The Breathing Expert: Mouth Breathing Linked To ADHD, Diabetes & Child Sickness!

James Nestor 0:00 You can exercise all you want, eat all the right foods, sleep eight hours a night, if you are not breathing right, you will always be sick. (beep)

Steven Bartlett 0:09 James Nestor, international bestseller on breathing.

Narrator 0:13 As a species, we've largely lost the ability to breathe correctly. James travels the whole world trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

James Nestor 0:21 99% of people are breathing dysfunctionally. They don't realize the damage they're doing to their bodies and brains by being this way. Look at the way we sit all day long, the way we sleep, the way we eat. The modern world is conspiring to make us sick. Diabetes, asthma, metabolic and autoimmune issues, anxiety, even ADHD. Experts said it is 100% related to your breathing, at night especially.

Steven Bartlett 0:48 Really?

James Nestor 0:48 Bad breathing habits are a recipe for disaster, which is what has happened for so many kids today. So if you're a parent, and if you can hear them breathing when they're sleeping, this is a big red flag. But I believe that everybody can become a good breather, and these steps are free. We can do this while we're seated here. So, the first thing is to... (chair creaking)

Steven Bartlett 1:10 Carbon dioxide is seen as this poison. Why?

James Nestor 1:12 Levels over 800 into 1,000 can have serious issues with cognitive and physical functions. And I've been recording our CO2 during this interview.

Steven Bartlett 1:22 It's going up.

James Nestor 1:23 And if we were to continue working in here for the next few hours, you will... (device beeping)

Steven Bartlett 1:27 Jesus. (beep) I think this is fascinating. I looked at the back end of our YouTube channel, and it says that since this channel started, 69.9% of you that watch it frequently haven't yet hit the subscribe button. So, I have a favor to ask you. If you've ever watched this channel and enjoyed the content, if you're enjoying this episode right now, please, could I ask a small favor? Please hit the subscribe button. Helps this channel more than I can explain, and I promise, if you do that, to return the favor, we will make this show better, and better, and better, and better, and better. That's a promise I'm willing to make you if you hit the subscribe button.

Steven Bartlett 2:03 Do we have a deal? (music plays) James, of all the things you could've committed your life to, you could've committed a decade of work and effort to, you decided to commit it to the subject matter of breath and breathing. Why?

James Nestor 2:26 Hmm. It was a number of things that happened, eh, personally, professionally, over a number of years. I never set out to write a book about breathing. I mean, what a boring subject, right? (laughs) Until I started having breathing problems, uh, that came back year after year. I was... I surf a lot in San Francisco, so I was getting bronchitis. I was getting pneumonia, mild pneumonia. Um, it was nothing to worry about. I'd go to my doctor, I'd be given a pack of pills and sent on my way. And this kept happening year after year, until a doctor friend of mine was looking at me. We were out having a drink, and she's like, "I think there's something going on with your breathing." I said, "Breathing?" You know, this is just something we do automatically. It's nothing I considered. She's like, "Oh, you might wanna go to a breathwork class." And I went to a breathwork class, and it completely blew me away on, on a number of levels. Um, I was able to get over the respiratory problems I had. I don't write about this in the book, 'cause I didn't wanna make my experience be indicative of everyone else's experience. But all the issues I had completely went away, 100%. And so I started looking into this more just personally, what else I could learn about breathing, and how it could benefit me for athletic performance, for sleep, and more, and noticed that my health was changing in all the right ways over and over again when I was adopting different habits. So that was more than 10 years ago, actually. That was probably 12 years ago. And then I started writing about free divers, started free diving myself, and learning the limits of breathing, and how you can do things that are supposed to be scientifically impossible by harnessing the power of your breath. And that's what really got me interested as a science journalist.

Steven Bartlett 4:14 So your symptoms, the symptoms you had of... What were those symptoms at the time?

James Nestor 4:19 I was mouth-breathing a lot-

Steven Bartlett 4:21 Yeah.

James Nestor 4:21 ... uh, when I was working out. I was always mouth-breathing when I was jogging. I was mouth-breathing doing karate, mouth-mouth-breathing surfing. And I noticed at night, I could not remember a time when I did not go to sleep with a huge glass of water by my bedside. I would wake up numerous times throughout the night. My mouth was very dry, uh, very pasty in the morning. I thought this was completely normal. I also noticed that when I was working out at really high levels, I would start to wheeze a bit. (wheezes) Like, I could hear myself breathing, and I thought this was normal. And whenever I talked to people about it, they said, "Oh, welcome to old age. This is what happens when you get older." (laughs) And I didn't think that that was a good reason to be breathing so dysfunctionally. But it really took someone else to point it out for me to understand that maybe there was a problem there, and maybe I should fix it.

Steven Bartlett 5:12 And y- your friend who was a doctor then suggested this breathwork class. You go to this breathwork class.

James Nestor 5:17 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:17 And is it the one session itself that helped you? Or was it the practices you took away from that session that helped you?

James Nestor 5:24 That one session completely blew my mind. So, it had all of the hallmarks of flakiness and new agey-ness, you know? It was... All the people flowing, flowing clothes, uh, there were some headbands. I said, "Good God, what am I doing here?" There's a lot of this stuff-

Steven Bartlett 5:42 (laughs)

James Nestor 5:42 ... in San Francisco, so I'm kinda used to it. Dream catchers, all that. And it wasn't until I sat down and started... actually got rid of all of that, all those problems in my brain that were making me resist really giving myself to this practice. Got rid of that, started breathing, and I... I write about this at the beginning of the book, but I completely sweated through, uh, my T-shirt. It was not a warm room. It was quite cold in there. Sweated through my T-shirt. There's sweat marks on my jeans. My hair was sopping wet. And this was from sitting in a corner of a cold room.... just breathing at this certain pattern. So, it obviously released something in me. And when I mentioned this to doctors, I went back, they said, "Oh, you had a fever." Or, "Oh," you know, "the room was too hot." "Oh, you were covered in blankets." All of that was false. There was something else deeper happening, and they didn't understand it from their medical training. So, I tried to get answers elsewhere, and that's what I spent years doing.

Steven Bartlett 6:43 You spent years doing. I mean, your, your book on the subject matter comes out almost a decade later.

James Nestor 6:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:50 So in hindsight now, you have those answers on why you sweated through your clothes, and why you had that physiological reaction. What is the answer?

James Nestor 6:58 (laughs) I do not have opinions as a science journalist.

Steven Bartlett 7:03 Oh, really?

James Nestor 7:03 That I am a filter.

Steven Bartlett 7:04 (laughs)

James Nestor 7:04 So, uh, my job is to talk to absolutely everybody. And especially when people, doctors tell me, "Oh, don't talk to those people. They don't know what they're talking about," those are the first people I'm gonna talk to. So, I talk to everybody and try to synthesize what I've learned, the truth according to all of these different cultures, all of these different ways of learning, and put that in a book that the general public can understand. So, I have my own personal views on it, but I try to keep my personal views out of what I write.

Steven Bartlett 7:38 And then, the, the sort of next significant, I guess, catalyst event that was an inspiration point for your work, was in 2011. As you say, you went and covered the free diving championship in Greece.

James Nestor 7:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 7:49 What did that experience add to the inspiration cloud that would then form the book? What did you learn about the nature of breath from that?

James Nestor 7:56 Yeah, it's so funny. Uh, you know, as you go through life, there are some experiences that you have, that you have no idea that you were opening a completely different door, and you're just going to be walking through that door for the next decade.

Steven Bartlett 8:08 (laughs)

James Nestor 8:09 So, that's what happened in Greece. Didn't really know anything about it. Go out there, and just have my mind blown. I mean, you have these people who are at the surface of the water, take a single breath of air, one breath (inhales) , and dive down 120 meters on a single breath of air. And come back up five minutes later, and go-

Steven Bartlett 8:32 Jesus.

James Nestor 8:33 ... and then get out of the way for the next competitor. You watch them, the water's very clear there, right? It goes down, visibility's 150 meters. You watch them just disappear into nothing the size of an ant, and then completely disappear into the ocean and come back. And I said, "My God, there's so much we don't know about breathing, and also about the limits of the human body. I wanna learn more about this. I wanna experience this as well. Not diving down that deep, but I wanna access more of what I've been given, because I think we've been sold pretty short on what our limits are and what we should be doing and shouldn't be doing. But I think our bodies are, have much more potential than that."

Steven Bartlett 9:15 When I was, when I was reading through your book, you describe breath as a pillar of health, which is a pretty big statement to make.

James Nestor 9:22 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 9:22 'Cause when we think of pillars of health, we might think of, you know, exercise or, um, diet. But breath hasn't been considered a pillar of health. I think, to be honest, for the first 27 y- um, for the first 29 years of my 30-year-old life, I purely viewed breath as this thing that just happens unconsciously that is inconsequential. And it's only in recent times, because your work has influenced some people very close to me, that I started to second guess that. Where do we stand as a society at the moment, w- when we're talking about the majority of people, in terms of our view of what breathing is and the role it plays? And then I also want to understand, um, why that's wrong. Because as I said, I thought of breathing as just this thing that happens.

James Nestor 10:05 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:06 And it was, it was quite, um, unnerving to understand that that view has potentially been im- impacting me in profound ways without me knowing it. Like you said, I've been pointing at the wrong thing. I've been thinking, "I need some pills," or, "I just can't sleep," or, "I've g- I've got in, I'm..." You know, someone might think they're an insomniac or whatever. But you make the case, quite profoundly, that breathing is much more than an unconscious act that we just do without thinking about.

James Nestor 10:34 Well, breathing is something that just happens, and how wonderful-

Steven Bartlett 10:37 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 10:37 ... that is, that we've evolved to not have to think about every breath we take, right? That would be a real problem. But that doesn't mean we can't take conscious control of our breathing and then elicit different effects from our body. So, we have adopted habits, according to our breathing, from our environment, from the way we sleep, from our mouth structure, and more, that are not the best habits to have for breath. So, the reason why people spend so much time doing breath work and rehearsing slower breathing, lower breathing, breathing through the nose, is to reset a natural habit so that you don't have to think about it. I mean, I don't wanna have to constantly be checking in on my breath throughout the day. I want that to be automatic. But that takes a lot of time to get back to that healthy state, to make it unconscious.

Steven Bartlett 11:32 Where do we get these bad habits from? And because I think, you know, surely my body, I'm the product of, you know, several, I don't know, thousands, gazillion years of evolution. Surely my body is doing it correctly by default. What is, what has changed-

James Nestor 11:46 No.

Steven Bartlett 11:46 ... that is causing me to do it incorrectly?

James Nestor 11:48 Your body is not doing this correctly by default. What has changed is this modern environment is conspiring to make us sick. And I don't think that that is an exaggeration at all. If you look at the way we sit all day long, if you look at the way we work, if you look at the way we eat, if you look at the way sleep, of all the pollution, noise pollution, air pollution we're surrounded by, this is why we are so sick. It is the environment. The human body is so well a-... equipped to live a healthy life, which is why indigenous cultures, the few left, they don't need to go to a cardiologist, or a pulmonologist, or a dentist. They have straight teeth, they breathe perfectly, they don't have all of these problems that we have today. So, these are diseases of civilization. The vast majority of problems we contend with, we have created in the last few hundred years. And one of the problems with breathing is that our facial structure does not allow us to breathe in a healthy way anymore, and it did hundreds of years ago, and we know that from skeletal record.

Steven Bartlett 12:59 What are some of the, um, the most common modern problems, then, that the environment we live in, um, have caused? And we- I'm- here, I'm talking about diseases.

James Nestor 13:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 13:08 What are the, the everyday diseases that you've discovered are byproducts of our misunderstanding and our bad ha- breathing habits?

James Nestor 13:19 Show me a list of the top diseases (laughs) and they're all related to it, even diabetes. Who would've thought that the onset of diabetes could be triggered by poor breathing habits at night? But that is exactly what researchers have found. Because if you are choking on yourself all night, as so many people do, (choking sounds) you aren't resting, you aren't entering stages of deep sleep, which means your body never restores and your body is going to break down. So, researchers have, have known this for 50 years. There are scientific studies showing this over and over again. So, that's just with, with diabetes and metabolic issues. Autoimmune issues for the same reason, you're constantly breathing like this, stooped over, (panting sounds) you're causing undue inflammation to your body, you're causing nervous system dysfunction, you're in that sympathetic state, which after a while will trigger a bunch of autoimmune issues. So, so many of these things, not exclusively are related to breath, they are exclusively related to diet, exercise, sleep, and breath. You can eat all the right foods, you can sleep eight hours a night, you can exercise all you want, if you are not breathing right, you will always be sick. And I've heard that six years ago by a researcher, and I believe it more now than I ever have.

Steven Bartlett 14:46 At the very start of your book, you, you test these things on yourself.

James Nestor 14:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 14:52 You did an experiment, which I found really, really interesting. I think that experiment has actually stayed with me for a long time, bec-, I mean, it's impacted me in the gym a lot. Every time I'm on that tread- bloody treadmill, (laughs) I'm thinking about what I read. But, um, what, why did you want to do that experiment on yourself and what was the experiment?

James Nestor 15:08 I didn't want to do this experiment on myself.

Steven Bartlett 15:10 What did you do?

James Nestor 15:10 I really did not want to do it. No one else was going to do it.

Steven Bartlett 15:14 Really?

James Nestor 15:14 There had never been a human trial of nasal breathing versus, versus mouth breathing for this amount of time. And I was talking to Jayakar Nayak, who's the chief of rhinology research at Stanford, the top, top of his field, and I said, "We know what happens to animals when they breathe this way. We know all the deleterious effects of mouth breathing on kids, on adults, on old people, on sleep, on athletic performance. Why can't you test this? Let's get a big group of people and test this." He said, "It'll never happen. We're not gonna find funding." And he thought ethically there would be problems doing it, because he knew what damage could be caused by becoming a mouth breather. And so, after all this, I just kind of gave up. And then I had an idea, I said, "Well, what if I did it, and what if I got one other person? We will sign up, we'll sign whatever waivers." And we did it. Doesn't, you know, it's just two people, but that was the maximum we were allotted. And he said okay, but he had no money for it, so we had to pay for this experiment at Stanford, which was not the cheapest thing I've ever paid for in my life.

Steven Bartlett 16:19 (laughs)

James Nestor 16:20 Um, but I wanted to know. I, I'm writing about mouth breathing, writing about all the problems, I'm writing about my subjective experience of how it transformed my life becoming a nasal breather. I wanted to see that experience dictated and documented in data by machines. And that's why we did it.

Steven Bartlett 16:40 And how did it go?

James Nestor 16:42 Terribly. It was awful. Um, so just to let, let people know-

Steven Bartlett 16:46 Yeah.

James Nestor 16:46 ... uh, this was an experiment in which for 10 days, we had our noses plugged up, right?

Steven Bartlett 16:53 Yep.

James Nestor 16:53 And then for another 10 days, we had all of that stuff released from our noses and we were almost exclusively nasal breathing. Everything else in those 10-day periods was exactly the same. We ate the same foods, we walked the same number of steps, we exercised the same. So, exactly the same. And we did scientific, um, studies and took a bunch of data before, during, and after. We were collecting data three times a day as well, looking at what was happening to our bodies, our sleep, our inflammation, and more. And we knew this wasn't going to be pleasant, uh, but I didn't know it was going to be this bad. Like, it was really ... Not trying to be over dramatic, but it was awful, awful. And, uh, I'm so happy I never have to do that again. At the same time, I feel so sorry for people who do not realize that their noses are stuffed up, who have been living this way for years and don't understand that this is their main source of their issues with migraines, sleep problems, and more.

Steven Bartlett 17:58 I can, I could, I could see it in you when you described it as being awful, that you were almost teleporting yourself back to that, to that chapter.

James Nestor 18:05 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 18:05 I could see it in your face.

James Nestor 18:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:07 What did y-

James Nestor 18:07 A little, little PTSD from that still. Uh, it was bad. Um-

Steven Bartlett 18:12 When you say bad, what do you mean? Specifically, as in...

James Nestor 18:14 It was the, the first few days. So, I did this with, uh, breathing researcher and breathing therapist, Anders Olsson, from Sweden. He was the only person that would do this. Uh, and he flew from Sweden on his own dime to try to understand this. He had been talking about nasal breathing for 10 years, right? And so, he said, "Okay, I wanna put this to the test. I wanna see if I'm right or wrong." So, the first few days, we were kind of laughing. It was like, "How bad did you sleep?" You know. And we were comparing ... We went from zero snoring to full-on snoring and sleep apnea within a couple of days. And so, we were comparing and kind of showing off how sick we were. But then after about a week, we saw it three days ago, like I wasn't able to sleep at night, and I was dreading every single night going to sleep because you're (yawns) . My mouth was so dry, and my sleep was so bad. I was so tired after sleeping nine, 10 hours a night. I was so tired, and, and the data proved that as well. So, it got really bad by the 10th day. Uh, we were in really bad shape. And, and again, I want to mention, like so many people, especially during allergy season, are plugged up for months at a time, and they don't realize the damage they're doing to their bodies and brains by being this way.

Steven Bartlett 19:31 How many people are breathing incorrectly, in your view? How many people, if they, if they went and did a practice, or they had the understanding that's in your book and that you speak about-

James Nestor 19:45 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 19:45 ... do you believe would have better overall health and wellbeing if they made a change to their breathing?

James Nestor 19:52 By taking simple steps, I believe that everybody can become a better, what is considered a good breather. And these steps are free, and they're available for everybody. If you look at the percentage of the population who is breathing dysfunctionally, I've heard different percentages from different people, respiratory therapists who do this all day long, to elite trainers of Olympians, they say 95 to 99% of the people that they see are breathing dysfunctionally. So, it's basically everybody. Some people, obviously, there's a curve to that.

Steven Bartlett 20:29 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 20:30 There's an asthmatic with panic attacks that is breathing very dysfunctionally, and then there's an athlete who can push through the pain and win that competition, but is still breathing dysfunctionally. So, there's a, there's an arc to that.

Steven Bartlett 20:50 We all sit somewhere on that spectrum.

James Nestor 20:51 We all do, yeah. And I'm not a perfect breather. You're not a perfect breather. Like it's hard to find a perfect, perfect breather, just like it's hard to find someone that eats perfectly every single meal, and that's probably not the person you ever wanna hang out with anyway.

Steven Bartlett 21:05 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 21:07 You referred to tribes there, and, um, people that are not living in our environment. And also, you know, you, you talk a lot about breathing as a lost art.

James Nestor 21:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 21:15 I'm so fascinated by ... I think I spent the last couple of years really fascinated by how our ancestors lived their lives and how they did things. You know? I was talking to Dr. Daniel Lieberman about-

James Nestor 21:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 21:26 ... running and feet and muscle strength and all those things, and spoken to so many other people about processed food and, you know, all of these modern sort of misalignment diseases where we're not living in alignment with ourselves have, have become a really important part of my understanding of how I should be living now. Breathing as a lost art. What did you learn when you looked back through history about how people breathe, and, um, what did that tell you about how we're doing it wrong?

James Nestor 21:52 I learned that we didn't need breath work classes hundreds of years ago. We already had bodies that were able to breathe in, properly. We were living in an environment that supported healthy breathing. I love Lieberman's work, by the way.

Steven Bartlett 22:10 Yeah.

James Nestor 22:10 I've learned so much from him, including a lot of the stuff on scales and, uh, and, and breathing.

Steven Bartlett 22:15 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 22:16 So, I learned a lot, a lot from him. So, you know, people say, "Well, how do you know that? We can't go back in time." What you can do is look at indigenous cultures, which is what Lieberman and so many other people have done. And they found they don't have problems with their feet. They don't have problems with their backs. They don't have heart disease. They don't have asthma. Why is it that Mennonites, uh, this is, these are these groups in, uh, the US that live this very traditional lifestyle, right? So, some people say that asthma is, is genetic. So, Mennonites and Quakers who don't, aren't around any technology, right? They have 0.5% of their population has asthma. Meanwhile, in the US, 10% of the population has asthma. So, obviously, the environment has so much to do with our health, and it absolutely affects our breathing for all of the things I mentioned earlier. How are you sitting? How are your stress levels? How are you sleeping? How are you working out? All of these things will weigh upon how healthy you are, uh, able to breathe.

Steven Bartlett 23:21 And so, the, in the c- the context of the modern world, so if we didn't need breath work, you know, a couple of hundred years ago, the introduction of things like pollution I understand, but are there everyday things, like the chair I'm sat in right now and the way that I work every day, that have impacted breathing and then the modalities like asthma and these other things?

James Nestor 23:38 Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, and we could go through a few of those things.

Steven Bartlett 23:41 Please.

James Nestor 23:41 So, when you're sitting, as I sit eight hours a day, I try to stand at the standing desk as well, you are inhibiting your ability to breathe properly. So, I'm sitting forward in this chair right now. Even if I wanted to take a deep breath, it's really hard. I have to struggle to do that. Because my diaphragm, which g-... is right underneath the lungs, is unable to descend properly to allow for that proper inhale.

Steven Bartlett 24:11 Give me an explanation-

James Nestor 24:12 So-

Steven Bartlett 24:12 ... of what the diaphragm is.

James Nestor 24:13 Oh, sure. The diaphragm is this umbrella-shaped muscle that sits underneath the lungs. The lungs are just like two balloons. They don't inflate themselves. They need the diaphragm to come down, and it creates a vacuum, and air comes into the lungs. When we exhale, that diaphragm pushes up and pushes the air out of the lungs. So, that's how we breathe. It's not the lungs doing the work. The lungs are just these fleshy bags, right? It's that diaphragm descending, creating a vacuum, (inhales) air comes in, and that diaphragm ascending, lifting back up, and pushing that air out. So, you need proper diaphragmatic movement in order to breathe properly. When our bodies aren't allowing us to do that, when you're sitting on a bus or sitting on a plane for 12 hours at a time, and you're seated like this, you aren't able to breathe properly. That means you're only breathing into your chest. You aren't accessing all of this other area.

Steven Bartlett 25:17 Ah.

James Nestor 25:17 If you're just breathing into your chest, you have to breathe way more breaths. The reason is, so much of that area you're bringing that air into does not participate in gas exchange. It does not soak up that oxygen that's in the air. So, most of us spend most of our days like this, (exhales)

Steven Bartlett 25:37 Slumped over in the chair, like you. (exhales)

James Nestor 25:40 (exhales) And breathing like that. We can live this way, doesn't mean we're healthy. We can live on three pieces of pizza every day, right? We have enough calories to do that. Doesn't mean we're healthy. So, that's- that's the number one thing. You can sit in a chair properly to breathe, right?

Steven Bartlett 25:58 (inhales)

James Nestor 25:58 But it takes some effort.

Steven Bartlett 26:00 (exhales)

James Nestor 26:00 And if you look at indigenous cultures, again, look at how they're sitting, look at their spines. Like, it's a beautiful thing. They're sitting in a way that is conducive to proper breathing. Any statue, any ancient statue, look at the posture.

Steven Bartlett 26:17 The posture is- For people that can't see this right now-

James Nestor 26:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 26:19 ... the posture is straight up, or is it-

James Nestor 26:21 It is-

Steven Bartlett 26:22 ... curved back?

James Nestor 26:22 It is- it is- it is straight up, but relaxed at the same time. It is having a straight spine. I know, once you learn this, it just, it- it makes you neurotic after a while.

Steven Bartlett 26:33 (laughs)

James Nestor 26:34 But that's the first thing, is to really notice how you're sitting. When we get stressed out, when we're answering emails, we're over a laptop, I spend so much of my life doing this, then we also have a stress response, which further reduces our ability to breathe properly. We start to breathe too much. We start holding our breath, and we breathe too much. Our posture is like this. So, everything is conspiring to make us really poor breathers. And this isn't some far-flung hypothesis I have. It's- it's basic biomechanics of how the body works.

Steven Bartlett 27:08 The diaphragm part's really interesting to me, 'cause the- the-

James Nestor 27:12 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:12 ... you refer to, and many people refer to, the diaphragm as the second heart.

James Nestor 27:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:16 Because it kind of, it's a muscle that is, uh, autonomous to some degree.

James Nestor 27:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:22 Like, the heart, I don't control my heart.

James Nestor 27:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:24 I can control my diaphragm.

James Nestor 27:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:26 But when I don't think about it, it kind of controls itself. Is that accurate? (laughs)

James Nestor 27:29 Yeah, absolutely. It's- it's an autonomic function. But by taking conscious control of that diaphragm, you can control your heart. You can control your blood flow. And that, the diaphragm also does an incredible amount of work pumping blood into the heart and pumping lymph fluid throughout the body. So, when you see people only using 5%, 10% of their diaphragmatic movement, which is considered normal now, just moving the diaphragm this much, they- their hearts have to work so much harder to just pump blood. And their bodies have to work so much harder to pump lymph fluid, which you need to get rid of all that waste, right? The body likes movement. Those fluids need to be moving. So, just by taking a slightly deeper breath and exhaling a little more, you were able to help your heart rate out, uh, which is why your heart rate will start to go down after a while. You're able to help your blood pressure, in some cases. You're able to pump lymph fluid, and more, just by taking a slower, deeper breath. And, uh, you know, just look to the animal kingdom for your guidance on this. We don't need any fancy, um, animation to show us what proper breathing is. Look at a healthy dog sleeping. Look at a healthy infant sleeping and breathing. Look at indigenous cultures, how they sleep, how they breathe. You can't tell they're breathing. And that's what healthy breathing is. It should not be perceptible. (inhales) So, when a lot of people hear about healthy breathing, they wanna overdo it, right? They went, (inhales) "Ah, yeah, I feel great." (exhales)

Steven Bartlett 29:02 (laughs)

James Nestor 29:02 (inhales) If you look at a monk or someone who's a master breather, you cannot tell they're breathing. It's so soft and so subtle, that it just comes in and comes out. That is someone who is balanced, their nervous system is balanced, their breathing is balanced.

Steven Bartlett 29:19 Are these habits we can learn? You talked there about posture and about the diaphragmatic, um, movement, and how, what percentage of the diaphragm we're- we're kind of using, and how much that's filling our lungs. Are these habits we can learn?

James Nestor 29:32 Absolutely.

Steven Bartlett 29:33 'Cause even posture feels like-

James Nestor 29:36 Is it-

Steven Bartlett 29:36 It's like, it's quite hard to sit like that for-

James Nestor 29:38 If you start paying attention to your breathing, your posture is going to get better. It is hard to be leaning over like this and take- take a huge breath. (inhales) Look what happens to your posture. So, form dictates your breathing, your breathing dictates your form. That was written in the Tao, like, 1,200 years ago. So, once you learn how this proper, slow, deep breathing works, your posture, by virtue of that, will get better.

Steven Bartlett 30:07 Would you recommend, 'cause a lot of people do work in offices. I'm one of them.

James Nestor 30:10 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:10 I spend a lot of my days-

James Nestor 30:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:11 ... sat down 10 hours-

James Nestor 30:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:13 ... looking down at a screen. What would you recommend for, for us?

James Nestor 30:16 Well, I think the science is pretty clear on standing desks. Uh, convertible standing desks are really helpful, to sit for part of that time, to stand for part of that time. Whenever I'm on the phone, which is often, I'm standing, so I just press a little button and I go back to standing. When you're standing, you're opening up your chest, these intercostals. You're opening up to allow yourself to naturally breathe deeper breaths. So you can do that sitting, but you just look kind of corny, like-

Steven Bartlett 30:46 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 30:46 ... sitting like this all the time. So I think that that's a good hack. I think that the science is very clear that every couple hours, I'm not very good at this, I'm trying to get better, go for a walk for 10 minutes, take your call while you're walking around to reset things. But that's just one

James Nestor 31:05 of many different components, looking at the posture and its relationship to healthy breathing.

Steven Bartlett 31:10 The, um, when I was reading through your work and I was thinking about having this conversation with you, this is really, I guess slightly obvious, but I also can understand how it's a stupid question, um, which is if nose breathing is so beneficial for our health and wellbeing, then why do we (laughs) have the capability of breathing through our mouths? Do you see what I'm saying?

James Nestor 31:28 It's a great question. How wonderful that we have a backup system in case anything happens to our noses that we don't suddenly die, right? So you can drink through your nose, right? It's really hard to do that-

Steven Bartlett 31:42 (laughs)

James Nestor 31:42 ... but you can and it goes down to your stomach, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Just like with breathing, again, look at the animal kingdom. Look at a cheetah running at 100 kilometers per hour. How is it breathing? In and out through its nose. The only time that a horse starts breathing through its mouth is when it's sick. So that is a sign that it's sick. A horse running at a sprint is breathing through its nose. This is what we, this is the organ we are designed to breathe through, and no one who has studied rhinology would argue otherwise. There are 30 different functions that the nose does for breathing. So not only does it help filter air out and heat air, but it helps capture moisture, about 40% more moisture, so you don't have to constantly be drinking water. When I see people jogging and they're breathing through their mouth and they're carrying, like, four different water bottles, they wouldn't need those water bottles (laughs) if they just learned to breathe through their noses, 'cause the body is designed to capture that moisture. That's what the nose does and all of those hairs do. And then there's nitric oxide, which is this miraculous molecule that plays an essential role in vasodilation, circulation, and more, and it kills viruses and bacteria. This all happens in the nose. This does not happen in the mouth.

Steven Bartlett 33:05 N- nitrous oxide is, is, only happens in the nose? What do you mean?

James Nestor 33:08 Nitric oxide, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:10 Nitric oxide.

James Nestor 33:10 We get six, six times more nitric oxide just breathing through the nose. Six times more.

Steven Bartlett 33:16 How? I don't know.

James Nestor 33:17 And if you... Because of all of these different tissues-

Steven Bartlett 33:20 Oh.

James Nestor 33:21 ... they, they release nitric oxide, and there is some science showing that this boost of nitric oxide can significantly help us defend more from viruses and bacteria, including colds. So breathing in and out through the nose. There is a lot of work in nitric oxide in COVID rehabilitation. Who knew we can produce so much of it in our noses? And if you hum, you can increase that to 15-fold. So humming, mm, you're gonna annoy everyone if you do this-

Steven Bartlett 33:54 Mm.

James Nestor 33:54 ... increases that nitric oxide 15-fold. And there was one study that showed this guy completely got rid of his rhinitis, uh, just by humming for about 10 minutes four times a day. So these are simple tricks you can do. They are free, available for everyone. The humming also helps to calm the body down because we have the vagal nerve, right, vagus nerve-

Steven Bartlett 34:17 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 34:17 ... vagal tone is right along here. So when you hum, mm, you're sending s-

Steven Bartlett 34:23 (hums)

James Nestor 34:23 ... signals to the vagus nerve and you're calming your body down.

Steven Bartlett 34:27 What, what, what is humming doing?

James Nestor 34:30 Humming is stimulating more nitric oxide and allowing it to break free from all of those tissues.

Steven Bartlett 34:35 (hums) So you hum in your nose like (hums) .

James Nestor 34:36 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you can feel the vibration there. So somebody sent me this device, like, three months ago that they now have a device for people who don't want to hum that goes on your nose and hums for you. If that's gonna help you hum, you can do that. But I've found it's just kind of easier to pick a song you like and hum that.

Steven Bartlett 34:56 When you talk about the common cold and, you know, flu and infection, did you see a clear correlation between people that had good breathing habits and the common cold and, um, bad breathing habits?

James Nestor 35:07 There have never been, like, a huge study done, done on that, on humming and nasal breathing and the common, and there never will be, right? No one's, no one's gonna fund that. I can say anecdotally, absolutely. And if you look at the biochemistry, if you look at the physiology, if you look at all the functions of the nose, you can deduce... It seems very clear to me that you will be susceptible less to certain viruses, certain bacteria, by breathing in and out of, of your nose.

Steven Bartlett 35:38 You mentioned COVID there.

James Nestor 35:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 35:39 Your book came out-

James Nestor 35:41 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 35:41 ... right as COVID hit, which is unbelievable timing, I have to say.

James Nestor 35:45 Yeah, yeah. Some people thought I had planned that somehow.

Steven Bartlett 35:49 (laughs)

James Nestor 35:49 Uh, it was, it was interesting, um, the first week the book came out, somebody criticized it for taking advantage of this pandemic without bothering to notice the book was printed and in warehouses six months before (laughs) anyone had ever heard the word COVID, you know?

Steven Bartlett 36:05 Uh-huh.

James Nestor 36:05 And I worked on this book for years and years and years. So yeah, lockdown in the US was in March. This book came out in June.... uh, right-

Steven Bartlett 36:15 Wow.

James Nestor 36:15 ... on the heels of it, which was absolutely bizarre to me. And all of the research looking into breathing patterns, looking into nasal breathing, how that can help rehabilitate people with long COVID and with acute cases of COVID is very solid. And I still don't see anybody talking about this.

Steven Bartlett 36:37 What, what are the most important things that we're not talking about as it relates to things like COVID from, from your research and your book?

James Nestor 36:42 I think the most important... Well, it depends on, on who's talk... People in breathwork communities have been talking, yogis have been talking about-

Steven Bartlett 36:48 Yeah, yeah.

James Nestor 36:48 ... Buddhists have been talking about it. So, I think, in Western medicine, you come in and your doctor assesses your health, listens to your heart, maybe looks at your cholesterol. They're not looking at your breathing. And this is especially important for kids. I cannot tell you how many hundred- thousands by now of parents have written me. Their kids are on all these different pills. None of them are doing anything. They have ADHD. They're flunking out of school. And I am astounded that more pediatricians and more doctors aren't looking into this, because so many millions of kids are suffering because of their breathing is, is so terrible and it's been so terrible for so long that their, their bodies are now rebelling against them.

Steven Bartlett 37:32 And why are kids breathing in such a way? Because you think of- you think of a kid, you think, they... Uh, I think we form these bad habits when we're adults or later on in life, but the thought, the thought that a kid has developed such a bad habit somewhere is quite hard to take.

James Nestor 37:48 See, all roads go back to those skulls, right? (laughs) And that anthropology and those ancient cultures, right? So, these kids are not able to breathe well, because their facial development is, is so retrognathic, which means it has grown so far backwards that their airways aren't able to open up enough. So, whenever they put their heads on a pillow, (snoring sounds) that's what it sounds like. So, it is a problem with facial development that we did not have hundreds of years ago. And you can see this. I spent years looking at ancient skeletons, and they did not have these problems. So, right out of the gate, we're messed up, right? Our s- our facial function is messed up, and it's making it harder for us to breathe. Add on top of that pollution, bad sitting habits, bad breathing habits, and you have a recipe for disaster, which is what has happened for so many kids today.

Steven Bartlett 38:50 So, I have to ask-

James Nestor 38:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:51 ... where that facial, um, issue started, and how that is being passed on. 'Cause, in my mind, evolution or de-evolution or whatever the word would be in this case, stopped. (laughs) I thought we stopped changing and evolving, because we are no longer being selected out of the gene pool.

James Nestor 39:11 There is no stopping evolution. Evolution means change throughout time. It does not mean progress. So, when people use the word evolution to mean we're evolving, uh, better and we have these better capabilities, that's not what the word actually means. It's change throughout time. And we can change for better or for worse. And for the past few hundred years, we have been changing for the worse. This is not my opinion. This is a scientific fact. So, it comes back to that question, why? Why would an animal change for the worse? It goes back to my answer, the environment. We can trace the exact point that our facial structure started growing in this deformed way to make us less susceptible to, to healthy breathing, to... That changed in such a way to make us such poor breathers. And that point is right when industrialized food came into different cultures. So, that happened at different times. Came in first to England and France, then it spread to Germany, then it spread to, you know, Scandinavia, then it spread through the rest of the world. You can see, in a single generation of eating industrialized foods, things that were canned, things that were bottled, things that were baked, things with sugar in it, single generation, 50% of the population will have crooked teeth that didn't have it before. Crooked teeth are indicative of having a mouth that's too small for your face. Your mouth grows too small, teeth have nowhere to grow in, so they grow in crooked. What else is a problem with having a mouth that's too small for your face? You have an airway that's too small. You aren't able to breathe properly. So, we can see that exact point. And researchers have done this for decades and decades, and I've seen these skulls before, after industrialization. And the same story plays out, no matter where you are on the planet. So, that is what is, what has ruined our faces, and that's why we look so different than we did 300 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 20,000 years ago.

Steven Bartlett 41:23 Why did our mouths get smaller at that point?

James Nestor 41:26 Because of, industrialized food elicits very little chewing. You don't need to chew very much when you're eating soft food. So, every... If you think about it, our ancestors chewed for, like, three, four hours a day, chewing raw meat, bones, roots.

Steven Bartlett 41:44 Ah, yeah.

James Nestor 41:45 Think about the food you ate today. Well, maybe not you, 'cause you're probably eating (laughs) healthy food. But, uh, the food that most people are eating-

Steven Bartlett 41:54 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 41:55 ... everything's soft. Takes a few bites, it's gone. There's no rigorous chewing. And if you don't get that early on in life, your skeleature does not develop properly, and your musculature does not develop properly, and you grow a different kind of face that makes you much more susceptible to poor breathing habits.

Steven Bartlett 42:13 Does that then mean that one way we can avoid these-... breathing-related disorders later in life, would be to have our children eating more difficult foods when they're younger.

James Nestor 42:26 Absolutely. And if you look at the reasons why our ancestors all had these pronathic, really strong faces, these huge airways, it's because they were breastfed for a minimum of two years, and after that, they weren't weaned onto applesauce or baby food. They ate adult food, right? (laughs) There was no such thing as Gerbers back then, a few hundred years ago. They went from being breastfed to eating adult food, which requires a lot of chewing. That's the main driver behind how our faces have developed and devolved in the past 300 years.

Steven Bartlett 43:04 The point there about being breastfed for two years-

James Nestor 43:07 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:07 ... why is that consequential?

James Nestor 43:08 This is where I get into a lot of trouble here. So I want to be very- (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 43:12 (laughs)

James Nestor 43:12 Don't worry. I'm gonna-

Steven Bartlett 43:13 Do I get in trouble as well? (laughs)

James Nestor 43:15 ... throw it out to you.

Steven Bartlett 43:15 (laughs) Do you just care? (laughs)

James Nestor 43:16 You might, you... Trust me. So I want to be extremely clear here.

Steven Bartlett 43:21 Okay.

James Nestor 43:21 I am a journalist, and I go out and talk to experts in the field. These are not my opinions. What I'm telling you is what I have been told by dozens and dozens of experts, and I'm not shaming anyone for feeding their children any way they want. That's none of my business, okay? What I have learned from several experts is the stress and chewing required for breastfeeding will help pull the face out and develop a larger airway. Again, I want to be very clear, I'm not shaming modern mothers. You're under an incredible amount of stress. Bottle-feeding, perfectly fine. You want to do that, I think it's great. But that stress... And, and you think about it, like, for two years, if you're constantly pulling that face out, the face is gonna develop differently, right? So, that makes sense to me. But even if a kid is, is bottle-fed, which is great, if you want to bottle-feed a kid, as long as they're eating healthy food that they actually chew after that, I believe, my personal opinion is, you can develop all of that proper facial structuring. You can also use some different orthodontic devices to help push that along, and you will be perfectly fine.

Steven Bartlett 44:46 What is the difference between the bottle and the nipple?

James Nestor 44:50 So-

Steven Bartlett 44:50 Like, in terms of what it does to my...

James Nestor 44:52 Uh, yeah, see, when I, when I mentioned we're both gonna get in trouble here-

Steven Bartlett 44:55 (laughs)

James Nestor 44:55 ... uh, this is what I was talking about.

Steven Bartlett 44:56 (laughs) Okay.

James Nestor 44:57 I will not visually demonstrate-

Steven Bartlett 44:59 (laughs) You have a...

James Nestor 45:00 ... you can look it up on YouTube, anybody, but there is a... It's much easier to feed from a bottle. It requires less, less stress to feed from a bottle. When you are breastfeeding, it is much more activating for the infant to have to glom onto the breast, and the nipple goes actually deep into their mouth, almost down their throat, and it requires more chewing stress. We, we know this.

Steven Bartlett 45:28 Ah, okay.

James Nestor 45:28 Which is why a lot of kids, when they're given the choice between the two, they want the bottle (laughs) 'cause the bottle's easier. They want more food more quickly. And a- and again, I want to be clear, just because you were bottle-fed or whatever early on does not mean you're doomed. Uh, it's... Some of this sounds depressing, but I considered it inspiring and empowering to know the science behind this so you can fix what the core issue is. And I'm convinced that kids who are bottle-fed can be wonderful, perfect breathers by adopting other habits beyond that.

Steven Bartlett 46:03 You mentioned hyperactivity-

James Nestor 46:05 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:05 ... as being correlatory to breathing.

James Nestor 46:08 Mm-hmm. So if you're a parent and you have kids who are having health issues, even if they don't have health issues, look at how they're breathing at night. This is so important. Look at how they're breathing in the day. If they're breathing, the vast majority of their breaths through their mouth, you have to fix that, number one. They will be much more susceptible to asthma, allergies, and other issues later on in life. Especially at night, if they're breathing through an open mouth, and if you can hear them breathing when they're sleeping (breathes heavily) , this is a big red flag that you better look into immediately, because there will be so many downstream issues caused by that breathing pattern.

Steven Bartlett 46:48 Like?

James Nestor 46:49 This is increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of autoimmune issues, increased risks of asthma, ADHD, and more. So some researchers... Th- this is not my words, this is what they told me, they said, "There is no such thing as ADHD. What that is, is sleep-disordered breathing." Period.

Steven Bartlett 47:12 Really?

James Nestor 47:12 They said it is 100% related to your breathing, at night especially. So again, that is not my view. This is what they have said. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I don't think it's too far to say the vast majority of those issues, if your kid has sleep apnea or is snoring, are caused by that. They are not sleeping well. If you are not sleeping well, what do you do all day long? Your body is trying to stay awake, so they're given Ritalin to stay awake, and they're given sleeping pills to go to sleep. Those sleeping pills will make their breathing worse, because they loosen all of the muscles in here (breathes heavily) and they cause more resistance when they're breathing. So even if kids... Even if you hear a slight resistance to it, that is cause for alarm as well. I know this seems overblown, like some, some crazy warning, but you can... There are 500 scientific references available for free on my website. Look at the work by Christian Guilleminault, who was at Stanford for 40 years. He was sounding the alarm in the '70s, and nobody listened to him. And people still aren't listening to this, and it is a serious problem. So what's true for kids is also true for adults, but I'll just cap that off right there.

Steven Bartlett 48:31 I mean, please, do not cap it off, ever. (laughs) I prefer when you talk, so... Um, the ADHD point is fascinating to me because it's been a huge topic of conversation in society-

James Nestor 48:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:40 ... because of the apparent rise, um, in the disorder, but the-

James Nestor 48:44 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:44 ... certain rise in the diagnosis of the disorder.

James Nestor 48:47 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:47 These researchers and scientists that believe that ADHD is purely a consequence of early breathing habits, what evidence have they got for that? Or what studies have they done to show the correlation between how we breathe when we're little and our chance of ADHD?

James Nestor 49:04 When they fix the breathing, the ADHD goes away.

Steven Bartlett 49:07 Really?

James Nestor 49:07 For the majority of the cases. Not for everybody. For the majority of the cases, it disappears. You can look at the studies. (laughs) You know, if you'd- I'm, I'm happy to provide those for you.

Steven Bartlett 49:23 Uh-

James Nestor 49:23 And to me, it makes sense. It's if you're struggling to sleep, you are never gonna be fully aware during, during the daytime, right? And, uh, this is one of the reasons why so many kids get their adenoids taken out, their tonsils taken out, and more. But unless you fix the breathing habit, you can do those surgeries and they can be very helpful. Unless you fix the breathing habits, all of those problems tend to come back. Sometimes even more so. So you're not fixing the core issue, and the core issue is breathing, and breathing retraining, breathing habits.

Steven Bartlett 50:00 Ahead of this, um, conversation, m-my, you know, we were doing some research and we found that study that analyzed more than 11,000 children over six years, beginning at six months of age, and that revealed that children sufferings from sleep-disordered breathing had a higher incidence of behavioral and emotional issues, such as hyperactivity, aggressiveness, depression, and anxiety. They are 50 to 90% more likely to, to develop ADHD-like symptoms than were normal breathers. That blew my mind.

James Nestor 50:30 There it is, right there. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 50:31 Right?

James Nestor 50:31 I'm glad that you-

Steven Bartlett 50:32 Yeah.

James Nestor 50:32 ... you mentioned that and I didn't-

Steven Bartlett 50:33 Yeah.

James Nestor 50:34 Yeah. And there's, there's dozens of studies showing the same thing over and over and over.

Steven Bartlett 50:39 The question then becomes, I guess, is if I have ADHD and I'm 30 years old-

James Nestor 50:44 Uh, yeah, I, I think it depends on who you are.

Steven Bartlett 50:46 Okay.

James Nestor 50:47 Uh, I don't think that there's a blanket prescription or a blanket guarantee on any of this stuff.

Steven Bartlett 50:51 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 50:51 I think it depends on what's the root cause of that ADHD?

Steven Bartlett 50:55 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 50:55 We know in kids, it's treated as a neurological problem, right? If that were true, then the drugs should work, and they don't.

Steven Bartlett 51:02 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 51:03 Right? And, uh, I believe it's a physiological problem, it's a breathing problem, and that, that study is just one of many that, that has espoused that. If you're talking about an adult with ADHD, what I know about adopting healthy breathing habits, you will only benefit. That benefit might be this big, or it might completely transform your life, right?

Steven Bartlett 51:25 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 51:25 You will only know once you do it. So I don't feel comfortable guaranteeing anyone of anything. There might be some respiratory therapists or breathing coaches who will say, "Absolutely, I can cure your ADHD with these breathing practices." That's fine, but, uh, I don't think it's the same prescription for, for everybody. I know it'll help, though.

Steven Bartlett 51:45 Um,

Steven Bartlett 51:46 going further back up this train of thought then, we're talking about, um, exercise and nose breathing at the very start of this thread of thought, and I have sat here with a few people now, I think it was Peter Attia who was talking to me about VO2 max.

James Nestor 52:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:01 A subject matter I don't s-

James Nestor 52:02 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:02 ... still fully don't understand, but from what I understood, it was the amount of oxygen we're able to take from each breath.

James Nestor 52:08 Yep. Yep. So that's, that's a general measurement of the amount of ox- how efficient you are of- at taking up oxygen, which is related to breathing, but it's also related to the respiratory system and how you're able to extract that oxygen from your lungs into your bloodstream. And it's a good gauge of general athletic performance. It's not everything-

Steven Bartlett 52:28 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 52:28 ... and there's been some pushback against using that as a, as a measurement. But, but, it's a general, general gauge, a good tool for that.

Steven Bartlett 52:37 Is there a correlation between our health outcomes, how long we'll live, and our lung capacity, our VO2 max, and all of that stuff? Is there a correlation there?

James Nestor 52:47 So I had the same question years ago, and I started looking into it, and it turns out that numerous studies have found that the healthier and larger your lungs are, the longer you will live. That is the greatest indicator of lifespan, was lung size and lung health.

Steven Bartlett 53:06 The greatest indicator of lifespan.

James Nestor 53:07 The greatest indicator. According to these studies, the Framingham study looked at 5,200 people over the course of 70 years, and they found that the people who lived the longest had the largest and healthiest lung function. They even did studies in which they were looking at people who had, uh, uh, lung transplants, so surgically implanted lungs, those who were given larger lungs lived way longer than th- those given normal size or smaller lungs. So no matter how you get these larger lungs, it's better. And luckily, we don't need to get a transplant to do this. We can practice healthy breathing, we can practice stretches, we can exercise, and this naturally can keep our lung size up. It's very sad when you start looking at these charts of what happens after you're 30, you're almost there, so get ready, it's a, it's a real bummer, but your lung function starts dropping off, uh, th- uh, very quickly. And especially for women, uh, around 50 and 60, your lung function and your lung size starts shrinking, shrinking, shrinking up, which means at the time you need more oxygen more easily, it's much harder to get that. And that's where people's health really starts, uh, disintegrating, they start having problems. The good news is you can stave off this deterioration, this shrinking of your lungs, by doing all the stuff we're talking about. By doing breath work exercises, by exercise. What is yoga but stretching-... and breathing into this lung, and breathing into that lung. So, the yogis knew this thousands and thousands of years ago.

Steven Bartlett 54:46 And it's the, uh, it almost feels like that downward spiral is kind of s- self-reinforcing and self-fulfilling, because if my lung capacity deteriorates, my movement and my exercise, um, capacity will deteriorate, which means my lung capacity will deteriorate, which means I'll move less, which means... It's kind of this downward spiral, right?

James Nestor 55:05 Ab- absolutely. And it's my belief, after studying this stuff for so long, that that is the thing you want to pay attention to, more, more than anything else, especially as you grow older. Your lung function, how much air you can pack into your lungs, how long you can hold your breath. All of this is indicative of your general respiratory function and your general health. So, that, that little hint of using a breath hold every morning to see where you are physically and mentally, I think, is good. They've used it for thousands and thousands of years, and now it's coming back. This is something that a lot of these longevity experts aren't looking into. They're looking into nutrition and exercise. They're not looking into lung capacity. We get more energy from breath than we do from food and drink, right? We take 30 pounds of air in and out of our lungs every single day. And so I- I- I find it interesting, they're focused on all these micronutrients. All that stuff's important, right? I believe, most of it. But from what I know, a lot of them aren't focused very much on their breathing.

Steven Bartlett 56:10 I want to make sure that I have something to, that I can take into my own life there-

James Nestor 56:14 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:14 ... for the expansion of my lung capacity-

James Nestor 56:16 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:16 ... because I, I'm sold on the importance of it. So, um, exercise-

James Nestor 56:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:21 ... expands my lung capacity?

James Nestor 56:22 Yeah, 15, 20%. Just, just by exercising, by virtue of exer- if you're a good exerciser, your lung capacity will, will stay up.

Steven Bartlett 56:30 Cardiovascular exercise, I'm guessing?

James Nestor 56:31 Yes, cardiovascular exercise.

Steven Bartlett 56:33 And then-

James Nestor 56:33 There's ways to access that a little more. If you're-

Steven Bartlett 56:36 Please.

James Nestor 56:36 ... dysfunctionally breathing when you're working out, you're not doing yourself too many favors. So, you have to... Remember those simple, basic things? You have to learn how to take a proper breath, then apply that to your workouts. You will see such an incredible difference once you do this. This is what yoga is good for. It's hard to do yoga without breathing well, right? You can do it, but by virtue of all those different poses, they're meant to open up your chest, right? (sniffs) To expand this area.

Steven Bartlett 57:04 So, yoga, cardiovascular exercise with proper breathing through my nose, breath work practices-

James Nestor 57:10 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 57:10 ... at the start of the day.

James Nestor 57:11 I think biomechanics, the first thing is awareness to any of this stuff. You can take your hands. We can do this while we're s- seated here. You can put it above your sit bones here.

Steven Bartlett 57:21 Yeah.

James Nestor 57:21 And when you breathe in, breathe very, very low. And you want your hands to move out laterally. I don't care what your stomach's doing. Moving out laterally. So, as you breathe in... (inhales)

Steven Bartlett 57:29 When you say low, you mean in my belly? (inhales)

James Nestor 57:32 You want your hands to be moving outwards, okay? (inhales) I don't care what's happening with your lung, uh, with your, uh, stomach. I can hold my breath and move my stomach in and out. So, when people talk about a belly breath, that's not what we're doing. When your hands are moving out laterally, that means your diaphragm is descending. That's how we can see if you're taking a proper, deep breath. So, as you breathe in (inhales) you want your hands to be moving outward. And if you take a cloth measuring tape, you can actually measure your progress this way. The next thing you want to do is take your hands, okay?

Steven Bartlett 58:07 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 58:07 Take your four fingers, place them on your collarbone, and put your... This one's very weird. Place your middle finger right there, so it's only your middle finger that's touching, okay?

Steven Bartlett 58:16 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 58:16 And we're gonna breathe deep. Then we're gonna move that breath up into our chest, okay? (inhales) (exhales) Don't move your shoulders. (exhales)

Steven Bartlett 58:27 (inhales)

James Nestor 58:27 You want to see those fingers naturally separating, okay?

Steven Bartlett 58:31 Ah.

James Nestor 58:31 So, this is not a flexing thing.

Steven Bartlett 58:33 (laughs)

James Nestor 58:33 Your shoulders stay down.

Steven Bartlett 58:35 Like this?

James Nestor 58:37 Just like this, fingers on the collarbone.

Steven Bartlett 58:39 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 58:40 We're gonna take a big breath in to our lower abdomen area.

Steven Bartlett 58:45 (inhales)

James Nestor 58:45 Move it up. And you want your chest to be expanding outward.

Steven Bartlett 58:52 (inhales)

James Nestor 58:52 The last thing we want to do, take your hands and put them, especially you-

Steven Bartlett 58:57 (inhales)

James Nestor 58:57 ... you need to do this.

Steven Bartlett 58:58 (inhales)

James Nestor 58:58 Take your hands, put them around your neck.

Steven Bartlett 59:00 Yeah.

James Nestor 59:01 I want you to do that same breath. You should feel zero tension in your neck. There's none of this going on, okay? It should feel soft and supple. So, let's take that belly to the chest breath. (inhales) If there's any tension, do it again until there's no tension.

Steven Bartlett 59:19 (inhales) (exhales)

James Nestor 59:21 (inhales) Okay. Now, try that again, keeping your shoulders down, okay? Do not move your shoulders up. There's none of this going on.

Steven Bartlett 59:35 Okay.

James Nestor 59:35 You're very soft, very relaxed. Take your hands above the hip bones. When you're breathing in very deep, those hands should be out like this, like wings-

Steven Bartlett 59:45 Yeah.

James Nestor 59:45 ... okay? And you're gonna breathe in deep, and those hands should be moving out laterally. (inhales) (exhales) You will start to feel those organs getting compressed. That's good. You want that. Then you can move it up one more time. So, we're gonna start low, and we're gonna move that breath up to the chest. (inhales) Keep your shoulders down. (exhales) Try it again and keep the shoulders down. (inhales) There you go. (exhales) And those fingers should be separating. So, this is something that you can check in. If those hands are moving out laterally, if those hands are separating on your chest, you are taking a proper biomechanical breath. And that's what you need to focus on. And you'll notice, once you start learning how to access these different areas, you start applying this to working out, and your performance will tend to go up. You'll be less exhausted at the end. You'll just feel better all around.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:48 So, we should expect our-our chest to come, kind of move outwards as we breathe in?

James Nestor 1:00:52 You- you want to see your chest moving outwards, because most of your lungs, the expansion is in your back, but some of that is going to be happening. This is not a pose that you want to do like this, right? You should be very loose, very limber.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:08 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:01:10 And when you breathe in, you want that air to fill all the way up there, but you want to start low first. That means the diaphragm is descending.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:18 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:01:18 Most of the air that is soaked up from the lungs, and that gas exchange, happens at the bottom of the lungs. So, you want to be able to access the bottom of those lungs.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:28 Is there a certain way that I ... 'Cause when you say it's- you want to start by breathing at the bottom.

James Nestor 1:01:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:33 Is ... How do I kn- So, i- the s- the symptom of me breathing at the bottom is it coming out w- my- my- my, sort of, what do they call this, my abdomen coming outwards on the sides.

James Nestor 1:01:45 That's right. Because everyone calls this a belly breath. So, people do this with their belly, but you can move your belly independently of your breathing.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:54 Yeah.

James Nestor 1:01:55 This is a way that you can't cheat. So, a tape measure is good.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:00 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:02:00 And if you get an inch, inch and a half, that's pretty good, but you can work that up. And if you see really good breathers, people who have practiced a lot of yoga and done it the right way, they can have this massive expansion, and this is what ties into free divers. Free divers are the experts at accessing every square inch of their lung capacity to fill it with air, and that's what they do, which is why, if you ever see free divers, go to one of these competitions, they're short people, tall people, fat people, whatever, they all have these enormous chests-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:35 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:02:35 ... because they've been able to develop this incredible lung capacity.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:40 One of the things that, um, I think causes shallow breath is this kind of constant state of fight or flight, stress, anxiety, screens, social media. And it's funny, 'cause whenever people would- would have been listening to this podcast and started- heard you talk about breath, and they would realize that they were probably, at that exact moment, doing really shallow breaths. You talk about these free divers who are able to extract, you know, 80 ... use 80, 90% of their diaphragm or more.

James Nestor 1:03:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:11 Where y- you said w- we use 10, roughly 10%.

James Nestor 1:03:13 We use about 10%, and- and oftentimes less than that, the average person.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:18 What is the correlation between, like, stress and breathing? And also, I'm talking now about, like, the everyday angst of life.

James Nestor 1:03:25 Mm-hmm. So, we've talked about the skeleton, we've talked about anthropology, we've talked about biomechanics and posture, but something else that ties into this, you're 100% right, is- is psychology, is your brain. So, how you breathe affects how your brain works, affects your anxiety, but your anxiety also affects how you're breathing. So, again, it's another one of those circles. What happens so often is, when we're at work, we're so sensitized to threats and to fear that we overreact when something happens. Even though it's not threatening our life, we get a nasty email from a friend or a email from the boss that's disappointed at the last project you did, and we get stressed out, right? And so, what- what is the physiological response to stress is (inhales deeply) we clench up, we hold our breath, and then we breathe like this. (exhales sharply) And we hold our breath again, and we breathe like this. (exhales sharply) You think about thousands of years ago, when we were out in the wild, what would we do if there was a threat approaching? You'd hold your breath to be silent, and then you breathe too much to get your respiratory system ready to either fight it off or to run away. So, we're having this same response in our day-to-day lives now because we're so over-sensitized to it. So, researchers have different names for this. They call it emal apnea, or continuous awareness. I mean, there's an academic name for it, partial attention syndrome. Um, I prefer emal apnea. Easier to remember. No matter what you call it, it's the idea that when you're in the office place, you're breathing dysfunctionally because of this constant stress loop. And they've found ... And there was some NIH studies on this. They've found that breathing this way can have long-term damage to your health, high blood pressure issues, all of the things we had talked about, metabolic dysfunctions and more, which makes sense 'cause you're just (inhales deeply) constantly in this loop of fear and threat and stress. So, the quickest, most effective way, way more than drugs, to take control of this stress is to take control of your breathing, and this has been documented time and time again. So, when you notice you're breathing this way, you stop.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:52 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:05:54 What I like to do is breathe two breaths in and then an exhale. It looks like this. (inhales deeply) (exhales deeply) That resets your respiratory system. That resets your breathing pattern.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:08 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:08 And then you can do a few rounds of that and go back to very simple five second in, five second out. So, let's just pretend-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:15 Yeah.

James Nestor 1:06:16 ... you're in line at the airport.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:18 (growls)

James Nestor 1:06:18 Someone's cut you off. You ordered something at Starbucks. They gave you the wrong-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:22 Ah, it's

Narrator 1:06:22 That happens often.

James Nestor 1:06:23 You know, all the things that are just-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:25 Yeah.

James Nestor 1:06:25 ... drive us crazy nowadays. At that moment, I want you to breathe in.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:32 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:32 Pause. Breathe in again.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:34 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:36 Let it out.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:38 (exhales sharply)

James Nestor 1:06:38 Relax yourself a little bit when you're doing these breaths, okay?

Steven Bartlett 1:06:41 Again? (laughs)

James Nestor 1:06:41 Breathe in.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:42 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:43 Breathe in again.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:46 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:46 And let it out.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:47 (exhales sharply)

James Nestor 1:06:48 Do that one more time. Breathe in.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:51 (inhales deeply)

James Nestor 1:06:51 Little more subtle. Let in, uh, again.... and let it out. So, you did this in a very exaggerated way, which is fine.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:00 Uh-huh.

James Nestor 1:07:00 But you can do this so no one can tell you're doing it. You can do it very subtle. You probably feel a little different now than you did before.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:07 Yeah, so much different.

James Nestor 1:07:08 Mm-hmm. You can return to then a slow, low rhythmic breathing pattern from there, or whatever makes you comfortable. I like five seconds in, five seconds out. Also, what's beneficial for people, if it's comfortable for them, is four seconds in, six out will really mellow you out. You could try that right now. Breathe in. (inhales) Okay. First of all-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:30 That's okay.

James Nestor 1:07:30 ... slow.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:31 Okay.

James Nestor 1:07:31 I should not be-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:32 Yeah. Yeah.

James Nestor 1:07:32 ... seeing you breathe here.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:33 Okay. You shouldn't see it, okay.

James Nestor 1:07:34 So we're gonna breathe in just very, very lightly. We're gonna relax here. We're gonna-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:37 Why does it matter if you see it?

James Nestor 1:07:39 Because you're trying too hard.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:40 Okay. I'm not surprised.

James Nestor 1:07:41 You, this is not... There is a time and place for the (inhales)

Steven Bartlett 1:07:44 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:07:45 This is not it.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:47 Okay. (laughs)

James Nestor 1:07:48 Okay?

Steven Bartlett 1:07:48 Okay. Right.

James Nestor 1:07:49 So breathe in, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four, five, six. Breathe in, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four, five, six. Doesn't have to be that exact pattern, but this will trigger all of that parasympathetic response in your body. You can see this if you're looking at your heart rate variability. It's amazing to see the, the difference that this happens just after a few breaths. Look at, looking at your HRV, looking at your heart rate, looking at your stress levels.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:29 What is it doing? You mentioned parasympathetic and re-resetting the resp-

James Nestor 1:08:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:33 ... respiratory system.

James Nestor 1:08:34 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:34 But if I, you know, what is the parasympathetic and the respiratory sym- system for dummies?

James Nestor 1:08:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:40 What is that?

James Nestor 1:08:41 So, how you breathe is going to activate your nervous system function. Your nervous system function is going to activate everything in your body. So we can take conscious control of our breathing. We can't take conscious control of our heart rate, or liver function, or any of that. We can take control of our breathing. When we take control of our breathing, we can hack into our nervous system. So you can be in a sympathetic state, just like we were. You take a couple of those double inhales and exhales. That is-

Steven Bartlett 1:09:06 What's sympathetic state?

James Nestor 1:09:07 Sympathetic state is the act, the fight or flight.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:10 Okay.

James Nestor 1:09:10 This is the action part of your, uh, nervous system. When you're in this state, you are ready for action. And what happen, which is great, we want to be ready for action. We want to be ready to fight or run away from stuff. We do not want to be in this state all day long.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:28 Anxiety. Angst. Stress.

James Nestor 1:09:29 Anxiety, stress, because this is where autoimmune issues and so many other problems come from, by constantly staying stressed. We want stress. We want to be able to access stress for short amounts of time, then we want to flip back into this parasympathetic, this relaxing state. If you look at, once again, animals in the wild, even look at, like, a gazelle that's been attacked. You know, five minutes later, it's just sleeping.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:55 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 1:09:55 So it has a nervous system that's able to pivot from one to the other. Unfortunately, we live in an environment where we are always activating, always pushing towards that sympathetic, and it's making us sick, really, really sick. So your breathing is the quickest way of taking control of acute stress. So pills work, okay, other modalities work, but in that moment is when you need the most help. And your breathing is the thing that can get you there.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:25 So people that have chronic stress must have awful breathing?

James Nestor 1:10:29 Absolutely. And they've, they've documented that. They've looked at their breathing, they've looked at their carbon dioxide levels. And carbon dioxide is indicative of how slow you're breathing. If your levels are very low, that means you breathe like this. (pants) So you're just off-gassing all of this CO₂. And they're always low.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:47 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 1:10:47 Especially for anxiety and panic as well. They're always low, extremely low. You ask someone with acute panic or anxiety to hold their breath, this is usually what happens. (breathes rapidly) I'm never doing that again.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:03 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:11:03 I've seen this hundreds and hundreds of times. So by breathing slowly, you're making them more comfortable with more CO₂. You're making them more comfortable with their nervous system function with themselves, which is why this assessment of a breath hold is very useful and so important. It's not only a diagnostic, it's therapeutic. Because while you're holding your breath, you're also in the action of training yourself to tolerate more CO₂, which will calm your body down.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:32 And going back to this point about parasympathetic and the nervous system and anxiety, um, why does having an, an extended exhale help with anxiety? So you said-

James Nestor 1:11:44 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:44 ... breathe in for four, breathe out for six.

James Nestor 1:11:46 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:46 Why d- why does extending that exhale by two seconds help with stress and anxiety?

James Nestor 1:11:50 So if you really pay attention, and a lot of people have problems doing this, is, which is why it's helpful for them to look at their WHOOP or Oura or whatever, you can place your hand over your heart. And when you inhale, you can feel your heart rate increase. When you exhale, it slows down.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:11 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 1:12:11 This is how HRV works. This is how it's calculated, is the difference in time on that, the shortest distance to the longest distance. Uh, and this is looking at your nervous system function, respiratory sinus arrhythmia. So how you breathe affects how, how many times your heart beats, right? So if you're exhaling, which slows the heart rate down more, what's gonna happen to your heart rate? It's gonna start slowing down more. And that exhale, that slowing down and telling your body you're in a safe place, that it can relax, is what triggers this response by the nervous system.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:48 Interesting. So it's like tricking the, tricking the body into believing that-

James Nestor 1:12:51 It's, it's such a simple hack. Um, and a lot of people, they say, "Oh, this can't be true." But so many of us have these wearables. You can check it for yourself-

Steven Bartlett 1:13:00 Mm-hmm.

James Nestor 1:13:00 ... in, in real time to look at your heart rate variability changing your breathing pattern. Look at your blood pressure too. For many people, they can just switch their breathing. After a couple of minutes, you can see drops of 15 points. Not for everybody, but for some people, 10 to 15 points, just by switching your breathing. (paper rusts)

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Steven Bartlett 1:14:13 you try this out. (page turns) Well, we, we talked about the pandemic earlier on and COVID. One of the big conversations you must have seen playing out was that-

James Nestor 1:14:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:14:19 ... masks are, um, bad for us, because it's like trapping carbon dioxide in-

James Nestor 1:14:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:14:25 ... inside the mask, which is making us sick. I even see people having this conversation right now on- online in the wake of the pandemic. They're saying, you know, these masks that we put on kids, they've caused sickness and illness in kids. Um, carbon dioxide is kind of seen as this poison. What is your POV on all of this?

James Nestor 1:14:42 Oh, man. This is even more controversial than the whole breastfeeding thing-

Steven Bartlett 1:14:45 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:14:45 ... but let's go there. Okay, so surgeons and dentists have been wearing masks for 100 years.

Steven Bartlett 1:14:54 Yeah.

James Nestor 1:14:54 They're able to function just fine. They wear good quality masks, and they wear them when they need to be wearing them. There are several studies that support if everyone wears a mask, and if everyone is wearing that mask properly, it does seem to stem some transmission of COVID and other viruses. That's, that's the truth. Now, let's look at the other side. Has been telling... Uh, we've been telling people that social distance, at least in the US, they s- after six months of social distance- distancing, which absolutely worked, they said, "No, now you can go out as long as you're wearing a mask." Did that do anything to stem the spread of COVID? From what I see, no. (laughs) So there's, there's a number of problems. Most of the masks that people are wearing are terrible quality. They're filled with chemicals that you are inhaling, and they're causing a lot of health issues. Okay? That's, that's number one. Second one is most of us are wearing them improperly. We're not wearing them in the right way. The third one is people feel this sense of comfort, uh, that they're actually protected wearing this mask, which is not the case in many situations. And this is because I've done my own research looking at carbon dioxide levels in indoor environments and have found these places that we were told that we could go to and we would be safe as long as we're wearing masks, completely not the case. Some of these places had such high CO₂ that it meant every seventh breath you were inhaling was someone else's breath backwash, was someone else's exhale. So I don't care how many masks you're wearing, they are not going to stop the spread of these diseases if you are in an environment where so much of that air has been recycled.

Steven Bartlett 1:16:49 So, that's really interesting to me. I've never heard this before. The, the idea that the amount of carbon dioxide in the room you're in, which I guess is determined by how well ventilated it is, has a relationship with how much recycled air I take in. How?

James Nestor 1:17:05 Absolutely. And this, I learned all this after the book came out. I was talking to a pulmonologist who said, "You really need to look into indoor CO₂." I said, "Well, why?" He said, "That is a good, uh, way of determining how much of the air has been recycled." So I bought one of these, which is a carbon dioxide meter, and I've been recording our CO₂ during this interview.

Steven Bartlett 1:17:28 Jesus Christ. (laughs)

James Nestor 1:17:29 (laughs) And, um, so, um, if you are outside, it's about 418... It depends where you are, 418, 19 parts per million CO₂. That's healthy, right? Even though CO₂ is going up, it's causing climate change. We all know that. But for breathing, that is perfectly healthy. Once you get into 800 parts per million, some studies have found that-

Steven Bartlett 1:17:56 (laughs) Sorry, it's going up.

James Nestor 1:17:58 ... when they are testing people, when they are testing students, you see a 20% decline in test results just from 800. By the time you get to 1,000, you start suffering from things like eye irritation, sore throats, other issues. So we're probably breathing in every one in every 30 breaths that I'm breathing in is your breath or the cameraman's breath. By the time you get to 2,500, you're in really bad shape. One in every 17 breaths is, is a breath you're breathing from somebody else. So, we have been told by authorities that we should only worry about levels that are up to 5,000 parts per million. That is completely false. There are over 18 studies that show levels over 800 into 1,000 can potentially cause problems with bone demineralization, uh, kidney calcification, and chronic inflammation. And so just since we've been sitting in this interview, we started off at 700 and now we're at 1,100. And if we were to continue working in here for the next few hours, this could be up to 1,500, 1,700, which has been shown to have serious, uh, issues with, with cognitive function and physical function.

Steven Bartlett 1:19:21 That's very scary. And it, it calls for a redesign of this studio, because I mean, putting on the air conditioning, would that help? Because that would, th- that would be-

James Nestor 1:19:30 No. It's recycling the same air, unless that air is, is coming in from outside. The-

Steven Bartlett 1:19:36 Does that air come from outside?

James Nestor 1:19:39 I don't think so. I think it's recycled. And, uh, a really scary study I read was, a lot of schools are at 1500 to 2000. Um, several studies have found this. They have shown a 50% dic- decrease in test results when students were exposed to air with that much CO2 in it. 50% decrease in test results from 1500 to 2000. I've recorded levels up to 4000 and 5000 in bars and subways and more.

Steven Bartlett 1:20:13 Jesus.

James Nestor 1:20:14 Yeah. This isn't my, uh, uh, hypothesis either. This is something I was told about, about a year after the book came out. And I've seen a lot of scientific studies since, and I sent some of those to your team, just to show that this isn't something I'm making up.

Steven Bartlett 1:20:30 The, the ones you sent to my team, I've, I have, um, some notes here I can pull up. Um, in one study of 24 employees, cognitive scores were 50% lower when the participants were exposed to 1400 PPM of CO2, compared with 550 PPM during a working day. We're nearly there. (laughs) So I am 50% dumber because you've been breathing so much. (laughs)

James Nestor 1:20:57 I start to, uh, and I recom- highly recommend nobody get one of these.

Steven Bartlett 1:21:02 Why?

James Nestor 1:21:02 Because you go crazy.

Steven Bartlett 1:21:04 Really?

James Nestor 1:21:04 Wherever you are. On an airplane, I've, uh, seen 2700-

Steven Bartlett 1:21:08 Really?

James Nestor 1:21:08 ... parts per million. And you wonder why you feel like crap after a long flight. And sometimes it goes up and then it comes down, 'cause they put in more oxygen, but usually when the plane is warming up, it's 25, 2600, which is why a lot of people just immediately go to sleep, you know. I think maybe they're doing it on purpose to mellow everyone out. But if you think about cognitive function, I mean, this is a 50% decrease-

Steven Bartlett 1:21:32 It's-

James Nestor 1:21:32 ... in test results is insane. And to think you have kids in these schools taking tests to go into college and all of the air is recycled, I mean, it's just... When I mentioned at the beginning of our chat here that the modern world is conspiring (laughs) to make us unhealthy, I think this is an example. And from what I've seen, very few people are paying any attention to this, and it's real. You're reading the scientific studies over there. This isn't stuff that I'm feeding to you.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:04 This, it almost sounds like I'm smoking. It sounds like I'm inhaling... You know, 'cause we talk about s- people have got to smoke outside to keep us healthy.

James Nestor 1:22:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:11 So we changed the laws in this country so you can't smoke indoors.

James Nestor 1:22:14 Mm-hmm. Well, at least smoking is fun and it gives you a buzz, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:22:18 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:22:18 CO2 is, you can't smell it. It's really hard to sense it. It's invisible. And yet, it's always there. Any outside environment, you don't have to worry about it. But indoor environments, especially in the buildings we've created now that don't have windows, I can't tell you how many hotels, sometimes really nice hotels, I go to open the windows, my God, they've glued the windows shut, right?

Steven Bartlett 1:22:44 Hmm.

James Nestor 1:22:44 And overnight, I watch this just ticking up, 100 points every couple hours.

Steven Bartlett 1:22:51 Jesus. (laughs)

James Nestor 1:22:51 (laughs) And you wonder why you wake up so, feeling so much worse than you did when you first came in there. So this is, this is real stuff. And in a room like this, there's nothing you can do because the HVAC system has been designed to just recycle the air over and over and over again. My hunch, and I'm probably wrong about this, in the next few years, people are gonna start requiring, uh, bosses of companies are going to require that there be fresh air for their employees, because I think you're gonna see big problems with performance. I mean, even just sitting here, now that you know this-

Steven Bartlett 1:23:30 I feel tired. (laughs)

James Nestor 1:23:32 ... don't you feel- (laughs) So some of that's a placebo effect, sure. But-

Steven Bartlett 1:23:36 I felt great before you said it. Now, I'm like, "Whoa." (laughs)

James Nestor 1:23:37 ... but don't you feel a little like, warm and tired?

Steven Bartlett 1:23:41 (laughs)

James Nestor 1:23:41 So, so take my word for it. Do not travel with one of these. It will make you a complete neurotic. I'm doing it because I want to document it. I'm gonna be updating future editions of the book with some of this information, 'cause I didn't know about this when the book came out. But I think people really need to know about this. And start asking hotels, "Can I open the window?" Start at, before you rent an office, "Can I open the win-" Like, it's that easy. You just need to open it a little bit.

Steven Bartlett 1:24:08 Hmm.

James Nestor 1:24:08 It makes a huge difference just opening it a little bit.

Steven Bartlett 1:24:12 People can't see this, but we sit in a room here and we like, air seal it for sound reasons.

James Nestor 1:24:16 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:24:17 So we don't have any windows in here. Um, and we actually m- this w- th- this is a replica of my old kitchen, which was on the top floor of this building. So we, the reason, which had this wonderful huge balcony over there that you could open the whole side of the, the, the, um, that side of the building and walk outside into the fresh air.

James Nestor 1:24:35 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:24:36 But we moved it down here and ma- made this little chamber because of sound reasons. I do sit in here for sometimes nine hours a day. S- there's been an occasion, a few times, where I've done three podcasts in a day. And I feel that, now you've said it, I do fati- feel incredibly fatigued. I'm sure it's because I'm talking and, you know, having really, you know, sort of challenging my brain a little bit. But I, I