You can eat the cleanest diet on the planet, but if you're chronically stressed? Your body can't even absorb the nutrients. In this episode, psychological coach Martin Daubney—our first male guest!—shares how stress nearly wrecked his health, why your heart might be smarter than your brain, and the stupidly simple breathing technique that can shift everything.

What You'll Learn:

1. Why stress can literally shut down your digestive system, immune system, and even fertility
2. The hormone switch between cortisol (draining) and DHEA (regenerating)—and how to flip it yourself
3. The "low and slow" breathing technique that changed Martin's heart health
4. Why anxiety and excitement are neurologically almost identical—and how to use that to your advantage
5. The HeartMath Institute's research on heart coherence and why your heart sends 90% of the information to your brain (not the other way around)

Real Talk Moments: Martin opens up about developing atrial fibrillation at 30 from corporate stress, watching colleagues literally collapse at their desks, and the client who couldn't get pregnant until they addressed her work stress. Plus, Danna and Megan geek out about the gut-brain AND heart-brain connection—because apparently the brain isn't actually running the show.

Martin's Wisdom: "Stress in itself is a response to an external environment that we experience in a stressful way. Not everyone experiences the same thing as stressful. So we know it's an internal thing that we do to ourselves."

Connect with Martin Daubney:

1. Website: inspirecoaching.com
2. Book: Clear Your Head to Get Ahead
3. Program: From Stress to Strength

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey, lovely listeners. Ever feel like you're stuck on the diet hamster wheel. It's time to hop off and start feeling amazing with a little help from yours truly. I'm Danna your soon to be favorite functional medicine, health coach. And I'm here to help you ditch those diet fads and finally thrive. Whether you're ready to say goodbye to those pesky sugar cravings, get your digestion dancing, or just love your body again. I've got your back. Working with me is like having a health coach who's part guru part bestie and all about keeping it real. I'll help you create a plan that's as unique as you are. No cookie cutter solutions here. Head over to Organilicious.ch And let's jumpstart your wellness journey together. It's time to glow girl, because you deserve to shine.

Organilicious - Danna, Functional Medicine Health Coach

Hi, I'm Martin Daubney and I'm today's guest on So

Frickin' Healthy podcast.

I'm a psychological coach based in Basel Switzerland and today we

talk about stress, how to manage it, how it can derail your overall

health and the importance of breathing in managing your lifestyle.

Hello, Danna.

Hello, Martin.

How are you today?

All good.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And thankfully, the rain has stopped just for a little bit.

I shouldn't say that cuz we've been missing the rain, but it was pretty

heavy over the last couple of days.

Still raining on my end.

I don't know what you're talking about, but okay.

yeah, the joys of all being in Switzerland and, uh,

getting the same gray weather

So today we are joined by Martin Daubney Martin.

This is strange actually, cuz Donna and I have only recently, as you all

know, become besties in our podcast.

Co adventure.

And we only really started meeting in February, but this so happens that

Martin is one of those glue pieces that we're like, Hey, we both know Martin.

And up until now, it's when one of us knows the guest, the other one doesn't.

So this is a, a, this is a new, a new Ooh area for us that we both know Martin.

And we were both like, yes, we need to have Martin on the show.

And.

Another first, you are our first gentleman guest, so

wow.

You are a lot of firsts,

so, wow.

It's like being the first man on the moon.

It's fantastic.

almost,

it's like being the first man on the moon.

When about 20 women landed there already.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Basically.

I

love it.

I love that.

Yeah, the assumption is isn't it.

And here I. After 20 women.

Fantastic.

And, and actually when I saw, I, I saw a post on Facebook, uh, that you

two were collaborating in some way.

I thought, wow, that's a match made in heaven.

You two are both powerhouses in your own.

Right.

But I can see the synergies and bringing something really spectacular out there.

So

thank you.

Yeah, I agree.

It's it definitely is.

It's been a, it's been a roller coaster so far and, uh, we have good stuff

planned, but, uh, yeah, so I'm happy that we're all here and that Switzerland is

so small that we can know each other and not know each other all at the same time.

So let's dive right into it.

Okay.

Starting Martin, maybe it would be a good idea for our

listeners, since we both know you.

If you wouldn't mind giving us a small introduction or a large introduction if

you want, because you know, you're the star today, uh, an introduction and why

you're here, why you're on a, on a health podcast, the so freaking healthy podcast.

Oh, okay.

Well that journey, if I not keen on the word, but it seems to be well used

really started in my corporate life, which was just over 12 years ago.

When I moved actually to Switzerland and yet if I reflect back.

I had been, not that healthy, all my corporate life, doing something

that I was good at, um, sort of enjoyable, but never really loved

in a way I was, it was capable, but never really loved what I was doing.

It wasn't a passion.

It was just something that I was alright at doing.

And people were okay having me.

So not settling into what I really wanted to do took its toll.

And if I think back God cracky when I was about 30, I started

experiencing atrial fibrillation.

So my heart would flutter and every time it would, it would flutter in the morning

which, you know, sometimes it's mistaken for love, but actually this was my heart

fluttering outta beat, and I I'd wake up.

And it was when I stood up, things seemed to.

Right themselves.

Uh, and it, yeah, those episodes got longer and longer and

eventually got caught by a GP and I got medicated and that was it.

Maybe I didn't need medication at that point, maybe there was

something else going on, on in me, which probably was stress.

So I was stressed not doing something that I was really passionate about

because I was doing something that I was good at, I was being paid well for

it and then of course had mortgage kids and all those things that go with it.

So if I fast forward until about 2008, that stress thing never

really well, it did hit me.

I did have those wake up at two o'clock in the morning moments with the panic

of I needed to have done something.

So therefore not being refreshed when I went to work and then you

start to make mistakes and then snowballs, but also seeing people

around me actually disappear.

And then there'd be a whisper.

Did you hear what happened to John?

What?

He collapsed at his desk and they had had to take him away by ambulance.

Oh my God.

And John was never seen again.

And then it happened another time and a roundabout that time I was,

um, reorganized out the organization.

I thought, what am I gonna do?

Well, the focus was on stress.

People around me were stressed.

I was stressed and what am I gonna do about it?

So I started to learn all there is about stress and realized that stress can do

all sorts of weird things to the body and being on the So Frickin' Healthy podcast,

health comes in all shapes and sizes.

Now you are very much focused on the diet.

Which is fantastic, but the diet can't get into the body if the body's

stressed, the digestive system bugs up.

So understanding that is fundamental to good health and being so freaking healthy.

Exercise too, when we exercise, if we're not exercising positively, if we're

doing it because, oh, I have to, oh, I've been told I've got to exercise,

got to do the results come, but they take a lot longer to come because the

mindset and the body isn't accepting the exercise and it happens in so

many other areas of our bodily system.

So being so freaking healthy.

Yeah.

Diet is a huge part of it, but so is managing our stress state.

And I learned over the years that we can affect our stress

state for the better all of us.

My first foray, into this was learning about stress management

through my coaching certifications that I did stress management and that

sort of thing, performance at work.

And then, I branched that into emotional intelligence.

So why is that important?

Why is it important to understand what our emotions do?

Well, if you understand what your emotions do, you can actually get

yourself in a really better state so that your emotions aren't fighting

you, you're actually working with them.

You can understand more about you, you as self knowing is key, uh, self-actualizing

is, is key to being at your best.

And when you're at your best, everything inside works, I studied neurolinguistic

programming and can train it as well.

But really that taught me about the language we talked to ourself in.

People who unfortunately stand in front of the mirror.

God, I hate myself.

It's doing a huge damage internally.

You're stressing your system internally and learning to love ourselves is properly

key to being so freaking healthy too.

And then through working with clients and, stumbling on almost trying,

trying a few different things.

I, I had a client who had to go and give a presentation to huge audience.

And, uh, she was getting really, really anxious.

So anxiety stress go hand in hand.

Anxiety really is a, a warning from your subconscious mind to think about what you

want to happen rather than you're anxious.

Cuz you're thinking about all the things you don't want to happen.

So we worked on that.

So shift your emo emotional state.

I knew that breathing low and slow was gonna calm you down.

And uh, we worked with those parameters and it was working and

I thought, well, this is great.

But then I went to a conference and I heard someone else talking pretty much

about the same thing that I was doing.

And, uh, there, there was someone who's working with the

heart math Institute in America.

I thought, hello, what's this.

And they were describing a process through breathing through shifting

the state through focus and you get to play with gadgets to measure it.

I thought, well, this is right up my street.

So then I started to learn all about that.

So why I'm here is because, there's so much we can do outside of food to help

us really become so freaking healthy and managing, I believe managing

our state to be in that best state possible is key to everything else.

Wow, love it.

Wow.

And I have to say I think Megan knows like I'm super giddy about this

because with every single episode that we've recorded so far, I kept saying

I kept mentioning stress and going.

You know, I promise dear audience, we will have a full episode

talking about stress because it'll make you or break you, right?

Yeah.

If you're, if you have the most incredible diet ever, but you have chronic

stress, you're not gonna be healthy.

Right.

So it is something that you have to tackle alongside for sure.

But even before you look at your diet, because it is something that.

You know, it could bring autoimmune disease.

It could bring, I mean, it could bring really just it reeks havoc on your system.

Stress.

If you look into it, if you really dive into what it does, uh, stress

in itself is, is a response to an external environment so that we

experience it in a stressful way.

Not everyone experiences the same thing as stressful.

So we know it's an internal thing that we do to ourselves.

And when we are in that stressed state, we are releasing a hormone

called cortisol in bucket loads.

And if we there's the cortisol, the excess cortisol that causes the

inflammation that causes damage.

And when you have stress cortisol, Inflammation, your

body releases, cholesterol.

What does the doctor do?

Go, oh, give you a statin for that.

It's not dealing with the problem of the stress.

It's not taking the cause away.

It's just masking the symptom.

The, these elevated measurements that we have are messages from our internal system

to say there's something wrong inside.

Sticking plaster over it isn't gonna fix it.

You need to figure out what's wrong inside before you then conclude that

something else might need to happen.

So I'm a, a great advocate for going to the root cause of stuff when people

come and see me quite often, classic example, a lady who was really stressed

now, can you imagine one of those

elastic band balls that are really tight and you could oh, really tight.

And she came in and she sat in the chair opposite me and hunched

her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around herself.

And I said, oh, what's going on there?

Then she said, oh, through gritted teeth.

Oh, I really hate my job.

Okay.

That's, that's the symptom, but what's going on.

What's going on?

What's going on?

So took the layers away, digging deeper and deeper and she

started to move in the chair.

I said, and what's going on for you?

She said, rickled a bit.

She said, I can feel the tension lifting.

So just by really being able to get people to explore, we can dive into

what's really the root cause and, do something about the root cause to

lift up the symptoms of the stress.

Now we worked together for about six weeks and at the end of the six

weeks, she said, I said to her, so.

How are you now?

Because you came in and you're really tense and I can see you're more relaxed.

She said, well, I still don't like my job.

I said, yeah.

But have you noticed how you don't like job?

She said, what'd you mean?

She just like shrug her shoulders.

I don't like my job.

When you came in, it was like, oh, really tense and tight.

She said, yeah.

Yeah.

The stress has lifted now little codicil to this particular lady

was that during our conversation.

And for no reason at all, she said, my husband and I

decided not to have children.

So don't know where that came from, so, so I looked at her and I said, have we?

And she, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We, we have, yeah, I'm okay with it too.

I thought, I don't think so.

None of that was congruent to me but I left it there cuz you know, not my

business, if children is not a thing.

However, the stress was lifting, just was lifting and so on.

You know, what's happening here?

Three months later, she called me and uh, said, oh, I've got something to tell you.

I said, what is it?

She said, I'm pregnant.

I said, well, that's fantastic.

Uh, but I, she wasn't saying anymore.

I said, why are you telling me this?

She said it was the stress.

You help me lift the stress.

And when my stress was removed from my body, my body could respond normally.

And I said, are we happy?

? And she said, actually, yes, we are both happy.

And I later went on to meet the baby and the husband had never, totally happy.

Uh, yeah.

And of course the good news is she went back to work and she likes her job.

That's amazing.

And it's amazing that the kid didn't bring back the stress.

Yeah.

But that's just me.

No, that's later that's later.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

So stress can really shut down our systems and, and so managing it, I

think is critical to living not only a healthy life, but as full of life

as you can, and an enjoyable life.

So you mentioned that obviously you transitioned from corporate life

into coaching and being self-employed and because you were driven to

understand stress now, what was the motivation behind actually becoming

a coach and coaching other people with how to manage stress versus just

kind of learning it for yourself.

And how has that kind of changed your outlook on life and kind

of your, your life direction.

That's a, a really interesting question, cuz actually it was my wife

mm-hmm um, I did it's it is funny.

I did go and seek other corporate jobs and a friend of mine even got me a,

an interview, to do some communica.

I was in corporate communications and I to do some communication

work on a project that he had.

I'd been self-employed for about three or four years.

And I was in two minds because I thought you know, if I, if I go back into the

workplace, will I lose my, my role as this coach that people know me for now.

And, and then it it's a short term project.

What happens after that?

And so on.

But the interesting thing feedback from the, the interview was, uh, that the HR

lady said he could totally do this job.

Of course he can, he just doesn't want to.

So there was something.

Yeah, I was not, not happy being that employee.

And it's Carol, my wife who, when, um, the changes were happening,

I said, what am I gonna do?

She said, you would make a really good coach.

And I talked to a couple of other people about it and in the company that I was

leaving, they don't have internal coaches, but they do have people that kind of help

shape, meetings and that sort of thing.

And I talked to a couple of them and was getting the thumbs up.

So yeah, and that, that company also kind of sponsored me through my training.

Which was rather nice.

So it wasn't a kick out the door with nothing.

So paying for flights, accommodation, and, and the course fees for all

the coaching certificates I did.

So felt supported as well.

Mm, of course.

Um, as Danna knows, when you go out on your own, you think I know what I'll do.

I'll get some business cards and some leaflets on a

website and people will come.

They'll fly in through your door.

Of course They will.

um, so then of course

FYI listener, they don't go on.

Yeah.

So I needed help in the business side and it was a huge transformation

for me because having had probably 30 years in corporate organizations

where you do things this way, cuz that's how we do it all of a sudden.

And it took me too long to realize I could do things anyway because I'm by

myself, I can make my own decisions.

So I needed the help of a mentor to just open a few doors in my brain

to get creative and, and be brave enough to put myself out there.

And, and that sounds silly, but from corporate world to external, it was very

difficult to, to move into that place where people might say, oh, look at him.

Who does he think he is?

Again, it took me rather too long to realize if they're thinking that of me.

How wonderful.

They're thinking of me

and rather than they're ridiculing me.

So what if they got time in their day to think of me?

Oh, what a blessing?

Um,

that's a great way to look at it because a lot of people go through

like an, what they call now an imposter syndrome, which I don't think I've

heard before the last couple years.

Um, but it's true.

It's a lot of, you know, a lot of people, especially people who are running

their own business, go through that.

Yeah.

Where, you know, you just kind of.

Am I really, that person that I'm presenting out there to the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I remember our, um, the first coaching certificate I did, it was a,

a five day full fulltime course and the guy the end said, okay, you're all

coaches now go out and coach, I thought, really I couldn't, I couldn't possibly.

Um, so I need more.

And, and that's the other thing that happens.

Um, maybe you've experienced yourself that.

Oh, look, there's a certificate course that just fits what I'm doing.

I'll just do that before.

I really push myself out there.

Oh, there's this as well.

And I'm a victim of that learning mentality.

I, I do have mm-hmm a few certificates from various organizations, but they all

fit in to the underlying foundation of managing stress and building performance.

Yeah.

So there isn't anything I've done that doesn't support that work.

And the other big shift.

You know, for 30 years, I, someone would put some money in my bank account.

I didn't have to ask for it.

Mm-hmm by going out there, I'm delivering a service and I'm asking to be paid.

I ask you to give me money for sitting in front of me.

And that really was difficult.

It was difficult to the point that when I started, I would ask after the session.

Okay.

That'll be, and it was really, it was really quite low, um, 150 Franks.

And, uh, and people would give me the money.

I thought, well, that's okay.

These days.

No, we decide what the package is.

You pay me up front and then we deliver.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a completely down the other way.

But

I think that comes from, you've been coaching now for over 10 years.

And obviously when you introduced yourself, Number of topics that you hit.

I was trying to keep track of like all the topics that you were hitting

just in your introduction, going okay.

Yep.

Yep.

I gotta, Ooh, I gotta ask him about all this stuff now.

it's it just, but it shows that like, like you said, I think that

you manage this learn, to grow aspect that we all, everybody, I think all

the coaches really like to learn.

Right.

And when you try to put it in practice, but I think you've done a

really good job of putting it into practice and being able to, I mean,

in Basel, At least I'm not sure about Zurich, but in Basel if you say Martin

Daubney most people know who you are.

If you're at a corporate cuz you've led a corporate conference or you've done

some, mm-hmm some kind of class, uh, at the, at the big pharma tech companies.

Mm-hmm so I feel like.

You were able to transition, but it's 10 years, more than 10 years.

Mm-hmm so it's, it's not a switch overnight.

And I think that you, when you talk now, I, I was impressed when I met you.

I think I met you in 2018.

Yeah.

And it was just so impressive to hear you talk and be so confident about yourself.

And, but you have to understand that.

I mean in all areas of anybody's life, we have this kind of imposter syndrome, but

it's, it's elevated when you are in front of an audience or virtual or re or real.

And that's a, a form of stress in itself is to overcome that

feeling of, of not being the.

The expert that in your head, you, you feel like you could and

you, you will be, but what's that line when you cross the line.

Oh, now I'm an expert.

Oh, wait.

No.

Now I'm an expert and no,

no, it's still learning.

So.

I dunno if you've heard the Gallup strength finder, it's an assessment

that you do online and it's, um, is run by the Gallup organization in America.

And there are 34 talents.

They break 'em down into four different groups and just say,

my number one is adaptability.

So most of the time, if something gets thrown at me, I can go, okay, well maybe

I have to do it in a different way.

Uh, and number five is maximizer, which means that I always want it to be better.

So.

Or I'm maximizing the opportunity I have in front of me, but for

me, it kind of plays out in.

You can't have it yet.

Cuz I haven't finished it now I've gotta go over, get over that.

You've gotta get over that.

Uh, and to the point that, um, I. I rather too much.

And this is self feedback, like to be the Sage on the stage, the one with the

knowledge to impart and what I'm trying to shift to is to be the guide on side mm-hmm

So help you come forward and bring up with your own ideas rather than me telling you.

But that said, there are times when I've been fortunate enough to be

invited on the stage and my own stress management techniques helped me.

Um, I remember the first time.

So here's one of your tangents.

Remember the first time was, uh, in Washington, DC for the of American

association of pharmaceutical sciences.

And, uh, I was, had a slot and I was talking about, well, the clear ahead stuff

and being in the best state possible.

And I, I'm not one, I, I'm not really one for writing a script and learning

it, but I will have bullet points.

And I know I can talk around the bullet points and I will make sure

there's a flow to what the story is.

And I started.

Go through my talk and time it and go through and time it cuz

you have to fit into a time slot.

And every time I did it, I thought, oh, you missed that bit out.

Ah, damn.

Okay.

Do it again.

Yeah, you got that bit.

And then you missed something out and I was winding myself up just

before getting on the stage and I stopped and I breathed down and I just

said to myself, it's not about you.

It's about your audience and they want to see you having fun.

Go out and have fun.

And that allowed me to just relax a bit and then interact with the audience

and have some off the cuff Adlib stuff that went in that got people

laughing and enjoying themselves.

And for me, that, that really changed the, this stiffness that can come

in with standing on the stage.

And, and so on.

I was, um, Doing something similar down in Geneva last month.

And we were talking about communication and effective communication and

how, when we are stressed, we snap at people and, and, uh, it's often

your partner that will tell you.

Bit stressed Dolly.

no full stop.

We don't often recognize it at ourselves, but if you can manage your state

and have meaningful conversations, they're better conversations.

And there's an element of empathy in that.

So here comes the emotional intelligence piece, putting yourself in the place of

the other person and maybe understanding what they're going through and so on.

Mm-hmm so an example of an Natalie, I just, you know, Who in the audience.

And there are about 80 people there, um, feels they're empathic,

nobody put their hands up.

I said, what do I, we, we all psychopaths in this audience or

something there, then you get a laugh mm-hmm . And then when you get a laugh,

people are relaxing and all that.

So I know that works.

I, I kind of know that's a, a technique that I've stumbled into, but it's, um,

it helps me relax and it helps them relax, and we all have a better time.

I actually heard something really interesting lately.

And I was trying to remember if Megan, maybe you told me this, or, or someone on

the podcast, we were talking about stress and anxiety and you know, apparently

the, you know, athletes, Olympic athletes were asked, how do you overcome the fear,

the stress, the anxiety that you have before going out there and performing.

And basically what they found out was.

Those athletes take that.

And it's the same stress, right?

It's the same, it's the same thing that happens in our body, but

they translated into excitement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So they're

going out there.

They're as stressed as I would.

Okay.

A little bit less stressed cuz I do not run marathons, but um, you know,

they would be as stressed as I would.

I don't know, going and doing whatever I'm good at and, and doing

it, but they just take it and go.

Yes, I'm ready and they're jumping and they're wiring themselves up and then they

bolt and they do whatever they're there to do, and that helps them to perform.

And I find that, explaining that to people also, and just kind of having them.

See it in a different way, meaning seeing their stress as something maybe

PO it's not always positive, but trying to translate it, you know, instead

of stage fright to just, I'm super excited to be able to share my in, you

know, my knowledge with the audience is a completely different experience.

Yeah, yeah.

A hundred percent.

Um, there's a beautiful study by a lady called Kelly McGonegal who followed people

who thought stress was good for them?

Mm-hmm until they died.

And some, a group of people who thought stress was bad for them until they died.

There's a 10 year gap, 10 years.

You can live 10 more years.

If you truly believe.

And it's a, you know, an emotional thing to believe and logical and emotional

together to truly believe that when I feel stressed, it's something good's happening.

Some my body's getting me ready for something mm-hmm and you can

live 10, not stressed out years.

Cuz you think it's good?

So 10 good years, but you're you are talking about excitement and uh,

anxiety neurologically in the brain.

They're wired very, very similarly.

Somatically in the body.

We feel them in much the same way.

And, and we are lucky really as human beings to be able to emotional

intelligence again, self know what we are feeling and make a choice to shift

mm-hmm and we can do that all the time.

Now anxiety will release cortisol.

Excitement will release dhea dehydroepiandrosterone.

You can buy that on the internet, but you don't have to, you can make

your own by shifting your state into a more positive energy, uh,

emotional state rather than a yeah.

Uh, an emotion that drains you.

So fundamentally when you know what you are feeling and you can label it

and go, oh, well, that's interesting.

I'm feeling anxious.

I wonder what would happen if I felt excited?

Can I turn this into excitement?

Then you, your, the hormone cascading, your body changes, and it becomes much

more fueling rather than draining.

Yeah,

I have, I have two points.

The first one is I feel like we've got this like beautiful crossover to, to

Anna Standos episode on gratitude because one of the things that I had told her

was that I find it very difficult to do this kind of daily gratitude thing.

And she said, well, add the why.

Like, why am I grateful for something?

And I feel like.

Someone could very easily sit down at their desk or wherever they're doing

their morning journaling or whatever.

And you feel the stress of whatever the day is because it's full or

because it's important or whatever.

And you're writing down.

I'm grateful for this energy that's in my body, because it means that I am

excited about what's gonna happen or whatever, but I think even reframing

it this way and using gratitude along alongside this helps shift

that, um, Shift the mentality to you.

I, I call it positive and negative stress.

That's how I refer to like excitement, I think is positive stress and anxiety.

And because I, like you said, stress can be good.

And I think that's, like you said, if you, if you see stress as a good thing, then

your body can handle it better, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, we, we can even train ourselves to have, A

capacity to handle stress mm-hmm

So we can, I mentioned the heart math, um, Institute earlier, the studies, they

did a very, very simple technique is.

What I was doing before I met them, was to breathe low and slow.

So you slow down your breathing and breathe, breathe deeper into your belly.

So we all, we all know that, you know, you know, breathing's

really, really important.

It's highly, underrated, in my opinion, we should do more

of it at least intentionally.

so you breathing down and slow, calm the nervous system down.

Now, if you focus while you're doing that focus in the area of your heart,

and there's all sorts of reasons.

We can have another chat about that.

Why you would focus on your heart.

But one of the reasons is it stops all that going on in the brain mm-hmm or

the worry or the, whatever it is.

So you take just shut that off for a minute.

Focus on your heart, breathe low and slow, and then get into that emotional state.

You can, you can draw a two by two grid and you can have

emotions in various corners.

But the one that is low heart rate and is regenerative bottom right hand

corner is when you shift yourself into care, appreciation, gratitude, love any

of those real positive energy states.

And you are doing it in a calm way and you'll then start to find over

a period of time, how there's a synchronization in the heart brain system.

Now there's a lot of science behind that and there's a super highway

between the heart and the brain and the heart sends more information

to the brain than the brain, just to the heart, like 90% up 20% down.

Mm-hmm well, the brain's got its own neurology.

He's got his own inherent, brain, heart brain.

So when you get that system aligned, then we go back to all the other systems.

So your digestive system becomes aligned, uh, your immune system.

That'd be nice.

Mm-hmm that becomes aligned.

Your cortisol drops your D H E a goes up, it chilled out then wow.

Do that in the workplace.

Then you can start making really clearheaded decisions instead

of taking a decision in the fog.

The, the kicking of the dog.

When you come home, cuz you're angry, disappears, you sleep better.

I mean, sleep is another topic.

It's a huge, huge thing to get good sleep.

So all these systems in our body change so much, um, for our own

wellbeing and mental clarity that.

You get in, you know, with practice bit of time.

Um, I know from my I disclosed earlier, uh, atrial fibrillation that's gone

and my blood pressure's dropped so much more healthy blood pressure.

Mm-hmm and, uh, you know, these things are easily attainable

with a little bit of practice.

You brought up a couple of really, really interesting things

that I wanted to touch because.

When you talked about the deep breathing, deep, slow breathing

and everything like that.

That is a form of meditation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

And a lot of people, you know, that, that we speak to on a daily,

I'm sure you experience the same would say, I cannot meditate.

I don't know how to do it, or I'm doing it wrong or I can't chat off my brain.

And, and a lot of people don't understand that meditation doesn't necessarily

mean, I am not thinking about anything.

But rather that I'm at a state where I'm what, where I managed to relax my body.

Meaning you can still think there's, it's impossible not to think, but when

you're actually not in your own head, so you can think about your own breathing.

Which will therefore put you in a meditative state, which will therefore

put you in a calmer place and not anxious, which then shifts from the

sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system, which means that you're

actually in a rest and digest rather than a, a, you know, fight or flight mode.

Yeah.

which just, you know, it's just kind of like taking everything that you

said and putting it into a ball and explaining to everyone that it is doable.

Even just with focusing on your breath, which is probably the

simplest and most, um, bioavailable form of meditation that every single

person out there can actually do.

Mm-hmm and you know, it's just, yeah.

Yeah.

They're just gonna, every, everyone can benefit more from it.

Right.

Yeah.

When I was first introduced into meditation, the guy said, focus on

the air coming in through your nose.

And if you breathe in, you'll notice it's cooler than when you breathe out.

and that's the thing.

So it's about focus and you're right.

You can't, I don't think you can think of anything.

Um, and unless you really train very, very hard, uh, but.

I focus on my heart because this heart bring, they call it coherence and you

can measure it and you can see it on a, an app through a measuring device that

measures your heart rate, variability.

It all comes together.

And the more I do it, the stronger that connection becomes.

So yeah, I focus on the heart and it takes away the need to focusing on.

I don't know, paying the bill or what's for dinner or, you know, house my mom

or anything like that, that, um, really gets in the way of the meditation.

Now, if you're a beginner and you've never done it before, you might

be able to do that for 30 seconds.

But with practice, you can really do that for five, 10 minutes.

And it takes, even if you calm yourself down with the breathing, it takes a good

20 to 30 seconds to get outta your head.

And into your heart.

Yeah.

And then, then you are dealing with the world through compassion

and gratitude and yeah.

And, and joy and so on.

Mm-hmm yeah.

Yeah.

Yesterday I was feeling, I don't know, a little overwhelmed and it's

amazing though, when you've done it a while and I just lay in my

couch, eyes open at the ceiling.

I wasn't tired.

I just needed to breathe.

And I was just breathing and looking at the ceiling.

I wasn't thinking about anything or let's say, I couldn't remember

if I was thinking about whatever, whatever I was thinking about.

And then I had set a timer for five minutes, so that in case I accidentally

fell asleep, I would get up.

Right.

Because I can fall asleep very fast, but I wasn't tired and it's amazing.

I, the timer went.

Way before I thought five minutes was up, you know, cuz a lot of

people also think five minutes, it's a long time is a long time.

Yeah.

Like first of all, you think, oh five minutes is not a long time, but then when

you sit there and just breathe, yeah.

Five minutes becomes a very long time until you practice this.

And then it was like, I realize I had gotten in such a good, relaxed.

State that five minutes went by so fast.

I'm like, oh, I just need another five minutes of this wonderful joy that I'm in

because it, yeah, it felt so good to just.

Empty my brain of everything that was in it for five minutes.

Yeah,

that's really, really cool.

I mean, other people listening to this, you know, talking about

breathwork might, uh, and there's lots of ways you can breathe.

My preferred is low and slow, slow it down and a nice, easy, comfortable rhythm.

But I wonder how many times people were listening to this might have

picked up the phone and heard a voice they hadn't heard before.

And then about 30 seconds later realized they haven't taken a. Or open that email

that says redundancies and go and realize I haven't taken a breath so many times

we do things and we suddenly realizing, oh, I haven't been breathing properly.

And that, to your point done, I puts your autonomic system

outta sync or outta balance.

What we are really trying to do is get you into that parasympathetic

dominance, slightly more dominant.

I mean, balance would be great, but we are living in a sympathetic.

Uh, environment too much news fear too much.

Um, mm-hmm, , you know, there's the conflict in Ukraine and prices going

up and blah, blah, all sorts of things.

And of course, it's, it stimulates the fear in us, which stimulates the cortisol

and, uh, the subsequent con consequences.

If we can know that and recognize that and manage that in our bodies,

we give ourselves a much better chance of thriving through this rather.

Not

Martin.

We, I think we, we know that we could talk to you for three hours.

Unfortunately, your time is very short for us today.

So to kind of wrap up a little bit, I have a question and then an

ask number one, the question is.

How do people realize that they're under chronic stress?

Because I think some people have been under chronic stress for such a long

time that they may not realize because they've adapted so well, but E they're

still have that high cortisol level.

And then the ask is.

How does your new book, how could they use your new book to help them

learn how to manage their stress?

Oh, thanks for bringing that up.

That's a, a bonus.

Um, the, uh, understanding that we are stressed is difficult because our, we

have in our bodies borrow receptors, they're on our heart and when the

cortisol comes and the blood pressure goes up and all that, if it's sustained.

Then the body goes, oh, this is the new normal then, is it okay?

I'll just readjust my little gauge here to shift the, the red high

blood pressure down into normal.

And, and you go on high blood pressure.

Also, you, you feel quite good with high blood pressure.

Um, so it's very difficult to tell.

Most of the time it comes out in a behavior.

So it could be, um, you know, being snappy with people, with people you love

or people you used to get on with, at work, no longer want get on with you.

Uh, you might decide that it's a useful thing to have a glass of wine or a

whiskey or something before you go to bed.

As you relax in the evening, I'll relax with this, which is.

It's a misnomer, cuz it's a, uh, it's a suppressant rather than a relaxant

and you don't get good quality sleep.

Uh, you wake up tired, waking up tired is also a good thing.

Um, start making mistakes, find it difficult to make decisions

that you used to thought were easy and, and so on and so forth that

you could also have a blood test.

If you do a, a fasting blood in the, in the morning, you can get a cortisol check,

but behaviorally things have changed.

More often than not.

It's gonna take someone who really loves you to point it out much as you

know, in any of these things and to

bear the brunt of the backlash of saying you're stressed.

And then they're like, no, I'm not stressed.

Exactly.

There's that.

Now in, in the book, we have a look at all different aspects of

what we've been talking about.

Really it's quite, quite light, quite easy going and.

After well, towards the end of each chapter, there's a little bit that

says here's some things you might try.

So there are tips and things that you can do, and yeah, at the end,

there's a, there's actually a QR code that will take you to a

complimentary book and call as well.

If that's what you'd like.

So

excellent.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

So the book is clear your head to get ahead, which is a fantastic title.

And I know that you've latched onto this, uh, saying, and I think it's a

very catchy and it can stick with you.

So I have the book, I ha I'm on chapter three.

I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, but I'm excited to finish

reading it because I know people in my life that are stressed.

Donna, maybe I gift you one.

So you can read it as well, queen yes, please.

I

was just about to order it, but I will take the gift.

Oh, great.

So Martin, thank you so very much.

I, I, I feel.

I feel cheated.

I feel cheated because we don't have enough time with you today.

And so we will definitely try to get you again when, when we can have more time.

Although I still think that we should cap our time with Martin

because otherwise we'll spend half a day talking about stuff.

So , which is fine.

Just the editing is gonna be a pain

yeah, you don't wanna do that.

So, and I think Martin you're at inspire coaching dot.

com.com.

Okay.

Inspire coaching.com.

Uh, he has program from stress to strength.

The book is clear your head to get ahead.

There's all these different ways to find Martin, and he's

an absolute gem of a person.

And Ugh.

So lovely to talk with you today.

Thank you

so much, Martin.

Thank you very much for inviting me be my pleasure.

Oh my goodness.

Martin is a wealth of information.

Uh, I'm really sad that our conversation couldn't be longer, but there was

just so much I wanted to say, and I know we didn't get a chance to say it.

So what were your initial thoughts about like anything that Martin said

that you're just like, didn't think about that in a while or what, tell

me, what was your first impressions?

I just resonated a lot with what he said.

I think it was a lot of things that he said, we brought up kind

of randomly on other episodes.

And of course the sleep, when he was talking about the sleep and

on our sleep episode, we talk about how stress is important and

promise a new episode on that.

And so I think there was a lot to resonate with.

And know, just to hear his kind of knowledge about, you know, It was

funny when he was talking about the, the heart's brain connection.

Mm-hmm it's again, relatively new discovery.

Right.

We always thought that the brain was the, the computer, the hard drive and

it, it controlled everything in our body.

Right.

That's how we were growing up, being told, and we not talk about the, the guts brain

axis mm-hmm and how the communication goes more up than it does down.

And when he mentioned it about the heart, I was.

No freaking way, like, okay.

That makes a lot of sense.

So I, I, yeah, there was a lot of resonating and yeah, you could just

listen to his, his voice for, for decades.

I, I really hope that we get a chance to talk to him again.

Because I think there has, you know, we, I saw us both

going like, oh, and, oh, I can,

I wanna say something else.

and both looking at the time going like, no, but, uh, but yeah.

What about you?

So what I stuck with and I didn't get a chance to talk about it

with him on the phone, but I thought would, as a kind of a bridge is

the, you know, the cortisol thing.

Right.

So cortisol our stress hormone, it can be measured, which I think.

Super important for people to understand.

I mean, Martin touched on it briefly.

You can do a fasting blood test I think you can even spit in a

cup to get your cortisol levels.

I've seen that somewhere else and we talked about breathing, but what

we didn't talk about was movement.

Right.

Because actually your cortisol levels will go down when you start to move.

Yeah.

Right.

So that's why I think that some people, maybe it doesn't resonate with

them to sit and breathe in a chair.

Maybe the better ation with those people would be to get up and go for a 10 minute.

right, because you always, everybody always kind of feels a

little bit better when they walk.

Why, when you are walking, when you're stressed is because your

Corsol levels go down, right.

Because the cortisol was supposed to help you run away from said, you know,

mythical, mammoth tiger or whatever, uh, you know, along save two Tuia.

Um, So I think that that's also another thing that's

kind of built into our bodies.

If you start to move, your cortisol levels will go down.

And if you're doing an exercise that requires you aerobic, you know, then

you're taking those big, deep breaths.

You're breathing a lot more, which then you're not even

having to think about the breath.

So I think that those are the two things that I thought.

Mm, I would've, I would've wanted to talk a little bit more about that with him.

And, uh, but I feel like it's another entry point for people who don't feel

like sitting on a cushion, although you don't have to do that, you can just

sit anywhere seat and just breathe.

Um, but movement is, uh, super important.

In that area.

It's interesting that you bring that up because sports was actually

one of the things that I was biting my tongue, you know, trying to, to keep

myself from, from bringing up cuz I know it's gonna, it's just a Pandora's box,

you know, but you know, there's, there's two sides to that coin as well, which

I really wanna pick his brain about because exercise is also a form of stress.

Right.

Mm-hmm and when you overdo

it yeah.

In any form, right.

If you're overdoing it, meaning seven days a week, you know,

two hours a day, whatever.

Or if you're overdoing it, when your body is just exhausted and you

feel like you just have to work out.

Yeah.

Those could backfire as well.

Right.

So.

Definitely on our list to talk to him or any other stress expert that's gonna

come on this show, um, is definitely the connection with stress and,

and working out stress and exercise.

Is there too much of it?

Is there not enough of it?

You know, like all of those kind of levels and, and where is that happy medium.

Yeah, I know you.

I know you used to work out a lot, but you don't actually actively do

workout sessions now because you're a mom and you chase two teenage boys

around, which is a workout in itself.

But what I think is interesting is.

Listening to your body, right?

Mm-hmm because there has been times when I'm supposed to go to the gym.

I don't feel like I want to go to the gym.

I go to the gym, I get on the treadmill.

I walk around whatever for 10 minutes and then I'm like, no.

And then I have to just turn around and walk back.

But I feel like that's again, when we're talking about.

So being freaking healthy, it's about listening to your body.

I we've said it probably a hundred times already.

The more you listen to your body, and that goes into what you were talking about.

I intuition right as well is intuitively listening to your body and going,

yeah, no, this, this, what I'm doing right now is not helping me.

Mentally or physically because my body is too stressed or whatever, like, or

maybe I'm on the verge of being sick or maybe I've just had really bad sleep.

I mean, whatever the reason is, if you're

on your period, if you're,

you know, yeah.

You just can't push it, you just gotta listen to it.

And, and, but on the other hand, like for example, the last two evenings,

when my husband was done with.

He was like the first two evenings ago.

He was like, I just wanna sit here and I don't wanna do anything.

Work was difficult.

And he just kind of Veed out on the couch, played his games, watched TV, did nothing.

Well, last night it was the same thing and he's sitting on the couch and I'm

like, please go to the gym, just go to the gym and row for 10 minutes.

You will feel better, you know, you will feel better.

And he sat there for another 15 minutes.

I kicked him in the ass, he got out the door, he comes back.

The first thing he says is that so worked that really worked.

Like, he felt like he could have his whole evening ahead of him then instead

of just sitting on the couch and, and wishing the evening would be done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The other.

I know we don't wanna go too late on this, but the other thing that I think we

didn't really dive into was breath work and mm-hmm, a lot, what he was talking

about was the breath work like low and slow and deep, low, and slow breathing.

Right.

And I recently had an experience with another health coach, Vanessa.

Who's in Bosel and she does yoga and breathwork, and I was with her one

day and it was just the two of us.

And we did a breathwork session and I have never done that kind of breathwork before.

So I'd love to have her on.

Because it was all done on the floor and she guided me, but it was really

more of like a push in and out.

Like, it was much faster.

You almost felt like you were hyperventilating.

And then just when you think you're like, how much longer can I do this?

Then she's like, okay.

Rest for a little bit.

And then we did it again, like three times for like a total of 15 minutes.

And afterwards you.

Like, it was a, a really interesting feeling in my body that I haven't,

that I haven't experienced before.

Have you done that kind of intricate breath work, which is not just

low and slow, but somehow like rapid here and this and that.

Have you done that?

Yeah, I've done it.

I, I honestly can't PI pinpoint where I've done it and what I've done, but yes.

And I've also, I don't know if you've tried the 4 78.

Dr.

Riles.

Definitely.

And I also recommended it to a lot of people.

Uh, yes, I've done it before at the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that one, I remember when I did it the first time I was like,

I came out of it, like from a, from a trance, like you, when you do it.

Right.

And you're kind of doing it properly in a way, it puts you in this, this kind of.

I can't even explain that.

I guess that's what it feels like when your brain gets enough oxygen.

Right?

so there are so many out there there's the 6, 6, 6, there's the same, you know,

like 6, 7, 8, whatever, whatever it is that you're doing, if it's just three

deep breaths, belly breaths, right.

Three deep breaths where you're really extending your belly and

pushing down your esophagus, you're already going to benefit from that.

So, you know, one can Google.

Breath work mm-hmm for days and find whatever works for them.

But what I would definitely recommend is just try something, try something.

Yeah.

Whether it's the low and slow, whether it's the 4, 7, 8, whether

it's literally just taking three deep breaths, when you're focusing on

your breathing, you are calming down.

Doesn't matter who you are and what you're going through, just focusing on that is

again, is just a form of ation in a way.

So.

The opportunities are endless, but you know what Martin said?

And I always say it quite often.

So I had to Google when he said it, you know, I always say like, you're breathing

anyways, right?

Yeah, you're doing it.

So just

do it a little bit more mindfully for just a little short amount of time, you

know, just take advantage of the fact that you're doing it and just do it deeper and

do it a bit more kind of like focused.

So he, he said it in a, in a similar way and I was like, Hey.

Yep.

But yes, I think it's so important.

We really don't breathe.

No, we don't.

Don't you know, I, uh, I just recently watched the, the lost city, the, the

new Sandra Bullock chaning Tatum movie.

I don't know if you've seen that yet.

No.

So in the movie, uh, Channing Tatum is supposed to be kind of a ditzy model

and C Bullock is this well educated, but turned romance, novel writer.

And they end up being on a real adventure together.

That's the whole point of the movie, right?

And she's put in some, two or three times, she's put into a

situation where she starts to panic.

right.

And then she stops you stop breathing, like what Martin said.

And it was funny because the way that the Channing Tatum character handled that

was, he goes, Hey, do you smell that?

Do you, do you smell that?

No, take a breath.

You know, totally was like, She then she's like, she took a, a couple deep brush.

She goes, no, I don't smell anything.

He's like, but just keep breathing.

Like . And he did it, I think, twice in the show.

And it was.

Oh, that is such a beautiful way, especially like for children.

Mm-hmm, where, you know, you just need to snap their attention away and you,

but if you just say breathe, breathe.

Yeah, maybe they will, but they're, they're still in their head.

If you can snap their attention to something else completely,

do you smell that smells like bacon or, you know, or whatever.

Pick a lovely flavor.

Really.

Oh,

I would go for far.

I don't know what you're

talking about.

Lovely.

. Yeah.

So, but I think, I think that there was lots of little nuggets of wonderfulness

in that episode for our listeners.

But if our listeners have, you know, if you've tried something or if you

have some thoughts on your own about, or maybe like your own story about

how breath work or breathing or how you came out of a stressful situation.

Totally hit us up.

We will leave all the links to connect with us in the show

notes, but I think Donna should that wrap it up for this episode?

100%.

Thanks so much for joining us today and see you next time on

the so freaking healthy podcast.

Hi.