Managing Executive Stress & The Physiology of Pressure with Ed Howard
In this episode of Built by People Leaders, host Daria Rudnik sits down with Ed Howard, founder of One Breath Leadership and author of the One Breath Leadership book and app. Ed spent 20 years as a global compliance executive in investment banking before combining that high-stakes corporate experience with three decades of Zen training to create practical micro-recovery tools for corporate skeptics.
Together, they break down how sustained stress physically alters our cognitive state, and how people leaders can help executives maintain decision quality, emotional regulation, and sanity without needing hours out of their packed calendars.
Together, they break down how sustained stress physically alters our cognitive state, and how people leaders can help executives maintain decision quality, emotional regulation, and sanity without needing hours out of their packed calendars.
Challenges Addressed
- The Stress Hijack: How the physiological threat response silently alters a leader's perception, causing intelligent, values-driven people to narrow their honesty and miss critical signals.
- The Failure of Standard Wellness: Why traditional corporate mindfulness programs fail when they are simply bolted onto a high-speed culture that actively rewards hustle, speed, and reaction over reflection.
- Email Apnea: The physical habit of holding your breath when opening stressful inbox messages, and how this oxygen-starved state reduces an executive's day-to-day effectiveness by 30-40%.
Actionable Micro-Habits for Leaders
The One-Breath Rule: Demystifying meditation by stripping it down to the bare bones—breath, mind, and attention—to switch the brain out of "cognitive wheel-spinning."
Trigger-Based Habit Stacking: How to spread micro-recovery throughout a 12-hour day by anchoring a single deep breath to existing operational triggers like opening a laptop, sitting at a desk, or getting into an elevator.
The Professional Athlete Model: Shifting the executive culture from performative, fear-based busyness to a high-performance framework where recovery is valued just as much as performance.
Trigger-Based Habit Stacking: How to spread micro-recovery throughout a 12-hour day by anchoring a single deep breath to existing operational triggers like opening a laptop, sitting at a desk, or getting into an elevator.
The Professional Athlete Model: Shifting the executive culture from performative, fear-based busyness to a high-performance framework where recovery is valued just as much as performance.
Links & Resources Mentioned:
- Connect with Ed Howard on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the book and app at One Breath Leadership
Daria Rudnik (00:01.878)
Welcome to Built by People Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders in fast-growing organizations, those building real impact from within and shaping AI-ready organizations.
Daria Rudnik (00:22.924)
If you go to DARIARUDNIK.COM you can download HR and AI Transformation Report 2026. And today we have a very special guest, Ed Howard, founder of One Breath Leadership, a new human-centered leadership framework combining neuroscience, psychology, AI, and three decades of Zen training.
Before becoming a founder, spent 20 years as regional head of compliance in global investment banking, where he saw firsthand how burnout, overwhelm, and cognitive overload were affecting leaders. And today he teaches practical tools for clarity, resilience, and peak decision-making in the age of AI. He's also the author of One Breath Leadership book, and he helps leaders apply ancient wisdom and modern science to perform at their best. Welcome, Ed.
Ed (01:15.273)
Thanks, Daria Nice to be here.
Daria Rudnik (01:17.974)
Well, it's great to see you. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. I have so many questions, but please tell us about your journey.
Ed (01:26.677)
My journey. So I guess I came to leadership development a bit of a long way around. As you mentioned, I spent almost two decades in investment banking and financial services. I worked up to regional head here in Singapore of compliance, conduct, risk advisory. But before that, I spent five years in Japan and at that time,
It was kind of before my banking career. I encountered ZeN practice, I guess, in my kind of mid 20s, early to mid 20s. And those two tracks probably sound like they shouldn't fit together really, but as time has gone on, you know, it turns out that it could be the same inquiry, but from different directions. So what banking kind of showed me
was that under sustained pressure, threat response or stress response hijacks your perception before the person really even knows that it's happened. And so you see really capable, intelligent, values driven people narrow their honesty, miss signals that they wouldn't normally catch or that they would normally catch and then make decisions that later on they don't really know why they've done it.
and that's usually not a character problem. you know, my Zen training and, and, study around it and practice was that it was physiological and cognitive, and really there wasn't a solution designed for that, environment, you know, Zen was really designed for monasteries and people in forests and mountains.
And so, although there's been development in that sphere over the last 20 years in terms of mindfulness training, I always thought that there could be more and there was more to it. And so, what One Breath Leadership is all about really is a practical method for interrupting that process to give kind of people the baseline and the discipline to then be able to use it in
Ed (03:52.139)
kind of high pressure situations rather than in workshops or, you know, as some training that you've got to do for wellness purposes. So I work with business owners, senior leaders and leadership teams to maintain that decision quality, emotional regulation, integrity. And then the kind of added bonus of this is that the method in itself really helps
sort of guard against burnout because you're learning to be in the moment all the time rather than resisting all the stress that gets thrown at you on a daily basis. So the book and the app that are coming out on the 11th of June, they're a distillation of that work. And I've written it for skeptics. So people that have tried meditation before and
Daria Rudnik (04:36.098)
Mm-hmm.
Ed (04:51.265)
it's not suited them or it's driven them mad or they just think that it doesn't work. I was kind of really conscious of all that as I was writing it and so I think I've come up with something that will change people's minds on that and it will be easier for them to kind of use.
Daria Rudnik (05:11.95)
Well, I love what you said about that. It's not character that makes people, I mean, they do some bad decisions, make some bad decisions, maybe treat their colleagues not in the best way. And it's not because they're bad people, but because of the pressure and physiology and how our brain reacts to stress.
One of my yoga teachers told me once that it's easier to be a saint when you're in a monastery. Try to stay saint when you are in this real world of lots of stress and troubles. I guess that's exactly what you do, try helping people to keep this sanity and good character while being in stressful situations.
Ed (05:50.571)
Yeah.
Ed (05:59.455)
Yeah. I, you know, I experienced that myself and, you know, during my career in banking and, you know, tried different methods, failed a few times, you know, I lost my temper a couple of times. And, and at the end of the day, you don't want to be that person that everyone thinks loses their temper easily or, you know, well, in my case, you know, I felt bad about it
for ages. So it's really giving people the tools so they don't get to that stage. And often, in my experience, it kind of creeps up on people. Although somebody may explode or slowly begin to make Machiavellian decisions or think that everyone's against them or whatever.
That doesn't happen like in the moment. That happens as the kind of stress and, you know, feelings of isolation, feelings of lack of control slowly build over time. And so, you know, if you can put a kind of stick in the spokes of that before it happens and then teach people good, a good technique or a good habit to get into.
It's going to prevent that from developing. And it should also help people who are just like so under such huge cognitive loads in senior positions to kind of stop for a moment, be aware that the external world is beginning to control them or beginning to dictate.
their physiology and their psychology and so on, sort of gain that, you know, that power back for themselves. And so, you know, I think it's hopefully going to be really useful for people going forward.
Daria Rudnik (08:14.402)
I do agree. The question is how practically it is possible in the corporate environment. mean, corporate banking, those guys in the expensive suits running around, doing very important job that lots of money is on stake. How do you do that? You can't just stop and, okay, it's time for me to meditate. It's time for me to do some practice. What is like?
Ed (08:38.891)
Yeah.
Ed (08:43.297)
So the thing is that, you know, I think people have this idea that they need to meditate and they have to, you know, be in a nice room and light a candle or some incense and be on a cushion and so on. But what I did was kind of strip the meditation process back down to the bare bones and look at you know, what they're doing.
physiologically and psychologically. And it really comes down to three aspects, which is the use of the breath, where their attention is, and how they're using their mind. So breath, mind and attention. And the science is there. If you take each one, one by one, which is what I do in the book and in seminars and...
and so on. If you take each one one by one and understand what they're doing, you already have an understanding as to how you operate as a human being in a high pressure environment. And then really, it's just a question of bringing those three things into alignment once a day to start with. And you simply do that by
taking a deep breath and that has immediately has kind of physiological and hormonal effects on you as a human being. So, you know, breathing with your diaphragm rather than up in your chest kicks in the parasympathetic nervous system and sends messages to your brain that nobody's attacking you and that you can relax. And it'll also, you know, immediately kind of slow down.
release of adrenaline or cortisol and so on. And, you know, I make the joke all the time that we're all breathing anyway, for most of the time. And, you know, there's an interesting point to that joke too, but we're all breathing anyway. So all we really need to do is train ourselves to one
Daria Rudnik (10:50.38)
Yeah.
Ed (11:07.157)
do it properly, do it in a physiologically good way. if you've done yoga or you've done martial arts or you've done any kind of sports, you will have encountered some of this before anyway. The attention part, the way that the method teaches it is to put that attention on your breath.
So rather than on something external or a problem that you're solving, you know, the hundred things that are swirling around your mind, just for that one breath, you you follow it down into the, into your lower belly and then back up again. And that essentially short circuits that, that kind of cognitive function, that most of us spend all our time in, especially, you know, if we've been
grown up in the West, been educated in the West, trained for work in the West. We're in that all the time. And what meditation and yoga are really about is shifting your mind into a different state than that kind of cognitive wheel spinning one. the wheel spinning is really useful for problem solving and analysis and so on. But this other one is better for
for creativity, it's better for kind of seeing things through a broader lens. And so by learning that you can switch between the two, and there's actually a third one as well, but to start with learning that you can switch between the two and noticing, okay, I'm in that hell for leather, 100 mile an hour mind right now, I'm about
to do a pitch or I'm about to speak at a board meeting or I'm about to deal with a difficult employee or a difficult boss. And using the breath and switching that mind, it's gonna have an effect on what happens to you in that moment. You're less likely to get your hackles up. You're more likely to be calm.
Ed (13:30.485)
You're probably not going to lose your temper. so people see this like immediate change from something that is so simple that, you know, I'm almost embarrassed to be talking about it and bringing it to the world. But often, often the best things in life and the best things you learn are ridiculously simple. And you're like, how, you know, how did I not realize that before? How did I not do that before?
Daria Rudnik (13:43.982)
You
Daria Rudnik (13:59.031)
I mean, maybe simple, but it's not easier. Practicing, like, be mindful about your body, where tensions are in your body, how those tensions influence your feelings. That takes practice to understand how these things work and actually be able to influence that.
Ed (14:15.969)
Yeah, but the thing is, if anyone ever starts a meeting with you or you probably do it at a yoga class, they will say to you, okay, everyone, let's take a deep breath.
I've never met anyone that doesn't feel better after it, right? And again, it's so simple, but we just don't do it. We don't give our minds that rest and we don't give ourselves that kind of 10 seconds or 12 seconds to breathe. And then what I do then, in terms of a process is
have people anchor that in a similar way to kind of mindfulness practice or atomic James Clear's atomic habits is that anchor that breath to stuff that you do every day. So you know, how you lock your door, whether you open the door onto your car, when you sit down at your desk, and then you're essentially stacking those breaths. So in a...
I don't know, in a like two minute or three minute meditation, you'll maybe take six breaths a minute, so 18 breaths. Now to spread that out during a 10 or 12 hour day, every time you get in the lift, every time you open your laptop, it builds up so quickly that people are surprised at how they're doing. And what you're essentially doing there is rewiring yourself.
in the same way that you would in a longer term meditation practice. You might not go as deep in terms of the levels of calm and so on, but you're rewiring all those reactive parts of you spread out during the day. And you'll get most of the same benefits. So it's a different way of looking at meditation. if you look back in Zen texts,
Daria Rudnik (16:21.785)
Mm-hmm.
Ed (16:29.857)
It's all there throughout the 1500 year history that it only takes one breath or it only takes a few seconds to gain insight or gain clarity. And so really, that's all I'm doing is showing people a slightly different way to do it.
Daria Rudnik (16:51.865)
So I don't have time for that is not an excuse anymore.
Ed (16:55.389)
No, it's not. It's not. And, know, don't get me wrong. I was guilty as everyone over 30 years. We, you know, we put that pressure on ourselves. If I don't do 10 minutes, it's not, it's not worth it. Or, you know, if I'm not in the right environment, it's not worth it. Or I don't feel relaxed enough. So I'm not going to do it. You know, there's almost an infinite number of excuses. But what I found is if you do it on just one breath and
you know, people are going to do it anyway. And so it becomes much easier to create a habit than traditional meditation or mindfulness practices.
Daria Rudnik (17:37.583)
Well, I have a question about the corporate wellbeing programs. mean, lots of money goes there, apps, retreats. What do you think is working and what's not working in this kind of programs?
Ed (17:43.787)
Yeah.
Ed (17:55.135)
I think we've touched on it a little bit. I think they're designed for comfort and not sort of high impact or high stress situations. So they work really well in a quiet room with a facilitator. And then when somebody walks back onto a trading floor or a Monday morning and somebody's put a call in your calendar at 7.30 because they've got no self-awareness.
and you've got back-to-back meetings then, then the gap between you know, a retreat or a specialized program and the reality is so big that it just disappears. And so, you know, I think that you have to have treat it as a skill that you can build and use anywhere under any conditions.
So, you I think mindfulness is great and I think it can work. I'm just not sure if it, you know, it fits maybe as well with a high-paced corporate environment or business environment as it could do. And then I think the second thing is that there's a cultural issue that mindfulness is often bolted onto an existing culture
of hustle or you know, high speed or aggression. And organizations actively reward the opposite of what mindfulness teaches you. So speed over reflection you know, quick decision or certainty over curiosity, reaction over a kind of thoughtful response. And so you can give people eight weeks of mindfulness and then you send them back into an office where
you know, it's very high paced and it's moving quickly. And where maybe taking a breath before responding is seen as a weakness. And so you really need something that you can fit in that is so micro that people won't know that you're doing it. And so a framework that addresses that culture explicitly
Ed (20:19.071)
become sustainable rather than seeing them as separate, know, here's your mindfulness training. This will be good for your wellness and health. But you still need to you know, ace it day to day in terms of what you're selling or what you're building or whatever it is you're doing in an environment. So there has to, I think there has to be a bit of a shift at the top in terms of
building those two things in and some companies are doing it really successful, successfully, but you know, I think there's more work to do and, you know, leadership team, leadership development teams and HR departments have to kind of bear that in mind in terms of what they're choosing to send their people on. Are they really going to get
Is it really going to work in the kind of heat of the moment or not?
Daria Rudnik (21:19.851)
Yeah, I mean, that is really a big question of corporate culture because you can teach people how to breathe. But if you still like punish for mistakes, if someone says, you have only two meetings today, I mean, do you even work? Things like that. It's kind of if you have a busy calendar, it means you're working. If not, what are you doing? You're just wasting time. So, yeah.
Ed (21:34.357)
Yeah.
Ed (21:44.065)
Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I talk about this too, that you wouldn't have a professional athlete who is operating at the absolute peak of their sort of abilities, but they never have a day off or they never have a massage or an ice bath. You know, recovery is just as important
for kind of performing as the performing itself you know? And I think there's a lot of, I think I'm qualified to say this, kind of male macho, led swinging in terms of, your calendar's gotta be packed and it's gotta be go, go, go and all that.
you know, it's nonsense, you know, the science is there to show that it's nonsense. And I think the best people in any field are the ones that balance you know, when to put their foot on the pedal and when to take it off. And you really have to do that if you're going to avoid burnout.
Daria Rudnik (23:01.261)
I mean, it's also like the fear. Like if I'm not busy, I'm replaceable. How do I show that I bring something by showing that I'm busy?
Ed (23:07.54)
Yeah.
Ed (23:12.201)
Yeah, yeah. that, you know, that's not healthy. And, know, that's one of the things that I think has to come from the top in terms of you know, fear based culture tends not to be very good for its people. It isn't very good for the leaders eventually that run it. If you're around long enough, you see those people burn out or you know.
fail spectacularly or whatever. And so what you're really looking to build is a non-fear-based culture where recovery is as appreciated as performances. But there has to be a balance. You've still got to perform. the science says, and my argument is that it's about a balance of the two, not just one or the other.
Daria Rudnik (24:09.749)
I mean, yeah, and we were saying about like minutes to breathe in, breathe out. We're not saying like stop working for half a day. Just make sure you have that time for recovery.
Ed (24:16.298)
Yeah, yeah.
Ed (24:20.243)
Yeah, that reminds me of the thing about not breathing. one of the, there's a professor or an academic in San Francisco that did a study on this thing called email apnea. And essentially what it is, is when you open your email box and see a message from, that you don't want to see. that, you know, that doesn't have to be.
An awful one, can be just one from that person that drives you nuts or from that boss who you know you've got to be on the ball with or something. Humans have this built-in thing and it's from when we lived in caves and were worried about being attacked, is you hold your breath and it's because you don't want to give the game away in the prehistoric sense.
You know, you don't want somebody to hear you breathing. But because we're simple creatures and obviously corporate culture and sitting at a desk has accelerated so fast over the last kind of 40, 50 years, we still do it. And if you think how many, you know, some people get 700, 800, a thousand emails a day.
I don't know what percentage of those are the ones that you go. you know, I don't want to deal with that. you end up holding your breath an awful lot. and when you hold your breath, all those kind of, your hormone spikes, your carbon dioxide, and oxygen levels become out of whack. And I think I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head. It's something like during the course of the day you become
30-40 % less effective purely from a physiological standpoint because you've not been breathing properly. So one, think that's really, it's really interesting. It's a fascinating bit of research. Two, I know I did that when I was working in London and in Singapore.
Ed (26:43.741)
Sometimes you find yourself going, because you've been working that hard and completely forgotten to breathe because you were so focused on something. So just being aware of that. Again, if you start doing the one breath process and almost drill it, and I recommend that people do this when they turn the computer on or open the laptop for the first time and sit down is that they do.
Daria Rudnik (26:47.439)
you
Ed (27:14.101)
kind of one, two, three rounds of like deep breaths, just to kind of tell their body, this is how I want to breathe for you know, the rest of the morning or for the next hour or what have you. Again, you're preventing that buildup of cortisol. You're preventing that kind of cognitive lag. And it means that when you do go into a meeting or, you know, you do do something that's important, you're not going to be in this kind of hunched over.
you know, oxygen starved state.
Daria Rudnik (27:46.167)
Yeah, well, these are great tips, like taking a breath in the morning, making sure you're in the right state and building those, anchoring those breaths with usual habits that you already have and kind of building another habit on top of the habits that you already have, which is much easier than just building a new one from scratch. And pay attention to your breath, to your mind, to your attention. And eventually, yeah.
It'll help you be calm even when a message from a boss comes in the middle of the night and you're like, my gosh, what is that?
Ed (28:18.259)
Yeah, yeah. I think the other thing is, you know, when you start to do it, you realize that you're in the moment a lot more often. And when you're in the moment, you're not worrying about something that just happened or something that might be about to happen, which is that fear thing. And so quite quickly, people see that it kind of changes.
how they feel at work and what their, you know, their kind of approach to everything. And they can't really explain it because it's, again, it seems so simple, but it will have that effect. And when you do make a mistake, you're much you know, or you act in a way that you know, I wish I hadn't done that or wishing I hadn't sent that email, you know, with that caustic tone or whatever.
you're much more likely to kind of catch that you've done it know, see the humor in it or feel the shame in it and then move on and be less likely to do it again the next time. So, you know, I think it's good for that too.
Daria Rudnik (29:32.505)
Yeah.
Daria Rudnik (29:37.159)
And anyway, moving on is the main thing. We can feel different, experience different emotions, but being able to come back and keep going no matter what and feel well and feel well after that, yeah, that's important. Well, that was an amazing conversation. I'd like to ask you some rapid fire questions about you personally. You ready for that? Okay. Are you a tea person or a coffee person?
Ed (29:45.387)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Ed (29:54.931)
Okay, okay, maybe.
Ed (30:02.881)
So I drink coffee, but I would say I'm a tea person. It's just, think, not living in England where somebody's constantly saying, do you want a cup of tea? You kind of get out of the habit a bit, but yeah, if I had to choose one, it'd be tea.
Daria Rudnik (30:18.947)
Okay. Dogs or cats?
Ed (30:21.889)
So difficult.
Daria Rudnik (30:23.609)
Ha ha!
Ed (30:31.723)
God, I think my wife might have words with me. I've got to go for dogs. And I've not got as much experience with dogs, but the small amount of experience I do have was amazing with golden retrievers. So yeah, dogs.
Daria Rudnik (30:49.103)
Would you rather take a message or a phone call?
Ed (30:53.757)
It depends who it's from. You know, if it's... I'm more of a phone person, which I know isn't very fashionable these days. My wife's the opposite. She'd definitely prefer a message. So I deliberately phone her up sometimes just to kind of get out of the nerves. But yeah, phone.
Daria Rudnik (30:55.311)
you
Daria Rudnik (31:06.307)
Yeah.
Daria Rudnik (31:19.043)
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Ed (31:22.689)
When I was in primary school, I wanted to be a vet. And then I think early high school, I was toying with medicine and becoming a doctor. then I've kind of ended up working now with psychology and physiology and, you know, dipping my interest into neuroscience and stuff. it's not that well, it is quite a long way away.
But I can see the connection to what, yeah.
Daria Rudnik (31:55.353)
the connection.
And what's one rule you've broken but don't regret?
Ed (32:09.588)
Ed (32:14.332)
It's probably the I'll be back by 10 o'clock rule or you know make I'm going back to when I was at school and make sure you're in for this time and then you know you get a bit carried away and you know wherever you are the music's good and you're having fun and stuff so it would probably be my weakness for enjoying myself so yeah I don't know if that's a
I know if that's a rule, yeah, it's still, the vibe tends to get to me. And I have to say, I never regret it afterwards.
Daria Rudnik (32:56.185)
So ED thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and experience and sharing those tips about how to manage yourself within the stressful situations, how to prepare yourself when something is important is coming up. How people can find you, how people can learn more about you and what you do.
Ed (33:13.707)
Sure, I'm on LinkedIn, Edward Howard, or you can go to onebreathleadership.com. There's a contact form there and a bit more info about the book and the app. By all means, drop me a line or get in touch that way, and I'll be very happy to have a chat with you.
Daria Rudnik (33:34.201)
Cool, and we have all the links in the notes to this episode. if you like this show, please rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts AND Spotify, subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye.
Ed (33:48.395)
Bye, thanks, Daria.
Welcome to Built by People Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders in fast-growing organizations, those building real impact from within and shaping AI-ready organizations.
Daria Rudnik (00:22.924)
If you go to DARIARUDNIK.COM you can download HR and AI Transformation Report 2026. And today we have a very special guest, Ed Howard, founder of One Breath Leadership, a new human-centered leadership framework combining neuroscience, psychology, AI, and three decades of Zen training.
Before becoming a founder, spent 20 years as regional head of compliance in global investment banking, where he saw firsthand how burnout, overwhelm, and cognitive overload were affecting leaders. And today he teaches practical tools for clarity, resilience, and peak decision-making in the age of AI. He's also the author of One Breath Leadership book, and he helps leaders apply ancient wisdom and modern science to perform at their best. Welcome, Ed.
Ed (01:15.273)
Thanks, Daria Nice to be here.
Daria Rudnik (01:17.974)
Well, it's great to see you. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. I have so many questions, but please tell us about your journey.
Ed (01:26.677)
My journey. So I guess I came to leadership development a bit of a long way around. As you mentioned, I spent almost two decades in investment banking and financial services. I worked up to regional head here in Singapore of compliance, conduct, risk advisory. But before that, I spent five years in Japan and at that time,
It was kind of before my banking career. I encountered ZeN practice, I guess, in my kind of mid 20s, early to mid 20s. And those two tracks probably sound like they shouldn't fit together really, but as time has gone on, you know, it turns out that it could be the same inquiry, but from different directions. So what banking kind of showed me
was that under sustained pressure, threat response or stress response hijacks your perception before the person really even knows that it's happened. And so you see really capable, intelligent, values driven people narrow their honesty, miss signals that they wouldn't normally catch or that they would normally catch and then make decisions that later on they don't really know why they've done it.
and that's usually not a character problem. you know, my Zen training and, and, study around it and practice was that it was physiological and cognitive, and really there wasn't a solution designed for that, environment, you know, Zen was really designed for monasteries and people in forests and mountains.
And so, although there's been development in that sphere over the last 20 years in terms of mindfulness training, I always thought that there could be more and there was more to it. And so, what One Breath Leadership is all about really is a practical method for interrupting that process to give kind of people the baseline and the discipline to then be able to use it in
Ed (03:52.139)
kind of high pressure situations rather than in workshops or, you know, as some training that you've got to do for wellness purposes. So I work with business owners, senior leaders and leadership teams to maintain that decision quality, emotional regulation, integrity. And then the kind of added bonus of this is that the method in itself really helps
sort of guard against burnout because you're learning to be in the moment all the time rather than resisting all the stress that gets thrown at you on a daily basis. So the book and the app that are coming out on the 11th of June, they're a distillation of that work. And I've written it for skeptics. So people that have tried meditation before and
Daria Rudnik (04:36.098)
Mm-hmm.
Ed (04:51.265)
it's not suited them or it's driven them mad or they just think that it doesn't work. I was kind of really conscious of all that as I was writing it and so I think I've come up with something that will change people's minds on that and it will be easier for them to kind of use.
Daria Rudnik (05:11.95)
Well, I love what you said about that. It's not character that makes people, I mean, they do some bad decisions, make some bad decisions, maybe treat their colleagues not in the best way. And it's not because they're bad people, but because of the pressure and physiology and how our brain reacts to stress.
One of my yoga teachers told me once that it's easier to be a saint when you're in a monastery. Try to stay saint when you are in this real world of lots of stress and troubles. I guess that's exactly what you do, try helping people to keep this sanity and good character while being in stressful situations.
Ed (05:50.571)
Yeah.
Ed (05:59.455)
Yeah. I, you know, I experienced that myself and, you know, during my career in banking and, you know, tried different methods, failed a few times, you know, I lost my temper a couple of times. And, and at the end of the day, you don't want to be that person that everyone thinks loses their temper easily or, you know, well, in my case, you know, I felt bad about it
for ages. So it's really giving people the tools so they don't get to that stage. And often, in my experience, it kind of creeps up on people. Although somebody may explode or slowly begin to make Machiavellian decisions or think that everyone's against them or whatever.
That doesn't happen like in the moment. That happens as the kind of stress and, you know, feelings of isolation, feelings of lack of control slowly build over time. And so, you know, if you can put a kind of stick in the spokes of that before it happens and then teach people good, a good technique or a good habit to get into.
It's going to prevent that from developing. And it should also help people who are just like so under such huge cognitive loads in senior positions to kind of stop for a moment, be aware that the external world is beginning to control them or beginning to dictate.
their physiology and their psychology and so on, sort of gain that, you know, that power back for themselves. And so, you know, I think it's hopefully going to be really useful for people going forward.
Daria Rudnik (08:14.402)
I do agree. The question is how practically it is possible in the corporate environment. mean, corporate banking, those guys in the expensive suits running around, doing very important job that lots of money is on stake. How do you do that? You can't just stop and, okay, it's time for me to meditate. It's time for me to do some practice. What is like?
Ed (08:38.891)
Yeah.
Ed (08:43.297)
So the thing is that, you know, I think people have this idea that they need to meditate and they have to, you know, be in a nice room and light a candle or some incense and be on a cushion and so on. But what I did was kind of strip the meditation process back down to the bare bones and look at you know, what they're doing.
physiologically and psychologically. And it really comes down to three aspects, which is the use of the breath, where their attention is, and how they're using their mind. So breath, mind and attention. And the science is there. If you take each one, one by one, which is what I do in the book and in seminars and...
and so on. If you take each one one by one and understand what they're doing, you already have an understanding as to how you operate as a human being in a high pressure environment. And then really, it's just a question of bringing those three things into alignment once a day to start with. And you simply do that by
taking a deep breath and that has immediately has kind of physiological and hormonal effects on you as a human being. So, you know, breathing with your diaphragm rather than up in your chest kicks in the parasympathetic nervous system and sends messages to your brain that nobody's attacking you and that you can relax. And it'll also, you know, immediately kind of slow down.
release of adrenaline or cortisol and so on. And, you know, I make the joke all the time that we're all breathing anyway, for most of the time. And, you know, there's an interesting point to that joke too, but we're all breathing anyway. So all we really need to do is train ourselves to one
Daria Rudnik (10:50.38)
Yeah.
Ed (11:07.157)
do it properly, do it in a physiologically good way. if you've done yoga or you've done martial arts or you've done any kind of sports, you will have encountered some of this before anyway. The attention part, the way that the method teaches it is to put that attention on your breath.
So rather than on something external or a problem that you're solving, you know, the hundred things that are swirling around your mind, just for that one breath, you you follow it down into the, into your lower belly and then back up again. And that essentially short circuits that, that kind of cognitive function, that most of us spend all our time in, especially, you know, if we've been
grown up in the West, been educated in the West, trained for work in the West. We're in that all the time. And what meditation and yoga are really about is shifting your mind into a different state than that kind of cognitive wheel spinning one. the wheel spinning is really useful for problem solving and analysis and so on. But this other one is better for
for creativity, it's better for kind of seeing things through a broader lens. And so by learning that you can switch between the two, and there's actually a third one as well, but to start with learning that you can switch between the two and noticing, okay, I'm in that hell for leather, 100 mile an hour mind right now, I'm about
to do a pitch or I'm about to speak at a board meeting or I'm about to deal with a difficult employee or a difficult boss. And using the breath and switching that mind, it's gonna have an effect on what happens to you in that moment. You're less likely to get your hackles up. You're more likely to be calm.
Ed (13:30.485)
You're probably not going to lose your temper. so people see this like immediate change from something that is so simple that, you know, I'm almost embarrassed to be talking about it and bringing it to the world. But often, often the best things in life and the best things you learn are ridiculously simple. And you're like, how, you know, how did I not realize that before? How did I not do that before?
Daria Rudnik (13:43.982)
You
Daria Rudnik (13:59.031)
I mean, maybe simple, but it's not easier. Practicing, like, be mindful about your body, where tensions are in your body, how those tensions influence your feelings. That takes practice to understand how these things work and actually be able to influence that.
Ed (14:15.969)
Yeah, but the thing is, if anyone ever starts a meeting with you or you probably do it at a yoga class, they will say to you, okay, everyone, let's take a deep breath.
I've never met anyone that doesn't feel better after it, right? And again, it's so simple, but we just don't do it. We don't give our minds that rest and we don't give ourselves that kind of 10 seconds or 12 seconds to breathe. And then what I do then, in terms of a process is
have people anchor that in a similar way to kind of mindfulness practice or atomic James Clear's atomic habits is that anchor that breath to stuff that you do every day. So you know, how you lock your door, whether you open the door onto your car, when you sit down at your desk, and then you're essentially stacking those breaths. So in a...
I don't know, in a like two minute or three minute meditation, you'll maybe take six breaths a minute, so 18 breaths. Now to spread that out during a 10 or 12 hour day, every time you get in the lift, every time you open your laptop, it builds up so quickly that people are surprised at how they're doing. And what you're essentially doing there is rewiring yourself.
in the same way that you would in a longer term meditation practice. You might not go as deep in terms of the levels of calm and so on, but you're rewiring all those reactive parts of you spread out during the day. And you'll get most of the same benefits. So it's a different way of looking at meditation. if you look back in Zen texts,
Daria Rudnik (16:21.785)
Mm-hmm.
Ed (16:29.857)
It's all there throughout the 1500 year history that it only takes one breath or it only takes a few seconds to gain insight or gain clarity. And so really, that's all I'm doing is showing people a slightly different way to do it.
Daria Rudnik (16:51.865)
So I don't have time for that is not an excuse anymore.
Ed (16:55.389)
No, it's not. It's not. And, know, don't get me wrong. I was guilty as everyone over 30 years. We, you know, we put that pressure on ourselves. If I don't do 10 minutes, it's not, it's not worth it. Or, you know, if I'm not in the right environment, it's not worth it. Or I don't feel relaxed enough. So I'm not going to do it. You know, there's almost an infinite number of excuses. But what I found is if you do it on just one breath and
you know, people are going to do it anyway. And so it becomes much easier to create a habit than traditional meditation or mindfulness practices.
Daria Rudnik (17:37.583)
Well, I have a question about the corporate wellbeing programs. mean, lots of money goes there, apps, retreats. What do you think is working and what's not working in this kind of programs?
Ed (17:43.787)
Yeah.
Ed (17:55.135)
I think we've touched on it a little bit. I think they're designed for comfort and not sort of high impact or high stress situations. So they work really well in a quiet room with a facilitator. And then when somebody walks back onto a trading floor or a Monday morning and somebody's put a call in your calendar at 7.30 because they've got no self-awareness.
and you've got back-to-back meetings then, then the gap between you know, a retreat or a specialized program and the reality is so big that it just disappears. And so, you know, I think that you have to have treat it as a skill that you can build and use anywhere under any conditions.
So, you I think mindfulness is great and I think it can work. I'm just not sure if it, you know, it fits maybe as well with a high-paced corporate environment or business environment as it could do. And then I think the second thing is that there's a cultural issue that mindfulness is often bolted onto an existing culture
of hustle or you know, high speed or aggression. And organizations actively reward the opposite of what mindfulness teaches you. So speed over reflection you know, quick decision or certainty over curiosity, reaction over a kind of thoughtful response. And so you can give people eight weeks of mindfulness and then you send them back into an office where
you know, it's very high paced and it's moving quickly. And where maybe taking a breath before responding is seen as a weakness. And so you really need something that you can fit in that is so micro that people won't know that you're doing it. And so a framework that addresses that culture explicitly
Ed (20:19.071)
become sustainable rather than seeing them as separate, know, here's your mindfulness training. This will be good for your wellness and health. But you still need to you know, ace it day to day in terms of what you're selling or what you're building or whatever it is you're doing in an environment. So there has to, I think there has to be a bit of a shift at the top in terms of
building those two things in and some companies are doing it really successful, successfully, but you know, I think there's more work to do and, you know, leadership team, leadership development teams and HR departments have to kind of bear that in mind in terms of what they're choosing to send their people on. Are they really going to get
Is it really going to work in the kind of heat of the moment or not?
Daria Rudnik (21:19.851)
Yeah, I mean, that is really a big question of corporate culture because you can teach people how to breathe. But if you still like punish for mistakes, if someone says, you have only two meetings today, I mean, do you even work? Things like that. It's kind of if you have a busy calendar, it means you're working. If not, what are you doing? You're just wasting time. So, yeah.
Ed (21:34.357)
Yeah.
Ed (21:44.065)
Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I talk about this too, that you wouldn't have a professional athlete who is operating at the absolute peak of their sort of abilities, but they never have a day off or they never have a massage or an ice bath. You know, recovery is just as important
for kind of performing as the performing itself you know? And I think there's a lot of, I think I'm qualified to say this, kind of male macho, led swinging in terms of, your calendar's gotta be packed and it's gotta be go, go, go and all that.
you know, it's nonsense, you know, the science is there to show that it's nonsense. And I think the best people in any field are the ones that balance you know, when to put their foot on the pedal and when to take it off. And you really have to do that if you're going to avoid burnout.
Daria Rudnik (23:01.261)
I mean, it's also like the fear. Like if I'm not busy, I'm replaceable. How do I show that I bring something by showing that I'm busy?
Ed (23:07.54)
Yeah.
Ed (23:12.201)
Yeah, yeah. that, you know, that's not healthy. And, know, that's one of the things that I think has to come from the top in terms of you know, fear based culture tends not to be very good for its people. It isn't very good for the leaders eventually that run it. If you're around long enough, you see those people burn out or you know.
fail spectacularly or whatever. And so what you're really looking to build is a non-fear-based culture where recovery is as appreciated as performances. But there has to be a balance. You've still got to perform. the science says, and my argument is that it's about a balance of the two, not just one or the other.
Daria Rudnik (24:09.749)
I mean, yeah, and we were saying about like minutes to breathe in, breathe out. We're not saying like stop working for half a day. Just make sure you have that time for recovery.
Ed (24:16.298)
Yeah, yeah.
Ed (24:20.243)
Yeah, that reminds me of the thing about not breathing. one of the, there's a professor or an academic in San Francisco that did a study on this thing called email apnea. And essentially what it is, is when you open your email box and see a message from, that you don't want to see. that, you know, that doesn't have to be.
An awful one, can be just one from that person that drives you nuts or from that boss who you know you've got to be on the ball with or something. Humans have this built-in thing and it's from when we lived in caves and were worried about being attacked, is you hold your breath and it's because you don't want to give the game away in the prehistoric sense.
You know, you don't want somebody to hear you breathing. But because we're simple creatures and obviously corporate culture and sitting at a desk has accelerated so fast over the last kind of 40, 50 years, we still do it. And if you think how many, you know, some people get 700, 800, a thousand emails a day.
I don't know what percentage of those are the ones that you go. you know, I don't want to deal with that. you end up holding your breath an awful lot. and when you hold your breath, all those kind of, your hormone spikes, your carbon dioxide, and oxygen levels become out of whack. And I think I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head. It's something like during the course of the day you become
30-40 % less effective purely from a physiological standpoint because you've not been breathing properly. So one, think that's really, it's really interesting. It's a fascinating bit of research. Two, I know I did that when I was working in London and in Singapore.
Ed (26:43.741)
Sometimes you find yourself going, because you've been working that hard and completely forgotten to breathe because you were so focused on something. So just being aware of that. Again, if you start doing the one breath process and almost drill it, and I recommend that people do this when they turn the computer on or open the laptop for the first time and sit down is that they do.
Daria Rudnik (26:47.439)
you
Ed (27:14.101)
kind of one, two, three rounds of like deep breaths, just to kind of tell their body, this is how I want to breathe for you know, the rest of the morning or for the next hour or what have you. Again, you're preventing that buildup of cortisol. You're preventing that kind of cognitive lag. And it means that when you do go into a meeting or, you know, you do do something that's important, you're not going to be in this kind of hunched over.
you know, oxygen starved state.
Daria Rudnik (27:46.167)
Yeah, well, these are great tips, like taking a breath in the morning, making sure you're in the right state and building those, anchoring those breaths with usual habits that you already have and kind of building another habit on top of the habits that you already have, which is much easier than just building a new one from scratch. And pay attention to your breath, to your mind, to your attention. And eventually, yeah.
It'll help you be calm even when a message from a boss comes in the middle of the night and you're like, my gosh, what is that?
Ed (28:18.259)
Yeah, yeah. I think the other thing is, you know, when you start to do it, you realize that you're in the moment a lot more often. And when you're in the moment, you're not worrying about something that just happened or something that might be about to happen, which is that fear thing. And so quite quickly, people see that it kind of changes.
how they feel at work and what their, you know, their kind of approach to everything. And they can't really explain it because it's, again, it seems so simple, but it will have that effect. And when you do make a mistake, you're much you know, or you act in a way that you know, I wish I hadn't done that or wishing I hadn't sent that email, you know, with that caustic tone or whatever.
you're much more likely to kind of catch that you've done it know, see the humor in it or feel the shame in it and then move on and be less likely to do it again the next time. So, you know, I think it's good for that too.
Daria Rudnik (29:32.505)
Yeah.
Daria Rudnik (29:37.159)
And anyway, moving on is the main thing. We can feel different, experience different emotions, but being able to come back and keep going no matter what and feel well and feel well after that, yeah, that's important. Well, that was an amazing conversation. I'd like to ask you some rapid fire questions about you personally. You ready for that? Okay. Are you a tea person or a coffee person?
Ed (29:45.387)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Ed (29:54.931)
Okay, okay, maybe.
Ed (30:02.881)
So I drink coffee, but I would say I'm a tea person. It's just, think, not living in England where somebody's constantly saying, do you want a cup of tea? You kind of get out of the habit a bit, but yeah, if I had to choose one, it'd be tea.
Daria Rudnik (30:18.947)
Okay. Dogs or cats?
Ed (30:21.889)
So difficult.
Daria Rudnik (30:23.609)
Ha ha!
Ed (30:31.723)
God, I think my wife might have words with me. I've got to go for dogs. And I've not got as much experience with dogs, but the small amount of experience I do have was amazing with golden retrievers. So yeah, dogs.
Daria Rudnik (30:49.103)
Would you rather take a message or a phone call?
Ed (30:53.757)
It depends who it's from. You know, if it's... I'm more of a phone person, which I know isn't very fashionable these days. My wife's the opposite. She'd definitely prefer a message. So I deliberately phone her up sometimes just to kind of get out of the nerves. But yeah, phone.
Daria Rudnik (30:55.311)
you
Daria Rudnik (31:06.307)
Yeah.
Daria Rudnik (31:19.043)
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Ed (31:22.689)
When I was in primary school, I wanted to be a vet. And then I think early high school, I was toying with medicine and becoming a doctor. then I've kind of ended up working now with psychology and physiology and, you know, dipping my interest into neuroscience and stuff. it's not that well, it is quite a long way away.
But I can see the connection to what, yeah.
Daria Rudnik (31:55.353)
the connection.
And what's one rule you've broken but don't regret?
Ed (32:09.588)
Ed (32:14.332)
It's probably the I'll be back by 10 o'clock rule or you know make I'm going back to when I was at school and make sure you're in for this time and then you know you get a bit carried away and you know wherever you are the music's good and you're having fun and stuff so it would probably be my weakness for enjoying myself so yeah I don't know if that's a
I know if that's a rule, yeah, it's still, the vibe tends to get to me. And I have to say, I never regret it afterwards.
Daria Rudnik (32:56.185)
So ED thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and experience and sharing those tips about how to manage yourself within the stressful situations, how to prepare yourself when something is important is coming up. How people can find you, how people can learn more about you and what you do.
Ed (33:13.707)
Sure, I'm on LinkedIn, Edward Howard, or you can go to onebreathleadership.com. There's a contact form there and a bit more info about the book and the app. By all means, drop me a line or get in touch that way, and I'll be very happy to have a chat with you.
Daria Rudnik (33:34.201)
Cool, and we have all the links in the notes to this episode. if you like this show, please rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts AND Spotify, subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye.
Ed (33:48.395)
Bye, thanks, Daria.