Joe Rogan Experience #1506 - James Nestor

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   All right, we're rolling.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      All right, we're rolling. Uh, first of all, I really enjoyed your book. It was really excellent. I got deep into it. I listened to the audiobook and it's in your voice, so this will be weird, sitting in. It's always weird when you meet somebody for the first time and, you know, you've heard their book and you hear them talking for, like, long periods of time, and then they're right there. But, uh, I really enjoyed it, man.

   2. JNJames Nestor0:18

      I guess I can't change the, uh, tone of my voice, then?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      No, don't do that.

   4. JNJames Nestor0:21

      You're used to it? Okay.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Just keep it-

   6. JNJames Nestor0:22

      I'll keep it steady.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      ... keep it the way it is. Keep it, keep it real. (laughs) Um, what, what made you wanna write this? Like, wh- where did this come from?

   8. JNJames Nestor0:31

      It was actually two things. Uh, about 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I had this really weird experience. I was in San Francisco. There's a lot of breath work, yoga stuff going on there. And I kept getting pneumonia. I surf a lot at, at Ocean Beach-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:43

      Mmm.

   10. JNJames Nestor0:43

       ... and I thought that that was the reason. So I kept getting bronchitis, pneumonia. Year after year, it just kept happening. So a doctor friend of mine suggested a breathing class might help. I didn't know much about this, but went down, signed up, and was sitting in the corner of this studio, cold room, legs crossed, breathing in this rhythmic pattern. Nothing crazy, just (breathing rapidly) and then really slow. And I sweated through my T-shirt, through my socks. My hair was sopping wet. Sweat all over my face. So I went back to her and I said, "What happened?" Like, "You're a doctor, you should know this." And she said, "Oh, you must have had a fever," or, "The room must have been too hot." So she had no idea. But I didn't know what to do with that story, so I just kind of filed it away, forgot about it for a number of years until I met some free divers. These are people who have, through the power of will, enabled themselves to hold their breath for six, seven, eight minutes at a time, and dive to depths far below what any scientist thought possible. So I thought, wow, there's something in breathing here that I don't know about and I figured other people might not know about as well.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       Ah, that's r- that's, that's really interesting. You know, um, I've known a bunch of free divers, and, uh, I've known a, a bunch of, uh, jujitsu people that got really into yoga, primarily because of Rickson Gracie. Rickson Gracie, do you know who he is?

   12. JNJames Nestor2:08

       Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       Yeah. Famous, uh, probably the most famous of the gr- of the l- like, the classic jujitsu people. He's known as being the very best. He was, like, one of the, uh, original, real pioneers of jujitsu in America as well. And there's this, uh, documentary on him called Choke. Have you seen it?

   14. JNJames Nestor2:27

       I have not, no.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:28

       It's really fascinating. This documentary, he's doing all this crazy stomach breath stuff, the yogi stuff, you know, 'cause he's r- he's really into yoga as well, for flexibility and balance and all those different things. And he was, uh, probably the first guy to introduce yoga to jujitsu as well. But, um, him and his son, who's also a world champion in jujitsu, just stressed constantly that it's all about the breath, and that breathing is... it's everything. That it's everything for jujitsu, it's everything for martial arts, it's everything for your mindset.

   16. JNJames Nestor3:01

       Mm-hmm. You're gonna find that in the, uh, foundation of so many different sports. I think a lot of that has been forgotten. I know the coaches in the '50s used to have their runners take a big mouthful of water, run around the track, and then they'd have to spit out that same amount of water into a cup to force them to breathe through their nose.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:19

       Mmm.

   18. JNJames Nestor3:19

       To force them to move their diaphragms up and down a little more, because breathing is so essential to their recovery, their endurance, and their performance.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:27

       Yeah, one of the things I found interesting about your book was the experiment with plugging up the nose for pro- what, did you guys do it for a month? Is that what it was?

   20. JNJames Nestor3:35

       10 days.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:35

       10 days. And the, that 10 d- I... My nose was broken most of my life. I, I had a useless nose till I was 40, and then I got an operation to have my deviated septum corrected and the turbinates shaved down and, man, it changed my life. It really did. Like, I didn't realize, like, what... Like, the term mouth breather is a really interesting term, right? 'Cause it's a term for a moron. But I, I felt like a moron, um, like, after I got my nose fixed. I was like, "Why didn't I do this before?" Like, I was robbing myself of oxygen.

   22. JNJames Nestor4:07

       Yeah, and there's so much science supporting how injurious it is to constantly be breathing through your mouth. There's, there's no debate about that. But what people don't realize is about 25 to 50% of the population habitually breathes through their mouths.

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:21

       Mmm.

   24. JNJames Nestor4:21

       And they don't realize the neurological problems that this causes, the respiratory problems this causes, problems with snoring, sleep apnea, even metabolic disorders. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So I had been talking to the chief of rhinology research at Stanford. We'd done many interviews over a series of months. He's a big nose guy. So he said, "This is the most amazing organ, no one's talking about it." At the NIH, there's no school for studying the nose and its effects, and he thought that that was criminal. So he had warned me how bad mouth breathing was, but no one knew how quickly that damage came on-So, uh, we, we knew that after years, it can change the structure of your face. It's so common in kids that it has a term called adenoid face. You, you see these kids with very long faces 'cause they've been mouth-breathing so long that their faces have actually... The, the musculature and the skeletature has, have changed.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:12

       It changes your skeleton?

   26. JNJames Nestor5:13

       Yeah, yeah. It, it, it makes, it creates a longer face, so... And that, that also makes these people much more apt to snoring and sleep apnea, so... But, but no one knew if, if a month of mouth-breathing would be bad, a year, like, how soon those, those issues came on. So, I asked him, I said, "Well, why, why don't you test it? You're one of the best universities in, in the world. Y- you have the means to do this." And he thought, in his words, it would be unethical because (laughs) he knew how damaging that it could be for people, and so I volunteered. I said, "Well, why don't you test it on me? I'll get somebody else to do it." Uh, they had no money for this, so we had to pay for this study, um, just to experience what, what that was like. And, and the point wasn't do, to do some, like, jackass stunt. It was to lull ourselves into a position. My body certainly knew, I think I was mouth-breathing through much of my youth, and that 25% to 50% of the population knows, and, and to actually measure what happens.

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:09

       Now, do you think... There, there was some bacterial growth that was inside your nose as well from this.

   28. JNJames Nestor6:13

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:13

       Do, do you think that some of that could be attributed to just the i-... the act of plugging the nose? 'Cause you physically plugged it. It's not like you chose to breathe out of your mouth. You actually, like, c-... You, you, you closed up the opening.

   30. JNJames Nestor6:25

       Yeah. That's, that's right. And, and it could. No one knows for sure b- because the less you use your nose, the less you're going to be able to use your nose, just like any other muscle.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Have they been replicated?…

   1. JNJames Nestor15:00

      And, uh, Navy physicists did these tests. It was reported in the, in the New York Times.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      Have they been replicated?

   3. JNJames Nestor15:06

      They haven't found someone who had the powers of Swami Rama. They found, I think Wim's about as close as we've gotten to that guy.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      So, this is something that is like, you know, like, Michael Jordan didn't start out good at basketball, right? He learned, he practiced, he got better. And this, you could say the same thing perhaps about breathing?

   5. JNJames Nestor15:26

      Oh, for sure. And just look at free divers, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:29

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JNJames Nestor15:29

      I was at this, my, my first foray into that world was at the World Freediving Championship in Greece, and you see these people, some of them are short, some of them are tall, some of them are large, small, I mean, from all walks of life, every imaginable country, something like 30 countries had representatives there, and these people weren't born with these enormous lungs, right? They, they did this by the power of will, by (inhales) breathing and expanding their lung capacity. And so once I saw them, all of these people able to do this, once they explained to me, they said, "You know, the benefits of breathing go beyond just diving deep. It can allow us to heal our bodies of problems. It can allow us super endurance. It can allow us to do all these things that we've been told are medically impossible." And I heard this, I didn't believe them, but I spent several years in the field talking to people at Stanford, Harvard, you know, uh, the, the best, the, the leaders in the field, and finding this research, and what they told me was absolutely true.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:36

      The, the idea that, uh, there's a guy like this Swami Rama, is that how you say his name?

   9. JNJames Nestor16:40

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:40

       That he can do that, it's, it's very appealing to me and very interesting to me because, uh, even though breathing has been around for a long time, you know, everybody knows that there's d- different styles of breathing and holotropic breathing is pretty popular, and I, I always think even though people know the benefits of many things, very few people go all the way with stuff. Like, y- you know, if you, if, if you just talk to an average person, uh, can someone run 250 miles? Most people would say no, but I know people that have done it. So, it is possible, but you, you, you have to find someone who'll go all the way and do it for a long time, a long time. So, this, this Swami Rama guy...There has to be someone else like that out there.

   11. JNJames Nestor17:30

       Yeah, and they're probably not on Facebook, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       No.

   13. JNJames Nestor17:33

       They're- they're-

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       They're probably in a ashram somewhere.

   15. JNJames Nestor17:35

       ... probably not ex- ab- abso- absolutely.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:36

       Yeah.

   17. JNJames Nestor17:36

       So, this was a guy who grew up in the Himalayas, who by the age of four was studying yoga. He was meditating, he was breathing, so he lived his entire life in that world learning these tricks. And he got so good at it, that he was able, on command, to make his heart beat 300 times a minute. 300 times a minute. Th- so it was so fast, they were looking at the EKG readout and they said, "He's stopped his heart." Then they looked at it a little closer and said, "No, actually it's beating 300 times a minute." And then he would just snap out of it. So, the- these stories sound so impossible, they sounded impossible to me, but it's all documented. So, I just don't know in- in the modern world, do we have the capacity, is there someone out there who's willing to stay off their phone, stay off Netflix-

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       (laughs)

   19. JNJames Nestor18:27

       ... and focus on one thing for 30 years? I- I'm not sure. Maybe, hopefully, but who knows?

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       Th- that was what was so interesting listening to the book. I was like, "God, I- I wanna know what's possible, but I don't wanna do it." (laughs)

   21. JNJames Nestor18:42

       (laughs) Let- let other people do it, right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:44

       Yeah, I don't wanna (laughs) I do- I don't have that kind of time, man. But, I- I've- I believe there's something to it because of my own personal benefits that I've gotten from breathing exercises is one of the reasons why that- that- that's what led me to your book. And, um, eh- especially in the sauna. Over the last year, uh, I got a sauna in my house and I've gotten really into... Well, I have a sauna here as well, but I got really into doing these daily sessions of 180 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes and you- as you can imagine, the last 10 minutes are really uncomfortable. You know, when you get down... when it's 15 minutes in and you know you got 10 more minutes to go, it's not fun, you know. But when I breathe, when I concentrate on these- these breathing exercises, and I- I have a bunch of different ones that I do, um, and one of them that I do is I concentrate on taking shallow breaths and holding my breath for as long as I can. And there's this panicked moment where you feel like you have to breathe but you really don't. You really don't. You just gotta get over that panicked moment, and then there's like a weird calm that comes over and you could last much, much longer than you can. And then when I do breathe in, I just concentrate on doing it slowly.

   23. JNJames Nestor19:57

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:57

       Don't- don't- don't (gasps) don't let myself panic and thr- like time just flies by. It's crazy. Time flies by and because I'm thinking about the breathing, I'm barely paying attention to the fact that I'm profusely sweating and- and fr- my body's not freaking out as much. So I do these little weird tricks that I- I play on myself, uh, inside the sauna. And in- in concentrating on breathing and long deep breaths through my nose and holding it and then long exhales through my nose, when I'm doing that, it- it makes everything easier. It's weird. It's- it's a- it's- i- uh, like it makes your body, for whatever reason, m- more accepting of the extreme heat.

   25. JNJames Nestor20:37

       Well, that's what I love about breathing is it allows us these levers into systems that we can't otherwise control. So, the autonomic nervous system is supposed to be beyond our control. It's called autonomic, automatic, can't control it. We can through- through breathing. You- you may not be able to control your liver function, or your stomach, or your heart, but when you breathe a certain way, you can influence all those functions and you can start taking control of these other elements of your body as Wim is showing-

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:06

       Yeah.

   27. JNJames Nestor21:07

       ... with not only the nervous system, but with immune function. So all of this was supposed to be impossible until he showed up and said, you know, "Why don't you test me?" Instead of just (laughs) just talking, we have measurements, we have equipment to test this stuff. If we can measure it, we can study it. If we can study it, we can prove if it's right or wrong. And that- that's what I find is- is so interesting and accessible about breathing as well. Even if someone has a Pulse Ox or you have a heart rate variability monitor, you can breathe in certain ways and instantly see what it does to your body. So, people who say that this is a placebo effect don't understand that this is a biological function that you're taking control of. And if you can elicit such a strong response in a couple of minutes, imagine what you can do in a couple of days or a couple of weeks or a couple of months. And we're starting to see that with Wim and some of his minions and- and other people who have been breathing as a way to heal themselves of chronic conditions.

   28. JRJoe Rogan22:04

       Yeah, Wim is a really interesting sort of, uh, uh, he- he's- he's a great spokesperson for it because he drinks Heineken and eats spaghetti. Like he's a weirdo, you know what I mean? And he swears a lot and he's fun and he's- he's silly. Eh, what I like about him is the fact that he- he doesn't seem like this mystical person that you'll- you- you can't relate to. He's very relatable.

   29. JNJames Nestor22:31

       Yeah, and I think that that's where breathing really needs to move from this- this New Agey-ness in- into more pragmatic and practical area, and he is- Wim is like the everyman, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan22:41

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   I think the first…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      thing can be activated, whether it's... Uh, whe- wh- whether you wanna call it energy or spirit. There's, there's different mindsets and inspiration. And through these different mindsets and inspiration, you can achieve some pretty spectacular results, physical results. And people that are in this mindset, they, they can perform better. There's something about them in terms of martial arts. There's something about that. So I've always wondered, like, if someone really pursued this without all the nonsense, without all the chicanery, if you really pursued this, what could be done?

   2. JNJames Nestor30:36

      I think the first thing you do is get these people in a lab.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:39

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JNJames Nestor30:39

      If they're claiming to have these, these skills that are incredible, why not measure it?

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:44

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JNJames Nestor30:44

      I mean, it's not that hard to measure stuff. And so if they deny being... Having any, any lab work done or having it being measured, then, then I think you have to be a little apprehensive, you know? And, and that's something that... So much of this technology is cheap now to get. So even if, if you were to show up with, with $2,000 worth of equipment, you could see if there was some scientific basis to what these people are doing. But from my understanding, I didn't go down the, the chi hole too, too deep, but a lot of these people aren't, aren't showing up and, and offering, volunteering-

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:18

      Yeah.

   8. JNJames Nestor31:18

      ... to have their skills, you know, tested. And, and that's how science works. You, you have to test it, right? It has to be replicable.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:25

      Well, it's... Everybody wants to be Swami Rama, but nobody wants to do what Swami Rama did, right?

   10. JNJames Nestor31:31

       Yeah. Who wants to sit in a ca- Well, some people do. Sit in a cave for 30 years.

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:35

       (laughs)

   12. JNJames Nestor31:35

       Right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Yeah.

   14. JNJames Nestor31:36

       He would go away for, for years at a time in a dark cave and just sit there and breathe. So I just... In the modern age-

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:43

       Wow.

   16. JNJames Nestor31:43

       ... I just don't know-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       What a freak that guy must have been. God, I would love to talk to him.

   18. JNJames Nestor31:47

       Yeah. He, he had it all down. Um-

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       'Cause there are people that can do that, you know. They're like the Unabomber of breathing, you know. They just move to the woods and (laughs) just, just bre-

   20. JNJames Nestor31:56

       But-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       Without the negativity.

   22. JNJames Nestor31:58

       But, but what was, what was cool about him is he wasn't the only one who could do this. So there were researchers in the '20s and in the '40s who went out with a bunch of equipment, whatever equipment they could cobble together, and tested other yogis who were able to do this exact same thing.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JNJames Nestor32:15

       Right? So, so Swami was part of this long lineage of people who had this knowledge. Is it still there? It could be, but again, I don't think it's online. I think you really have to get out in the weeds and, and earn these people's trust in order to get that story.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:31

       And what is... Like, th- What is the history of these people doing this? Like, what, what was their initial motivation? I mean, is there a, a written history of this?

   26. JNJames Nestor32:40

       The earliest evidence that we have for breathing practices dates back about 4,000 or 5,000 years from these little statuettes in the Indus Valley, which is in Northern India. So there was this huge thriving civilization. They had paved roads, they had running water. They were dealing with tin and copper, and they had no... In this, in this whole civilization, they still have not found any political or governmental buildings. They haven't found any religious iconography. So these people, in some ways, could have been more, more advanced than we are now. And they had all of these figures of these people in these, these yoga poses with their (breathes deeply) stomachs out. So that's how they date the earliest archaeological evidence of that. And since then, then all of these practices were moved into the Rigveda and, and all of, uh-

   27. JRJoe Rogan33:32

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JNJames Nestor33:32

       ... the earliest yoga texts, and they were codified in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is... That's where a lot of the, the yoga methods come from. And that's about 2,000 years old.

   29. JRJoe Rogan33:43

       So the methods predate all of that.

   30. JNJames Nestor33:47

       Oh, I'm sure they, they predate probably anything that, that has been in writing.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Right. …

   1. JNJames Nestor45:00

      You, you're taking in less breath, but you're using more of it. So by breathing less, you're gonna be able to lower your heart rate. And, and we know this. If anyone has a pulse oximeter at home, you would think that breathing six breaths a minute, which is about a third of what's considered normal, you think, "There's no way I'm getting enough oxygen."

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:18

      Right.

   3. JNJames Nestor45:18

      "That's impossible." Put on a pulse ox and watch what happens, and what I've found is your oxygen's either gonna stay the same or sometimes go up. We even got on stationary bikes with a, on the Stanford experiment, and we were trying to see if we could breathe six breaths a minute while going as hard as, hard as we could and watching what happened to our oxygen, and our oxygen did not go down. Once we got to about three or four breaths per minute, it started going down. As long as you have these huge breaths, right? The, this-

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:45

      Right.

   5. JNJames Nestor45:45

      ... huge circle, you're (inhales and exhales through nose deeply) ... And you can work out that way, and they've found... Dr. John Douillard did a bunch of studies of, of this in the '90s and found for cyclists who were normally breathing 47 times a minute, they were able to breathe at 14 times a minute by nasal breathing. So their, their endurance increased, their performance increased, and their recovery increased.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:09

      The instinct when you're exhausted-

   7. JNJames Nestor46:12

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:14

      ... is to (breathes quickly through nose) so what you're saying is you have to fight that instinct and breathe through your nose and you will recover just as well?

   9. JNJames Nestor46:20

      I'm saying you need to, uh, slowly acclimate your body to this. That need to breathe is not dictated by oxygen, and this is another thing that's really hard to get your head around. It's dictated by carbon dioxide. So if you were to hold your breath right now, and you feel that need to breathe, that's dictated by rising levels of CO₂, not by oxygen.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       That was another really fascinating aspect of your book, um, the, the importance of carbon dioxide. I had always thought of carbon dioxide as a waste product. When you were talking about that, uh, one researcher that was saying that carbon dioxide is probably more important than oxygen for life, I was like, "What is... What? What is this?" Like, what-

   11. JNJames Nestor47:03

       (laughs) That guy's from Yale too.

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       Yeah (laughs) .

   13. JNJames Nestor47:05

       Yandell Henderson, check, check out his, his work. It's, it's rock solid.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:10

       It's, that's...But that's so counterintuitive, right? To what a normal person believes to be true.

   15. JNJames Nestor47:16

       Yeah. And I, I wouldn't pick between oxygen and CO₂.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:19

       Oh, you don't have to.

   17. JNJames Nestor47:19

       You're gonna lose ... You're gonna-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:20

       Yeah. (laughs)

   19. JNJames Nestor47:21

       (laughs) You're gonna lose either way. So-

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:22

       But CO₂ is not just a waste product.

   21. JNJames Nestor47:25

       No. You need a balance of these two things. Everyone's focused on oxygen, which is why you see at an airport in Singapore an oxygen bar.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:34

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   23. JNJames Nestor47:34

       You see a linebacker on the, you know, on the side of the field huffing pure oxygen. That oxygen for a healthy body is not doing anything. You're exhaling it back out.

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:45

       So when you go, like, to a high altitude place and they give you oxygen, that's nonsense?

   25. JNJames Nestor47:48

       Uh, no. That's completely different.

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:50

       Oh, okay. Okay.

   27. JNJames Nestor47:50

       High altitude, there's less oxygen. You absolutely need it. So, so-

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:54

       Oh, okay. Okay.

   29. JNJames Nestor47:54

       No. (laughs) At sea level for a healthy ... Right now you probably have 97% O₂ blood sats, right? I probably do too. If you think about that, huffing pure oxygen, it might bump you up 1 or 2%, but that oxygen has nowhere to go if you don't have CO₂ to off-

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:12

       Those bars-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:14:30

   No one wants to…

   1. JNJames Nestor1:00:00

      work, right? We- we want the short-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      No one wants to be Swami Rama. (laughs)

   3. JNJames Nestor1:00:02

      (laughs) I think a lot of people wanna be Swami Rama, just no one wants the- the 30 years in a cave.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      Yeah. Um, and what is his results of these people t- taking in the burst of CO2?

   5. JNJames Nestor1:00:12

      It is, it is too soon to say. He's gonna be publishing everything, uh, next year or the year after that.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      Oh, excellent.

   7. JNJames Nestor1:00:18

      He's in the middle of it right now. But- but the premise of it makes- makes perfect sense to me, and this is why it describes and explains why so many of these slow-breathing-less practices are so effective for anxiety, why they're so effective for asthma as well.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:34

      Now, i- are there, like, specific coaches that work with people that have anxiety and- and- and- and use these, like, anxiety breath coaches?

   9. JNJames Nestor1:00:45

      Yeah. Dr. Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg, uh, psychiatrists in New York, uh, I believe he's at Columbia, they've developed this whole program. And most of it revolved... It's so simple that people think, "Oh, there's no way this can work for me," until they try it. So they bring in patients, have them start with this six seconds in, six seconds out. That's it. You'd be surprised how few people actually have breathed that way in the past year or five years or 10 years. They've found that this method of breathing was effective for 9/11 survivors who had this awful condition called ground-glass lungs, they had a bunch of gunk in there. There was no therapy to get rid of it, but this breathing pattern was able to do what no other therapy could do, just by breathing.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       And what, what happened to the people that had th- this ground-glass stuff?

   11. JNJames Nestor1:01:32

       Their- their lungs were- were filled with garbage.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:35

       Right.

   13. JNJames Nestor1:01:35

       For- for, uh, and- and they were (coughs) constantly e- exhaling this gunk, right? And so by- by breathing slowly and by helping the lungs to open up and helping with that gas exchange, with CO2 and O₂, they were able to help them recover so much more effectively. And this is... They've written books on this stuff, so they're a great place to start if- if you want the how, they're- they're legit too. Uh, they're- they're leaders in their field.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:03

       And so this breathing in and breathing out cleared their lungs or just made them feel better?

   15. JNJames Nestor1:02:07

       It had a significant benefit in clearing their lungs. Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Wow.

   17. JNJames Nestor1:02:10

       And it makes them feel better. That, and that- that's the thing, like, there's no side effects to doing this stuff.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:15

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JNJames Nestor1:02:16

       If at the end of it, you're like, "I still have asthma. I still have anxiety."

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:19

       It's not gonna hurt you.

   21. JNJames Nestor1:02:20

       The- the minimum is you're gonna feel better.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:22

       Right.

   23. JNJames Nestor1:02:22

       And that- that's not too bad, you know, considering all the other side effects to so many other therapies.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:28

       It's obviously, yeah, it's not a drug.

   25. JNJames Nestor1:02:30

       No.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:30

       Um, what do you do?

   27. JNJames Nestor1:02:32

       What do I do for breathing?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       Yeah.

   29. JNJames Nestor1:02:33

       People think that since I'd spent so many years writing a book about breathing I'm gonna be the best breather in the world, and I'm not. I've got a long, long way to go. Uh, my- my job as a journalist was to go out and report on this stuff and, as objectively as I could. And along the way, I met people who had absolutely transformed their lives, so you can't help but getting a little emotionally caught up in- in this practice and in these stories. And I learned a few tricks along the way. I- I noticed what a poor breather I was. Uh, I used to, at night, sleep with my mouth open for- for decades, right? I thought this was normal to go to sleep with 22 ounces of water by the bed, wake up every few hours, dunk some water. It's completely not normal at all.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:21

       So you recommend sleeping with, like... Do you use mouth tape?

Episode duration: 1:46:38