Recover & Revive

I thought I’d start sharing some of the papers that caught my attention this week 🤔

This week’s roundup covers:
💪 The “sweet spot” for strength training
😴 Exercise and sleep
🤸 Stretching
🌸 Endometriosis & exercise
☕ Caffeine and performance

My goal isn’t to tell you what to think - it’s to make new research easier to understand and highlight what it could mean in real life.

I’ll try to make this a weekly series, so if there’s a topic you’d like me to dive into, let me know!👇

R&R slowly becoming more & more homely… 🏡🤍

It’s been so nice for you all to see it!

It’s the small things ✨

The first session is almost full! 🌀

Never tried Breathwork before and curious? I’ve got you!

The Nostalgic Breathwork Experience is an intimate guided breathwork journey for six people. You’ll be guided through an hour of connected breathing - while music chosen very deliberately plays directly into your ears. Music that reaches somewhere deep. Music from your past.

Connected breathwork moves you into an altered state - deeply relaxed, emotionally open, and carried somewhere unexpected. Some people feel weightless. Some feel emotional. Most feel both.

Afterwards we slow down together - herbal teas, time to decompress, a gentle unwind before you head home feeling like a different version of yourself.

Friday 31st July. 6:30pm-8:30pm. Six spaces. £55 introductory rate.

Nothing like it in Cheltenham.

Link in bio to book 🎟️

Something entirely new is coming to Cheltenham - and the first session is almost full 🌀🥹

The Nostalgic Breathwork Experience is an intimate guided breathwork journey for six people. You’ll lie down, put on wireless headphones, and be guided through an hour of connected breathing - while music chosen very deliberately plays directly into your ears. Music that reaches somewhere deep. Music from your past.

Connected breathwork moves you into an altered state - deeply relaxed, emotionally open, and carried somewhere unexpected. Some people feel weightless. Some feel emotional. Most feel both.

Afterwards we slow down together - herbal teas, time to decompress, a gentle closing circle before you head home feeling like a different version of yourself.

Friday 31st July. 6:30pm-8:30pm. Six spaces. £55 introductory rate.

Nothing like it in Cheltenham.

Link in bio to book.

🫀 Can breathwork improve HRV?

The evidence suggests yes - particularly during slow, controlled breathing.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the variation in time between each heartbeat and is commonly used as a marker of autonomic nervous system function. In general, a higher HRV is associated with greater adaptability and resilience.

Research has shown that slow paced breathing (around 5-6 breaths per minute) can:
✔️ Increase HRV during practice.
✔️ Enhance parasympathetic (vagal) activity.
✔️ Support stress regulation and autonomic function when practised consistently.

One proposed mechanism is through respiratory sinus arrhythmia and the baroreflex, where your heart rate naturally speeds up as you inhale and slows down as you exhale. Slow breathing strengthens this interaction, improving communication between the heart, lungs and brain.

While breathwork isn’t a cure all, it’s one of the few ways we can consciously influence our nervous system - and that’s incredibly powerful.

📚 Research:
• Laborde S, et al. (2022). Heart rate variability and cardiac vagal tone in psychophysiological research.
• Zaccaro A, et al. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life.
• Lehrer PM & Gevirtz R. (2014). Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work?

If you’ve been stretching the same “tight” muscle for months and it’s still bothering you - here’s what current evidence actually says:

📚Stretching primarily changes your nervous systems tolerance to stretch - not the length of your muscle tissue (Weppler & Magnusson, Physical Therapy, 2010).

Which means: when the tightness returns the next day, that’s not you doing it wrong. That’s the intervention not addressing the actual driver.

“Tightness” is usually your nervous system’s way of protecting something (a weak muscle, joint restriction or movement pattern that isn’t loading tissue the way it should).

Real lasting change tends to look like:
- Assessment first
- find the underactive muscle/restricted joint
- progressive strengthening
- movement retraining
- manual work alongside

Not more stretching harder or longer.