Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Niraj:
If you want to manifest and you’re not getting the results you want, for example, usually it’s because there’s a resistance to taking action. The key word in Law of Attraction is action. But for people who can’t manifest, who think that you can just visualize and expect magic to happen, they forgot about the key word in Law of Attraction, which is action. You have to do something to get this result. So the difference between people who get successful results are the people who take the right action. And there’s people who don’t take any action at all, who get no results, but think that they can by just thinking about it.

Guy:
Beautiful. Niraj, welcome back to the podcast, mate. Great to be back, man.

Niraj:
It’s been a while. It has.

Guy:
Four and a half years, you said, right? Yeah, we were just talking off air, four and a half years. And the first thing that occurred to me is what’s been happening in those, how would you sum up those four and a half years from then till now with your trajectory of the evolution of you, Soma Breath, what you’ve been doing?

Niraj:
Well, yeah, a lot’s happened since we last spoke. So four and a half years ago, I think we were just beginning the whole academy with all the instructor trainings. And it’s now turned into like two and a half thousand instructors. So growing even quicker and quicker. Yeah, every month. So it’s been quite a journey.

Guy:
That is wild. Two and a half thousand instructors. How do you keep up with all that? How do you dissect running a business and having a life?

Niraj:
You have to make your life your business and your business your life. Like your lifestyle has to revolve around the work. Otherwise, if you, you have to enjoy it, you have to love what you do. It doesn’t, it can’t feel like work. Do you know what I mean? Totally. So it helps having a partner who’s very, very supportive, who’s also an entrepreneur. That really helps. But what’s the most tricky thing now is juggling having a baby, as you know. So yeah, we’ve both had a kid since, right? So that’s the real art of managing all of that. Not everyone makes it. I know relationships who haven’t survived the first year of the baby, tragically. We’re going strong. We’re going strong.

Guy:
Amazing. Yeah, I can relate to everything you said. It’s a wild ride. And it’s like a soup where everything is all part of everything. And if you’re not passionate about what you do, Yeah, you’re in shit street, really. And a supportive partner, without a doubt. I’m in the same boat, very lucky. Very lucky indeed. Yeah. So my first question to you is then, you got a book coming out, which is why you come back on the show today, because I’m really keen to discuss the contents in it. But why a book? Why now? four and a half years, two and a half thousand instructors, a baby, and now throwing in a book into the mix. Because I’ve contemplated that and I’m like, oh my God, that’s just something I can’t even contemplate at the moment.

Niraj:
Well, I’ve written so much content and I’ve done so many interviews and stuff. So I’ve even written a book. It’s just part of our training. I’ve just never published it for a kind of a mainstream, um, you know, for the masses. And right now we’re going through a pretty shaky time in the world. Like, I mean, not pretty. It’s like, they know when a plane goes to high altitude. is inevitably going to encounter some turbulence. So we’re just going through a period of turbulence right now. I think that the future’s bright on the way up, but there’s going to be turbulence. And right now we’re going through probably the most intense turbulence that humanity’s seen for a while, quite since maybe World War II. And so more and more people need the right information. because you ain’t gonna get it from the politicians, you ain’t gonna get it from news, you aren’t gonna get it from the school educational system. You have to get it from people like yourself, like running podcasts, right? So I have to get this message out there. It’s like it’s a must, you know what I mean? It’s not like to improve my business or help in that way. I mean, that’s a side effect, but it’s really more like a mission because not everyone can afford our expensive trainings. Not everyone can even afford our, you know, kind of courses that you do, like the 21 day challenge, the breath of a challenge. They’re still out of reach of some people. So having a book, which is like a manual, that you can go to at any time. If you got an issue with this, you can look up, okay, I can use this technique and get like an instant like effect like that works almost as good as like pharmaceutical drugs, but doesn’t have the side effects. I think that’s really necessary right now because we weren’t given a manual on breathing and this is a manual on breathing but with science to support everything i’m claiming the book’s called breath works so i’m going to do like a series of them but this has got an amazing kind of library of, one section’s called Breath Pharma, of techniques you normally go to a pharmacist for, you know, like unblock your nose, fix constipation, probiotics, painkillers, you know, there’s a breath technique that can work almost as good as, or even better than, what you normally get to a pharmacist for. And the pharmacists will charge you money. They’ll also give you a package with a bunch of ingredients on and side effects that you can’t even understand. And you have to keep going to the pharmacist, right? But the thing with the breath is that it’s always with you. You can’t run out of it. You can’t run out of stock. You don’t have to get out of your house. You can do it any moment at any time. So yeah, there’s amazing things you can do with the breath.

Guy:
First of all, I love the title of the book. When I saw the email come through, I was like, oh, he’s nailed it. That’s gold. Because I’ve had James Nester on the podcast since we last spoke, and also Patrick McKeown, and different guys. Yeah, they’re amazing souls, amazing souls. And when I saw that come through, I was like, wow, that just caught my attention straight away. So well done on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you said, there’s a wave that’s happening. People are, and from what I’m seeing firsthand as well, people are really fed up with the current paradigm and they’re looking for answers. And what I want to do as well today is, like, because I can’t assume everyone has heard of you before or new to Bratswork, and I don’t want to cover all terrain either. But when we start to look at the breath and its effectiveness, I’m curious to know as well how much belief actually supports the practices within what you see. Yeah, but also believing in the fact that we have the ability, the tools, and the inner mechanisms. Because I’m a huge believer in the body that creates life can heal life as well. So anything within us, as long as we start to know what we’re doing and to take the right tool and application to work with the inner wisdom of the body, that’s way beyond the conscious mind. then we can set up an environment for it to start to, I’m cautious the word heal, but reorganize itself so it’s coming back into its natural harmony. But belief is a big part of that. If we don’t believe it’s possible, or subconsciously, there’s a part of it that holds us back. So I’m just curious to see from your journey and speak to that a little bit for people as well, because we’ve got to be open to the fact that these things can have an effect in the first place. Otherwise,

Niraj:
Yeah, well, I think the placebo effect is something that needs to be studied at a deeper level. I mean, one of the most classic placebo effect experiments they did was with morphine, where they split a group of hospital patients. One half, they administered a normal dose of morphine, right? And the other half, they told them that they were getting the usual dose of morphine, but then they gave them a vitamin C injection instead. And just by that suggestion, they both groups got pain relief. So that’s magic in itself, by the power of placebo effects. And there’s so much studies out there. If you look it up, go to PubMed, placebo effect, there’s incredible studies out there. So of course, there’s an element of belief in making techniques work, certain techniques. Maybe the more techniques which involve visualization to call in what you want, like manifesting type techniques, for sure that works primarily by belief because the way it works is can be explained mechanistically through science and physiology. And that is that Everything that we do as human beings, if you think about it, is the result of a feeling, right? Either moving towards more of what you want or moving away from what you don’t want, right? So we’re driven by feelings, okay? So when you have a belief, an absolute conviction in something, it changes the chemistry of your brain. And it actually makes you feel safe. And when you do any kind of exercise that makes you feel pleasure, like a rhythmic breathing exercise or some kind of meditative practice, you then produce oxytocin. And oxytocin creates the perfect chemistry in the brain for neurogenesis to happen. There’s other neurotransmitters and hormones involved, but oxytocin is the miracle molecule for manifesting. How would you explain neurogenesis? Neurogenesis, why it’s important is because Like in the, if you go into spiritual practices, in the ancient traditions, the idea was that as above so below, right? Your inner world becomes your outer world, okay? Now this is becoming more and more like science as well, right? That everything is energy, okay? Everything is a manifestation of energy. Matter is not matter, matter is energy, actually. So if everything is energy, right? The control of energy within, can create an effect on the outer world. So the way you can figure this out is ultimately everything we do, you take some kind of action. And you have to, before an action, to get the result that you want, decide to take an action. So where do decisions come from, quality decisions? Where do bad decisions come from? Where do thoughts come from? Because before a decision comes, some kind of a thought arises. So thinking comes from somewhere, right? Where does it come from? So a biologist will tell you that it’s the neurology of the brain that’s been formed over time through loads of conditioning and imprinting. And that forms the neurology nervous system that creates thoughts. and consciousness, and from that we make decisions and take action. So a lot of our decisions and actions are based on learned behavior, response to learned behaviors from the past. And therefore, if you want to manifest and you’re not getting the results you want, for example, usually it’s because there’s a resistance to taking action. The key word in law of attraction is action. But for people who can’t manifest, you think that you can just visualize and expect magic to happen. They forgot about the key word in law of attraction, which is action. You have to do something to get this result. So the difference between people who get successful results are the people who take the right action. And there’s people who don’t take any action at all, you get no results, but think that they can by just thinking about it, which is where a lot of people end up because of the bad education in that whole law of attraction world, right? But it’s biology. So in order to get the actions we want, we need to program our brain to create the nervous system connections in neurology that matches the result that we’re looking for. And that might mean actually working on creating certain skills, like better focus, better concentration, a more cognitive function in parts of the brain that’s necessary to create the skills, talents that you want. Sports stars aren’t born suddenly amazing. at sport are the best in the world. They practice and practice. They do repetition till they get really good at it, right? So the same thing goes for us, human beings, at getting any result. We need to do repetition. We need to practice. We need to work. We need to do a little bit every day to get good at something, right? So what blocks people from doing that is going back to what we were talking about, belief, lack of belief in themselves, or what’s possible. and not having the awareness in the first place, because the perception filters of reality are set into us at a very young age. In the first seven years, we get programmed, we get different imprints, which programs us and creates who we are, a sense of stealth, our identity. The default mode network is the brain’s version of the ego. It’s what worries about the future, gets hung up on the past. It’s what criticizes, judges, calculates things in the environment. It’s what analyzes to see what should we take action on, what we shouldn’t. And it’s also partly what that deals with our sense of safety and awareness, which is actually going to the reptilian brain, right? But ultimately, we are the product of the neurology in our mind. So in order to clear some of the old blocks that may have been installed into us, like let’s say, for example, an example was you really wanted to be a writer, but your school teacher kept failing you. and you thought you were really good at it, and then boom, you failed, right? And then you suddenly give up writing, because you’re traumatized. Well, your neurology is actually now stopping you from trying this, because it’s traumatized from that one event. So what it does is it creates a shield and says, let’s not do this again, because you might get the same result, because it’s trying to keep you safe. And that result could be so shocking that it’s not worth doing it. So we’re making decisions like this unconsciously all the time and this is our instinctive hardwired programming that’s set into us. So we have to shake that up a bit, we have to reprogram that if we want to make a change. So people aren’t getting the results they want, it’s because they haven’t created the neurology that they need to get that result.

Guy:
Yeah, well explained. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I’m enjoying it. So just thinking of our listeners as well then, the question would arise, well, how do I change my neurology? Like, what am I doing? So would it be fair to say then that different breathing practices are a way to start to access our autonomic nervous system, our inner world, our inner psyche, and using that as a gateway to create a different emotional response, which can start to shift the thinking brain from those states of being.

Niraj:
Yeah, so in Tantric Yoga, which is what we are based upon in Solar Breath, rhythmic breathing is the key, it’s the foundation. And in what you do in this type of rhythmic breathing is you breathe in and you imagine you’re breathing in through the sphincter muscles and you’re drawing up, breathing in, contracting up and letting go. Breathing in, and then you go in a perfect rhythm. So like, let’s say in for four beats, out for four beats, in a perfect rhythm, right? With music that’s uplifting, right? What that does is, because this sphincter contraction is called Ashwini Mudra. Shrini mudra is called a Shrini mudra because all of the mudras and a lot of the poses in yoga for example were named after what animals do in nature because a lot of the yoga asanas and techniques were developed by studying animals in nature. Humans were very curious, they liked to see why do certain animals have certain characteristics, let’s copy that. and then let’s see if we get the same result. And that kind of happens, right? So if you look at horses, their sphincter’s constantly moving up and down like this. They do this often. So if we do that, believe it or not, the sphincter is completely connected to the nervous system. So every time you contract and let go, contract and let go, you create this bliss pump of positive feelings and emotions through the body. And this creates more dopamine, oxytocin, if you do it rhythmically, and other kind of feel-good hormones. So we create a rhythm with your breath and a rhythm with the Ashwini Mudra. And the whole idea is we’re circling around these feel-good neurotransmitters, hormones, chemicals around the body, and this wakes up the brain’s ability to change according to will. and you know horse power horses have a lot of power and strength because supposedly because they do this ashrini mudra a lot so we’re creating power power to change, to transform, and also energy. Because when you combine this rhythm of breathing with certain breath hold techniques, we invoke a positive stress response that actually exercises the mitochondria and makes them more efficient at using oxygen. So we can make a kind of a double effect of benefits by using this sequence of breathing techniques, which we show how to do in Sore Breath. Yeah. And if you put an intention to it, the next layer on top is we call it neurosomatic programming. It’s the art of using the body for transformation. When you bring the body into change, the conscious mind cannot not accept that change. it goes to one side, right? So the body is the best of transformation. So any technique of manifesting should involve the soma, the body, right? So the breath is the bridge between the body and the mind, and in Eastern traditions, it’s foolish to control the mind through the mind, okay? Like, what comes before quality decision is the thoughts, thinking. A lot of people work either on thinking, changing thinking, or they work on actions, giving new strategies, new tips, new techniques. But often people get stuck there, right? They don’t move forward, they get plateaued, they decline, because your thinking is so linked to your emotional state, your quality of thought. You probably know this, if you have a bad hangover, I don’t know if you drink anymore, but I used to years ago heavily, like I’d have crazy hangover and every day or the whole day long would be just bad decision after decision and bad luck after bad luck. So I don’t know why people do it. So in the UK is such a big drinking culture. I look back on that as so much wasted time anyway. So so the feeling in our body has a big influence, like when you’re hungover you feel like shit. So all your thoughts are affected as a result. So what we have to control is how we feel. And that’s the whole benefit of bringing the body in. Because with the body, you can change your state very fast. You can elevate your state very quickly to the state of high oxytocin, dopamine, and that’s when neurogenesis occurs much quicker. So then when you use powerful affirmations, Right? We can program the brain, you know, like powerful programs or visualizations. We use the movie metaphor. So I imagine people to imagine you’re seeing a movie in your mind’s eye because what this is all working on is the right brain. The right brain is what’s connected to the emotional world. So you want to stimulate the right brain. What stimulates the right brain is visualizations and imagery and colors. So what we do is we create a vision, we feel the feeling of experiencing that as though it’s happening right now. Imagine you’re seeing that movie as though it’s happening right now. You know how movies can change how you feel straight away? Like, it’s really hard. Try this, like go to the cinema and watch a scary movie or just at home that you know every scene, you know exactly what’s going to happen next, but still try not to jump out of your seat at certain moments. It shows how much of our body nervous system kicks into gear, you know, without us consciously being able to control it, right? So that’s why feeling is so important. So, yeah, with these techniques, we can We can change state very quickly. We can highen our state. So through the visualization, we then feel it, you know, even just by imagining a movie playing in your mind’s eye of something maybe in the past that was a horrible event, traumatic event, or something that you want to call in or something that you love to do, anything, just play with the emotions and notice where you feel in your body. If you can see where you feel it, all right, and touch it in your body, right? You can change it, you can expand it, you can amplify it. So we store feelings and we feel them in certain regions. So like a lot of people point to their heart when they feel love and passion and joy, the good feelings, right? Other people feel tension here in their gut quite often, like contraction. So if you point to where you feel it, You can then ask yourself, is there a color that represents those feelings? If there’s a color that represents them, just through the power of visualization, like spinning techniques, amplifying techniques, or color breathing, which is what we use, you can Breathe more of that color in rhythmically, use Yashwini Mudra, and this has this magic effect of amplifying that feeling. I’ve given people like full-blown, full-body orgasms. On my birthday actually, 12th August, we did a whole… like multi-orgasmic experience with my dear friend, Emily Fletcher in Tulum, in Mexico, and it was pretty steamy. The fact that it was like almost 35, 36 degrees outside and no AC in this workshop tent, that’s another story, but yeah, it got very, very steamy. And people were reaching orgasmic states within just 10, 15 minutes of doing this technique that I’m showing. So we build up this ecstatic feeling or we can go into traumatic moments and feel where we feel them, not have to sit with them or know the story in great depth. But you can elicit that feeling and then you can ask yourself, what do I want instead? Right? You can ask yourself, what do I want instead? And by doing that, you can start to change the channel in your movie to retelling that story in another way, right? Let’s say you’re a kid and you got abandoned and you got locked in a room and you weren’t allowed to come out of your house, out of your bedroom, you know, and your parents really neglected you. This happens. It’s very common, this childhood trauma, right? you can retell the story in a different context, different perspective. As you do that, you can feel a different feeling, a different sensation about that story. Because feelings give meanings and thoughts become things. That’s like our little mantra. So with that, we can change the meaning of the feeling. Right? And from that we can have a new thoughts, idea of what we want to call in next. And that then eventually becomes a thing in your life, a new result. So that could be like a relationship. Let’s say you’ve been really struggling to find your life partner because at some point in time, Right? You got locked in your room and you were not loved. And because of that, you have constantly had this distrust of connection because you feel that if you get in a relationship, they’re going to abandon you too, just like your mom or dad did, right? It’s very common. This is a very common situation, right? Much more than we think. So I think it’s like one in five, one in 10 children these days have been abused, you know, at some point. It’s pretty horrible stats. I know one in 10 Americans are on antidepressants, for example, and usually that’s to suppress the feeling that I’m talking about. So we allow you to feel that feeling, but to reframe it, to change the meaning of it, all right? And so you can retell the story. You can give a different meaning to that situation, as in maybe your parents were going through struggles and they were doing the best they can and they didn’t mean to do that and they didn’t know any better. They really do love you and here’s the proof. You tell the story to yourself in a new movie that you make and then you scan through images of how your life would change and imagine calling in that perfect partner who loves you, who doesn’t abandon you. Who would that be? What would it look like? See what you’d see, feel what you’d feel, hear what you’d hear and you do all that and then boom, you color breathe that into you, right, using our rhythm of breathing, music that amplifies our experience with my guided instruction. That’s what our instructors are trained to do. This is what our breath therapy component is, insomnia breath. And you see the magic that happens, like crazy, I call it crazy magic. Crazy magic happens, because it seems weird what we’re doing to most people who think we’re completely nuts, but it works like magic. Like it’s results that will baffle people. You can use this for healing, you know, tumors, diseases, because I had also colitis, I had an autoimmune disease. I did the same thing. All this, what I’m talking about, is what I used to heal myself back then, but it just wasn’t systematized in the way I’ve created it, systematized now. So you can use this to heal from autoimmune diseases. You can read, because every disease has a meaning too. There’s a meaning to that disease. The reason you’ve got that disease is for a good reason. And that meaning is in your unconscious mind. It’s a protection mechanism, right? I had to cop out of that corporate lifestyle because if I kept doing it, I’d be dead. I was destroying my body, my health, everything, my mind. So I had to get out of that pharmacy world. Boom, disease comes and it gives me a gift. And it’s completely changed my whole life, having that disease and letting it go and transforming it, right? So for most people, there are rare cases where it’s not the case, but for a lot of people, these diseases that happen suddenly, you know, out of the blue, throughout life, usually linked to some kind of traumatic event, we can change the meaning of them and we can then release them and let them go.

Guy:
Yeah, beautiful, well explained. Wow, there’s a few directions I could take that. One thing that opened up a loop in me while you were sharing, and it’s something I quite commonly see, and I’d love you to speak to it a little bit, because I’m sure you see it yourself, is that quite often we can use these practices to avoid the very things that we want to address. So we get caught up in chasing the experience and actually not dealing with the problems at hand or something that we don’t want to face. So we can kind of lean into the crutch of them as well, as opposed to using the tool to really work through what it is that we actually need to work through.

Niraj:
Yes. It has to be in your will to change. It has to be in your will. You have to want to do it. You can’t tell someone or force them into changing, even healing from something, if it’s not in their will, their desire. They have to want it. It has to suddenly come from within, this desire to let go of what’s holding them back. Because the meaning of what they’ve got is to stop them from taking action, remember. So they’ve got to want to take action. The pain of being in their existence has to be way greater than the pain of doing the work, taking action to get the result they want. That reward has to be greater than the kind of semi reward of sitting still not doing anything. You know what I’m saying?

Guy:
Yeah, I do. Yeah, for sure. What results have you seen? I mean, you would have seen a lot of people, right? Like, what have you just seen? Crazy results.

Niraj:
I mean, just recently, this one guy sent me a video. You know, the best testimonials for me are actually the ones sent in from my instructors to me, saying, oh my God, you won’t believe the story that I just had. But one recent one that came up was this guy called Jay. I don’t think you’ll mind I mention his name. He’s a very, very cool guy, young guy. But he worked in Silicon Valley, very intense life in Silicon Valley, very, very high pressure upbringing with very academic parents who kind of like beat him until he studied kind of thing, like kind of like my parents. They didn’t know any better. All they knew was you must do hard work to survive because to be an Indian in this environment is very difficult. So work, work, work, that’s all you can do. So yeah, he had that similar upbringing as me. Inevitably, he got burnt out in Silicon Valley and he ended up with major adrenal fatigue, chronic fatigue, crazy sinus problems where he couldn’t breathe from his nose and so on. He had like several different hormonal disorders and he was getting suicidal. Then he came across this and he actually did my Mindvalley quest And he just did one of the tracks on that, which I’ve had lots of results, positive results on this one track. Cause it brings in a lot of the elements I’m talking about, right? Neurosomatic programming, rhythmic breathing, the music, the breath holds. So what he did was this one track called Limitless, which you can even get on YouTube for free. And he just did that two, three times a day, right? And within a month he was baffling his doctors. His doctors could not believe it. To the point where he’s so, passionate about what we did. He came straight to the London retreat, uh, where we did our instructor training. He became an instructor and he’s now back in Silicon Valley, like working with people in New York and California. Amazing, crazy journey. And we’ve had like lots of studies. I mean, that’s just, that was just yesterday or something.

Guy:
An example, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, fair enough. And I’m curious as well about application in your life, because I’ve found, reflecting on my journey, there’s almost like the universe presents these rites of passage. And every time I walk through them, if I make a decision to go through that, I evolve. greatly, so that there’s a pain point and I work through it. And I come out the other side, reflection, going, oh my God, that’s incredible. And quite often I’ve found that when we come up against our fear, we just want to devour everything. We just want to do every breathing practice under the sun, every meditation, every guru. You just go out there and you just get so hungry and lost in the world of everything. And then there comes a point where you’ve got to almost go, okay, easy tiger. Let’s have a systematic approach and actually start application in. But also I found in myself, there’s a point where, like for me now, I just, I truly am, my goal is to be as present as possible. Yeah, it really is. In every moment that I have, that is my purpose. So when I’m with my children and my dad, when I’m leading an event, I’m fully present there. And whatever it is, speaking to a person in a coffee shop, you know? And so there’s an element then of maintenance that I kind of do to make sure I’m just chugging along nicely and supporting that. So my question is to you, what have you found on your journey? What do you do on a daily basis? Do you have certain rituals and practices? What was it like? I mean, speak to me about that. I’m intrigued.

Niraj:
Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s start right from the beginning then. So wake up and, you know, you’ve got a baby now, right? So, well, you’ve had one before. So that’s really challenging. Yeah. That really changes the game. So my morning routines, when it’s not my turn to look after, you know, the baby in the morning, cause sometimes we’re still trying to get into the routine of her sleeping, you know, where we can all have both have a really good night’s sleep. How old is she? Sorry. She’s a 15 months now. Oh, okay. Yeah. So. Let me give you an example where I’m not sleep deprived and all that, but generally I’ll get out of bed and I have this amazing, by a company called Therasage, these portable saunas, infrared red light saunas, and I have a breath track for humming that is tuned to 130 hertz, which is the optimum, humming tune. It’s a low C on the keyboard. And it basically when you just do all the hum sound in there over and over. It’s incredible. It boosts nitric oxide significantly. So I do that and I also do like a kind of a rhythmic first one round of before it gets too hot. When it’s gradually heating up, I do one round of my morning gratitude breath journey. Okay, which coming out on our app coming out soon. the Summer Breath app. Then we have the humming track. So I do the sauna and then now my daughter comes into play. She loves dance music. She will demand playing like some Afro house, some of my dance tracks on a speaker, full blast. So I put that on and me and her just dance. She’s only a year and a bit but she shakes it. So I’ll carry her and I’ll be like doing this move and then I’ll do a few Russian twists and do a few bodyweight exercises and I do a bunch of Buteiko exercises. you know, reduced breathing, I do this, one. So a lot of Buteiko’s stuff came from the original Indian martial arts system, okay? The original Indian martial arts is kind of the birthplace of a lot of the Chinese martial arts and kind of Eastern martial arts. And there, to create strength, it’s all about reduced breathing. So Buteiko, I think, got a lot from this system. A lot of the philosophies of Butego comes very familiar to the techniques in here. Also the Russian martial art of Sistema has a lot in common with this style where you do exercises holding your breath or very slow breathing whilst doing the exercise. Like a Hindu squat is where you go down right into a squat right hold on the bottom and up but breathing out gradually on the way down and breathing in gradually on the way up if you can do it in like a minute So 30 seconds down, 30 seconds up and do that a few times in a row. This is what I’ve got to do. It’s an amazing exercise for the entire physiology because the psoas muscles are the biggest muscles in the group and they carry the most strength, tension and stress. So if you can make them very oxygen efficient, it does wonders for your fitness, stamina, endurance. So the Hindu squat is a big core part of what we do. So that’s the mechanism, that’s the method I do is slow exercises with reduced breathing. And I don’t do any crazy heavy weights and stuff. I looked into all of this. I found out from looking at a lot of different research, the very intense heavy weights with like, cause I’ve, I’ve got injuries as a result of doing that, using kettlebells and stuff like that. It’s actually not, it’s counterintuitive for counterproductive for longevity and actual resistance to stress and health. Especially if you get injuries, when you get injuries to the soma and you even get, just imagine having pain with you all day long. Right. What’s it going to do with your thoughts? You’re feeling pain all day long. What’s it going to do with the quality of your thoughts and then decisions and so on? So I like to be pain-free. I don’t like to do ridiculously heavy weights, which I do see people do. I don’t need to go down to the gym and destroy myself, as some people obsessively do. That’s not my nature. I know my nature. That’s another thing in the Vedic system you can figure out. Is your nature to go and lift heavy weights or is it to be more chill and meditative? I’m more of those, that kind of person. But with yogic, traditional tantric yoga, using the breath with it, it’s much more like how Bhuteko does exercises. It’s an amazing exercise for cardiovascular health. And the number one killer in the world is cardiovascular disease, all right? And who’s dropping dead like flies these days? Athletes who do intense exercise. So there’s some correlation there, you know, it’s not all that good for you to do that. I think it’s been shoved in our faces too long. And a lot of people go and just get muscles and all that for vanity. Yeah. Yeah. I never got that interested in doing that myself. Yeah. I mean, I tried, I can’t even go.

Guy:
Yeah. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m a lover. I love pushing weights, but that’s part of my DNA makeup and you’re more bitter. Slow and steady though, right? I don’t do it to get injuries. I don’t do it for vanity. I do it to create a certain strength within myself.

Niraj:
That’s what I’ve always done. Yeah, but you’re the pitter build. You’re pitter physical. So you have fatter, pitter, kaffer. I’m more fatter, pitter. You’re, for sure, I feel, on the pitter side. So you can probably handle a lot more weights than I can.

Guy:
But the point being is, as well, everything I do is to ensure that I feel as energized as I possibly can in my moments. I don’t do something to go and get fatigued and come out of there just feeling, oh, am I going to get through the next three hours? I’m knackered. Not a chance. I’ve looked into that enough. And on a side note, you mentioned the SOAs. It’s just a random I thought for everyone, because that’s something I’ve been suffering a lot, is my psoas would be really tight in the morning. There’s a fascia right here at the base of the sternum, at the base of the chest, right in the middle. And by massaging that daily, it’s transformed my psoas, which I didn’t realize. There’s a direct link. Which one? I’ll just get it on camera right here, right at the base of the chest. You know where the ribs come up into the middle? And then if you massage through there at like a 45 degree angle in a relaxed state through the chest and around here as well, and apparently sends a signal directly to the psoas. And then just deep diaphragmatic breaths, 10, 20 of them from the base with no chest movement. Yeah, it’s been, I’m like, really? And I’ve been trying it. It’s actually changed the game. Yeah. So that’s quite a routine.

Niraj:
I don’t eat so much food these days. I sometimes have breakfast first thing. Not first thing, after a little bit of exercise. But I’ve also been experimenting with, I make a renegade coffee. which is a concoction of high quality coffee with colostrum and ghee. And it does set me up for a few hours like in the morning without having to eat food. So yeah, I’m trying to actually cut down on the amount of food that I consume. to have like one main meal a day and to like limit the amount I eat small. And often I find that’s much better for my digestive system to have small meals more often than a big, large meal in one go. Cause then you get like bloated and tired and overeating is really bad for breathing. It makes you hyperventilate.

Guy:
Yeah. Yeah. Where do you see, just to start wrapping up the podcast, where do you see yourself going with all this? It’s quite an achievement what you’re doing. You’re clearly living on purpose and affecting a lot of lives, and it’s been no doubt one hell of a journey with you from when you were a pharmacist to what you’re doing now. You’re living in Tenet Reef. You know, many people on the outside. Ibiza. Geez, don’t say the word Tenerife.

Niraj:
Come on, sort it out.

Guy:
Ibiza, yeah. I’ve never been to Ibiza, actually, but yeah.

Niraj:
I hear it.

Guy:
Yeah, yeah. So, it’s been quite the journey for you. What’s next? Your book is coming out. Are you content? Are you going to just keep driving this thing to see how far and wide it reaches? How do you see it all going?

Niraj:
The moment you become content with ambition is the moment you stop growing. So I don’t think I’ll ever be content as an artist, right? Because as an artist, the whole point of being an artist, the creator, is to keep creating. So I think I’m, I don’t even know yet where this could go. It could be very big, right? And I love like what Joe Dispenza’s doing, like Tony Robbins. Joe Dispenza’s really taken it to the next level with these big retreats, super transformative, lots of people coming in. Tony Robbins with 10,000 people events. Even Wim Hof is like doing these huge experiences. This is what I want to do next. Because I’ve done this already with Mindvalley, like I’ve done some amazing transformational experiences with like four or five hundred people. But now I want to run our own event. We’ve done so many retreats over the last four years since you last spoke, and we’ve now got Cambridge University studying us, we’ve got University of California doing a trial. So we’re getting all this new awareness, but now it’s like, let’s scale this with events that are just epic, with hundreds of people, even thousands of people all attending, full-on, incredible experiences with the music, because I produce all the music with these amazing in-house musicians. lights and visuals and just take people’s senses to another dimension because heightened emotion, oxytocin, right, with intention creates transformation. So in order for us to change the world, I want to get as many people together with that formula, with the right intention.

Guy:
Yeah, beautiful. It feels like everything is moving in that direction. Like you say, there’s clearly a need, there’s a hunger, and I have no doubt you’ll achieve it if you just continue to lean in.

Niraj:
That’s for sure. As long as those sneaky people don’t shut us down again, lock us down over some new variant, we should be okay.

Guy:
Yeah, time will tell, time will tell. Last question for you, May. With everything we covered today, what would you like to leave the listeners to ponder on?

Niraj:
I want to leave with the fact that in all my years of doing this, over 12 years, breath works. It really does for numerous things, from improving your physical health, your creative potential, self-healing. It’s like a pharmacy technique. You can use it for manifesting even. Deep spiritual awakening can happen when you learn to control your breath, take conscious control of your life. Because through conscious control, becoming more conscious in control of what’s happening on the inside, we can have more conscious control and awareness of what’s going on the outside. And through that, we can create more alignment and make this world a more happy, genuine place. Because my big mission is to make as many people naturally high, happy, and healthy as possible. because they’re the types of people who go on and do nice things to other people. They feel good. They want to be good and spread good vibes to other people. It’s the miserable ones who tend to go on and make others more miserable. So I want to end that suffering. I want to, you know, inspire people to become more high, happy, healthy.

Guy:
That’s my moment. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful. When does the book come out, mate?

Niraj:
It’s going to be around April time. April. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You can get on the, the, um, the broadcast system and it’s announced that we have this big event that we’re putting on later on the year that you’d be put into. And we have our lap, uh, sorry. We have our app coming out as well. Um, which makes all of this so much more accessible. And, uh, all you need to do is DM me the word breath, just breath, B R E A T H. to my Instagram, nirajnakeofficial. So I’ll send you all the info.

Guy:
Yeah. Yeah. Send us the info, links will be in the show notes for people and then, uh, and then they can jump on the broadcast list and go from there. Amazing. Good on you. Lovely to see you. Thanks for coming on the show. We’ll meet you at some point. Yeah, definitely. Thanks legend. Cheers mate. Nice one guy.