Hyperbaric oxygen therapy & overcoming claustrophobia! Why we BELIEVE the hype!

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Episode 5 • 4th September 2024 • The Biohack Group Chat • Alex & Anna

So I'm dying to ask how you're feeling, but we should probably save it. Yeah, no, we have so much to debrief on about hyperbaric chambers because we just overcome our, well, my fear of claustrophobia sat in a chamber for 45 minutes and I stared at the clock every five minutes. But yeah, it was good. So we're going to get into that. I can't wait to hear all about it. firstly, I just want to say I'm so, so, so proud of you. thank you. You did amazing.

No one would ever have suspected that you had any fears. You hid it well. Yes, I hid it very well. I'm pretty good at doing that. But I would have never have done it without having you in there and having a two -person one. It made it so much easier having friends support. So yeah, thank you for finding the two -person one and doing it with me. Thank you for doing it with me too. We had so much fun in there. Before we go, should we just get straight into the episode? Let's get into it.

Welcome to the Biohack group chat. Where we discuss real wellness for real people. This podcast is all about making small changes that can have a big impact and help you live a happier, healthier and longer life.

In today's episode, we'll be talking about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, diving into what it is, why athletes do it, and even celebrities have started getting involved. As our challenge for this week, we went and we tried out one of the hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, which we have literally just got back from doing. So it's like the most fresh experience for us. It is.

We're going to go through basically loads and loads of research that I've done about hyperbaric oxygen chambers because I was pretty terrified about going in one. I'm claustrophobic and it's not really like that I'm scared of small spaces in particular. It's just that I don't like the idea of being trapped somewhere and not being able to leave or exit or escape at any time that I want. hyperbaric oxygen chamber is in a pressurized environment.

So before you can leave, you have to depressurise the environment. So that takes a number of minutes. That's kind of what I was afraid of and why I did so much research into it. So we're going to get into all of that, but just to explain what it is first before we talk about all of the benefits and all of the research I did, I'll let you kick off, Anna, with exactly what it is. Sure. So hyperbaric oxygen.

therapy involves the administration of pure oxygen, like you said, in this pressurized environment. So it's typically inside sort of a chamber where you can kind of seal the environment and then change the pressure within that environment that you're in. The reason that they do this is because when you increase the atmospheric pressure, this then allows the lungs to gather more oxygen than would be possible under sort of normal air pressure conditions.

So it's actually in a 100 % pure oxygen that you breathe when you're in the chamber. So rather than normal air, which we breathe just in the world is 21%, but it's literally 100 % pure oxygen. And this like change in pressure allows your body to then, it allows it to be carried throughout the body and dissolve directly into the plasma and sort of the different fluids and body fluids within your body.

And this enables more oxygen to be delivered to tissues, even in areas that have poor blood supply or damaged blood vessels. So by boosting this oxygen availability, this can actually enhance your body's processes in so many ways, which we're going to deep dive into in a moment. And there's like kind of two main types of chambers. So there's monoplace chambers, which is kind of like a single person chamber where the patient sort of lays inside this like cylindrical tube. Alex has got a nice name for those. Yeah, I've been calling that one the coffin style chamber.

Funnily enough, you weren't so keen on getting inside the coffin chamber, but we managed to find what's called a multi -place chamber. So these are much larger and they're designed to accommodate multiple people. At the same time, we kind of had this flipping amazing chamber. was like we were in a bloody hotel room in there. It was, it was really cool. was like all of the walls were like this weird padded material. We had like a little...

dial or screen in there where we could see what the pressurization was, how long we'd been in there, what the oxygen level was. And there was like these two recliner chairs. And I loved the way that like the door just kind of slid across. And then it was like a sliding glass door. So it had a big window. And then it kind of like sucked against the edge of the chamber when it was pressurizing. And I don't know that

was just a bit helpful for me because I was in the lead up to doing it. I was very scared of having this heavy, thick door, like the door of a submarine or something that was like bolted on and then like twisted into place in like this really like mechanical way. So just having that like modern sliding glass. And then we could, there was these three women there who are all really attentive, really helpful, coming in every five minutes, checking on us, doing the hand symbols. You okay? You warm? You cold? All good. How are your ears?

And we could see all three of them through this big glass window, which just made me feel not so cut off from the outside world. So all of that was super helpful. It was amazing. It was actually just really relaxing being in there because we were of cut off from the world. And because we were in there together, so in multi -place chambers, you breathe through oxygen masks. So we had these masks that we put over our nose and mouth, and then we would then breathe the pure oxygen in through there. Kind of if you go diving, if anyone's been diving, you kind of have this

like the way you breathe in through the diving tank. It's kind of similar to that. Whereas if you go in the monoplace chamber, so it's just you on your own, then you don't wear the mask because it kind of just pumps into the chamber, like the oxygen just goes in and you don't have anyone else in there. So if anyone's a bit worried about kind of putting a mask on, then it might be that the monoplace chamber is right for you. But in our situation, we were like, we really wanted to be in there together.

If anyone is scared of doing it, would say try and find a multi -place chamber because there was just no way I would have got in that tiny little tube by myself. That would have just been horrible. It was so much easier doing it with someone. And the mask was fine. I was a bit worried about that, but it was actually fine. It was quite relaxing. It was good. When I did it before, and I was obviously in the monoplace one and you're laying down, so you kind of, I felt like a bit more...

Even though I found it very relaxing, kind of just meditated whilst I was in there, like waved at you through the window. But you can't really move as much, whereas because we were in this bigger room, it was quite nice to be able to kind of move around. We took our laptops in there, popped a movie on. It was actually quite a relaxing experience for me. know you had your own process going on. like I say, though, you did hide it really well, so nobody would have known. But I'm really proud of you because...

I get that it would have been a really scary and like conquering your fears is such a huge achievement. So well done. Yeah. Well, hopefully it was worth it with all of these benefits that there is. Going back to what you were saying a second ago, the things that stood out to me is like it, so it literally changes the way that oxygen is carried throughout your body. So usually it's carried by red blood cells, but you were saying the elevated pressure.

depending on which one you go in between like half or a full atmospheric pressure above normal sea level. And so that elevated pressure allows oxygen to actually dissolve directly into the plasma. So it's changing the way your body absorbs oxygen, which is crazy. And there's a few other sort of biological mechanisms that happens when you're in there. And one of them is that it actually, the increased oxygen

triggers the formation of new blood vessels. So that's just really strange to me that you can actually create new blood vessels. That is crazy. It's so strange, isn't it, that something like oxygen, just like the process of being in that environment and breathing pure oxygen can do so many things. It can stimulate the release of stem cells as well, so they can help in loads of stuff to do with regeneration. it's also anti -... stem cells. Yeah, stem cells are great. We all love stem cells.

can't get enough of them. And also it has like anti -inflammatory effects as well. It's really good to basically kind of detoxify a little bit when it comes to bacteria. So it can help like fight infections. So people that have like wound infections, they can go into these chambers and it can help the process of healing. But there's quite a few like medical uses that people use it for. So obviously we went in just like for more kind of recreational purposes, but there's lots of medical uses like treating decompression sickness.

or like carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, if people have like wounds which aren't healing, there's loads of research into people that have diabetes and they've got feet ulcers and they're just not healing at all. They'll actually go through hyperbaric oxygen therapy and that will then help those wounds heal because it will enable that oxygen to be delivered to those cells more effectively and increase that regeneration of cells. So, I mean, I just think that's like absolutely incredible that putting yourself in that environment can help like a non -healing wound.

Yeah, it's crazy. And a lot of athletes are using it, like a lot of the big football teams in the UK, they're it for recovery. Yes, Chelsea. They're using it for recovery and to heal faster from injuries. going back to like reducing inflammation, speeding up healing. That's, I think, what most people are using for outside of like medical uses. There's also...

d, but there was one study in: 2013

it may slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer's patients by improving the blood flow. And there's some early findings around that, but still very early stages. Gosh, wow. So if we start doing it now, by the time we get to that Alzheimer's possible age, hopefully we'll have prevented Alzheimer's through this process. Should we start studying ourselves now and then? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking on the way home actually, because I'm like,

obviously still have a couple of days to see like what my effects are in terms of like my energy and my cognitive function if I see like an enhancement in that. But also another thing that would be a really big motivator to force myself to be in that environment more often would be some stuff around like anti -aging. well, there is stuff, believe it or not, there's non -treatment benefits. kind of these people are using it to fix things and treat things, but it has been shown to boost like cellular.

cellular rejuvenation as well. So like we were saying about the stem cells, it can rejuvenate existing cells and also generate new cells. So it can have an anti -aging effect on your skin because it can help heal the effects of stress on your complexion from within. And also, get this, it can also potentially, this is again, still being researched, but it's thought to promote collagen production. And I mean, we all need more of that.

So collagen is known as kind of like the building blocks of healthy skin that gives you that kind of like youthful plumped look. And after a certain age, these levels kind of naturally deplete. So a lot of people take collagen supplements and help their skin retain elasticity. Potentially this can actually help your skin appear sort of more firm and radiant as well. Which is probably why all the celebrities are using it. There's like literally loads of people like Justin Bieber uses it I think for more of kind of stress and relaxation.

there's again some kind of like early associations with potentially helping with things like depression and anxiety and stress. Also people like Beyonce have been using it. Michael Jackson used to have one and he was one of the earliest people that used it. He used it all the time, every day apparently. And like Simon Cowell uses it for anti -aging. Gigi Hadid uses it for improved skin texture and complexion. Wow, yeah that that is definitely

good motivator. It's funny about the stress thing as well, because obviously in a multiple person chamber, you can like take in your laptop so you can go in there and work, get stressed and de -stress at the same time. We're always saying life's about balance. But just a couple of other things to mention as well, before we kind of dive into like how we feel after it. It's potentially shown to be really good for the, well, it's not potentially actually, it is shown to be

really good for your immune system. So it can block the action of harmful bacteria. So this can strengthen your immune system and it can also disable toxins of certain bacteria. This can then help your body resist infection. And one which I wanted to talk about as well is it can assist with like mental clarity. Being in the chamber itself is supposedly a really relaxing place to be, which is good for calming the mind. I'm not sure you would agree.

but I found it quite relaxing. But it can also assist with mental clarity because you have got this sort of boost of your brain function because of the increased oxygen that's going to all your cells. So like, how have you felt just in the last couple of hours? Yeah, when we were in there, about like halfway through, I did start to feel, I don't know, like a little bit weird, just these different cognitive functions. And it was hard to tell what was because I was nervous, what was because we were in the chamber.

what was because it was like actually changing our cognition. But yeah, things were like sounding a little bit weird. And then when we got out, and I don't know if this was depressurization or cognition, like everything was a bit quiet. Like we were speaking to one of the girls there before we left and we were both leaning in a little bit, because we couldn't really hear her. then, yeah, when we got outside in the fresh air, I was fine. But then I went down on the tube.

and I was trying to like read a book on my phone on the Kindle app. It was just a bit blurry and it was a bit difficult to read. So I just put it away for a minute, but then I was fine. And I was super thirsty, probably because we've just been in there. We didn't drink much. I don't know if it was like breathing through the mask as well. So I got home, like had loads to drink and then just been like powering it out on my laptop, doing a bit of work. And again, like don't know if it is placebo, totally could be, but I'm doing like this big research report.

at moment and I did feel like I don't know I was making like new signups connections in my brain. I love it. You probably were like, do you know what, like, whether I don't know if it's placebo or not, but the chances are like it's not because it is quite a major thing that we have done, like just breathing pure oxygen. That's not something we do literally ever since you were born, probably you've never had pure oxygen.

So when you scuba dive, it's like 70%, isn't it? Or is it like 20 % or something like that? It's not pure, but it's for a reason. And I know that you thought at one point, it wasn't possible to breathe pure oxygen. And there is obviously this risk of oxygen toxicity. So how is it? How are we able to breathe pure oxygen? To know, to know, babe. Sorry, I thought you'd looked that up.

But no, I did most of the research, so it's all good because that is one of the ways that I manage when I'm feeling nervous about something or feeling out of control. It's like a control thing, I guess. So it's like I'm doing this new thing, I have no idea what I'm doing, it's really scary. So one of the ways that I can gain back a bit of control is to understand every detail of the process or what I'm going through. One of the main things that I wanted to understand was the pressurization.

because that was what I didn't get was, well, why does it need to be pressurized? Why can't I leave at any point if I don't like it? Like why, if I have a panic attack, why do I have to sit in there for seven minutes while the chamber gets depressurized? It has to be pressurized because it's not just that you're breathing pure oxygen, it's that that extra pressurization is what allows you to absorb it at such a higher rate. The people operating the chamber for you will make sure that

you have like a very slow gradual increase in pressure because that gives you time to equalize your ear and sinuses and it reduces the risk of discomfort. It could be done a lot quicker, like in an emergency, you can do it in one minute rather than seven minutes, but that I think would cause quite a lot of discomfort in your ear and your sinuses. And so you do the same thing when it is decompressed, you do it at a very slow rate, which is like called one PSI per minute. And obviously you could do it at one minute.

So you could do it much quicker. And in the level that we were at, which was, we did what was called 1 .3, which is 1 .3 atmospheres absolute. The normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is one. And then, so we did 1 .2, which is the equivalent to diving three meters underwater roughly. And then like the medical grade ones, they're going at two.

atmospheres, which is one whole atmosphere heavier than the atmosphere at sea level. so we did 1 .3, yeah. Yeah. And so if we went up to like two, that would be the equivalent of diving like 33 feet underwater. That's the reason why even though we're not we're only at 1 .3, which isn't very high. So even if they did do the decompression in like one minute, it would be quite uncomfortable. But that because we're not very high, there still wouldn't be

much of a risk of decompression sickness or barotrauma, which is basically where you can get long -term damage in terms of your sinuses from the extreme depressurization. So basically reading all of these risks and understanding the atmospheres and the levels and the numbers like that, all of that gave me back a bit of control. And it was also really helpful to understand about the oxygen toxicity because that is obviously very rare.

Doing all of this research helped me understand that we are at like a very low risk, if any risk at all of that in a chamber of like 1 .3 to 1 .5, because you only really start to get those risks when you're over 2 .5 or when you have prolonged exposure. So we're just doing like one session, 45 minutes, and yeah, we're being constantly monitored. They have a webcam in there. The absolute worst case is that we suffer from oxygen toxicity and have a seizure. Like they can come straight in, press the button, get us out.

And yeah, we'll be fine. And even if you do, even if that's quite severe, obviously, if I think most like sort of recreational ones will be within that kind of pressure and not trying to scare anybody, but even if you did have a seizure, these are typically like short lived and they don't result in permanent damage as long as you've got medical staff or people that to like properly manage the situation. But don't worry, you'll probably be fine. Yeah, there's really like no risk of that happening in

like a wellness or recreational chamber, like you said, like celebrities have them at home, they have no one monitoring them, they've just got their partner like clicking a button and locking them in. literally. Yeah, but this is just my process of, well, if you wanna, and everyone's different, but for me, if you wanna overcome a fear, then you should study all of the things about the activity you're doing to like take back some control, you should try and understand all of the risks because the likelihood is that

doing that research will actually show you that you're at very low, if any, risk of getting bad things happening. So that helps you understand it, it helps you overcome the irrationality of the whole thing, and then that is what can help you take the step and make the jump. And obviously if anyone does have any medical conditions, definitely talk to a doctor or seek some kind of a professional opinion before you.

try this, but most providers should have kind of a professional on site who'll be able to talk this through like they did with us before you get started. yeah, but it'd be definitely worth just kind of triple checking that before you jump on in. How did you feel? How have you felt since? Well, I was just thinking actually, because when you were just talking about like the different risks and like potential side effects, and I know that they mentioned around like temporary changes in vision and that they're like relatively common, but they're just like,

they're really mild and then they just disappear. My eyes are visually very clear. I'm going out after this and I did some makeup and I was looking in the mirror and I was like, what the hell? Usually they're like this greeny gray and they look so bright, almost blue. It's crazy. There's definitely something gone on there, that's for sure. But I did feel some changes in terms of not just the visual of my eyes, but in terms of my actual vision afterwards.

I went to Boots after because I needed to get a few little bits. And when I was walking there and I was like walking around Boots, I don't know, I was just noticing everything. I think maybe, I don't know if that was a focus thing or if my vision was slightly more sharp, but all sort of like the colors and everything seemed a bit more spaced out. And I was walking around Boots and I was just kind of like, there feels like there's so much space in Boots. There's lots of space around me. I was like noticing everything. It was really strange.

but yeah, I just felt like maybe like that focus, like my brain felt like supercharged, like that focus was there and I was like just noticing everything and like the distances between things. And also I was just laughing the whole way home and it has been shown to have like effects of serotonin, like to boost serotonin and like therefore that's where the association comes in with potentially as a treatment for depression because it has shown to boost serotonin.

I was literally just on my own walking around boots just laughing because I couldn't find my moisturizer. And I was just walking up and down the same aisles just like giggling to myself thinking, I wonder what Alex is doing right now if she's just sitting on the tube laughing to herself. But yeah, I was just giggling the whole way home basically having a great time and just laughing to myself about pretty much nothing. So I definitely felt an energy boost massively, massively. I felt very refreshed and kind of

revitalised and that is something which has been sort of associated with the oxygen therapy as well, it's like feeling revitalised and sort of ready to take on the rest of your day. So it sounds like we both definitely felt that. It's funny when you're talking about the supercharging of the brain, it's making me think of in Twilight when Bella wakes up as a vampire and her eyes zoom in on the raindrops or something, or when the guy takes the limitless pill and he can do all these crazy things.

That's basically how I felt. I'm not even joking. I was like, look at that, look at that, look at that. I was just like observing everything. And then I came home and I looked in the mirror and I saw my eyes. I was like, my gosh, vampire Anna. I did read something in terms of the changes in the vision. It's the increased oxygen can literally like change something in the structure of your eye. And that's why you get that effect. But I also did think your eyes were like super blue, like crazy blue. So

That is weird. Maybe something was happening around that. And one of the girls that we spoke to who works there, I guess, like gets like free sessions whenever it's empty or quiet or whatever. So she started doing 1 .3, which is what we did, which by the way, we were able to actually select that when we went in. It's my first time, I'm a little claustrophobic and we started on 1 .3, which is the lowest one that they do. And you can go all the way up to like 1 .5.

and then two. And so she started, she did a session at 1 .3 and then she did one earlier this week and she went up to 1 .5 and she said that because of the increased pressure, obviously these sessions are the same amount of time, which is always like anywhere between an hour to 90 minutes, including pressurization and depressurization. And so it's the same amount of time, you're breathing the same amount of oxygen, but because of the increased pressure, the effects are more intense.

And so she felt that increased pressure that she could really feel. She said, I can't remember the exact word she used, but something about like the structure of her brain. She felt that change more. And so she felt the effects were stronger. She was a bit, whoa, and the vision. But again, like she mentioned that she was also a little bit claustrophobic and a little bit weird. So I think it really just depends on your perception because if you approach it from like that scared.

place. That's how we would describe that effect of it being like, Whoa, like what's happening? Things are a bit different. My cognition is changing. Whereas you describe it as like, I'm superhuman. I've got the giggles. Yeah, I've definitely got a more rose like positive look on the effects I'm having. I'm like, great. I want to start every day with some oxygen therapy. You'll come over and I'll just be like sitting in my house just with like a tank.

Yeah, you want to live in there. You love it. I love I'll be like Justin and Hayley, you'll come over and zip me up into my chamber and then just have one at home. it's funny. Yeah. I can imagine doing it every day, you would just get so used to it. You would get so used to the pressurization, which is, I would say, a little bit more intense than what you get on a plane.

It's not more intense, but it just goes on for longer. So it's probably the same level, but I would say it lasts about twice as long, which I think makes sense. It is very mild, but I think it makes sense that it feels like it lasts longer because typically in an airplane cabin at cruising altitude, the pressure is 0 .5. So if you think the normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is one, because in a plane you're going up, so the pressure is lighter. So you're going about 25 degrees.

up or is it 35 if it's 75? I'll be honest I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about so I can't help you there. Right so if you think at sea level it's at one and then obviously in a plane it's going the opposite direction to when you go diving or in hyperbaric chamber because that's exactly so it's getting lighter whereas if you go diving underneath or in a chamber it's getting heavier.

The sea level is here, one, which is neutral. So in a plane, you go down to a lighter atmospheric pressure of 0 .75. The pressure is less. Exactly. So you get 0 .25 degrees or whatever it is, less pressure. But if you go up in a hyperbolic oxygen chamber to 1 .3, so that's what I'm saying is that difference between 0 .25 to 0 .75.

at cruising altitude to 1 .3, there's like a difference of five degrees. So it is very, very similar pressure change just in different directions, but it was slightly more what we did. So... it shouldn't be too dissimilar to the experience of being on a plane. was very similar. It was, but I think it just lasted a bit longer. But yeah, I can't remember why we started talking about that. I feel like I'm about doing a maths lesson.

I didn't sign up for this Alex, just wanted to go and breathe some oxygen. No, well, this is the process. You have to understand. There's like always people wanting me to go to like different atmospheric pressures for some reason. Like my Harry wants me to go diving. You want me to go in a hyperbaric chamber. I'm like, I just like one sea level earth pressure is fine with me. No, you did really well. You did really well. And it was kind of like comforting in some ways to know that

because we've got those masks on, we could just take them off at any point and just breathe the air in the thingy. Exactly. That made it so much easier because I did take my mask off like halfway through. I think I started to feel a little bit lightheaded and a bit thirsty as well. So it was really nice just having water in there, being able to take the mask off, breathe normal air for a minute. Also, I've just remembered the... So we didn't actually know this until just earlier when we went to the session, but...

the sort of professional that was helping us through the process when we were there. She was saying how quite a few people have been coming in for treating long COVID, which I thought was so interesting. And she mentioned one person who just come in for a couple of sessions and did the 1 .5 pressure. So it's like ATA, isn't it? 1 .5 ATA. If you see that anywhere, that's kind of the abbreviation. And the person that came in for the session said that for the first time in years.

One week after the treatment, they felt like a new person. They literally felt that they'd been reborn, like they were themselves again, which is so interesting because I feel like so many people suffer from long COVID and they might not even know that they just feel like that change and they're not quite themselves and their body's not quite functioning as it used to. Wow, I thought that was really incredible. Because it seems like there's not really a treatment for it. It's just one of those things that a doctor's like, you've got long COVID on your way.

So if anyone does have that or knows someone that's struggling with that, please do like look into it because it might be that if it worked for this person, it might be that it's actually really helpful. So overall, how was your experience then? Would you go? The question I've wanted to know all day and I've been waiting to ask you this since we got out is would you go again? Yeah, I would go in that one again. If hopefully I feel a big difference in the next few days and then that's what will motivate me to be like, yes, I'm going to.

that was worth putting myself through that discomfort. So hopefully that's what will happen and hopefully I'll wanna do it again, but it also is quite expensive. it's not the Well, the one we did was expensive. don't know how much is like a normal single person one? you know? I think for a normal single person chamber, probably around maybe 45 to 65 for a one hour session.

We did the two persons. Obviously it was more expensive because it was the two of us, but obviously that's divided between two people, but it just the one person chambers. It's around that kind of price range. Obviously it might vary depending on like location and things, but that's just in London. So it might actually be cheaper if you're outside of London. And then if you book in packages as well, then it will reduce obviously. So if you did like one or two sessions and you felt like it was benefiting you and you wanted to book a package, then that will kind of reduce that. Let's see how we feel over the next few days then.

If we feel like more energized, collagen is improving, then we can go back. I definitely want to go back. I felt so good after the one I did before. I already feel great after this one. So yeah, over the next few days, we can check in and see. Yeah, I think maybe it wouldn't be so bad to do some work in there, like non -stressful like research or something like that. And then...

the time would go really quickly and that would really distract me. Yeah, I can imagine doing that. And it's also like a great use. That's like a real hack is like you can do your work in there, get stuff done that you need to get done. But then you're also like doing these amazing, all of this amazing stuff for your health. It's like the ultimate killing two birds with one stone. I hate that expression. Why are we killing birds? Nevermind killing one bird, why are we killing two?

It doesn't make sense. I don't want to kill any birds, Neither do I. Neither do I. But yeah, no, I feel you. That's a good shout. We could make it a thing where we do some work in there. And the one thing I will say is we tried talking to each other a little bit. Not the easiest with masks on. But yeah, we just watching some TV, doing some work on your laptop, absolutely fine.

having a conversation, not so much. So don't go in there and thinking you can have a little chat because it's not gonna happen with those masks on where we're breathing.

to live action replay. Every time you laugh, it's like the mask is like bouncing a little bit. Funny. And then you like absolutely jumped out of your skin when I think like the little oxygen cable thingy like came loose or something and it was like really, really loud. Yeah.

Was that what it was or was it the depressurisation? I don't know what it was but they did warn us, like obviously machines make noises, like there might just be a little bit of noise every now and again, like it's absolutely fine, don't worry. And yeah, when you're just sitting there trying to relax, deep breathing, watching the film and then the machine just goes like shhh, like really loud. So I absolutely jumped out of my skin, happened a couple of times but it was fine, just did some more deep breaths, calmed the nervous system and that is the ultimate thing.

If you just go into it expecting that you're going to have that physiological response, like your heart rate is going to rise and yeah, you're going to feel like really nervous and all you have to do is like take a few deep breaths and try and calm yourself down, tell yourself it's going to be okay. And they came and checked on us straight away as well, didn't they? They're like, are you okay? Because I think they saw us like jumping around like...

What is this noise? We were like trying to plug all the tubes back in like, what's happening? And I think it was just a depressurisation.

Next time we'll know that if it makes that noise we can just chill. Yeah. Right. Well, I had a great time with you. Thank you so much for doing that with me. I really enjoyed it and I'm really proud of you again. And I am excited for our next challenge next week, which we will reveal next week because we're changing up our format a little bit. So what we're going to do is we're going to announce the challenge that we take.

in the episode itself that we talk about it. So you don't have to wait a whole week for us to talk about it. next week we'll be back with our next challenge, which is also a super, super cool one. Yes, but we will still have the little promise. So we will carry on making little promises to ourselves and they'll be at the end of each episode and then we'll report back on the next week about that promise. So we still have that kind of bridge over to the next episode. So.

just to remind everyone what the point of the promise is, is that it's just a small promise to ourselves, but the idea is it's something small that can have a big impact and we commit to doing that for the next week and we would love for everyone to try it with us and share their experience, but it's totally optional. We know everyone's busy, so no pressure. We've talked about pressure and pressurization enough today, so absolutely no pressure on that one, but join us if you want to.

any stress to anyone's lives. want to be living happier and healthier so please don't feel any pressure to do this. But also if you do want to do it, please do and please do let us know how you get on because we want to grow our community and we want to hear how everyone's doing so please please please do let us know and we can share that out. Yeah so the promise for this week is visualization.

I love this one, this is something I've started to do recently. I found this person on Instagram who's called atmaya .mental .fitness and she has this method for visualization which I've been doing and it is really weird. I did it like solidly for two days and we had some like really good growth on the channel which was really fun. So now I've kind of like dropped off a little bit doing it every day. I remembered to do it this morning but I've just had quite a few...

busy few days or a couple of weeks, so I haven't really been doing it. So it's the promise this week to do that for myself. And I also really want you to try and do it as well, because I love doing it. And I think there's some really good benefits. I'm excited. So what's the process? Yeah, so the process is it just takes 10 minutes, you can do it like first thing in the morning, I like to do it like as soon as I wake up after my alarm, just stay in bed.

with my eyes closed, if you can do that and not fall back to sleep, otherwise, yeah, get up and like sit cross -legged or whatever. But you take five minutes to think about like your goals or a project that you're working on and you close your eyes and you just think about that and you visualize, actually visualize yourself or whoever you're doing it with achieving that goal or being successful at that project and thinking about what does that success look like? How does that success make you feel?

What are you wearing? as many as many details as you can, like make it as vivid as you can, like imagining whatever you want coming into fruition and how that looks, who's there, like imagine the scene of it in front of you. So like almost like building this outer body picture of your goals or your dreams coming true. And then once you've done that, you spend five minutes thinking about what you actually have to do.

today, on the day that you're doing it. So it could just be like you're going to the gym, you're going to the work, you're going to groceries, maybe you've got like an important meeting or conversation that you have to have. And imagine yourself completing all of those tasks as the most successful, confident version of yourself. great. Yeah, so this visualization is supposed to make you more resilient, healthy, happy, confident.

There's so many benefits and it's done by lot of athletes like Ronaldo, Serena Williams, loads of other people. And also I could see a lot of the Olympians doing it, like prior to when they went on to do their sport, the divers doing it before they did their dive. Or there was that one girl who I think she broke a load of world records and won the gold medal doing like that pole, you know, where they get the pole and they jump over the bar. maybe it was just the bar one, not the pole, but she was doing it.

Like between each round, she'd like get back in her sleeping bag to stay warm and then she'd close her eyes and then visualize herself literally going and doing her jump and winning, beating her personal best, beating the world record, winning the gold medal. And she also did the hand movements as well. So sometimes like adding in that extra like hand movement just helps kind of like connect the mind, the body and the vision. And then that is doing that is more likely to make you successful.

It's so powerful. I really want to start getting into the routine of doing this. So I'm so happy that you've put this as our little promise this week. I was also listening to you. I can't remember exactly who it was. I think it was, it was one of the swimmers and I couldn't tell you their name. Couldn't tell you what they were swimming, but they were swimming something in the Olympics and they were really good basically. It's all you need to know. They were talking about how they visualized and they were talking about how powerful it is for them and how they've always done it because

it enables them to visualize all scenarios. So they'll visualize their form of success. And that might just look like, know, I'll jump in the water, swim, swim, swim, swim, a gold medal. But there's also loads of other scenarios that can happen. And what they do is they visualize everything. So they'll visualize like getting off the mark a little bit late and they'll visualize how they recover from that. They'll visualize like not doing their turn as they should, or just like something happening that could be like,

devastating for them in terms of their performance, but they visualize themselves overcoming it and they do like every single scenario that always leads to success. So that no matter what happens, they feel like, he was saying that mind body connection, that they're so prepared, like in their body and in their mind to still be successful no matter what happens. So I'm really, really excited to try it. Yeah, I love that. love the imagining all the scenarios because problems always come up and but it's like,

they're just hurdles and we just have to overcome them. So imagining success happening is never a smooth journey. It's never smooth sailing. So imagining success after all those different hurdles is really key. And what I love about this, the process of spending five minutes thinking about your goals and then five minutes thinking about what you actually have to do today is that like, is connecting the dots between what you want and how you have to show up today to get there because your goals can be huge. Like it can be things that could take like a year.

two years, five years. So that's really hard to just visualize of like, how do I get from today to where I want to be in all of those years when it's such a big mountain, it's such a big thing, but it is just about what are you going to do every single day for the next five years for you to get there? And so putting these two practices of doing the goals and then thinking today helps you figure out how you need to show up today and every day for the next five years to get you to where you want to be. Get you that one step closer, like one day closer.

One percent gains. One percent gains. Steven, shout out to Steven. So also just on that point as well, like you're so right. It's not about doing it without challenges. Like challenges are inevitable, but it's about doing it and being able to get through those challenges and counter them and then push through them and still be successful. That is really like achieving your goals. That is real success. Success isn't like just

dodging challenges left, right and center and like spending your whole life trying to avoid them. It's about like being, can encounter literally anything, but I will still be successful. I'm going to do this tomorrow morning. Yeah. I'm going to try and not fall asleep again because I'm definitely one of those people. I would fall asleep like, right? I'm visualizing, I'm visualizing, I'm snoring. Yeah. No, that is so true. Sometimes it is quite hard.

to, like the visualisation can be quite fragmented and a bit all over the place and you kind of like fall half asleep and start thinking about something else and then you're like, no, no, wait, come back to the visualisation. So sometimes, sometimes what I like to do is like journal about it afterwards if I have time. So that's like a really nice Saturday morning, Sunday morning thing to do when you're having like a slow morning. I love it. Well, that's a lovely note to wrap up on, I think. So everyone get visualising for the next five days and let us know how you get on.

Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. And we would again, really, really appreciate it if you could support our podcast by subscribing, giving us a little follow so we can keep bringing you this biohacking content. Yes, hyperbaric chambers are very expensive, so, but we want to keep doing them. So please subscribe, help us get to where we need to be to keep doing all this crazy stuff. And if you want to see more of the group chat and join the community, find us on Instagram or TikTok at biohackgcpodcast.

Lots of love and thank you so much for joining our group chat. We'll see you next week. Bye.

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