This is the final deep-dive in the series, woohoo! Time flies when you’re nerding out on neurochemistry (just me?)

As I’ve been writing these, I’ve noticed how many of the tools overlap. End of the day, we don’t need 37 techniques. We need a few powerful ones done consistently, at the right time.

So I’m creating a follow-up resource that pulls everything together into something super practical. Think:

• A daily rhythm map (when each naturally neurochemical peaks + what to do)

• Or a choose-your-own-tool table (like a Notion table with tags and filters)

• Or a 4-week experiment sprint (an email sequence to experiment with a series of tools)

Which one would be most helpful for you? Or if you have any other ideas, just reply to this email.

Okay, let’s get to it.

Out of all the chemicals and hormones, learning about cortisol has probably changed me the most.

It helped me realize something I have never been taught:

I’m made of rhythms. And so are you.

We cycle through energy highs and lows roughly every 90 minutes. Our breath moves in waves. Body temperature rises and falls. Even immune and repair functions follow daily patterns, peaking while we sleep.

Cortisol plays a central role in all of this.

It shapes your sleep-wake cycle, your focus, your motivation, your recovery. It helps you rise to meet challenges, and rest when the challenge is over.

What’s made the biggest difference for me is learning to work with those rhythms instead of trying to override them.

When I feel a dip in energy, I don’t force or push anymore.

I run. I nap. I breathe. Then I return clearer, sharper, and more motivated.

I now finally understand and appreciate that this isn’t indulgent, selfish or weak. It’s not about “self-care.”

It’s about working with your body.

And the irony is: you end up getting much more done, and you have more fun doing it 🙂 

Cortisol: the stress rhythm & resilience hormone

Here's something I really dislike about social media: oversimplification.

Labeling cortisol as purely a "stress hormone" and implying it's universally bad is one of those oversimplifications.

In reality, cortisol is one of your body's most important allies.

You absolutely need cortisol in your system.

You just need it at the right times and in the right amounts.

Think of cortisol like your body's internal messenger:

When your brain detects a challenge—whether that’s waking up in the morning, an important presentation, an intense workout, or even an emotional conversation—it signals your adrenal glands to release cortisol.

This hormone then travels through your bloodstream, carrying instructions from one area to another, telling your cells how to respond to what's happening around you:

• It mobilizes energy by releasing glucose into your bloodstream

• It sharpens attention so you can focus and respond quickly

• It manages inflammation, keeping your immune response in check

• It maintains stable circulation and blood pressure during periods of stress or high demand

But here’s where it gets tricky.

Cortisol stays chronically elevated when your brain perceives ongoing challenges, like relentless deadlines, poor sleep, or constant rumination.

In that case, your cortisol is constantly shouting, "We're still in danger!" And your body responds accordingly:

• Disrupted sleep

• Anxiety or mood issues

• Weakened immune response

• High blood pressure

Cortisol isn't causing these problems directly. It's just stuck in the messenger role, continually signaling "alert mode."

So bottom line:

Our goal isn’t to eliminate cortisol.

It’s about helping cortisol rise when needed, then naturally subside once we’re safe and calm again.

How to ride the cortisol wave

Dopamine, epinephrine, acetylcholine, and serotonin are mostly neurotransmitters — fast, moment-to-moment messengers in the brain. You can intentionally influence them to shift how you feel, think, and focus.

Cortisol, on the other hand, is primarily a hormone.

It moves through the bloodstream, works more slowly, and follows a daily rhythm that’s already built into your biology.

So for this deep-dive, we don’t have our usual baseline tools > directed tools > task-oriented tools breakdown. Instead, this deep-dive is about how to sync with your natural cortisol rhythm, as in, how to “ride the wave.”

Because here’s what’s so cool:

Cortisol already has a rhythm—one that plays out every single day, whether you're paying attention to it or not.

It follows what's called an ultradian rhythm—pulses that occur every 90-120 minutes:

• Morning: You get a big pulse to wake you up.

• Throughout the day: Smaller waves help you cycle between high-focus and recovery.

• Evening: Cortisol naturally tapers, helping you wind down and prepare for sleep.

So whether you're aware of it or not, your brain and body are shifting between peak energy and natural dips every 1.5 to 2 hours.

I used to fight these natural dips, thinking they were a sign of laziness or procrastination. I'd push myself to stay “on,” even when my brain desperately needed recovery.

I now know that this state—physiologically low but mentally pushing high—isn't efficient, effective, nor enjoyable. Plus, it teaches your body that recovery and rest aren’t safe.

Instead, here’s how you can align with your cortisol rhythm:

• Morning sunlight: Go outside within 30–60 mins of waking. Even just 2–10 mins of natural light (cloudy or sunny) reinforces your cortisol rhythm, boosting daytime alertness and nighttime melatonin production.

• Work in 90-minute cycles: Do deep, focused work in blocks of around 90 minutes, followed by intentional 10–15 minute recovery breaks.

• Respect the highs: Don't waste your peak cortisol-driven focus scrolling or doing low-value tasks. Get clear on what you're working on, how long you’ll focus, and what “done” looks like. Write it down, and then practice radical single-tasking. After 90 minutes of focused work, don’t push through. Your biology is shifting.

• Embrace the lows: Use natural dips for real rest. Step away from screens, books, or podcasts—no new input. Move your body: go for a walk, fold laundry, stretch. Let your mind wander. Or fully disengage: lie down for a nap or listen to a guided NSDR session. After 15–30 minutes of rest, you’ll naturally find yourself ready to re-engage.

• 7-8 hours of quality sleep: disrupted sleep dampens cortisol’s natural pulsatility, leading to fatigue, brain fog and poor recovery. Make sleep a #1 priority.

When it’s time to recover: use your breath to lower cortisol

Your breath is one of the fastest levers you have.

When cortisol rises during stress, pressure, or performance, your breathing shifts:

It becomes faster, shallower, and often through the mouth.

That makes sense in moments of real demand. But if that pattern sticks, your body stays in alert mode long after the challenge is over.

To bring cortisol back down, you need to send the opposite signal.

Slow, gentle, rhythmic breathing through the nose tells your brain: “We’re safe now. You can shift gears.”

Here’s a simple practice that helps:

• Sit or lie comfortably

• Breathe gently in and out through your nose

• Inhale for 5 seconds, exhale for 5 seconds

• Do this for 10 minutes daily

This slows your breath to around 6 breaths per minute, lowering cortisol, improving HRV (heart-rate variability), and making your nervous system more resilient.

Use a simple app Breathe or Breah. You can adjust the durations of the inhales and exhales in order to customize the exercise to your unique nervous system.

Overriding your natural cortisol wave isn't discipline—it's misunderstanding your body.

So there you have it:

Cortisol isn't out to get you, it's there to help. It's your body's way of saying:

"Hey—something's happening. Let's rise to meet it."

Your job isn't to shut this down but to help cortisol complete its natural cycle.

So:

• Go outside in the morning

• Move your body regularly

• Ride your energy waves (highs and lows!)

• Breathe like someone who's safe

As always, thanks for reading! Any questions, thoughts, feedback,… lemme know 🙂 

And if you’re interested in taking this work one step further for yourself…

I used to think a good mood just happened—and if it didn’t, I was stuck.

I’d wake up, scan my internal state, and let that decide my day.

• Good mood? Lace up for a run, make a nice breakfast, text a friend.

• Low mood? Skip the workout, dive straight into email, postpone plans “until I feel like it.”

It took a lot of trial and error to realize I had the sequence backwards. Moving my body, proper food, a catch-up with a friend—those are the levers that create the good mood.

Now, I try make this my default cycle:

• Eat well → feel better → have energy to work

• Move my body → mood rises → relationships feel easier

• See friends → serotonin spikes → motivation returns

Doesn’t mean it’s easy though. I fall back into the old cycle regularly. “I don’t have time to go for lunch today.”

Or “I wasted too much time today so now I need to cancel dinner so I can catch up tonight.”

Yet every single time I go for lunch and see a friend, even if it feels uncomfortable to step away from work, I come back feeling reset and refreshed.

The molecule at the center of that loop is serotonin—our brain’s built-in signal for calm, contentment, and steady confidence. Today’s deep-dive is about how to engineer that loop so good moods become the rule, not the rare exception.

Serotonin: what do we need to know?

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter (and hormone) crucial for mood regulation, motivation, and many bodily functions. In the brain, serotonin is called a natural “feel-good” chemical because normal levels promote emotional stability, happiness, and calm focus.

Serotonin’s effects often contrast with dopamine:

• Dopamine drives motivation, craving, and reward-seeking, focusing you on external goals.

• Serotonin fosters contentment and being present, focusing on internal well-being.

Dopamine is about pursuing what’s next and pushing through challenges (drive), while serotonin is about appreciating what you have and enjoying the process (satisfaction).

High achievers often run on dopamine and adrenaline – chasing goals, meeting deadlines – but to avoid burnout and anxiety, it’s crucial to incorporate serotonin-driven balance.

You absolutely need both in your system in order to do great work - and do it over long periods of time.

The research is undeniably clear on this.

Real, sustainable, long-term high performance has nothing to do with giving 200% at all times.

If anything, that’s a recipe for burnout.

Productivity and creativity are highest when you learn to oscillate between states of drive and states of satisfaction.

By implementing the tools in this deep-dive, you create a self-sustaining cycle:

Intense focus & effort 🔁 connection & recovery

This cycle is what keeps you effective over the long term without burning out.

So now, let’s look at a series of simple tools and habits to manage your serotonin levels across 3 levels:

• 📈 Baseline: The everyday serotonin stack

• 🧰 Directed: Quick mood shifters

• 👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Workflow for calm productivity

📈 Baseline: The everyday serotonin stack

Morning sunlight

• There’s a reason neuroscientist Andrew Huberman keeps repeating morning sunlight as one of the fastest levers for mood and energy, as it directly impacts hormones and neuromodulators like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.

• Get outside within the first 2 hours of waking.

• Sunlight stimulates serotonin production and stabilizes your circadian rhythm.

• Even 10 minutes makes a difference (will need a bit longer when it’s cloudy!)

Tryptophan-rich food

• Serotonin is made from tryptophan. You need to get it from food like eggs, turkey, fish, oats, seeds, and bananas. Pair that with omega-3s (salmon, chia, walnuts) to boost serotonin signaling.

• Crazy fact: at least 90% of your serotonin is created in the gut, so your gut health can dramatically influence your mood. Research suggests getting more probiotics in your diet may increase tryptophan in your blood, helping more of it to reach your brain. You can take probiotic supplements, or eat probiotic-rich foods, like natural yogurt and fermented foods.

Daily movement

• Exercise boosts serotonin and makes your receptors more responsive to it.

• Aerobic exercises – like brisk walking, running, cycling, swimming – are especially effective in elevating serotonin and endorphins.

• It doesn’t have to be intense. A 30-minute walk will do more for your mood than a scroll or a snack.

Social connection

• Humans are wired for serotonin through contact and community.

• Hugs, shared meals, meaningful conversations—these aren't luxuries or “only when there’s time.” They're absolutely necessary for stable and good moods. Even small moments of warmth count.

🧰 Directed: Quick mood shifters

Step outside

• Nature works fast. Just 10–15 minutes of greenery exposure can lower cortisol and elevate serotonin.

• A tree, a park bench, even looking at a plant photo helps.

Touch and affection

• Hug someone you trust (ideally 6+ seconds - science says!) or cuddle a pet. Even self-touch counts.

• Touch releases oxytocin, which unlocks serotonin’s effects. It’s quick, potent medicine.

• Give a compliment or express gratitude. This isn’t fluffy. Research shows it activates serotonin-rich circuits—especially when it’s genuine and specific.

Music and laughter

• A song you love. A silly video. A quick dance break.

• These are fast routes to elevated mood via serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins.

👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Workflow for calm productivity

Respect your daily rhythm

If you have the flexibility to structure your day, this is how it works for most people:

• Morning = dopamine & adrenaline dominant → use it for execution and problem-solving

• Afternoon = rising serotonin → perfect for reflection, collaboration, creativity

Serotonin-boosting breaks

• Every 90 minutes, take 5–10 minutes for a serotonin reset.

• Breathe. Stretch. Look at trees. Chat with or hug someone.

• Even if you work solo, weave in moments of connection. A quick message or a voice note, a shared laugh.

• These pauses don’t slow you down, they refuel your brain.

Celebrate small wins

• Each time you finish a task, pause and acknowledge it. Tick the box. Let yourself feel it.

• That’s how you build serotonin alongside dopamine—motivation and satisfaction.

Wind down deliberately

• At day’s end, shift into a serotonin-dominant state.

• Journal, walk, breathe, stretch, hang out with friends and family. Let your body know it’s safe to rest.

• This replenishes you for the next push.

Greater ease, creativity and contentment

These tools like morning sunlight, nature, social connection - they’re not just soft nice-to-haves, or for people with more free time on their hands.

They are direct levers to modulate your neurochemistry for peak performance and contentment.

By actively managing your serotonin, alongside dopamine and adrenaline, you’ll find you can achieve your ambitious goals with greater ease, creativity, and playfulness along the way.

This is definitely a lesson I have to learn over and over and over again.

The reason why this newsletter is a few days late: I’ve been overplaying my dopamine system and haven’t left enough time for rest and recovery, so the last few days, I felt kinda… flat. Unmotivated. (Potentially maybe even cried a bit). So I’ve disconnected for 3 days - lots of outside time, hugs with my girlfriend, seeing friends, listening to music. Feeling much better already!

Next up, the last chemical in this series:

Cortisol – the misunderstood stress chemical (and how to work with it, not against it).

Thanks for being here!

If you’d like to explore ways of working together…

Getting my daily serotonin fix

The human brain is built to wander.

Left to its own devices—in traffic, on a trail, in the shower—attention quickly drifts.

(Try counting ten slow breaths without losing track; it’s surprisingly hard!)

Deep, single-task focus forces that nomadic mind to plant its flag, which is why it’s such hard work (and why most of us are pretty crap at it!)

But the fact that it’s hard doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with our brain. It’s doing exactly what its designed to do.

So for me, Huberman’s post is a blunt but important reminder:

Stop searching for a pill or waiting for the perfect conditions.

Instead, train the skill.

Yes, it’s hard, but it’s worth it.

However! Before we attempt a 3-hour deep-work marathon, we need the neural equivalent of marathon prep: steady mileage, smart fuel, the right gear.

That means understanding and optimising the key neurochemicals involved in focus.

We’ve already covered dopamine and epinephrine.

Today we’re zooming in on the third player: acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine: what do we need to know?

Neuroscientists describe focus as a combination of three neurochemicals working together. I like this analogy to bring this to life visually:

• Dopamine is the propeller that drives the arrow forward, providing the motivation and drive to start and sustain your effort.

• Epinephrine is the arrow’s shaft, providing the energy and alertness. (No focus is possible if you’re feeling drowsy!)

• Acetylcholine (ACh) is like the arrowhead. It precisely directs your attention, spotlighting the neurons and neurocircuits that need to be involved.

Source: MinnaLearn

You need all 3 for deep, sustained focus.

Concretely, here’s what ACh does for you:

1. Sets the scene → selective attention

   When you focus, ACh floods the exact neural circuits you need for the task at hand and dims those you don’t, carving a crisp channel through the mental chatter. That “locked-in” feeling during a flow state? That’s ACh doing its thing.

2. Marks the moment → learning and memory

   When you’re learning something new or trying to remember a skill, ACh is the signal that tags the active synapses with a biochemical message saying, “This is important. Let’s remember this.” Then during sleep, those tagged circuits get rewired and strengthened.

3. Keeps the tempo → one task only
   Every time you glance at your phone or try to multi-task, ACh has to yank its spotlight to a new target. Repeated toggling drains the supply, which shows up as mental fog and slower recall. Single-tasking is therefore so so so important!

If your ACh is too low, you feel scattered, forgetful, or stuck in a fog. When it’s balanced, you can focus deeply, learn faster, and remember more.

So now, let’s look at a series of simple tools and habits to manage your ACh levels:

• 📈 Baseline: Maintain healthy ACh levels for consistent focus

• 🧰 Directed: Boost ACh in the moment

• 👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Set up your schedule and workspace to support deep work

📈 Baseline: Maintain healthy ACh levels for consistent focus

Ahh, we have all the usual suspects here: nutrition, sleep, friction and movement.

Eat choline-rich foods

ACh is made from choline, a nutrient found in foods like:

• Eggs (one of the best sources)

• Chicken, fish, beef liver

• Soybeans, beans, and seeds

Your body can make a little bit of choline on its own, but not enough for optimal brain function. So getting it from food is essential.

Prioritize quality sleep 

Sleep is when your brain balances and replenishes its focus chemicals. If you skimp on sleep, you’ll likely feel unfocused and sluggish because the ACh (and other neuromodulator) systems haven’t had a chance to do their maintenance.

During REM sleep (dreaming stage), your brain’s ACh levels peak. This is when your brain consolidates memories and “locks in” what you’ve learned.

Aim for 7-8 hours, and keep a consistent sleep schedule.

Stay mentally engaged

Your ACh system thrives on curiosity and challenge.

• Read challenging books

• Learn an instrument

• Write essays

The more you engage your brain, the stronger your ACh system becomes.

(Scrolling and mindless consuming is the worst we can do. Zero challenge. Zero friction. Zero skill.)

Regular exercise 

Physical activity is a natural booster of ACh, especially in areas of your brain tied to learning and memory.

Doesn’t matter what you do. The key is to get your blood flowing most days of the week. Even 20-30 minutes of brisk walking makes a difference!

Exercise also indirectly boosts focus by improving sleep quality and reducing stress

🧰 Directed: Boost ACh when you need it

Healthy baseline, check.

But sometimes you need an extra boost, like right before an important work session or when you notice your focus is drifting.

Visual focus drill

You can directly tap into your brain’s attentional circuits by narrowing your visual field on purpose.

• Pick a point in front of you

• Stare at it intently for 30–60 seconds, keeping it in the center of your vision

• Don’t move your head or your eyes

• This triggers ACh release in the brain’s attention centers—like a warm-up for your focus muscle

Give it a try. You’ll notice how difficult this is to stay visually focused even for 30 seconds. That friction you feel? That’s the ACh working.

(I write more about how to use your visual system for focus and relaxation here and here.)

Short burst of intense exercise

One of the quickest ways to kick your brain into a focused state is to get your heart rate up briefly.

• 5–10 minutes of brisk movement (jumping jacks, stairs, shadow boxing) before a big task

• This stimulates a burst of ACh (and dopamine and epinephrine), sharpening your focus and making you alert

(Have you noticed how short bursts of movement have been a key tool in every chemical deep-dive so far? If at the end of this series, you’re not convinced of the importance of constant movement, even for a few mins… I’ve not done my job well!)

👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Set up your schedule and workspace to support deep focus

Beyond physiology, how you organize your work and environment can greatly influence ACh’s effectiveness.

Monotask (stop multitasking!)

If there’s just one thing you take away from this deep-dive, let it be this:

Focus is fragile. Protect it fiercely by designing your work sessions to be about one thing at a time.

Studies confirm that “multitasking” is really rapid task-switching, and it significantly reduces attention and overall performance. Every time you switch, there’s a cognitive cost as your ACh and other circuits have to re-engage with the new thing. Remember: ACh is like a spotlight. It works best when focused on one thing.

• Set a timer for 25–45 minutes.

• Work on one task. Close other tabs. Silence notifications.

• Resist the urge to do anything else. If other tasks or ideas pop into mind, quickly jot them down on paper to tackle later, rather than interrupting your current flow.

You’ll get tasks done faster and at higher quality.

(Bonus: as explained in the dopamine deep-dive, it helps to break down big goals into micro-milestones!)

Use ultradian rhythm blocks (90-120 minute focus)

Your brain can maintain high focus for about 90-120 minutes before it needs a break.

Any longer, and acetylcholine and dopamine levels begin to drop, making it harder to maintain the same quality of focus.

So to get the best out of your brain and work with its natural rhythm:

• Structure your work in 90-120 minute blocks dedicated to a single important task, followed by a 10-15 minute reset.

• During the break, do something to recover: stretch, look at something far away (to relax the visual system), grab a glass of water, etc. This pause allows your neuromodulators to replenish.

• Then start the next focus block fresh.

I notice a night and day difference between what I accomplish in 2 hours of truly focused work using this sprint-rest approach versus in 4 hours of trying to grind nonstop.

Optimize your workspace

If your desk is cluttered with unrelated items, your brain uses energy to block out those distractions.

A clean, organized workspace with just the materials you need for the task can help your brain relax and focus on the relevant stimuli.

• Clean, organized space = less cognitive load

• Minimal distractions = less wasted ACh

Use your breath to refocus when overwhelmed

When you’re feeling too activated or scattered to focus, a brief breathing exercise can help optimize your internal state for focus by reducing excessive adrenaline.

Try the physiological sigh.

• inhale deeply through your nose

• take a second quick inhale to fully expand your lungs

• slowly exhale through your mouth

Doing 1–3 of these sigh breaths can rapidly lower your heart rate and calm you down.

This doesn’t directly increase ACh, but it lowers the background noise of anxiety so that ACh can do its job without you feeling jittery.

Acetylcholine is your brain’s spotlight—sharpening your focus, deepening your learning, and helping you lock in what matters.

But it needs two things:

1️⃣ A healthy baseline (good sleep, food, exercise, and curiosity).

2️⃣ The right conditions (a single task, focused work blocks, minimal distractions).

When you take care of those two, you get to experience those crystal-clear, dialed-in moments whenever you need them.

Next week, we’re diving into Serotonin—the molecule of connection & contentment.

See you then!

Refer this newsletter to ONE person and get immediate access to the Dopamine Experimentation Kit

Know someone who could use a healthy boost of motivation and energy? Send them this newsletter using your referral link below.

You can use this simple, no-pressure blurb if you’d like, just don’t forget to add your unique referral link (see below - click on the big yellow button or copy paste the link below)

Once they subscribe, you’ll get an email from me with the toolkit - a simple, structured overview of several high-impact ideas to experiment with.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

I used to think I was bad at focus.

Some mornings, I’d feel unstoppable—sharp, clear, energized. Ideas would land. I’d knock out work in record time.

Other days: total fog. I’d sit there, scrolling, staring, refreshing my inbox—waiting for my brain to click.

For the longest time, I blamed myself. Not disciplined enough. Not organized enough. Not enough.

But it turns out, nothing wrong with me. I was just operating on a system I didn’t understand.

A system where neurochemicals drive my energy and focus.

Last week, we explored dopamine—the molecule of motivation, desire, and pursuit. It’s what makes you want something, what gets you excited about a goal.

Epinephrine is the molecule of energy, alertness, and action. It’s what turns that motivation into focus and action.

You can think of dopamine as the spark and epinephrine as the fuel.

Of course, I’m breaking these down into separate emails for clarity, but in your brain and body, these systems are deeply interconnected. The same tools that boost dopamine often also boost epinephrine. And that’s good news—because it means a few simple practices can shift your entire neurophysiology!

Let’s get into it. Epinephrine: what do we need to know?

Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) is the body’s rapid-deployment ‘go’ signal. 

Your adrenal glands can release it as a hormone for a whole-body surge, while select brainstem neurons release smaller pulses that fine-tune vigilance.

In the right amounts, epinephrine makes you:

• Alert. Your heart rate speeds up, blood flows to your brain and muscles.

• Focused. Thoughts sharpen, distractions fade.

• Energized. You’re ready to act—physically or mentally.

This is why a mild “adrenaline rush” can actually feel amazing. That focused, in-the-zone state? That’s epinephrine doing its job.

Great for short bursts, but something you’ll want to down-shift after “the mission” is accomplished.

Like all of these chemicals, epinephrine is powerful—but it’s also a double-edged sword.

Too much, too often? You get jittery, anxious, and burned out. Your brain races, but you can’t focus. Sleep suffers. Performance crashes.

Too little? You feel sluggish, unfocused, and flat. Your energy is there, but it’s buried under a fog.

So the key isn’t necessarily more epinephrine—it’s balanced, well-timed epinephrine.

In this email, we’ll explore three ways to experiment with this:

• 📈 Baseline: Keep epinephrine in check

• 🧰 Directed: How to boost epinephrine when you need it

• 👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Using epinephrine to fuel focus

📈 Baseline: Keep epinephrine in check

Your first goal is to create a stable foundation—so your energy is steady, not chaotic.

None of this stuff will be groundbreaking to you - we know this. It’s just a matter of actually doing it.

🧰 Directed: Boost epinephrine when you need it

Sometimes, you want a controlled boost—right before a presentation, a focus block, or a workout.

• Cold exposure: A 30-second cold shower or even splashing cold water on your face. This triggers a mild adrenaline surge without overstimulation.

• Cyclic hyperventilation: A powerful breathing technique for focus:

  • 25-30 rapid deep breaths (inhale through nose, exhale through mouth).

  • Exhale fully, hold for 15-30 seconds, then breathe normally.

  • Repeat for 2-3 rounds.

• Short, intense exercise: 1-2 minutes of jumping jacks, a quick run up the stairs, or shadow boxing. This sparks an adrenaline release and clears mental fog.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that these are pretty much the same tools I shared in the dopamine deep-dive. Not a copy paste error! Dopamine is actually the precursor to epinephrine. What this means:

• Dopamine spikes in the brain’s reward/motivation circuits, signaling “this is worth pursuing.”

• If the challenge is big enough, the nervous system converts more dopamine into epinephrine to fuel that pursuit—faster heart, more glucose, sharper focus.

Like I said in the intro: Dopamine is the spark. Epinephrine is the fuel. They work together.

P.S. Refer the newsletter to one person and I’ll send you my Dopamine Toolkit, where I’ve included a guided cyclic hyperventilation recording + a movement GIF I use when I only have 2 minutes to move. Always gets me out of my head and into my body!

Instructions + link to recording

GIF

👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Using epinephrine to fuel focus

Epinephrine thrives when you give it a reason—a clear signal that what you're doing matters. Three simple ways to turn that into action:

1. Have a WHY

Before starting any task, ask yourself: Why does this matter?

• “To share ideas that change lives”

• “To provide for my family”

• “To pay off my debt”

Epinephrine responds to either love (passion, impact) or fear (avoiding failure, proving yourself). Use either.

Andrew Huberman’s why? “To communicate the beauty and utility of biology.” I heard him say on a podcast that’s what he reminds himself of every time he sits down to record a new podcast.

Mine? “To trigger fascination and curiosity about your nervous system.”

(What’s yours?)

2. Timed work sprints + recovery

Set a timer for 20–45 minutes of deep focus. Push yourself fully.

Then pause and regulate:

• Take a minute for a couple of physiological sighs (two quick inhales, one slow exhale).

• Or take a longer break with an NSDR session

• (fyi both tools are explained in the dopamine toolkit)

This push-then-recover approach keeps your energy sharp without burning you out.

3. Stimulus pairing

Anchor focus with sensory cues:

• A playlist you always use for deep work (like mine—I just hear the first tone of this track, and I’m dialed in)

• A specific scent (essential oil, candle) that signals focus mode

• Lighting that shifts when you enter work mode

Over time, your brain learns to associate these cues with alertness. Rapid epinephrine access on demand.

Build a solid baseline, boost it when you choose, and let it drop when it’s time to rest.

That’s how you teach yourself how to focus. Not through force. Not through flagellation.

Just through simple, free and healthy tools.

So next time you catch yourself feeling like you’re on edge—or like you can’t seem to get started—check your epinephrine.

Go through this list.

Pick 1-2 tools to experiment with.

See what shifts.

Next up… Acetylcholine—the chemical of precision and focus.

Refer this newsletter to ONE person and get immediate access to the Dopamine Experimentation Kit

Know someone who could use a healthy boost of motivation and energy? Send them this newsletter using your referral link below.

You can use this simple, no-pressure blurb if you’d like, just don’t forget to add your unique referral link (see below - click on the big yellow button or copy paste the link below)

Once they subscribe, you’ll get an email from me with the toolkit - a simple, structured overview of several high-impact ideas to experiment with.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Before we jump into exploring Dopamine… I want to let you in on a couple of experiments I’m running:

• More video messages. (Show the human behind the words.)

• Hyper-practical tools. (Closing the gap between knowing and doing.)

• Smarter newsletter growth. (Finding ways to spread this newsletter that feel good and offer tons of value to you → keep scrolling!)

Watch → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOjtYPeauHw

Let’s get into it. Dopamine: what do we need to know?

There’s a molecule in your brain and body that, when released, tends to make you look for things outside of yourself—pursue something you don’t yet have. 

That’s dopamine.

It’s the molecule of motivation, pursuit and desire.

In early environments, food, shelter, mates, and safety were not guaranteed. Humans had to move toward them—often across long distances and in dangerous circumstances.

And so dopamine evolved to signal:

“That thing over there could help you survive. Go get it.”

It’s the chemical of forward action.

When dopamine rises, it energizes your system:

• Increases willingness to put in effort

• Boosts focus on potential rewards

• Strengthens memory around success and learning

• Suppresses distractions and redirects attention toward the goal

And so this is key to understand:

Dopamine doesn’t reward having the thing. It rewards pursuing the thing.

That’s why:

• You can feel most alive when you're working toward something, not just when you achieve it

• Motivation dips when there’s no challenge, novelty, or uncertainty

• Cheap dopamine hits (scrolling, sugar, binge-watching) trick your brain into feeling “accomplished” without real effort—and leave you feeling empty.

In short, dopamine is what helped our ancestors leave the cave, track an animal for miles, and persist in building fire—even when it was hard.

And in the modern world?

It’s the same chemical that helps you write the first sentence, take the first step, or believe that your effort matters.

Here’s what dopamine feels like in your system:

High Dopamine (or healthy tone):

• You feel excited, curious, pulled toward your goals

• You enjoy the process, not just the outcome

• Thoughts are energized, hopeful, future-focused

Low Dopamine:

• You feel flat, apathetic, or unmotivated

• Struggle to initiate tasks—even ones you care about

• Crave “easy wins” (scrolling, snacks, busywork)

In this email, we’ll explore three ways to work with dopamine:

• 📈 Baseline: How to build a healthy long-term foundation

• 🧰 Directed: How to boost dopamine in the moment (in a healthy way!)

• 👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: How to shape your workflow to support motivation

P.S. One important caveat: all of this is a necessary simplification of a very complex system. Dopamine plays many roles in the brain, from motor control to habit learning to emotional regulation. Here, we’re focusing on the motivation + pursuit angle, because that’s what matters most for focus, resilience, and creative energy.

📈 Baseline: Building Long-Term Dopamine Resilience

Dopamine isn’t just something you spike in the moment—it has a baseline rhythm that underlies your day-to-day motivation.

For example, dopamine is what drives us to do every day tasks like getting out of bed, making coffee, or brushing our teeth.

Without dopamine in our system, then, we’d quite literally do nothing.

(Which is why there’s no such thing as a “dopamine detox”!! Dopamine is not a toxin. You need it in your system. You just want to learn how to manage it. I know, I’m being pedantic, but it annoys me when I see this, hehe)

In a healthy state, dopamine follows a natural 24-hour rhythm:

• Morning: High levels help you wake up, focus, and get moving.

• Evening: Levels drop, helping you wind down—unless overstimulation keeps them spiking.

If your baseline dopamine is weak, you’ll feel flat, unmotivated, and stuck in low-energy habits.

BUT this is the beauty of your biology: you can influence your baseline with a few daily practices:

These aren’t hacks. They’re the foundation. Build this, and you won’t have to fight for motivation—it will be there.

🧰 Directed: Tools to Increase Dopamine in the Moment

Sometimes, you need a boost. Whether you’re facing a tough project or an energy slump, here are four real-time tools to create a healthy dopamine spike:

👩‍💻 Task-Oriented: Designing for Dopamine

How you structure your work and environment shapes your motivation.

Here are four strategies that reinforce effort, track progress, and give your brain the reward signals it needs to stay motivated.

To close the gap between information <> implementation…

I’ve put together a Dopamine Experimentation Toolkit—a simple, structured guide to making dopamine work for you, not against you.

Inside, you’ll get:

• A guided breathing reset recording (for an instant dopamine boost) - just 5 mins

• My favorite NSDR session (my go-to for powering through afternoon slumps)

• A step-by-step guide to designing your work for maximum motivation

• And muuuuch more

To get access, you’ve got two options—pick whichever feels good:

Option 1️⃣ Connect + like + comment on LinkedIn

• Like this LinkedIn post

• Comment “experiment”

• Send me a connection request if we aren’t already connected

I’ll send you the toolkit directly.

Option 2️⃣ Refer Stretch to someone in your life

Know someone who could use a healthy boost of motivation? Send them this newsletter using your referral link below.

You can use this simple, no-pressure blurb if you’d like, just don’t forget to add your unique referral link (see below - click on the big yellow button or copy paste the link below)

Once they subscribe, you’ll get an email from me with the toolkit.

Next week: Epinephrine—the chemical of drive & energy!

Could use some 1:1 help? Learn more about coaching here → https://nspotential.com

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

If there’s one idea that completely changed how I understand my own motivation, energy, and emotions—it’s this:

Your daily experience = chemical cocktail

Feeling off? Irritated? Unmotivated?

It’s easy to internalize that as a personal failure, like something’s wrong with you.

But often, it’s not you as in you at a fundamental level.

It’s your neurochemistry.

We don’t talk about this enough.

We expect ourselves to be focused, creative, calm, and motivated on demand—without ever learning how those states are actually created in the body.

The truth is:

If you want more consistent focus and energy, you need to understand the system that produces it.

And once you start to understand that?

You stop taking every dip in motivation so personally.

You start recognizing the patterns.

You start learning how to shift your state—not with willpower, but with awareness and small, consistent tools.

A Deep-Dive Series into your Neurochemistry

Over the next 5 weeks, I’m breaking down the 5 key chemicals that shape how you feel, focus, and function—day to day.

• Dopamine → motivation & pursuit

• Epinephrine → energy & drive

• Acetylcholine → focus & learning

• Serotonin → calm & contentment

• Cortisol → rhythms & resilience

Scientists have identified over a hundred different neurotransmitters in the human nervous system. But when it comes to peak performance and recovery… these five are key.

What you’ll get in this series:

Each week, I’ll break down one of these neurochemicals across three layers:

1. Baseline – What naturally affects your daily levels (sleep, light, nutrition, etc.)

2. Directed – Tools you can use to shift your state in minutes (movement, breath, visual field, etc.)

3. Applied Productivity – How to approach your to-do list based on your neurochemical state

Practical. Science-backed. Behavior-first.

No supplements, no drugs, no biohacking hype.

No oversimplification to please the social media gods (for example: there’s no such thing as a “dopamine detox”)

Just simple and free tools you can try right away.

But first: a quick Nervous System 101

Before we dive into each chemical, here’s a quick primer on how they work in your system.

The first thing to understand is this:

Your brain gets all the glory, but it doesn’t work alone.

It’s part of a body-wide messaging network called the nervous system—an intricate loop of electrical signals and chemical messengers.

These chemical messengers, known as neurotransmitters and hormones, are what shape how you feel, focus, move, and recover throughout the day.

Think of it like this:

Your brain has different circuits for different states:

• Focus

• Play

• Anxiety

• Connection

• Curiosity

• Etc

Whether these circuits are activated or suppressed depends on which chemicals are flowing through your system at any given moment.

This means that when you're foggy, fried, frozen, or hyper-focused, it’s not just a matter of discipline or mindset.

It’s about the chemical environment you’re operating in.

And here’s why you should care about this:

These chemicals aren’t just passively sloshing around in your system.

You can actively influence them.

Every single thought, feeling, and action you experience is tied to electrical impulses and chemical messengers.

Once you understand how your nervous system and neurochemistry work, you can start to use them to your advantage.

You can trigger the release of certain chemicals—deliberately shifting your brain and body into states of focus, motivation, recovery, and resilience.

Now, I'm not suggesting we reduce our entire emotional experience to a chemical equation.

We're complex beings with thoughts, beliefs, and experiences that shape our lives.

But understanding the chemical underpinnings of our moods can be incredibly empowering.

Why?

Because it means we're not helpless in the face of our emotions. We're not at the mercy of random mood swings or inexplicable feelings of lethargy. We have tools—simple, accessible tools—to influence how we feel.

As Andrew Huberman says, “We’re more than a bag of chemicals, but all of this stuff is hardwired into us.”

So now, on days when I'm feeling off, instead of spiralling into negative thoughts, I ask myself:

• Did I get enough morning sunlight?

• Have I moved my body today?

• Have I had any meaningful connection or touch today?

• Is my environment helping me focus—or making it harder?

Often, just addressing one of these can shift my entire day.

And if this sounds like a checklist—you're absolutely right. That’s the point!

We’re not trying to fix or control everything.

We’re learning to notice what we feel, without judgment, and then ask:

“What simple action could shift my chemistry right now?”

That’s what this series is about:

Understanding the connection between what we do and how we feel + learning how to work with it.

First up: Dopamine—the chemical of pursuit and motivation

Next week, we’re starting with the molecule creating your sense of motivation, drive, that feeling of “let’s goooo!”

You'll learn how to increase it naturally, why it's not about pleasure but about pursuit, and how to use it to get into momentum—even when your brain wants to scroll or nap.

See you next week!

Need support applying this to your own life or work? Learn more about coaching here → https://nspotential.com

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Here’s a sneak peek into my brain:

(Probably the most vulnerable post I’ve ever written here!)

I'm working on a client session when an idea for this newsletter strikes. Immediately, my mind fixates on it. I keep repeating it internally, promising to write it down later, but panic rises. "I'll lose this idea. I need to write this down now.”

My attention fractures—session forgotten, newsletter idea consuming everything. Even after writing it down, the anxiety persists: "How will I make sure this doesn't get lost among all my other notes?"

This pattern repeats endlessly across my life—work projects, personal tasks, big or small ideas. Important or mundane, urgent or not—my brain treats them all the same.

There's the brain lock, and then there's the panic. All the while, I’m not making progress on the thing I actually wanted to work on.

Does this sound familiar at all?

Maybe not the panic, but the inability stay focused on a task in front of you without having your mind constantly interrupted with unrelated thoughts?

If so… what I’ve learned about my brain might reveal some things for you too.

The neuroscience behind the struggle

Two years ago, my whirring, overactive mind was getting so exhausting that I started to wonder if there was something else going on. Maybe ADHD?

I went through the ADHD testing process expecting a clear answer—an explanation for why the inner voice is so vicious, why I need endless notes to stay organized, why simple tasks leave me mentally drained when others seem to handle them so easily.

But the results came back: sure, some ADHD-like traits, but no clear diagnosis.

For a moment, I was disappointed. But not for very long, because throughout this process, I had gone into research mode, hunting down books and personal stories—hoping they'd help me make sense of my spinning mind. As I read, it felt like others had crawled inside my head, putting words to thoughts and struggles I’d never fully been able to describe myself. (Yes, there were tears!)

I stumbled onto something that made everything click.

1) The interplay between the Default Mode Network (DMN) and Task-Positive Network (TPN)

The DMN is a network of brain regions that become active when your brain isn’t engaged in a specific task.

Those moments when you zone out during mundane activities and your mind drifts into an endless spiral of thoughts? That's your DMN working. It's responsible for mind-wandering, self-reflection, replaying past conversations, generating creative ideas.

The DMN is essential—it helps us make sense of our experiences, process memories, and plan for the future.

But here's the critical part:

In a neurotypical brain, the DMN is supposed to deactivate when you focus on an external task. When you start working, reading, or talking, your brain shifts gears, engaging the TPN—your brain's focus mode.

The TPN and DMN are meant to work together like a seesaw:

• When the TPN activates, the DMN quiets down

• When you take a break, the DMN reactivates

• They work in opposition—one up, one down

This seesaw mechanism allows most people to transition smoothly between focus and mind-wandering when necessary.

But in a neurodivergent brain—especially those with ADHD or ADHD-like traits—this seesaw is broken. The DMN doesn't switch off properly when the TPN activates. Instead of smoothly transitioning into focus mode, both networks compete for attention:

• You try to focus, but intrusive thoughts keep pulling you away

• You get locked in negative self-talk as the DMN continues analyzing everything

• Every task becomes a battle against your own brain's natural tendency to drift

I can’t even begin to describe how seen I felt when I learned about this seesaw. (Again, tears!)

That was exactly what it felt like in my brain.

I now understood what made focus so exhausting for me. I’m not just concentrating on the task—I’m simultaneously fighting my own mind. And if I pause for even a second—if I hesitate, get frustrated, or lose momentum—the DMN takes over, making it even harder to regain focus. Imagine trying to concentrate while someone sits right next to you, whispering into your ear: 'Are you sure this is good enough? You’re not good at this. Why bother trying? You should've finished by now. Why is this taking so long?'

I know. Not fun.

So that’s the brain lock. But where was the anxiety and panic coming from?

Let’s take another, deeper, dive into my brain.

2) The interplay between the Default Mode Network and Amygdala

As mentioned, the DMN is great for daydreaming and connecting of ideas, but it can easily get stuck in negative cycles and self-criticism. This happens when it gets triggered and hijacked by the amygdala—our brain’s threat detection center.

Over the past few months, through somatic coaching and extensive journaling, I've realized just how sensitive my amygdala is to anything related to my memory.

Digging deeper, I traced this back to my childhood—and one specific memory stands out:

It took me months to learn how to tell the time. (It’s a running joke in my family now—but clearly, it left a mark.) We had this small white plastic clock, and I’d sit at the kitchen table for what felt like hours, my mom beside me, moving the little red hands, asking me to read it. After an hour or so of intense concentration, I’d finally get it.

The next morning, we’d try again and it was gone.

I couldn't remember.

I’d feel this vague, fuzzy recognition—like having a word on the tip of your tongue—but I just couldn’t connect what I saw with what my brain had learned the night before.

Even now, I vividly recall the frustration, disappointment, and shame I felt. I remember my mom’s kind face, how patiently she’d try to encourage me. But I could hear the surprise in her voice. And inside, I was spiraling: "How can I not remember? I knew this last night. What's wrong with me?!"

This painful cycle repeated itself throughout my school years: memorizing the periodic table, math formulas, country capitals and flags. I would study, cram, know the material. But the next day, it’d be gone.

Can you imagine what that did to my self-confidence?

All throughout school—and honestly, deep into my twenties and early thirties—I genuinely believed I just wasn’t very smart. Sure, I made up for it with enthusiasm and diligence. But behind the scenes, I was pouring enormous amounts of energy into every little task, pretending that things came naturally to me, while silently feeling insecure and exhausted.

Thankfully, through reading, coaching, and journaling, I've finally released the idea that there's something "wrong" with my brain. Instead, I’ve come to accept—and even embrace—that my brain simply works differently, with ADHD-like traits like a weaker working memory and a slightly faulty seesaw. Rather than fighting against it, I’ve built personalized systems that work with my unique brain.

But here’s what’s so interesting:

My amygdala hasn't fully caught up with this newfound understanding of myself. It’s still hypersensitive—quick to jump at any hint of forgetting or self-criticism. Even the smallest thought about forgetting something can trigger my DMN, launching me into a spiral that makes focusing nearly impossible.

It took me a while to fully appreciate how such small events from your childhood can impact your adult life in this way. I found it hard to believe, but the more I observed and learned, the more it all made sense.

Research shows that our past emotional experiences can literally reshape the way our brain’s threat and default networks operate. Early-life stress or emotionally charged events (like my clock reading adventure) often sensitize the amygdala, making it more reactive to similar “threats” later in life.

That's why something as simple as “I have a great idea—I absolutely can’t forget it, I need to write it down right now” can spark anxiety in me.

And for years, this all happened outside of my conscious awareness or understanding.

But learning all of this stuff about my brain has truly changed my life.

Now, when my mind starts spinning and anxiety bubbles up, I have the tools and understanding to pause and observe what's happening. I don't get as lost in the loop, and—most importantly—I don't beat myself up about it anymore.

But here’s what has helped me the most

Everything I’ve shared so far has been conceptual—a cognitive understanding built through research, coaching and journaling. Note-taking systems and apps. And while all of that was incredibly helpful and necessary, the real shift didn’t come from my mind.

It came from my body, through changing how I breathe and how I move.

Slow and controlled breathing

The first time I ever paid any attention to my breath was during a freediving course.

In freediving, breath control is everything. Slowing your breath is the key to calming your nervous system, conserving oxygen, and extending your dive.

So before we ever entered the water, we sat completely still and focused on our breath.

Slow inhale. Slow exhale. Pause.

Within minutes, the noise of the world softened. My thoughts quieted. Everything narrowed to just the rhythm of my breath.

Since that moment, slow breathing has become a daily practice—and the difference in how my brain operates is undeniable.

The research backs this up:

When you slow your breathing—making it gentle and light—you send powerful signals of safety to your brain and body.

This activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest mode), which helps downshift the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight mode). Under stress, the sympathetic system can hijack and dysregulate the DMN, leading to rumination, looping thoughts, and scattered attention.

But when we feel safe—physiologically safe—the DMN quiets down. The nervous system regulates. Focus returns.

There’s tons and tons of neuroscience research to back this up:

• Zelano et al. (2016) showed that rhythmic nasal breathing (especially slow inhalations) directly modulates the amygdala, reducing emotional reactivity and increasing cognitive clarity.

• Melnychuk et al. (2018) found that slow breathing (~6 breaths per minute) increases heart rate variability (HRV), a marker of parasympathetic activation—and HRV has been correlated with decreased amygdala activity and improved attentional control.

I’ve incorporated this slow breathing practice in two ways:

1. Daily practice of slow breathing. 10-20 minutes. To slow it down to 6 bpm, you can inhale for 5 and exhale for 5. Or inhale for 4 and exhale for 6.

2. In the moment, when the DMN starts spiraling, I immediately shift my attention from my mind to my breath, and slow my breathing down. Over and over. It’s almost impossible to have spiraling thoughts and count at the same time.

A lot more movement

During the pandemic, I started walking more, and I quickly noticed how much calmer my mind felt. So ever since, I’ve been forcing myself to hit 10-12k steps per day and this has done wonders for my brain.

Again, neuroscience to the rescue to tell us why:

There’s a phenomenon called "self-generated optic flow."

You can think of optic flow as the movement of your surroundings as you move forward through space—like trees and buildings passing by in your peripheral vision.

Research shows that this movement reduces activity in the amygdala. That’s why walking, running, or biking reduces stress and anxiety, and helps you think more clearly.

(There’s just one big catch: The movement has to be self-generated. A treadmill or Peloton won’t have the same effect on your amygdala because you’re not actually moving in relation to your environment.)

So I am now religious about this: mind is spiraling? Get up, go outside and move.

Some extra thoughts…

• This piece by one of my favorite bloggers is what kicked off this whole exploration process: “What ADHD is Like (for me)” 

• Books that have been instrumental: ADHD 2.0 (for general DMN understanding), Restorative Embodiment and Resilience (for understanding DMN and amygdala), Mind Magic (about visualization, but includes a deep dive into different brain areas like the DMN and TPN) and The Brain that Changes Itself (on how to get out of brain locks.)

• Last week was Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Neurodiversity is the concept that different types of brains, or “neurotypes”, are a natural variation between people. It builds off the idea of biodiversity to reframe neurological differences from disorders needing to be ‘cured’ to simply other ways of experiencing the world. I’ve seen the eye-roll comments of “everyone claims to have ADHD these days 🙄” to which I delightfully respond: “yeah, maybe they do! Amazing, isn’t it? All these people who are so wonderfully different and unique who are finally going on their self-discovery journeys. What a time to be alive!”

JOIN ME 🫁 YOUR BREATH: A GUIDED EXPLORATION OF THE SCIENCE, SUBTLETY AND POWER

On Thursday, April 10, I’m running a 75-minutes workshop where we'll explore the science, subtlety and power of your breath.

Now, this is not a typical breathwork session in the cathartic or spiritual sense.

It’s more of a guided exploration of the breath as a tool for self-awareness, resilience, and performance.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Experiential and educational

• Grounded in physiology and practicality

• Subtle, nuanced, and body-aware

• Oriented toward day-to-day application

• Time to share observations and ask questions

This is for you if:

• You’ve tried breathwork before but want something more practical, grounded, and sustainable

• You’ve never done any breathwork, but you are curious about the science behind the breath and nervous system

• You want tools you can use anytime, anywhere—not just on a mat or in a workshop

• You’re ready to feel more connected to your body, your focus, and your inner calm

What else I’m up to…

Planning a freediving and breathwork for mental performance retreat from 20-25 November in Lanzarote, an incredible island in the Canary Islands. This is going to be so so so cool. I kind of wish I could go myself because it’s everything I would want to do and learn at a retreat 😂 Markus (my collaborator) and I will be running a few online workshops soon so will keep you posted! More and more private 1-1 coaching, which is GREAT. Loving it. Learning tons.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coach. My mission is to live my life to the fullest potential of my brain and body, and to inspire you do the same.

Throughout my twenties, I genuinely thought I had no willpower. I had plenty of big ideas, ambitious plans, and good intentions—but almost zero persistence or resilience.

Looking back, I realize the issue wasn't a character flaw…

I was simply chronically sleep-deprived and hungover.

I now understand that willpower isn’t just about character or effort—it’s physiological.

When your nervous system is out of balance, your ability to stay disciplined and resist temptations will suffer—no matter how hard you try.

I so wish I had understood this! I mean, I probably wouldn’t have partied any less (all worth it!) but I also wouldn’t have been so damn hard on myself.

26 yo me would drop her drink if she saw me at 36. She'd be shocked by how consistently I've shown up to write this newsletter for over three years, and by how disciplined I've become about the work I love as a breathwork coach. If I could go back and tell her one thing, it would be this:

Willpower isn't about fighting yourself harder—it's about learning how your brain and body work together.

So if you constantly battle with urges, impulses, or procrastination, know that it’s not a personal failing. You're likely fighting your body's physiology without even realizing it.

One book that transformed how I think about willpower is The Willpower Instinct by Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal. It reshaped my entire approach to productivity, focus, and discipline.

These are the 10 powerful insights from the book that I come back to again and again:

1. It’s an evolutionary battle

Willpower developed as a survival mechanism, to help us resist temptation, build long-term relationships and prioritise long-term plans. This advanced self-control system was built on top of our brain’s more primitive layers.

That’s where internal conflict and friction come from:

• The prefrontal cortex, the newest part of your brain, responsible for impulse control, long-term thinking and decision-making

• The oldest, more primitive parts of your brain, focused on desire, impulse and immediate gratification

It’s completely normal to have these two opposing voices in your head, so go easy on yourself. You're navigating between two different parts of the brain—one focused on short-term rewards and the other on long-term goals. So of course that’s going to be hard!

2. Your body controls your willpower

If you struggle with self-control and discipline, understand that this is not some innate weakness of character. It’s a lack of understanding of how our brains AND bodies work.

The underpinnings of willpower are physiological.

There are many willpower traps we can avoid simply by taking better care of ourselves. Your body plays a crucial role in your ability to exert self-control, so make it a priority.

Focus on the fundamentals: good sleep, good food, regular exercise, and optimal breathing (see #5)

Get your body strong and your mind will follow.

3. Your brain rewires with every choice

Current neuroscience research agrees on a game-changing concept:

Neuroplasticity. The extraordinary ability of our brains to grow and adapt based on our thoughts, actions and experiences—no matter how old we are.

So your willpower is not fixed.

You have the power to train your brain, to improve your willpower and to make choices that align with your long-term goals.

4. Exercise builds willpower

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)—the variation in time between heartbeats— has been shown to be the best physiological indicator of self-control.

A higher HRV indicates a body that can adapt quickly to changes (whether they're emotional or physical), making you more resilient and better at handling stress.

And guess what boosts your HRV and as a result, your willpower? Exercise. And you don't need a fancy fitness regimen to do this. The body and brain don't discriminate between different forms of exercise. Whether it's walking, playing with your kids, or even cleaning—any form of movement helps. Just need to get your heart rate up!

5. Slow down your breathing

There are very few quick fixes in life, but here is one to immediately boost willpower:

Slow your breathing down to 4-6 breaths per minute (bpm).

That’s 10-15 seconds per breath—much slower than you normally breathe, but not difficult with a little bit of practice and patience.

Slowing the breath down activates the prefrontal cortex and increases HRV, which helps shift the brain and body from a state of stress to self-control mode.

First, count how many breaths you normally take in one minute. Set a timer, breathe normally and count the number of breath cycles (1 inhale + 1 exhale.)

Then, try to slow your breathing down to 4-6 breath cycles per minute. For example:

• 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out (= 6 bpm)

• 6 seconds in, 6 seconds out (= 5 pm)

• 4 seconds in, 6 seconds out (= 6 bpm)

You can experiment with a few different options to see which one feels most relaxing and grounding to you—either equal durations in and out, or extended exhale.

Use an app like Breah to personalize the durations, or just count in your head.

For most people, it’s easier to slow down the exhalation, so focus on exhaling slowly and completely (pursing your lips and imagining that you are exhaling through a straw in your mouth can help).

If you don’t quite get down to 4-6 breaths a minute, don’t worry. You build this up over time with practice. HRV steadily increases as your breathing rate drops below 12 bpm.

You’ll notice that a few minutes of this technique will make you feel calm, in control, and capable of handling cravings or challenges.

6. Small wins create big results

Studies show that committing to any small, consistent act of self-control can increase your overall willpower in other areas of life.

Think of things like not finishing off the entire bag of Doritos (guilty), or opting for the stairs over the elevator. These small choices aren’t life-changers on their own. But what you’re really training is your self-awareness. The habit of noticing what you’re about to do versus behaving reflexively, and making a conscious decision.

The more you practice these small challenges, the better your brain becomes at pausing before you act. And that will benefit you in the big moments that truly matter for your long-term goals.

7. Beware the Moral Licensing trap

There’s this sneaky mind trick called moral licensing, where when you do something “good”, your brain gives you permission to then do something “bad” because you feel like you’ve earned a reward.

It’s like saying, “I’ve been frugal all week so now I can splurge on these $300 linen bed sheets.”

Moral licensing often stems from framing our willpower challenges as “moral dilemmas”, labeling an action (and ourselves) as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

Drop the labels. This is not about being a good or bad person. Just ask yourself if what you’re about to do lines up with your long-term goals. Let that guide you.

8. The promise of happiness ≠ happiness

Whenever your brain spots an opportunity for a reward, it releases dopamine to motivate you to move and to act.

Dopamine makes you crave and pursue things, but fulfilling those cravings doesn't guarantee happiness. That’s because this in-built reward system doesn’t necessarily care about making you happy, it just cares about your survival.

Nowadays, tons of things can set off that dopamine system (snacks, social media, advertising—you name it) fooling us into thinking they’ll make us feel good. So, become hyper-aware of these false promises. Notice when your dopamine levels spike and you’re giving in to your impulses. How do you feel afterwards? Did it live up to the hype? Are you really feeling satisfied?

The more you understand how dopamine affects you, the easier it becomes to control your desires and turn to “real happiness” strategies—aka things that release brain chemicals like endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA. Think of exercising, playing sports, meditating, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, dancing, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, and so on.

9. What would your Future Self want you to do?

Your Future Self is you. The decisions you make today and tomorrow impact that future version of you. Sounds obvious but we don’t always act like we get that.

One way to strengthen your “future-self continuity” or the degree to which you feel connected to your future self, is using visualisation. Get close and familiar with that version of yourself. What’s important to them? What are they working on? What are they proud of?

Then whenever you’re faced with a willpower decision, bring your Future Self to mind—and I mean that literally. Close your eyes and picture that person. What would they want you to do? Be aware of mental traps like in #7. No good-or-bad labels. The single deciding question is: does it help my Future Self?

10. The power of a STRONG WHY

Write down your long-term goals and the deeper “why” behind them. Describe your Future Self in detail. This makes it 100x easier to stick to your plans and resist the pull of immediate desires and impulses.

Especially in moments of stress, this is important. When our bodies are flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, our dopamine neurons are more excitable. We get more sensitive to whatever substance our brain associates with the promise of reward.

And that’s it!

Would love to hear: which one resonates most with you?

Could use some help with all of this?

A huge part of the work I do on myself, and with my clients, is building this kind of sustained discipline and clarity in our daily lives.

We work on:

• Setting goals together, and keeping you accountable through regular sessions and check-ins. As former client Will wrote in his testimonial: with me you get “patience with just the right level of toughness. Charlotte gently pushed me when I needed it but always ensured I felt supported”.

• Building a breathwork and movement habit, where we focus on getting that HRV up.

• Improving your sleep hygiene and habits—the absolute foundation of everything—which improves your HRV, and in turn as you now know, your willpower!

So these are just a few pieces that I work on with clients in my 8-week Nervous System Potential program, using breathwork and other body-based tools.

Book a 45-mins exploratory call with me to see if this program would be a good fit for you. We’ll talk about your goals, your challenges, and do a couple of breathing exercises together. If it makes sense to work together, great. If not, I’ll point you toward other tools or approaches that could help. No pressure—just discovery.

What else I’m up to…

Lots and loootssss of different things and exciting threads and ideas 🤯 I’m in a real exploratory phase with my business, from 1:1 coaching to corporate workshops to creative collaborations. I’m reallyyyy bullish on a hybrid model of online work and in-person work. Feeling very lucky and grateful that I get to do this work! I’ve been sharing more personal “behind the scenes” stories on LinkedIn, which has been super fun, like how I got into breathwork, my philosophy, and how I almost turned down my first client.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coach. My mission is to live my life to the fullest potential of my brain and body, and to inspire you do the same.

"I carefully plan my focus time, but the moment a new idea strikes, my planned work and good intentions… out the window."

I was talking to a potential client about this, and I knew exactly what he meant.

I’ve spent years battling distractions—not just the obvious ones like social media or emails, but the ones that live inside my own head.

• The sudden urge to look up a random fact

• The need to rethink a decision I already made

• The impulse to start something new because it suddenly feels urgent

Every time I try to focus, something else fights for my attention. And it’s not just a bad habit—it’s how my brain is wired.

The good news? I’ve largely trained my brain out of this through breathwork.

Every single breathwork session is like a mini practice round before the real work. When you can stay focused on your breath, you can stay focused on your task.

First you need to understand the basic role of dopamine

Your brain’s dopamine system is not about pleasure—it’s about wanting.

Dopamine is what makes you crave and chase things—ideas, distractions, novelty. It’s what gives you the urge to check your phone, even when you just put it down. It’s what makes you urgently want to research something, even if it has zero relevance to what you’re doing in that moment.

Here’s how it works:

1. In its baseline state, when you’re just sitting around, dopamine neurons fire at a consistent low-level rate of 3-4 times per second—a biological rhythm that maintains your normal attention state.

2. When something unexpected happens—a notification, a new idea, a thought about something unrelated—dopamine surges to 30-40 firings per second.

3. This creates an intense feeling of craving. You must check, switch, chase the new thing.

This is the neurochemical root of distraction.

Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you. It’s simply wired to pursue novelty—because, from an evolutionary perspective, noticing new things meant survival.

But in today’s insane world? This dopamine-driven chase means your focus is constantly hijacked.

Focus → unexpected stimuli → dopamine surge → urge to act → distraction

And again, this is important to understand:

Dopamine is not about pleasure. It does not care about making you feel good. It only cares about making you move and take action.

This means that acting on the distraction doesn’t give you the pleasure or satisfaction you think it will. It just resets the loop, making the next distraction even harder to resist.

So how can you disrupt this loop? That’s where breathwork comes in!

Breathwork is not just relaxation—it’s focus training

Most people think breathwork is just for relaxation. But it’s actually one of the best tools for training focus.

It’s about learning to sit with discomfort—the exact same skill you need to stay on task when your brain is craving something else.

Here’s what happens when you practice conscious breathing:

1. You’re sitting, with your eyes closed, trying to focus on your breath.

2. You feel the urge to check your phone, fidget, move—that’s the dopamine surge.

3. Instead of acting on it, you watch it. You recognize, this is just my dopamine system doing its thing.

4. You bring your focus back to your breath. You sit with the discomfort of not acting on the craving.

5. Like a wave, the urge builds, peaks, and then dissolves.

6. You repeat this over and over.

It’s a very visceral process. Sometimes, it takes actual physical effort to stop myself from moving. The impulse to act—to check my phone, to stand up, to do something—feels overwhelming.

But I stay still.

And that moment is where the rewiring happens.

Each time you resist acting on a dopamine surge, your brain changes.

Each time you stay focused instead of shifting, you’re strengthening neural circuits for impulse control.

There is plenty and plenty of research to back this up:

• A study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that breath-focused meditation increases gray matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)—the brain region responsible for attention and impulse control. (Fox et al., 2018)

• Another study in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews showed that slow, controlled breathing downregulates the Default Mode Network, the brain network associated with mind-wandering and distractions. (Zaccaro et al., 2021)

• Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman has emphasized how training interoception (awareness of bodily sensations, including breath) helps regulate impulsivity and control distractions by strengthening connections between the prefrontal cortex and limbic system.

Of course, none of this happens overnight. This takes practice. 5-10 minutes per day at least. The cool thing is that you will start noticing small shifts pretty quickly, after a couple of weeks.

Translating this into your every day

Can you see how every breathwork session is like training for real life?

• The moment you feel the pull to check your phone, switch tasks, or rethink your plan, you recognize: dopamine surge!

• You observe the craving without reacting (remember: there will be no satisfaction)

• You stay with your task

• You watch the urge fade

Each time you do this, you can pat yourself on the back, knowing you’re slowly but surely strengthening the neural circuits for sustained focus.

Now, I said at the start that I’ve largely trained my brain out of this dopamine distraction loop. This doesn’t mean I don’t get sidetracked or distracted anymore. I do, all - the - time.

But I’ve learned a very important distinction:

Focus isn’t about getting rid of distractions. It’s about seeing distractions for what they are:

Temporary dopamine surges that can be observed, not obeyed.

If you could use some help building a consistent breathwork practice, reach out!

Some extra thoughts…

• I’ve written before about dopamine and how desire ≠ happiness. Understanding this distinction is incredibly helpful to manage urges.

• What all of this work does is helping you build what neuroscientists call response flexibility – the ability to pause between stimulus and response. The ability to check in with yourself first, and make a conscious decision whether responding to this stimulus is necessary. Reminds me of the wonderful Viktor Frankl quote: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

• The book that really got me thinking about my ability to focus and stay on track: Deep Work by Cal Newport. Huge wake-up call: if I want to thrive at work and in life, training my focus is not just a nice to have, it’s an absolute necessity.

🙌 How else I can support you

A one-on-one 8-week Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coaching Program. This program is designed to help fast-moving professionals build resilience and manage stress through science-based breathing and body awareness techniques. It’s for those who don’t want to slow down—just recover better and go deeper. Will Z., Managing Director at a NYC Investment Bank, called the program “one of the best decisions he’s made.” 

FREE Body-Oriented Coaching Session. As part of my Body-Oriented Coaching Certification at The Somatic School, I need to complete a number of coaching hours. So I’m offering 1-hour coaching sessions to anyone interested in experiencing this type of coaching. No sales pitch, no strings attached. Just one hour focused on you, and a challenge or question you’d like to make progress on.

What else I’m up to…

Most of us know more about our phone settings than about our own nervous system, and I think that’s kinda sad. I started a 90/90 Nervous System Potential video series on LinkedIn and YouTube: a 90 sec video every Tue/Thurs, where I share one practical idea to explore and optimize your internal operating system to its fullest potential. Going into module 4 of my Body-Oriented Coaching certification. The more I learn, the more I feel like this is the kind of stuff kids should be learning at school. How to regulate yourself. How to connect to another human on a nervous system level. How to listen to your body—not just your mind. It would 100% be a better world. 🤦‍♀️ If anyone’s interested in the certification and has questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coach. My mission is to live my life to the fullest potential of my brain and body, and to inspire you do the same!

“Why am I so nervous? I’ve just done a workshop in front of 20 people. I know I can handle a call with 3 people.”

Despite my well-meaning self-talk, my chest felt tight. My mind kept going to the meeting later that afternoon. I felt uneasy, queasy, almost panicky.

This time though, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the fear, I was genuinely fascinated. How I could feel this nervous, when rationally, I knew the call would be totally fine?

I’ve been looking closely at my relationship with fear over the last couple of months.

I always do an end-of-year review, going through my journals, writing down what went well/what didn’t go well. It stood out to me how fear was showing up in all kinds of ways, big and small. For almost everything I struggled with, when I dug a little deeper, the underlying emotion was fear.

• Fear of not doing what I promised myself I’d do

• Fear of being delusional with my coaching business

• Fear of not being close enough to the people around me

• Fear of not having enough time

As I always do when I want to explore something about myself, I read. One of the books I picked up is The Art of Fear by Kristen Ulmer, a former professional extreme skier and now a fear/anxiety expert.

Her core message struck a chord with me:

Fear is with us on a cellular level, arising from the oldest and most powerful parts of our brain. It’s a huge and inevitable state of being, with us every step of the way, from birth to death.

Fear is at the core essence of how we are wired. 

It’s not meant to be outsmarted, overcome or reasoned away. 

Fear is meant to be felt.

First: Diffusion, to observe the fear

Last year, I did a series of brainspotting/IFS therapy sessions with a psychotherapist. She taught me the incredible technique of Diffusion:

Whenever you feel a strong, uncomfortable emotion, take a piece of paper and write:

• “I’m noticing there’s something in me that’s scared of…”

• “I’m noticing there’s a part of me that’s fearful of…”

Brain dump whatever comes up. You can replace "scared of" or "fearful" with any other emotion like "worried", "frustrated", "annoyed." The point is that you write it down in the format of "I am noticing [there's something in me] or [there's a part of me that] x y z…"

Here’s why that format is so powerful:

• You understand that the fear is not all of you. There’s a part of you that’s fearful.

• You take some distance from the fear. It doesn’t need to overwhelm you. You can observe it. You can sit with it.

• You remove all judgment or anger towards the fear. You’re simply being curious and writing down what you notice.

This observing and noticing through writing in and of itself is powerful. But then I combine it with breathing exercises.

P.S. I experienced incredible shifts thanks to my sessions with Ania. If you’re looking for a brain-informed psychotherapist, I highly recommend her. She’s based in the UK but all our sessions were online.

Then: Breathing, to feel and accept the fear

A lot of breathwork techniques focus on this idea of breathing in the fears, and breathing out peace and relaxation. There’s the assumption that fear is bad, and calm is good.

Kirsten’s philosophy is that we should stop trying to “breathe away fear.” She says fear is just as valuable as calm, and a completely natural part of how we are wired.

Again: fear is meant to be felt.

And so, we can use our breath to move towards it. To learn from it.

Here’s what you do:

• Pick one specific fear

• On the inhale, connect to the fear. Feel into the sensations and the emotions that come up for you around that fear. Don’t resist. Allow yourself to fully drop into what comes up.

• On the exhale, release the hope of ever getting rid of the fear. Welcome it into your life. Relax into the sensations and emotions.

• Do that for 30 seconds to 5 minutes, until you can feel the tension loosening.

Some examples:

• "I'm breathing in my fear of being stuck in the same unfulfilling job ten years from now, and breathing out the hope of ever getting rid of that fear."

• “I’m breathing in my headaches and my fear of them getting worse, and breathing out the hope of ever getting rid of that fear.”

• "I'm breathing in my fear of disappointing my parents, of never living up to their expectations, and breathing out the hope of ever getting rid of that fear."

• "I'm breathing in my fear that I'm falling behind while everyone else seems to have their life figured out, and breathing out the hope of ever getting rid of that fear."

Hah sorry, I went quite deep with those, didn’t I… But anyway, you get the gist.

I’ve been doing this “observe-feel-accept” process for a couple of months now and honestly, the shift is palpable. It’s true: when you sit with the fear, it simply loosens its grip over time.

We try so hard to get away from fear. We create routine, structure, familiarity. We control, analyze, and rationalize. We ignore or even shame ourselves for feeling fear.

But all that really does is make the fear feel overwhelming. It keeps us stuck. It keeps our mind and bodies tense.

So while it’s uncomfortable to do this observing and feeling process, it’s the only way to truly move forward and to benefit from the wisdom and aliveness that comes from fear.

🫁 A Group Resonance Breathing Program

Having a consistent resonance breathing practice was a game-changer for me, but finding the right approach took time.

I fell in love with Dr. Leah Lagos's book 'Heart Breath Mind' and started recommending it to anyone who says they want to build a breathwork practice. Here's what I kept hearing back:

• "This is amazing! My life is totally different now!"

• "I love it and felt the difference... but I couldn't stick with it past two weeks."

This program is for that second group.

I've created a 10-week group journey that builds on Dr. Lagos's work, weaving in insights from neuropsychologist Rick Hanson and Professor Alan Fogel—all techniques that made huge shifts in my own practice.

Resonance breathing is one of the best researched breathing techniques, showing improvements in heart rate variability, stress resilience, brain function and cardiovascular health. It’s a simple technique where you slow down your breathing to a rate of 3-7 breaths per minute. The key is finding your sweet spot, and mastering the basics of optimal breathing (nasal, gentle, slow and expansive)—and I'll help you with both of these in the program.

Here’s how it works:

• You commit to 20 minutes of resonance breathing per day, for 10 weeks. 10 minutes in the morning + 10 minutes in the evening.

• The foundational exercise is the daily resonance breathing. However, every week will have a different theme, where we integrate somatic awareness and stress management techniques. (E.g. one week will focus on processing fears, just as I described in this newsletter. Another week is about preparing for a challenge.)

• Every Friday, you receive a short email outlining the theme of the following week.

• Every Monday, you can join a live group call where we practice together and share experiences (don't worry if you can't make, you can catch up on the recording or just use the email instructions.)

• I provide a group space for support and accountability as well as simple tracking tools to keep you going.

So if you’ve ever tried to build a breathwork practice but really struggled with making it a priority or being consistent, this is for you.

→ You get structure.
→ You get accountability.
→ You get my support as a certified Breathwork Coach and Body-Oriented Coach.
→ You get to learn from other people who are struggling with similar challenges.

• Dates: 10 weeks, starting March 10

• Investment: 375$ (Beta pricing - will increase for future iterations)

If you’re interested, fill out the below form and I’ll reach out to you to set up a chat, just to get to know each other and see if this program is right for you.

🙌 How else I can support you

An intensive one-on-one 8-week Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coaching Program. This program is designed to help fast-moving professionals build resilience and manage stress through science-based breathing and body awareness techniques. Will Z., Managing Director at a NYC Investment Bank, called the program “one of the best decisions he’s made.” Just sayin! 😉

FREE Body-Oriented Coaching Session. You read that right, free! As part of my Body-Oriented Coaching Certification at The Somatic School, I need to complete a number of coaching hours. So I’m offering 1-hour coaching sessions to anyone interested in experiencing this type of coaching. One hour focused on you, and a challenge or question you’d like to make progress on. No sales pitch, no strings attached.

👋 Other stuff I’m up to…

Working with a breathwork coach on my CO2 tolerance, for stress resilience. Box breathing, walking apneas, CO2 tables. A breathwork coach working with a breathwork coach? Yep! I want to invest a big chunk of my money in coaching and learning. I know I’m biased but it’s fun, and the progress is so much faster than what you can do on your own. Started an intensive Portuguese language program here in Lisbon. Sometimes hard to feel motivated (it’s twice per week in the evening! 😴) but I remind myself how much I love the learning process and how these skills translate to all other areas of life: the ability to focus, the ability to sit with frustration and discomfort, etc.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

😲 One Resource That Made Me Gasp

Breath

A film about the invisible life-force. Made by The Mercadantes | Directed by Daniel Mercadante | Executive Producer: Katina Mercadante | Producer: Jed Hubbard…

vimeo.com/118023603

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coach. My mission is to live my life to the fullest potential of my brain and body, and to inspire you do the same!

⏪ Your imagination can work for you, or against you. Given our hardwired negativity bias, if you don’t train it, it’s likely working against you. In previous Stretch, we dug into the skill of visualization and how to use it to finally make progress on your goals.

⏩ In this Stretch, I’m sharing a simple framework to explore your nervous system, and discover senses you likely didn’t know you had. Let’s stop relying on experts so much (it’s exhausting!) and start developing our own inner expertise.

In 2025, the most useful question is not “Which expert should I trust?” The more powerful question is: “Why do I no longer trust myself?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, one of the top UK podcast hosts, talking about the importance of becoming an expert on your own body and nervous system.

I have long stopped following podcasts and am very selective in what I listen to, simply because the sheer volume of “expert advice” has become absolutely overwhelming.

I mean, just look at this:

These are two of the most listened to podcasts in the UK.

STOP THIS.

DO THAT.

YOU’RE A LOSER IF YOU DO X. YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT OF YOU DON’T DO Y.

YOU’LL PROBABLY DIE IF YOU… Aaahhhh!!

It’s insanity. No wonder we’re all lost and confused, desperately grasping for vagus nerve massage oils and energy bracelets.

I vividly remember scrolling through one of these podcast libraries, saving one episode after the other to “one day listen to.” I suddenly saw myself as if outside of my body—my face and body tense, hunched over my phone, feeling anxious and overwhelmed—and realised this needed to change. But that’s a story for another time (or for right now if you want to read more about it here.)

The story for today is about learning how to listen to ourselves. How to focus less on external input, and focus more on our internal experience.

Our bodies are astonishingly deep sources of information, and when we learn to listen to them properly, everything shifts. I've experienced it firsthand, through breathwork and movement. It's been pretty incredible and I've never felt as certain, clear and creative as in the last couple of years.

So how do you develop this self-trust? Where do you start?

Even that can be an overwhelming question, I know. There’s just so much advice out there.

Here’s a very simple framework to start with. You don’t need anything or anyone, just your body.

🥧 The Presence PIE

I’ve just learned about this framework in my Body-Oriented Coaching training (*) at The Somatic School.

Listening to our body requires presence. We do that by focusing on these innate sensory systems we all have access to:

• 🍅 Proprioception: How am I holding myself?

• 🥕 Interoception: How am I feeling inside?

• 🥒 Exteroception: What am I noticing around me?

Let’s slide into each piece (please indulge me with this pie analogy a little bit longer!)

(*) If you’d told me a few years ago I’d train to become “a coach”—I’d have massively cringed. Now, I know this training is going to be a superpower for the rest of my life!

Proprioception

This is the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation, often called our "body position sense."

It works through sensory input from skin, fascia, muscles, and joint receptors to help us understand where our body is in space

A simple and effective way to explore proprioception is to:

• close your eyes

• raise both hands above your head

• then touch the fingertips of your opposite hand

• and then attempt to touch your nose with your index finger

Your ability to sense position of your hands, fingers and nose with your eyes closed—that’s proprioception.

You tap into this sensory system by asking yourself:

• How am I holding myself?

• How am I sitting?

• Where are my feet in relation to my knees?

• Where are my hands in relation to my shoulders?

• How is my posture?

Interoception

Have you ever felt your stomach growl? Your head pound? Your heart race? Your eyes grow heavy?

Your ability to notice, sense and understand these feelings in your body is called interoception.

Much more detail here but basically: lots of research shows that people with higher interoceptive capacity are better able to regulate their emotions and better at making decisions, simply because they’re able to spot what’s going on in their body very quickly.

So to train your interoceptive skills, you start by simply paying attention and asking yourself:

• How am I breathing right now?

• Can I notice my heartbeat? Does it feel fast or calm?

• Is there any tension anywhere in my body?

• Am I hungry or thirsty?

• What else do I notice when I turn my attention inward?

A fun fact: the vagus nerve (the longest nerve in our body) has 80% afferent nerves (sending info from the body to the brain) and 20% efferent nerves (sending info from the brain to the body). So there’s A LOT of information coming from the body that impacts our state of mind. When we learn how to tap into this flow of information, everything shifts.

If you’re a very rational, skeptical person (like I am): read this.

Exteroception

Exteroception is all about processing stimuli from the outside environment through sight, sound, smell, taste and touch—the five senses we know so well.

We tend to put a lot of focus and priority on the visual system and need to put in conscious effort to activate our other senses as well:

• As I bring my attention out, what do I notice?

• What can I hear?

• What can I smell?

• What am I aware of in my surroundings?

• What do I notice as I perceive this person in front of me?

I love these Expanding Awareness cues I learned from Michael Ashcroft to use my senses to further expand my awareness.

↪️ If there were an aircraft going 10,000 ft overhead, just check that you could hear it.

Could is an important word here. Don’t look up or imagine a plane, but become aware of the space above you. Do you feel that space opening up?

You can do the same with the space behind and around you.

↪️ If there were a conversation happening in the other room, just check that you could hear it. Listen for the furthest away sound you can hear in any direction.

These are simple triggers to expand your awareness to the space above and around you, creating that feeling of expanded awareness—keeping you present in the here and now.

Baking your own Presence PIE

So how do you now use this?

I recommend taking a couple minutes every morning, or throughout the day, to run through these sensory systems.

You start with just a few cues, so it doesn’t become overwhelming. Pick the ones you like. It could look like this:

• What’s my posture like? What does my body feel like right now?

• How’s my breathing? Any tension anywhere?

• What can I see, hear and smell?

Write these out on a post-it, until the sequence becomes automatic. This could literally take as little as 30 seconds.

Now, this is simple but not easy.

This takes effort, and consistent practice. Most people won’t have the patience to do this. Sitting still, even for just 30 seconds, eyes closed and focusing on the body, has become an impossible task for most.

It’s not our fault necessarily. We live in a fast-paced, hyper-vigilant world, constantly checking our phones, looking at our watch, moving fast. Our attention and focus have become so fragmented that sitting in a chair and just breathing makes us feel unproductive and guilty, maybe even physically uncomfortable.

But I promise you it does get easier as you practice.

And the more you do it, the more attuned you become to your body. Over time, you even start craving those little moments of just sitting and sensing.

I’ve experienced this over the last couple of years. (I’ve been using breathwork, meditation and movement without knowing the helpful PIE acronym yet.)

I used to be incredibly overstimulated, reactive and anxious.

Now, as soon as I spot an unhelpful, repetitive, or self-sabotaging thought, I know what to do:

Focus on my breath.

I don’t try to think my way through. I don’t resist. I don’t argue. I don’t feel bad for myself. I don’t look up a video on YouTube on what to do.

I’ve become increasingly masterful at noticing subtle elevations in my anxiety (thank you Interoception!) and then shifting to a deep, slow breathing. I just focus on the air going in and out through my nose, the slow rise and fall of my belly.

I shift my awareness from collapsed (what’s right in front of me—usually a screen) to expanded (what can I hear, smell, feel, see, and touch in all directions around me?)

And that does feel unnatural at first. We’re so conditioned to believe that “more thinking” and DOING DOING DOING is the answer to everything. How can focusing on my breath and body be helpful in any way?

I think this is where you have to take a bit of a leap of faith and trust in your biology. Trust in the science. Experiment with it so you can experience it for yourself. And a simple, easy, low-stakes way to do that is… the PIE framework 🥧🙂

I help fast-moving professionals reconnect with their nervous systems and these inner sensory systems to build resilience and manage stress. Here are all the details of my 8-week Breath Science and Body-Oriented Coaching program.

What else I’m up to…

I’m having no-strings-attached calls with people who are intrigued by breathwork and body-oriented coaching. Truly no strings attached. I want to learn and hear from you, ask questions. You can book a call here. Making an intentional effort to build a local, entrepreneurial network in Lisbon (Portugal.) Setting up weekly coffees and calls, and attending at least one in-person event. Using apps like TheBreakfast and TimeLeft. So far it’s been great and I’ve met some really interesting people! If you know anyone to connect me to in Lisbon, let me know!

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork trainer and Body-Oriented Coach in training. My mission is to live my life to the fullest potential of my brain and body, and to inspire you do the same!

⏪ Our eyes are sophisticated little tools for regulating our nervous system. In the previous Stretch, we learned how we can use them to calm us down, improve focus and boost creativity.

⏩ In this Stretch, we’re exploring a hugely underrated feature of our brain—our imagination—and how we can train ourselves to use it to get better at pretty much anything we want.

One of the most remarkable features of our brain is that we can imagine things that aren’t real.

It’s a wonderful capacity, one that comes with a price:

Most of what we imagine is negatively skewed. Because of our brain’s negativity bias, we spend most of our time ruminating and catastrophising. We’re hardwired to be pessimistic.

But instead of mindlessly sticking to these default settings, we can learn how to use our imagination in a way that’s intentional and productive, and works for us instead of against us.

We do this through a practice called mental rehearsal, mental imagery or visualization, and it's one of the most valuable skills you can develop. As sports psychologist Jason Skelk says, “If you’re not visualizing on a regular basis, there’s no way you’re living up to your full potential.”

A practice of visualization and simulation

Mental rehearsal is the cognitive process of purposefully creating and simulating experiences in your mind. So sitting down with your eyes closed, you’re creating a vivid mental video where you’re engaging all of your senses to make the experience as realistic as possible.

The goal is to mentally rehearse a performance, task, or scenario before actually executing it.

For example, say you have a big presentation coming up.

The default is to practice what you’re going to say. That’s it. Oh and of course, think of all the ways you might mess up.

With visualization, you’ll take a couple of minutes in the days leading up to the day to rehearse how you want the presentation to go. You might visualize yourself preparing for the meeting efficiently, being in the room feeling focused and high energy, overcoming a technical issue with calm, answering all the questions confidently, and feeling great about it afterwards. You’ve gone through the entire experience multiple times in your mind, so that once you’re there in the room, it all feels familiar. You’ve primed your brain and body on how to feel and behave.

Mental rehearsal is heavily associated with athletic performance, making regular people like us less likely to consider it for everyday scenarios like public speaking, job interviews, high-pressure scenarios and daily tasks.

And that’s a missed opportunity, because mental rehearsal is not just powerful for motor skills—it works just as well for cognitive, emotional and behavioural skills.

Here are a couple of examples of how I’ve been using it:

• Train myself to get up and move my body whenever I feel stuck or lose focus, instead of staying seated, staring at my screen and wasting time on social media. (More on how I used visualization to work on “focused” as an identity trait here.)

• Train myself to take a deep centering breath (6 seconds in, 2 seconds hold, 6 seconds out) whenever I feel overwhelmed or annoyed, instead of getting completely lost in the emotions.

• Train myself to resist reaching for my phone the second I feel an ounce of boredom.

• Train myself to feel excited about my long training runs for the marathon, feeling strong and energized, pushing through tiredness and boredom.

So as you can see, small everyday stuff where I’m basically just creating awareness and then rehearsing the desired action.

A crucial point: Visualization isn't magic. You still need to put in the work and actually do the things. But it changes your moods, energy, and self-belief, which impacts your actions and ultimately your results.

Think of visualization as taking back control of your mind's incredible power. Instead of letting your brain's default negative bias run wild, you're consciously directing your mental energy toward what you want to create and how you want to feel.

I’ve been doing this on and off for about a year now, and am now committing to making it a daily practice—even if just for 30 seconds per day—simply because of the incredible value I am seeing and experiencing.

Now, before we move on, some of you might be feeling a little bit skeptical.

So let’s first unpack why mental rehearsal works.

Visualization in terms of cognitive neuroscience

The practice of visualization has been around for centuries, but it’s only in the last decade or so, thanks to brain imagining, that we can speak of visualization in terms of cognitive neuroscience and the function of large-scale brain networks.

Your brain activates many of the same brain regions

Brain imagining studies have shown that your brain activates similar neural pathways whether you're experiencing something real or vividly imagining it.

This explains why:

• You get sweaty palms just thinking about public speaking

• Athletes use visualization to improve performance and reaction time (just look at this F1 driver)

• Imagining flexing your muscle physically makes your muscle stronger

Again, this incredible brain feature can work for us or against us. If we don’t take control of our thoughts, most of us will imagine negative scenarios, and our brains and bodies will react as if these scenarios are actually happening.

Your brain is designed to change

Visualization physically changes the brain. Used regularly, it creates and strengthens neural connections and pathways related to the task, making actual execution more effective. This process is known as neuroplasticity—the incredible feature of our brain to rewire and reshape based on our thoughts, actions and experiences.

The power of thought and imagination to change your brain has been talked about since 1904 by the great Spanish neuro-anatomist and Nobel laureate Santiago Ramon y Cajal:

You can direct your Reticular Activation System (RAS)

Your conscious brain can only process 0.000001% of input. Everything else gets processed by your subconscious.

The RAS is a neural network in your brain responsible for deciding what information is brought into your conscious awareness. It filters out irrelevant information and only allows into your consciousness what (1) will keep you safe and (2) is of interest to you. (This filtering mechanism helps explain why you’ll hear your name in a crowded room.)

You help your RAS know what is of interest to you by keeping your intentions in the forefront of your conscious awareness, through visualization.

The power of this has been clear to me for my running.

I’ve been saying for years I want to run more and train for a marathon, but never made it a priority. In October 2023, I wrote in my newsletter: “I’m imagining 2024-Charlotte having run several races, training 3-4 times per week, feeling proud, healthy and strong.”

In 2024, I did 4 trail runs and ran my first marathon. Running simply became top-of-mind in all of my planning and conversations.

And last but not least… visualization is just FUN. Instead of always thinking about all the different ways we’ll fail or things will go wrong, it’s super fun to imagine all the ways we’re crushing it.

Ready to give it a try?

I’ve recorded a simple 10-minute visualization for you.

(When you click play, give it a few seconds to load and start playing. You can also download the file. If you have any issues, hit reply to this email!)

You’ll start with a short breathing and body relaxation exercise, as it’s important to first calm your nervous system before you visualize. Then I’ll give you cues to imagine a simple activity that you’ve wanted to do but for whatever reason you have not done. A goal. An intention. A habit.

An example would be to get up early and walk for 15 minutes, or to commit to not drinking alcohol, or to speak up more in meetings.

If you don’t know what to visualize, just ask yourself: what do you want to get better at? What would you like to succeed at? What would you like to do differently in 2025?

I’d encourage you to experiment with this for one week, and listen to this every day. Either right before going to bed, or first thing in the morning. And then, go do the thing. Suspend all judgment or disbelief, and just see what the effects are on your self-confidence and motivation.

A few tips:

• Visualize from a first person perspective. Seeing the performance from your own eyes, as if you are actually performing it. For example, if your intention is to speak up more in meetings, visualize exactly what you would see, hear, say and feel while sitting in your seat, looking across the table at your colleagues.

• Use all of your senses to create the scene so it’s as vivid as you can make it. The video you play in your head needs to capture the emotional experience you want to have. Engage all of your senses. What do you hear? What do you feel? You’ll feel this in physical energy as your nervous system responds to the stimulu.

• “Start strong, stay strong, finish strong”. Use this template to visualize short clips of your intention. How do you want to start? How do you want the thing to go? How do you want to feel once it’s done? Spend 30 seconds on each part. You can cover a lot of ground in just 90 seconds.

And please, let me know how it goes!

What else I’m up to…

Recording personalised visualizations for my 1-1 breath training clients. A big part of visualization is developing body awareness in various scenarios (when stressed, when happy, when nervous, etc.), so I incorporate more of these cues relevant to the person’s life and goals into the sessions. Rereading Relentless Solution Focus by sports psychologist Jason Skelk—a powerful and practical book on how to deal with our brain’s negativity bias. Remember neuroplasticity? We can rewire our brains to be more positive and solutions-focused. Finished my second module of Body-Oriented Coaching training at The Somatic School. Learning about the PIE framework (Proprioception/Interoception/Exteroception) is life-changing. Introduced a Screen-free morning into my week. Every week, I pick one morning where I don’t touch a screen until noon. If you can’t do an entire morning, can you do 2 hours? 1 hour? 30 minutes?

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork trainer and nervous system explorer. I believe we have all the tools we need right here in our body—we just need to learn how to use them. More energy? More motivation? Less rumination? It’s all there.

⏪ In the previous edition, I’m answering a question I’ve received many times over the last few months: running a marathon breathing only through your nose?! Why? How?

⏩ Today, we’re learning to, literally, see our eyes differently. Our eyes are sophisticated little tools for regulating our nervous system, and we can learn how to use them in a way that calm us down, improves focus and boosts creativity.

Soften your gaze for a moment.

Without moving your head, guide your eyes in a slow, deliberate circle – as if you're tracing the edge of a clock on the wall.

Feel the smoothness of this movement, the subtle stretch as your eyes reach each corner.

Let your eyes slowly close halfway, then three-quarters, then open them wide like you've just seen something surprising. You can direct them up toward your eyebrows, down toward your cheeks, or dart them quickly from side to side.

Play with these micro-movements.

Now focus on one single word on the screen.

One single letter.

And now expand your visual field, taking in as much of the space around you as possible without moving your head.

Notice how you can easily switch between these modes.

This conscious play with your eyes is more than just an exercise—it's a rediscovery of a powerful tool you've always had but perhaps never fully explored.

These delicate organs that move automatically throughout your day are completely under your conscious control. Each movement sends ripples of information through your nervous system, influencing your entire state of being.

How come the eyes are so powerful?

Because they’re pieces of brain. The only pieces of brain outside of the cranial vault.

It sounds strange but eyes aren’t just there to help us see things. Eyes were designed first and foremost to set the overall arousal state of the nervous system.

It makes sense when you think about it.

How would your brain, sitting in the darkness of your skull, know what time of day it is? How does it know whether to wake you up or to make you feel sleepy? How does it know what’s going on around you, and whether to make you feel vigilant or relaxed?

The brain relies on external cues to know what’s going on. That’s where the eyes come in. They’re responsible for instructing the brain, and then the brain takes care of the rest.

So to recap:

1. How you use your eyes has a powerful influence on your nervous system

2. Your eyes are under your conscious control

Do you see where I’m going? When I first learned about this, I immediately felt like it’s such a humongously wasted opportunity if we never take advantage of this!

3 ways to start treating your eyeballs as the powerful little tools they are ↓

01 Look far and wide (to relax your nervous system)

We spend most of our day indoor, staring at things up close, in some kind of tunnel vision. This keeps our nervous system in a state of heightened alertness—which is fine for a couple of hours, to focus and get stuff done.

But at the end of the day, we need to put in effort to do the opposite so we can relax our nervous system.

Go outside

• Walk your dog, take your kids to the park, go by yourself—just go outside

• Get natural light in your eyes (ideally around sunset time)

Look far

• Keep your phone in your pocket (that's just more up close viewing)

• Stare into the distance as you’re walking or sitting down

• Focus on distant, moving objects—let your eyes wander

Look wide

• Expand your visual field

• Soften your gaze and take up as much of your peripheral view

• Relax your face, neck, shoulders

• Again, keep your phone in your pocket (that's just more narrow tunnel vision)

Looking far and wide is like sending a signal to your nervous system that you’re safe. That makes sense when you think about it from an evolutionary survival perspective: if there was an actual immediate threat, your vision would be narrow and focused. I write a lot more about this bi-directional mechanism between narrow/wide visual field and your nervous system here.

02 Look up (to increase alertness)

It’s remarkable how much of our day we spend looking down—at our phones, laptops, books, the pavement. (I bet your eyes and chin are pointing downward right now, right?)

Because of the direct relationship between our brain and our eyes, whether our eyes are up or down has an impact on our energy levels.

When we’re awake:

• Eyelids are wide open

• Chin is up

• Alertness is high

(Like when you’re at a party, feeling buzzy and excited)

Then when we’re tired:

• Eyelids naturally droop

• Chin moves downward

• Alertness is low

(Like when you’re watching a movie, all cozy on the couch, struggling to stay awake)

Your level of alertness determines the position of your eyes and chin.

But this process also works in reverse.

The position of your eyes and chin influences your level alertness.

When we sit with our eyelids slightly closed and chin down, we activate neurons related to calmness and sleepiness. It’s like we’re signaling to our brain: “Hey, we’re ready to wind down.”

So by consciously adjusting our eye level and our posture, we can send a signal to our brain about how we want to feel. Here are a few tips:

• As you’re working, sit in an upright position and have your screen at or above eye level. This makes sure your eyelids are open, improving your levels of alertness. (Working with your laptop on your lap on the couch? No bueno)

• Energy levels dropping? Go outside and go for a walk. But instead of looking at your phone, look up. Look at the sky. The birds. The roofs.

• No time for a walk but need a quick boost? Raise your eyes and look up for 10-15 seconds. This activates the brain areas involved in wakefulness, triggering the release of epinephrine—a chemical that promotes alertness.

03 Close your eyes (to think more creatively)

Sometimes the best thing we can do is simply close our eyes for a moment.

When our eyes are open, vision accounts for two-thirds of the brain's electrical activity, utilizing approximately 2 billion of the 3 billion neural firings per second. (🤯) Around 40-50% of the entire brain is involved in vision processing, making it the most resource-intensive sensory system.

So the moment you close your eyes, you can free up a big amount of brainpower. And when this happens, your brain works harder to retrieve details, imagine creative ideas, or find answers to challenging problems.

This great post by Younes Henni goes into much more detail on the benefits and the research.

P.s. This idea of closing your eyes to free up brainpower is one of the reasons why I believe in visualisation/mental rehearsal so much. Ever notice how athletes and performers close their eyes during pre-performance visualization? It allows them to create more detailed and effective mental rehearsals of their skills. We can tap into that for our work and life as well. I’m writing all about visualisation in the next newsletter (might be a great skill to learn in 2025!)

What else I’m up to…

I started training as a Body-Oriented Coach at The Somatic School. As I’m doing more and more 1-1 coaching, I want to get an International Coaching Federation accredited diploma. We just had the first module and I’m already seeing how this is going to be so much more than a certification. It’s really about learning how to be in the world using my bodymind (not just my mind!) and all of my senses (not just vision!). This changes how you move your body, how you interact with other people, how you make decisions, and so on. I’m super excited to explore how these skills will transform my work and life! Two of my favorite questions as I’m going through my 2024 journals to reflect on the year: “In which areas of my life is it clear that I cannot achieve my goals with the stories I tell myself?” and "How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?" Last week I said my new running challenge for this month is to run 5k a day. For some reason, I haven’t felt like running at all. So instead, I’ve been doing 5k walks every evening and that feels great! Cold cheeks, clear mind. Off to Belgium for the Christmas holidays 🇧🇪 Love being in my childhood home for a couple of weeks—instantly makes me feel like an 18 yo again (for better or for worse 😆)

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork facilitator and nervous system explorer. My mission is to inspire you experiment with your brain and body to be more focused, resilient and energized.

⏪ Last time was all about what we can learn from Tai Chi martial arts wisdom to transform our modern workday. The four key skills to cultivate: focused mind, body sensing, breathing and releasing all resistance.

⏩ Today, I’m answering a question I’ve received many times over the last few months: running a marathon breathing only through your nose?! Why? How??

I didn’t care about speed, or hitting a certain time.

All I cared about was controlled breathing through my nose, slowly and deeply.

That’s what I trained for, and what I managed to do last week in Florence—my very first marathon!

I’m studying breath science, so of course I have a special interest in experimenting with what is possible with the breath, but still, I’d recommend every single person to start exploring nose breathing (whether you’re a runner or not!)

Let’s unpack why ↓

How we’re designed to breathe

This applies to all of us: we’re designed to breathe through our nose.

The only reason we have evolved to be able to breathe through two channels is to increase our chances of survival. Should the nose get obstructed, the mouth becomes a backup ventilation system. But that’s all the mouth was meant to be: backup.

Housed in your mouth are your teeth, tongue, hard palate, soft palate and throat. None of the above have any function or advantage whatsoever when it comes to breathing.

Our nose, on the other hand, is designed for breathing, and that’s obvious in the long list of advantages:

• Warming & humidifying: Nose breathing supports the respiratory system by warming and humidifying inhaled air, protecting the airways from irritation and dehydration.

• Filtering: Nose breathing removes a significant amount of germs and bacteria from the air you breathe in.

• Stronger airways: Nose breathing forces air against all those flabby tissues at the back of the throat, making the airways wider and breathing easier. After a while, these tissues and muscles get “toned” to stay in this open and wide position. Mouth breathing transforms airways for the worse, making breathing more difficult by causing the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward. (Inhale once through the mouth and once through the nose to compare. You can feel the difference in resistance.)

• Diaphragm breathing: Nasal breathing engages the diaphragm muscle, stabilizing the core and improving stamina. Mouth breathing relies more on upper-chest breathing and is more likely to be associated with a stress response.

• Slows down breathing: Slows the breath, giving the lungs more time to extract oxygen from inhaled air. (More here on the benefits of slow breathing)

• Nitric Oxide boost: Nasal breathing also boosts nitric oxide, a gas produced in the sinuses that helps increase circulation and deliver oxygen to cells. This has a huge impact on things like immune function, weight, mood, and physical performance.

Okay, so I hope you’re convinced:

Always breathe through your nose while at rest and while sleeping.

If you need more convincing, read Breath by James Nestor. (And prepare to have your mind blown!)

But we’re not stopping here. When it comes to exercise, there’s a whole range of additional benefits.

Nasal breathing for runners

Novak Djokovic talks about conscious breathing as his #1 tip for athletes. Adam Burgess, Olympic silver medallist, swears by nasal breathing for sleep, performance and recovery.

Making your breath a core component of exercise is clearly not a fringe idea. It’s a normal thing for elite athletes in all disciplines.

Of course, nose breathing doesn’t apply to every single sport or intensity level, but when it comes to running at an amateur level, it has a ton of benefits.

01 It will improve your performance

What we often forget is that breathing requires muscle activity and energy to occur. So the more we have to breathe, the more energy that has to go to that process.

When we breathe through the mouth, we breathe more quickly, and so we take in more breaths. When we breathe nasally, we slow down our breathing. This slower rate enables more time for oxygen to diffuse into the blood, leading to better oxygen delivery to our hard working muscles.

Nasal breathing also helps prevent hyperventilation, a common issue among runners. Hard, fast, erratic breathing expels excessive carbon dioxide from the body. This can lead to feelings of breathlessness and fatigue. When we breathe slowly through the nose, we offload less carbon dioxide.

A significant study by Health Science and Human Movement professor, George Dallam, showed that after 6 months of nasal breathing training, runners achieved 22% more efficient breathing compared to mouth breathing. The research demonstrated that runners could maintain their VO2 max and peak performance while using only nasal breathing, though adaptation time was necessary.

If you want to learn more, this Oxygen Advantage article goes deep into the physiology and research behind nasal breathing for runners.

02 It will slow you down

The most commonly recommended training method is the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your running should be at an easy pace, and only 20% at a higher intensity. This isn’t just for us amateur runners. This applies to elite runners as well. When you commit to only nose breathing, you’re forced to reduce the intensity of your runs.

03 It will reduce risk of injury and overtraining

Injuries are the biggest reason why people stop running or say running is bad for your body.

Running isn’t bad for us. We’re designed to run. It’s because we run too much and too fast, leaving our bodies no time to adapt or recover.

I used to struggle with shin splints for years, to the point I just thought my body wasn’t fit for long distances. Now I know it was just because I didn’t pay enough attention to my posture, and I was running too fast and too much.

Again, committing to nose breathing means you can’t push harder than your body can manage. You build your strength steadily and organically.

04 It will make running more enjoyable

Last but absolutely not least… because isn’t that the whole point after all, for us amateur runners?

I love how it’s described in this article:

“New runners typically have this experience:

You resolve to start running. The first session, you take off at a fast pace. After a minute or two, your heart and lungs are struggling to keep up, and soon your entire body is in pain. This is terrible. You don’t have the willpower to run through that suffering day after day, so you quit after a few sessions.”

When you use your nose as your pacer, you don’t get breathless and you remain in control of your breath. Over time, it means that running becomes as comfortable as walking. Instead of this “horrible, painful thing I have to do”, it becomes this “incredible thing I get to do.”

My top tips

Alright, enough of the why. Let’s talk about how.

Start extremely slow

The initial transition period will be challenging, and you'll need to significantly reduce your running pace at first. The cool thing is that you will notice your body adapt with every run, and you’ll gradually be able to increase your pace and duration while maintaining nasal breathing.

So start extremely slow. If you’re already a runner, start with short intervals of 30-60 seconds of nasal breathing. Increase this with every run.

If you’re new to running, start with nose breathing while walking and build up to running.

It took me over a little bit over a year to go from 0 to being able to run a marathon with only nose breathing, so this is definitely not a quick thing. But it’s worth it.

Use your nose as your pacer

“If I need to open my mouth, I’m running too fast.” — Ihor Verys, ultrarunner

Let your nose guide you. The second you notice you can no longer breathe in a controlled way through the nose, slow down or start walking. Then start again.

Manage your ego

You’ll have to go much slower than you’re used to, and that can be pretty hard on the ego. On training runs, I felt embarrassed sometimes, wanting to yell at any random person on the street, “Just so you know, I run faster, I’m just training nose breathing only!!” 

Also during the marathon, I had to keep reminding myself (as a 70 yo badass runner was passing me by) that this is my race. I’m not competing with anyone but myself. All that matters is that with every step, with every breath through the nose, I’m doing something I haven’t done before.

Bring tissues

Lots of tissues. Try this exercise if you have a blocked nose.

My amazing support team, providing non-stop tissues

Leave the headphones at home

This is a practice of focused attention. So no podcasts, no music, no audiobooks. These only distract you from the focus on your breath and your body. (Running in silence is also such a great way to give your brain a break.)

Phew, that was everything I have in my head about nose breathing. What do you think? Intrigued to give nose breathing a try?

To wrap it up, I’ll paraphrase running coach Steve Sisson when I spoke to him about my nasal running plans:

“Nasal breathing is the fastest way to get you where you want to go. There’s no way you’ll overtrain. You won’t get injured. You won’t get hurt. You’ll string more days together. You’ll have more positive experiences and positive feedback loops, and these are vital to everything in life we want to enjoy. We get so messed up by more. Faster. Harder. Nose breathing isn’t just for people who are starting, but also for experienced advanced level runners. They overtrain, and don’t make their easy days easy enough.”

What else I’m up to…

New running goal for December: 5k a day keeps the stress away! If you’ve been here for a while, you know I love short runs. They’re my biggest productivity hack. Organizing another a guided breathing and visualisation livestream this Thursday. The focus will be on overcoming procrastination. Add to your calendar or RSVP on LinkedIn. Recording personalized breathing and visualisation sessions for my clients, around compulsive email checking and public speaking anxiety. Love doing these! Completed a Creator Cohort with Ultraspeaking. The best “public speaking” course there is, except it’s so much more than public speaking. It’s about learning to trust your brain, staying in character even when you’re nervous, embracing the pause and the breath as you’re speaking. I absolutely love their philosophy.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork facilitator and online writer. My goal is to inspire you to be curious about your body and how you can use it to be more focused, motivated and energized.

⏪ Last time was all about the neurochemical power of short and moderate runs. It’s not just endorphins that create that famous brain-buzzing runner’s high. There’s another natural “cannabis-like” compound at play…

⏩ Today, I’m talking about how we can use Tai Chi martial arts wisdom to transform our modern workday. The four key skills to cultivate: focused mind, body sensing, breathing and releasing all resistance.

I've been obsessed with this book ChiRunning, a running philosophy inspired by the ancient Chinese martial art form Tai Chi.

ChiRunning is all about turning running into a form of meditation—being present, embodied and relaxed while moving. This has completely changed my approach to running in ways that go beyond the realms of farther or faster.

The book shares four important Tai Chi-based skills to develop. As I've been practicing these skills while out running (10 days until my first marathon, ahhh!), I’ve realised they apply to pretty much everything I do, including work. Whenever I’m able to:

• Focus my mind,

• Listen to my body,

• Control my breathing,

• Drop all resistance,

I feel satisfied and content by the time I close my laptop—no matter what happened that day.

Let’s take a quick look at how each of these ancient skills can unlock new ways to work and focus:

Skill 1 - Focusing Your Mind 

This is all about turning off the chatter and focusing on whatever's right in front of you.

• Pick a clearly defined task

• Remove all distractions

• Set a timer

• Don't do anything else but that task until you're done.

Resist the urge to check emails, respond to messages or do a quick Google search. It's unfortunate but true: our brains can't multi-task. All we're doing is very rapid task-switching, interrupting our focus every time.

If you can do this in blocks of 90 minutes, interspersed with breaks, you'll be amazed by a) how much you can get done in a day and b) how much clearer your mind is.

The irony is that a focused mind is more relaxed than a mind that wanders aimlessly through the details and minutiae of the day. You either want to be deeply focused or deeply relaxed, and avoid the in-between as much as possible. 

Focusing your mind takes real effort and discipline but it is a skill we must all train if we want to do meaningful work. It’s been a priority for me personally, and I wrote more in a previous newsletter about my “focus toolkit”:

Body-Based Focus Toolkit—use your body to strengthen your brain’s focus circuits

Focus is not an elusive, uncontrollable state. It's a skill.

www.stretch-letter.com/p/bodybased-focus-toolkituse-body-strengthen-brains-focus-circuits

Skill 2 - Body Sensing: High Speed Access 

Body Sensing is the act of feeling what's going on with and inside your body.

The more scientific term for this is ‘Interoception’—the skill of sensing and accurately describing our inner body sensations. Some common interoceptive body signals are heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, temperature, tickling sensations, and so on.

Why should you care about this?

Well, there’s a constant flow of communication between our bodies and our brains, and it’s not just the brain calling the shots and the body doing its bidding.

Most people don’t know this, but there are 80% afferent nerves (from the body to the brain) versus 20% efferent nerves (from the brain to the body). So there’s A LOT of information coming from our body that influences the brain. And it’s important to learn how to tap into this stream of information, and actually listen to it.

When we're focused on our work, we tend to lose awareness of anything below-the-neck. Are your shoulders relaxed? Are you sitting up straight? Are you getting fatigued? Are you holding your breath? Are you thirsty?

Research suggests that the more sensitive you are to your body signals, the better you get at dealing with stress and other emotions.

So pay close attention to the subtle nuances of what your body is telling you. Drop your shoulders. Stand up regularly. Get some water. Take a few deep, slow breaths. Stretch your body. Do a couple of sit-ups or squats in-between calls.

Just like focus, interoceptive awareness is a skill you need to train. Practices like yoga and breathwork help with this. A fun exercise to start with is seeing if you can detect your heartbeat, which I wrote about here.

Skill 3: Breathing—Tapping Into Your Chi 

Yes, we breathe automatically and unconsciously, but there is a lot of power in becoming aware of your breathing.

Notice whether your breathing is slow, light, and deep. This calms your nervous system and improves oxygenation of all your cells and tissues (including your brain!)

There’s also a phenomenon called screen apnea where we unconsciously hold our breath as we’re working. This shift can be subtle, and it's not always for long, but it can be enough to disrupt our regular flow of oxygen and unwittingly kick our stress response into gear. 

Learn to pay attention to this and keep breathing, softly and deeply.

Oh, and related to Body Sensing: pay attention to your posture. Sit up straight. Hunching over essentially robs all the organs and muscles within your core of the space they need to perform. Breathing suffers, and when you can’t breathe properly, you perform at a suboptimal level across the board.

Skill 4 - The Path of Least Resistance 

When you start to pay attention, you’ll notice how much you’re bracing and holding tension.

It’s possible to learn how to shift this and move from bracing to relaxing. It’s not that there’s no effort—there’s just no unnecessary effort.

If I feel stressed, stretched thin, or overwhelmed, it's usually because I'm overcomplicating something or failing to take the simple/easy path because I feel I should be trying “harder”.

I’ve noticed that for me, this particularly shows up in moments of fatigue. Instead of listening to my body, I resist and I try to push through. But I’m learning to take the path of least resistance and lean into the dip.

Our bodies naturally go through states of high and low activation. These are called ultradian cycles.

Throughout the day, there are hours where I’m highly alert, focused, motivated and energised. And then there are hours where I am feeling fatigued, distracted, low, where I procrastinate and want to hide.

That’s totally normal, and the best thing I can do is just move between these states fluidly and smoothly, without any resistance. Move with my body (Body Sensing!), and allow all these states to happen.

Instead of resisting or being annoyed about the low moments, I take a break. I nap. I do an NSDR session. I go for a walk. I do some easy tasks that don’t require lots of brain power.

This path of least resistance also applies to strong emotions and stress. Don’t resist it. Observe it, acknowledge it, and move through it.

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What else I’m up to…

Planning a livestream on using breathwork and mental rehearsal (also known as visualisation) to reduce phone use. RSVP here on LinkedIn and add it to your calendar. Delving deep into the book Move by Caroline Williams. Should be a mandatory read for everyone! Going for my first Forest Bathing this weekend. This is my favorite part of growing older: literally outgrowing the skeptical, judgmental younger version of myself. I’m so much more open to trying things that seem “out there.” Last weekend I went to a community singing session. Were the songs a bit too religious for my taste? Sure, but it also felt incredible to sing and hum in group. Also, the more I’m learning about my nervous system, the more I realize that all the “woo” and “weird” stuff have a lot of value and we’re doing ourselves a disservice by dismissing them without trying. More 1-1 coaching and corporate workshops on breath training and nervous system regulation. It’s so fun and I sometimes have to pinch myself that this is my work now! If you’re interested in more details on what I do, hit reply to this email.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork facilitator and online writer. My goal is to inspire you to be curious about your body and how you can use it to be more focused, motivated and energized.

⏪ Last time, I wrote about the animal versus human stress response, and how “our way” tends to lead to distress and disease. (Quite a lot we can learn from so-called less evolved species!)

⏩ Today, I’m talking about the neurochemical power of short and moderate runs. It’s not just endorphins that create that famous brain-buzzing runner’s high. There’s another natural “cannabis-like” compound at play…

20 days away from my first ever marathon!

Not gonna lie: the long training runs every weekend are an absolute SLOG. I’m going to be so proud of myself once I cross that finish line (assuming I will!) but then I’ll be happy to go back to my regular programming:

Short runs, 3-4x per week.

How short? 20-30 minutes.

Long enough to be worth it, short enough to squeeze into any day if you truly want to make it happen.

I love them, not necessarily for the running itself, but because of how they make me feel.

I’m noticeably more optimistic, creative and outgoing. I find myself making decisions more quickly, and there's a strong and energetic urge to create, to organise, to reach out to people.

Especially on the days I wake up feeling a bit low, I’ve now learned that the best thing to immediately put my running shoes on. With every step, the heaviness reduces. Suddenly, I can see things from different perspectives. I remember why life is good and I’m lucky to be alive; lucky to be running. At the very least, I return home feeling lighter than when I left.

Of course, this is all thanks to the chemicals shooting around in my brain.

That’s what’s so amazing about this: I don’t need to sit there journaling on “10 reasons why I’m lucky to be alive.” I can just go for a run and let my body do that work for me. (Not a diss on journaling! I am a regular journaler, but I’ve also learned that 85% of the time it’s better for me to get out of my head and into my body.)

And the cool thing is these brain-buzzing benefits are available to all of us—whether you’re “a runner” or not.

Research shows that just 20-30 minutes, 3-4 times per week, at moderate intensity is enough. Whatever “moderate intensity” means for you.

Here’s how it’s explained in the book The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal:

I’m sure you’ve heard about the runner’s high before.

For decades, it was thought this high was created by the endorphins release you get from exercising. But recent evidence has shown there’s another brain chemical at play:

Endocannabinoids.

Endocannabinoids are naturally occurring compounds in our body that are similar to the active ingredients in cannabis. When you run or do other physical activities, your body produces more of them.

Areas of the brain that regulate the stress response, like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, are rich in receptors for endocannabinoids. That means they’re more sensitive to the presence of these compounds and so even small amounts can produce significant effects.

When endocannabinoids lock into these receptors, they:

• Decrease stress levels

• Reduce pain

• Improve mood

• Trigger the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins (further fueling that feeling of euphoria and optimism.)

Now, here’s the great news for us average runners:

Yes, exercise stimulates the production of endocannabinoids, but not just any kind of exercise.

The researchers compared runners’ endocannabinoid levels in different scenarios:

• Walking slowly for 30 minutes = no effect

• Running at maximum effort = no effect

• Jogging at moderate intensity = tripled endocannabinoid levels

Tripled!

The theory is that our brains reward us for the kind of movement our ancestors did while hunting and foraging. Not an all-out sprint, but a steady, sustained effort.

In the book, Kelly McGonigal writes:

So here’s how you can tap into this ancient reward system:

• Go for a 20-30-minutes jog, at least 3 times per week.

• Ideally, you should enjoy running. You won’t have the same chemical effects if you hate every single second of it.

• Go at a speed that’s challenging and requires some willpower to keep going, without being exhausting. This will be different for everyone. If you’re completely new to running, you might need to start with a power walk. That’s totally fine!

Remember, the goal isn't speed or distance. It's consistency and that "just right" level of effort that triggers those feel-good brain chemicals.

Then there are two other concepts I’d like to share to show you the beauty of short, moderate runs:

• The Window of Tolerance: By putting your nervous system into a state of “hormetic stress” (short bursts of stress that have a positive impact on our body), and having the ability to bring yourself back to balance afterwards, you are widening your “window of tolerance.” That’s the window within which you can handle day-to-day stressors while remaining calm, focused, connected. Exercise is one of the key ways to build more resilience, in mind and body. Here’s a great read on the Window of Tolerance framework.

• The Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex: Physical movement activates the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, a particular brain area responsible for generating willpower and tenacity. We all have the ability to build up the size and activity of this brain area, by regularly doing things we don’t want to and not doing things we want to do. In this context: going for a run versus sitting down on the couch. I think about this brain area a lot when I feel resistance to get up and go outside: “come on C, let’s activate that anterior mid-cingulate cortex! Every time you do it, this gets easier.” I write in more detail about that here.

What else I’m up to…

Final training runs over the next 2 weeks. My goal for the marathon is to do nasal breathing only as much as possible. One of my favorite sources for breathwork for athletic performance is BreathingByEd’s newsletter. Lots of new books: Move and The Brain That Changes Itself. Also waiting for Body by Breath to arrive—very excited about this one! Preparing for a guest session over at online writing bootcamp Write of Passage, on how to distribute your writing on social media. Highly recommend this Huberman episode with psychotherapist Esther Perel. My partner and I were on a 5 hrs drive and it took us the entire trip to get through the 2 hrs episode. We kept pausing the conversation and talking about what was coming up for us. Things we had never voiced before. We each made connections that we hadn’t considered, about ourselves as individuals and about us as a couple.

Thanks for being here! Any questions, comments, thoughts… just reply to this email. ☀️