Joe Rogan Experience #1506 - James Nestor

1. 0:01 – 1:54

   Why James Nestor wrote a book about breathing: illness, breathwork, and freedivers

   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.

2. 1:54 – 3:27

   Breath as performance foundation: martial arts, coaching lore, and nasal-breath training

   1. 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?

   2. JNJames Nestor2:08

      Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

   3. 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?

   4. JNJames Nestor2:27

      I have not, no.

   5. 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.

   6. 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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:19

      Mmm.

   8. 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.

3. 3:27 – 11:52

   The Stanford nose-plug experiment: how fast mouth breathing wrecks sleep and health

   1. 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?

   2. JNJames Nestor3:35

      10 days.

   3. 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.

   4. 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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:21

      Mmm.

   6. 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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:12

      It changes your skeleton?

   8. 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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:09

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

   10. JNJames Nestor6:13

       Yeah.

   11. 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.

   12. 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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan6:34

       Mm.

   14. JNJames Nestor6:34

       So, when people start habitually breathing through their mouths, their noses are gonna start to close up, and we know this from the doctor of speech-language pathology at Stanford. She measured people who had, uh, laryngectomies, holes drilled in their throats so they could breathe. She found between two months and two years, their noses were completely blocked. Zero air coming in. So, the more you use it, the more you're gonna be able to use it, so the less you use it, the more apt you will, you will be to have problems with breathing space.

   15. JRJoe Rogan7:02

       What, what, what is the process? Well, why does the nose close up? It would seem that it's a hole. Like, why would that hole close?

   16. JNJames Nestor7:08

       It's, it's not in use. This turbinates. All those tissues just, just start closing up. Um...

   17. JRJoe Rogan7:13

       And so using your nose actually makes the opening wider?

   18. JNJames Nestor7:16

       Absolutely.

   19. JRJoe Rogan7:17

       Really?

   20. JNJames Nestor7:17

       For... Yeah, absolutely.

   21. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       My nose got physically wider after my operation. It's r- really strange. Like, I m-... I was... I looked back on the photos from when I was 40 on, my actual physical... And I, I attributed it to the fact that they put these big foam things and these plastic spacers in there, because the doctor that had did the operation, he's... For... I forget the period of time afterwards. I had to have these things stuffed into my nose, and this plastic that was sort of sutured in place to hold it into position, and I, I attributed that to why my nose got wider. But I noticed it, like, within a year or two afterward. I was like, "My fucking nose is wider." Like, it's different. Like, if I look at older pictures of myself, my nose was more narrow and now it's more flared out, and I, I felt like it was because of that. But now that you're saying this, now I'm thinking maybe it's just from breathing out of it.

   22. JNJames Nestor8:12

       Well, surgical interventions are gonna open that airway, there's no doubt about that.

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:16

       Right.

   24. JNJames Nestor8:16

       But, but we know the more that you breathe through your nose, the more that it's gonna open up, and you can see this with people who are habitual mouth-breathers who are also joggers, who have just been breathing through their mouths for, for decades. They start breathing through their nose. At the beginning it's really, really hard.

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:30

       Yeah.

   26. JNJames Nestor8:30

       And they say, "I can't do this. This is awful." Then weeks go by, months go by, and their noses o- open up, and, and allows them to, to breathe through the nose. And the benefits of that, they're innumerable. So many benefits of, of nasal breathing. Not only oxygen, but it helps defend your body, humidifies air, conditions air, on and on and on. And this is something I just don't think a lot of people realize, and, and from the researchers I've been talking to, they were a bit frustrated too, uh, seeing so many chronic conditions tied to mouth-breathing-

   27. JRJoe Rogan8:59

       Mm.

   28. JNJames Nestor9:00

       ... and, and how so many of those could either be improved upon or, or sometimes outright cured by, by switching the pathway in which you breathe.

   29. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       So, does breathing through your nose make your actual nostril opening wider?

   30. JNJames Nestor9:12

       I don't know that.
4. 11:52 – 13:28

   What the nose actually does: filtration, nitric oxide, and ‘more oxygen with less air’

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:52

      So, air comes through your mouth, air comes through your nose.

   2. JNJames Nestor11:55

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:55

      What is the difference between the air coming through your nose?

   4. JNJames Nestor11:57

      Okay. So, your nose, if you were to take your fist, you've got a really big fist, so someone with a s- slightly smaller fist, and to take that fist and imagine just pushing it inside of your head, that's about the volume of your nose and all the sinus cavities. So, they even stretch up above your eyes. So-

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:15

      The volume of your fist? That's crazy.

   6. JNJames Nestor12:17

      It's about a billiard ball. Um, so, so a little le- depends on what size fist you have, right? So, so all i- and, and they call it the nasal concha because it looks exactly like a seashell. If you were to split a seashell in, in half and look at it, that's what's happening in your nose. And all of this stuff evolved this way for a reason. So, that air that comes in through the nose is slowed down, it's filtered, it's humidified, and it's conditioned so by the time it gets to your lungs, your lungs can absorb that oxygen so much easier. And the, the nose is really the first line of defense. Another amazing thing with the nose is it produces something called nitric oxide, which is this wonderful molecule that is a vasodilator that plays an essential role in oxygen delivery and also helps battle off viruses and bacteria and other pathogens.

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:12

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JNJames Nestor13:12

      So, this is all happening in the nose, and slowing down that air and all of these other functions allow us to gain about 20% more oxygen breathing through the nose than breathing through the mouth. So, you can breathe less and get more by breathing through the nose.

5. 13:28 – 14:24

   CO₂ is not just waste: overbreathing, circulation, and why ‘breathing less’ can help

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:28

      Wow. Um, so breathing through the mouth, even though you, though you're filling your lungs up, even though you're (gasps) you're taking a big deep breath, you're filling your lungs up, you're not getting as much oxygen.

   2. JNJames Nestor13:40

      That's right, because you can over breathe. When, when people, uh, at a gym or when people are jogging, you see them (panting)

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:46

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JNJames Nestor13:47

      ... really gonna get the maximum amount of oxygen in. That's not what happe- what is happening to your body. So, you are off-loading the CO₂. By off-loading too much CO₂, you're causing constriction in your circulation. So, right now, if we were to breathe 30 huge breaths, you'll feel some tingling in your head, you'll feel some, maybe your fingertips will get cool, your toes will get too- cool. That's not from an increase of oxygen. It's the opposite that's happening. That's from a decrease of circulation. So, your body wants to be in balance. You wanna have the right amount of CO₂ and oxygen for optimum delivery, and that's what the nose helps you to do.

6. 14:24 – 23:11

   Breath control and the ‘impossible’: Swami Rama, yogic feats, and what science can test

   1. JRJoe Rogan14:24

      That was one of the craziest things about the book where you're talking about yogis that were able to vary the temperature between each hand.

   2. JNJames Nestor14:31

      No, on the same hand.

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:32

      Oh, in the same hand.

   4. JNJames Nestor14:32

      The same hand. One area was gray. The other was red. And he-

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:36

      Oh, in the same-

   6. JNJames Nestor14:37

      In the same, not even this and this.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:40

      Oh my God.

   8. JNJames Nestor14:41

      On the same hand. And, you know, when I came across this, people were saying, "This is impossible. There's, you know, who did this study? Some guy in, in Taos in his garage?"

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:51

      (laughs)

   10. JNJames Nestor14:51

       No. It was out of the Menninger Clinic, which was the world's, uh, at least in the US, the largest psychiatric research facility at the time. And, uh, Navy physicists did these tests. It was reported in the, in the New York Times.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:05

       Have they been replicated?

   12. 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.

   13. 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?

   14. JNJames Nestor15:26

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

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       Mm-hmm.

   16. 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.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:36

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

   18. JNJames Nestor16:40

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   19. 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.

   20. JNJames Nestor17:30

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

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       No.

   22. JNJames Nestor17:33

       They're- they're-

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       They're probably in a ashram somewhere.

   24. JNJames Nestor17:35

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

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:36

       Yeah.

   26. 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-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       (laughs)

   28. JNJames Nestor18:27

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

   29. 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)

   30. JNJames Nestor18:42

       (laughs) Let- let other people do it, right?
7. 23:11 – 35:16

   Tummo explained: inner heat breathing, Wim Hof’s accessible variant, and lost traditions

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:11

      Can you explain Tummo to people?

   2. JNJames Nestor23:12

      Yeah, sure. So- so Tummo is a breathing practice that is used to build heat in the body, build inner heat, and it was... The first documentation was from this guy, Naropa, who about 1100-... 1,100 years ago, went off on a spiri- spiritual pilgrimage, ended up in the Himalayas, needed to heat himself, and used this practice. And it stayed in the monasteries for, for hundreds of years, until this Belgian-French opera singer anarchist around the 1900s-

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:43

      Boy, that's a mouthful.

   4. JNJames Nestor23:44

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:44

      (laughs)

   6. JNJames Nestor23:44

      Yeah. I was gonna include a few more-

   7. JRJoe Rogan23:46

      (laughs)

   8. JNJames Nestor23:46

      ... 'cause she did a-

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:47

      What else?

   10. JNJames Nestor23:47

       ... whole bunch of ... She was into free love, feminism, um, I mean, you, you name it, she, she ran the gamut, so ... Um, but she went on a spiritual pilgrimage for 14 years in the Himalayas when she was in her 40s. This is in the 1900s, which was just, like, unheard of at-

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:01

       Wow.

   12. JNJames Nestor24:02

       ... the time. And she discovered this, this thing. She said she was able to use this to not eat or drink anything at elevations of above eight thou- 18,000 feet and walk for about 19 hours at a time. There are no fact checkers there to prove it, and nobody believed her until Herbert Benson at Harvard had heard enough of these stories in the 1980s that he went out and tested these monks and found out that they could do exactly what they had been told that they were supposed to do, you know, for thousands of years.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:33

       And what is the technique of Tummo?

   14. JNJames Nestor24:36

       The technique is, it's very similar to Wim Hof's version of Tummo. The, the monks do it in a slightly different way. They slow down their nervous system, and Benson found that they were able to slow their metabolism by 60%, so it's lower than anything that, that has ever been measured before. So, they just do the (inhales) and focus on a fire within the body and breathe out. Sometimes they breathe (inhales) a little more. You can see videotapes of this. For people who don't believe this stuff, uh, you can see videotapes of this guy in a cold room, no shirt on, sweating. They put a wet sheet on him, and he dries the sheet within about a half an hour 'cause he's so hot, and he's only doing this through breathing.

   15. JRJoe Rogan25:16

       And when you're- you're making this noise, like, w- what is the technique? Like, you're breathing ... I- is this, like, an 80/20 thing, where you fully fill, fill the lungs out and let 80% o- or let 20% out and then breathe in again and let 20% out? Like, that kinda thing?

   16. JNJames Nestor25:29

       That version is much more complicated, the, the type that the Bon Tummo monks use.

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:34

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JNJames Nestor25:35

       So, Wim's method does the exact same thing, but he's stimulating the nervous system. So his is 30 huge breaths, breath hold as long as you can (inhales) , one big breath in, 15-second hold, and then out.

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:48

       And what are these monks doing?

   20. JNJames Nestor25:50

       They're doing a slower version of it, so I have not practiced that version of Tummo.

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:54

       Why not?

   22. JNJames Nestor25:55

       Uh, because it's really complicated. And to do it right, you need to get the master there, and, uh, I tried to contact these guys, and they didn't want, did not want me there reporting on what they were doing.

   23. JRJoe Rogan26:05

       (laughs) What is ... God, I feel like if they knew the benefits of this, they would want the world to know.

   24. JNJames Nestor26:11

       You would think so, but what would we do with it, right? We'd, we'd find it-

   25. JRJoe Rogan26:15

       Sell it. (laughs)

   26. JNJames Nestor26:15

       ... we'd comm- (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan26:17

       Put it on Facebook.

   28. JNJames Nestor26:17

       We'd, we'd commercialize it, and-

   29. JRJoe Rogan26:19

       Yeah.

   30. JNJames Nestor26:19

       And so, so maybe they don't want the world to know, you know? Maybe they wanna keep a few things in their back pocket.
8. 35:16 – 42:50

   Breathing for blood pressure, asthma, and panic: quick measurable effects and core mechanisms

   1. JRJoe Rogan35:16

      It just seems to me that, like, w- learning something like that-... learning something like l-... prolonged breath work and the benefits of it. I mean, it seems like this is a really long-term practice that doesn't show you immediate benefits.

   2. JNJames Nestor35:32

      Yes and no. I, I think that you can take someone who has a serious problem, maybe someone who's, who's already very fit, it's gonna take a while to really see those big benefits. We, we see that with athletes with nasal breathing. It takes them weeks or sometimes months to really see gains in performance. But if you've got someone with a chronic condition like asthma or anxiety, who are struggling to breathe every single day, and you teach them some basic breathing, some normal breathing patterns, their lives can be absolutely transformed, and we've seen this in study after study. So these people, their breathing has become so disrupted, they're breathing s- in such an unhealthy way, that they don't know what proper breathing is. Just shifting that has a tremendous impact. So for people like that, they can see the benefits in a couple of hours, may- maybe even less than that. Someone with high blood pressure right now, if they're sitting at home, they can take their blood pressure and then breathe at a rate of about six seconds in, six seconds out, take their blood pressure after that, and there's a good chance their blood pressure's gonna go down. I've seen mine go down 10, 10 or 15 points just by breathing, because your body is operating in its most efficient way that way. And-

   3. JRJoe Rogan36:43

      And over how long a period of time would it take your blood pressure to drop that much?

   4. JNJames Nestor36:48

      After a few minutes, I've found it about, about three or four minutes of breathing this way. And they've found ... There's, there's devices that they sell now which trains people to sit down, take a seat, and breathe in a certain pattern for 10 or 15 minutes, and they've shown marked decreases in blood pressure by that. You don't need this device to do this. It helps-

   5. JRJoe Rogan37:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JNJames Nestor37:09

      ... it reminds you, all you need to do is focus on your breath, right? We, we have the technology in our heads, we have lungs, we have a nose, we can use that to, to really help optimize our health.

   7. JRJoe Rogan37:21

      And what, what is the benefit for asthmatics?

   8. JNJames Nestor37:24

      The benefit for asthmatics is they traditionally, uh, oftentimes mouth breathe, not all the time. They very oftentimes are breathing too much. So you see an asthmatic, (panting) that's usually how they breathe, because they are off-loading all of the CO₂. By off-loading that CO₂, they are causing constriction, and they're so paranoid that they're gonna have an asthma attack, that every time they feel it coming on, they go, (panting) . Guess what happens when you start-

   9. JRJoe Rogan37:53

      Oh.

   10. JNJames Nestor37:53

       ... breathing more and more? You're causing more constriction. So they teach them to take control of their breath to relax at those times.

   11. JRJoe Rogan38:01

       So that's what hyperventilating is?

   12. JNJames Nestor38:03

       Yes. And there, there was a study done about 10 years ago, it was one of the best studies I came across, where they took 120 asthmatics and the technology they used to treat them was breathing. They would have them bring round this capnometer, which would gauge their CO₂. Every time their CO₂ started getting low, which meant they were breathing too much, they would have them slow down and, and slow down their breathing. Within a month, they had a significant effect on, on asthma attacks, and also respiratory health. Their airways got larger. So just, just by breathing. And this is a, this is a well-known study, it's available for anyone to look up.

   13. JRJoe Rogan38:39

       So what ... Do you know what causes asthma? Is it just a genetic-

   14. JNJames Nestor38:41

       It's, it's an allergic, uh, reaction. It's an inflammatory reaction. So there's different types of asthma. There's allergic asthma, there's exercise-induced asthma, which is caused by breathing too much. Um, and a lot of people think, "Oh, I was born with asthma, I'm stuck with asthma." That's th- ... That, that could be true for a lot of people who don't wanna take, uh, some, some additional measures to help abate the symptoms of that asthma, and I think we're just finding now a lot of really legit solid science showing that breathing is implicated both in the onset of asthma, but it can also be, uh, used as a tool to help attenuate the symptoms of it.

   15. JRJoe Rogan39:17

       So when you're ... If it's like ... If you're talking to someone with asthma, what would you ... Like my friend Hannibal, he has a-

   16. JNJames Nestor39:25

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan39:25

       He was here yesterday and he was telling me a story about freaking out on mushrooms and hyperventilating and, and had to get his in- inhaler. What would you tell someone like him who's an asthmatic?

   18. JNJames Nestor39:35

       I would first tell him I'm not a breathing therapist and I'm not a doctor, and he should continue going to his doctor-

   19. JRJoe Rogan39:41

       (laughs)

   20. JNJames Nestor39:41

       ... and taking his bronchodilators. So I'm a journalist who went into this field-

   21. JRJoe Rogan39:45

       Right.

   22. JNJames Nestor39:45

       ... with zero slant, with zero objective. Then I would tell him, after that disclaimer, that I would seek a therapist who has experience dealing with asthmatics and using breathing to help them. They're, they're-

   23. JRJoe Rogan39:58

       Is that common?

   24. JNJames Nestor39:59

       They, they are out there, and, and they're starting to grow. Uh, Papworth method was developed in England in the 1960s, really effective. Uh, a system called Buteyko breathing has shown ... There's a lot of quackery in Buteyko, so be careful-

   25. JRJoe Rogan40:14

       Yeah.

   26. JNJames Nestor40:14

       ... who, who you're using.

   27. JRJoe Rogan40:15

       How so?

   28. JNJames Nestor40:15

       Uh, a lot of people have taken up, uh, Buteyko techniques and appointed themselves as breathing therapists, and they don't know the, they don't know the basis of how exactly it works.

   29. JRJoe Rogan40:27

       Wh- what is Buteyko?

   30. JNJames Nestor40:28

       Buteyko is a system of, of allowing you to help you to breathe less and to breathe slowly, and it's been pretty extensively studied with asthma in particular. It's good for hypertension as well. So I would find a therapist who has a knowledge of this. Uh, Patrick McKeuan has been doing this for 20 years, he's rock solid, he's done the science, and he cured his own allergies, severe asthma and allergies, and he said, "Why the hell isn't anyone else doing this?" And so he stopped what ... He was a business major, and stopped and, and this is ... And he's written, like, four books on this stuff. So it's, it's a-
9. 42:50 – 55:20

   Deviated septums, surgery vs training, and nasal breathing in athletes and fighters

   1. JRJoe Rogan42:50

      So if you know someone that has a deviated septum, you would instantly recommend them get that fixed?

   2. JNJames Nestor42:55

      This is, this is what I have. So 75% of the population has a deviated septum that is clearly visible to the naked eye. So I've had my nose broken two or three times, so I'm as... When they took a CAT scan of my head, I'm as more messed up as anyone. Nayak said, "You are the perfect candidate for surgery." But I tried to see what I could do outside of surgery. I know people who have been abs- ha- just like you, who have had their health transformed by it.

   3. JRJoe Rogan43:18

      (laughs)

   4. JNJames Nestor43:18

      It's very important. But there are also people who don't necessarily need it and should start by practicing some breathing methods or some other-

   5. JRJoe Rogan43:26

      So you didn't get surgery?

   6. JNJames Nestor43:27

      I did not, no. No.

   7. JRJoe Rogan43:27

      Interesting.

   8. JNJames Nestor43:28

      And, and I changed, uh, my airways, and I changed how my nose worked over the course of a year. We took CAT scans before and after, just by breathing.

   9. JRJoe Rogan43:36

      You know how people get cauliflower ear?

   10. JNJames Nestor43:38

       Uh-huh. Yeah, oh yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan43:38

       Do you know that? From, uh, calcified blood gets trapped inside the tissues?

   12. JNJames Nestor43:42

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan43:42

       My nose was filled like that-

   14. JNJames Nestor43:43

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan43:43

       ... so I really did need surgery.

   16. JNJames Nestor43:45

       I'm-

   17. JRJoe Rogan43:45

       And my nose had probably been broken... (sighs) I broke my nose the first time when I was five falling down a flight of stairs-

   18. JNJames Nestor43:52

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan43:52

       ... and then a lifetime of combat sports. I, I don't, I don't know how many times I've broke it. It easily could be more than a dozen.

   20. JNJames Nestor44:00

       It's... A- and that's why you were a perfect candidate for this, and it changed your life, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan44:04

       Yeah, but it was surgery. Yeah.

   22. JNJames Nestor44:06

       Yeah. I... No, but that-

   23. JRJoe Rogan44:06

       Yeah.

   24. JNJames Nestor44:06

       ... that's what I'm talking about.

   25. JRJoe Rogan44:07

       Yeah.

   26. JNJames Nestor44:07

       Surgical interventions are absolutely necessary for-

   27. JRJoe Rogan44:10

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JNJames Nestor44:10

       ... for a large part of the population.

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:11

       I had one quarter of one nostril that was open.

   30. JNJames Nestor44:16

       (laughs)
10. 55:20 – 1:02:30

    Training CO₂ tolerance: chemoreceptors, fear circuits, and an NIH-funded CO₂ ‘reset’ idea

    1. JRJoe Rogan55:20

       Um, (exhales) the carbon dioxide thing is a, is a real trip. What... When you're saying that this need to take a deep breath is really because your body recognizes the level of carbon dioxide is very high-

    2. JNJames Nestor55:35

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan55:36

       ... wh- what, what happens when you become accustomed to holding your breath? Like, what are... Are there physiological changes that are taking place?

    4. JNJames Nestor55:45

       So, this is what Dr. Justin Feinstein is working on right now at the Laureate Institute of Brain Research. He has found that asthmatics and people with anxiety have this extremely low threshold for CO₂.

    5. JRJoe Rogan55:58

       Hmm.

    6. JNJames Nestor55:58

       So, they need to keep breathing. They're so paranoid that they're not gonna be able to breathe, that they've, uh, become accustomed to (panting) . And whenever that CO₂ increases, they freak out. So, he has found by slowly acclimating them to have more of a, uh, to be able to take more CO₂ and become more comfortable with it, that's how they can change their breathing. That's how they can change their habits, which is exactly what those asthma techniques do, right? They, they teach these people to breathe less and to breathe slowly, to slowly acclimate themselves. Like, someone with asthma or panic, don't go and start holding your breath as long as you can. That's a bad idea. Like, let the body adjust.

    7. JRJoe Rogan56:42

       Slowly.

    8. JNJames Nestor56:43

       Yes.

    9. JRJoe Rogan56:43

       So, I was, uh, recently around someone having a panic attack and what she was saying is, "I can't breathe."

    10. JNJames Nestor56:49

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan56:49

        "I'm having a hard time breathing." Obviously, she was breathing and she was talking, but she was like, "I can't breathe." (panting)

    12. JNJames Nestor56:54

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JRJoe Rogan56:55

        What would you say to a person who's doing that?

    14. JNJames Nestor56:57

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan56:57

        Just try to get them to calm down, slowly breathe? Like, what would you... What would you say?

    16. JNJames Nestor57:01

        I would quote, uh, Dr. Alicia Myrett at Southern Methodist University, who said, "The idea that people should be breathing more when they have panic is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing." So, they should be... What, what is happening is their CO₂ levels are getting so low, what they need to do is breathe more slowly or hold their breath.

    17. JRJoe Rogan57:18

        Can you increase your tolerance for CO₂? Like, this... Is that like-

    18. JNJames Nestor57:23

        A-

    19. JRJoe Rogan57:23

        ... a physical thing or is it a mental thing?

    20. JNJames Nestor57:26

        Absolutely. It's, it's a physical thing. There are chemoreceptors right around here, right? And these are the things that gauge levels of CO₂. So, if you think about a free diver, what allows them to hold their breath for four, or five, six, seven, eight minutes? They've, they've gotten this threshold of CO₂ that's very high compared to me, or you, or anyone else. You think about someone who's able to summit Everest without oxygen, right? They've, they've got this threshold of CO₂. So, so much of, of fitness, not, not all of it, but, but a lot of it is dictated by, by the level of CO₂ that, that you can withstand, at least with, with surfing or with free diving or with, with alpine climbing.

    21. JRJoe Rogan58:05

        So, these receptors, you train them or they get stronger? Is it like an endurance thing? Like, you know, your cardiovascular endurance increases, your l- resting heart rate decreases. I guess, is, does that happen with these carbon dioxide receptors?

    22. JNJames Nestor58:19

        You can, you can train them. Yeah, yeah. You can acclimate them to accept a higher threshold of CO₂ so that you become comfortable with it. So, one of the hard things about training to free dive is those breath holds at the beginning. You do these static breath holds, not in water, never in water, but on land. You see how long you can hold your breath.

    23. JRJoe Rogan58:39

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JNJames Nestor58:39

        And they're miserable. Um, people, you know, maybe hold their breath maximum two minutes. But once you get used to it, you can go four minutes or five minutes.

    25. JRJoe Rogan58:46

        And what is, what is happening when you're getting used to it?

    26. JNJames Nestor58:48

        You are allowing those, those signals... Those, those chemoreceptors are going off and sending messages to your amygdala, which is the area in the brain that dictates fear and, and, and that-

    27. JRJoe Rogan58:57

        And you're ignoring them or you're just accustomed to it?

    28. JNJames Nestor59:00

        You're, you're, you're getting accustomed to it.

    29. JRJoe Rogan59:02

        Mm-hmm.

    30. JNJames Nestor59:03

        You're bec- You are becoming more comfortable with it.
11. 1:02:30 – 1:07:24

    Mouth taping and sleep: snoring, sleep apnea, and a cheap intervention to test

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:02:30

       Um, what do you do?

    2. JNJames Nestor1:02:32

       What do I do for breathing?

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       Yeah.

    4. 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.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:03:21

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

    6. JNJames Nestor1:03:25

       Absolutely. Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:03:26

       You tape your mouth up every night?

    8. JNJames Nestor1:03:27

       Yeah. I thought this sounded pretty sketchy until I heard about it from the, you know, doctor of speech-language, uh, therapy at- at Stanford, until I heard about it from Dr. Mark Burhenne. So what they've found, and they- they had... Burhenne's been using this stuff for- for decades. This is not a fat piece of duct tape, people. Don't go on YouTube and see what people... Nine pieces of tape down... No. You need a piece of tape that has a really light and easy adhesive, about the size of a stamp. You put it in the middle of your lips. The-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:03:59

       You do that even with your beard and mustache?

    10. JNJames Nestor1:04:01

        Absolutely. It's on your, it's on your lips.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:04:04

        Oh, okay.

    12. JNJames Nestor1:04:04

        So- so-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:04:04

        So it just keeps your lips closed.

    14. JNJames Nestor1:04:06

        So many people are like, "How- how dare you write about this? I'm- I'm offended." Meanwhile, quarter of the population has sleep apnea. Half the population is snoring.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:14

        I have sleep apnea.

    16. JNJames Nestor1:04:15

        Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:16

        I have sleep apnea and I use a mouthpiece. I use a mouthpiece that presses my tongue down to keep my, uh, airway open.

    18. JNJames Nestor1:04:22

        As long as you- you have that airway open, that is key, especially at- at night, because sleep apnea has so many chronic problems associated with that downstream, from hypertension, metabolic issues, and all that.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:32

        But do you think I would still have sleep apnea if I used this tape and closed my mouth?

    20. JNJames Nestor1:04:36

        There's only one way to find out.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:04:37

        Oh my goodness.

    22. JNJames Nestor1:04:39

        (laughs) So-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:04:39

        So-

    24. JNJames Nestor1:04:39

        ... I'm- I'm- I'm... I don't know. I don't...

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:04:41

        (clears throat)

    26. JNJames Nestor1:04:41

        I'm not here to- to prescribe anything, but this tape is free. You can do it. You can gauge... I'm sure you have some sensors to monitor your sleep. If you... Do you have a pulse ox to-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:04:52

        No. No, I just go to sleep with this mouthpiece on. I'm fine.

    28. JNJames Nestor1:04:54

        That would- That would be a good thing to- to test it. So-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:56

        That seems like a lot of work. But let me, let me ask you this.

    30. JNJames Nestor1:04:58

        Okay.
12. 1:07:24 – 1:12:47

    Modern jaws, soft food, and shrinking airways: why crooked teeth and sleep problems exploded

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:07:24

       I'm glad you brought that up, because that was something else I wanted to talk to you about. You were talking about the changes in human diet and eating soft foods and how it affects the way the jaw develops and the- the size of the jaw, and that there's a way to improve that, which I found fascinating.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:07:41

       Yeah, and this- this was something, when you set out to write a book about breathing, the last thing you think you're gonna be doing is handing, you know, around a bunch of ancient skulls and- and looking at teeth. But- but that's where this journey led me. I had heard from some biological anthropologist that our faces have changed and that our mouths have gotten too small, and that was one of the reasons so many of us were breathing so poorly. And so I thought, "Well, this sounds interesting. These people are legit, I'm gonna check it out." And if you take an ancient skull, anything older than 500 years old, 5,000 years old, 50,000 years old, you're gonna see, by and large, about a 99% chance these skulls are gonna have perfectly straight teeth. They never had their wisdom teeth removed, they never had braces, any orthodonture, anything. They had straight teeth because they had these very wide and large mouths and these powerful jaws. If you start getting into the modern era of industrialized food, mouths start shrinking. So, why do we have crooked teeth? Not from genetics. It's because our mouths have grown so small that the teeth have nowhere to go, so they grow-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:08:47

       Whoa.

    4. JNJames Nestor1:08:47

       ... crooked. And what else happens when you have a mouth that's too small for its teeth? You have a smaller airway. So, this is one of the reasons why so many people have snoring, sleep apnea, and other respiratory problems. This sounded so bizarre, 'cause it's nothing I'd ever learned in school, but all anyone needs to do is look up some ancient skulls if you're online and check out their teeth, and check out how they have these huge jaws, these big flat, wide faces, powerful faces, and they all had this. And then you go into the wild, 5,400 different mammals, and check out and see how many have crooked teeth. The answer is zero. (laughs) So, some- some bulldogs do because they've been bred to have this-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:09:30

       Right.

    6. JNJames Nestor1:09:30

       ... flat face, just like humans.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:09:32

       Yeah.

    8. JNJames Nestor1:09:32

       But- but animals in the wild have straight teeth and- and we did too. As a species, we- we have straight teeth, but, um, but because of industrialization, specifically because of food, our mouths have grown too small.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:09:47

       You would never believe that. Like, if someone told me that other than reading your book and- and kind of understanding where you're- where you're coming from, I would think, "Th- this is nonsense, it's genetics."

    10. JNJames Nestor1:09:57

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:09:57

        Just like, wh- why people have small hands or people have big feet or whatever.

    12. JNJames Nestor1:10:02

        Well, it's become a heritable trait, so- so what's happened now is they've found, the researchers who- who've- who've done this, Robert Corchini worked on this stuff for 30 years, there's 250 scientific papers on it, they found within the first generation of switching to industrialized foods, about 50% of the population is gonna have malocclusion, which means a crooked jaw, crooked teeth. After that, about 60 to 70% next generation. After that, about 80%. After that, look around. That's us now, about 90%.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:10:32

        Jesus.

    14. JNJames Nestor1:10:33

        So if- if- (laughs) sorry.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:10:35

        No, please.

    16. JNJames Nestor1:10:35

        I was gonna bum you out a little more.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:10:36

        No, go ahead. Go ahead.

    18. NANarrator1:10:37

        Yeah, please.

    19. JNJames Nestor1:10:37

        So- so, there, uh, Dr. Kevin Boyd is now doing studies where he's looking at fetuses in the womb and is seeing their mouth size is too small and they have this backward slant to their faces just like I have, just like so many people in the population have. If you were to measure a skull and you were to draw one line from its ear to its nose and another line perpendicular to that, almost every single ancient skull would be above that line, very powerful jaw. Now 90% of modern skulls are below it, so they are behind it. So- and this is happening now, it is becoming a heritable trait, so- so kids are- are messed up to- to begin with, which is why so many kids are- have sleep apnea and snore now, which is so injurious to their- to their health.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:11:26

        And this came about because they weren't chewing s- tougher food, they didn't need the muscles? And w- what can be done to sort of reverse that or mitigate that?

    21. JNJames Nestor1:11:37

        In adulthood it's harder, in- in, for kids it's much easier because their muscles are- a- and their bones are much more malleable. But th- that's exactly what they found is once you introduce... We used to chew for about four hours a day, okay? Th- that's just how it was from the dawn of time to- to about 500 years ago. But as wheat started getting processed into white flour, as rice became, we started taking the- the germ and the bran away from rice so it's just the polished seed, as things began to get canned and bottled, if you think about even what's considered healthy food right now, smoothies, avocado-... oatmeal-

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:12:15

        Mm-hmm.

    23. JNJames Nestor1:12:15

        ... all of this stuff is soft.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:12:16

        Mush.

    25. JNJames Nestor1:12:17

        Power Bars.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:12:18

        Right.

    27. JNJames Nestor1:12:18

        So, in, in adulthood, there, you can make some changes, and that, that's what I, I tried to do in my own face as, as a, uh, experiment. Uh, for kids, what they're finding is these problems need to be diagnosed very early, and they need to be treated. And what they do is they widen the mouth to the way that they were supposed to be 500 years ago. So, we're changing our bodies by, by force of will to the way that, that nature had made them before we messed them up.

13. 1:12:47 – 1:23:47

    Adult palate expansion devices: Homeoblock, CAT-scan evidence, and orthodontics rethink

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:12:47

       What, there was a doctor that you were talking about that developed some sort of a retainer that actually changed the volume of your jaw as an adult, and changed the volume of your mouth.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:12:55

       That's right. So, um, I had crooked teeth growing up. I had braces, I had extractions, I had headgear, and me and everyone I knew had the same thing. It was never if you were gonna get it, it's just wh- when are you gonna get your braces?

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:13:09

       Right.

    4. JNJames Nestor1:13:09

       So, the point of all those things was to straighten teeth, but they're not looking at airway health, right? So, so what happens, just as a principle, you've got a mouth that's too small for its face, the teeth are growing in crooked, you extract teeth from that, get some headgear, and go.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:13:25

       Mm.

    6. JNJames Nestor1:13:26

       You're creating, at least there's a significant argument by many people in the field that say you're making a small mouth smaller. And, and one leader in the field, Dr. Michael Gelb has said 50% of people who have orthodontics are gonna, um, have more breathing problems because of it.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:13:42

       Orthodontics meaning braces as well?

    8. JNJames Nestor1:13:43

       Bra- braces or craning in, so it's a combination of braces and especially headgear, and, and s- some of that stuff is being phased out. Braces are still, you're forcing teeth into a smaller space-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:13:54

       Yeah.

    10. JNJames Nestor1:13:55

        ... to, to make them, to make them straight. So, there's this, the very first orthodontics weren't craning teeth in to make them straight, they would expand the mouth. 'Cause even back then, 120 years ago, they knew our mouths were growing too small. They, they knew that. So, the first devices, I thought this was fascinating, they were using this for kids who had cleft palates, had all of these other problems where they were having problem chewing and, and breathing, so they would expand their mouths with this device that went to the roof of your mouth, and it had a little dowel screw and it, and you slowly opened it up to expand the mouth. (laughs)

Episode duration: 1:46:38