**EP335: Death & Dying Part 2**
**Dr. Auric Bishop:** Welcome, my name's Dr. Auric Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, an author, and a keynote speaker. I'm the CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. Heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes, someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, and cholesterol for better health. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honored for a five-star review. You can share it with your family and friends. It may well save someone you love.
**Warwick Bishop:** Hi, my name is Warwick Bishop, and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Today, I'm very pleased to have James Buckley with me for part two of a couple of podcasts that I put together on death and dying. Thanks for joining me, James.
**James Buckley:** Pleasure.
**Warwick Bishop:** So for anyone who missed the previous podcast, shame on you, but you might want to go and check it out. I flagged death and dying as incredibly important processes for all of us because we are all confronted in our lives by death and dying. It is unavoidable, and it is the very thing that defines that we are alive. I talked about my mate Dave, who died at 40 years of age in an avalanche in an accident in New Zealand. I talked about my mum, who passed last year at the end of five years of being dependent through a stroke. And I talked about my partner's mum, Sandy, who passed over the course of a year with a lot of frustration and a lot of hope and ambitions thwarted, really. We talked about the grieving process, and in this particular podcast, I'm very keen to really dive a bit deeper and get some granularity about how our minds and bodies interact. James is an expert in that area, so what I'd like to do is really perhaps step through those five stages of grieving we may have all heard of before, and that includes denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let James share some of his wisdom on that process and how our minds and bodies move through those stages.
**Warwick Bishop:** James, denial. How do you deal with denial, obviously as yourself personally, but when you're dealing with supporting people through a grieving process?
**James Buckley:** Well, denial inevitably makes us stuck. If we deny the facts of reality and can't move through that, then we become stuck in that reality. Denial is that our reality has changed. What we wanted and what we saw for our future and for the ones that have passed in their future, we deny that that's not there anymore because it changes our reality. It changes our certainty of reality, our grip on reality, our comfort in reality, and our ability to be certain that things will always stay the same, which is absolutely what the brain wants. That denial creates confusion psychologically, and that psychological effect has an effect on the body. It imprints into our emotions and affects our body.
**Warwick Bishop:** Absolutely. So I think that the component of denial that people would experience would have to be different depending on the circumstance of the loss in their lives. I think the denial that I would have felt for my mother passing was much easier to deal with. She was in her mid to late 80s and had significant health issues, so these things I think made that denial journey much easier. I imagine you see individuals engaging in the grief process coming from different places with different experiences in that space, yeah?
**James Buckley:** Yeah, absolutely. Interestingly, that denial, wanting to keep everything as it is, as soon as we stop and think about it, we realize that the world, there is nothing more certain than there is going to be change.
**Warwick Bishop:** So how do you walk someone through? Do you have an off-the-shelf couple of points that you share with people who are stuck in that denial phase, James? Is there something from experience or something in your teaching that you would share with them?
**James Buckley:** Yeah, I would always share with someone that it's inevitable. When we understand that that's the natural process of life, it starts to remove some of those glass castles of belief systems that things will never change. We can see that in nature; it's inevitable, although we do our utmost as human beings to avoid that. We've built so many systems and technology and processes to be able to prolong that and avoid that. It is absolutely inevitable, and as we start to really look at the nature of reality—that the sun sets, trees die, and plants and animals pass away—it's a machine of birth and cycle that we live on here on Earth. Then we can start to remove those facades of denial that we perhaps build that gives us some sense of comfort and certainty through that.
**Warwick Bishop:** There are clichés that we will have all heard, such as "time heals everything." Is that actually the case for the grief process? Are there times when people just get stuck and time isn't a healer?
**James Buckley:** I believe so. I believe that time is actually perceptual, and we all experience that when we're doing an exercise or something we don't like. It feels like time goes on forever, and when we do things that we really love, time goes by quicker than what we really want it to. So I believe that time is perceptual. However, over time, the process of grieving can take its place through the body, which is absolutely a physical, emotional, and psychological process, and time can help that, absolutely. But no doubt, people can become very stuck in time, especially if they're stuck in that denial.
**Warwick Bishop:** Certainly, the time issue I'm aware of in those three examples I shared before. If we had an in-depth conversation about Dave, I would be more likely to tear up, to be emotional, than if we had a conversation about my mum. I'm not saying that I didn't love my mum, but this is why I have been very grateful that you wanted to share this podcast, because I think these ways that we deal with different situations are so unique to the individual and the person who we've lost.
We talk about anger as the next stage in the grief process, and we touched on that in the previous podcast. I mentioned that I thought I'd heard previously that anger was repressed sadness. Would you like to speak to that anger that you see and how that impacts the body during the grief process?
**James Buckley:** Sure. Anger is a sympathetic response. It's a protective mechanism. It's there to defend ourselves against something that we don't like.
**Warwick Bishop:** When you say sympathetic response, what you're talking about is the automatic or autonomic nervous system that runs our body. The autonomic nervous system is the one that makes our heart speed up if we need to run away because someone's threatening us. The autonomic nervous system is the one that makes us go to the toilet if we have a full belly. So we've got this nervous system that drives physical responses. And when you talk about the sympathetic response, you're talking about the upregulated, the fight or flight response.
**James Buckley:** Absolutely. And that sympathetic response is really to protect us from the thing that we don't want to have happen. We either run away from that, and many people run away from it and avoid it and get busy with other things. Some people may try and drown it with certain substances or experiences, and that's a flight from the sympathetic branch of the nervous system. That anger response is really to try and push it away and to protect ourselves from those emotions and those experiences.
There are extreme situations where the anger and bargaining drive such a sympathetic, such an upregulated response that they can mimic a heart attack. It's referred to as broken heart syndrome. There's a technical name called Takotsubo syndrome. No one expects you to remember that. But literally, such an outpouring of these adrenaline-type messengers through the body can paralyze the heart and look for all the world like a heart attack. So the physiological outcome can be devastating as well.
**Warwick Bishop:** Impactful. Absolutely. And even people can become addicted to that chemical response as well. So when we talk about people becoming stuck in these stages, there can be an addiction to that sympathetic nervous system releasing all of those chemicals, which can be quite invigorating. We're talking about adrenaline and cortisol, and they're quite stimulating emotional chemicals in the body. Some people drive that and want to stay in that, or they can become addicted to that, and so they'll continue to romance a certain situation and replay a certain situation so that they can get that kick of adrenaline and cortisol.
**James Buckley:** This could also be adrenaline junkies in high-risk sports.
**Warwick Bishop:** Absolutely. Think motor car racing, fighting bulls, skydiving, dangerous off-piste skiing, etc. Mountaineering, which I was guilty of myself. Sometimes it was a little bit too much adrenaline for me. Look, we could touch on bargaining, but I think we'll go next to the next stage. So denial and anger, we'll skip bargaining in terms of its physiological impact on the body. But let's talk about depression. How do you see depression? Because that must be different from the sympathetic nervous system getting you up and getting you ready to fight. Getting your heart beating, you almost imagine depression is that sympathetic nervous system turning off or wearing out. Maybe speak to that for me.
**James Buckley:** Well, it's really the opposite of the anger. It's the pendulum swinging from one end or one side to the other side. It's the pendulum balancing the nervous system and balancing our psychology. We go through that stimulated overdrive of the sympathetic nervous system and all of those chemicals to then being able to go into that depressed, lower, slower state of really processing all of those chemicals. So to me, it's a balancing. It's really that pendulum metaphor, if you like, that we swing into the sympathetic nervous system and the anger and all of those chemicals that come with that, and then shift back to that depression as the opposite side of that before we can find our equilibrium.
I believe that it's an important part of the process, obviously. However, again, people can become stuck in that depression, and again, people can become addicted to that depression. Even many people can seek sympathy from other people, and they want to continue to romance that situation or romance those things that have happened so that they can feel that sadness. To many people, that can feel like love, I believe, and a connection to love.
For many people, Tony Robbins talks about the crazy eight that people can go through—anger and then into sadness—and it's how they stay in a balanced state, but they experience these extremes of emotions as well. That is something that I witness with many people; they can become stuck in that crazy eight of addiction to those emotions, which is both sides of the pendulum.
**Warwick Bishop:** Okay. Look, I don't want to put you on the spot. This might be a tricky one. But as you're talking about this sympathetic drive, the anger, the heightened intensity, the upregulation of the nervous system versus the depressive downregulation, are we talking about different parts of the brain, different chemical receptors? Have you got a simple comment on that? My understanding was that we might talk about anger as being a reptilian response, for example.
**James Buckley:** Yes, absolutely. Would we talk about depression as being the neocortex, the more modern brain, for want of a better term, impacting that lizard brain? How would you describe that?
**James Buckley:** Well, I'd also talk to the mammalian brain, and that depression would be related to the stimulation of the mammalian brain going through its process and really experiencing the loss of the loved one. The mammalian brain remembers those connections with the tribe member, with the community member. So I believe that it's also driven by the mammalian brain, but absolutely the neocortex is thinking about all of these things that have happened, and those thoughts are driving that depression. What we think about, we bring about, and our thoughts aren't just fluffy clouds that float around in the world; they're chemicals in our brain that are influencing our emotions, and those emotions go into our body and become stored there.
**Warwick Bishop:** Yeah, so it's a journey, isn't it? So if we were to be able to move through depression, we get to a stage of acceptance, and that's obviously the end goal because we can't not accept it because it's occurred. It just defies logic. And look, I'm hoping that there may be people who relate to this. You may know people who need help, actually, or you may need help yourself. If there's a chance that we can give you something to think about, some questions to ask of your carers, anything to help you along your journey, that would be our objective, actually.
So while we're talking about moving through that process, what are the sorts of tools that people might use to help them through that grieving process, James?
**James Buckley:** Well, as I said, I've been utilizing a lot of breathwork through the grieving process. I do breathwork on a daily basis, but it's become more prevalent that I need it now more than ever. It's absolutely helping me. In fact, the experience of breathwork now is so much more pronounced. Even the psychological experiences that I'm having with breathwork are so much more pronounced given the loss.
**Warwick Bishop:** What I might do is just jump in there. For those wondering what breathwork is, it's a very stylized and very deliberate way of breathing. It can be variable. You might hyperventilate for a period of time. You might breathe two in, two out, three in, three out, two in, two out. It's very variable. But breathwork really dictates that you're following some sort of non-natural form of breathing to achieve, if you like, some sort of chemical and emotional rebalancing. Would that be a reasonable way to describe it?
**James Buckley:** That's a perfect way to say it, Dr. Warwick. What I'd add to that is that breathwork allows us to take control of the steering wheel of the branches of the nervous system. It allows us to regulate the nervous system; it allows us to either stimulate the nervous system into the sympathetic branch or take it into the parasympathetic branch. As you so eloquently said, we're always unconsciously breathing. It's our unconscious mind or our autonomic nervous system that's breathing us on a daily basis, but our breath is the one thing that we can choose to take control of in the autonomic nervous system. That allows us to put our hands on the steering wheel of the nervous system to take back control of the nervous system and to guide it through soothing.
There are many various ways that we can use breathwork, but hyperventilation is one, and slowing the breathing down is another. Breathing through the nose—simply just breathing through the nose—will allow you to go into the parasympathetic nervous system. Breathwork is a big beast to talk about. There are many hundreds of techniques. There's a whole podcast or two in there.
**Warwick Bishop:** I agree, yes. Let's not get caught on the specifics of that, other than to maybe share, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that to a large degree, increased breathing will likely increase the sympathetic drive.
**James Buckley:** Yes.
**Warwick Bishop:** And slower breathing will likely increase the parasympathetic drive, which means it would slow things down. You quoted Tony Robbins before. There's a really nice piece that I heard from Tony Robbins, who I've got a lot of time for—extraordinary guy—where he was talking about some people who need to eat for anxiety. The process of eating slows their breathing, and it is actually the slowed breathing that satisfies their anxiety; it's not actually the food.
**James Buckley:** Correct.
**Warwick Bishop:** So same for smokers.
**James Buckley:** There you go. So something to think about there. Breathing is very powerful, and maybe we...
**Warwick Bishop:** Good. If there's any demand or any positive feedback from this podcast, we might do breathing as a subject of its own. So breathing is a tool to help people through this process. Where might people get some of that guidance from? Are there books you'd recommend? Websites? Do you have resources?
**James Buckley:** Sure. James Nestor has written many books, and he's probably the most prominent expert in the field of breathwork at the moment. I do have a free YouTube channel, the Mind Mastery Institute, where people can get some free resources. There are various breathwork patterns in there and guided meditations that can help people.
**Warwick Bishop:** I'll just get you to repeat that, James, in case people are listening and it slipped past. James said he's got some free resources on YouTube at?
**James Buckley:** The Mind Mastery Institute.
**Warwick Bishop:** All one word?
**James Buckley:** Three different words.
**Warwick Bishop:** Three different words. So the Mind Mastery Institute. Check it out there. Where else might people get that breathwork from? Maybe their psychologists? Do psychologists use that sort of technique?
**James Buckley:** It's becoming much more prevalent in psychology now. There's a famous man named Wim Hof who really popularized breathwork after losing his wife to suicide, which left him with four children. He went on a journey of seeking soothing for himself and found breathwork. He ended up climbing Mount Everest in shorts and no shoes and got into the death zone—talking about mountaineering—and was able to summit Mount Everest utilizing breathwork, which is something that's been taught for thousands of years in Asian cultures: Chinese medicine, pranayama in India, Tibetan culture, tumo breathing. So Wim Hof would be another person that people could absolutely seek.
I would just say that the Wim Hof method is quite profound, and he's done a wonderful job at popularizing it. However, it's not the only way. There are many other breathwork patterns that are actually much more gentle for people if they've never experienced breathwork. We could say the Wim Hof method is more of an extreme sport for people in breathwork. If you're inclined that way, that would be definitely something that you could look into. But again, my YouTube channel will facilitate a whole wide range of different breathwork patterns for people and where they're at.
**Warwick Bishop:** So beyond breathwork, James, what would be one of the other next tools or supports you'd be speaking with people about in the grieving process?
**James Buckley:** Physical movement. Physically moving the chemicals of the body that are created through the grieving process allows us to process a lot quicker. Walking has a profound effect. It's a very gentle, passive way of doing it. If you can get into nature where there are trees and bushes and vistas and views, it will allow your eyes to track in a way that down-regulates a part of the brain called the amygdala and allows people to get out of that sympathetic response or that stress response, reactive response. Simply walking in nature will allow people to soothe and move those emotions and those thoughts through their body very well.
The other thing that I could recommend is cold showers. They have a profound effect on the body, and although a little bit uncomfortable, after it can release a cascade of chemicals—endorphins, serotonin, and many other positive chemicals—that really can soothe the body and relax the body. Even though it can feel like a very stressful experience to go into cold, the response and the reaction from the body after that is that it comes back to life, and it regenerates. The body starts to fight for itself from that experience. In my personal experience with myself and many other people, the cold has a profound effect on grief and sadness and depression.
**Warwick Bishop:** Are there any other? We've talked about breathwork, walking, nature—walking in nature even better—and cold exposure. This is fantastic stuff to let people know about. But is there anything else? Because if not, we might look to draw a line under this particular podcast. Is there anything else you wanted to add?
**James Buckley:** Well, I could talk all day. But the only other thing that I would add there is stretching. Stretching your body again to allow the movement of that energy and those emotions and those chemicals in the body is profoundly important. Otherwise, we become stuck, and the body becomes rigid. Then we start to develop pain, and that starts to drive anger and frustration. Stretching and mobilizing the body in a myriad of different ways will enable people to release some of that stored energy or emotions in the body as well.
**Warwick Bishop:** That's so important. There is such a connection between the physical body and the physiology of the body. If you walk around stooped with your head down in a depressed appearance, you probably will be, as opposed to if you're standing up proud, tall, looking forward, shoulders back. Different chemistry follows those different physical positions.
**James Buckley:** Correct. Harvard professor Amy Cuddy did a wonderful TED Talk on the postures of the body and how that impacts the chemistry of the body. She spoke about power poses with your hands up behind your head or your hands on your hip. It actually pushes down the cortisol levels by up to 40% in a matter of five minutes or so. So I could highly recommend that podcast for postures and the impact that that has on the body as well.
**Warwick Bishop:** Well, an absolute delight speaking with you, James. Thank you so much for sharing. For those who are listening, thank you for hanging in to the end. I really appreciate that. I hope you've got something valuable from this. And as always, if you've got any queries or questions, drop us a note at info@drorickbishop.online. Until next time, I hope you and your loved ones live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
**Dr. Auric Bishop:** Hi. Ever wondered what your risk of heart attack is? You should. It's the single biggest killer in the Western world. We're talking one death less than every 30 minutes in Australia. One death less than every 60 seconds in the United States. Nine million deaths globally per annum. Well, how do you check your risk? You can go to www.virtualheartcheck.com.au. You'll find out about your risk and what can be done beyond that to be even more precise.
