program, and um I'd go in every Friday and work with these guys. And I when I first went in there I, you know, it had occurred to me I'm like \"Okay, so these guys are in prison, most of these guys are doing you know 25 or more. Um but I do know the effect of men in men and women in prison to the outside world.\"","offset":1077,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: So if you don't understand that, take the time to kind of understand that, which is part of the reason why I was going into these prisons was to kind of help help affect some sort of change in that or growth in that place. But the thing I thought about when I went in there was I explained to these guys: \"Look, every year there are a group of individuals that decide they no longer want to participate in society, and so what they do is they get they give away everything they have and they typically will move to the mountains of Asia somewhere, they will isolate themselves with a few other people, they'll eat once or twice a day and they'll breathe and meditate most of the day and at the end of this they find enlightenment.\"","offset":1105,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian: \"What is the difference between you and them? They committed a crime and they are stuck in a place. How do you want to do your time? Do you want to figure this out? Do you want to figure out how you're doing this? Do you want to evolve and grow towards something differently? Because there are people choosing to live the life you're living for like punishment and they're finding enlightenment through that process, right?\"","offset":1148,"duration":32},{"text":"Brian: \"However, that's what I think about with anybody and everybody. How do you want to win? Do you want to win and be miserable?\" I mean, I seen the Michael Phelps documentary and I've worked with some of the athletes that were in that documentary and I'm like \"I know what this is. It's the same thing going on out here. Just because they're competing in a physical aspect at something doesn't mean there isn't something in that mind that's kind of—\"","offset":1180,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: So so so make it relevant for someone who's listening, Brian, who is kind of they're not an elite sportsman, okay. They just want to live a better life, right? They they they don't want to be reactive all the time and chronically stressed and unable to switch off and snapping at their partner or their kids. What is the relevance of what you do that's going to help that person?","offset":1208,"duration":23}],"startTime":856},{"title":"Finding Joy in the Process","summary":"Drawing on Eastern philosophy and Bruce Lee, Brian emphasizes the importance of valuing the process over the end goal. The host and Brian discuss finding genuine joy and purpose in mundane tasks by changing your internal narrative.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: I guide people towards a process. Tao Te Ching, Sun Tzu, Bruce Lee were very impactful for me and there's a very famous Bruce Lee quote that I have everywhere: \"All goals apart from the means are an illusion. Becoming is a denial of being.\"","offset":1231,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Why does that mean so much to you?","offset":1256,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: That gives you unlimited possibility. If I'm not invested in the process, I'm somewhere else. Look, I was doing the dishes this morning and putting away the dishes as I do most mornings when the dishes are done. If there are dishes I go and I put them away. And I don't get upset in the slightest about the fact that I have to put them away. In fact, I found myself in joy. Oh, man, as I was putting away and I was reflecting on the fact that I had earned the money because I valued myself to purchase these dishes.","offset":1260,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian: I've been able to afford dishes for probably 30 or 40 years. Why am I thinking that? Because I'm in a place where I enjoy going and doing this thing and being invested in the process of putting these things away. How am I putting them away? I didn't just arrive at that. That became \"Why am I so pissed off that I'm putting away the dishes right now? Why am I pissed off I'm doing my laundry right now? This is a part of my life, this is a part of my existence. Like what what am I tied up in? Where do I think I'm going to arrive at to where I don't want to do this? What what is that point?\" And and I really looked at that in the reality of it and I find joy in just about every moment of my day when I'm not busy.","offset":1298,"duration":59},{"text":"Host: Yeah, man. I I cannot tell you how much I resonate with that. It's all story, right? As I mentioned to you on Monday, like on the plane over to LA this time I just had this clarity when you're 30,000 feet up in the air, right, you have this big picture perspect—I thought \"Life is simply a set of experiences and the story we put on those experiences is ultimately what determines the quality of our life.\" Boom. You can wash your dishes every night and be pissed off that you have to do it, that your partner didn't do it, that they should have done it, that you whatever story you want to make, or you can change your perspective and like you have done, you—it is possible.","offset":1357,"duration":49},{"text":"Host: Oh. And the problem is, and this is why I wanted to talk to you, I don't think until you've stepped out of it and realized that you're choosing the narrative on every situation, you think you're in it, you think you're a victim to the world, that the way you feel is down to everyone around you without realizing \"Oh, I can change this.\"","offset":1406,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I was chatting to someone about purpose yesterday and I said for me it's it's less about finding my purpose, life is more about how do I find purpose in everything I do. So you wash the dishes and it's like \"No, this is an opportunity to be mindful and present and feel the dishes.\" If someone had told me that 10 years ago, Brian, I would have thought \"What are you talking about, mate? Like, the dishes are the dishes.\" But I honestly feel that doing the dishes can be the most enjoyable experience in the world if you've reframed it.","offset":1424,"duration":32}],"startTime":1231},{"title":"Three Stages of Emotional Regulation","summary":"Brian details three specific scenarios where breathwork can regulate emotions: preemptively before a stressful event, real-time during a trigger, and post-stress to return to reality. They emphasize the goal of making emotional responses short-lived without carrying baggage.","entries":[{"text":"Host: So what I want to talk to you, Brian, about because we could go even deeper than we've already gone, right? I really want to make this practical for people where possible. There is no quick fix here. No. I'd love to tie in breathing and how we breathe to the concepts that we've been talking about, our stress response, our nervous system. So can you sort of simplify that for someone?","offset":1456,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, easy. You know, it's um you go through this process that I've talked about where you've got you know the stimulus response and then the stress reaction after that stimulus response and the we've walked through this. And as you know like as I've learned, if I don't like what I'm feeling then that's where the opportunity is, okay.","offset":1475,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Eckhart Tolle: \"In a healthy organism, an emotion is a short-lived response.\" Okay. I I 100% agree with that. There's no baggage with that. There's no dragging an experience that happened yesterday or 50 years ago through every day of my life. There's no reason I need to do that to where I can't live in total joy.","offset":1502,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian: And if I'm stuck in sadness, if I'm stuck in—if I'm stuck in excitement, ooh, there's one. This is where I usually throw out to clients: \"Here I I know all this other stuff sounds hard. Let's start with excitement. Let's look at the things that bring you excitement. Let's let's slow down there. Let's bring that down a level to actually see it for what it really is, see what the—because there are far too many of us that are getting very excited over really sexy shiny things that inevitably we didn't actually want to be doing or involved in because we didn't take the time to bring it down enough to go 'Oh, anything that goes up comes down, right?'\"","offset":1531,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian: So and that doesn't mean you can't get excited about things. Yes. How make it a short-lived response. How do you make that happen? Well, when I get excited I slow it down. I intentionally slow it down. So if I know I'm going into a situation—so here there's three ways we can go about this. If I know I'm going into a situation that could be difficult—work, home, whatever, or you're going to go do something that you really didn't want to do—that's where breathwork comes in stage one. I'm going to do that to bring myself down a bit to jump over and go \"What is the reality of this?\" versus the emotion of it.","offset":1573,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: I spoke to a friend last week who was getting really triggered by an email from his boss. Yeah. And I said \"Mate, you know that that email in and of itself is not problematic,\" right? He showed me. I'm like \"That's just neutral email. That's just information.\" Yeah. You're choosing to put this story on it and amping yourself up, you don't have to.","offset":1614,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: And I guess one of the things I think is most powerful about becoming aware of your breath is is that deep knowledge where you know I can actually change the tightness of my nervous system.","offset":1637,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian: Look, Kasper van der Meulen was the one who coined the \"Breathing is the remote control to the nervous system.\" So you can toggle that nervous system if you're willing to sit in it and control it before you go into something that you know could be difficult.","offset":1652,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian: Now the second part of that where this could come in is if you get good at the first process, then you can go in to an actual situation you had not planned for, didn't know was coming and real-time regulate. \"Oh, I can feel that I can feel my adrenaline coming up. I can feel I'm getting I'm getting emotional. I'm getting angry right now. I'm getting frustrated right now.\" Breathe into that if you've if you've got it.","offset":1670,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian: But if you don't, the third part is if the the reaction that you've had you didn't enjoy, now you've got an opportunity when it's over to regulate and go look at the reality of that. So in either any one of those three, reality has to come into play. You've got to be able to jump out of the story or the narrative that you're in and breathing is the thing that can typically allow for that to happen if you're actually applying this. But you've got to be consistent with it.","offset":1703,"duration":38}],"startTime":1456},{"title":"Simple Breathing Practices for Beginners","summary":"For beginners, Brian recommends simple practices like prolonging the nasal exhale or gently observing the belly, chest, and nostrils. They discuss the profound benefits of a five-minute morning breathing routine to intentionally ground yourself for the day.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Okay, so let's talk about something practical then. You got to be consistent with it. So there's our ability to use our breath in the moment, like let's say we've developed and cultivated the self-awareness, so \"Oh, yeah, I can feel something's happening there, oh okay, I'm not going to say anything, let me just calm it down, let me breathe into it, okay.\" But for that person who's never ever paid attention to their breath and is kind of resonating with something going \"Alright, well, where do I start, Brian?\" Where do they start?","offset":1741,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: I think the simplest thing to do—and this is what I'll show with people if I if I go do a talk so they have something to walk away with—is if you can just inhale through your nose and exhale through your nose a little bit slower each time until you find a place where you're most comfortable with the exhale. But continue to just inhale and then slowly exhale. You're going to bring it down.","offset":1772,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: So your exhale is longer than your inhale.","offset":1804,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, you want to prolong the exhale just slightly, right? Or even even more, as long as you're comfortable. You don't want to you don't want to do this and to the degree that you're hit hit hitting panic switches.","offset":1807,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Okay, but I think that's a really good point because um one of the breathing techniques that has taken off over the past decade, which has um elevated this topic of breathwork in many people's consciousness is Wim Hof. Yeah. And yes, there's upsides and downsides for sure of that kind of breathing.","offset":1818,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: But I believe that many people think that breathwork has to be hard. I have to be pushing it, I have to be holding my breath, I have to go \"Ugh, now I can keep going,\" right? And what you're saying there is that \"Wait wait wait, you don't need any of that necessarily. You can start off in a very comfortable way just breathing in and breathing out for a little bit longer but you don't have to feel uncomfortable.\" Is is that right?","offset":1842,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Correct. That is controlled breathing.","offset":1867,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Do you sometimes find it difficult to find time to fit wellness into your life? I know many of us do, we feel our lives are too busy. Bon Charge are a wellness brand who have a fantastic range of products to help you feel better, sleep better, and live better. And I've been using many of their products for well over five years now. What I love the most is that they don't require me to find extra time in my life.","offset":1871,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: I think their blue light blocking glasses are some of the highest quality out there. I've been wearing them for years in the evening, also when I go traveling. I also love their infrared sauna blanket, which is much cheaper and more accessible than having a sauna in your own home. It's really easy to set up and you can have a quick 30-minute session whilst relaxing, reading, or watching television. And this sauna blanket is going to help you with recovery, relaxation, and sleep.","offset":1897,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Bon Charge are giving my audience an incredible 20% off everything on their website. All you have to do is go to boncharge.com/livemore and use the coupons livemore to get your 20% off, or just click on the link in the description box below.","offset":1926,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: And then another simple thing that you can do is just sit there, shut your eyes and pay attention to your belly moving every single time you breathe. You breathe in and out and that's all you do for about 30 seconds or so. And after about 30 seconds you're just you're going to switch that over to paying attention to your chest and how your chest moves through every breath. You'll do that for 30 seconds. Not forcing anything, let it happen. Just allowing it to happen. And then I would move people into \"Now I want you to pay attention to the air moving through your nostrils. Just the air moving through your nostrils.\"","offset":1946,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: So if you can do this without having to control your breathing, you're becoming highly focused on something, but you're calming yourself instantaneously down without having to control your breathing at all and your breathing naturally just starts to drop.","offset":1997,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: So would it be a helpful practice let's say as part of a morning routine? Maybe after they wake up for five minutes doing what you just said? Oh, yeah. Make the case for someone if you don't mind, why they should give up five minutes of their precious morning to do that? What are the potential implications later on in their life, later on that day, for example?","offset":2014,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: You're going to yeah, uh, simple: you're going to change what's going on metabolically real quick. So you're going to start activating things and getting more more oxygen used up because you're changing how the chemistry happens. So you're actually regulating your nervous system.","offset":2037,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let's say you don't have much time, you do five minutes of this kind of calming, grounding, breathwork practice every morning. As someone who does that, or similar versions of that, I feel there's so many potential benefits. A, I think it's a beautiful way to start your day, it's a very intentional way to start your day instead of reacting to the news headlines and the social media, the noise—you're just like \"Oh, I'm going to start—whatever noise is out there—yeah, I'm going to gently just bring myself into the day.\"","offset":2051,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: For example, I think it's also in a world where so many of us are focused outwards on more information and more expertise and more opinions, which then become confusing, I think a practice like this brings you inwards, you starting to pay attention to what's going on inside your body, right? You start to understand \"Oh,\" like even I know this stuff, but even when you were going through it, I started to do it.","offset":2084,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah.","offset":2112,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: And I'm like \"Oh, wow, I'm in my head at the moment. Like, I forgot what was going on in my body. Of course, I'm talking to you.\" Yeah, yeah. But it was a nice reminder. And I think that—","offset":2113,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Such a this is so I'll layer this stuff in for people throughout their day. Like \"Hey, man, like as soon as you get off that call, like boom! As soon as out of that meeting, boom! This is where you go do at least just do like three minutes.\"","offset":2121,"duration":8}],"startTime":1741},{"title":"Down-Regulating the Nervous System","summary":"Brian explains why chronically stressed individuals lose the ability to nap or switch off. They discuss the importance of intentionally down-regulating after intense work periods and creating strict boundaries to separate work life from rest, creativity, and play.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah. Am I remembering correctly a few months ago on Instagram, I think you said something to the effect of: if you have a well-functioning nervous system, then you will be able to take a nap at 1 PM. What I understood from that post was many people say that they can't nap. They're tired, but they can't nap. And I appreciate not everyone has the opportunity to nap because of their work pressures, etc., etc. But some people who are working from home and potentially could have the time say that they're too wired to switch off.","offset":2129,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian: I mean look, a healthy functioning animal can take a nap at any point after a stress response, right? What does a lion do after it misses the kill? It goes and lies down and then takes a nap. I remember going to general quarters—so I was in the Navy—and I remember going to general quarters which is, you know, a drill for we're going to war, or something's happening, you're going to your station. And it would be held for a certain amount of time and most of the time it was for a prolonged amount of time. And I remember vividly I was like \"Perfect, I'm going to take a nap.\" And I would literally take a nap when we'd go to GQ because I was going to be stuck in this place for so long and none of my superior officers were going to be there or anything, so they weren't going to see me, they're going to be at their general quarter station, you know, but I was going to take a nap. And I would take a nap.","offset":2162,"duration":67},{"text":"Brian: And then I got out of the Navy and then I started working. I was becoming successful and all of these things and then all of a sudden I couldn't switch off. I couldn't take a nap. I remember all of this.","offset":2229,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: So what happened? What was the switch in you?","offset":2241,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: I just kept turning it on. I took on every opportunity I could get. I said yes to everything. I didn't learn how to say no. I didn't slow it down from the excitement of everything and the new thing, and that doesn't mean the do go do new things, it's like did I have the bandwidth? And I didn't have the bandwidth. I didn't have the bandwidth because I was burning myself out all day and then I was still trying to train, right?","offset":2245,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: So I was still trying to work out and do everything I was doing at the time while working out and then I'd do the physical stuff because damn, I felt good after that, but not realizing \"Oh, this is going to have compounding residual effects.\" The interesting was is I was doing a lot of long-slow distance in the early stages of that stuff.","offset":2268,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: You mean endurance training.","offset":2278,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where I started to evolve things um not just for myself but a lot of the athletes I was working because they were burnt. And so it was like \"Well, what can we chip down?\" So we started chipping things down and it was less and less and less and it was like having some great effect. But turns out that if you don't turn it off, if you don't have time throughout the day where you're able to shut it down—and that doesn't mean you need to take a nap. It means can you regulate, can you bring it down?","offset":2279,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: And that's why you're so passionate about the breath, because the breath once you become intimate and pay attention to your own breath and what's happening in your nostrils and your chest and your abdomen, like you just mentioned.","offset":2305,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: What's the—like if I'm talking or if I'm speaking or if I'm going and teaching, like man, I'm on! What am I doing right after that? Am I going to go have multiple conversations with people? Because I might, because people just saw me do something and so they have questions and they want to talk to me and it's like I'm on again. Then it's like \"Okay, what do I do as soon as after that?\" Oh, I'm jacked up! I was working with some stand-up comedians and none of these guys and gals can shut off after they do a set because they're so wired from being on stage. So a lot of these guys go and play video games and stuff or they're drink and you know and and it's like \"Dude, go regulate! Like, go bring yourself down.\"","offset":2319,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Okay, this is a great example. So a performer, you know, they finish let's say on stage at 10:30 PM. They're amped up, maybe it's not as different as the person who's still working late into the evening on emails, whatever it might be, maybe you know to make it really practical for people, they can't switch off. So and I know performers who say that their bad habits come in when they're on the road. Like how what is a healthier way for them to um down-regulate at 11:00 PM instead of the bottle of wine, for example?","offset":2356,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: Go back to the green room or wherever you've got an opportunity to separate yourself from people and just take five or 10 minutes and bring it down, regulate.","offset":2387,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: So what? Breathing.","offset":2398,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Do some breathing, do some breathing. You could even do breathhold work if you wanted to, that's going to change some things and bring it down a bit, but that is going to bring the nervous system down and it's going to allow you to actually not be in a reactive place. That's the problem is that we get in when we get into this heightened heightened arousal state you can only react in those places. If you do bring it down you can respond you can be like \"Oh,\" but maybe I don't do that versus like \"No, I'm not doing that. Yes, I am doing that.\" Like, you know.","offset":2399,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: The amount of patients over the years, Brian, who came in to see me um with sleep issues, and of course there's a whole variety of different reasons why one may be struggling with one's sleep, right? But so many of them and this is one of the probably unintended or maybe intended consequences of the digital world in which we now live is that these boundaries between work and home have kind of vanished in a way that you know 20 years ago you left the office, you there's stuff you couldn't really do at home, you had to be in the office to do it, so there would be a natural boundary.","offset":2435,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Whereas now people can work and do their emails into the evening and one of the things I I realized after a while I was telling my patients a lot is that you know you're struggling to switch off and sleep. They're literally doing work emails, firing them off and then going to bed and saying \"Hey, I'm struggling to sleep,\" okay. And I'm like \"If you're doing that and you're really activated,\" now some people can switch it off quickly, for sure.","offset":2472,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: My wife can.","offset":2495,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But many people can't. And I'm like, for me personally, I have to have I don't have to anymore, but I chose a few years ago to go \"You know what, once it hits 7:00 PM, that's it, I'm done. Like, that's the day done. Now everything is chill mode. It's relaxing, it's reading, it's music, it's doing some stretches, it's chatting with my wife, it's not work-related.\" It was a choice that I made.","offset":2496,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: And what I used to say to these guys is \"Look, have you got kids?\" He said \"Yeah.\" I said \"With your kids, just before they go to bed, what do you do? You don't put all the lights on full, give them a load of sugar, put the music up loud. You don't activate them, do you? No. You dim the lights, you soften your tone, you might read them a bedtime story. You're creating this kind of environment around them that is conducive to falling asleep.\"","offset":2521,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: But as adults we kind of think that we don't need that. I'm like \"Your kids need a bedtime routine, you might benefit from a similar bedtime routine to your children.\" It's about what is the signal you're giving to your nervous system, isn't it?","offset":2551,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We create more stimulus through the unprocessed junk, whatever we're not dealing with, and it's this compensation of just trying to get as much done as we can because in the world we live in, it's just like it's this barrage of information that we're all aware of and we all talk about it like we understand it, however, when you don't have boundaries like you've talked about how you have boundaries—like 7:00 PM comes you're done, like it's done, right?","offset":2565,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: It's early these days to be fair.","offset":2596,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Well, for for me it's really 4 or 5:00. Like, it's really 4 or 5:00 because I if I'll obsess, I'll I will obsess on my work and about you know like look, I tested you and I'll keep going and looking at your data and bringing it in and working on it because I'm in in a space where I'm like \"Yeah, yeah, yeah.\" But that'll also be there tomorrow and I really enjoy a lot of the other hobbies and things that I do and one of them's like cooking. So I get to go home and I get to start cooking. The way I cook is isn't pre-planned. It's \"What's what do we have and what can I create?\" And—","offset":2597,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: So you've but you're changing your nervous system's state.","offset":2643,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: I am boom! going from work into no! now I'm in the kitchen, play, creativity, and when it's a little warmer I typically will come home and because it gets it gets dark later, I'll go home, grab Tiana and I'll be like \"We're going to the beach!\" and we will go body surf for like 45 minutes or an hour. But my mornings are the same way. Like, I don't actually go and sit and do breathwork all very often in the morning because I head out the door and I go walk for 60 to 90 minutes.","offset":2646,"duration":26}],"startTime":2129},{"title":"Unstructured Play and Setting Boundaries","summary":"The discussion moves to Brian's daily walking habit and his priority for unstructured play like surfing. They touch on the negative impacts of smartphones, the need to reclaim our attention, and how setting clear personal boundaries allows you to truly show up for others.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah, I want to talk about this. This is really important. So there's doing breathwork whilst you're sitting down and still. Um. And the exercise you kind of illustrated and took people through before is it's kind of about paying attention and just sort of starting to notice what's happening. But there's also breathwork or paying attention to your breathing when you're moving, right? So—","offset":2672,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: Correct. Correct.","offset":2700,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, I mean, I’m—I think my average is something like 17 or 18,000 steps a day.","offset":2707,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: And this is something different from five years ago.","offset":2713,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh God, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean look, I’ve been walking for quite some time. It’s just the level of walking because of what happens, what I’ve really invested in with walking is the same thing I’m invested in with cooking and/or going bodysurfing or even surfing, for that matter. Like, I didn’t even throw in, if there is a big enough swell, I shut off everything. I cancel appointments with clients. I will, like, and anybody who’s a surfer understands this, like, it’s done. Like, it’s out.","offset":2716,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: The thought that just jumped into my head was, it’s so counter to what we think life should be, which is about seriousness, and if you have a meeting or something there, you have to do it. And I understand that many people have jobs where they have to. Maybe, you know, you work for yourself, so you have the autonomy to do that whereas many people don’t. I accept all of that. But it just makes me think about culture and actually how the playfulness, the things that truly nourish us, those are the things that everyone tries to fit in on their one-week vacation, or maybe on a Sunday afternoon. Do you know what I mean? It says something about culture where these things have been relegated to being only when you have time, only when you’ve finished your emails.","offset":2751,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: See, this is—goes right back to process, in what we were talking about in the beginning. My work is the same way. I’m literally having fun like a kid with what I’m doing. And I’m enjoying that. And I’m not losing sight of that. I feel like at this point in my life, at 50 years old, I got rid of the kid that was a tortured soul and brought back the kid that was playing. And I’ve taken the things that I have learned and that I’m very passionate about, and I’ve learned to apply that to everything I’m doing. But I have set hard lines in the sand with these things.","offset":2798,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Like what?","offset":2844,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You don’t get me when I’m surfing. You don’t get me after 4:00 PM. My time is the most valuable thing I have, and your time is the most valuable thing you have. And attention is finite. Where I choose to spend my time, I choose to be there and invested in it in the most creative way that I can. And that’s just presence. I can’t do that without presence. If I’m thinking about the next meeting I’ve got to go to, and the deal I’ve got to close, and whoever I’ve got to—uh-uh. That’s not going to work. It doesn’t work for me like that. And then I love the job I’m at, but more importantly, I love every single person that is in my life, no matter how short that is. And then third, I feel like I’m a kid—and you’ll like this—I’ll feel like I’m a kid in the ‘80s playing again. The ‘80s, bro. The ‘80s.","offset":2845,"duration":56},{"text":"Host: Pre-smartphones.","offset":2901,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Bro, the innocence and the risk-taking that I was in up to when I was living at that time. The craziness of it. But the—just the drive to explore. And that’s what walking does for me. The walking in the morning reminds me of when I was a kid and I lived behind this forest and I would just go—I was out, I was gone. At like six years old. Eight years old, I’d go walk out the back and I’d go into the forest and I’d go scurry around building tree forts, all this stuff. You know how hard that is right now for people and their kids? Like, to allow even a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old to be on their own?","offset":2902,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Jonathan Haidt writes about this in *The Anxious Generation*. He’s talking about, you know, the negatives of smartphones at an early age and social media at an early age. But for him, the case he makes is not only about reducing that, it’s at the same time we need to increase free play, give our children independence, get them out taking risks, playing. The world is actually a lot safer for most of us than it used to be. Yet we’re behaving—like, I think he says something to the effect of, we are underprotecting kids in the online world and overprotecting them in the offline world. And I think he’s—I think he’s really onto something.","offset":2949,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: I—I don’t think he’s wrong. I mean, I read Johann Hari, you know, did a book—*Stolen Focus*. Yeah, *Stolen Focus*. That was a fantastic book as well. But, um, you know, and all of that’s provided me with information that I’ve been able to utilize, right? Like, I’m able to take steps to understand these things. It’s like, you know, I don’t have a true existence on social media anymore. It’s like from afar. And, you know, if I go post a video that I have to get on the app for to post that, I actually have to go to the App Store, install the app, and then I delete the app after I’ve done that. And I don’t go through and start scrolling ‘cause I know what’s going to happen to me. I’m not—I’m not immune to the things that are going on with you on there if you’re actually on there. I know—I go through the same thing where I get caught in the infinite scroll and I’m—I’m emotionally getting triggered by things and it’s like, oh that’s interesting, that’s going on. And people pretend like that’s not happening to them. And literally, there are people I have had conversations with that think that’s not affecting them. And they’re full of shit. It’s affecting all of us in a certain way. And real life, real life is with the people you’re closest to and the able—the ability to show up in an interaction. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go on social media and do the thing. It’s just like getting caught in that loop and going, oh there it is, I’m out.","offset":2990,"duration":94},{"text":"Host: It’s interesting you spoke about the boundaries you put in place, the clear boundaries you put in place, and boundaries are something that many people struggle with.","offset":3084,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh yeah.","offset":3093,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: I used to struggle with, for sure.","offset":3093,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah.","offset":3095,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: And a lot of the time, there’s a pushback sometimes that it’s selfish. But the funny thing is that I imagine, and I put it to you, like, putting in boundaries is actually one of the most selfless things you can do.","offset":3095,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, yeah.","offset":3110,"duration":0}],"startTime":2672},{"title":"The Five-Gear Breathing System","summary":"Brian introduces his five-gear breathing system for exercise, ranging from strictly nasal breathing at low intensity to heavy mouth breathing at high intensity. They explore how these gears correlate to heart rate zones, metabolic efficiency, and fat burning.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Because what people don’t realize on the other side of boundaries is that you then—you then have something to give to the people you want to give to. Let’s talk about your gear system here, right? Because I think it’s—it’s really practical, and I think it’s going to be a tool that people can take away ‘cause we’ve gone pretty deep, right? And I think you can go that deep, but having some practical activities that you can start, you know, playing around with each day, I think it helps people go to that deepness. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s easy to hear these concepts and go, well yeah, Brian, Rangan, alright for you guys, like, I don’t know, like, you enjoy doing the dishes. What are you guys talking about? I hate doing the dishes. So let’s bring in these five gear systems because I think they’re useful. Everyone moves their bodies. Maybe some not as much as others. But what are they and why do you think they’re so important for people to know?","offset":3110,"duration":60},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Well, we developed the breathing gear system out of a discrepancy that we found in observing breathing as a dynamic through low, moderate, and high-intensity exercise.","offset":3170,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: So the gear systems apply to when we’re moving our body.","offset":3185,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct.","offset":3188,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: It’s not about waking up and actually paying attention—no. So we’ve parked that. We’re now moving our bodies. Let’s say we’re going for a walk.","offset":3188,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: It’s about exercise. Go for a walk. And this is a perfect example, is if gear one cannot be used while someone is walking, we have a very big limitation, which is nothing but an opportunity. Don’t look at limiter as a negative. Limiter is an opportunity. So I have an immediate opportunity if I can’t have somebody in gear one. And breathing gear one is simple. It’s can you maintain one breath cycle in and out of your nose for greater than four seconds? So that would be like a two in, two out, right? Two—two-count in, two-count out. I get that upwards to somewhere around eight seconds for walking level, maybe ten seconds walking level effort for people. But that’s a good check. Does that mean you should go on a 90-minute walk while trying to apply gear one? Absolutely not. That means go spend like 10, 20 minutes really focusing, or from time to time every few minutes checking in and applying that breathing pattern to the effort you’re at with walking.","offset":3195,"duration":78},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let me frame it my way and see if this makes sense. Okay, so walking is, of course, it depends whether there’s an incline or it depends on the speed, but it’s, you know, it’s not the most intense of movement activities, right? So you’re saying you’re going for a walk around your block. Gear one is the ability to maintain a nasal in-breath and a nasal out-breath, so you’re not opening your mouth, and you want that in and out breath to be at least four seconds.","offset":3273,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yep.","offset":3301,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. If you cannot do that—okay, so it could be that you can only manage two seconds, or it could be that I can only walk around the block by opening my mouth.","offset":3302,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: That would be gear four.","offset":3312,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let’s work through this. Okay, so why is that a problem then? If someone can’t go around the block on a flat pavement and keep their mouth shut while they’re doing it, so exclusively nasal breathing, if they can’t do that, why is that something they should be paying attention to?","offset":3314,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: They’re not utilizing oxygen real well. Okay, to make sure you’re taking action after watching this video, I’ve created a free breathing guide that’s going to help you reduce stress, calm your minds, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.","offset":3331,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Can we think about these five breathing gear systems like a car? You know, gear one to five, where, you know, we start off the car in first gear, and we go to second gear, and third gear, and fourth gear, and fifth gear? Is—can—is that—does that make sense?","offset":3361,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Sort of. It sort of, because gear one would be much—you’d be in gear one should be primarily most of what you’re doing throughout your day. So gear two is a transition from gear one, obviously, to where I go from that four-count, and now I’m down and I’m probably more like three—two to three seconds per breath cycle.","offset":3379,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: But still nasal in and out?","offset":3405,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yes, I’m still nasal, right? Still nasal.","offset":3407,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: So gears one and gear two are both nasal.","offset":3409,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And what I’ve found—what I have found over the last several years is that gear two is actually pretty limited. And you’re probably more effective if you’re—if you’re going to be prolonged at gear two, you’re actually more effective at jumping up to a gear four. So see, I’m skipping gear three. Because gear three is nose in, mouth out. And that’s largely a transitional gear for coming down.","offset":3411,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: And we’re going to go through this, but for people who like want to learn more, it’s all on your website, isn’t it? Like, you’ve got the gear system, and that is shiftadapt.com.","offset":3446,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: ShiftAdapt.com, right. So if they go to shiftadapt.com, you’ve clearly got the five gear systems there.","offset":3458,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, I think we have it—I have that up—we have that up somewhere on that site. Um, if not, they can go to actually my—my X handle and it is literally pinned at the top of my—of my profile. And there is a systematic breakdown of it and where it relates and how it can work. Okay.","offset":3463,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: That said, skip gear three going up. So I’m in gear two, if I’m going to be there for more than a minute or two, I’m going to have somebody go to gear four.","offset":3490,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: And that is what? In and out through the mouth?","offset":3500,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, it’s just relaxed mouth breathing.","offset":3503,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. So as your intensity is going up, you’ve moved from gear one to gear two, you’re saying on the way up, jump and skip gear three, and you’re now at gear four. So you’ve gone from nasal breathing in and out to mouth breathing in and out, but in a relaxed way. And then gear five is—","offset":3506,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: For—yeah, and for heart rate zone junkies, people who actually understand heart rate zones, gear four is happening somewhere between heart rate zone three and four. Okay. That is where that is occurring. Gear five is power mouth breathing. Meaning I’m actually really moving air like [breathing sound]. This is heavy-duty strength and conditioning sets. This is sprinting. At the end of sprints, if they’re short, or you’re talking 400-meter, 800-meter efforts, you’re going to hit those. If you’re hitting those for high intensity, gear five is coming into play. Okay. Gear five is something that I realized there were a lot of problems with not just myself that I noticed, but other people I’ve noticed who were not able to get that respiration rate above about 40, 45.","offset":3521,"duration":65},{"text":"Host: Yeah, okay. And we’ll come to my test here.","offset":3586,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Uh-huh.","offset":3588,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But just again, to make sure everyone’s following along. Right, so there are these five gear systems that you’ve gone through. As our intensity of movement increases, we in essence move up through the gears, just like we would in a car. Right. Why is it important for someone to know that? So what I mean by that is, let’s say someone is using gears four and five exclusively, i.e., they’re never nasal breathing, okay? They’re—they go for a walk around the block on a flat, in perfect weather conditions, and they’re breathing in and out through their mouth. Okay, so they’re not using one, two, or three, they’re straight into four. ‘Cause I think people need to know that to encourage them to start.","offset":3589,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: For the hundreds, if not thousands, of people that I’ve tested or looked at the—the data on currently, um, you have a breathing-related issue when exercising. And you have a big opportunity in maximizing your performance and output by—either and—look, I—I tested, um—so I tested Kawhi Leonard this morning, who’s an NBA player for the Clippers. Um, and he asked this very question, well how’s this going to help my performance? And I explained to him, well think of it like a season, right? If I can give you a tool that’s going to allow you to be more efficient with your breathing, you’re not losing that blood to your locomotor muscles. So you’re not getting more stressed sooner. You’re using energy a bit more efficiently. So game after game, if you don’t change this, by the time playoffs come, you’re pretty tired, you’re pretty exhausted, it’s pretty hard, versus you now have—you’re now recovering faster because you’ve got more capacity ‘cause you’re using oxygen later than you were earlier.","offset":3629,"duration":80},{"text":"Host: Yeah. So there’s a performance benefit, there’s a capacity benefit, you can go for longer before you fatigue. Someone we both follow on X, Alan Cousins, my interpretation of what I’ve read from Alan is, you know, if you’re keeping at that low heart rate, if you’re walking to the mailbox, if you can keep it all nasal breathing and at a low heart rate, that’s going to help you burn fat. There’s a metabolic benefit. And so for some people who maybe don’t want performance or not NBA players, well many people are trying to lose fat off their bodies, right? And there’s a metabolic reason to be able to access gears one and two, isn’t there? You’re going to—it’s going to help you burn fat.","offset":3709,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You know, we definitively understand that if you’re breathing through your nose, you’re more aerobic than you are if you’re—","offset":3750,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Which means you’re using up fat.","offset":3757,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. So think of your aerobic system is kind of like your—your checking account, right? And your anaerobic systems are your savings account. If I’m constant—my mouth—my mouth open is my savings account. You’re on limited time. You’re incinerating carbohydrates when that mouth’s open. So you’re using up—that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. But I’m on limited time. If I’m more aerobic, I’m utilizing fatty acids more. So I’m burning fat, right?","offset":3759,"duration":33}],"startTime":3110},{"title":"The Pitfalls of Exclusive Nasal Breathing","summary":"Using the host's personal metabolic assessment, Brian explains the downside of exclusively nasal breathing during high-intensity exercise. They discuss how neglecting upper breathing gears limits oxygen utilization and VO2 max, and how developing all gears builds resilience to stress.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Okay. Now, I love all this. Right, so we’re in a situation where—and this is how the—the breathwork landscape has changed over the last five or 10 years, of which I’m a prime example. Okay, so—","offset":3792,"duration":13},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, this is good.","offset":3805,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Let’s go back 10 years. A decade ago, I can’t quite remember what was happening, but breathwork wasn’t as popular as it is now. Mm-mm. In my own journey through this podcast, which has been going for seven years now, the first time I really dealt with nasal breathing on the show was with Patrick McKeown many years ago. I had a lovely chat with Patrick. Um, he spoke to me about the BOLT score and, you know, the benefits of nasal breathing. And that progressed to me talking to you and all kinds of people about breathwork. James Nestor then releases this blow-up book globally, *Breath*, and talks about the benefits of nasal breathing. Is it fair to say that that message was needed because the vast majority of people were overbreathing and using their mouths more than their nose? But something has shifted where some people who get a bit obsessed like me take that nasal breathing message and try and do everything in our lives with nasal breathing and then we start to have problems in somewhere like a gear five, which is what I think you’re finding with me.","offset":3806,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. Yes. And—and I experienced the same thing. I did the same thing.","offset":3871,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: But it doesn’t mean nasal breathing is not important. It’s just that—","offset":3877,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: No, no, no. There’s a limitation, for sure.","offset":3881,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Can—can we say this? That there was a deficiency of nasal breathing in society. The increased awareness has—has meant that less people are deficient now because they’re aware of it. But the problem is is that they’ve tipped it too far where they’ve actually now neglected mouth breathing, which is also important.","offset":3883,"duration":21},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. Go look at a tour cyclist who climbs Alpe d’Huez or whatever climb you want to talk about and they’re punching it. Their jaw is on the—their jaw is open and they are and they are moving that air fast.","offset":3904,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay. So let’s talk about that then through the lens of the testing you did on me, right? So ‘cause I think this kind of illustrates this quite well.","offset":3918,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. You were—you were not able to get above a 42 respiration rate, and you were at tidal volume, but I’m pretty sure you could get deeper.","offset":3925,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Let’s break that down. Like some people won’t know what tidal volume is and what these terms—","offset":3937,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Tidal volume just talks about how much air’s in the lungs, right?","offset":3941,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So are we saying that I was good at the lower gears?","offset":3945,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You were good at the lower gears. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.","offset":3948,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: So—so because I’ve put in the work at the lower gears and I’ve focused on nasal breathing, so it looked as though you were really happy with that.","offset":3950,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. And metabolically speaking, look, like based on—you—you were between 0.95 and 1.0 for like 15 minutes.","offset":3957,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: And what does that mean for people who don’t know those terms?","offset":3968,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: So Rangan was at a low to moderate, moderate, moderate, high level. He was staying under 1.0 RER, which is respiratory exchange ratio, which means once you hit 1.0, you’re burning carbohydrates.","offset":3970,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: So I was able to burn fat.","offset":3984,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You were still had some fatty ac—you were still burning some fat even at relatively, you know, moderate, moderate to high intensities, which I probably wasn’t doing five years ago. From a systems level, a metabo—so just that’s just looking at the metabolic. Now, here’s where—here’s where part of the assessment is different that I that I’m doing. And endurance community will understand this. I’m looking at tissue utilization of oxygen and I’m looking at delivery of oxygen. Okay? So I’m seeing how the hemoglobin is getting delivered, the oxygen’s getting delivered to the tissue, and I’m seeing how well that tissue’s actually utilizing that oxygen.","offset":3987,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: Okay. So many of us understand that oxygen comes into our lungs, right? And then from our lungs, it gets into our blood. You’re saying there’s two things to think about. Yes, you have to get the oxygen from the lungs to, let’s say, your muscles, right?","offset":4029,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: As soon as you start working, the muscles demand goes up.","offset":4045,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Right. So the oxygen gets to the muscles. But you’re also saying that even if it gets there, it may not be being used efficiently.","offset":4048,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct.","offset":4055,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: Right. So this is the kind of nuance that I think many of us are not thinking about. So okay, let’s go back to my test then. What was I doing? Am I getting oxygen there and it’s not being used efficiently, or am I not even getting oxygen there?","offset":4055,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’re getting oxygen there. However, you weren’t utilizing the oxygen well at these places.","offset":4067,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Why?","offset":4074,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: The mitochondria aerobic system wasn’t getting enough oxygen or hadn’t been for for long enough because the nose breathing is happening with everything, and you’re more than likely doing it at higher efforts, which you confirmed with me. Yes, you are. So you’re not actually bringing in enough oxygen to actually help that so you’re the system can’t—or the tissue can’t, but the system’s fine.","offset":4075,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: It’s funny, a few years ago I went to Salford University in Manchester to do my lactate threshold testing, and I was right in the middle of my nasal breathing passion. And I was nasal breathing till right at the very end. And it’s really interesting. These guys have done thousands of lactate threshold tests. My test confused them because they weren’t seeing what they’re used to. They weren’t seeing the usual step changes. I don’t think at that time they’d seen someone who was nasal breathing right until the very, very final speed. And they were going to do some more work on me and then COVID happened, nothing—we didn’t actually do anything. But now it’s all starting to—the penny’s starting to drop now, where I’m like, ah, maybe—not maybe, I was overly nasal breathing, so they couldn’t even get the data they wanted to give me my training zones. Does that—is that making sense?","offset":4100,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Dude, I watched this exact thing with—so I I have a pretty good relationship with the UFC PI and one of my—one of my clients owns the UFC so we went over to the PI to do all of our testing there with Roman, um, who who’s the exercise lead physiologist there. And he he did this exact same thing and literally with a minute and a half left, he decided to start mouth breathing—","offset":4154,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: That was me. That was exactly me.","offset":4181,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And it that’s all it lasted. He fell off a cliff immediately afterwards and yeah, you were struggling your ass off because you didn’t—you didn’t have enough oxygen on board. And you haven’t actually developed the the the the muscles to be able to move that fast.","offset":4183,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: So I’ve developed the lower end, which is great and has metabolic benefits and performance benefits, but I’ve sacrificed or underdeveloped the top end.","offset":4199,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, it’s like doing yoga with your primary breathing muscles and then asking yourself to go, you know, do powerlifting, right? It it’s just those two very different worlds, right? Or—","offset":4208,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: But you need both. It’s not—","offset":4219,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, correct.","offset":4220,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So I was right to focus on the nasal breathing and correct that deficiency in my life.","offset":4221,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yes.","offset":4225,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: But now it’s like, hey Rangan, you’ve got that one. That’s okay. Keep doing that, but now we need to bring in—","offset":4225,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. And the series of questions that I ask based on what I see is what validates what we see, right? And that was the questions that I had for you was like, hey, you know, are you doing any mouth breathing? You’re like, oh no, no, no, no. I don’t do you know, like I’m, you know, this is what I’m doing. And I’m like, okay, that’s what I thought.","offset":4230,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let’s say you’re going to give me a program and I’m going to work on certain things to do. And I guess some of that’s—well, maybe you can share. What are some of the things you would ideally have me work on?","offset":4249,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: We would, one, have you uh work at just above gear two. So working to like heart rate zone two, heart rate to heart rate zone four. We’d be doing some intervals there with mouth breathing, particularly gear four, not gear five. Gear five we would touch. We’ll touch with things like strength and conditioning. So I threw in with your program, at the—the—one of the main points of the limiters was let’s do some real str—let’s do some strength and conditioning at least twice a week where you’re getting that intensity up to where you are mou—wanting to move air like [breathing sound]. And that may just be after you finish squatting, but it hits that. And then we can gear down as a result of that. So I get up to a point to where I hit that when I’m lifting heavy and then that doesn’t mean the whole workout’s gear five at all. It’s we’re hitting those stages. You’re also doing structured cardio throughout the week at least twice a week to where we’re doing some interval type work where you’re working for a few minutes in gear four and then coming back into a gear one for some easier stuff. And making sure that we’ve got the the you know the working gear one in there.","offset":4260,"duration":86},{"text":"Host: So the gears that I have um underdeveloped over the past few years, the gear four and five, right? In essence, you’re saying now we’re going to start um redeveloping them. You’re going to now—you’ve got gear one and two going pretty well. Let’s now get gears four and five going well so I’ve got this real variety and depth in my system. I want to know what the benefits for me of doing that are. Like why should I do it? I feel good. Um, I can nasal breathe at low intensities. I’m going to do it, Brian. It’s not that. For the purpose of the conversation, why should I? Why shouldn’t I just keep doing what I’m doing?","offset":4346,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’re going to most likely see an increase in VO2 max.","offset":4388,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Could you explain to my audience what a VO2 max is?","offset":4392,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Maximum amount of oxygen you’re able to utilize, um, in liters per kilogram a minute. So your your body weight in kilograms and how many liters you’re using of oxygen or can you use in a minute. That’s just a rough reference point of the higher that VO2 max is, the less likely it is that that’s going to slip into a dangerous zone as you get older. The good news is you’re probably not in any danger. The the even better news is is that following what I’m going to lay out is going to most likely increase that exponentially. Meaning when you go on a walk, it’s even easier. You’re not using high-stress energy in the places you used to.","offset":4394,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Is it fair to say that if you can develop this five-gear system with a variety of different movements and a variety of different breathing gears and heart rate intensity, you’re working out your stress response system?","offset":4440,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, oh yes.","offset":4456,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Right. So how—look, given what we spent the first hour talking about, which is the way we respond to stress, the choice or perhaps not the choice, depending on how you want to frame it. In terms of we have a stressor and we have a response to that and we can train our response, we can get more helpful responses over time. Do you think that if people develop their five-gear breathing system, it would help them better manage stress in their own lives?","offset":4457,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Across the board, yes.","offset":4484,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: ‘Cause it’s not separate, is it? It’s not how you deal with the driver who cuts you off is actually related to how you move your body.","offset":4486,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. And your—well, your breathing is a respondent to all of that. Breathing’s playing a role in all of that. So me learning how to actually—and this doesn’t—like, I want to be very clear. I don’t—I don’t, nor do I expect clients to go into the gym and or go and do cardio every time they go and work out that they’re implementing the gear system. A small portion of that training I will integrate the gear system and breathing into, but not the whole thing. It’s like if I’ve got a guy playing, you know, in the NFL or NBA, whatever, I do not want them thinking about the gears when they’re playing. No. Not at all. Not at all. That is part of training and then it should transcend over into is the is my client now seeing differences in how they’re playing and intuitively picking up on this process as they walk—as they go through that, right? Are they as soon as a play ends and you know, in NFL or are they immediately into [heavy breathing sound]. Do they do that intuitively, right? That’s where that should happen. However, the crossover is how I’m managing my day-to-day stress is going to show up in my training. And if I can’t maintain a gear one in something I should be able to maintain a gear one in, I now know I’m probably a little more smoked than I normally am, or if I had a a workout I was going to do that had some sort of gear in it, and that’s much harder, you are now seeing a response to stress that you have a feedback loop to to understand, oh wow, this is a lot more difficult or this is much easier today. I am really able to get work harder in this gear, right? That is a very—that is a crossover point for understanding, oh, I’m actually making some adaptations here towards expanding my potential for stress. Like, I I’m able to handle far more than I was prior to this. And here’s the thing, if I don’t use oxygen well, your physiology will catch you. We call these metabolic disorders. Like, it will catch you. And that doesn’t mean your breathing is the culprit here. It means, yeah, your breathing’s probably affected, your food’s probably affected because you’re making fast choices on that and you don’t care about where you’re getting your food from, just hypothesizing. Your training is too intense or it’s not intense enough, right? Like, the there’s all these variant—like, look you go look at research like it comes out all the time, but variance to training is the thing that is typically the best stimulus, not the same thing over and over and over repeating.","offset":4493,"duration":176},{"text":"Host: It’s so interesting this stuff. I mean, I’m I’m deeply fascinated like you about human behavior. A big part of my job for many years as a doctor has been to help patients make better lifestyle choices. And I used to think that knowledge was all the people needed. And I’m like, no, no, no. People need knowledge for sure, they need external knowledge, but what they need more than anything I believe these days is internal knowledge, that awareness of why am I going to this behavior. So let’s take sugar for example, right? And I think this relates to your work and the gear systems. If you’re chronically stressed and generating emotional stress by every way you interact with life—the the drivers, the boss, the traffic—and you’re thinking you’re a victim to the world, you did the math, you’re going to consume more sugar because you you’re using up sugar.","offset":4669,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Your body needs sugar.","offset":4723,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Exactly. And so you keep thinking that you need to hear another podcast on the on the negatives of sugar, but the problem is you already know that. You need to understand why do you need that sugar. What is going on upstream that is naturally means you’re going to consume that sugar and you can apply that to alcohol or three hours scrolling social media, whatever it might be. Like, what’s the upstream driver? Hey guys, I really hope you’re finding this useful. If you are and you want more content like it, please do check out my book, *Make Change That Lasts: Nine Simple Ways to Break Free From the Habits That Are Holding You Back*. It’s in all the usual places as a paperback, ebook, and as an audiobook which I’m narrating now. Back to the video.","offset":4725,"duration":45}],"startTime":3792},{"title":"Building Capacity Through Daily Walking","summary":"Brian provides practical advice to integrate the gear system into daily life, starting with a 45-minute daily walk using nasal breathing. They discuss how this baseline movement improves VO2 max, builds self-awareness, and acts as a powerful stress regulator.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Is it fair to say, Brian, then, because not everyone who um who is listening to this right now is going to be able to come to your facility, okay? Um, so in terms of practical advice that may work for most people—","offset":4770,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah.","offset":4787,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: I think a conclusion that I’m drawing is that everyone should be able to walk around their block keeping their mouth shut.","offset":4787,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: If you can’t go walk for at least 45 minutes a day, you’ve got—I my suggestion is find the time to walk for at least 45 minutes a day with your mouth shut and not on a screen. You’re laying the beginnings of a metabolic foundation, the stuff Alan Cousins talks in in like so well about. I actually believe it’s more—so do I. Yeah, you’re going to need more than—but if you can get 45, that’s a good start. But go get lost in that 45 minutes. Go explore.","offset":4798,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: But keep your mouth shut.","offset":4836,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Keep your mouth shut and explore.","offset":4837,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay, now let’s say someone tries that and goes, hey Brian, I’m really struggling, like I’m trying to go for a walk, I have to open my mouth after 10 minutes.","offset":4839,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Take a few mouth breaths and go right back to nose breathing.","offset":4847,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: So it’s training. You’re like you don’t have the skill now but you can develop and cultivate it.","offset":4850,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Take a few mouth breaths, go back to nose—go back to gear one.","offset":4854,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. So practice nasal breathing at low intensity.","offset":4857,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: At low—it it’s 80% of what you should be doing, right? So 80% of what you should be doing is really underneath that nose breathing thing. Then there’s the hey, if you can get that 45 minutes, great. Go work, spend your day paying attention to how much you’re talking, how much you’re getting stressed out. Find pieces of time where you can just bring it down for a minute or five. Just in just start with a consistent habit of controlling some breathing or paying attention to your breathing through your belly, your chest, your nose if you want, throughout your day if you can. Then, if you’re going to go train, if you’re going to go exercise and you really want to exercise, use your walking, the end of your walk and how you feel after walking as a basis for how hard you can train or what you can do that day. You’ll know. Your body is going to tell you through that walk how good you feel, if you feel great like and and try and mix up things. Like, try and do some strength training. We know definitively strength training is as important as VO2 max. Having muscle tissue so that you can get up off your your tail is is just as important as having a VO2 max, right? So maintaining strength, that doesn’t mean you need to go into a powerlifting meet. Like, it doesn’t mean you need to become a powerlifter. But finding complex movements and applying them, do that throughout the week. Maybe at least twice, if not three or four times a week if that’s your MO.","offset":4859,"duration":103},{"text":"Host: So you’re saying the 45-minute walk, right, or whatever you can manage, you’re saying have that daily walk. Yep. That daily walk does several things. Yes, it’s training you metabolically, it’s training your stress response system, but it’s also helping you tune into yourself. Because if you do it every day, and this is why I like repetition, you start to feel if the practice is the same and you feel different, you know that something else is causing you to feel different. i.e., oh I didn’t sleep well last night or I’ve got a lot of stress in my life at the moment. That walk felt a bit harder today than yesterday, it’s the same place that you’ve gone. So you’re starting to understand yourself better and the state of your nervous system through that daily walk.","offset":4962,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: 100%. 100%. Yeah. And for 20 minutes of calm just sitting, the brain looks looks looks good. But the brain after 20 minutes of walking looks real good. Real good. You start to see things because of blood flow changes and metabolic changes that start to happen that aren’t requiring high stress from that, and you kind of start to work through creatively a lot of the stuff that you’re working—whatever you’re working on, whether that’s work, whether that’s life, whether that’s whatever. And I’ve found that that is the place where I can really tap in and I I’m also very aware of like, you know what, I am definitely not lifting today. I’m still a mess and there’s no reason why I’m going to put load on my back or you know, pull heavy off the ground, whatever. Um for I’m going to do some probably some low-level cardio later or I’m going to go swim, right? Like um you know, or I’m just going to surf.","offset":5003,"duration":61},{"text":"Host: You’re getting in tune with yourself.","offset":5064,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. I’m just—","offset":5065,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You’re starting to learn about yourself. It’s paying attention to what’s going on inside.","offset":5066,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’ll start—you’ll start to figure out that that um when you don’t move, when you don’t walk, when you don’t exercise, your body starts to take a nosedive. Your stress levels go up through the roof, your HRV starts to drop, your resting heart rate starts to increase, your blood pressure starts to increase. Literally, I can watch this with I watch this with myself. My resting my morning lactate reading goes up if I don’t do anything the day before, right? If I don’t do any walking, if I don’t do anything the day before and I was talking and I was engaged in work or I was flying and all that dude, the next morning, I’m hot. I’m running hot. So I’ve got to go you know I don’t have to, I go walk and then I’m like, I don’t go crush it the next day. Like I have clients I manage their pro—like this is what I do, is I’m like yo, you’re landing in Abu Dhabi, you are not going and training hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. And I’m like, no, you’re not—like not if you want to sleep. Like, if you really want to get adjusted sooner, we’re going to get light, we’re going to go walk around, then it’s going to be hey here’s this low-level thing.","offset":5069,"duration":73},{"text":"Host: Yeah. It’s interesting that we we have all this data now coming out, well for many years, that um exercise is as good as an antidepressant or better. You know, we we—but the point I’m trying to make is that we’re so used to being a sedentary society that doesn’t move, we talk about all the benefits of exercise, but actually if you flip it, it’s like if we were all moving, it’s not that exercise has the benefits, it’s that not moving has all these disadvantages. It’s the same thing but reframed.","offset":5142,"duration":30}],"startTime":4770},{"title":"Light Exposure and Groundedness","summary":"Brian highlights the metabolic importance of morning light exposure and avoiding artificial blue light at night. They draw parallels between grounded cultures, like the Maasai, and Eastern philosophies, noting that true grounding always involves physical movement.","entries":[{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And and if you want to have if you want to do this even even at a higher level, get your ass outside and do it. Get exposed to the light, the morning light. Like it it’s critical that you’re doing this stuff. This is like how we were de—how we evolved, this is how we became what we are, as a result of being outside and having to go walk towards something to get it and then bring it back or however we were doing it. And I mean look, my house when it gets dark, it gets red. The only lights that come on are red. You know, I I’m ahead of this because I noticed the sensitivities I have towards the light. I I really get sensitive towards light in the dark. Like when I was driving at night, I would notice I would just be like, God I’m this is sucks because of headlights.","offset":5172,"duration":54},{"text":"Host: Yeah, light—light is as powerful as a drug. We just don’t see it like that.","offset":5226,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: 100%. Forget the name of the book, I read one, it was great on on on light and um sleep and you know light being the original uh toxic thing.","offset":5229,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: When you—I’ve got this—I think it’s a I think it’s within the iPhone you can put this like heavy red filter on your phone. And so I triple triple-click in the evening and it goes red. And then if you ever just put it back, you can feel the eye strain.","offset":5243,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: My my phone’s mostly red is is red most the time.","offset":5260,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: But you don’t—people we don’t realize how much we’re being strained and stimulated until you change it and then you flip back, you’re like wow, this is what most people are looking at.","offset":5262,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: What’s wild is I used to watch—so I’m a big entertainment guy, like I love movies, I love good shows, um and I grew up that way. Um I when I watch on the television now, I can’t watch on the TV for very long because it’s so stimulating. I watch on my iPad which I can put in red. So I everything’s in red. That light thing has a huge impact on the, you know, on the metabolic system. Like, how everything’s functioning.","offset":5270,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: Yeah, it’s so interesting, like thinking about our evolution um and how we live. It strikes me that because we’re so disconnected from, let’s say, our food supply, because we’re so disconnected from how we used to live, because our lives are so overly busy and chronically stressed now, it’s as if we all need education now on what diet we should be consuming, how we should be breathing, how much we should be moving. Whereas, I remember last summer, uh my family and I went to Kenya for four weeks, and we went on safari, and one day we spent at uh a Maasai camp. And there’s many things I noticed, but one of the things that struck me, hanging out and interacting with some of the Maasai that morning, was there was just a quietness, a groundedness. I was just struck by this kind of grounded presence that you don’t often see in the modern world. Yeah. But a lot of people around you you meet in in modern life now are quite they’re like I used to be, in your head, you’re not grounded, you’re anything but. Do you know what I mean? How how do you think about being grounded and its relationship with the breath?","offset":5302,"duration":77},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Um, I mean, there’s nothing to fix with any of us, to be clear. But when you’re grounded in yourself and you’re living, you know, how you truly want to be living, you don’t need to change you don’t need to change a whole lot because the process of what you’re doing already involves all of that. I haven’t met anybody—I’ve yet to meet someone who is totally grounded that is not highly physically active in some way. I have not. There is no Eastern philosophy without a physical practice. None of them. None. Why? I’ve looked. Why? Because they understood. It was about like monks up in isolation that I brought up with the, you know the the prison before, they walk every day. They’ve got some sort of practice. Go look at the Shaolin monks, for crying out loud. You know, um you go look every philosophy you’ve got yoga, like it was about movement. And moving into positions, asanas.","offset":5379,"duration":21},{"text":"Brian: ...and getting into position and being able to breathe in that position. Because if you can't breathe in that position, you don't own that position. That position owns you. Yeah. You know? And so anyway, it's I'm I'm very interested in people that that are very grounded and I'm like I'm I'm blessed with what I get to do and how I get to do it.","offset":5400,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Um, but I'm more so just I'm I'm just playing, man. That's all I'm doing.","offset":5426,"duration":5}],"startTime":5172},{"title":"Oxygen Delivery and the Bohr Effect","summary":"Returning to the host's metabolic assessment, Brian explains the Bohr effect and the critical relationship between CO2 and oxygen utilization. They conclude that balancing breathing gears aligns the aerobic system with the parasympathetic nervous system.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah, I love it, Brian. Absolutely love it. Couple of loose ends in my head I just want to tie off before we end the conversation. We spoke before about we get oxygen into our lungs and then we have to deliver it to our tissues or our muscles, but then utilize it when it's there as well. And I think you said that with me, I'm able to get it to the tissues and muscles, but I'm perhaps not as efficient as I could be at using it there. First of all, is my recollection correct?","offset":5431,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian: Correct.","offset":5461,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. So how am I and through me then the people listening, if they have the same problem, how are they going to improve, you know, the usage of that oxygen at the tissues? For me, is it that high intensity? Is that what it is?","offset":5462,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: It's not just high intensity. It's it's even moderate intensity and bringing on enough oxygen for the for the tissue to use it, versus limiting what you're you're doing, right?","offset":5478,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: So I'm artificially limiting...","offset":5491,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Mm-hmm. You are you are controlling things too much.","offset":5493,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Yeah, doesn't sound like me.","offset":5498,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: You have controlled things too much and not allowed the system to do its job.","offset":5500,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: So I need to let go.","offset":5507,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: What it was communicating. Let go. Let go. When when the when you feel the change, that's we're just re-aligning feeling that change.","offset":5508,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: So as I start to let go and allow myself to breathe in a whole variety of different ways, at a whole variety of different intensities. So appropriate breathing for the level of movement and intensity. Are you saying that because those things start to then match up, that then means that my oxygen delivery to the tissues and the usage is also going to start to match up? Whereas now there's a discrepancy.","offset":5519,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. And because of that under-utilization issue, that's probably over time created the issue with your tissue being able to use that oxygen even at lower rates, right? So the ability to get that going again is what we want that's what we're trying to train. But the strength training actually helps with that as well, right? Because we're looking for better mitochondrial development, and that comes in many different fashions. Walking, yes. However, strength training, yes. It just comes in a different way. It's just high intensity, right?","offset":5546,"duration":48},{"text":"Host: And I've heard you say, Brian, the greatest hack for your mitochondria is working on your breath.","offset":5594,"duration":6},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Well, yeah.","offset":5600,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Which again, I don't think a lot of people are thinking about. And sort of tying this up to the start of the conversation, breath is that central piece that so many of our behaviors, our emotions, our ability to perform, they come off as a byproduct of our ability to, like, breathe appropriately and efficiently, right?","offset":5601,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: Yep. And I don't, you know I mean, I don't know how many people have your issue. I've only seen it, like, four or five times. Um, granted every person has been very aware of the breath game for quite some time, right?","offset":5621,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: Yeah, because I guess people like me who are really interested...","offset":5637,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Well, anybody who read Breath typically was like nasal breathing's everything, and that's not on James, James wasn't saying that's everything...","offset":5640,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: I was ever since I first came across Patrick McKeown however many years ago, like, I have been oh, right, I'm going to go and walk nasal breathing, but I probably overdone it. And I get that.","offset":5649,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: Look, man, I've been staring at this down the down the lens of a metabolic cart for quite some time and seeing the changes and and what it like I mean the changes simply in walking with one's mouth open versus one's mouth shut were eye-popping.","offset":5660,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: In terms, and make that really practical, in what? In terms of your ability to burn carbs or fats?","offset":5679,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: So if I'm overbreathing, which isn't what your problem is, right?","offset":5684,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So that's not my problem.","offset":5688,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Which most people, most people are have an overbreathing issue. Yeah. So if I'm overbreathing, I'm definitely not getting oxygen to the tissue, right? So I'm I'm the sympathetic nervous system clamps down and I'm point I'm not going to be I am going to be screwing up the the dissociative curve of oxygen's utilization because I have I'm getting rid of excess CO2. So if I overbreathe, and if anybody wants to do if anybody's done Wim Hof, they've felt what overbreathing feels like. That's where that high starts to to kick in. But what's happening is is things are clamping down, right? And so we're limiting how oxygen gets used and so the red blood cell can't offload as much oxygen because there's not enough CO2. Oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2, and CO2 is what knocks that helps knocks that oxygen molecule out of the red blood cell to go to the cell to be used.","offset":5690,"duration":68},{"text":"Host: Also, Brian, just to finish off that loop as well, given what I shared with you right at the start, which is that I feel compared to last time I was here in LA with you that I'm a different person. My nervous system sits differently. I'm calmer, I'm more present. Do you think in any way that matches my journey with breathing, i.e., perhaps I was overbreathing like most of us five-six years ago, and by working on the lower ends and the nasal breathing, maybe neglecting the higher ends, but by working on that lower end, do you think there's any correlation between that and the fact that I'm less reactive these days?","offset":5758,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian: There's direct correlation between aerobic and parasympathetic nervous system, and sympathetic nervous system and anaerobic.","offset":5800,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: So if so it completely matches up.","offset":5809,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: It it is direct correlation.","offset":5811,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: As I've worked on this lower end, my parasympathetic nervous system's much better able to function.","offset":5812,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: If the lion walks in the room, your system goes oh, we need immediate action. You think it's going to go use fatty acids for that? It can't.","offset":5817,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Needs carbs for that, it needs to go to sympathetic.","offset":5827,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: More carbohydrates or it needs, yeah, creatine phosphate system. It needs instantaneous, but oxygen's a part of that, in when I go use tissue, it it'll deplete that. Like we've seen that. Like, uh, there is no one or the other, it's like how quick that's going to happen.","offset":5829,"duration":23}],"startTime":5431},{"title":"Conclusion: The Freedom of Saying No","summary":"Brian shares where listeners can find his courses and offers final words of wisdom on learning to say no. He encourages the audience to reframe daily obligations from 'I have to' to 'I get to,' cultivating true freedom and presence.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Well Brian, I love talking to you, I love hanging out with you. Um, we've covered so much, we've gone into so many different areas. As we wind this down, if people want to learn more about you, they want to work with you, they want to do your online courses that you guys run, where should people go?","offset":5852,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: shiftadapt.com. So s-h-i-f-t-a-d-a-p-t dot com.","offset":5868,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: And and what's on there, what can they like...","offset":5877,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: We we we still have a membership site, and we have a lot of stuff a lot of courses, things like that or webinars we've done that we talk about a lot of this stuff. We'll be releasing a a number of programs etc., that'll be on a little bit higher level than that that people can go do. And then on the upper tier of all of that is actually hiring my business partner and or I.","offset":5879,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: To actually work with you one-on-one.","offset":5905,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, so Emily Hightower who I work with, uh, she's on the other end of the stress here where she's helping with developing tools and regulating nervous system on the day-to-day throughout, you know, like hey, how are you managing this at in the moment type of stuff? Like what's your life look you know what's going on in life?","offset":5906,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Yeah, amazing. We've covered so much. Um, emotional reactivity, the power to choose our response, breathwork, the different gears, the metabolic benefits of being able to access all the gears, etc. etc. To bring it all together, like Brian, if there's someone who has followed our conversation and still with us, and is like, yeah, you know there's something there for me, right, there's something Brian was talking about that applies to me. I haven't taken my breath seriously, I haven't taken my levels of physical activity seriously, or whatever it might be. How would you help that person? They feel stuck, they feel lost, they feel unmotivated. But at the same Brian, give me some inspiration, what is your final piece of advice? What would you say to that individual?","offset":5929,"duration":52},{"text":"Brian: Learn to say no. Learn to say no to the things you don't want to do. And that is a very that actually goes far deeper than just saying no to something you instantaneously know you don't want to do. It's it's looking at those sexy shiny things that are of excitement and being able to slow it down enough to say no to maybe getting into a business deal or taking a job that you really don't want to take, um, but you think you do because you got to make the money and maybe you could go figure that out another way, or you know, can you change some lifestyle habits? Um, I think no is the path to freedom. Because you'll only be doing the things you truly want to be doing if you learn to say no to the things you don't. And I have found that because of that, I'm surrounded by the people I want to be surrounded by. And and that's it. Um, it's simple. So um, if you can live the life you want, but I mean just applying the principles of making your day a process. Like literally make it a process. Like the dishes, right? Like I get to go drive to work. Yeah, you get to. Or yeah, I get to have a job. Or yeah, I get to drive in traffic. Because I get to live here, because I get to do these things. It's very different than I have to.","offset":5981,"duration":83},{"text":"Host: Yeah, love it, Brian. Thanks for everything you do. Thanks for the help you're giving me personally and for coming back on the show. Really appreciate it.","offset":6064,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Thanks for having me, love you dude.","offset":6072,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you're really going to enjoy this one.","offset":6074,"duration":4},{"text":"Guest: I want people to wake up and realize the creative nature of love, health, harmony, because that is available, and yet we struggle.","offset":6078,"duration":15}],"startTime":5852}],"entries":[{"text":"Host: Breathing is not just about your ability to run a fast 5k on Saturday or your ability to relax in yoga. It is metabolic health, it's cognitive health, it's hormonal health. Like, your breath is at the center of everything. And therefore it's striking that so many of us don't pay attention to our breath, or even know how to manipulate our breath to change our states, right?","offset":0,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. Yeah, yes, and the real thing that I feel would benefit most people is being aware of it, right? And my understanding of really being aware of one's breathing is, if you can be aware of it, you can let it happen and pay attention. And there are times, yes, you can use breathing to regulate and and become more aware of what's going on.","offset":26,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: But if you're not willing to confront the pain that has you in this reactive state to stress—from wherever that originates, typically childhood—um, and you don't that doesn't mean you need to go relive childhood, it's like \"Well, oh, I was in a defensive pattern because my environment was incredibly hostile and everybody was fighting when I was young, so no wonder why I've got my dukes up all the time in anything in what I do,\" right?","offset":54,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Um, I'm really at a point where it's like if if you're just going around that shit, if you're going around that and just trying to control breathing and and go about it that way, you're not going to find that root. The root will be disguised. It'll be camouflaged.","offset":81,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: You've said, haven't you previously, there is no amount of breathing that will change the pain you are not willing to confront.","offset":103,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: Yeah.","offset":108,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is this idea that our breath is intimately linked with our nervous system and how we then view the world. So if we talk about the pain that we are not willing to confront, right? So let's say there is pain from childhood because of A, B, and C, right?","offset":109,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: That can then result in some sort of dysfunctional breathing patterns potentially, I'm guessing, as a consequence. So then if you have compensatory breathing patterns because of trauma, let's say, then it can be hard to address the pain sometimes if you're in this constantly wired state.","offset":131,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: So presumably, being able to work on your breath and maybe change things a little bit can change the state of your nervous system which might then allow you to go inwards and confront the pain.","offset":157,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Yes. What you first touched on when you when you began the question was, you know, we we've gotten to a place where we're kind of just we want to just fix the problem or we want to fix how we feel. That's what I run into is people just want to feel differently. People don't want to actually change their behavior.","offset":171,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Um, and what we're talking about right now is a behavioral pattern that breathing follows and although you could there there is some school of thought that breathing is behavioral, I'm far more under the impression that that physiology has more to do with it.","offset":197,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: What does that mean for people?","offset":216,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: So, uh, you know, if pretending that a, you know, lion walks into the room, there is a heightened arousal state, there is a sympathetic response to that. Um, and the first stage of that is there is the stimulus, right? So we've got some sort of stimulus. Somebody cuts in front of me while I'm driving. There's a stimulus.","offset":217,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: Um, the second part of that is the nervous system's response to that. My sensory system which operates through communication through an electrical network that is firing things, it goes on high alert pretending as though somebody cut in front of me. The first thing anybody does when they're driving if they see that is they grab the wheel and they hit the brakes, right? That is your nervous system responding, reacting to that stimulus.","offset":240,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: After that, the third part of this is the physiological processes involved in that and and the driving of behavior. So my sympathetic nervous system goes up. I'm releasing neuro-neurotransmitters and hormones, adrenaline, right, norepinephrine—these things are released real-time. And so that third part of the stimulus response now becomes the first part of the stress reaction.","offset":266,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: And each of these is universal to us all. And I've got this happening and somebody cuts in front of me and this stuff happens. So all of these chemicals in my biochemistry is changing in order to manage what it is my system is putting off, right?","offset":294,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian: So let's just go with adrenaline as an easy one. My response to adrenaline in anything when I'm not prepared for it is \"dukes up,\" per se. It's confrontation, it's personal. So then the second part of that is the recovery phase should happen.","offset":312,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: So it's like if somebody cut in front of me and I didn't actually get pissed off, I'm like \"Oh, whatever, let them go.\" That is a response that's like going and lifting some weights and and resting between sets.","offset":332,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay, let's just pause there, Brian, because this is really interesting. Yeah. Our stress response is hardwired within us. Okay, so—","offset":346,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: No avoidance.","offset":354,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Yes, if there was a lion that just came into this room now, we probably would change quite significantly in terms of how how our being is, how we're interacting, our posture, our muscle tension, everything will change, okay. You're driving on a road, wherever you live in the world, and someone suddenly cuts in front of you, so you slam on the brakes, okay. That's an automatic response, right? You've slammed on the brakes.","offset":355,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Is it possible to get to a point where that doesn't even generate the physiological changes? So if you work on this enough—and we're going to through loads of practical things in this conversation—is it that everyone will have the physiological response and then we train ourselves to not respond to the adrenaline, or is it different?","offset":381,"duration":24},{"text":"Brian: Here's what's, you know, so funny enough, you know, part of Andrew Huberman's research before he had his podcast at his lab when I was involved with his lab, they were in that they were in his VR looking at stress from everybody. From people who were who are on anxiety medications all the way up to like Navy Seals.","offset":405,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian: Everybody responds to stress. Everybody responds to the stress. In what capacity and how they come off that stress is the important part.","offset":427,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Okay, so even if you're a calm, non-reactive person—","offset":438,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: You're going to. The when the lion comes in the room or somebody cuts you off, you will, your body naturally reacts to it. It's the behavior that you choose to follow as a result of that.","offset":442,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Got it. So it is what Viktor Frankl says. Um.","offset":453,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: This is where choice happens, right?","offset":456,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Is that where breathwork can potentially come in for some people?","offset":457,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: A hundred percent. This is where, this is where breathwork does come in. So this is where intervention comes in. When I have an emotional reaction to something that I don't like or I don't like the way I feel, or I don't like what I said, um, and I want to work on that, that is where the opportunity for intervention comes in.","offset":461,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: So I can take a breath, I can take several breaths, I can come down. And if I can bring myself down, then I might have the opportunity to bring reality on. Did that person who cut in front of me start their day by going \"I'm going to go find Brian McKenzie and I'm going to cut in front of him today and I'm going to intentionally piss him off\"? No, that is not what happened.","offset":480,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: In at least in my this world I currently live in, now the old world I existed in, I might narcissistically have pulled that one off, right? But in the moment you will start to arc stories for the emotional reaction that you have to things and that's where the breathing is starting to get away from you as well. So my breathing tends your breathing will do things in these places. It's simply responding to the activity and the change that's going on.","offset":506,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: These things are so linked, physiology and psychology, psychology and physiology. Oh, yeah. And the thing I've really been thinking a lot about, Brian, and I'd I'd love to hear your perspective on this, is I feel compared to who I was five years ago that I interact with the world in a completely different way. Most of the time I actually feel really calm and I feel that when the stimulus is happening, I seem to have this ability now to know that there is a space and go \"Yeah, I'm not reacting to that,\" right?","offset":535,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: Now people will say, like, I've covered trauma on this podcast on many occasions with people like Gabor Maté, Dan Siegel, Bessel van der Kolk, all these kind of greats in the trauma world, right? And a lot of people will say, and I agree, that trauma can be stored in the body. Yeah. With our certain patterns, our breathing patterns, maybe we're slightly more flexed, whatever it might be, we have these patterns.","offset":577,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And so there's a school of thought saying that you can't change that trauma with the mind, you do it through the body. And I believe for some people that is the mechanism to change it, not that you can separate the body and the mind, okay. I feel in my life a lot of it has been cognitive. So I had a conversation a few years ago with an Auschwitz survivor, Edith Eger, when she was 93.","offset":598,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: That conversation changed my life, Brian, because she was able to reframe her whole existence in Auschwitz to the point where she said to me that the greatest prison you'll ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. And that's from someone who lived in the hell of Auschwitz, right? So that really landed for me.","offset":630,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: So I would for years practice if I ever got emotionally triggered in the day—I perhaps couldn't do it in the moment—that evening I'd reflect and go \"Ah, that situation was not inherently triggering, that situation was not inherently offensive, if it was, everybody would get triggered to it, everyone would take offense at it. No, no, there's something in me that is being activated by that stimulus. So if I want to change, I have to find in me, instead of putting the blame elsewhere, externally, I have to figure out what insecurity, what inadequacy, what is being triggered inside of you.\"","offset":648,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: And by doing that regularly, I now feel that it's become my default response. Now at the same time, I also do work on my body. I have an amazing movement coach, I work on my breathing. I now have access to certain movement patterns that I didn't have five years ago, so I can't say what exactly it was. But I don't buy that it necessarily always has to come from the body or always from the mind. These things are connected. Does does that make sense, Brian?","offset":685,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Oh, yeah.","offset":711,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Because I don't know, people say \"Well, how how come you're so calm these days?\" I'm like \"I have done a combination of things. I've done the work, I've constantly looked inwards at my triggers.\" Now breathwork, I would say that's a very big term that people interpret, you know, in all kinds of different ways. Yeah, for sure, that has helped me as well, but so has cognitive reframing.","offset":712,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Yes.","offset":735,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So I don't know if you can sort of pass through that through the lens of what you're saying now about we encounter a stressor and our stress response goes up. So how come I can be calm now?","offset":736,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: The simplified version of, you know, how I was getting complex is, is it's like if I choose not to respond to somebody cutting me off—and this is just you know insert whatever you want, insert whatever you want: your father saying something to you you know or what your—","offset":746,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Whatever it is that triggers you.","offset":764,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Your wife or your husband saying something to you that's popping you, right? If you choose not to allow that to go beyond that moment, you've now learned how to adapt. You've now learned how to stay with it and and you don't have to take that personally, right?","offset":765,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: So if I choose to let the guy cutting me off go, I now adapt and I now am over here in the logical side of something, real I'm rooted in reality. And I think what what's really important here is that over here my core values are are the anchor point. For me, my core values sit with things like authenticity. It's like \"Just be real, just be authentic and you're in my world if we meet.\" And I'm I'm happy to in and if it's just if it's not authentic I'm out, I don't have time for that right now.","offset":788,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Here's a question, Brian. Yeah. If your nervous system is constantly wired, uh chronically activated, and you've never learned how to switch it off or calm it down, is it even possible to know what being authentic is?","offset":828,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: No, not in that state, no. Because you're in a chronic stress response.","offset":847,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah. And then if everyone's if everyone's walking around in a chronic stress state, of course no one's being authentic.","offset":851,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: I mean a lot of my this is what a lot of my clients actually—not the professional athlete side, I mean although on occasion I'll get a professional athlete that's dealing with something like this—but most it this is more of the you know private the clients that are like the executives, right? These are the guys and gals that are functioning up here all day all night and then they go and train and the way they train mimics the way they work and and they don't realize that they're they're in this heightened stress state, right?","offset":856,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: And so the third part of that stress reaction—so let's just pretend you I didn't let go of the guy cutting me off. I've now brought in more hormones and neurotransmitters that are now blocking an adaptive process. Now we've onboarded adrenaline again because we're now making up a story about what we're going to do to this person, or they're taking advantage of me, or they're doing this to me. I'm essentially victimizing myself in some capacity, right?","offset":884,"duration":35},{"text":"Brian: And so I now go at this with a non-adaptive process that if I repeat this enough and I don't let that go, I remain in what's called chronic stress. That does not allow for that parasympathetic arm of my autonomic nervous system to come back online as well. And that if that goes on long enough I can have a multitude of different responses that occur with that. I can stay in a heightened stress state or I can actually retreat and then be pulled down into this more depressed nervous system state where I I can't get out of bed, I can't do these you know.","offset":919,"duration":39},{"text":"Host: You you say it's non-adaptive, but could we not make the case that we're always adapting, the question is what are we adapting to and what is our response?","offset":958,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. So the new adaptation becomes this heightened or or whatever state that is now not allowing me to recover. It it'd be the equivalent of just lifting weights. Like I I go to lift weigh—I just go I go squat. And I just keep squatting all day. And I keep every set after set after in I'm fatigued but I'm still going and I'm still going and I'm still going.","offset":968,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian: And then I might let off the brakes that evening and decide to go home and sleep if I can because my nervous system's now just torched and I'm hungry and I gotta eat, and then I'll wake up the next day and I start doing it all over again the moment I get to the gym.","offset":998,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Yeah. This is such a great analogy because what you just said through the lens of you squatting is how many people are living their daily lives. Now through the lens of what we've just been talking about, you're known for many things around the world. Um many people would regard you as a expert in human performance. What does human performance mean to you?","offset":1011,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Um, well, I don't think I'm an expert, I'm more of like a specialist. Um, I'm still learning every single day about this. Um, performance for me is a path towards growth. And most of what I've found even at the elite level is that if we can unlock a lot of the mental constructs that we've built, then there's a freedom in that that allows us to really see where the limitations are in what we're doing.","offset":1036,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian: When I went and worked at San Quentin Prison for six months, I ran a program, and um I'd go in every Friday and work with these guys. And I when I first went in there I, you know, it had occurred to me I'm like \"Okay, so these guys are in prison, most of these guys are doing you know 25 or more. Um but I do know the effect of men in men and women in prison to the outside world.\"","offset":1077,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: So if you don't understand that, take the time to kind of understand that, which is part of the reason why I was going into these prisons was to kind of help help affect some sort of change in that or growth in that place. But the thing I thought about when I went in there was I explained to these guys: \"Look, every year there are a group of individuals that decide they no longer want to participate in society, and so what they do is they get they give away everything they have and they typically will move to the mountains of Asia somewhere, they will isolate themselves with a few other people, they'll eat once or twice a day and they'll breathe and meditate most of the day and at the end of this they find enlightenment.\"","offset":1105,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian: \"What is the difference between you and them? They committed a crime and they are stuck in a place. How do you want to do your time? Do you want to figure this out? Do you want to figure out how you're doing this? Do you want to evolve and grow towards something differently? Because there are people choosing to live the life you're living for like punishment and they're finding enlightenment through that process, right?\"","offset":1148,"duration":32},{"text":"Brian: \"However, that's what I think about with anybody and everybody. How do you want to win? Do you want to win and be miserable?\" I mean, I seen the Michael Phelps documentary and I've worked with some of the athletes that were in that documentary and I'm like \"I know what this is. It's the same thing going on out here. Just because they're competing in a physical aspect at something doesn't mean there isn't something in that mind that's kind of—\"","offset":1180,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: So so so make it relevant for someone who's listening, Brian, who is kind of they're not an elite sportsman, okay. They just want to live a better life, right? They they they don't want to be reactive all the time and chronically stressed and unable to switch off and snapping at their partner or their kids. What is the relevance of what you do that's going to help that person?","offset":1208,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: I guide people towards a process. Tao Te Ching, Sun Tzu, Bruce Lee were very impactful for me and there's a very famous Bruce Lee quote that I have everywhere: \"All goals apart from the means are an illusion. Becoming is a denial of being.\"","offset":1231,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Why does that mean so much to you?","offset":1256,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: That gives you unlimited possibility. If I'm not invested in the process, I'm somewhere else. Look, I was doing the dishes this morning and putting away the dishes as I do most mornings when the dishes are done. If there are dishes I go and I put them away. And I don't get upset in the slightest about the fact that I have to put them away. In fact, I found myself in joy. Oh, man, as I was putting away and I was reflecting on the fact that I had earned the money because I valued myself to purchase these dishes.","offset":1260,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian: I've been able to afford dishes for probably 30 or 40 years. Why am I thinking that? Because I'm in a place where I enjoy going and doing this thing and being invested in the process of putting these things away. How am I putting them away? I didn't just arrive at that. That became \"Why am I so pissed off that I'm putting away the dishes right now? Why am I pissed off I'm doing my laundry right now? This is a part of my life, this is a part of my existence. Like what what am I tied up in? Where do I think I'm going to arrive at to where I don't want to do this? What what is that point?\" And and I really looked at that in the reality of it and I find joy in just about every moment of my day when I'm not busy.","offset":1298,"duration":59},{"text":"Host: Yeah, man. I I cannot tell you how much I resonate with that. It's all story, right? As I mentioned to you on Monday, like on the plane over to LA this time I just had this clarity when you're 30,000 feet up in the air, right, you have this big picture perspect—I thought \"Life is simply a set of experiences and the story we put on those experiences is ultimately what determines the quality of our life.\" Boom. You can wash your dishes every night and be pissed off that you have to do it, that your partner didn't do it, that they should have done it, that you whatever story you want to make, or you can change your perspective and like you have done, you—it is possible.","offset":1357,"duration":49},{"text":"Host: Oh. And the problem is, and this is why I wanted to talk to you, I don't think until you've stepped out of it and realized that you're choosing the narrative on every situation, you think you're in it, you think you're a victim to the world, that the way you feel is down to everyone around you without realizing \"Oh, I can change this.\"","offset":1406,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I was chatting to someone about purpose yesterday and I said for me it's it's less about finding my purpose, life is more about how do I find purpose in everything I do. So you wash the dishes and it's like \"No, this is an opportunity to be mindful and present and feel the dishes.\" If someone had told me that 10 years ago, Brian, I would have thought \"What are you talking about, mate? Like, the dishes are the dishes.\" But I honestly feel that doing the dishes can be the most enjoyable experience in the world if you've reframed it.","offset":1424,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: So what I want to talk to you, Brian, about because we could go even deeper than we've already gone, right? I really want to make this practical for people where possible. There is no quick fix here. No. I'd love to tie in breathing and how we breathe to the concepts that we've been talking about, our stress response, our nervous system. So can you sort of simplify that for someone?","offset":1456,"duration":19},{"text":"Brian: Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, easy. You know, it's um you go through this process that I've talked about where you've got you know the stimulus response and then the stress reaction after that stimulus response and the we've walked through this. And as you know like as I've learned, if I don't like what I'm feeling then that's where the opportunity is, okay.","offset":1475,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Eckhart Tolle: \"In a healthy organism, an emotion is a short-lived response.\" Okay. I I 100% agree with that. There's no baggage with that. There's no dragging an experience that happened yesterday or 50 years ago through every day of my life. There's no reason I need to do that to where I can't live in total joy.","offset":1502,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian: And if I'm stuck in sadness, if I'm stuck in—if I'm stuck in excitement, ooh, there's one. This is where I usually throw out to clients: \"Here I I know all this other stuff sounds hard. Let's start with excitement. Let's look at the things that bring you excitement. Let's let's slow down there. Let's bring that down a level to actually see it for what it really is, see what the—because there are far too many of us that are getting very excited over really sexy shiny things that inevitably we didn't actually want to be doing or involved in because we didn't take the time to bring it down enough to go 'Oh, anything that goes up comes down, right?'\"","offset":1531,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian: So and that doesn't mean you can't get excited about things. Yes. How make it a short-lived response. How do you make that happen? Well, when I get excited I slow it down. I intentionally slow it down. So if I know I'm going into a situation—so here there's three ways we can go about this. If I know I'm going into a situation that could be difficult—work, home, whatever, or you're going to go do something that you really didn't want to do—that's where breathwork comes in stage one. I'm going to do that to bring myself down a bit to jump over and go \"What is the reality of this?\" versus the emotion of it.","offset":1573,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: I spoke to a friend last week who was getting really triggered by an email from his boss. Yeah. And I said \"Mate, you know that that email in and of itself is not problematic,\" right? He showed me. I'm like \"That's just neutral email. That's just information.\" Yeah. You're choosing to put this story on it and amping yourself up, you don't have to.","offset":1614,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: And I guess one of the things I think is most powerful about becoming aware of your breath is is that deep knowledge where you know I can actually change the tightness of my nervous system.","offset":1637,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian: Look, Kasper van der Meulen was the one who coined the \"Breathing is the remote control to the nervous system.\" So you can toggle that nervous system if you're willing to sit in it and control it before you go into something that you know could be difficult.","offset":1652,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian: Now the second part of that where this could come in is if you get good at the first process, then you can go in to an actual situation you had not planned for, didn't know was coming and real-time regulate. \"Oh, I can feel that I can feel my adrenaline coming up. I can feel I'm getting I'm getting emotional. I'm getting angry right now. I'm getting frustrated right now.\" Breathe into that if you've if you've got it.","offset":1670,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian: But if you don't, the third part is if the the reaction that you've had you didn't enjoy, now you've got an opportunity when it's over to regulate and go look at the reality of that. So in either any one of those three, reality has to come into play. You've got to be able to jump out of the story or the narrative that you're in and breathing is the thing that can typically allow for that to happen if you're actually applying this. But you've got to be consistent with it.","offset":1703,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let's talk about something practical then. You got to be consistent with it. So there's our ability to use our breath in the moment, like let's say we've developed and cultivated the self-awareness, so \"Oh, yeah, I can feel something's happening there, oh okay, I'm not going to say anything, let me just calm it down, let me breathe into it, okay.\" But for that person who's never ever paid attention to their breath and is kind of resonating with something going \"Alright, well, where do I start, Brian?\" Where do they start?","offset":1741,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: I think the simplest thing to do—and this is what I'll show with people if I if I go do a talk so they have something to walk away with—is if you can just inhale through your nose and exhale through your nose a little bit slower each time until you find a place where you're most comfortable with the exhale. But continue to just inhale and then slowly exhale. You're going to bring it down.","offset":1772,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: So your exhale is longer than your inhale.","offset":1804,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, you want to prolong the exhale just slightly, right? Or even even more, as long as you're comfortable. You don't want to you don't want to do this and to the degree that you're hit hit hitting panic switches.","offset":1807,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Okay, but I think that's a really good point because um one of the breathing techniques that has taken off over the past decade, which has um elevated this topic of breathwork in many people's consciousness is Wim Hof. Yeah. And yes, there's upsides and downsides for sure of that kind of breathing.","offset":1818,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: But I believe that many people think that breathwork has to be hard. I have to be pushing it, I have to be holding my breath, I have to go \"Ugh, now I can keep going,\" right? And what you're saying there is that \"Wait wait wait, you don't need any of that necessarily. You can start off in a very comfortable way just breathing in and breathing out for a little bit longer but you don't have to feel uncomfortable.\" Is is that right?","offset":1842,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Correct. That is controlled breathing.","offset":1867,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Do you sometimes find it difficult to find time to fit wellness into your life? I know many of us do, we feel our lives are too busy. Bon Charge are a wellness brand who have a fantastic range of products to help you feel better, sleep better, and live better. And I've been using many of their products for well over five years now. What I love the most is that they don't require me to find extra time in my life.","offset":1871,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: I think their blue light blocking glasses are some of the highest quality out there. I've been wearing them for years in the evening, also when I go traveling. I also love their infrared sauna blanket, which is much cheaper and more accessible than having a sauna in your own home. It's really easy to set up and you can have a quick 30-minute session whilst relaxing, reading, or watching television. And this sauna blanket is going to help you with recovery, relaxation, and sleep.","offset":1897,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Bon Charge are giving my audience an incredible 20% off everything on their website. All you have to do is go to boncharge.com/livemore and use the coupons livemore to get your 20% off, or just click on the link in the description box below.","offset":1926,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: And then another simple thing that you can do is just sit there, shut your eyes and pay attention to your belly moving every single time you breathe. You breathe in and out and that's all you do for about 30 seconds or so. And after about 30 seconds you're just you're going to switch that over to paying attention to your chest and how your chest moves through every breath. You'll do that for 30 seconds. Not forcing anything, let it happen. Just allowing it to happen. And then I would move people into \"Now I want you to pay attention to the air moving through your nostrils. Just the air moving through your nostrils.\"","offset":1946,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: So if you can do this without having to control your breathing, you're becoming highly focused on something, but you're calming yourself instantaneously down without having to control your breathing at all and your breathing naturally just starts to drop.","offset":1997,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: So would it be a helpful practice let's say as part of a morning routine? Maybe after they wake up for five minutes doing what you just said? Oh, yeah. Make the case for someone if you don't mind, why they should give up five minutes of their precious morning to do that? What are the potential implications later on in their life, later on that day, for example?","offset":2014,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: You're going to yeah, uh, simple: you're going to change what's going on metabolically real quick. So you're going to start activating things and getting more more oxygen used up because you're changing how the chemistry happens. So you're actually regulating your nervous system.","offset":2037,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let's say you don't have much time, you do five minutes of this kind of calming, grounding, breathwork practice every morning. As someone who does that, or similar versions of that, I feel there's so many potential benefits. A, I think it's a beautiful way to start your day, it's a very intentional way to start your day instead of reacting to the news headlines and the social media, the noise—you're just like \"Oh, I'm going to start—whatever noise is out there—yeah, I'm going to gently just bring myself into the day.\"","offset":2051,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: For example, I think it's also in a world where so many of us are focused outwards on more information and more expertise and more opinions, which then become confusing, I think a practice like this brings you inwards, you starting to pay attention to what's going on inside your body, right? You start to understand \"Oh,\" like even I know this stuff, but even when you were going through it, I started to do it.","offset":2084,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah.","offset":2112,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: And I'm like \"Oh, wow, I'm in my head at the moment. Like, I forgot what was going on in my body. Of course, I'm talking to you.\" Yeah, yeah. But it was a nice reminder. And I think that—","offset":2113,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Such a this is so I'll layer this stuff in for people throughout their day. Like \"Hey, man, like as soon as you get off that call, like boom! As soon as out of that meeting, boom! This is where you go do at least just do like three minutes.\"","offset":2121,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Am I remembering correctly a few months ago on Instagram, I think you said something to the effect of: if you have a well-functioning nervous system, then you will be able to take a nap at 1 PM. What I understood from that post was many people say that they can't nap. They're tired, but they can't nap. And I appreciate not everyone has the opportunity to nap because of their work pressures, etc., etc. But some people who are working from home and potentially could have the time say that they're too wired to switch off.","offset":2129,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian: I mean look, a healthy functioning animal can take a nap at any point after a stress response, right? What does a lion do after it misses the kill? It goes and lies down and then takes a nap. I remember going to general quarters—so I was in the Navy—and I remember going to general quarters which is, you know, a drill for we're going to war, or something's happening, you're going to your station. And it would be held for a certain amount of time and most of the time it was for a prolonged amount of time. And I remember vividly I was like \"Perfect, I'm going to take a nap.\" And I would literally take a nap when we'd go to GQ because I was going to be stuck in this place for so long and none of my superior officers were going to be there or anything, so they weren't going to see me, they're going to be at their general quarter station, you know, but I was going to take a nap. And I would take a nap.","offset":2162,"duration":67},{"text":"Brian: And then I got out of the Navy and then I started working. I was becoming successful and all of these things and then all of a sudden I couldn't switch off. I couldn't take a nap. I remember all of this.","offset":2229,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: So what happened? What was the switch in you?","offset":2241,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: I just kept turning it on. I took on every opportunity I could get. I said yes to everything. I didn't learn how to say no. I didn't slow it down from the excitement of everything and the new thing, and that doesn't mean the do go do new things, it's like did I have the bandwidth? And I didn't have the bandwidth. I didn't have the bandwidth because I was burning myself out all day and then I was still trying to train, right?","offset":2245,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: So I was still trying to work out and do everything I was doing at the time while working out and then I'd do the physical stuff because damn, I felt good after that, but not realizing \"Oh, this is going to have compounding residual effects.\" The interesting was is I was doing a lot of long-slow distance in the early stages of that stuff.","offset":2268,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: You mean endurance training.","offset":2278,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where I started to evolve things um not just for myself but a lot of the athletes I was working because they were burnt. And so it was like \"Well, what can we chip down?\" So we started chipping things down and it was less and less and less and it was like having some great effect. But turns out that if you don't turn it off, if you don't have time throughout the day where you're able to shut it down—and that doesn't mean you need to take a nap. It means can you regulate, can you bring it down?","offset":2279,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: And that's why you're so passionate about the breath, because the breath once you become intimate and pay attention to your own breath and what's happening in your nostrils and your chest and your abdomen, like you just mentioned.","offset":2305,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: What's the—like if I'm talking or if I'm speaking or if I'm going and teaching, like man, I'm on! What am I doing right after that? Am I going to go have multiple conversations with people? Because I might, because people just saw me do something and so they have questions and they want to talk to me and it's like I'm on again. Then it's like \"Okay, what do I do as soon as after that?\" Oh, I'm jacked up! I was working with some stand-up comedians and none of these guys and gals can shut off after they do a set because they're so wired from being on stage. So a lot of these guys go and play video games and stuff or they're drink and you know and and it's like \"Dude, go regulate! Like, go bring yourself down.\"","offset":2319,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Okay, this is a great example. So a performer, you know, they finish let's say on stage at 10:30 PM. They're amped up, maybe it's not as different as the person who's still working late into the evening on emails, whatever it might be, maybe you know to make it really practical for people, they can't switch off. So and I know performers who say that their bad habits come in when they're on the road. Like how what is a healthier way for them to um down-regulate at 11:00 PM instead of the bottle of wine, for example?","offset":2356,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: Go back to the green room or wherever you've got an opportunity to separate yourself from people and just take five or 10 minutes and bring it down, regulate.","offset":2387,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: So what? Breathing.","offset":2398,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Do some breathing, do some breathing. You could even do breathhold work if you wanted to, that's going to change some things and bring it down a bit, but that is going to bring the nervous system down and it's going to allow you to actually not be in a reactive place. That's the problem is that we get in when we get into this heightened heightened arousal state you can only react in those places. If you do bring it down you can respond you can be like \"Oh,\" but maybe I don't do that versus like \"No, I'm not doing that. Yes, I am doing that.\" Like, you know.","offset":2399,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: The amount of patients over the years, Brian, who came in to see me um with sleep issues, and of course there's a whole variety of different reasons why one may be struggling with one's sleep, right? But so many of them and this is one of the probably unintended or maybe intended consequences of the digital world in which we now live is that these boundaries between work and home have kind of vanished in a way that you know 20 years ago you left the office, you there's stuff you couldn't really do at home, you had to be in the office to do it, so there would be a natural boundary.","offset":2435,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Whereas now people can work and do their emails into the evening and one of the things I I realized after a while I was telling my patients a lot is that you know you're struggling to switch off and sleep. They're literally doing work emails, firing them off and then going to bed and saying \"Hey, I'm struggling to sleep,\" okay. And I'm like \"If you're doing that and you're really activated,\" now some people can switch it off quickly, for sure.","offset":2472,"duration":23},{"text":"Brian: My wife can.","offset":2495,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But many people can't. And I'm like, for me personally, I have to have I don't have to anymore, but I chose a few years ago to go \"You know what, once it hits 7:00 PM, that's it, I'm done. Like, that's the day done. Now everything is chill mode. It's relaxing, it's reading, it's music, it's doing some stretches, it's chatting with my wife, it's not work-related.\" It was a choice that I made.","offset":2496,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: And what I used to say to these guys is \"Look, have you got kids?\" He said \"Yeah.\" I said \"With your kids, just before they go to bed, what do you do? You don't put all the lights on full, give them a load of sugar, put the music up loud. You don't activate them, do you? No. You dim the lights, you soften your tone, you might read them a bedtime story. You're creating this kind of environment around them that is conducive to falling asleep.\"","offset":2521,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: But as adults we kind of think that we don't need that. I'm like \"Your kids need a bedtime routine, you might benefit from a similar bedtime routine to your children.\" It's about what is the signal you're giving to your nervous system, isn't it?","offset":2551,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We create more stimulus through the unprocessed junk, whatever we're not dealing with, and it's this compensation of just trying to get as much done as we can because in the world we live in, it's just like it's this barrage of information that we're all aware of and we all talk about it like we understand it, however, when you don't have boundaries like you've talked about how you have boundaries—like 7:00 PM comes you're done, like it's done, right?","offset":2565,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: It's early these days to be fair.","offset":2596,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Well, for for me it's really 4 or 5:00. Like, it's really 4 or 5:00 because I if I'll obsess, I'll I will obsess on my work and about you know like look, I tested you and I'll keep going and looking at your data and bringing it in and working on it because I'm in in a space where I'm like \"Yeah, yeah, yeah.\" But that'll also be there tomorrow and I really enjoy a lot of the other hobbies and things that I do and one of them's like cooking. So I get to go home and I get to start cooking. The way I cook is isn't pre-planned. It's \"What's what do we have and what can I create?\" And—","offset":2597,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: So you've but you're changing your nervous system's state.","offset":2643,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: I am boom! going from work into no! now I'm in the kitchen, play, creativity, and when it's a little warmer I typically will come home and because it gets it gets dark later, I'll go home, grab Tiana and I'll be like \"We're going to the beach!\" and we will go body surf for like 45 minutes or an hour. But my mornings are the same way. Like, I don't actually go and sit and do breathwork all very often in the morning because I head out the door and I go walk for 60 to 90 minutes.","offset":2646,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I want to talk about this. This is really important. So there's doing breathwork whilst you're sitting down and still. Um. And the exercise you kind of illustrated and took people through before is it's kind of about paying attention and just sort of starting to notice what's happening. But there's also breathwork or paying attention to your breathing when you're moving, right? So—","offset":2672,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian: Correct. Correct.","offset":2700,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, I mean, I’m—I think my average is something like 17 or 18,000 steps a day.","offset":2707,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: And this is something different from five years ago.","offset":2713,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh God, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean look, I’ve been walking for quite some time. It’s just the level of walking because of what happens, what I’ve really invested in with walking is the same thing I’m invested in with cooking and/or going bodysurfing or even surfing, for that matter. Like, I didn’t even throw in, if there is a big enough swell, I shut off everything. I cancel appointments with clients. I will, like, and anybody who’s a surfer understands this, like, it’s done. Like, it’s out.","offset":2716,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: The thought that just jumped into my head was, it’s so counter to what we think life should be, which is about seriousness, and if you have a meeting or something there, you have to do it. And I understand that many people have jobs where they have to. Maybe, you know, you work for yourself, so you have the autonomy to do that whereas many people don’t. I accept all of that. But it just makes me think about culture and actually how the playfulness, the things that truly nourish us, those are the things that everyone tries to fit in on their one-week vacation, or maybe on a Sunday afternoon. Do you know what I mean? It says something about culture where these things have been relegated to being only when you have time, only when you’ve finished your emails.","offset":2751,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: See, this is—goes right back to process, in what we were talking about in the beginning. My work is the same way. I’m literally having fun like a kid with what I’m doing. And I’m enjoying that. And I’m not losing sight of that. I feel like at this point in my life, at 50 years old, I got rid of the kid that was a tortured soul and brought back the kid that was playing. And I’ve taken the things that I have learned and that I’m very passionate about, and I’ve learned to apply that to everything I’m doing. But I have set hard lines in the sand with these things.","offset":2798,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Like what?","offset":2844,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You don’t get me when I’m surfing. You don’t get me after 4:00 PM. My time is the most valuable thing I have, and your time is the most valuable thing you have. And attention is finite. Where I choose to spend my time, I choose to be there and invested in it in the most creative way that I can. And that’s just presence. I can’t do that without presence. If I’m thinking about the next meeting I’ve got to go to, and the deal I’ve got to close, and whoever I’ve got to—uh-uh. That’s not going to work. It doesn’t work for me like that. And then I love the job I’m at, but more importantly, I love every single person that is in my life, no matter how short that is. And then third, I feel like I’m a kid—and you’ll like this—I’ll feel like I’m a kid in the ‘80s playing again. The ‘80s, bro. The ‘80s.","offset":2845,"duration":56},{"text":"Host: Pre-smartphones.","offset":2901,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Bro, the innocence and the risk-taking that I was in up to when I was living at that time. The craziness of it. But the—just the drive to explore. And that’s what walking does for me. The walking in the morning reminds me of when I was a kid and I lived behind this forest and I would just go—I was out, I was gone. At like six years old. Eight years old, I’d go walk out the back and I’d go into the forest and I’d go scurry around building tree forts, all this stuff. You know how hard that is right now for people and their kids? Like, to allow even a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old to be on their own?","offset":2902,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Jonathan Haidt writes about this in *The Anxious Generation*. He’s talking about, you know, the negatives of smartphones at an early age and social media at an early age. But for him, the case he makes is not only about reducing that, it’s at the same time we need to increase free play, give our children independence, get them out taking risks, playing. The world is actually a lot safer for most of us than it used to be. Yet we’re behaving—like, I think he says something to the effect of, we are underprotecting kids in the online world and overprotecting them in the offline world. And I think he’s—I think he’s really onto something.","offset":2949,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: I—I don’t think he’s wrong. I mean, I read Johann Hari, you know, did a book—*Stolen Focus*. Yeah, *Stolen Focus*. That was a fantastic book as well. But, um, you know, and all of that’s provided me with information that I’ve been able to utilize, right? Like, I’m able to take steps to understand these things. It’s like, you know, I don’t have a true existence on social media anymore. It’s like from afar. And, you know, if I go post a video that I have to get on the app for to post that, I actually have to go to the App Store, install the app, and then I delete the app after I’ve done that. And I don’t go through and start scrolling ‘cause I know what’s going to happen to me. I’m not—I’m not immune to the things that are going on with you on there if you’re actually on there. I know—I go through the same thing where I get caught in the infinite scroll and I’m—I’m emotionally getting triggered by things and it’s like, oh that’s interesting, that’s going on. And people pretend like that’s not happening to them. And literally, there are people I have had conversations with that think that’s not affecting them. And they’re full of shit. It’s affecting all of us in a certain way. And real life, real life is with the people you’re closest to and the able—the ability to show up in an interaction. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go on social media and do the thing. It’s just like getting caught in that loop and going, oh there it is, I’m out.","offset":2990,"duration":94},{"text":"Host: It’s interesting you spoke about the boundaries you put in place, the clear boundaries you put in place, and boundaries are something that many people struggle with.","offset":3084,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh yeah.","offset":3093,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: I used to struggle with, for sure.","offset":3093,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah.","offset":3095,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: And a lot of the time, there’s a pushback sometimes that it’s selfish. But the funny thing is that I imagine, and I put it to you, like, putting in boundaries is actually one of the most selfless things you can do.","offset":3095,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, yeah.","offset":3110,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: Because what people don’t realize on the other side of boundaries is that you then—you then have something to give to the people you want to give to. Let’s talk about your gear system here, right? Because I think it’s—it’s really practical, and I think it’s going to be a tool that people can take away ‘cause we’ve gone pretty deep, right? And I think you can go that deep, but having some practical activities that you can start, you know, playing around with each day, I think it helps people go to that deepness. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s easy to hear these concepts and go, well yeah, Brian, Rangan, alright for you guys, like, I don’t know, like, you enjoy doing the dishes. What are you guys talking about? I hate doing the dishes. So let’s bring in these five gear systems because I think they’re useful. Everyone moves their bodies. Maybe some not as much as others. But what are they and why do you think they’re so important for people to know?","offset":3110,"duration":60},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Well, we developed the breathing gear system out of a discrepancy that we found in observing breathing as a dynamic through low, moderate, and high-intensity exercise.","offset":3170,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: So the gear systems apply to when we’re moving our body.","offset":3185,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct.","offset":3188,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: It’s not about waking up and actually paying attention—no. So we’ve parked that. We’re now moving our bodies. Let’s say we’re going for a walk.","offset":3188,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: It’s about exercise. Go for a walk. And this is a perfect example, is if gear one cannot be used while someone is walking, we have a very big limitation, which is nothing but an opportunity. Don’t look at limiter as a negative. Limiter is an opportunity. So I have an immediate opportunity if I can’t have somebody in gear one. And breathing gear one is simple. It’s can you maintain one breath cycle in and out of your nose for greater than four seconds? So that would be like a two in, two out, right? Two—two-count in, two-count out. I get that upwards to somewhere around eight seconds for walking level, maybe ten seconds walking level effort for people. But that’s a good check. Does that mean you should go on a 90-minute walk while trying to apply gear one? Absolutely not. That means go spend like 10, 20 minutes really focusing, or from time to time every few minutes checking in and applying that breathing pattern to the effort you’re at with walking.","offset":3195,"duration":78},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let me frame it my way and see if this makes sense. Okay, so walking is, of course, it depends whether there’s an incline or it depends on the speed, but it’s, you know, it’s not the most intense of movement activities, right? So you’re saying you’re going for a walk around your block. Gear one is the ability to maintain a nasal in-breath and a nasal out-breath, so you’re not opening your mouth, and you want that in and out breath to be at least four seconds.","offset":3273,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yep.","offset":3301,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. If you cannot do that—okay, so it could be that you can only manage two seconds, or it could be that I can only walk around the block by opening my mouth.","offset":3302,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: That would be gear four.","offset":3312,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let’s work through this. Okay, so why is that a problem then? If someone can’t go around the block on a flat pavement and keep their mouth shut while they’re doing it, so exclusively nasal breathing, if they can’t do that, why is that something they should be paying attention to?","offset":3314,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: They’re not utilizing oxygen real well. Okay, to make sure you’re taking action after watching this video, I’ve created a free breathing guide that’s going to help you reduce stress, calm your minds, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.","offset":3331,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Can we think about these five breathing gear systems like a car? You know, gear one to five, where, you know, we start off the car in first gear, and we go to second gear, and third gear, and fourth gear, and fifth gear? Is—can—is that—does that make sense?","offset":3361,"duration":18},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Sort of. It sort of, because gear one would be much—you’d be in gear one should be primarily most of what you’re doing throughout your day. So gear two is a transition from gear one, obviously, to where I go from that four-count, and now I’m down and I’m probably more like three—two to three seconds per breath cycle.","offset":3379,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: But still nasal in and out?","offset":3405,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yes, I’m still nasal, right? Still nasal.","offset":3407,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: So gears one and gear two are both nasal.","offset":3409,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And what I’ve found—what I have found over the last several years is that gear two is actually pretty limited. And you’re probably more effective if you’re—if you’re going to be prolonged at gear two, you’re actually more effective at jumping up to a gear four. So see, I’m skipping gear three. Because gear three is nose in, mouth out. And that’s largely a transitional gear for coming down.","offset":3411,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: And we’re going to go through this, but for people who like want to learn more, it’s all on your website, isn’t it? Like, you’ve got the gear system, and that is shiftadapt.com.","offset":3446,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: ShiftAdapt.com, right. So if they go to shiftadapt.com, you’ve clearly got the five gear systems there.","offset":3458,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, I think we have it—I have that up—we have that up somewhere on that site. Um, if not, they can go to actually my—my X handle and it is literally pinned at the top of my—of my profile. And there is a systematic breakdown of it and where it relates and how it can work. Okay.","offset":3463,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: That said, skip gear three going up. So I’m in gear two, if I’m going to be there for more than a minute or two, I’m going to have somebody go to gear four.","offset":3490,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: And that is what? In and out through the mouth?","offset":3500,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, it’s just relaxed mouth breathing.","offset":3503,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. So as your intensity is going up, you’ve moved from gear one to gear two, you’re saying on the way up, jump and skip gear three, and you’re now at gear four. So you’ve gone from nasal breathing in and out to mouth breathing in and out, but in a relaxed way. And then gear five is—","offset":3506,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: For—yeah, and for heart rate zone junkies, people who actually understand heart rate zones, gear four is happening somewhere between heart rate zone three and four. Okay. That is where that is occurring. Gear five is power mouth breathing. Meaning I’m actually really moving air like [breathing sound]. This is heavy-duty strength and conditioning sets. This is sprinting. At the end of sprints, if they’re short, or you’re talking 400-meter, 800-meter efforts, you’re going to hit those. If you’re hitting those for high intensity, gear five is coming into play. Okay. Gear five is something that I realized there were a lot of problems with not just myself that I noticed, but other people I’ve noticed who were not able to get that respiration rate above about 40, 45.","offset":3521,"duration":65},{"text":"Host: Yeah, okay. And we’ll come to my test here.","offset":3586,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Uh-huh.","offset":3588,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But just again, to make sure everyone’s following along. Right, so there are these five gear systems that you’ve gone through. As our intensity of movement increases, we in essence move up through the gears, just like we would in a car. Right. Why is it important for someone to know that? So what I mean by that is, let’s say someone is using gears four and five exclusively, i.e., they’re never nasal breathing, okay? They’re—they go for a walk around the block on a flat, in perfect weather conditions, and they’re breathing in and out through their mouth. Okay, so they’re not using one, two, or three, they’re straight into four. ‘Cause I think people need to know that to encourage them to start.","offset":3589,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: For the hundreds, if not thousands, of people that I’ve tested or looked at the—the data on currently, um, you have a breathing-related issue when exercising. And you have a big opportunity in maximizing your performance and output by—either and—look, I—I tested, um—so I tested Kawhi Leonard this morning, who’s an NBA player for the Clippers. Um, and he asked this very question, well how’s this going to help my performance? And I explained to him, well think of it like a season, right? If I can give you a tool that’s going to allow you to be more efficient with your breathing, you’re not losing that blood to your locomotor muscles. So you’re not getting more stressed sooner. You’re using energy a bit more efficiently. So game after game, if you don’t change this, by the time playoffs come, you’re pretty tired, you’re pretty exhausted, it’s pretty hard, versus you now have—you’re now recovering faster because you’ve got more capacity ‘cause you’re using oxygen later than you were earlier.","offset":3629,"duration":80},{"text":"Host: Yeah. So there’s a performance benefit, there’s a capacity benefit, you can go for longer before you fatigue. Someone we both follow on X, Alan Cousins, my interpretation of what I’ve read from Alan is, you know, if you’re keeping at that low heart rate, if you’re walking to the mailbox, if you can keep it all nasal breathing and at a low heart rate, that’s going to help you burn fat. There’s a metabolic benefit. And so for some people who maybe don’t want performance or not NBA players, well many people are trying to lose fat off their bodies, right? And there’s a metabolic reason to be able to access gears one and two, isn’t there? You’re going to—it’s going to help you burn fat.","offset":3709,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You know, we definitively understand that if you’re breathing through your nose, you’re more aerobic than you are if you’re—","offset":3750,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Which means you’re using up fat.","offset":3757,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. So think of your aerobic system is kind of like your—your checking account, right? And your anaerobic systems are your savings account. If I’m constant—my mouth—my mouth open is my savings account. You’re on limited time. You’re incinerating carbohydrates when that mouth’s open. So you’re using up—that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. But I’m on limited time. If I’m more aerobic, I’m utilizing fatty acids more. So I’m burning fat, right?","offset":3759,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: Okay. Now, I love all this. Right, so we’re in a situation where—and this is how the—the breathwork landscape has changed over the last five or 10 years, of which I’m a prime example. Okay, so—","offset":3792,"duration":13},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, this is good.","offset":3805,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Let’s go back 10 years. A decade ago, I can’t quite remember what was happening, but breathwork wasn’t as popular as it is now. Mm-mm. In my own journey through this podcast, which has been going for seven years now, the first time I really dealt with nasal breathing on the show was with Patrick McKeown many years ago. I had a lovely chat with Patrick. Um, he spoke to me about the BOLT score and, you know, the benefits of nasal breathing. And that progressed to me talking to you and all kinds of people about breathwork. James Nestor then releases this blow-up book globally, *Breath*, and talks about the benefits of nasal breathing. Is it fair to say that that message was needed because the vast majority of people were overbreathing and using their mouths more than their nose? But something has shifted where some people who get a bit obsessed like me take that nasal breathing message and try and do everything in our lives with nasal breathing and then we start to have problems in somewhere like a gear five, which is what I think you’re finding with me.","offset":3806,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. Yes. And—and I experienced the same thing. I did the same thing.","offset":3871,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: But it doesn’t mean nasal breathing is not important. It’s just that—","offset":3877,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: No, no, no. There’s a limitation, for sure.","offset":3881,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Can—can we say this? That there was a deficiency of nasal breathing in society. The increased awareness has—has meant that less people are deficient now because they’re aware of it. But the problem is is that they’ve tipped it too far where they’ve actually now neglected mouth breathing, which is also important.","offset":3883,"duration":21},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. Go look at a tour cyclist who climbs Alpe d’Huez or whatever climb you want to talk about and they’re punching it. Their jaw is on the—their jaw is open and they are and they are moving that air fast.","offset":3904,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Okay. So let’s talk about that then through the lens of the testing you did on me, right? So ‘cause I think this kind of illustrates this quite well.","offset":3918,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. You were—you were not able to get above a 42 respiration rate, and you were at tidal volume, but I’m pretty sure you could get deeper.","offset":3925,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Let’s break that down. Like some people won’t know what tidal volume is and what these terms—","offset":3937,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Tidal volume just talks about how much air’s in the lungs, right?","offset":3941,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So are we saying that I was good at the lower gears?","offset":3945,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You were good at the lower gears. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.","offset":3948,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: So—so because I’ve put in the work at the lower gears and I’ve focused on nasal breathing, so it looked as though you were really happy with that.","offset":3950,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. And metabolically speaking, look, like based on—you—you were between 0.95 and 1.0 for like 15 minutes.","offset":3957,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: And what does that mean for people who don’t know those terms?","offset":3968,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: So Rangan was at a low to moderate, moderate, moderate, high level. He was staying under 1.0 RER, which is respiratory exchange ratio, which means once you hit 1.0, you’re burning carbohydrates.","offset":3970,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: So I was able to burn fat.","offset":3984,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You were still had some fatty ac—you were still burning some fat even at relatively, you know, moderate, moderate to high intensities, which I probably wasn’t doing five years ago. From a systems level, a metabo—so just that’s just looking at the metabolic. Now, here’s where—here’s where part of the assessment is different that I that I’m doing. And endurance community will understand this. I’m looking at tissue utilization of oxygen and I’m looking at delivery of oxygen. Okay? So I’m seeing how the hemoglobin is getting delivered, the oxygen’s getting delivered to the tissue, and I’m seeing how well that tissue’s actually utilizing that oxygen.","offset":3987,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: Okay. So many of us understand that oxygen comes into our lungs, right? And then from our lungs, it gets into our blood. You’re saying there’s two things to think about. Yes, you have to get the oxygen from the lungs to, let’s say, your muscles, right?","offset":4029,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: As soon as you start working, the muscles demand goes up.","offset":4045,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Right. So the oxygen gets to the muscles. But you’re also saying that even if it gets there, it may not be being used efficiently.","offset":4048,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct.","offset":4055,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: Right. So this is the kind of nuance that I think many of us are not thinking about. So okay, let’s go back to my test then. What was I doing? Am I getting oxygen there and it’s not being used efficiently, or am I not even getting oxygen there?","offset":4055,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’re getting oxygen there. However, you weren’t utilizing the oxygen well at these places.","offset":4067,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Why?","offset":4074,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: The mitochondria aerobic system wasn’t getting enough oxygen or hadn’t been for for long enough because the nose breathing is happening with everything, and you’re more than likely doing it at higher efforts, which you confirmed with me. Yes, you are. So you’re not actually bringing in enough oxygen to actually help that so you’re the system can’t—or the tissue can’t, but the system’s fine.","offset":4075,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: It’s funny, a few years ago I went to Salford University in Manchester to do my lactate threshold testing, and I was right in the middle of my nasal breathing passion. And I was nasal breathing till right at the very end. And it’s really interesting. These guys have done thousands of lactate threshold tests. My test confused them because they weren’t seeing what they’re used to. They weren’t seeing the usual step changes. I don’t think at that time they’d seen someone who was nasal breathing right until the very, very final speed. And they were going to do some more work on me and then COVID happened, nothing—we didn’t actually do anything. But now it’s all starting to—the penny’s starting to drop now, where I’m like, ah, maybe—not maybe, I was overly nasal breathing, so they couldn’t even get the data they wanted to give me my training zones. Does that—is that making sense?","offset":4100,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Dude, I watched this exact thing with—so I I have a pretty good relationship with the UFC PI and one of my—one of my clients owns the UFC so we went over to the PI to do all of our testing there with Roman, um, who who’s the exercise lead physiologist there. And he he did this exact same thing and literally with a minute and a half left, he decided to start mouth breathing—","offset":4154,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: That was me. That was exactly me.","offset":4181,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And it that’s all it lasted. He fell off a cliff immediately afterwards and yeah, you were struggling your ass off because you didn’t—you didn’t have enough oxygen on board. And you haven’t actually developed the the the the muscles to be able to move that fast.","offset":4183,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: So I’ve developed the lower end, which is great and has metabolic benefits and performance benefits, but I’ve sacrificed or underdeveloped the top end.","offset":4199,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah, it’s like doing yoga with your primary breathing muscles and then asking yourself to go, you know, do powerlifting, right? It it’s just those two very different worlds, right? Or—","offset":4208,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: But you need both. It’s not—","offset":4219,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, correct.","offset":4220,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So I was right to focus on the nasal breathing and correct that deficiency in my life.","offset":4221,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yes.","offset":4225,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: But now it’s like, hey Rangan, you’ve got that one. That’s okay. Keep doing that, but now we need to bring in—","offset":4225,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. And the series of questions that I ask based on what I see is what validates what we see, right? And that was the questions that I had for you was like, hey, you know, are you doing any mouth breathing? You’re like, oh no, no, no, no. I don’t do you know, like I’m, you know, this is what I’m doing. And I’m like, okay, that’s what I thought.","offset":4230,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: Okay, so let’s say you’re going to give me a program and I’m going to work on certain things to do. And I guess some of that’s—well, maybe you can share. What are some of the things you would ideally have me work on?","offset":4249,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: We would, one, have you uh work at just above gear two. So working to like heart rate zone two, heart rate to heart rate zone four. We’d be doing some intervals there with mouth breathing, particularly gear four, not gear five. Gear five we would touch. We’ll touch with things like strength and conditioning. So I threw in with your program, at the—the—one of the main points of the limiters was let’s do some real str—let’s do some strength and conditioning at least twice a week where you’re getting that intensity up to where you are mou—wanting to move air like [breathing sound]. And that may just be after you finish squatting, but it hits that. And then we can gear down as a result of that. So I get up to a point to where I hit that when I’m lifting heavy and then that doesn’t mean the whole workout’s gear five at all. It’s we’re hitting those stages. You’re also doing structured cardio throughout the week at least twice a week to where we’re doing some interval type work where you’re working for a few minutes in gear four and then coming back into a gear one for some easier stuff. And making sure that we’ve got the the you know the working gear one in there.","offset":4260,"duration":86},{"text":"Host: So the gears that I have um underdeveloped over the past few years, the gear four and five, right? In essence, you’re saying now we’re going to start um redeveloping them. You’re going to now—you’ve got gear one and two going pretty well. Let’s now get gears four and five going well so I’ve got this real variety and depth in my system. I want to know what the benefits for me of doing that are. Like why should I do it? I feel good. Um, I can nasal breathe at low intensities. I’m going to do it, Brian. It’s not that. For the purpose of the conversation, why should I? Why shouldn’t I just keep doing what I’m doing?","offset":4346,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’re going to most likely see an increase in VO2 max.","offset":4388,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Could you explain to my audience what a VO2 max is?","offset":4392,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Maximum amount of oxygen you’re able to utilize, um, in liters per kilogram a minute. So your your body weight in kilograms and how many liters you’re using of oxygen or can you use in a minute. That’s just a rough reference point of the higher that VO2 max is, the less likely it is that that’s going to slip into a dangerous zone as you get older. The good news is you’re probably not in any danger. The the even better news is is that following what I’m going to lay out is going to most likely increase that exponentially. Meaning when you go on a walk, it’s even easier. You’re not using high-stress energy in the places you used to.","offset":4394,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Is it fair to say that if you can develop this five-gear system with a variety of different movements and a variety of different breathing gears and heart rate intensity, you’re working out your stress response system?","offset":4440,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Oh, oh yes.","offset":4456,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Right. So how—look, given what we spent the first hour talking about, which is the way we respond to stress, the choice or perhaps not the choice, depending on how you want to frame it. In terms of we have a stressor and we have a response to that and we can train our response, we can get more helpful responses over time. Do you think that if people develop their five-gear breathing system, it would help them better manage stress in their own lives?","offset":4457,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Across the board, yes.","offset":4484,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: ‘Cause it’s not separate, is it? It’s not how you deal with the driver who cuts you off is actually related to how you move your body.","offset":4486,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Correct. And your—well, your breathing is a respondent to all of that. Breathing’s playing a role in all of that. So me learning how to actually—and this doesn’t—like, I want to be very clear. I don’t—I don’t, nor do I expect clients to go into the gym and or go and do cardio every time they go and work out that they’re implementing the gear system. A small portion of that training I will integrate the gear system and breathing into, but not the whole thing. It’s like if I’ve got a guy playing, you know, in the NFL or NBA, whatever, I do not want them thinking about the gears when they’re playing. No. Not at all. Not at all. That is part of training and then it should transcend over into is the is my client now seeing differences in how they’re playing and intuitively picking up on this process as they walk—as they go through that, right? Are they as soon as a play ends and you know, in NFL or are they immediately into [heavy breathing sound]. Do they do that intuitively, right? That’s where that should happen. However, the crossover is how I’m managing my day-to-day stress is going to show up in my training. And if I can’t maintain a gear one in something I should be able to maintain a gear one in, I now know I’m probably a little more smoked than I normally am, or if I had a a workout I was going to do that had some sort of gear in it, and that’s much harder, you are now seeing a response to stress that you have a feedback loop to to understand, oh wow, this is a lot more difficult or this is much easier today. I am really able to get work harder in this gear, right? That is a very—that is a crossover point for understanding, oh, I’m actually making some adaptations here towards expanding my potential for stress. Like, I I’m able to handle far more than I was prior to this. And here’s the thing, if I don’t use oxygen well, your physiology will catch you. We call these metabolic disorders. Like, it will catch you. And that doesn’t mean your breathing is the culprit here. It means, yeah, your breathing’s probably affected, your food’s probably affected because you’re making fast choices on that and you don’t care about where you’re getting your food from, just hypothesizing. Your training is too intense or it’s not intense enough, right? Like, the there’s all these variant—like, look you go look at research like it comes out all the time, but variance to training is the thing that is typically the best stimulus, not the same thing over and over and over repeating.","offset":4493,"duration":176},{"text":"Host: It’s so interesting this stuff. I mean, I’m I’m deeply fascinated like you about human behavior. A big part of my job for many years as a doctor has been to help patients make better lifestyle choices. And I used to think that knowledge was all the people needed. And I’m like, no, no, no. People need knowledge for sure, they need external knowledge, but what they need more than anything I believe these days is internal knowledge, that awareness of why am I going to this behavior. So let’s take sugar for example, right? And I think this relates to your work and the gear systems. If you’re chronically stressed and generating emotional stress by every way you interact with life—the the drivers, the boss, the traffic—and you’re thinking you’re a victim to the world, you did the math, you’re going to consume more sugar because you you’re using up sugar.","offset":4669,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Your body needs sugar.","offset":4723,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Exactly. And so you keep thinking that you need to hear another podcast on the on the negatives of sugar, but the problem is you already know that. You need to understand why do you need that sugar. What is going on upstream that is naturally means you’re going to consume that sugar and you can apply that to alcohol or three hours scrolling social media, whatever it might be. Like, what’s the upstream driver? Hey guys, I really hope you’re finding this useful. If you are and you want more content like it, please do check out my book, *Make Change That Lasts: Nine Simple Ways to Break Free From the Habits That Are Holding You Back*. It’s in all the usual places as a paperback, ebook, and as an audiobook which I’m narrating now. Back to the video.","offset":4725,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: Is it fair to say, Brian, then, because not everyone who um who is listening to this right now is going to be able to come to your facility, okay? Um, so in terms of practical advice that may work for most people—","offset":4770,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah.","offset":4787,"duration":0},{"text":"Host: I think a conclusion that I’m drawing is that everyone should be able to walk around their block keeping their mouth shut.","offset":4787,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: If you can’t go walk for at least 45 minutes a day, you’ve got—I my suggestion is find the time to walk for at least 45 minutes a day with your mouth shut and not on a screen. You’re laying the beginnings of a metabolic foundation, the stuff Alan Cousins talks in in like so well about. I actually believe it’s more—so do I. Yeah, you’re going to need more than—but if you can get 45, that’s a good start. But go get lost in that 45 minutes. Go explore.","offset":4798,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: But keep your mouth shut.","offset":4836,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Keep your mouth shut and explore.","offset":4837,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay, now let’s say someone tries that and goes, hey Brian, I’m really struggling, like I’m trying to go for a walk, I have to open my mouth after 10 minutes.","offset":4839,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Take a few mouth breaths and go right back to nose breathing.","offset":4847,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: So it’s training. You’re like you don’t have the skill now but you can develop and cultivate it.","offset":4850,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Take a few mouth breaths, go back to nose—go back to gear one.","offset":4854,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. So practice nasal breathing at low intensity.","offset":4857,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: At low—it it’s 80% of what you should be doing, right? So 80% of what you should be doing is really underneath that nose breathing thing. Then there’s the hey, if you can get that 45 minutes, great. Go work, spend your day paying attention to how much you’re talking, how much you’re getting stressed out. Find pieces of time where you can just bring it down for a minute or five. Just in just start with a consistent habit of controlling some breathing or paying attention to your breathing through your belly, your chest, your nose if you want, throughout your day if you can. Then, if you’re going to go train, if you’re going to go exercise and you really want to exercise, use your walking, the end of your walk and how you feel after walking as a basis for how hard you can train or what you can do that day. You’ll know. Your body is going to tell you through that walk how good you feel, if you feel great like and and try and mix up things. Like, try and do some strength training. We know definitively strength training is as important as VO2 max. Having muscle tissue so that you can get up off your your tail is is just as important as having a VO2 max, right? So maintaining strength, that doesn’t mean you need to go into a powerlifting meet. Like, it doesn’t mean you need to become a powerlifter. But finding complex movements and applying them, do that throughout the week. Maybe at least twice, if not three or four times a week if that’s your MO.","offset":4859,"duration":103},{"text":"Host: So you’re saying the 45-minute walk, right, or whatever you can manage, you’re saying have that daily walk. Yep. That daily walk does several things. Yes, it’s training you metabolically, it’s training your stress response system, but it’s also helping you tune into yourself. Because if you do it every day, and this is why I like repetition, you start to feel if the practice is the same and you feel different, you know that something else is causing you to feel different. i.e., oh I didn’t sleep well last night or I’ve got a lot of stress in my life at the moment. That walk felt a bit harder today than yesterday, it’s the same place that you’ve gone. So you’re starting to understand yourself better and the state of your nervous system through that daily walk.","offset":4962,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: 100%. 100%. Yeah. And for 20 minutes of calm just sitting, the brain looks looks looks good. But the brain after 20 minutes of walking looks real good. Real good. You start to see things because of blood flow changes and metabolic changes that start to happen that aren’t requiring high stress from that, and you kind of start to work through creatively a lot of the stuff that you’re working—whatever you’re working on, whether that’s work, whether that’s life, whether that’s whatever. And I’ve found that that is the place where I can really tap in and I I’m also very aware of like, you know what, I am definitely not lifting today. I’m still a mess and there’s no reason why I’m going to put load on my back or you know, pull heavy off the ground, whatever. Um for I’m going to do some probably some low-level cardio later or I’m going to go swim, right? Like um you know, or I’m just going to surf.","offset":5003,"duration":61},{"text":"Host: You’re getting in tune with yourself.","offset":5064,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Yeah. I’m just—","offset":5065,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You’re starting to learn about yourself. It’s paying attention to what’s going on inside.","offset":5066,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: You’ll start—you’ll start to figure out that that um when you don’t move, when you don’t walk, when you don’t exercise, your body starts to take a nosedive. Your stress levels go up through the roof, your HRV starts to drop, your resting heart rate starts to increase, your blood pressure starts to increase. Literally, I can watch this with I watch this with myself. My resting my morning lactate reading goes up if I don’t do anything the day before, right? If I don’t do any walking, if I don’t do anything the day before and I was talking and I was engaged in work or I was flying and all that dude, the next morning, I’m hot. I’m running hot. So I’ve got to go you know I don’t have to, I go walk and then I’m like, I don’t go crush it the next day. Like I have clients I manage their pro—like this is what I do, is I’m like yo, you’re landing in Abu Dhabi, you are not going and training hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. And I’m like, no, you’re not—like not if you want to sleep. Like, if you really want to get adjusted sooner, we’re going to get light, we’re going to go walk around, then it’s going to be hey here’s this low-level thing.","offset":5069,"duration":73},{"text":"Host: Yeah. It’s interesting that we we have all this data now coming out, well for many years, that um exercise is as good as an antidepressant or better. You know, we we—but the point I’m trying to make is that we’re so used to being a sedentary society that doesn’t move, we talk about all the benefits of exercise, but actually if you flip it, it’s like if we were all moving, it’s not that exercise has the benefits, it’s that not moving has all these disadvantages. It’s the same thing but reframed.","offset":5142,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: And and if you want to have if you want to do this even even at a higher level, get your ass outside and do it. Get exposed to the light, the morning light. Like it it’s critical that you’re doing this stuff. This is like how we were de—how we evolved, this is how we became what we are, as a result of being outside and having to go walk towards something to get it and then bring it back or however we were doing it. And I mean look, my house when it gets dark, it gets red. The only lights that come on are red. You know, I I’m ahead of this because I noticed the sensitivities I have towards the light. I I really get sensitive towards light in the dark. Like when I was driving at night, I would notice I would just be like, God I’m this is sucks because of headlights.","offset":5172,"duration":54},{"text":"Host: Yeah, light—light is as powerful as a drug. We just don’t see it like that.","offset":5226,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: 100%. Forget the name of the book, I read one, it was great on on on light and um sleep and you know light being the original uh toxic thing.","offset":5229,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: When you—I’ve got this—I think it’s a I think it’s within the iPhone you can put this like heavy red filter on your phone. And so I triple triple-click in the evening and it goes red. And then if you ever just put it back, you can feel the eye strain.","offset":5243,"duration":17},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: My my phone’s mostly red is is red most the time.","offset":5260,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: But you don’t—people we don’t realize how much we’re being strained and stimulated until you change it and then you flip back, you’re like wow, this is what most people are looking at.","offset":5262,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: What’s wild is I used to watch—so I’m a big entertainment guy, like I love movies, I love good shows, um and I grew up that way. Um I when I watch on the television now, I can’t watch on the TV for very long because it’s so stimulating. I watch on my iPad which I can put in red. So I everything’s in red. That light thing has a huge impact on the, you know, on the metabolic system. Like, how everything’s functioning.","offset":5270,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: Yeah, it’s so interesting, like thinking about our evolution um and how we live. It strikes me that because we’re so disconnected from, let’s say, our food supply, because we’re so disconnected from how we used to live, because our lives are so overly busy and chronically stressed now, it’s as if we all need education now on what diet we should be consuming, how we should be breathing, how much we should be moving. Whereas, I remember last summer, uh my family and I went to Kenya for four weeks, and we went on safari, and one day we spent at uh a Maasai camp. And there’s many things I noticed, but one of the things that struck me, hanging out and interacting with some of the Maasai that morning, was there was just a quietness, a groundedness. I was just struck by this kind of grounded presence that you don’t often see in the modern world. Yeah. But a lot of people around you you meet in in modern life now are quite they’re like I used to be, in your head, you’re not grounded, you’re anything but. Do you know what I mean? How how do you think about being grounded and its relationship with the breath?","offset":5302,"duration":77},{"text":"Brian McKenzie: Um, I mean, there’s nothing to fix with any of us, to be clear. But when you’re grounded in yourself and you’re living, you know, how you truly want to be living, you don’t need to change you don’t need to change a whole lot because the process of what you’re doing already involves all of that. I haven’t met anybody—I’ve yet to meet someone who is totally grounded that is not highly physically active in some way. I have not. There is no Eastern philosophy without a physical practice. None of them. None. Why? I’ve looked. Why? Because they understood. It was about like monks up in isolation that I brought up with the, you know the the prison before, they walk every day. They’ve got some sort of practice. Go look at the Shaolin monks, for crying out loud. You know, um you go look every philosophy you’ve got yoga, like it was about movement. And moving into positions, asanas.","offset":5379,"duration":21},{"text":"Brian: ...and getting into position and being able to breathe in that position. Because if you can't breathe in that position, you don't own that position. That position owns you. Yeah. You know? And so anyway, it's I'm I'm very interested in people that that are very grounded and I'm like I'm I'm blessed with what I get to do and how I get to do it.","offset":5400,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian: Um, but I'm more so just I'm I'm just playing, man. That's all I'm doing.","offset":5426,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I love it, Brian. Absolutely love it. Couple of loose ends in my head I just want to tie off before we end the conversation. We spoke before about we get oxygen into our lungs and then we have to deliver it to our tissues or our muscles, but then utilize it when it's there as well. And I think you said that with me, I'm able to get it to the tissues and muscles, but I'm perhaps not as efficient as I could be at using it there. First of all, is my recollection correct?","offset":5431,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian: Correct.","offset":5461,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. So how am I and through me then the people listening, if they have the same problem, how are they going to improve, you know, the usage of that oxygen at the tissues? For me, is it that high intensity? Is that what it is?","offset":5462,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: It's not just high intensity. It's it's even moderate intensity and bringing on enough oxygen for the for the tissue to use it, versus limiting what you're you're doing, right?","offset":5478,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: So I'm artificially limiting...","offset":5491,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Mm-hmm. You are you are controlling things too much.","offset":5493,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Yeah, doesn't sound like me.","offset":5498,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: You have controlled things too much and not allowed the system to do its job.","offset":5500,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: So I need to let go.","offset":5507,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: What it was communicating. Let go. Let go. When when the when you feel the change, that's we're just re-aligning feeling that change.","offset":5508,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: So as I start to let go and allow myself to breathe in a whole variety of different ways, at a whole variety of different intensities. So appropriate breathing for the level of movement and intensity. Are you saying that because those things start to then match up, that then means that my oxygen delivery to the tissues and the usage is also going to start to match up? Whereas now there's a discrepancy.","offset":5519,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. And because of that under-utilization issue, that's probably over time created the issue with your tissue being able to use that oxygen even at lower rates, right? So the ability to get that going again is what we want that's what we're trying to train. But the strength training actually helps with that as well, right? Because we're looking for better mitochondrial development, and that comes in many different fashions. Walking, yes. However, strength training, yes. It just comes in a different way. It's just high intensity, right?","offset":5546,"duration":48},{"text":"Host: And I've heard you say, Brian, the greatest hack for your mitochondria is working on your breath.","offset":5594,"duration":6},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Well, yeah.","offset":5600,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Which again, I don't think a lot of people are thinking about. And sort of tying this up to the start of the conversation, breath is that central piece that so many of our behaviors, our emotions, our ability to perform, they come off as a byproduct of our ability to, like, breathe appropriately and efficiently, right?","offset":5601,"duration":20},{"text":"Brian: Yep. And I don't, you know I mean, I don't know how many people have your issue. I've only seen it, like, four or five times. Um, granted every person has been very aware of the breath game for quite some time, right?","offset":5621,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: Yeah, because I guess people like me who are really interested...","offset":5637,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Well, anybody who read Breath typically was like nasal breathing's everything, and that's not on James, James wasn't saying that's everything...","offset":5640,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: I was ever since I first came across Patrick McKeown however many years ago, like, I have been oh, right, I'm going to go and walk nasal breathing, but I probably overdone it. And I get that.","offset":5649,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: Look, man, I've been staring at this down the down the lens of a metabolic cart for quite some time and seeing the changes and and what it like I mean the changes simply in walking with one's mouth open versus one's mouth shut were eye-popping.","offset":5660,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: In terms, and make that really practical, in what? In terms of your ability to burn carbs or fats?","offset":5679,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: So if I'm overbreathing, which isn't what your problem is, right?","offset":5684,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So that's not my problem.","offset":5688,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Which most people, most people are have an overbreathing issue. Yeah. So if I'm overbreathing, I'm definitely not getting oxygen to the tissue, right? So I'm I'm the sympathetic nervous system clamps down and I'm point I'm not going to be I am going to be screwing up the the dissociative curve of oxygen's utilization because I have I'm getting rid of excess CO2. So if I overbreathe, and if anybody wants to do if anybody's done Wim Hof, they've felt what overbreathing feels like. That's where that high starts to to kick in. But what's happening is is things are clamping down, right? And so we're limiting how oxygen gets used and so the red blood cell can't offload as much oxygen because there's not enough CO2. Oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2, and CO2 is what knocks that helps knocks that oxygen molecule out of the red blood cell to go to the cell to be used.","offset":5690,"duration":68},{"text":"Host: Also, Brian, just to finish off that loop as well, given what I shared with you right at the start, which is that I feel compared to last time I was here in LA with you that I'm a different person. My nervous system sits differently. I'm calmer, I'm more present. Do you think in any way that matches my journey with breathing, i.e., perhaps I was overbreathing like most of us five-six years ago, and by working on the lower ends and the nasal breathing, maybe neglecting the higher ends, but by working on that lower end, do you think there's any correlation between that and the fact that I'm less reactive these days?","offset":5758,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian: There's direct correlation between aerobic and parasympathetic nervous system, and sympathetic nervous system and anaerobic.","offset":5800,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: So if so it completely matches up.","offset":5809,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: It it is direct correlation.","offset":5811,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: As I've worked on this lower end, my parasympathetic nervous system's much better able to function.","offset":5812,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: If the lion walks in the room, your system goes oh, we need immediate action. You think it's going to go use fatty acids for that? It can't.","offset":5817,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Needs carbs for that, it needs to go to sympathetic.","offset":5827,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: More carbohydrates or it needs, yeah, creatine phosphate system. It needs instantaneous, but oxygen's a part of that, in when I go use tissue, it it'll deplete that. Like we've seen that. Like, uh, there is no one or the other, it's like how quick that's going to happen.","offset":5829,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Well Brian, I love talking to you, I love hanging out with you. Um, we've covered so much, we've gone into so many different areas. As we wind this down, if people want to learn more about you, they want to work with you, they want to do your online courses that you guys run, where should people go?","offset":5852,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: shiftadapt.com. So s-h-i-f-t-a-d-a-p-t dot com.","offset":5868,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: And and what's on there, what can they like...","offset":5877,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: We we we still have a membership site, and we have a lot of stuff a lot of courses, things like that or webinars we've done that we talk about a lot of this stuff. We'll be releasing a a number of programs etc., that'll be on a little bit higher level than that that people can go do. And then on the upper tier of all of that is actually hiring my business partner and or I.","offset":5879,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: To actually work with you one-on-one.","offset":5905,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, so Emily Hightower who I work with, uh, she's on the other end of the stress here where she's helping with developing tools and regulating nervous system on the day-to-day throughout, you know, like hey, how are you managing this at in the moment type of stuff? Like what's your life look you know what's going on in life?","offset":5906,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Yeah, amazing. We've covered so much. Um, emotional reactivity, the power to choose our response, breathwork, the different gears, the metabolic benefits of being able to access all the gears, etc. etc. To bring it all together, like Brian, if there's someone who has followed our conversation and still with us, and is like, yeah, you know there's something there for me, right, there's something Brian was talking about that applies to me. I haven't taken my breath seriously, I haven't taken my levels of physical activity seriously, or whatever it might be. How would you help that person? They feel stuck, they feel lost, they feel unmotivated. But at the same Brian, give me some inspiration, what is your final piece of advice? What would you say to that individual?","offset":5929,"duration":52},{"text":"Brian: Learn to say no. Learn to say no to the things you don't want to do. And that is a very that actually goes far deeper than just saying no to something you instantaneously know you don't want to do. It's it's looking at those sexy shiny things that are of excitement and being able to slow it down enough to say no to maybe getting into a business deal or taking a job that you really don't want to take, um, but you think you do because you got to make the money and maybe you could go figure that out another way, or you know, can you change some lifestyle habits? Um, I think no is the path to freedom. Because you'll only be doing the things you truly want to be doing if you learn to say no to the things you don't. And I have found that because of that, I'm surrounded by the people I want to be surrounded by. And and that's it. Um, it's simple. So um, if you can live the life you want, but I mean just applying the principles of making your day a process. Like literally make it a process. Like the dishes, right? Like I get to go drive to work. Yeah, you get to. Or yeah, I get to have a job. Or yeah, I get to drive in traffic. Because I get to live here, because I get to do these things. It's very different than I have to.","offset":5981,"duration":83},{"text":"Host: Yeah, love it, Brian. Thanks for everything you do. Thanks for the help you're giving me personally and for coming back on the show. Really appreciate it.","offset":6064,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Thanks for having me, love you dude.","offset":6072,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: If you enjoyed that conversation, then I think you're really going to enjoy this one.","offset":6074,"duration":4},{"text":"Guest: I want people to wake up and realize the creative nature of love, health, harmony, because that is available, and yet we struggle.","offset":6078,"duration":15}],"logs":[{"elapsed":"0.0","message":"Downloading audio from YouTube...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"0.0","message":"Trying download with browser cookies (ad-free)...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"2.6","message":"⚠ Cookie download failed: WARNING: [youtube] [jsc] Error solving n challenge request using \"deno\" provider: Error running deno process (returncode: 1): \u001b[0m\u001b[1m\u001b[31merror\u001b[0m: Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read prope","detail":null},{"elapsed":"2.6","message":"Retrying without cookies...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"⚠ Downloaded without cookies — audio may contain ads","detail":null},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"Audio downloaded (62.3 MB) in 49.6s","detail":"File size: 62.3 MB"},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"Video title: Why You Can't Relax, Sleep Or Focus!  - Do This 5 Minute Habit To Feel ALIVE Again | Brian Mckenzie","detail":null},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"Audio duration: 1:40:48 (100.8 min)","detail":null},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"Large audio (100.8 min) — will use chunked transcription with gemini-3-flash-preview","detail":null},{"elapsed":"49.6","message":"Skipping full-file attempt — using chunked transcription for 100.8 min audio","detail":null},{"elapsed":"50.5","message":"Split audio into 3 chunks for transcription","detail":null},{"elapsed":"50.5","message":"Transcribing chunk 1/3 (starts at 0:00)...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"50.5","message":"Uploading audio to Gemini File API...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"55.5","message":"Audio uploaded in 5.0s","detail":"File ref: files/qa4n6etr6qsq"},{"elapsed":"55.5","message":"Audio processed in 0.0s. 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