What was underneath the breath

I recently experienced something during a static breath hold that completely changed the way I relate to my body.

For those unfamiliar with freediving, static apnea is the practice of holding your breath while remaining completely still, usually floating face down in water with a trained safety person beside you.

While it might look like the simplest form of freediving, for me, it's one of the most challenging. When you're swimming for distance or diving to depth, you have something to focus on. Your technique, your movement, where you're going. There's a task to keep your mind occupied. But in static, there's none of that. There's no movement, no destination, nothing to distract yourself with. Just you, your body and your thoughts. There's no place to hide. You're left with every sensation, every thought, every urge to react. You become incredibly aware of what's happening within you, and your mind can be very quick to interpret those sensations, question what's happening or tell you what you should be doing. And perhaps that's what makes static such an incredible opportunity to understand yourself. Because when you take away all the distractions, you begin to hear things that have probably been there all along.

When pushing stops working

As an athlete, I'm programmed to achieve. To set goals, work hard, push boundaries and see what's possible.

I've spent years learning to listen to my body, to understand its signals, but also, at times, to override them. To ask for a little more, to push through discomfort and keep going when things get difficult. And for a long time, that approach has worked. Until it doesn't.

Sometimes we reach a point where things become stagnant. Progress slows, performance suffers, and despite putting in the same effort, something feels like it's missing. We know there's more available to us, but we can't quite seem to access it. And often, our response is to push harder. More effort. More discipline. More determination.

But what if the answer isn't to push more?

What if it's to listen differently?

Stripping everything back

Recently, I decided to approach my static training differently. I stripped away the numbers. The expectations. The constant measuring of time and performance. All the things that usually tell me whether I've achieved something. I wanted to come back to the purity of the experience. Just me, my breath and my body. To strip away the noise so I could actually hear what my body was trying to tell me. And through that practice, I started to discover something I hadn't really experienced before. My body's voice.

Not in words, but through sensations, subtle changes and responses. A language that I realised I'd spent so much time trying to manage, rather than understand.

Instead of deciding what my body needed to do, I became curious about what it was experiencing. Instead of demanding more, I began inviting it to work with me. And something shifted.

Learning to dance with my nervous system

Something I've come to appreciate through both my work and my own training is just how much our nervous system influences the way we experience the world.

Our nervous system is constantly taking in information, responding to what's happening around us and within us, and adjusting our physiology to meet those demands. It's there to protect us. When something feels threatening or overwhelming, our body responds. Our breathing changes, our muscles tense, our heart rate may increase and our attention narrows. These responses aren't our body working against us. They're our body trying to look after us. But I think sometimes we become so focused on controlling these responses that we forget to understand them. And this was something I began to recognise during my static training.

I'd spent so much time using my mind to direct my body.

To tell it what to do, how long to keep going, when to push and when to respond. But what if I allowed my body to be part of that conversation?

What if, instead of trying to control every sensation, I became curious about what it was telling me? I started noticing the subtle changes. The moments of tension. The urge to react. The thoughts that would come and go.

And rather than immediately resisting or trying to override everything, I listened. I began learning to dance with my nervous system rather than constantly trying to lead it. And the moment I stopped forcing and became curious was the moment something opened.

It felt like walking through a door into a deeper part of myself.

Somewhere that had always been there, but that I hadn't known how to access. A deeper sense of connection. Of trust.

Almost like finding another part of home that I didn't know existed.

What becomes possible when the body feels safe?

I think we often underestimate what becomes possible when our body feels safe. And when I talk about safety, I don't mean avoiding discomfort, challenge or difficult situations.

I mean developing a sense of trust within ourselves. Learning to recognise what our body is communicating and having the capacity to respond, rather than automatically fighting against what's happening. Because there's a difference between being challenged and feeling threatened.

And there's a difference between pushing through something and learning how to move through it.

When our nervous system isn't constantly interpreting an experience as a threat, we may be able to approach that experience with greater awareness, flexibility and less unnecessary tension. We have more room to work with what's happening rather than against it. And sometimes, that changes everything. When the body feels safe enough, and the mind and body begin working together, we can discover a capacity within ourselves that we never knew existed.

Things that once felt completely out of reach can begin to feel possible.

Not because our physical limits magically disappear, but because we're no longer adding the same level of resistance to the experience.

And I find that incredibly exciting.

What if the next level of performance isn't always about being stronger, tougher or more determined?

What if sometimes it's about developing enough trust in ourselves that we no longer need to force our way through everything?

What if learning to dance with our nervous system is actually part of the way through?

The relationship we have with our bodies

I've been thinking about something else since that breath hold.

Our bodies do so much for us, every single day.

Our heart beats without us having to think about it. Our digestive system breaks down food and absorbs nutrients. Our lungs, muscles, brain and nervous system are constantly working together to keep us alive, functioning and able to experience the world.

So much is happening without us ever having to ask.

And yet, how often do we stop to appreciate that?

Instead, our minds can be so focused on what comes next.

Go faster. Go further. Get stronger. Do more.

We place expectations on our bodies, sometimes without considering what we're asking of them, or what they might need from us in return.

I started wondering what would happen if I approached my body less like something I needed to control and more like something I was in a relationship with.

A relationship where both sides are heard.

Where my mind can still have goals, ambition and direction, but my body has a voice in how we get there.

Where I don't always need to override what I'm feeling, but can pause, listen and respond.

Because perhaps the body doesn't always need to be pushed harder.

Perhaps sometimes it needs to feel heard.

And when that happens, the relationship changes.

This goes so much further than breath holding

While this experience happened during a breath hold, I don't think the lesson

is limited to freediving, or even sport.

I think it translates into almost every part of our lives.

How often do we push through exhaustion because there's work to be done?

Ignore the quieter signals from our body because we're busy?

Expect ourselves to keep performing, showing up and managing everything, regardless of how we're feeling? And when things become difficult, we often respond by trying harder.

More effort. More discipline. More control.

But what if we became curious instead?

What if we started noticing what our body was telling us when we're stressed, overwhelmed, anxious or exhausted?

What if, rather than seeing these responses as something we need to get rid of, we began understanding them as information?

Our nervous system influences how we experience stress, how we connect with others, how we recover, how we make decisions and how we perform when something really matters to us.

And learning its language gives us another way to understand ourselves.

It doesn't mean allowing every sensation or feeling to determine what we do. It doesn't mean avoiding challenges or never pushing ourselves.

It means recognising that our body is part of the process.

That the mind doesn't always need to be in charge.

That sometimes, instead of pushing against what we're experiencing, we can learn to move with it.

To dance with our nervous system, rather than constantly fighting it.

And I wonder how much more becomes possible when we start approaching life this way.

Not just in performance, but in our relationships, our work, our health and the way we show up for ourselves.

Coming home to myself

I still love achieving.

I still love pushing boundaries, working towards goals and exploring what I'm capable of.

And I don't think that will ever change.

But this experience has changed something in me.

I've realised that performance doesn't always need to come from force.

Sometimes the greatest progress comes when we stop demanding and start listening.

When we create enough space to recognise our body's language.

When we learn to work with our nervous system rather than against it.

When we allow the mind and body to become partners in the process.

I went into that breath hold without the usual numbers or expectations, and came away with something far more meaningful than a time on a clock.

I found a different way to communicate with my body.

A way that felt less like control and more like cooperation.

Less like force and more like invitation.

And in that space, I found a connection to myself that I hadn't realised was missing.

It's something I'm still exploring, and I certainly don't have it all figured out.

But I can't help wondering how much more becomes possible when we stop treating our bodies as something that needs to be pushed, managed or overcome, and start recognising them as something we can work with.

Because perhaps our bodies have been trying to communicate with us all along.

And we've just been too busy trying to achieve something to really listen.

The moment I stopped trying to make my body do something, and started inviting it to work with me, I discovered a part of myself I didn't know existed.

A deeper part of home.

And for me, that was worth so much more than another personal best.

Bek Nutter

Clinical Naturopath | Nutritionist | Sports Nutritionist | Freediver

Nutter By Nature