Better Sleep, Better You with Tim Thomas

Welcome to Overcome - a Mental Health Podcast

In this episode, we speak with Tim Thomas. Tim is a man who is passionate about sleep and breathwork. We discuss how breathwork can change your life by helping you get better sleep. We also dive into how Tim saved 40 veterans from suicide by making them not feel so isolated.

What happens when we get better sleep? We improve our mental and physical health.

Listen to our podcast today and learn how breathwork can change your life.

Click the link below, Tim is now offering his Breathwork in Bed audiobook for free for the first 20 clicks:

Breathwork in Bed Audiobook

Breathwork in Bed app links. The app will guide you to sleep with peace and out of bed with power. Links are for Apple/Smartphones & Google/Androids.

Apple Breathwork in Bed App

Google Breathwork in Bed App

Learn more about Tim Thomas:
www.breathworkinbed.com.au

Follow Tim:
https://www.instagram.com/breathworkinbed/

https://www.facebook.com/breathworkinbed

Tutorial:
Tutorial for the breath of PEACE and POSSIBILITY

Follow Overcome - a Mental Health Podcast

• Instagram: @overcomepod
• Youtube: @overcomepod

Listen to us

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

Want to have a real conversation about your mental health? Fill out this form!

Transcript

Travis White (00:02.321)
Hello and welcome to overcome a mental health podcast. I am very excited for our guest tonight I want to introduce you to Tim Thomas a man who is passionate about your sleep Tonight we're gonna hear Tim's story. So Tim, why don't you go ahead and get us started?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (00:21.422)
Travis, great to be here. And yes, I'm very passionate about your sleep. I can't do what you do and I can't do what your listeners do. But if I can improve your sleep, then you're gonna be able to do what you do even better.

Travis White (00:38.867)
Oh, for sure. Why don't you go ahead and get us started on like any experiences you've had with like mental health issues and kind of what got you into becoming passionate about other sleep.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (00:57.838)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's just start from the get-go, Travis. If you're sleeping poorly, you are 200 300 % more likelihood of having a mental illness. So just like on my hand right now, there's probably a bacteria that in the right conditions, it would grow and would kill me. know, there's stuff in my head that in the right conditions could grow and become a mental illness. Sleep is one of those things. So...

Travis, when I was working in the veteran recovery space, noticed, well, firstly, I had a goal, right? I had a goal of saving 40 veteran lives from suicide. And I didn't care if I worked the rest of my life, I would die happy if I achieved that. It was 40, the number 40 was chosen because we'd lost about 40 blokes to bombs and bullets in Afghanistan. My background is Special Forces. Some of those guys were closer to me than brothers.

Travis White (01:31.634)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (01:50.618)
But what a lot of people don't know in Australia is that we've lost 20 to 30 times that amount to suicide. So suicide was a real thing and I'm like, okay, I want to save 40 guys from suicide. And that was actually achieved within a year because I saw two things that the mainstream didn't see. One of which was if you could improve someone's sleep,

everything improved, everything, if you know, being in fatigue was a real thing. Now everyone talks about this sort of stuff. And we all know, yeah, sleep's important, right? But my promise to everyone here is by the end of this podcast, you're going to have a technique that is so powerful that within three breaths, you're going to be able to completely relax your body.

And that's my promise to you. So stick around.

And the other thing I was talking about, you know, saving all those lives from suicide was being dyslexic. I kind of failed high school and everyone, the technical term for dyslexia back in the 70s and 80s was you're stupid. And so I grew up thinking that I was stupid, but the older I got and the more I saw that my pattern recognition was really high. And the pattern I saw happening was that I saw how pain worked.

pain, I mean, everyone talks about it, but no one knows that there's something going on underneath it. And it doesn't matter if the pain's physical or emotional, it'll get to a certain duration or intensity where that pain transforms into loneliness, isolation. I'm the only one going through it. I can't tell anyone about it because that'll make their life harder because it's making my life harder. Why do I want to tell someone about it? And, you know, these unspoken words become rocks around your heart. And, and,

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (03:52.852)
loneliness is the killer. So

The first thing that needs to happen before any healing process, before they pour these millions of dollars of resources into mental health and in my space, it was the veteran mental health space.

If that person's feeling isolated, if that person's feeling fatigued, it's just water off a duck's back. So all I did, Travis, was I broke the isolation by simply sharing my authentic story and creating groups where that sharing could take place in a sober environment. Us veterans love to drink when we get together, but that's just sort of, you know, it's not a permanent fix. breaking the isolation and then getting them out of fatigue.

Travis White (04:35.517)
Yeah.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (04:41.036)
And I noticed if you could do that for somebody, they had 95 % of everything they needed inside of them to get themselves better. But you just had to break the fatigue, get them out of isolation and this golden compass just turned on inside of them and they just knew where they needed to go next. So I was kind of known as the guy that with 20 cents and a toothpick could do more than what millions of dollars could otherwise do.

Travis White (05:10.099)
It's amazing that like what sharing your story can do. how, but if you, you know, get the courage to share, it's like brings others out and like, you know what, like maybe I'm not the only one going through this. Maybe, maybe it's not just me.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (05:28.92)
You're right, Travis, because it's the isolation that's the killer. Because we can handle pain, we can handle hard times. Let me tell you something, Travis. If you knew I had your back 100 fucking percent, right? And I knew you had my back 100 fricking percent. Like everything else is a very small detail. We got each other. Bring on the pain, bring on the hard times. You know? But if I'm feeling all alone and I'm not sure and there's no one I can trust.

Travis White (05:47.343)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (05:57.194)
Everything's hard because everything is hard.

And it's in that space when you're the only one that you feel has your back, you can't drop your guard for a second, because something bad's gonna happen and it's gonna be your fault.

Travis White (06:18.195)
And I

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (06:18.358)
And so you're not sleeping, you know, and that then compounds, that creates the perfect storm for all that, all that, you know, mental health to start happening.

Travis White (06:30.331)
And I always preach that you always need the right people in your corner to get you through these moments of isolation.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (06:41.674)
It's funny. We, I had a very interesting experience where I discovered the power of trust.

And actually, I'm looking at myself in the monitor and everyone's probably noticed I've got a black eye right now. Okay. And I just want to speak to it so we're not stepping over it. So back in the day, back in the 90s, I used to be a professional fighter, right? And now I've got a 19 year old son who is actually fighting tomorrow. Okay. And that's him in the middle there. He's looking pretty happy with himself because he gave his old man a shiner.

There's the coach having a good laugh. So I just need to speak to the fact that this black eye was given to me by my son, Corman, and I hope it doesn't distract anybody from what we're sharing right now.

Travis White (07:38.067)
Well, it gives bragging rights to your son a little bit, I guess.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (07:42.478)
Yeah

Yeah, the one man who's happy that you're better than him is your father.

But I'll never tell him that. Don't publish this. Sorry, Travis, I lost my point. We were going somewhere.

Travis White (08:02.271)
See, last thing I had said was talking about, we were talking about having people in your corner and overcome geisolation. Trust, yep.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (08:08.62)
Yes, yes, trust. Trust. That's a.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (08:19.448)
trying to say this. So I've had the fortune of having a few NDEs near death experiences. And on this one particular one, it was a shark attack. I had a shark on my leg and I was drowning. Life flashed before my eyes. But then my buddy, who's a fellow commando, came down with his spear, because we were spearfishing, and he had his spear gun.

lined up and he just had this look, even though I'm underwater half drowning, I could look in his eyes and he says, Tim, I've got this and I've got you. And in that moment, my whole body just went, relax, relax. And I turned my body so he could take a shot on this shark. And I thought that's...

Travis White (09:02.845)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (09:14.956)
That's exactly what this world needs. You know, we always think we need more stuff. No, man, we need more trust. And, and, you know, of course, most people have been hurt when they've trusted somebody that felt betrayed and all that sort of stuff. So I thought I want to be the type of person people can trust. You know, want to, you know, controlling this side of stuff. and it really showed up powerfully when I created these, healing spaces.

when people felt they could trust, when people felt they could drop their guard, then they just started automatically healing.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (09:55.608)
So having the right people in your corner, would 100 % agree with Travis. Trust is one of those things that, to me, one of the most valuable things you can have. Again, highlighted from that real life experience.

Travis White (10:12.371)
And how do you, on your end, how do you get people to drop their guard and trust you, like when you're not feeling that right off the bat?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (10:24.846)
For me?

sincerity doesn't happen naturally. You've got to ask yourself, what do I need to feel complete? Sincerity comes off the back of completeness. If I'm inadequate, if I feel like I need more of something in my world, I'm human, I'll try and control the outcome when I'm interacting with somebody. If I feel like I don't have enough money, I'll try and control the outcome to get more money from it. If I feel like I want to have more sex, then I'll try and control the outcome so I can have more sex. if you...

ask yourself what do I need to be complete within myself and I created this this thing where energies like money how you invest it is how you get it back and one thing I tell my son is you know

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (11:19.68)
A man's happiness and generosity is relative to how powerful he feels. When we feel powerful, we're happy, we're generous. It's how we're built. If you want to see a stingy, unhappy man, he's not powerful. And that starts with us. It starts with our body. It starts with us accessing our physicality. And to me, every day, I have to invest in this

organic platform that carries my eyeballs around so I can have, so I can feel the right amount of power so I can be happy and generous. when you're actually in that space, when you've got your powerful masculine going on, then people naturally feel safe around you. That's just, it just naturally happens. People feel naturally safe around a powerful masculine. Conversely, a disempowered masculine will make people feel unsafe. A disempowered masculine will play games.

Travis White (12:06.781)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (12:21.23)
So before I interact with anybody, before I was on this podcast, I was preparing myself. I was doing my physical disciplines. I was doing my breath work. You know, I just got out of my ice bath. I was doing all these sorts of things to get like my body. It's a bit like a combination lock on a safe. You know, you got to turn it one way, turn it the other way. It all lines up and then you get access to the good stuff. That's how I treat my body. That's how I treat my morning routine. So I can, I can imbue

I don't have to try to earn someone's trust. The hard work is accessing the parts of me to make me feel powerful. And then I can just be it. And, know, it's taken me probably three hours, you know, this morning, you know, I got up at 4am doing my thing, and then you just become it. You don't even know you're it. So do you see how that works? That sincerity is on the back of completeness.

Travis White (13:16.338)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (13:18.718)
asking yourself, what do I genuinely need? I need so much of this, this, this. Give it to yourself. It starts here. You become powerful. And it's, and then it's kind of fun, you know, because it's, it's a, it's a very different space to be in. If you've got 50 cents and someone take 25, because we all get taken from, if you've got a million dollars and someone's takes 25 cents.

And I've been that guy that someone took from me and I chased that 25 cents for years, whereas, and I completely ignored the fact that I could have made a million dollars the next day. You know what I mean? So my vision for anybody is to live like energetic millionaires. Yeah, we all get taken from, but guess what? And we can't stop that, but they can't stop us becoming energetic millionaires. I'm gonna use that bit that was taken from me to inspire me to

Travis White (13:58.119)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (14:15.576)
create more. So I hope that answers your question without sort of tangenting too much.

Travis White (14:23.259)
No, no, that's perfect.

Yeah, and it's this to me this year has been like a year. Well, I guess I can't really say this year because the year is just beginning. I should say the last year has been a year for me to learn more about my body and actually be more comfortable and.

overcome mental and physical issues that I was having.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (14:55.938)
Yeah? Can I offer you something, Travis?

Travis White (14:58.041)
And yeah, go for it.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (15:01.24)
So you know how before you do a form of exercise, there's a part of you saying, no, don't do it. Let's do it later. There's that resistance, right? Well, if I could speak to that.

Travis White (15:05.171)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (15:08.967)
Yeah, correct.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (15:14.37)
There are, and you know, I've been, I mean, I'm a very active dude, but I always have that resistance, those words saying, don't do it, do it later, right? But when you're about to step into something powerful, those disempowered parts know that you're about to become powerful. And they know that once you become powerful, they get kicked out. Okay, so think of your mind like a garden, whatever you water grows. And...

For years, I was watering the weeds of stress. And those stress weeds grew and grew and grew. And then eventually eyeballs pop out of them and they become sentient. They become aware of the things that you do that feed them. They become aware of the things that you do that starve them. And they don't want you to do the things that kick them out of the garden. understanding how...

you know, I call it the mind garden and the stress week, understanding how that works had me turn a 90 % non attendance rate to these veteran programs into a 90 plus percent attendance rate because we would run this program that was super positive, super impactful. But about three days before the stress weeds would go, hang on radar. There's something coming in that this this body that's carrying us around is going to do that's going to

be really good for them and kick us out. So we're gonna, we're gonna find all the excuses possible for you not to do it. And, you know, and they'll even deprive you of sleep. So even if you do turn up, you're completely stuffed. There's nothing that that they can work, you know, there's nothing that the program can work with and the stress weeds have won. So what I used to do, these stress weeds would get stepped around.

if you just called them up three days beforehand and you wouldn't talk about anything. You just go, hey, ra ra ra, 72 hours, 48 hours, and then especially the night before. Because when we had an emotional connection, so I'm not doing the program, I'm going to meet, you know, Joe. That trust would stop the stress weeds running the show and people would turn up and they would have energy to work with as opposed to being completely fatigued. Does that make sense? So, so.

Travis White (17:18.876)
Yeah.

Travis White (17:30.759)
Yeah, yeah, it does.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (17:32.576)
Within that...

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (17:39.426)
Breathwork, as much as it's easy, there's often resistance from our own selves because those stress weeds that I was watering for years before I discovered this, breathwork kicks them out. So when we start breathing, there's that part of us going, no, it doesn't work. Don't do it, don't do it. But then somewhere between 15 and 25 breaths, they get kicked out and the rest of your brain's like, thank goodness you kicked them out. So.

You know, it doesn't make sense now because I'm just talking about it. But when you start doing breath work, there's or anything positive, notice the resistance you get because that's a good sign that something super powerful is on its way is going to kick that crap out of your head. So these days I use that that internal resistance that I feel as the clearest indicator. If my enemy wants me to go that way, well, guess what? I'm going that way. Does that make sense?

Travis White (18:36.507)
You can tell me. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think, why don't we dive in a little bit more into your breath work?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (18:46.296)
Sure, okay. You wanna do those three breaths? Okay, so really simple, but the only caveat, Travis, is anyone doing this needs to be in a safe space, supported in a chair, preferably a chair with arm rests that can support their arms as well, or laying down. They don't wanna be driving, they don't wanna be operating heavy machinery or cutting up carrots. So safe environment. you can, I'll include a little clickable link.

Travis White (18:48.711)
Yeah, let's do it.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (19:16.104)
afterwards so people can can get a breakdown of this but for those of you listening and you can I encourage you to to do this as well and I'm going to use all my breathwork coach superpowers to introduce you to the new love of your life which is going to be your breath I don't see myself as a breathwork coach I see myself as like I said I'm going to introduce you to the new love of your life this this space underneath our rib cage

It's not lungs, it's a medicine cabinet with a lot of different shelves. You breathe a certain way, you elicit a certain response. this is, I love doing this technique, because this is sort of my front of house sampler. You know when you go past a particular shop and they got samples out the front? This is my front of house sampler, and if you like it, then there's a whole lot more goodies inside the doors. But to start with, all I'm gonna invite people to do is just breathe in.

Travis White (20:02.995)
you

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (20:15.926)
and breathe out.

Okay, congratulations. You are aware of your breath. Being aware of your breath is the first step to happiness. Now, what we're gonna do is breathe in and then breathe in again and again and again and again.

So give that a try, blow it all the way out, then breathe in and breathe in again and again and again.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (20:45.58)
Now Travis, did you notice a bit of extra space opening up in the top third of your lungs? Perfect, perfect. Okay, and who knew that there was all this space up here that we never breathed into, right?

Travis White (20:50.95)
I sure did.

Travis White (20:57.703)
Yeah, all the techniques I've been taught before, I would have never known that there was like an extra compartment. Like it feels like almost an extra compartment up there that you have no idea existed.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (21:08.434)
and our bodies are so incredible. It gives me so much joy to introduce people to the wondrousness of their own bodies and the resources their own bodies have. So we're gonna call that your secondary inhale. So your primary inhale is where most people breathe to, and we're gonna call your secondary inhale that little bit extra. So let's try and just blend that together. Let's blow it all the way out and then go.

Primary and then secondary.

second

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (21:51.426)
Good stuff. So, now I'm gonna show you how to turbo boost that secondary inhale. Everyone with their thumbs and two fingers just get, make little pinchy little crab claws. Okay? Now you didn't know this Travis, but these are actually turbo buttons for your secondary inhale. So what we're gonna do is blow it all the way out.

And then when we breathe in, we're gonna hit our turbo buttons as we get to that secondary inhale. You ready? So blow it all the way out.

Breathe in, hit the turbo buttons, hard as you can.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (22:33.038)
And when you're ready just let it out.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (22:39.158)
Now Travis, did you notice a little bit of extra space opening up when you hit those turbo buttons? Fantastic, okay. Because that's a muscle group in there that because you haven't used, it hasn't been strengthened, okay. So those little turbo buttons helps you access that.

Travis White (22:44.326)
I sure did.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (22:59.712)
Now, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna juice that up even more. We are gonna, when it comes to the secondary inhale, and this is breathing through our nose, we're gonna hit our turbo buttons, we're gonna raise our chin, and we're gonna look up. Okay? So it's gonna be turbo buttons and chin up. So blow it all the way out, blow it all the way out, out, out, out, out, With your mouth closed, breathe in through your nose.

Hit the turbo buttons, raise your chin, raise your chest, open up that front of your chest, open it, open it. And I just invite you to wriggle it for a bit, wriggle it, wriggle it. And I invite you to let out a really big sigh.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (23:49.888)
Nice work!

How you feeling?

Travis White (23:55.058)
I'm feeling good.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (23:56.654)
Right. So we're gonna, we're gonna juice this up even more. So this time when it comes to the secondary inhale, we're gonna rapidly snort. We're gonna flare our nostrils and snort as firmly as we can through our nose because behind our nose we have sinuses. And one thing my coach taught me when I was a fighter was that before you do a combination, do a big snort through your nose. Cause according to him, that sent.

oxygen through your sinuses straight into your brain. Now, I don't know if that's scientifically correct or not, but it worked in combat. Okay, so we're literally going to be sort of snorting the drugs out of the air. All right. So I invite everyone to blow it all the way out. Out, out, out. With your power buttons ready, breathing in, then really snort that air, open that chest, open that chin, lift up, lift up.

wriggle it, wriggle your shoulders, open up that space, feel like your chest is opening up like a flower and then let it out with a juicy sigh.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (25:03.638)
Okay. Now what I'm gonna, what I like about this is that we have thoughts in our head that control our breathing, but our breathing can also control the thoughts in our head. So watch what happens to me when I have stuff in my head, the weight of the world on my shoulders, I start hunching forward, right? And that's pinching off my lungs.

And that's also pinching off my nervous system. So my power is relative to the amount of electricity my nerves carry. And your nerves are like hose pipes. So if you pinch a hose pipe, you're not getting much water through to the other end. When we hunch over, our structure's bent over and we're pinching our nerve endings so there's less power going through. So proper breathing gives you proper alignment. So it's not just the breath that's enlivening you, it's the alignment.

You know, chest up, chin up. That's a real thing. And your thoughts in your head, your emotional state can change your structure, but your structure can change your emotional state. that is a... So I call this that breathing in up here with your power buttons, the breath of possibility.

So when something feels impossible and my shoulders are hunching over and I'm getting frustrated or whatever, I will use this as circuit breakers and suck it through my nose, open up that chest, open up my structure. Okay, so as you walk around, people say, how often should I do breath work? Well, as someone who lost six years of their life to pills, because I said I couldn't sleep to the doctor and he gave me a pharmacy and I ended up with pills next to my bed in the...

you know, food cupboard, in my fruit bowl, in the car. I had pills everywhere and I was taking pills all the time because I was always self-regulating. But with breath work, you are going to be able to self-regulate with your breath. Now, I'm not saying, you know, throw your pills away, but this is a good pharmaceutical free option that nobody looks at. And I wish I knew that before I lost six years of my life to pills. I can't get that time back.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (27:28.108)
You know, there's a benefit to pill taking, but there's also a cost. No one told me the cost of taking these pills, and no one told me just how hard it is to get off the things. Although they throw them at you, you know, very, very quickly.

I've got a dog here, it's hot where I am in Australia and he's inside in the air conditioning, but he's snoring his head off. And I'm just sort of brushing him with the broom to stop him snoring. great, great, I'm glad. So breath of possibility and know that if you get nothing from our conversation, you can, you know,

Travis White (27:49.767)
Hehehehe

Travis White (27:57.267)
No worries, I can't even hear him, so...

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (28:10.68)
pump it into this area and get your structure right.

But this next one, I'm going to introduce you to the breath of peace. So let's divide our lungs up into thirds, your top third, your middle third, your bottom third. And your bottom third is where all your blood-rich avioli sits. So you've got the best gas exchange down low. So what we're going to do, and this is why you need to be seated and not driving, is we're going to

Breathe in, raise the chin, raise chest. We're gonna hold it and then we're gonna wriggle it down, wriggle it down. Our head's gonna go down. Our hands are gonna be on our bellies. We're gonna push that air down to our bellies and we're gonna squeeze it there. And so with our hands on our bellies squeezing it and our heads down, we're gonna try and push the air out of our mouth but our tongue will stop it and it'll come out like.

Okay, so that hissing sound. Okay, we're gonna do this three times because like I said, breath work isn't hard, but because you've been doing it your whole life, it can feel funny doing it a different way. So we're gonna do it three times and there's no wrong way to do this. Don't get hooked up in the facts of it. I'll include a little clickable video that you can follow afterwards. But like I said, if you can have this breath of.

possibility and breath of peace, you are gonna have so much power over your own body. And we're gonna do this three times. You're gonna feel, taste, touch, feel. We're no longer talking here. It's an experience. And you're gonna feel what it is to have that deep connection to your breath. So, are you ready?

Travis White (30:03.93)
I am ready, let's do this.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (30:05.686)
Okay, with your power buttons ready, blow it all the way out.

Breathing in, hit your power button, snort with your nose, raise your chin. Wriggle it around, hold your breath. Now let your head go forward, let your head go forward. Hands on your belly, hands on your belly. I want you to squeeze that air like a balloon down low. Push it down low, push it down low, and then let it out with a shh.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (30:36.984)
Good, good, good, good, good. All right. So far, so good. On this next one, try and let it out for as long as possible. If you can make that for like 20 seconds, 30 seconds, even better. Are you ready? Blowing it all the way out.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (30:58.104)
Breathing in, snort your nose, push your power buttons, raise your chin, raise your chest, holding your breath, hold your breath. Now just relax your body, relax your body, let it collapse forward, head goes towards your knees, hands on your belly, hands on your belly, squeeze that belly and let it out with a ssss

Travis White (31:16.179)
you

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (31:21.824)
and picture your body deflating like a deflatable toy. Everything's just relaxing.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (31:31.638)
And we're to this one more time, even more relaxed, all the way out, out, out.

Breathing in, snort, hit your power buttons, raise your chin, open your chest, open, open, open. When it feels good, hold your breath and let your head collapse forward, let your body collapse forward, let everything relax and collapse forward. Hands on your belly, hands on your belly, and let it out super slow, twice as long as last time.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (32:17.078)
I just invite you, Travis, just to close your eyes for a second and let that chair take your weight.

Okay, let your muscles feel supported by that chair. That chair was built to hold you. It will hold you.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (32:37.164)
And I invite you to let those muscles feel supported by that chair.

I invite you to take a breath into those muscles and help them relax even more into that chair. Notice how you can now be directional with your breath. You can put your breath into your muscles with these larger lung capacity. You can focus your breath on different muscle groups that might be tense. And when you do that, they relax. And then the muscles underneath that tense muscle groups relax. There's this cascade of relaxation.

as you focus your breath on the tension in your body. So often in our tension, we don't allow ourselves to feel supported, to feel held. It's like our tension is our way of trying to hold ourselves, but it doesn't work like that. It's only when we relax and allow ourselves to be held that we actually feel supported and feel relaxed.

Travis White (33:39.741)
Yeah, very true. Real, I'm feeling really good. Like I can, I don't feel as tense like, cause I've done some breath work before, as I was mentioning before we started hit the record button here, but it's never been anything like as intense as this.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (33:42.04)
How you feeling Travis? Checking in with your body.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (34:02.178)
And that was just three breaths. You've gently dipped your toe into the universe of breath work. And if that felt good, yeah, just wait until you come into the shop. But look, I don't want to upsell anything here, but like I said, if all you get from this podcast is those three breaths and you learn how to breathe fully,

you're going to actually be a person that goes through life breathing fully. There's a saying, you half breathe, you half live. If you see someone in the street going, you know, they're about to freak out because they're shallow chest breathing, but it doesn't matter if you're doing it fast or slow, shallow chest breathing isn't properly auctioning your body and you're telling your body you're in fight or flight. So knowing how to breathe correctly,

that they don't teach it at school. not even, I'm always surprised at how many professional athletes don't know how to breathe properly.

Travis White (35:12.691)
Yeah, and I want to go back to it because we've spoke a little bit about sleep, but I want to know why sleep is the ultimate game changer for your body, mind and spirit.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (35:22.348)
Sure. Okay, well, it's sometimes easier to highlight something's effectiveness when you talk about the lack of sleep. So in the Special Forces, we used to specifically target our enemy's sleep. Because we knew if we took their sleep out for three nights, it would mess them up better than a bullet. Everything in our life

is impacted by poor quality sleep. And I always ask people to say, think of everything in your life. Think of your body, your mind, your work, your relationships. The quality of all those things is relative to the quality of your sleep. If you want to destroy someone, destroy their sleep. If you care about somebody, you care about their sleep. So I come back to my home country of Australia and I see so many people not sleeping.

And I'm like, there's no clear enemy, but it's like we're getting attacked. So.

Conversely, as you improve your sleep, there's an accumulation effect. You start feeling better. You start feeling more powerful. You start feeling more generous. You start bringing that which is you into the world so much more powerfully, so much more peacefully, far less reactively. You're present at work. mean, even if you're just looking at workplaces, sleep poor people take twice as many sick days.

your immune system is shot two to 300 % times more likelihood to have a mental illness when you sleep deprived. sleep is such a powerful thing and the pharmaceutical companies have figured this out. Yeah, we will sell you in the promise of a pill quality sleep. And like I said, I lost six years of my life to pills, can't get that back. I didn't know breath work was something that could very powerfully and quickly.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (37:24.596)
activate the PNS, the parasympathetic nervous system. So, you know, most people know about how to, you know, hit the gas, accelerate, but no one shows you how to hit the brake and slow everything down and drop the revs of the engine. Because if the engine's always revving high, it'll never get a chance to slow down and heal. And our bodies will heal. We're incredible at self-regeneration, but we won't self-regenerate if we're always revving high.

And it's really sad. There's so many people out there saying, go hard, swallow more, you know, pain. Okay. There is a time and a place for that. This country is made great by that. And you'll never find out your full potential unless you push really hard. But no one's saying that at the top of the pyramid, you know, that's when you're going hard, kicking ass, but at the bottom of the pyramid, rest, recovery, healing art forms. And nobody is talking about low, slow breath.

But the height is relative to the base. one of the reasons I was able to do what I did, like at 30, I was the oldest person allowable to do special forces selection at that time. And they thought, you know, you're too old, but I'm like, I understand the performance triangle. I knew that instead of going out drinking on the weekends, I'd spend time recovering and healing, rejuvenating my body.

so I could then, maintain myself, but people that just push, push, push, it's a matter of time before they burn out, you know, and life, if you just push, push, push, life just becomes this crap eating competition. And we make heroes. Those people that can eat 12 hours of crap a day for seven days a week for five years in a row.

Travis White (39:11.507)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (39:15.175)
Yeah, just quick, I don't want to go off on tangent here, but quick story. was just thinking when you say that sleep is most important thing and my wife will probably kill me for saying this, but one of our, most times we fight is with a newborn baby when we're not getting that sleep that we need when we're adjusting.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (39:33.972)
you're not the lone ranger there. you, you, started to understand when I had my two kids, the scariness of

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (39:46.815)
Like you could understand when someone's so sleep deprived and you've got this thing screaming that a parent could abuse a child when you're sleep, because it just makes this crazy part of your brain come out. You know, and so I am a really big, you know, it's not the baby that is not only the baby that needs support, it's the parents of the child, you know.

Travis White (39:57.682)
Yeah.

Travis White (40:03.132)
No,

Travis White (40:12.399)
Yes, exactly.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (40:15.06)
And hence why I'm so passionate about sleep, because if you can access deeper sleep quicker, if you can access your parasympathetic nervous system to drop the revs, to get that sleep, whatever sleep you get is going to be much higher quality. And in a fatigue state, we tend to be very suggestible. And I know in the States, pharmaceutical companies can advertise.

for their product, you know? And when you're sleep deprived, you're in that suggestible state, that's such a good solution. I'll just take those pills and I can, you know, no one's talking about, and you don't hear about this sort of stuff because no one's making money from it.

Travis White (41:00.079)
Yeah, yeah, they use, in my opinion, they use the pills to mask the actual issue instead of telling you what you really need to do.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (41:11.126)
And there's a time and a place to take pharmaceuticals. It's sometimes a lesser of two evils, but no one is talking about the other options that are there. And no one's talking about the cost of taking those things. And also just how hard it is to get off of them.

Travis White (41:14.897)
Yep.

Travis White (41:27.698)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (41:31.623)
Yeah, I have some friends that I've seen that addiction side of things pretty bad. So it's hard to watch when you're close to somebody.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (41:43.244)
Yeah. And at the end of the day, Travis, we have to realize that these companies, they do not care about your life. They care about the dollars in your pocket. You could die tomorrow. They don't care. They just want the dollars from your pocket. They're looking at you like a spreadsheet. So they'll drop these dancing puppets in front of you with their marketing team because they've hacked the algorithm. They know how to make you feel and think a certain way, but you have to remember they don't value your life.

Travis White (41:54.087)
Mm-hmm.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (42:12.876)
We have to be the ones that value our lives. And nobody told me this when I started my mental health journey, and I wish someone did, is that when you find, there's good news and bad news. When you find the right healer, healing takes less time than you think. Far less time.

But the journey to find that right healer takes longer than you think because not all healers are born equal. In fact, some of them are doing a really crap job. So many veterans I know, they say, look, I tried to get help, but help didn't help. In fact, it made it worse. So I'm never doing that again.

Travis White (42:54.387)
Yeah. And I've been through some personal experiences like that, um, with physical and mental health. And I think like, especially on the mental health side of things, uh, it's the help didn't really come until I admitted that like I had a problem until I was like able to say, you know what? I do have a issue with anxiety and depression. I mean, I had people telling me like, it's possible that you're suffering this. I'm like, no, no, no.

And the longer I pushed off, the more problems I'd run into. But as soon as I said, okay, I do need help, that's when that true help started coming in.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (43:34.764)
No, you're right, Travis, because us blokes, we like to pride ourselves on how much we can handle without flinching. And if we say there's a problem, if we ask for help, that means we're weak. And if we're weak, we'll let the team down. We'll die before we let the team down. And yet when we're underperforming with unaddressed issues, then everyone suffers.

Travis White (43:58.513)
Yeah, very true.

Travis White (44:04.403)
Let's see, give me one second. I'm looking, I a list of questions.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (44:08.717)
North, north.

Travis White (44:20.435)
So I think we touch base on this a little bit, but I'm going to go backwards here if that's okay with you. I am very interested more on like, it corrected me if I, my brain sometimes I can tend to forget things a little bit, but I'd love to learn more about like you said you saved 40 veteran lives. Like how exactly did you do that?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (44:27.778)
Sure sure sure.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (44:45.25)
Yep.

Okay, so I saw two things that no one else saw like I mentioned earlier, breaking isolation, getting him out of fatigue. How did that exactly happen? First up, I would share my authentic story as I went through it. that you knew, because us blokes, we're just waiting for another man to articulate the unspoken words inside our hearts.

Travis White (44:52.871)
Yeah.

Travis White (45:00.689)
Okay.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (45:16.086)
a man that's walked the same path. And it's not like my experience of this was with veterans, but everyone here is up against something. And whatever that something is, it could be a relationship problem, it could be breast cancer, but whatever that is, if you get through that, you are qualified to break the isolation of somebody else who's up against that. Because remember, it's not the pain that we can't handle, it's the isolation we feel. When we feel alone and isolated, our...

Travis White (45:42.928)
isolation.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (45:46.13)
our abilities go from 100 % to like 0%. So breaking the isolation by sharing, you know, my story, but then I started creating these groups where we had group sharing and it was obviously facilitated correctly and people could share and you could tell the, when someone actually had their isolation broken, could, I could see it. The jaw would kind of pop open like, okay. And it's interesting how the jaw pops open because

Our vagus nerve, the thing that holds all our stress, attaches to the back of our jaw. And so popping open is an interesting thing, right? And once their jaw popped open, they'd say words like, fuck, I thought I was the only one.

And that's the first step in recovery. Now you have to be careful in breaking isolation because it's so powerful to feel, I'm finally not alone. But what happens is people get stuck there and they form these, what I call anti-social social groups. And veterans are really good at that. We'll form these groups that, we can only get together once a week and truly be ourselves and let ourselves out fully when my isolation is broken with everyone else who's in the same boat.

It's like a bunch of people lost at sea. They all pull their boats together and they all say, we're all lost, but we're in this, but we're not alone. Okay. There's no direction. still, they're still drifting with, with, with the elements that are pushing them anywhere they want to go. So breaking the isolation was the first step. Then I was fortunate enough to work in a particular veteran charity that had programs, some of which I created that would then

allow them to start their healing journey and also get out of fatigue and improving sleep. Back then, I would run these programs that would focus on breath, like free diving, control your breath, control everything. And

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (47:56.756)
If I could expose their physical bodies to physical sensations through the breath, then it's like something became unlocked. you know, psychologists study for like seven years, but nobody tells them that the trauma goes down deeper than the words can reach. know, talk therapy is good up until a point.

But some trauma goes down deeper than words. And if you think about it, as us as humans, before we were sentient, before we're putting like paintings on rock walls, we were breathing. Before we were speaking, we were breathing. So that deep ancient wiring lives inside of us. And so...

Breathwork is a way to remove those blockages from a very, I would just say a very complimentary way to remove the blockages to let our true self out, to be able to fully connect with others. And so the combination of these group sessions where people would authentically share, just like we're sharing now.

and getting people to see that if they could find a way forward for them, they could find a way forward for others. So the golden question that everyone listening needs to ask is whatever you're up against and everyone's up against something, how many others do you think are up against that same obstacle that you are? And really pull that question and give it a number.

And it might be 10, 100, 1000, 10s of thousands, a million, right?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (49:54.316)
And they're all, picture them left and right of you, willing you on, saying, if you can find a way forward for you, you're gonna find a way forward for us. Because it's in that moment when you see those people, you break your own isolation, you found your tribe. A lot of these people you haven't even met yet, and I might be saying words to the effect of, hey, you know what, Travis, I'm so glad that in 2025, you started making certain decisions, because then that benefited me so much.

You know what I mean?

Travis White (50:25.383)
Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell a personal story on that front? So I have a seizure disorder that I've talked about a little bit in my previous podcast. and this last year I was, I was diagnosed with P N E S, psychogenic non epileptic seizures. So pretty much the seizures don't come from your brain. They come from some other part of your body. the, the neurologist will say that, it's more of

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (50:28.556)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (50:55.505)
trauma based and that's where the seizures coming from. I argue that it could be physiological but anyways that because I've been diagnosed with like epileptic seizures as well like years ago but that kind of left like a like really hit me hard because I didn't want to know because back in the like 10 years ago those they've called them pseudo seizures so they made them sound like they were fake so that

last year, the very end of the year, put me in a dark spot. And my mom actually sent me a book about a lady who has the same type of seizures. And just because she wrote that book, like helped me get out of that spot. So I found that one thing that like, I could relate to and be like, you know what, it's not just me.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (51:25.506)
Yeah.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (51:36.226)
Yeah, right.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (51:51.864)
Yeah, yeah, well, and you are tapping into something very, very powerful. You you don't need credentials on the wall on a piece of paper to break someone's isolation. It's not what you do that adds value to others per se. It's actually what you've come through. And that's quite a thing because the stuff that we've come through, sometimes we don't like talking about.

But that's the very thing that is most valuable about us to others. So let's say that lady didn't see the value in herself and what she went through. And she didn't write that book. She would have never been able to make that impact to someone she's never met. You just needed to know about her.

Travis White (52:42.941)
Yeah.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (52:48.706)
That lady might even be dead right now, we don't know, but this is the power of sharing your authentic words to another human and breaking the isolation, which is the killer.

Travis White (53:04.444)
And it's very, very hard to be vulnerable.

to a certain degree of hope.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (53:11.2)
I would say it's hard to be vulnerable if you haven't healed properly. Because the reason we don't want to be vulnerable is because we've been hurt and we don't want to experience that again. And this sort of ties into the idea of what I call being an energetic millionaire. If all we've got is 50 cents and

someone takes 25 cents, man, that's massive. I don't wanna be open again. And then I try and I hold up all these defenses. When I'm working with high school students, I'll get a little green plant and I'll say, look, the plant's been hurt. The plant says, I'm gonna protect myself now. And then I put a big steel bucket over the top of this plant. And I'll say, is this plant safe? And the students are like, yeah. But I said, what's happening to it?

And they say, well, it's dying slowly. In our efforts to protect ourselves, we can often cut ourselves off from the very thing that is there to make us grow and abundant. So within that dialogue around being vulnerable,

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (54:29.71)
we need to see that we are the beginning point of our hero story. And like I said, it could be something as simple as asking how many other people are going through this. Now, when I was going through my space, I saw, you know,

10,000 people left and right of me looking in saying, Tim, if you can find a way forward for you, you can find a way forward for us. And so I was no longer one in 10,000. I was 10,000 in one. So it wasn't just one person going to book an appointment with a therapist. It was 10,000 people getting healing. wasn't just one person developing his body so his head can feel better. It was 10,000 people. You know, I do.

I think generosity is a very healthy thing to do and a powerful person is a generous person. So every day I'll do an act of generosity to the environment and I'm picking up cigarette butts. But it's not just one person picking up cigarette butts. There are 10,000 hands going down, picking up 10,000 cigarette butts and putting them in the bin. So this is the shift that happens when you break your isolation. Then ask yourself how many other people have trouble with being vulnerable?

How many other people are just screaming out to see someone to have the courage to be vulnerable?

Now you can wait for somebody or you can be that somebody.

Travis White (56:04.913)
Yeah. Yeah, and it's, you said something interesting during that whole section of what you were saying, in that you can't be vulnerable until you heal. And which I find it interesting because it's like a...

spent the basically last half of last year trying to heal, changing my diet, exercising a little bit more. Because I was having these seizures, so I had to figure out what was going on. So I'm in a way better spot. And I've had this idea for this podcast for probably a year and a half to two years. But

Now that you said that, I think, maybe I wasn't in the state of mind to be vulnerable to actually start it.

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (56:58.542)
Well, it's important for me, beautiful things only grow with proper boundaries. So I teach people martial arts. I show them how to punch, kick, wrestle. And I say, it's learning to control your physical space isn't about punching and kicking. It's about having that those you can control the space around you. And so if you feel you can control the space around you, you're not you're not putting that steel bucket over yourself.

like that young plant and slowly killing yourself by that sense of needing to protect yourself, you can, with the right boundaries in place, that sense of power you can give yourself, all those beautiful things inside can grow.

And this is what makes me really excited, Travis. It's not improving people's sleep that is really the end goal. Breathwork will do that for you. But the most important thing that happens is when we improve our sleep and the soil quality of our life improves, all those seeds of greatness that are inside of every single human, seeds of uniqueness that are inside every single human,

With the right conditions, they flourish.

And just observe yourself once you actually start getting out of fatigue, once you start having breath work is part of the things that puts you to sleep on a cloud, wake you up feeling transformed. These are the things, these are the growth states that have those seeds of greatness that lie dormant while we're in fatigue and that they cannot not flourish. So watching people flourish is one of the most rewarding things

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (58:50.808)
Tim - Breathwork In Bed (58:54.382)
one of the most rewarding things about what I do.

Travis White (59:00.199)
Yeah, it's always a great feeling to watch that too.

was great feeling.

Any, is there, so anything, anybody struggling with whether it be mental illness or anything else, like is there any bit of a last bit of advice that you would be, that you have for anybody?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (59:21.932)
Yeah, sure.

Well again, the golden question, how many other people do you think are in that same situation?

And when I thought about that, I said, well, look, it doesn't matter if it takes me a week, a month, a year, a decade, I've got to find a way forward. Because if I can find a way forward for me, I'll find a way forward for them. I'm no longer one in 10,000, I'm 10,000 in one. And within that, I found the discipline of learning how to control my physical state with breath work.

And that's always available. Like I said, I don't see myself as a breathwork coach. I see myself as a person that introduces you to the new love of your life. This breathwork is gonna be your best friend, your closest ally, the most powerful thing in your corner.

And it's free, non-addictive and can be accessed anytime. You don't hear about this sort of stuff because no one's making money from it. takes, you know, people like yourself, Travis, with a heart of service to their fellow human that you find out about this good stuff. Cause when you really connect to that power, you become a nation. You don't need resales. You don't need Tim and Travis again. You've got that connection. Now I do have the breath working bed app, which makes it

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (01:00:46.242)
very easy to access your breath going to sleep and waking up in the morning. So there are things that say, I want that relationship. Here's something that's gonna make it easy and effortless. You know, just press a button, press play. That's how I've made the app. It simply asks you when you wanna sleep, when you wanna wake up, and then you have notifications falling out of your phone at those times. Super, super convenient. Cause people who are tired,

they just say, look, here's what I want, take care of it for me. And then, cause they're already doing enough. And in fact, they're tired because they're doing everything they can. So to meet people where they are, where they can just hit that button, connect with their breath, feel amazing. And I tell you at 3 a.m. it's pretty lonely when your head's got a million miles an hour. So to have a button you can just press, breathe and get back to sleep is, it's changed, it changes everything.

Travis White (01:01:43.587)
That's awesome. Here's to hoping, you know, just that one person listens to this podcast and gets that takes in that breath work. It actually uses it.

it Kazan?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (01:01:59.97)
Yeah, it is gonna be the best friend you never knew you had. And it's so amazing just discovering how wonderful your own body is and kind of how little you need from the outside world to feel pretty bloody amazing inside yourself.

Travis White (01:02:22.097)
So where can people find you?

Tim - Breathwork In Bed (01:02:26.05)
Sure, look, if anyone's got a phone, just go into your app store and look up three words, breath work, one word, in bed. Think breakfast, in bed, breath work, in bed. It'll ask you when you wanna sleep, when you wanna wake up, and then the notifications will fall out at the perfect time. 28 day free trial, won't cost you anything to give it a go. Of course, it always checks if you've got a credit card attached to your account, but it's...

I just challenge everybody to see what life is like with you connected to your breath. It is the biggest game changer and that's why I've, never imagined myself in this space, but now I'm dedicating the rest of my life to it.

Travis White (01:03:10.695)
That's awesome. Well, I thank you so much for being on the show today. All right. I guess tonight. I don't know if it's day or it's nighttime here. So but thank you all for listening. Follow us on Instagram at overcome pod. And we are available on all streaming platforms as well. Until next time, thanks, everyone.