Patrick Obolgogiani (00:07)
Roy, back in I think 2017 you were still in corporate London and then now a years later you’re writing a book about breathwork and teaching athletes and executives on how to handle their stress. What was the catalyst for that change back then?

Rory (00:30)
The catalyst for the change was I guess crisis. You know I often view or think that growth can be found in crisis moments and I was struggling with anxiety, struggling with depression, I was prescribed SSRIs given antidepressants when I was maybe 21 or 22 years old, pretty young and I knew things had to change.

I changed my lifestyle. I got more into holistic health practices, things like breath work, for example. And then I moved to Australia in 2019 and just made it.

My purpose, my passion, my mission, my goal to help other people feel as happy and as healthy as breathing made and makes me feel something so incredibly simple but furiously, I if that’s the right word to use here, valuable. It’s so incredible what can be achieved simply through breathing reactively and proactively within the mind, the body, the nervous system. So I knew things had to change back in 2017.

struggling a lot emotionally, mentally and I found the breath.

Patrick Obolgogiani (01:48)
What did the internal world look like prior to that? What was the self-talk, if I remember? What was it like to be you at the time?

Rory (01:57)
it was horrible, man. It was not fun. It was a lot of negative self-talk. I was very depressed. So the way I was speaking to myself, I would never speak to any of my friends like that. I wasn’t proud of who I was. I didn’t like myself. You I even remember some of the early days, some of the early breathwork sessions when I first began practicing.

Patrick Obolgogiani (02:09)
You

Yeah. Yeah.

Rory (02:21)
I’d have these outer body experiences which is pretty wild to even say. And I remember looking down at myself saying, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. So it was some pretty real dark tough moments but very confronting.

But I really do believe I had to go through that process to kind of come out the other side. And through breathing and through breath work,

I definitely learned to manage and control and regulate my emotions better than I ever have done before in my life.

Patrick Obolgogiani (02:57)
Yeah, yeah. You’ve talked before about a very specific breathwork class you attended as part of your switch to holistic health. That was pretty transformational. Can you talk more about what happened there? And also, I’d be curious to hear about what was the modality, what was being actually the breathwork style used in that class?

Rory (03:17)
Yeah, I don’t actually remember how the instructor…

Introduced it. I don’t remember if he said hey, this is a holotropic session or this is a rebirth session But now knowing what I know it was definitely like that. It was a fast active inhale Relaxed passive exhale loud music big large group. I think they must have been 50 to 100 people in that space I thought it was ridiculous at first. I thought what on earth are we doing? You know, this is pretty strange But then I just allowed my mind and body to surrender to

Patrick Obolgogiani (03:22)
Yeah.

Wow.

Rory (03:48)
the practice, I trusted the process, I bought into that instructor as well, I liked the way that he spoke and I liked the music that he played and then, you know, the rest is kind of history. That one hour, you know, changed the whole direction of my life.

And to even think, man, that I was considering not to even go, you know, because I thought breath work, know, breathing, I do it every second of every day. You know, how powerful can that even be? But I’m pretty glad my friends encouraged me to go.

Patrick Obolgogiani (04:19)
Yeah, I was gonna ask you this towards the end, but maybe we’ll just cover it now. I’m curious from you because

I’ve least I’ve seen this huge surge in interest towards breathwork and yet the practice is kind of is, you know, thousands of years old from Pranayama and so forth like that we’re inheriting and yet it’s really now and last five years that it’s really taken off. And I think we’re still kind of early, early stage, kind of riding this wave. Like what do think happened that actually made this more mainstream or at least start to go mainstream?

Rory (04:50)
Yeah, it’s a great question, you know, because I guess to kind of follow on or add to that question, why 2020 to 2025 has Breathwork had this big spike? You know, I don’t know. There’s been some great new science coming out. There has been some great books coming out. I also think from a societal perspective.

Patrick Obolgogiani (05:06)
Yeah.

Rory (05:13)
people are valuing holistic health a lot more than medication. People are kind of going a little bit against old, big pharma for example. People are kind of pushing away from that and not wanting to lean into it as much, but are feeling and finding more excitement within hot, cold exposure.

breathing, nature, a lot of the more simple things for no better word that we can do as humans. I think to kind of round out that point, I think we as a society are leaning into holistic health more.

Patrick Obolgogiani (05:49)
Mm-hmm.

Rory (05:50)
things that we already have and things that are more accessible

as opposed to the shiny new app or some biohacking thing if that makes sense. And I think just the use case and the ability to use breathing as a tool has caught people’s attention.

Patrick Obolgogiani (05:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, also probably the corona kind of abbreviated some of the trends we were already seeing around mental health and then yeah, as you mentioned, you know, in the books like James Nesta’s book definitely became very mainstream and so forth and then people like Huberman started talking about breathing and it’s kind of many many things I’m sure kind of summarized into five years period.

Rory (06:35)
Well, yeah, 100 % man, and also, you know…

people like yourself who are innovating within this space. you have, know, whoop who are, are, you know, leaning into breathwork and showing the positive effects of breathwork. Then you have Apple as well. You know, Apple have an application that supports with breathing on the app. So does Garmin. I’m not sure if Aura does at this point. You may know better than me, but you know, people like yourselves, you know, entrepreneurs and innovators who are really leaning into the space and, and

to help bring more people into such a simple thing that we do every second of every day, right?

Patrick Obolgogiani (07:11)
Yeah, indeed. As you know, this podcast is called Art and Science of Breathing. maybe we’ll start with the latter first. ⁓ When it comes to science, think interesting area you’ve talked about a lot, I haven’t heard many people talk about, is this idea of stress thresholds. Like we always think about

the kind of sympathetic system where like, oh sorry, the nervous system where have like a sympathetic state and then you want to down regulate to parasympathetic state. But then what are you saying is like there’s different thresholds of how far we can go as sympathetic. Is that how you think about it? How would you kind of make it elaborate on the concept?

Rory (07:52)
Yeah, I studied strength and conditioning science at university, sports science essentially, but more performance based. So a lot of…

Patrick Obolgogiani (07:57)
Mm-hmm.

Rory (08:01)
Theories that I use within breathing and breath work come from a sports science sort of background and for example progressive overloads, know increasing frequency intensity duration volume to improve and develop as a human and or as athlete and I kind of use breathing in that way too where We can use the respiration system one of our 12 internal systems to directly tap into our nervous system specifically our ANS or autonomic nervous system to become more resilient more robust

Patrick Obolgogiani (08:18)
Mm-hmm. So,

Rory (08:30)
to improve that stress threshold to subsequently stress less in the future. Very similar to an ice bath. know, we use ice baths, you know, there’s multiple use cases and

reasons for an ice bath. But one is to build that mental strength, to build that mental resilience through a stressful situation and or scenario or an environment. So exactly as breathing, you know, we can use faster breathing, which we know spikes your heart rate. And then as you breathe slower or more normally, the heart rate comes right back.

down. So exactly as we will use ⁓ cardio equipment or ski ergs or a rowing machine or even running you can use repeated sprint ability RSA, repeated sprint ability. We can use breathing to ⁓

Yeah, increase that stress threshold to hopefully adapt and become more resilient and stress less in the future. So yeah, think this, my outlook and my rationale here definitely comes from a more sports science approach and more sports science background, as opposed to a lot of breathwork instructors and absolutely nothing wrong with this or against it, just the different view and niche call it. But a lot of people within the breathwork space

Patrick Obolgogiani (09:31)
Yeah. So, thank

Rory (09:41)
focus on say trauma or energy. But mine is how can we use breathing, one of the 12 internal systems, to tap into another internal system, for this example the ANS, your Autonomous Nervous System, to be better, to be a better human, to grow and develop, to adapt.

Patrick Obolgogiani (10:00)
Yeah, yeah, it’s wonderful. It’s almost like using, as you mentioned, as a muscle, kind of developing the capacity of that muscle, which to some extent, it is literally the case with diaphragm. It is a muscle which people, lot of people, as you know, are not very, you know, well-worsed into and don’t very underdeveloped. Maybe when it comes to the thresholds, actually, let’s take a step back. It’s like one of the things I know you did kind of once you

started considering this kind of move and transition. did a lot of actually coursework and like a lot of teachers along the way, you know, from Patrick at Oxygen Vantage to many other courses. I’m curious to hear like along that path of learning and becoming kind of an expert in the field, like what were some of the most impactful or let’s say, modalities that you still use daily in when you coach others?

Rory (10:49)
Yeah, to be honest, on that point, Patrick definitely has been the most valuable to date. ⁓ I use functional breathing, which he speaks about.

very regularly and openly. I will use functional breathing personally and also professionally with my clients and patients and athletes that I work with every single day. Five minutes of light, slow and deep breathing in the morning, five minutes of light, slow and deep nasal breathing in the evening, just to rebalance that nervous system, to increase oxygen uptake and delivery, improve your lung volume, your diaphragm function, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I’d say my biggest lesson and learnings over the last six, seven years

Patrick Obolgogiani (11:09)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Rory (11:27)
be the value of functional breathing and essentially breathing optimally day to day, improving your breathing efficiency and effectively,

improving your breathing efficiency. And then a lot of my learning, to be quite honest, has just been through reading, through reading and through experience.

Patrick Obolgogiani (11:36)
Hmm.

Rory (11:46)
I take a lot of inspiration through music, through the arts to understand how I can connect breathing and sound to create an overall experience. And there have been some instructors who have done this well over the years, absolutely, but I don’t think many. So

I’ve taken a lot of inspiration through this experience and just trial and error, if I’m being quite honest.

Patrick Obolgogiani (12:07)
Yeah, don’t think we’ve actually spoken to anyone in podcast about this and I assume 90 % of people have not read Oxygen Advantage or anything else like that. Would you mind just kind of going high level? What do you say when you mean functional breathing and what does the five minute actually look like?

Rory (12:25)
Yeah, of course. So functional breathing is the opposite of dysfunctional breathing. Functional breathing is optimal breathing and dysfunctional breathing is suboptimal breathing. So a functional breath is through your nose, breathing lighter, slower, deeper and quiet. And then a dysfunctional breath is the opposite, which is through your mouth, short, shallow, ⁓ fast and audible, loud essentially.

There’s a positive effect that comes with functional breathing and then there’s a detrimental effect, a negative effect that comes with dysfunctional breathing. it’s kind of hard to find a balance or a neutral playing ground because one has great benefits and one’s actually detrimental to your health. So a five minute practice is very simple where I would either sit on the sofa and you can do this with your eyes closed, eyes open. I sometimes do it whilst just watching TV as well and just practice on

conscious breathing. I’m not one of these breathwork coaches or even breathwork practitioners who are just going to sit their eyes closed and be in the most Zen position possible. I’ll often practice breathwork whilst I’m in my car or whilst I’m on the commute or whilst I’m sitting at the desk. Even whilst you’re speaking sometimes, Patrick, I’ll just take a few deep breaths.

just to clear my mind and slow everything down. it’s, yeah, I’ll practise five minutes, which is through your nose, light, slow, deep and quiet. I’ll feel my ribs expand laterally, my belly gently pressing out. Then as I exhale the breath.

I’ll feel the ribs contract, my belly fall back into place. And I’ll just sit there and be a bit more mindful of the breath. you know, mindfulness is just the opposite of mindlessness. So just being mindful of the breath and not mindless.

Patrick Obolgogiani (14:05)
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I had a chance to speak with our scientific advisor, John Dickinson, a professor at University of Kent. And he studied like, what does like functional breathing look like mechanistically, like when you look at it from like a motion capture sensing, like what parts moved. And I think, as you mentioned, like beautiful metaphor is like

barrel moving into all directions, which kind of, you mentioned, rip cage, expand and so forth, which is a little bit different from what a lot of people speak about as belly breathing, Just the belly goes up and down. It’s not quite the same, but keeps being a bit of a misconception, I think.

Rory (14:37)
I love.

Yeah, man, I love that you mentioned that and he pointed it out because it’s something that I will often speak about during classes and during sessions during experiences where, you know, belly breathing, a lot of yogis will talk about belly breathing and it definitely, Patrick, you’re bang on, it gives that connotation of the belly simply pressing in and out. And you can actually do that forcefully. I’m doing it now. You can push your belly in and out. know, exactly as you mentioned, you want a 360 degree movement. And even if you’re lying on your back on the floor, when you breathe in,

you should be able to feel your back ribs essentially press against the ground. Because your lungs are, as your lungs fully inflate like two large balloons, it creates that expansion 360 degree, as you mentioned, like a barrel. I like that analogy, I’m going to steal that one. And then as you exhale the breath, you feel the barrel just contract and fall back into place.

Patrick Obolgogiani (15:26)
It has to be at best of the two halves to get the best back up on

top of this. Yeah. Is there, I know it depends of course in lung capacity, but when it comes to the rhythm, let’s say for you specifically, what does it look like? Is it like when you do this slow, quiet breathing, five minutes of five, 10, what does it look like per inhale and exhale?

Rory (15:47)
Yeah,

roughly between, depending on my stress levels, anywhere between five to eight second inhale with a five to eight second exhale, roughly 50 % inhale to 50 % exhale. Truthfully, I don’t really count often. I just allow my breath to do its thing.

Patrick Obolgogiani (15:55)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yes, go with the feeling.

Rory (16:04)
Just go with feeling. I’ve practiced so many different techniques over the years and found what I enjoy and what my mind, body and nervous system needs over the years.

Yeah, but on that point as well with stress, as you’ll know, when we’re feeling mentally, physically, emotionally stressed, the heart rate increases as well. Your breathing rate increases, more CO2 is in the body, causes that stress response as well, which then we find it harder to take a longer, slower, deeper breath. So it’s trying to find that balance, not battling against it too much, but still trying to find a way to down-regulate during that time as well.

Patrick Obolgogiani (16:22)
Okay.

Yeah. Is there a, mentioned like the myth busting you’ve had to do on that side. Is there anything else you’ve seen, whether it’s like scientific myths or just practical kind of breathwork community myths that you need to kind of periodically correct people on?

Rory (16:54)
Yeah, 100%. A classic that I hear so often, which is often front of mind, when people will say…

you’re over oxygenating your body. So the Wim Hof method, example, fast breathing, and then you can hold your breath longer during a hold after 30 breaths, 50 breaths, two minutes, however long you’ve been breathing for. It’s the polar opposite. Because you’re exhaling more than your metabolic demand, you’re exhaling more carbon dioxide, therefore the body doesn’t have that primary stimulus to breathe as quick or doesn’t click in or kick in as quick. So yeah, it’s the polar opposite.

Patrick Obolgogiani (17:11)
Mm

Rory (17:32)
CO2 creates an inability to absorb oxygen, not all oxygen, just a little bit of oxygen. The oxygen stays bound to hemoglobin, doesn’t make its way into the working tissue and a consequence of that is less oxygen, less CO2 and you don’t have to breathe as fast or that initial trigger to breathe doesn’t kick in as quickly. So if people listening ever hear a yoga teacher or a breathwork coach talking about over oxygenation,

Patrick Obolgogiani (17:41)
This is my note back in May, please.

Rory (18:02)
whilst you’re breathing faster it’s just fundamentally incorrect. This was found out back in 1904, the Bohr effect

or the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve. So it’s not new science, maybe people just need to read more.

Patrick Obolgogiani (18:16)
Indeed.

One thing you maybe touch on here as we’re talking about the science side and you already touched on the ANS, Autonomic Navigation System. I think for someone, especially for Alveus, think a lot of our users are going to be people that are in the office and for them, ANS, it’s to…

What does regulating your nervous system look like for someone who the task all day? How do you coach people? I’ve already done sessions with Google, Amazon and so forth. What does it look like to help them regulate their ANS?

Rory (18:54)
Yeah, I like that question because it’s something that is spoken about quite a lot about regulating one’s nervous system. And lot of people think, well, what the heck does that even mean? How am I meant to regulate my nervous system? Essentially, how I think of it is your ability to have a flexible nervous system, your ability to…

Patrick Obolgogiani (19:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rory (19:15)
take control over your state. Your nervous system, this is for people listening, not you, I know you understand this very well. Your nervous system is what dictates your level of stress and level of calm, essentially. Whilst we are living ⁓ during the day, many of us are often in this heightened aroused state, which is leading more towards that sympathetic nervous system, more into your fight, flight, alert, energised state.

Patrick Obolgogiani (19:19)
because I think it’s to understand. If this is something about the people who are in this room, I think it’s important to that we are not just talking the people room. We are about the people room. room. We are people are in are

Rory (19:40)
But if you want to feel more calm, more clear, more relaxed, if it’s the end of the day, for

Patrick Obolgogiani (19:40)
We are about the room.

Rory (19:45)
example, or if you’re just going into another meeting and you have to try and feel more relaxed, for example, then you can use slow and deep breathing. It’s one of the fastest and most direct ways to feel more relaxed in the moment, in real time. know, something I often think about and speak about is, you one of the hardest things to do is to control the mind with the mind. And I can speak about this personally, you know, when I’m feeling stressed.

anxious, overwhelmed, if I’m about to stand in front of a large audience and present. My heart rate has increased and if I were to say to myself, Rory, relax, you’ll be fine, relax, you’ll be okay, it’s gonna be a vicious downward spiral and I’ve tried it and it has not worked. But one of the best things to do is to take conscious control over your breath, my breath, and just take some slower and deeper breaths. And I can even look down at my Apple Watch or on my Whoop app and I can see

my beats per minute just dropping, dropping, as I breathe. yeah, taking conscious control over the rhythm, the rate, the depth of your breath to down regulate is a great way to move from stress to calm. But equally, if it’s, you know, I’m in Sydney, Australia now and it’s coming up to six 30 in the evening. And equally, if I had some work to do this evening and I was feeling tired and lethargic more into that parasympathetic state, that relaxed, rested,

state but if I had some work to do this evening I could sit here after the podcast obviously I could sit here and take 30 to 50 fast breaths fast active inhale with a relaxed passive exhale and that will consciously increase my heart rate moving more into that sympathetic alert energized state so to connect

Finalise what I’m trying to say here. Using your breath to regulate your nervous system to increase energy alertness or to move into more relaxed, calm state is a super effective and efficient way to take control over your life. Think of the breath as an on-off switch. Think of the breath as an on-off switch to the nervous system.

Patrick Obolgogiani (21:50)
That’s a nice way think about it. ⁓ When we initially started thinking about the Alveos One device over a year ago, the initial premise was that it to breathe better. That was the conception coming from someone who had asthma and also my co-founder.

wanted to help with understanding his breathing patterns in order to kind of reduce his kind of asthma symptoms. But now over the course of this last year or two, it’s become much more about nervous system regulation and management and breath being more like an intermediary step towards that, both in terms of being the piece for becoming aware of it. Because as you very well know, your breathing is almost like a precursor to your nervous system even before heart rate, particularly if you…

stop breathing when you’re reading an email or if you a lot of sighing, those are great signs, which happened typically before the heart rate goes up. And there’s like this intermediary level where it’s not too stressed, it’s kind of this chronic little bit of stressful, which doesn’t always translate to super high heart rate. It can feel like baseline, but the breathing kind of noticed that. So that’s the first piece is awareness. And then as I mentioned, of course, I teaching people better breathing habits to actually become the master of that curve, I think will be.

super interesting.

Rory (23:05)
I would 100 % agree and the beginning of every session that I facilitate, I always start with breath awareness. So I awareness is always the first…

Patrick Obolgogiani (23:12)
Hmm.

Rory (23:15)
place to begin the first step, the first stage to development. We have to notice, understand, be aware of how we’re breathing to have the ability to change. You have to walk before you run essentially, or you have to crawl before you can walk, So start at the very beginning. I was gonna say something else in that point, Patrick. That was a nice point you mentioned there. ⁓ Awareness. yeah, and then I also.

Patrick Obolgogiani (23:41)
Mm.

Rory (23:41)
view the breath as a messenger.

The breath signals to the body how to feel or the brain signals to the breath how we are feeling, if that makes sense. if both ways, yeah, there’s almost that connection piece where…

Patrick Obolgogiani (23:52)
Both ways.

Rory (23:58)
if we are feeling mentally and upregulated and stressed, the breath will then connect to that and we’ll start breathing faster. But equally, if we’re breathing faster, that then causes a bit of stress up to the brain too, right? So yeah, I would agree with what you’re saying.

Patrick Obolgogiani (23:59)
.

Here’s this little bit maybe off the topic but still adjacent is this idea of like being in touch with your body overall. think at least for myself I can speak that some years ago like if people ask you like how you feeling it was like very vague sense of feeling it’s like tired like just the top level like high level gut feeling emotions instead of being like nuanced. I feel a little bit of this there and then like very nuanced and I know speaking to other people that particularly guys

It’s very typical that you’re kind of out of touch with the feelings in your body, which relates to both the physical sensations and then ultimately they translate to the emotional side of things. So I’m curious, like for you, particularly before you started this journey, did you have the same kind of background where it was not super in touch with the feelings and then has that changed for you as you’ve kind of gone deeper into this journey?

Rory (25:06)
Good question. Wow. You’re making me think. I’ve not thought about that for a long time.

Patrick Obolgogiani (25:11)
Hmm.

Rory (25:15)
Yeah, I would have to probably say that prior to finding myself in this weird, wonderful, wacky world of breathing, I’ve definitely become a lot more in tune and in touch and aware of my feelings. ⁓ But I think that probably comes just to awareness, know, and pausing, you know, having moments of being more mindful. And even with, you know, even with a lot of

Patrick Obolgogiani (25:29)
Yeah.

Rory (25:42)
In a lot of practices I’ll take time to be grateful. So I’ll think of gratitude and I’ll think of things that I’m proud of and think I’ll reflect as well. So I think the whole holistic kind of package of just moving into this breathing, mindfulness,

Patrick Obolgogiani (25:48)
Hmm.

Rory (26:01)
Gratitudes, affirmations, reflection sort of space has definitely made me more aware and in tune of who I am, but also how I feel. And I don’t think I was very aware of either of those points of who I was and how I felt prior to getting to Breathwork. So yeah, that’s a nice question. You made me think there. So thank you for making me think.

Patrick Obolgogiani (26:11)
My pleasure. I’m flattered.

Cool. Maybe switching gears a little bit. One of the things I know you did kind of after starting this journey of breath work is start doing this ultra marathons and endurance events. at 15 now, I guess. One across the Atomica desert. Must have been quite hot to do on the kilometers. I’m curious, like, how does the breath work show up in that when you prep, when you do the exercise, and what are the lessons for someone who’s maybe, you know, trying to run?

5K in the forest.

Rory (26:59)
Yeah, I’ve run many ultra marathons in some amazing places. Kyrgyzstan, 200 kilometres in the Tian Shan mountains. Atikama desert, as you mentioned. I’ve got a race next year in Namibia, 250k in Namibia. The breath is…

Patrick Obolgogiani (27:15)
Oof, and the dunes.

Rory (27:18)
Yes, yeah, you know it exactly. It’s beautiful landscape, but I’m sure it’s going to be incredibly brutal to try and run over and across and through. ⁓ Breathing whilst competing in long distance races, but also breathing whilst training. You know, if you’re doing a 30, 40, 50 minute training run, it’s very important. As we breathe in oxygen makes its way through your nose, down into the lungs, transports through alveoli, binds the hemoglobin,

Patrick Obolgogiani (27:19)
beautiful.

Yeah.

Rory (27:48)
etc makes its way around the body and then eventually makes its way into the working tissue. But there are ways that we can breathe more efficiently and effectively to reduce the onset of fatigue to perform better for a longer duration whilst I am competing in these long distance racing races.

If I were to breathe in a dysfunctional pattern through my mouth, short, shallow upper chest for example, a lot of the oxygen gets stuck in dead space and we breathe it right back out. And often, because I’m exhaling high volumes of carbon dioxide, the oxygen that I have in the bloodstream won’t detach from hemoglobin and make its way into the tissue. Therefore, the chances of me bonking or fatiguing too quick are a lot greater, a lot higher. So breathing is incredibly important. The way that I breathe

is incredibly important whilst running. I will wear a nose strip on my big nose to help with that airflow as well. One of my last races, you know, I obviously very sweaty. I was here in Australia and the nose strip stayed on to about 90 kilometres. I think it was 110 kilometre race and it stayed on all the way to the 90th kilometre, which is pretty impressive. And then also, you know, with these races, they’re…

are checkpoints and at these checkpoints are a bit of a moment just to get some fuel in, pause, just slow down. Often during these races there’s lot of stress and when I take a seat, you know I’ve got a short documentary, a 20 minute documentary on YouTube with one of my races earlier this year in May in Australia and within documentary you can see me, I take a seat and take a breath.

just to reset everything. I think it’s a great way just to reconnect with myself, with my mind, with what I need.

Often mistakes happen when we’re stressed and if I’m not thinking clearly, I may forget to eat some food, I may forget to take a salt tablet for cramp and then that’s how mistakes and errors and guess challenges and setbacks and maybe failures occur. yeah, breathing whilst running is incredibly important and breathing in an optimal way, but also using the breath to reset during checkpoints is pretty key as well.

Patrick Obolgogiani (29:58)
When there’s long races, as I mentioned, can be critical.

What about like, I know you also coach athletes and athletes love data. I’m curious, like, how do you, what, what do you measure when you think about improving? example, you mentioned in the beginning, the stress, resilience, or the thresholds. Like what tells you the things I’m proving over time for an athlete?

Rory (30:25)
Yeah, it’s a good question and I don’t really test, monitor or keep an eye on things over time, being completely honest. Just with athlete’s schedules and all the rest of it, it’s kind of hard to have a focused plan, periodised plan. But what we do monitor is…

Patrick Obolgogiani (30:32)
Mm-hmm.

Rory (30:42)
how the individual, the athlete is breathing and where the heart rate is at, say on a piece of equipment for 30 seconds, and then how quick can they get their heart rate back down. So I’ll do a drill where they’re on the bike erg and they’re going to 90 to 100 % effort for 30 seconds.

Patrick Obolgogiani (30:52)
Hmm.

Rory (31:01)
After the 30 seconds, you’ve got a minute break, then the intention is to drive the heart rate all the way up as quick as they can, breathe in any way they want, generally in and out through the mouth, because 30 seconds is short, it’s fine, anaerobic. Then as soon as they finish that 30 second sprint bout, then use the nose to try and drop the heart rate as fast as they can. Often the best athletes can go from…

Patrick Obolgogiani (31:06)
⁓ huh.

Rory (31:25)
a resting heart rate of around 50 or below during wakefulness, not during sleep,

drive it all the way up within 30 seconds to about 160, and then bringing it all the way back down to about 70 within a minute. So it’s pretty impressive how fast he can drive it up and down. And that’s a real…

indicator and sign of your general health and fitness. How fast can one drive the heart rate up, but also how fast can they drive it right back down. It’s not always about how well can you perform, but how well and efficiently can you recover too.

Patrick Obolgogiani (31:56)
I imagine particularly in sports like rugby or football where

You do this sprint, then you rest and you have 90 minutes of that. It can be really important to be able to go up and down fast. But I guess it’s really in the sport almost.

Rory (32:09)
100%. Yeah, but you’re bang on, Patrick. And any sport that was repeated sprint ability, the way that they breathe during the sprint, but also the way that they breathe whilst they’re not sprinting and whilst they’re kind of resting and they have the opportunity to recover in that moment. It’s the most annoying thing when I watch some of my athletes during a game and they’re standing there going, ⁓

just breathing in and out through the mouth. think this is a perfect opportunity just to reset, breathe through your nose, breathe a little bit deeper, bring the heart rate right back down. You know, I’m sure you know this Patrick, but just for the listeners, there’s some great papers showing that you’re breathing, the way that you breathe, i.e. in a deep way can help increase your heart rate variability and having a higher HRV has been connected to improving your decision making and the choices that you make. So for athletes who make hundreds of choices and decisions in every single game, every

a match, can they breathe a little bit deeper to improve those choices that make so that they reduce the errors and mistakes during that match as well.

Patrick Obolgogiani (33:09)
Yeah, yeah. Maybe switching back to the office environment, because, you know, as we’ve little bit touched on, you coached also a lot of companies in breathwork. I think one of the primary things when it comes to nervous system that is very, I think pertinent and pretty much globally is this feeling of stress, right? Everyone feels that and it then shows up in the way they

Are they actually at work anymore and so forth? What’s the almost like first diagnostic you make when somebody says, I’m stressed? What happens then if you do one-on-one coaching?

Rory (33:47)
I mean, I’m a realist, so I will look at their lifestyle first. Now, I actually, you know, I call myself a performance and wellness coach, and I just specialize in breathwork and nervous system regulation. So I don’t initially say I’m a breathwork coach, I say I’m performance and wellness coach. So I will look at one’s lifestyle first. I will look at their day-to-day patterns, habits, routines, for example.

Patrick Obolgogiani (34:03)
Yes.

Rory (34:11)
Are they training? Are they exercising? How are they sleeping? How are they eating? You all these key pillars during the day, during their week.

And then we’ll look at how they’re breathing. So how are they breathing at rest? You know, is it a functional breath or is it a dysfunctional breath? Are they holding their breath? example, when are the best times and opportunities to start implementing some conscious breathing? You cause I definitely do not recommend 45 minutes of breath work for everyone every single day. Cause people just don’t have that kind of time, but I do recommend we have the awareness and have the knowledge and power.

Patrick Obolgogiani (34:40)
Yeah. Thank

Rory (34:48)
to tap into the breath to fulfil a specific need in a specific time. if you’re

If one is feeling stressed and anxious when they’ve received an email, as opposed to just reacting in an emotional manner, can you take maybe three full deep breaths just to reset that nervous system,

reset the mind to then have a more thoughtful response? So the difference between reacting, which is often automatic and emotional, compared to a thoughtful response, which is often more positive and thoughtful.

Patrick Obolgogiani (35:11)
Yeah.

Rory (35:17)
So yeah, just understanding the full picture, understanding how they can breathe at rest, and then understanding what specific techniques can be implemented throughout the day just to feel bit more balanced and reduce that nervous system stress, because

Patrick Obolgogiani (35:20)
Yeah.

Rory (35:32)
it’s not much fun when you live in that heightened stress state.

Patrick Obolgogiani (35:37)
Yeah, I can imagine for really anyone it’s danger becoming like this… What’s term? You’re like a hammer looking for a nail and then if you’re only doing breath work coaching then everything becomes about breathing and it’s good that you have like the endurance athlete background and this strength conditioning background so you can understand it bit more holistically. Like actually for you, yes, breathing can be fixed.

Rory (35:45)
Yeah.

Patrick Obolgogiani (36:00)
It can be better, but the number one thing is this other thing you should fix first. Which is great.

Rory (36:05)
Well, 100 % and

I think it would just be silly to only look at one modality or one aspect of health, If an individual is saying, hey, I’m super stressed, I’ve got all this on at work, I need help. And then if they told me that they’re drinking a bottle of wine every night and sleeping for four hours, I’d say, hey, well, let’s maybe start there. Let’s maybe start with…

Patrick Obolgogiani (36:29)
Yeah.

Rory (36:31)
maybe not drinking that bottle of wine and maybe sleeping for six to eight hours. And I think it’d just be selling myself short and doing a disservice to that client or patient if I only looked at one aspect, which, you know, breathing.

Patrick Obolgogiani (36:44)
Yeah, that being said though, one thing I’ve thought about which can’t hear your thoughts is like, I used to think like, what are the dominoes, right? Like, what is the first dominant that then kind of bothers the next one? And my earlier thinking was that it’s the exercise because when you exercise, as you know, like then it’s kind of feel like you want to eat more healthy immediately after when you do those two things, you also sleep better. So it’s like the the one thing you can start yourself early.

is the exercise, but it can be very low for some people who haven’t done it before, like walk around the block, but then you kind of, I did that, now I would probably have carrots. And then you went to sleep. But now, the more I kind of delve into breathing, it does feel like there might be an opportunity to almost like fix, not fix, but like improve your breathlessness so that you’re more likely to take the exercise, which then means that the breathing becomes the first domino in that, you know, pyramid. I’m just curious to hear.

Have you had experience with that? how do you think about the, you know, actually helping people overcome multiple things? What is the first domino for you?

Rory (37:47)
I’ve never thought about it if I’m being completely truthful, but I really like your example there. I think that’s great, you know, for people who do struggle with breathlessness and maybe that is the deterrent to train and exercise, you know, starting at the foundations with breathing so that they don’t feel as…

Breathless then you know that they’ll make the training and the exercise a lot more enjoyable So I would agree on that. I really like it. I hadn’t ever thought about it in that way if I’m being completely honest I’ve not to be honest. I’ve not worked with a you know I’ve done this for quite a while now This is sort of be my job profession for about six years, and I’ve never really worked with too many individuals who have struggled with breathlessness I Have I have had a few

Patrick Obolgogiani (38:20)
Yeah.

Rory (38:37)
But a lot of the work that I do is group work. It’s keynotes, it’s corporate events, it’s wellness, and then high performers. I don’t really have a huge amount of gen pop, like myself for example, I don’t really have a huge amount of gen pop clients. It’s either corporate teams.

Patrick Obolgogiani (38:40)
Yeah, and high performers athletes.

Rory (38:58)
kind of summits, conferences and then elite Olympians, Paralympians and serious competitors who often don’t struggle with their breathlessness. So yeah, I really like your question, I really like your point. It’s just not something I’ve tapped into too much.

Patrick Obolgogiani (39:14)
Yeah. If you’re interested, you could check out, I think the second ever episode of this podcast was with our medical advisor Ash or Ashish. Vyas is back at 20 years in NHS and now he has a elite breastlessness clinic that where he works with like some of the premier league teams and so forth. And what was interesting to me is that he mentioned even like the best athletes in the world struggle with breathlessness at times, particularly with long COVID became a massive problem where they had this like

know, deceased, then made their airwaves behave in a way where they became breathless. And then it became mental trigger where basically walking across the parking lot became more like a mental thing instead of being physical anymore. Anyway, just an interesting thing to be aware of. ⁓

Rory (39:56)
Dude, that’s awesome. I

will definitely jump into that. I appreciate it. I think even for me, I definitely did struggle with breathlessness when I was more anxious. It’s definitely for me, and I’m just thinking now whilst we’re speaking, I definitely had periods over the last 10 years where I’ve struggled to, the classic people say, I’ve caught my breath. I’ve struggled to catch my breath. Or like a bigger, deeper.

You know, trying to do that as such. And it’s funny because since I got into this whole breathwork thing, my level of anxiety has been reduced so much. Therefore, I’ve not really had that for a long time, which is actually quite nice to think about that. I’ve clearly done the work and I’ve put the work in to not have that feeling for a while. yeah, you’re really making, you’re bringing up old trauma.

Patrick Obolgogiani (40:48)
You’re You’re welcome, Rory.

Rory (40:49)
Thanks man.

Patrick Obolgogiani (40:53)
All right, let’s talk about the book. You’ve got something really interesting bubbling underneath, which is coming soon. Let’s talk about that. maybe first, obviously you’ve got to take your career to different directions and writing a book is a massive undertaking. What was the kind of premise here? What made you like, this needs to be a book. What was that moment for you?

Rory (41:17)
I never wanted to write a book, man, I got offered it. ⁓ Honestly, dude, I’ve always just wanted to help the most amount of people within Sydney, within Australia, then globally. Very gratefully and maybe surprisingly in some ways, you build it and you hope they come, right? And I just started hosting sessions and then got asked to do some brand work, then some…

media publications picked it up and I’ve had articles in Vogue and Vice, ⁓ in Elle magazine, quite a other ones. And from there, a few book publishers then got in touch. And I think in 2023, I spoke to three different publishing houses and then ⁓ signed a contract with Pan Macmillan.

Patrick Obolgogiani (41:55)
was to enhance the ability of the university to that. I that’s a great thing. I it’s a great thing. it’s a a great thing. I think it’s a

I great thing. I think a great I a great I think a thing. think great I a great thing. I I think it’s great think great thing. I

Rory (42:13)
And then I wrote a book, which was hard man, if I’m honest. You I’m a coach. I’m a coach and I love the one-on-one work, the group work. I love the

practical aspect of it. And then to sit down and try and write a book and regurgitate everything that I’ve learnt and everything that I facilitate. It was a challenge, but I’m very proud of it. And it’s a book that I’m excited for people to read, for people to learn and will hopefully change.

Patrick Obolgogiani (42:27)
Yeah.

Rory (42:43)
many people’s lives equally as I’m sure we’re on similar missions. You you and I, we just want to help people live a better life and a more full life.

it’s, yeah man, was a challenge. It’s a weird thought to think I’m an author. I’m not really sure that’s kind of clicked yet. I’m incredibly dyslexic too, so to write a book was very hard. And even going…

Patrick Obolgogiani (42:59)
Yeah.

Rory (43:05)
back through all the challenges. know, in my early twenties, I’m 31 now, you my early twenties were hard emotionally and mentally and then to go back through all that and write it, you know, there were definitely some tears on the page whilst writing a few chapters. So I’m excited, man. I’m grateful for the opportunity and I really hope that a lot of people find value in it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (43:28)
What’s the one core message you want readers to walk away with? If you had to choose.

Rory (43:37)
I would like people to pay more attention to their breath. I would like people to give it a try. Be open to something that may feel or sound simple, which I guess in practice it can be. But as you and I know, the science, the theory behind specific breathing techniques can be absolutely life-changing. So my one takeaway would be to be open-minded, give it a go and…

Enjoy the rewards.

Patrick Obolgogiani (44:09)
Yeah, that’s beautiful. If there’s like a practice, I know you’ve taught many and you can pick whether you want a practice to be for performance, like to improve that or focus or something else. What would be an interesting practice that maybe people could try already at home after this podcast?

Rory (44:35)
Yeah, a super simple but incredibly effective technique that I will use multiple times throughout the day is what I call the reset breath. It’s very simply a full, deep nasal inhale.

Patrick Obolgogiani (44:44)
Mm-hmm.

Rory (44:49)
Lungs are full, open the mouth, let it go through pursed lips.

and then just blink open the eyes, relax the shoulders, and then breathe normally. That is a technique that I will use multiple times throughout the day. It doesn’t take much work. It takes less than 10 seconds maybe, but it’s a great way just to release and let go of excess CO2 and slow the mind down and slow the heart rate down. It’s wild what can be achieved through one breath.

Patrick Obolgogiani (45:11)
That’s

good question as well. One breath. That’s all you need.

Rory (45:27)
I said, guys, quite nice, it? I had a good ring to

it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (45:32)
And the

book is called Unlock Your Breath, right? When is it coming out?

Rory (45:35)
Book is called Unlock Your Breath.

It will be available on the 28th of January. It will be on Spotify. So people will be able to listen to it. I will be reading the audiobook. I’ll be reading the book and it’ll be available as an audiobook and I’ll be doing that next week. So it’s all go, go, go. So watch this space. It’ll be available on Spotify, Apple Books and all the fun places to read it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (46:03)
Amazing. think actually we discussed with the team yesterday that we’ll have a very similar release date towards the end of January. So hopefully we can create a little movement here because something we discussed earlier is that, you know, we believe that breathing should be like a fourth pillar of health, which is like sleep, nutrition, exercise. And there’s this missing piece of breathing and it won’t be just one company or individual to

create this movement around this fourth pillar. think it’ll be all of us together. But then when it raises to its rightful place as alongside these other modalities of like how to stay healthy, how to stay well. anyway, hopefully we can do something cool together at end of January and then onwards from there. What’s next? mean, of course, the book tour is big. Anything else you’re excited about apart from that? And then also, where can people follow your work or join workshops?

Rory (46:59)
Yeah, what’s next? Just continue helping people far and wide through experiences and through education. I’m looking forward to more fun adventures racing around the world next year. I’ve got a race in Africa, a race in Italy, a race in New Zealand, a couple of races in Australia. I’m looking to create more on-demand breathwork sessions.

Patrick Obolgogiani (47:11)
Nice.

Rory (47:22)
Currently, if you look up my name, Rory Warnock on Spotify or Apple Music, there are about 21 guided and 21 non-guided, and I would like to add to that. So that’s a free resource that people can just tap into and use in their own time, whenever and wherever. So just continue doing fun stuff that can benefit people’s lives. Combining my passions with a bit of professionalism as well that comes with it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (47:31)
Amazing.

Amazing. Well, looking forward to the book, reading it myself as well, and then the co-release together. But with that, thanks for being on the part today with us, Davios. And if everyone listening, appreciate tuning in.

And see you next week.

Rory (48:06)
Thanks Patrick, appreciate it mate.