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Deep Dive with Ali AbdaalDeep Dive with Ali Abdaal

Why You’ve Been Breathing Wrong Most Of Your Life

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Ali AbdaalhostMike Maherguest
Feb 21, 20221h 23mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:13

    Intro

    1. AA

      Hey, friends. How's it going? Welcome back to Deep Dive. This episode is a little bit different because we're talking all about the topic of breathwork. What the hell is breathwork? I had no idea, which is why I interviewed Mike Maher, who's the UK expert on the topic of breathwork. He's worked with and interviewed dozens of people who specialize in, in breathing. I didn't realize this was a thing. Apparently, the way that we breathe by default, or the way that most of us kind of find ourselves breathing day to day, is kind of wrong, which is quite interesting, 'cause I thought that, "Hey, I've been breathing perfectly fine my whole life. Like, how bad can it be?" But apparently, like when we breathe wrong in terms of either breathing too much, breathing too, through too little, breathing through our mouth, that's something I do a lot, apparently that's really bad, all of that can contribute to things like incre- increased blood pressure, reduced quality of life, and apparently even increase your risk of heart disease further down the line. And apparently breathwork is this active meditation where we consciously alter our breathing patterns to get outcomes like helping us relax, regulate our stress levels, raise our energy, increase our immune system function, changing our state of consciousness, or even calming our nervous system, allegedly. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing, but this conversation with Mike has changed the way that I approach breathing. I also read the book Breath by James Nestor, which is excellent and also kinda helped me realize the perils of breathing badly. Um, but that's all the stuff that we're gonna cover in, in this week's conversation on Deep Dive. So I hope you enjoy this discussion with Breathwork coach Mike Maher.

  2. 1:13 – 3:40

    Is Breathwork A Scam?

    1. AA

      What is, what is breathwork and is it a scam? [laughs]

    2. MM

      Okay. Oh, wow. Bloody hell. Um, so first of all, I w- I wanna say that I adopt a why but mentality to everything. And I'm sure we'll get stuck into the back-

    3. AA

      Yeah

    4. MM

      ... the backstory-

    5. AA

      Yeah

    6. MM

      ... and all that sort of jazz later. Um, is it a scam? There might be elements of it. Potentially, like with anything, there's a scam, but I like to use the term now breathplay. That's my-

    7. AA

      Breathplay?

    8. MM

      Breathplay. So we should be playing with our breath.

    9. AA

      Okay.

    10. MM

      And I'm hoping over the next period of time that we're talking I'll try and demystify some of it for you, because actually there's quite a lot of science that sits behind, uh, breathwork or breathplay. But the simplest thing I would say is you've got two areas of breathwork, so I'm gonna try now-

    11. AA

      Yeah

    12. MM

      ... to simplify breathwork for you. I'm gonna simplify every breathing exercise that's ever existed-

    13. AA

      Okay

    14. MM

      ... in two ways. Um, so here we go. So, uh, we breathe 25,000 times a day, something like that. Some of us maybe 30,000, 35,000, but 25,000 breaths a day. We're all doing that. Um, and then we've got all these different breathing exercises that people talk about, and so there's two categories. Number one, I breathe less than I need. So that would be one group of exercises, and that's what I would really like to talk about today, functional breathing. We're gonna go down that route. So I breathe less. So an example of that would be alternate nostril breathing. So I'm gonna... I'm sitting here right now breathing, maybe I'm doing 15 breaths a minute, and all of a sudden I'm gonna cap my right nostril and I'm gonna breathe in really slowly, and out really slowly. Now, I've capped the airflow through my nose, so already it's half a nostr- half... One nostril rather than two, and I'm breathing slower than I need. And that's got a whole load of benefits, which we'll get stuck into.

    15. AA

      Okay.

    16. MM

      Now, there's the other side of breathwork. I breathe more than I need.

    17. AA

      Yeah.

    18. MM

      Hyperventilation exercises. Benefits there, maybe some people would call some woo-woo stuff there as well.

    19. AA

      Mm.

    20. MM

      I've had some profound experiences in there. But what I would like people, if somebody was to take something away from, from this conversation, it's we need to get our foundation of breathing right because I believe we've lost our way how to breathe.

    21. AA

      Okay.

    22. MM

      We don't breathe the way nature has intended us to breathe.

    23. AA

      Okay.

    24. MM

      And the good news is our body wants to breathe correctly, and we can find out how to do it quite quickly as well.

    25. AA

      W- Okay. What, what, what do you mean by breathe, breathe correctly?

    26. MM

      Okay.

    27. AA

      Like, I've b- I've been breathing my whole life. I'm sitting here. I haven't died yet. Yes, my nose always feels a bit blocked and I'm definitely-

    28. MM

      Yeah

    29. AA

      ... a mouth breather, but like, you know.

    30. MM

      Yeah. So what?

  3. 3:40 – 7:53

    What Do you Mean By Breathing Correctly?

    1. MM

      you know?

    2. AA

      [laughs]

    3. MM

      And, and, uh, when I was, I was talking to my girlfriend, his mom was like, "What's he doing on YouTube? What's this thing? Breathe in, breathe out. Everyone's doing that."

    4. AA

      Yeah.

    5. MM

      So, so, you know, uh, there's a, a wonderful writer called Dr. Chris Ryan, and he wrote a book called Sex At Dawn, and he wrote another one called Civilised To Death, which I highly recommend, and the front cover of that book is a chimpanzee, I think it's got a T-shirt on. He's sitting in a bad posture with a cigarette.

    6. AA

      Mm.

    7. MM

      He's got his iPhone out and a can of Coke.

    8. AA

      Mm.

    9. MM

      And we're that chimpanzee. We are not designed to be sitting 16 hours a day in poor posture, chronic stress, emails coming in. You know, sit up straight.

    10. AA

      Yeah. [laughs]

    11. MM

      Um, so, so, so we're living very not how our ancestors used to live. And so of course if I'm in a compressed position and I'm stressed, there's a very good chance that I've gone to mouth breathing, because mouth breathing is stressful breathing, and we'll get into that. I'm probably in a bad posture, so my diaphragm's a bit locked and not moving properly. So as a productivity, uh, guru, man-

    12. AA

      [laughs]

    13. MM

      ... uh, person, um, I would say that we're not breathing as efficiently as we should be, and that's the-

    14. AA

      Okay

    15. MM

      ... key to this, is efficient breathing. We're not being efficient right now.

    16. AA

      Why does efficient breathing matter?

    17. MM

      Okay.

    18. AA

      Isn't the whole point of breathing to, you know, oxygen into bloodstream, carbon dioxide out of bloodstream, and the body figures the rest out?

    19. MM

      Yes. Yes, but there's a, a nuance to this-

    20. AA

      Okay

    21. MM

      ... where we go down the path. So let's, uh, let's talk about the nose first of all. The nose is, is a wonderful organ that sits on your face, this beautiful schnoz that breathes. Um, we've got all these wonderful hairs that are sitting there, and they filter all the dust and rubbish out of the air. If the air's too cold, it's gonna warm up the air for us. If it's too hot, it's gonna cool it down. It's gonna humi- humidify it. It's gonna put pressure into the air, because when I breathe through the mouth, that big old pipe, it just, it just comes in really quick.

    22. AA

      Yeah.

    23. MM

      But when I breathe through the nose, I'm breathing a bit slower.

    24. AA

      Mm.

    25. MM

      'Cause the pace, which we'll get into as well, is really important. So the, the nose does all these wonderful things, and it also does, it releases something called nasal nitric oxide. Are you familiar with that?

    26. AA

      Uh, vaguely. It's like a vasodilator or something.

    27. MM

      It is a vasodilator.

    28. AA

      Yeah.

    29. MM

      So it helps open up all the smooth tissues in and around the body. Um, I think it won Molecule of the Year 1992.

    30. AA

      [laughs] Nice.

  4. 7:53 – 18:43

    What’s The Problem With Mouth Breathing?

    1. MM

      of oxygen by breathing through your mouth.

    2. AA

      Ooh.

    3. MM

      And I'll explain a bit of the science-

    4. AA

      Okay

    5. MM

      ... behind it. Um, so what's going on here? So oxygen comes in with the air, and we breathe CO2 out. CO2 is a, a waste gas. We've heard that term before. Um, a- and interestingly, I was watching... I, you've got some wonderful Study With Me videos, and I was watching one the other day, just put it on in the background, you know, just to, just to crack on with my work, and you were looking at the oxygen dissociation curve-

    6. AA

      Yeah

    7. MM

      ... and the, and the Bohr effect and that sort of thing. So, uh, if I break this down to a really simple way, um, homeostasis, we wanna be balanced. Our nose is designed for breathing, our mouth isn't. It's n- by the way, emergency, fantastic backup. If you break your nose or you get into trouble, or there's that saber-toothed tiger everyone keeps talking about in the wilderness, we've got this fantastic extra valve we can open up. But actually, it's there for that emergency situation. Um, so when you are, uh, mouth breathing, th- you're blowing off to- too much CO2. So too much is coming out, because the pressure is here-

    8. AA

      Mm

    9. MM

      ... and you're breathing at a nice slow rate.

    10. AA

      Yeah.

    11. MM

      And we'll talk about pace as well. And so you're breathing out too much CO2. Now, that is also... It works like a vasodilator as well. So when you don't have enough CO2 in your body, everything starts to constrict-

    12. AA

      Mm

    13. MM

      ... and it gets tighter. And here's the other thing. Uh, so in our plasma, in our blood, in our red blood cells, we've got hemoglobin. Um, in each red blood cell is around 270 million, uh, hemoglobin, and in each of those it can hold four molecules, so four oxygen or, or four CO2. So I like to call that the, the, the, the hemoglobin taxi.

    14. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    15. MM

      So four passengers get in. Now, those taxis driving around the body and, you know, if I pick up a, a really heavy bottle and I start to, you know, do some dumb- you know, some curls, uh, this muscle's gonna start to get warm. You know, it's using the extra energy. It's probably using more than, than my legs, which aren't really moving. And so there's a presence of, of CO2 there. And, uh, your body wants to deliver some oxygen and then take the CO2 away.

    16. AA

      Sure.

    17. MM

      If you have blown off too much CO2, then the presence of CO2 is lower. It is harder for the oxygen to get into the places it needs to get to. What's known as the affinity is now stronger.

    18. AA

      Mm.

    19. MM

      The oxygen doesn't want to leave the hemoglobin, and so it's not getting out. You're no longer an efficient breather. You're making it harder for your body to get oxygen to the places it needs to get to.

    20. AA

      We are gonna take a little quick break from the podcast to introduce the sponsor of this podcast, which is Curiosity Stream. If you haven't heard by now, Curiosity Stream is the world's leading documentary streaming subscription platform founded by John Hendricks, who's the founder of the Discovery Channel. And on Curiosity Stream, they've got hundreds of really high quality, high budget documentaries covering all sorts of things from science and technology to history and ancient civilizations to food and medicine and meditation and, like, all of the stuff in between. Now, the really cool thing about Curiosity Stream is that they support independent creators. And so there is this service called Nebula, which you might have heard of. It's an independent streaming platform that's run by me and a bunch of other creators. And on Nebula we can put content like videos and behind the scenes and long form, longer form stuff without worrying about things like the YouTube algorithm. And so, for example, on Nebula, I have a bunch of exclusive content that you won't find anywhere else. We actually have the original Season 0 of the Deep Dive podcast, which started off as, like, remote Zoom live streams during the pandemic, and that is only available on Nebula. You won't find it anywhere else. So if you enjoy the sorts of conversations we have on Deep Dive, you might like to see, you know, a whole year before we started this podcast properly once the pandemic stopped, what sort of conversations I was having with people on Zoom. I've also got a series of videos on Nebula called Workflow, which is where I deep dive into some of my favorite productivity tools. And on Nebula you also get early ad-free access to my videos and videos from a bunch of other creators that you might be familiar with like Thomas Frank and Tom Scott and Legal Eagle and Lindsay Ellis. And the really cool thing is that because Curiosity Stream loves supporting independent creators, we've got a little bundle deal, which is that if you sign up for an account on Curiosity Stream, you actually get free access to Nebula bundled with that. So if you head over to curiositystream.com/deepdive, then for less than $15 a year you can get full access to Curiosity Stream's incredible library of documentaries and also free access to all of the stuff on Nebula bundled with that. So head over to curiositystream.com/deepdive to get the bundle deal. So thank you, Curiosity Stream, for sponsoring this episode. Yeah, this is rem- reminding me of, like, first year physiology, where it's like CO2 contributes to the acidity of the blood.

    21. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    22. AA

      And in one of the directions, whether... I can't remember whether blood becomes more acidic or less aci- acidic, uh, the curve, you've got the shift, the Bohr effect, the shift to the right or whatever.

    23. MM

      Yeah.

    24. AA

      And then it's harder for oxygen to be released. Um, so you're saying, okay, so if we're breathing through our mouths, then A, because of the fact that we breathe more frequently through our mouths, and B, because of the fact that there's less pressure Of air going out. Because the way gases are exchanged is based on kind of partial pressure differentials, we are therefore blowing off more CO2 than we probably should-

    25. MM

      Yeah

    26. AA

      ... compared to breathing through our nose.

    27. MM

      Yes.

    28. AA

      That is causing the Bohr g- oxygen dissociation curve to shift in a, in the direction that means that we are more likely to be somewhat starving our muscles of oxygen.

    29. MM

      The affinity's too strong.

    30. AA

      Yeah.

  5. 18:43 – 20:13

    The Maximum Breathlessness Test

    1. MM

      again, I think it was within a matter of hours his blood pressure had started to come back down again and he started to feel more himself. So again, is it, is it that bad? If it's a breathing exercise, I would say no. Go and, go and have some fun with the breathing exercises. But the thing is, if most of us are chronically hyperventilating all the time, we need to get that foundation fixed first before we start playing with the sexy stuff with the big breathing exercises, because that's the stuff that's gonna make sure that we're in a better place, because if you take, for example, you know, like Wim Hof breathing, which is 30 big breaths in and then a pause, that's, that is known as a stressor. It's like going to the gym. You're stressing yourself out, and there's some benefits to, to that. But if you're already stressed because you've been mouth breathing all day, I don't think it's the right thing for you then to go and do some more hyperventilation. I think we need to do it the other way. Let's get our baseline right. Let's get it secure, and then once it's in a good place, we can then start to, to play with it.

    2. AA

      Okay. So, um, let's say someone, someone watching or listening to this is like, "All right. Cool. I'm sold. I want to do this nose breathing rather than mouth breathing thing." Are there any... Are there any tangible benefits they would get within a reasonable amount of time?

    3. MM

      Mm.

    4. AA

      Or is it like, I don't know, taking supplements, where it's like, "Oh, I know I probably should do this just so my body is... B12 levels are at baseline-

    5. MM

      Yeah

    6. AA

      ... but I'm not really gonna notice a-

    7. MM

      Yes

    8. AA

      ... real, a real difference?"

    9. MM

      Yeah, yeah. Well, by the way, I feel like that about turmeric. I've been taking turmeric for two years.

    10. AA

      [laughs]

    11. MM

      I'm like, "What am I doing here-

    12. AA

      Yeah

    13. MM

      ... with this bloody turmeric?" Um, so, so I, I was a chronic mouth breather, and there are some measurements that you can do. So one of them is, um, uh, what Patrick Mckeown, the author of The Oxygen Advantage, calls maximum,

  6. 20:13 – 26:15

    How Does Breathwork Improve Your Health?

    1. MM

      uh, breathlessness test. So what that is, that is you... 'Cause it's always good to measure, isn't it? You want to be able to measure and track your things. And so what you do is you do a normal breath in, normal breath out. You cap, and then you walk. Um, and you count the steps you can walk.

    2. AA

      Mm.

    3. MM

      And you make a note of that. Um, and another one is you do breath in, breath out, hold, and you wait till the first impulse to breathe happens, and y- that gives you two numbers. So you can start to track that. But let's talk about what are some of the benefits. Um, and I think it's about flipping it on its head sometimes. So what are the problems? Because h- here's the thing, you know, I, um, I like a bit of grounding. I saw a documentary about grounding, how important it is that our body touches the Earth, and this is a whole other conversation. You know?

    4. AA

      Okay.

    5. MM

      We're the first animal that's removed our body from the planet, which is really bad. You know, put insulation on our shoes.

    6. AA

      Yeah.

    7. MM

      Um, and actually you can measure the, the kind of, um, uh, electromagnetic static in your body, uh, and when you touch the Earth it kind of falls down and blood moves better. It's a wonderful documentary. Um, but we're these people that, that, um, kind of expect a big benefit, but actually a lot of it's bringing us back to baseline-

    8. AA

      Mm

    9. MM

      ... to be, not to be that chimpanzee with a can of Coke with a poor posture. It's more about, well, let's just get us to how nature intended us to be, as opposed to, "Oh, there's loads and loads. I'm gonna feel like I'm Superman." Well, you might get some of that, but if you're a really poor breather, you might not even know what good breathing feels like till you do it. I drive people mad because when I'm breath- when I'm talking I'll, I'll take a normal breath in through the, the nose now-

    10. AA

      Mm

    11. MM

      ... to carry on the conversation, um, because I want to keep that kind of, uh, good habits going. So some benefits then, so let's, let's break some of this down. So, um, there are some breathing exercises that can improve your, your heart rate variability, and some studies on that. So there's one breathing exercise called coherence breathing, um, and that heart rate variability is the, the gap between the beats, and they say that the kind of, the variability of those beats kind of signifies, like, good health. Sleep is a huge one. So probably my favorite benefit of good breathing. I know you've done mouth taping. Um, and if you are mouth breathing in the night, which so many of us are, because remember, if we're mouth breathing in the gym and mouth breathing while we're recording videos and all that sort of stuff, and we talk all day. We might be talking all day and doing different things.

    12. AA

      Yeah.

    13. MM

      Then there's a good chance that you might be going to mouth at some point in the night. Now, what does that... What's the problem with that? Well, you're never gonna get into the deeper levels of sleep if you're a mouth breather, and then we know then that, uh, poor sleep is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure. Um, you know, I, uh, before I mouth taped, I was a frequent weer in the night.

    14. AA

      Mm.

    15. MM

      And I just thought that was normal, and then the minute I started mouth taping, I was like, "I'm not going for a wee anymore." I'm like, "What's going on there?" And it's because our body is releasing the right amount of kind of hormones and suppressing the feelings of going to the toilet and that sort of thing, and you get a, a better night's sleep. Uh, it'd be interesting to know your thoughts on how you experienced it, 'cause for me, it took me a couple of months. It was so bloody unnatural to have something on my mouth. I would rip it off.

    16. AA

      Mm.

    17. MM

      But I pers- I persisted with it, and now my sleep is, is better. I wake up more refreshed. I don't have a dry mouth.

    18. AA

      Mm.

    19. MM

      And so sleep, you know, in itself, if I just said, "Look, I've got this magical pill for you here that's gonna help you sleep better, and it's gonna reduce all the risks associated with sleep," we'd... "Well, how much is that pill? I'd love to take that." And it might be able to improve your heart rate variability, and it's gonna be able to lower your blood pressure. Um, and, uh, we'll, we've not gotten to diaphragm yet, but diaphragmatic breathing could help with lower back issues. It could help with digestive issues. So there's a whole host of other mechanical issues which we can get into, uh, because our diaphragms are not moving properly as well. And again, we want to be a functional, efficient breather.

    20. AA

      Okay. So plenty of benefits of nose breathing, and I, yeah, I mean, I still tape my mouth to, uh, to this day. I don't do it on days, like if, for example, I'm staying over at my mom's place and I forget to take my 3M surgical tape. Then I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. I guess I'm not mouth taping tonight." But I do find that on days... I don't know. I don't know if this... Like I ne- I need, I need to actually track the data on this properly, but I do find that on days where I have taped my mouth properly and wake up having not ripped it off, I just feel like it's, it's a bit of a faff to take it off. It, like, gets in the way of, like, mustache and beard and stuff.

    21. MM

      Yeah.

    22. AA

      Once I've done that, I feel like, "Oh, I'm actually, I actually feel pretty rested tonight."

    23. MM

      Yeah.

    24. AA

      And I did, I did, I did, like, you know, I did this 30-day mouth taping video, and I looked at the Oura Ring and tried to track the numbers. It didn't really yield anything particularly significant.

    25. MM

      Mm.

    26. AA

      But, I mean, I still do it, and I feel like the benefit of just not waking up with a dry mouth, plus the fact that I've read this book and, you know, l- vaguely looked into breathwork a little bit and-

    27. MM

      Mm

    28. AA

      ... and see that, okay, breathing through nose while, at night seems to have a lot of benefits. Sticking a piece of tape on your mouth is a magic pill basically to force yourself to breathe more through your nose. Um, one issue that I have, just while we're on the mouth breathing, breathing, breathing topic, is that I often find my nose is quite blocked.

    29. MM

      Mm.

    30. AA

      Especially if I've got like a, got like a cold or something. And, you know, when I was younger, I used to think, "Oh, I can't breathe as efficiently through my nose as I can through my mouth, therefore there is something wrong with my nose."

  7. 26:15 – 44:15

    Wim Hoff + Tony Robins Retreat

    1. MM

      on the back of the head I think if you're, if you're i- in school and you're breathing through your mouth. And same in Poland where my girlfriend's from. They're told, you know, "You shut your, you shut your mouth." Um, but we didn't really get that education, and we copy poor role models, and everybody else is doing it, and we're not using our diaphragms properly. And so it's no wonder that we've got this issue where our noses are a bit stuffy, because we don't really use them as much as-

    2. AA

      Mm

    3. MM

      ... as we should do.

    4. AA

      Okay. So it sounds like nose breathing, b- breathing properly, breathing less potentially helps us get back to baseline. Um, there are other claims that people say about breathwork. Um, I've va- like vaguely come across some of the Wim Hof stuff, but haven't researched it extensively. Where he talks about how kind of discovering the breathing thing helped, I don't know, cure his depression or, or was to that effect. There are... I know that breathing is a huge part of all of the... like, pretty much every ancient tradition, where th- uh, there are allegedly benefits for it. People say that breathing in a certain way gives you psychedelic experiences. Beyond the breathing properly gets you to baseline, what are the other, like, actual, I guess, sci- evidence based benefits of breathing? And, like, how do we distinguish those from the potential hype around breathing which may not necessarily be true?

    5. MM

      Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so this would put us into I breathe more than I need category, and let's, we'll have a little chat about that now. So, um, so my breathwork journey started in 2016. I, I'd just gone through a bit of a, a split up in, in a relationship. And I kept hearing this name Wim Hof, Wim Hof over and over again. Um, big fan of the Joe Rogan Podcast, and I finally listened to a podcast. I said, "This guy's incredible and crazy at the same time." And I did some Googling, and he had a retreat in Poland. This is December 2016.

    6. AA

      Yeah.

    7. MM

      Um, uh-

    8. AA

      Um, so, so f- for people who haven't come across Wim Hof, can you do a little, like-

    9. MM

      Yeah, okay. Of course. Yeah

    10. AA

      ... what's, what's the deal?

    11. MM

      Thank you. So, so, uh, the Dutch Iceman, um, I think he's broken 26 world records. Um, he would spend, for example, his time in a, a box of ice and, uh, you know, I think he did two hours in, in a box of ice. Um, he has a bit of a tragic backstory where his partner passed away. She took her own life. Um, and, and he used kind of cold and breathing as a way to deal with, um, some of the, the grief that happened there. And then he created what's called the Wim Hof Method, um, which involves cold exposure and breathing with a mindfulness element to it. Um, and you combine all those things together, and that was the retreat that I went on. He's got world records for, like, hanging from a balloon with one finger and running through a desert, um, with no water, doing a marathon.

    12. AA

      Mm.

    13. MM

      And going up Everest in his shorts and, and, and all these, these wonderful things that make you think, "Oh my God, that doesn't seem real to me."

    14. AA

      Yeah. And I think he's, like... O- one thing I remember being struck by with his story is that he's very cool with scientists poking and prodding him and measuring his blood levels and, like, doing, like-

    15. MM

      Yes

    16. AA

      ... scientific studies and stuff.

    17. MM

      Yeah.

    18. AA

      Which is unusual, because most woo-woo type people-

    19. MM

      Yes

    20. AA

      ... would be like, "Oh, well, it's, it's not gonna work if you measure it." Whereas this guy's like, "Yeah, come at me with all your instruments." [laughs]

    21. MM

      Yeah.

    22. AA

      It's, and it's all good.

    23. MM

      Yeah, he has a, he has a, a wonderful one about being injected with a poison, and then he starts doing this huffing and puffing breathing technique. And, and where most people start to get sick, he didn't get sick.

    24. AA

      Mm.

    25. MM

      And he's like, "I can replicate that with, like, 20 strangers," and he did, and then I think he did it again with 40 strangers. Um, a- and that is to do with, I believe, I haven't read th- read that for a while, it's to do with the adrenaline that's getting released-

    26. AA

      Mm

    27. MM

      ... through this breathing technique. So if I just explain a bit about the, the breathe more than I need stuff, 'cause it is very exciting.

    28. AA

      Yeah. Sorry, I, I interrupted you-

    29. MM

      Oh, please

    30. AA

      ... in the middle of your, your story. So you, you said-

  8. 44:15 – 54:43

    How Breathwork Changes The Way You Think

    1. MM

      40 years in now. Started as an EMT. I had him on the podcast, um, at my end. Um, and it... What he doesn't know about breathwork isn't, isn't worth knowing. But what he... And Tony wrote the foreword to his book, and Tony Robbins has a quote something like, um, "If you can harness the power of your breath, you can change yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually." And I think that's just, it's a really lovely summary of his interpretation of what you can do with this very benign thing of breathing in and out, you know? It's, it's this weird thing we don't really think about, but when you start getting under the surface and playing with it, it can have big changes in your life.

    2. AA

      Awesome. So yeah, this Tony Robbins experience made you decide to quit the job, and then let's explore this breathwork stuff more. Started the YouTube channel. Things started going well. Pandemic happens. You've got the podcast. You have all these big people who are into breathwork and have researched it, and doctors and professors and stuff on the podcast. And now here we are-

    3. MM

      Yeah

    4. AA

      ... trying to talk about-

    5. MM

      Yeah

    6. AA

      ... breathwork. Um, one of the other things that you said, which I found interesting, was you said that breathwork or breathing or changing the way you breathe has the potential to change how you think. What's the deal with that?

    7. MM

      Okay.

    8. AA

      Like, so far we've talked about kind of oxygen dissociation curves and stuff.

    9. MM

      Yes.

    10. AA

      We haven't really touched on the mental effects of breathing.

    11. MM

      Yeah.

    12. AA

      What's, yeah, what's going on there?

    13. MM

      So there was a study in mice, and, and what... It was really weird the w- the terminology they used, but they said there's some neurons in the brain that spy on the way we breathe. And so there's this thing around how I breathe does affect, it sends signals. So I, the, I was trying to think, I was trying to rationalize thinking maybe you're trapped under a tree and you can't breathe properly or, or someone's scared you. Um, but suddenly the way that you're breathing, it's, it's bidirectional. So if I'm stressed, my breathing's gonna change, but if I breathe in a stressful state, it's going to send signals that I'm, I'm stressed. And so when I interviewed Dr. Blissia Vranich, who, who trains UFC fighters and, um, SWAT teams in America how to breathe properly-

    14. AA

      Mm

    15. MM

      ... um, I said, "How do we... What..." I said, I said, "Is it chicken and egg here? What comes first? Does, does dysfunctional breathing cause stress and anxiety, or does stress and anxiety cause dysfunctional breathing?" And her response was the best. She goes, "I don't care. Let's fix the breathing. We know we can fix the breathing, so let's fix the breathing, and if there's still an issue afterwards, then let's look at what that is."

    16. AA

      Yeah.

    17. MM

      And so that to me was this thing around, okay, how we're breathing is affecting how we're thinking and feeling. So for example, if you extend your exhale, going back to that breath play thing, what you're kind of doing there is sending a signal to your brain saying, "Everything's okay. We're okay. We're safe."

    18. AA

      Yeah.

    19. MM

      Because if you're running from a, a, a tiger, you're not slowly nasal breathing. If you picture what that person looks like, they're probably panic breathing. So a slow exhale through the nose, or the mouth actually, [exhales] just sends some signals that everything's okay. And so by doing that, it can actually lower blood pressure, make you feel calmer and more relaxed. And so there's some breathing exercises around, um, sleep and, uh, just doing some [exhales] and then breathing in, counting to four, holding for seven, and breathing out for eight, and just that release, just saying everything's okay, it can change how you, you think. Now, if you do Wim Hof breathing and you stress yourself out, that's gonna make a, a different change to your brain. It's gonna make your brain feel s- there's a problem here. We're, we're hyperventilating. Um, and that's gonna have its own, uh, effects on your thinking and, and feeling. But if we go back to the functional side of stuff, um, if we are depriving our wonderful body of oxygen because we've blown off too much CO2, that is also gonna affect it, 'cause it's affecting how much blood and rich oxygen's getting to your, your brain as well, 'cause you're out of balance.

    20. AA

      So it sounds like the effects on the brain are more like breathing less... slight breathing more deeply gets you into this relaxed, calm state, and it's, it i- it, it, it, it sounds like it ties in with that stuff, that genuinely the way that you move your body does relate to the way that your brain and your body kind of feels.

    21. MM

      Mm.

    22. AA

      Um, in a way, like, I know s- uh, some people used to, uh, they... I think, like, we came across this like James-Lange theory of emotion, which was that, you know, we don't smile because we're happy. We're happy because we're smiling. Or-

    23. MM

      Okay

    24. AA

      ... s- w- words to that effect.

    25. MM

      Yes.

    26. AA

      And people, like, quibble about this in the, in the scientific community of like, oh, but, like, the evidence isn't quite there, and if you look at this meta-analysis, it doesn't... But I think y- y- take- taking all that aside, I guess, you know, people's actual lived experience of, you know, when you do, for example, a mindfulness thing or, like, a yoga thing or, like, a breathing thing-

    27. MM

      Mm-hmm

    28. AA

      ... it does change the way that you feel.

    29. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    30. AA

      And maybe the scientific study about exactly what's, what a fMRI scanner is showing is doing in the brain while you're doing breathwork, maybe that's a bit equivocal, but who cares? Like, I think my view on this stuff is that, like, well, if it works, then I'm not gonna quibble with it too much. And there's a g- a good quote I came across in an article I was reading about stretching Which is that often scientific, um, evidence lags behind best practices.

  9. 54:43 – 59:21

    How Breathwork Helps Stress

    1. MM

      jump into in a bit are all about let's just slow our breathing down. Let's get used to that feeling of air hunger. B- 'cause by doing so, it's a bit like going to the gym and lifting-

    2. AA

      Mm

    3. MM

      ... that weight. We're training ourselves to breathe at a slower rate.

    4. AA

      Okay. Cool. Um, we've mentioned the diaphragm a few times. Um, I've had a few singing lessons-

    5. MM

      Mm

    6. AA

      ... which to my annoyance often focused on breathing. And I was like, "Come on, I wanna get to the good stuff." They were like Bro, there is no good stuff un- until, until you've sorted the breathing thing out. But I've never done them for long enough to actually have, quote, "Sorted the breathing thing out," uh, and I always wanna just dive into actually singing songs and, and all that crap. Um, but [laughs] um, they were often focused on kind of so- sort of... People describe it in different ways, like breathe... Some, some people say breathe into the tummy.

    7. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. AA

      And other people say, "Oh, no, breathing into the abdomen is, like, not how you should be thinking about it."

    9. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AA

      "It's not about pu- pushing your tummy out. Instead, it's about using your diaphragm."

    11. MM

      Mm.

    12. AA

      Then some people say, "Well, the diaphragm is a, is under the control of the phrenic nerve or something, which is, uh, uh, is not under conscious control. And therefore, like, how can you actively choose to breathe through the diaphragm?" And then I went on a rabbit hole on YouTube about this, and it seems like everyone's got an opinion-

    13. MM

      Yeah

    14. AA

      ... about whether you should be breathing into your tummy or not into your tummy, or into the base of your lungs or not into the base of your lungs. I guess the question is, how should we breathe, be breathing? [laughs]

    15. MM

      Okay. So, um, uh, Dr. Chatterjee wrote a really, a good book about stress.

    16. AA

      Mm.

    17. MM

      And in there he talks about diaphragm. He says, when we're, when we're unconsciously breathing, the diaphragm's moving about one centimeter, but when we consciously focus on belly breathing, let's say, we can move it up to 10 centimeters. Now, we've talked a lot about the nose, but when it comes to, um, gas exchange, the blood is at the lower part of our, our lungs, and that's where the, the really cool gas exchange happens, the best gas exchange. And obviously we use the nose because we want the vasodilation of the nitr- nasal nitric oxide. But also what's happening is when we, uh... If our belly's locked, let's just say I put a band around this now and I can't move it, then I might become what's known as an upper chest breather.

    18. AA

      Mm.

    19. MM

      So if you take a big breath in, then your chest goes up. You've got all these extra muscles which can be used. Again, a bit like an emergency mouth breath-

    20. AA

      Yeah

    21. MM

      ... we can, we do all this and-

    22. AA

      Yeah

    23. MM

      ... you know. And my, my channel's called Take a Deep Breath. A- and if you said to nine out of 10 people, "How do you take a deep breath in?" It's...

    24. AA

      Yeah. Yeah.

    25. MM

      But actually, you can take a deep breath in slowly using your nose and using your belly. So instead you'd be...

    26. AA

      Mm. I always feel conscious when I do this 'cause the belly comes out, and I'm like, "Oh, why am I so fat?"

    27. MM

      Me too. So, so, so, so by the way-

    28. AA

      [laughs]

    29. MM

      ... uh, one of the biggest things I struggle with in my life is, is, is what's known as gut sucking, which is bloody terrible for you. So I, I started working in pub kitchens when I was really, like, young, like 14, 15. I had free access to chips and fries the whole time.

    30. AA

      Yeah.

  10. 59:21 – 1:23:06

    Guided Breathing Exercises

    1. MM

      doing that, you're not giving your diaphragm the space to move properly. And so by doing that, you're no longer an efficient, functional breather. You're being dysfunctional, but in a different way to what's going on here, because you're not getting the air into the lower lungs-

    2. AA

      Okay

    3. MM

      ... and not doing a good transfer.

    4. AA

      Got it. Okay. Shall we dive into some exercises?

    5. MM

      Let's do it. Let's do it. Just one last thing on-

    6. AA

      Yeah

    7. MM

      ... on breathing I think is important, is the efficiency and the rate of breathing.

    8. AA

      Okay.

    9. MM

      So, um, in the simplest way possible, if you do... My maths is terrible, but if you do, uh, 12 breaths a minute-

    10. AA

      Mm

    11. MM

      ... um, and your tidal volume, which is the amount of air you take in, is half a liter.

    12. AA

      Mm.

    13. MM

      Yeah, so that's, that's like 12 liters. Yeah. Is that right? Six liters.

    14. AA

      Uh, six liters.

    15. MM

      Six liters. Thank you.

    16. AA

      Yeah, six liters a minute. Yeah.

    17. MM

      Like I told you, six liters. Now, if I was to double my tidal volume-

    18. AA

      Yeah

    19. MM

      ... to a liter of air, I would only need to take six breaths in that same minute. The extra bonus is because that air is in your lungs for a little bit longer, got a bit more time to do the, the transfer.

    20. AA

      Mm.

    21. MM

      So by slowing our breathing down, we become more efficient. I think it's 20% more oxygen is absorbed through each of those breaths.

    22. AA

      Mm.

    23. MM

      So I've now just suddenly taken half the amount of breaths as you, and more oxygen was able to be absorbed into my body. So pace is so important to slowing everything down. And again, this is where education comes in, 'cause you can slow your breathing down, build up your tolerance to CO2, and your general breath per minute will start to slow down as well.

    24. AA

      Okay. Cool. So how do we do this?

    25. MM

      Okay. So how's the, how's the, the nose, first of all? Is it, is it a bit open, a bit blocked?

    26. AA

      It feels a bit blocked.

    27. MM

      Yeah.

    28. AA

      But it'll, it, it always feels a bit blocked.

    29. MM

      Yeah.

    30. AA

      I've been consciously trying to breathe through the nose for the conversation, but I've... I'll, I'll have a look at the footage afterwards.

Episode duration: 1:23:06

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