Patrick Obolgogiani (00:07)
Jack, warm welcome. Could you take us back to your football career and maybe a specific moment when the pre-performance anxiety which you’ve talked about really peaked? Can you find a moment for us?

Jack McMillan (00:21)
Definitely. Well, firstly, thank you for having me, Patrick. Yeah, it’s really a pleasure to speak and share my story as well. definitely when I was a young professional athlete, so this is going back to probably 17 years of age where I was playing in an elite sporting environment of football here in the UK. And pre-performance anxiety was definitely something that was

jeopardizing my performance at the time without really knowing what tools I needed to overcome it or manage it in the moment. There was not really the support externally that I could lean on because of education, right? And just taking a deep breath sometimes is not always the answer. And I realized that quite quickly. So…

For me, it was a huge turning point in achieving a professional contract when I started understanding my own mind and body better. And the biggest tool for me to achieve that at the time was definitely breathing and harnessing the power of the breath to center myself, become more present in the moment, and basically understand more about myself with the connection between what the breath can tell me

as an alarm system when things are going wrong, but also for me to understand that this can change. ⁓ I can be in control of my breathing ⁓ if I consciously basically use it in the right way. So that was how I started to become more aware of breathing as a tool. And I remember more specifically, I was playing a game

And it was in the FA youth cup at the time. So it was, I was a young, young athlete and we were doing really well when I was having a great season. But this time it actually happened where I didn’t go into like a, a freeze or a withdrawal, which sometimes happens a lot, especially pre-performance anxiety. People would normally associate it with that. Mine was the opposite. I actually went onto the pitch too high, too pumped and I was too aggressive too early on.

And I remember not having the regulation tools in my box at the time to, for me to see that or understand that. after two minutes on the pitch, I got a yellow card and the referee said to me, it was like, keep making bad challenges because again, I didn’t have the regulation. You know, I will send you off. And I kept making the same mistakes, same challenges and I wasn’t learning. And then it got to halftime. Luckily I didn’t get sent off, but

My manager just took me off the pitch and said, you’re not playing any more moments today. Like that’s your game done. And at the time I couldn’t see why this was the case. just couldn’t see why. It was in that moment after in reflection, after speaking to my coaches, they were like, you just looked out of control, absolutely out of control. I would say that was the moment I was like, wow.

maybe I could do something a little bit different and maybe I could look inwards to understand what I need in the moment. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of a picture.

Patrick Obolgogiani (03:33)
Yeah, it’s a beautiful story. Thank you. Maybe, I know we’ll get into tools later, but maybe to give a bit of a teaser, if you now work with a young athlete who has the same issue and whether it’s like too under, like in too much parasympathetic or too like sympathetic like you were, what’s the key tool that you actually give these young folks today?

Jack McMillan (03:53)
That’s a question. think broadly, obviously, like you know, everyone has a different physiology. Everyone has a different respiratory, you know, architecture, let’s call it ⁓ within. I think the the answer to that question is it’s definitely athlete and person specific depending on what they need and how and how they process pressure. Yeah, because pressure is a privilege.

only if it’s managed effectively. If it’s not managed effectively, it’s definitely not a privilege. So we use a lot of different methods depending on the nervous system state that they’re in, because as you know, you can be in a sympathetic state and be silent and freeze and not want to go out, etc. ⁓

but also in the sympathetic state, like I’ve just explained, you could be heightened, you you could be super aggressive, your heart rate could be up, your respiratory rate can be up. So it’s really hard sometimes to factor in if someone’s relaxed or if someone’s in a freeze state. And I think that’s only when communicating and allowing the athlete to understand their mind and body better, they can start to identify, okay, if I’m feeling like this, I can use this. If I’m feeling like this,

I can use option B, for example. So it’s very specific, I would say.

Patrick Obolgogiani (05:16)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Well, since then, of course, you’ve switched now to being a coach, especially for nervous system breathwork. I’m curious to hear like, what were some of the key steps in the transition and maybe what surprised you the most along along the journey?

Jack McMillan (05:32)
Definitely. So as I said before, I, I found breathing as a tool when I was a young, young athlete and actually found breathing originally through a practicing yoga daily. So I used yoga as a, as a tool to sort of recover my mind and body. And through that journey, I realized. And a huge part of yoga, as you probably are aware is, is Pranayama, the traditional methods of breathing. And that was what opened my eyes to, okay, breathing is a really powerful tool, but

When I went on the journey after my career of understanding breathing more, when I did my yoga teacher training, for example, the science was lacking. You know, there was always this sort of like philosophical spiritual elements of breathing, which is great. And I love that side as well. But I realized if I wanted to deliver this to my audience and my mission was to help support high performers and elite athletes, I needed to back this properly.

by science. So I think the biggest transition for me was going on that journey of linking two worlds that traditionally are completely the opposite ends of the world. know, from my knowledge, I’m the only ex professional footballer in the UK that is now a yoga teacher, which just blows my mind because I thought there’d be a lot more. Because yeah, I believe in it so much. And it’s the same with breathing as well. So

I think the biggest thing I learned was how could I translate this into high performance, speak the language of my audience in the right way and make it make them realize that this is a tool that can change your life if you harness it in the right way. And the yeah, that journey is took a long, not a long time, but it’s took, you know, a couple of years now within the business that I’ve built. But before that, my education and

you know, just going back to university after playing sport, understanding, learning, doing it again, failing, learning all of the in-betweens, which I’m sure you’re obviously aware of. yeah, I would say that that’s been the biggest lesson for me. And also like the lack of education out there was a real surprise for me when I first started within the elite sporting world, because

Sports science is huge from a physical perspective. So strength and conditioning, physiotherapy, et cetera. And it’s all obviously about the main muscle groups, let’s say that it takes to run hard and sprint faster and be strong. But one of the biggest muscle groups, which is obviously, you know, you’re a spiritual muscles and you die from, et cetera, was under looked and neglected when it comes to education application of that.

So that was also like a big surprise. Very surprising actually that there was such a lack of information out there. And I think that’s the gap that we’re trying to bridge now at Optima.

Patrick Obolgogiani (08:29)
Yeah, makes no sense. And I can imagine, just because you were there, right, on the field, the people you work with can resonate a bit more, or like vice versa, there’s this linkage and trust and credibility with like, hey, I’ve been there, I know what it’s like. Whereas if you’re like a coach, like coming from another corporate world, it’ll be more difficult to speak to the same language with the players, right? So that must be at least making it little bit easier for you.

Jack McMillan (08:55)
Definitely. I’m super lucky for that. I most people want to work with elite athletes because on paper it’s sexy. Everyone wants to work within the elite world and help the top 0.1 % get better. But what I think a lot of people underestimate is the relatability piece that these people want.

when trusting someone that is going to give them information because when I work with players in clubs, yeah, one of the first things that I will quickly touch on is I know what you’re feeling. I felt it. I’ve been an academy player, I’ve been a scholar, and I’ve been a pro. And I think that straightaway allows them to go, he gets me. And I think that resonance straight away between each other is really key.

If I can resonate with what they say, they can resonate with what I say. And I think that’s the connection within coaching that is sometimes under looked. Obviously everyone can’t have an elite sporting background and there’s amazing coaches out there that don’t and still do great things. But I think to, to get the immediate buy-in that has definitely helped me. And that’s, I’m very fortunate and lucky, you know, that I, I did play football to achieve that. because

Yeah, the world of sport is, from the outside, looks very, very attractive to work in. But it’s not as always as easy as that. And it’s not always what it looks on LinkedIn and social media. ⁓ But yeah, it’s becoming a lot more accessible, I would say, within Elite Sport now, breathing as a tool.

Patrick Obolgogiani (10:38)
what are the, what are the patterns you see? And you can take this wherever you want. Could be a patterns with problematic breathing behavior patterns in terms of like other behaviors. What are the patterns that you keep seeing again and again when you work with athletes?

Jack McMillan (10:51)
Yeah. So in the last, I would say just for context in the last two years, I have worked with in the last two years, probably about two and a half thousand athletes now. And that’s been through workshops. I deliver workshops to teams and groups, which allows me to have that mass audience. Right. don’t, I’ve not done 2,500. There’s just not enough time in the day for that. So

Patrick Obolgogiani (11:12)
One of us.

Jack McMillan (11:17)
The workshop structure has been amazing because we’ve been able to get out and see and feel it on the ground, but also online. Obviously, that’s the beauty of this, right? We’re in two opposite countries right now and we’ll be able to do this. the themes are very consistent across the board. Young athletes are one, not educated. So without education, there’s a lack of awareness. And if you’re not aware of something, you don’t really understand it, right?

And I think awareness is the first step when trying to, you know, influence change within yourself, but within a wider group. I think most young professionals, so let’s say if I was to look at like 18 or 21 downwards, because of the lack of awareness, and because of the lack of education, they’ve always obviously relied on their autonomic response to breathe in right there habitual response. And

no one has ever told them how to breathe. you know, one of the first questions I ask is like, has anyone ever told you how to breathe for performance? And there’ll be no in the whole team. I’ve, on average, I probably have one one person put their hand up. And then they go in through the nose out through the mouth. And then that’s it, right? That’s all they’ve ever been told, right? And so I’m like, okay, cool. I now know where the

that you know, where we are on the ground and what what the education level is. So when it comes to signs and patterns, habitual response to breathing is going to be common and also needed, right? That’s why we’re alive right now. Like sometimes we we force the control of the breath and we do all these different techniques all the time. And it’s like, well, there’s so many factors like, you know, influencing breathing.

from the nervous system, from your external reality in the environment they’re in. These are high performing individuals. These are pressurized environments consistently, right? So it’s not necessarily always, ⁓ you’re a dysfunctional breather because you breathe through your mouth. It’s more, okay, what is your environment and how is that influencing the way you breathe? Because if, I believe if there’s an office worker who’s sedentary most of the day,

and they’re breathing through their mouth all the time, that’s going to be very different to what an athlete’s doing. And I think sometimes we miss that. I think we miss the gap between both. And we sort of put everyone in the same box of needing to breathe one way all the time. So I think context is really important when working with these athletes. When it comes to sleep, sleep habits are really bad because of the environment that they’re in.

night games, lot of travel on buses, planes, ⁓ even time zones. We’ve dealt with players with jet lag. How do we mitigate the onset of jet lag as well? the recovery time periods after traveling is really important. Because they’ve never thought about their breath, typically, yes, they are.

relying on the stress response. So if I get them to do a breath hold without any instructions, the first thing that they will do, of course, will gasp. They’ll open the mouth. They’ll use the chest. They’ll use the shoulders. They’ll come straight into their habitual response. So before sometimes I get them to breathe functionally after it, I want them to understand the differences between their habitual response and what they’re doing at the moment. There’s no guidance from me. All I’ll say is inhale through the nose, exhale out of the nose, pinch and hold the nose.

until the first sign comes to breathe within the body and mind release and just breathe however you would normally breathe. And typically 80 to 90 % of those people, it will be that response through the mouth because that’s what their environment is basically primed them to deal with. Because yes, we need the mouth at certain points, of course, and footballers need to mouth breathe at times they do when the heart’s in the red zone and they need to ventilate the body in the

fastest way possible, not necessarily the most functional, but the fastest way possible, they rely on that habit. So even as I sit here, you know, as a functional breathing master instructor for the oxygen advantage, I also understand that there is a certain level of give and take when it comes to breathing. Most of them also don’t have a high CO2 tolerance, which is really surprising. Most people go

They’re elite athletes. You’d imagine them to be able to hold their breath for 30 plus seconds without a problem, right? Yeah, I would say the average is about 15 to, I would say 15 to 20 seconds on average. I worked with a club. I worked with a Premier League football team this week with their youth teams, so they’re under 18s. And that the average score in the room was 16 seconds. The highest was 30 and the lowest was five seconds. So when it comes to the

the ⁓

from five to 30 seconds. So the common signs for me are CO2 tolerance because it’s never been trained. How would they ever be good at holding CO2 in the body for long? They won’t. And because of their environment, they’re constantly under pressure and they’re constantly in high heart rate zones. So naturally they are going to over breathe. But what happens is they take that over breathing, over ventilation, as you know, hyperventilation. That’s probably what the audience will commonly known it as.

Hyper means more, which means basically the body and mind thinks they need more ventilation, they need more air in and out of the body as quick as possible to fuel whatever activity they’re doing. And typically that’s correlated with the heart rate, right? So wherever the heart rate zones you’re in, typically that’s where the response of breathing will come. Now they step off the pitch, let’s say on a Tuesday night after a game and yes, they’ve been in the red zone, et cetera, but they continuously breathe like they are still on the pitch.

And that then where it becomes a problem, because they have not dampened their stress response. When they hyperventilate, even after the exercise, their body is still in that state of stress or shock or still ready to then move again. And that typically obviously comes through mouth breathing, right? Off the pitch. So they don’t necessarily understand when

they need a certain type of breath, which without education, how, you know, we can’t blame the athlete. We have to look at the wider audience of, of education and using breathing as a tool that can be respected. So I’d say that then is now going to start to influence how they down regulate their body and mind to ultimately sleep better, especially the night after the game. That’s the most important sleep that they’re going to have in their recovery process of the next days.

And typically, yeah, athletes really struggle the night after a game because their nervous systems have been compromised and they don’t have the tools to regulate and bring themselves down. So that’s also a huge window of opportunity, we believe, to influence the athlete for better. So, yeah, I would say that obviously there’s a lot of mouth breathing when sleeping as well, which again, in turn is influencing the recovery process and how they’re feeling when they wake up.

which is huge. would say those are the main things at the moment we are seeing. even within the younger generation, because of the external world we live in, in the sense of how stressful environments are now, we say, and I think I coined this term from Dr. Joe Dispenza, he says, your personal reality shapes your personality. And that basically means your external world is influencing your internal world.

right at all times. And I think that’s a good, a good way to look at an athlete because their lives are stressful. They are under a lot of pressure. The younger now, younger athletes are under more pressure because the standards are becoming higher and there’s ex there’s external pressures from family friends to quote unquote make it in any sport that they play. And that’s influencing how they regulate and what their nervous system is responding to at all times. So I would say that’s, that’s become a huge.

factor. And I’ve worked with, I’ve worked with junior athletes as young as 10 years old, because they are hyperventilating on the pitch, which is spiring them out of control into panic attacks into different dysfunctions, let’s call it and mom and dad are concerned with what can we do for them? What can we teach them that will be a tool in their box that they can take on to

school to other parts of their life as well, not just the sport that they play. So hopefully that answers your question. There’s loads.

Patrick Obolgogiani (20:50)
There is. Let me, if you don’t mind, I’ll try to summarize a little bit and see if I captured the essence there. So it’s almost like starts from the lack of awareness, almost like meta awareness of the way you breathe, combined with the fact that you actually know what good breathing looks like. Even if you become meta aware, it doesn’t help you because you don’t know if it’s good or bad. And then those two then when combined, they lead to this situation where, for example, post-game you mentioned, you don’t actually…

going to parasympathetic stay, which for the listeners, if don’t know, the like the rest and digest state of the nervous system. And where basically all the good things happen when it comes to recovery. And basically they stay kind of this wired all the way until the night, which then starts disrupting the sleep. Is that like a high level summary of like, yeah, yeah. When it to cost, then like you already mentioned the cost around the recovery is this one cost. ⁓ Like this almost like hidden costs in the fact that you don’t

Jack McMillan (21:33)
Yep, yeah

Patrick Obolgogiani (21:43)
understand your nervous system and you don’t take control of it. It’s fully autonomous, which in a way is as designed. But as you mentioned with the problem of the way the lifestyle is designed these days, that autonomous nervous system is not being in the environment we used to be 100,000 years ago, which is causing all this problems. What other costs do you see, particularly with athletes? Do you see actual performance degradation, decision-making, injury? Is there anything else beyond?

the fact that you’re recovering slower.

Jack McMillan (22:14)
Definitely. Not to go too scientific within like, you know, the terms that are used, yeah, like even just the simple term of going harder for longer. Okay. how, so we say like, it’s your economy on the pitch. So it’s your running economy. So it’s your output. So

these guys have got to run for between eight and 10 kilometers at high speed. So it’s not just like going for a jog at your local country park at the same pace for 40 minutes. It’s stop, sprint, walk, jog, jump, you know, all of these high output activities that need high force, but also a lot of energy, right? And within the game of football on the pitch, for example, I’ll use football as there’s over 100 stoppages in play. So

They have a huge exertion between 80 and sort of like 90 % of force, and then they stop. And it’s in those stopping moments, they can, with the right awareness, recover quicker if they have the right tools in their box. So there’s so many times in football or in sport to recover more effectively on the pitch, which ultimately is going to allow them to go harder for longer.

if they are using the tools that earlier on in the games, when it comes to the last 10 minutes, where typically that’s the most important part, because that’s where more mistakes are made cognitively. So you think about your cognitive function, you think about blood flow around the body, you think about the oxygenation of the blood. There’s a term called the Bohr effect, obviously, where without the right amount of CO2 in the blood, oxygen will not be released more readily to the cells that we basically hold onto it more. So we need both.

after a long periods of hyperventilation, which happens a lot with players on the pitch, without knowing it, there is now going to be a lack of chance that they’re going to be able to oxygenate their body better and quicker than if they were to use more functional techniques between plays. So on the pitch, it’s super, super important. And that for me goes into decision making, because what a lot of athletes don’t do is

quote unquote, reset after making a mistake, for example. And we can use breathing as that sort of tangible tool that they can use in the moment after a mistake to reset their mind or body so they can go again. We use a lot of visualization practices with ⁓ Optima. So we’ve designed almost like this visualization guide with breathing for elite athletes. And we’ve used that with, you know, Premier League football teams. We’ve used it with GB athletes for the Olympics in Paris in 2026.

to allow them to feel the physiological pressure, but do it ⁓ in an environment that’s controlled to give them the key tools to recover confidently. So they know when they step into that real environment, it’s not just think positive, it’s the inner belief and confidence that I can deal with anything that comes my way, because now I’ve got a tool to manage the pressure. So we use visualization a lot and I think that comes through that.

cognitive lens. ⁓ And this is not

Patrick Obolgogiani (25:23)
Can you just elaborate what visualization means? I’m thinking the visualization of me taking the pedals kick or something, visualization, but I think you mean something different here. Would you mind elaborating what it might look like for us?

Jack McMillan (25:35)
Yeah,

sure. So two types, there’s the practical and then there’s more seated relaxed versions, which is what you just spoke about. So when it comes to the practical stuff, we like to bring stress in a controlled way on the athlete and use visualization or actually get them to practice the action that they would do in the moment. So for example, a tennis player,

So it’s match point. We would actually stress their body out completely. We would basically practice hypoxia, hypercapnia through breath holding. And then they have got three breaths, for example, to recover before they serve. So they’ve gone from the stress of the body, the physiological response of match point, which happens in the moment. The heart rate is going to be going through the roof. They’ve now got this extra layer of sweat after two hours of playing tennis.

Now the mind is obviously doubting their next shot a lot. For example, in tennis, a lot of people become tentative and tense up before they then have that fluid action, right? We want them to feel that, but ultimately start to practice fast, functional techniques to recover within three breaths. So then they can take that serve. It takes time. You know, we do it for football as well. For example, we do this before getting them to take penalty.

where you’ve got two breaths to recover before you take that penalty. And in that moment, the mind is doubting they’re now under threat, you know, the relaxation response is nowhere to be seen. And they’ve got two breaths to try and shift their state and alter their state before they then take a penalty. Then we have the other variation of that, which is Friday nights are really busy nights for me.

because I work one to one with a lot of footballers and athletes. And for football, Saturday is match day. So what we like to do on a Friday night is keep them regulated. So we do a lot of calming style techniques that are going to allow them to stay in this sort of relaxation response. But then we bring in visualization within them for the day after for match day, for example. So we get them, we don’t just do visualization for necessarily like

I can see myself scoring a goal from this angle with my left foot. That’s too specific sometimes. So with visualizations, we like to go off feeling. So we will ask our players, how do you want to feel tomorrow? Because feeling is more of a, and then they can actually feel it in the moment as well, because it’s something that their brain and body starts to sort of like link together. within the

within the techniques, they can already feel what they want to feel tomorrow. And that’s more of a tangible element to visualization that you can bring in. And that’s not possible without breathing, right? To get them to the state of deep relaxation. So I say they’re the two sort of like practical, non practical ways that we bring in visualization to the elite world. And that’s, yeah, we’ve done that probably across five sports now. And it’s becoming like,

Quite a consistent practice for most.

Patrick Obolgogiani (28:45)
Yeah, amazing. And I can see the parallel and like being able to do this also in like corporate setting where you have, I don’t know, like a big meeting coming up, you keep having trouble getting like winding down the evening with your family. being able to use some of that, like those ideas to a just get down a bit, but then also like maybe visualize the feeling you want to be at the next day in the big meeting or whatever. I don’t know how much have you worked with with like corporate side? I you’re very focused on athletes right now, but

How much have you done that?

Jack McMillan (29:14)
surprisingly more than people think because we yes, we’re more of like a performance athlete focus company on LinkedIn or our website, etc. and socials. But organically, we do find ourselves working within corporate because we know that you know, the mind of a high performing CEO, for example, is the same as a high performing athlete within the mind, of course, right? Their bodies might be slightly different, but

that how they focus, how they process information, how they want to apply themselves is the same. And the body doesn’t know whether it’s a stressful meeting or a football match. The nervous system doesn’t know the difference, but it’s the same response. It’s the same effects it can have. So in short, yes, we work with some really interesting companies ⁓ across finance, technology,

high performing environments. Typically, that means central London, of course, because that’s where everyone is for that world. But yeah, we work with key decision makers in companies and how they are performing under pressure to one regulate themselves so they can make the right choices when the pressure hits because they are normally looking after huge teams of you know, 500 to 2000 people across the world. So

At that level, it’s a really cool, ⁓ other, other environment for us to see, but it’s so similar. It’s the same. And I think that’s the key here. It’s like, it doesn’t really matter if you are an athlete or a high performer in the corporate world, you need the same tools in your box because you’ve ultimately got to make decisions under pressure. That’s all athletes are doing. You know, that’s all athletes are doing is just making decisions under pressure without that cognitive regulation.

they can’t make those choices under pressure. And that’s what we see in the corporate world. And that obviously without the right tools and other unsustainable practices that they might do diet, nutrition, sleep, all of these things that they’re consuming is influencing their nervous system. So that side of it is definitely not, I don’t do that on my own. So my co-founder, you know him well now, Dr. Ricardo Catambula.

He has brought in a wealth of experience from the medical doctor side of things. He works in sports as well. And we also have some really cool partners. There’s a wonderful lady called Lauren Garner. She’s a doctor in psychology. those two in particular, they help shape our environment at Optima and the different frameworks that we’re using across the corporate side as well. Because yeah, mental health comes a huge part of it.

I think from that side, we have a framework that we’ve coined at Optima and it’s basically three pillars. And it’s the same across any industry I’ve worked in. Sleep, mental health, performance. Sleep impacts your mental health. Your mental health impacts your performance. Your performance is impacted by your mental health and your mental health will impact your sleep. Now those three pillars for me is like, you know, it’s a, it’s an ongoing cycle.

And for me, the good thing about all these three pillars is breathing sits between every single one as a tool, as a regulator response, as a immediate impact for the mental health, because it’s tangible, you can feel it. But it’s something that you can use for sleep. It’s something you can use for relaxation and it’s something you can use for performance. So that’s how we look at a corporate environment.

these three elements, how are you addressing but also actioning and making it even easier for yourself to perform? And that’s how we sort of look at that.

Patrick Obolgogiani (32:56)
Yeah, speaking of pillars reminds me of something we’ve been talking about, which is that we believe that breathing to be actually people talk about those health pillars, know, sleep, nutrition and exercise. And it feels like this fourth one missing with breathing, as you mentioned, it affects these other three just the same way as they affect the way you breathe. And I think you’ve talked about previously, if you just look at the breath work as an industry, it’s like, you know,

In some ways, it’s rooted in this thousands of years old legacy of coming from Planeama and elsewhere. But in the modern world, it’s been difficult to break into this fourth pillar fully. And I’m just curious to hear your opinion. What do you think is important for the industry? Maybe the coach is working in it that everyone should know in order to actually avoid?

customers they work with. But just to make sure there’s this of root credibility when it comes to ⁓ winning over the skeptics out there.

Jack McMillan (34:02)
Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great question. I think I could go on for hours with this because you, the one thing you want to, do when you teach or you’re, you’re serving a client, especially within the breathing space is you want it to be safe. Number one, right? So ultimately you don’t want someone coming to you and then leaving worse off.

Patrick Obolgogiani (34:20)
Yes.

Jack McMillan (34:26)
And that happens more times than we think. And I think that comes from a lack of or a different type of education that breathing coaches have. There’s not one standard framework to become a doctor. need to, you know, you need to do the standard framework of ⁓ becoming a doctor, right? Same as a psychologist. But when it comes to breathing, there’s not. So what this does is it opens up

the whole industry to anyone who wants to just come in and start teaching breathing and

Surprisingly, I get questions from breathing coaches that have active clients. And the breathing coaches are asking me. Last week, I had a client who felt really lightheaded and dizzy in the session. was, she had really cold hands and feet. went all tingly and I didn’t know why that was happening.

And that for me is quite alarming because that’s unsafe, right? In the sense of like the, you know, the physiology of someone and their response. So I think the lack of education across industries is a problem. think if anyone wants to teach, they’ve just got to make sure number one, it’s safe. You’re protecting yourself as well as the client that you’re working with. Breathing techniques can be dangerous. And we don’t probably address that enough of how dangerous they can be.

how people can be better off or worse off depending on the techniques that you give them. So I think that only comes through education. Go out there and educate yourself, probably take the right courses. ⁓ Obviously from my side, from a functional breathing lens, I’m a master breath work instructor for the OA, the oxygen advantage. I’ll be running courses this summer, for example, on functional breathing from a science perspective. But then there’s so many great educators out there now.

that are doing the great thing. Because of the disconnect, which I had when I first started from yoga and the philosophical lens and the spirituality lens of breathing, now I love that personally. I’m, know, secretly, even though I’m here on the science side, I love that side of things. I really do, because in the ancient world, that’s all they had to go off. You know, they didn’t have an alveo’s device. They didn’t have the

the science and the you know, everything like that, they will go in just genuinely off feeling and relating that to their their spirituality and their practice. I like that side, I really do. But I also know, you’ve got to be able to understand your audience you work with. So there’s the ideal world, which a lot of I think, breeding coaches think about. And then there’s the real world. And typically, the impact is

sort of like, ceilings because of the disconnect between the ideal world and the real world. The ideal world might be the science and the ⁓ studies that have been done on 20 participants, you know, 25 years ago to prove A compared to the real world of the environment that you’re actually working in. So I think if you want to teach or you are at the moment, you must understand the environments you’re working in to understand whether this is actually

realistic to do a certain technique at a certain time. And I think that’s really important when it comes to the coachability as well of like the person that is in charge of the sessions and like the space that they’re holding in the audience they are. One thing that I did a couple of years ago is I went on a little bit of a social experiment. So I retrained ⁓ in conscious connective breath work, okay, which is in theory,

the critics would say, you know, that’s just hyperventilation. And it’s sustained over a period of time. And over time, your breathing physiology will change, you might have a, you know, a breakthrough moment in your mind, you know, you might go to a different place. And I was like, Okay, cool. I want to experience this myself. So I went there with a very functional breathing scientific lens and everything. And what I seen there was some good but

mostly negative from a sense of people, for example, will go in there to train it to become a conscious connected breathwork coach, but only started doing breathwork themselves two months ago. And then they want to train and then go and teach. I think that going back to our original conversation, right at the start, the relatability piece, the understanding of it, the feeling of it is really important as well. Like practice what you preach, like before you want to teach anything.

Make sure you follow it yourself so you can understand it. And what I seen on that ⁓ training, for example, was a lot of great, amazing human beings who we’re still all friends now because of the collective energy that you can build within an environment like that. nervous systems were completely compromised. There was people there with depression. There was people there with PTSD. There was people there with all these different sort of like

conditions that they were trying to solve through conscious connected breath work. We were training very intensely for a week. ⁓ And I was, I felt really sorry for those people because we were just heightened in their nervous system even more. So we were going from, they were going from a fight or flight state to an ultra fight or flight state for just continuously hyperventilating for one hour.

for 90 minutes at a time. And then having these great, you know, physical sensations or different releases in different parts. But they were not sleeping. So they all reported every night, they were probably sleeping between three and five hours of broken sleep a night, and then we were having to do it again. So over this week, I seen a lot of people just deteriorate because it was way too intense. And they’re in nervous systems, we’re just not used to what was about to happen. And that wasn’t for me.

clearly ⁓ communicated. And that was always a concern for me. And there was some days where I was like, I’m actually not going to do the session today. I’m just going to watch and observe because I didn’t need that, that stress on my body. know what I need. And I think that awareness is key. So not to go, you know, off on a tangent here, but the world of breathing is, you know, there’s so many different techniques out there. And I believe there are techniques that there’s a technique for every situation and moment.

And I’m never saying that conscious connective is completely bad because at times I use that with my clients, which may be surprising for some, but it comes every couple of months. It doesn’t come on a weekly basis. So there’s, there’s sort of like we say in England, there’s horses for courses, like, you know, there’s a, there’s a different technique for a different person on a different day, depending on what race they’re running as such. So that, that is how I would probably.

try and summarize the world of breathing at the moment. And it’s great, right? Like, I think there’s so many amazing people out there doing amazing stuff. And I think it’s just important that they continue to do it and they continue to teach because they’re the ones that are doing, I believe, the right, you know, teaching breathing in the right way and providing the support and guidance. And obviously now technology is becoming a lot more innovative, which I believe bridges that that whole gap to allow people to understand and become a lot more aware.

But yeah, I would say it has a long way to go. think we’re in our infantry stage of breathing from an educational standpoint, science standpoint, but also how we coach breathing as a technique. And that’s something that I’m now doing. So ⁓ I sort of have like a bit of like a private mentorship program and I help people coach.

breathing in the right way because that’s something that’s missed is the coaching application side of breathing as well. yeah, long answer.

Patrick Obolgogiani (42:17)
And I’m sure you could go longer. that’s, you know, speaking of coaches, like even though of course, at Alveus our kind of target audience is these high performers in the corporate setting, but also of course, athletes down the line. I do feel like coaches will become like key partners for us. And specifically, it feels like what we can help there is make them, empower them to be more data driven. Because right now they get like a glimpse of like one hour session.

every few weeks, for example, and maybe once a week. And they don’t know what’s actually happening between those two sessions. Like, they doing the homework you gave them? Did they breathe through their mouth? And all that kind of data that you probably want to actually make them bit more nuanced sessions and coaching. So I think hopefully we’re going to bridge the gap between getting as much more data for the coaches to work with. And I think importantly, many of them also are lacking tools to quantify the impact they’re having on their customers.

Hopefully, seeing your nervous and resilient score go up in those five weeks you work with a coach makes you more willing to keep investing and coming back. That’s something I’m currently working on excited about is empowering coaches.

Jack McMillan (43:27)
Yeah, I totally agree. And obviously, you know, already, like, I can’t wait to get get my hand on the device. Because yeah, we the the the worlds that we’re now working in now, we know that the impact will be huge if we can get alveos on the on on these human beings. ⁓ And for us to, yeah, collect the right levels of data that are going to be able to quantify but also justify the the interventions that we give them.

because it’s not just off a feeling of I feel great or I don’t feel great. It’s no, no, no, it’s data and it’s black and white, which is, is I believe the future.

Patrick Obolgogiani (43:59)
Yeah. As we’re starting to draw to a close slowly, I want to make sure we leave listeners with some actual practical takeaways. And we’ve kind of alluded to kind of between the lines here around like dysfunctional breathing, kind of what dysfunctional breathing looks like. just let’s try to make it like very concrete. Like what are the maybe top five signs that you see? Maybe we can focus on these ⁓ athletes, but could also be other people like what are the top signs of dysfunctional breathing that you see? And what can people like

but looking in themselves, they might be doing maybe suboptimally.

Jack McMillan (44:29)
conversation between nose, mouth, nose breathing versus mouth breathing, I think is a really great place to start the most because it’s the most easiest one to manage and sort of like identify, depending on the environments you’re in, like I was saying before, if you’re sat at desk, and you’re doing some work, should you be mouth breathing? No, because the body is not it. Look at mouth breathing as a, as a, as a gear. So that’s how we like to see it. It’s like, you’ve got

No nose nose is gear one. You’ve got nose mouth is, is gear two and you’ve got mouth mouth is gear three. What it what time in your life do you need gear three? Because there will be times you will need gear three. But most of your life, even though things are stressful physiologically, they’re not mentally they are. So I think looking at like that is a really good way to assess like how you’re feeling in the moment. If you’re just sat at a desk, for example,

your mouth should be closed and you should be breathing low, slow and deep into the body, right? Your tongue should be pressed gently to the roof of the mouth. Your jaw is relaxed. You’re holding a nice posture within the body as well. And this will improve even like where your shoulders are and how you sit as a placement within your seat. And that’s really, important as well. Then you look at, I think, from a dysfunctional perspective, your own relationship to breathing. A lot of people will have a different relationship. So

where what’s your past experience with breathing. So in your familiar past, have you ever had people might have a traumatic experience, they may have had, you know, something a memory, you know, a bad relationship with breathing from that side, which again, is going to ⁓ influence how you think about breathing already. So I think that’s also super important as well. I would say how you breathe from a biomechanical perspective is typically an easy way to see.

just doing the high and low test, like where are you breathing to in your body? But again, that’s not for me necessarily a sign that you’re a dysfunctional breather. It’s just one element. So it’s like, you can’t just say because someone’s breathing high that they’re not ⁓ dysfunctional, that they are a dysfunctional breather. So many things you’ve got to take into account. think CO2 sensitivity, I know we briefly touched that up on earlier. I think that is one of the

One of the easiest way again, tangible way of understanding where you are from your stress response. And if you have got a low CO2 tolerance, why is that the case? And that typically comes through mouth breathing because you’re letting off too much CO2 on a daily basis. You’re not giving the body enough chance to hold onto it and improve your CO2 capacity by dampening the chemoreceptors in the brain, which are responsible for you breathing and they need to be nice and relaxed.

you know, the less is more in that sense. What else? Obviously, the relationship to sleep as well. Yeah, I think if you’ve not got a sleep condition, or you’ve not got a breathing condition, you shouldn’t really be breathing through your mouth when you sleep. It’s not one size fits all. I’m not going to say everyone use mouth tape. I’ll recommend it to the right people when they need it the most but

If you’ve got obstructive sleep apnea, you shouldn’t be using mouth tape, for example, because you’ll need your mouth to wake you up. When the oxygen levels drop so much in the body, you need to gas for air and wake yourself up, But yeah, mouth tapes become a bit of a game changer for people from that are like, let’s say the average population without any dysfunctions, like that can be a great way as well to improve sleep. And what else? What else? What else? I think just like

daily awareness of understanding. Okay. When you’re walking down the street, how are you breathing? Yeah. Because the dysfunctional habitual response for the body, your heart rate will probably be in zone one or zone two. Should you have your mouth open gasping for air? Well, if you’ve got a low CO2 tolerance, you will be simple as that. Obviously you’re, you know, your cardiovascular state comes into play as well. But

just that awareness of daily basis, how am I breathing? What times am I breathing through my nose? What time am I breathing through my mouth? Where do I feel like the breath is landing in the body is always a good way of doing it. And if you practice, I don’t know, yoga or different things as well, you’ll start to have more of that awareness of the body and how it’s used. I think that’s yeah, it’s off my head like simple terms, simple terms that we can use like to not go too technical or deep.

Patrick Obolgogiani (48:50)
So good list already.

Jack McMillan (48:56)
with it. think for the average population that that will be a great place to start.

Patrick Obolgogiani (49:00)
Amazing. Yeah, just to geek out a little bit, like we had the chance to do a very small sample size. just a few people, but still like look at the mouth, the nose breathing and see whether we can kind of get that accurately diagnosed or, you know, observe. And it does look like the kind of vibration acoustics from the chest, they sound surprisingly different when you breathe through your nose versus mouth. And we’re seeing like

96.6 % accuracy in texting which one you’re breathing with. Yeah, that’s amazing. is really cool because as far as I know, when you spoke about knowing if you breathe through your mouth during the night, I actually don’t know how you would do that without a cartography or something, which is quite intensive. But do you know, how would you measure that for the night? I mean,

Jack McMillan (49:47)
From a very, very, very simplistic term, most people will wake up with a super dry mouth. So from like, if you’re lying on your back snoring, snoring all night, you will wake up and your mouth will, you’ll have no moisture left in your mouth, right? We let off so much moisture within the water vapor that leaves through our breath, right? And I think that’s a really good place for anyone to start is do you wake up with a really dry mouth?

Patrick Obolgogiani (49:53)
Right. That makes sense.

Jack McMillan (50:12)
And typically if you are lying on your back and snoring, you’re typically doing that with your mouth as well. Sometimes it can be through the nose, but mainly people’s jaw will drop open and they will snore when they, and that’s a good sign that the, you are mouth breathing when you sleep. But again, it’s never going to be as accurate as Alveo’s device because, that’s what’s missing. So that detection I think will be an absolute game changer for people to understand.

how they are breathing when they sleep, but also daily life. How many times did I breathe through my mouth versus nose? What that will tell us about your environment, your response, your nervous system, your generic, like general health as well. think we’ll, ⁓ we’ll, we’ll change it. It will definitely help with me and what I did for sure.

Patrick Obolgogiani (51:00)
Awesome. Well, we’re really looking forward to working with you guys, you and Ricardo. I think particularly with these, you mentioned, elite athletes, like if we can help them use the data that we have on them to help them prove it, particularly with human being actually knowing how to use the data, which is you guys, then I think that’s kind of even more powerful. But for people that are listening and want to learn more about what to do, maybe get in touch if they’re an athlete, maybe like an elite team in some other forum, like what’s the best way to get in touch?

Jack McMillan (51:28)
Yeah, sure. So Instagram, my personal handle is breathe with Jack super easy to remember. And then the business one is Optima, ⁓ O P T I a dot performance. And our website is www.optima hyphen performance.co.uk. And I’m also on LinkedIn, just at Jack McMillan. ⁓ Feel free to reach out to myself or Ricardo Cattambula on LinkedIn. And we can answer any questions or

any queries that you guys have. And yeah, the future I think is definitely bright within this space and applying the right technology with the right coaching and the right knowledge ⁓ and the real world experience of the environments that we’re working in will be an absolute game changer. So can’t wait to get my hands on the device.

Patrick Obolgogiani (52:20)
Thank you, Jack. Well, thanks for being here and I will make sure to link to all those in the description as well. But with that, have a lovely rest of the week in Portugal, right? ⁓

Jack McMillan (52:29)
Yes, yes, thank you so much. Yeah, good to see you again, Patrick. And yeah, looking forward to working with you soon.

Bye.