How can we maximise our breathing to help our anxiety and emotions? | Mel Holliday

Pooky Ponders – Big Questions with Brilliant People

Today’s question is: How can we maximise our breathing to help our anxiety and emotions?

I’m in conversation with Mel Holliday

Mel Holliday started her career in podiatry both medical and surgical. She moved over to managing Chiselwood a bespoke furniture manufacturing company 33 years ago, foundered with her husband Martin.

During that time Mel started doing voluntary projects in schools advising young people on business programs. She was invited to become a construction ambassador 2009 where she supports CITB locally to encourage young people to think about construction as a career, alongside helping them create CV mock interview and career fairs. In 2012 Mel became a member of the board for EBP and helped set up a charity OneMe becoming a chair for 2years (charity to support and help fund getting them into their chosen career). She is also on the advisory council for anti copyright in design ACID.

In 2014 Mel started practicing NLP and completed her Masters in 2018. Alongside that she became curious about techniques she had started practicing to manage her daily stress.

During her years helping and supporting young people Mel became increasingly aware of how young people were struggling with managing their stress. They appeared distracted and used their phones or social media to hide behind.

Whilst thinking about what she wanted to do with her NLP she began to link how to her practices with a set of techniques that she knew has reduced and supported her own stress in the past.

Piloting the models for both adult and children alike she has been able to create sets of workshops that are versatile and can be used for individuals wanting to help themselves, to corporate who can utilise the techniques to support their staff in stressful situations.

Due to COVID-19 the programs stopped in March 2020. Being approached by a publisher Mel wrote a children's wellbeing book, illustrated by Rebecca Dyer based on characters which visually supported each program. The book Breathe With Bruce was published in September 2020 and id hoped will be one of a series of six books supporting children's health and wellbeing.

There are educational tips both for teachers and parents to use alongside the book for daily practice.

LINKS:

Website: https://breathewithbruce.com

Book: Breathe with Bruce - https://amzn.to/3tpgtR9

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mel-holliday-211783132/

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