Breathwork and Healing: Tony Wynne-Wyard's Inspiring Shift

What if you could transform your life through the power of breath and nutrition? Join us for a riveting conversation with Tony Wynne-Wyard, a former international DJ turned behavioral functional medicine coach. Tony's journey is nothing short of inspiring, from overcoming personal health challenges like asthma with the Buteyko breathing method to witnessing the profound impact of these techniques on his own well-being. Listen as Tony reveals how his mother's battle with terminal cancer served as a catalyst for his career shift and how he's now helping others achieve wellness through functional medicine, breathwork, and mindful practices.

Discover the unique strategies Tony employs in his comprehensive health coaching approach, which integrates nutrition, breathwork, and sleep coaching. We'll explore the powerful Tiny Habits methodology and how it transforms client behaviors for lasting change. Get inspired by Tony's admiration for Viktor Frankl's philosophy, particularly the concept of the space between stimulus and response. This episode promises to deliver actionable insights and profound reflections on how you can enhance your journey toward health and wellness by adopting mindful practices and functional medicine. Don't miss out on this captivating story of transformation and resilience.

Chapters

• 0:24 Journey Into Health and Wellness
• 10:34 Health and Wellness Strategies

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Hi, how are you? This is Dr Damaris Maria Grossman and this is the Mindfully Integrative Show, and today we have an amazing mindful chat with Tony Wynne-Wyard. He is from the UK and he is a behavioral functional medicine coach, and he's going to talk to you more about his journey into integrative and functional medicine and how he is now helping others. So thanks so much, Tony, for being on the show.

Speaker 2: 0:50

It's great to be here, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:51

I really appreciate it, and so I always kind of go in and start with a little fun fact or something that people may not know about you if they just kind of look you up.

Speaker 2: 1:01

I have a very strong. Some of my friends think I'm an alien because because when it's really hot I don't feel hot, because because when it's really hot I don't feel hot, and yet when it's really cold I don't feel cold um, so your regulation is pretty. It's probably pretty balanced then I just don't seem to be bothered by extreme temperatures, yeah, oh, you're not at all bothered.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Maybe you just have good regulation. You know thyroid and you know your overall. I mean being on the functional medicine side, you probably have an excellent um microbiome maybe, yeah, it could be the case.

Speaker 2: 1:32

You know what I?

Speaker 1: 1:32

mean um. So let's let's talk about, um, how you became a behavioral health coach, functional medicine coach, and you know what did you do before that and kind of what. What brought you to that?

Speaker 2: 1:45

well, my background is very different. I was I use.

Speaker 1: 1:48

That's what I said. Usually, when people come and talk to me, I have this conversation. There has there's a pivotal moment. So what did you do before?

Speaker 2: 1:56

well, so I was. I was an international dj. I worked in many countries around the world as a dj for a long time international dj.

Speaker 1: 2:02

That's pretty darn cool, okay?

Speaker 2: 2:05

so chat, tell me about that, tell me so I, I lived in 14 countries, I visited about 90 countries, um, and yeah, I did that for a long time and I I mean I've always loved music and it's, but but how I got into what I do now came about about 10 years ago when, in a space of two days, my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and two days later her brother so my uncle died from prostate cancer. And I was having a chat with one of the sons from my uncle that just passed away and it suddenly dawned upon us that all of our relatives that had died had died of cancer, like 100% of them. So at that time, because my knowledge was nowhere you know, my knowledge of nutrition and health is good now. It wasn't so good then. So at that time my thoughts were oh well, that means I'm going to get cancer.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Right, you think that immediately, that your genetics will predispose you to everything, so that you that's it, that's it. I don't have any chance of changing it.

Speaker 2: 3:10

So I started upon this frenzy almost, of reading lots and lots of books. Initially books on cancer, which led me into books on nutrition, which led me into and I just Led you into functional medicine and led you into creative health and all of these other elements.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Yeah, you got into the rabbit hole, and all of us.

Speaker 2: 3:32

And then. But there was also one other incident, so that was like the main catalyst.

Speaker 1: 3:36

That's a pretty big one.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, that was the main one, but then something else happened about three years after that, so about eight years ago. So I've always had asthma since I was a child, and so I've always had asthma since I was a child and I was on. I can remember the day it's crazy. It was Christmas Eve, 2015. And it was 2014, christmas Eve, and a friend of mine posted about Buteyko to help people with asthma. And I was like what is Buteyko? And I started reading this post and there was a Ukrainian scientist or doctor in the 50s and 60s called Christian Buteyko who developed a breathing method which enabled you to just use this breathing method and you didn't need to use medication to alleviate asthma. And I was intrigued because my whole life, all my doctors would always just give me an inhaler, right? No, no time had anyone ever told me there was an alternative you mean learn how to breathe or eat better.

Speaker 2: 4:40

So I was. I was kind of I had two emotions. I was I was annoyed that no doctor had ever told me there was an alternative yeah, but had ever told me there was an alternative but, I was amazed that there was an alternative, so I started.

Speaker 2: 4:52

I literally contacted this. I contacted the Buteyko Advanced Practice, or I forget. I contacted some organization and within two days and this was Christmas, it was Christmas Eve. Within two days, I was doingmas. You know, it was christmas eve. Within two days I had I was doing some online sessions with them and within about a couple of weeks, I no longer had to use medication for my asthma.

Speaker 1: 5:15

It was amazing yeah, the the facts of um. So I I'm more on the. I do a lot of yoga, breathing, but have some similarities. I don't do that specific one um, but I I do teach a lot about prana, breath, breath work, and I've learned a lot the areas it's. It's quite amazing how, between that and then changing of your you know you'll you probably will talk further about what you're eating it's the inflammatory response I mean. Granted, it may not fix every aspect for some people, but a good majority of individuals are mild to moderate and a breathing technique will fix it.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Absolutely and and and it's just so hard to um. You know, see people that understand that and it's great to see to hear a conversation from someone saying oh wow, we're not in any way saying in this conversation that not to take medication if needed, but where, if someone in a safe, mild to moderate can learn to strengthen their inner muscles and their lungs, they can do a lot. So breathwork is very, very powerful.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Well, it led me to becoming a breathwork instructor, because that I really went down a rabbit hole into breathwork once I discovered that?

Speaker 1: 6:24

Oh wonderful, I didn't know that. Okay, into breathwork once I discovered that.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Oh wonderful, I didn't know that. Okay, talk for a minute. Yeah, so I I wanted to know a lot more about this. How does it work? I wanted to know the science behind it. I wanted to know a lot more about it. So I really I started attending workshops, reading books. I became there's a book, a very big book in this space, where it was before James Nestor's Breathe, which came out a couple of years ago. Before that, the biggest book in this space was the Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown, and so I attended a workshop with him in 2016 and then I did the Oxygen Advantage instructor course in 2019.

Speaker 1: 7:06

So I became an instructor. You're an expert at this point, so I became an instructor. You're an expert in this at this point.

Speaker 2: 7:09

So yeah, so I know, yeah, so I mean, I've read so many books around it, you know obviously.

Speaker 1: 7:16

James Nestor, I should be calling you the breathwork expert, not the functional medicine expert.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Well, but it's funny. You say that because the thing is, what one of the things that I've discovered I mean, that's one part of it, but yes, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:26

So I mean I did the course in functional medicine to become a health coach now with the functional medicine coaching academy and I also did a nutrition course with precision nutrition and I've done various other courses and one of the interesting things I've found in every space that I've been in, so in the breathwork community, they're all convinced that breathwork is the answer to almost anything. In the nutrition community, nutrition is the answer to almost anything. Okay, every community. I mean they think that they're what they do is the answer, and what I've learned my answer.

Speaker 1: 7:59

What did you learn and what's? What do you think?

Speaker 1: 8:01

I've learned it's not one thing, it's a combination of things you have to come at this from so many different dimensions yes, I mean, uh, considering why I got obsessed with this podcast, um what I learned through my research and through clients and through my own health, um, yeah, uh, if it was one thing, then everyone would be healthy, exactly. Um, if it was one thing, then we, our biomechanics, uh would work. I obsess and say you know, um, we're a machine, right, and each part of the machine in our life needs needs to be fixed or it needs to be, like, um, oiled. Uh, and your lungs are just a big part of that, and I think it's when you let go of one part or some part of it, and that's why I obsess with that whole health, and you do too. You obviously see that when someone says that their thing is the thing, sometimes I lean back and pause and say, okay, I'll let them sit with it. All right, enough on me, let's chat further.

Speaker 2: 9:11

But it's interesting because when you say, they think their thing is the thing. But I think when you first learn about something and you're very evangelizing about it, it's understandable why they think that is the one thing.

Speaker 1: 9:23

But then as you learn more, I think it's part of it.

Speaker 2: 9:26

I mean it's definitely breathwork, without a doubt, is phenomenal, necessary necessity yeah, yeah, but as you get, as the deeper you go, and then the more you start to yeah, because everything is so interconnected and you start to discover this and that and and how that helps and that helps and that helps, and then you just become more open-minded about the whole thing.

Speaker 1: 9:49

I think yeah, oh my god, totally I am. I've been getting into even more about the longevity conversation, um, and, and how to really look at like their bodies, like in the most scientific but yet um, like mechanical way too, you know and how we can kind of like, but then in, but it's like I can't do any of that without a spiritual aspect too.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Like, so talk to me more, so tell me what um your journey from with your family, the cancer, and then your journey into breath work, and then you got into this functional medicine nutrition side. What made you go into that side?

Speaker 2: 10:31

the more I I mean I became. I was reading about 100 books a year at one point and I have been for the last few years and I was reading a lot around nutrition and various areas of health and and I started seeing a functional medicine doctor. Probably for the last seven years now I've been seeing a functional medicine doctor, so I was very bought into the whole thing. And and then I discovered functional medicine, health coaching and I was already looking to. You know i've'd been working as a DJ for a long time. I was looking for I can't DJ forever, much as I would love to, but what is going to be my next thing? What is it I'm going to do?

Speaker 2: 11:16

And as I was kind of educating myself more and more in various aspects of the health and became a breathwork coach, and then people were coming to me asking me for help on different things and initially I was helping, became a breathwork coach, and then people were coming to me asking me for help from different things and initially I was helping them with breathwork, but that was leading into me giving them, trying to help them around nutrition and sleep and stress. And then I thought, okay, I think I need to do this properly. I need to take some courses to become qualified in some of these areas. So I took the course with the functional medicine coaching Academy and the nutrition coaching course and so on. You know that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I can definitely see where they I mean, they're the interconnectedness and how you kind of wanted to like build on that and then for yourself. At this point, however, have you applied a lot of your teachings for yourself and then, and then how has it been for your clients?

Speaker 2: 12:06

Yeah well, teachings for yourself and then and then, how has it been for your clients? Yeah well, it was. One of the things I found quite interesting was I was as I was learning, you know. So I got to to the stage where I I had a reasonable knowledge on nutrition and breath, work and sleep and and some other areas, and then, when I was helping people, there was something missing. But I couldn't, it wasn't obvious what it was at first, and I discovered the missing piece of the puzzle as such when I discovered the tiny habits methodology.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Tiny habits, yes, so yeah, I mean I'm, I talk about mindful ways every day Like that's my my thing, but I feel like that, yeah, when you make a habitual thought, did you read the atomic habits by? Um, you're talking about habits or tiny habits?

Speaker 2: 12:49

I've read the book tiny habits and then I became a tiny habits coach. So I actually with, so I worked with the author of the book, uh, bj fog, and became the time you have its coach, and that was the missing piece. Piece because then I was able to help people to change their habits around their breath, work and yeah, get them into their to change their behavior exactly, yeah, awesome yeah, no, I mean it all is, it all comes together because it's really having them identify what is you know going on.

Speaker 1: 13:20

That's great, that's really cool. But I mean I know that you've done all of these different coaching things, but in different classes, but I feel like you've probably kind of come on, come with your own, you know flair, your own thing for patients. You know what I mean For clients. Sorry, all right, you know, even though you've learned from all these different people, you kind of made your own, your own thing.

Speaker 2: 13:41

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Yeah, what um? What do you think you?

Speaker 2: 13:49

has been the most profound teaching for you. Well, I think the thing that sticks out is I I've been reading a lot of philosophy in the last few years as well, and there was it's not. Well, I suppose it's not strictly philosophy, but there's a guy called vict Frankl who wrote a book called um. I mean um, oh God, I forgot that now, life meaning philosophy, not the meaning of life. It's something similar to that, and I forgot the title. It'll probably come back to me in a minute, but he was a um, a prisoner in the auschwitz concentration camps during the second world war and was subject, subjected to all sorts of brutality and saw death and everything every day, and one of the quotes that is attributed to him is um.

Speaker 2: 14:36

There's a space between stimulus and response, and in that space is the room for our growth and freedom, and that is such. It's so deep and it's just something that I come back to again and again. I first came across that about seven years ago and it just. I've now working on making that space bigger because before I, like most people, used to have a default response to things. Something would happen, I'd immediately get angry. Something would happen I immediately maybe get stressed, or I'd meet. It'd always be the default response, you know.

Speaker 1: 15:10

I call it pause, mindfulness, you know, and then it depends upon what spiritualness for you is. But as you grow in that space or understanding your, whatever your inner voice is, it will, it'll come, and sometimes it may be really big paw, a really big space, and sometimes it may be small, depending upon what your needs are.

Speaker 2: 15:31

But once you actually, once you're aware of it and you can start working on it. And so now my, the pause is much bigger and I have, I'm, I'm able to develop that pause. So then I can think what do I want my reaction to be, rather than having a default reaction.

Speaker 1: 15:48

And it's challenging. That's a lot, you know.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, so I'm much calmer than I. I mean, I've always been quite laid back, but I'm much calmer now. Um, and I'm, there's nothing weird.

Speaker 1: 16:01

It's almost impossible to offend me because I don't, I won't take offense at anything you know, that's cool I have a choice yeah, you have a choice to kind of be observant of that um feeling, whatever that is, or and such um. I think that's where that um it it's. It takes time to like observe that in ourselves. But in addition to that, I think, as you're saying, that you, as in the health and nutrition space, you're letting people know that you can't just get to that mindful, like moment without like observing these other parts you know, and then the and the habits. But it it's doable because you can do it.

Speaker 1: 16:41

We can do it a little bit at a time if you want to work on it, you can do it, but most people don't want to work on it or some people yeah, um, or they're just not ready, right well, there's a time you have to be yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, you're right, some people don't want to work on it, um, or it takes some sort of dramatic event to change absolutely yeah, so how would can those like reach you first off? Like, what tip, would you like to leave those in the audience? Um?

Speaker 2: 17:15

there's so many, I think, on the breath work thing. I would think, because breath work is so so few people seem to know about it.

Speaker 1: 17:23

It's getting bigger but it's still quite small I'm a yogi, so that's the only they got into my yeah, um, in my training wise, but I I think it becomes. It's so very important. I could not agree with you more, but tell me what, where, or or a little something that you'd like to.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Well, what I was going to say about breath work is it's really important to think about. Are you breathing through your nose or through your mouth? And if you're breathing through your mouth, you probably don't have as much energy as you could and look at ways that you can change from breathing through your mouth to breathing through your nose. It will help you in so many ways.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I love that. I want to ask you, being that you are very much into breathwork as a marathon runner, as a runner, did it improve your running? Well, when I ran a marathon, it was years before I knew anything about breath, work because that was 20 years ago I did the marathon gotcha, gotcha, or when you're running or you don't run as much I mean well, now I'm, I do a lot of exercise and movement, um, and now I do everything with breath in mind.

Speaker 2: 18:32

So it takes a long time for me to get out of breath now, because I I know how to use my breath effectively.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Awesome. That's. That's really. That's a really good point, because it it takes you to like that other, you know and you have, do you have more clarity?

Speaker 2: 18:46

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Very cool. So how can those reach you?

Speaker 2: 18:53

My website is tinywinyardcom and there's various I mean, so I've got a podcast, uh called habits and health habits and health awesome um and I do workshops which are habit and health workshops.

Speaker 2: 19:07

I at the moment I've got a few work. I do some live and I do some online. I'm doing three regular workshops at the moment. One is helping people sleep, which is called a sleep better lab. It's a stressless workshop. And there's the men's health club, where I'm specifically helping men with health issues, because men are so bad at reaching out for help. So it's um that's so good.

Speaker 1: 19:29

I mean, yeah, they, they're afraid to like say, hey, what's going on, right?

Speaker 2: 19:33

yeah, this whole macho thing, and I know.

Speaker 1: 19:36

I mean I'd say like my husband's, I mean, I guess, because he's, you know, attached me, like, so I always talk about something. Eventually he finally like, I guess years later he was like oh wait, I you talked about that, right? Yeah, let's chat. So then. Yeah, but you're right, I do think, um, the men, you know, are more afraid to ask for help. Women are like hey, what's going on, what do I do? I also think men are more willing, once they do ask for help, are more willing to take actionable steps. And I mean I know I'm being a generic side on that, but overall that once they're ready, they're like they're ready. Us women, we take a little bit longer sometimes.

Speaker 2: 20:20

I mean, I think, because women are so much better at communicating and speaking of each other and you've got your groups, the guys, when we have our groups, but we're just talking about sport or music or we're not really talking about you know, the real stuff, yeah no, it's okay, but hey, whatever gets it in.

Speaker 1: 20:37

Um, I really appreciate you being on the show. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss or um to chat with us before we go?

Speaker 2: 20:43

um, no, I. I just think anyone who's list what anyone's listening clearly knows about integrative medicine. That's why they're listening to your show. But if there's a chance, a couple of people who aren't familiar with integrative or functional medicine do some research, go and find out about it. Find out your nearest practitioner. Once you can start taking a proactive attitude to health rather than a reactive attitude, your whole life will change.

Speaker 1: 21:12

I love that tip. Once you can take a proactive approach instead of reactive, that is beautifully said. Can't wait to have you on again and thanks again. So much for your time.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Dan. I appreciate it and thank you guys for listening in and make sure you find a mindful way each and every day.