I’m sitting in a chair with a clip attached to my ear, breathing deeply. Breathe in for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds. Imagine the air filling your upper chest, then slowly exhaling. After a couple of minutes, I am struggling to stay awake. Could this be the ultimate stress reliever?
“This is very interesting,” says Stefan Wisbauer, unclipping the earpiece, which was attached to a small laptop computer. The clip was used to monitor my heart rate, with the results displayed as a zigzag line on the PC. “See, this is when you were breathing normally.” The line is ragged and all over the place. “This is when you’re relaxed.” The graph is almost flatlining.
Wisbauer used the technique on a senior executive at McKinsey, the management consulting firm, who was seeking a way to combat jetlag. He wanted advice on how to maintain top cognitive performance in meetings that kick-off as soon as the plane lands.
Breathing exercises, two or three times a day for a few minutes, can help the body tune into new time zones more quickly. You sleep better and feel more refreshed. Ian Woosnam, the golfer, claims the technique, which helps you access a high-performance mental and emotional state called “coherence”, helps him fight off stress.
All this is revealed to me during a day-long health assessment by iHealth, which claims to offer the most advanced private health screening available in Britain. Wisbauer is managing director. For a fee ranging from £950 ($1,878, e1,277) to £3,500, participants are given a comprehensive health check-up, with instant results. Equipment and expertise is pulled together under one roof.
The iHealth service is a cut above the production-line approach offered by rival health screening providers. The iHealth service takes longer, typically four to six hours, and is far more personalised, including hour-long sessions with a GP.
The day begins with basic tests – hearing, vision and a heart ECG (electrocardiogram) – and moves on to a musculoskeletal screening session, which assesses posture, balance and strength.
