Mike is a breathwork coach from the UK. After 15 years in the corporate world, Mike decided to leave to teach breathwork full time. Mike has trained with many of the world’s leading breathwork innovators; such as Wim Hof, James Nestor and Patrick McKeown.
Great episode! I was wondering if we were going to keep getting these. I know you mentioned that you are building the infrastructure for the house. Are you finding yourself feeling guilty whereby you want to live somewhere relatively unpopulated and undeveloped(nature, forest etc.) but when you come there you start adding plumbing, water, electricity. All these things from the urban setting. There does seem to be this contradiction. It's almost like you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you can keep going and next thing you know the location starts becoming another concrete jungle.
The mouse and elephant bit has a lot to do with the 3/4ths scaling law in biology (well not only biology). Essentially as the mass of an animal increases the rate of metabolism only increases by 75%. That's why a very small but metabolically intense mouse and a large low metabolic elephant have near equivalent heartbeat totals in a lifetime. Physicist Geoffrey West talks about this in his book Scale.
I wanted to keep the possibility of humans possessing some form of photosynthesis open. It's a fun idea. But the more I think about it the less plausible it becomes. My logic is basically that absorption of sunlight results in the synthesis of vitamin D (good). But there's a reason people who's ancestors originate from a region with intense solar radiation have dark skin. It's not (directly) to protect against skin cancer as is often claimed. It's because UV radiation destroys the levels of folic acid in the body. This directly impacts anything to do with cell division i.e. a developing fetus, spermatogenesis, and general healing of tissue. This dance between vitamin D synthesis and protection against folic acid degradation can be in the latitude and skin pigment of ancestral populations. I just can't imagine that the ability of photosynthesis wouldn't show up in some way in this already intricate dance of selective pressures
Great, uplifting interview. Glad you were able to make it happen! I think as a word, “placebo” induces a hang-up in many people. The common understanding of placebo is something like fake or false. Seems akin to a sense of the imagination or the imagined as fake or false. It’s very possible for something real to come about through the act of setting intention. We have a long way to go in understanding the power or impact evident in this, but it feels like the linchpin to me. A conscious relationship with the breath is the perfect avenue to experience this firsthand. Thank you for this episode! I’m glad to have a new resource 🙂
Two comments in one. The first short: haven't tuned in for a couple months or so but I have no podcast obligations so don't need a mea culpa :) Also tend to binge listen.
Next and not hyperbolically the universe is speaking to me today. With a family situation I was thinking about these 'signs' after waking up. Phoned my mother and so was she and we had a great talk about it. This podcast is in my email hours later and deep breathing seemed beneficial so I started. Then you go in that whole direction of the universe speaking to you. Can't plan these things, but as you said, what does it mean?? I had never heard you tell that riveting story of during the very moments of moving into an apt again with a women you loved but couldn't live with pragmatically the big earthquake hits exactly then. I thought you were going to say something like, well, everything is literally falling apart and we could have died if the building collapsed and obviously that means this is a relationship that will be destructive for both of us and we need to get the heck out of it. You had the opposite interpretation that it meant the relationship was going to be a massive struggle for the sake of love maybe. I was thinking about interpreting earlier and this podcast put words on it - connecting the dots going forward if the universe is speaking to you is best left to connecting the dots in hindsight after time has passed. A little off topic, I really liked the idea that all paths go to the same place - nowhere. Enjoying and feeling right while you're on the path is a much better premise. More off topic, I hiked and backpacked alone for years oblivious to bears in the Rocky Mountains until I met a grizzly on a plateau a stone's throw away which growled but did not charge, and I backed away slowly into the forest. Then spent years obsessively worried about meeting another grizzly with a worse outcome. Neither mental states were accurate assessment of risks. To add from recent life experience, I will say it is possible for someone to redefine themselves beneficially in ways they never thought they could. 8 years ago at age 47 I scrambled a mountain with a friend and felt superb and expected by now to have gone on a non-psychotic 20,000 ft high climbing expedition in the Himalayas: Island Peak to be specific. Instead a month later I was hit with a long term illness with the best formal diagnosis being Peripheral Neurological Disease. On a good day my range for years on crutches has averaged about 1000 ft one way. Like a lot of people who have gone through unexpected serious situations I would not wish it on anyone else. Over a decade ago I heard a women say the person she had become with terminal cancer was better than not having had that diagnosis. I don't relate to that. I've known more than one person who died from cancer in their 40's not thinking that at all. However, since my situation has become somewhat stable for a long time I will say I would rather have had this happen to me and become who I am than have remained who I was. Of course I would have preferred remaining healthy and then still becoming the person I am through that process of growth (it's not a fait accompli btw). Didn't get that option regardless. I also have mentioned at times to people that if things deteriorate I reserve the right to change my mind. Thank you for annoying the hell out of me with your emails. This podcast really helped!
The thing about the Universe speaking to us yet we choose what we want to hear reminded me of this scene in Steve Martin's The Man with Two Brains:
https://youtu.be/mkcKQmr7kRc
Great episode! I was wondering if we were going to keep getting these. I know you mentioned that you are building the infrastructure for the house. Are you finding yourself feeling guilty whereby you want to live somewhere relatively unpopulated and undeveloped(nature, forest etc.) but when you come there you start adding plumbing, water, electricity. All these things from the urban setting. There does seem to be this contradiction. It's almost like you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you can keep going and next thing you know the location starts becoming another concrete jungle.
The mouse and elephant bit has a lot to do with the 3/4ths scaling law in biology (well not only biology). Essentially as the mass of an animal increases the rate of metabolism only increases by 75%. That's why a very small but metabolically intense mouse and a large low metabolic elephant have near equivalent heartbeat totals in a lifetime. Physicist Geoffrey West talks about this in his book Scale.
I wanted to keep the possibility of humans possessing some form of photosynthesis open. It's a fun idea. But the more I think about it the less plausible it becomes. My logic is basically that absorption of sunlight results in the synthesis of vitamin D (good). But there's a reason people who's ancestors originate from a region with intense solar radiation have dark skin. It's not (directly) to protect against skin cancer as is often claimed. It's because UV radiation destroys the levels of folic acid in the body. This directly impacts anything to do with cell division i.e. a developing fetus, spermatogenesis, and general healing of tissue. This dance between vitamin D synthesis and protection against folic acid degradation can be in the latitude and skin pigment of ancestral populations. I just can't imagine that the ability of photosynthesis wouldn't show up in some way in this already intricate dance of selective pressures
Great, uplifting interview. Glad you were able to make it happen! I think as a word, “placebo” induces a hang-up in many people. The common understanding of placebo is something like fake or false. Seems akin to a sense of the imagination or the imagined as fake or false. It’s very possible for something real to come about through the act of setting intention. We have a long way to go in understanding the power or impact evident in this, but it feels like the linchpin to me. A conscious relationship with the breath is the perfect avenue to experience this firsthand. Thank you for this episode! I’m glad to have a new resource 🙂
Two comments in one. The first short: haven't tuned in for a couple months or so but I have no podcast obligations so don't need a mea culpa :) Also tend to binge listen.
Next and not hyperbolically the universe is speaking to me today. With a family situation I was thinking about these 'signs' after waking up. Phoned my mother and so was she and we had a great talk about it. This podcast is in my email hours later and deep breathing seemed beneficial so I started. Then you go in that whole direction of the universe speaking to you. Can't plan these things, but as you said, what does it mean?? I had never heard you tell that riveting story of during the very moments of moving into an apt again with a women you loved but couldn't live with pragmatically the big earthquake hits exactly then. I thought you were going to say something like, well, everything is literally falling apart and we could have died if the building collapsed and obviously that means this is a relationship that will be destructive for both of us and we need to get the heck out of it. You had the opposite interpretation that it meant the relationship was going to be a massive struggle for the sake of love maybe. I was thinking about interpreting earlier and this podcast put words on it - connecting the dots going forward if the universe is speaking to you is best left to connecting the dots in hindsight after time has passed. A little off topic, I really liked the idea that all paths go to the same place - nowhere. Enjoying and feeling right while you're on the path is a much better premise. More off topic, I hiked and backpacked alone for years oblivious to bears in the Rocky Mountains until I met a grizzly on a plateau a stone's throw away which growled but did not charge, and I backed away slowly into the forest. Then spent years obsessively worried about meeting another grizzly with a worse outcome. Neither mental states were accurate assessment of risks. To add from recent life experience, I will say it is possible for someone to redefine themselves beneficially in ways they never thought they could. 8 years ago at age 47 I scrambled a mountain with a friend and felt superb and expected by now to have gone on a non-psychotic 20,000 ft high climbing expedition in the Himalayas: Island Peak to be specific. Instead a month later I was hit with a long term illness with the best formal diagnosis being Peripheral Neurological Disease. On a good day my range for years on crutches has averaged about 1000 ft one way. Like a lot of people who have gone through unexpected serious situations I would not wish it on anyone else. Over a decade ago I heard a women say the person she had become with terminal cancer was better than not having had that diagnosis. I don't relate to that. I've known more than one person who died from cancer in their 40's not thinking that at all. However, since my situation has become somewhat stable for a long time I will say I would rather have had this happen to me and become who I am than have remained who I was. Of course I would have preferred remaining healthy and then still becoming the person I am through that process of growth (it's not a fait accompli btw). Didn't get that option regardless. I also have mentioned at times to people that if things deteriorate I reserve the right to change my mind. Thank you for annoying the hell out of me with your emails. This podcast really helped!
Thank you for the interview.