Oxygen Advantage

James Cannings “Kids are growing up and are now coming into the workforce. And in another ten years they're gonna make up a big part of that workforce and they're angry.”In this week’s episode, Patrick and Daniel are joined by James Cannings, Sustainability Officer for advertising firm MSQ. James was the co-founder of MMT digital which he grew from a staff of 3 to over 100.The company was acquired by MSQ where James now serves as Sustainability Officer. While much of his focus is on external environmental sustainability, he also points to the importance of internal sustainability as regards our own health and wellbeing.James explains how he is role is a much newer one to the corporate world and is constantly evolving. Currently his focus is on environmental sustainability but he admits he has a “deep fascination” with broader sustainability across the supply chain, the workforce and beyond. He points out that the future for sustainability may be very positive thanks to a younger generation that are more concerned about their health and wellbeing and have seen what previous generations have done to the environment.James also takes us through his own internal sustainability journey as he turned to yoga and better eating in his 30s as the pressure of selling his company lead to poor health and eating habits. It's a journey he says he could not have made without the help of his wife Em.For more on the Oxygen Advantage visit www.oxygenadvantage.com.Or check out Season 1 of the podcast athttps://open.spotify.com/show/5XTS4B3ODaEfsbNOBmYb6d.

“If you are terrified of vulnerability, best of luck having mental toughness.”This week on the OA podcast Patrick and Daniel are joined by author, coach and mentor Todd Herman who trains and educates professional athletes, leaders, and public figures on performance, strategy, mind-set, and execution.Starting a peak performance and coaching service in 1997, Todd has been closely involved in the field ever since. Despite struggles starting his business, the Canadian was able to build a strong, successful company and built a very large collection of clients across the sporting world, even to the point where he was working with different people in over 85 separate sports.Leveraging this expertise into developing his own method for boosting athletic performance and into releasing his bestselling book ‘The Alter Ego Effect’, Todd has seen his success just grow from there.He speaks to Patrick and Daniel about how he has started to bring breath work into his teaching and how he helps give athletes the tools they need to prepare mentally and find consistency.

“This is an amazing new planet you are landing on.”This week on the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by Finnish ice swimmer Magnus Appelberg to discuss his new book, ‘Ice-cold piece of mind’ and his incredible journey through the freezing world of ice baths and ice swimming.He outlines how he trained himself to calm the body’s natural panic state when entering freezing cold water and used it to develop his ‘Ice Lab Method’.Similarly, he explains how he uses his exercises to train the body’s ‘fight or flight’ reaction to ice cold water and how learning to control this reaction and reach a certain level of relaxation can have huge benefits for our health.

“Stress is not just ok, stress is essential.”This week on the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by Swedish Army Captain Niclas Wisén to speak about how breathing has become an essential part of his life both in and out of the military. A psychologist and captain in the Swedish Armed Forces with over 10 years’ experience, Niclas has been involved in the training and selection of new recruits for much of his time in the military. During this time, he has incorporated breathing as a way of improving performance and coping with stress. He outlines how things like Stress Inoculation Training (SIT) and various breathing techniques can help physically and psychologically in many facets of a soldier’s everyday life and during the rigors of military performance.

“I was not curious anymore.”This week on the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel speak with retired Danish footballer Allan Gaarde to talk about how breathing helped bring back focus, motivation and fitness to his life after a career in football.Allan enjoyed a 14-year career as a player in the beautiful game before transitioning back to the sport post-retirement as Sporting Director of top flight Danish club Aalborg BK. After leaving this post in 2019, Allan found himself ‘tired all the time’, having let a lot of his physical fitness fall by the wayside. He explains how breathing techniques brought additional motivation back into his life and helped him find a healthy balance.

“I would have loved to have discovered [breathing/mindfulness] when I was 25… This would have made a difference for me, for everything else that I did.”In this week’s episode of the Oxygen Advantage podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by former NHL professional, two time Stanley Cup winner and Olympic runner-up Johnny Oduya. Making is way through the Swedish professional scene, Johnny made it to the National Hockey League (NHL), the world leader in ice hockey in his early 20s, reaching an apex in the 2013 and 2015 seasons when he won the league’s highest honour, the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks.Despite his renown as an elite level ice hockey player, the Swede has taken a huge interest in mindfulness and breathing in recent years, leading to the opening of his own ‘HALE’ studios in Sweden. He takes Daniel and Patrick on his journey to finding focus and how important mental focus is for athletes.

“That’s the thing I’ve probably searched for my whole life, that ability to wind down.”In this week’s episode of the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by founder of Conscious Breathing, Anders Olsson as the “Three Breathing Nerds” delve into what started his journey into various breathing techniques and how he has used that knowledge to become a world leader on the subject.Originally looking at breathing techniques such as Buteyko as a way of calming his racing mind, Anders even attended one of Patrick’s old Buteyko workshops in Copenhagen in 2009. “I could notice almost immediately that it gave me a new tool, an ability to unlock the turbo, to slow down.”Anders explains the many trials and tribulations he faced on his journey, including having to sell his house in order to keep pursuing his Conscious Breathing dream, in this engaging and informative conversation with Patrick and Daniel.

“Recovery didn’t really start to speed up until I understood what had happened to me and before I started to change my life in a better way.”In this week’s episode of the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel speak with former professional tennis player and successful businessman Robin Söderling. The Swedish ace started playing professionally in 2001 and reached the top of his field in tennis, playing all over the world and competing in two consecutive French Open finals (2009/2010). His career reached its apex in 2010 when he was ranked world number 4 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). However, in that time he says he was so obsessed with tennis and his performance that it started to negatively affect him mentally. He explains how, his tennis career was sadly cut short in 2012 after he contracted mononucleosis, a persistent illness that prevented him from playing until his eventual retirement in 2015 at just 26. On top of that he suffered regularly from anxiety and panic attacks, starting in 2011. He tells Patrick and Daniel how he was able to use breathing to deal with his anxiety and use the lessons learned to continue to build a successful business career in tennis equipment.

“It was my breathing outside the water that influenced my breathing inside the water.”This week, Patrick and Daniel are joined by multiple World Champion free-diver Karoline Meyer to talk about how breath control has benefited her life and career diving to incredible, World Record-breaking depths, without breathing equipment.The Brazilian national takes us through her training regime and explains how she began using breath control as part of her dive training. She outlines the kinds of complex physical and psychological training and breath control techniques she has utilised to make her a leader in the field.

“Physical fitness is far from everything. You need spiritual, mental and emotional fitness also.”This week on the OA podcast Patrick and Daniel are joined by Anna West, founding board member of the Global Wellness Summit and VP for Six Senses Spa brand of luxury hotels where the message is ‘Integrated wellness’.Anna outlines how she became a wellness pioneer when setting up a series of successful businesses built around health in Sweden and how she used that knowledge to set up the Six Senses brand of luxury hotels with over 30 locations worldwide. She also outlines the chain’s initiatives to reduce its impact on the environment with goals to be plastic free by 2022, bottling their own water to reduce plastic waste and even hosting chicken farms and vegetable gardens on their sites where guests can collect their own ingredients to enjoy a sustainable, farm to table experience.