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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

If You Breathe Like This, Don’t Ignore It- It’s Costing You Your Sleep, Brain & Health: James Nestor

This episode is brought to you by: AG1: Get FREE AG1 Flavour Sampler, AGZ Sampler, Vitamin D3+K2 and Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription (worth $87, US only) https://bit.ly/43FwxQl VIVOBAREFOOT: Get 15% off your first order https://links.drchatterjee.com/4nqvRI3 Listening to this conversation could help you sleep better, quit snoring, and wake refreshed. You’ll learn a simple trick to stop anxiety in its tracks, and find out how to keep asthma and high blood pressure in check. And the secret to all these health gains? It really is a breath of fresh air… I’m talking to James Nestor, a science journalist and the author of international bestseller Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. James spent a decade investigating why so many of us breathe badly and what happens when we get it right. And he’s here today to pass on some ancient wisdom, through the lens of modern science. We all know the feeling of shallow, rapid breathing that sets in when you’re anxious or stressed. And you don’t have to be a breathwork guru to recognise the power of a slow inhalation and exhalation to make you feel… ahh… grounded and calm. James’s message is that better breathing really is that simple. It’s about tuning in to how well you’re using your lungs, your diaphragm – and your nose. In this episode, we get into why something as simple as switching from mouth breathing to nasal breathing could transform your health. We talk about a fascinating piece of research showing that lung size could be the single biggest predictor of how long you live. James shares the evidence that many chronic and unexpected health conditions can be improved and even reversed through better breathing – something doctors aren’t taught and don’t tell you. And he measures the CO2 levels in my studio, which leads to a conversation about indoor air quality that I was not expecting. It might change the way you think about your home, your office, your airline choice and your next hotel room. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this conversation is how simple and accessible everything we discuss is. The foundations of healthy breathing don’t cost a thing. You don’t need a gadget, a retreat, or a prescription. You just need to unlearn some key habits and start making small changes – for big results. #feelbetterlivemore Connect with James: Website https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/ https://www.instagram.com/mrjamesnestor/ https://www.facebook.com/mrjamesnestor James’s book: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art UK https://amzn.to/4tctHik US https://amzn.to/4uZC5Ub #feelbetterlivemore #feelbetterlivemorepodcast ------- Order MAKE CHANGE THAT LASTS. US & Canada version https://amzn.to/3RyO3SL, UK version https://amzn.to/3Kt5rUK ----- Follow Dr Chatterjee at: Website: https://drchatterjee.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drchatterjee Twitter: https://twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Newsletter: https://drchatterjee.com/subscription DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostJames Nestorguest
Apr 1, 20262h 15mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:32

    Why breathing mechanics matter (and how to prove it isn’t placebo)

    1. RC

      I wonder if we could start off by addressing the skeptic, the person who thinks, "What's the big deal with breathing and breathwork? You know, I'm alive. I'm breathing. Why should I care how slow my breathing is, how deep my breathing is? Why will that help me improve the quality of my life?"

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm. By nature, I am a skeptic. That's what I'm paid to do as a journalist, so I went into this subject not believing anything that I ended up researching and writing about. But what's so easy about breathing is you can feel the effects almost instantly. After a few seconds, you can feel the effects. And if you think what you're feeling is a placebo effect, all you have to do is hook yourself up to a blood pressure cuff or a heart rate variability real-time monitor-

    3. RC

      Mm-hmm

    4. JN

      ... and you can see in real time how changing your breathing changes your nervous system, changes your oxygenation, changes your heart rate, and so much more, and that's what convinced me is, was being in a lab and changing my breathing in five different ways and seeing the transformative effect it had on my body and my brain.

    5. RC

      Yeah. And I do understand where skepticism comes from-

    6. JN

      Mm-hmm

    7. RC

      ... because we can all breathe, right? If someone's listening to this podcast right now, they're breathing.

    8. JN

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Right? So that's not really up for debate, is it? It's basically how are you breathing.

    10. JN

      Yeah. Well, I think, uh, I, I've heard that a few times of like, "We, we can all breathe. What, what's the issue?" We can all eat. We can all sleep. That doesn't mean you're sleeping well, and that doesn't mean you're eating well. So you can eat junk food, ultra-processed foods, and that can keep you alive. That allows you enough energy to get by to the next day. You can sleep hypothetically three to four hours a night, and you will be alive, but that doesn't mean you're doing well, and that doesn't mean you're being healthy, and we found the exact same thing happens with breathing. People are locked into these dysfunctional habits that they think are normal, and they don't realize that how they are breathing is directly affecting the level of migraines or headaches they get. It's affecting their blood pressure. For some people with sleep apnea and sleep-disordered breathing, it's affecting their risk of diabetes and heart disease later on in life. So we know all this. I'm not making this up. These aren't hypotheses. These are scientific facts.

  2. 2:32 – 5:04

    Modern medicine treats disease, not breathing dysfunction

    1. RC

      Yeah, it's interesting. As a medical doctor-

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... we're not really taught that much about the breath. Certainly the things you write about in your book, we're not really taught about these things. You know, we, we think about oxygen saturations dropping if someone's severely ill.

    4. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      Like they've got a pneumonia, they're struggling to breathe. They've got emphysema, whatever it might be. We're gonna look at their oxygen saturations and their respiratory rates at that point. But that, I guess, is reflective of where modern medicine is today, right?

    6. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      We're, we sort of are very good at managing disease.

    8. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      I guess we're less good on the creation of health.

    10. JN

      A pulmonologist is solely interested that you are breathing. So a pulmonologist makes sure that you are breathing. They're not looking at how you are breathing. And you know, if you look at what pulmonology does, they're looking at lung cancers, that you get in a car accident. They're, they're restoring the lungs so that you can breathe. I asked this pulmonologist, I said, "Well, when a patient comes in and is breathing dysfunctionally, w- what do you do? What's your go-to technique?" And he looked at me like I was crazy. He's like, "I don't teach breathwork. [chuckles] That's not something I do." I said, "But your discipline is the lungs. That's your lane." He said, "Because I'm just concerned that, that people are breathing." And if you come to the emergency room or you come to his office and you can't breathe, he can help you. If you come with a mild chronic, uh, breathing respiratory condition, it's much harder for them to help you. So I've heard this from sleep medicine as well as pulmonologists, that they deal with the walking dead, right?

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JN

      You have to be so bad in order to get their attention and care, and then they're really good at what they do to help someone in a car accident with lung cancer, right? To, to restore that ability to breathe, not how to breathe.

    13. RC

      Yeah. It's interesting when we think about how we might utilize breathwork in our lives-

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm

    15. RC

      ... to improve our health, how we feel, our energy. Through a medical lens, people will think about that as prevention, right? They'll th- they'll say, "Yeah, if I can improve this aspect of my physiology, that will help me reduce the chances of me getting sick in the future."

    16. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    17. RC

      Which is absolutely true, and we're gonna talk about that.

    18. JN

      Mm-hmm.

  3. 5:04 – 11:37

    Asthma as a breathing-pattern problem (and why many won’t do the work)

    1. RC

      But as you demonstrate in your book, it's not just prevention. You can also treat certain people who have got certain conditions by utilizing the breath. You mentioned high blood pressure before.

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      I think, you know, in the book you talk about asthma.

    4. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      Right? I mean, perhaps we could start with asthma because asthma is very, very common. And of course, modern medicine has life-saving drugs, you know, 'cause if your airways are tight and you can't breathe, those inhalers that we give you-

    6. JN

      Mm-hmm

    7. RC

      ... will open up your airways and allow you to get oxygen into your body. So no one's denying that, but I guess the case you're putting forward is that there might be another way or an additional way that we could approach these problems.

    8. JN

      I think that as a filter, as a journalist, my job is to go out into the world and talk to the top researchers and look at the real data. So I didn't know anything about asthma. I had always considered that asthma was an incurable disease, and that's what it's called, an incurable disease.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. JN

      A friend of mine, he's actually my accountant, has a three-year-old kid, was having a bunch of breathing troubles. They brought him into the doctor, and the doctor said, "Your kid has asthma. These are the drugs. Your kid is going to be an asthmatic the rest of their life, and they're gonna get more severe as- asthma as they age."And then left them there with that. And I think that's really irresponsible because if you look at the data and if you look at the research, so many kids with asthma are mouth breathers, they are over-breathing, and these dysfunctional breathing habits either directly contribute to their symptoms or in some cases cause the asthma attack. And I have heard this over and over again of people who were basically left to be on their own with asthma their whole lives, don't leave the house, you know, when it's hot out or there's too many allergens in the air, and yet if you could take control of your breathing, we know this, you can reduce the symptoms, and in some cases, you can resolve them completely. And this is what Patrick McKeown-

    11. RC

      Yeah

    12. JN

      ... has spent the past twenty-five years doing. And people who think that this is some quackery that's, that's been, uh, promoted on Instagram should look at the scientific record and talk to these people that have reversed their symptoms.

    13. RC

      There's a real pattern here, James. You spoke about this idea that asthma is often taught to be a chronic irreversible disease.

    14. JN

      Yes.

    15. RC

      You could apply the same rationale to type 2 diabetes.

    16. JN

      Absolutely.

    17. RC

      It wasn't that long ago where we were taught type 2 diabetes is chronic and irreversible, and, you know, I've been helping people put their type 2 diabetes into remission since probably 2010. But when I first did it on primetime television with a patient back in 2014, it was deemed controversial. People were like, "Uh, it's not real." I'm like, "No, no, we're, we're literally showing you what has happened."

    18. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      You know, the camera's actually documenting this entire journey. Yes, it's one person, sure. But the fact that actually this is possible should at least make us question our assumption that this is irreversible. You could say the same thing with asthma. It... And, and I think this nuance often gets lost. You're not saying that inhalers have no role. I think what you're saying is, yes, they do, and why don't we also try and look at the way you breathe? And if we can, you know, experiment, get you breathing more from your nose than your mouth, get you using your diaphragm more than your chest, whatever it might be, you may find that you need less inhaler. You may find that your symptoms are better, and you may also find that you don't need inhalers anymore. Is that a fair reflection of what you're trying to say in your book?

    20. JN

      I think for most people, asthma is an incurable disease, and I think for most people, type 2 diabetes is an incurable disease because most people do not want to do the work to improve their conditions. I know this seems very nihilistic, but, but that's, that's what I believe. When you tell someone with type 2 diabetes like, "Hey, you need to cut out the carbs. You need to eat more protein and more fat, and doing some intermittent fasting could, could really help you," the science is there.

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. JN

      It's been there for a very long... especially now, right? It's, it's irrefutable. But what I've found is most people don't wanna do that. For asthmatics, uh, it's the same thing. You can tell them that your asthma attacks can be directly related to the way in which you breathe, especially when you are over-breathing, that tends to increase your chances of having an attack. Will they then sit and do these breathwork patterns after that? Most won't, [chuckles] right? So what I try to do in this book, and the message I'm trying to communicate is, I wanna be here to give people information to help themselves, but you have to first want to help yourself. And if you want to help yourself, there are so many things that you can do to improve your health and your chronic condition, especially asthma. Retraining yourself to have new breathing habits and to take control of an asthma attack through breathing methods, it takes a little time, takes a little effort, and it will change your life.

    23. RC

      It's such an interesting topic, this, James, this idea of what does it take for someone to make changes in their life.

    24. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      I mean, I'm, I'm obsessed with thinking about this.

    26. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    27. RC

      You know, it's, it's been a huge part of my job since I qualified in 2001, right? How do you encourage, educate, inspire-

    28. JN

      Mm-hmm

    29. RC

      ... a patient to make changes? And I think there's, there's a couple of components. I think... You know, I, I believe passionately that people want to be well, and I believe that the way the message gets communicated to an individual is a huge part-

    30. JN

      Yes

  4. 11:37 – 18:49

    Breathing, chronic stress, and why change feels hard

    1. RC

      Right? So I think that plays a role. But, but one of the things that came to me, James, and I, I'd love your take on this. You're making the case in your book that many of us these days are breathing dysfunctionally. We're over-breathing, okay? So instead of, let's say, six breaths a minute, many of us are breathing 18 to 20 breaths a minute, and you talk in the book about the physiological changes that ensue when that happens. Now, if we're over-breathing and if we're breathing more through our mouth than our nose, things that we're gonna cover in detail shortly, you can argue that much of the population is in a state of sympathetic overdrive, right? So you know, the, the, the stress system, as you well know-... is you can look at in two parts, you know, the sympathetic nervous system when we're stressed, fight or flight, versus the parasympathetic. So could it be when you say people don't want to do the work, or in your experience a lot of people don't wanna do the work, could it also be that because people are stuck in these dysfunctional breathing patterns without knowing, they're stuck in a stress state, everything feels more difficult? When they hear information about how they could change their life, it's very hard for them to act on it because of the state of their nervous system. Do you see what I'm getting at?

    2. JN

      I, a- absolutely. I think what you're saying is 100% correct because we know that the vast majority of these modern chronic diseases are tied to chronic stress, right?

    3. RC

      Exactly.

    4. JN

      We, we, we know this, but I think what it ultimately comes down to, it really comes down to that individual. When is the time to make that step to improve your life, right? What does it take? Do you have to be so sick and pushed against the wall and given that only chance, you know, in order to improve your health? Or do you wanna catch it early and do some preventative maintenance? Now, everyone's on a different part of that spectrum-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. JN

      ... right? And so that's what I've found talking to hundreds, thousands and thousands of people over the past five, six years, is I've found a lot of people want you to coach them and inspire them and to push them, and yet they still don't manage to take that first step. And I've exerted a lot of time and energy with those people, including people in my family-

    7. RC

      [laughs]

    8. JN

      ... right, who still don't wanna take that first step, and I have had to step back and conserve my own energy-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. JN

      ... and say, all I want to give people is information to make educated choices about their health. And what you do with it, I'm no longer responsible [laughs] after that.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. JN

      And this is especially important for me to give them informed information and choices about breathing, about how so many of their chronic issues that they're suffering from could be related to the way in which they're breathing. And I expected, in a very naive fashion, that maybe after this book had sold X amount of copies, after I've done so many podcasts, I've spoken at medical colleges all over the place-

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm

    14. JN

      ... that there would be some sort of interest in some systemic change to inspire people to start adopting free, easy, simple breathing habits. None of that has happened [laughs] . I don't see that happening on any level, which is why I think it's best and most effective to communicate this message organically-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. JN

      ... through podcasts like this, to let people empower themselves and take control of their own bodies.

    17. RC

      Yeah, I completely agree. People are ready for change when they're ready for change, and not a moment sooner. You said a couple of things there, right, which I, I think are worth just pausing on. Free and easy, I think, were two words you used. That's what we're really talking about here. In a, in a, in a wellness world that many people now will say is expensive-

    18. JN

      Mm

    19. RC

      ... and is for the middle classes and the people who've got disposable income. And of course, there's all kinds of neat little toys and tricks-

    20. JN

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

    21. RC

      ... some of them we'll probably talk about, say, that people can spend money on if they want to, but as you say in the conclusion of your book, the most effective is still-

    22. JN

      Mm-hmm

    23. RC

      ... the simplest.

    24. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      And I'm so passionate about this idea, James, because one thing that comes up a lot in this sort of field of trying to empower people is that people will say, "It's easier for some people than others. If you are growing up in poverty-

    26. JN

      Mm-hmm

    27. RC

      ... it's much harder to put these things into practice," which I agree with.

    28. JN

      Totally.

    29. RC

      And at the same time, I have worked, James, in low socioeconomic areas, and I can tell you, one thing I would teach many of my patients back then was breathwork practices.

    30. JN

      Hmm.

  5. 18:49 – 19:58

    The foundation: become an obligate nasal breather (day and night)

    1. JN

      The number one most important thing that people need to do is to become an obligate nasal breather. So around fifty percent of kids are mouth breathers. For adults, that goes down a little bit. At night, around sixty percent of adults breathe through their mouths. So you have to turn that around and become a nasal breather in which in the daytime, most of your breaths are in and out through the nose. I'm breathing through my mouth a bit here. We're having a conversation. Who cares, right? When I'm not talking, when I'm walking around, when I'm working, I'm always breathing out and in and out through my nose. And at night, all of your breaths should be through your nose. And there's so much science supporting this, all of the benefits from regulating your emotions, from h-helping you make better decisions, to regulating your nervous system function more and more. Nobody is, is debating those things, and yet you still have a huge percentage of the population that is habitually mouth breathing, and it's causing a ton of damage to your health.

    2. RC

      Okay, so this is the number one problem out there.

    3. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    4. RC

      Of course, it doesn't mean everyone listening suffers from this-

    5. JN

      That's right

    6. RC

      ... because as you said, you know, fifty percent or whatever, right?

    7. JN

      Mm-hmm.

  6. 19:58 – 25:46

    How to tell if you mouth-breathe: simple tests, snoring apps, nasal strips

    1. RC

      And so clearly there'll be people listening who are obligate nose breathers, but there's a lot of people who are listening who will be obligate mouth breathers. How can they tell or assess if they are an obligate mouth breather?

    2. JN

      So we have... Unfortunately, there's not one easy [chuckles] step to do because so many people suffer from so many different problems, right? But there are a few tricks that you can try out. The first one, take two fingers from both your hands. If you're listening to this, take your hands, take your index finger and your middle finger, and place them on the sides of your nostrils and spread open your nostrils. [inhales] If that is significantly easier to breathe [inhales] , then there's a good chance you are in the twenty percent of the population that suffers from something called nasal valve collapse-

    3. RC

      Mm-hmm

    4. JN

      ... where either your nostrils, the tissue around it is too thin, so when you inhale [inhales] , it flutters, or your nostrils themselves are too small. So if you are one of those people, a good training device are one of those nasal strips.

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. JN

      You see sports players using these things. They use them because these strips go over the bridge of the nose, and they pull the nostrils up to the way they-

    7. RC

      Mm-hmm

    8. JN

      ... were supposed to have been, right? And they allow for around thirty percent more airflow in and out of the nostrils, which is why these are marketed to people who snore. Because so many people who snore either have trouble breathing in and out of their nose, or they're breathing through their mouth.

    9. RC

      If, if you are someone who snores-

    10. JN

      Yes

    11. RC

      ... if, if you know, if you know that about yourself or your partner or someone in your family tells you that about yourself, can you assume that you're a mouth breather at night?

    12. JN

      It is usually, not always. Some people can snore [snoring] make that sound through their nose if their sinuses are, are really messed up. But most people who are snoring are breathing in and out through the mouth, yes.

    13. RC

      Yeah. So that's another simple way of if someone-- if, you know, if you have a partner and if they sleep in the same bedroom as you and say that you were really loud and snoring last night-

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm

    15. RC

      ... again, as you say, it's another clue-

    16. JN

      Mm-hmm

    17. RC

      ... that you might be a, a mouth breather. Okay.

    18. JN

      Nobody wants to believe their spouse, uh, about [laughs] whether or not you're snoring. So the one thing that you can do is download an app. There's several of them, and I'm not affiliated or associated with any of these things. They're free, and they're easy. SnoreClock or SnoreLab works pretty well, and what you do is you take your phone, put it on the side of your bed, and it records you throughout the night, and then it provides you with a graph of the severity of your snoring and the, the sound of you breathing throughout the night, and it gives you a score. So if you don't believe the app, you can go back at any time and listen to yourself [laughs] breathing throughout the night. If you are snoring or if you're struggling to breathe, that is a serious red flag that there is something wrong. This is your body at its time when it's supposed to be resting and restoring and preparing for the new day. It is stressed out, so you have to figure that out. And so many people that suffer from snoring are mouth breathers, and when they learn how to become obligate nasal breathers, their snoring either significantly reduces or, in some cases, resolves entirely. And I've heard this thousands and thousands of times. People send me their sleep data for some reason. I never asked for it.

    19. RC

      [laughs]

    20. JN

      And they show the difference between mouth breathing and nasal breathing. I experience this myself.

    21. RC

      Do we know what it's like in traditional societies? You know, how many people are mouth breathers versus nose breathers?

    22. JN

      What we do know is that nasal breathing and breathing itself was celebrated as a medicine throughout ancient cultures for thousands and thousands of years. We know that from, uh, ancient Hindu traditions of yoga. We know that from ancient Chinese traditions of Qi Gong. We know that from Native American cultures as well. You'll notice something with the few indigenous cultures that, that are still thriving, right, that have not industrialized. If you were to have them, uh, open up their lips and look at their teeth, they'd be perfectly straight. If you were to look at their airways, they'd be broad and enormous. The upper palate would look the opposite of mine. It would be almost flat, right? How many people in these societies suffers from chronic hypertension, diabetes, even skin cancer? The answer is basically zero [laughs] .

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. JN

      So almost all of these chronic diseases that we are suffering from are what researchers call diseases of civilization. These are diseases that came with us living in an industrial world. And I'm not gonna go live in a cave. I'm not gonna live in a desert. I'm not gonna live in a jungle. I want to live in this world. This is where my friends, my family are. This is where my life is. But how do you get by living in this world and not get sick?

    25. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    26. JN

      And that's the real question, and I think part of thatNot the whole picture at all, but part of that is to develop that healthy foundational breathing, especially at night. It's so important at night to get this right, and there is an epidemic, especially among kids, of sleep-disordered breathing, of snoring and sleep apnea.

    27. RC

      You mentioned some of the things we can try and use as clues-

    28. JN

      Mm-hmm

    29. RC

      ... to figure out where do we do the majority of our breathing.

    30. JN

      Mm-hmm.

  7. 25:46 – 31:56

    Mouth taping: start slow, who should avoid it, and why it can be transformative

    1. JN

      I would start off with getting baseline data. Use one of those apps, whatever app you wanna use, and record your breathing at night, and if you are breathing in a dysfunctional way at night, there's a good chance-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. JN

      ... you're breathing dysfunctionally in the day. So once you do that, record it, not for one night, 'cause your sleep changes, right, uh, every night. Record it for a week and, and get a baseline. After that, that's where you can start experimenting with these different hacks. One of them is to use a little piece of tape in the daytime while answering emails or doing dishes or watching TV. Put it on your lips and let it stay there for twenty minutes, right? And ask yourself, as you're breathing, right? This forces you to breathe in and out through, through your nose. Are you comfortable? Are you relaxed? Are you congested? If you, if you are congested and if you're stressed out, use common sense. Take it off. You're not ready for this yet. But start very slow. This is something I got wrong in this book before, where I told people to experiment with it at night. No. Start with it-- That's what I did, and, and it took me a long time, and I had to stick with it, and it took weeks for me to, to acclimate to it. Start slow. Start in the daytime. Twenty minutes the first day, thirty minutes the next day, one hour the day after that. Try taking a nap with this little piece of tape and then, once you're good at that, uh, if that is comfortable for you, walk around the block focusing on keeping your mouth shut.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. JN

      Inhaling in and out of your nose, and if that continues to be comfortable, then you can experiment with it at night. But I think low and slow, especially if you're a habitual mouth breather, this is gonna be a shock to your system, so don't push it.

    6. RC

      Yeah. You went in hard, uh-

    7. JN

      Yeah

    8. RC

      ... yourself, and I've told you this before, but after our first conversation together, James, when you mentioned mouth taping... Careful how I say this. Um, you mentioned family before. I think I'd mentioned this to my wife prior, um, but I'm not sure she necessarily wants to hear this stuff from me, right? So when she heard you say it on our podcast together, I think straight away she started taping her mouth at night, and it was literally like night and day. I'm not kidding you.

    9. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    10. RC

      But her energy and vibrancy the next day, it was-- I was like, "What's going on?" She's like, "I think this mouth taping stuff is working," right? So I think, you know, yes, the, the kind of, I guess, more responsible advice you could say is to say, "Hey, go slow. Build up," but some people will just go straight in. Some people will be thinking, James, "Well, is it dangerous for me to tape my mouth up at night?"

    11. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RC

      You know? What, what... You must have been asked this a million times, I'm guessing.

    13. JN

      I've been asked this a million times. Um, and it depends, okay?

    14. RC

      [laughs] Yeah.

    15. JN

      There is... Sorry. Um, you know, it's very inconvenient. There's not a blanket prescription for everybody-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. JN

      ... to do this stuff. Everybody is different. Their tolerance levels are different. The, um, amount of dysfunctional breathing they, they are on that spectrum is totally different de- depending on the person, which is why if you go slowly and carefully and go slow, your body will tell you when you're pushing too hard. It will let you know when, when you've gone over that line. For people with severe sleep apnea, this is probably a really bad idea, right?

    18. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    19. JN

      I would not do it. At the same time, [laughs] can't believe I'm saying this, but a lot of people with severe sleep apnea have written me and sent me their AHI scores before and after mouth taping and have seen a fifty percent decrease in the amount of apnea events they have per hour. So I'm not here to tell anyone to do anything. As we said at the beginning of the podcast, I'm giving you information. You can take this information, and you can be responsible for your own health and do what you want with it. This is a free and easy thing to do.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. JN

      For the majority of people with mild snoring and even mild sleep apnea, um, certain forms of mild sleep apnea, once they experiment with this, just, just like your wife, right? It is a completely life-transforming thing. A teeny piece of tape, um, can do that much for your energy levels, which to me makes perfect sense, because if you are not sleeping properly, if you're not entering those stages of deep restorative sleep every single night, it's gonna catch up with you. Once you get that back, you're like, "What do I do with all this energy?"

    22. RC

      Yeah. I'm delighted to announce that AG1, the daily health drink that has been in my own life for over six years now, have updated and improved their formulation based upon the latest science, and to celebrate by giving my audience a very special offer. Some of the upgrades include more magnesium, which supports muscle function and improves the ability of your nervous system to relax, and also five strains of bacteria instead of just two to reflect the latest advances in microbiome science.It also contains key nutrients like vitamin C, biotin, niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin, thiamine, zinc, and folate in bioavailable forms the body can easily and readily utilize, maximizing their potential benefits. Nutrition can often seem really complicated. What diet should we be following? What supplements should we be taking? And I think that's one of the main reasons I really like AG1. They make it really simple for you to be the best version of you. Over 70 ingredients, one scoop once a day for less than a cup of coffee. So if you wanna support your health seven mornings a week, get started with AG1, and right now we have a very special limited time offer. Get a free AG1 Flavour Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus free vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your

  8. 31:56 – 41:02

    Breathing as a master switch for stress physiology (plus a BP-lowering challenge)

    1. RC

      first AG1 subscription order. See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. There's a couple of things that come to mind, right? First of all, why is it that focusing on the way that you breathe can have such incredible benefits on a variety of different conditions-

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... you know, asthma, energy, high blood pressure? You know, you write in the book about autoimmune disease and how certain things, wh- where it can help, and it, of course, if you think about it logically and look at root causes of physiology in the body, you're led back to the stress response.

    4. JN

      You're led back. That's-

    5. RC

      Right?

    6. JN

      That's exactly it, yeah.

    7. RC

      Breathing is intimately linked with your stress response.

    8. JN

      That's right.

    9. RC

      You know, with patients, I would always say, "Breathing is information," right? When you're stressed, you change the way you breathe, and that sends signals up to your brain, and it almost becomes a vicious cycle where your brain then feels under threat. The opposite is true when you're calm and your, your breath is slower, and it's deeper, and let's say it's quieter, and we can talk about these things shortly. You're then sending calm signals up to your brain. So it makes complete sense to me that working on your breathing can help a variety of different conditions.

    10. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RC

      The other thing I was thinking about this morning, James, is this idea that if so many of us in society have dysfunctional breathing, as you said at the start, you know, we're able to live, okay?

    12. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      So we're surviving. We may not be thriving, but we're absolutely surviving. We're basically going about our daily lives at, like, 30% or 40%.

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm. So what happens is we have evolved to register threats in a certain way. Your heart rate goes up. Your respiration goes up, and this is extremely useful. If you're out in the wild and you see a intruder coming into-

    15. RC

      Mm

    16. JN

      ... your camp, or you see a lion, or you see a bear or whatever, this ramps you up to fight or to run away, right? And so we, we've developed this for a reason. Now everything stresses us out. An email from your boss is gonna stress you out. Traffic is gonna stress you out. So what's happening is we stay in this stress response that breathing quickens, and we tend to keep that breathing throughout the day. So as you mentioned, not only is the brain controlling our breathing, but our breathing is controlling-

    17. RC

      Exactly

    18. JN

      ... the brain. It goes the other way. So if you are over-breathing and you are breathing into your chest, and your mouth is a little open, [panting] and you go to any airport, [chuckles] sit on any subway, and you see this all the time. You are sending your brain constant signals that you are stressed out, and you can't break that cycle unless you first take control of your breathing. I don't know of any meditation, any technique that can lower the nervous system overload, right, that can switch you to parasympathetic that does not involve-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. JN

      ... breathing. Slowing down your breathing, taking deeper breaths, breathing in and out of your nose, all of these are foundational to all of those practices.

    21. RC

      And the effects are so far-reaching, right? So if you are breathing in a dysfunctional way for the majority of your day, that could be at least one of the reasons why you're reactive with your partner that evening, why you snap at your children, why you feel a need for sugar or alcohol at the end of the day because a lot of the time, those things, they're downstream, right?

    22. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      If your stress, if your stress, if your nervous system is amped up, those things are manifestations of that.

    24. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      So why I believe that we all need our own personal breathwork practice that we can have in our back pocket, that we can take around with us should we start feeling anxious or nervous or stressed is A, because it's free, B, because it's effective, and C, because the effects are so wide-ranging.

    26. JN

      Mm-hmm, and once you check that box, then you can work on all the other stuff.

    27. RC

      Exactly.

    28. JN

      Right? [chuckles] And, and so it's not gonna fix everything. I would never, ever say that, but it is your first step towards getting control of your asthma attack, of your panic attack, of your emotions, of making a better decision, right? This is the first step, and it takes a few seconds to do. [inhales and exhales] That's how long it takes to start to turn down the volume in your brain and your body, and then if you do a few dozen of those breaths, if you're extremely stressed out, you'll start to turn it down a little more. AndFor people who don't believe this, that think this is some hippie yoga thing, again, hook yourself up to instruments that are feeding you a constant stream of data. Look what happens to your brain, look what happens to your blood pressure, your heart rate, and more when you take just a few calm and slow breaths.

    29. RC

      Yeah. A lot of people have heard the term white coat hypertension, you know, the, the high blood pressure you get when you go into your doctor's office. But what you said just there, in so many ways explains the physiology of what happens there, right? So you're nervous. You've just rushed through traffic to get to your doctor's appointment. You couldn't get a parking space. You just, you, you squeezed one in, you, you maybe put it on a double yellow line, you ran in, and then the doctor's taking your blood pressure. Well, you're stressed out, your nervous system's up, and we know that one of the, you know, one of the things that will happen when you're stressed out, when you see that line, is your blood pressure will go up because we want it to go up because we want more oxygen going up to your brain.

    30. JN

      Mm-hmm.

  9. 41:02 – 1:00:52

    ‘I can’t breathe through my nose’: structural vs inflammatory causes (and what to try)

    1. RC

      Yeah. One of the big things we're talking about here is trying to get people to breathe through their nose more than their mouth, okay? Some people will no doubt say, "Yeah, James, I get that, but I've got a blocked nose."

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      Right? Or, "I can't do it." Can you just tackle this? Because I think this is a common thing that comes up, and I think some of those things are quite amenable to change.

    4. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      Some maybe not so much, but, um, you know, what, what's your best advice for people on that?

    6. JN

      I... Again, I would love to offer you a very simple answer [chuckles] to this, to this question, but there are no simple answers. Some people have structural issues in their sinuses, right? Their turbinates are too plugged up. They have a severely deviated septum. I've broken my nose two, three times, right? Never got it fixed. When I had a scan done of my head, um, they showed that I was extremely messed up, right? So some people have structural issues, and an ENT can, can really help you, right? For most people, though, and I've heard this from ENTs, I've heard this from rhinologists and respiratory therapists-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. JN

      ... for most people, it is the tissues, and it is inflammation, and a lot of this congestion is tied from the fact that these people are habitual mouth breathers, so their nose literally starts closing up. This is a use it or lose it organ. The more you use it, the more it is going to naturally open up. I was one of those people. Even though I have massive structural issues in my nose, I got through that, and I'm able to breathe completely normally through my nose, and the respiratory therapist at Stanford that I talked to about this had the exact same thing. She was slated for surgery. She started nasal breathing, started humming, started using a little piece of tape, and everything changed, which is why she prescribes tape to every single one of her patients. So again, we have that spectrum [chuckles] -

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. JN

      ... of nasal breathing. For people with extreme structural issues, go get a scan, get checked out. Surgery can be incredibly beneficial. For most of us that are just dealing with bad habits and chronic congestion, there are a lot of things you can do to improve that congestion so that nasal breathing becomes easier.

    11. RC

      It's linked to everything. This idea that our lifestyles can be our best medicine is something I'm so passionate about. It-- That's not anti-medicine, it's just saying we can also use food as medicine-

    12. JN

      Mm-hmm

    13. RC

      ... exercise as medicine, or as you've just mentioned, breathing as medicine if we do it in the correct way, right?

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    15. RC

      And this idea that some of us are congested, and therefore we think we can't breathe through our noses, you've just addressed that. And of course, the chronic mouth breathing could be causing that congestion. So if you can change it over-

    16. JN

      Mm

    17. RC

      ... before you know it, that will start to change. But it could also be because if your diet, if you're having loads of ultra-processed foods, some of them you're perhaps reacting to, maybe not a full-blown allergy, maybe a little bit of an intolerance, that can also cause congestion intolerance. I know I can be very sensitive to foods, and if I eat the wrong foods for me, I, I start to feel my nose blocking up. Dairy is one of those.

    18. JN

      Just gonna say that.

    19. RC

      Right?

    20. JN

      Yes. That's right.

    21. RC

      And for many kind of Asians and African sort of descent people, dairy is an issue, you know?

    22. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      So all these things are multifactorial. I'm not saying that to confuse people. I'm kind of saying that to empower people to go, I think most people will be able to breathe through their nose. But of course, some people will need to go and see an ENT doctor, and there may be some work if they've had a broken nose, for example.

    24. JN

      The most work you're gonna have to do is figure out what is your core issue stopping you from nasal breathing, right? That's where the most work and most research... After that, applying these different hacks, this is the easy and the fun part, right? [chuckles] So is it structural? Is it just chronic inflammation? Is it just a bad habit? If it is chronic inflammation, what's causing that? Try an elimination diet, right?

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. JN

      Remove, remove dairy for a week. Um, we know that snoring and sleep apnea go through the roof in allergy season. Why? Because people get stuffed up, [sniffs] they start mouth breathing, and they start snoring. So if we know that's what's causing such a huge percentage of snoring and even mild to moderate sleep apnea, then it makes sense to me, find a way of clearing your nose. There's some antihistamine drugs that work really well for people who want to clear their nose and be able to get a, a nice night of sleep.

    27. RC

      Do you think for some people, their-- they've got functional breathing patterns. They're breathing through their nose at night, but then let's say it's allergy season, right?

    28. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    29. RC

      And so for a month, they're struggling with hay fever. They've got a blocked nose. So, you know, because they're not paying attention, they start to mouth breathe more.

    30. JN

      Yes.

  10. 1:00:52 – 1:05:05

    The Stanford mouth-breathing experiment: rapid sleep damage, rapid reversal

    1. JN

      So it's just, just something to recognize, and this does tie into the Stanford experiment in which I had read so many studies, talked to so many experts in the, about the difference of mouth breathing and nasal breathing, all the benefits of nasal breathing. It helps filter allergens, viruses, bacteria, nitric oxide, uh, calms the nervous system, allows more oxygen to pump to the brain. We know all of this. And we also knew a lot about the damage of mouth breathing, how it makes you more apt to have respiratory infections, snoring and more. So that was established, but no one had done a study-

    2. RC

      Mm

    3. JN

      ... really s- side to side of having a control of like what does mouth breathing in the same person look like?And then switching them to nasal breathing, what does that look like? It was 10 days of forced mouth breathing-

    4. RC

      Ugh. Sounds awful

    5. JN

      ... followed-- Yeah, but you tell people [laughs] that's what people thought, like, "Oh, this is some super size me," you know, stunt or whatever. But if you look at the amount of people that are chronically congested, this is not some crazy thing.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. JN

      This is-- We're just putting ourselves into the position of what million-- tens of millions of people feel like every single day. The difference is we're recording data.

    8. RC

      Okay, so ten days of mouth breathing, ten days of nasal breathing.

    9. JN

      Ten days of nasal breathing.

    10. RC

      What was the difference?

    11. JN

      The biggest difference was in sleep. This is why I keep going back to sleep. I can talk about the things that we felt. Those aren't as important. Extreme fatigue, [laughs] right? Um, uh, very, uh, cloudy in, in our thoughts. Uh, constantly struggling to stay awake. All, all of these things, sleepiness, but the things that were really measured more than anything else was sleep. I don't snore. I don't have sleep apnea. In a single night of converting to mouth-only breathing, my snoring went up about an hour and a half from zero, and three days later, it was at around four to five hours a night, and it stayed there and got worse every single day that that phase of the study continued. The other person in the study, we were allowed a maximum of two people, [laughs] only two. I know it would've been great to have two hundred.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. JN

      I've been trying to get that study going for a long time. They say, "Cool. Do you have ten million dollars?" I, I don't. So we had two people in this. The exact same thing happened with them. Uh, Anders Olsen, he volunteered to be in this study. Zero snoring, zero sleep apnea when he was breathing normally, as, as he would. And then, uh, it full on, full snoring throughout the night and sleep apnea, choking on ourselves simply by changing the pathway through which we breathe air. And then for the other phase, where we converted to nasal breathing, wore a little piece of tape. All of the snoring, all of the sleep apnea, all of it, one hundred percent resolved-

    14. RC

      Wow

    15. JN

      ... after day two. And I have heard this [laughs] from so many people. As I mentioned-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. JN

      ... you, you talk about your wife. Uh, who send me their stuff and say, "Why don't more people know about it?" Now there's all these products, mouth tape products, and all that because it's irrefutable. People have, have seen the, uh, data, and they've also had the experience.

    18. RC

      And, you know, there are all these products, and you can buy them, and some of them make it easier.

    19. JN

      Sure.

    20. RC

      They've got various things where if your mouth wants to open, it can.

    21. JN

      Yeah.

    22. RC

      But, you know, I've got this sort of tape just kicking around the house.

    23. JN

      Yeah.

    24. RC

      It... I, I... You know, you're literally talking, aren't you, just about a tiny bit on your lips? You know, it's not expensive.

    25. JN

      Yeah.

    26. RC

      You know, it's so cheap.

    27. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    28. RC

      And as you just said, it, it could literally tra-- I mean, I don't think we're overselling it to say if you're a mouth breather and you train yourself to breathe through your nose at night, it could transform your experience of day-to-day life.

    29. JN

      Depends who you are.

    30. RC

      Yeah.

  11. 1:05:05 – 1:21:11

    Exhale training and diaphragm range: Carl Stough’s forgotten respiratory rehab

    1. RC

      There's so many different topics in Breath when I was rereading it that I thought would be fun to talk about. One of my favorite chapters was Exhale, and I started to do an exercise yesterday that I've never done before, right? So in that chapter, you talk about this idea that shallow breathing will limit the range of our diaphragms. You know, it's that use it or lose it phenomena you mentioned before, right? If we're not using our diaphragm to its full ability, we're going to limit its range. And in that chapter on exhale, you mentioned, um... Was it this chorister?

    2. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      What was his name, the chorister?

    4. JN

      Carl Stough.

    5. RC

      Yeah, Carl Stough.

    6. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      And there was this exercise you talked about, which I did with my kids last night, which was amazing-

    8. JN

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... where you take a, a deep breath in. Well, this is my interpretation of it. You can correct me if I've got any of it, uh, wrong. And then you just count to ten. You keep counting to ten, and, and, you know, 'cause you're trying to get a maximum exhale. And it's phenomenal because-

    10. JN

      [laughs]

    11. RC

      ... at the end of it, you really feel your abs. You feel, "Oh, wow, I very, very rarely exhale to that level."

    12. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      Can you talk a little bit about why exhaling is so important, why a lot of our problems come from our inability-

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm

    15. RC

      ... to exhale properly, and why that exercise is so useful?

    16. JN

      Mm-hmm. Carl Stough was a choral conductor. He taught singers how to sing better, and he ended up train-- retraining opera singers at the Met, Met Opera. So part of what he was doing was teaching these different people to take a full exhale. So the diaphragm is this parachute-shaped muscle that sits underneath the lungs, and when we inhale, [inhales] it flexes down like that. When we exhale, it relaxes [exhales] and it pushes air out. [inhales] So we're supposed to have a lot of movement in this diaphragm. It's supposed to be going all the way down when we inhale. [inhales] It's supposed to be going up when we exhale. Most of us have very limited movement. Carl Stough found that we use about ten percent-

    17. RC

      Oh, wow

    18. JN

      ... of our ability to flex that diaphragm. Ten percent. Most people walking around on the street, which means we're just breathing like this. [panting] And if we do that, we have to engage other muscles toUm, to, uh, sort of work with our lungs to push that air in and out, and this is why people tend to-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. JN

      ... put their shoulders up, why they tense their necks. So Stough was brought in to the VA hospitals on the East Coast to rehabilitate people with emphysema in the '60s, and these are people who were literally left to die. We had no idea-

    21. RC

      Mm-hmm

    22. JN

      ... what to do with them. So emphysema is under the umbrella of COPD now.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. JN

      So what, what he found, and what none of the doctors had realized, is these people with emphysema, their diaphragms were locked, literally locked, and they were locked on this deep inhale, so they could not exhale air.

    25. RC

      Wow.

    26. JN

      So when they breathed, they just had to go [inhales sharply] . That's how much they could breathe. So they had to take 30, 40 breaths a minute. We know what that does for stress levels. Also, you're using all of your energy just to breathe-

    27. RC

      Mm

    28. JN

      ... in this extremely inefficient way, and this is why they were having so many problems in their lungs, because the air wasn't turning over. That stale air was sitting there. So he realized the problem, and through a series of different massage techniques and breathing techniques, he was able to unlock their diaphragms, allow them to fully exhale, and if you fully exhale, guess what? You're able to fully inhale. [inhales deeply]

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. JN

      And without any drugs, through these breathing techniques, he was able to completely rehabilitate people with emphysema, that doctors had never seen anything like this. And he spent a decade in these hospitals working every day of the week to do this, thousands and thousands of patients. And when he left the hospitals after all that time, all of his techniques were completely forgotten and have not been used since. They were never disproven. [chuckles]

  12. 1:21:11 – 1:38:39

    Breath holds, CO2 tolerance, and anxiety/asthma links

    1. RC

      talk about breath holds.

    2. JN

      Okay.

    3. RC

      Um, you talk a lot about breath holds in the book, and of course, a lot of people are aware of a certain type of breathing practice and breath holds, you know, Wim Hof breathing, which I think comes from Tummo breathing from what I-

    4. JN

      Mm-hmm

    5. RC

      ... understand in your book.

    6. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      Um, but I wanted to take breath hold in a slightly different direction with you, James. We've, we've, we've covered the Wim Hof breathing stuff before-

    8. JN

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... when you've been on the show, and I think... I don't think it's for everyone. Um, I think it can be very helpful for some people.

    10. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RC

      And I think the key message you're trying to get across in this conversation is, before you go to these fancy breathing techniques, get your foundation sorted.

    12. JN

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      Make sure you're nasal breathing. Make sure you can do that slow, quiet breath-

    14. JN

      Mm-hmm

    15. RC

      ... in for five or six seconds, out for five or six seconds. The breath hold I wanna talk to you about, and it's really... it'll be interesting to get your take on this, especially because you wrote a book on free diving, I think-

    16. JN

      Mm-hmm

    17. RC

      ... prior to, uh, the book on breathing.

    18. JN

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      This idea that it's rising CO2 levels, carbon dioxide levels, that is ultimately our drive to breathe. Okay. Now, where I was challenged with that was when I did a breath hold course with Erwin Lacor. I dunno if you know Erwin or not.

    20. JN

      Mm.

    21. RC

      He's the founder of MovNat-

    22. JN

      Mm-hmm

    23. RC

      ... a natural movement, um, kind of training organization. He's been teaching-

    24. JN

      Mm-hmm

    25. RC

      ... people to do natural primal movements, uh, for years. But over the last years, I think inspired by free diving, he's been doing what he calls breath hold work meditation.

    26. JN

      Hmm.

    27. RC

      And I did his online course, and on the very first session, he asked everyone on this Zoom call to take a breath in, you know, as much as you can, and then hold it for as long as you can. And you know, I had just landed in Sweden. I was... I'd rushed to the hotel room, and so there's all kinds of other factors at play here. But I could hold my breath for about a minute before I had to breathe again. Four weeks later, I could do four minutes and 20 seconds. Hyperventilation did not play a role at all, right?

    28. JN

      Hmm.

    29. RC

      So his viewpoint is that do... You know, I don't wanna speak for Erwin, but he would argue that doing breath holds after you've done hyperventilation is like doing cold plunge with your wetsuit on.

    30. JN

      Hmm.

  13. 1:38:39 – 1:56:03

    Indoor CO2 and ‘stale air’: why buildings and travel can wreck sleep and cognition

    1. RC

      Yeah. One of the new sections in the paperback is to do with carbon dioxide levels inside. I know you've got this monitor with you-

    2. JN

      [laughs]

    3. RC

      ... 'cause you checked my kitchen, and I was delighted that it was decent. What's going on? What have you learned since the original publication about indoor air quality, and why is it important that we know about it?

    4. JN

      What I've learned is that, uh, this is something that I did not know about when I first wrote this book, and luckily I've been able to speak at various conferences, talk to more experts, and they kept telling me, they're like, "You have to look at indoor air quality." I said, "Why?" And they said, "Because there is an epidemic of high carbon dioxide in indoor air." So people say, "Wait, I thought you just said having higher levels of carbon dioxide in your bloodstream is a good thing?" It is. It's all about balance. When you're creating the CO2 within your body, okay, then your body knows what to do with it. It comes on slowly. You can acclimate to it. When you sense high levels of carbon dioxide in the environment, your body views this as a threat.

    5. RC

      It's like breath holding, right? In the s-

    6. JN

      It's like breath holding

    7. RC

      ... in the sense that if you're holding your breath unconsciously because, I don't know, you're looking at your emails. We-

    8. JN

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... we've not mentioned email apnea yet, but you know, where you hold your breath when you're looking at these emails-

    10. JN

      Mm-hmm

    11. RC

      ... right? That's a breath hold of sorts. You're not meaning to do it. The environment is resulting in you doing it. That's very different, isn't it, from when you intentionally decide, "You know what? I'm gonna try and now hold my breath for two minutes instead of a minute by calming my mind." Do you know what? Do you know what I mean? It's, it's a similar kind of principle.

    12. JN

      One is conscious and one is acute, right? So you are consciously holding your breath for a short amount of time. You are controlling that.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. JN

      When you are in an environment for hours or days at a time with high CO2 levels, your body has to struggle to keep the blood pH consistent. As you know-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. JN

      ... as a doctor, you have to stay at the same pH. All, all cells work at a very specific pH, 7.38 to 7.42, right? So you have to be in that range, and if you're not, your body will keep you alive, but it has to do all this, uh, extra work.

    17. RC

      Mm.

    18. JN

      Right? Your kidneys have to work harder. It starts pulling minerals from, from your bones. You have to release bicarbonate, like whatever. All of these different things have to happen. So for a short amount of time, it's fine, but chronically we know that there are so many issues associated with it. When I started doing the deep dive into research, there are governments all over the world that have been doing these studies for 20, 30 years. So again, it's not controversial, but then you go and start measuring it. We have the science, but the measurements of these indoor environments are an absolute disaster.

    19. RC

      Why is it so bad indoors?

    20. JN

      I was shocked. So what happens is before, back in the day, we used to have these amazing things, this incredible technology called windows.

    21. RC

      [laughs]

    22. JN

      And when it was stuffy in a room, I'm gonna open the window.

    23. RC

      [laughs]

    24. JN

      So that window allows fresh air in. So then we had this idea, we're like, "Let's remove all windows from all hotels and all offices and conference centers, and we're gonna pump in air." Okay? We're gonna heat that air or cool it down depending on where we are. We're gonna pump it in, then we're gonna pump it back out. In theory, that works fine as long as you're pumping that air in and out, and what so many hotels and so many schools too are doing is pumping in air and out and he- and in heating it, so that requires an incredible amount of energy, about 50% of the energy cost, right? So what they're doing is they're bringing in a small amount of air, and they're recycling it throughout the rooms-

    25. RC

      Mm-hmm

    26. JN

      ... so that they don't have to spend any money cooling it down or heating it up. So you think you're alone in your room. You are breathing the air from the person next door, the person next door to them, so much so that in some hotels we found that around one in every 20 to 25 breaths you're taking is someone else's exhalation. And if you go to the window to open it up, guess what?

    27. RC

      You can't open it.

    28. JN

      It doesn't matter if you're at a wellness hotel. [laughs] Some of those are the worst, by the way. You can't open the window up. You cannot get fresh air into this room. So right now in the outdoor environment, there's around 428 parts per million of CO2, okay? We know that. It goes up every year. In indoor environments, once you get to a level of around 1,500 parts per million of CO2, so three, three, four times the amount that's in the outdoor, some studies have shown a 50% decrease in cognitive performance-

    29. RC

      Wow

    30. JN

      ... 'cause your body is under stress. If you get to 2,500 parts per million, per million of... That's about one in every 25 breaths is someone else's exhalation. That starts increasing precipitously, headaches, fatigue, even high blood pressure. By the time you get to 3,000 and 4,000, you're at around one in 10 to one in 12 breaths you're taking is someone else's exhalation, and this is when some very serious problems can occur in your body.

  14. 1:56:03 – 2:15:52

    Travel survival kit and longevity: what James never travels without + why lungs predict lifespan

    1. RC

      As someone who probably doesn't want this label but is considered around the world now an expert in breathing and the breath, I'm interested that you travel so much, and I'm really interested as to are there some things now that you never travel without based upon what you've learnt and experienced?

    2. JN

      Through trial and error, I've become one of those weirdos that has my little-

    3. RC

      [laughs]

    4. JN

      I'm sorry. It's true. I never thought this would happen.

    5. RC

      [laughs]

    6. JN

      I would mock these people endlessly, and now I'm one of them. So I have specific lights that I travel with. Right when I get into the hotel room, I switch off the bulbs, and I have red lights or amber lights, so that's the number one thing. I travel either with a neti pot if I know I'm gonna have a source of distilled water or with nasal spray, natural nasal sprays.

    7. RC

      Is that in case you get sick on the road?

    8. JN

      No, it's preventative maintenance. So you think about you're in an airplane. We know the air quality's not very good. People say, "Oh, I only fly business or first class because the air quality's so much better up there." I'm here. I have proof it is the exact same. So you can use another excuse to do that, and that's fine, but don't, don't say it's air quality. So if you use a nasal spray, you think of all the stuff you're exposed to on the airplane. I can't get sick when I'm on the road. I'm speaking at events.

    9. RC

      Yeah, yeah.

    10. JN

      I'm doing research. If I get sick, it's a disaster. So I spray out my nose. I, I sp-

    11. RC

      When? When you land or when you get on the plane?

    12. JN

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I do it when I land. Sometimes if it's a long flight, 14-hour flight, I will go in the bathroom half- halfway through, spray it out a little bit. I also have another spray bottle with a diluted version of, of iodine in there. Um, if I feel a cold coming on, then there's, there's been some good research into that, and that was especially effective for COVID. They- they found this is very, very effective. So-

    13. RC

      Mouth tape on the plane?

    14. JN

      Never. I've seen people do it, and I, you know, massive.

    15. RC

      Do you travel with mouth tape?

    16. JN

      I use it every single night wherever I am.

    17. RC

      But why? So, okay.

    18. JN

      Wherever I am.

    19. RC

      So you travel with it.

    20. JN

      Yes, yes.

    21. RC

      You use it in the hotel.

    22. JN

      Yes.

    23. RC

      But why do you not use it on the plane?

    24. JN

      I just can't go that far.

    25. RC

      [laughs] Okay.

    26. JN

      I... Okay. I, I'd love to give you another reason-

    27. RC

      Social embarrassment [laughs]

    28. JN

      ... that's, that's, that's scientific, but I just, I just can't.

    29. RC

      It's too much [laughs] .

    30. JN

      And I've noticed, I have noticed, 'cause I've paid attention to this, if I'm sleeping like this up in a chair, I tend to have my mouth closed. It's when I put my head on a pillow [snores]

Episode duration: 2:15:52

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