Latest / White Fox Talking / E75: Adventure Neuroscience: From Fear to Resilience in the Wild with Dave Gallagher

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E75: Adventure Neuroscience: From Fear to Resilience in the Wild with Dave Gallagher · White Fox Talking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Mark Charlie Valentine, and at the side of me on the controls, as usual, is Sam.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Sam.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, Charlie.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually quite okay.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Things are running.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say it.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say it because something might not work then.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's working fine.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Tell you what's not we need to put that sign up behind us in the right position.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want me to do that?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, you don't have to do it now.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do it now.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, where are you going?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well go on then, I'll introduce uh I'll introduce our guest.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you do that when I'll go on then.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Run on, run on.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's that should be my job.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a bit more.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not right bright and I can lift everything.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Good evening, Dave Gallagher, our resident psychologist.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely champion.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Charlie.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic to see us all in our White Fox Talking logo tees.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Kindly supplied by common sense clothes.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Big shout out for Harry who looks after us then.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's uh big on the mental big on the mental well being.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think of that?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, Dave, you are a resident psychologist and um wait, so you don't ri do you want to give us an introduction about yourself?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hi Dave.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, said you back.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, I can introduce myself again.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: I've been on a few times now and uh thank you for putting up with me.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, so I am an adventure psychologist slash adventure neuroscientist.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: I like to promote the neuroscience side of things.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm also known as an extreme sports psychologist as well, because I do hang about with I won't say lunatics.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well then I've I've said it by mistake.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well it takes one to know one.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I I hang about with some very interesting people and have some amazing conversations and measure people in the wild doing crazy things, doing wild things, and uh strive to understand what that mentality is all about so that everyone else can also learn something about dealing with stress and challenge and adversity in life.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's quite the thing to be involved in.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite a ride, and I'm very privileged.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd love to come on podcasts like this and talk to like-minded people about mental health and well-being and performance in more challenging con situations and so on.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, that's me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: There'll be plenty more to unpack as we go along.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Some very exciting things going on at the moment.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, welcome back.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, excellent.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Can you do you want to tell us about the exciting things going on?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously, as much as we like talking we do like talking about the science stuff.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: You like talking about science stuff.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to find out why things work and why why certain things better than other things.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, I will get to it in due course, but one of the really exciting things, I've been running a research project in the last few weeks, putting people on high platforms and really stressing them out, provoking a fear response, and then seeing how they react to that, helping them through it and measuring lots of stuff.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: So doing lots of science out in the wild, and that that's really what my my real interest is, my real passion.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the real adventure side, to be honest.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Although I'm an ad I'm an adventure scientist, which means I like doing adventures and I do science, but science is an adventure, and it's even more of an adventure when you try to do rigorous science out in the wild, where you know it's it's not a clean environment to do it in, and there's lots of challenges, but that's that's where I thrive.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I will I'll get there eventually, but I'll I will talk about the work we've been doing.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll give a shout out to the Wallach.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: So the Wallach is a charity that helps people in Wales, particularly, through the challenge of homelessness and mental health and traumatic backgrounds and what have you.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Using an innovative adventure programme, which takes people on these 10-week programs out in the wilds, introduces them gradually to the mountains and then quite intensely to the mountains, climbing, scrambling, big mountain days, and other outdoor adventure activities.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: I must shout out to to Ben Roberts, who is the orchestrator of the weekly sessions and the program there.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing a sterling job getting people from a really underserved part of the community.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that often that you know people of that demographic or with those life challenges get to experience something really quite groundbreaking, so get them out in nature and really extol the virtues of nature-related therapy and adventure-related activities and how that can help across the board.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I'd like to talk a bit about on that journey towards telling me about the study is some of the aspects of the psychology, the neuroscience around why adventure can really help us, you know, get get through the adversities of life, foster resilience, give a sense of purpose, and and just get people, you know, on a on a real positive track, you know, in life and and also have fun and bring some of that kind of magic back into life, which is so often sort of missing in this day and age.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so that that's that's something I'll I'll talk a lot about.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of other things I'll maybe throw in the mix.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've been writing this book, which I know a lot of people have been asking me, when's your book out?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and I've been really getting stuck into the rewriting process and trying to make it as good as I can.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I've I've had some phenomenal conversations where people, you know, I decided to look back at what I was writing about, which again is all this neuroscience of adventure, extreme environments, extreme sports, and and just general positives of adventure.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I've been taught some incredible people getting some of their stories and putting that into my book.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: I can touch on some of that in due course as well, because it's it's uh it's very very interesting and exciting.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I I can reveal my book is going to be called, or it is called, the excitement switch, turning your brain on to adventure.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you've not you've not revealed when it's out yet, Dave.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're not committing, are you?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still like tweaking it, and you know, you yeah, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but no, in in the next few weeks to months, we'll put it too far up here.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it's you know, it's all part of the uh advanced publicity for this.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to plan episodes, you know what I mean?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: We need you in when that when that comes out.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: But like the excitement switch, it's all about how the getting the exciting switch or the excitement switch.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the exciting switch, how we switch on excitement.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how we can trigger that kind of excitement which just fires us up in life, and you know, being excited can really bring the energy and the enthusiasm and help overcome sticking points in life.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I've been working on my book.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'll also like to mention, which again I'll come to a bit more at the end, everything's at the end by the sound of it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just set up a community interest company which is called Mindful Adventure, and set this up with a colleague of mine, Belinda, Belinda Gammon, who's a lovely lady who's very adept at psychotherapy.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: She's an expert psychotherapist dealing with trauma, complex trauma.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a great marriage of of her expertise in my neuroscience and psychology and mount leading and so on.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's it's come out of the work we've been doing with the the Wallach, actually, you know, taking people from particular communities and demographics and and mental health related backgrounds out into the wild, and and you know, given that kind of bridge from the therapeutic to the adventurous, that's how we like to talk about that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something we'll we'll come to as well.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, that that's kind of a whistle stop too what I'm gonna talk about.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'll stop now and interject and guide me in a semblance of the direction on that.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's all good.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna I'm gonna go back to that thing about adventure and science, and I suppose it's you know the the what you said there, you know, if it's something with an unknown end, it's an adventure, isn't it?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, it it always makes me think of a book, Ross Edgely, that we'd come across the chap who swam around Britain, and he wrote a book called The Art of Resilience.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and I always it always stuck in mind, there's the odd book out there, and just little things stick in your mind, and and he said about adventure science as opposed to sports science, where sports science tends to be in the main, tends to be sports which are kind of contained within a certain set of structures and regulations, or or you know, it might be Olympic running events or swimming or whatever, which we tend to have a finite sort of start and end point, and and the the rules and the the context is kind of set, and that's not to disparage the amazing achievements people have when they are you know at that that standard, but an adventure science is more about like what he did, he was swimming around in Britain, and yeah, no one's really done that before.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: No one knows what's gonna happen.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: He might predict what what sort of aspects might occur and how you might deal with that, but until you get out on an adventure, the unknown happens and you you adapt and you exponentially adapt.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think we sometimes have a bit of a linear kind of way of thinking that well, this will happen, then I'll do that, and this'll happen.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: But adventure seems to be exponential.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: You it might start off on a kind of a bit of a bit of a slog uphill, but then once you get momentum going, you adapt to that, all sorts of vistas you know arise and adaptations occur.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just thinking there, with all the variables that can go on on an adventure, a one-day adventure, week adventure, four-week expeditions and things like that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Relating to mental well-being, or so obviously we're a mental well health mental well-being podcast, then when then variables thrown up, if you've been on an adventure, it's pr that's it is building that resilience to the unknown dropping in.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: 100%, yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and we spend so much time trying to keep the unknown at bay.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we might, you know, set some goals and we might you know get fitter and have certain kind of life aspirations, but we we tend to still keep them quite constrained because we're we're trying to keep the we're pushing the unknown away in a way, but actually leaping into the unknown, which is something I you know I I literally see with base jumpers, you know, standing on the edge.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you kind of you do all the preparation and you have the mindset, and you may have done some of that before, but every time you leap over that cliff, anything could happen.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And adventures like that, you know, it's it's it's shoring yourself up for the unknown, for the unexpected.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something I'm very interested in, diverting a little bit now.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm very interested in psychological first aid, which is an element of how you protect against trauma, how you protect against the kind of yeah, traumatic episodes might occur, for instance, in the mountains.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I I work a bit with the mountain medicine community on this.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's a lot of trauma is is due to the unexpected.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: You you shocking incidents, things that you could not really prepare for, you know, you arrive on the scene of an incident, it's it's not really something you you can process there and then, or shocking things happen, or we have accidents or whatever, or just sometimes we we face too much stuff when we go out into the unknown.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's how do you prepare for that?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there are some ways of doing that, but having a an attitude which is flexible, preparing yourself for the unknown and and embracing the unknown is part of that that mentality.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Bit of a digression there, but yeah, adventure is something more that we can't really predict, but it's it's going into that unknown with that attitude of I'll take it as I come and and I'll I'll be flexible, you know.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: That that's very important.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: What I wanted to talk about is that uh when you mentioned the wallets there and the homelessness and the homeless people.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So this 10-week programme is that a measured thing that you're doing that you're you're measuring results in them much like you.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we have done some measures and the wallets do some, and my colleague Belinda does some, and I've uh also advised and brought some.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I I did bring the weather survey, which we've talked about in a different episode, yeah, into the mix on that as well.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I've incorporated some measures.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the things that the the wallets do is is take stock of the people who come through that program and longitudinally, you know, do people come back down the line?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people have kind of left the support system that they're in the the system for a while when they're they're signposted to the wallets' services and then they come on the adventure program, and maybe they eventually become more settled in their circumstance and they no longer require the kind of fundamental support services and that they're in a better place.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: But having said that, some of them still come along, or some of them integrated more into the community.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there are people going on mountain walks in the future, or there's people interested in in exploring the mountain leading side of things and or getting together and climbing, you know, it fosters a sense of adventure communities as a result of that as well.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean we're we're very interested to look longitudinally and to actually plan some studies which which do chart people over a year or two years or whatever, and there's room for that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and I know in the social prescribing space and and the wall it does it does count as a socially prescribed service, a lot of people are signposted through that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: There is a gap in the social prescribing landscape on longitudinal effects of of doing any of these kind of activities, something which the NEHS would be very interested to know about as well.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, what's the the change in the the take up of of services within the NEHS as a result of social prescribing?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, we do some measures within that.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's not particularly what my latest study is about, but I I can go I can jump straight into that now actually.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm just interested in in sort of what in what the programme is, you know.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's do that for the well being the well-being of these people, and then that like you say, probably slipping through the system somewhere, and then the results of although the results don't need to be measured on the well-being, but how and I I suppose it's on their future path, isn't it?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Getting them away from yeah, cool.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, so so I should qualify, yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we do some evaluation impact type measures, so like the well-being scale, the the Warwick Edinburgh well-being scale, things like that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: I introduced some of the other measures from psychological stuff to do with mood and well-being, which is interesting from one activity to the next, or from one day of activity at the start of the day till the end, to see you know if there's a bit of an up shift in that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, the the true indication is whether life style has changed, whether behaviours which might be detrimental to the person's kind of you know, demeanour and well-being.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean let's be let's be clear, there's the substance abuse within this, there's alcoholism, there's there's all sorts of elements going on.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's quite a complex situation, complex you know, backgrounds to people.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not saying that an adventure or a day out in the hills is going to cure that, but over time, there is some evidence of people's or anecdotally, or the very fact that their attendance is showing that they're committed to that process, and they're they're revealing that they're changing their behaviours along the way, you know, they're they're not indulging so much in the the negative behaviours because they're looking forward to coming on a Thursday or whenever the session is, and they want their fitness to be better so they can you know really embrace the mountain environment.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that's that's a lot of the stuff that's harder to capture because you see that as you develop a relationship with the people that you're leading in the hills and and the camaraderie they have and you know the way they bond together.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's invaluable.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, one of the ambitions is to try and capture more of that as we go forward.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah, just just to give a little indication of what the programmes might look like.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: So they'll they'll have like an induction where they'll they'll kind of get together and meet each other, and it might be at a climbing wall, it might be a simple kind of indoor climbing session or something, just to familiarise with with getting together as a group and doing something active.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: They'll generally go on a lowland walk.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: So my colleague Belinda, if she's involved in that capacity, she's a lowland leader as well as a therapeutic lead.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they'll they'll just go for a walk and talk in the in the uh in the wilderness.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: We'll introduce them to we might take them to the devil's kitchen in Snowdonia.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's always quite a mind-blowing place to go to where you really see what the the mountain environment is like, but not necessarily going up the devil's kitchen.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: But again, again depends on the group and you know the feel of whether you think they're capable of going up something a bit bit steeper.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we might take them on up Mol Shabbat in Snowdonia onto the ridge and do a little bit of scrambling.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's there's some sessions of rock climbing at some of the crags in North Wales, and then yeah, big mountain days towards the end, or depends again, you get the feel of the group.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we we've had big mountain deers on Snowden, uh I believe I I wasn't involved in it, but I believe there was a bothy trip as well.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and we've got some ideas about getting overnight or even multi-day expedition type of trips to really get people out in the in the wild and and get into that that minds mindset.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And something myself and Belinda in in our forthcoming Mind for Adventure CIC, where we're interested in this thing called the three-day effect, which has been looked at in terms of of well-being and and the so-called something called attention restoration theory, which I can unpack a bit later.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Once you get out in the wild, you've got that that initial kind of wow factor on the first day, and then second day, maybe people a bit like if you're training for a half marathon or something, you might find halfway through you have a bit of a slump in the training.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, you might, you know, that may be the second day when suddenly it's you know the fatigue setting in.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: But by the third day, you've kind of perked up a bit and and you're you're fully immersed in nature, and that's when the the the effects seem to really take place, you know, the restorative effects of being out in nature.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: So there's all sorts of models that that we play around with in in those programmes.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I come in as a freelance mountain leader as well as bring the psychological side, but Ben Roberts is is the main person who's orchestrating the actual uh the the weekly activities.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And someone called Grant, Grant Hyatt set up or was one of the main people setting up the programme in the first place.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: But there's some great anecdotes from the people.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: I could I could sit here and tell you some of the the wonderful characters we get and and the reactions seeing their their kind of daunted initial, wow, that's a mountain.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna I'm gonna climb that mountain.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: One lady who had never been up a mountain before, we take her into Mal Shabid, and this the this this sort of imposing ridge which goes up.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she was looking at it and she started tearing up and she said, uh, you expect me to climb that?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: And like, oh yeah, you'll be fine.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Really, really?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, we get further up the ridge, and it it it transpired.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: She was looking in a slightly different direction when she said that to me, me and Ben.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when we got on the the basics of the ridge, although she did tear up because she was suddenly on a scramble, and it was very, very simple scrambling, but to her it was massive.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: She thought we were taking her up the main face, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like difference in perspective.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: We we were slightly looking off in a different angle to her, but you know, she was up for the challenge, and you know, she she loved the scrambling, although there was some tears, but then laughter.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and you see this transformation, even on a on a single day, but certainly over a course of weeks and then over the months as well.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, it's like I say, it's not going to solve all the social problems that people come in with, it's it's circumstantial as well.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: But that that kind of building the resilience, the camaraderie, the the team bonding, and just being out in the wild and away from the often toxic environments that that life throws up just triggers you know that change.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's it's absolutely wonderful to to watch.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm a big advocate of type two fun, which I think that's what you've described there, in it.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah I mentioned that before.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just gonna say having these little joyous achievements.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's yeah, that's we we did have that one before with the hard core, remember?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: Just having these little achievements and these little goals, set yourself these little goals and get past them, and then it kind of improves your confidence and yeah, it's so much about it, in there.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like the the lady there not thinking that she's you know gonna be able to scramble.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like at the time you're probab possibly not enjoying it, but when you've finished it, you know, that sense of achievement and resilience, and then everything else that's going on in the periphery, as in the fresh air and the you know this this thing about the mountain environment.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean trust is massive, and you know you can't overestimate trust, and she's gotta trust herself that she's competent in that environment, never having been it before.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: She's got to trust those around, but specifically she's got to trust those of us who are kind of supervising her and encouraging her to do that.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, you see those transformations, and and you can't you know you can't drag people up these things, you've got to encourage the trust in themselves so they make that leap of faith, you know, that they take that step to overcome the paralysis and and put the hand higher and then the foot, and then suddenly they're they're moving uphill.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and it might take some tears, but again, that's a release, and then the tears turn to laughter.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and I seem to be quite good at getting people to to cry, but then laugh.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: At least that's that's part of my the way I it seems to I seem to see that in the hills.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose with the trust thing there, if that person is a bit nervous anyway, then just by you getting them up there, you've shown a trust in them, which they may not have had.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this there's this fine line, I suppose, isn't there, where you're thinking, is this person I've been in that situation myself, is this person the right person?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is this there's a lot of planning to do, isn't there?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is this the right environment for that person?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because we could destroy their confidence, we could destroy we could destroy any progress.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: But then the sense of achievement they get and the fact that they've you you've had the trust in their ability to step out of their former parameter.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean the thing I truly admire about people is not yeah, I mean I admire people like Alex Honnold who do absolutely on the edge things, but the people who want to but think they can't but do it anyway, and that's what you see.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, this particular lady I keep coming, she really stuck in my mind, and it's just wonderful the way she she pushed herself and then she she knew she was gonna cry, and then she said, I want to do the next bit, and then she absolutely burst into tears on the next bit, and then we transitioned it to laughter, and then she up she goes, and then she was saying, I want to do the next bit once she'd settled herself down.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's again that's incremental progress in in coming to terms with your response, and that's so key that you get in tune with your own response in order to then know where your limitations lie and where you can push them, you know.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is that like um I suppose that little sense of achievement is that like pushing out satisfying satisfying endorphins and it's like, right, you know, I can do that?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean it'd be dope.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, as much as anything, it's serotonin, but yeah, it's the dopamineergic reward that you've managed to achieve this and then it's consolidated that that pattern of behaviour, so that it's it's yeah, the reward is means you'll do it again.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it you know, I see this in bass jumping.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Bass jumping, what could be more ridiculous and life-threatening?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And why would you commit to something where you could actually die each time you jump off?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: But the dopamine is basically rewarding you for surviving, which you could argue, well, does that mean it pushes you to do stuff like that in the future?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: But most people I know, bass jumpers included, will it's not like they're they're they're fearless on the next one, they're remembering before, but they've got the confidence knowing that they did survive and that they're using judgment.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the more confidence you have, as long as you don't go off into a realm of being overconfident and thinking you're invincible, means you you've got a baseline of knowing what you are capable of in order to then make a good judgment on what to do next.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of how I I kind of I think a lot of then the documentary that we mentioned before we started recording with Liam in it, the boy who can fly.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you look at these people that are doing things like that, that it's like every you know you just if I'm in the Alps and you see someone fly past you, it's like, wow, what's going on there?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not it's not that they're reckless, is it?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because the preparation and then the the knowledge and the skill base is phenomenal, and it's I suppose it is just moving them parameters each time, is it?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: And massively, and and when you get like I've been very privileged to get involved with the base community and see and you know overcome my own preconceptions that it's not just a stereotype and the jump off and that's it, it's a whole community of different levels.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's people who come into the community reticent, a bit sort of frightened about what they're capable of, but they're mentored through it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they've done generally speaking, they've done 200 skydives, so they're good skydivers, but that that means nothing as a fledgling base jumper, you know, and and the bass jump the base community is pretty stringent as well, like any community, people at the top, you don't push the boundaries if you're new to it, and there's a hierarchy within that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's all about progression.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's and it's all about listening to the the both the the older, wiser ones and and learning where your skill gaps are and and taking things gradually.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: So doing easy jumps, uh you know, jumps off bridges where you're not gonna slam into a cliff because there's the structure is got open air below it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't do crazy things straight off.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: You certainly don't get into a wingsuit until you're very competent as a a base jumper without a wingsuit, and you've probably done a lot of wingsuit skydiving, you know, before you go down that route.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: So everything's very incremental, and it's gonna be when you're at that level, people have self-preservation at the top of their list.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, anything in life, anything adventurous is about incremental steps.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's just all a matter of perspective of what looks beyond your adventurousness from one person, like like that lady looking up at the cliff, oh my god, I'll never be able to climb that.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, she had the wrong conception of what she was about to do, but she climbed the other ridge, and then that's probably spurred her on to go, Well, oh, I'd like to do that again, or I'd like to do maybe I can do something a little bit more adventurous than that next time.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then it can be exponential, you know.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's yeah, very, very much a progressive thing, but an exponential progressive thing.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think they you know they there's it's that it's that focus in there that people gain.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose like that lady that's pushing herself off if she you know, pushing herself past where she's been before, she's getting that she's getting that focus and getting a great sort of sense of well-being from it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean there's there's still self-doubt within that, and and this is and Yolo, this is an amount of leader, how do you keep the group, those who are keen and at the front, and those who are lagging behind and then feeling like they're holding everyone back.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's quite a tricky thing to to negotiate because you want everyone to you don't want the ones at the front to feel like they are held back and they're frustrated.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to bring them back to the pace of the slower one, but you don't want the the the slower one to be the burden.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: But that's that's the the skill, I suppose, of of leadership, of getting everyone on the same page to encourage each other and do it as a as a group and and you know no one feels like they're holding anyone back, you know.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, funnily enough, I'm working with a a bunch of young people last week who do I'm not going into the down to the rabbit hole of the phones, but you know, a deep addiction to the phones.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: But once because I was running a bushcraft craft session, once I got like a little hatchet out, little hatchet and and then a a knife and making feather sticks and kindling and then getting the fire going, their attention was full on because it's like one day they're not used to handling knives like that and you know lighting their own fires and things.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the focus was definitely there and yeah, engrossed.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I would have I was surprised actually.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: It went very well.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So people they've got it in them.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And to lead into the actual study I've been doing.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a more focused thing, and it's something I've been doing through the University of Central Lancashire who were were very good to actually fund the study, and and I've used the well, a bunch of cohorts from the Wallace as a as a case in point.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I do as part of the the Wallace programmes, I've brought in a high ropes component.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: High ropes courses are great for for getting teams together, for getting people to challenge themselves or heightened a kind of a pretty controlled environment, but you can sort of set them up to to look at various aspects of of that, they're you know, the the experience that they're doing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the particular study places people on a 45-foot telegraph pole.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's called a leap of faith.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, these are structures which you'll find in higher-ups courses.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you climb up the telegraph pole and there's a tiny little platform about the size of a dinner tree on the top, and then you've got to try and stand up on that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now the what the pole is wobbling like crazy, and I tell you what, it doesn't matter how many times you go up there, you you're suddenly standing up on a very wobbly pole, and it's like 45 feet straight down.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: You are roped, but I you know, I actually have the rope on the back, and it's quite loose, so that it there's nothing really to hold on to.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a very exposed place to be.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I get people to climb up that and basically compose themselves and just stand there for a bit before jumping off and trying to reach this trapeze.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually devised this idea, although the these Leaper fear structures are there anyway, but I devised it from the the background in my bass jumping research.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: How could I simulate something for a non-bass jumping, a normal person, and measure various aspects of their stress response and look at different interventions to help them overcome that fear?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it some people will be fine with things like that, especially if you're I don't know, you work on a wind turbine or you're a pylon, you know, person or work at height, it's it's nothing.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: But even you'd be surprised how many people, especially big burly fellas, turn into quivering wrecks and and freeze completely when they where they climb up these things.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: Do you get people Yeah, do you get people being like, Oh yeah, I can definitely do this.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: This is this is easy.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_04: And then when they get up there, what am I doing here?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: You get you get the kind of complacent ones who are like enthusiastic and full of it, and then halfway up the actual plane, they just freeze stiff and they're like, I can't do it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean people get very emotional.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um again, like that lady I mentioned at the start, although she hasn't taken part in this, but other people have come up there and and proven that they can do it, but they're telling me all the way up I can't do this, but they're getting up there anyway.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that's a really interesting thing.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've talked before this about using the word I can't, and that's a natural thing.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you find this in climbing.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I do that myself, I'm sure.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of people do this, you're halfway up the root climbing, and you're like, you just get gripped with fear, and I can't do it, I can't do it.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like a natural thing to say I can't do it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't necessarily mean that you're you're not able to then progress.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's an element of that where you're actually talking through what's in your mind to get it out there, and it can sometimes help you then progress upwards.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I I'll you know, I you sometimes find people who are just frozen solid and they can't move.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: And do they say I can't?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I I haven't actually looked specifically at how many people say I can't and whatever.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: But often the ones who I notice are saying I can't are the ones who are still keeping going, and then they'll get to the top and they'll they'll still be telling you I can't.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Well, you have, you're here, so you're saying you can't, but that's a natural self-doubting thing.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: As you re you you acknowledge the vulnerability of being afraid, you say I can't do it, even though you have done it.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's a strange kind of contradiction there.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's there seems to be.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's a lot of literature on self-talk in sports.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: I can do this, you know, and that's a facet of changing the way your brain responds to challenges, actually.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: But there does seem to be something around the negative manifestation of I can't while still doing it, which might actually be a part of that process of doing it.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, I've not looked specifically on the literature in that, and that might be an interesting study.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Negative self-talk while you're doing something, you know, as opposed to just positive self-talk to to get you past the sticking point.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, that that's just a an idea I've I've had.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean, people will get up there, and what what we then do, so I'm up there with them.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: What we're doing, we're measuring, we've got a heart rate variability monitor on them.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we're looking at their autonomic nervous system activity, their heart rate variability.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also doing cognitive tasks while we're up there.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and talk about the adventure neuroscience.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I started off the talk here with about the challenges of doing like rigorous science in the wild.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: I could tell you all sorts of things about how much preparation to get a computer up there, which is not on Wi-Fi, on a tablet, and program tasks to do while you're 45 feet up in the air.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've got it on a winch, so I've got like a floating computer and what have you.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and people have got to sit there.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, originally I was gonna do it standing, but actually I wouldn't have quite as many participants because not everyone wants to stand up, but it's still extremely exposed.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they've got up there and I've had people gripping onto me while they're doing the tasks, and you know they've been semi-pushing me off, and like you know, I've got finger marks in my in my shoulder.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we're we're measuring we're measuring the cognitive performance while we're up there, measuring their the parasympathetic and sympathetic activity through the heart rate variability, and we're also looking at their perceived stress as well, and eventually they're then standing up if they feel like they can, and they're composing themselves and then they're jumping off, and again we're measuring the heart rate and that kind of moment of commitment when they do that.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: These tasks are these tasks designed to see how much influence the stress have been there as upon them, basically.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'll I'll just unpack a little bit more about what we're actually doing.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I I'm very interested in executive function, something called executive control.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're stressed, your higher brain functions, the so-called executive functions, things like your ability to plan, your ability to make decisions, to be strategic, to also to regulate your emotional responses, those higher parts of the brain in the prefrontal cortex are effectively dampened down, sort of turned off, if you like, because the you know the amygdala and other parts, the kind of brainstem, the limbic areas involved in the stress response will go into that fight or flight, but but also something called freeze, which I'll talk a bit about in a moment.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: So though that kind of connectivity in the brain is biased towards those instinctive emotional sort of responses, which could be the fight, flight, or the freeze.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that that almost reroutes the connectivity away from the prefrontal cortex, which basically means you're not going to be as good at focusing your attention on tasks or doing doing cognitive tasks or processing information to to take stock of where you are, where what's the route forward, what what adaptive strategies could I engage in.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I'm looking at the tasks which sort of tap into those processes to see well, how much does that stress actually impinge on your ability to do that?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you'd predict at height, because of your stress, you're going to be worse.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't quite looked at the data yet.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've just been collating, I've been running this for the last few weeks, but we're we're getting there.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one way of looking at it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm additionally looking at a stress management type of techniques, breathing.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we've talked about this on previous podcasts, and and I've done workshops in various places where I actually coach people through this.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we're looking at modulating the parasympathetic system.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because if we can if we're in that fight or flight, that high stress state, we're very sympathetically dominant, which again puts us more in the instinctive rather than the executive functioning sort of state.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the particular breathing protocol that I've been looking at for a long time, which is in the literature as well, is this prolonged exhale.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you actually breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Typically, you're doing it for around six breaths a minute, so roughly around a 10-second breathing cycle.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're doubling up your exhale, that means you're breathing in for roughly three seconds and out for roughly six.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: So the protocol I use when they're up at the top is to spend three minutes.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: Again, the literature says two to five minutes, but three minutes is kind of within that, that there should be a parasympathetic response going on.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we do that calming breathing for three minutes and then they engage in the tasks.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my hypothesis from all of that is that, well, if they're doing that breathing, their executive functions should be more likely to be online or at least more accessible.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: They shouldn't be as compromised because they've calmed down that stress system and brought the parasympathetic system into the mix, which should mean that the higher brain centres are kind of kept online, or at least they're more accessible.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: They're less pervious to that sympathetically dominant stress response.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you should be better at making judgment, you should be better at impulse control.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the tasks looks at your ability to refrain from from pressing the button to stimulate, which which you're not meant to press.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's kind of simulating your impulse to do something daft or to to do an instinctive response.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're looking at things like working memory, your ability to process information and be cognitively flexible as well.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: One of the tasks I use is called a trailmaking task, which is is roughly like following a route on a map.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not a map, it's it's uh quite a simple task where you follow numbers around a screen in a set order, or your numbers and letters, so you're mixing between the two.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you're kind of looking at the flexibility of your ability to process information, which is all very relevant to if we're on a mountain ridge and you know it's getting a bit dicey, we're not sure the way on, we need to look at the map, we need to plan the route, we need to stay flexible rather than get into that kind of more impulsive, oh, I'll follow this route, but you you might go down the wrong route because you've not really considered the options so much.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm trying to assimilate some of that.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so the hypothesis is that by modulating your parasympathetic activity, you're gonna keep that karma head, you're gonna be able to you're gonna have more bandwidth in the brain to actually process the the information in the environment, which is gonna help you make the right decisions.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's the hypothesis.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I I do I have actually run a control group which didn't get any of that breathing technique at all.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's just down to how they are sitting there, and and it's quite a long time to be sat there for three minutes if you're terrified of heights, you know, with like the ground straight down.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's pretty revealing in that sense.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Something extra, and and again, I haven't looked at the data particular particularly on this, but something I've been thinking is quite interesting in the mix is actually doing cognitive tasks rather than just sitting there and ruminating on the situation is actually turning your executive functioning on.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it's giving you something to do, it's it's getting your brain into that state.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: And although you may be compromised because you've not been up at height in or in that situation before, if you were to repeatedly do that and repeatedly go back to height, and you'd probably get better at the task anyway, because you'd get better at keeping your executive functions online even when you're stressed.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: So there's an argument almost there for brain training in these stressful situations, which is something I'm sure emergency services do to an extent, military will do, but there's there's more of an argument for how you do that.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And depending on what the data actually show, that's something I might pursue further.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, when we're leading people on on quite dicey situations, or certainly where they're getting out of their comfort zone, giving them cues and and tasks which focus the mind on these specific type of executive type of processes, whether it's like, or just just tell me sort of which way forward do you think we should be going, or I don't know, look at some aspect of the environment and process it and give me some information back.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's ways we can cue people to to switch into that executive control mode, rather than just you know focus on the fact they're stressed and how how they can dampen their stress, give them something proactive to do.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: I d I don't know if that's something you come across, Charlie, in in mountain leading training or in in your own.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, with I was just thinking about that.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: With um when you're teaching them on ML training, they can get quite quite excited.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's this thing about doing night navigation that seems to just blow people's minds because you've taken away, you know, they've only got, I don't know, 20, 20 metres, 30 metres to see, depending on power of the head torch.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then on an assessment, that's the thing that everyone's fears, you know, but but it's probably shows that they've not done as much of it as they should have done.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but then even fairly simple, fairly simple length can go wrong if someone's got that fear.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see they've got the fear, you know what I mean?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're not listening, and they're not you know well, they are listening, but it's not going in.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, a lot more sort of simple than I suppose, I suppose if they're in an environment that they should be comfortable with, but if you can't, you know, yeah, a lot of it is just you know, get compassed wrong way around, you know.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even simple things like that.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you know it's it is fascinating, you know, the more that I talk to people like yourself as how the brain functions, it's like you know, I've made the mistakes myself.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean when you were saying actually, when I get stressed, I tend to you know, I don't know how this works, but my writing's absolutely appalling, and some of it's backwards.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it affects me.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely, and then again, yeah, it's it's the natural response.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: But as I advocate, and you know, I'm I'm talking a lot with like the mountain medicine community about things like breathing, and it might seem like, well, so we're gonna do a simple breathing thing, is that really gonna solve this here?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it does have a physiological effect to dampen that to give you a couple of extra moments of clarity so that the bandwidth of the brain, if you think of it like you're turning the brain naturally reduces in bandwidth under stress, so you the first thing you do, you don't just push through it and be stoic and oh I'm I'm a high-performing whatever medic or mountaineer or whatever, or a pilot or whatever you might be, acknowledge that your brain is pervious to stress, whatever, and that you can do something simple to just sort of clear it off a bit.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've used the example in the past of like if if you're in a plane that depressurizes and you know the the oxygen masks pop down, and then the first thing you do is you attend to yourself before you attend to someone else, you put your oxygen mask on because although you might think you're performing at your best and that you're super tough and you know mentally clear, actually you probably aren't.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: So just just do a simple thing, stick that breath, you know, stick that mask on.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's what I advocate as well.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: I advocate do two or three breaths.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: You might not have all the time in the world and you need to act quickly, but a couple of momentary breaths just gives that that respiratory pause, if you like.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think you've you've got to do that is when you when you stumble upon an incident in in the mountains or wherever, you know, the first thing we're talking for the state is don't rush in, stop, take stock, widen your field of attention to to try and process, because you will naturally be tunnel visioning down on what you think is important.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then this, by the way, is there's a phenomenon known as perseveration, which is often found in high performing individuals, especially whether whether it's medical people or whatever, or people in combat used to high stress, they will go into a such a focused state of mind, they will persist in a certain type of behaviour which might be so trained in and might be super decisive, but actually it's not flexible to changing situations, because the part of the brain called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex is hyperactive, and that's that's the part of the brain which is very much part of the prefrontal cortex that is in control of our planning and strategy and emotional regulation, but it's pervious to being hypercharged, and hypercharged is as bad as undercharged.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: You you do things in a in a tunnel vision sort of way.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got to learn to dampen the physiology in order to let the brain have space to then be flexible and and come more online with those.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and again, that's something I'm really trying to push through in the high-performing sort of world.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, any world, you know, anyone can stumble upon anything and and you know, some people adapt naturally, but other people need a bit of space and a bit of reminder to do that.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_04: I remember when we did our rescue diver training uh qualification, and we what was that?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Rescue diver.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't know that.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_04: But they they do put you on a stressful situation underwater and you kind of lose your body and or some someone's kind of fainting out.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_04: Well anyway, they they throw all these scenarios at you and being underwater is quite stressful anyway, and trying to keep your breath under control.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_04: And just with you talking about the breath work, that you breathe quicker and quicker, that is actually really bad underwater because you're using your oxygen quicker and quicker.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_04: So you you you really have to get your breath under control really quickly.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_04: But that kind of helps you then clear your mind as well.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, and and that's why two of the most two of the situations or environments I'm most fascinated and most terrified by and have been in both, is the kind of high altitude where you've got you know restricted respiration but you've got to remain clear-headed because you're in a dangerous place, but also deep underwater, particularly cave cave diving.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I love watching documentaries and films about cave diving, even though it's most people just it's hor horrific.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: But you're in a constriction and you're you're away from the the you know the light and whatever, and you're in the the deep darkness following a line, and you start panicking and you're dead.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I've done technical diving, I have done an introductory cave diving course in Mexico as well, and and that was all about stress.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was the most stressful thing I've ever done, but it was the biggest achievement for actually stepping up and doing it.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and that was literally and and interestingly enough, a real kind of transformative moment for me in my diving.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: I we uh so I was doing drills underwater in this kind of cavern cave environment, and the instructor was basically simulating what's called a free flow, it's where you you basically uh you you regulate a your tank sort of blows out all the water as as fast as possible.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's a nightmare to be in.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in those sort of diving situations, you tend to have a redundant air supply, you've got two tanks on your back or whatever many.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: So the uh the idea is it it free flows out of one side, so you've got to turn that side off and then swap to your other regulator, and then so on and so forth.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the the worst part of this was you've got to turn off the side which is free-flowing while still breathing from it, and then breathe it dry, so it's no longer got anything come through.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Then you've got to swap to the one that's actually still got air in it.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: You do all this one-handed by the way, while you're flashing your torch with the other, because you've got to maintain the fact that you're in control but you know, signal in danger.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: So you're doing that, and that was a nightmare to me.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I I've done a lot of diving up that point where I was used to swapping regulators, but I didn't like it.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like sort of gasp at a breath of air and then sort of shove the other one in.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I have had a couple of instances where I've took me in water and and had no air left, and that's been pretty nasty.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: But on this particular course, this this instructor, he got me to basically practice taking one out and just you know, just just pause my breath for a count of three or five or ten or even twenty or thirty.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and I got the point where I was enjoying taking the regulator out, and I was just enjoying that pause because uh it's like, well, you can do it, you can do it on the surface for probably a minute, a minute and a half, whatever.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: You can do it for ten seconds, you just don't think you can because you you're in that hyper state.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: But when you find that pause, that what you might call a respiratory pause, and you you sit into it, you just it's actually really peaceful and it's very empowering.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I've taken that since, I mean, my diving improved exponentially after that, because you know, I now feel like it can do that.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: Then I took up free diving a couple of years ago, and I know I can actually hold my breath for three to four minutes, not necessarily under stress, but you know, but but there's a meditative side of that as well.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's a kind of uh how often do we we're in a hypertense breathing state, but if you learn to kind of just enjoy the pause, it can clear the mind.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's such an important thing with what I'm trying to talk about here, understanding the breath and understanding the space between breaths and how your mind and your brain respond to that and and it clears your mind.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and and the lessons from diving have have brought that home very much to me because I've had a few incidents and and what have you.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: So fear and and breathing and stress, it's it's very much in.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's all correlated, yeah.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I mean, in terms of the fear response though, and and this is so I talked a bit about freeze before, but we often talk about fight or flight, and I kind of talk of fight-flight as an action state, it's a fear or a stress action.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're in an active state where you you're either fighting out or you're running away.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: But one thing I think is more poignant in in terms of fear is the freeze response, and that's certainly what I see in terms of the people doing the type of challenges I'm talking about in my experiments as well.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and the freeze response is really interesting, and I'm sure we've all felt that at some point, especially if we're claimers or whatever, but even in in everyday life with overwhelm, it's that paralysis which is the most terrifying thing.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: A bit like the the old thing about sleep paralysis.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think they used to relate it to like alien abductions, but people were like paralyzed in sleep and the thought that there were being, you know, whatever was happening.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: But the that's a terrifying state to be in where you're conscious but you can't move what's going on there.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and I see that all the time with people.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: I see it sometimes with people who just are frozen stiff and they want to be winched off, but I say it in these people who really want to do the challenge, but they can't.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I have them stood or sat on top of the pole, and they've got to sort of at the very least, they've got to ease themselves off so they can be lowered down because you can't like manhandle them off otherwise, or they're standing there and they want to go forward and jump, but they can't.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a fascinating state which I've I've I've probed further and further into.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: Incidentally, there's an area of the brain.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I like to throw the odd area of the brain into these uh chats, the new area of the brain, so reveal the periaqueductal grey.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a bit of a mouthful, the pHy, periaqueductal grey.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: So this is in the brain stem, it's near the amygdala.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: The amygdala is more well known for a bit of fear response, particularly with the likes of Alex Honnold, apparently having not much activity there.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: So people like who are perceived as fearless, not so much activity.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the periaqued periaqueductal grey is involved in the freeze response, particularly, and it goes back to evolutionary times where the animal spots a predator in the distance, it's not quite close enough to go into that active fight or flight.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a kind of if I freeze now, it ain't gonna see me, you know, there's no movement, so you just like everything shuts down.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: And this seems to be a key facet of what's happening with people in that freeze state, and what it's doing is disabling those higher level functions again, and and the the motor functions as well.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you're paralyzed, but you're in this strange position where you want to move, but you can't, and and I've you know, over time I've kind of wrestled with this.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how do you get someone?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's all very well seen.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you can, you can, you can do this, you can't.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's got to be very small actions to start off with.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to get that activity from that part of the brainstem, which is suppressing the up upper part of the you know, prefrontal cortex.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to slowly get that prefrontal cortex to exert some influence back down, and and that might be diverting attention to parts of the world, you know.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: Can you focus on a leaf or that tree over there, or can you you know you're snapping them out into that kind of visual perception thing because their perception's narrowed down, or you're making tiny little movements, maybe you get them to wiggle their hands or their fingers, so that they're not it's not a gross all or nothing state, because the the all or nothing state is like I can't move, I can't move forward, I need to jump off, I need to escape, or I can't.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: But you can do that, you know, you can wiggle your fingers, you could wiggle your arm, and you you can incrementally get people to move out of that state by shifting that brain activity back up to the prefrontal cortex, and that might be a motoric sort of response, like I say, wiggling your fingers, but it also might be at the same time focus your visual attention, widen your you know, your peripheral vision, or focus on a specific thing you can see in the environment and describe it to me, or whatever.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's ways it's it's not a one-size-fits-all, but it's fascinating seeing people gradually moving slowly, and then they're gradually standing up, they might be hanging on to your hand, or you know, getting that reassurance, but you can slowly get them out of it.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it is just gonna be a slow thing, you know, to to shift that.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: So understanding the neuroscience of what's going on can help you strategize how to you know flip the brain into that that that other mode, that kind of more adventurous, challenge-based and empowered sort of state.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is this there's sort of stuff, I want to say it's a bit more extreme than you will be doing with your mind for advanced.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is it mind for mind for adventure, M4A is what we're adventure, yeah.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um well, yeah, nice segue into that actually, because so what we've been doing with the Wallet, I mean, I I've come in the Wallet as the freelance mountain leader, as a psychologist, the neuroscience part of things, and the measures.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: And my colleague Belinda, she is so she's a psychotherapist, specializes in trauma and complex trauma.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: So she's very adept at the the talking therapies and also a lot of these things I'm talking about, these kind of cognitive and perceptual things, she she's got so many techniques uh of her own within that, helping ground people in their attention or their sensory mode that they're in to help them, you know, overcome the kind of overwhelm and what have you.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: But also looking at the triggers, what are the what trauma triggers are there as well.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and incidentally, an interesting component of this research is when people are facing their fears, you've got to be mindful that they might be triggering some you know internal stresses and fears which go way back.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that's a very interesting part of how do you use adventure therapeutic type of approaches with that trauma mindset in mind, and how do you give that kind of integrated support after the challenge as well.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: So Belinda will come in and also be you know talking through with the person how they're you know, how that resonates with the things they're going through in their life.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we are very interested to take that model further to design neuroscience and and trauma therapy-informed protocols and and programmes themselves, which kind of get people from that initial traumatised state stuck in a rut in their lives.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe like the lady I mentioned with Moll Shabit, she'd never been near a mountain, she'd never really done any adventure before, which was in a circumstance where this was an avenue to help her get from that.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we want to go from the trauma therapy through to the small adventures to the more incremental and exponential adventures and support them through that journey.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that might be, yeah, trauma survivors of of any description, whether that's people in everyday life with different challenges, it might be emergency services, people might be military veterans, anyone you know who's experienced trauma, how can we help them through this?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it also leads to the the kind of high-performing teams.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: There will be a corporate element of this as well.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: But you but designing these scenarios, whether it's a workshop on a high ropes course with cognitive kind of elements built in so that they're developing those those cognitive skills under stress management, but it might also be a longer term program over several weeks, which is is kind of therapeutically moderated through to the three-day effect type of expeditions as well.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a lot of stuff that we're we're planning at the moment.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we'll we'll extend that kind of wall itch model and hopefully look longitudinally, you know, over months and even years to see how how this kind of journey impacts people in in a positive way.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: When you uh when you're looking at that beginning, starting, is it?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're all all launched and registered.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, well, there's nature therapy.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think by the time this goes out, the nature therapy summits probably already happened.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we're we're using that as a bit of a springboard.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you will be there.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: You were there, I think, in retrospect.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was there.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was there.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed it.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed your work, enjoyed your speech.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I we I will be, and I have talked about this.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you enjoy my nature therapy sessions?
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't quite remember it offhand, but yeah, it'll come at me.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about green stuff, you know.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sitting and touching grass, that's it.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, so effectively we are live already.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're just you know, getting ourselves out there and and build on the work we've done so far.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_02: And and and this study I've been doing is is just great to have got that off the ground, quite literally.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: So much interesting data coming back from that.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's just wonderful having data to back up stuff that you know intuitively works.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: You'll always find new things which were a bit counterintuitive sometimes.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I'm hoping to really take that research a lot further into lots of exciting territories, which I'm sure I'll talk about in in coming times.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent, because that's what we like is to hear these positive positive effects from things like this.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we will get the links, etc., put them in the uh show notes.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to wrap up there, mate.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting kicked out, to be honest.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's it's not our first rodeo tonight, so we're getting but we are getting booted out very shortly.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for that, Dave.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: You've have you anything else to add?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't want to just cut you off.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, but we had some ideas of various things and brain bits and whatever, but we'll we'll be talking in many times in the future.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, I know that we we go around various topics, which is how I like to do things anyway.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: So it's plenty more to talk about, but that I think we've covered the main bits there.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one thing I you know I was just very interested to talk about is freeze response because it's yeah, we don't talk about it so much, and I think so many people.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: People are stuck in a rut and the freeze response, the paralysis, then you know, we need to find ways to overcome that.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: And by incremental progress, recognising that it's not an all-or-nothing state where I can't move, therefore I can't move forward.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can move little bits at a time, break down the challenge into tiny little things, and you'll find it incrementally and exponentially, you know, you you start moving forward.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had anything similar after a massive weekend out?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: You never had that?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, your eyes are open, you can't move.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my eyes were open and I couldn't sleep.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've had my eyes open and not been able to move a muscle.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: I thought the four small the four horsemen of the coplets are coming through my front window.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was yeah, it wasn't it wasn't great, I'll be honest.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that might be a different thing.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was different things preying on my mind then.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right, thanks a lot, Dave.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry we're having to wrap up so early, because I do like I do love the uh not early, but so quickly.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I do love the old the old science stuff and the brain.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get some more more about the brain and what it does.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: The rainy stuff.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what it does, and you know, are we fighting evolution?
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: Are we ruining evolution?
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are we reading something today actually?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Or listen to something today where our our existence in the last few hundred years that's having all this stress is about a second and a half of a day of our existence.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or a minute and a half.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we expect everything just to be right.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: So cool.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dave.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for that.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasure.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buyers a Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalking.com, and look for the little cup.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.