Enriching Teenager Educational Journeys – Recovery, Resilience & Wellbeing

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The Sensor: -38°04S, 144°84E · Temperature 14c · 10:00 · Light Cloud and Sunny Breaks · Gear: Swim Parka

Images: – Some images appearing in this post are stock images supplied by Peninsula Hot Springs to support the visual representation of the activities undertaken by the Scotch College students.

Peninsula Hot Springs Deep Presence Immersion

Scotch College in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs is highly regarded as Victoria’s oldest surviving secondary school and one of Australia’s most prestigious independent all-boys day and boarding schools. With a prestigious heritage, it lays claim to producing prominent public figures, including a prime minister, multiple premiers, governors-general, High Court justices, and military leaders like Sir John Monash.

The school invests in its students with additional programs like the Year 10 Thrive program which is designed to equip students with practical skills, confidence, and independence, helping them navigate their final years of school and prepare for life beyond the classroom. Whether refining critical thinking, leadership, financial literacy, or strategic decision-making, Thrive offers opportunities for boys to build resilience and broaden their perspectives, and developing the tools they need for future success.

As part of this ambition, the school invested this year in a 3-day Science of Wellbeing Program for fifteen Year 10 boys to attend, which sought to extend the boys capability and capacities through outdoor activities including nature walks in the Dandenongs, yoga and breathwork on the Mornington Peninsula, and a very special opportunity to visit a human high performance lab to take part in athletic performance testing, including actual VO2 sports performance testing for a couple of the students.

The 3-day program was the brainchild of my former freediving student and good friend, Connie Mah, who is the founder of YogaFun, an Australian leading children’s yoga specialist program.

Connie invited me to provide support for the second day of the program, “Recovery & Regulation”, introducing a special opportunity to immerse in a thermal contrast therapy and breathwork program, tailored specifically for the Year 10 boys. I customised the program to ensure the participants experienced practical ways of influencing their physical and mental state, moving beyond the theoretical principles and diving deep into practical application in context of their regular school stressors, including competitive sports and stressors of academic requirements.

As you would well know, establishing a Deep Presence in our lives, it is now an extensive challenge to tune out from the constant noise and general bids for our attention that permeate almost every moment of every day. Nature and natural surroundings are an antidote that has the means to repair and restore this sense of peace, calm and sensory silence.

In this way, put yourself into the mindset of a 15 or 16 year old boy and the intensity of school commitments, competitive sport pressures, the challenges of the teenage years and life transition phase, and the capacity to sit still for more than 15 minutes. And then picture the squad, all laying down on yoga mats in the sensory depriving, muffled and muted Peninsula Hot Springs Sound Dome. This was the beginning.

Following an introductory yoga session led by YogaFun instructor, Laura, the boys then began their immersion into developing a new state of self awareness, all led by their attention to breathing and awareness of mind and body responses.

Beginning in the sound dome provided the quiet and low-stimuli environment to hone in on the subtleties of how focused and attentive breathing techniques can begin to promote both rest states, and active stimulated awareness, with a grand reduction in external distractions . Applying techniques whilst both in physical stillness, and in coordinated movement, the boys began to explore the functionality of their own breathing and even undertake a personal breathing assessment as a baseline, to determine their relative response to the build up of Carbon Dioxide.

Moving out of the peace and quiet tranquility of the sound dome, the next phase was the big one. A concerted program of thermal contrast immersion in a diversity of hot and cold environments, including both humid and dry air experiences followed. Beginning in the heat of the sauna, through the next phase of contrasts, we built upon the breathing techniques from the sound dome, applying mindful breathing in frequencies that matched the state of being sought, whether down-regulating for calm, up-regulating for presence, using the breath to influence sensations of cooling or heating, or preparing for a stressor, or a relaxation phase.

During the program, the level of warming and cold contrast were slowly increased in intensity, providing the boys the opportunity to notice how they could influence their state of mind and body responses by applying the appropriate breathwork technique to attune their desired state. From the intensity of super hot saunas beyond 40c, to cold dry air cool rooms that descended as low as -10c, and a cold water immersion of 18c, the boys began to see swift differences in their capacities to regulate, and recover.

The grand finale involved the opportunity to slowly immerse into a 4.9c cold plunge pool, where instead of an ego-inducing leap of faith into the deep cold immersion, each of the boys found within themselves a new way of approaching the intensity of extreme cold, which represented a huge feat of willpower, mental strength and endurance, and the sense of mutual support from their pals to not so much strive, but to choose willingly to explore a new zone of discomfort where using their breath they could identify a new capacity for comfort in the unknown.

A truly impressive display from the Year 10 lads.

Would you like to develop your own individual capacity using breathwork, or enhance the capabilities of your team? Please join me for Deep Presence Immersion.

​— Living breath by breath in fluid movement outdoors.

Empower Your Being

To enhance your breathing functionality and capacity, here are a few suggestions for ways to develop more easily right away:

1: Oxygen Advantage Online Breathing Course – (Link to Official Course Page)

2. Follow guided exercises for improved sleep, managing stress and anxiety via the OA App. (Link to Official App)

3. Join a 1-on-1 coaching session with me to savour the immersion into deeper presence. (Link to 1:1 Coaching Session)

4. Visit the Peninsula Hot Springs for a bathe: https://peninsulahotsprings.com/