MENOMORPHOSIS
A podcast for busy midlifers ready to reclaim their energy, joy, and purpose.
Are you, like me, riding the rollercoaster of midlife and menopause, and eager to get back to living your best life? Are you tired of low energy, a short temper and endless self doubt?
Well, It’s time to stress less and shine more. It’s time ditch the worry, reclaim your mojo and unleash your inner brilliance.
It's never too late to transform, and you’re certainly not too old. And in my opinion, midlife and menopause provide the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Join me each week for uplifting stories and expert insights on how to feel as good as you can and create a joyful, purpose-driven life you truly love.
So when you’re ready, Let the beautiful menomorphosis begin!
MENOMORPHOSIS
#109: The Secret to Effortless Running With Alla Shashkina
If you’re a seasoned runner, a casual jogger, or someone looking to get into running, this episode is a must-listen.
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with running—but one simple shift completely transformed my experience: how I breathe. It’s something most of us overlook, yet it has a huge impact on endurance, energy, and overall performance.
And this is what I dive into with this week's guest, Alla Shashkina, an endurance runner and coach, a transformation coach, and breathwork expert.
Despite climbing the corporate ladder at Apple, achieving financial success, and holding a senior management role, Alla reached a turning point in midlife. She realized that career achievements alone didn’t bring personal fulfillment. For her, the path to a more meaningful life involved running and breathwork.
Join us as we dive into:
🌟 Alla’s journey from tech to coaching
🌟 How breathwork helps you reconnect with your body
🌟 How to make running more enjoyable
🌟 How your breathing patterns affect endurance and energy levels
🌟 Why obsessing over running data might be holding you back
Tune in to discover simple yet powerful techniques that can make running feel easier, smoother, and more enjoyable. This conversation might just change the way you move!
To find out more about Alla:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/allashashkina/
https://www.instagram.com/evolvewithalla/
Download The Breath Check-Up - your FREE guide to understanding how well you're breathing right now.
Download my energising 5 Minute Morning Practice to get your day started in the best way possible.
To find out more about my membership The Inner Space go to: https://www.pollywarren.com/theinnerspace
Email me at: info@pollywarren.com
https://www.pollywarren.com/
https://www.instagram.com/pollywarrencoaching/
Are you, like me, riding the roller coaster of midlife and menopause and eager to get back to living your best life? Are you tired of low energy, a short temper and endless self-doubt? Well, it's time to stress less and shine more. It's time to ditch the worry, reclaim your mojo and unleash your inner brilliance. It's never too late to transform, and you're certainly not too old, and, in my opinion, midlife and menopause provide the perfect opportunity to do just that. Join me each week for uplifting stories and expert insights on how to build as good as you can and create a joyful, purpose-driven life you truly love. So, whenever you're ready, let the beautiful metamorphosis begin. Anna, welcome to the podcast. So good to have you here.
Speaker 2:Oh hi, polly, so good to be here, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I love it. Our paths crossed when we did a breathwork training together earlier in this year and then we actually met in real life. When I came out to San Diego which was just so brilliant and can I just say to all the listeners how Ella was just it was one of those moments. It was like, oh, what are you doing now? And I was like, well, I just have to leave my Airbnb. And then I've got to be at this place at this certain time and actually I've got nothing to do for the next four hours. And Ella just came, picked me up, took me for lunch, dropped me where I needed to be. It couldn't have worked out more perfectly. I will be forever grateful for that.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was just it worked out so well. And I'm like like my eyes are tearing right now just thinking about it. It was such a good afternoon, it just worked out so well. It just meant to be. You know those moments when it's like oh yeah, that's going to work out really well.
Speaker 1:So, ella, I'm really happy to have you on the podcast, and there's lots of things I would love to talk to you about. So today, I think, we're going to talk about your transition from working in tech to now in the wellness industry. We're going to talk about breathwork. Of course, we're going to talk about running as well.
Speaker 2:So let's start with All the good topics.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I mean, you have a very impressive background, especially with your work. You worked on Siri for Apple, didn't you? And various tech, so can you just tell us a little bit about that and what drew you into the wellness space away from that?
Speaker 2:Okay. So I could give you a very long hour long version of this, but I'll give you a short one and maybe we can take it from there and see how that lands. So a short version of that is I worked in tech for about 13 years, primarily in natural language, processing space. What that means is basically you're teaching a computer your natural language and if you can hear it from my accent, I don't. I'm not native to English, but I speak Russian as my primary language and a few other languages like German and English and Chuvash, which is my second native language. So I come from a very multilingual space and it was very important to me to embrace the language aspect of our lives. And so I did that through computer science that I studied in Munich in Germany, computer science that I studied in Munich in Germany. I was in at Apple for 11 years, in tech for 13.
Speaker 2:And I realized while being in tech it's a very in at Apple and such a big corporate organization, it's a very in your mind, entirely in your mind space, right, and I've been missing a lot of connection to my body. I've worked for so long and all I did kind of like was getting farther and farther and farther from my own self. While my career was thriving and I really started as a junior engineer, like fresh off college pretty much, and I've made my way through senior management there before I left as far as my career was progressing, my connection to self was regressing, if that makes sense, and I've picked up some of that with running, where I started running about 10 years ago and I got that running, that that running for me is really a meditation movement, right, I got that through running, a connection to my body through the running movement, but then I would sit in meetings the entire day and I would not have access to some of the tools that I now have. So I've been missing that mind-body connection a lot during my work at Apple and then, once I quit, I finally realized like, okay, what is it that will make me happier, have more joy and whatever. Not thinking about like my next career move, like what's my next job or whatever, but just like Allah as a person.
Speaker 2:I turned 40 last year. I'm 41 now. I kind of like thought, oh, there must be something more to this, right. So that's how I got into the wellness space and really into breathwork to begin with the wellness space and really into breath work to begin with, and um, that gave me this sense of a practical tool at any time with any, with access at any time, at any point of uh of life, to something that returns me back to my body. So that is what got me into wellness right now so that's so interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 1:so you were doing really well in your career. You were doing what so many of us do, just going through life, going through the motions, but interestingly, you you recognize there was something really important missing and it took you to leave your job to discover it. I'm curious, ala, how did you land on Breathwork, because of all the things you could have landed on? How did that come about?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, I don't know, that was not a mind decision. That's what's funny about it. That was not something that I consciously sat down and thought about and like, okay, this sounds good, I'm gonna do this breathwork just landed. First of all, like, I live in Encinitas, which is a coastal town north of San Diego, and this little town is so full of spiritual people and full of different kinds of like. It's a health tech space. It's a very, very vibrant, very different from silicon valley, where I used to live for a long time before I moved to encinitas a very different vibe and, um, you can just walk on the street and see people do breath work on the grass, just randomly, here and there. You walk and you see some other things going on. It's just so deep right. And so one afternoon I was walking I was at the beach, I think, and we were leaving, and then I saw a group of people it was like 10, 15, like pretty big group of people, and there was music blasting. And I'm like, oh, this sounds fun, like what is it? So I get to talk to instructor? And I was like, hey guys, what are you doing? Well, this looks like really fun.
Speaker 2:And that was before I quit my job and she's like, oh, we're doing breathwork. I was work. Something sparked in me I don't know what it was, but something sparked in me and she said, oh yeah, we do breath work. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm runner, like I wanted to do breath work for my athletic performance. She's like, oh yeah, you can totally do that. Just, we do these sessions on the beach for free once a month. And she gave me her little a card. And then I took that card and I placed it in my closet. And it was in my closet for five months before I acted on it. It was there right in front of me. Every time I would dress up I would see that card and I'm like, hmm, this sounds good, hmm, this sounds good, but I would never follow up on that.
Speaker 2:And then, like, just a few weeks before I decided to quit, I was walking my dog on the trail in the morning and I was listening to podcasts and, um, the one girl asked the the host she's like if there was only one modality that you could go and you could do until the end of the life, what would that be? And she said breathwork. I'm like, oh, there must be something to it. Like I gotta try it out. So I researched like a breathwork studio that was by to my house and there is one really good one, and I signed up the same day in the afternoon and I went to try it out and there was a conscious, connected breathwork class. Um, very kind of wim hof style, with a cold afterwards, and it just blew me away like I was ready for it just was like instantaneous and it was so good. And I was like, okay, what is it? What is it before that I didn't do it before? Like, what is it in me that is so good? I got really curious. And I got curious right away to start not just practicing it myself but teaching others, like I was really. I researched a facilitation school right away and I was like, okay, I gotta learn how to do breathwork and teach others. And that's how I got into into breathwork and I kind of entered from the conscious connected breathwork um side and then I exited, or I'd rather like continue it, maybe on the on the breath science practitioner ways, where I'm like learning a little more of the science aspect of it, because, um, you know, my first encounter of breath work was really incorporate and that was funny because, um, it was during pandemic. We were working from home, obviously, and I remember we had this lunch seminar like from the wellness team that they organized some wellness seminar for the employees, right. And you know, that was the beginning of pandemic, the first two, three months, where everything was just insane and my daughter like working on the other side of the dining table and I'm everything was just insane and my daughter like working on the other side of the dining table and I'm like trying to focus on my meetings, so I'm dialing into that, um, wellness session at lunch and a bunch of people show up there and like, oh, this is, this is fun, what are we going to talk about? And then the facilitator suggests that we do box breathing, right, and she said okay, let's do it. Just five minutes of box breathing to land in the space. And I'm like, what the hell is she talking about? Like land in the space, what does it mean? Like the language was so, so weird and right.
Speaker 2:And then, and then she started counting and do the breath work and I'm like I literally lasted for 20 seconds and that was it. And I'm like I literally lasted for 20 seconds and that was it. And I turned off my camera and I was like I don't want to see people like me not doing it. But I also don't want to do it because I felt so much resistance inside of me to just, um, why my mind, my mind, wouldn't shut up. It was just going and going in cycles and circles and I could not let go right. So I could not do breath work even for one minute. It was impossible.
Speaker 2:Now thinking about it now, I think what was missing for me to let my mind to put at ease was really the science aspect. If somebody explained my engineering mind how it works, science wise, I probably would have let go easier. Like my mind would understand that piece. You wouldn't try to make sense of it, it wouldn't grip on questions, but it was just trusted and then I would let go and maybe I would give it a another try.
Speaker 2:So what I'm trying to say is that for many people in that are in their minds all the time, it's important to have that gate into breathwork through science.
Speaker 2:Explain them how it works, the mechanics of it, the biochemistry of it, all of that stuff. They will understand like, oh, this is what's happening to me and this is what's happening to me because your mind is very controlling and then, once you do that, you are less controlling and then you can let go of your mind and then you can have that somatic physiological experience because you allow it to happen. But you have to allow it through your mind first. And so from that lens I'm like, okay, I know so many people in tech that I want to help. Like, how do I get them to get they off out of the mind, trust the process and do the breath work Like I did myself, like I guess failed myself like eight years ago or whatever five years ago, and science was the answer for me. And I think it's just so much easier when you, if you, can explain it to people from a scientific perspective, they just yeah, they, they trust better.
Speaker 1:They trust they the process better it's funny because we followed a very similar pathway into this. We both came at it. Yeah, we both had transitions, so we both left previous careers which you know is is a big, is a big thing to do and we both kind of went from a different industry into wellness and then I started as well with the same organization, into the more of a conscious connected breathwork, but needed also to know the science behind it, like really to be able to explain what is actually happening here, because a lot of the breathwork space is it is all a bit woo woo and I don't get me wrong, I love a little bit of woo woo and I can go with it, but there are so many different strands of breathwork that I think it's really important to understand what is actually happening with your body, because if you go straight in with a conscious connected breathwork and you're already in a very high aroused state and you're very, very stressed, actually it can do more damage than it can do good, and I think that these sorts of messages aren't getting out there now that breathwork's become much more trendy and lots of people are doing it. That it's it's much more nuanced than that you could. It's not a one-size-fits-all.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's um, it's, it's really interesting and I think, particularly for people like you I mean, you describe yourself as a type, a personality, someone who you know you've got a mind for tech, you like data that actually it's important to know. Why on earth am I doing this? Let's talk, uh, running. You're an ultra runner, but you've also congratulations have just certified as a ultra runner trainer, is that right? Yeah, ultra running coach, ultra running coach, congratulations, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So you are obviously an incredible runner, but you haven't actually, in the grand scheme of things, been running that long, have you?
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I've been running only for 10 years. You, no, yeah, I've been running only for 10 years. But the funny part about my running journey is that I was always interested in long distance like I've never. I didn't have that progression where people go for like a 10k or 5k or half marathon, then a marathon I don't. I dove straight into the marathon and then, just within three years after that, I've been running 50k's and now I'm trying to. I've transitioned to like 100k distance more. Uh, but only recently, actually only this year because I felt like I'm now ready to do 100k, um, before I was more like the 50k person.
Speaker 2:But you know, the funny part about my running journey is also that, um, so I come from russia, but I'm not russian like my national.
Speaker 2:My nationality, I guess, I guess is russian, but my ethnicity is, um, actually chuvash and chuvash are native, indigenous people of russia.
Speaker 2:Um, russia has so many ethnicities in there, like people, when people say, oh, oh, you're Russian, people think about the Slavic sort of looking person, maybe, but the way I look, even people say all kinds of things like oh, you look like Argentinian and Hispanic and some Asian, like all kinds of stuff, but not Russian. And the reason I say this is because, um, and it's amazing how Chuvash women specifically women are so good in long distance running. We have most marathoners from our nation than any other nation across the whole Russia competing on the international stage. I've been researching this and I have all the data in some raw format, but I want to actually create an article about it. For a long time and just statistically, like how many people there are in that Republic and in Russia compared to the entire world, and how many people got on a podium to run the six major marathons London, boston, new York all those like good, like world major marathons they got top three consistently for so many years, two-wash women so interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 2:Because, we were like we are like really good in enduring long distance. We also built like very kind of petite and short and small, so that's kind of really good for for running long distance and there is something about our like genes and physiology that is very um favor favorable for long distance endurance events. So for me, like going into long distance was so easy, like I can go, I could go along for around forever. It's like it's so funny, like when I started dating my boyfriend I would go for. I would tell him like, hey, I'm gonna go for a run. He's like how long are you going for? And I'm like, oh, maybe 80 minutes. And then I go for three hours. And he's like are you going for? And I'm like, oh, maybe 80 minutes. And then I go for three hours. And he's like are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I just decided to go for longer, I just feel so good.
Speaker 1:And he's like how can you just go for a three hour run? Wow, so it was good, so it was just a very natural thing that you just wanted to. You could just run and run and run, because I'm just thinking of the people who are listening. So you would have been what? 30, 30 odd when you started running 30, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah so people who are listening, who maybe who want to get into running, or who are occasional runners, who, you know, run a little bit, are probably thinking, oh my goodness, that sounds crazy running those sorts of distances. But I suppose ultimately it's about doing what feels good for you. What would you say for you makes it so enjoyable, what makes it feel easier and what can people do to really find that love of running? Because I, for many years, go running, because I feel it's good for me and I ought to do it. But have I? Have I got that joy and that love? Or have I had that joy and that love, I don't know, whereas my husband has the joy, he loves it. But for people listening, what could you say?
Speaker 2:Ella, yeah, I think two things come to my mind. One is slow down. People go out way too fast and they get exhausted and, of course, if you run out of fuel because you run too fast, you're not gonna enjoy it. You're gonna feel really, really tired. So, going out there really slow, putting your ego, leaving your ego at home, not worrying about, like your pace, the distance that you're covering, none of that matters um just going and going really easy, I think that will make a big difference. Um. A second one is um go without any headphones and music, yeah, so this is.
Speaker 1:This is an interesting one because I think majority of people, including myself, sometimes go with yeah, go. I use it as an opportunity to multitask, to listen to podcast to listen to sometimes it's really lovely to listen to music yeah yes, sorry, carry on yeah.
Speaker 2:So what happens is it helps at the beginning, like when, when running is kind of still, you know a new thing and it's your body's not used to it. So you how your body hurts here and there. So it's a really good tool to distract your mind from the pain. But long-term this is just dissociates you from the experience in your body in the moment. Dissociates you from the experience in your body in the moment, because even the research shows that we, syncing the music with our, with our brain, our brain waves change because of music. Our, our heart rate changes because of the music, our cadence changes because of the music. And if our heart rate and our cadence changes, then our breath, breath pattern, our breath rate also changes. And it could be good, it could be really uplifting and nice and kind of get you going, but then if you're going for two hours, eventually like you'll just get tired of listening to music anyways. So what you got to listen to is your own body and I realized that my philosophy around running without any headphones and music is not very popular and people are afraid doing it because they think what's the point? I wanted to enjoy it and if I go out without music. I'm not enjoying it. It might be not enjoyable the first couple of times, but eventually what it's going to do is going to create that space, quiet space in you, like that silent space in you that sparks creativity, and you're going to come back from those quiet, silent runs with so many ideas. It's insane, it's absolutely insane. I come back and I and I'm like, okay, I just need to remember, like all the 10 things that I just came up with, like content, content, uh, ideas, um, some insights of relationships or any issues you had with someone that you didn't say something. And it's like, okay, I'm a manifest, manifesting generator, like by my human design type, and I gotta, I'm generating all the time and I best generate when I run. That's my sacral generator, going all speed, generating stuff, and that is my creativity, that is my space of creativity. That's where I come back and I'm like, oh, my god, I should do this and I should do that, and that's all just lands during the running. And most of us like 80, 80 percent of our, of the population are generators, sacral kind of space generators. So we are having that generating generator energy, but we're not using it in a way that we should be using it. And so if you are a runner or you're not running or wanted to run, try to go out and just listen to that inside of the body kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And I honestly feel like when you start running, like your body goes through specific, like energetic states. At the beginning, you sort of like just you know, like our aura extends like two arms wide right. If you think about it, it's like a big energetic space or a biofield around us and there's no rule around it. There is science that shows that we all kind of project that energetic space around us. And so when you start running, that energetic space starts to sort of repair itself, solidify, energize and just get going. And the longer you go, the more it goes. So it starts like very small and then it kind of goes on and on and on and on.
Speaker 2:And human beings are made of two things emptiness and rhythm. And that's exactly what you do when you go run. You have a rhythm, you have your breath, you have your steps on the ground, grounding you, connecting you to earth. You have the rhythm of your heart, the rhythm of your breath, all that. And then you have the space. All you have to do is just get the space in. But we don't do the space part, we just put the music in and the space is gone. Right. But we are made of space and rhythm and if we connect the two through some movement, it doesn't have to be running, it could be biking, it could be anything right, but those two need to go together for us to create. That's the recipe for enjoying the running.
Speaker 1:Oh, you've really, really inspired me. Yeah, it does make so much sense. I am a generator of my human design. What I find is when I run without any headphones in, or any music or anything is just being absorbed in nature. If you're outside, it really makes you appreciate all the sounds and the feelings and you are very much in it, as opposed to cut off from it. I think when you've got your headphones in mm-hmm so let's talk about breathing whilst running.
Speaker 1:So, like me, you transitioned to nasal breathing in running. I think you were before me. Tell us Allah why it is. I mean, I have to talk about this was on the podcast before, but let's talk about it again from a true expert why it is so brilliant to transfer to nasal breathing whilst running, particularly whilst running nice slow runs particularly and why we should consider doing it, because it's a process and it's not easy, but why is it worth it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's forget about nasal for a second and think about just breathing right. What's really important is the breath rate, right, this is the most important part. When you run, and your efforts, your endurance and your energy system that you're using will be dictated by the breath rate, the respiratory rate. How many breaths per minute do you take? Okay, now, you could do. And the goal is, when you go for an easy run, the goal is to slow down that breath rate. And so if I say in numbers, like, say, I go for an easy run and my breath rate is 20 breaths per minute, pretty good, right, so my goal is to and I run 10 minute mile pace. My goal is to run a 10 minute mile pace, even at a lower breath rate, okay, the reason why we want to slow down the breath rate is because our body will do less work. That's called work of breathing. Our body is going to use less energy. Our body is going to be more efficient. Our body is going to go longer. Okay, so now how do we decrease that breath rate? You can breathe through your mouth. You can breathe through your nose, right, you can do both. Oftentimes, people do both. Um, now the, the, the benefit of breathing through the nose is that we decrease the breath rate. That it's because it's it's engaging our diaphragm better. It gets us to deep to do to breathe deeper than if we were breathing through the mouth. There is that pressure that gets created at a better, uh, more anatomical, mechanical way. Um, I'm not talking even about benefits of the filtration, the humidity and all the old factories and then the benefits of the filtration, the humidity and all the olfactory and then the connection between the brain and the brain flow and cerebral flow and all these things. I'm just talking about deeper breaths. So our breaths are deeper when we breathe through the nose, which makes our breath rate slower because we're going to take deeper breaths and less of them. So that just makes sense.
Speaker 2:If you try to breathe through the mouth and decrease that breath rate, it's possible, but maybe not as easy to achieve as if you would do that with the nose breathing With ultra running. I want to say it's even more beneficial because when you breathe through the nose, you're losing less of um, uh, humidity, like if you try to fog your glass with the mouth. You breathe on the glass, there is a lot of fog, you breathe through the nose and there is less fog, so you're losing less of humidity. And one of the reasons why people fail ultramarathons or don't finish ultramarathons is dehydration. And so if we know and we can breathe through the nose most of the times when we can, we actually are preserving more water in our systems.
Speaker 2:So why people don't do that? Because it makes sense, right, it makes sense. There is no discussion like around oh, is that right or is that not right? No, that's exactly right. Anatomically, biomechanically, nose breathing is more beneficial.
Speaker 2:Now people don't do that because it's harder and there are so many things that can go potentially kind of wrong from our upbringing as children. Like you know, when we breathe like I've been a mouth breather my whole childhood and so I would sleep with my mouth wide open like this, right, so my sinuses aren't really well developed. So, in fact, like one of my sinuses, I think, is constructed like um, so I have, I breathe actually less oxygen through one of my nostrils, which doesn't help me because obviously my airways in my uh, through my mouth, are bigger. So I would get more oxygen naturally, but, um, the problem was like people don't adapt to it because it takes time. And because it takes time you probably could kiss your personal records goodbye for a while. You can kiss all your runs with your groups and friends for a while, because you're going to be out of breath if you breathe through your nose. There is a lot going on there that people have to sacrifice to get adapted to nasal breathing, but once they do, it's actually a really good place to have that tool. I think about it like not as black and white, like okay, you got to breathe through the nose all the time. Right, it's just widens your tools, widens your options that you can be a nasal breather or you can be a or a mouth breather, or you can combine the two. You have options that you can choose from and that makes you all around just a more um, you know, flexible individual, a flexible athlete.
Speaker 2:My personal journey with nasal breathing was absolutely humbling and very, very hard because I didn't get to do the program that I've done later. Like if I went through my breath science practitioner training first and then transition to nasal breathing, that would be much easier. That's why, like, I want to help athletes to not make mistakes that I've made myself alongside the way while transitioning to nasal breathing, but tell them about all this, mechanics and all the especially the non-metabolic drivers of nasal breathing, right the emotional arousal that comes with it. If I knew that, like I, wouldn't be so hard on myself the way I tried to transition to nasal breathing was just going out for a run one morning and close my mouth and run like that for the entire time I was.
Speaker 2:I came back I had such a headache I didn't know what was going on. I was suffocating. It was a terrible experience. But this is not how you transition, because it's emotional. There's an emotional component to that. And if I knew that there is emotional component, it's not just purely metabolic, it's emotional. I knew that there is emotional component, it's not just purely metabolic, it's emotional. Most of it is emotional 80%. I would have totally titrated it in a different way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting because my husband did just close his mouth and he has been nasal breathing ever since and I'm like, how on earth did you do that? And he's obviously just one of those lucky ones who could just do that for me. That again was not. This was not the story. It took me at least six to eight months to get comfortable with nasal breathing and I like you just try.
Speaker 1:I got very frustrated to start with because it's like why is it so hard? Why is it not working for me? I can't do it and so, yes, similarly, I wished I had known what I know now. And yeah, there is research it's really cool research which shows that your emotional state is is so important. So when we go for a run, it's just one of the most important things is that we can go really relaxed, really calm, really kind of in a good headspace. We don't want to have that idea that it's going to be really hard and really difficult, because it will, because it will be. It will be yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. For people like us who are more emotionally kind of, I guess, dependent on the breathing aspect, is important to know that this is a journey of a lifetime. This is not a journey of, okay, transition over, I'm done, I'm going to always be not breathing through my nose. I realized this is not true. Like transitioning, and breathing is your lifetime thing. There are days when I feel emotionally in a different space and that's where I'm like I have I I notice my breathing changes when I run and I notice that now I feel like more air hunger and I feel my breath rate is higher and I need to involve my mouth a little more than I would usually do, and you know what. And I used to be like very judgmental about that for myself and I now learned self-compassion about it because it is a life journey. It is a life journey and there are days where nasal breathing isn't easy, right, for whatever reason, and it's okay, yeah, and it's other days it's.
Speaker 1:It feels so much easier, and you're right, and I've had. It's taken me a long time to realize this, not to beat myself up on the days where it feels really hard.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's all right, it's just one of those days exactly.
Speaker 2:You know, I've, I've picked up golf. Um, funny enough, I never thought I'm going to pick up golf. I always thought like, oh I'm, you know, I'm so bad at it. I just I'm. I'm not good at golf at all, right, but I've picked up golf because I wasn't good at it. And then I'm practicing my swing. You know, what golf teaches me every day is self-compassion. And have self-compassion and accepting your mistakes and your imperfections and say it's okay. Okay, today maybe it's not a nasal breathing day, but tomorrow will be and it's fine and it's okay. You out there, you are aware that is already. 99 of people aren't aware, and the fact that you are aware is already a big step. And so working step by step in a very incremental self-compassion way is what I'm trying to teach myself, because we are so hard on ourselves all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh, we are so hard. So yeah, a little self-compassion goes a very, very very long way For anyone who is curious about nasal breathing. What would you suggest is a good way to explore it? To start, for someone who might actually think okay, I might give this a go. Where would you start? Ala, I might give this a go.
Speaker 2:Where would you start Alla Assuming that they are already kind of nasal, breathed statically like at rest right.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, that's a good point. Yes, and that is one of the first step is to make sure that your functional breathing everyday breathing is nasal. Yes, that's another caveat here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say something that is probably not being talked a lot about but it's so important is get your nasal breathing capacity assessment. You can do it yourself, like is your nose working? My nose wasn't working and so part of my frustration was that I didn't know that I have allergies going and I didn't know I had obstruction going and so I was trying to push my transition and it just wouldn't work. And then once I went to the doctor and the doctor made an assessment on me and said, oh, you know, you have mild allergies going and you have obstruction on your left nostril, I was like, oh, now it makes sense. So I've had like a nasal spray that I use to help my nose open up and I use sometimes at the beginning I used nasal strips to help opening up that obstructed space on the left. Um, so I would, if I were, if I were new to nasal breathing at in during exercise, I would definitely go get some sort of assessment myself as well, or go to the doctor and get assessed, like how well is your nasal breathing generally right, and if it's all good, then you just go and you try in increments, go and just stay curious about what happens and let the breath pace you let. Leave the watching at home. Don't look at the data, like, because your heart rate will go up. If you're stressed about nasal breathing because that's how what happened to me I would like nasal breeze. Look at my watch. My watch would show my heart rate going up about 10% more than usual and I would get freaked out and I would not like it and my pace would go down and seeing all those numbers would just make me feel like, oh, my run is not going well, leave your watch at home, or at least with these watches now you can create really nice faces where you don't expose any data. That's what I do when I go for runs. I create a face that only shows me elapsed time and distance. That's it. It doesn't show me my heart rate, it doesn't show me my pace, it doesn't show me anything. That is that's going to distract me from my experience.
Speaker 2:And just do it like five minutes at a time, like go close your mouth, start breathing and you feel like air hunger and like, okay, you feel air hunger. What comes up like? Become curious about emotions during that time and start like kind of scanning your emotional state more than your physical, because that's where the most thing will help you is the emotions. So become curious about emotions and then, if it gets harder, slow down the pace. Like let the breath pace you, don't let other things pace you. Your breath is your best pacer. And so if you struggle with that, try like, breathe, breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth, right, uh, letting that co2 a little um, offloading a little more, uh than just through the nose. So that will help also. Just have self-compassion. Yeah, just increments.
Speaker 1:I think a big, a big misconception with this is that people feel that air hunger is because we don't have enough oxygen to breathe. The thing is to remember that that air hunger isn't due to lack of oxygen. We have plenty of oxygen in our blood. If you were to put a pulse oximeter on your finger, you probably would see that you've got plenty of oxygen in your blood. What that air hunger is, it's a build-up of carbon dioxide that is your stimulus to breathe, because your body's obviously working harder, so you are offload you need to offload more carbon dioxide. So it's about this is why we try and reduce our sensitivity to carbon dioxide Improve tolerance, improve our tolerance. So that is simply all it is. It's just about being able to manage that, to manage that feeling and improve, and so over time and it does work if you can just really manage that air hunger just for a little bit longer each time that, each time you go, you'll notice that you have more and more tolerance to that feeling, less sensitivity, and it really really helps.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So little steps, understanding that air hunger is just a sensation, like any sensation. It's perceived, yeah. So if it's perceived, you can change it. And if you can change it, that means it's it's something you can control. And so knowing that you are in full control of that air hunger sensation will give you this understanding of like okay, this is not something that you're broken, or like your physiology cannot tolerate higher levels of CO2. No, this is something that you can work with.
Speaker 1:Just like stress is perceived, it's a matter of training that perception, training your sensory system, training those emotions, the whole system to tolerate it better, yeah, and just staying, and staying really calm, really relaxed, and just reminding yourself how that you are calm, you are relaxed, I find really really helps as well.
Speaker 1:Really, I suppose the message to people listening is that ultimately, if you can run more mindfully, ultimately you're going to enjoy it more. And what I find with all exercise actually which I do, where I even if I breathe through my mouth, if I've done something which is quite high intensity, as soon as I can I will start breathing through my mouth. If I've done something which is quite high intensity, as soon as I can I will start breathing through my nose again. What I find, compared to people around me, is that I recover so much more quickly to everybody else I'm not kind of panting in the same way that everybody else is and it really does just aid every aspect of working out your body. And I don't know I, I just really enjoy exercise. I think more because of it I feel more in control of, of, of. Yeah, I feel more in control because I can control my breathing better.
Speaker 1:It's that whole gearing system, isn't it? It's that you know, when you breathe through your nose, you know you're in control. If you have to open your mouth a little bit or breathe in through your nose, out to your mouth, you know that. Okay, I'm pushing it a little bit more. And then if you have to go fully to breathe into your mouth, you know that you're nearly at the end of your your. You know your full on capacity so yeah, it's, it's a really powerful thing to explore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know many people don't realize that breathing is very connected to the energy system that you're using. So you could either use carbohydrates as a fuel, or you can use fat as a fuel, or you can, or most of the times you're going to use both interchangeably, like depending on the speed and effort you go. But if you prefer nasal breathing and you breathe through the nose, you're going to burn more of a fat than you're going to burn carbohydrates. So if you're trying to lose weight and run, you got to breathe through your nose.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm conscious of time, ala, so let's just bring this back to what this podcast is all about. So menomorphism, as I mean, you're 10 years younger than me, but you're still a woman in midlife, ella, from the wisdom that you have gained throughout this whole well, throughout your whole life, and particularly at this stage of your life, I'm curious if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker 2:I feel like life works in seasons, um, and each life stage comes with its own lessons. So when we are in our 30s, um, the life lesson and the season would be very different from when you are 40, and and 40s you're probably going to have a different season and and stage, as if you are 50 and so on, um. So what advice I would give myself when I was younger is to reach out to more people to get help in terms of mentorship, coaching, um, you don't need to figure it out all yourself. That's what I would tell myself, because I didn't know, I guess, or I don't know why, but I would never really consider hiring a coach, hiring a mentor, hiring someone who can give me all the tools, all the shortcuts they've made mistakes on. Like that I don't have to.
Speaker 2:Um, I just thought I know everything myself, or like that's my experience and I'm gonna go through that, and I made so many mistakes along the way which are super valuable mistakes that I now can teach people not to make. Um. So I think if you are in younger or if you are older or whatever, I think it applies to any age release, reach out to people, hire them, uh, work with other people who can help you be efficient, more efficient than you are, to find the tools you need to do, to find to get you where you need to get. I wouldn't say faster, because it's not, it's not really about time. I would say more with more grace and more less effort, with more joy too amazing, ala.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Your depth of knowledge is very impressive. It's always so lovely to chat to you and I'm sure the listeners have really picked up so much from this conversation and maybe even inspired someone to go and put their trainers on, get outside, leave their, their running watch and their music behind and um and really enjoy their run. So thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, polly.