Orla Chennaoui

Orla Chennaoui is a multi-lingual television sports presenter, journalist, podcaster and writer, with a sideline in lifelong anxiety. As a junior athletics champion, classically-trained violinist  and law graduate, Orla Chennaoui was familiar with working hard to achieve success, but only later realised her years of overachieving were rooted in an as-yet undiagnosed anxiety. A plunge into post natal depression in 2015 was the trigger for Orla to begin to understand the ways her mental health had shaped her life path, letting go of alcohol as a form of self-medication and deep-diving into research that led her to her refreshing conclusion; that anxiety can be a super power. 

The need to understand and reframe anxiety is more necessary than ever. It is the number one global health concern according to the World Economic Forum, with the global rebalance increasing by 25% in the first year of the Covid pandemic. In a post-Covid era, 275 million people worldwide now live with the condition, and with many of those experiencing it for the first time, the chances that you, a colleague or a loved one is struggling to understand or manage anxiety is now more likely than ever before.  

Through Orla Chennaoui’s passion project, Ten Times Braver, Orla is dedicated to helping people recognise all the ways anxiety can be used for good, and helping to manage the more difficult elements through practical tips that can be easily incorporated into everyday life. As a busy mum of two, with a passion for sport herself, and with a broadcasting career that is going from strength to strength, simplicity and ease of practise are key for Orla. Orla Chennaoui is a qualified breathwork instructor and her scientific, no-nonsense approach is perfect for those who are as-yet unconvinced about the benefits of meditation and breathwork, and who need to bring wellness into their daily lives without compromising on time.

Orla has delivered her programme in long-form retreats and in short, 15 minute sessions, working with corporate executives and fitness enthusiasts to find the small, sustainable changes that lead to significant, long-term improvements. 

Reasons to Book 

• Orla reveals the secrets of techniques which work in a high-pressure, live television environment, where time is critical and performance standards uncompromising. 
• As a journalist, Orla brings research and proven science to an area that is often dominated by spirituality, a concept that can be alien to many. Orla prefers facts and data over vague concepts. 
• Orla understands the time-pressures of trying to improve your mental wellness in the modern world, and offers time-efficient practices that make a genuine difference to your day and overall wellbeing. 
• As an experienced, international broadcaster, Orla delivers her talks and workshops with professional ease and passion. Story-telling is her day job and she brings the most stringent broadcast standard to her talks and workshops, while maintaining authenticity and relatability to her audience. 

 Topics Include 

• Living in a world of fear and how to free both yourself and your workplace, including the science of fun. 
• Recognising anxiety in the workplace. How to best manage anxiety at work for both you and your colleagues. 
• Turning anxiety into your superpower. How to recognise the benefits of being hardwired for anxiety and all the ways in which you can use it for good. 
• The power of your autonomic nervous system and how to use breathwork to up-regulate and down-regulate your emotions. In particular this session involves managing stress and how to fire yourself up for big presentations, using Orla’s tips from live TV.  
• The power of language and the neuroscience behind self-talk. Using Orla’s linguistic skills she will demonstrate the ways in which something as basic as the words you use can impact your mental wellness. 

Speeches

LIVING IN A WORLD OF FEAR 

Orla calls on her extensive experience in one of the most renowned and award-winning newsrooms in the world to explain how our societies have become addicted to fear. Fear-mongering is big business, from news channels, to multi-billion dollar advertisers, and has become almost impossible to spot due to its pervasiveness and many guises. Orla will demonstrate how fear is the glue that binds news-gathering, politics and our consumer society, before giving real-life examples from the world of sport and business of the ways in which escaping that culture of fear can lead to success and profit. The flip side of fear is fun, something traditionally overlooked with it comes to our resilience, happiness and health. Orla explains the three key factors in the science of having fun and how it can benefit your business. 

RECOGNISING ANXIETY IN THE WORKPLACE 

Anxiety in the workplace can take its toll on the entire business operation, resulting in missed deadlines, increased sick days, lower productivity and high staff turnover. With numbers growing considerably since the Covid pandemic, many are experiencing it for the first time, and don’t yet know the signs to look out for and how to manage the condition. Orla can offer practical guidelines for spotting and supporting cases of anxiety, with a programme of proven techniques to help on a daily basis, techniques which cross-transfer to help those dealing more generally with stress. Providing effective intervention and support to your employees can improve your company image and your bottom line. 

TURNING ANXIETY INTO YOUR SUPERPOWER 

Understanding is key to self-management and Orla adopts a radical approach to anxiety to help people see the ways in which it can bring significant benefits. Using her real-life experience of living with anxiety in the high-pressured world of live television, combined with the teachings of neuroscience, Orla helps reframe the condition for the positive, which in turn makes living with the difficult elements more easily bearable. By highlighting the positive ways in which those prone to anxiety tend to be hardwired, Orla encourages people to recognise and further develop their curiosity and high achieving productivity. 

THE POWER OF YOUR AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM AND HOW TO USE BREATHWORK TO UP OR DOWN REGULATE 

In this session, Orla will pull back the curtain on the techniques she relies on for live television and large corporate presentations. Time pressures are key for Orla in both her work life, and the juggle of being a mum of two young children, so she offers practical, time-effective, proven techniques that anyone can fit into their day in a way to make a practical difference. Her strategy is based on science, which she will explain in simple terms, and involves a whole toolbox of breathwork and meditation techniques to help either calm the nervous system in times of stress, or up-regulate in order to be fired and focused ahead of an important situation. 

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE AND THE NEUROSCIENCE BEHIND SELF-TALK 

What comes first, a word or a thought? The relationship between thinking and language has intrigued scholars and artists for centuries. Anticipatingpsychologist Lev Vygotsky’s view that thought is not only expressed in words but comes into existence through them, Orla explores the neuroscience and neuroplasticity of language. Using her own linguistic skills and experience, she demonstrates the ways in which something as seemingly simple as the words you use can impact your mental wellness and the culture of your business.