Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Category: Wellness

  • Ep 232: The Remote Control to your Nervous System with Max Gomez

    Ep 232: The Remote Control to your Nervous System with Max Gomez

    You need it to survive. You can only live a few minutes without it. It controls your brain activity, your mood and your psychological state. And most of the time, we do it without even noticing.

    Breath is literally life.

    Did you know that there is a right and wrong way to be breathing? Did you know that you can manipulate your state of mind with breath? Breathing techniques have been used by different types of people from all different backgrounds for completely different uses. Breath can be used to withstand extreme cold, manage extreme trauma or high-stress/high-stakes situations. For others, it can be a magical key to a restful sleep or stopping the cycle of endless anxiety.

    This week’s guest, Max Gomez, harmonized his degree in neuroscience, his love of breathwork and his entrepreneurial mind to create a platform where over 10 million people can harness the power of breath.

    What is breathwork, you might ask? Breathwork is an umbrella term for powerful breathing techniques. The incredible thing is that depending on the kind of breathwork being done, one can either eliminate stress and anxiety, increase energy, improve endurance or help you fall asleep.

    “We consider the breath to be the remote control to the nervous system and we want to give everyone all of the channels to the nervous system. So if you’re looking to calm down from an anxiety attack, if you’re looking to go to sleep, if you’re looking to wake up, you should be able to control that very quickly just with your breathing alone which is a very healthy alternative to all of the other vices we have out there.”

    Enter Max Gomez. Max took his love of breathwork and his entrepreneurial senses and blended them together. What he co-founded was the Breathwrk app. Now the CEO of Breathwrk, Max has helped bring various forms of breathwork into the lives of over 10 million users.

    “True freedom is really living your mission and living your purpose. I really think that I’ve found that with breathwork.”

    Breathwork has some very powerful effects on the brain. For example, navy seals use breathwork techniques to manage high-stress situations. Some pro athletes use breathwork in altitude training and multitudes of performers and public speakers use breathwork to calm the nerves backstage. Not to mention yogis!

    Now, let’s get down to it.

    Controlling the rate and type of breathing used can have 2 major effects:

    1. Slowing down breath, can put your body into a parasympathetic nervous system response, also known as “rest and digest”. This can be used for relaxation, managing stress/anxiety or preparation for sleep.
    2. Increasing the rate and pattern of your breathing can increase alertness, focus and energize the body. This is great if you’re sluggish to get out of bed or trying to tackle that 3pm slump.

    “Something that we take for granted most of the time, something that happens automatically most of the time, unless you actually control it, can really have a powerful, powerful impact on your life and wellbeing.”

     

    More of Breathwrk:

  • Ep 231: Biohacking your health with Eileen Durfee

    Ep 231: Biohacking your health with Eileen Durfee

    Imagine growing up in the birthplace of the nuclear bomb, where facilities that housed The Manhattan Project were as commonplace as the local football team. Now imagine that your first career is as a nuclear power engineer in this city. Your frame of reference for the world, your health and the health of the planet has a particular…nuclear feel to it.

    This was the world that Eileen Durfee lived and breathed. That is, until her physical health declined to such a point where she was riddled with allergies, candida, psoriasis and was feeling sick and fatigued constantly. On this week’s episode of Unconventional Life, we speak with Eileen, who shares her journey back to the healthiest she’s ever been and the technologies she’d developed to do it.

     

    Chronic Dehydration

    According to Eileen about 80% of health problems come from chronic dehydration. You can drink 2-3 litres of water a day, but if you’re water is super acidic or void of minerals, you could be stripping your body of its essential mineral needs, throwing your body’s pH out of balance and not actually hydrating yourself, or your organs. When the body is dehydrated, it allocates the water supply in a hierarchical “pecking order” (most essential function to lesser) so areas like your bone marrow might receive water before your joints or your lungs. Long-term dehydration can have effects throughout the body that may not resemble what you think dehydration looks like.

    When we ignore the biology and chemistry of life, our bodies are speaking and we’re not listening.

    “There’s this mind shift that needs to happen with people that need to understand what the body is crying out for.”

     

    What Kind of Water are You Drinking?

    Misinformation or no information around the kind of water you’re drinking and the affects it has on your body can leave people chugging water needlessly, with no real benefit.

    Are you drinking piped in city water? Rain water/tank water? Distilled? Purified? Spring? Ozonated?

    All water has a different surface tension, minerals, vitamins and pH all of which has an effect on your body. According to Eileen, water that can be maximized by the body has:

     

    Where to Start With Your Water

    • Drink spring water
    • water should be alkaline-rich, 10.7 pH is ideal (you can use ultra-sensitive pH test strips to test this!)
    • there should be minerals in your water! (you can add the minerals in, if need be.)
    • Water should have a small salt content. The kind of salt you use matters.

     

    A Toxic World

    The air we breathe, the water we drink and the chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis has an effect on our health. Things like your off gassing carpets, the “new car smell’ and the fumes from your newly stained deck are not good for your body!

    Over time, these things accumulate and your body pays the price. Plus, the average American spends 90% of their day indoors. According to, “…the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] indoor air is 2-5 times more toxic than outdoors”. Breathing fresh air, drinking good water and not using chemicals in your home cleaning and building products makes all the difference.

     

    Symptom chasing vs. preventative health

    “We’re chasing symptoms”

    The bottom line is, the majority of the population is chasing symptoms, rather than questioning what’s causing them. Here are Eileen’s bio-hack pillars of health.

     

    Eileen’s Pillars of Health

    • Spend time barefoot!
    • Watch the sunrise
    • Drink ozonated water and oxygen-rich water
    • Add healthy salt to your water
    • Coffee enema
    • Dry brushing regularly
    • Use a near-infrared sauna with a Breathsafe Device (plasma air purifier)
    • Breath more oxygen-rich air

     

    More of Eileen:

    Website: Creatrix Solutions.

     

  • Ep 230: The Myth of Work Life Balance with Jane Deuber

    Ep 230: The Myth of Work Life Balance with Jane Deuber

    Times are changing, unemployment rates are sky-high. Conversations I’m having around a revamp, a major re-evaluation of what is really important in life are swirling in my social circles on numerous continents. So many have lost jobs, had jobs scaled back, or are questioning what is really important. What used to be relevant, what used to occupy our days no longer seem as important as they were 5 months ago.

    Where to go from here? It’s rejig time and who betters advice to have in your pocket than Jane Deuber. Jane, this weeks’ Unconventional Life guest, has been building and accelerating businesses for over 30 years. She has dedicated her career to offering advice and pragmatic guidance to others trying to do the same. According to her. there’s never been a better time for individuals to launch a business, offer their skills and expertise to the world and to be happy doing it.

     

    Believe in Yourself

    First things first. Believe in yourself. The whole success of any operation comes down to your capacity to know that you’ve got you. It is from this place that you embark on your journey. With this foundation in place, the exploration of what you are meant to be doing and how best to deliver that to the world can be born.

    “When you know at your very core that you… are resourceful, that you can deliver value in some way that allows you to weather whatever life brings you.”

    This is the backbone of your personal resilience. It is the self-determination that fuels and inspires you to get back up when you’ve stumbled, when your business has a setback or when doubts are flaring.

     

    Exponential Empowerment

    In the world of business, the key to being successful requires you to:

    Find Something That Lights You Up. There is no point doing something that has no meaning for you. So ask yourself, what makes me happy? What is my interest, talent, and passion? Now, how do I find work that is significant to me that aligns me with those skills, talents, and passions?

    Work in Your Zone of Genius. This means identifying what you’re best at, then doing that. The rest is best served being someone else’s work. If you spend 100% of your time doing what you’re best at and outsourcing what others are good at to them, everyone is doing what they’re good at and enjoy.

    Tips for Aligning Yourself With Purpose

    Effectively done as a journaling exercise, these prompts put things in perspective

    If you have a business:

    Use the “rear-view mirror method”.  Reflect on the past year and ask yourself:

    • What brought me the greatest joy?
    • What was the easiest?
    • What brought in money?
    • What felt the heaviest?
    • Where did I struggle/where was it hard?

    Let the past guide the future. Let these answers inform what is working and where change is needed.

    If you’re starting a business or thinking about it:

    • Know in your gut that there is something that you’re meant to be doing. Believe in yourself.
    • Ask a lot of questions, do a lot of research. Success takes commitment and calculated action.
    • Now, to find the movement, or “your thing” ask yourself 2 questions:
    1. What breaks my heart? When you see something that isn’t right, what is it?
    2. What ticks you off?

    These two questions help you to identify what is driving you, where your passions lie and start to point you in the direction of what it is you want to be working on.

     

    How can I be relevant today?

    “There’s never been a better time for people to reimagine their work in the world-ever, right, because there’s a belief out there that this is the worst time to start a business, but there are needs and market opportunities that haven’t been imagined yet and so if you can just give yourself permission to be like, wow, sometimes what will happen, Jules is people are like, ‘who am I to come up with the next great idea?’ but the truth is, your perspective from the outside in actually allows you to see opportunities that haven’t really been met.”

     

    The Myth of Work-Life Balance

    Jane says that the work-life balance is a myth. The way she sees it, if you’re building your business or doing something you love, you are going to commit yourself to it in a big way. The balance, for a time, will be off. You’re “in it”. What she says is the key is boundaries. Setting boundaries for yourself is the magic key to keeping it together and maintaining a happy and peaceful existence. If this means no work after 7 pm or that no matter what your 30 minutes of meditation and exercise in the morning remains non-negotiable, boundaries are what’s going to keep you happy, focused, and balanced.

     

  • Ep 229: Being an Embodied Money Magnet with Jolie Dawn

    Ep 229: Being an Embodied Money Magnet with Jolie Dawn

    We’ve all got skeletons in our closets, monsters under our beds. For so many people this particular boogeyman haunts our minds, worries and wallets.

     

    Scarcity mentality.

    Oh yeah baby, we’re going there. This is that boogeyman that, for so many, haunts us, guides the decisions we make and shapes the way we care for ourselves and loved ones.

    “Scarcity really, long-term, takes a huge toll on the body, contributes to massive amounts of stress and so for me, prosperity is living life in such deep trust with life. To know that you will always have your needs met and to know yourself as the creator as your source to prosperity.”

    This week’s Unconventional Life guest, Jolie Dawn, isn’t afraid of people’s scarcity skeletons. In fact, she approaches them with a level of compassion that acknowledges the scarcity, allowing each person to move beyond the place of lack.

    Jolie is a spiritual money-magnet teacher who knows fear is a part of the equation of being a human. Rather than chuck it under the carpet, she believes, “…it’s about understanding how to be in healthy relationship with it instead of being completely swallowed by fear.”

    It’s about breaking through the ceiling of what you think is possible. Take a moment to take a mental inventory of how you feel about money.

     

    When you close your eyes and think about money in your life, what emotions arise?

    “Being aware of the way that you want it to feel and claiming that as something that is non-negotiable. I would want people to know that they are the creators of their experience with money, no matter the circumstances and to take that power back, because so many of us feel disempowered with money.”

    She believes that people have immense power over their financial situation. In fact, she wants people to know how much control they actually have.

    “Wealth is a mindset, affluence is a mindset. It’s a way that you think, it’s a way that you run your energy, it’s a way that you vision your future and there’s no story, there’s no money history that can’t be turned around.”

     

    More of Jolie:

     

  • Ep 228: You’ll Be Prescribed Music, Not Pills with Tim Ringgold

    Ep 228: You’ll Be Prescribed Music, Not Pills with Tim Ringgold

    There are countless ways to make sense of life’s challenges. There are equally innumerable strategies for tackling anxiety and depression, each with their own theories and studies to validate their existence. But there is one strategy that has stood the test of time, that no one questions and nearly every human on earth has employed at some point in their life to change their state of mind.

     

    Music

    Have you ever caught yourself tapping your toe feverishly and wondered how long it’s had a life of its own? Have you ever woken up on a Saturday morning and thrown on your favorite playlist to set the tone for your day? In its own mysterious way, music weaves itself into our lives and influences our experience of the world. This week’s guest, Tim Ringgold, knows this well and has been using it to cultivate a sense of presence and connection with his music therapy clients.

    There is a magical quality to music, we’ve all felt it. It’s that feeling you get when you see your favorite band of all-time playing live and you’re right there with it, or when you watch an African drumming group and a part of your spirit seems to live inside the rhythm. Tim Ringgold describes this as connection. He states that it’s not actually the music that’s doing it to you, it’s the connection you feel to the sound, the people making it, the instruments, and yourself.

    Tim started off as a musician and found his way to becoming a board-certified music therapist, an author, and a columnist for “Recovery Today” magazine. His life’s work has formed around using music as a way to heal addictions.

     

    Music is Medicine

    “Music is inherently therapeutic because it helps you move from point A to point B all by itself.” Let’s go back to that playlist you listen to on Saturday morning, the one you used to lift your spirits.  Imagine using music instead of pills.

    Music is an incredibly effective tool in helping to minimize the perception of pain in the brain. Not only that, but it also helps to regulate your emotions by regulating your nervous system. When you hear a song you like or find relaxing, your body releases oxytocin and dopamine, essentially, the “feel-good hormones”. Your mind state shifts, your nervous system shifts and you are no longer where you were five minutes ago.

    And if you tap your toe, well, the medicine of music goes even further.

    “If you engage with music, not just listen, but actually engage your body in some way, so snap, tap, clap, hum, rap, sing, strum, you know to engage with the music your attention has to be in the present to keep up with it. With mindfulness you have to think about it, with music you don’t have to think about staying present, you’re just thinking about the music.”

     

    Covid, Connection & Community

    Mandatory self-isolation. Social isolation. Social distancing. Physical distancing. The terminology seems to be changing as fast as the weather but the effect is the same.

    “Humans, we are pack animals, we are meant to live in community. We live in groups from birth to death and so, to shut us in is not normal for the human nervous system, for the social being that we are. We need connection and so music is one of the tools right now that is lockdown-proof.”

    Tim urges everyone to now, more than ever, turn to music. Find ways to actively engage with it in your life.

     

    SOBER

    • Stay present
    • Open up
    • Be creative
    • Escape stress
    • Reconnect

    “We are social animals, we’re pack animals so the way it works is this: I lean on you, you lean on me and we don’t keep score. That’s community”

     

    More of Tim:

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