After dropping out of university Adam started his first digital marketing business from his mother’s hallway aged just 21 and soon went on to found Captify Technologies, a global marketing technology company. Over 10 years, he scaled it to 300 staff across 13 markets and drove revenues to over $60m per year before successfully exiting the business in July 2021. Along the way, the relentless pressure of building a global company began to take a toll on his health — a moment that sparked deep self-reflection. As he explored stress, sleep, and nervous system science, he discovered functional breathwork and realized it could be the key to transforming modern wellbeing. After studying with breath expert Patrick McKeown, Adam launched FivePointFive with a mission to redefine wellness. Today, FivePointFive blends science-backed breathwork, real-time biometrics, and accessible habit design to help people improve stress, sleep, and mental performance — one breath at a time.
After dropping out of university Adam started his first digital marketing business from his mother’s hallway aged just 21 and soon went on to found Captify Technologies, a global marketing technology company. Over 10 years, he scaled it to 300 staff across 13 markets and drove revenues to over $60m per year before successfully exiting the business in July 202
Along the way, the relentless pressure of building a global company began to take a toll on his health — a moment that sparked deep self-reflection. As he explored stress, sleep, and nervous system science, he discovered functional breathwork and realized it could be the key to transforming modern wellbeing.
After studying with breath expert Patrick McKeown, Adam launched FivePointFive with a mission to redefine wellness. Today, FivePointFive blends science-backed breathwork, real-time biometrics, and accessible habit design to help people improve stress, sleep, and mental performance — one breath at a time.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 How breathwork transformed a burned out tech founder into a wellness innovator
😴 Why most of us breathe wrong and how it silently sabotages sleep and stress
😴 What makes breathwork different from meditation (and why results are guaranteed)
😴 The 3 pillars of breathwork: mind, body, and sleep and how they work together
😴 How to use breathwork to shift into parasympathetic calm fast
😴 Why just 3 to 5 minutes of breathwork a day can improve HRV, focus, and sleep
😴 Habit stacking breathwork into real life (walks, treadmill, commute, desk)
😴 How FivePointFive blends guided coaches and wearables for real time feedback
😴 The ideal breath rhythm: 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out
😴 The sleep breathing connection: slow nasal breathing and mouth taping
😴 Simple anxiety reset: short inhales, longer exhales or the “sigh” technique
😴 Why awareness of breathing patterns is the ultimate stress superpower
😴 Breathwork for nighttime wake ups and how to prevent them
😴 How practicing breath control by day improves your nervous system by night
😴 Real stories of people improving insomnia and reducing sleep apnea symptoms
😴 Experience how breathwork can upgrade your sleep, stress, and nervous system, in just a few minutes a day.
Apple App Store (iOS): FivePointFive: Breathwork
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fivepointfive-breathwork/id6469338436
SPONSORS:
🧠 If You “Can’t Turn Your Brain Off” At Night…try a quality magnesium supplement that addresses ALL the necessary forms of magnesium that you need to support calming your nervous system and sleeping deeply. Https://magbreakthrough.com/sleepisaskill
GUEST LINKS:
Website: https://www.fivepointfive.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_fivepointfive/
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/adam-ludwin
DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.
Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.
And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
Welcome to the Sleep as AKI podcast. What if just five minutes of intentional breathing could shift your HRV? Tonight? Our guest, Adam Ludwin, learned that firsthand after scaling Tify Technologies to 300 employees across 13 markets and exiting for over. A hundred million. He reached a point where success began to take a toll on his health.
That turning point led him to study functional breath work with expert Patrick McEwen, reshaping how he approached stress, recovery and sleep with. 5.5 Adam's mission is to make breath work simple, accessible and measurable, helping people reconnect with their bodies and understand how breathing influences performance and rest.
In this episode, we explore how breath work can calm the nervous system, support HRV, and bring more balance to both body and mind, whether you're managing stress. Tracking your sleep or just looking for small daily shifts. This conversation offers a grounded reminder of how something as simple as your breath can change everything.
You can find 5.5 on the app store 5.5 breath work. We are including the link in the show notes to check that out, so we'll jump right into the episode. But first, a few words from our sponsors.
If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep, and one of the first questions people ask me about sleep is what supplement they can take.
One supplement I've consistently taken for ages is magnesium, specifically by optimizer, magnesium breakthrough. It's an all natural. Supplement that helps reduce fatigue, improve sleep quality, and promote peaceful rest. It also strengthens muscles and improves heart and brain function. Most magnesium supplements aren't full spectrum, but magnesium breakthrough contains an optimal ratio of all seven essential types of magnesium.
Now imagine having the strength and energy to get outta bed every morning, face the day boldly, and maintain that energy throughout the day and into the night. If you wanna give it a try, go to buy optimizers.com/sleep as a skill and use the code, sleep as a skill to get gifts with your purchase. And this is a limited time offer, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
And welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. My guest today is zooming in from across the seas to take the time to share all about breath work, stress management, and so much more. So much more we're gonna get into. So Adam, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Yes, absolutely. Maybe we could start kind of at the beginning of how you found yourself at the crux of the helm, of creating these new offerings, these new ways for people to manage their stress, kind of be able to tap into supporting their nervous system, but from a high performance perspective as well, largely, and also in acute situations.
But yeah, maybe you can give us a little bit of the scope of how it all came to be.
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So. My background, I founded a, a technology business, um, about 13 years ago, and I was 23 when I founded it, and I was 33 when I sold it. And we went on a crazy journey, um, because we took that from myself and business partner through to 300 staff globally.
I was traveling the globe. I was in a different country every one to two weeks. Um, and. There's a lot of stress that comes with, you know, managing a business that size and scaling, scaling that quickly. So, uh, for me, I was trying to find tools that could help me be more focused, be more productive, help me sleep, um, and I try a whole, I tried a whole host of tools.
Um, nothing really worked for me. And then I, I was introduced to a, a coach and he asked me if I tried breathwork before. I hadn't, uh, I tried it, um, and I was wowed by the impact that it had, however. I found it, um, very boring to do. I found it very difficult to build into my everyday life. It was just very unpractical.
I didn't have enough minutes and a day to do it. Um, so it kind of stuck with me, but I, I didn't really understand it and I didn't bring it into my everyday life. But in the back of my mind, I knew it was quite powerful. Sure. So when I sold the business, uh, in July 21, uh, I went deep into that world of breath work.
So I actually started reading book after book about breathing, and I started reading a few books from, um, a guy called Patrick. Kone. Mm.
And
he's the number one functional breath expert in the world. Um, so I, I ended up actually, um, reaching out to him after reading his book and saying, I'm, I just exited my company.
I'm looking to do my next thing. I really wanna do it in the world of breath work. It'll be great to meet. He, uh, responded to me saying, I'm really busy right now. Uh, good luck with it. So, um, a few months had passed and I kind of fleshed out, um, the idea a bit more. I reapproached him and I said, Hey, like, this is how I want to take these kind of breathing techniques and all the expertise that I'm kind of learning and bring that to the world in a very cool, unique way.
I would love to chat. Um, and once I kinda shared my vision with him about what that looked like, I got a response just saying, let's talk. I'm free Wednesday. I love that. So, so I started to, uh, speak with Patrick and I started studying with Patrick. So I studied, uh, the biomechanics, the biochemistry, the psychophysiological dimensions of breath work, essentially understanding why breath work has the impact it does on us from a science perspective.
And, uh, and the more I kind of dug deeper, the more fascinated I became, and I realized there was a way of bringing this to the world in a very unique way that was, you know, data-driven, uh, based on, uh, your own biometrics, based on what you need at anytime, the moment. Um, and that could benefit you across your multitude of, of areas.
Um, but really kind of honing in on, on sleep, uh, body and mind. So sleep from kind of a, a general sleep perspective, enhancing your sleep quality. Um. From a body perspective, performance, uh, increasing your performance, everything from VO two max to HRV, uh, increasing your recovery, uh, increasing your health, uh, and, and building your immunity.
And from a mind perspective, being more focused, more productive. Uh, managing stress. Managing anxiety, obviously. All these kind of three things. Mind, body, and sleep are intertwined. If your mind's bad, your sleep's bad. If your sleep's bad, your body's bad. If your body's bad, your sleep and your mind's bad.
Yes. So we really wanted to focus on the key three areas and then give, uh, individuals that, uh, are using the app, which is, you know, I, it became to be 5.5, uh, the opportunity to not just understand from a metric perspective what's going on, but give them. Content that they can use at any moment in time to get the impact that they're looking to, to achieve.
Mm. So be that for a mind class of what is class or a sleep class. Uh, and that's kind of how it, how it all started. So we started building the company about, uh, almost three years ago now. Uh, but we only launched it in December and yeah, it's been, yeah, a crazy period of growth, especially over the last three, four months.
Wow. Well thank you so much for providing that context. And I love what you said too about the interaction of these different areas of life. 'cause we'll hear that sometimes where people will say, oh, no, no, no. It's not like a a thought thing. It's in my nervous system. Your nervous system has become quite a buzz term.
Recently and so many people, oh well I need to work on somatics and what have you, and so much value, and yet forgetting that the thoughts impact things, but then also forgetting how we're breathing impacts things and you know, so how these things all interconnect or vice versa. So I love that you're speaking to that from such a holistic lens.
And so maybe learning a little bit like what did you see as a missing in the current market? And so to inspire you. To take all of these actions and kind of paint a picture for what you've created, kind of looks like.
There's probably two key parts of that. Um, the first is from a content perspective, we found that, um.
If you go to like breathwork apps, you get the same old thing time and time again. You get this circle that gets bigger saying Inhale circle gets smaller. Saying exhale.
Yes. You
know, and, and you know, we really want to make sure that we could guide users, you know, guide them through, uh, how to, how to sit, how to stand, how to breathe correctly.
So that was kind of the first thing. So actual guided coaches. Um, and then separately, we really wanted to give more control to, to users, to give them, uh, music a more variety or a bigger variety of music that allowed them to enjoy the sessions more. So that was from a kind of a content perspective, making it kind more immersive, more enjoyable.
And then from the other side, it was around. The measurement perspective. Um, so I wanted it to be integrable with all major wearables so you can plug it in and actually measure the effect of your breathwork session. So what we can do at the moment, um, is uh, you can plug in, um, your wearable and you can actually track your heart rate live in class.
And then off the back of the class, uh, you'll get, uh, coach feedback, uh, actually analyzing your performance based off your biometrics. What did you do well? What could you do better next time? And so actually giving valuable feedback so people can. Better their performance and better the results that they're getting, uh, from their, their breathwork routines.
Um, so yeah, they were the two parts. It was really kind of evolving the content side of what exists within the breathwork world and then bringing in the measurement perspective, uh, to ensure that not only can you measure the success of a class, but also understand what you need at any moment in time and be recommended the classes that you best need.
Uh, 'cause we know wearables. Have amazing data, right? And, and they're great, but you know, the problems are, you dunno why something's happened and the effect that it's had. Yeah. And you dunno what to do about it when you do see kind of these data points change. So we want to take that information and actually do something valuable with it and give you a class that's fitting based off those biometrics.
Speaking of those biometrics, one of the things that we're seeing, interestingly, so for instance, or ring and whoop now offer daily stress measurements, and they both kind of speak to it using that term stress. And ironically, we're seeing people getting used. Stressed out about these numbers that they're seeing for themselves, and I'm curious if you would have suggestions for people if they are seeing that those stress numbers, one, to kinda make sense of that, but two, are there ways that then they could.
Kind of pull from your offerings to help learn to manage kind of both the objective stress measurements that we're seeing on wearables like that, but also of course our subjective experience of our physiological and psychological stress. Maybe kind of walking us through that.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think the first thing, and the most important thing for everything is awareness.
So whether you get that awareness from metrics or you get that awareness from just yourself, um, that's the come first thing that you need to make sure that you're on top of. And, you know, so we, we as, uh, humans. We breathe in a dysfunctional way. Yeah. And that dysfunctional way that we breathe is based on the stresses of life.
So rather, if you can be aware of your stress or be aware of your breathing, you can fix that in a moment. Your body doesn't know the difference between if you are actually in a kind of a, a, a scary, dangerous situation, or you're thinking of a scary, dangerous situation.
Yes. Um,
so, so you bring that awareness and you can start to change your breath patterns and therefore.
Take away the physiological. Damaging effects, the toxic effects that you are creating for your body, uh, high cortisol levels and all these issues that come from just you being stressed. Yeah. So that's kind of the first thing is, okay, well in that moment, how am I breathing? Am I breathing through my mouth?
When I should be breathing through my nose? Am I breathing upper chest when it should be lower from the diaphragm? Am I breathing short, sharp breaths, which we often do in a stress state, uh, versus, you know, long, deep inhalations, uh, and exhalations. So they're the things to be aware of. And if you can start to.
Shift that pattern. You'll start to be in control of your mind, in control of your body, but more importantly, you know you are stopping the negative damaging effects of that stressful state that you've created.
Got that. Okay. And then both for yourself and for many of the users and people that you've worked with and that are coming through and utilizing these tools, have you seen kind of a recommended flow that would make sense to start having this.
Be a way of life for people, kind of a protocol or what they could think about as if people are like, ah, who's got time for breath work? Who's got time for this X, Y, and Z? Like, what does it look like? Are we talking hours, minutes every day? Yeah. What do we see?
Absolutely. So the key thing for us was making it easily integrated with people's lives.
So you take me for example. I go to the gym five mornings a week. I do my breath work when I'm on the treadmill. So I am I in that moment, I'm increasing my carbon dioxide tolerance, my lung capacity. Um, I've activated my diaphragm. I'm doing all these things within my gym routine already. Really. So we have a lot of sessions you can do when you're walking and going places, which is Oh, love that.
Which, that's a really good way to do that. Yes. Um, separate to that. We also have, you know, sessions, um, that you can do, you know, people think like breath work, I'm gonna look really weird doing it, right? Yes. So I can't do the subway. Yeah, I can't do it in my office. But we kind of actually have collections that you can do whereby you can focus on, okay, I want to do this on the subway without looking weird.
I want to do this at my desk without people staring at me. Um, so we've built that collections to make sure it's integratable into people's everyday lives easily. Uh, that being said, from a sleep perspective. A lot of people just, uh, do like to do that. Like maybe like we recommend half an hour or so, maybe an hour before bed because you're transitioning your state and it's really good to kind of get that in the state rather than just, you know, some people obviously just like to do it and just send them off to sleep very quickly.
Um, so the techniques that we would use would be similar to what, you know, um. Uh, like the army would use in a war zone, you know, they're kind of trained to really kind of push that parasympathetic, uh, system, um, so that you are forcing yourself to relax. And the great thing about breath work is it's unlike meditation or anything whereby you are guaranteed the effect, if you just follow the instructions, you're guaranteed the effect because it's just science, right?
Versus if someone said, you know, before going to bed, like, do some mindfulness meditation, the physiological effects will be different based off who you are. How deep you're going into that meditation. But typically the physiological benefits that come from that meditation is from how you're breathing.
Just like when you listen to a fast song versus a slow song. If you listen to a slow song before bed, you'll be breathing slower, activating a parasympathetic nervous system, and then you are likely to drift off. Versus if you listen to a fast song, your breathing will be faster. Um, and therefore you are activating your sympathetic, uh, which is the opposite of what you wanna be activating before bed.
So that's kind of, you know, uh, uh, uh, kind of a big factor for us as well.
I love that. I haven't heard it said like that. So to underscore that point, so you're basically guaranteed that result, that tapping into that parasympathetic response, if you just show up and do the work as far as guiding, being guided by the app or the prompts and what have you, so we can know that we're carving out this time, but we're going to get this response versus it's, we might.
Hope that that goes that way. If we sit down to meditate or what have you. It's not to discount one or the other, but to your point, I think that's really great for us to know and I love that you pointed to that. For you, you're doing this while you're are kind of stacking, I'm a big fan of stacking where possible.
Yeah. How is
stacking is a big thing for us. Really interesting
for us. Yeah. Yeah. So you said you're doing it on the treadmill. I'm wondering 'cause we have a lot of clients. From a circadian perspective, we're trying to get people outside as much as possible, you know? So anyone watching this video, I have my whole office set up outside.
For better or for worse. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes it's like birds and wind and rain and whatever, but you know, so it takes something to be outside more routinely. So one of the things that we'll have people do, right, is. Daily walks as much as possible. So they could be stacking this in, maybe starting out their day, ending their day, but that they know, okay, I always get my walk in.
I get my kind of connection to the rhythms of nature. Circadian kind of light habits are check, check, check. And now where managing our nervous system with that stacking of the breathing methods that you are helping to guide people through.
Absolutely. Yeah, a hundred percent. I, I think for us that's been kind of a, a big thing in the app.
Like people have been kind of doing this and, and it's interesting because yes, we have sleep sessions, but bearing in mind the mind, body and sleep connection. So if you are doing. Those body classes,
yes,
you're still going to see an effect of your sleep. Now some people do one a day, some people do a few times a week.
Some people do a few times a day. Um, you know, a lot of people do choose to do, like we have, a lot of people do it morning and night. Yes. Because they, they want kind of a good sleep, but they also wanna start their day. Right. And, you know, uh, that, that obviously kind of creates kind of a, a lot of benefits when you do it at the start of the day as well.
So it really does depend. And sometimes it's situational, right? So, you know, people are, are in a stressful situation at work or they've got a big meeting they need to be more focused for, or they're training for a marathon or you. You know, they're, they're, they've just done a workout and they're stretching and they wanna do, you know, wanna again, like habit stack and do their breathing whilst they're stretching to circulate, you know, more oxygen to their, to their muscles and tissues more efficiently.
So all of these things kind of are, are, are, are benefiting in some form and then, you know, you can always like double down that sleep aspect for sure.
Oh, that's great. Okay. Amazing. And then any other noteworthy things that we missed about kind of what's getting created on the app or the protocols or the system or how, you know, some of Patrick's work is unique?
Anything that we didn't cover as far as the app is concerned?
There are hundreds of different ways to breathe. Yeah. We use a lot of Patrick's work, uh, which is Sure. Uh, amazing. Um, but, um, you know, there there's also a lot of different, like amazing experts and techniques that are kind of also utilized. Um, the key thing is, you know, when you kind of come into the app, you've got beginner, beginner, plus intermediate and advanced.
You know, some people they'll be like, really fit and they, they think they're advanced and they'll be a beginner. And some people, yeah, they, they think they're a beginner and they'll be more intermediate or advanced. You know, we kind of suggest that you kind of, you start off as a beginner and just see how you get on.
Like any exercise, the more you do it, you know, the faster you'll see benefits and the more benefits you'll see. Um, so naturally, you know, we often look at VO two, max H hrv, sleep quality, resting heart rate. Um, so they're things we're kind of really measuring and ensuring that, you know, we can give you kind of the most fitting classes that are gonna create the best impact on those metrics.
Very cool. Okay, fantastic. Well, one thing we've seen is that often people really like learning from the person that comes on as far as, 'cause you know, clearly they've thought a lot about health and wellbeing and by extension sleep in their particular areas. So we do ask every person that comes on for questions and we kind of are able to go in more deeply on each one to extract what we can learn.
So the first question that we ask everyone is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?
So I'm working like, uh, quite a lot of hours at the minute, but, but I, I have like a routine that I, I am in bed by usually nine 30. Okay. Um, and yeah, I, I have young children, so, so the key thing for me is that like.
My non-negotiables are seven hours sleep every night.
Um,
so I have, uh, magnesium before I go to bed as well, about half an hour, uh, to an hour beforehand. Um, I, I'm, I kind of start to do, sometimes I do breath work with my wife. She loves the app and she uses most nights as well. Um, but, you know, often kind of, um, I, I am so I do my breath work typically in the morning.
Yeah. But if I feel, and sometimes, you know, if I'm working late. You need that transitional moment, right? Sure. I need to tell my body, okay, it's time to relax now. So sometimes if I've worked till late, up until like going to bed, which can often happen, I'll kind of switch to do kind of like a, a nice calming breathwork session, usually like three minutes or something.
Uh, and it just kind of sends me into the nice state that kind of, you know, I'm, I'm asleep in minutes. Mm-hmm. Um, so for me that works really well. Um. I also, I, I, I dunno if you spoke about much on the podcast previously, but I mouth tape every night.
Sure. Yeah. So
for me, yeah, that's, um, that's, you know, for, it's obviously kind of huge benefits of, of mouth taping and nasal breathing.
Yeah. Um, but, but when I do my breath up beforehand, I'm setting up my body of how to. Breathe throughout the night. Um, 'cause obviously all of our, you know, all of our exercises are ma are mainly kind of through the nose, in and out the nose anyway. Sure. So I'm kind of setting the pattern and then taking that through the night, which also kind of enhances my sleep quality.
So, uh, I, I'm up early. Um, I'm usually up at like 5:00 AM Uh, I have three young kids. Um, yes, they make it known that they're awake. Um, so, so yeah, I'm usually, I'm usually up, uh, five, between five and five 30. Um, I, I'm up every morning and then I'm, I'm in the gym by, uh, 6 30, 6 45.
Oh my gosh. Perfect. You kind of let us into your morning sleep routine.
Mm-hmm. With the idea that how we start our day can impact our sleep later that night. So we would see you waking up quite early routinely with the kids and what have you, and then getting yourself into the gym.
Yeah, absolutely. And then I would always do my breath work in the gym. So, so I'd go on the treadmill, do five minutes, plug in 5.5.
Um, and, and that's kind of like, again, like my non-negotiable, like every morning I have to do that. Only Monday to Friday. I don't do it on weekends. Um, okay. Yeah, so it's a Monday to Friday. 'cause I don't get a chance to go. That's the thing about habit stacking, right? Like yes. When you habit stack, if you don't do one thing, you lose the other thing.
Uhhuh. But for me, totally, I find that, I find that, you know, five, five times a week, like really kind of gives me everything I need and I, I, you know, I, no matter what I go through in life or, and no matter how stressful situations can be, I feel very balanced. And if I take one or two of those days away.
I'll feel it and I have feel it before because I've been injured or stuff happened. Sure,
yeah. And
you, and you do, you do feel it.
But it's so encouraging too to hear that you can get such great results from, I mean, really we're not talking about wild investment in time or energies or what have you. It's feels quite reasonable to just have a few minutes, five times a right.
Yeah, absolutely. All the studies, you know, they're not like hour long breath work sessions every day, right? The studies are all five to 10 minutes a day. Um, everything from stress management through to VO two max increases v to through to HRV. You know, we've seen huge increases, uh, in all these kind of metrics, just from five minutes a day, usually five times a week, uh, sometimes seven times a week.
But that depends on the study.
Okay, so to underscore again, for all those people that are saying, ah, my HRV is low help, I want to improve my HRV, we can presumably support the modulation of our HRV by adding in breath work. Would you say there's. Different kind of almost like an accordion model based on what people are dealing with.
If they have some acute stressors, would you suggest a bit more? Is it hard to say?
It's impossible to say because everyone's different. Sure. Um, so truth is everyone should be breathing differently. Everyone should be breathing at different times of day. Okay. Everyone should be breathing for different lengths.
Um, so, so yeah, it, it's very hard to say, but you know, the idea is that. We have kind of a core AI engine at, at, at the core of our technology. So the more sessions someone does, the more we can understand their own biometrics, um, and then, um, not going too far in the future. Yeah. But essentially ensuring that they're getting exactly what we need at any moment in time is, is, you know, where we're kind of really focused on right now from a product perspective.
Great. Okay. Very cool. No, it's super encouraging and such a common thing that people will say when they are starting to track their sleep and using these different wearables is concern around their HRV and often looking for ways in which they can support transforming that. But many experts that have come on the podcast have spoken to one of the most clear and direct ways that you can impact HRV is how you're breathing.
And it's not to say that it's the only way, and of course there's many, many. Things that will impact HRV, but as far as like immediacy. Yeah, that's such a powerful one. So really great.
And that's why we put HRV in the app as well. And, um, yes. Yeah, we are, we, we, we are with certain wearables. You would have the opportunity to, uh, track your HRV live in class as well.
As
well as
heart rate. So, so you can actually see it change before your eyes like so, which is a pretty powerful thing.
That is a powerful thing. That's great. Okay. Very cool. And then the third question would be, what might we visually see on your nightstand or in your sleep environment?
So you'll see my mouth tape.
Mm-hmm. But you, you, you'd also see, um, earplugs, um, so if it gets to a certain point in the night, uh, where. Kind of certain noises, children or, you know, like nighttime noises. Yeah. And I want, and I haven't had enough sleep then kind of sometimes I'll, I'll put the kind of earplugs in as well. Um, and, um, yeah, that, that's it really kind of like mouth tap earplugs.
Again, don't, don't use it that often, but sometimes I, my wife will be like, Hey, like, maybe you kind of have like, uh, a little lion or, uh, vice versa. I'll give her a line. Totally. We, we we're very conscious of. Like having enough sleep between us, you know? Oh, great. Because it obviously makes us, you know, better parents as well.
Sure. And more present and all these things. So if one of us like had like a bit of a rough night, then we're like, we might put the earplugs in and like the other one would take them down. So yeah, I could often be downstairs with the kids, playing with them at like 5 30, 4 to six in the morning.
Oh wow.
That's, I love that you do the kind of trade off and handoff and sounds like a real partnership over there. That's fantastic.
Well, as you know, sleep is so crucial. So, uh, so yeah,
absolutely a hundred percent and yes, and new and kind of young parents often are really present to that for sure. And I can't speak personally 'cause I don't not have kids, but based on what we see come through Absolutely.
Can be a, really a time for gratitude for sleep. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, it changed everything. I, I, I used to be like eight hours religiously. Now I'm seven hours. Religiously, yes. But when I do have like eight hours plus, I'm like. I'm almost like in a daze. 'cause I'm, 'cause I'm, uh, I've, I've had like more sleep, uh, and I know nobody needs it.
But, um, you know, yeah. As you know, like it gets used to kind of certain, certain body clocks.
A hundred percent. Oh my goodness. Okay. And then the last question is, what would you say so far to date has made the biggest change to the management of your sleep? Or said another way, maybe biggest aha moment in managing your sleep.
I mean, uh, I'm not just saying this. Yeah.
Yes. But,
but my, my, my breathing right?
Yes.
Um. Because when you start to focus on your breath, everything else melts away. So essentially like if you breathe out more than you breathe in, you're activating your parasympathetics nervous system, which is what you ought be activating before sleep.
So when you have these racing thoughts, you know, at nighttime your breath pattern changes. Mm-hmm. So if you bring the attention back to your breath. Even just doing, like, if, even if you're not in class and you're just doing okay, like, you know, like I, I, my, my breath pattern's changing. And then you're just kind of focus on, you know, maybe four in, eight out, or, you know, four in four hold, four out.
Yes. You know, uh, or, or all these different, there's, there's loads of different techniques, but essentially as long as you're breathing out more than you're breathing in.
Yeah.
Um, and usually through your nose as well, um, or through your nose. Then, you know, you're gonna be activating that. And if you're focused on your breathing, you are not focused on your mind as well.
Um, so yeah, for me that was just a game changing moment. Like, um, so now like I, I genuinely can fall asleep in, in, in minutes less even I feel less than minutes. 'cause I'll just, I'll just, I'll switch the focus to my breath. Sure. So, so that for me was by far the biggest game changer. And ob obviously what I'm saying is scientifically proven.
Sure. Um, but, um, but you know, it's, it's, it's just for me, like I, I really struggled when I was running my previous business. I really struggled with sleep and I would like be up in the night, um, and, you know, just I could be up for an hour, an hour and a half in the night and just not be able to get back to the sleep.
Sure. Totally unaware that of how I was breathing back then. He said, you know, we're going back a few years ago Sure. And not realizing, realizing why. I couldn't get back to sleep and all these things. And as soon as you start to, you know, learn, okay, well, it's actually linked to how you're breathing.
Mm-hmm. I wa I was activating my sympathetic state in my sleep.
You know, and that's obviously
kind of a dangerous thing to do. Um, and you know, the, the issues that that causes from a health perspective is, is terrible. Uh, and I started to see a lot of those kind of, uh, consequences that came from forced sleep.
Broken sleep.
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of the things we often say is that how we are by day gets mirrored in our nights. And so I love that it's not as if, like, you're certainly checking in on your breathing before sleep. And you've been doing that also in the day as well, like starting your day with this awareness.
So, 'cause one of the things that we see when people are acutely dealing with sleep issues is kind of the days just go, ah, you know, just on a kind of cortisol or whatever you have stress. Yeah. A state. And then only when they get up to the time to go to bed, then it's like, oh no, now I gotta go deal with the sleep thing.
Yeah. How do I quickly calm myself down and put all this like pressure on themselves?
A hundred percent. This is such a big thing and, and we can't encourage it more. Mm. Take control of your awareness. Don't get to breaking point. Start doing something your routine. Don't think, 'cause everyone's looking for like a fix in that moment.
And some people, we see it in the stats, right? Some people Sure. They get up in the night and they're using, uh, the breath workout and, you know, and, and you know, like in 5.5 and, and you know, we're like, we're like that, that's a problem. Right. Versus we know if they would've done this like. Know, even four, five times a week, they wouldn't have had that situation in the first place.
Yeah. So take those moments to invest in yourself so you don't get to breaking point. And again, the science says that you won't get to breaking point if you take control of it. And don't get me wrong, like don't take anything away from like traumatic experiences and things that happen and you know, a kid wakes you up at night that that's natural.
But in general, overall, like if you do this proactively. Five minutes, not even, sometimes, even three minutes a day. Um, you'll, you'll see results, you know? So, yeah. I'm, I, I'm, I, I'm I, for us it's about how can we. Make that as, make it as proactive as possible for an individual so they don't get to break in point.
And that's what drove me to build 5.5 in the, in the first place.
Oh, I love that. Oh, thank you for getting that out there into the world. It's so important. And how are you seeing people utilizing the app? 'cause I know you mentioned that. The sleep components of the app are some of the most used. And is it, is most of the kind of time that you're seeing, like right before sleep, during wake up, do you have additional kind of calls?
'cause I hear you, it's, it sounds like you're like trying to educate for people, take the steps beforehand as much as you can to set yourself up for success. But what are we seeing on the app for usage and any kind of additional tweaks that we'd wanna have people make?
Yeah. Um. It's a real mix. Some people do it like significantly, uh, longer before going to sleep.
Sure. And some people do it and they actually just go to sleep. Um, so yeah, I, I, a lot of people do do this in bed. Um, but, you know, there is obviously kind of a, a strong case to say like, just do it like. Earlier on, before you even get to bed. Um, you know, and, and again, everyone's different and everyone has, you know, different biology and physiology and, um, and so they will, everyone will react slightly differently depending on who they are, their environment, you know, their bodies and everything else.
So I wouldn't say there's a right or wrong, but, but realistically, you know, as you know, from like setting, setting, uh, sleep routines, like. You should, you know, like create that transitional moment. Yes. You know, and have like, you know, whether it's, you know, no blue lights and um, and you know, no technology and uh, and dim lights and, you know, kind of no exercise and um, and you know, kind of showering or having a bath for a certain time beforehand.
All these things make a difference to, to set your body into that relaxing state.
Yeah. Um,
so for me personally, you know, I'm always kind of a fan of trying to do it before you. Before you need it. Yes.
Yeah. It was so funny. I was just speaking to a time management and productivity expert and one of the things he was speaking to around and how this all can bleed into your sleep.
He made the just distinction of how your nervous system is right this second is predicated on how you were managing it moments ago, weeks ago. Mm-hmm. Months ago, et cetera, et cetera. And now you're getting to where you are right now. Now, I know that's not rocket science, but I liked the way kind of, it was articulated of, we always have a say and we have the ability to choose something new.
So, and then even if, okay, so now we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle. I know you had mentioned some of your, you know, as. Building big things and businesses and downstream you're like, oh, shees, okay, maybe we're we're overly stressed. Same for me. The start of this entire company was, came from insomnia, burnout, all the things, mismanagement of stress, nervous system, entrepreneurship, et cetera.
So I love the sharing of that. And then the opportunity to, even if we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a situation, then we have the opportunity to kind of course correct right away.
Yeah. And, and there is a, a few really nice techniques when you do, you know, we all can have those stressful moments.
Yeah.
And there's a few techniques that are great to do in those moments. Um, you know, and something that, that I do very often outside of just my breath routine Sure. Is. Is, you know, like a, I do like a triple in inhale and, and an exhale through the mouth. Uh, so it's kinda like a physiological side made famous by Andrew
Goman.
Of course. Yeah. I, which is a
double inhale. Um, and, and exhale through the mouth. Um, but yeah, so I would do, you know, three in inhales. Through the nose, like really maxing it out and then kind of a, a, a really kind of sire relief. Mm-hmm. And I'll do just a couple of those that could be like, if I'm stressed, driving kids crying, you know, like, oh yeah, normal things happening.
These moments happen. But you know, what's really important is, again, the awareness, you know, like trigger, okay. Like I'm breathing in a stressful state. I, I, I can feel it. I'm obviously. Very used to kind of being in touch with what's going on. So, you know, I can, uh, I can, I can feel how I'm breathing and in that moment I'll just quickly snap out of it and, and I'm back to being present, being myself and not being kind of wound up by, you know, yes.
Uh, the environment that you find yourself in.
Wow. Okay. So, and you suggest, certainly to your point, Andrew Huberman has shared all the research and science on how the physiological side can have a lot of impact in a relatively short period of time. So have you found that that triple technique can maybe even maximize even beyond what we might see there with the physiological side?
Yeah, I, I mean, I guess it depends how well you're doing the physiological sigh.
Okay.
Because, because. There's always kind of a, a bit more room to max out a bit more. Sure. So when you are kind of really maxing out, you are, you are trigger triggering, uh, these air sets called aveoli in your, in your, um, lungs.
So by triggering those, you are awake these little air pockets that are unutilized. So the more you can get, the better it is going to be. So if you are really maxing out your double inhale, there's probably no need to your triple. But I always know that, you know what, I can get a little bit more in there on top, which kind of guarantees I'm, I'm, you know, hitting that as well.
Okay, real quick. Are you seeing at all? So sometimes, and you know, maybe that's because it's uh, related to sleep, we tend to attract more people that might be running a little anxious or what have you. And sometimes when we are bringing in breath work, meditation, et cetera, that kind of interoception or that looking inward and kind of queuing into even the aware for some people for the first time really starting to be aware of their breathing, it kind of freaks them out where they start getting more stress.
Have you seen any of that or any callouts on how to manage that? If that's something, like for instance, I've had certain people say, oh no, I can't meditate, I can't do breath work. It's not for me. But it makes me all start of thinking even wor more, and ah, and then they just discount it. So I'm just curious if you have a answer to that.
Anxiety is, you know, a serious problem sometimes when it comes to, uh, being logical with how you are breathing. Yes. So could, if you think about a panic attack, right? It's like, yeah. I need to get air in. I need to get air in.
Yeah.
But actually what you should be doing in that moment is the opposite.
Mm.
Right.
So, so, so you should be breathing as slow as possible. Yeah. Not as fast as possible. Because the slower you breathe, the more oxygen is, is hitting your lungs.
Yes.
So, so, so. You know, there is, you kind of lose some logic from it. Um, but, you know, and that, that's why I think it's so important that, you know, like even in the app, we have like sessions for anxiety and you just follow the sequence.
Okay. Even though it might not be logical. For you, like almost like, why would I do a breath hold when I need air right now? Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make sense, but actually that's what you should be doing. It's a bit like exactly the same as, you know, the brown paper bag, where if you're breathing in and out, the reason why you do that is because you're breathing back in your carbon dioxide.
Mm. You know, so you are increasing your carbonide tolerance. You know, so often we have like exercise or it might be covering your nose to kind of replicate that as well. So yeah, it's, um, you know, you have to kind of just really trust that, you know, um, these are designed by, by. The, the, the most senior experts in their field, you know?
Um, and what might be logical to you in that moment? May illogical in reality. Mm-hmm. Um, so just follow those, okay. Follow those instructions, and you will, you will see, like, you cannot have a panic attack if you breathe in a certain way that redirect you. Mm. It can't happen. It can't happen. It's a, it's a, it's opposing breath patterns.
Oh. And so if you follow. Follow that breath pattern, you'll, you, you won't have a panic attack, you know? Um, so yeah, I, I think, um, I, I, I, I, we do see that, and there, there are people when, you know, Patrick has told me about this before, whereby he's taught people and he is guiding them through, um, the, uh, anxiety sessions and it's triggered panic attacks.
Yes. Because they think. Like it, they're not getting enough oxygen, all these things. And, and he's, he said it's happened to him. Obvious he's been teaching breath work for like 23, 24 years. Uhhuh. Yeah. But, but he's seen it happen. So he has to really kind of guide those people. So even though, you know, maybe, you know, four, four seconds in, four seconds out or five seconds in, five seconds out would be great to do.
He might tell those people start off with two seconds in, two seconds out. Now we're gonna move to three seconds in, three seconds out. Because he knows if you go straight to five seconds in, five seconds out, and they're gonna be. Pretty slowly then that's gonna trigger something. And you know, for us, you know, we, we know the optimal breath pattern for any human is five and a half seconds.
In five and a half seconds out. Hence why we're called 5.5.
Yes. Um,
but we are all slightly different. Right. And our optimal breath patterns. Maybe is somewhere between four and a half seconds in and four and a half seconds out and six and a half seconds in six and a half seconds out. So your average is, you know, five and a half seconds.
So we all respond slightly differently and that's why, you know, we'll all see slightly different effects on our HRV and other metrics that we're measuring based on kind of those patterns that we're using.
So good. So good. And I appreciate the, the wisdom from people like Patrick and beyond and being on the ground and seeing how, and you so beautifully pointed to that.
The logic might not always be there when we're in these anxious states. And that's part of the problem. We're not thinking clearly. Uh, and we're just all wound up. So the more that we can, even in those non-stressful periods, and that's the beauty of something like an app in modern day, that in the comfort of your own home and safe environments where you're kind of controlling all the variables that you can begin to practice this and get more and more comfortable.
So even if you are like some of the clients that we've seen or people coming through that are just like, no, I'm an absolute no, just not for me, that this could be an opportunity to kind of reexamine that. Stance and maybe give this a try and to your point, the logic that's there that it just, there's certain things that are just not likely to be able to occur physiologically, like a panic attack if we are starting to build this skill.
You know, we see, we say that sleep is a skill for a reason. Because in our modern society, so many of these things just haven't really, they're certainly not taught often. We're readily accessibly, readily available. We're not seeing it in the masses in the way that we'd like to. So certainly we often have to advocate for ourselves, reach out to people like yourself or other experts to be able to understand how can we bring this into our lives and build this skillset.
I mean, often it's many prongs of the wheel, if you will, of wellbeing. So this is a big one. How we're breathing second to second to second. Did we leave anything out and this big, huge topic of breath, work and sleep?
I could talk for hours. Yes. So, so no, like, uh, you know, we, we covered a, a lot of ground.
Okay. Um, obviously, you know, uh, we released kind of a lot of information on, on breathing. Uh, especially for sleep. You know, we've had, you know, uh, we have a lot of people in the app with suffer with sleep apnea and insomnia. Um, and we've, we've had really nice testimonials back of, of how we've, how they've kind of managed to, to cure those as well, uh, through, uh, through the app.
So, so it's always kind of great to to hear those. Yeah. Um. And we've had people, you know, on cmap machines and coming off them and, um, you know, that's kind of great as well. That being said, you know, we, we wouldn't, we never encourage people to just come off those machines. Sure. You know, and, and do breath work, you know?
Yes. But, um, if you are, you know, do, do kind of bring it in. Um, and certainly kind of people that have had mild to moderate, you know, they've managed to, you know, come off it. You know, we're always kind of very conscious that yeah, everyone's slightly different and, you know, uh, we'd always encourage you kind of do it alongside first and, you know, make sure you're seeing the benefits and then kind of starting to, you know, kind of look at how you can, um, can, uh, move and evolve yourself.
Yes. Oh, so well said. I mean, that's such a big, huge topic is I think for so many people not realizing how dynamic things like sleep apnea are, upper air resistance syndrome, and how much you have a say in that based on how you're breathing and just how much you can reduce the severity of your apnea or symptoms by, you know, kind of handling this by day.
So, love this. And so how can people test out the app? Be connected to the work you're doing, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah. So we're, we're, we're in the US App Store only at the moment. I'm not sure when this is gonna go live, this episode. Okay. But we'll be launching Global imminently. Great. So maybe like it is kind of out there, everyone can try for free as well as a kind of free trial available so you can like test.
It beforehand. Uh, we encourage, you know, if you have a wearable, connect your wearable, like measure the effects for yourself, see the difference. Um, you can follow us, uh, on Instagram 5.5. Uh, that's spelled F-I-V-E-P-O-I-N-T five. Um, so you can kind of follow us and we kind of often try and give as many tips and release all these latest studies around breath work as well.
Um, that, um, yeah, we like to kind of obviously share with the world, so yeah. And for me personally, you know, uh, feel free to, I'm, I'm mainly on LinkedIn, um, but feel free to kinda add me, uh, Adam Ludwin, if anyone wants to connect on there as well. Great. You're always happy to connect, always happy to hear from users and, and you know, we, we, we actually evolve our product based off user feedback.
Mm. Um, so, you know, if you are in the app, you have ideas, we actually have a feature in the app where you can just. Take a screenshot and you, it submits a ticket and you could just send your idea straight to us. And we've had some like amazing feedback, uh, from our users, um, you know, over the last, uh, several months as well.
That's really kind of evolved what we build and how we kinda ensure we're, we're, um, we're innovating for the user's needs.
Amazing. So exciting, and we'll be sure to include all that in the show notes and we'll try to align this so that everything is available for the users once this is out. And so you can get all the details on the episode page at either sleep as a skill.com or.
Right. Wherever you're listening, this so fantastic. I so appreciate you taking the time and For pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, and just for taking a period of your life, period of learning, and then how to distill this and share this with the world. So really appreciate you and the vulnerability and sharing your journey, and then making it really into a gift for others.
So that's really fantastic.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And hopefully you'll be in London sometime soon. Yes. Uh, so we can meet in person. That would be
fantastic. We'll have to share on social or something you, it's always absolutely great when we have kind of virtual connections and then in real life that's just, yeah.
So good. Absolutely. Okay, thanks. Awesome. Well, thank
you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
You've been listening to The Sleep Is A Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting.
And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to Sleep as a skill.com/newsletter to sign up.