Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
and today I've got special guest Justin Turnus on the line.
He is a master of all things breath work.
We dive into breathing. We dive into how to optimize the
parasympathetic state, to talk about proper posture and how
that has such a profound impact on proper breathing.
We talk about other tactics, techniques and tips you can
incorporate throughout the day to just simply improve your
overall health and well-being, your blood flow, your movement
patterns, your psychology, your Physiology, just all these good
things. So thoroughly enjoy the
conversation. Really enjoyed meeting him.
He's actually in my same area of Arkansas.
So we're going to be linking up and doing some things in person
going forward. I've got no doubt he is big into
cold plunging and cold therapy as well as am I so excited to
learn more about that and just keep the conversation going.
So I've got no doubt that he will take something from this
without further delay. Sit back, relax, enjoy the
podcast with Justin and we are Live.
Justin, how are you, brother? Doing great.
How are you? I'm good, man, I'm good.
So we got connected through another one of my podcast guest
and he said that he had come down to Arkansas, spent some
time doing some breath work with you and then I'm like, well,
shoot, man, I'm in Arkansas. Where's, where's this guy
located? And then we just before we start
a recording here, we find out we pretty much went to college at
the same time together. We're living literally within
about an hour of each other right now, all in Northwest
Arkansas. So we're practically neighbors,
man. We are neighbors.
Ozark Mountains are the the place to be.
They are indeed. I feel like Northwest Arkansas
is kind of like all of the good things Austin, TX is, but small
enough that it's not crazy like Austin, TX is getting.
I hear the same from many people who move here from Austin.
Sorry. Yeah, from Austin.
There's a lot of transplants, a lot of energy in the area.
So it's really cool to be in Northwest Arkansas at this
moment in time and for many years ahead.
Lots to come. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully not
too many people listen to this podcast and decide to move here
though. So we don't we don't get it too
dispersed too quickly here. Well, awesome, man.
I, I want to dive into to you your Forte.
I feel like from what I gathered from my last podcast as podcast
guest that was talking about you, you are an expert in all
things breath work. So that is something that I've
taken a keen interest in. I feel like there's a, you know,
massive benefit to being in that parasympathetic state more often
than not. So what got you going down that
rabbit hole, man? I'm I'm curious.
Yeah, to start, I'm a physical therapist.
So I have my doctorate of physical therapy, got that about
eight years ago. So I've been practicing since.
And in practicing as a physical therapist, well, first in
physical therapy, learning physical therapy, you get a
strong foundation of Physiology, body anatomy, and then stress,
injury and rehabilitation and how the body can heal.
So I had this foundation and understanding of the physical
body. And as I started practicing with
patients, I recognized that a lot of them were holding stress
energetically. And it didn't matter how well
our physical therapy practice was, if they were stressed or
tight or tense, we weren't finding effective movement.
And so naturally started inviting breathing and deep
breath as most do. If you see a friend that's
stressed or a family member stressed, often the very
intuitive human responses, hey, take a breath and it feels good,
even just taking one breath. And so I noticed that that was
an effective tool. And in conjunction with that, in
my own personal life, I discovered Wim Hof.
And this is back in 2016 when I first discovered Wim Hof.
And that was a new philosophy and a new practice.
And before discovering Wim Hof, I was interested in meditation
and I had learned and seen research and papers and studies
on the benefits of meditation for the mind and the brain.
So I got into meditation. Then I learned about Wim Hof and
practiced the Wim Hof method, and that took my meditation
practice to another level. And it all just clicked.
And so I started translating my own personal practice of
breathing for stress relaxation reduction.
And I brought that into my clinic and the outcomes were
amazing. The response I got from patients
was pretty significantly good and positive.
And so started implementing that with most all of my patients,
how to breathe bigger and better.
And then everything tied together, which was the
background in physical therapy and the breathing mindfulness
practice. And so now everything how I
practice is very much breath work focused.
And we can go into that more. But that's how I got started.
And once COVID hit, I started doing online breath work classes
to help everyone who was stressed chill out.
And during COVID, I realized there are a lot more stressed
out humans than injured humans. So since then I've been really
80% breath work coaching, which has opened up into mindset
performance coaching, executive coaching, and 20% physical
therapy. So still practicing, but most of
my energy and attention is in the breath workspace.
And so that's where I'm at now. I love it, man.
Let's definitely peel the curtain back and dive a little
deeper. So as it pertains to people just
being stressed out, like on a chronic scale, do you feel like
that has gotten, you know, consistently worse since you've
been focusing more on breath work and relaxation?
Like, is that something that you've seen trending in the
wrong direction since you've been doing this?
Well, I'm, I'm, I haven't been doing it long, only eight years
or so of physical therapy and five years of teaching breath
work and looking at stress. And So what it looks like is the
trend started in the 80s with processing food and inefficient
health habits and living patterns.
So the stress, the stress epidemic has been happening for
30 plus years plus big pharma. And in the ways in which we look
at helping and healing the body, we've gotten away from are
natural mechanisms. And so has it gotten worse in
the last five years since I've been practicing?
Yes, obesity is higher than ever, Suicide rates are higher
than ever. Mental illness is higher than
ever, chronic disease is higher than ever.
So absolutely, it's a physiological practice.
Sorry, physiological mechanism, a metabolic problem.
And so breathing isn't a solution, but a powerful tool to
help people understand and realize how important metabolism
is without really understanding what metabolism is.
So I see a big connection between what you do with keto
and what I do with breath work. Keto is going straight into the
core, onto the into the cells to create efficiency.
And breath work is going straight into the core, straight
into the cells to create efficiency.
So, yeah, it's a problem and it's, it's all, it's not, it's
not plateauing at all. It's actually continuing to
rise. And so, but the awareness is
also rising quite significantly. So I see in the near future, in
the next 10 years that increase exponential curve starting to
flatten out and then potentially lowering and seeing a, a maybe a
global regulation of stress and maybe a whole like global
renaissance of health. That's my optimistic hope.
But who? Who's to say who?
Which direction we go? Hey man, well, I'm certainly
hopeful as well. So hopefully things do start
trending in the right direction when that tipping point occurs.
You mentioned that you had gotten into breath work via Wim
Hof, but prior to that you were practicing meditation.
What types of meditation were you doing before focusing on the
breath work? So through a few different
techniques, through physical therapy, school was introduced
to John Cabot Zen Mindfulness Based stress Reduction.
John Cabot Zen is the individual who was hired by Phil Jackson to
teach meditation to the Chicago Bulls and later the Los Angeles
Lakers. And his mindfulness based stress
reduction technique is very focused on body scanning and
slowing your breath and bringing awareness to different points in
body without judgement. And so I was introduced to
meditation through this concept that through mindfulness your
body can heal at a faster rate. And went down that rabbit hole
and learned a ton. And then from there, Tara Brock
emerged on my radar somehow and really found myself drawn to the
way in which she taught meditation.
And so I even to this day, listen to Tara rock on a very
regular basis, practicing her meditations, which bring in a
lot of psyche and emotion and compassion gratitude.
And as we know in research, there's a lot of support that
gratitude practice is and the amplifier of health as well.
And then the final piece was headspace and the in increased
availability of recorded and recorded meditation sessions.
So I started doing headspace with Andy as many have.
And from there, Wim Hof popped in and that just tied everything
together and took my my practice to a completely different level.
I love it, man. I feel like when people hear Wim
Hof, they automatically assume cold plunging.
And there's obviously, you know, a tie in there, but I feel like
Wim Hof is first and foremost a breathing technique and then
that allows for the sustained cold therapy.
Correct. Correct.
And I've had a lot of people. I teach cold immersion as well.
I do a lot of ice bath training. I do a lot of workshops in the
area. You'll have to come to one of my
next events where we do ice bath.
But frequently people will ask, if you had to choose between
breath work and ice bath, what would you choose?
And for me, I'd choose ice bath because there's a forcing you to
learn how to breathe and slow your breath in the ice bath,
right? So you can do the breath.
You can do breath work effectively all day every day.
My true answer is both, obviously.
But if I had to choose one, cold exposure goes straight to the
core of your primal instincts to breathe and find calm and
relaxation, or else you're going to shiver and shake and
potentially get hyper hypothermia, which you likely
won't because of your controlled environment.
But I'm I'm a fan of both. I'm a fan of the combination and
I'm a fan of ice bath without the breath work.
I'm also a fan of breath work without the ice bath.
Gotcha. They all go.
They all go together. So, so since I know that we are
neighbors, we're both in Arkansas here, it's it's
definitely getting pretty hot. And my cold therapy has been a
stock tank that I got from Tractor Supply Co.
I just filled full of cold water.
And during the winter months it's great.
Like, I literally got a bust through, you know, 12 inches of
ice before I can jump in. But during the summertime, it
just becomes a massive, you know, nest for mosquitoes and
attract pollen. What do you do for the cold
plunge during the summer months? You have like a legit like cold
therapy tank. I have a I have a legit tub.
I actually have a couple so I have a stock tank for winter.
I love it. There's a local spring, a
natural spring Creek near my house that I I like to visit
often that's maintains a nice 5560° water temperature
throughout the year. So and even in the summer it'll
be cold. You just have to stay longer
because it's not quite in that forty degree 38° range, but
equally therapeutic and amazing. So I have that accessible and
then for my home ice bath I have at my brother's house, I have a
chest freezer that's been converted.
We did a DIY last year and anytime I hang out with him we
hit that. At my home, I have an Edge tub,
which is an Edge Theory Labs product.
It is a portables ice bath and it has a chiller attached that
you plug in. So you fill the tub with water,
you plug it into the chiller and it circulates at 36° and you can
modify the temperature up to 45°, up to 55.
I really love my Edge unit. I work with Edge and their
company. I'm one of the ambassadors for
their team. I'm one of the Edge coaches as
well. So that's something I do on the
side and but I believe in the product.
It's awesome. So that's the chiller.
And then lastly, I have the stock tank.
And this is what I tell a lot of people is stock tanks.
It might cost 60 bucks for ice to make it cold enough or $100.
That's a lot. So DIY with a Frigidaire chest
freezer, that's a great way to go.
There's just a little bit of elbow grease and time and effort
that you need to put in to make that happen.
But totally worth the price point of like 1000 bucks all set
in time. The upper next level would be
something like the edge tub with the chiller, which runs around
forty, $505,000. And then you have the stock tank
which you fill with tap water and you go to the store and buy
ice and throw it in there. But in the summer in Arkansas,
that's just going to melt quick. Yeah.
So that's a waste of money in my mind.
But if that's, it's, if that's your option, something that I do
recommend is having like a one gallon bucket or something small
or a couple stacked up in your freezer filled with water.
So you can just make your own ice in big chunks and just
constantly rotate that. That seems to work as well.
If you have a garage and you have an A seed area, that's also
going to help. But yeah, I have a few different
options. And then one of my gyms, a lot
of gyms are starting to get ice baths as well.
So it seems like although it's really hot, cold showers are out
the window because the cold showers don't get cold enough
anymore. There's always a way.
If there's a will, there's a way to get cold and get your get
your hit of dopamine. No, I, I love it, man.
I mean, all throughout the winter I was doing it with that
stonk tank and I'd kind of, I don't know if there's a, a right
or wrong way to do it. I probably was doing it the
wrong way, but I started at like, I don't know, 30 seconds
and I would just increase by 15 seconds each week until I was
doing about four minutes at a time consistently first thing in
the morning. And like I say, when it was
cold, I mean, I was literally busting through, you know, 12
inches plus of ice to get to it. So it was definitely in that
cold temperature range. But I want to get a legitimate,
you know, tank for the summer months because I miss having
that phenomena first thing upon waking.
Like it, there's been so many different studies and I've had
lots of people on the podcast talking about all the pros and
cons of of cold therapy. I mean, there, there's some
studies that suggested significantly increases
testosterone, all kinds of physiological phenomenon.
But for me, the psychological benefit in and of itself totally
warrants the the cold plunge on a daily basis.
Like I just like starting the day with that as my precursor to
the day. That's just what I prefer.
It's, it's phenomenal way to start the day for me.
It's pre workout, it's a wake me up, it's a spiritual practice.
It is a me versus me practice. It's it's amazing and
significantly beneficial on so many levels.
So I, I'm a huge advocate and, and if you're interested in a
tub Edge is the way to go. I can give you a link and a
little promo code as well but happy to connect you with that
and and other ways. Anyone anyone interested in ice
baths, I'm I'm an open book. So happy to support and advocate
your mission for health and Wellness through the cold.
Well, I feel like cold plunging has just catapulted in
popularity. I, I guess over the past year
really, I feel like it's really gotten more and more prominent.
What what, what makes the Edge stand apart from the
competition? Because I've been looking at a
bunch of different brands trying to figure out what I want to
get. So sell me on the Edge real
quick. Yes, the quick and dirty on the
Edge and why it is worth the price point in comparison to the
other tubs that might be a little bit cheaper with the
chiller component is the team and the infrastructure of the
organization and the business that Edge has.
They have consumer support, they have, we have coaches, we have
online community. There's an app that just
launched that has guided cold sessions, so you can do a guided
recording and you have recorded audio of you like coaching you
through a cold immersion practice.
So a ton of benefits, But really if anything messes up, you can
call, you can get parts replaced, you can get new units
sent to you. So they're very customer
forward, customer friendly and I from what I've seen in other
businesses and, and cold plunge products when it comes to your
unit messing up and when you reach out, typically you get
arms up like, well, sorry, can't really help you there.
Or you get an extra price tag throwing it, fixing your unit.
So Edge is the leader in the industry.
It won't take long to look them up and just see what they're up
to and how good the business is. But they're a leader for a
reason. They've got some amazing people
on the team. So product speaks for itself.
And and it's definitely like the selling point on that one is
that it is portable. Do you find yourself moving it
that often, or would you be just fine with the stationary 1?
Yeah, yeah. So for me, I like, I'm a ice
bath coach and so I go on, I travel a lot, so it's it's
perfect for me to bring over and do stuff.
But aesthetically, like when I go a few weeks without it and
often my ice bath events are just one offs.
And just like a quick couple hours, so I won't even bring my
edge tub, I'll bring the aluminum tubs, fill them with
ice. They're around a couple 100
bucks for ice. And then I just leave my edge
tub at home. So whereas I thought at one
point it was going to be my like travel companion and it is.
I have a couple of edge tubs for that purpose.
One of them I have just constantly going running.
It's posted up. I've got a nice little build out
around it. It protected from the elements,
looks good. It's quiet so even though it's a
portable unit, mine has stayed fairly stationary and I I've had
zero issues with it. I like it.
Well, I'm definitely excited to
get one and get that back into my, my normal morning routine.
I was doing it, you know, pretty much until just about two weeks
ago. And then, like, all the pollen
fell down and I'm like, man, this is just gross.
And it's not even cold anymore, so what's the point?
Yeah. So I gotta make that set.
Up. Clean that dude out.
Clean that dude out and get a nice little top or the edge
comes with the cover. So obviously that's standard.
Yeah, 100%. Well, let's talk back to yeah,
let's go back to breathwork, man.
So when it comes to breathwork and you now incorporating this
into your physical therapy practice, like I would imagine
that most people, while they inherently know that breathing
is important, obviously, and that there's, you know, like if
you're stressed out, if you just had like a car accident and
nearly missed, you know, an accident, you know, taking a few
moments to breathe like that obviously centres you.
But when it comes to making it like a a structured part of your
day-to-day routine and just overall health practice, where
do most people totally fall short of proper breathing
technically? What are some of the common
denominator issues that you see working with people?
Well, there's a few a few angles to answer that question on.
Behavioral health is becoming a really big sub genre of health
and Wellness, meaning that to have effective change with diet,
with exercise, with breathing, you must structure your day in a
way that you're shifting your habits and you're setting
yourself up for success again. So behaviour influences how
you're living and how you're doing things.
So whether it's breath work or keto or cold plunge or going for
a walk and re implementing walking or jogging or running
into your life, there's going to be some really significant
barriers that are going to make it tough to implement a new
routine. So I also do health coaching,
life coaching. And in that realm, a lot of my
teaching of breath work isn't just teaching breath work, it's
teaching and trying to implement ways and helping individuals I
work with problem solve ways in which to bring breath into their
daily. And obviously we're breathing on
a daily basis. We need breath for life and it's
an essential function. But how do you create ways where
you're aware of your breath and conscious of your breath and
using your breath as a way to optimize the way that you show
up in the world, improve quality of life?
And it does. It does work.
And we know that it works and most know that it works when
they do it, but they forget that they forget to do it.
And so my Instagram has gained a lot of popularity.
It's true self health, all one word.
It's gained a lot of popularity because every day or every
couple days I pop on, I'm like, hey y'all what's up?
Take a deep breath in, deep breath in, good in.
Let it go. Ow good, well done.
Now we'll just do one breath. For some reason people love
that. I think it catches people's
attention. I have a lot of people reach out
that say, hey, that one breath. Every time you do that, I take
it with you, thank you. It comes with the perfect time.
And all I'm doing is offering a reminder.
And most of the time I'm doing a deep breath for myself because I
need it, because I'm feeling stressed, because I've been
looking at my computer too long, because I've been sitting too
long. And I just need a moment to take
a deep breath in, holding for a moment, letting it go, relaxing,
and then going on with my day. And one breath is effective and
making a positive shift. Yet it's hard to remember.
And so how do you remember? What do you do?
For me, what works best is remembering to breathe all day,
every day throughout the day, which is different than doing a
morning breathwork practice and then wrapping your hands and
being done and saying, OK, good job.
I did my breathing this morning. Now into my stressful day where
I'm unconscious of how I'm moving and flowing throughout
the world. And this is where a lot of my
physical therapy background comes into play.
When I'm teaching breath, I'm also teaching posture practice.
I'm teaching individuals to hold themselves up more upright, not
in a way that's excessive and stressing and straining their
body and their back, but in a way that's empowering.
So you're using your breath to inflate and take up more space.
And when you take up more space physically, you're also going to
be opening yourself up more energetically, psycho
emotionally. And there's a positive in that
too. So when you lift and expand your
posture, you're creating more space for breath.
And when you create more space for breath, your breath
naturally just gets slightly longer and deeper.
And when you do that, you're increasing your lung capacity,
which is improving your health overall.
So I'm not typically focusing on breathing because I don't think
that works very well. We hear it all the time and we
don't do it. But I'm bringing in cues of the
physical body and body awareness and using breath as a tool to
improve positioning and posture. And then all of a sudden they're
doing breath work without knowing that they're doing
breath work, even though they know they're doing breath work.
The focus isn't on the breath, it's on the self, it's on the
body. And so that's one of the few
different ways. And sometimes it's just like,
hey, some people I work with, they benefit from having a very
rigid and structured breath practice.
And so we'll create that and say, OK, first thing in the
morning, breathe like this. Midday, breathe like this
afternoon, breathe like this. Right before bed, breathe like
this. This is your daily routine.
Get after it and notice that I gave like four points of
breathing throughout the day. Again, one time won't be enough.
And something that's been really powerful for me.
I practice what I preach my my life's shifted dramatically in a
positive way since learning about Wim Hof.
But a lot of it comes from just oxygenating my body, oxygenating
my soul. And I've found that when I'm
walking down the street and the thought that's flowing through
my head is deep breath in, hold, let it go, breathing, and my
mind's occupied on that. I'm bringing my mind into a
positive place because I'm breathing intentionally for the
intention of improving myself, improving my posture.
So I'm, I'm accessing a positive feedback loop through my breath
and often I'm like, wow, thank goodness this is what I'm
thinking about in my spare time versus all the other stuff and
junk I used to have filling my brain, which was self doubt,
negative thoughts, you know, like repeating negative pattern
thinking, blame, shame. And now I'll, I'll exchange that
100 times out of 100 to think about breath all day, it kind of
seems boring people like that's what you think about.
Hell yeah, that's what I think about.
Because it's better than the latter.
So, And a lot of people are in that other category where most
of their thoughts aren't positive.
So I'm, I, I'm barely adamant about helping people really
become modern monks and walk around focused on breath.
But when you focus on breath, you're also focusing on your
heart, and adding that component also fuels people into being
effective breathers. Well, I think, you know,
targeting the posture first and foremost makes total sense
because a lot of people, you know, they, they just breathe by
default and they don't ever really think about it that they
do. It's like with some structured
morning practice and then it's pretty much like the only
thought of it throughout the day.
But I think people as a whole are much more aware of their
posture throughout the day, especially because they know
that, hey, if I'm sitting on a computer like most of us are for
extended periods, it's easy to start rolling the shoulders
forward-looking at your phone all day long, having your
shoulders rolled forward for that and your neck down.
Like there's a lot, a lot of detriment that comes with the,
that poor posture. And I feel like in working out,
I'm, I'm kind of much more keen to it because I'm constantly
trying to retract my scapula, keep my chest forward in order
to have good form and, you know, minimize risk of injury.
I've tried to implement that in just my day-to-day positioning,
but like having like a standing desk and just taking breaks from
the computer to, you know, hang from a bar or simply move, get
the blood flow and it's key. But if you're doing all that, by
definition, you're also improving your breath in the
process. So I think that makes total
sense. Absolutely.
You're, you're improving your breath in the process.
I love all those little cues. And for me, movement is medicine
and other. That's why, again, going back to
the very opening statement, which is my gratitude for
starting with a physical therapy background.
I know a lot of my breath work colleagues don't have that
understanding of Physiology and the physical body.
So their breathing practice comes from the meditation side
of things and being still and being quiet and belly breathing
without really knowing that movement supporting the breath.
So I, I see, I see some areas in the breathwork world that could
definitely improve whenever. And I think the easy way to
improve that is through the body.
So I think you're, you're on it and that's that's why I do focus
on posture. Do you do anything like as far
as posture goes? Do you have like a like a
certain rule? Do you play by as far as you
know you have to stand equal as much time as you sit at a desk
or or do you have like any kind of principles you put into your
day-to-day to just make it very tangible?
Yeah, a few different ways. Again, listening to your body
once there's a lot of, I believe that most people put, they put
restrictions on themselves. They put rules on themselves and
who knows where these rules came from?
Your third grade teacher that said sit down, be quiet all year
long so you learn to sit down and be still.
There are these rules that we've placed upon ourselves or have
been placed upon us that must be unlearned.
And so often the, the starting point when I'm working with
people is what do you need to unlearn about the physical body?
And most of the time we need to unlearn the belief that movement
means that you're not paying attention or, you know, tapping
your leg or twisting. If you're tapping your leg all
the time, that means that you have likely have so much energy
that you need to do more than just type tap your leg, but
you're frozen everywhere else and that's the only outlet of
movement you have. So listening to your body and
most time whenever people listen to their body, what they'll find
is the body hurts and there's pain.
And so that's another reason to turn off listening to the body
because if we've been trained to not listen to the body and every
time we do tune in, the body hurts and it's uncomfortable.
And then that's reinforcing the not listening to the body in the
1st place. So first and foremost, it's we
got to be comfortable and learn how to be comfortable in our
bodies and through breath, that's the most direct way in
which we can connect to our bodies.
Because when again, when you take a deep breath in and you
feel that breath, feeling the lungs in and holding, you can
feel how your body is moving with the breath.
And as you do that, you're improving your capacity to feel
into your body. Often when you increase your
body awareness and you get rid of these barriers that you put
upon yourself throughout the day, you'll notice from your
body, 'cause we have top down brains communicating the body to
move or bottom up bodies communicating to the brain move.
I've been sitting too long. You've been looking at, you've
been in the same position for too long.
Often our body will breathe because we're not breathing
ourselves. So the physiological sigh, deep
breath in and out, that comes out of nowhere in the middle of
your workflow, that's a sign from the body that you need to
move and exchange more air. So I try to help people
understand that the body's going to tell you exactly what it
needs. And again, it goes both
directions. So you need to override
stagnation and implement these little moments of movement into
your day. Like you said, when you're
working you hang from a bar and move around and I'll constantly
go into push ups or hand stands or jog jump in a cold punch.
Any form of movement mixed into the day is beneficial.
And also I call it functional fidgeting anytime I'm fidgeting.
Fidgeting used to be bad bad. You're moving too much.
I'm an ADHD kid. But now I'm like harnessing.
I'm like oh wait I'm not ADHD I'm just I like to move.
I'm active. Why do we put a negative label
on that shit? So anyway I'm an active person
so my fidgeting I now call functional fidgeting.
Anytime my back wants to twist and I'm in the middle of a
library and my body wants to stretch I go into it and I
amplify. I I go 3X and anytime my body
takes that physiological sigh where out of nowhere I just
catch catch myself gasping or taking a deep breath in and sigh
of relief sighing out. I take that and I'm like, oh,
that means I need to do 5 deep breaths, deep and out.
And I use that signal from the body to improve the way in which
I'm working with my body and benefiting from breath.
And so that's, that's the philosophy.
The ways in which it's implemented is individualized
because everyone's different. But the philosophy for me is
very rooted in body awareness. And you can improve your body
awareness through breathwork practices and others.
So. No, I love it man.
It makes total sense. Do do you do anything for
improving your breath? Breath work while you sleep?
Like mouth taping or anything like that.
I do mouth tape. I have.
I've been mouth taping for a while actually, probably like
three years. When I when I first discovered
it, it made sense because nasal breathing is superior to mouth
breathing for a few different reasons.
It cleans the air through the sinuses before entering the
lungs. It also slows the rate in which
you breathe. It gives you a deeper breath.
So nasal breathing naturally is getting pulled in from the
diaphragm versus mouth breath gets stagnant up in the upper
chest. So, and this isn't just
conceptually more beneficial research supports nasal
breathing to mouth breathing for a lot of continued reasons.
So knowing that I'm way more efficient nasal breathing and
knowing that sleep is as important as anything in health
and Wellness. The better you sleep, the better
you are, the better you live, the better you feel.
I'm, I'm interested in improving my quality of life and I'm
interested in feeling better throughout the day.
So it makes a lot of sense that I would focus on improving my
sleep and sleep tape, mouth tape at night to increase encourage
nasal breathing at night is about as absolute of a positive
practice as you can do for your sleeping.
Even if you have a deviated septum and you have trouble
breathing through your nose, I'll do it anyway and I'll get
congested in my nose, but I'll I'll put on tape anyway.
And what happens is your body will find a way.
So I do sleep tape. I'm very activated by the idea
in a good way. I, I teach it, I train, I
implement it, I tell my friends about it, I tell my family about
it. I'm, I'm a huge supporter of
sleep tape. And then also I'll tape my mouth
when working out occasionally every now and then.
But I really like that just subtle reminder to breathe
through my nose when I'm pushing myself physically.
So I'll, I'll do a sport tape as well as sleep tape and and
there's all these brands out there.
But for me, the the cheap three mil skin tape that you can put
for sensitive skin. You find it online, Amazon,
Walmart, Walgreens. That works just fine if you find
that the seal of that tape doesn't hold well enough,
especially if you're sweating and running and performing.
A buddy of mine that I just met online actually, but he he has a
company called Sport and Sleep. So it's a sleep tape product.
It covers the whole mouth. But I've talked to him about
doing strips instead of doing the whole mouth and it seems
like he's interested in that idea.
Plus it saves tape. So yeah, again, if you're
interested in in more tape stuff, follow me on Instagram.
True self health and I throw out a lot of info on that.
No, it's very cool man. I've I've been in the, the, the
mouth taping for, I don't know, several years now as well.
And I definitely feel like I can notice a profound difference for
sure. I feel like I just wake up with
more energy, better recovery. I I still apparently snore when
even when I do sleep tape, according to my wife, not as
much, but I still do. So I got to figure that out.
But I definitely do feel and perform much better.
Do you do any form of journaling out of curiosity, like with you
having such an emphasis on, you know, proper breath work and the
cold plunging, just posture in general, do you have any
structured form of, of journaling and in your daily
practice? I do daily practice for me is
wake up, get outside. I'm usually up before sunrise
and my my morning routine fluctuates, but I essentially
have five to seven things that I do religiously, whether that's a
breathwork practice, cold plunge, journaling, making
coffee, burning incense, reading.
Passages of motivation, scrolling through Twitter and
Instagram. That's not the most positive,
but it happens. So I just let it be.
Yeah. I try to stay off my phone as
long as possible in the morning. But also, I'm human and it's
2024 and there's a lot of stuff on there, so sometimes I get my
dopamine fix on Instagram. I'm not perfect, OK, but yeah.
But journaling is huge. Gratitude's major for me.
I think the more I connect to gratitude, the better I am.
And I have. I've posted it on Twitter a few
times, also on Instagram as well.
A journal flow that I like that combines like positive self
affirmations. I have little reminders of
breath connecting to my heart, reflecting on the day before
what I'm envisioning. What's my purpose?
Like who am I? What's my purpose?
Often I'll write who am I? That's a journal prompt that I
use on a weekly basis. I'll just say who am I?
And if an answer doesn't come, I'll just write who am I again?
And I'll write who am I again. And I'll keep writing until it
starts to sprout up and out. So big advocate of journaling
and kind of like I said, do I do it every single day?
No, but I have an internal timer.
I'm not much of an objective measurement guy.
I don't wear watches or bands or things that record my sleep or I
don't see how many count how many steps I do.
I just know that there are things that I need to do to make
me feel better. And if I don't do those, I don't
feel well. And so if I start to feel not
like my fullest version of self, have to double back and reflect
and see, OK, where am I not filling things in?
But journaling, I have this innate and internal clock on
journaling that if if I go three days without journaling,
something internally is like, hey, you've gone 3 days without
journaling, like dial in. So I absolutely journal in all
the ways and I'm always learning and wanting to know more about
like ways to improve my journaling, a practice like
creative writing. I'm always down for creative
writing as well, just letting the brain flow.
So absolutely. I, I've been here because you
talk to everybody and, and, and the people that are incredibly
successful typically have some form of journaling practice and
I've tried to incorporate it and I've successfully been
consistent at for the past year, just over a year now.
And I was following like a, like a guided prompt series where,
you know, I would have like, you know, a list of things that I'm
grateful for, priority of the day thing that I'm excited about
for tomorrow, thing I could do differently, yadda, yadda,
yadda. And I've done that, like I said,
for just over a year now. But I think I'm going to try and
transition to like this morning pages style of journaling and
which is basically just free flow of, you know, stream
streamlined consciousness of the first things you're thinking
about throughout the day and fill up a page with that, you
know, stream of consciousness. So we'll see how that goes.
But I definitely have that that morning time carved out to get
my thoughts out, be undisturbed, do the cold plunge, make my
coffee. Like that is therapeutic for me
for sure. I wouldn't be able to function
without it. That's hey, that's, that's it
sounds therapeutic. And I was working with a group
recently doing some breath work in coaching, life coaching.
And one woman, it's amazing. I love coaching as a as a
profession because I'm learning as much as I'm, I feel like I'm
teaching, if not more. I'm learning more than what I'm
implementing. But one woman said that she used
the phrase, what was it like? Like it was like devoted
discipline. Like that was her thing.
Something along those lines. I've thought, I wish I could
snag it, but she, she was speaking in such a, in a way
that was just so clear. And she was like as firm as
anyone as I've ever seen. And she's like, discipline is
everything. It is unprecedented in my life
if I don't have discipline for myself and if I don't create
that moment in the morning for myself that I'm not doing myself
a service and I'm going to slip down a slippery slope that I
don't want to go down. And so she was like rigid
discipline like, like that is everything.
And so since she said that when it relates and I, I, I live in a
similar philosophy, but her passion behind saying that I was
like, damn, that's inspiring. So that's been, that's been
fuelling me recently. No, I I love that man.
Like with bodybuilding, like that is in my life, in my
opinion, the epitome of discipline.
Like because when I'm tracking macros, I've got everything
dialed in. Like I do not deviate from my
plan at all. Like that just is the pinnacle
of discipline for me. And as is true with business to
like anything that I've ever seen success in has come from
being incredibly disciplined for, you know, pretty
significant periods of time towards a given task.
And I feel like, yeah, it it definitely takes effort.
There is some initial sacrifice, but once you start to experience
the benefits that the fruits of your labor elicit as a result of
that consistent discipline like that becomes the high.
So much more so than any of those, you know, momentary
things that you're sacrificing to the point where those aren't
even viewed as sacrifice anymore.
You're just so enthusiastic about what that discipline will
create in your life. Like that is what gets you, gets
you fired up for the day. I love it.
Yeah, I saw a tweet today actually that said if you find
yourself making excuses, that means that you're not making
enough sacrifices. And I was like, that's, that's
what's up. There's a little teeter totter
action there, sacrifices and excuses so. 100% Well, I'm
stoked man. I'm stoked to to see what you're
doing. I'm glad that you're so close.
When is your next seminar or or or breathwork practice or cold
plunge session here in Arkansas? Yeah, I have a few coming up,
but I'll be at City Park, which is a local restaurant in
Fayetteville. Have you been there?
I have not been there. Yeah, so I'll be at City Park I
think this weekend, and then O&F, Ozark Natural Foods.
It's an amazing grocery store for those who don't know
Arkansas, but it's a great like it's a grocery store, but it's
more like a community space and there's one.
Coworker college. The one on college, Yeah, yeah,
they have bands, they have music.
So I'm doing one there as well. Not this weekend, but the
following weekend. I believe so.
And then I do a lot of currently I'm doing online workshops,
breath for stress, helping people relieve stress through a
five week breathing program as a group, online breathing program,
worrying about the insurance and outs and techniques and tools
and and being supported by a group with some accountability
stuff in addition to teaching pain practitioners.
So anyone who works with individuals with pain, physical
therapists, doctors, psychologist, so teaching ways
in which you can use breathing to support those suffering from
pain. So I also have an online course
for that. My my focus is giving as much
information to the world as possible on that.
That starts with local community and then extends on online to as
many people as possible. I love it, man.
Well, we're definitely marching to the same tune here, I think.
You know, starting local and then branching out as you're
able is key. I think, you know, with the
technology that we have at our fingertips in 2024, we're able
to do that at scale. I love that you've got the
course. I love that you're doing all
this locally as well. We should definitely keep this
conversation going. I'm going to start hosting a lot
more events to my community here locally as well, so I'd love to
have you out. You can bring one of your edge
tanks and put them to the Ringer there and we can just
collaborate on some things, man. I love it.
I, I, I love it and totally down.
Looking forward to meeting you in person.
We'll make it happen and thank you for having me.
Really enjoyed the conversation. My pleasure Justin.
Well, once more, where do people go to find out more about you?
So true self health is my Instagram, all one word and then
my website is true self dot health.
So www.trueself.health is my website no.com and there and and
plenty of ways to reach out from those two outlets.
So again, like I said, open book, happy to answer questions,
connect, and if anyone's interested in working together,
always open to open that conversation.
Love it, man. Well, I will definitely link
out, make it easy for people to find you.
Really appreciate the time brother.
And let's definitely keep the conversation going, man.
And since we're neighbors here, we might as well just put our
heads together and collaborate whenever possible.
Yeah, we'll just text and create a time and space and make it
happen. Sounds great man.
Till then, brother, take care. All right.
Appreciate it. Bye bye.