Chris (00:04)
Today we're stepping a bit outside of our usual beat and exploring something that might not be a part of our standard toolkit in the fire service. Today I've got a friend and very special guest with me, Annie Ocherlin, a yogi who's here to share how yoga has impacted her life and how she's been able to use it to profoundly impact the lives of so many first responders, military vets, and just make the world a better place. Annie, welcome to the

Annie Okerlin (00:32)
Thanks Chris, it's an honor to be here with you and all of your listeners.

Chris (00:37)
So when we talk about yoga and all of this stuff, we know that firefighters have, and first responders in general, but we all have this stress response that it takes over when we go to work and it doesn't always turn off when we come home. And that's really why I wanted to have you on here is to talk with me and teach me some more stuff, but all the other firefighters out there, kind of remind them and let them know that this body is something that's been around for a long

And yoga has kind of come along with it. It's been around for a long time. but before we dig into that, do you mind giving the audience just a quick little rundown of why I would bring somebody like you on the show and how, how you got to

Annie Okerlin (01:26)
I have been a yoga student since 1996, so back in the 1900s. And the reality is that it was amazing to me how quickly it changed my body. Yes, that was wonderful, but the reality was how quickly it allowed me to focus. probably am borderline ADHD, can wander off in a thousand directions.

I'm slightly high energy, so the idea of what I thought yoga was, laying around on a yoga mat and stretching, I thought was kind of boring. So my first practice ever was Bikram yoga, which is they heat the room to a thousand degrees, not really, but they heat the room on purpose, 26 postures, two breathing exercises, and the first time I did it, I was smoked, and I could not believe, one, how physically challenging it was.

But to how really clear, focused, and centered I felt, it was unbelievable to me. And it really kind of got me going back every day. And when I didn't get into an actual studio, I was doing the practice by myself at home. And then in 1999,

thought, you know, it's time, let's go get certified to do this. I was going to go back to school and finish my business degree. I'd been gallivanting around Europe for eight years, came back to the States. was in the music industry for a while. And just, was kind of a crazy lifestyle. And I thought, ooh, this is, I'm going to kind of burn out. And so three weeks into a nine week yoga training, Bikram yoga to be specific, I was absolutely hooked. was like, wow, this is what I'm supposed to do with myself.

Chris (02:52)
Thank

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (03:14)
My parents thought it was great because I was going to be paid, hopefully, to talk and I'm quite chatty. So that was a wonderful way to harness what was already there. But the reality became very quickly that I was helping people, guiding people from the outside to really understand and be with what's going on inside. And ultimately that became my life.

My first student that filled out my paperwork in 1999 at my first little studio turned out to be a Navy SEAL. He was the head of Homeland Security for SOCOM. I'm based in Tampa, Florida. And we practiced together every day. Family came, the classes built, we moved. And ultimately I owned that studio, Yoganee Studios, for 18 years. And it ultimately afforded me to...

Chris (03:46)
Thank

Annie Okerlin (04:09)
help more people in my community. We have a huge veteran community. Unbeknownst to me, they were coming into the studio as well as active duty service members from all over the country. And then in 2006, he called me as he was visiting a young injured seal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At that point, it was still in D .C. And he said, I'm in the amputee department and I think yoga would be a beautiful support mechanism.

Chris (04:14)
Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (04:38)
for our injured service members going through rehab. And that started Exalted Warrior Foundation and we haven't looked back since. So I get to do what I love doing, teaching yoga, being with humans. And ultimately I think it boils down to without taking away all the woo -woo, which is really tricky for our community, right? The guardian community. Taking away the woo -woo, really it's,

Chris (04:41)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (05:05)
We call it tactical stretch sometimes, or we call it just movement. It's movement patterns in the body. But ultimately that gets the body to rest and stretch and feel good. And when the body feels good, all of that information overload into the mind, like we got a right hip issue going on. You know, all the things that our body constantly is telling the brain, head, shoulders, knees and toes is usually the joke. Really.

Chris (05:13)
Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Annie Okerlin (05:34)
What it does is when the body finds its sense of comfort, that's when the mind can start to find ease. so along with students over the years I've found like, know, there's how minimal can we make the practice, physicality, because lots of my patients, sometimes they don't have limbs, sometimes they're.

Chris (06:00)
Sure

Annie Okerlin (06:01)
know, extreme, extreme pain, so movement is really feels quite brutal. So if anything, we're trying to turn the volume down on pain and bring up the volume on comfort and ease. And I think yoga is just perfect for

Chris (06:10)
Mm -hmm.

Wow, it sounds like you are right where you belong, Annie. Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (06:22)
I like to think so. Yeah, I'm very, very grateful. It still astounds me that I get to go to work and this is what I do. Now, granted, there are days, like I'm sure, you know, I've worked with lot of firemen and fire women and all of that and people in various law enforcement and, you know, I have a, I slog to the office sometimes too. I'm like, my God. But once I get going, you know, maybe a little extra caffeine helps too, but yeah.

Chris (06:43)
Sure.

Yes, we love our caffeine and it seems to help. It seems to help. It's funny you mentioned the ADHD thing in the beginning there, because I just got done having a discussion about my potential diagnosis. So we'll know more in a couple of days, but yeah, the ADHD thing is real and that's a conversation for a whole other podcast. So my real question to you to just start this episode off with a bang.

Annie Okerlin (06:52)
We do.

Chris (07:19)
is why should a firefighter or police officer, first responder, Navy SEAL, because clearly they're coming to you, right? If, if, if a tier top, a top tier military service members reaching out for yoga, why would a firefighter want to partake in yoga?

Annie Okerlin (07:27)
Yeah.

I've always felt that for especially that community, getting comfortable with discomfort. I think you're in a hot environment in a bunch of gear. It's weighted. mean, how, you know, we can't necessarily say no to someone that's not the right size. Like I've met some very small female firefighters and I'm like, you're a badass, but cause the gear is a certain weight.

Chris (07:55)
Mm -hmm.

Sure

Annie Okerlin (08:10)
The reality is that to do what you want to do to take care of my community and myself and my family, which I'm very grateful for, you're putting yourself in harm's way. Why make it worse? Why not find movement patterns that keep you strong, keep your joints open? Because all that gear, all that compression, I always worry about everyone's spine and ankles and knee, I mean knees, bless them. They could have taken a few

Chris (08:15)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (08:38)
few more days in the creation, right? There's so much forward compression that is being created in the body. And then we are on our phones or we're on our computers and everything is all this forward folding thing. And then we're asking you to run in all of that gear to take care of somebody and be in working in a high stress environment. So it's that dance between good stress, bad stress.

Chris (08:41)
Mm -hmm. -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (09:06)
all of the decompression, physical and mental, that yoga offers without even necessarily talking about it. That's one of the things I kind of love about yoga is I can roll in and be like, all right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. It's very calculated, why? We're gonna open points, we're gonna get the muscles supple so that they can, all that tension can drop away. We're going to keep the...

Chris (09:11)
Thank

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (09:31)
keep the spine strong, all the muscles that support the spine so you can carry the gear and not walk out at the end of your career like this. And unfortunately, we know the statistics on how much harm you're walking through, what you're breathing, what's on your skin or coming off of your gear. The reality is, is the stronger we can set you up for success leaving your career, the better life is gonna feel.

Chris (09:36)
and not walk out the end of your career like this. And unfortunately, we have a fantastic on how much you learn through walking. So if you're reading this, you'll see

Mm -hmm.

Sure.

Annie Okerlin (10:01)
during your career. And I think we all know people who, know, amazing firefighters through their whole career and then six weeks out they have a heart attack. And you know, it's, think the yoga piece starts off as kind of a small piece. Like, I got a good stretch or I got a good sweat. Wow, I sleep really well. I mean, sleep, come on. Anything that's going to help sleep is the golden ticket.

Chris (10:20)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Annie Okerlin (10:30)
And that was the thing that really surprised me at first, because I always thought, you know, I'd led a knock on wood, a somewhat, you know, protected, gentle life, not a lot of loss or fear. And the reality was I still had crappy sleep. And when I, within three months, my whole body had changed, my lower back pain was gone, and the patterns of tension and holding that I felt in my body were almost gone. And it was extraordinary to me

Chris (10:40)
Mm -hmm.

And

Annie Okerlin (10:59)
standing on one leg for a couple of minutes throughout a class and sweating my tuchus off through a 90 minute yoga class and breathing well really, really changed things. But what we were really changing was the way the body functioned, nervous system out.

Chris (11:16)
Yeah. So you mentioned the challenges of fire service and the job, There's that, there's a lot of stress, uh, physically, mentally, and maybe a lot of the time throughout the day, we're not necessarily in a call out. We're not under that pressure. Like we're back at the station doing chores, training, uh, doing whatever it is that you would do in a 24 hour shift.

But when we get done, like we've exposed ourselves to all of the stress. We've had the fire, we've had the CPR, we've had a pretty busy day. Do you think yoga plays a big role in getting us to transition from like that, let's call it that heightened state back to a lesser state? Is that something yoga can do for us? And how does it do

Annie Okerlin (12:07)
Absolutely, and I'm so glad you used that word transition because one of the first trainings or offerings I did with the company that we both know, O2X Human Performance, our first contract was with Boston Fire. And I remember one of the most potent things that one of our psychologists asked, and it was all the chiefs of all the houses all

Boston. So there's a lot of familial line there, right? Like multiple firefighters and these families. And she said, what's easier, being home or being at work? And every hand went up for work. And I was like, gosh, that must be really hard for your families. But the reality is in all of our worlds, we train for work. We train.

Chris (13:00)
Mm

Annie Okerlin (13:02)
to know how to do CPR. you do things, you drill, you know, know how to handle the hoses and all of the gear and the gases and all these kinds of things. You work in the burn house, you know what to do with the chemical fires or the jaws of life, you know, getting somebody in accident, all of those things. I wouldn't know the first thing to do, but because your training has been there, you fall back into training and you go. You run to the fire, literally. What we're really doing

is that transition piece and yoga, breath work, meditation, any of that sort of family of awareness can be the transition point. Even if it's you're three blocks from home and you think, you know, I'm going to take five minutes. I'm going to park under a tree, open the windows, get some fresh air, do deep breathing exercises, literally to kind of dust off the day and then show up at home. Because what happens when you get home, the people, the animals, the

doing aspects of life which tend to be more challenging for us because we don't have a training protocol for someone sick, know, the washing machines broken, the dog got out, somebody pooped in the house, you know, all of those real human, hopefully not humans pooping in the house, but you know what I mean? All, you know, I mean, come on, yeah. The reality is that

Chris (14:14)
Yeah.

It just depends.

Annie Okerlin (14:31)
To me, yoga is my training to be in the world the way that I want to be. I can be really like orbital. I'm a little spacey, shocking. And the reality is that when I catch myself like, I'm orbiting somewhere. I don't even know where I am. Like, how do I do that? What do I do? To one, self -reflect, to catch that I'm orbiting. And then two, the reality that I need to pull it back in. I need to be on the ground. I need

do a meeting or show up at an appointment or hold space for a bunch of people who are really, really in discomfort. And how can I navigate that? How can I take care of myself after taking care of lots of other people, which is the work that I want to do, right? I think it's a natural bridge because I remember we worked with the Montana Fire Department, which

Chris (15:27)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (15:27)
not that many people in the grand scheme of Montana is a big state, but there's not that many people. And so was really cool. There was a lot of women in the group and it was really just lots of young, like super fit firefighters. But the reality was the fit to do the job was still that transition home was still where the biggest and most potent questions were coming in. Like, I know how to deadlift the right way safely.

you know, to lift somebody if I need to. But holy smokes, when I get three kids coming at me all yelling and screaming and, you know, the dog is being crazy, that pushes me over the edge. And it's again because we don't get training manuals to be human. And I think yoga's our training manual, probably.

Chris (15:59)
Mm -hmm

Yeah, the concept of using it to transition has really helped me. in my experience, so I, my firehouse, it's not the most busy, it's not the least busy. Like we, we run. but just, just getting ready and going to work and knowing that you're being exposed and expected to, to answer the call when it comes in.

That causes stress for me and I can feel it. It's not like overwhelming crippling stress, but I can tell that I'm not at home on the couch, you know, reading a book. And for me coming home and then being able to outside of meditation and breath work, just get to the gym and do a guided yoga class for 45 minutes or 60 minutes makes a huge difference. like I'm

Ideally I'm promoting yoga for all of everybody listening, but the experience that I have after I have sweat and contemplated why I'm in this yoga class and set an intention and struggled and like for some reason I sweat more than all the other people in the class and generally it's older women, but neither here nor there. I enjoy it and I know what I'm doing in there, but the

The thing that stands out for me is the breathing. And the movement is challenging and it feels good and it supports something. But what is so magical about the breath that I'm experiencing or that many of us have come to experience?

Annie Okerlin (17:54)
It's a great question. mean, we could have 14 hours of conversation about it. The short version is that in a movement practice of yoga, you kind of get this flow. You get into a flow. And I know flow state is a really big thing that everybody's talking about. because we're linking it to the breath, when we take control of our breath, we're taking control of our nervous

Chris (18:04)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (18:20)
Inhale stimulates sympathetic fight or flight. We need it. Especially when I work with veterans, I'm like, it got you to here. Somewhere in the mix, your team, know, however you, if you were injured, if you weren't injured, you are here right now. And the reality is that's because of your sympathetic nervous system. So we need it to people really demonize sympathetic nervous system. Don't do

Chris (18:25)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (18:48)
that keeps your ass alive. Like you're here because of it. So, inhale sympathetic, exhale parasympathetic. So ultimately hyperventilating is like just trying to like hold on. What we're trying to do is find the balance. Lovely word. It's a beautiful thing. And we do that with the breath. But when in a movement practice, we're taking, we're getting the movement because of the body.

The breath is creating the connection. We call it a sutra or the thread throughout the practice is always the breath. We have breath work that can take you up. We have breath work that can bring you back down. There's so many different ways, styles. My big thing in this community is go slow. Don't force your breath because your body will bite

your nervous system will bite back and it can make you more stressed if you're chucking yourself into a really, really kind of rapid breath. We really want to slow down. If your nervous system has been high all day, let's bring it down. And we do that by more soothing breath. Also, the reality is if you do posture on one side and then you go to the other, you're balancing the hemispheres of the brain and that dance between

balancing the breath, balancing the nervous system, and then on top of it, the hemispheres of the brain. Humongous, humongous, humunculus, actually, if we look at it, because we have so many nerve endings throughout, like, you think of down dog, everybody kind of knows that upside down letter V, maybe not a letter V on the back line, if your hammies are tight, so your knees are bent, great. You can adapt.

a yoga practice or yoga posture to any human being. I've literally worked with quad amputees. They do a yoga practice the same way. And the reality is gentle movement and breath. And we can amplify the breath and the movement. it, no worries. Human, yeah, maybe it's UPS man. Mind loses his mind at lizards out back. But this balance aspect

Chris (20:56)
Sorry about that. The dogs are barking.

Annie Okerlin (21:07)
We're constantly seeking that and like when you go to the gym and you're lifting and heart rate going that's great stress That's phenomenal stress, especially women I'm over 50 and the reality is that I need to lift to keep bone density high and All of those good things and when I had my bone density read earlier this year the guy was in a dexa and the guy was

Holy shit, what are you doing? I was like, well, first of all, I stand on one leg at least once a day. I'm kind of like a flamingo. But I lift, I don't lift huge, but I lift enough to keep that. And he was like, you have the best bone density of a woman your age I've ever seen. I was like, yes. But I think that has a lot to, yeah, right? Has a lot to do with yoga and just movement. If we're moving our body, we're engaging the muscle tone, muscle tone, stronger muscle tone holds the bone.

Chris (21:53)
Heck yeah.

Annie Okerlin (22:05)
it's that sort of natural progression.

Chris (22:09)
So the other day, yesterday, I was, I was thinking about our conversation that we would be having, and I was going through my head and thinking about my experiences with yoga. And you mentioned the breath controls the body. And I believe that's what you said. And we get into this yoga poses or these yoga poses that are challenging. And I started to learn that if I can maintain my breath in this yoga pose,

Or if I can't, what do I think is going to happen when I go into this fire scenario? Or do you think there's the correlation if we can train our breath and our focus and our ability to maybe not stay calm, but stay in the moment and stay focused on the mat or in the pose, whatever the challenging poses that it's going to carry over to our mental performance and physical performance in the fire?

Annie Okerlin (23:07)
Absolutely, because if you are like, my hip, my hip, my hip, and you're trying to get someone out of a fire and think about what do you need to do next and where's your teammate and all of the all the information because you've trained it up, it comes to you naturally. It might maybe a specific way, but the reality is

When we create any awareness of a one -pointed focus and concentration, that's as we start to narrow out the noise and we come into the tunnel of focus. The reality is that everything is still going, but we're able to discern, I don't need to think about that right now. I don't do that. All the chaos is going on around you, but there's a clarity and a stillness that's the flow.

Chris (23:55)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (24:04)
And I think that, you know, I've had a couple scenarios where the reality is that things that stress me out, like we have terrible, it's Florida, we have terrible traffic, but the reality caught myself the other day, like extending my exhales, settling into my parasympathetic, because people are driving around like G -Hugh all over the place. And the reality is

I need to stay focused because if I'm not focused, I'm not in control of my vehicle. If I'm not in control of my vehicle, I'm dangerous. some situations aren't that as stressful or technically dangerous, but I don't want to be an asshole to my family. I don't want to wake up in the morning and be like totally crazy and miss that, someone, you know, my son is...

Chris (24:35)
Absolutely.

Right.

Annie Okerlin (24:54)
not quite right today, what's going on? Or my friends or family members aren't themselves, what's that? If I'm too wrapped around my own axle and not aware of what's going on, it's like a situational awareness to live. And you guys have that in spades, you're trained that way. And I think that harnessing something that helps to quiet the noise that's noise, to sort of filter out what is needed in the moment.

Chris (25:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (25:23)
what is the moment and what is necessary in this moment, it clears the deck, so to speak, and allows us to really stay focused and present, to react. It's the dance between reaction and response. Like, I can react all day long, but am I a pleasant person if I'm that reactive? If I can respond, I'm probably more skillfully navigating the situations that I want to.

work, home, life, all those things.

Chris (25:56)
The word that comes to mind when you say that is mindfulness. Is that something that, if I'm a new yoga person and it's my first opportunity to get into the yoga and I'm like, I heard all about this mindfulness. How can I practice mindfulness while I do yoga? What does that look like?

Annie Okerlin (26:17)
It probably means you might be a little bit slower in the class and that's hard. That's an ego thing, right? Nobody wants to be the slow bird in the practice, but ultimately as a facilitator, I look at that and I go, that one's rocking it because they're doing the practice for them. They're not in competition. Even though it's a yoga room, there's still people like, I'm to do a handstand before class. And then there's some

Chris (26:21)
Okay. Sure. Yes. Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (26:47)
you know, brand new student who's like, I've got the tightest hamstrings on the planet. I'm never going to be able to straighten my leg in a forward fold. Who cares? But everybody's getting something. I think the idea of mindfulness, it's funny because it's when you break it down mind and full, the reality is that people go, it's an empty mind. That takes a long time to find.

Chris (26:55)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, No, yeah.

Annie Okerlin (27:16)
And reality is that mindfulness and meditation are very active. It's actively keeping space. So I kind of think about it as inner ping pong. You know, here comes a thought, boop, remember pong, you might be a little, for pong, but like the reality is like, boop, boop, boop. I'm just keeping this space as clear as I can. And that's again, where we come back to being responsive versus reactive. If I'm going, my

another there's another one and blah blah do the work boop boop so this is going but I don't need to overreact I don't need to even acknowledge that it's work it's going and that's why like anything you're training anyone's training for the work that our guardians do and yoga and things like that like we do it as often as we can so when the shit really hits the fan

it pops up automatically. And that's, it's hard because think of all the things we need to do during the day, which is why I'm a huge proponent of breath work and meditation. Like nowadays, I think in reality, depending on who my student or patient or client is, I aim more for initially breath work and meditation and I rest yoga nidra versus

Chris (28:17)
Right.

Annie Okerlin (28:45)
you need to be on a yoga mat doing a certain shape. But that's just me at this point. I think there's a lot of ways to individualize it. And that's one of the things I've always loved about yoga is anybody can do

Chris (28:46)
Okay.

Sure.

All right, well, let's talk about it then. Breathwork and meditation. Let's dig into breathwork. And we've kind of already touched on a little bit. We can use it to get us up. We can use it to bring us down. Do you want to kind of go through just the basics of some breathwork and maybe give us an example of each one?

Annie Okerlin (29:02)
All

Yeah, the main yoga breath that most people hear about is called Ujjayi. You don't need to remember the name. If anything, the phrasing that I've always loved about Ujjayi means victory over the waves of the mind. Right? Because it says there are waves in the mind.

Chris (29:35)
I like that.

Mm

Annie Okerlin (29:43)
We all know it. We don't really necessarily like to say that we have like today's hurricane going on in there kind of thing. And we all have those days and we have other days where we maybe are a little less primed for intensity. But ujjayi means the balance, there's that word again, of an inhale and an exhale. Very, very simply, you can count a certain number in where it's comfortable. Stop.

especially early days, stop where it's still comfortable. In breath work, it's not more is more. I'm a firm believer that gentle is more because we don't want to stress the system. If you're going to stress the system, I'd rather you lift versus overdo your breath practice because then you'll be cat clinging to the ceiling fan. And we've all been

That's no fun though. I don't want to be there. I'd rather be kind of, you know, mellow yellow and, you know, still calm. So it's...

Chris (30:47)
Yeah, surfing the waves rather than fighting the tide.

Annie Okerlin (30:50)
Exactly, instead of like being slammed into the shore by them. The reality is that that will happen. And there's times too, I think it's always really important to tell people, there are times especially in a breath practice or a meditation practice, you might come out not feeling any different. And that's okay. Those are the days where we realize, wow, my mind is very, very strong. So what we're doing is we're giving the mind some parameters.

we're going to try to feel the breath moving in and out of the body, preferably through the nose, because we get some ridiculous, I think it's almost 140 ,000 extra square inches of space of oxygen receptors when we're breathing in and out of our nose. If you have a deviated septum, no harm, no foul. You're not missing anything hugely, but

definitely something over time people will notice that they can begin to clear blockages by breathing through their nose at least trying a little bit. If you can breathe through your ear then you don't need to listen to the rest of this podcast, right? And then ultimately for example with ujjayi, it's a smooth inhale in and a smooth exhale out. Again, it's personal. What feels comfortable to

might not feel comfortable to me. The first few years of my practice as a student, I didn't really get the breath. I was still in that like kind of panicky, like, gotta do the pose and holding my breath, which is a very reaction. Holding your breath in a fire, not a great idea. You might pass out and then you become a detriment to your team. So it's, that begins the self reflection. Am I breathing? Did I, did I hold my

Chris (32:29)
Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (32:45)
Am I feeling full on the inhale? Am I feeling empty on the exhale? What's really interesting is the more you play with just that breath alone, there are points where, and I've tested it out and I've talked to psychologists, so of course I'm always trying to prove that I really am crazy. The reality is that there's no real difference.

I feel so peaceful in the fullness of a big inhale and then absolutely a minute later, absolutely super peaceful and still in the emptiness at the end of an exhale. And it's totally different. I personally, I haven't tested this with science. I think it's whichever hemisphere of the brain is more dominant in that moment. And you know, we bounce.

from hemisphere to hemisphere. Left side of the brain is our filing cabinets where we keep all of our stories, our images, our emotions. It's like the filing cabinet of everything we've ever experienced. It's our doing. We're -processing, grinding. I know it's very linear. I know what's coming next kind of thing. So that's where all of our training probably lands, right? Then right side of the brain, right hemisphere of the brain.

Chris (33:58)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (34:12)
is our spaciousness. It's our unity, it's love, it's our creativity, it's being. If we're doing over here, we have this side of being. It's where we go when we meditate. Which is, and we can talk about this in the yoga nidra part, but that's why balancing out the hemispheres of the brain can be really potent for anyone and can be really, really interesting.

But so with breath work, it starts to bring us back into a balance between the hemispheres of the brain. Sometimes it will take us into the right side and we get super spacey or we feel like we're not connected. But I think baseline, first off, keeping a balance of inhale, exhale is wonderful. Even when you're driving, like at stoplights, great thing to do waiting in a stoplight.

Chris (34:53)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (35:08)
big inhale and fill the belly. Most of us, as you know, like we don't breathe basically below our underarms. We need to breathe down into the belly, especially with our guardians. The psoas clamps, the vagus nerve clamps, and then we're in that forward kind of hold of protection. It's just purely the body protecting itself. So from that, we create compression. So breathing down into the bellies

Chris (35:16)
Right?

Annie Okerlin (35:38)
Flexing the diaphragm is uncomfortable. So when we have take three to five minutes a day, preferably before bed is a great one or in the transition time. It really helps reset and we sort of like I'll notice sometimes like I'm riding my shoulders are kind of riding and then it's like I do my breath practice and whoa I just feel it all kind of slide down the back which is a huge relief.

And then we can start getting more specific. There's breath practices that amplify, like that we might do in the morning. There's one called Kapilabhati, and this is where things can go awry in yoga. It's called skull shining. You know, I can't roll into a fire department in the Midwest and be like, we're going to do skull shining, you know, and they're going be like, you're out. So, but it's almost a weird, it's a controlled hyperventilation.

Chris (36:23)
Sheesh.

Annie Okerlin (36:36)
Having said that, I don't teach that one to most of my students, but if I do teach it, it's slow. So I'm still, it's like pumping the belly in and up. So really what we're focusing on is the exhale, the... Out through the nose. Some people do it through the mouth, whatever, the same movement. And then one of my favorites...

Chris (36:55)
Okay. Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (37:04)
favorite favorites is alternate nostril breathing. It's exactly like it sounds. We block the right side of the nostril and I'm not mirroring you at this point because this one fouls me up every time after all these years. So you start by inhaling through the left nostril, left stimulating right side of the brain, right? So we're opening into that spaciousness and you make a boomerang shape with the breath. So you inhale up the left, exhale down the

Chris (37:13)
No, it's okay.

Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (37:33)
inhale, right, exhale, left. And we just keep that going. What's interesting is that there's a lot of information to the brain, which is great. When we're in those moments where we're kind of ticking over like super fast and the brain's really on, the engine is revving and it's brrrr

Chris (37:54)
Okay.

Annie Okerlin (38:03)
So even if you close your eyes, sometimes that over activates people with busy brains already. So we've got the option you can either make like a haka and do index and middle fingers into the palm and you can balance thumb and ring finger on the nose or you can put it on your forehead. I tend to put it, put fingers on the forehead here because again, that sensory input, the brain, a busy brain,

Chris (38:23)
Yep.

Annie Okerlin (38:32)
wants the input and by doing the practice it starts to narrow this giant window of information. It starts to narrow and narrow and narrow. So within three to four minutes things have started to narrow but spaciousness has come inside if that makes sense. Settled in and we find a nice kind of stillness.

Chris (38:52)
Yeah. So with the three to four minutes, maybe five, we can do that in the morning, at night, anytime. But let's just say, for instance, you're the boss on a fire truck, you're the lieutenant or you're the captain and you arrive on a structure fire. And I've heard it said in...

been advised to take a tactical pause, which is a moment before we start to do and take a deep breath. What would, if you could, I know it might be different for everybody, but if you could make a general recommendation, what would that one breath look like in that moment? Like, is it a quick breath in a short exhale or a nice full, what would it look

Annie Okerlin (39:43)
a practice called valoma breathing. It separates the three separate breathing spaces. It's similar to a physiological sigh.

If anything, whatever you do on the front side, extend it on the back side. So you could inhale a little to the lower belly, pause, inhale to the middle breathing space, pause, inhale to the upper breathing space, and then a nice long exhale. Because that long exhale is the restorative relaxation. You're engaging the body, you're priming on the inhale, you're softening on the exhale.

Chris (40:16)
Okay.

Annie Okerlin (40:25)
And this is one of, think, one of the big misconceptions about yoga. People are like, I can't, I'm gonna lose my edge. I'm not gonna be fast. My response time, my reaction time's gonna slow. Actually, it's quite the opposite because the nervous system has been primed to be awake and aware and alert and ready to go, but without the noise and the distraction

the things that aren't necessary, the confusion. It's like we're able to say, you know, what am I trying to say? It's like we're able to clear the deck of the unimportant to focus 100 % on what is needed and most powerfully right now. And I think that's one of the biggest gifts is being able to say, right, we're pulling in, unless you're the driver, maybe, or the ladder driver at the back, like as you're rolling in, you got your gear

Chris (41:08)
Sure.

Annie Okerlin (41:22)
Maybe you're checking the scene. If you're five minutes out, spend two of those five minutes breathing, getting ready, opening the lungs, getting them ready, stretching the intercostals. So when you jump off and put your tank on, you're not like, I wish I'd stretched before I put my tank on and pressing. So that would be my recommendation.

Chris (41:37)
Sure. I like that a lot. And you mentioned it kind of blocks out the noise and I kind of liken it to taking an out of focus camera lens and just putting it in focus. It kind of clears everything up and it gives you that crisp perspective, I guess. that... Okay.

Annie Okerlin (41:44)
yet.

Beautiful. Yeah, I like

Chris (42:07)
So real quick, before we dive into yoga nidra, how can, so we've talked about yoga being able to kind of transition us and build a performance edge with our ability to focus. How is yoga going to help us in our resilience? How is it going to improve our psychological armor when it comes to being resilient and coming back from that experience that made us bend?

Annie Okerlin (42:39)
I think the reality of all that you guys experience, it's really, really intense. think what we're seeing now and we have for the last few years is now that I know it's still there, but the stigma of shoving emotion or shoving things that worry or stress us out, kind of shoving them in the

Chris (42:44)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (43:07)
putting them away. I'm glad to see that more people around the kitchen table, you know, after your shift with having a beer or whatever, you know, having barbecues, the sense of community is really there. But I also think it's important to be able to do it for yourself because this is the longest relationship you're ever going to have. And I think that with so much information coming at us, the stress,

of your jobs, the desire to be a great human being, which is why you chose this profession in the first place, and wanting to be the best human that you can be in your families and your communities. I think it's self -awareness. the dance, I think, is that self -awareness also means seeing the things that we find challenging about ourselves, that we may self

we might not deal with because they're challenging and we don't want to be seen weak or maybe pamby or I don't know what the phrasings are these days. To me, resilience is being able to say, wow, that was some really heavy experiences. I need a minute. I need to restore this mechanism to be able to go on to the next day, to go on to go home.

Chris (44:19)
Sure.

Annie Okerlin (44:37)
And sometimes what's really tricky for you guys and humans in general, but you guys especially, is that it's day after day after day after day after day. And it's kind of like in the military or in a hospital setting, dark humor comes in, which is great. I was raised by two medical people. Wow. The things that we would talk about at the dinner table. I'm like, I'm seven. Can we please table discussion? I don't need to hear this. Took me a really long

Chris (44:46)
Mm

can get dark.

Annie Okerlin (45:05)
I totally don't. It took me a really long time to eat spaghetti and meatballs again. Anyway, there's a whole story. But the reality is that to really sit with, wow, I'm exhausted. Exhaustion has a very intimate fellowship with grief. And we hold that in the body. The body keeps the score. We've talked about that book by Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Score.

Chris (45:31)
Yes.

Annie Okerlin (45:34)
If we're not navigating an emotion, a thought, an experience, an image, a stress, it's not there. It's lodging into a shoulder discomfort, a pain, a physical manifestation that needs to be looked at. Having said that, I'm famous for, I'm not gonna do that yoga pose, because I always cry in that yoga pose. And the reality is that that's just my body going.

The resilience I think is being able to touch into those pieces and go, that's really heavy. I'm not going to do it right now, but I will be back. it sounds insane, but it's over time and navigating great losses in my life and working with people who are struggling with moral injury and chronic stress and PTS.

combat operational stress from years of amazing service to their country and their communities. I feel like my practice makes me braver to go do that work so it doesn't pop up on me later. You know, it's kind of like, do the work now instead of being the crazy uncle that everyone goes, is uncle so -and -so coming to work, coming to Christmas dinner, because he's the one that causes the problems.

Chris (47:18)
Yeah,

Annie Okerlin (47:32)
I don't want to be that. That's not how I want to live my life because it's really exhausting. But to me, it's a muscle. Navigating our emotions and our experiences, that's just as powerful as going to the gym. And for me, breathwork and meditation is how I navigate that because the reality is all, human beings on the

Chris (47:32)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (48:00)
have emotions, we have feelings, we get them hurt, we do bad things to ourselves and our families and we think, wow, that was really crappy. I don't want to be that person. So if I can self -reflect in an awareness of to be better, then I want to do that work. That's the work that I want to do. To me, that's resilience. I can go do my job. I can run into a fire.

on purpose to take care of my community and then come home and have things and tools to dust it off because I don't want anything happening to you guys and note your families don't either. You don't want to put families in harm's way but sometimes you know over the years the culture has been changing. I've seen it myself which is phenomenal but it's still the work still needs to get

Chris (48:30)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Annie Okerlin (48:56)
And I know that was a very long, I apologize, that was a very long -winded, of around the circle, kind of leads us into Yoganidra, I guess.

Chris (49:04)
Yeah, it does. you know, you, you, you've mentioned yoga as a tool and I think it really can be an investment in, into our wellness. And again, I, that is exactly why I wanted to bring you on today is to just have someone who has been involved in it with a wide audience, from amputees, veterans, tier one, military service members.

firefighters and just to get your opinion and your understanding on it. So with yoga being fully approved by priority traffic podcast, put it in the toolbox. and what we'll kind of dig into how we can use it and what that might look like here in a few minutes, but I want to transition, like you mentioned to yoga, Nidra and, for all of you out there who don't know exactly what yoga Nidra is,

Annie Okerlin (49:56)
Yeah, it is

Chris (49:59)
I have the perfect person here to discuss it. I've, I've done yoga nidra a couple of times. I've, I'm more familiar with the I rest. I know there's, similarities and differences, maybe less differences than, than most people would think, but, any, if you don't mind, let's dig into yoga nidra.

Annie Okerlin (50:25)
I love it. It's amazing. it, yoga nature is a form of meditation, generally guided. The reality is that it takes you through a specific protocol to leave the external busyness, the doing mind, like we talked about earlier, and gently start to turn it inward. The experience through it is

Chris (50:42)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (50:52)
we start to recognize or self -reflect what we're witnessing. So I like to talk about it as if we're sitting at the back of a movie theater and we get to, maybe we're eating Twizzlers and popcorn or whatever. One time I do get my soda when I go to the movies. Anyway, the reality is that life is going across the movie screen. And what's different about this form of meditation is that it's your life. It's not,

Chris (50:57)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (51:22)
in some forms of yoga nidra they'll say imagine a flaming triangle and because it's still from the tradition an Indian tradition or East in East Asian tradition a lot of the imagery used in more traditional forms of yoga nidra is quite startling to a Western brain. I remember the first yoga nidra that I did was a CD and the guy would come in and

Chris (51:34)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (51:52)
really loudly and it would always kind of startle me as I was getting snuck in to my practice. Now granted I did sleep through the first four maybe five years of yoga nidra because as humans in the Western world were chronically exhausted and then throughout the practice they would input imagine a flaming triangle, imagine a burning cross, hello I'm from the south like holy smokes.

Chris (52:18)
Right.

Annie Okerlin (52:21)
Imagine a burning body. No thank you. I don't want to do that. That's like that's not but if you look at those different pieces What is happening? I'm hearing it imagining it reacting and ultimately that's what yoga need to really is is it's Saying and guiding you through scenarios so that you in the moment of stillness Which takes a little bit of time for most

You're witnessing your reactivity. You're witnessing the patterns of your experience. And again, especially as a Western mind, I remember I hadn't started working in a military setting and I was doing that particular practice, know, imagine a burning body. And I remember the first time I heard about yoga nidra in a military setting, I was like, what? Cause we were in Iraq at the time. Like what? We can't talk about

in the military hospital. Are you insane? And so that's when I found I -Rest Yoga Nidra. And I -Rest just means integrative restoration. But the reason I ended up spending a lot of time getting trained and certified in this, in I -Rest, is because by nature, it's trauma sensitive. It's not diminishing the practice in any way. If anything,

it's opening it to a broader audience. Namely, I don't tell you what to think. I'm constantly, I like to say I'm kind of like the pinball wizard in that I'm saying, know, boop, boop, boop, go this way a little bit. Ooh, we're gonna go this way a little bit. But everything that I'm offering to the student is to self -reflect on what their experience is in the moment.

Chris (53:49)
Right?

Right.

Annie Okerlin (54:14)
And I think it's probably, I think one of the reasons I love it so much is that I can have any human being, any race, any color, any denomination, non -spiritual, anything. is a human being can do this practice, which takes a lot of the, excuse the French, bullshit out of it and focuses in on what is your experience right

Chris (54:14)
Gotcha.

Annie Okerlin (54:42)
And what I've noticed, especially over the years working this practice within military settings is that whether you're a soccer mom or a tier one, 17 combat deployment, Navy SEAL, we all want to be a great human. And this is the homecoming. This is how we come home to ourselves in a way that it sounds silly. It sounds

Chris (55:02)
Right?

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (55:12)
mystical and magical. It feels mystical and magical, but in reality it's just coming home to what you truly are. Coming back to that place before the intensity of life set in. Before the things that we felt harmed us, stressed us, our losses, our intensities. And I honestly don't know anyone that would be like, nah, I'm good.

because it trains the brain how to rest. That's kind of the selling point is I'm usually like, all right, well, how's your sleep?

Chris (55:43)
Sure. Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (55:50)
Nobody wants to answer that question because it's really hard to sleep these days. We lay down, we might be fully exhausted like, I'm gonna get a good sleep, I'm just gonna go straight to sleep when I lay down, the head hits the pillow, put the eye mask on, the do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

Chris (56:11)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (56:19)
And so by being able to say, all right, so from the body scan, I'm going to think about my right pinky toe and my fourth toe getting out of your own head, which is a novel but miraculous idea. Feel the Do you feel the sheet on your big toe? Do you feel the bottom sheet on your heel? Do you have a weighted blanket? Like, and we move up the body. So it's, it's all the senses turned inward. It's a very

We set a place that feels secure, hands down, number one piece in that particular practice, which is slightly different from regular yoga nidra. We call it the inner resource. And it's all about where are you, what does it feel like when you are in your favorite space, where you're secure, where you're physically comfortable, where your mind feels at ease.

Chris (57:00)
Sure. Yes.

Annie Okerlin (57:16)
There's a sense of being, there's a sense of peace. Maybe you're by yourself, maybe you're with your favorite people, maybe you're with animals. Are you in nature? Are you in your man cave or whatever? And the thing is that again, I'm not telling you what to think by like, imagine it's brown, imagine you're in the sunshine, you know, all that kind of stuff. That's all you. And so it sort of satisfies the doing side of our brain.

Chris (57:18)
Mm -hmm

Annie Okerlin (57:47)
and allows the rest of the nervous system to settle into a sense of safety and security, which then gets us into the right side of the brain. And then we have the body scan where we go back and forth and we feel into where we might be holding attention and we let that rest. And then we go to the other side and there's, I never really teach it the same way. It's just kind of find different ways across. So by the time we go from toes to the head,

Chris (58:07)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (58:16)
hemispheres of the brain are a lot more balanced. So the ability to leave the busyness, move and feel into stillness, comfort and ease is greater. Our chances of getting there are greater because we've done the work back and forth and back and forth. And I don't know anybody that really doesn't need to lie down or rack out on the couch

Chris (58:29)
getting there a greater because we've got to work back and forth. And I don't think we're going to do that. Maybe because we need to apply now or track down the challenges or.

Annie Okerlin (58:43)
do it in a chair, I know people who listen and do it by walking. So it's one of those pieces that seems really innocuous, but it can be very, very profound. Like the way the body feels at the end of it is like, what just happened? And some people fall asleep and they're like, did you get my PIN number for my bank account? Like, what happened?

Chris (58:48)
Okay.

Right.

Annie Okerlin (59:10)
They think there's some elements of hypnosis. But what's really interesting is once we get the body settled, then we can go and get some work done in the mind. We do it with breath practice or breath awareness, right? And there's that dance. And sometimes we need to ask ourselves that, especially like if I've had a really, really busy day or if I've traveled to a workshop or something and I get it, all the things and I'm like, ooh, I've got it and I'm on a time.

Chris (59:25)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (59:40)
know, time frame, I kind of go, I've got 22 minutes. Do I do some breath practice and a super quick little series of movements or do I run down to the gym and get on a treadmill but do breathing exercises while I'm doing, while I'm walking on the treadmill or do I stick my legs up the wall for a little bit and then go into stillness? If I've like been, if there's been a lot of physicality in the day, like if I've

Chris (1:00:09)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (1:00:10)
long walk from the gate to the Uber or whatever, I will usually pick stillness. Because stillness is actually kind of harder for me than moving, getting on a yoga mat, or doing whatever. But stillness for my body these days and my brain, that internal awareness is so much more settled. Because nobody wants a yoga teacher with their hair on fire.

Chris (1:00:29)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Annie Okerlin (1:00:35)
You know, if I was like, I am sometimes, but I know how to also turn it down. So I turn to yoga nidra a lot because it's how I process out. What am I feeling? What are my emotions doing right now? Am I worried? Am I sad? Am I happy? And the ability to like process life in a way that is, I don't have to talk about

That's kind of a really, that's one I've always said like yoga nidra is kind of the gateway drug to therapy if it's needed because we're able to really see and then feel and that's a big, that's a whole nother podcast. The difference between seeing a challenge, what's felt challenging and then feeling it is the body wants to feel good and the mind wants to do all

Chris (1:01:28)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (1:01:34)
over perseverating, wrapping around the axle about it. So that's the dance between in yoga nidras were kind of, okay, I acknowledge that this is what I'm thinking about. If this is a thought in my mind, what does it feel like in my body? And then move back and forth between the two. And that's a big chunk. And honestly, that's a lot of processing work that when we're chronically under slept, like most of our guardians and those lovely

schedules that you guys run, you have a propensity to miss those big chunks of REM sleep at the end of a normally lengthened sleep cycle. We get little chunks. They get longer and longer and longer of REM. And so if we're missing that long, long chunk of REM in a 20 -minute yoga nidra, we can do the same thing. The science says that an hour of yoga nidra is like sleeping for

Chris (1:02:13)
Mm -hmm.

Ooh, that's a good trade.

Annie Okerlin (1:02:35)
Right? mean, because the nervous system goes and drops so quickly, like when I wear a loop and so when I look at it's fascinating to me. It's just like, and I drop and I'm able to maintain a really still line. I mean, there's blips and things, but it's almost like sleep and sometimes I do fall asleep still. But the reality is then if we're dropping into lower brain waves,

Chris (1:02:44)
yeah. -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (1:03:04)
We're mimicking the ability to navigate REM that we've maybe missed from sleep, but catching, we're adding, we're kind of sleep banking is really kind of the way we can look at it. And the fact that we're processing and then giving ourselves, it's a refresher. In South Florida, they call it, they do a napuccino. They'll do a buchi, little Cuban, a shot of Cuban coffee, a little hit of Cuban coffee, lay down and take a 20 minute

Chris (1:03:10)
Mm -hmm.

you

Yeah.

Annie Okerlin (1:03:35)
And the caffeine kicks in in the 20 minutes. Once they wake up, boom, caffeine's hitting. And they've had that sense of stillness. There's so much information and we're moving at such rapid paces. Our Neanderthal people didn't have that. I mean, they ran. That was as fast as they got. And if you think about it, yes, they were under a lot more stress, but they also had a lot more stillness in their lives. And we don't have that stillness anymore. We've said that that's not important.

Chris (1:04:00)
Yeah, I bet.

Annie Okerlin (1:04:05)
And I want to call an audible bohongki on that one. I think we need more stillness to navigate with it. Think about heart rate variability. If we can drive down and get still and then come back up. But stillness is scary for so many of us. And I think stillness is freedom myself.

Chris (1:04:21)
You know, I struggle with the stillness, so I try to incorporate it when I can, because I know I'm a fidgeter and that being still is quite a challenge. when you mentioned...

Annie Okerlin (1:04:33)
Five minutes at the gym, five minutes at the gym at the end of your workout, lay down, legs at the wall, do breathing for three to five minutes. Change everything.

Chris (1:04:40)
Okay. Perfect. So you mentioned the challenge with the schedule and how would you, if you got to sit down in front of a bunch of firefighters, how would you recommend that they integrate yoga and yoga nidra and breath work and meditation or any combination of those? What would you, just a general recommendation on how we could integrate that into our

tactical lifestyle.

Annie Okerlin (1:05:11)
So when all the gear has been cleaned and there's that sort of navigating, maybe it's towards a dinner, a meal time, right? If you're not the cook, then take some bands and like open up your chest.

Chris (1:05:22)
Mm

Annie Okerlin (1:05:28)
gentle kind of back bend. Try not to sit down until it's actually time to eat. Stay in the room for the chat, the community and the yapping and they're probably going to make great fun of you. you look like a flamingo. What are you doing? Great. Come start working on your, your comebacks now. But the reality is I have actually, have a good one. So any, like I like to put my hands in, like you're putting your hands in your jean pockets and then squeeze the elbows

Chris (1:05:55)
Mm

Annie Okerlin (1:05:57)
And a lot, it just feels so good. You don't even need to lean back. But if you start to lean back, that's a great opposite from having your tank on, right? And be up in the gear. And if people are like, why are you doing that? It's for independence. Why are you stretching your, and doing a back bend for independence? It's independence. So when I'm old, I can wipe my own ass.

Chris (1:06:07)
Okay.

there you go.

Annie Okerlin (1:06:22)
That actually the Boston Fire guys were like, why are we doing this? I had them on their belly doing a bow posture, reaching back to grab their heels. And they, by the time they got to the rank that they all were, you there was some good little potbellies kicking up. And one of the guys was like, why am I doing this? I'm like, so you can wipe your own butt. And he's like, that's what candy stripers are for. And I just thought that was the best response ever.

Chris (1:06:50)
Gosh.

Annie Okerlin (1:06:51)
you know, really just any chance you get. If you're having a conversation in a hallway, lean against a wall, your arm on the wall and then gently lean away, like opening up that line, taking huge inhales and exhales, eating mindfully. I know it's kind of like having doctors in the house, like everybody eats really quickly because you don't know when the bell's gonna go, you know, when they let you go.

Chris (1:07:09)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (1:07:19)
And I eat fast, so I can't comment on that one particularly well. But just, you know, working on when you can take your boots off and stand on one foot and work the strengthening of your feet because a lot of misalignments happen. They start at the feet and they travel all the way up. So if you're ignoring it and it's hit your shoulders and your neck, go back to your feet. I'm a big proponent of barefoot stuff.

and just really stretch your hamstrings as regularly as you can. You can do that in a chair. You can do a forward fold. Get all that blood flow back down into the body. Stretch your arms back. You can work on gently interlocking your fingers and then do a forward fold that way. That actually helps realign the top half of your spine. If you let your neck go and all that blood flow to the brain, it's also going to help wake you up. Watch coming quickly.

Chris (1:08:15)
Okay,

Annie Okerlin (1:08:17)
Just that way sometimes people get a little wompously dizzy, especially if you're super tired.

Chris (1:08:23)
Nice. Well, I think before we take our next transition, I just want to recap that this, this yoga, yoga, Nidra, this lifestyle, these tools are, are going to help all firefighters, when it comes to their performance, their wellness. And I think we can get a lot out of just incorporating these practices a little bit at a time. And I think that's just, it might, it might not look as tough.

Annie Okerlin (1:08:52)
Thank

Chris (1:08:52)
as saving a baby out of a third story window. But I think we're coming to the point in time where we have to start making choices and choosing to invest in our wellness and our performance with yoga, yoga nidra, getting better sleep, is just what the next generation of firefighters are gonna have to do.

Annie Okerlin (1:09:14)
Absolutely. And like just from what if you couldn't go any further and you needed to get that last like nano space to reach the baby. Like any posture where you side bend, arms up, find that flexibility in the shoulder joint, get that length along the erector spinae muscles to get to that point. I think, you

Chris (1:09:40)
Mm

Annie Okerlin (1:09:43)
That would put me on a mat.

Chris (1:09:46)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You can get something out of this. Absolutely. So with... Yeah, it does. Or in the morning even. Depends on when you do

Annie Okerlin (1:09:51)
and if you're good at the end of the day.

Any point, any point. Feeling good is a commodity, think, these days. Just the way our culture is working at the moment, which is kind of brutal.

Chris (1:10:02)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it's tough out there these days. So real quick, I want to take a little detour. In the beginning of our interview, you mentioned the Exalted Warrior Foundation. Can you kind of share with us what you're doing with that, how it's going, and where we can get in touch with

Annie Okerlin (1:10:23)
Thank you. So Exalted Warrior, as I mentioned at the beginning, was formulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when it was still in DC in 2006. We became a proper 501c3 nonprofit in 2010 and our mission from then and still to this point is to support traumatically injured service members and their families with adaptive yoga and meditation. What happened

just before COVID was a lot of our material, tons of I -Rest, yoga, nidra meditations and some adaptive yoga videos are on our website, which is at exaltedwarrior .com. And at this stage, we have weekly zoom meetings. All of the programming is free for military and their families. And we have a first responders group as well.

go on, sign up for the links. They go out every Thursday or Friday and people join up from all over the country and sometimes from overseas if they're deployed. And it's just this wonderful little group of humans that we've navigated the last four years since COVID lockdown. And I've been forbidden to stop this class, although I love it because we've navigated loss and stress and anxiety.

You know, one of the things I love is that the group that we have in these classes, it is the most diverse group of humans I've ever worked with in my life. And I love that because it shows that yoga is for everyone. And as beings, we all want to be in community and we also want to thrive. And there's a lot of wounded warriors on there and their caregivers and service members who've been

Chris (1:12:06)
Mm -hmm.

Annie Okerlin (1:12:20)
retired for years but still are in the struggle of feeling good or navigating mental health challenges. And the reality is that we gather for an hour in the afternoon and share practice. And sometimes it's a really heavy discussion and sometimes it's, look, there's your dog. And we know each other by our screen pictures or the food that we put up

Chris (1:12:48)
Right.

Annie Okerlin (1:12:49)
or the dog but that walks by, you know, it's really great. so we, years in the making, our practice guide for veterans is finally printed and so that'll be available on the website next week. All of that's on exaltedwarrior .com. have t -shirts, hoodies, things like that.

Chris (1:13:05)
Awesome.

Perfect. Well, Annie, I really appreciate you making time to meet with us today. There's just so much more to be said about the power and the impact of yoga. We would probably need a few more hours, but I think we really did a service and we scratched the surface of the impact that yoga can have positively on our service members, firefighters, police, military, first responders, and

On behalf of the audience, I'd like to say thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate it. And I want to remind everybody to check out Annie at exaltedwarrior .com. How do you spell that? Just so everybody knows.

Annie Okerlin (1:13:52)
E -X -A -L -T -E -D, Warrior, W -A -R -R -I -O -R dot com. So it's exaltedwarrior

Chris (1:14:07)
Awesome. And because of the way I met you, I want to promote O2X. You and I did meet at O2X and without O2X, I don't know where I'd be today, but I've met tons of great people and you are definitely one of them. So don't forget to check out O2X .com, Human Performance Leaders, and getting our first responders, the education training and information that can help

not just survive, but thrive. So go check out o2x .com. Quick shout out to those guys and start integrating this stuff just a little bit. One piece of today's show. Please try and implement it in your routine. Find out what works. Do a little research. Maybe pick up a book. Google an article. But this stuff is very potent. It works. 
 but I promise you, you spend some time doing yoga, you will not regret it and it will have a lot of benefits for your performance and your wellness. Well, Annie, thank you so much for joining us today.

Annie Okerlin (1:15:24)
Thank you my friend, I'm grateful to be here.

Chris (1:15:27)
Alright everybody, this is Chris with Party Traffic Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show and we'll see you on the next