[00:00:01] Nick: On this episode of “In The RACK” podcast.
[00:00:03] Danny: Take a deep breath. People are clueless. I was clueless. Every dude things are great in bed, every dude will fabricate a breathing IQ score and give themselves an “A”.
[00:00:12] Frannie: But as long as you're existing in this world that we've created, it is not realistic to pull yourself out of that. So I think the first step is getting rid of those guilty feelings.
[00:00:29] PODCAST INTRO: Welcome to “In The RACK” podcast, where we provide you with the practical framework for breaking PRs in all facets of health and wellness. We are just a couple of bros giving you the simple house in a world of complex wants. No filters, no scripts, no rules, just straight talk, talk tune. Now, let's get into the rack with your hosts, Dr. Chad and Dr. Nick.
[00:00:55] Nick: Alright, everybody, welcome to another episode.
[00:00:58] Karyssa: Hey, did you press record?
[00:00:59] Nick: It's been recording. I wanted to get all this.
[00:01:01] Karyssa: Alright.
[00:01:03] Nick: Alright, everybody. Welcome to another episode of “In The RACK” podcast. I know I caught you off guard because you thought you're going to hear Chad's voice. But it's next voice. I'm the host today. Chad doesn't get to give his little intro. And my plan to slowly phase Chad out is working and it's in full effect right now. So see you later bud. Chad is gone right now. He's on another business trip. He's off showing his eight pack somewhere in the country, I don't really know. But apparently it's a “Promote ProForm”. I just think he really likes to lather and so I'll take pictures in the mirror. But we'll let him defend himself on that one. So today, my co-host is Karyssa and we have two awesome guests with us today. We got Danny and Frannie from Season 44 of survivor and Karyssa was the one who put this all together. So I'm gonna let her introduce them and then they can introduce themselves.
[00:02:04] Karyssa: Sounds good. So Danny, Frannie, they are part of the Soka tribe. If you are familiar with survivor and everything that everyone's broken up into different tribes, different colors, whatnot, Danny and Frannie were on the Soka tribe and I said from day one, Soka was going to be met my team and I went out and I bought their bus.
[00:02:27] Frannie: Good choice.
[00:02:28] Karyssa: They made me very proud. And although they got voted off the islands sooner than I would have hoped, they absolutely crushed it and if you know anything about survivor just watching it on TV. I feel like you sit there sometimes you're like, “Oh, I could do that easily” but then I watch interviews of past survivors, I follow Boston Rob a lot. And he's like, it is nothing like you would have thought on TV. So it just kind of like blows my mind to see you in person and just I don't know, it's like a little fan girl moment. I'm not gonna lie. Because I've been watching survivor since I was little.
[00:03:08] Danny: That’s’ so cool.
[00:03:09] Karyssa: Feel free to introduce yourselves and whatever.
[00:03:14] Danny: I'm Frannie. We work in Cambridge for research method Bernier I know a ton about the vagus nerve and just all around challenge piecing great chick and I just crushed kiss. I love Matt. He's a great kisser. Danny, do you want to come in?
[00:03:38] Frannie: Yeah, I'm Danny. And I love breathwork. I’m Brazilian and I do jujitsu and sometimes I do both at the same time. Now, I got no about me man and keep it positive.
[00:03:57] Danny: That was perfect.
[00:03:59] Karyssa: That was podcast done, that was amazing.
[00:04:02] Frannie: This is all I need.
[00:04:03] Karyssa: This is I love. I should like I don't typically imitate people but I always thought on my body just helps me to imitate Danny it is like a reflex.
[00:04:15] Danny: I just thought it was you came to me the Ponderosa and say, “Danny, don't be mad. I don't think you will think to something that would offend you. But I do like a few like it's a really good brush.” Whip it out, man. I'm like, “Oh my God, that's credibly good.”
[00:04:34] Frannie: Was this before after I shaved your back?
[00:04:37] Danny: Actually I think was pretty early. I think no shave in early days. Who shaves Chad's back?
[00:04:49] Frannie: Probably his wife, Katie. Katie, we love you. We're very sorry that you're married to Chad.
[00:04:58] Danny: I don’t think I was making a fun of Chad.
[00:05:02] Nick: No, no, we do what he's here to do. We do it to his face. He does it back. So it's all okay if you do it back.
[00:05:10] Frannie: He likes it.
[00:05:11] Karyssa: When you're hired at ProForm, I remember very vividly from my interview over four years ago, you have to be able to take it and give it back. If you can't give it back, you've created this environment not the place to work. So it's expected every day. So we'll talk about them. Now we'll talk about into space and it's totally fine.
[00:05:33] Danny: It's not a beautiful thing. Arts was someone obviously, who has the ability to launch a positional power, uses it to launch an initiative where, I like being made fun of. I love that. It's like, I'm gonna do it. And I would only feel good about it. If I can get it too, that's a fun challenge for sure. He'd fit like a glove in the fire department walk in, the beam from the Bronx against the fire department is like, if you are not being made fun of it means you don't have many friends.
[00:06:09] Nick: Fair enough. I'd say it's pretty similar here.
[00:06:11] Karyssa: I completely agree.
[00:06:15] Nick: Cool. Well, that introduction was beautiful. That was just fantastic. Let's start with what we just did. So we just had a workshop outside, we are back inside recording the podcast here. The workshop was breath work and cold exposure. You guys did fantastic. And why don't you tell everybody, we'll get into the coal exposure after once you tell everybody, kind of what you took us through breathwork wise, all the different techniques and a little bit about why?
[00:06:49] Danny: So how you breathe affects what you feel, how you feel affects the way we breathe. It's the only mechanism that controls our stress response. I I've always, not always I've been to breath work for years now. But actually out on the beaches, the beaches of Fiji in the midst of Jeff Ropes, the beaches of Fiji with me and Frannie breathwork every day. And when you're out there and you don't have your phone, you don't have connectivity towards superficial things, it really gives you like a clearer view. And I realized doing the breath work and talking about breath work. And to be honest, getting my mind open and expanded by this human beings, ability not only to explain really complex nervous system functionality, but explain it in a way where I can understand it. I'm not be self-deprecating sandwich, I'm not a dummy. I don't have any kind of background, or medical background. Frannie did it where she can explain things about like the vagus nerve and what's actually happening. And I've been practicing breathwork for so long that a lot of the locks found keys from, “Oh, that's what's happening. That's why I feel so good.” And we do breathe work every day out there. And at the Ponderosa after, like I said, I'm going to become a breath coach. And we're going to do a meditation live, we're going to do something like there's been in habit like the coked out and then reach out. And I was like, “Oh Massachusetts, that's far and immediately in the Bronx, New York.” I’m like, “Frannie. How far are you from here?” And I was like, 40 minutes. So I was like, “Let's deal with it.”
[00:08:50] Karyssa: Pick up the car and go.
[00:08:53] Nick: That's awesome. That's great. The breathwork thing, the thing I love about your story, Danny, is like you said, you didn't you didn't have any job in the field or anything like that your knowledge of it was basically just to grow your own health. And I think that's important. We talked about this a lot on the podcast, I was telling for any this off air were big reason for this podcast is to show everybody, it's your health, you are your primary care provider, like it's you, first and foremost, these other people that you're going to see doctors, whoever they're there to maybe help guide you in an appropriate direction or assist you but you are the first point of contact, so you can't take your own health into your own hands. And you have to especially in this modern world, where we're just exposed to so many things that are trying to make us more sympathetic or so many things that are toxic to us. So taking that into your own hands is huge. So, I think that's really important for people to understand that like you said you didn't have a background in it. You just kind of figured it out and then Frannie was there to kind of complement that and drive it home but that came a lot for you. That's awesome. So, Danny, said a lot about the vagus nerve. So what is your background?
[00:10:05] Frannie: So this was a really interesting combination of Danny and I because his experience with breathwork was all very practical like he had done this Wim Hof breathing and certification, done a lot of breath work on his own. And mine was almost entirely theoretical. So I work in research. And I'm doing a lot of work now on with the vagus nerve and how kind of harnessing and augmenting some of what's happening with the vagus nerve can help with folks who have chronic pain, have other things like depression, anxiety, and just kind of how influential the vagus nerve is on the entire body and the brain. But a lot of that, for me is theory. Like, I think this is super, super cool. But I've always approached it from a standpoint of like, “I found a really cool research article. So I'm gonna read it.” Literally, actually I flew back to Boston yesterday from Minnesota, and I was just playing around on my phone on the flight. And I just thought to myself and I was like, I wonder whether tear ducts have more sympathetic or parasympathetic activation flight. The kid next to me is blowing snot into his nose playing Candy Crush, and I'm on PubMed Research article.
[00:11:23] Nick: Did you find it?
[00:11:24] Frannie: Yeah, this is so interesting. So this has become a podcast about crying actually, let's make it happen. So there's a lot of that your eyes produce tears in response to, if you get dust in your eye or something that happens outside of your like consciousness. But when you're upset tears produced by sadness, or things, that's largely parasympathetic, which is your kind of more like rest and digest system, which I thought was really interesting. And I feel sometimes when you're really, really stressed, you do cry, but I feel you also need to have a certain level of comfort and vulnerability to cry. And I feel that kind of ties in really nicely with this idea of parasympathetic activation, you need to have some level of relaxation comfort to open the floodgates. Anyways, the point is, I have these thoughts that pass through my head, and I want to read research about this. But I don't know that I had a ton of practical experience with breathwork. I had done some Wim Hof breathing. I have a friend who's really into it and he got me involved. But I knew about it from this very scientific standpoint, and then bringing it together with Danny and having him show me what he's learned. And me share the basis behind it was a really, really cool connection.
[00:12:44] Nick: So, back to the tears for one second. So here at ProForm, we have physical therapy, strength, conditioning, nutrition, coaching, those are kind of like the three main pillars. But the last year to two years, we started adding functional medicine type stuff, just because my role as primarily as a physical therapist, I was starting to notice, there's so many other things that these patients and clients are bringing up that I feel like I can't help them with, but I want to, so I started diving into the functional medicine space, so did a mentor ship last year, all that kind of stuff. And there's a huge, huge component, especially with something autoimmune disease, with emotional trauma. And these people are so stuck sympathetic and they can't get to that parasympathetic side until they can face that emotional trauma. So they will be stuck in that dysfunctional immune state, a lot of times, and the big pinnacle for a lot of these people is address that deal with that and take that head on and get to the other side of it. So it is so true, it makes so much sense that the tear ducts would have more of a parasympathetic response.
[00:13:48] Frannie: And just two seconds on this, because I was just talking about this with somebody the other day, there's a huge, huge study done. And anybody who knows this study well, I'd like my butcher Ed fund to go look it up for yourself. But for folks who had adverse childhood experiences, so something in childhood, some sort of abuse or neglect something like that. The number of adverse childhood experiences that you had was directly correlated with your likelihood for getting different types of cancer. So something that seems so mental and emotional, it's this trauma that you're dealing with has such a direct impact on your entire every system in your body. And it feels very outside of our control. But what Danny and I have found and what a lot of people are finding is that there are ways to like I hesitate to say like exert control because I think anytime you talk about like controlling your body or controlling your shot, there's kind of a tension there. But sort of have autonomy over your body and your responses to things.
[00:14:53] Danny: We write your neural pathways.
[00:14:56] Frannie: And you're saying with giving people having ownership over their own health. I feel that's so important not feeling a victim to your circumstance or your body and what's happening, but instead being there are things that I can do to change the way that my body has changed the way that my brain is. And taking action on those things is really powerful.
[00:15:17] Nick: Absolutely, it’s huge.
[00:15:19] Danny: We all cried like, we did breathe work on the beach, like our entire tribe in Soka and then after as well. And especially if you're in a fasted state. I don't know, maybe the science behind this. But if you're in a fasted state, and do the breath work, my experience is your ability to take off and go somewhere else is like, far greater. So I don't know, if it's in a fasted state, it's easier to tap into that parasympathetic state where you can cry. But if I'm in a fasted state, and I go hard into breathwork, whether it be a happy cry, sad cry, or I could just go off and just be a middle sub.
[00:15:59] Nick: Yes, it makes sense in the fastest state, your body's kicking into that autophagy. So it's cleaning the cells. So it's got to clean some emotions to rally. That's all part of it. So your brain would want to be cool. Let's get rid of this stuff too, that is causing some issues downstream, let's get rid of it all, as we do it. So it makes sense that would work. Now it's true, though. I've had a couple of Wim Hof experiences. Usually when someone else is coaching you through it, like in my opinion, that's when you have someone kind of guiding you through that versus like, if you just kind of do it on your own, I always feel like you can get to a deeper space. And it's got a crazy the sensations you have not just something emotions, but even just like physical wrangling feeling like you're floating that type of stuff. It is really cool, where you can get your body to people pay a lot of money to feel like that for free.
[00:16:52] Danny: And people pay a lot of money and alter their genetic coding. And that's a part doesn't make sense. You add substances, and will mess up your opioid receptors and whatnot for that feeling where when you're producing it by yourself, for every key, there's a lot, your body's not going to produce and put you at a deficit, it's going to produce what it can get you back to baseline that. You get into an ice bath 250% increase in dopamine. And you're just gonna go back to normal after you're not going to be plummet, if you did a self-extension or something.
[00:17:30] Frannie: For sure. And even like less than the tingling and everything that's kind of just from my breath. Danny and I was I was nervous before we started the workshop. And I was like, Danny, can we do a quick Wim Hof round, for sure. And after we finished, I felt so clear is like the word that I used to describe it. I was like, I feel like I can tackle this workshop the rest of this day. Sure. I there was there was a clarity to my thinking and to my emotions, where I'm nervous. But it's for a reason. And I'm excited. And that was after what, one minute, two minutes.
[00:18:06] Nick: For sure, just like anything else you get more efficient with it when you work at array. One thing I did want to touch on, you said that Danny had a more practical approach to breathing where you took the sciency thing. So I had a buddy in college that was into Wim Hof when we were in college, and he tried to get me to do and I kind of brushed it off because Chris said, I was more of the science he brain. So I had a hard time wrapping my head around why this would be beneficial. And then once I really did get into it, and starting to experience it, I truly believe it is just because of our modern world and how our modern world keeps us in this really stuck in that sympathetic that fight or flight state and you're training the system to be able to pull itself out of that essentially, I don't think our ancestors would have necessarily needed Wim Hof. They just would have had it in their daily experiences the back and forth in and out of sympathetic, parasympathetic. But nowadays, you can be in it at a sub threshold level, just gradually building and just stand at this level that you have no idea, and you need something that to kind of flip the switch even further, push you farther, and then bring you back, push you farther bring you back. And I feel that's what it did for me which is huge for people today in this world.
[00:19:23] Frannie: Like you said, ancient people wouldn't have needed him half. I feel sometimes people can feel like bad or guilty when they're in one of those anxious states, if you scroll on your phone a lot, if you're engaging on social media, there can be some guilt or shame associated with that. But even maybe if you went to a cabin and lived alone and didn't interact with anybody, maybe you could get back to that state of like not being in this constant sympathetic activation. But as long as you're existing in this world that we've created you it is not realistic to like pull yourself out of that. So I think the first step is kind of getting rid of those guilty feelings and then what tools can you use to like help?
[00:20:03] Nick: For sure. Just like any other problem, you need awareness first that's the biggest, step because that's the first step. And then a lot of times you can just handle most of your issues, your modern issues with awareness because then everything else trickles from that. But you need the awareness first without a doubt. So let's talk about a little Danny. So we did some Wim Hof. And I know, I have talked about that. We mentioned this. I talked about that previously on podcast, but we didn't want to dive too deep into Wim Hof. We've already touched upon it in our other discussions thus far. But let's talk about your other breathwork training through the work of Dr. Melissa. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about her work?
[00:20:45] Danny: So Dr. Melissa, she's absolutely incredible. She's a clinical psychologist, turn breathing expert. And she created the breathing IQ score, like you can't change we can't measure and like you have a ton of you go to a yoga class and I ever take a deep breath in. What's a deep breath? Well, how do I do it? Because you could tell me how to do a perfect squat. You tell me, you could bring me and I could have the worst squat and world and you can come in, keep the weight your midline, pull your hips back. So many different things. You don't have rounded back, don't have an orange back. Take a deep breath. People are clueless. I was clueless. And then that's when you add in? Let's simplify it. Break it down. You can't change. You can't measure what can we measure? You can measure location of movement. Where are you putting air and range of motion? How much are you getting in? And if you're putting air to where it's supposed to go? The way that the way that we're designed to breathe, like you're not learning this. It's like we're relearning it. It's like we went over in the class five year olds breathe beautifully. Like you watch a belly, good old toddler running around. Taking deep breaths before, they're socially aware, insecure. So you measure basically how much your abdominal thoracic cavity called abdominal thoracic flexibility, excuse me, can open up and expand. And at the nipple line at the bottom rib. That's where we measure it. And if you're a horizontal, optimal hybrid, not as good vertical chest breather, which would be the worst. And then you calculate your breathing IQ score. And there she has the breathingIQscore.com. And anybody wants to check out theirs. I say this don't feel bad. There's a chart I wasn't on it. I'm not alive. Do you know what's hilarious to the ladies are pretty like a pretty good at this. So I would do this more advanced classes. I give the breathing IQ score. And I have a bunch of tape measures. And I have people measure it themselves. And what I realize is that I'm looking around and I see people we call paradoxically breathing like breathing the wrong way. Like breathing into your chest and your stomach sucks in and like oh, what did you look down? What do you get? And they're like, I got a bro. So I don't know if it's an evolutionary pattern or something they've adopted they we are convinced. We will fight to the death with our ability to fight. We don't curse on you. No you say whatever you fight suck and apparently breathe like guys will always just convince himself without like, “Oh, do you ever do a boxing class?” Nah, bro, I just see that. And you don't want to mess with me. I'm a great fighter. Every do things are great. And everybody, every dude will fabricate a breathing IQ score and give themself a measure. Actually, you're really an app. Because people can't like I've been breathing my entire life. I must be good at it. And yet most people I wasn't okay. Everybody, singers and people in theatrics who need to broadcast and the diaphragm and Japanese people for whatever he culturally bring to the diaphragm. Especially Japanese men, like you speak from their belly. And it's because they squat so much. Like maybe squat potentially, that good posture, not humble, not hunched over or sitting, sitting at it on the floor, Japanese. These chairs are in my lap. This is actually first of all things fascinating. But by the way, we're sitting now is not optimal for breathing. No, but if we were sitting on the floor would be way more optimal for breathing.
[00:24:55] Nick: We can take before
[00:24:57] Danny: I'm gonna get us around the person. I have a person who does research. I'm going to send it away for any can you do?
[00:25:05] Frannie: Dial me up.
[00:25:07] Nick: I bet their propensity to hang out in a deep squat, like sitting on the floor. And then they have the lowest rates of obesity in Japan, it's got to be up there. So I bet that's it too, because the more adipose tissue you have is going to certainly be an impact. It's just gonna be resistance to diaphragm function. So it would make sense that the more adipose tissue you have it's, it's going to disrupt breathing, for sure. But that's interesting, super interesting with that. The whole male female paradox with the kind of lying about your breathing capacity, but you can't fake it. If you measure it, you're right, which is huge. So let's get into cold exposure a little bit. I know where we're good on time. So cold exposure. So we did breath work, and then we have a nice breath, we had to go get more ice for any had to go pick up more ice because it wasn't cold enough.
[00:26:03] Karyssa: Who would have thought that 1300 pounds of ice would not be enough.
[00:26:07] Frannie: I went to a woman I said 26 more bags of ice, she was like you need more, you want more ice?
[00:26:14] Nick: We keep step in business. So why cold exposure? Talk about it tell us.
[00:26:22] Danny: So we don't have acute stressors anymore. And acute stressors are where you're going to exercise your ability to respond to stress. So if you keep your arm in a cast, it atrophies. So look at your stress response the same way. If you don't go and do that acute, you shouldn't sprint everywhere, you shouldn't sprint all the time. But if you use it as an exercise, and you sprint, you're gonna be better walking in a better jogging, gonna be better at sitting, you're gonna be better at everything. So look at it as the sprinting with your stress response. And then if you get in there and you have find comfort in the comfort in the discomfort or just showing up to something difficult, you just become good, you become really good, you become better at showing up and doing difficult things. And then you can carry that over to anything in life and there's a ton of science behind it, anti-inflammation all that. But the cold is using something that nature has given us as a gift, you have a crazy, amazing benefit from it regarding resilience, it regarding if you have autoimmune deficiencies, don't believe me, I'm a dummy, but the data is through the Wim Hof.
[00:27:50] Nick: That’s the research.
[00:27:51] Danny: Let me get my people on this.
[00:27:54] Karyssa: We'll get working on it.
[00:27:56] Danny: Your ability to do things you don't feel like doing is a superpower. As I don't feel showing up to work like I should, I don't feel reading that book that I know will make me smarter, that will make me happier. I don't feel meditating. I don't feel going well. Everybody's been in a bad mood before. Even the kindest people, if you're in a bad mood stuff, you don't feel it. But if you're somebody who often does things they don't feel getting into an ice bath. Even when it comes to like kindness. I don't feel being kind you know, but I know that's what I do. I'm gonna do it anyway.
[00:28:40] Nick: I like that. The world we've talked about how toxic the world is. But it's a world made for comfort and convenience and that is such a big trap. And we do need to embrace some of the convenience in our world, because it can help us be efficient, and it can help us productivity, all that kind of stuff. But we can't fall completely into that trap, you gotta find a nice balance of still putting your body through hard things, because you're just going to whittle away if you don't, and we always talked about it here, we were trying to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We say that to our patients and clients all the time. And in lifting things like that we do a fundraiser around Thanksgiving every year and it's a turkey trek, we call it the turkey track instead of a trot where you run and this is just farmer’s cares. And we see how long people can carry. Usually we try to have them carry their body weight, see if you can make a certain distance will match their donation, all that kind of stuff. But that is really something that we here at ProForm hope holds true to our vision is just we got to do some uncomfortable things so you can continue to become resilient and more resilient throughout the lifespan. Because so many people just they love the scapegoats of all it's just a agent genetics agent genetics. I'm just older now. I can't do that anymore. Well, it's like what was the last time you did it? 10 years ago, that's why age is always a factor. We're only on this earth for so long. Genetics, they play a role. I totally get that but medical system loves to use those as scapegoats. You're just older now and your mom and dad had it or your aunt and uncle, whatever, it's like blame the age of jeans and you give people out. I don't have to do that anymore but that's the worst thing that we can do for ourselves as a society for sure.
[00:30:28] Frannie: Well, that's like when we were on the phone the other day. Me, and Danny had a 30 minute conversation, and I was going over what ProForm is and what we believe in all that good stuff. And I said, go to saying is you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And immediately, Danny was like, “Oh my God, no way.” Like I say that too. And it really speaks true to how our business runs, because we're not the cookie cutter where you're going through insurance, and you're seeing your PT for 10 minutes, and then being passed off to an eight or whatever. Like, if you're trying to get yourself better in whatever capacity, you're not going to get there unless you're uncomfortable a little bit that's just how you're going to make yourself better. And going into today, I was terrified of getting in that water TWICE. And I knew I was gonna be uncomfortable. But realistically, it's two minutes goes by like that, if you're focused, and I had Nick next to me, and Nick was cheering me on the whole time and whatever. And I got out and I was like, you know what, I kind of want to do it again. Because I feel good now. So I opted to do it again. And the second time, obviously sucked. But it is what it is. And I am proud of the fact that I am now comfortable being uncomfortable and it's going to carry me a little bit further.
[00:31:59] Nick: I said about the second time sucks because that's one of my favorite things about cold exposure is that you'll get better at controlling your breath and all that kind of stuff. But it's never going to get easy. It's always getting hard every time. Even if it's a few degrees warmer, it's still hard. And that's what I'll tell. I'll tell patients clients this as just kind of a way in my case, start with some cold showers. Like just try it out, see how you do. And because it's going to take you all, it's not going to take any bit out of your day, get in the shower anyway, just try cold and see what happens. And it's so interesting how people come back, and they're just so motivated and all that kind of stuff. And it really like a shower, if you got city water's only 50, it's usually like “I know, but it doesn't get as cold as you would think, that's cool but that was 54 degrees.” It's like, “Oh man, I spent 37 but the cold shower works, it's stimulating the same thing.” So I think it's a huge, huge thing day to day, you don't necessarily have to do every day, but if you're doing it with regularity, it's never gonna get easier, it's always gonna be a challenge and then when you've succeeded two minutes later, it's cool. checked the box. I did something really hard to start my day and that's powerful for sure.
[00:33:20] Danny: The cold showers even if it's like let's say 55 which is still so much worse than a hot shower or if you want to go to bed you have to cool down but you have to heat up to cool down and vice versa. So hot shower at nighttime is great but our shower is so much more comfortable. I find that when I'm convincing people to do cold exposure the ice bath something that they know they're only going to come across me once sporadically it's kind of an easier sell get in there for two minutes but I have to walk by my shower every day. I get in the shower turn my music on, it's my enjoyment period for sure, and I’m like, “Get rid of it”.
[00:34:15] Nick: No, for sure. I spent it's definitely easier. So the shower is a tough sell. I'll usually have people start with end cold just to ease them into it. But for sure that ice bath is definitely easier.
[00:34:27] Frannie: It's funny because my apartment complex lost hot water last week, I think it was. No, that’s not true. I got back from the gym super late. , I go to the gym after work. So I don't get home until like 9:30, 10 o'clock at night. And I'm getting in the shower and I'm like, “Why is this not hot?” So I'm really not feeling this right now. So it forced me to take a cold shower because I had no hot water. And it was horrible. Like I never have showered so fast my entire life and, but I'm like, “Damn, today that was way colder than the shower and I did it.’ So maybe I should just start doing cold showers every day like
[00:35:11] Nick: People gotta get used to it now because what if the grid shuts down and people lose, lose the capacity to for their water heater to work. I'm just saying, you gotta just it. You got to prep for it. Let's talk a little brand stuff for you guys. Danny, what's on the horizon for you? Like, you got any big events coming up? You got a vision for where you want breathing with Danny to go?
[00:35:39] Danny: Absolutely, got it. I got a vision. I'm trying to live in the present. Like I have tendency to chase stuff. Like, anytime, I want to really be unhappy with something. It's like, I let the universe kind of work hard. But the universe come to me. Like this, crazy hitting me up for this event. Like, this event was so cool. I traveled to another state got person from a crazy experience and survivor who's not going to be my lifelong friend that I knew right away. Like, it's we said to each other, we're buddies forever now. And it just happened to me and I was working hard doing classes, doing workshops, my vision for breathing with Danny Incorporated. I'm a corporate. I'm a corporation. I drink whiskey at lunch, meetings and I pollute rivers. I didn't want to do it. You have to reach her quota each month. I fire someone every day. So I do workshops. I have a workshop at flow in Midtown, New York City, September 9, and that'll be breathing mechanics. Dr. Bliss, the breathing class programs, which, and it's always Wim Hof. And Wim Hof captures a transcendental part of it for me. And then we're really just puts a cherry on top it which Dr. Bliss is the breathing class covers a transcendental part as well like to pardon inhalations incredible stuff. Like she's absolutely down for the hippie Debbie. But she also is lockable, I'll explain what I can. And she does a phenomenal job at that. But eventually what I want to do is do my workshops. I love my love that, like what we had today was incredible. Like just being able to see people and hear their voice and watch people just be happier. Like, I introduced them, I introduce people or reintroduce people or I had a party, the cold was their breathing was there. And everybody had a great time, it was my book. And at that point, it was great. Like, that's why I look at it. And what I want to be able to do is start a subscription service to my website, where I'm going to be putting out breathwork courses, breathing exercises, and people don't have time to breathe for 10 minutes at a time. And it's like they want it or I have a choice, I can either work out for 40 minutes, or I can do breathe work and meditation. So what I do is, if I'll do an ice bath. How about kettlebells swings into, we did say The Rock and Roll is a lower body of exercise where you're working out your diaphragm, and inspiratory muscle training drill. And so it's in my circuit, I'm training my diaphragm, which went over this earlier is like, I say stress response muscle, what is that to be pumped? I don't know that your diaphragm, your breathing is going mechanism, control, stress response, your diaphragm controls your breathing, like you learn how to harness that you can control your stress response in a way that you never do it if you did. So not everybody wants to sit and meditate. Everybody, you want strong muscles? Everybody wants strong muscles. And if you don't, then I think you reevaluate that. Diaphragm is a muscle not only is a muscle, it's a muscle that allows you to control your stress response incorporated in your workouts. That's what my subscription is going to be breathwork meditations, I'm gonna invite all my friends who are incredibly knowledgeable. And to have them their own ideas and different than what I wanted mindfulness, frankly, amazing body scan today, I would love to have that. I told you that too. I said, if you ran a meditation, if I came across your voice and I didn't know you and I heard your voice on a meditation app, like I would bookmark it and it is so soothing. So that's what in the works and you should have that up in a month or two and at people, we're going to be doing, you're mountain climbers jumping jacks, jump squats, rock and roll, exhale, pulsations working out your breathing muscles. And when you're doing breath work here meditating in one way or another so that's the point and then just keep taken up like anytime I come across beautiful people like yourself invite me to go places and I feel super fortunate and that’s the point.
[00:40:17] Nick: So, Frannie, you stay in and research what do you what are you cooking on the horizon?
[00:40:23] Frannie: Million dollar question. I'm not as good with that as Danny is with the whole branding. I don't have breathing.
[00:40:33] Danny: I have a whole plan for Frannie. I told her on the way now.
[00:40:35] Frannie: I know Danny's has more plans for me than I do. People in your corner you do every conversation that I have with Danny ends with him gassing me up. Like I've never been gassed up before. And I think I can do anything. So I appreciate that.
[00:40:52] Nick: But to say obvious, though, it's really what it is.
[00:40:56] Frannie: But sometimes you need that, something I think everyone struggles with self-doubt, or not understanding what they bring to the table. And then to have somebody look at you and be like you really know this stuff really well, can you join me for this. I'm sorry, I gotta stop imitating you.
[00:41:10] Danny: Please never stop.
[00:41:12] Frannie: It's cool. It's really nice to hear because I exist in this bubble of research. Everyone around me around me knows what I know basically about the vagus nerve about the nervous system. So it doesn't feel that special to me. But then when I can, like meet people and talk to people who don't know that yet or know a little bit, but it's really cool and want to learn more. That's a really potent experience getting to share that with people. So what's next for me? I definitely want to stay in research. I just love research. I love that way of looking at the world. I think there's so much you can like discover they're going to apply for PhD programs soon, eventually trying to figure out.
[00:41:54] Danny: What is that a community school?
[00:42:00] Frannie: Certainly stay in research. But just like I said, the part of this is the most fun to me, actually meeting people and talking to people and having a face to face conversation and being what do you think is cool about this? And how can I teach you about that? So I would love to join, Danny, for more of these workshops that was so invigorating, so fun. I think it'd be really cool to find a way to connect with people regularly about like, breathwork and meditation, I don't know, set up zoom calls that people can, “Do with me or something like that.” Because I think that, I'm existing in this bubble. I think this is a thing that everybody knows about, because I've been steeped in it for years. And then I forget so many people in the world, they know nothing about their nervous system, they know nothing about the mechanics of breathing and, and being able to give that to people is really, really cool.
[00:42:46] Nick: I think you guys really complemented each other well, during that workshop, kind of bring in it each year, individual angles on breath work and cold exposure, why it's important, why it's beneficial and how you can make it work. I think was great. So if Danny's got plans for you, how does she do it? I don't follow his lead. Timeline don't do right now. But the research thing is cool. Without a doubt it's needed. So much research is happening, but there's also a lot of bad research happening. That's being funded by the forces that be and they're manipulating it, and people are believing it and it's not cool.
[00:43:28] Frannie: Well, and the other element of this I've alluded to, I love teaching people about things and communicating to people about things that I find interesting. It's a self-serving act. It's not selfless. I think it's fun to talk about those things. And if you want to listen to me, then we can work this out. And I feel so much of research is in its own bubble. It's like an echo chamber. People are talking to other researchers, building off of each other. But oftentimes, a lot of those findings don't actually make their way out into the real world. And that's something that I'm really passionate about as well is finding a way to take all these really cool things that are happening and research on cutting edge stuff, and make it accessible and translatable to your everyday life. If you're a person you wake up, you freakin go to work not in research, how can what we're doing and learning help you on a day to day basis?
[00:44:16] Nick: I think that Danny has a website. So you might be able to do it on that.
[00:44:25] Karyssa: Yeah, we just have to change it now.
[00:44:27] Nick: That is so true. Because in the physical therapy world, specifically as it relates to interventions and things that we would use in the clinic, there was a study I don't even know what year was from but it basically said that, “Once something is some kind of intervention exercise or modality begins the research process, it takes on average 17 years for it to become common practice.” So someone like yourself getting stuff out there as long as it's safe, vagus nerve exercises, and Coming gargling like that stuff is easy. You're not gonna hurt yourself. Like you could do it. And people just need to know about it. So that is really like that.
[00:45:12] Danny: Dr. Bliss has of ranches book breathing for Warriors, which I was reading at the Ponderosa and before and after survivor it's incredible to get deep dive into breathing mechanics and that was one of the questions she answers how come this isn't common knowledge if this breathing stuff or like isolated respiratory muscle training like it is exactly what you said, which is a 15, 17 year. So it's 17 years. So remember, yoga and Bikram came out, breathwork will be that right now and you start to see it, it starts off the chain trickles down. People have money in research. Tiger Woods has a profit coach. He's a mindfulness and breath coach. All the elite level athletes are going to be having breath coaches.
[00:44:59] Nick: Thought makes sense. It absolutely makes sense. They're even just the teams themselves are having that involved. It's awesome. So as we kind of wrap up one question we always ask everybody is in the answer. We kind of know what would relate to breath or cold. So make it something different or rewrite whatever I was gonna say no. So every thought, what if you could if you could offer listeners one piece of health advice that they can implement right now today that would move their health forward? What would it be?
[00:46:40] Danny: Go to YouTube, find “Breathing with Danny”, like every single video I have, share it to your friends.
[00:46:56] Nick: That'll all be linked in the show notes. Door, go to my social. That'll also be linked in the show notes. You can just scroll down if you're on any of this podcast streaming apps right now. Well, here's one for any of that will kind of guide yours. So your way into the vagus nerve research I just kind of just mentioned quickly, like humming gargling? Is there anything else that you've seen in the research? That is something simple, easy that people can do to stimulate vagal nerve tone? That is kind of weird obscure, I don't know.
[00:47:39] Frannie: Definitely. I literally, during zoom meetings, turn off my audio and hum to myself if I'm stressed out. And it helps immensely. So that wasn't what I was thinking before you said that. So this doesn't necessarily tie in to the vagus nerve directly. But my biggest piece of advice to people for taking ownership of your health is to notice, notice what is going on in your body? I think sometimes we're so attuned to what is external to us that we forget to look inwards and see what's happening internally. There's so much you can learn from just listening. Like when you eat something, you eat a particular food, see how your body feels after it? Just because the world is, I have a friend. He loves sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes tastes good. We're like sweet potatoes are healthy, sweet potatoes do not work for him, like they make his body feel bad. And he only realized that through paying attention. He would eat them all the time, all the time, all the time. And so much that he likes to turn slightly orange, he maybe had too many. Sounds like it would be so mad at me for a whole other issue. But basically, I think we get so caught up in doing exactly what somebody else tells us like, exactly your doctor tells you and , this is not to say if your doctor is giving you like directions for how to , do something for your health, listen to them. Like social media, somebody says, do this exact breathwork exercise every day and you'll be happy. If you just do exactly what somebody else is saying is healthy or is good. It will not work for you 100%. You need to be able to listen and understand what actually makes you feel good. Pay attention. When do you feel happy? What happened before that? Did you have a great meal? Did you spend time with friends did you take a step away from work and have some time to relax, paying attention to those things will help you make decisions that that will make you feel better going forward in the long run like that.
[00:49:37] Nick: Modern culture and society definitely blocks our intuition a lot of times, we have to take a step back from that and really just get intuitive what's your body telling? It's huge.
[00:49:48] Danny: It really is.
[00:49:50] Nick: So the two big pieces go to go to Danny's YouTube and social media.
[00:49:54] Danny: I want to do a real one now. Don't actually unsubscribe. I changed my mind. When I started feeling happier, obviously, I'm not totally figured out. And that's when I started being happier when I was like, “Oh, I don't know anything. And it was when I was separated, and I just take on Joe Rogan's expressions that I'm sure he got from Tony on to read the story, what do you do? Like, are you a low point? Did you do something you're ashamed of? You've watched movies and stories and read books where the main character messed up? And what did they do? What do you want them to do? What's the character you like? What do they do and separate, take yourself out and really, really watch. And if you're reading the story of met this person unhappy, it was what does this person been doing? Other than eating sweet potatoes, golf stop, but it takes some time stepping out and observing. And it's like asking yourself, do you like to character right now? And it's gonna look different for everybody and do that. Don't listen to a thing. Don't listen to me. Don't listen to any single human being, you do what you like the character that you think would be the coolest? And I think that's a rarely in life. Does one thing kind of umbrella over a lot and that's one thing. I think it does be the hero of your story.
[00:51:29] Nick: And there you have it. Well, I think we're going to end on that.
[00:51:34] Frannie: Perfect. Sounds great.
[00:51:35] Nick: Well, I'm not gonna give like Chad gives a little kind of outro here. I'm not gonna give any kind of fancy one. Danny took that over. So thanks for tuning in everybody. We'll be back at some point in the near future. I don't know what the next episode is. But we'll have something come to you soon. Alright, see everybody later.
[00:51:55] PODCAST OUTRO: Thank you for joining us “In The RACK” this week. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. You can also find us online at proformptma.com, or on social media at ProForm PTMA. And remember;
“If you train inside the rack, you better be thinking outside the rack”.
