Richard Ellis: Boosting Energy & Wellbeing at Work

Richard Ellis  00:00

Not designed to sit just like a car, not designed to sit in a garage. It's designed to be driven. It's exactly the same with our body. It's great.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:06

Thing about having a dog is you could get out every morning, rain, hail or shine, to take them out for a walk, which means you're getting out in that natural daylight.

Richard Ellis  00:12

If you raise your game, then, generally speaking, those people around you will raise their game. And so that's the positive ripples that occur within the organisation. People are engaging in these other activities that are some way. They're all doing their own little thing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:33

Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I'm your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, and I'm passionate about Sikh entrepreneurs in their ideal life. I'm a certified EOS implementer, a FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests. I designed this show to bring tips and tools to busy entrepreneurs who want to understand how they can create a better life through creating a better business. I bring on the show people who are using EOS in their business, or people who've just got really great tips and tools that can really help with that side of things. So today's guest is a subject matter expert of almost two decades. He won PT of the year in 2016 after making a significant career change, he started in the grocery industry and now works in the health industry, and he works with businesses to maximise the health and the energy of their employees. Today, they're going to share with you how you can make 1% changes to create endless energy and improve the health of your employees. I'd like to welcome you to Rich Ellis, who is the energy coach. Welcome to the show. Rich, it's great to have you on. We're just gonna make a quick chat before the show. We've realised that we both come from the Midlands, so we have a common thread in our background, but we just got a really interesting story. I'd love you to share that story with our listeners, please Rich.

Richard Ellis  01:57

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Debra, great to be here, and thank you for having me on. It's a real privilege, nice to be able to share. So my story starts back in the UK, but moved to New Zealand about 27 years ago, and was working in that corporate space as a as an employee, and got to a point where I realised that wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and shifted into the health and fitness industry. I'm just on a whim, really. I decided to do a course part time outside of work hours, and really for my own education, I was always interested in health, a reasonable regular gym goer. And I thought, well, if I can pick up a few tips from this, then that'll be really useful for my own routine. And by the end of the course, I realised that it wasn't that at all. It was something I had to pursue as a career, and just threw myself at it headlong. And here I am, 17 years later, still doing the same thing, an evolved version of what I was doing originally, but I've gone from personal training into health coaching and health coaching into working in that corporate space and running wellbeing workshops and courses and programmes for organisations that get it, those organisations that realise that the investment In this will actually save us a lot of money, and it will change our culture as we go through the process. And so that's where I spend my time now.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:08

Yeah, it's interesting as it's we talk about with the OS manager, maximising the human energy, and we talk about it more from a point of view as how do we make sure we're all running in the same direction with the business, and making sure we're on the same track, but what you're talking about is actually working with the individuals to really maximise their energy and make sure they're able to deliver the best performance. Is that right?

Richard Ellis  03:27

That's exactly right. Yeah. And I think when you work with organisations, there's never going to be 100% engagement. What's this guy doing here? Why is he here? Why should I be involved? And so my task is really to boost that engagement at the beginning, rather than start telling people or advising people on what to do, because once that engagement and once you've got the trust, then you can start layering in the education that other things that people should be focusing on, and then the coaching follows in behind that, in terms of having those individual group conversations about, what are you going to do differently? How are you going to implement some of the stuff that I've shared, so that it makes a difference to you as an individual, but collectively as an organisation, everybody's making little gains. The whole organisation is benefiting as a result.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:14

Now let's just talk a little bit. What does ealthy kind of look like? So you're a health coach, but healthy, I think, often, is kind of thought as very much just the physical representation Am I kind of fit and skinny and healthy? But there's a lot more to it than that, isn't there?

Richard Ellis  04:24

There certainly is. And I think appearances can be deceptive what we as a western world so look at in terms of what we think is healthy isn't necessarily healthy. And I think a great example of that is the bodybuilder on stage. Right? You've got these incredible physiques who are dehydrated, undernourished, covered in paint and the tiniest budgie smugglers you can find, and they are put on, and I'm not criticising them as what they do is fantastic, but what I'm saying is we're taught to believe that is the picture of health. And actually, that body looks incredible, but you know, in they're not in. Their healthy state, they have to push their body out of a healthy state to compete. And I think if you translate that into a business environment, we push it's a badge of honour to be working long hours and have lots of clients and be really busy. But unfortunately, that's the same thing as the bodybuilder that's pushed themselves so far out of their comfort zone so they can compete that actually there's some real recovery work needed to get that body back into a healthier state. And so we can be misled by what we see. And I think when you say, what does it look like? It's different for everybody. And from a coaching perspective, I ask that question of them because they know their body best, they know their lives best, and they're probably the most aware person of what they can do differently in their life. I don't know that, and so I just have to ask the right questions. But I think there are some general things that we can apply that are useful to have in our routines. And we talked earlier about sleep, and I think if you neglect sleep for too long, it will come and kick you on the ass, and it will reveal itself in some way that is not good. It's been linked to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, mental health issues. So there are a number of things that can occur when sleep is neglected. So I would start with that as a foundation, at least seven to nine hours. Now not everybody needs seven to nine hours, but the research says the majority of the public needs between seven and nine hours, poor healthy cognition and healthy body, a reasonable diet in terms of a balanced diet across the day, different people need different nutrients. Different people need different timing of nutrients, depending on what their goals are. But a well balanced diet goes a long way. And the hydration that comes with that, right making sure that we are drinking enough water, and not just tap water, ideally, some good quality water, or even water with something in it, like some Celtic salt or some squeeze of a lime or lemon or something that's going to give it some body because that's what it's like inside our bodies. It's not pure water with as we know, when we sweat, we get this other stuff, which is the electrolytes leaching out through our skin. So if we can put that in, that's another really good step in the right direction. And so movement would probably be the third piece in terms of looking after ourselves. And what does health look like moving our bodies, we're not designed to sit just like a car, not designed to sit in a garage. It's designed to be driven, and we know what happens to our cars if we leave them, the battery runs down, the brakes seize up. It's exactly the same with our body, right? We're designed to move, use it or lose it. And so again, I'm not saying what people need to do in terms of movement, but there are some guidelines with the by the World Health Organisation, and they stipulate 150 minutes per week, so that could look like five half an hour walks, or 75 minutes of slightly more vigorous exercise, so that could be a run as opposed to a walk. So it's less time because it's more intense, plus a couple of strength training sessions a week, and that's the bit that gets left off. We don't always include that in and World Health Organisation says that, and that's about preserving muscle mass, and that's the most important part of our body in terms of our metabolic rate. So the more muscle we have on our body, the healthier our metabolism generally is, and it also protects us. If we fall, we're more likely to bounce than break, and that's what we want, right? Everybody falls at some time, right? But we don't want to break. We want to bounce, or at least get up again and go, ow, but I'm okay. But as we age, we know that muscle mass drops off. So looking after that and having those two sessions a week of some kind, that can be body weight, or it can be gym, it goes a long way to looking after the body that you live in, because it's the only place you've got to live.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:48

Yeah, I completely agree. So we're going to delve a little bit deeper into each of those in a moment. But I'm just thinking from an entrepreneur's point of view, or from a lot of leaders that I'm working with, they're so busy, they're so stressed out, they're so overwhelmed, and so this kind of probably feels a little bit scary for them, because, like, but I've already got enough on my plate, and I even asked me to make more changes, but you're talking about making sort of those 1% incremental changes, not saying throw everything out and start from scratch. It's like, how do you actually fine tune that car engine? Isn't it exactly that?

Richard Ellis  09:15

That's exactly right. So I take the approach of wanting to provide solutions that ideally take no extra time and over what is already occurring, really, it's about tweaking behaviours. Like you say it's the one percenters, right? Like Dave Brailsford, who took over the the English cycle team. He's he was looking to aggregate all of those 1% and make the team better. And that's exactly what he did. James clears book, atomic habits, same approach, we're looking for the one percenters. And so changing your habits, increasing your water intake, it actually doesn't take any more time to ask you to work on that. Because you're up and down from your desk, you're going to the bathroom to grab a glass and fill it up isn't going to take any additional time. It's just a slight behaviour change. And so for those. Busy entrepreneurs, it isn't about you need to overhaul your life, and that's just unrealistic for everybody. It's about finding those 1% and saying, right, what are three things, and what's the first thing, and when will you do it? And it needs to be done within the first 24 hours, ideally, having identified it, because once you've taken action, that's more likely to spur future action. We get that little dopamine hit. The dopamine hit is our reward. The reward means, Oh, I did. Well, I'm going to probably do that thing again. So that's the approach that I take.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:28

Okay, so let's delve into sort of each of those three areas. So we're talking about sleep. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I know I need seven and a half eight hours sleep, and I know what happens when I don't have that. That's I've done a lot of research and work on my sleep over the last 12 years. And you know, it becomes really obvious when you haven't had the right amount of sleep, what effects that has, like you said, the dulling of the brain, the inability to focus properly, et cetera. But so in terms of, tell us a little bit about why sleep is so important first of all, and there's some of the things people can do to improve their sleep.

Richard Ellis  10:57

Yeah, as I was saying, there are a number of, I guess, downsides to poor sleep, and so setting ourselves up for a good window, a start and a stop time on a regular basis, is really important, because from a cognition point of view, from the ability to to leap out of bed in the morning, we know what that's like when we've had short sleep, or we've had alcohol or something from the night before, where we can drag ourselves through the day, but that's not a productive person, right? And so I tell I don't tell people not to drink alcohol, but I say, use it strategically, because if you've got a busy day the next day, or an important meeting, you're probably best to say, No, thank you. So from a health perspective, it's critical, and it can take a bit of time before the it's like brushing your teeth, right? If you stopped brushing your teeth today, your teeth aren't going to rot, but if you left them for six months, 12 months, 18 months, you'd start to need to go and see the dentist. And it's the same with sleep. It's an accumulation of all the good things, but like I said, metabolic health, mental health, in fact, one of the sleep experts, I heard him talking the other day, saying that of all of the mental health disorders that they had studied, every single one had a sleep issue. So we know there's a strong correlation between mental health and sleeping well, a very strong correlation. So work on the sleep first and some of those. That doesn't fix some of those mental health issues, but it will certainly change some of them for the better. So there's a raft of reasons why you would, we would look after your sleep, and I don't think we respect it enough, and it's something I only respected once I started studying it and analysing it for myself and realising that there was some real opportunities. And part of why I burnt myself out in 2014 was too much work, not enough sleep, and just keeping on going on that path for too long. Some of the things that that people can do is just use so the National Sleep Foundation, National Sleep Foundation, if you Google that, you will find their sleep diary. And their sleep diary is a really useful tool to raise awareness of where you're at right now. And so it asks you to capture some information, am and pm for a week. So it's only a week, and you might keep it by your bed with a pen, or you might have it in the kitchen once you've got up for the day. But it's just asking a various four or five questions, am and pm, and by the time you've filled it in, you've got this nice little map, or, I guess, a bunch of data, that then gives you some opportunities to reflect and go, Oh, okay, my sleep wasn't very good. Oh, and it's I had five cups of coffee that morning. So if you start linking or joining the dots as to what might be affecting your sleep. So that's where I would recommend people start to try and raise that awareness. The next couple of really useful things they can do is get themselves out into daylight in the morning, so that bright light outside is very high in blue light, which we want in the mornings, because that washes away the melatonin that's sitting in our system from the night before. So it increases alertness. And the other thing it does is it sort of bookmarks the beginning of the day, so 16 hours later, your brain will be thinking probably ready for bed now. So it really helps reinforce the rhythm. And if you can then have a consistent bedtime and a consistent wake up time, you're putting all of those pieces together that's really helping your brain and your circadian rhythm lock in. And you know when it's working, because you go away on holiday and you don't have an alarm clock, and you wake up at the same time you would do if it was a work day. And that's kind of a little celebration, because you know that the work you've been putting in has come, has is working well, and that your system is almost on autopilot.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:30

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I reckon everybody should have a dog, because since, I mean, I've had dogs the last, I don't know how many years, but it's great. Thing about having a dog is you get out every morning, rain, hail or shine, to take them out for a walk, which means you're getting out in that natural daylight. And I've actually just been away for the last two and a half weeks. My dogs are still at home, and I've noticed that I've let the you know, because I'm not walking the dogs in the morning, and I've been sick with COVID as well. Haven't been going out, and it has affected my sleep, for sure. I get to bed and I'm not feeling quite as tired. So it's amazing how even just in two weeks that the body can start to re. Set itself back the other way. So it is really about building habits that reinforce and as you said, when I go on holiday, usually I'm awake at 530 every morning, because that's the time I normally wake up. Yep, yep, there you go. It's working. Okay, brilliant. So sleep, there's a lot of things we can do around that. I also remember learning that sleep is very important for the different metabolic pathways in your body to repair as well, and I believe you have to it's not about it's not just about the amount of sleep, but it's about when you go to sleep as well. Isn't there a certain kind of time period where it's better for your body to be sleeping in?

Richard Ellis  15:31

Yeah, and I'm not too tricked. I was talking to someone the other day about a client, to a client, about another client, because we were talking about sleep and the fact that she was business owner, busy, director of the company, and very hands on, and she was finishing work at midnight, one o'clock in the morning, but she wasn't getting out of bed until eight o'clock or nine o'clock in the morning. And so I said, Look, that's okay, so long as the quality of that sleep as well is there. The duration is good. But in an ideal world, if you could control it down to the minute, almost. That 10 to six is the sweet spot, because the first four hours, your body is doing that physical repair. So you get more deep sleep in the first four hours, so 10 till two, and then from two till six, you've got more REM sleep. So it's shallower sleep, but it's doing a lot of the repair work in the brain. So when I say repair work, it's removing the emotion from the encounters that you had during the day, so you've got a memory of the encounter, but you're not as emotional about it. So you may have had an argument or really tough meeting that you walked out pretty frustrated and pissed off, but you know that professionally, you don't show that stuff, but it's still going on in your system. Your REM sleep is the time where your brain sort of separates those two things. And so the old adage of, oh, sleep on it is a really good piece of advice, because you wake up in the morning and you're much clearer about what action you need to take, because the emotions come out of it. So that that two till six is that REM period. And so that would give you a window of about eight hours when we don't sleep. For the eight that we're on the pillow, there are times where we wake up and we're back to sleep, and we may not even know that's occurred, and sometimes we do, but it's a part of the process. We have these cycles that run sort of every 90 minutes. And I was really curious about I was like, Well, why are we doing why are we doing all this stuff? Why don't we just get on with that? So you probably know the answer. But the thinking is that when we were living in caves, when we were cavemen, and we hadn't really much evolved much since then, it meant that we had some of all of the sleep cycle that we needed. We'd had a little bit of deep, a little bit of REM little bit of shallow, and if we were interrupted by a bear, we were equipped with some sleep to go and fight or flee and do whatever we needed to do so that we could survive. So it sort of seems like it might be a survival pattern in our sleeps that allows us to get some of the recharge of all of those but there's more deep at the beginning, and there's more more REM at the end. The other point to make about REM, which is really important, is the glymphatic system. So this is the system you may have heard of the lymphatic system, which is throughout our body, as our drainage system gets rid of all the toxins and shoots them through into the liver and the kidneys and out they go. But the glymphatic system, which has only been discovered fairly recently, is the same system for our brain, and that occurs when we're in that REM sleep. So we do need that REM sleep, and it's clearing out the metabolic waste from our brain. Our brains are very active. It uses about 20% of our whole body's energy, and so it needs a cleanup. And if we don't give ourselves enough of a sleep opportunity, that cleanup doesn't occur. And so the understanding is that may be linked to dementia, Alzheimer's, those sorts of things, because the plaque is still there hasn't been cleared out. So one of the one of the benefits of sleep, one of the many benefits of sleep is that reassurance that you've had a decent night's sleep, and that your brain is clear, ready to go, because it's been able to clear out the waste from the day before.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:51

Nice. I hadn't really thought. I didn't know about the caveman thing. I did always wonder why we had those sleep cycles. I have a Withings sleep analyzer as well as an hour ring. I'm a bit obsessed with all this stuff, and it's really interesting to see when you wake up and you kind of feel, well, did I get a good night's sleep? And you have a look at him? Oh, yeah. Sometimes you don't get enough REM sleep, sometimes you don't get enough deep sleep, but it is fascinating. Probably not much use unless you do something with it, but it's certainly interesting to have a look at. Okay, so that's sleep, and we all know sleep is important. Well, it's good to think about what you can do without that. We talked about diet, but you talked about balanced diet. But I also know that you have a passion for the whole gut health thing as well, which is another part of the diet, part of it, isn't it? So tell us a bit about Balanced diets and gut health.

Richard Ellis  19:30

Yeah, I think the balance that you're looking for is to try and make sure there is sufficient protein and there are sufficient fibre. They would be the headlines. And both are really important. Both will keep you fuller for longer. And if you are having the fibre, then you're probably getting a range of vegetables and a mixture of vitamins and minerals because of the amount of vegetable vegetation, if you like, that you're getting into your diet. So you're looking for colour as well. You're looking for a mixture of colour. You may have heard the expression interact. Rainbow every day. And I like that because it's really simple, but it drives you towards that mixture of colour. And so you're getting a variety of different types of vitamins, different types of minerals that are coming from all of that colour. And so that's why seasonality is really important. We New Zealand's still pretty good at set of supermarkets. That's probably the obvious outlet is reasonably good with that seasonality. When things come and go, they're available for a certain period of time, we eat them, and then they're not available until the next stuff. Avocados are the exception to that rule. Now we've they've learned grow avocados 12 months of the year, because they know how much we love them. And I think there is a bit of a downside to that, because we might be eating the avocado 12 Months of the Year at the expense of something else. And it's important to have that variety. And the reason for seasonality is because it gives our gut that variety, that different type of fibre, that different mineral. So boosting our levels of fibre also helps. It's sort of, it's gut protected, and also the fibre that can't be digested makes its way all the way to the large intestine, and is slowly broken down into a short chain fatty acid, which actually feeds our gut bugs. And we need to feed those gut bugs because we want a population of good gut bugs and we don't want a high population of bad gut bugs. But if we're always eating sugar and sort of highly processed foods, we're actually feeding the bad bugs. So we want to keep that balance in check, and fibre is one of the ways in which we can do that. Coming back to protein I talked about bouncing rather than breaking. And of course, the way to look after our muscle mass isn't just about exercising and pushing our bodies, but also eating sufficient protein that's going to help us maintain the muscle that's already on our body, and so whatever that first meal of the day is, whether it's breakfast or lunch, different people need different routines getting a really decent, healthy portion of protein. So somewhere between 25 and 30 grammes in that meal, which now is quite a lot, when you actually think about what sort of food has to be eaten to to achieve that, is really helping to set you up for two good things, one, a portion or a level of Leucine, which is one of the amino acids in protein that will help protect or preserve that muscle mass, but it's also helping to stabilise your blood sugars for the day, and this is one of the ones I talk about in my workshop. Endless energy is hitting that protein at the beginning of the day, so that your stable blood sugars last throughout the day. And if that doesn't happen, and I know what it's like, because I've had days where I haven't done the protein, I'm looking for things that I don't normally look for. Like, if there's a donut in the house, it's getting eaten. It's like, why am I reaching for the donut? And what it is that your blood sugars are just, they're just roller coastering. If you get that protein in then the roller coaster is very shallow. It's much shallower. And so our mood follows our blood sugars. So if they're roller coastering, our mood is roller coastering, and that makes us less effective as people. We're shorter tempered, we're less emotionally controlled. And I think people underestimate the power of that. And I think when you've experienced it, you've had sufficient protein, and you get that level of fullness without feeling bloated, and it carries you through to the next meal. You're like, Oh, didn't need a snack lunch time, same thing. Find a good level of protein, but keep the fibre in there. Can that get you all the way through till dinner time? And if it can, you're doing really well, because then you haven't got to snack. And every time you snack, it's going to push your blood sugars up and they're going to come back down again. So I recommend three meals a day, as opposed to five, depending on the person in front of me. There's always nuance to it, but that's one of the ways in which you can do it. By keeping the fibre up and keeping the protein up. It's going to help you get to the next meal without without snacking.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:39

And again, there's some fascinating technology out there now that is far more readily available. I remember putting, like a CGM thing on the back of my arm for four weeks, just to sort of see what effects certain things had. And it's not just food, but exercise effects all kinds of things. It was just really interesting to see the effects various things had and to register that, and kind of think about that. It's a bit like our emotional triggers. If we can recognise them, we can do something about it.

Richard Ellis  24:02

So, yeah, very useful technology. My wife did exactly the same thing recently, and I was fascinated, because she beat me to the normally, it's me who's geeking out on that stuff, and she's like, I've got a CGM. And I thought, what? How come you did it? But very interesting. So, so we bought a we bought a French stick at the supermarket one weekend, and we had some. Had lunch with the French stick. I can't remember what we whether we made a sandwich or pate or whatever it was. That was her highest spike the French stick, because it's simple white bread, right? I mean, it's bit of starch, bit of sugar, and then it literally went off the charts. And interestingly, then there was the corresponding drop below where her baseline had been established. And so it's fascinating reading, because you kind of go, right, well, I'm staying away from French ticks. I'm staying away from this. I'm staying away from that, because I don't need those things. And then suddenly you've found this beautiful baseline, which is uninterrupted. And I recommend people do it. I still need to do it myself, because I don't know what my numbers are going to look like.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:00

So my really disappointing find was white rice. So I am a big fan of Asian food, which often comes with white rice on the side. And I used to eat a lot of it, because I kind of, I don't, I knew it was carbohydrate loaded, but I know I thought it wasn't a bad thing. And yes, with the CGM on it was really obvious the effect that had on me. And as you said, it does. It follows. It's get the big high comes with a big low, which doesn't do great things for your health as well as your body. So, yeah, mental health, yeah. Okay, so this, I mean, again, there's so much we could unpack in here. We probably do a whole podcast episode every single one of them. But let's go into the third one that we talked about, which is the movement. And again, a little bit of a share. I'm 54, and a half. I have osteoarthritis because I destroyed my knee skiing back in my early 20s, and that has now led to they've got some linkage between if you destroy your ACL, MCL, you often get osteoarthritis later in life, and so, so, yeah, some of the things I've had to learn to do, actually, interestingly, one of the things is the water thing. I only drink spring water these days because having, as you said, tap water isn't I mean, it's nothing wrong with it, but there's better options for you. The other thing was around doing functional strength training to make sure I'm building the muscle mass and making sure I'm supporting the whole body with the muscles to take away some of that and then just movement. The more I sit still. If I sat still in a chair for a long time, and I get up, I look like a 70 year old rather than a 54 year old. Yeah. But tell us a bit about Yeah, your views on movement. I mean, I know you talked about having was it 150 was it 150 No, 150 minutes a week. And then also these two strength training exercises as well.

Richard Ellis  26:27

That's right. And one thing I would say is saying that 150 that's something to build towards, depending on where you're at. It's not like, Oh, you're not doing anything. You need to get to 150 again. That's not playing those 1% rules. It's right. Well, what can you do today? Okay, well, I could do 15 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon, or 10 in the morning, 10 at lunchtime and 10 in hidden or I can only do five minutes. That's fine. So I just wanted to make sure that people don't think they expect those numbers to be hit straight away. That's just not realistic from a movement point of view. Another workshop of mine, I've got a picture of a picture of a guy who's a magician, and he's, he's sitting on an imaginary chair. And it's one of those, like David cockerfield type, one of those where you're like, how the hell is he doing now? Where's the wire? And it's a really useful photo, because what it does is it sort of demonstrates, it tells the story about, well, if you sit in a chair all day, every day, your body will turn into a chair, in terms of, like, way you just described it, Debra was, when you stand up, you feel 20 years older. It's because the connective tissue in your body is learning to reorganise itself to the position you put it in. And this is fascia, particularly fascia. So fascia is everywhere in our body. It holds, let's get this the right way around. It separates our joints. Yeah, so our muscles bring our joints together. Fascia pulls them apart. So none of our joints, unless we've got serious degradation, none of our joints actually touch. They're slightly separate. And so there's this constant tension between what the muscles are doing and what the fascia is doing, so that our bodies are as are kept in limbo, and so that it can move as freely as we can move. So sitting in a chair over time, that fascia starts to say, Oh, well, if you want your hips at that angle and your knees at that angle, and you keep doing it, you probably want to stay like that. And so it's really important to be getting up and moving during the day. And it's not so much about beating yourself up in the gym after work for 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour or however long you've got. It's more about the little things that you do during the day that preserves your ability to move your hips, how you want to, preserves the knees and the ankles, and keeps things moving and mobile so that you don't feel 20 years older when you get up after a day of sitting. So I guess my message is little and often, and if you are drinking water, that's a classic way of doing it, because if you're drinking enough water, then you have to go and empty your bladder, right? So there's two things, filling up the cup and emptying the bladder. So that's the first thing. It's about what small things can you do? And I think if it's an accepted culture in a workplace where there's nothing wrong with someone dropping down, waiting for the kettle to boil, and doing squats or press ups or some sort of way of moving their body that is going to challenge it a little bit and be something different to what it's normally used to doing, so that fascia doesn't ever get to a position where it's starting to fuse and lock down your body in a particular position. It gives you that range of movement and that freedom and that mobility to keep moving and feel young and unrestricted. Where else can I go from a movement point of view, I could talk about it all day like you say.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:30

Yeah, there's so many things we could explore. But I suppose the muscle strengthening thing, I think again, if you're I mean, I'm a bit older than most of my clients, but, you know, once you get to a certain age, it becomes really important. But actually it's also a little bit like sleep. You can't or we talked about vitamin C earlier. You can't wait until you're sick to cut so start taking vitamin C. You actually got to be taking it the entire time so it's there in your body, same with muscle, right? That you can't wait until you've got something majorly wrong and then try and work on it. You should be doing it throughout your life too. It's gonna be easier to maintain it than it is to try and build.

Richard Ellis  30:00

Yeah, exactly that. That's absolutely right. Although that is absolutely right. Maintaining it, staying in the routine is really good, although I would say there's no wrong age to start. If someone feels like they've got to a certain age, oh, I don't think I could do that. Not right. Not true. I mean, again, one of my other workshops, I've got a video of a guy sprinting down the 100 metres at some competition in America, and he's 100 and he made, I think he's 100 years old. And so he set the record for the 100 year old print, because there weren't any other 100 year old there. Now, the other competitors were in their 80s and their 90s, and he was there, he was and I think he came second or third or something. So he did really well. And so he's a classic example of somebody who has just not stopped doing it. Realised that this is something is important to him, to keep your body strong and mobile. You keep doing the thing, whatever the thing is that you enjoy. And I think if you find the thing that you enjoy, that's the secret, is the and everyone says, oh, what's the most important exercise? The one you enjoy is the most important exercise.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:02

It really, it's really funny, because I've been a member of gym for years, years, and often didn't go because I don't actually enjoy gym work. I don't enjoy being in a gym. What I've realised is I really enjoy cycling, I really enjoy kayaking, I really enjoy walking, and so those things are the things that I do, but I still have a personal trainer three times a week for the muscle strength building because, and I guess this is this applies to you in the business that you're in as well. It's like we can talk about all this stuff, but there's got to be a certain level of accountability. And I don't hold myself accountable. I'm terrible. So it's actually, for me, it's important to have somebody who I have to report back into who is waiting for me. So I can't just decide I'm not going to do it this morning, I know that Ricky is there waiting for me, so I have to go there. And I suppose that's what having a coach is all about, is that person who can not only hold you accountable, but also they're able to view things from the outside in, as opposed to the way we're viewing it. And I remember when I used to do horse riding, I used to my my horse riding coach would always say to me, not holding your hands, right? So yes, I am. And then he got a video camera out and he videoed me. It's like, oh my god, I'm not holding my hands, right? Okay? And so that's the beauty of having somebody external who's actually helping you with it.

Richard Ellis  32:03

Absolutely, absolutely. I think I was talking to someone yesterday, actually, on my podcast, and her statement was never so true, isn't it? We all need coaches. Coaches. Need coaches. Everybody needs that someone. And may be able to find a coach or a mentor that is someone who will work with you for free, but it's worth investing in one if you don't have that person available. Because it's not until you start being open to coaching and being prepared to go through the process of it, you realise the power of it. And I've worked with people who have been coached, and I've worked with people who haven't been coached, and there's quite a stark contrast between their approach, how they deal with things. And I think I I've now got to the stage where I say, Have you ever been coached before? Because some people have, and they don't really know what it means or how they need to behave, or how what the process looks like. So helping people understand it goes a long way to it being more successful and useful for them. And I think you're right. Everybody needs them. Everybody needs that accountability, that support that person in their corner, who's their cheerleader as well. And a good coach will wear different hats depending on what that person needs at the given time. But there are other ways of doing it, finding it an accountability buddy, an exercise buddy, like you said, someone's there waiting for you. If you don't really want to get out for the walk, find someone who wants to walk with you who's got similar goals and arrange to meet them right? So that you have to turn up, right? It would be harder to let them down than to let yourself down. And I think that's another benefit of having a coach, because sometimes they've trodden the path that you've trodden, but they're further down that journey. And so that's probably more of a mentor, potentially. But that wisdom, that experience can help speed up your own journey, because you're not going to make the mistakes they made, you're going to pick into their wisdom. And very useful?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:49

Yeah, absolutely. I guess. Let's talk a little bit about this. So the work that you do is generally within the corporate and business environment, with teams who are looking to, I suppose, fine tune their engine and go to f1 status, as opposed to just racing around the local track. But what are the benefits of for a business owner? Because you know what, it's like you talk about this, people go, that's great, but it's going to cost us money. Why would we do that? So what are the benefits of actually working with someone like you in their organisation?

Richard Ellis  34:15

Yeah, sure. Well, the return on investment is probably the starting point, right? That's the bit that's going to get it over the line. And it's the stats look at somewhere between sort of one, one to six, as as high as one to 10 in terms of return on investment. So $1,000 invested, $6,000 saved. And it is a saving exercise, because productivity reduced absenteeism, reduced presenteeism, in more engagement, which then follows with productivity, all those little things that occur over time are probably the reasons why organisations, particularly people running the organisation, would want something like that in their organisation, and for the individuals, it's the ripple effect, so individuals will slowly make changes over time and. It empowers them. It gives them new knowledge, new skills, new habits, but they're not then no one's working in isolation, right? There's people sitting to their left, people sitting to their right, they've got friends, they've got family members, all of those things have a ripple effect across those other people. They you say, they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time in. And I think that's that's so, so accurate, so true. And if you raise your gain, then, generally speaking, those people around you will raise their game, or if they're raising their game, you're going to want to raise your game. And so that's the POS, the positive ripples that occur within the organisation. Because it's something that takes time. It isn't something that happens from week one to week five, week 12, week 36 it's something that it's a slow burn, so it's something that those organisations have to be patient with. But it also gives those employees something else to talk about. It's not just work, right? Oh, how did you go doing that thing? Oh, yeah, I did the run cokesville on the weekend and came forth. And whatever it might be, there's that whole new level of conversation that people are engaging in these other activities that are non work related, but of interest to everybody, because in some way, they're all doing their own little thing. So that's the benefit. And then, of course, there's the education piece, in terms of new knowledge. People know little snippets, but mainstream media are very good at delivering average to bad news and a warped version of the reality that we always know. It's edited down and things are changing, and so people's perception of certain things is sometimes wrong. So it's really nice to be able to set people straight and help them understand the truth behind some of the science, so that the habits that they form are more effective and more useful for themselves. So there's the power for the organisation, but there's also the empowerment of the individuals as well.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:51

And as you said, it kind of creates that positive tension where people want to lift their game, and it can, because there's a bit of a competitiveness into it too. I see the whole running club thing is obviously huge at the moment, and I've seen it within one couple of my clients, where they've started a Run Club, and people who you never thought would run have suddenly started running. So I'm not a big fan of running personally, but I can see why. When everybody else is doing it, you're like, Well, what am I missing out on? Because they're coming back buzzing and looking great. So how do I get a bit of that?

Richard Ellis  37:13

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you you're firing up the the brain's natural chemistry or pharmacy, and neurotransmitters, endorphins, all those good things, the more you do it, the easier those systems are to fire up. And so that's when someone starts running. They're like, what's this? Runners? I think everyone's talking about, I don't get it. It takes a long time before you actually experience that. And so it can be really difficult, challenging to persevere when you're not feeling like there's any reward. But when that reward kicks in, and you start feeling that that high, that the benefits, some of the other things, other than sort of a change in fitness, then the penny drops, okay? And then it's a, it's a mental thing. It's like, I can't stop doing this now. It's so, yeah, yeah, yeah, brilliant.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:56

Okay, we could probably talk all day. I'm really enjoying what we're talking about, but I would love to do. I always make sure that my guests give the listeners three top tips or tools, things they can actually go away from the podcast with and do something about it right now. So what would you be your three top tips or tools rich?

Richard Ellis  38:11

Yeah, I think the one that I normally share have already shared. Yeah, that's okay. Let's repeat it then, because it's obviously important. Yeah, well, I think it is, and it's, that's the number one. It's that getting outside in the morning, getting that light into the eye in the morning, it really is. There are so many others, but that one is absolutely critical for so many things. And if it's just your morning cup of tea, work with an organisation where there are people are commuting long distances and and they're like, Well, how am I supposed to get out into this and I'm in the car driving to work in the dark, like, that's fine when the sun comes up and outside the office with your cup of tea, and take the time to just finish that cup of tea in the light so that your eyes get that morning light. So there's no it doesn't matter where or when, but you have to get yourself outside of the building. You can't do it behind glass. You can't do it behind a windscreen. It has to be in person, outside, so, so that would probably be tip. Tip number one is that, because it plays into the whole sleep thing, and it's a part of that cycle, I think tip number two would probably be a movement one. So my challenge to people would be, what's one small thing that you can do differently than you're doing now, to move your body more during a work day, and that's a challenge, but I have a solution, and one of the I share with organisations is stand up, hang on to the back of your chair, and do what looks like you're crossing the midline. So there's more than one reason why you would do it. So you're activating the biggest muscle on your body, which is those, glute max, really important. So you're crossing the midline with one of your legs. Every time you cross the bendine, you strengthen the connection between your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere. That connection is called the corpus callosum, which probably means that you're going to have better connectivity between the left brain and right brain for the rest of your day. So if you can throw that in to your day. Get up out of your chair, couple of Curtsies left and right, back into your chair, carry on. So you've done some movement. You've used your muscles. That's Inc that's helping you manage your blood sugars, and you may have, well have increased the connectivity between your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:17

I love it. I never thought that that should be a real reason to curtsy, but that's great. Apart from the meet the Queen.

Richard Ellis  40:23

When kids are at primary school, they do lots of games where they're crossing across their body, so that it helps strengthen that, that those neural connections and clever PE teachers know this stuff. They know that kids need this type of movement in their bodies, so that it's not just physical, it's mental as well. And you're challenged from a learning perspective as well as, can you tap your right heel with your left hand? So you've got to, you've got to bring that across the body and make that connection. So any of those sorts of things are really good excuses to get up and move your body and and enjoy the benefits. Third and final, I was going to say hydration, but we've already talked about hydration, but honestly, there's a balance. I might do breath. Let's do breath, because we've talked about hydration, and we know it's important. We know that we're 78% water structured. Water would be the thing that I suggest. So you've put something in it. So breath, breathe, light to breathe, right? So there's a long backstory, and I know I don't have the time to do that, but let me just share this. There's a guy called Patrick McEwen who wrote a book called The oxygen advantage. I highly recommend you read it, because it's based on Buteyko breathing, which actually came out of Russia, and from the guy, his name was constant of time, Buteyko. So Patrick reinvented this, and it talks about mouth breathing versus nose breathing. We need to use the apparatus that is is behind our nose, which is all of the breathing apparatus. We're not designed to breathe through our mouth. So from an energy point of view, if you're sitting up nice and tall in your chair, your your shoulders are back, your lungs are open, you're not dropping your head so your head's level, and you breathe in and through your nose, breathe out through your nose, so we're not involving the mouth at all, and the breathe, light to breathe, breathe, light to breathe, right? Doesn't mean a shallow breath. It still means a nice, deep belly breath, but it's slow and it's controlled so much so that you may not be able to hear me breathing if you were standing next to me. So that would be something I recommend, because when we breathe through our mouth, we expel a lot of CO two, or more CO two than we should, which is why the expression mouth breather is an insult, because it's saying you don't you've forgotten to know how to breathe. So in and out through the nose means that we're preserving some of that CO two. And the CO two that sits in our system is the pressure against the membrane that pushes the oxygen into the cells, into our blood. So we need to maximise the oxygen absorption. We need the CO two in the system as well. And if we breathe through our mouths constantly, and you do this when you congested, right when you're congested, you have to breathe through your mouth, or you may get one nostril clear, but not both. So looking after your health means that you're probably going to be less congested, and then you can breathe light to breathe right in and out through the nose, and that will help from an energy perspective as well.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:12

Yeah, and again, it's like making little changes that make the opposite better. I know that I've always struggled with breathing a little bit, and I got introduced to taping your mouth at night. And whether you agree with that or not, for me, it's been absolutely beneficial, because I didn't think I could breathe through my nose, and as I started taping my mouth at night, I now very easy. In fact, last night I forgot to take my mouth, but I still it was breathing through my nose. It's become a normal thing now. So yeah, and it is amazing how it's affected the sleep as well. So sleeping while breathing through your nose is actually a much better sleep.

Richard Ellis  43:40

Absolutely, yes, no, that's good. If people are brave enough to do the tape thing, I recommend it. I'm certainly a believer in it. All you need is a very small little bit of tape across here so you can still breathe through the sides of your mouth if you need to. It's not like gagging you for eight hours sleep. But yes, it's a really useful tool, and it helps retrain the brain to breathe through the nodes.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:02

Yeah. And this works well, and I've had a lot much less sinus issues and things too, because, I think, because I'm using my nose all the time, and my nose is actually working, and so I don't get the sinus challenges I used to get. I was really scared at first, because I thought I was gonna, yeah, kill myself in my sleep by not be able to breathe. But hasn't happened. So I didn't recommend it.

Richard Ellis  44:16

Did you try it during the day first? So you were walking around with it, getting used to wearing it before sleeping with it? No straight

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:23

and didn't think about that straight in, straight in, and imagine that I wasn't going to wake up, wasn't going to wake up the next morning. But I did. So yeah, but I did buy the proper mouth tape, which is actually quite um, flexible, and also you can breathe for if you need to. It's not like, it's not like you're, you're completely, definitely about, yeah, no, it's not, no, definitely not like, appetite. That would be really painful, brilliant. And so we're going to put, obviously, your details in the session notes. If we can, people can find out, you know where to find you. Tell me what is, what is the bit that you love most about your job?

Richard Ellis  44:52

I think the biggest thing is seeing the change in the people, and them realising that it's there's been a useful a useful change. Change, and that's generally that generally happens quietly in individual conversations. It's not like a crowd of people say we're sleeping an hour better and we're all amazing. It's like, you know, that tip that you gave me about not rushing around because it drives my nervous system. It's really working. I feel so much calmer, you know? So just little conversations like that, and I'm just like, I walk away with, you know, my heart is glowing and and it just, you know, because they're not going to keep that to themselves. They'll share that with someone because it's worked for them. And that's that ripple effect that I was talking about before. And so that that's really heartening. When you see those changes and you realise that it's made a difference to the quality of someone's life, it's brilliant.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  45:42

I can feel your passion. It's fantastic. Hey, rich lip, thank you so much for coming onto the show, sharing all your knowledge and your wisdom. Like I said, we'll have all your contact details in those um, in the notes below the podcast. But um, thank you for your time. Thank you for having me absolute pleasure.