Richie - The Breath Guy
Richie, founder of Xhale, specialises in breathing techniques that promote positive mental and physical health as well as performance. Having trained under multiple modern breath masters including Wim Hof (Wim Hof Method), Judith Kravitz (Transformational Breathing), Giten Tonkov (Biodynamic Breathwork) and Dan Brule (Tony Robbin’s personal breath coach) we spoke to Richie to find out how we can adopt this seemingly simple, yet transformational, practice into our lives.
Can you tell us about your journey into Breathwork?
Purely by accident (or fate, whichever you prefer). Some time ago my Dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, an autoimmune disease with no real widely accepted cure and a myriad of different and sometimes difficult drug treatments. Because there was no set treatment plan for MS, I was always on the lookout for different lifestyle changes and alternative treatments could be useful for him. Eventually I came across a podcast by a man called Wim Hof, a Dutch man often referred to as “The Iceman”.
In this podcast, he talked about a method he developed through his own experiences which is fantastic for everyone’s physical and mental health. What caught my attention is that he mentioned the method seemed to be really effective in helping people with autoimmune diseases, including MS. After researching his method more I learned that it had two main elements: cold exposure activities such as cold showers and ice baths and breathing techniques.
To cut a long story short, I travelled to Poland to attend a week long training to learn Wim's technique and found the effects to be so profound, especially the breathing aspects. On return I taught my dad the technique. Fast forward a few years and my dad breathes and takes cold showers every morning and his MS has not progressed at all! After this I was obsessed with finding out what else people were doing using the breath, which has led me to travel across five continents learning from many modern breathing masters and witnessing the transformative effects of Breathwork.
You’ve trained with Wim Hof, that must have been so enlightening! What is your greatest learning from Wim?
He is a truly inspirational man and the biggest learning I have taken away from Wim is to be fearless and not let other people’s beliefs dictate your own.
What is your Breathwork offering and who can benefit from your services?
I have such a variety of people coming to my 1-1 sessions, classes, events and workshops - from elite athletes looking to increase athletic output to busy business executives who want to learn how better manage stress and have more energy. Here are just a few examples of why people come to see me
Everyday Breathing - Optimising your natural breathing mechanics for better health and vitality and then to learn how to use your breathing as a tool to deal with life’s situations.
Breathing Meditation - Leaning how to use breathing techniques to go into meditative states and create levels of peace, clarity and blissful energy that you may have never experienced in your life.
Breathwork Deep Dives - Using specific breathing techniques to have deeply profound experiences which help to get beyond usual patterns of thinking and feeling to quickly and safely release unhelpful patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour built up over a lifetime. Think of it like therapy on rocket fuel!
Can you talk us through a basic breath work exercise?
Anyone can do breathing techniques but even before you learn any specific technique, there is one crucial piece of knowledge about breathing that everyone should know and it is something that should really be taught in our schools, HOW WE SHOULD BREATHE DAY TO DAY! I have a video on Instagram (@thebreathguy) with gives you the four basics elements of proper breathing. To summarise, they are:
Breathe low – down into the belly first, feeling your lower ribs and abdomen expand.
Breathe slow – between 9 – 12 breaths per minute.
Breathe through the nose – that’s what it’s there for!
Let go of your exhale – don’t blow out your exhale, just relax and let the air escape naturally.
This is how you should breathe day-to-day at rest. Now if you are exercising or using different techniques then we would of course breathe differently, but this should be your default.
Dedicate a few moments throughout the day to check in on how you are breathing. Are you breathing high into the chest? Are you holding your breath or barely breathing at all? Take a minute to reset your breath using these four points and then continue on with your day and check in again later.
What is your work mission?
My mission is to help raise the wellbeing of the world and I believe that reconnecting with your breathing is one of the fastest and most effective ways for anyone to drastically improve the quality of their lives.
How can we keep up to date with your work?
I teach regular classes and 1-1 sessions in London - you can find my schedule at www.thebreathguy.co.uk.
I also have regular events in London. I will usually announce these on my instagram @thebreathguy. I will be teaching at quite a few festivals over the next few months also, including:
Finally, You can also try some of my Breathwork classes on an app called Fiit where I also have a 6 week breath mastery plan to help you fully optimise your breath! -> https://getfiit.tv/richieb
