How to Breathe and Use Psychedelics Consciously with Richie Bostock (The Breath Guy)
How To Levitate
Episode 5
Episode first published: May 27, 2020.
Hosted, edited and produced by Ryan Nell.
Ryan Nell talks to Richie Bostock (The Breath Guy) for the fifth episode of the Levitate with Ryan Nell podcast
Episode notes:
Richie Bostock (The Breath Guy) is a man on a mission. He wants to change the way we think about the breath. And he might just do it. On his way to becoming The Breath Guy, Richie survives an early brush with depression, embarks on a breathwork odyssey across 5 continents, treks with The Ice Man, and journeys inwards towards wholeness. With him we explore the mind-blowing science of breathwork, rewiring the nervous system, hacking into the immune system, and opening the lid of consciousness. We discuss some startling similarities with the mystical experience of psychedelics and meditation, the emotional experience of appearing on national TV, speaking in front of large crowds, making an app, writing his first book, and Richie's passion to make breathwork accessible to all. Don't miss this awesome conversation with Levitate founder and podcast host Ryan Nell.
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Transcript:
00:00
Richie Bostock
When you start to have these experiences, doing these deep styles of integrated breathwork, it blows you wide open into what's possible and you very quickly start to understand. "Holy moly! Like, what I thought was possible or what I thought was real perhaps isn't the full picture!"
00:27
Ryan Nell
Hey, folks, it's Ryan here. How are you doing?
00:31
Ryan Nell
Welcome to another episode of Levitate with Ryan Nell. This is the show where we talk to people who are changing the world for good. In today's episode, I'm talking to The Breath Guy, Richie Bostock. Take a breath, make yourself a coffee, find a comfy chair, shut the door, mute the dog... because this is an episode that you won't want to miss a word of! We start out with the story of Richie, his childhood, his early career, his brush with depression, his introduction to breathwork through Wim Hof, the Iceman, and his subsequent travels around the world exploring the various modalities and teachers of this discipline. Richie gives an example of his breathwork technique, which I've used in the few days since I recorded this episode, and it has been amazingly powerful in changing my mood. We explore the science and the science is really exciting to me, and Richie's very knowledgeable about it.
01:39
Ryan Nell
And that comes across in the way he talks. And we get into interesting realms, mystical experiences, psychedelics, and overlap with meditation. And there are a few more surprises at the end. Now, before we hear from Richie, if you like what you hear, do us a favour and hit that subscribe button. We want to meet more world changing people just like you, and to do that, we need your help. So leave us a rating, leave us a review, post your favourite part of the episode in an Instagram story, or simply share with a friend who you think might enjoy it as much as you did. So, without further ado, let's hear from the one and only Richie Bostock, The Breath Guy. Richie, welcome to the show!
02:26
Ryan Nell
I've been massively excited to watch Richie's career blossoming and just going from strength to strength, and I'm really excited actually, to be speaking with him, with you, right now for the very first time!
02:40
Richie Bostock
Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here. Wow, blossoming career. This is nice. I like this intro. I can't wait to talk more about it.
02:50
Ryan Nell
I'm buttering you up before the hard questions.
02:53
Richie Bostock
Yeah, I know. I'm scared of what's going to come next.
02:57
Ryan Nell
What I think would be really kind of powerful is just to hear a little bit about the story of Richie. So, I know you grew up in Oz. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and where life took you before you started this breathwork journey.
03:11
Richie Bostock
Yeah, I grew up in Oz. I'm actually born in the UK, so I was born just outside of London, but grew up in Brisbane, in Australia, and yeah, didn't necessarily have career aspirations of teaching people how to breathe for a living. That wasn't on the cards straight away. I mean, I originally was studying, well, I finished studying accounting and finance and was going to go straight into my big boy job at the tender age of 19, into a massive consulting firm and had to grow up really quickly, and kind of sacrifice my university years and go straight into the suit and tie world, which was it's really funny. I think a lot of people when they meet me today are kind of surprised that it was actually a thing at one point, but I was in a suit and tie for six years and yeah, I really did like the work that I did.
04:12
Richie Bostock
But I think you share a similar story where even if the people around you are great and some of the work that you do, you can see positive impact and the things that you do are making a difference. If it's not in true alignment with who you are and what it is that you feel like you're supposed to be doing, you're going to find out in one way or another. And for me, it just meant that probably towards the final couple of years of my time working in a big consulting firm, I started to slowly slip into a depression and my experience of it wasn't necessarily deep feelings of sadness or grief or despair or anything like that. My feelings were more just like I was just numbed out to everything. I wasn't feeling good, I wasn't feeling bad. I was just not feeling. I couldn't get excited about things.
05:09
Richie Bostock
Nothing really made me that happy. Nothing really made me that sad. I couldn't cry or anything. Like I was just completely out of touch with my emotions and even my intuition. And I believe that happens when you do your very best, even unconsciously, to smash down the voice inside of your head that tells you, hey, you need to be listening to me right here, something's going on. And so I was very lucky that my parents were very open minded and very supportive and I'm blessed to have them, and I eventually confided in them after a couple of years, saying, "you know what, guys, I'm struggling right now. Something is not right in my life". And in their infinite wisdom, they were like, "well, maybe you need to take some time off". I was like, "what are you talking about? Are you saying that I won't be able to solve my life problems while working 80 to 90 hour weeks in a consulting firm"?
06:10
Richie Bostock
And they were like, "yeah, maybe you need to take some time off"! And so I ended up actually taking a three month sabbatical off work and travelling to Peru and volunteering in orphanages in Peru. And just that experience of being in a place that was completely different to my normal environment, in a place where nobody knew who I was, and there wasn't any pressure of an image of who I was supposed to be or how I was supposed to act. It turned out that as I kind of allowed myself to unfold and let go of any ideas of who I am, that all of a sudden I kind of started to become a completely different person.
06:54
Ryan Nell
Yeah.
06:55
Richie Bostock
Even after about a month or so, my laugh changed. I noticed that I was laughing differently and I was like, this is weird. What's happening?
07:02
Ryan Nell
And I'm guessing, you know, obviously Peru... there's trekking, there are shamans, there's ayahuasca and there are all sorts of different scenes that one could get involved in over there. Were you in an experimental kind of stage?
07:16
Richie Bostock
I wasn't until I got there. It wasn't until I got there because yeah, I didn't really know much about that world until I arrived. The reason why I went to Peru, truly, was because my friend just got back when I was trying to decide where I was going to go in the world, and he did the exact thing that I was about to do. He took six months off. He went and volunteered in Peru for six months. And so we had dinner and he told me about his experiences and I just went, that sounds exactly like what I'm trying to do or what I want to do. So I went with the same organisation and he hooked me up and it was great. Now, he did mention Ayahuasca, because he did try it, but it didn't necessarily register too much for me. I was like, "okay, that sounds interesting"... But yeah, when you get there and you're amongst a bunch of young people and travellers from all over the world... and I was in Cusco, too, which is like the old Incan capital, so lots and lots of people go there for some spiritual experiencing and development and journeying.
08:24
Richie Bostock
So I learned more about it there and I started to do my research and found out that, "hey, this seems like something interesting". So, yeah, I did do a couple of ceremonies with shamans, and obviously trekking, and doing the Inca Trail, and visiting Machu Picchu. And all these deeply spiritual places that just hold such an incredible energy that for many people, if you go, just by going there you activate something within you. The whole thing was transformative. And I would say, even without having done things like Ayahuasca, I would still have had the same kind of understandings and insights. But I would definitely agree that the Ayahuasca kind of put a full stop on it, just kind of emphasised the things that needed to change. And it's a beautiful, beautiful medicine if it's done with the right intention at the right time in your life.
09:28
Ryan Nell
So what a huge transition from where you were. I mean, were you into raving and kind of other scenes back in Australia?
09:37
Richie Bostock
Not really. I was always more of a guitar head, so less electronic music and more like playing in bands and going to bars and local kind of club scene, that kind of thing. But then I went to well, after Peru, when I realised that basically everything that was happening in my life was kind of out of line with where it was needed to go. I quit my job and I sold everything except for a suitcase full of clothes, and went to Hong Kong, which is basically it was just a way to be able to start afresh. I knew I wanted to get out of Australia and just go somewhere else in the world and experience something new and yeah. I mean, Hong Kong, for somebody who's never lived anywhere else in the world, is quite a place to go to. I'm not sure if you've ever been before.
10:32
Ryan Nell
Yeah, a few times. I studied Chinese at university. That was my kind of part of the world for a while. Yeah.
10:41
Richie Bostock
Oh, brilliant. It's such a cool place. And what is so amazing about it, much like London as well, is that it's such a melting pot of people from all over different parts of the world, and so you get very quickly, you get exposed to all sorts of different people and cultures and value systems and ways of doing things. And you come from little old Brisbane, Australia. Australia is isolated enough, and Brisbane, even though it's the third biggest city, but it's kind of got that country town kind of feel to it. It was amazing for expanding my awareness and understanding of how the world works. And I went there not really knowing what I was going to do, actually. I really had no plan. And in my old work, I used to do a lot of work with startups, like tech startups, and I decided it would be really cool to learn how to code.
11:47
Richie Bostock
So I ended up going to one of those, like, three month coding boot camps and learned how to build apps. And that actually ended up becoming my source of income for the next three, half, four years… an app that I built.
12:01
Richie Bostock
And it was that, which actually kind of allowed me to have the flexibility to go into the next phase of my life, which I really didn't know was going to be a phase, but it was what allowed me to explore breathwork and to travel around the world working from my laptop. The concept is digital, nomad, I think... And learn from all sorts of different breathwork masters and just anyone who was doing something interesting with the breath, which was a blessing.
12:32
Ryan Nell
And you had your introduction to, obviously not breathing, but I think you went on a Wim Hof Method retreat?
12:45
Richie Bostock
Yeah. How I came across Wim Hof Method is because years back, my dad was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis), which is an autoimmune disease. And for most people who suffer from MS, it's something that gets progressively worse and worse over the years and eventually will usually lead to complications where they die. And so I was always on the lookout for ways to be able to help dad, whether it's lifestyle changes, dietary changes, alternative therapies, these kinds of things. And that's how I came across Wim, was through a podcast where he was explaining his method, which involves cold exposure, it involves breathing techniques. And he was saying how it's great for everyone to do just as a general maintenance of their health and well being, but specifically it seems to be really good for people who have autoimmune issues or inflammatory disorders. So that was what caught my ear and went, "huh, okay, maybe there's something to this"!
13:52
Richie Bostock
I ended up travelling to Poland to spend a week in this tiny little Polish village and in the middle of winter and just learning the technique and then doing all the crazy stuff that Wim is famous for doing. So we're swimming in the ice lakes, we're hiking in the snow, barefoot in your shorts for hour and a half, minus three degrees out. We're climb the tallest mountain in Poland in your shorts -19 degrees at the top. So pretty chilly stuff. But what really caught my attention was the breath. And we would go into the bottom of this hotel, into the basement of this hotel, and we would be led through these 45 minutes breathing sessions using with the Wim Hof Method style. And just some of the experiences that I had would just blew my mind. I didn't know how I could be experiencing these things just by breathing.
14:55
Richie Bostock
I wasn't necessarily into drugs or anything that much beforehand. The only thing I'd done before that was ayahuasca... [laughing] go figure! But I was like, having all these feelings and I'm like, "how is this possible that I can feel this good and have these kinds of revelations just by breathing"? And that, I believe, was the catalyst for all of this.
15:19
Ryan Nell
Wow. And then you travelled around? Actually, I'm doing the Wim Hof method and, you know, he's got an app and I start every day with me and my partner with cold shower and the breath holds sort of increasing the apnea after some pretty intense kind of belly breathing huffing and puffing. Yeah, but obviously that's not the only style out there. And there's this whole tradition in yoga pranayama. You've got martial arts. What were you kind of looking for and exploring as you travelled around?
16:00
Richie Bostock
Yes. Well, when I got back from Poland and I shared the method with dad, and dad started to use it. And just to put a cap on that, fast forward years up until now, and he does his breathing every day, his cold showers every day. Changes diet as well, which is very important for autoimmune issues. And the progression of his MS completely stopped in its tracks.
16:23
Ryan Nell
Wow.
16:23
Richie Bostock
So from the moment that he really started to put it all together. So it really is powerful work, but personally, the breathwork just blew me away. And when I got back home, I started googling like, do other people do stuff with breathing? Is it just Wim? Like, what else is there? And as it turns out, like you said, there are so many different schools, ideas, methodologies, cultures that use different breathing techniques, all sorts. So I just started to research and just see what appealed to me. But the way I define breathwork is really anytime that you become aware of your breathing and then start to change it to create some sort of physical, mental or emotional benefit for yourself. And that means that whether it's on the simplest scale, learning a technique that you can do for two to three minutes in the middle of your day if you're feeling stressed out, to help you to relax, or maybe a technique to help you to fall asleep or to create energy.
17:30
Richie Bostock
Things you can do throughout the day to something that's kind of in the middle of the scale, where you have things like pranayam or Wim Hof Method, where it's like a dedicated, breath practice of sitting down for 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Or on the sliding end of the scale, the very end, where you can lie down and do certain breathing techniques for an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, and have really incredible healing experiences, transcendental experiences. And, yeah, anything kind of goes in that end. So it's really quite broad. And me being me — and quite often when I get into something, I really just throw everything I have into it — so as soon as I started seeing concepts or terms like transformational, breathing, rebirthing, holotropic, breathwork, I was like, "this sounds cool. What is this about"? And that was my real first dive in, through what we call the integrative styles of breathwork.
18:39
Richie Bostock
So it really is the deep end of the scale where you're using the breath in very profound ways to make big shifts in your physical, mental and emotional states. I'm a martial artist. I've been practising martial arts since I was six. So I've always been aware of breathing through things like Tai Chi, the various martial arts that I've done, even Qigong, for example. So more like the Chinese medical styles of breathing. But then you'd start to learn about other things too, like those integrative styles. The Sufis have a breathwork style. The Essenes even had a breathwork style. The shamanistic styles of breathwork and then everything in between. So many different ways to breathe. But I was deeply interested in the spiritual aspect and then also trying to connect the science and the spiritual aspects together. Because when you start to have these experiences, doing these deep styles of integrated breathwork, it blows you wide open into what's possible and you very quickly start to understand, "Holy moly!
19:51
Richie Bostock
What I thought was possible, or what I thought was real, perhaps isn't the full picture"!
19:56
Ryan Nell
Right.
19:57
Richie Bostock
It's kind of similar to if people do psychedelics for the first time, whether it's mushrooms or DMT, the people who have these experiences, probably the most common reaction people have is maybe the way I saw things before isn't 100% the full picture.
20:15
Ryan Nell
Yeah.
20:16
Richie Bostock
And that was my biggest interest.
20:18
Ryan Nell
So you had all these incredible experiences, some of them, I guess, techniques like holotropic breathwork that you need a bunch of training before you get it. Are there prerequisites or can anyone do it? What would you recommend for absolute beginners coming to breathwork.
20:39
Richie Bostock
Well, in terms of training to, let's say, become a facilitator, for example yeah, breathwork for me and the way that I treat it when I work with people, it's sacred, it's a very powerful modality and really needs to be approached in the same way that maybe a shaman would work with plant medicines. It can't be taken for granted, it has to be very carefully handled. But in terms of wanting to experience breathwork, you can go from never having experienced anything into a holotropic breathwork session, no problem. That's what the facilitators are trained to do, is to take anyone at any point and take them into the journey that they need to have. But if you're wanting to go into that kind of style of breathwork, then yeah, holotropic breathwork is one style, rebirthing is another. One of the original styles in the west, those two were kind of the first two to come out of the west.
21:42
Richie Bostock
And then you have things like transformational breath, which is fantastic, clarity breathwork, biodynamic breathwork, which is specifically around working with trauma. And that's a really fascinating one because it's kind of 50% breathwork, 50% movement and it works a lot with the somatic experiencing of letting go of trauma as well as using the breath. So that's a really great one as well. I mean, there are so many of this kind of thing. But the Wim Hof Method as well is a very accessible way to be able to dip your toe into the potentials of breathwork.
22:21
Ryan Nell
Yeah. And do you belong to a particular school or have you effectively developed your own style?
22:27
Richie Bostock
Yes, well, so I officially was trained in Wim Hof Method and then did training in transformational, breath, rebirthing and biodynamic breathwork. But I would say what I teach now is like, I'm not an official trainer of any of those. And now I kind of just do my own thing and it starts to bring in a lot of other concepts as well from other styles of breath and not even breath anymore from different modalities and yeah. So I kind of create my own thing now based off my understanding of the science, and what I've experienced, and what helps other people. And I feel like that's kind of how evolution works, right? You learn what exists and then you kind of make it your own and try and improve. And it's beautiful. And honestly, there are so many styles and schools popping up all over the place now because breathwork has really kind of exploded over the last year in particular.
23:24
Richie Bostock
So there's a lot of teachers out there now and we need all the teachers we can get. It's brilliant to see.
23:31
Ryan Nell
Yeah, that's amazing. And I'm thinking that some of our listeners may never have done a breathwork session or really known what that term really encompasses. Would you give us an example? What would be a great one for someone just breathing along with us now?
23:46
Richie Bostock
I think what we can do is something quite quick so that you can really feel how much the breath can affect you, like how quickly it can affect you. So what we're going to do is something I call Energizer Bunny, okay? Which is kind of fun. And the reason why I call it Energizer Bunny is because, one, it's an Energising style of breath. So it's something that you can use either in the morning to kind of wake you up or if quite often, I remember especially when you're working in offices, you kind of get to that like 3:30—4 o'clock point, where you're kind of starting to get a bit drowsy. Maybe the lunchtime coma of the food digesting is starting to come in and you always reach for that next cup of coffee. Well, this is a great technique you can use at that time as well, but really anytime you need to create some energy.
24:43
Richie Bostock
And I call it Energizer Bunny because it involves faster breathing through the nose. And quite often when people first start to do this breath, they kind of wiggle their nose around like a little bunny rabbit. And it's quite funny. So it works something like this, and it's super duper simple. And you only need to do it for maybe anywhere between 30 seconds to a minute. So you take three short, sharp inhales through the nose, progressively filling up your lungs, and then you exhale out through the mouth so you don't exhale in between the inhales. You progressively fill up your inhales with each breath in and then on the exhale, just relax, let the air fall out of you. It's almost like a sigh out through the mouth. So it'll sound something like this. So you see, it's quite a fast pace. So if you want we can try it together!
25:43
Ryan Nell
Let's do it.
25:45
Richie Bostock
We can do it. So, quick safety announcement. If you're driving, if you are standing, can you sit? If you're driving, maybe save this for another time or pull over to the side of the road. Definitely don't do this while you're operating any kind of machinery. Definitely don't do this in water, just in a place where you feel nice and safe, can sit down and just relax. So you can even do it in your workspace, but people might just think you're weird. So we're going to do it together. So I'll demonstrate one more time. All right, so three sniffs through the nose, sigh out through the mouth. So that's simple. So let's do it all together now. So I invite you all to exhale out. And here we go. So in, in, in, out. In, in, in, out. In, in, in, out. Nose, nose, nose, mouth. Nose, nose, nose, mouth. Nose, nose, nose, mouth.
26:47
Richie Bostock
In, in, in, out. In, in, in, out. Nose, nose, nose, mouth. Nose, nose, nose, mouth. And now keep going. You have the pace and you might be feeling a bit buzzy, a bit spacey or a little bit lightheaded, if that's what you're feeling, it means you are doing it right. It means you're making changes inside of you and you're doing it on purpose. So just a couple more. All right, finishing the next breath. You're on now. And take a deep breath in. Fill up the lungs all the way up. Hold the breath in at the top. Lungs are full. Just hold it in for a moment. Just hold that breath in and through the mouth. We're going to sigh it out, exhale and just take a moment to see what you feel in the body. Do you feel buzzy, heat, cold, maybe still a bit lightheaded or a bit spacey?
27:46
Richie Bostock
What is it that you feel?
27:48
Ryan Nell
Wow, okay, so I've got tingling in my forehead. My shoulders are buzzing. I feel a bit of heat in my chest. Honestly, I feel like I've just taken a huge, I don't know, bite out of a sugary cake or something.
28:11
Richie Bostock
Yeah, and that was 40 seconds. You can very quickly start to make some changes in what's happening inside of you using your breath. And that's the beauty of it. It's the only thing that we have that we can consciously control, that affects the things that happen unconsciously inside of us. So what a great tool we have to be able to make changes on purpose.
28:37
Ryan Nell
It's an incredible reset and I also imagine something that you could deploy tactically. For instance, before I started this podcast, if I was feeling a little, like, nervous about it. Or before sending that email that you might later regret.
28:57
Richie Bostock
Absolutely. Again, here's the thing. I think when a lot of people think about doing a breathing technique, they always will liken it to states of trying to relax or falling asleep. And yes, the breath is really good at doing things like that, like managing anxiety or trying to down regulate your nervous system, but it's also really good for other things as well. And so it's kind of trying to paint that landscape of what is possible using your breath. That is a really exciting place. And what's cool is, as science continues to and scientists and researchers become more interested in this work. They're starting to be able to measure what's happening in the body. So what we're now doing is we're bringing what ancient traditions and cultures have known forever into the modern 21st century and validating it through science. And us in our typical analytical Western minds are like well, if science says it works, then here we go.
29:57
Richie Bostock
It definitely is a thing which is great in some ways, but can be limiting in others.
30:04
Ryan Nell
Indeed, there's a lot of, I guess, scepticism or cynicism to get over in the west that I feel perhaps people are a little more open minded if it's already in their tradition, et cetera.
30:16
Richie Bostock
Exactly.
30:17
Ryan Nell
Will you talk to us a little bit about the science? I'm really fascinated. I've been reading 'The Oxygen Advantage', Patrick McKeown's book. So he gets into a little bit about serotonin, the Default Mode Network, and you've got the parasympathetic nervous system being activated. Would you talk to us a little bit about kind of the different things that are going on?
30:43
Richie Bostock
Yeah, all of those things. So kind of touching on what I said before. So the breath can act as a conscious gateway into the unconscious systems that occur in our body. So whether it's your nervous system, whether it's the way that your brain is firing, whether it's your endocrine system, which is your hormones, or your cardiovascular system, your lymphatic system, your digestive system, all these systems will be affected by the way that you breathe. And you just need to start to understand what your breath does and then you have a really cool tool. So it really depends. You can help people, for example, who have if we talk about what happened for my dad's immune issues. So by using something like the Wim Hof method, you are able to actively affect the immune response and actually down regulate inflammatory cytokines that promoted through an overactive immune system.
31:46
Richie Bostock
So using the Wim Hof method, that's what's been so useful for my dad. Typically the way that people will think about using their breath the most is that managing of the nervous system. So how can I take control and take the power back over my state by using my breath. And whether we feel stressed or activated or excited or whether we feel relaxed and maybe even lethargic sometimes it depends how or where we're operating from in terms of our autonomic nervous system. Now, the autonomic nervous system is split up into two branches. One is called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what you just mentioned... And that is responsible for what is often termed as the rest and digest response. So when we're relaxing and not feeling stressed or not needing to worry about too much, we're probably somewhere operating more out of our parasympathetic nervous system.
32:49
Richie Bostock
They always operate together, but you kind of have a bias towards one or the other, right? And then you have the other branch which is. The sympathetic nervous system which is typically termed by your stress response. So your fight or flight response. And so if we are facing a threat or we're feeling worried or anxious or panicked, then it means we're operating more out of this part of our nervous system. And what is so cool about the body, but can also be a problem, is that it is a habit forming machine. Once you repeat something over and over again, it gets really good at a physiological level, at remembering how to do something. So if you have a very stressful job, or you're at school or university and that can be super stressful as well, or you're in an environment that isn't conducive to your emotional wellbeing, perhaps either through emotional trauma or abuse and these kinds of things, then your nervous system gets very good at operating out of its fight or flight response, its sympathetic branch of its nervous system.
34:03
Richie Bostock
And if it's in there day in and day out, it starts to become quite rigid and stuck. So that even if you took away the stimulus outside of you that might cause you to feel stressed, you may still feel that base level of stress anyway, just because your nervous system can't shift back into its rest and digest response or its parasympathetic nervous system. Like maybe you've experienced this before where you have a holiday off work and you go to the beach and you have a margarita in your hand and you're like woohoo, this is great. But for some reason I still feel a bit fidgety and for some reason I'm still thinking about work and I can't kind of let go and relax and it takes a few days before you actually feel like I'm on holiday.
34:46
Ryan Nell
Yeah, right.
34:47
Richie Bostock
That's your nervous system having to recalibrate and it's actually taking a bunch of time for it to, even though you're in paradise. But what is so great about the breath is that we can use it to be able to shift between these branches of the nervous system. So if you feel like you need to relax, you can use a breath in a certain way to help you to relax. If you feel like you need to create energy or get yourself up, then you can use a breath in a certain way. And what's interesting too is I work a lot with athletes and particularly because I have a martial arts background, I've worked with a lot of martial artists and people's responses to nerves can be very interesting. Some people will have a panic attack in which case a slower down regulating style of breath is what you want to use for them before they go out and to perform, to get them in the zone.
35:43
Richie Bostock
But for others, their way of dealing with stress is to completely numb out and get tired. And they feel lethargic and they feel slow and they don't feel like they can get up for the event, in which case we use other styles of breath to help them to break through. I always I call it like the Swiss Army knife for all the different ways that you can use it and for it to help.
36:07
Ryan Nell
I mean, we're obviously understanding more and more about the brain, the nervous system. Wim Hof's already demonstrated that some systems that we thought were really inaccessible, we can exert some level of control over them by working with our bodies in ways that we don't normally do. Are you doing any research of your own? Are there areas that you're kind of getting excited about or would be excited to look into?
36:36
Richie Bostock
I've been very fortunate to be able to purchase some equipment that allows me to measure some very basic things around, like some basic EEG readings. But I have also worked with a medtech company who measures something called cardiovagal tone, which is essentially a measure of the activity in something called the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in your autonomic nervous system. And if you have a higher vagal tone, they call it or higher activity through this vagus nerve, then it means that you are more in your relaxation response, you are more in that parasympathetic branch of your nervous system. And what is fascinating is I've been giving so I have kind of pulled everything together that I've learned over the years to create my own sort of what I call them, breathwork journeys. And I had these guys and they came in and they measured one of my journeys.
37:30
Richie Bostock
And what was fascinating to see was how the nervous system responds in real time. And what were able to see at some points was that the vagal tone, remember this was a level of basically how relaxed you are went up by nearly 600% within 15 minutes, which absolutely blew the doctor away. He was looking at it, he's just like, that's incredible. We are learning more and what I'm hoping to do very soon is work with some of the universities here in London to get some MRIs done while doing breathwork. Because I have some theories based off my understanding and my own research of what happens when you do certain things like the deeper styles of integrative breathwork, the holotropic breathings, et cetera, and as to why it can lead to these healing moments, to these experiences of the divine or these experience, these transcendental moments.
38:30
Richie Bostock
I have my theories as to why, but it's not until we MRI can I say this is definitely the case, but it only makes sense in my mind. So hopefully that will come out. That's the missing piece that hasn't been fully explained so far for the integrative breathwork is what's happening in the brain.
38:48
Ryan Nell
Yeah, it seems almost certainly although yeah, to your point, let's see, that there’s something's going on with the default mode network. It's definitely an area that I work with through teaching meditation. But clearly there are other things going on as well.
39:08
Richie Bostock
My expectation sorry, let me be scientific... My hypothesis is something that is called transient hypofrontality, which basically means a downregulation of activity in the prefrontal cortex, s. And then also then we can get into debates of consciousness and that kind of thing. But you see the same thing with people who take psychedelics and so things like DMT and psilocybin. You see this down regulation of activity in the PFC and also in meditators as well. The parts that are telling us we are separated, isolated, cut off are getting a lot quieter and giving space for us to feel deeply connected. Have you had some of these deeply mystical experiences yourself? And it's almost like opening up the filter for our level of awareness.
40:39
Ryan Nell
Yeah, right.
41:04
Richie Bostock
People can go from being the least Zen and spiritual person in the world to meeting God within an hour. And not to say that always happens, but it's certainly a possibility and it has happened with my clients. Yeah. I mean, when you start to perceive a little bit more and then really go into the ancient text of what cultures have said, all of this is, rather than taking the more materialist stance of our brains produce consciousness. And it produces the awareness that we have. Then you are guaranteed to have some sort of experience.
41:44
Ryan Nell
Right.
41:45
Richie Bostock
Maybe you do one or two sessions and you haven't really had an experience and you're not really sure what's going on. But if you stay with breathwork for just a little while, you'll always open up something for yourself.
41:51
Richie Bostock
And that's why it's so exciting for me. It's the accessibility for people to experience so much more of themselves, or so much more of what's out there with very limited other experience required [laughing].
42:01
Ryan Nell
Indeed. Not years of meditation, not access to shamans…
42:38
Richie Bostock
And that's why it's so exciting for me, is the accessibility, its ability for people to experience either so much more of themselves or so much more of what's out there, with very limited other experience required.
42:42
Richie Bostock
That's the fun part when you work with people who perhaps are a little bit oblivious and we're talking like CEOs, real type A, high performance, personality types and stuff, and just show them something different and then they can decide what they want to do. But it's great indeed.
43:15
Ryan Nell
I imagine you have your own practice. Do you still get to kind of really dive into it now that you're teaching so much?
43:23
Richie Bostock
Yeah, of course. I mean, you have to maintain your own practice, but it has shifted over the years. When I first started the first 18 months, it was like, every day, nearly 1 hour of breathwork. Just go hard or go home, basically. It was very intense. I just became very obsessed with journeying and seeing, exploring and seeing what was possible and unfolding in myself as well. And then I started to become a little bit more subtle about it. And over the years I've tried different things. These days, my daily practice is probably more like 20% breathwork, 80% meditation.
44:08
Ryan Nell
Yeah, right.
44:10
Richie Bostock
And I'm very excited at the potentials for meditation as well. Combined with breathwork, the two together work amazingly well. And most of my journeys these days that I teach will have a breathwork element and then a guided meditation element as well. Because when you do the breathwork, like I said, it creates that state in the brain. That means that you are in the zone. As soon as you start a meditation, you are already deep, you are in that trance, you are there, and then you get much more bang for your buck when you're in that state. A lot of meditation these days and that was deeply inspired. Originally I used to do TM quite a bit transcendental meditation and then I came across a man named Dr. Joe Dispenza and his work is fantastic. I love Joe and his meditations were really profound for me when I first started doing his work and now I kind of do my own thing.
45:21
Richie Bostock
But that was a big eye opener to me in terms of the possibilities for meditation, in terms of being able to shift your states and awareness quickly.
45:33
Ryan Nell
Yes, indeed. Because, I mean, there are so many styles, obviously, and some of them involve you being wrapped over the knuckles, by a zen master with a stick...
45:45
Richie Bostock
Staring at a corner for 6 hours...
45:47
Ryan Nell
Put up your hand every time you have a thought, kind of thing. And then there are these much more accessible styles obviously. But I really do think that breathwork is doing an amazing job, actually, of showing people what might be possible as well through a meditation practice, because it's rare to get the immediate hit from meditation. A lot of people's experience is, "oh wow, that's really hard". You got to kind of get past that.
46:18
Richie Bostock
Yeah, quite often people I work with, they become quite big breathwork advocates, and then they'll say, great, this is so much better than meditation, I never need to meditate again. And I say, no, they're different in some ways, they serve similar purposes, but actually there is such a great benefit to the process of learning meditation, even without the actual end goal in mind, just the actual process. And the repetition is so important. So it's definitely not a substitute, but the two together complement each other really well. So it's about finding the balance that works for you and that balance will change over the course of your life.
47:07
Ryan Nell
Yeah, no, I think that's so true and I'm so excited to see how you and others are really kind of nonetheless growing the size of the breathwork world, the amount of people that are being exposed to it now, it feels like things are accelerating a little. Obviously you've done crowds at Glastonbury and Wilderness and Sweat Life and you've got an app now. What's that journey been like for you?
47:40
Richie Bostock
Yeah, a little bit crazy, but I've been asked quite often, actually, because I'm very fortunate that the work that I do has grown very quickly. And a lot of people have asked me, perhaps friends or other people who are also in this world and trying to serve in the same way, going like, oh, how did you do it? Or what can I do to do the same? And the tricky thing is that I didn't really do anything except to show up, if that makes sense. For example, you mentioned a couple of festivals. I didn't reach out to festivals, they reached out to me. I have a book coming out in September. I didn't reach out to publishers or get an agent. Publishers reached out to me. The app, I guess I made the app happen. Yeah, I guess I made that one happen. But a lot of things that happen, all the fortuitous things that happen, they kind of just happened.
48:53
Richie Bostock
And I've never had a business manager or an agent or PR or any of these kinds of things. It just kind of spread word of mouth. And I think people, whenever people ask me those kinds of questions, I always just say, I think when you are doing the work that resonates with you and is in line with who you are, people feel that and it doesn't even become about the work anymore. People just feel your energy and they go, this guy or this girl is like, that's their truth. They're authentic, that's them, that's what they're about. And it almost doesn't become anything about the product or the service or whatever it is that you're doing. It simply becomes that they love that energy and that's what is attractive. And then we also understand that everything is energy, everything is vibration. Right? So if you are operating from your heart, doing the work that makes you feel good and doing your best to be of service, then that's the energy that you are putting out there and that's what's going to come back to you.
50:07
Richie Bostock
You can start to make it sound a little bit woo law of attraction and the Secret and that kind of thing, for sure. No doubt it can sound a bit crazy, but I kind of experienced it and people do it all the time, this idea of being able to manifest and that sort of thing. For me, it's a very real part of my life, but it just requires, I believe, for you to be from acting from your heart. People feel that, people want to be around that and you will be so much happier for us. That's usually what I just tell people.
50:48
Ryan Nell
Yeah. But I'm wondering what your inner experience of that has been, because there's got to be some, I guess, anxiety, fear overwhelm stepping in front of a large crowd for the first time and that kind of thing.
51:03
Richie Bostock
Yeah.
51:04
Ryan Nell
Has it been comfortable?
51:07
Richie Bostock
At first? Yeah, i. It's like anything, when you have new experiences, there's always that element of the unknown and for most people, the unknown is quite scary. The first time I went on TV, that was like terrifying and thank God I was able to manage it with knowing how to breathe and stuff and it went brilliantly, but I think I was following Jamie Oliver, so I was like, oh, jeez, these are big shoes to fill on this show. But yeah, what my experience has been is that whenever I do something for the first time, there is an element of nerves. So each time I do a crowd that gets a little bit bigger, there's an element of nerves. The biggest crowd I've done so far is British Summertime in Hyde Park. Two and a half thousand people. And that was a bit like, "holy moly, this is something incredible"!
52:12
Richie Bostock
But I have a real level of trust in what it is that I'm doing and that I am supported and that I'm looked after, and that everyone who's working with me is supported and looked after. And I think after you have so much experience, you know what the work does and it's more about holding your own integrity and standing in your own truth and as being authentically you. And if you do that, you give everybody else who is with you the permission to do the same and then nothing can go wrong. Yeah.
52:53
Ryan Nell
That's beautiful, man, that's beautiful. What a lovely answer. And of course you've got your Swiss Army knife with you.
52:59
Richie Bostock
Exactly. Yeah. At the end of the day, everyone's just breathing, right? No one's died from breathing yet.
53:08
Ryan Nell
Not that we know. Tell me. We're probably getting close to the end of our time, and I hope that we get you back on the show to kind of dive in a little deeper on some of these topics. But what are you most excited about at the moment? Where are your energies going? Obviously, the app is out and I see that it's frequently updated and a book is on the way. Tell us what next.
53:35
Richie Bostock
Yeah, the app is out, and that's my baby. I've been wanting a space for people to be able to have the experiences through breathwork, but then also to create a community of like minded people who can share in their experiences, get support, get information, get answers, and feel like they're supported in this journey. And so what's really cool about the app is it's not really like a headspace or a calm or anything. Sure, we deliver breathwork journeys, but it's more of a community app than anything. It's almost like a Facebook group where you can listen to breathwork. And I do like a live streaming there and we do zoom catch ups so we can interact and do Q&As and that kind of thing. So that's where I want people to interact with people and to share in their experiences and yeah, the book. Oh, by the way, so that app is called Flourish by the so if you can find it on the Google or app stores, if you search for Flourish or for Richie Bostock, either one.
54:41
Ryan Nell
Definitely there'll be a link beneath in the show notes as well.
54:44
Richie Bostock
And, yeah, the book is coming out too, which has been oh, my know, as somebody who's not so good at sitting in front of a computer and typing for a long period of time. I don't know how it eventually happened, but I did get done. And I'm very proud of it and very excited for it to come out. And the purpose that it serves is I wanted to create something that was or is the breathworkbook that I wish I had when I first started. It's not necessarily going to dive as deep into the science or the physiology as, say, like, something like oxygen advantage, but it's the thing that gives you all the information that you need for you to start your journey and decide, oh, I want to go deeper with this. I want to go deeper with that. Because that's usually the thing that I get asked about the most when it comes to books is what's, like, the best book to get started with?
55:40
Richie Bostock
And for me, it's a tricky question to answer because a lot of them are quite deep. So that's what I wanted to do. And it's called exhale. It's available now for preorder on Amazon, but it comes out September 10 and I'm super excited for that to be out there. The way I see it's kind of like almost like my ode to breathwork. It's my contribution to breathwork as a thank you for everything it's done for me. And in terms of other things, well, it's a funny old situation we find ourselves in now. So I love the group work, I love being in person and breathing with people in groups. And unfortunately, right now it's a bit of a challenge. For some reason, people don't want to get in large groups and breathe heavily in really close confinement.
56:33
Ryan Nell
Imagine why!
56:34
Richie Bostock
Yeah. But I'm thinking that hopefully as restrictions get loosened, that maybe retreats will be available as an option soon. So hopefully retreats. Maybe in September, October, November. But the biggest thing I'm most excited about right now is I'm taking all of June off and I am disappearing into nature and just doing some really good inner work. It's been a little while since I've completely disconnected and it's time. So my excitement is giving back to myself a little bit and doing some really interesting exploration. See how we go. Yeah, we'll do a version two when I get back and see what happens.
57:29
Ryan Nell
You're a changed man!
57:33
Ryan Nell
Finally, Richie...
57:36
Ryan Nell
What does a morning look like for you? Are you a creature of routine? Are you out of bed at a certain time and meditating and doing the breathwork? People might be really interested just to know what a day in your life looks like.
57:52
Richie Bostock
Sure. I used to be very into a routine before lockdown, and then when lockdown occurred, I let it all go because I just wanted to. And in terms of waking up at a certain time and that kind of thing, I just wanted to kind of flow with it all for a little while. But in the last few weeks, I've kind of brought myself back into the routine. And it's not always the same. It definitely does change, but I am an early bird. I think a lot of people in Australia, naturally are early birds compared to the UK, so I used to wake up between five and six every morning.
58:32
Ryan Nell
Wow.
58:34
Richie Bostock
I go to bed at like ten anyway, at 10 / 10:30. You know, it's not like it's anything that crazy, but I'd like that time of day. I really like that time of day. And then there will usually be some sort of breathwork or meditation practise, and that can last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half. It depends, it truly depends on how I feel and what feels right. I used to be very militant in terms of this is my hour of meditation or breathwork session that I do every morning, but now it's like, how do I feel and what do I feel needs to be done right now? And sometimes it'll be I just need something to set the day off with the right intention or sometimes it's I feel like going deep and yeah, cold showers, got to love your cold showers, just like you.
59:27
Richie Bostock
Yeah, that's kind of the mornings and then the days are just very varied, but I like to try and block out at least until 10:00a.m. For me that might look like exercise, reading books and obviously any kind of morning routine. Yeah, I feel like I like to have the mornings and play, always play the mornings on my terms and always put myself first in the morning rather than waking up and being reactive and checking the phone and jumping straight on the computer and answering emails and that kind of thing. I try and just do the things that I enjoy doing first and then everything else can kind of wait.
01:00:08
Ryan Nell
It's going to be so interesting, I suppose, when the lockdown is done and life starts to return to normal, to see which new habits we take from this time, like which lessons we take from this huge collective breath that we've all taken! I hope you get the break that you so richly deserve this June out in nature.
01:00:32
Richie Bostock
Oh, I'm getting it. It's happening. I've got it all sorted out so that life can continue without me being there for a while.
01:00:42
Ryan Nell
Yeah.
01:00:43
Richie Bostock
Get all the systems in place and just need to hit go and then I'm off for a little bit and I really hope that people can do that for themselves as well and understand how important it is to every now and again in your life. Not just go on a holiday but take an extended period of time to really be with yourself for a that's, you know, the ultimate cheque in really.
01:01:08
Ryan Nell
Richie, I just want to say a huge thank you for your time on the show. I know I've learned a lot from our time together just now and yeah, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for joining.
01:01:21
Richie Bostock
Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful to chat with you today.
01:01:25
Ryan Nell
Hey, folks, it's Ryan here. I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did. Richie was just a fantastic guest and I want to say a big thank you to him and his team for making the time for that to happen. It means a lot to us to have you here in our audience. Thank you so much for the gift of your time. Can I also say a thank you to Nic Nell, the composer of our theme music, and to our show sponsor, Levitate. Levitate is a community for individuals, groups and companies who want to find calm, clarity and connection in a world which can often feel chaotic. If you want to find more about what Levitate offers, just head over to their website at www.levitate.london. We've got more amazing guests lined up, so hit the subscribe button if you didn't press it already.
Links for Richie:
Richie's Flourish app: thebreathguy.com/app
Richie's upcoming book: Exhale
Richie on Instagram: @thebreathguy
Richie on Twitter: @richiebostock
Richie's webpage at: thebreathguy.com
Show notes:
About the show:
On the podcast, Levitate® founder Ryan Nell chats to people who are changing the world for good. Whether they’ve overcome personal hardship, launched a social enterprise, or changed the way we think about a subject, all of them are united by passion, purpose, and the desire to make the world a better place.
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Show sponsor:
At Levitate, we’ve been helping people to connect mind, body and soul since spring 2018. We teach meditation and mindfulness for people with busy minds. We do this with individuals, groups and companies in London and across the world. We are passionate about all aspects of wellbeing. To find out more, head over to our website at www.levitate.london or check us out on social:
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Credits & copyright:
This show is hosted, recorded and edited for Levitate by Ryan Nell (Instagram: @ryannell)
Original theme music by Nic Nell (Instagram: @casuallyhere)
Special thanks to Richie for his participation in this episode.
Copyright Levitate 2020. Levitate is a trademark of Levitate Meditation Ltd.
