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
Thursday Thoughts - How are YOU breathing?
On this week’s Thursday's Thoughts, Lucy and I dive into the work I (Polly) do and discuss the topic of breathing.
Yes, we are all breathing all of the time but the question is how are you breathing?
We explore why so many of us aren’t breathing as efficiently as we could be, why that really matters, and how it could be affecting your energy, stress levels, and overall wellbeing.
We also chat about the tell-tale signs to watch for - and how to figure out whether your breathing is actually helping or quietly harming you.
If you’d like to download your own free Breath Check-Up or any of my other offers, go to https://www.pollywarren.com
Enjoy!
Love Polly & Lucy xx
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/
Hello and welcome to Thursday Thoughts. Thursday Thoughts what on earth are they? I hear you ask. Well, my friend Lucy and I meet every week over on Instagram to talk all things personal growth, because she is as obsessed with it as I am, and we decided that we might as well put those conversations out as a weekly podcast. So now you can listen to us chat here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and we'll be talking about topics such as spirituality, limiting beliefs, the ego imposter syndrome, gratitude, meditation, confidence and so much more. So if you're ready, here we go.
Speaker 2:Basically, what we've decided is that this week I'm going to ask you questions about yourself and what you do and your offerings and who you serve, and then next week you're going to ask me the same. So so basically, just can you just start by telling our watchers, slash listeners, who you are and what you do?
Speaker 1:It sounds like blind date, doesn't it? God, it sounds like blind date, doesn't it? Where did you come from? So I, yeah, so I mean, I've kind of morphed. It's so funny because I started primarily in this wellness world, starting with women in perimenopause and menopause and really helping with that. But what I discovered is that so many of the people I was working with really struggled with stress and, as we know, stress is a massive exacerbator of menopause symptoms, of all symptoms. You know, like 80% of doctors visits are down to stress. So now what I do and I really, really love it and I've really sort of honed in to that- area.
Speaker 1:I help people to breathe better, and when people breathe better, it helps you sleep better, it helps reduce your stress levels, it helps you to move through life with more ease and it really brings down so many, so many issues menopause symptoms, the lot. It's great. So that generally, in a nutshell, is what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Polly, can you go into a bit more detail about why the way that we breathe is so important? Because obviously, breathing is something that we do without thinking about it 24-7. But so I think you know anyone who really doesn't have a clue about the benefits of learning to breathe properly or breath work or anything like that. Can you just tell us a little bit about that, or breath work or anything like that? Can you just tell us a little bit about that, how we don't even realise the negative impacts of us not breathing properly and also what it means to breathe properly day to day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a bit of a crazy one, isn't it? Because we're all breathing all of the time and some people just go oh my god, but I'm breathing, I'm alive.
Speaker 1:And yes, you're alive, you're breathing. We take something like 20,000 breaths every single day, but what I'm looking at is how you are breathing. So actually, there's two different parts of your brain responsible for your breathing. There's one part which is just like the ventilator, which just keeps you breathing, which we're all you know, which is kind of we're all doing. But there's another part of your brain which is responsible for how you breathe. So that's responsible for how fast or slow you breathe and the depth of your brain, your, your breath, and that part can be changed according to different circumstances, different experiences, and that's so breath becomes, breathing becomes a behavior. So, although we're all breathing, how you breathe is varied according to your own personal experience. So I like to think about it in a way a bit like kind of either a bit like your Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:So if we've all got really good functioning Wi-Fi, we don't even notice it. Everything's working really smoothly, everything's really really smoothly, everything's really super efficient. It's all great. But when it's glitchy, it feels really frustrating and annoying. Things aren't quite working, things are laggy, it's annoying and your breath is a bit like it's like the same. So if you're breathing efficiently, you don't even notice it. You're moving through life. You're so much with so much more ease when you work out it. You're moving through life. You're so much with so much more ease you're work you, when you work out, you're working out really efficiently. You're sleeping better, you're, you're calmer.
Speaker 1:But if you aren't breathing efficiently in your day-to-day life it is like literally wi-fi. You're going to become more breathless during exercise. You're going to have more disruptive sleep. You're not going to get such good quality sleep. You're going to have more disruptive sleep. You're not going to get such good quality sleep. You're going to feel more stressed, more anxious. You're going to be more irritable. You're going to react to situations in a way that perhaps you would rather not. You know you might fart the handle and it really your breath really is like the anchor to everything and it just hasn't really been widely discussed enough not, like you know, diet and exercise and sleep, which are really the foundations of good health.
Speaker 1:But breathing is really so important and it's thankfully it's now getting out there thanks to a few people like james nestor's book breathe and patrick mckeown's done a huge amount of work with the oxygen advantage. Um and well, there's so many more people out there. I've done an amazing training recently, um, with uh martin mcfillany, which is all to do with really in-depth science of breathing. So there's a big spectrum when it comes to breathing. So there's the everyday functional breathing, which something like I mean, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So many of us are not breathing efficiently and that is something which I think really you know is the place to start is to focus on how you're breathing every day. Some crazy statistic which was taken from the oxygen advantage something like 75 percent of people who have anxiety, who suffer with anxiety, percent of people who have anxiety who suffer with anxiety, are breathing inefficiently and not breathing as well as they could. And yet when you, when you actually train your breathing which is completely possible training you can reduce that anxiety by 50 percent. Like that people I've worked with I can, I can make, I can track their. You know lots of different markers and how they are, and I can see that their stress levels come down by 50% just by changing the way that they breathe, because everything's connected.
Speaker 1:How you breathe is like a remote control to your nervous system. So if you are breathing really well in the way that we're meant to be, so if you're breathing low, slow, with your through your nose then it is. It's kind of keeping you in your parasympathetic state. If you then go into a stress state, you can then return easily back after that stress is over. We're all going to get stressed at some point, but you can then return back. The problem is because many of us are breathing inefficiently because we're all going to get stressed at some point, but you can then return back.
Speaker 1:The problem is because many of us are breathing inefficiently because we're also stressed because we might have past, have had past traumas, or you know, our breath can change for many different reasons. Then it's constantly sending signals back to your brain that you are in that stress state, and so you're constantly in that elevated state. So your body's pumping out extra glucose than it needs to. It's keeping your mind busy, and so the moment you change your breath, though, and you you start retraining it, you start retraining that behavior. It's literally signaling to your brain and your body oh, I'm safe, I'm okay, and it can take you out of that stress one.
Speaker 1:So it really is such a quick and effective way. Rather than just trying to think your way out of stress. Your, your breath can do it so much more easily, uh. So yeah, that's one massive part of it, but it's sleep is a big area. Exercise is obviously a big area as well, and it's about you know use, not just about the oxygen we take in. It's how do we use that oxygen once we've taken it into our body where?
Speaker 2:where are we? Where are we going wrong, mainly? Or where are the? Where are the majority? I mean, can you say like the vast majority of people are doing this and this is, and this is why it's wrong and this is how it's negatively impacting us?
Speaker 1:well, the vast majority of people are breathing high up into their chest. They're not using their breathing muscles efficiently. So our primary breathing muscle is our diaphragm. It's massive. It's like a massive muscle underneath your ribs which is really really important in breathing, but a lot of us aren't using it properly because we're all breathing from high up into our chest. So a really good test you can do is literally place one hand on your chest, one hand on your belly, and if your chest hand moves first, before your belly, then that means you're predominantly breathing up from your chest and that means your diaphragm isn't being used effectively, which means that you're over-breathing, you're breathing out too much carbon dioxide, which basically means that you're not using oxygen effectively, and then that's keeping in your stress response. You're not getting oxygen to the working muscles, to your brain. You know our brain is a huge amount of oxygen.
Speaker 1:If you're not using it properly, then you're going to get foggy brain, your heart's not going to be working as efficiently. Um, and you know, exercise is a big one. With this, you know, I I get quite, actually quite obsessed. You watch people exercising, literally panting through their mouth, and that is just going to make everything so much harder in the long run. It's fine to breathe in out of your mouth if you are literally in that zone five of exercising when you're really pushing it, but actually you are. You're. It's just much more efficient to slow everything down. Breathe through your nose, try and get that, that breath lower.
Speaker 1:So that is why, lucy, I have created so people, because I think the first step really is understanding how you're breathing.
Speaker 1:You know, many of us don't know, we don't even realize how we're breathing, we don't know about it. So that is why I have created something called the breath checkup, which I just thought is really useful, just to find out how are you breathing, is it as efficiently as it could be? And there's three really simple steps and checks that you can take. So it's like I've just created a tiny little mini video series takes 15 minutes in total, so it's really, really short and at the end you'll have a really really good understanding of how you're breathing and where you can make some improvements, and so that, I think, is really important. It's really focusing first of all on just how you're breathing every day, and then you can start to actually start improving that, and it doesn't take long. It's a behavior, like any behaviors we need to practice, but you can start improving it, and once then your breathing is more efficient, you can then start using your breath in other ways, um and to to get to, to kind of maximize it even further and how do people get?
Speaker 2:the breath test is free, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's free, so they can come to um. So it's on my website. Polywarrencom is on my website. You'll find it there, or you can go polywarrencom breath checkup. So it's free. It's really simple, but it's actually really.
Speaker 2:It will really give you a very clear indication of how you're breathing and and how else do you sort of serve your clients like what do? How do you tend to work with women who are having issues or who are, who are super stressed and wanting to basically feel better in their lives? Yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 1:So the breath checkup, the next step from there, which is a really low, if you know, really low cost offer, so for 37 pounds. Another little video series I've got which is like listening to a podcast. It's about 45 minutes in total, but the best thing about that so that's going to teach you really good breathing mechanics, breathing biochemistry. It's really it's not rocket science, but you do need to know how to do it properly. But the best thing about that offer is then there's five recordings where it progressively takes you through some breathing practice, like 10 minutes each, and then you'll progressively slow your breath down, you, and these will really help you if you work through them. So that's a really good place to go.
Speaker 1:If you want to work one-to-one with me which I love working one-to-one, and this is really good for people who might have you know I tend to work with a lot of people with anxiety, with quite severe, you know, with issues with anxiety. I really can help you through breathing but also through lots of other tools which I've got. So I've got lots of coaching tools and I've trained in hypnotherapy and EFT lots of different things People can come and work with me one to one. We have about eight weeks I would recommend. And we can really really help to bring stress levels down, anxiety levels down, help to improve sleep, we can help to improve breathlessness, exercise and that's really like a really lovely deep dive and we do lots of really lovely practices. We kind of record lots of in the sessions. I always record the practice so that then you can practice that in your own time. So it's that. So that's another avenue.
Speaker 1:And then my other offer, which is one of my faves, is the inner space. So this is a monthly membership. So people pay 27 pounds a month. You can drop in to any of my three three as a number, three sessions a week and or you can listen to the recordings. And what we do there is we really play around with the breath. So we do quite a lot of this functional everyday breathing practice. But we also play around with the breath for energizing, for really chilling out, and a big part of this which is so magical is it's a real space to really sort of go deeper inwards for like more, find that connection with ourselves. Because that's a big part of this. It's about carving out that time and space to go deeper, go inwards, to really create the version of you and step into the version of you that you want to become, and that's what.
Speaker 2:That's a much more powerful side of this um, which I love, can you, can you just speak a little bit more to this, polly, because you know um? I mean, as you know, I do breath work and obviously you're talking about two different things here. You've've got the sort of everyday breathing and are we breathing correctly or not? And then also these breathwork sessions where you're doing intentional breathwork for, you know, 15 or 20 minutes or whatever it is. Why do we do that and how can that? Because that's what you do in the inner space. Right, you do a 20 minute session Monday, wednesday, friday, 7.30 in the morning, isn't it? Is that right? Yeah, yeah, so that, right, you do a 20 minute session.
Speaker 1:Monday, wednesday, friday 7, 30 in the morning, isn't it? Is that right? Yeah, yeah so you just so that is a breath work session.
Speaker 1:How, how is that helping? How can that help help people? So ultimately, what it does is we always start with a little bit of a dropping, so we probably about four minutes. We just literally drop into the body. So we get out of the mind into the body. So it's amazing if you are super busy, you're someone who is really struggling to switch off and you find that you are just constantly reacting to life. This is and people have to be ready to come into this because it's so funny a lot of stress. People I talk to I'm like, oh, this would be a really great thing for you, but they're not ready yet to carve out that space and time for themselves. So people have to be ready to be able to do that. But I think once you experience it and once you realize, oh, my goodness, the magic that it brings and the the space that it gives you allows you to actually move through life with so much more ease, get actually more done afterwards, so we drop it, uh, to our bodies and it's.
Speaker 1:It's quite you know, it's not too woo, although I love a bit of woo. It's kind of just. I always play really lovely music and then we do about eight minutes of some sort of breathing. So it might be a real functional breath to help improve our carbon dioxide tolerance or our air tolerance to that feeling of air hunger. It might be more of an energizing breath to bring in lots of energy. It might be a breath which is going to really help you release and let go of stuff. It's eight minutes's all it is, but what we do after that is often we'll do some holds, breath holds that really help you, which I just love.
Speaker 1:How I do let's go to inward and really connect with you, with your absolute core essence. And we, how often do we do that? We never do that. And that is when you can start peeling back all the layers of shit we've piled up on ourselves which you know social conditioning, whatever and actually remind ourselves of who we are. And those moments are so, so amazing. And then after that, we tend to do about a four or five or six depending minute just really lovely meditation, just, really still, just to let ourselves enjoy all the sensations and the feelings in the body which we've created, the energy, the aliveness in our body which we've created, and that's it. And then afterwards everyone feels bloody amazing and they feel more spacious.
Speaker 1:And what the biggest feedback I get from is it's not just the sessions you feel great after a session but it's the cumulative effect, the practice of doing this on a, you know, consistently. It just helps you move through life with more ease. It helps you, as know, to respond instead of react, and that is, for me, such a big part of it. It allows you, it gives you that space between those triggers which normally you kind of go ah, and you kind of have a big old freak out with life and actually it gives you that. It just allows you to stop yourself from reacting in that moment and just go. Oh my goodness, I actually have space here to respond in a way that is a bit more thoughtful and remain calm. I feel more in control Since I've been doing this. Honestly, I feel just so much more at peace with myself.
Speaker 1:It's kind of quite that inner freedom within which is ultimately, I think, what we're all seeking at the end of the day. Whatever we are looking for in terms of wellness, we're seeking that feeling of inner peace, inner freedom, and for me, these sessions bring that. And you know the breath is so powerful. So, yes, but I would say so I a lot of people who join. You know I always give variations in the breath, but breathing efficiently 24 hours a day is always for me now so important, and I think a lot of breath work, facilitators and instructors don't focus on that, and A lot of people are doing these quite high intensity breathwork sessions when really their nervous system is totally hyped up and ramped up and ready and it's not really going to serve them that well. What we need to do first of all is bring themselves right down, use the breath to calm down the nervous system, and then these more powerful sessions can be effective after that.
Speaker 2:And then these more powerful sessions can be effective after that. What are a couple of just very simple breaths, that sort of? If you're going to do some kind of breath work, you know, in the morning, first thing in the morning oh, polly, are you there? Yes, okay, sorry, yes, it was whirring. Yeah, if you're going to do just a very simple breath pattern, say first thing in the morning, what is something that you can do? That is just easy and it's going to just start your day off in a kind of a relaxed, calm way, for example, okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to give you something which anybody can do, because this is going to be good. So just breathing in and out through your nose and what I would do is maybe just start by putting your hands around the bottom two ribs and as you're breathing in we don't want to be breathing in a huge amount of air, but just breathing in a gentle amount of air and just feeling your belly gently rise and your ribs feeling your ribs expand in a 360 lateral way. So just bringing your mind and focusing your mind on that movement. So breathing in through the nose, feeling the belly gently rise, the ribs gently expand, and then, as you gently exhale, feeling the ribs contract and the belly fall, and just slowing down your breathing, just seeing how slow you can make it and feeling a slight kind of that feeling that you want to take a slightly bigger breath, but not a gasp of breath. So that is the way I would start and just enjoying that it.
Speaker 1:For me, it can be a bit boring unless you've got some really lovely music, which is why I always do use music, because when you've got music it's really calming, it really helps you just to enjoy the sensations.
Speaker 1:Um, so that, I think is really important. Um, and that would be a good one, you know, for people who, I think, some of the signs to look out for if you might be thinking, gosh, am I breathing efficiently? And you know this would be a great practice for you, you know, if you're, if you do find that you mouth breathe, if you know that you snore, if you wake up with a dry mouth in the morning, that's an indication that perhaps you're breathing it through your mouth at night. If you've got really tight, tense shoulders and the back, it's an indication perhaps you're using these muscles up here, which really are your kind of emergency breathing muscles, more than your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles in your, in your ribs. If you're, if you're really stressed and irritable, those are other really good signs that perhaps breathing isn't as good as it could be how?
Speaker 2:how can you control, though, how you're breathing at night, like I mean, apart from putting tape over your mouth? But let you know, let's assume that most people probably aren't going to do that. Like realistically, how, how can you? Because I sometimes wonder, god, I have no idea whether I breathe through my nose or through my mouth at night. I have no idea.
Speaker 1:So I've kind of slightly changed my opinion on this, because so the Oxygen Advantage, they talk about mouth taping quite a lot, and so did James Nestor in his book. I would say, though, first, because you just don't know how someone might someone's nose might be. You know they might have issues with their nose. Uh, you just don't know where someone's coming from. So I would always say how you breathe during the day is absolutely going to impact how you breathe at night the first place to start really is focusing on how you're breathing during the day.
Speaker 1:If you feel like you've got your breathing nailed in the day but you still think your mouth breathing at night, absolutely look into perhaps and you are a very healthy individual, I'm going to put that in there if you are, if you feel like you haven't got any issues, then absolutely you can think about um, taping your mouth. Now you don't necessarily have to tape, put something over your mouth. You can now get these strips like my, okay, which you can put around your mouth, which gently keep your mouth shut, but you can still open and close your mouth because actually, if you've got a sleep problem you know things like sleep apnea or you you have to sort of still make sure that you can actually breathe out of your mouth otherwise it can be dangerous.
Speaker 1:So I actually put some mouth tape on the other night because I'm kind of curious. I don't think I've. I think I breathe through my nose, but I just wanted to try it out and actually it's really it stayed on all night. It was fine. It wasn't uncomfortable. So that's something to think about. But I would really focus on how your breathing through the day first, because that will impact, and it was also will impact how you, how you exercise as well.
Speaker 2:Polly any sort of before we start thinking about wrapping up any any sort of top tips that you would have for people who are wanting to. You know, particularly those people who are, who know that they are really anxious, have really sort of high anxiety. And actually, one thing I'll just add is that, since I have been regularly doing breath work and and meditation as well I'm big in terms of I love doing my long meditations actually, and I find that the more I meditate, the more I love it and the more I can like like I've started finding more and more recently that when I meditate and I'm when I'm and I always start with a bit of breath work, but I normally start with like five or 10 minutes of breath work and then then I go into a much longer meditation and what I absolutely love is when I realize that I can't feel my hands anymore because I'm so in it I can't feel my hand. I love it and I've no and I 100% have noticed a reduction in not only my sort of generalized anxiety. That isn't to say I never get anxious, I absolutely do, and I have certain things about me that I am.
Speaker 2:I am prone to anxiety and various things which I won't go into. But I've noticed not only has that improved, but also, like you were talking about earlier, the way that I react to situations and people in my jet, my daily life. I'm just don't get half as wound up as I used to. I'm so much more chilled and I know that is from consistently doing breathwork sessions and from doing meditation. But for people who are aware that they are super anxious a lot of the time, is there anything that you can just give them to take away? That is going to start? You know, help them or a place to start.
Speaker 1:Basically, yeah, well, come and do the breaststroke up, because that would be a really good place to start to understand, because then that gives you a benchmark, a starting point, because you actually will get a pause and you get a benchmark and you'll be able to then improve it. I would then, I mean I really would come and do the breathe better basics course, which is the low cost offer, because that is going to teach you how to breathe well and what we're doing, what we want to try and do if you are really really anxious, it's about just breathe, improving your breathing mechanics, the muscles which you are using, the mechanics of your respiratory system, how you're breathing. But also we want to reduce the amount of air that you're breathing. But you can only do that if you are using the correct muscles to breathe. So, and you know, we can actually use some some very short breath holds as well, because actually that's going to help as well.
Speaker 1:So it's hard to kind of to tell someone how to breathe when you know in a nutshell, because actually there are a few little processes to go through. So I really would go and do the breathe, the breath jack up, and then go and do the course um, which is only 37 quid, but it will literally guide you through and then you've got things to practice and I promise, you, promise, you, promise you, it makes a difference. It will bring anxiety levels down, it will help you be more present in your body. You know. The benefits really are endless.
Speaker 2:Polly anything else that you want to tell people about before we wrap up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean's. It is amazing that how breathing.
Speaker 2:I mean, I could you know? I never thought I was going to go into breathing.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how I've ended up here, but because I've learned so much about about how we breathe. How we breathe affects so much. It's just it's such a massive topic and yet it's so damn powerful and I'm not going to say it's going to cure everything. It's not going to cure your anxiety, but it is it's. But if you've got issues with anything, this is like a really good foundation. It is. It's like eating well.
Speaker 1:It's like well, you've got to be breathing well, and if you're breathing well and then see what you need next you know it's so fundamental to good health, to good sleep and, to be honest, unless you are breathing well, you're not going to be getting that good sleep, and we all know that sleep is an incredibly important foundation for good health. But sleep is also an incredibly important foundation for good health, so they kind of go so hand in hand. And, particularly as midlife women, as we get older, the number of people who suffer with sleep issues, sleep disorders, goes up. And one other thing which goes up is the number of women who suffer with something called sleep apnea, which is when we kind of hold our breath for little times through the night, which means it does not get any oxygen around your body. And the reason for that is because, as we go through menopause, we lose muscle tone and our breathing here all like you know, all pipes, here they're all muscle, so they're more likely to collapse as we are breathing, so your tongue falls back in your throat and then you're more susceptible to sleep apnea, which is a real issue and that can then cause heart problems and all sorts of issues.
Speaker 1:So, particularly for women in midlife, this is really. It's such a simple fix. You know, it's not rocket science and the reason we don't know about it is because, you know big pharmaceutical companies can't make huge amounts of money out of it, but we all have it. It's something which we all do all of the time. It's free. It's just knowing how to use it. That's all we need to do. We need to know how to use it to our benefit and you will feel the difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, polly warren, this was your life I mean, you know it's funny, isn't it?
Speaker 1:when you get onto your subject it's kind of like yeah, I love it, I love it, I love it, and it's um, yeah, thank you, it's been really fun talking about, talking about what I do absolutely well.
Speaker 2:We'll be back. We'll be back on monday um we'll be all about you exactly, um, but in the meantime, thanks for listening, um, or watching those who are watching on instagram, and we'll be back, for I mean this is obviously tuesday today, but we'll be back on monday for another Monday Motivation. See you later, love. Have a good day.
Speaker 1:Bye, see you later. Bye, bye, bye.