David Rutherford Show: “22 Minutes Without Air” – World Record Holder Stig Severinsen on the True Limits of Human Performance | Ep. 86

Summary

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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Guest Host Edition: David Rutherford Show
Episode: “22 Minutes Without Air” – World Record Holder Stig Severinsen on the True Limits of Human Performance
Date: December 15, 2025
Featured Guest: Stig Severinsen (Multiple Guinness World Records, World Champion Free Diver, PhD in Medicine & Biology)
Host: David Rutherford

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Overview:

This episode explores the incredible world of human performance and breath control through the eyes of Stig Severinsen, best known for holding his breath underwater for a record-breaking 22 minutes. David Rutherford dives into Stig’s journey, the connection between biology, psychology, and performance, and how breathwork unlocks extraordinary potential—both in elite athletes and everyday life. The conversation blends science, philosophy, training insights, and inspiring personal stories, inviting listeners to challenge their own perceived limits.

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Main Discussion & Key Points

Stig’s Beginnings and Connection to Water

• Natural Evolution to Extremes:
  • Stig attributes his success to a “natural evolution” from childhood, fueled by an early love of water, animals, and curiosity.

    “It really has just been a natural evolution for me.” (05:01 – Stig).

  • Swimming from a young age, selected for talent teams by 5, and winning national championships at 9 in Denmark (05:29–05:33).
• Nature & Psychology:
  • Deep fascination as a biologist and animal lover, spending hours observing wildlife and dissecting specimens as a child.

    “I was a biologist before I became one.” (10:53 – Stig).

  • Exploration of animal behaviors led to understanding human performance:

    “My other fascination as a child was sports, so movement. … how’s the body working?” (11:36 – Stig)

• Early Foundations in Sports & Martial Arts:
  • Progression into competitive swimming, then underwater rugby, martial arts, and meditation.
• Childhood Breath Holds:
  • Competing with brother and neighbors to hold breath longer—instilling curiosity and comfort underwater (21:04 onward).

Forming a Champion’s Mindset

• Competitive Spirit and Breaking Records:

  • Stig describes a turning point, realizing world-class performance was within reach when he read about depth records in a magazine.

    “I was like, I could be in the mix.” (27:38 – Stig).

  • Emphasizes the difference between arrogance and realistic ambition:

    “It’s not arrogance… it’s like within reach.”

• The Power of Habits and Marginal Gains:

  • Analogy: Like brushing teeth, performance is built on stacking and refining small habits for better outcomes (13:00–13:55).

• Overcoming Plateau and Reaching World-Class:

  • Stig’s coach encourages him to “give it your best, everything” after missing the cut for national team rugby:

    “You have this special gift. You should give it your best, ‘cause you’re kind of riding two horses.” (33:37–Stig recounting coach advice).

  • Shifts focus from team sports to freediving, leading to three world records within a year (37:00–37:45).

• Not Competing Against Others—But Against Oneself:

  “It is not a competition against the other athletes. It’s really... a competition against yourself. It’s like your shadow.” (43:30 – Stig)

Physiology, Breathwork, and Pushing Limits

• World Records and Testing Human Boundaries:

  • First person to pass 20-minute breath hold:

    “I did 20 minutes 10 seconds as the first human on this planet.” (51:41 – Stig)

    • Achieved in a shark tank to make breath-hold "entertaining and memorable" for kids.
  • Best: 22 minutes without breathing—“meditation underwater.” (60:49–Stig)
  • Multiple world records in pool distance, depth, and under-ice diving.

• Training and Scientific Measurement:

  • Used medical tests, blood sampling, MR scans, even radioactive isotopes to study what happens during extreme breath-holds (45:10–Stig).

• Preparation & Mental Conditioning:

  • Fasting before big records to keep blood out of gut, tuning nutrition for optimal vasodilation (spinach, greens, etc.).
  • Describes "relax-on-demand"—a conditioned ability to enter deep relaxation and slow the heart—a superpower for any discipline.

    “When you use a special breathing ratio or pattern, then that becomes the focus point… The brain listens and your body knows it.” (72:20 – Stig)

• Integrating Science and Eastern Wisdom:

  • Blends scientific understanding of neurophysiology, breathing, and yoga.

    “…with breathing we have the greatest tool to control our mind.” (71:14 – Stig)

• Mental Strength and The Role of Hardship:

  • Swimming under ice & challenging conditions strengthens mind for world record attempts.
  • Uses discomfort and “unpleasantness” as training for mental flexibility and strength (57:24–59:53).

• Safety Message:

  • Never hold your breath alone underwater—tragic loss of a close friend shapes his advocacy for safety (28:10–30:29).

The Art and Science of Breathology

• Breath Holding as Meditation and Measurable Mindfulness:
  • Describes brain states (alpha, beta, gamma, delta waves) as like “tuning a radio.”
  • Meditation underwater = flow state; no awareness of time, total absorption.

  “You merge with the action. … There is no time.” (70:38 – Stig)

  • “Mindfulness by measure”—you can quantify progress by seconds of breath hold or distance (77:17–78:23).
• Universal Application:
  • Breathwork as transformative for athletes, military, business leaders, and trauma survivors—including veterans.
• Baby Steps and Scaling Performance:
  • Anyone can greatly improve (“double or triple breath hold in seven days” via his free online challenge—85:20)
  • “Once you reach a level, you cannot unlearn it… like riding a bike.” (88:35–89:32)
• Building a Healthy, Resilient Nervous System:
  • “The key to relaxation is in the exhalation. The nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating.” (82:48–Stig)
  • Exhales, slow breathing, and nasal breathing stimulate the vagus nerve, put you in ‘rest and digest’ (parasympathetic mode).
• Powerful Takeaway:

  “I want to tell people that they can learn to become comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. That is the takeaway message.” (101:57 – Stig)

Legacy, Teaching, and Passing the Torch

• Ongoing Role as Teacher & Coach:
  • Works with top performers (Navy SEALs, fighter pilots, CEOs, freedivers).
  • Story of recent coaching with champion Alexey Molchanov (112:03–117:54):
    • Adopts a collaborative, lifelong learner’s attitude:

      “It’s the respect, the mutual respect… To be able to ask for help, even if you’re the best of the best.” (112:41–David / Stig)

    • Details on training drills, recovery from failures, and meticulous, evidence-driven adjustments.
• Community Impact and Accessibility:
  • Breath holding and breathwork can benefit anyone, not just “superhumans.”
  • Advocates for teaching children and underserved groups (e.g., Cambodian school project teaching breathing, gardening, plastic cleanup at 99:00–99:45).
• Finding Your Method:
  • Tips for listeners: Try different breathwork approaches (Breathology, Oxygen Advantage, Wim Hof, holotropic, etc.) and build habits.

    “Find a person, or a school, or a direction that you like, try that out.” (100:24 – Stig)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Discovery and Ambition:

  “I picked up this magazine [on freediving], and I looked at the times and the depth…and I was like, I could be in the mix.” – Stig, 27:38

• On Competitive Spirit:

  “When you’re good at something, it’s fun…and when it’s fun, you become good at it.” – Stig, 20:56

• On Suffering and Growth:

  “I used that cold water and that type of training and that unpleasantness to…I don’t care about sharks…But it was a great training for me mentally to be, you know, strengthening my mind and becoming tough.” – Stig, 59:53

• On Measuring Mindfulness:

  “You can measure the level of mindfulness just by seconds you hold your breath or depth…It’s very crude…but it never fails. Seconds are seconds.” – Stig, 77:36–78:06

• On Flow State:

  “You merge with the action…That’s a beautiful place to be because it’s perfect and there is no time.” – Stig, 70:38

• On Breath as Control:

  “With breathing, we have the greatest tool to control our mind… The way you breathe is the way you feel.” – Stig, 71:14

• On Conditioned Response:

  “When I hold my breath for 20 minutes, I have a deep, intimate conversation about my heart. And I don’t command it, but I ask it kindly to beat softer.” – Stig, 82:50

• On Habit Stacking:

  “You can be very productive if you do things in a smart way that you have to do anyways…but you stack them together and… the outcome is faster and better.” – Stig, 117:32

• On Universal Potential:

  “I don’t want people to think I’m this superhuman… Everyone can do much more. You can do much more than you think or believe.” – Stig, 88:35

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Key Timestamps for Segments

• [05:01] – Natural progression into water, swimming, and science.
• [14:43] – On training, technique, and importance of good coaches.
• [20:43] – The decision to pursue “the best”; early competitive moments.
• [27:38] – The inspiration to go for world records.
• [33:37] – Key coach’s advice, shift to freediving.
• [37:00, 37:45] – Achieving first world records.
• [43:30] – Competing against self, not others.
• [51:07, 60:49] – Details of 20/22 min breath holds, “meditation underwater.”
• [71:14] – Breathing as a tool for the mind; “the way you breathe is the way you feel.”
• [82:48] – The exhale as the key to relaxation.
• [85:20] – “Seven-day breath hold challenge” – intro to method and results.
• [101:57] – Learn to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
• [112:03–117:54] – Coaching/legacy, story with freediver Alexey Molchanov.
• [118:58–124:12] – Where to find Breathology, book, resources, and philosophy.

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Final Resources & Where to Learn More

• Find Stig Severinsen / Breathology:
  • Website & social: "Breathology" (search with or without ‘e’, handles/domainees secured)
  • 7-Day Breath Hold Challenge: Free, online, open to all skill levels.
  • Book: "Breathology" (available on Amazon and online PDFs)
• Other Breathwork Approaches:
  • Oxygen Advantage (Patrick McKeown)
  • Wim Hof Method
  • Holotropic/rebirthing (Stanislav Grof)

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Tone & Style:

Conversational, warm, filled with childlike curiosity and humility; deeply scientific but accessible; a blend of playfulness, gravitas, and inspiration.

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For Listeners:

This episode is a must for anyone interested in pushing boundaries—whether in sports, wellness, stress management, or self-discovery. Through Stig’s story and expertise, you’re invited to challenge your own limits, harness practical breathing techniques, and find stillness and flow both underwater and on land.

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“You can do much more than you think. And it starts with curiosity, an open mind, and doing breath work.” – Stig Severinsen (88:35)

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Transcript

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Stig Severinsen]

Hey Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means half day. Yeah, give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra.

[David Rutherford]

See mint mobile.com how are USDA staff.

[Stig Severinsen]

Cuts and budget challenges affecting farmers? My dad and I both have a CSP contract but staff can't check the fields to approve them for us to get paid. We're going through a very bad economic time. If we don't have the funds to support our conservation practices, we're going to see a major drop off in producers. I don't know guys, this is scary. I got a young family, a young business and have no idea what's going to happen. Protect conservation Funding and staff that supports farmers paid for by investing our land.

[David Rutherford]

How long can you hold your breath? How far can you run? How long can you push yourself until your body fails? Today on the David Rutherford Show I have multiple Guinness Book world record holder, multiple world champion free diver longest breath hold. Mr. Stig Severnson. Sir, thank you so much for joining me today on the David Rutherford Show.

[Stig Severinsen]

Thank you for having me on the show. I'm excited.

[David Rutherford]

Well, it's funny, I was trying to think back to when Morton and Rebecca first introduced you to me. Just like told me about you and I think it was probably around I want to say 2015 or 16 and I looked you up and I was like, oh my God, I know who that guy is. Right. Because I know you had worked with the SEAL teams before and you'd done a lot of work with other elite competitors and but it wasn't until I really like went into the world championships and your records where I was like, oh my God, this guy's at a whole nother. And then for me obviously a 22 minute breath hold. The first human being to ever do that it you for me because I've pushed my body to is you know, the limits are close to my limits in hell week and combat like the appreciation I have for what that means and what it takes to get there like it it I remember just like in awe like mouth open, you know, breed of catching flies with it. Tell me what I think a lot of people and what I've always tried to to do with my show is to really help the audience figure out the sequence that gets a human being to a place where the idea or the ambition it's not too far out of reach where it becomes oh I, this is attainable and I'm gonna go for it. So introduce everybody to how that process transpired for you.

[Stig Severinsen]

Okay. Hello everyone. Thank you for taking the time listening or watching the show. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It's always, it should be I guess a fun endeavor and of course a tough journey at times but, but it really has just been a natural evolution for me. That sounds easy of course to say but I've always been very fond of water. I did competitive swimming. So that's my.

[David Rutherford]

You were a four time national champion at nine.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, when I was very young I, I, I got into swimming. I was picked for something called the talent team when I was five.

[David Rutherford]

Oh wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

And from then competition. So you can say I grew up in Denmark. I'm, I'm Danish with a Swedish mom. But you know, Scandinavian. And I would say so everybody.

[David Rutherford]

That means he's a Viking. Just so you know, he's Viking.

[Stig Severinsen]

So like, yeah, Viking, but also, I would say a quite normal upbringing. That's kind of my point. Yeah. You know, you know, growing up with my parents, and I was fortunate. We had a nice swimming pool in my backyard. We also had a boat we could kind of live on and stay on. So very privileged in that sense. But. But. But that's why my parents wanted me to be a good swimmer. Cause we had the pool and we had the boat, you know, and it's quite cold in Denmark, even though, you know, so they were like, if this kid falls overboard, you know, we had our safety gear and stuff, but they wanted me to be able to take care of myself. And I have a brother who's two years younger than I am. And so. And we were nice little boys and pretty adventurous, I guess, but. But, you know, they had a great level of trust in us, but they thought it was good we could take care of ourselves.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

So that's how that safety element came in. So my mother took me baby swimming, and she had been a swim teacher herself younger years. And everything around water just made sense to me. I'm a Pisces, for those of you looking stick severance up on Wikipedia or Chatgpt or whatever. So I'm a Pisces, you know, I'm born 8th of March and 1973. So I just always loved water and the freedom in water. And I'm a biologist, so my background is that I studied biology and we can get more into my studies, my PhD in medicine and so forth. But I was always a biologist, if that makes sense. 100 people listening can relate. Right? You're always something like you're. Or many people. Maybe not everyone, but. But many or most people feel there is something like, that's me. I love cars.

[David Rutherford]

That's me.

[Stig Severinsen]

I can't get enough cars.

[David Rutherford]

For me, I've always felt connected to art.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

For me, it's not cars. That's my brother and my father, interestingly enough. But I was nature.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

There is not like the amount of time I was just in Dominica. We can get back to that as well for some interesting training. But I was just down there in the Caribbean and I can just sit and watch. Also here in Florida, you have these little lizards. They're called false chameleons. Anolis carolinensis is the Latin name. So like from Carolina, the anole. And you have them in every tree Maybe you don't even know so much about lizards or herpetology. But that is like my big. I was almost going to say fetish. That's my big passion. And I'm so fascinated by these living dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, right. Crocodiles, turtles.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Like that. They haven't changed for millions of years. Millions of millions of years, literally. And, and the little one, you know, the female, sees smaller and tiny and cute and. And they're kind of brown when they're cold. And then when they get excited or heat up, they turn green. Thus the name, the false chameleon. And they have this kind of brown gray, kind of, kind of like a long stripe along the back, but it can turn really bright and white. And then the males are bigger and they do kind of push ups when they. To impress the females, like we all do. Right. Look how strong I am. And then they can, they have this red sack under kind of like a frog, but this is a lizard. And they dilated with air, kind of like a breathing exercise.

[David Rutherford]

Interesting.

[Stig Severinsen]

And it turns red. So it's like, look how strong I am. And I can, you know, present myself in this elegant manner. And down in the Caribbean now I could just sit during breakfast and watch and watch. And there's not. And I'm, there's no end to how much I could sit and watch these guys. So that's just to tell you how nerdy and geeky I am.

[David Rutherford]

Right? Well, I, I don't know if it's nerdy. Nerdy and geeky. I think it's.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, in that specific field.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah. But I, for me, it's like at. There's a point in your childhood where you get connected to something.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And you don't, you don't lose your, you're not distracted. Right. A lot of children, their attention span is, is much smaller than everybody else.

[Stig Severinsen]

Changing for many reason. Social media and all this, I guess. But sure, but, but for me it was this instant connection with nature before I could even put words on it.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

And I loved everything about everything with animals, their behavior, the way they developed. I would, you know, find dead animals or catch them, have them in aquariums.

[David Rutherford]

You're the kid who comes home and you've got, you know, a small girl.

[Stig Severinsen]

Or I was like, you know, the Natural Museum in London History Museum was like, go home. You know, I really had the big museum at home. I didn't have so many toys. Not that I didn't have. And I had a good childhood, but, but I had no interest in those technical things. And Lego, even though it's from Denmark. You know, I had some Lego, but not much. I really had a lot of animals everywhere. So I was interested in finding out how many bones are in them. You know, when the owls throw up the mice because they can't digest every part of the mice. Especially you, a guy in the forest and, you know, we know this stuff. But maybe people in the city, they're not aware, but the owls will puke this stuff up, almost like a furball, like the cat is doing. And I would go and find all this and I would dissect it and find all the different bones from the mouse.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

And then I would kind of put the. The skeleton together and have them in little boxes, and I have them still.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow, that's.

[Stig Severinsen]

So anyways, enough about that. But I was always connected to nature. So my point is that I was a biologist before I became one.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

Now I have a master's degree in marine biology. Neurophysiology, yada, yada, yada. I was teaching at university for many years, but. Neurophysiology, yeah, that was my speciality.

[David Rutherford]

And marine biology. Marine biology. Anything else?

[Stig Severinsen]

No, that was kind of. But that was it in biology. But then I went into into health science.

[David Rutherford]

That's right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Finished my PhD in medicine. But it's just. It was just who I was, and I've always stuck with that. So I think what I was saying, that it was a natural progression, was just. I loved animals and nature. I could never get enough of it. I love to study dinosaurs and sharks and read books and habitats. Everything. Everything.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Understanding how they react. And also that's why behavior is interesting. Like the psychology behind it and the different survival mechanisms of changing color, hiding, tree looking dangerous, looking poisonous. You know, the colors and stuff. So anyways, I, I was fascinated by that. And then my other fascination as a child was was sports, so movement. So kind of maybe looking at all these mice and looking at all these bones and jaws, like, okay, so how's the body working? And so I was fascinated by, you can say anatomy and, and in physiology. And then of course, when I grew older and studied more, also I lived in Spain. I studied human anatomy and got more and more into kind of what does it take to grow stronger and perform at your highest level. And then the last layer, of course, is psychology.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

So behavior, habits, good and bad habits. We can talk much more about that. Yeah, we can talk about it all day. But, you know, how do we. How do you identify bad. Or maybe not always bad habits, but Things you do every day, things that people do because of society or just because they're not so aware of it, but it turns into. It's like stacking on the good things. It also adds up to being not good. It's maybe not a bad habit in itself, but the outcome is not productive. Does it make sense?

[David Rutherford]

Makes a lot of sense.

[Stig Severinsen]

Right. So if you identify those. That's one of my other nerdy hobbies, whether I work with Navy Seals or athletes or sea level executives, you know, identifying those things that are easy to change. So you're still doing something like brushing your teeth, for example. You know, so a dentist would tell you you're brushing it way too hard or your gums are bleeding. Right. Just a silly example. So why don't you just turn the toothbrush 45 degree angle, gently massage it, and spend half a minute more and don't push so hard. So that is a habit. That's good. You're cleaning your teeth, but you're doing it in the wrong way, but you're not aware of it. So the conscious level is not there. And then an expert tells you, do it this way, do it that way. So then you do it that way. It doesn't take longer, you still have to do it, but it becomes what I call a good habit. And that stacks up to a lot of positivity for dental hygiene. Your breathing, the air that comes in your lungs, the microflora in your mouth, and so forth and so forth and so forth.

[David Rutherford]

Okay. So there's a point where the natural environment.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

The need to move, they. They kind of synergize together. You start then swimming.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And so as. As you begin to get. Because it sounds like you got good fast.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. Right.

[David Rutherford]

You had a natural predisposition.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

You were naturally strong, good fast twitch fibers. You had. You understood training, you were focused, you could pay attention to technique.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And that's remarkable for young kids. Right. That's the hardest thing when you train kids is the focus on technique, patterning. Right. Making sure the execution of the angle with which your hand goes in. Right. All of those things. But you somehow had that.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, well, I had good trainers. I'm still connected with my trainer. He's of course, an older gentleman, dark Stormark. And I write wonderful things on his Facebook. Like, I'm so thankful, like when I set a world record or something, like. And people write, oh, you're great. This incredible. I'm like, oh, I would post like, thank you so much for being an inspiration and for really handling Us kids, you know, in a really kind way and tough way, but, you know, kind of, you know, stern, but. But, but loving. And so I always remember to pay respect to. To those people. Also when I played underwater rugby, a game that's not so well known here in the States, but it's like a kind of psycho game.

[David Rutherford]

It's one of the best sports in the world, by the way.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's holding your breath. I mean, for Navy SEALs and stuff, they should do it more. We do throw torpedo or something.

[David Rutherford]

We do. Well, we call it underwater hockey.

[Stig Severinsen]

No, underwater hockey is something else that's with the puck and the stick.

[David Rutherford]

Right. But we.

[Stig Severinsen]

That as well. You call it hockey.

[David Rutherford]

We, we. That we started with, we'd have some kind of like. Like it was almost like a shuffleboard.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

So we'd use that. Put the balls on the bottom, and then it just became the torpedo. Just killing guys.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, but underwater rugby is like that, but. But it's a ball and it's filled with salt water or sugar, so just dense water. It sinks 1 meter a second, which translates to 3ft. So it has this density. And you can kind of throw it, like hurl it like that. Right. And then it's kind of like in a room like this, you know, but it's in 15ft of water in the deep end of the pool. And you have basic snorkel equipment on, so flippers, a mask with a lot of Velcro, like military style, strip to your face. Because it's like a UFC fight. Right. And you have your protector and your mouth guard. And then there are basically no rules. And of course, this is done on breath hold and you're just going berserk. So I guess that's why we love it in Scandinavia. Viking. Crazy stuff, you know. So I played that for 11 years in the elite series and then four years in the national team. And I played also in Spain when I live there, underwater hockey. So. But. But that is excellent training for CO2 resistance.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

And for lactic acid tolerance, high lactic acid. And for clearance, like, to really get.

[David Rutherford]

I want to get into that when we talk about the physiology.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, we can get back to that. But anyways, those were things that just happened naturally. Right. So I zigzagged little bit here and there, but it was always driven by passion and interest. Right. So. So for me, it has been, when I look back, a natural path. And then I did martial arts also in my youth. So that layered that psychology slash. The connection of the bridge to the Eastern philosophy that I Then come much, much more back to that with breathing and everything. But that kind of fostered that foundational understanding of you can say the Eastern philosophy of connectedness between the body and the mind and the spirit. That Descartes kind of chopped off the head literally a few hundred years ago when it was like the divine and the church and then the body and the mind, two different, two separate entities, like not connected. And that is why modern medicine is still kind of not working really well. My brother's a doctor, I have a PhD in medicine, my sister's a nurse. It's not that I don't know have greatest respect for surgeons and advanced technologies, but the way it looking at for example veterans or treatment or just performance or prevention is really flawed because of this 200 year old paradigm where the mind and the body are separate. So if you have something wrong in your arm or your knee is like maybe it stems from something else or maybe you're not eating right or maybe so. So it's not the root cause they're looking at. And it's I think modern science without being too cruel, you know, it's very myopic for sure. Very myopic. And now, thank God or thankfully it's, it's, it's, it's becoming broader.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Stig Severinsen]

There is an open interest and I think also after Covid and all this kind of weird nonsense craziness happening, people are. And with the AI and an online search of information, you can be like your own doctor or can be your own fitness coach and you can ask critical questions and find answers. Maybe the government or somebody else. Pharmaceuticals companies would not maybe give you those answers for very good reasons. Right. No, it's a big thing in the world right now. So all of these things now are opening up. So doctors and scientists, the military as well. I can feel, you know, in those last 10, 15 years that I focused more on C level executives, business coaching and, and, and like the Navy SEALs, the Danish, the Royal Navy, the Air Force as well. Royal Air Force also trained the fighter pilots here. The F35. Pilot. Fighter pilots. Because we're shifting from the F16.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Stig Severinsen]

Fighting Falcon to the F35. So. And getting all that to. To Scandinavia and Europe for the new alliance. So I was training them out in. That's very cool in the base here. So there's an openness even in the military to take in new information and look at the old historic ways of doing things.

[David Rutherford]

Do you think that your. The connection to nature, the connection to water. For me, I've Always had a connection to water, too, growing up here in Boca.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

On the beach since I was a baby. Right. In the water. Growing up. Surfing, diving, snorkeling. Like, there's just. There's. There's some. There's a emotion. There's a fluid. A fluidity. There's a power that extends. There's a connectivity. Yeah. The currents. And then as soon as you go under the water, it's like, oh, wow, this is a whole world.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's a different world. Yeah. A different universe, almost. Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And those things mixed with this competitive spirit.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Right. Is you think, that was obviously a great foundation for you to move on to higher education, higher competitiveness. But what was the catalyst to where you're like, oh, my competitive spirit is not just going to maintain at this point.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

I want to be the best.

[Stig Severinsen]

I get it. I know exactly what you. What you're fishing for.

[David Rutherford]

No, but.

[Stig Severinsen]

But. So let's just say it was a natural path for me, and I picked, you know, things by passion.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Stig Severinsen]

And I was good at what I did. And when you're good at something, it's fun. And when it's fun, you become good at it. It's like a positive cycle. Right.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And. And ever since a kid, besides of nature, I loved holding my breath. And I just found out when I was very young in our pool, that I could hold my breath quite long. And we would have this game where I threw in little plastic animals because I loved animals. So I had like a million different things in plastic and these rubber animals. Right. I had like hundreds of them. Love them. Dinosaurs, sharks, everything.

[David Rutherford]

He was my. My GI Joe man. You know, we do quarters or pennies.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, yeah, same thing. So we would have, like, baskets, and we would, like, collect, like two or three baskets on one breath hold. And I would do it with my brother, who's two years younger, like I mentioned. And then we would do it with our neighbor, who, interestingly enough, totally out of context, but went on to become a special forces operator. Yeah, Special. Special forces. So in Denmark. Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

I worked with the D. But random.

[Stig Severinsen]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

So we little.

[Stig Severinsen]

Three boys, little children, had this little club, free diving club. And we use something that people watching today probably don't know what is. Some of the older generation will know, but it was called a typewriter. And the kids are like, what the hell is this? But with your fingers, you would type on kind of a machine with some little dials, and then a little steel thing would spring up and there would be a letter on a paper and it sounds like I'm joking, but I'm actually not because many people don't know what a typewriter is, but that is how you're typing on your phone. You would have little arms coming up and everything would be a letter. And if you type wrong, you had to put some white paper and click again and then make it kind of white and then hit the right key and the, the ink would be on the paper. So we did little cards. Cuz my dad was a businessman, he had this machine. So we did like little James Bond card, we laminated them, we were like super proud. We have a little club.

[David Rutherford]

Oh wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

We're in the.

[David Rutherford]

You had like business cards, of course. Like with.

[Stig Severinsen]

No, just for ourselves, you know, but like fx, agent, something. Because it was the time of James Bond.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Ian Fleming's, you know, great in, in the, in the middle mid-70s or early 80s.

[David Rutherford]

Roger Moore.

[Stig Severinsen]

Roger Moore and all that stuff was like some of the first movies. So anyways, back to your. Your question. Your very good question. So I loved holding my breath and I found out it was very natural and that stillness when you're good in the ocean. And then because I love to hold my breath, I found out I could explore even more. So every summer there was another lucky piece of the puzzle that was my parents always went to the Mediterranean.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Because Denmark, even though it's beautiful and in the summer it's nice, but we don't have so much sun because we have winter and spring and autumn, long and dark and rainy and cold. So most or many Europeans, northern Scandinavian people, go to the Mediterranean. Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia as it was called. Beautiful area that time still is, of course, but we would go there for two, three weeks. So my brother and I would just venture out and go. And we got spear guns and little knives and we felt so proud. So the more I could hold my breath, the more I could explore. So that was driving me. And you know, today I'm a member of the Explorers club. And it led to a lot of other things. So it was always a natural process. But then to your question, how do you go from that to that it happened, I would say from the childhood, but then two things happened.

[David Rutherford]

Great.

[Stig Severinsen]

Two or three things, like milestones. So one was that I moved to Spain. I studied at university there. I studied human physiology, but that was just kind of whatever. And I learned Spanish, which has been a great gift ever since. A Latin language, right? You can speak Portuguese, Italian, French, whatever. It's all kind of the same core. But besides, of that we got. I got into spearfishing more and then we started free diving because I lived in Barcelona on the coast and maybe on, on the side of that, I should say I actually grew up in Florida, Pensacola Beach. So I had the kind of the same issue with graduating high school, surfing, living on the beach, in Pensacola beach, on that beautiful snow white beach. And I would surf every day, dolphins, stingrays, everything. So, you know, just beautiful and having that connection and getting strong. And we had a lap pool as well, so I would swim, swim, swim there. So I was in pretty good shape at that, that time. And having physical education area as well, which I think is great in the American system that you actually move the body and hand. Had training every day. So when I moved to Spain, I picked up a magazine to learn Spanish. So this is how random it is. I had been there for a few. I was at something called American British College. I paid myself to learn. Sorry for kicking you. I learned, you know, I wanted to learn a little bit Spanish. So I saw this colorful magazine called Apnea, which in Spanish means breath holding. In English as well, but it's a Greek word, not breathing or no air. So like sleep apnea, it means without air, without breathing. So I picked up this magazine, colorful, beautiful, right next to that kind of college where I paid and went myself to learn some Spanish. Before I, I got admitted to the university to study for a year, I didn't even know Spanish because I'm a little bit silly. I'm like, oh, I'm going to go to Spain. Well, I don't. And I don't even, I'm even so dumb. But this is before ChatGPT and we had these typewriters, remember? And so I didn't know that in Barcelona they spoke Catalan. Catalan is not Spanish.

[David Rutherford]

No, it's different.

[Stig Severinsen]

And so, you know, so I had to learn two languages. And then they were, because of all the things that had happened in the 70s and, and all the kind of dictatorship and all those things, it was not allowed to speak their language. So the older generation, which were the smart people and the educated people, were teachers now again. And because of Franco and all that with the dictatorship, they were so upset that they had had this long period where they could not have the freedom to speak their own language and live their culture and historical heritage. So they were very, I wouldn't say snobbish, but very adamant about, about only speaking Catalan at the university when they were teaching.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

So I had to just learn. I was like backpedaling and Riding. I didn't know if it was Spanish or Catalan. I just wrote it down. But anyways, I picked up this magazine and now maybe it begins to get a little bit interesting. And I saw this like world championship in Sardinia. And this is in 1998. 99, exactly. 1998. I picked up this magazine and I stayed there for one year. So it had been the summer championship in 1998 in Sardinia. Small island in near Italy or part of Italy. And I looked at the times and, and the depth and, and I was like, I could be in the mix. That was my first. I think I've never told anyone actually.

[David Rutherford]

You just are like, oh, I could do that.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. But I, I was like, so maybe.

[David Rutherford]

That is the first lifetime, a lifetime of. And it's not arrogance, right?

[Stig Severinsen]

It's none of that.

[David Rutherford]

It's.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's like within reach. Yeah, exactly. So I, I get your question. So we to people like how it happened. So I was like, okay. So I got curious. So then I started training more and more on land. By the way, never hold your breath alone underwater because you can lose consciousness and black out and drown. Not dangerous if somebody's there to fish you out, but if you alone, then, you know. We unfortunately lose a lot of people every year, especially training for the military because they push themselves.

[David Rutherford]

Well, I mean, I can't even tell you.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, it's sad.

[David Rutherford]

It's 50 meter underwater swims. Yeah, we would do, you know, not tying even combat swimmer. Some of the drills, I mean it was almost every, every evolution which could be three to four hours.

[Stig Severinsen]

Somebody's getting pulled up and nothing happens. You're not getting brain damage, nothing happens. But if there's not anyone to pull you out and you do it alone or in the evening after swim drills or, you know, the coach is gone. And especially young men, they're like invincible. I'm Superman, you know, and they push themselves. They really want to get into the, you know, military or maybe the Navy seals or special Forces. So please don't do that. It's very important. I lost my best friend the, you know, 2012, and I, I'm still like very moved by it, but I'm also using it as a good fuel for safety. And I did the safety for the world world championships many years ago and I, I really got into that world and, and I'm kind of adopted into the family. Alex had two brothers, so they're like my brother. They called me super brother, super stick, super brother and super little brother because they're older than me. A few years. And then his mother, I'm like. That's also like an extra mother to me. And I'm like a part of Alex's. We were like spiritual brothers. That's beautiful.

[David Rutherford]

So.

[Stig Severinsen]

So I. We lost him in 2012, August 6th. So. So. And he was very cautious and a biologist and smart and marine biologist, a teacher. So it can happen to even the best.

[David Rutherford]

The best of the best.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. He actually went to retrieve a fin a lady had lost. He was also a scuba diver instructor. And he was like, yeah, I'll just go out and get it. And that's the number one rule. Never dive alone. And I. Whether it was the current or too many repetitive dives or he was exhausted from a long day, we don't know. They didn't find him until the next day that they did recover the body. So we had a memorial here on. On in 2022. And threw pellets in the water and went down and scuba divers and freed Irish down and let these pellets go from. From rose pellets. And they were floating.

[David Rutherford]

That's beautiful.

[Stig Severinsen]

In the catal. So yellow and red and. And. And white and discovering the water and. Yeah, I can get all emotional, but it was like a kind of grayish day in Spain, Northern Spain. And for that hour and a half when the water he. He drowned near a rock. And the sky just opened.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Crazy. All gray and. And. And dark and. And like kind of like, like bit uneasy energy. And that hole just open. And we had light and sun just for an hour and a half. When we sailed back in, it started raining.

[David Rutherford]

Beautiful.

[Stig Severinsen]

Crazy. Somebody crazy. Somebody's watching. And he was really spiritual and like angelic energy already on, you know, when he lived this life. So. So he went on to the next. So I have him with him in my heart in a lot of stuff. I do. So we trained. And then what happened was.

[David Rutherford]

You met him when you started?

[Stig Severinsen]

No, we became good best friends.

[David Rutherford]

So you.

[Stig Severinsen]

So we trained together in Spain.

[David Rutherford]

How did you find where to train?

[Stig Severinsen]

No, no.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, really?

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. Because they had a great diving club, so I played underwater hockey, and that's how I got into the national team. And we played in 99 in the European Championship.

[David Rutherford]

Already on the. On the edge of this whole world.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, I had already played underwater rugby on the national team for many years, so it was an easy fit to go into underwater hockey. And then. So. So I picked up this magazine that's step number one. I grew up in Florida maybe, and all the swimming. But then the second thing Was that I played underwater rugby, and I was getting better and better. I went to the national championship. So I was on the what we call elite series for many, many years. I think 11. 11 years or so. But four or five years I played on the national team, but I was not so big, and I was fast and. And strong and explosive, and I could hold my breath. But, you know, you're still. There's a limit to it because you have so high levels of CO2.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, my God.

[Stig Severinsen]

And that's what's driving your breathing. Reflect. So, you know, even though you think you're Superman, you got to get up and breathe.

[David Rutherford]

Breathe.

[Stig Severinsen]

So. But I was not, like, the body. I was not so big. There were, like, some huge guys. And so I had a trainer who was not a brilliant trainer, but he was okay. He was a nice guy. So. But he was not, like, a super talented trainer. He was a national coach. It's also often in these small sports, it's just kind of the guy who picks it, he does it. Like, he's the. He is. Yeah. Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Like, I love this.

[Stig Severinsen]

All right, let's build the lead. Same with Tony. Yeah, Tony, nice guy. But he told me in. In 2003, because we had the. In 2002, we had the World Championship. We had the. The Nordic championship, 2002, and I went to Norway, and it was really interesting, representing Denmark. Wow. All these big guys. And then in 2003, we had the World championship in Denmark in underwater rugby near my hometown. Yeah. Wow. I was like, wow, Imagine if I could represent Denmark and this could be. And maybe I could select it, maybe not. I played on the national team, but we also have reserves. Maybe I was not picked. That's the first draft, right? And he said to me, steve, because I'd already started training them in yoga, breathing, underwater swimming, The. The national team swimmers that were much bigger and stronger than me, but they started listening already then. And he said, you know, Steve, you have this special gift. You're. You're an okay player. You know, you're a good player, but you're not great, and you don't have the body for it. You're not big enough. You're not explosive enough. And, you know, these are, like 250 pounds, like, just true Vikings, right?

[David Rutherford]

True, true Viking. You're, like, just the next a notch below. That's the way I feel about the guys at Seal Team 6. Like, I'm just a knock below, right?

[Stig Severinsen]

You know? And he said, you know, you have this special gift to. You should give it Your best everything. Give it all your attention cuz you're kind of riding two horses. And I was. Cuz I started freediving in 98, 99 in like the breath hold training in Spain. And what also happened in Spain was at that time, time since I was at the, at the study, you know, I was studying biology and human physiology and anatomy. We also started doing a lot of tests. So I had my, my heart scanned. I did a seven minute breath hold in an Mr. Scan. They would draw blood samples at the same time because it wasn't so strict at that time. Yeah, we were like just little guinea pigs. And I continued then when I came back home to Denmark and finished my PhD in medicine. So at that time it wasn't like a big deal. We with waivers and all that stuff. You just went into the lab called the professor or your friends and you started measuring stuff, right?

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

Kind of like biohacking today.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, the way it should be, the way science should be. Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Original way of being the guinea pig. So. So you know, then I trained and I got selected for the Danish national team in, in, in a few years before had been selected for the national team in, in 2000 for the first World cup in Frida, diving in, in Nice. And I got selected and that was great. And then I started setting Danish records and then some Nordic records. 56 meters I remember in a lakeland in a quarry. Dark and cold and all. But that is actually that was your question.

[David Rutherford]

The first like record you went for was in that quarry.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, well it was, it was different records and not to make it too complex and stuff, but I did Danish records. So now you ask me, so how does it become natural? You know, I saw this magazine in, in the year of 98, then I trained 99. Then in 2000 I got selected then 2001 and 2 I was still playing underwater rugby. So I was in superb shape, you know, and, and I was 30 years old. Yeah, right. I'm born in 73. So peak, peak, you know, age, peak body, everything really well trained and great cardio and very interested then at that point in breath work and, and, and yoga. And I went to India and I found a teacher, or rather a master found me in Spain from Argentina, like an Argentinian breath master, yoga master. And he, he initiated me and I got my, my, my mantra and I got my special secret like initiation. So by, by random chances I, I connected all this. And then in 2003 I kind of gave up on the dream of joining the national team.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

And based on what you're doing.

[David Rutherford]

My coach had offered you.

[Stig Severinsen]

So I went all in on the freediving because it's difficult to do both freediving and underwater rugby, because underwater rugby is the best training. It's been chosen like the most crazy mad sport several times in a row. Like the most extreme of all extreme sports. And it's fun and it's wild, but of course, it's so high energy and adrenaline and high tempo that it does not fit very well into the stillness and the quietness of freediving. So it's a great. A great trainer, and it's a great precursor. But to do it simultaneously does not work.

[David Rutherford]

It's not because it's a different consciousness that you're doing.

[Stig Severinsen]

Opposite.

[David Rutherford]

Got it.

[Stig Severinsen]

So for the training and preparation. Perfect. So I stopped that. I skipped the team. And the next year, within six months, I beat three world records.

[David Rutherford]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So in less than a year.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, I had prepared from 2000, 2001 and 2.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

And I had an attempt that equal the world record that was then not record recognized. And that pissed me off. It should have been.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

I took blood samples and urine samples and everything because I know doctors and stuff.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And. But it wasn't recognized and it pissed me off. So then, you know, you go to work. And then I trained even harder for that one year, from 2002 to three. And for that specific record. Well, for. Well, for. There were three records. One was swimming in a pool. That was my first world record. So it's always like your first love, right? I'm. I'm a swimmer, naturally. So breaststroke and medley, which is the four disciplines, mixed and butterfly, those were my disciplines, but I was strongest in breaststroke. That's like my body type.

[David Rutherford]

Well, your breaststroke, like, watching your videos is like, it's. It's absolute poetry, man. And it's one of those things your. Your just your body symmetry, your hydrodynamic, like the way you stretch out.

[Stig Severinsen]

Thank you.

[David Rutherford]

It's so like I was a tank in a wall.

[Stig Severinsen]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

And especially with the.

[Stig Severinsen]

You're very kind, you're very beautiful. But. But I love it, you know, and for me, it has to be like a ballet. You have to present, you have to, you know, show the grace and, And. And that you truly love it.

[David Rutherford]

And.

[Stig Severinsen]

And, you know, it was just a natural discipline for me. So I chose the record for longest swim in a pool because in Denmark, we also own. We are surrounded by water, but it's cold and quite shallow. So we do a lot of pool training. So I I went for the discipline of the longest swim and I beat the world record by. Yeah, by like a length. Doesn't matter how much. And then few months after, I was the first to pass 200ft in that in Venezuela, in. In national park there in fins, no fins. So instead of swimming in a pool, I went deep, no fins. So I was the first to break the 200ft barrier. 61 meters in the metric system.

[David Rutherford]

And what. Did you have a suit on? Did you.

[Stig Severinsen]

I had a wet suit on, but I didn't have to. I could have gone without and I trained also without it sometimes. So.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, just like you sit there. I'm wetsuit does.

[David Rutherford]

Isn't a piece of the component. Like there isn't a.

[Stig Severinsen]

No, it depends on the temperature. And if it's an assault or freshwater lake or cold or whatever you.

[David Rutherford]

You're.

[Stig Severinsen]

You prefer. There are also people that put the wet suit on in the pool because then they can put more weight on because they have buoyancy suit and they can. And when they have more weight on, they have more momentum in the glide. But now we're really down geeking and nerding. But that's why I train the Navy seals. That kind of stuff is I train them so they can optimize their movement and their glide and stealth and all that. So. But anyways, it's too many details and too many details.

[David Rutherford]

What people love to hear are the details.

[Stig Severinsen]

But then I set those three records and I was also the first, the same year to break 200 meters, which is another. Like, we like these numbers, right? Yeah, for sure. In, in, in Holland.

[David Rutherford]

Metrics, right. In all performance, it's metrics, Right. All measure.

[Stig Severinsen]

My legs are too long, so.

[David Rutherford]

So, but it's. It. But that's the component, I think, of that competitive spirit.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

It's not necessarily I'm competing against this other person, although that's in there. And I. If you can, I love, if you could. We could end with the story of what you do. You did this past week with your friend and. But like that spirit, right? You're competing.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

You're competing against that depth, you're competing against the water, you're competing and then mostly competing against yourself.

[Stig Severinsen]

But to wrap up on your great question, that is like 20 minutes gone. Like, so what were the pieces of the puzzle? You know, natural background. Growing up, finding this magazine, thinking I, I might be able to be in the mix. You know, that's the first thing, you know, seeing you can do. It visualizes an imagery believing in Yourself not being cocky, but kind of relating to it. Yes. And, and, and it was like, oh, that's made. Made. You know, for me, that discipline, that's. That's great. And, and, and the breaststroke, you know, you have to adapt it. When you dive deep, it's not the same as on the surface because the air and pressure and. But you adapt. It's. It's, you know, nerdy fun. Excuse me. And then, then I, I did some national records and then the Nordic record. And then comes the point. Then you are like, well, well, maybe I should go for a world record. Right. And that is where you start to segregate or take the next step, both mentally. The way you train, the way you approach things, and the way you stack things in your training and get more and more in. But maybe in a smarter way, you often. Well, I did. And that's what most people with success do. You reach out for the best people in the field. Right. So I reached out for a guy that I knew from the. From the underwater rugby team, who was the goalkeeper, and he's like a phenomenal athlete. We're still great friends this day. Bo Jacobs, and he's been like the best trainer of Denmark. Like, I don't even know 10 times in swimming, but he was a four times world champion in fin swimming. Like this dolphin swimming, extremely fit, you know, like six pack, like four, you know, and just strong legs and just like a machine. His sister, who was born same year as I was, and I swam with her competitively when we were younger, she's still to this day the most winning, winning swimmer of all times of Denmark, Meta Jacobs. And so people in swimming will know her. She's kind of an icon in swimming.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

She's been in four Olympics. Four or maybe five.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

One of the few athletes to be in more than.

[David Rutherford]

I think her and Dara Torres are the only ones that ever did five, right?

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, well, she did four or five, or maybe she was going to the fifth. But anyways, it's quite remarkable.

[David Rutherford]

One is incredible.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's a long career. So anyways, I trained with Bo and I trained with another guy called Alex Felix Denmark. Funnily enough, his name is the same as Denmark. It's not like a joke or some name he took. That is his real surname. So he was a junior world champion as well in his fin swimming. So I look for the best people to help me and train me and teach me the styles and techniques. Where do you get these monofins from Russia, from, you know, Novosibirsk like in the middle of nowhere, I guess it's like you guys like sourcing material and everywhere in the world pens and knives is like, you got to get the best from this, this, that, that. So you really go nerdy and all that. And then I think this, this next evolution in your mind, you're like, okay, I'll go for the world record. And then at that point it is not a competition against the other athletes. And that is the fun part. It is really.

[David Rutherford]

Explain that, explain that.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, it's, it's, it's like you said, it's, it's, it's a, it's a dance with nature or with your physiology or mind. Mind. But it's a competition against yourself. It's like your shadow, right? And you always want to become better and you always, you know, find out how you can adjust things and, and fine tune things. And that is the kind of the same nerdy passion I have for those reptiles. You know, you look at them, what do they do? What is the outcome? How do they change strategy or color or like what about the, you know, temperature around the eggs and what does that mean for the, the, the, the, the young ones and, and the survival and the like. It's like there's no end to how fun it is, you know, to mar in these things. And when it's psychology and big goals or your personal dreams and maybe team dreams if you're, you know, having people around you and then technique and understanding physiology, biology, neurophysiology, anatomy, and then working with the best scientists as well. So I would do different breathing exercises and different drills and then, then we would measure the outcome on the blood on the brain, on the lungs, on the spleen. I love it. Took all that stuff. So let's even inject it. Let's just say one thing. Just because you're in this world and I guess people are quite interested in extreme things, you know, here as well. Scientists injected radioactive isotopes into my bloodstream, right. To follow it and trace it into my brain when I was doing seven minute plus breath holds in a scanner. And they would have all these measurements at the same time and see how the oxygen was consumed. Yes. And where and where at which rate in the brain.

[David Rutherford]

Oh my God, that's cool.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[David Rutherford]

How are USDA staff cuts and budget challenges affecting farmers with conservation?

[Stig Severinsen]

I've saved my soil and I provide food for my community. I wouldn't have been able to do.

[David Rutherford]

That without the NRCS programs.

[Stig Severinsen]

A lot of farmers are thinking that.

[David Rutherford]

They'Re not able to farm next year.

[Stig Severinsen]

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[David Rutherford]

So now, now you just totally distract, really. Frankenstein, let's talk the physiology of what you did. Let's talk about what makes the body capable of your, your, your deepest you ever went was 200 meters or no 200ft.

[Stig Severinsen]

I went deeper than that, but that was unassisted. There are many different disciplines so I can explain it quickly. You either hold your breath for a long time out, it's called static because you're static, you're not moving. And we can also get back to that. But that's where I, I, I was 22. Yeah. But I was the first person on this planet to pass the 20 minute mark. And again we have these and I think you know, whether it's feed or metric system, as humans we're kind of dumb or we're kind of, I don't know, it's like with money, you want to make a million dollars, why not 958,000, isn't that enough? Like you can buy a car. No, has to be a million. And we have the same, same, you know, numbers for whatever reason.

[David Rutherford]

Well, don't they represent, I mean it's just like they represent something. I go through, I go through, you know, three, three years, four years of training and I've, I've done all the training to be a seal, but I'm not a seal until I get my trident. Right. Or you do all this training, you do the dies, but you're not a world champion until you're a world champion. Right. And so these all are, these benchmarks are required? I think yes, as a, as a core Motivator.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, you're right. I'm. I'm like a little bit like flippant about it or joking about it, but it is kind of silly that we have these. It's completely silly. So we see this and it can be good. A good driver, but also dangerous, you know, reasons it's like. But, but anyway, so. So it changed a little bit from doing normal records, I would say. So static is the breath holding when I say the 20 minutes. I did 20 minutes 10 second as the first human on this planet. And in an official attempt, that was a world record and recognized by Guinness and everything. I did it in a shark tank.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, you can see this video is available on YouTube.

[Stig Severinsen]

On YouTube. Everything on the Breathology channel there. But I did it in a shark tank because as you can tell, despite being 50 plus, I'm very childish still. And I don't mind. I'm very curious and very open minded. And I knew that is damn boring to watch someone hold their breath for 20 minutes. Like, there's no kid, no matter their ability to sharks.

[David Rutherford]

That's the entertainer in you.

[Stig Severinsen]

Are they gonna get him? Because they were down in this tank, like, they have like tubes and you can go under like in these aquariums. And like. And I was like, great. These kids can watch me, you know, and it was a phenomenal success for that aquarium and they love that event. So I did 20 minutes, 10 seconds in 2010 to make it memorable and again, number, numbers and to make it geeky, but also to make it like my artwork. So it was not 20 minutes and 11 seconds. It was not 20 minutes and nine. I programmed myself and I was at the edge there. It was like the end of it.

[David Rutherford]

Well, you saw your, your body kind of reacting.

[Stig Severinsen]

So I did it as 2010, like the, the number to make it easy for the journalist to remember. And it was April 1st to make it like unbelievable. Like, yeah, of course a guy held his breath for 20 minutes in a shock tank. Sure. But then I did. Yeah. And that's the child in me that's.

[David Rutherford]

Like, dude, I love that ass.

[Stig Severinsen]

I got Stig.

[David Rutherford]

Like, so you have a playfulness in it as well too.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, that's when I started, before it was more world records. And so static is the breath holding. But it's important to explain to people this is a, a Guinness World Record where you pre oxygenate, okay. So you are allowed to breathe oxygen, pure oxygen. Everybody has seen them at the swimming pool. You have this orange tank and like plastic thing. And if people need it they can put pure oxygen. Or you see it at hospitals with older people or patient.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

If you really need to breathe, get a lot of air in and some oxygen especially then you put on this mask and flush, you know, extra oxygen. We have only 21% oxygen in the air around us. 20.9 to be exact.

[David Rutherford]

So what is the breathing of the oxygen do for the lungs?

[Stig Severinsen]

Saturates your lungs, it saturates your blood. Your interstitial fluids can be even more nerdy, which just means the water in your body and between your cells.

[David Rutherford]

Cells.

[Stig Severinsen]

So you have this liquid in your body. People know we're mostly made of water, right? Like almost 70, 80. So. So we have all this fluid, and you can have more oxygen than that because oxygen dissolves in liquid. So it's just to explain it. It's not the same as people at home trying to hold the breath for two, three minutes. Yeah, that's different. But then the static, then you have dynamic, which is moving.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And in the swimming pool. And then you have the depth disciplines and that various disciplines, like pulling down a line. It's called free im or going on the sled, called it no limits. And you have a variable weight where you go on the sled, but you have to swim up. That's why it's called variable. So it's varied. You go down, but you come up yourself. And then I think the disciplines that I started on when I beat the Wim Hof record back in 2010.

[David Rutherford]

And by the way, I. I got an opportunity to intro to interview whim back when I did a podcast with Marcus Lutrell called the Team Never Quit and what a character. First off. But he has the same vibrancy about nature that you do. And I really think, like. And hopefully we'll move in as we talk about breathology, is. Is the. The beauty that breathing gives us the power of it and the strength.

[Stig Severinsen]

Absolutely.

[David Rutherford]

And he was the first person I had ever met. Like, we had talked about breathing. We had a free diving champion come in and work with us when I was first on the teams. And so it was like. But it was more like a functional thing.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

But he was the first one, one to really encapsulate, hey, this is a therapy.

[Stig Severinsen]

This is.

[David Rutherford]

This is some. This is the essence of our existence. And I was like, he's talking like, you know, and he's kind of a wild guy.

[Stig Severinsen]

He made it very, like, accessible and with. And people started taking cold showers and. But again, being a swimmer and breaststroke, I. Speaking of, again, random things you know, I saw on YouTube, Wim Hof was absolutely not known in 20 at all. Like, crazy guy, big bear, looks like a troll, big short, he's swimming barefoot. Yeah, like this. A wild man, you know. And I just saw that clip on YouTube and mind you, this is 2010. I don't even know when YouTube came. It was just a few years before. And so I saw this random clip and I'm like, again, ah, I can probably beat that record. You know, I love it because I'm a breaststroke swimmer. It's my discipline. I love holding my breath. Like I mentioned, I didn't get too much into it, but as a child we had all these games, right? And then we had the same in swimming where we have chago and goldfish. So there's one goldfish and the other's a sharks. And then you have to swim from one end to the other and the sharks have to catch you. And I was often the little goldfish. So everybody else got caught, but the last guy standing or woman standing is a goldfish. So I was often the last one. And everybody, you know, goldfish turns to a shark when you. When they. Yeah, when they catch you.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

That was my favorite game. We played it once a year at Christmas because it was pretty serious training, right? At the, at the elite series or like the competitive. You know, when I did swimming, it was not just like fun and games, but at Christmas we could play this. So all that stuck with me. And underwater rugby was just an extension of this game, right? Just with the ball and ball and balls, I would say, you know, like a lot of muscle, but it was the same game. Chasing, holding your breath, being tactical, sneaky, fun, kind of the theatrical. And it was just the same. So I just had this knack of holding my breath and I had an ability to relax. Relax. And that is what I today called relax on demand. I kind of coined this concept, but so I saw this record in 2010. So maybe even more interestingly, to talk about the mental skills, on 6th of March, two days before my birthday, I did the Guinness World record of the the longest dive under ice randomly. We had an ice winter in Denmark. We don't have that always. Finland and Sweden have more ice. It's colder closer to Siberia. North Pole, right. Denmark is more like Germany. Holland. It's not so cold. It's wet and it's dark, but it's not like super cold. It's more like New York. Right? It's not snowy. Snowy, Snowy. It's more wet and cold. Yeah. So, but in this ice winter, 2010, we had three months of sub zero. So I was like, this is brilliant. I can train. And I'd seen this video on YouTube and I can train under eyes and have the security and divers and train. And I did. In Scandinavia, we do a lot of like skinny dipping or go in the ice and make a hole and jump in and then we go in the sauna. Sauna, it's very famous. From Finland. 100 Finnish, so Russia. Jumping in the rivers, going in the sauna, rolling in the snow. So blood vessels dilate in the warm sauna, then you go in the cold water. So it's a phenomenal cardiovascular training.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

That's why people are never sick. The immune system gets boosted. And that was all this Wim Hof talked about, this immune system and the ice and, and that's why also a lot of older people, like senior citizens, it's, it's a super cure for them or at least to stay fit to go in the water. Because the cardiovascular system is what declines with age. Like many other things, bone density and muscle, muscle strength and so forth, it declines and, and use it or lose it. Right. So water, and cold water especially gives you this kind of extra superpower. And that's what Wim Hof was so good at, at getting out to the world. But then I beat that record and it was 6th of March and I used that record and I'm serious about this, I used it as a mental tool to see how tough I could get in the cold water. Swimming longer and longer distances, withstand the pain. When the muscle fatigue sets in, the, the, the diaphragm's pumping and punishing you and.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Like screaming for air. Like, breathe. You're dying. You need to breathe now and overrule that and stay calm under pressure. And, you know, lactic acid going through the roofs, dropping through the floor.

[David Rutherford]

And why does galactic acid explode load? And why does your ph balance collapse?

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, because you can't breathe. You're not breathing, but you're working. So the mitochondria, your metabolism is just on overdrive, but you can't breathe out and you can't exchange the air, so you don't get the CO2 out and fresh oxygen in. And when you don't have oxygen, you go past VO2 max and you start creating lactic acid as a last reserve of energy. It doesn't last long, but it gives you a little extra push. So you have to be very tolerant of lactic acid. And the more you train it, the More you can clear. So the clearance rate becomes better, your organs become optimized. And then we move into yoga and all this and that.

[David Rutherford]

Okay.

[Stig Severinsen]

And. And well, on. On April 1st, I did that. That 20 minute 10, Guinness World Record. But 6th of March, which was like, you know, a month before or three weeks before, I did that ice record. And it really was a training to become mentally strong enough to not breathe for 20 minutes. So I used that cold water and that type of training and that unpleasantness to. I don't care about sharks. That was like a gimmick. They were big. But I'm not afraid of sharks. They don't eat humans. They eat fish.

[David Rutherford]

That's right.

[Stig Severinsen]

But. But. So that wasn't like to be a superman or being like, oh, I'm cool. Not at all. It was more for the kids, you know, for the show and for that aquarium, to promote their aquarium and stuff like that.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

But it was a great training for me mentally to be, you know, strengthening my mind and becoming tough, you can say flexible and kind to yourself. But still darn tough not to breathe for 20 minutes. Because it is a provocation, you know, to kind of explain to yourself, I think I can be the first out of 7 billion people on this planet not to breathe for more than 20 minutes. It is a long time not to have movement in your body.

[David Rutherford]

Well, and that's the other thing. Like, I mean, what I love is when you really discuss that parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system system. So in that circumstance, you're literally almost putting yourself into paralysis.

[Stig Severinsen]

Correct. Right.

[David Rutherford]

And then your. But your body, you're slowing your heart rate down as slow as you can get. So the transfer of oxygen into hemoglobin is at the lowest rate it could be. And you're almost in a catatonic state.

[Stig Severinsen]

I would imagine that's what you're calling meditation underwater. I coined that many years ago. And it is. You can say catatonic. You're like, you're shutting everything down.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Your digestion, of course, you don't eat before you have fasting before. You don't want blood in your gut. You don't want to digest food when you're trying to use that oxygen to keep your brain alive and stay, you know, conscious.

[David Rutherford]

How long did you have to fast for?

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, it's up to you. But I just fasted from the day before. But you change your diet and you go more. And, you know, it's a long story with the diet. That's a whole. Another podcast. But. And we can nerd about that. I love, you know, when I help coach athletes and stuff, but there are lots of things you can do, like spinach or greens or broccoli and things that naturally have a lot of nitrogen on precursors for nitrogen oxide or nitric oxide, as you say in the U.S. no, that is, that is produced in your mucus membrane in your nose. And when you're nose breathing, you. You inhale it naturally into your lungs. And they are vasodilators. It's. It's not even like 15 years ago, the Nobel Prize was given to three researchers. Nobel Prize of the discovery of, of the first time they found that. That a gas molecule could act as a signaling, you know, between different things in your body. So you produce it somewhere, but it has a signaling effect. And, and it, it's a vasodilator, so it relaxes a smooth muscle, so it opens the blood vessels in the alveoli in the lungs and you take up more oxygen.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

And on top of that, it's anti. Viral.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Stig Severinsen]

Antifungal, fungal and antibacterial. The nitrogen, the nitrogen oxide.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's like a poison. Right. But of course you produce it because nature is magical and divine. It produces it at the right level of toxicity or the right level of concentration that can kill these germs and things, but doesn't harm you. So mouth breathing is absolutely a no go for. For many other reasons also. Now when we talk about prevention and staying healthy and performing at the highest level.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Level.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

So.

[David Rutherford]

All right.

[Stig Severinsen]

So you can eat foods that help you with those things as well.

[David Rutherford]

Okay. So as you are moving forward, you're, you're, you're just like knocking these things down. Oh, I'm gonna try that. That looks cool. I'm gonna try. It's a, it's an intuitive, Intuitive motivation.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

To pursue these things. You're getting better and better at training.

[Stig Severinsen]

And everything becomes a project.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

You go on a mission. Right. It's always a new project. Like, who can I find? Who can I reach out to help me with that? Which diet should I shift? What should I try? And the great thing about freediving is it's so, like, the payoff is so. It's so direct. Like, you just measure two things. Distance or seconds.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Nothing else. And that is maybe one of the biggest breakthroughs or biggest insights I've had of doing this training. And then my great interest in yoga and timeless wisdom, you can say meditation or, you know, Oriental wisdom. Yep. Is that you have this connection with Breathing. And breathing is life, you know, that takes in the ox, the air, and then the oxygen produces energy. In the mitochondrion, the red blood cells, or the hemoglobin, carries those four little oxygen molecules like a car, you know, like a little vehicle. There are four points of connection with the oxygen molecules and it's distributed to every single cell, every cell in your body, 30 trillion cells. Every one of them needs oxygen to produce energy. In the mitochondrial. They're just little energy factories like batteries. They're called mitochondria. Mitochondrion in singular, but mitochondria, a little energy machine. And the same you see in plants. In the green plants, it's just photosynthesis is the same. It's just running a little bit differently. But the sun shines and they have water, but then they use our oxygen, they use our CO2, carbon dioxide, and they produce oxygen. Yeah. So it's called a symbiotic relationship. Why we need plants and feel good in nature and especially in the forest. Right? Yep. So, but anyways, then you. You kind of nerd into all that. And then what I found, which is.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Stig Severinsen]

How are USDA staff cuts and budget challenges affecting farmers? I have land in conservation to provide water quality benefits. With the nrcs being short staffed, the USDA isn't releasing any information because they're not there. I made an agreement. I've done my part, but now I'm sitting on potentially a large sum that is owed to you. My bills are coming due at the end of the year, but I can't even finalize my plans for next year. It's pretty frustrating. Protect conservation funding and staff that supports farmers paid for for by Invest in.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[David Rutherford]

That you talk about the problem set like it's a. It's a problem. It's a mission that you come together and find the solutions by collating.

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, I just Challenge. Not a problem. I don't think I said the problem.

[David Rutherford]

Good point. Good correction.

[Stig Severinsen]

Challenges. Yeah, so they were problems.

[David Rutherford]

I just interviewed this guy that set the new record for the Appalachian Trail.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Unassisted one direction. He did it in 45 days at eight hours, in like 12 minutes.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Beat the one by a few hours. Right. And he. It was. That's the way he described it.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Like each section was a new problem.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Each training part was a problem. His diet, what he was going to do, you know, and I just really, like. I hear that.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. You break it down. Yeah. Then it becomes doable. But anyways, with all these insights, I was like, okay. With the free diving and with the. With the relaxation techniques and slowing down the heart and. And it's. Yeah. I call it meditation underwater, but it's really just like fine tuning. It's like a radio station in our brain. We have different brain frequencies. We have our thoughts, but they're called like, alpha, delta, gamma, beta. There are different frequencies. Exactly like same as radio. It's a frequency. It's a vibration. Vibration. A frequency is just in hertz. And then you can learn to tune into these different radio stations. And I call it meditation underwater because I go into this flow state. And we can talk much more about Mihaly Csikszen. Mihail. I was so honored to get to know him. The father of modern psychology, who also founded positive psychology with Martin Seligman and a few others. But he coined the term flow. And he looked at athletes and artists that go into this nerdy zone of flow and don't eat for days and don't know if it's night or day. So entrenched entrance and just absorbed into that. So you become the. You merge with the action. So what you do, you become what you do. And that's a beautiful place to be because it's perfect. And there is no time. So one of the greatest indicators of flow is there's no notion of time. Right, Right. Like a great conversation that can be flow or you're doing some sport or you're very focused on painting something or getting the right tone or the right. Right shade or.

[David Rutherford]

The way I always describe it to people is that seems like most people who aren't in the. This level performance is when you're driving and you're just kind of. And you feel good and then you just like, forget how far you've gone. You pass your accident. Yeah, yeah, that's. That seems to be the most common state for people. Right?

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

But for athletes and for performers or whatever it is that. I think it's. I like to coin a phrase called a focused obsession.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. Right.

[David Rutherford]

Where. Because that. It Unlocks the. The ultimate attention.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

To the smallest detail that you're creating.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. And at the same time, that's where you can have slow motion, like patience, and everything passes by and like rock climbing, every grip, and you're just so focused on that. So there's no yesterday or tomorrow. And. And that is one of the greatest things I found with breathing and breath work that it is here and now. It's your life force, and the way you breathe is the way you feel. So it is really the emotional state. And maybe the greatest breakthrough I had or like, that came to me is like, okay, with breathing, we have the greatest tool to control our mind. Because if the mind was easy to control, we had no people with depression, we had no suicides, we had no anger, no fear, no war. We would just say, everything's okay, I'm doing great. But the brain or the mind is not a very good thing to use or a smart strategy to control your mind. Obviously, we. It's just look around. Right. But. But that is kind of the secret they found in yoga and meditation and mindfulness, that when you use a special breathing ratio or breathing pattern, then that becomes the focus point, the attention point. Maybe not at the level we're talking about, but it can be.

[David Rutherford]

But it can be. Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

In some of. Some of the higher levels of meditation, you have one focus point, but with that same frequency.

[David Rutherford]

I remember there was that. I don't know if you ever saw that. They had a beautiful study. Northwestern did. It's like 150. Some monks from Tibet who would get into this altered state, flow state, just in meditation.

[Stig Severinsen]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

Put them in temperatures.

[Stig Severinsen]

I think I heard about it.

[David Rutherford]

It's one of the best studies I've ever read about flow state. And that for me was like, oh, wow, there is another level. Right. There's of how far you can drive your mind because. And the thing that, like, I listened to a couple other your great podcasts you've done in the past. 1. One of the interviewers talked about fear with you. And fear, obviously, once you produce those stress hormones and sometimes you don't even choose, it's just going to happen naturally. That disrupts all this other stuff. So. So I love how you're. You've integrated Eastern philosophical meditation into these very intense, driven, ambitious feats of. Of not intellectual focus, physical focus, and certainly spiritual focus.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

So can you describe how all those come together?

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, I think just by the background of biology and being curious and looking at nature, it was kind of just a natural, Natural next step to try to put them together with the psychology and the performance. And because I was also in the medical field, we could actually get feedback. So like I said before with freediving, that was one of my greatest revelations. Like it's just time or, or distance. So if you screw up something, then you will see in the result you don't hold your breath as long. Like people can try at home on dry land. Right. And if you do something right, you breathe right. Or do the stretching rider, your mind is right. Like you have positive thinking or you go into a flow state. And anyone can do that. Anyone listening to this podcast can learn what we're talking about. It's not unattainable, but it, it takes work. But once you get there, it's so satisfying and it's so beautiful and it's a wonderful place to be. Kind of this absorbed place of, of playfulness. Right. And yeah, the, the, the, the man I was lucky to meet and he loved the breath holding stuff I did. I had him do breath holding with his PhD students at Claremont Graduate University in California before he passed. But he has a whole interesting story himself. So people can just look up flow and Mihaili Csik Sen Mihal A long story for the war. He came from Hungary, then went to Italy, then escaped to America and became a professor and just was brilliant. But he studied flow and happiness.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

So it's very interesting to, you know, appreciate and understand that. He also looked at happiness and how, how do you have a happy good life? And that came from flow state, from being absorbed in your activities. So that was the connection he was studying. But anyways, back to your question here. It's fun to break down all these things in our lives that are like passion or hobby driven. And I found out quite early that, well, with freediving and breath work, it can take you so far in your health and your performance, you can measure it. And so one of the greatest revelations was that, and I was lucky enough also to meet John Kabat Sin, who's like the father of modern mindfulness and mindfulness based stress reduction MSBR up in New York. And his son randomly knew me and he's my age or more or less my age. So I was teaching up in New York at the Omega center and randomly. Sir John Kabat Sin, I almost guess we could call him. He's a great, you know, famous figure within modern psychology and especially with veterans and using mindfulness for, you know, stress relief. One of the first to describe that, like a psychologist. And he was randomly hosting a seminar there. And I was going to teach in the same, you know, location an hour after. So I went in and I gave him my book with all of you, and I signed it. And. And his son then knew me, said, well, you have seen you on Discovery Channel and National Geographic, and you were the first to hold your breath more than 20 minutes. And he went on and on like, yeah, the best pitch ever. And I'm with this dad who's like this superman of mindfulness, this super psychologist. I'm in awe. I'd written about him in my book and I say, yeah, I have you here. And, you know, never met him. I'd met Jake Sen Mihal because I reached out to him during the process of writing the book, but. But I didn't reach out to that other guy, Kabat Sin. Then I meet him, and his son knows all this stuff about me. I was so flattered and surprised. But anyways, then he said something. He said, because I have a business partner in Denmark who's very much with, you know, connection and teams and, like, how you improve businesses. And I don't know much about that. I'm more with athletes and people. So he's a great partner and a great friend. Bjorn is his name, but he's very good with words. So he would do, like, mindfulness in meters. Like, you could measure mindfulness.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

So that's not very easy to translate. So I told. Kabat Sin that, you know, we use meditation because he uses mindfulness. So I call it meditation underwater, but my business partner called it meditation, mindfulness by measure.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

Because he's like the father of mindfulness.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

So he was like, I've never thought about that in my life. That's brilliant. So you can measure the level of mindfulness just by seconds you hold your breath or the depth or the distance you go, which is true. Right. It's a very crude. It's a very rough measurement stick.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

But it's very easy.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

And it never fails. It's always the same time.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Like, seconds are seconds.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And meters or feet are feet. And if you do something right in your strategy, in your mental preparation, in your diet, in your anything, physical training, stretching, flexibility, body work, breath work, everything you do, if you do that right, you'll improve the second you hold your breath.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

With. With less effort and the meters, you will go deeper or longer. So I think free diving or breath holding. You know, I did a TED Talk many years ago called Breath holding is the New Black, where I actually talk about Veterans and all the sad statistics. And we have done a lot of research because we have supported many veterans over the years, more than 10 years now. But that's a different story. We can. I'm happy to come back to that because that needs more attention always. But it's. It was just interesting to kind of be with this, you know, phenomenal guy who was this expert in psychology and, and, and mindfulness. And then he had never thought about it from the perspective of holding your breath. And I think to me, that was like, like just showing me the essence of what freediving can be or breath holding. So when I did this TED talk, breath holding is the new black. What I mean is that if you hold your breath, first of all, this incredibly interesting. You know, it's just a pause, Five seconds, ten seconds, and. And you could see already and feel now with the listeners out there or the viewers, that there is this incredible stillness and this calmness. You can even hear my voice is calmer. Right. Just for five seconds. Breath hold. Because you stop whatever's going on, whatever in your head. We call the monkey mind in yoga. Like, oh, what am I doing tomorrow? Where am I going? Am I good enough? Can I do it? What happened yesterday? Why didn't you give me that? I got cheated. Why? This, this, this stuff that doesn't propel you forward and it's noise and it makes you not go into that focused place or that flow state because you have too much, like, going on. And in the yoga, they called it the monkey mind. Like a little cheeky monkey, like running up and down the trees, doing naughty things. Right? Yeah. So with, with breath holding. So if we say free diving, that's just what I call it in general. But breath holding can also be on land. That's not free diving. Right. But it's kind of training. Free diving is going deep in the water, basically on a pool. But I call all breath holding freediving, kind of. But if we just say breath holding, then people know what I mean. And with breath holding, there is so much untapped potential. Breath work is becoming very fashionable now. We had mindfulness, we had meditation, paved the road. And I saw this. That's why I wrote the book Breathology 15 years ago. More. But. But it wasn't fashionable then Wim Hof came along and it got more attention. Cold water exposure. Sure. But Wim Hof is more like hyperventilation, more active.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's not. Maybe so much too.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah. Started looking at your stuff. I found it really different than when.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

It was Much more of a his. Like you said it there, there's a, there's an intensity about the, it's more like a Pranayam.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's more like the intense. Also if you're cold in a nice, you want to breathe fast.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

To get the temperature up on the blood circulating. So that's a natural, natural way for doing this. Tummo. It's called tummo, where you sit in the ice. And I trained in India several times and have two gurus there that taught me two masters as well. But I just, because of my nerdy background in science, I like to dig in with scientific backed explanations and what happens. So you know, like you explained before, the parasympathetic and sympathetic, in case people don't know that, the sympathetic is also what we call fight and flight. So that's the activating thing. That's what's activated during hyperventilation and screaming and running. And that is a good thing in the sense that it pumps adrenaline out and you get, you know, ready or you get blood to your muscles and you can run or fight. That's why it's called fight and flight. But it's not a healthy and good place to be for months and months. And that's why people die from stroke or, you know, my veterans struggle. Well, just a lot of things, you know, it's an overdrive. So with breath holding, you have a beautiful, free, always available source of going into the parasympathetic part. Of course, with normal breathing, also slow breathing, slow exhale. So if you want the number one tip or the first tip of the podcast today, then the best tip I have is the key to relaxation is in the exhalation. Again, the nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating. So always use the nose to get that nitrogen oxide. Filter the air, get it up high to the brain, connect with the brain, tell your body, tell your mind that you're in control, you're breathing, you're alive, it's beautiful, you're grateful, everything is wonderful and your brain listens and your body knows it.

[David Rutherford]

Do you have that conversation with yourself?

[Stig Severinsen]

Also with my heart. When I hold my breath for 20 minutes, I have a deep, intimate conversation about my heart. And I don't command it, but I ask it kindly to beat soft, softer. It's not just the heart rate, like the pulse per minute or the beat.

[David Rutherford]

Per minute, the electricity, it is the contract.

[Stig Severinsen]

If I should explain it to people, it's almost like a jellyfish. Everybody is jellyfish, either in the Ocean or, or on television. Right. This kind of soft alien.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Movement that is so like almost like a ballerina dancing, you know, floating freely in space, like in, in without gravity. Right. So I have my heart chambers go into of kind of this soft feeling. And I know when I connect with my heart and feel the softness that my breath hold will be long.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

So it's also a positive affirmation. Oh, now it is soft. So it will be longer, then it becomes longer, then the heart learns. It's called conditioned respawn. A conditioned response. Pav was the first Russian scientist who studied dogs. And he would ring a bell and he would give them food and they would drool.

[David Rutherford]

Pav.

[Stig Severinsen]

And then he would just, just not give them food but still ring the bell and they would still drool and he would collect how much saliva came out. And so that's called a conditioned response or a response to something that you associate in this case with food. But then the bell was the sound that associated. Now we're going to get food. So I need to produce saliva. And just talking about it, I produce saliva. Just talking about food. Right.

[David Rutherford]

Can you talk about how humans can condition a response then?

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, absolutely.

[David Rutherford]

Because like, you just were talking about it like, like the, the active, the, the conscious engagement with the natural processes and getting to that. What is it? That natural symbiotic state where your brain and your heart and your, your lungs.

[Stig Severinsen]

And you're just connecting what's there, connecting what's there and you revisit and you, you kind of introduce, you know, this interconnectedness with yourself just at a deeper level or maybe a new experience. And again, that's why I think breath work and especially breath holding, but I'm biased. You know, I'm really a fan of this breath holding, but also the safety measurement. So again, never hold your breath alone underwater, but on dry land it's fine. Even if you pass out, nothing's going to happen. You're going to wake up, the body takes over. If you're on the couch or at home in the morning before breakfast, you want to push it. Three or four breath holds in a row. I have something called the seven day breath hold challenge, so people can go and find it completely free.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, please.

[Stig Severinsen]

Spend many, many years and we talked.

[David Rutherford]

About breathology and then, and then.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, well, the breath hold challenge. I didn't want to pitch anything.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, no, please, please. If the, hey, listen, if you, if this, if this inspires you at all.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Like, go to his channel, consume his material and start Doing the work.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

It's like other than buying your book, like it's all free. Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

And then we have, we have freedom paid program. Of course. We also have an instructor program with people from all around the world becoming Breathwork or Breathology instructors. But we only do it once a year to kind of keep that cohort for sure. My energy and focus and other things I do. But anyways, the seven day breath hold challenge is kind of the ultimate way that we have designed a program where you in seven days we hope, can double your breath holds. And I think it's phenomenal. If you can do anything, whether you double your revenue or your push ups or your bench press or speed of running or there are many things we cannot physically double in a week. Right. But mentally we can double or triple or quadruple. We can take Tiger leap, you know, we can take that quantum leap.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And so, so for me, besides of getting to knowing your body and your heart and connecting with your heart and having this inner dialogue and getting to know how to tune those frequencies in the radio, so go into delta gamma Beta, into those meditation frequencies where you're just, there's no time restraint and you're just kind of floating and doing what you like, love to. That element as well is knowing your body better. So you can go into this parasympathetic part, which is the rest, and digest. So that is where you literally digest food, experiences, thoughts, impressions throughout the day. That will give you a better night's sleep. It will give you a deeper REM sleep. It will talking about conditioning and good habits. It will really take something you do every day anyways. But maybe have bad habits, habits before bedtime or too much on the, you know, blue light and devices and, and just keeping your brain busy, eating too close to going to bed and, and being too active or agitated or reading bad news, that's not going to help you for the night's sleep. You can wait till the next day to open that email. Little things like that you can change and, and, and like again, stacking and doing many little things will have a great outcome. So with breath holding, I think it's beautiful because it gives you a PA pause. You can do it anywhere. You can do it on the train. You can do it, you know, five, 10 seconds and it gives you time to reflect and it teaches you about your body and how amazing your body is. And that is one of the greatest things I love in my teaching. I call myself a teacher, people call me a coach, but whatever, you know, a Trainer, a teacher, to show this, you know, unlimited, basically, potential that we all have. And I really don't want people to think that I'm this superhuman or discovery. Crown me the superhuman. When I then moved it to 22 minutes, as you correctly said, I moved the record to 21 minutes and 22 minutes breath hold, 2200. And I was crowned the ultimate superhuman underscore by that. But I don't want to have a. A gap between what people think I do and they cannot do it. I'm not saying everyone can hold their breath for 22 minutes, but they can do much more. You can do much more than you think.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Or believe. Right, Right. And it's all about the process. I call it baby steps. This process, breaking it down in doable steps. And then you get to that level, then it's almost like a computer game. I don't play computer games. But it's almost like these levels. Right. I really don't. I was never interested in sitting down and playing computers, so I'm horrible at it if I should try. But like Pac man or whatever, all these levels, you unlock new levels. And once you reach the level of anything in life, a single skill, skill development, then you cannot unlearn it. It's kind of like we say in Denmark, like riding the bike. Because we all have bikes. Right, Right. I think you're saying in the US the same, like, yeah, you learn to ride the bike, you don't forget it. It's a nervous system, muscular balance, brain coordination thing. It's a skill. So I love to show people the, the fascinating body. They have this amazing machinery that you can, you know, learn to drive.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

But sadly in school, we don't learn to drive. Like I said, I also grew up in Florida. I was so blessed to have PE Physical education. We learned a little bit about muscles and, you know, triceps and blah, blah, blah, and that's fine. But you don't learn how to manage the body. And nobody teaches you how to breathe. And that is the source of life. And we don't have to discuss this. And you don't need to be a genius or, you know, professor to figure out metaphysic, anything. Without breathing, you don't go very far. It's like a few minutes, it's over, and that's it. Food, water, okay. You know, love, relationships, intimate moment, you can go for a longer time, but breathing, few minutes, you're kind of out of it. So. So breathing is so important. And that's what we need to bring back into this hectic modern life and it's really free for everyone. So like I said with the breath hold challenge, it's seven days where people have access to everything online, videos, you know, a new video every day unlocks the new exercises. Exercises. But it's actually a seven day condensed breathing program where they learn all the best exercises from nose breathing or jai breathing. I talk about the inner dolphin. So that is something we, when I come back, maybe another time we have a part 2. We can talk much more about how you unlock part two.

[David Rutherford]

And we include going to a pool.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, right. And we can talk about the unlocking and really breath holding specifically.

[David Rutherford]

Right. And then we can maybe go out to the ocean.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And, and we can explore that a little bit.

[Stig Severinsen]

Because then it's more tangible.

[David Rutherford]

Yes, yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And that would be wonderful because to unlock that. So it's a cliffhanger. Thank you, Rainbow. Thank you, Sly. So, you know, unlocking that inner dolphin, that beautiful mammalian dive response that we all have, that's kind of the point I wanted to make. Everyone listening or seeing this show, this great David Rutherford show, have the same nervous system, the same 12 cranial nerves. They have the 10th cranial nerve, the vagus nerve that runs from the back of your, of your brain near the cerebellum where you have your equilibrium and your, your kind of motor skills. And it sends roots through your next to your carotid artery in the vagus nerve. It's like the highway of the rest and digest. So this parasympathetic, this kind of long name parasympathetic nervous system, the rest indigenous digest and with breath work and slow exhale. Like I said, the keto relaxation is in the exhalation. Slow exhale through the mouth, that's fine. But inhale with the nose, you trigger the vagus nerve, you turn it on, you stimulate it and that will lower your heart rate, you soften your voice. Imagine what it does for a team when you have to give an important message or on a crucial mission or you know, business wise, giving your, getting your message across to all the people that need to understand the assignment and be part of the team or the project or the mission. But also the fact that you can slow down your monkey mind, which is not very easy with the mind like we just discussed. But with breathing, it's automatic and it gives this stillness to the body and it gives. So you'd ask me about conditioning. This is conditioning your body to tap into that nervous system that is not so well known because we live in a Very hectic overdrive world in the sympathetic world in the trouble stress world. So the beautiful thing about it is it's like a forked system. So a biforc system. So you cannot be in both systems at the same time. Of course some areas of the system side work in different areas of your body. Right. But the, if you go into rest and digest, you shut down the adrenaline, the cortisol, what we would call the stress hormones that give you bad poor night or poor sleep at night, you gain weight. A lot of people gain weight when they're stressed because adrenaline and cortisol soul give them then bad food choices and it's often fat or burgers or sugar or yeah. Cravings. And then you eat too much and before bed and then you don't go out and work out. You wanted to, but then you don't. But then you feel bad that you didn't work out and then you eat some more chocolate. It's just a vicious circle. Very easy to understand, very complex to break habits. Right. But psychologically easy to understand. But with breath holding, I've seen so many people lose weight as well and improve their night sleep, improve sleep apnea, falling asleep faster, staying longer in the REM sleep. So the recovery sleep pattern that really makes the body strong for the next day heal you if you're sick. And breath holding is just such an unknown untapped activity. And it's right there and it is actually part of the yoga. It's just not so known. You know, in the pranayama they talk about the different ways of holding your breath with full lungs, empty lungs. I don't want to nerd too much on it. People can read it. The book. I go into great detail in the breathology book. It's on Amazon so it can be found easily. But, but really, you know, you, you can learn to navigate your body better. And, and if we taught kids at school how to navigate the breathing and the breath holding and the pause and not react.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

At a, you know, and, and fight for example for boys and not react to a stimulus. But, but kind of be more, you know, passive and look at it and it's not what's happening to me, it's happening around me or you know, but I'm the one responsible for how I react. So that is really, really healing. And also for like veterans and people I've worked with, with trauma and high levels of stress. When you see that power implanted or instilled in you that you can make the decision, wow, I can shut off the monkey mind. I can shut off the chitter chatter from the past. That kind of vinyl record that just goes in the same ring. It blew up or it was my faul, this happened or my family or whatever, you can kind of, you can break that pattern. And with breath holding, you just have a beautiful invitation to go into new passages of your nervous system and especially that parasympathetic area that you might have not been visiting for many years. Not consciously at least. Right. So we don't train relaxation, we train stress in everyday city life. Right. Basically, life is mostly doing and being active and you're always late for something and you need to rush up and up, hurry, hurry to do more. But it's actually often, you know, less is more. So I think we're in an interesting crossroad now with everything, with social media, AI, you know, all the things going on around the world where people start to both questioning authorities and, and how can I stay as healthy as possible. But also like finding answers.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

And also with, you know, know potential wars or survival or you know, having shelter or learning survival skills. Like people are more open minded to taking responsibility for their own lives.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

And with safety, with, with, you know, protection. And I, I, I see this clearly also now that, that, that people actually younger people, often very successful entrepreneurs. And when I say younger, I mean people in their 20s or 30s that have either made a lot of money or they're building companies, incredible feats, but they were so stressed out. And the difference between those, that new generation and people 20 years ago or my generation or my parents generation, where you never complained and there was not even a word called stress, you didn't call in for work. Like, I'm stressed, I'm having a headache.

[David Rutherford]

I need a me day.

[Stig Severinsen]

You just went to work. Right. And so this younger generation is actually, actually interested in investing in themselves and learning, we could say more holistic approaches to health and performance. And they see the parallel between the performance in their health and being a better leader in their company and in their own family or their own life and the productivity and the outcome of the company. So the bottom line and the financial success. Right. So there is an interesting time now where more and more people are taking the responsibility and control back. And I think think breath work is one of the easiest and most formidable ways of, of doing just that. Yeah. Because you can do it anywhere. People don't know how, you know, where you do it or why you do it or you know, you can even sit on the car or on the plane. And, and do your breath work. You don't even have to close your eyes. You can do it subtly or connecting with your heart, make it soft. Nobody knows that you're sitting and doing that. Sure. You're not like a yoga freak or having scents or anything, you know, candles around all this. You're just. Or incense. You know, you're just you. But you do some magic stuff inside, and that is conditioning. So you're conditioning your body for good habits. And that's why I like to identify, as I mentioned in the beginning, these bad habits or poor habits in people and then changing them into good habits so they do the same. Like breathing. We all breathe. So I'll give people a chance to guess. How many times do you think you breathe every day? Right? Great question. This is what everybody should know. This is the most important thing in our lives. Breathing for sure. Hands down, there's nothing more important, right? Not your parents, not your dog, not your car, not your. No. Not your bank account. No Your crypto account. Nothing. Breathing. Yet we're not taught how to breathe right? As kids. And imagine if, if you could go to the exam or the test without stress or when you're bullied, how do you react? And you know, so I'm a big proponent of all that. I support a school in Cambodia and our common friend, the Jorgensen, also support these 250 kids. And we teach them breathing and we teach them how to clean up plastic. And they're. They're having a garden now and growing vegetables. So connected with earth and nature. And we teach them about the body so it's never too late. The answer is 20, 30,000 times a day, we breathe. So why not breathe optimally? Why not learn? Learn. Like I said, drive the car. Why not learn how to drive your body? And it's really not difficult. It just starts with simple breathing exercises. And then there is a whole new universe going into the mindset, going into your diet, going into high performance, like the world you come from, military, sports, business. And then going into altered states of mind, going into maybe more psychedelic experiences or more full universal experiences. You can call them many things, but it unlocks so many new doors. Doors. And then you can go through those doors and, and new worlds unfold and, and like I said, it's totally free and it's safe breath work. So there's no, it's no wonder that it's becoming popular, but it just needs to be done in a structured way. Find someone that you trust or that sound trustworthy, not too dramatic or like too. Like, like, like it's a theater show or like it's breathwork, unfortunately, is also. It has become like over popularized, if that's even a word. Yeah, Everybo an expert now.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

And everybody's a breath master. Apparently when I click on Facebook, there's like 12 programs. Like, it's just kind of flooded with experts everywhere. So, you know, find a person or a school or a direction that you like, try that out. And then of course, what we do in breathology is we try to bring all the elements from high performance, cutting at science and timeless wisdom. Those are the three pillars of breathology. And that is again based just in my natural curiosity and what I was interested in. Interested in because I also did judo, I did martial arts. I was the Danish champion twice in martial arts in my younger years as well. So it's just been things I've picked up and I've seen. These are solid pillars. And if we have three pillars, it's not rocking the boat. It's stable, it stands firm. And on top of those three areas of knowledge and experiential doing, like, you have to feel it in your body. I built the breathology platform. So. So we also explained the science behind why you should breathe with your nose as we talked about the noble winning people that explained, oh, the alveoli open, the. The smooth muscle tissue relaxes and the blood vessels dilate. The mammalian dive response, when you hold your breath, slow your heart rate, you know, you change the way the blood is circulating in your body, you change the patterns of your brain, you shift into different stages, which I call meditation. Underwater, Right. This radio change channel, all these things are doable by everyone listening here. And the beautiful thing about breath work and when you train breathing is that it also helps you at night because you create good habits.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

Again. You condition your nervous system, you rewire it to work more optimally. And when you sleep at night, it still works better, which is why you get more rest and you wake up, you know, like a baby. Same with running kind of. Right. When I have to give an example, kind of a silly example, I just always give this example. When you run, run, you know, then you stop after half an hour, after five miles. But it's not like the running is not still in you. It still helps you with, you know, digesting food, breaking down fat, keeping you energetic during the day and at night, because your heart gets stronger, you have more solid, deep sleep. So just because you stop running doesn't mean you don't have a post Follow on, follow up effect, right? And it's the same with breath work. The, the effect on your nervous system, on your brain, on your hormones which are produced or not produced or at least released or not released, like adrenaline is a hormone, stress hormone. All that is something you can influence. And that is probably the most overlooked aspect of modern medicine, that we can tap into these, what you call the autonomous nervous system, meaning the self running or self ruling system. And that is maybe you know, one of the biggest secrets of yoga that you can tap into, into those nervous threads and go into your heart and go into your digestion. And that is also why you can influence weight loss from, from breath work and from priming yourself and from making better decisions on the foods you eat, the nutrients you get. But that follows the condition you do with breathing. When you become more in touch with yourself, then you also know what is right for you or not, what you need, what you don't need, and when you learn to hold your breath. My mission with breath holding is not that everybody should go diving under eyes or do crazy stuff and especially never dive alone. But it is to teach people very simply. You know, I'm a not very smart guy so I like the simple stuff, make it, make it very simple. So I want to tell people that they can learn to become comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. That is the takeaway message. That is why people should do breath holding. Then there is a multitude of benefits of the strengthened blood, more hemoglobin, EPO production from the bone marrow, short term benefits from the spleen contracting from the mammal and D response, long term effects because you have higher hemoglobin load, so you have more binding capacity, which some people also cheat when they take epo. So in sports, right? But you can do it naturally. I call it natural doping from breath work and especially breath holding. You can do it and you can simulate high altitude training. You do it with inter intermittent hypoxic training and, and breath holds. And you can do CO2 tables, oxygen tables. But basically what you do is you get everything, the mitochondria and everything in your body and your cells on their tippy toes. Whether you eat, don't eat. So fasting for three days, five days, like woo. The body goes, what's going on? Ketogenic sinuses burn something else. Break down the fat. Okay, we're still alive. Oh, I get clarity down my brain. Oh, I could do it. You unlock a new level. Oh, I could go five days. Yeah. Without eating.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Stig Severinsen]

I didn't die. I thought I would Because I live in a society where we eat 12 times a day and that's normal and that's what you're taught as a baby. But you can go for a month without food. I just had a buddy. Yeah, a month. But a week is normal. I go usually a week from weekend to weekend, 130 hours, and I just drink water and a little drop of lime juice or lemon juice. But so fasting or cold water exposure or holding your breath, those are all the main extremes for the body and the mind. So with breath holding, you don't need to go and jump in cold water or you know, find a lake or something and you can do it anywhere and it's provoking your body and it's creating fear. Back to that. I don't know if we caught up on the fear, but I don't really feel fear. I never was.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, I didn't get a sense that.

[Stig Severinsen]

No, but you don't need to cover that. No, that's fine. But I'm not really a fearful person. I'm not really afraid of anything. And either I'm very dumb or I'm just naive or very blissed or blessed or I don't know, had a lucky life.

[David Rutherford]

Maybe it's all the breathing.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, but I'm really not afraid of many things. You know, the. The only thing I'm afraid of is losing a loved one. You know, that's my biggest fear. Of course it. I guess it is for most people, but I've never been afraid of like hurting my leg or in Frida I diving. You know, we take all. We're very cautious about the safety. And so another thing. Maybe when people see this superhuman stuff and under eyes diving, you know, don't go and do it without training. But I train all these baby steps and years and years and years and drill and drill and drill, just like you do.

[David Rutherford]

Tell us right now.

[Stig Severinsen]

So I feel safe when I do it and I don't feel it's risky. But people seeing it thinks it's extreme or stupid maybe.

[David Rutherford]

Well, it's outside of their comfort zone. Right. And that generates.

[Stig Severinsen]

Or what they can understand. Stay.

[David Rutherford]

That's what they can't appreciate. So tell, tell us like, tell us just recently because, you know, a lot of times when people move into these extreme endeavors, they. There's a. There's a stage in their life and then they move beyond it and they become teachers like you've done. But you're still very connected to the community and would you just. Let's close on that. That Recent experience you just had is that story you told me before. And that relationship. Relationship was, is one of the coolest things that I've heard a long time.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah, well, I, I love to teach. I, I would say I'm a born teacher. I love to create results in other people and I love to be this kind of childish guy. Like, showing your body is just absolutely phenomenal. Look at what you can do, whether it's lifting the diaphragm or lowering the pulse and all this stuff. So I just came back also for the Come on your fine podcast here. Just came back two days ago from Dominica, which a is small island down in the Caribbean between Guadalupe and Martinique. And we were having two weeks of competition back to back in free diving. So in deep diving, this was deep diving, not breath holding, not swimming in the surface. Deep diving into the blue, you know, abyss. Yeah. Alongside. I was lucky to go the last day with sperm whales and pilot whales.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

I was blessed. Beautiful. I. I have such a privileged life. I know I'm so spoiled. And the week before, I flew from Miami to Tulum, which is down in Mexico, and I joined forces with Alexei Molchanov, hands down, the best freediver in the world. There's no discussion. People can just look him up. Besides being a phenomenal athlete, he's just a really, really all round great guy. I competed with Alexei the first time in 2005. He just turned 18 so he could enter the world championship. I got lucky, I won. I was a bit older and more experienced, but that's the time I Talked about before 2003, 4 5, when I was at my prime around 30 and I trained very hard for a long time. And Alexei's mom was the greatest freedar of all time. Her name was Natalia Mola. And. And never before after has anyone come close. There are a few female divers now that are contenders, but nobody has unlocked that level. She died unfortunately, just a few years ago in Spain during a training session. She disappeared. Maybe the current, we don't know. They never recovered the body, which is probably. Alexa has told me he's glad that they never found the body. By the way, he just released a movie on Amazon on Prime, I think, called Free Diver. Easy to remember.

[David Rutherford]

It's beautiful movie, Free Diver.

[Stig Severinsen]

And you will see the relationship with his mom. It was his greatest coach, his love, his mentor. And they had this beautiful connection and this, this relationship. It is a beautiful movie. And so I was part of that because when I started setting my world records, Natalia did so we kind of had this in common. And I always liked Alex. And then in 2000, 2006, we competed on the national level for the teams and Denmark won for the first time ever. I was like a flying coach. I was on the team and I was a coach.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

But you know, a little sports like we talked about, you don't have money for coaches or like national this and that. You're just your own coach with the national team. You know, I think we paid our own towels to even, you know, like at that level. Right. It's just a hobby. I've never got rich from freediving, just so people don't misunderstand anything. And. And then in 2007, we competed side by side and again I got lucky. I won, he got the silver. So actually both in, in all these years, we're in the same, you know, when we had the medals and stuff and, and we were competitors, but we. It was also very friendly. And I've always liked Alexei and today, you know, he's developed into a man. He's 38, young man, very childish still, like I am, I guess, but this playfulness. He has a son now. Max was five. So, you know, he's passing on this great heritage of sport. But he was super active. We have a very similar background. He started swimming at the age of five, got into other sports as well. And, and just so I, I had the world record in the Deepest dive is 200ft dive. And Alexis basically all records in the world. He has 42 world records now. But he never had it in the unassisted. The one where you just swim down in breaststroke. And I thought I could help him on that because I had the record before and that's kind of my speciality. So we reconnected last year. He's a member of the Explorers Club in New York, a recent member. I've been a member for many years because we've kind of moved the limits for mankind. So before, exploration was more. The Explorers Club is a phenomenal club.

[David Rutherford]

It's one of the greatest clubs ever invented.

[Stig Severinsen]

It is in the world and it's, you know, it's exploration of life, land and space and ocean and it's also protection of animals and learning about cultures and, and respecting nature and uncovering historic events and like really just understanding mankind and protecting what we have to our best ability. Phenomenal club. And Alexa, I met him there and I took him to some fire walking at one of the crazy members of the club's private house. A wild party and just some really, really extraordinary people. And everyone just with crazy stories. So it's like, like, like just, it's just a wild.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

Everybody is like. But everybody's calm because it's like everybody.

[David Rutherford]

Has, it has some story. Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

So anyway, so we reconnected and then the last year we started connecting more and then the last three months I started like we connected more and then on WhatsApp, I started coaching a little bit. He sent videos, I would give pointers and I think it is so wonderful to see an athlete at the top of his game. The best in the world by far.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

You can just see any video, one video, you will know that knowing about Frida, I mean that he is the cream de la cree. The style, it's impeccable. The strength, the, the, the, the flexibility, everything has developed over. Yeah. Since he was a young, young kid. Right.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

But still to be open minded to an old dinosaur like me, you know.

[David Rutherford]

Well, that's the thing.

[Stig Severinsen]

I call myself Granny, you know, Granddad moves in and. I'm joking.

[David Rutherford]

One, it's the respect, the mutual respect.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Two, it's, it's the recognition that you always need help, even if you're the best, the best to be open to.

[Stig Severinsen]

And we all know also Alexa and you, I guess without knowing you so much personally and myself, it's hard for us women and men, but maybe especially men to ask for help. Yeah, I think that's a common thing for sure. So to be able to do that and then nerd on those things, you know. And, and, and he, and he broke the world record, the world record on, on Monday.

[David Rutherford]

This Monday.

[Stig Severinsen]

So.

[David Rutherford]

And he had a blackout two days.

[Stig Severinsen]

Before a bad one.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

That was with the no fins. So we changed styles. We're talking about again talking about victories or success or failure. He still didn't manage the record. He was too tired and fatigued from a full year of training and traveling and being in so many places. He runs also molten of freediving, so developing equipment, high level and he just has a lot on his plate. But he manages all this brilliantly. His energies, mental focus, not negative energy, just cuts it out. But he. Then we changed tactics and he did the deepest dive in the world. 416ft. So 127 meters with bi fin. So people in Florida or people spearfishing knows his little flip flops, little fins. They're a bit longer his fins, but they were fibon fiberglass, not carbon fiber.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

So really, really impressive. And it's the height of the Statue of Liberty, so people just have an understanding. The dive almost took five minutes.

[David Rutherford]

It's insane.

[Stig Severinsen]

Swimming non stop, sinking down and Then swimming up 4.43was the time to insane. People can find it online.

[David Rutherford]

And you were there and surprised.

[Stig Severinsen]

I was coaching him in the water and what to say. And so again, you have this incredible responsibility of not screwing it up. Yes, because if I say something wrong or touch him, he's disqualified. So there are so many, like really, you know, split seconds that you really need to be very focused and know what to do and have the experience. So he recognized I also have the this and, and we just had people writing in. It's so great to see you guys together again. And wow, this is awesome. This is inspirational. And I was surprised being this old geezer, you know, that, that a lot of the younger generation of freedivers had either read my book or had it with them on Kindle. Yeah, One had showed me a picture that I signed for them 10 years ago at Dima, which is like a dive show, the biggest dive show in the world. And he said, yeah, you showed us this. And now we have a dive shop in Florida. We take people spearfishing and, and, and we show them free diving and, and yeah, it's just, it's just fun to be appreciated and it's, it's great to see that there's still development and then to be with the freediving community. So. But maybe just to end on that with Alexa, how do you see if an athlete is great or the highest level? So we would train more than anybody else there. We would train three or four times a day. Flexibility, so strength. Looking very much at the diet, cutting things out because he got like some bad infection. That's one of the reasons he had the blackout as well. So cut it out, change the diet. Went to only bottled water. And so dialing everything, dialing it in. Then some more muscle training again to wake up the muscle for the glycogen process and for like awakening the muscles. He's kind of bulk, so he needed that. And just listening to his strong intuition, like, I need some more bulk training. I need some more fitness training. Okay, we need do that, do some squats, do some weight training. And then we worked a lot on his knees and opening the flex, you know, the, the hips. And. And so some challenges he's had with that changed his style. And. And then every day we would also go at sunset and swim in the ocean when nobody else was there, into the darkness, just to drill, drill, drill. And he would like drills, exercises. And then when he had the competition dives, he would swim out to the plateau.

[David Rutherford]

That's amazing.

[Stig Severinsen]

As the only diver of all 50 or 60 divers. And he would even swim back after the blackout. I just told you. Right. Unbelievable. No other diver would do that. It's not that they couldn't do it, but they wouldn't have the mental capacity. They wouldn't think there's a boat that takes the athletes in.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Stig Severinsen]

But he's just like, no, no. And that. That is also, like reinforcing that strength that. Okay, I had a blackout, I failed. It went bad. But I'll get back, you know, at it, and I'll switch swim in and I'll stretch tonight and tomorrow I'll change my diet and I'll look at the dive and I'll analyze it with stick and we'll change something. And, you know, so it's. It's just always finding that extra level of unlocking a potential and just I. I like to call it stacking. Right.

[David Rutherford]

So you.

[Stig Severinsen]

So, for example, one day I came to Alex's room and he was very sore because we had played table tennis like crazy, like an hour and a half the night before. He was so sore on his lower back and he hardly couldn't bend out. So he was brushing his teeth. And at the same time, of course, he did stretching. So again, stacking like you do things, but you can be very productive if you do things in a smart way that you have to do anyways. But you stack them together and again, then the outcome is faster.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Stig Severinsen]

And better. So it was just, you know, extraordinary to be so close to him again and with him and see why he's at the top of his game. What distinguishes him from. There were many other great freedivers, Continental records, American records, really great. And another girl, Kate Katarina, did two world records in the no fin. She got that record.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

In the female category. And. And to watch her and to get to talk with her nerd about technique and style. So fulfilling and fun. Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Sting, obviously, I could sit here and listen to you for days. I mean, you're.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yeah. I think people fall asleep, but we'll. You tell them in the water next time. That's maybe more interesting. Take them under the surface.

[David Rutherford]

I mean, I think everybody's interested in. In what drives people, for sure. Everybody, I think, has a. A curiosity for, you know, how'd you do it? Obviously. And then I think when you can articulate it in a way that's genuine and, and really comes from that, that, that, that place of dedication and close confidence and, and sincerity like it. People can feel that and I think you certainly have that than. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you. It's such an honor to have you on the show. Where can people follow you? Where can they buy the book and what do you have coming up next?

[Stig Severinsen]

Well, breathology is, is a brand, it's a method. So it's, it's easy whether you spell it the other one way or the other. I have all the domains so don't worry about it. But there's an E in the middle. Breathe theology, like breathe ology, like biology. That's the idea. I think people get it. So I got that domain, I got the registered trademark, I got everything. So they can just kind of write breathologist Stick St like the driver, like in, in this crazy car show, Top Gear, it's very popular in Europe and his name is Stick. So sometimes I say I am the stick, you know, with the helmet. But they can find it online. We have social media, but breathology, breathology, spell it whatever way you want and, and people can find me six and I'm the only one, you know, bald, crazy, Danish, Viking and stick, Stick free diving. You know, they'll find me, it's easy. And then for the seven day breath hold challenge they can just write seven day breath hold challenge or breath hold challenge. It comes up as number one on Google and that is actually a full blown week breath work program, completely free. We have thousands and thousands of thousands of people joining and like I said during the interview here, we aim to double people's breath hold in a week, maybe triple it.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

But just doing that and learning to become comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. So just to explain the whole idea, why I want this when we wrap it up now is that I want people to use that in their everyday life.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Stig Severinsen]

It has to be extrapolated into people's day and implemented in their life. Whether they're having an argument with the wife, screaming kids, angry with the boss, going for a job interview, having that exam. If you're a kid, you're nervous getting bullied. Military? No. High, high performance sport athletes, business people, whatever level, you always have breathing with you as your best friends at this ninja skill. And you can learn to train different breathing ratios and different styles. Like I said, just follow some people online that you trust. There are many different schools, many great ways. There's Patrick McEwen called the Oxygen Advantage. I never met him, but that's also a very science based approach. Wim Hof I think is a little bit more like woo woo or more like do some push ups and breathe fast and then go in cold shower. But it's very simplistic so it's easy to start there. But if you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole and understand the anatomy and physiology and psychology and how it all wraps together, then maybe you want to go in another direction. There's also holotropic breath work by Stanley Gruff. He was very much into also altered states of mind and lsd. He's a psychologist, I trained with him.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Stig Severinsen]

It's called rebirthing. So that's also more of trauma release. O.

[David Rutherford]

Interesting.

[Stig Severinsen]

And, and it's very intense and hyperventilation but it's not really for everyday practice. It's more like a process and you draw a mandala, like colors of what you saw and, and, and things like that. So there are many styles and many directions in breath work. It's kind of like yoga. There's you know, stanga yoga, power yoga, Yana yoga, there's yin yoga, there's all these styles. But people just have to find their own way. And I think if you go to Breathology, we have, you know, free programs, free training. And the breath hold challenge is a good way to start because it's seven days so it's doable for anyone. And the other thing, besides explaining that you can implement this in your everyday life, these techniques, these conditioning responses, these habits, these good habits, is also that I'm not special. You know, I've trained, I've dedicated like you have done incredible things. But that comes with a lot of hard work and blood, sweat and tears. But I don't want to distance myself. So people think that bridge is uncomfortable. Right. Superhuman this and unattainable. Yeah. Like you can attain it and you can obtain great things, but you have to start with baby steps. And it starts with curiosity and an open mind and doing breath work. You know, breathing in through the nose, slight pause, having four faces in, in a breathing cycle. You know, breathing in, slight pause, turn the breath, letting go, you know, like a sigh and then slight pause again. That's the third phase. And then you inhale. Right. So it's like the whole process of breathing becomes a natural thing that you train with your awareness. So you sit down for two minutes and do it in the car or before you go to a meeting and you have a completely different outlook at what's in front of you and the world maybe even. Right. And that inner journey of connecting with your mind and kind of fighting that urge to breathe. When you go into breath holding is fun and interesting. Interesting and it's great for your lung capacity. So people with post Covid lung cancer, asthma, allergies, it's just a great way to reinforce and strengthen your lungs and your vital capacity. Becoming more flexible, getting a stronger diaphragm. And there are tons of exercises in breathology. There's a book you also asked. So breathology is explaining in great detail with diagrams and paintings and like illustrations and and medical proof and and referencing scientific papers how you train your diaphragm and what it does and what muscles are involved and it's like a little a cookbook. It's like step by step process breathing book and a lot of examples of how people have used it and people can just find it on Amazon. There's probably some pirate companies out there of the online PDF and I don't mind, you know, whatever you find right. Breathology and maybe there's a digital copy as well.

[David Rutherford]

Wonderful.

[Stig Severinsen]

And I don't care how people find it as long as it just start.

[David Rutherford]

Amen.

[Stig Severinsen]

Yes. Stig Pleasure. Thank you everyone for joining us.

[David Rutherford]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[David Rutherford]

How are USDA staff cuts and budget.

[Stig Severinsen]

Challenges affecting farmers with conservation.

[David Rutherford]

I've saved my soil and I provide.

[Stig Severinsen]

Food for my community. I wouldn't have been able to do.

[David Rutherford]

That without the NRCS programs.

[Stig Severinsen]

A lot of farmers are thinking that.

[David Rutherford]

They'Re not able to farm next year.

[Stig Severinsen]

Crop prices are below cost of production and so these programs are what keep farmers in the business of farming. Protect conservation funding and staff that supports farmers paid for by investing our land.

[David Rutherford]

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[Stig Severinsen]

With Samsung TVs you can finally watch.

[David Rutherford]

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[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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