Full podcasts transcripts:

Patrick McKeown
00:02

Dermot wheel. And for our international audience, you may not know him, but he's kind of a household name here in Ireland, and he was a radio DJ, a TV celebrity, I'll call you that, Dermot ehm, and an individual who really got into meditation back in 2018 and then into breathing, and then changed his life and decided to get out of the rat race while the rest of us are stuck in it. And this is all the stuff that we want to kind of untangle from Dermot and see those nuggets of wisdom. Because even when I had conversations with Dermot, he's telling me all this stuff, I have to confess I'm still busy and wrecked, and I shouldn't be, and I shouldn't even be saying that. So, so Dermot, it's a pleasure to have a conversation with you. You're you're based in Dublin, and just a bit about your background.

Dermot Whelan
00:53

Yeah, Patrick, it's an absolute pleasure to be on the podcast. You know, I'm a big fan of your work. And hi to everybody listening. Absolutely love the podcast and the guests that you have on it, so it's a great honor for me to be on it. Yeah, it's been an interesting journey. As you mentioned, I released my book busy and wrecked in the last few months, and it's been a wonderful journey for me in terms of, you know, writing the book has been a great way for me to actually put, really make sure I'm putting into practice the things that I'm that I'm preaching. You know, as often happens with these kinds of projects, nobody's perfect, I you know, and particularly people who are, who are writing in this space, you know, sometimes I think the image of people, you know, sometimes in this space can be of perfection, particularly on social media and all that. And I've never, I've never, I hope, given the impression that I am a perfect specimen who always manages to balance work and personal life and all those things perfectly. But through my own experiences over the last 15 years or so, like many of us, I've learned the hard way, and I do my best to put things into practice that that I know can help, that science tells us can help, but also through my own personal experience and and, you know, other people's stories have been shown to work. So yeah, it's an exciting time for me.

Patrick McKeown
02:24

And you say you learned the hard way. And does it take that like, you know, I see, I think sometimes one has to be pushed almost to the limit before you say, this demands change, and now you're going to go with change. It's or the other alternative is the frog in the boiling water, and the temperature is getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter, and you don't even realize the next thing is the frog is cooked. And so you felt that here was my limit, and this is That's it, and you don't care. You have nothing to lose. Now at this point, do you think is that the way it's going to happen with everybody? Or can you can it happen without reaching those limits?

Dermot Whelan
03:07

Well, I guess that's why we all write these books, is because we want other people not to have to go down the same road that we have. You know, for me, my story began with a panic attack in the mid 90s on the way to perform at a comedy festival, and I was drinking too much, I had no concept of stress management, of breathing, of how my body was reacting to stress, the particular things that you know I mentioned in the book, I call them peace pinchers, the things that were really stealing any sense of peace that I had, and all these well intentioned habits that weren't working for me. So you know, it came from panic attacks, from falls when drunk, from dealing with overwhelm and burnout from work, from saying yes to everything. And I suppose that's why we ended up writing these books or trying to help people is because, you know, I feel that I and I can see it in friends of mine. I'm sure you can as well. You know, you when you see somebody breathing incorrectly, or you feel like, Oh man, you know, if, if I could intervene here, if I could give them some information here, it might save them from from hitting that point where they feel like the wheels are falling off, you know. So I think part of the human experience is, is naturally, you know, exp, you know, living through times that are tough, and we learn lessons from that. But I think the way the world is set up at the moment, Patrick, as you know yourself, is for striving and doing and achieving and productivity is rewarded now more than ever. I think ever in history and rest and recovery is very much overlooked, unless you're a professional athlete or in that space where they really do appreciate that we. Rest and recovery to foster that real resilience that will help us in those, you know, those particularly stressful moments. So, you know, I Yes, I do think that we it's natural that we experience setbacks and tough times, but particularly for men, you know, I think we tend to wait until we hit that crisis point. You know that the wheels are falling off when we go, oh, oh, God, maybe I do need help. You know, what's really interesting is, like yourself, I do a lot of talks and companies, and they're constantly trying to get the message out to their employees that they have these employee assistance programs, these EAPs, and they're desperately trying to get them lads, you know, will you use them? There's so many resources there, there's financial advice, and there's, you know, mental health advice and all kinds of things. But they find that people don't reach for those resources, even though they're free and right under their noses until the wheels are falling off, until they're in crisis point, particularly men, and I think you know, whether you're in a company or not, with one of those programs or not, this is how we're naturally set up. Is that we a lot of the time you're mentioning the frog in the boiling water. We don't realize that we're in crisis until we wake up one day and like I was, you know, in 2017 thinking, how am I going to get through the day? How am I never mind how I get through a three hour live radio show? How am I just going to get to the end of today without losing it, you know, and that's a scary place to be. So I guess the reason I wrote my first book, mindful, and, you know, the latest book, busy and wrecked, is so that we don't hit that point. Yes, thank you. So, so at least we can put things in action and put things in place that can hopefully steer us away from from that crisis point and help us to to make the landing a little bit softer.

Patrick McKeown
07:11

Is it kind of an effect like in terms of stress, stress is perceived and what one individual can handle is not necessarily what another individual can handle, but yes, yet, there must be markers across both individuals. How do you measure stress? You know, like, when somebody says they're stressed? Is it just a word that sometimes true out there, and because it's kind of fashionable or the way to be ehm, or is there a way that an individual can kind of draw in on themselves and say, okay, yeah, I'm feeling stressed that there's some tangible measurement that can kind of put me in this graph. I know there's the combat operational stress code, but what do you do, like, when you're talking with people, and in terms of that, that measurement so people kind of get an idea of where they are at. Because, of course, men too, like we spent and I spent 26 years absolutely stuck in my head. And when you're so disconnected from what's going on, you're not going to know it, because this is going to over rule this, you know, one, the mind is going to override the body, and the mind is going to keep on telling us to go. So what do you think if say somebody is listening here and they're feeling, well, I'm kind of not sure if I'm stressed or not. Is there some markers there? You

Dermot Whelan
08:27

know, that's a brilliant question, because stress manifests differently for everybody. Some people, you know, will get stressed out at just having a what other people will consider, you know, a very reasonable amount of things on their plate. And that's why, you know, tuning into our bodies, into our breath, taking a pause, as well as distressing us in the moment, it also allows us to start to listen to the little signals that our bodies and our minds are sending us around stress, and that's something that I was completely unaware of. I was deaf and blind to what my body was trying to tell me. This is why I ended up lying at the side of the road in Kilkenny having a panic attack, because I had ignored all the smaller signals. And you know, it was up to my body, then to go, do you know what? He's not listening at all. Let's give him a big signal that he can't ignore. You know? So in my book busy and rekt, I wanted to find out exactly how stress manifested for different people, and how a sense of busyness and overwhelm manifested for people. Because, as you rightly point out, it is different for everybody. So I did a survey for all my subscribers to my website, dermotwhelan.com and I asked them those kinds of questions, how does it manifest for you? You know? And so I put confessions of the busy and wrecked at the top of each chapter in my book, and some of them are really fun. Funny, but also there's a kind of a poignancy to them, because when I when I was reading them, I was laughing, but I also wanted to cry, because I just got the sense of so many of us are just doing our best. We're modeling through the day. We're feeling overwhelmed, and we're doing crazy, weird things as our our brains and minds are doing their best to to, you know, to keep up with us. So for instance, just randomly chapter nine of the book, one of the subscribers to my website said I once sat into the car and literally could not remember which pedal was the accelerator and which was the brake. And on several occasions, I walked around looking for my phone, only to realize I was talking on it. So, you know, there's a great example of a brain that's trying its best to stay functioning, you know, under pressure. So for that particular person, obviously, you know, a feeling of doing silly things, being unable to remember the simplest of things, you know. And that's a great example of how stress was manifesting for that particular person in that instance, you know. And that could be worrying too for people when they're like, oh my god, I think I'm actually I'm losing it, you know, just the book is full of instances of people putting things in the fridge that don't belong in the fridge. There's a lot of car keys going into the fridge, for some reason, you know. So those are kind of funny instances. But then, you know, over time, that can be worrying for people, as I say, you're thinking, oh my god, I can't remember anything. So, you know, I guess in a long way of answering your question, stress manifests differently for all of us. So it's nice to take a stock of, okay, well, how does stress manifest for me? Is it crappy memory? Am I forgetting appointments? Am I forgetting to pick my kid up from the school? Am I constantly running around in a sense of, Oh, Jesus, I forgot to do the you know. Is it irritability? You know, this is a big one that I hear, again, a lot from men, is that they feel a great sense of guilt and shame around how they are at home, in particular for a lot of us, we we keep it together. During work, there was a woman and sitting in the front row one of my talks recently, and she asked me the question, saying, you know, I think I'm okay and work, I feel like I'm on top of everything and work. It's when I come home that's the issue. I feel. Find myself being really irritable. Is there anything I can do in that situation? So a lot of the time, stress manifests in that we're on it in work, but it's when we come home to the people that we really care about, you know, that's when we start to lose it, and that stress manifests in irritability. You know, we're snapping, we're a bit snarky, we're we're unable to actually just sit with the people that we love, and listen to them, listen to it, and engage emotionally with them, because we're we're so head up with all this built up stress, and we don't know what to do with it. So we rush our children to bed, if they're small, and then we plunk down and try and zone out while watching TV. So I think it's a great idea for anybody to maybe just have an honest look at how you think stress manifests for you in your life. Is it irritability? Is it forgetfulness? Is it exhaustion? You know, one of the reasons that the book is called busy and wrecked is because the word wrecked kept coming back to me from people in conversations. There's like, oh my god, I'm just so tired. I'm just wrecked. And I could hear people saying how wrecked they were, and then asking other people for sort of validation. Are You wrecked too? Yes, I'm wrecked. And we spend our whole lives going, Yes, I'm exhausted. Are you? You know? And it just struck me is what a crazy way to be living our lives, you know. So how does the stress manifest for you, and what are the things that steal your peace? That's what I talk about in the book. One of the one of, one of the tools in my deep space toolkit is, is peace, and identifying those things in your life that are stealing your peace, and these are your stressors. One example I give for myself is alcohol. Alcohol is a major peace pincher for me. It's something that magnifies stress. It amplifies the stress in my life. It amplifies the symptoms of stress. So my forgetfulness will will ramp up. My irritability will ramp up. I know when I'm stressed, I feel more fearful. I instead of feeling excited about opportunities, I'll feel more anxious about them. So identifying peace pinchers are, and sometimes peace pinchers are people are situations in our work or a petty tyrant in the officer. So identifying those things in our life that are. So stealing our peace, but that we allow in, can be a nice place to start as well to see really how stress manifests for you and the things that are adding to it.

Patrick McKeown
15:12

I like that peace pinchers. It's really good, and sometimes people don't have an expectation that you have to be at their behest all the time. I feel demands. I'm sure you feel demands. I'm sure everybody listening here feels demands, and some people are more demanding, and they expect you to be at their beck and call, and they don't seem to have any consideration. Whereas there's other people who wouldn't be that way, so they would be the peace pinchers. They want a piece of you, and you, there's only one, you know, there's only one of us, and we have only so much time. It's It's tricky, and it's tricky because, say, for example, you're developing your brand, and this is your livelihood. This is my livelihood. And we feel there's probably a fear of missing out in some ways, that if we don't say yes, we lose something that we're so dedicated to being able to provide for our family. How do you navigate that one.

Dermot Whelan
16:23

You know, I think it's a great question. I mean, everything starts with creating a little bit of space so that you can observe yourself and your behaviors. It took me a long time to realize that I had very strong people pleasing tendencies. I think we all do to some extent, but mine are particularly pronounced, particularly when I was young, you know, younger in my in my 20s and 30s, I was just one of those people. I was a chameleon, people pleaser, which is someone who takes on the traits of people around them. So my accent would change, my behavior would change. And this can come from anywhere, you know, if parts of your upbringing and a desire to please and being the youngest and trying to get noticed and all these kinds of things, I was definitely a victim of saying yes to everything, because, you know, like particularly people who are self employed, like you say feel the need to say yes to things, in case it generates a revenue stream that you're going to need down the line. For me, working in the media for over 20 years, I mean, that's one of those spaces where you really are encouraged to say yes to everything, you know, foot in the door and all that kind of stuff. You know. You throw enough stuff at the wall. Something's got to stick all these cliches we're familiar with, but they're real, so you can fall into habits. But from a young age of, you know, coming out of college, of just saying yeah, trying to get that break, keep saying yes. You know, someone asks you to do something that you don't want to do. It's a piece of work that maybe you feel you're not aligned to. We say yes to it anyway, because you never know there might be a contact there that's going to be useful. And before you know it, you're in your 40s, and you're still running that programming, you know, and for me, and you know, in 2017 you know, I, I had begun meditating around 2011 and it had worked for me. But then, because I got busy, and, you know, I saw it as, you know, something kind of there in the background, but not really a necessity, maybe something I could reach for, you know, in case of emergency, break glass kind of thing, you know, I let the meditation go. And next thing I know, because I'm still running this busy software of saying yes and being a people pleaser and never really taking the time to go. All right, look what's important to me now for this stage of my life, I just was saying yes, and next thing I knew, I was burnt out, and I was crying in my GPS office because I didn't know what was wrong with me, you know? So I think that's when I decided I was going to lean into the stuff that I knew worked and actually treated as a necessity and not just a, you know, a little frill that, you know, I could use from time to time. And that's when I became a meditation teacher in 2018 so it is, it is hard to say no to things. It is. It does take a little bit of work to go. All right? Where are the areas in my life where I'm actually contributing to my piece being stolen? Where are the things that I'm saying yes to who are the people who I'm allowing take a little bit more of my energy than maybe I'd like, you know? How do I start to set a little you know, have a difficult conversation, you know? And I know, for instance, a story this week, right? I gave, I gave a car. I like classic cars, and I have a classic Jaguar, and I, I put this car into a garage with a couple of guys. Know, run the garage, and this was at the end of January, and they said, and they're notoriously slow for coming back and doing the job, you know, and all that typical mechanic stuff. So anyway, the car is in there, and I'm sending a little Hey, any word on the car, you know, trying to use my lightest, non threatening, WhatsApp speak and, oh yeah, waiting on a part there of should be fixed by the blah, blah blah. It is now July. I still don't have the car back, and I've had to sit myself down this week and go, Okay, this is interesting. There's a people pleasing part of you that is afraid of confrontation and is tiptoeing around this. So you need to sit down with yourself now and say, Okay, what's going to happen here? So long story short, I'm going in on Friday, I'm having the difficult conversation, and I'm taking my car back, and I'm going to let these people know exactly what I think of them, not in a harsh way, not in a you know, throwing stones through their windows, but I'm going to look them in the eye and tell them what I think of them. But you know, that was an interesting example of here I am. I'm 52 and I'm still working on those parts of myself, you know, where, you know, I would like to think that I had fixed, but I, you know, I'm not. We're works in progress. So for me, that is one of those peace pinching aspects of my life is fear of confrontation.

Patrick McKeown
21:30

You know? I think that's a huge one. And I'm just thinking there must be scenarios where there would be benefits and people role playing different situations and doing it in a safe environment to learn, because we all have situations that we have to confront, and probably with some of us that we wait for the situation to build up, build up, build up. And next thing is, we're flying off the handle altogether, whereas if we had intervened a lot sooner and stayed calm. And it's very practical stuff, isn't it? Just when you talk about it, and yet, I'm not aware, is there, is there a service out there that actually provides that, you know, really, this should be taught in school, because dealing with people is something that we have to do all our life, even sitting down with our with our wife, sitting down with husband, you know, that kind of way, like, it's very, very practical. Yeah, it's good.

Dermot Whelan
22:27

Sometimes. I think we can see it in our children quicker than we see it in ourselves. You know, you might have a child and you see they have a friend, and you can see the friend is a little bit of controlling behavior. You see your own child kind of running around, do you know, doing things for them and playing by their rules. And you're like, hey, you know, don't let this person boss you around. Now, you stand your ground and La, la, la. We're very quick to find it out in our children, but actually, we can be experiencing it in our work lives, where we have someone in work who we know is taking chunks out of us and we can't seem to stop it. You know, maybe it's a best friend who just every time we're with them, we suddenly regress into now we're 14 again, and they're tell, they're, you know, telling us what to do. And, you know, so it's, I think we can see it quicker in other people than ourselves. But still, I think all these things are wonderful opportunities to work on this stuff with ourselves, you know. And again, those things that are that thing with my car is a source of stress because it's always in the back of our mind, and if I don't deal with it, if I don't address this people pleasing tendency in me, that's going to add to my stress. Now, it's not a huge thing. But if that's piled on to three or four other big things, now your little Jenga tower is getting a little bit more wobbly, you know, so again. But what are the peace pinchers? Where are you people pleasing? And these things can really help us deal with a sense of of busyness and overwhelm,

Patrick McKeown
23:58

yeah. And so you started doing your own personal meditation back in 2011 can and your breathing as well, because we've worked together in terms of you're familiar with our work with oxygen advantage, and I'd love to kind of get your when you started off, because it can be frustrating enough mindfulness or focused attention on the breath. Can you give someone I sometimes feel as well, Jeremy, that there's a lot of kind of, I don't know, misunderstanding about the whole concept, that you don't necessarily have to be doing it, sitting on a in the lotus position, sitting in a cushion, sitting with all of the paraphernalia that it's nothing about, that it's literally just doing anything that you can't get out, to get out of your head and not to be just driving those thoughts, that rumination that's happening in the background. And I think about 50% of our time, we're stuck in our head. And stuck in her head is not a nice place to be. So your venture of getting out of your head is. How was that for you? Was there kind of, I'm sure it didn't go in a smooth line. So we'll leave that to you.

Dermot Whelan
25:09

No, it never does. And look, I'm a stand up comedian. So you know, at the time, even though I knew I needed to do something to help myself manage stress, I was really cynical about meditation. I thought was really fluffy. You know, mindfulness, I guess back then, wasn't a term that was used very often, and it sounded even more fluffy and out there. And, yeah, I was hugely cynical. But thankfully, I'm the woman who got me into meditation. Was a writer, and she had asked me to just emcee her book launch, and she'd written a novel, nothing to do meditation. But through chatting to her, I found out that she was teaching meditation to the guardi, to the Irish police force. And I was thinking, really, you know, I didn't know this. I thought it was just for kind of hippie types, you know. And I was thinking, Well, I have a lot of respect for the, you know, for the guardie, so maybe I should open my mind a little bit. And around the time, I remember picking up a small book by Deepak Chopra, seven spiritual laws for success. And that resonated with me. I like that. It was a short book, you know, it was something I could pick up and dip into and put down. Some of the ideas were starting to to resonate with me a little bit, so I just tried the meditation. And yeah, of course, you know if, if you're, if you've been practicing distraction for decades, that sitting down, focusing on your breath, even for a few seconds, it's going to feel super weird. You know, when we're small, kids will lie on the grass, on our bellies, and look in great detail at a blade of grass and watch a beetle crawling over a, you know, a flower or something. I mean, that's pure mindfulness in action, and that's how we're naturally wired. But, you know, we get busy, we get distracted. We get told about exams, we're handed a phone, and off we go. So I guess it's a skill that we have to relearn. So it was like that for me, but you know, definitely for me, I found that it was like when you start to exercise, when you start to work out a bit, you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're thinking, Oh, nothing's really happening. But then you meet people and they're like, whoa, what's going on with you? You're in great shape. And you're like, really, oh, I didn't think anything was happening. And it's the same for meditation. I think you may think you're still the busy basket case you always were, but somebody will say to you, what are you doing? You seem to you seem a little bit different. You seem a little bit more grounded or something. What's going on with you? And you're like, oh, you know, it was my it was my wife, Karina, pointed out for me how this stuff was starting to work before I knew notice anything. And this was literally within a few weeks of me just starting to do a few exercises at night time I used to go go into my office or where I was doing some work in, in a house we were in at the time, and I would I just started repeating mantras. That's I started. And I noticed that when I did that, my breathing slowed down, and everything started to slow down, and my mind started going to some interesting, strange places. But I didn't think was having a, necessarily a massive ripple effect into my real life. But it was Karina who said, and my kids were very small at the time. She's like, have you seen how relaxed you are at bedtime? You know? And this points to a little bit of what we were talking about earlier, in terms of that lady who said, when I come through the front door of my house, I unleash hell on the people I love. What's happening. So for me, that's how I was. I would work at a high stress, you know, media environment, radio, TV, whatever it was, stand up, comedy. And when I came home, I was like, you know, and I was just, come on, get just get the kids to bed so I could just flop down on the couch. I can't be dealing with the noise and the fall, you know, not putting on your pajamas and all that. But Karina was like, You're so chill now. And she was right. I, not only was I not rushing through potential, golden personal moments with the people that I love, you know, I was present. I was enjoying it. I didn't want my kids to go to bed because I was having fun with them, you know. And that may seem like a small, innocuous thing, but this is life, you know, it's whatever, if, even if you don't have kids, what, what are your What are your golden moments? These are the things we think about on our deathbed, you know, how was I with the people that I cared about, not, you know, did I? How were my quarter four projections, you know, and sales targets, and those things are important in terms of, you know, our day to day, but, you know, at end of life, those are the things we'll be thinking about. It was like, how was I around the people that matter the most? And if meditation and breath work is are tools that can get us to a space where we're actually present and there and not lose. And the rag and being that version of ourselves that makes us, you know, feel guilty or shamed, and that's got to be a help. So I guess, yes, it can feel clunky and difficult at the start when you begin any of the techniques that you know so well as well, but never underestimate the ripple effect that that can have in all areas of your life, you know, interesting, another manifestation of it, but it from a work sense, outside of the home. I had a boss in my previous job who who came to me and said, What's going on with you? You're different. And I was like, what? Because I thought I was still the same. And he goes, I used to love negotiating salary with you because you were so visibly uncomfortable that you would agree to anything. And I was like, and I remember I would go in and sit with my boss, people pleaser, oh, my god, authority figure, confrontation, eye contact, all the things I wasn't comfortable with. I would sweat, I'd blather. I would then try to people please my way through my own negotiation, which would mean I would make his job a whole lot easier. And I'd walk out of there feeling like, oh, I had totally undersold my self worth, and I was now on a, you know, an annual salary that was far less than I thought I deserved. But that's how it went, and after a few years into meditating, he's like, I hate negotiating with you because you sit there and you said nothing. And I became as a result of creating space in my breath and in my day and in my thinking, I created space in those difficult conversations where I was able to just be present and maintain eye contact and feel grounded in myself to the point where actually now it was flipping back on him, and he was giving in to me, and I didn't even have to do very much. So there was a lovely example, a real life example, of those moments in work where this stuff really can have a tangible financial benefit, because I walked out of there with more money than I thought I was going to get. And it was, it was absolutely down to my ability to sit with myself and sit in a, in a in an what I would have seen previously as an extremely uncomfortable situation, and not react from a from a place of stress, but a place of of groundedness and self awareness. And that's massive.

Patrick McKeown
32:41

It's massive as well, because the situation was the same, but all you were changed was your mindset, not even changing mindset. So you're not replacing thoughts with thoughts. You spend time getting out of your head. You spend time bringing attention to your senses. Okay, you started off with a mantra, um, but it change happens, and the mind isn't quite as busy, and that allows you, then to hold your attention on what you want, to hold it upon, and also to self regulate. It's an amazing tool. So earlier on, we were talking about the peace pinchers. And the peace pinchers are on one hand, but our ability to deal with the Peace pinchers, or to deal with the workload, or to deal with the projects, because I find in my own like I was explaining, I have a chapter to write for a medical textbook. I was and I got the word of it last Sunday, and have two weeks to write it. It's 10,000 words and it's scientific. We're doing a new course. We're doing a new OA course, and I've just finished a sleep book, and I've got meetings and this that and the other. And sometimes I feel, oh my god, like this is just one thing after another. But I don't know how I would co put it, unless I was using breathing, and unless I was making a concerted effort to get out of my head. And that's what I was interested in as well. When you started getting out of your head. Did you find the tendency for the mind to wander? And of course, you would have but how did you deal with it? Did that kind of frustrate you? Did it say Did you ever feel at the point that you were getting nowhere with it? I know you said that you've seen changes. You obviously stuck with it six or seven weeks, but I'm just thinking about somebody who's starting it off, because I remember my first 20 minutes, like it's I didn't have my my attention was not good, like I was a tall who came into my mind every two to three seconds, which is kind of weird because I've put this out to our own groups of OA instructors, and I've asked them, we measure how many times does your mind wander over the course of three Minutes? And people come back and say, My mind has wandered 10 times or 15 times, that that'll be often the highest Jesus these people must be, must be enlightened nearly, um, because my mind would have been wandering about 30 times a minute. Kind of thing. You know that? So you trained your brain. Do have you noticed a change? Change in that aspect of it, that it's not just that you're having directed it's not just that you're having to direct your attention, but the tendency for the mind to wander has significantly reduced. I love to know about your personal life. So when you wake up in the morning, how do you bring it into your personal life? And do you do a formal practice? And personally, I don't, and, well, I do a kind of informal, you know, in terms of physical exercise. But how do you do it?

Dermot Whelan
35:26

Like, what does, what would my practice look like in general?

Patrick McKeown
35:29

Yeah, so in terms of, do you, do you do a formal practice? Or do you have a tendency that throughout your day you'll bring attention onto the breath? What do you do with your breathing? Do you breathe in and out through your nose? Do you have your mouth closed during sleep, by the way, so all of the things that you bring in, what's your kind of your toolbox in terms of helping to bring a quietness to the mind?

Dermot Whelan
35:54

It's a great question, because it has evolved for me over the last 15 years or so. I guess initially, I really tried to lock in a practice. So I was doing every morning I would I would start it small, and that's what I always encourage people to do. You know, I the first meditation I learned was box breathing, square breathing. It's called and as well. Or my teacher taught it to me as 16 seconds. And I loved the idea that you could meditate in 16 seconds, because the the the idea was always it used to do an hour, and has to be on a mountain top, and, you know, in a beautiful location, and you have to be wearing 500 year old Lululemon yoga pants. But no the fact that I could do 16 seconds somewhere, and actually Navy SEALs were using it, and they were calling it tactical breathing, which sounds really cool, you know. So I started there, and then I went a little bit longer, a little bit longer, and I got curious about different styles, so I tried mantras. So just syllables or words or phrases you repeat silently in your mind over and over again, I started to use the breathing techniques and see how much my mind wandered, you know, with different styles. So I kind of saw it from a experimental point of view. So what I noticed was that my mind wandered less if I combined a mantra with my breath, so I gave it two anchors, because, like you, my mind was all over the place. So I reckon the more tethers like it, you know, like a tent at a windy Music Festival, the more ways we can tie it down, the less it's going to fly off. So that worked for me, and then over time, other elements have been coming in. So obviously, I came across your work, and I thought that sounded fascinating. And I'm lucky enough to have experienced your teacher training, which I'm in the middle of at the moment, and I think it's massively important. Nasal Breathing has been huge for me, actually, just in terms of, I guess, adding another one of those anchors. It's almost like a constant state of mindfulness that I'm bringing myself back to the whole time just by reminding myself, mouth breathe. Mouth breathe. And obviously, if I'm on a zoom, call. I'm sorry. Nose breathe. Sorry, sorry, nose breathe. On a call with you at the moment, I'm hyper conscious that I'm that I'm doing my best to nasal breathe as much as possible. Small things I noticed that, you know, in exercise classes, if I, if I nasal breathe as much as I can during those in the gym. I was doing it, doing it this week, I how I feel after the training session is completely different. Sometimes after if, if I have a sense that I'm mouth breathing when I exercise, I'm more prone to feeling like I've over exercised. My body's a bit rattled after it. I feel kind of anxious and a little bit in a heightened stress response, rather than a lovely post exercise, sort of, you know, rest and digest state. So that's that's huge for me. So I feel, not only my being more mindful in the exercise itself, but afterwards, I feel the benefits of that. I mouth tape at nighttime with your Myo tape, which also just, I just feel better as a result of that. So I guess over the years I've I'm really more acutely aware of the power of the mini moments of meditation. Rather than I do this big session in the morning, and I do another session later in the afternoon. It's the it's the mini moments. So though, whether that's I connect in through remind remembering to nasal breathe are are whether that's literally just creating a moment where I'm looking around, where I. Appreciating where I am, or if I'm in a conversation, I'm actually in the conversation. So it's the process of, yes, it's important to me to connect in to do my meditation practice in regular chunks. But also, actually, it's those many moments I find have possibly are the most powerful and have the most benefits.

Patrick McKeown
40:27

Like really, when it comes down to with the mind, and we, we spoke about it earlier on, we're either stuck in our head thinking or we're not, and if we're not thinking, we're attending to our senses, so looking, but not looking through the veil of thought, listening, but not listening through a veil of thought, or bringing attention into the body. So what you're you've almost, you've made it your way of life. And I don't think you're going to stop with this. I think this is a tool that you're going to use for the rest of your life. And I think the benefits I'm not, I don't, it's not that. I think I'm pretty sure you know that you will continue with this, because I feel the same way. But then I have to wonder, Dermot, how has it been overlooked? And I'm not sure. Have you ever thought about that? You know, we spent 1213, years in formal education. We spent all of those years developing the mind, and yet we never differentiated between rumination of the mind and practical thinking. And rumination that could be very harmful for people and is very harmful for people. You know, it's it's almost a shame that if there was a class a week or two classes a week just devoted to that, because that class alone, if it was presented in a way, that class alone, then would help with all of the other subjects. How have we overlooked this one? None of this is new, but yet you said even mindfulness back in 2011 and I agree with you, I was doing, you know, I I put out courses Bucha mindfulness back in with the economic crash here, men would not turn up because they felt it wasn't for them. Mainly it was women that turned up in fairness to them, and quite a few of it. And have you ever wondered, why has it taken so long to get to this point?

Dermot Whelan
42:26

I have a big issue with the way it's marketed. It was almost hijacked. And I know like you, I mean, I've spent the last, you know, 15 years going to spiritual events, meditation events, you know, wellness events. And I'm so used to being the guy. Are the other guy, you know. And a lot of the time it's

Patrick McKeown
42:50

Yeah, T shirts, turmeric, yeah.

Dermot Whelan
42:54

But a lot of the time too, it's the teacher is male often, but yet the audience is almost completely female. And it's weird, you know. And I think that is because the language around breath work, meditation, the mind body connection, finding peace, you know, stepping out of busyness. It's, it's just been marketed in a in a very particular way. A lot of the language around it is fluffy. It's very female skewed. And it's not that, you know, women don't deserve this or need the benefits of it, you know, as much we all do, but I think it's left a lot of people out of the conversation. You just have to look at the demographic of a room like that. There's no men. Are very few. And so I think what's nice now, and I think what's so important about what oxygen advantage is doing, and the work you're doing is that you're presenting this information in a way that's accessible to more people. And that's the simplicity of it is, is what helps it to win. It's what I've tried to do with my books, is use humor as the vehicle to bring people into the conversation that normally feel left out of it. Because I felt left out of it, I couldn't see how any of this related to me. And some people are into the incense and and you know that that side of stuff, and if you are, and I I like it myself from time to time, but if you're not, how do you get access to this stuff? You know? And I think that's why it it hasn't resonated and hasn't connected. But I think there's been massive strides in the last 20 years, isn't there's no doubt, there's huge awareness around it, but I still think a lot of the time, we're stuck in that crisis management mode that we wait until we're in emergency, or there's we're overwhelmed, or we're burnt out. And it's funny, the difference between, say, the athletic. World, and the Joe Bloggs world is that I think areas like sport and law enforcement and the military understand that we do this. It gives us this positive benefit. We do this, and it increases performance. And you know, I've been lucky enough to share some guided meditations with UN peacekeepers over in the Lebanon and they understand, you know what? This is a necessary tool, just as much as the stuff in my kit. We need to do this at night time so that it helps us to sleep and we can function and, you know, look after ourselves and each other and the other people were there to mind better, whereas in normal life, it's almost seen as sort of, you know, when, when things start to break down, you need to do this chronic anxiety. Try this, you know, it's, it's like a sticking plaster. Whereas we don't learn the way the other way is like, No, these are, we don't need to get to crisis point. We introduce this stuff, just like you do healthy eating or fitness or whatever, and everything improves. I do you understand what I'm saying. It's like crisis management here, but but performance in other areas, and I do think that's changing. And obviously oxygen advantage is massive in that space. Is why I want to become a teacher. Is because it's really focused on the positive benefits, as opposed to crisis management. And I think a lot of the Mental Health talk is in around there, which is necessary when things get really bad. But actually, there's a lot more we can do in the, you know, before we get to that place.

Patrick McKeown
46:35

Yeah, thanks for that, because, you know, I'm just thinking about some people who might be new or kind of to that whole world. And they're, they're wondering, is it relevant to them or not? And it's massively relevant. You know, oftentimes, like, I totally agree with you. I think there is a misunderstanding out there about breathing. Um, what is breathing? What is meditation? You know, like, it's, it's simple, but it's complex. But the main thing is that the language should be used in a way that anybody who's listening to it is saying, There's something in this. It's really about training the brain. It's about training your mind. It's about developing your capacity to concentrate. It's about being able to deal with stress. It's about being able to improve your sleep quality, to improve your energy levels, to hold your attention like it's massive tools, tools that we as human beings really need. And even if we're just relating one person to another, it's very distracting. If we're talking to another person, and that person's looking around them, they're distracted, and we can feel it. We may not say anything to the individual, but we can feel it that person isn't even listening to me, because that person is so stuck in their heads. But of course, that person doesn't even realize it, and if they're that stuck in their head, it's also a recipe for unhappiness, because I heard you talking about that study by Harvard as well, in terms of the the tracked people, and they asked him, Are you doing some things. Yeah, are you doing one thing but thinking about something else? And it was very common for people's minds to wander, but the people whose minds wandered the most were least happy, because they're stuck in their heads all the time. And then we need to differentiate between the practical thinking, thinking to solve a puzzle, thinking to solve an issue, but even that can become unproductive. So I'm just conscious of time. God, the time is after flying. So here's another thing, Dermot, okay, so we're kind of differentiated between the ability to step out of the head. We have this rumination of the mind or mind wandering that we spend a lot of time, and it's okay for the mind to wander, but not to spend 50% of our time stuck on her head, and especially if we're wondering negative stuff, self doubt, self criticism, rehashing the same stories over and over and over in our mind. What kind of practical step would you give to somebody that has never really paid attention. What do you do? Do you stand back and kind of look, and you ask yourself, What am I thinking about? Or is there a time that you're stuck in your mind? And then you realize, geez, my mind feels heavy now, so I need to do something about it. How does that work for you?

Dermot Whelan
49:22

For me, it's really not about trying to use my busy, perplexed mind to get out of my busy, perplexed mind. So for instance, yesterday evening, for no particular reason, I didn't have a huge amount of stress, but I could just feel my mind was there. You know that time, kind of 9pm you feel like, you know, I'm starting to feel a little bit fidgety. I know I want to start making myself endless bowls of cereal. I'm obviously trying to try to get some comfort in my body somewhere. So I there was a sense of. Mild agitation. Don't know where it was coming from. So for me, that's a signal of, okay, I need to get out of my head and into my body, and that the body is the way that I that I get there. So I come out here to my space at the end, the end of the garden, and and I will get down on the floor, and I put my forehead on the floor, and I start to breathe gently into my belly. And I know that after 10 or 15 minutes of that, I'm going to be different human emerging from there. So sometimes the the desire, or the natural sense, is that, Oh, my God, I've got lots going on. My mind is really fizzy and busy. I'm now going to concentrate really hard, and are going to going to sort of think of my way out of this. It's, it's the opposite, you know, I'm connecting with the breath, connecting with the body, was something that I knew nothing about for decades, and most people don't, because we're in a world where, you know the we're expected to think and our way out of everything. So you know, for anyone thinking, you know, I do feel those times at home when I'm irritable and I wish I wasn't. I have times in work when I can't stick up for myself, or I feel like I've so many emails swimming around my head. I feel like my head's going to explode. Those are the perfect moments to step into your body. And that can sound a little bit Woo and soft and fluffy and not very, you know, ambitious on your A game and all that stuff. But it's really, for me, it's about, it's it's do the opposite of what your brain thinks it needs to do, okay? And for me, that is just get into the body. So if you want to start small, for anybody listening thinking, I think my brain is too busy for all this stuff, and I get what you're saying intellectually, but I don't know if I can do it. Start really small and just put a hand on your belly and feel the breath expand your belly when you breathe in, and feel the belly drop back down. That is a beautiful place to start it. And literally it can take the length of a few breaths. And do that. Do that between your zoom calls, between the endless teams calls, just do that for 30 seconds or a minute, just get out of your head and into your body. And if you if it, if you feel something and you start to get curious, then you know there's, there's other techniques you can you can lean into and you can do it for longer, try things out and get playful with it. So for me, that's my my go to if I have that fizzy, busy mind. I've just gotta get into my body. And if that requires me looking like a bit of an Egypt lying on the floor here with my head on the ground and that child's pose, that that's what I need to do. Because I'll tell you when I was waking up consistently at three o'clock in the morning freaking out about, oh my God, here we go again. I'm going to be staring at the ceiling for the next three hours, and the alarm is going to go going to go off, and I'm a basket case, and this is where I am. You know, when I learned that I could get out of the bed, go into another room and get into that and just lie down with my head in the floor and get into my body, it saved me. It absolutely saved me from myself in those those moments of

Dermot Whelan
53:33

just I

Dermot Whelan
53:48

can you hear me? What's happening there?

Patrick McKeown
53:53

I was muted. It froze. So I'll ask root or need, oh, sorry, yeah, but you're fine. I actually just lost a little bit, but I'll just chop a little bit off. But it was, we got it all pretty much just the picture froze, and I think it's okay, um, or, do you know what? Maybe we spend a minute just going through that again. Okay, so,

Dermot Whelan
54:16

okay, I'll answer it quicker.

Patrick McKeown
54:21

Okay. So in terms of, then, when you're feeling that your head is is heavy, you have a strategy that works well for you and yours. I liked actually, you said that the brain doesn't sort the very thing that you want to sort out. It's not sorted out by thinking about it. Put it that way, if you're overthinking, thinking about it isn't going to sort out the overthinking. So what do you do then, to get out of your head?

Dermot Whelan
54:51

Yeah, it's really key not being, you know, not relying on a busy mind to get you out of that busy mind. So for me, I have to just get into. My body. And for instance, last night, I was feeling a little bit agitated, a little bit adult. I don't know why. I just had that sense. So for me, that's my cue, okay, stop thinking about stuff. Just come out here to this little room and just connect in with my breathing. Sometimes I would just sit there with my hand on on my belly, and just allow that breath to slow down and do some of that nice, light, slow, deep breathing. Sometimes, if I'm feeling it particularly acutely, I'll actually get down on the floor. I'll get into child's pose. And I find for just putting my forehead on the floor and then allowing that breathing to slow down, that's a massive help for me, and particularly at a stage of my life when I was waking up at three o'clock in the morning every single night. I'm sure some people watching or listening to this can relate to that, those torturous periods of our life where we don't even have to look at the clock, we just know what time it is. For me, it was 10 past three in the morning. That was my time, my special time to be alive, and it was only when I discovered that rather than lying there thinking, thinking, thinking, My trying to think my way back to sleep and think my way out of stress, that I could get out of the bed, get onto the floor, put my fire head there, and start breathing gently into my belly. And if I did that for 10 minutes or so and go back into the bed, bang, I was gone. And that was that's transformative. If your sleep can improve through a little bit of breathing or what you know, by doing something like that, your whole week improves. Your life improves, you know, because you're not a basket case running around telling everyone how wrecked you are, you know. So, you know, my advice for anybody doing this is, is try and use the body to get out of your head. Don't try and think your way out of a thinking mind. And start really small. Just start with a couple of breaths. Do it between zoom calls. Do it between those teams calls that rule our lives these days. And I think you'll be really surprised at that, that ripple effect that we often underestimate. It's

Patrick McKeown
56:59

been a pleasure tournament, and thanks so much for your contribution. I think it was a really interesting conversation, navigating the whole aspect of getting out of our heads. We kept it simple, which I really like. And of course, between the two of us, we would encourage people to absolutely bring this into your way of life. There's nothing woo, woo about it. And I like that you spoke about that it is for everybody. It should be in the education system, and it should be communicated in a way that children absolutely get it, even if at the start, you know that they kind of feel that it's not for them. Well, maybe they also feel that geography is not for them, or history is not for them. It should be a subject, like any other subject that we have for life. Your book behind you, busy and wrecked. How can people buy it?

Dermot Whelan
57:52

It's available wherever you get your books. It's also on audio book, on Audible. And anywhere else you get your audio books, it's there are 12 free guided meditations by me in the book that could come we get access to so if people are curious and they're new to meditation, guided meditation is a lovely way to go. And actually, if you get busy and wrecked, you also get access to all the free meditations from my first book, mindful as well. So you'll get the whole kit and caboodle, which is great. And for any of your international listeners, particularly your Australian ones, I will be doing busy and wrecked the live show, which is a blend of stand up comedy and meditation, which is my thing these days. I'll be doing that in Sydney in November, November the 28th so if anybody is in that neck of the woods and wants to come along and see me live, just go to Dermot wheelan.com for all

Patrick McKeown
58:48

the evening, because we have quite a few instructors in Sydney. So yeah, I'm sure people will be listening to it. I'm not sure if Caroline McKenna is listening right now. She's often down in that neck of the woods. So yeah, great, great. So, Jeremy, it's pleasure. Thanks very much. And also, your website is Dermot wheelan.com

Dermot Whelan
59:10

That's it. Thanks so much, Patrick. Keep up the great work. And I promise to do my oxygen advantage homework.

Patrick McKeown
59:17

I'll be paying attention to that one. So Well, waiting for that exam result to come in no pressure tournament.

Dermot Whelan
59:26

Thanks. A million you.