This DAILY BREATHING TECHNIQUE Will Transform Your Body & Mind TODAY! | James Nestor

1. 0:00 – 6:55

   Why a Skeptical Journalist Wrote a Book on Breath

   1. JNJames Nestor0:00

      By changing the way in which you breathe, you can actually change how your mind is processing thoughts and feelings and emotions. How we breathe absolutely affects us. It even affects the density of our bones. It affects us down to the atomic level, subatomic level with electrons. So to, to think that how we breathe does not matter is not based in any real science. [upbeat music]

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:32

      So James, welcome to the podcast.

   3. JNJames Nestor0:35

      Thanks a lot for having me.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:37

      Hey, no worries. I see you've got... had to get up a little bit early today. Um, just a bit of context for people listening to this or watching this. I'm currently in the UK, uh, in my new podcast studio, actually in my garden. So you're the very first guest I'm interviewing from the studio, so I'm delighted it's you. Um, but we're going through a bit of a heat wave here in the UK. It's about 32 degrees outside at the moment, which for the UK is, is hot. So I'm dripping and I'm really sweaty. So you're in San Francisco, is that right?

   5. JNJames Nestor1:08

      I am, yes. Where it's extremely cold, so our summers here are freezing.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14

      Yeah, we wouldn't be expecting that, would we? From the UK to San Francisco. We, we've got this perception of California that it's always sunny and always hot, but you're sort of dispelling that myth right here.

   7. JNJames Nestor1:24

      Complete fiction.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:25

      Complete fiction.

   9. JNJames Nestor1:26

      Yeah.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27

       Okay. Well, okay, bit of context there. So look, I was sent your brand new book, Breath, an early copy I think March or April time, and I get sent a lot of books, but this book stopped me in my tracks. Like, it's one of those where I opened it and I couldn't stop reading it because it's exactly where my personal interest and my professional interest as a medical doctor coincide. Uh, breathwork is something I've been thinking a lot about, talking a lot about. I've spoken to Patrick McKeown and Brian Mackenzie on this podcast in the past. People really enjoying that content. And when I saw the depth to which you had gone to in this book, I, I remember emailing your publisher saying, "I've got to talk to James. When is he coming to the UK?" I think this is, I think this was just before the pandemic kicked off and I was like, "Let me know when he's here, 'cause I wanna meet him in person and have the conversation." So first of all, thank you for writing such an amazing book. Um, but for me, what's really interesting, when I've done a bit of research on you, you're a science journalist, right? And it's really interesting for me, why did a science journalist who by your own account in the past was a skeptic about breathing and breathwork, how did you end up writing such an amazing and detailed book on breath?

   11. JNJames Nestor2:48

       Well, first of all, thank you very much for those compliments. I really appreciate that. And, uh, I had never intended to write a book about breathing. Th- that was just something that I had never planned, but all the pieces of this puzzle kept coming together over several years until finally I had enough tangents that I wanted to put them together into one coherent story. So when I first started writing this book, when I got the, the contract to do it, my friends were like, "Why on earth would you ever wanna write a book about breathing? It's just something we automatically do, we unconsciously do. How could that be of any interest?" But once I started telling them about the real research happening here, how it influences every function of our body, how once we take control of it we can really help heal ourselves, we can even heat ourselves up, we can do all of these amazing things, then they got a little more interested and, and so did I in the subject. So I... You know, the beginning point for me was really a breathing experience I had several, several years ago that nobody could really describe, but it wasn't until I talked to free divers and researchers who were studying free divers that I truly understood the full potential of breathing.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:59

       Yeah. I mean, that word potential I think is really, really fascinating because when I, when I think about breathwork and the breath and breathing practices, the sort of phrase that keeps coming up in my mind is untapped potential. Like, so many of us as humans are walking around taking our breath for granted without any knowledge that actually a bit of care and attention, a bit of deliberate practice can potentially yield some quite dramatic benefits, right?

   13. JNJames Nestor4:34

       Well, we breathe... The average person breathes about 25,000 times a day, and most of us aren't thinking about any of those breaths. We take in 30 pounds of air into our lungs and out of our lungs every single day. So if you think that that air and how we take that air in and how we expel it doesn't affect us, it's, it's crazy. So much more than, than food. And, and, uh, in my opinion, after talking to researchers for so many years, you can eat all the right foods, you can eat paleo or keto or vegan or whatever, you can exercise as much as you want, but if you're not breathing correctly, you're never, ever gonna be healthy. And I've seen this repeatedly with people who look to be the most fit people on the planet, and they have chronic respiratory problems, and they suffer from that in numerous ways. So once we take control of this unconscious ability to breathe, we can then harness all of the power within that and use it to do some incredible things. Some things that scientists thought were absolutely impossible have been proven to be absolutely possible by focusing on your breathing.

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:45

       Yeah. Well, we're gonna delve into that during this conversation today because there are so many fascinating stories that you've written about, research, you know, case studies. Um, really quite incredible. I mean, there's, there's, there's, you know... You've done so many interviews since this book came out, and it is great for me as a, as a medical doctor to see that there appears to be- A huge amount of interest now, you know, with, with books like yours really raising awareness of how important the way we breathe is. But I was really struck by your subtitle in the book, um, and so the book's called Breath, but then the subtitle is The New Science of a Lost Art. Now, not only does that sound amazing, there's, there's a real magic there, uh, the new science of a lost art. Science and art fascinates me because I say the practice of medicine is art and science. You know, it's not just science, it's not just looking at publications, it's how do you put that all together with the person in front of you, the patient in front of you, and how do you sort of blend it together to come up with the right solution for the right patient.

2. 6:55 – 12:12

   The Lost Art: Why Breathing Knowledge Keeps Being Forgotten

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:55

      So tell me about that subtitle in the context of the breath. Why is it a lost art?

   2. JNJames Nestor7:00

      Well, what I kept finding as I researched breathing and the art of breathing, starting from the last century to the century before that and going back thousands of years, is people have been talking about this and writing about this and studying this for, for millennia. So, uh, the earliest dated conscious breathing practices date back, you know, about 3,000, 4,000 years. And if you look around the world, all of these different cultures started studying the same things. They started c- coming to the same conclusions about breathing. That if we do it improperly, our brea- our health is gonna suffer. If we do it properly, we can really help use that to help heal ourselves and to go up that next rung of human potential. So the thing that was frustrating is we would discover these things, and then for some reason, in some way, they would be ignored and lost. Then they would be rediscovered, renamed something else, rediscovered by someone else at a different time, and then be proven at that time and forgotten about. And this just kept happening over and over and over. I guess the more accurate title would be Lost and Found, because, 'cause that's what kept happening. And, and it really feels like right now we're at this moment where we have the instruments, we have the interest to really study breathing and to prove how it's working, how it alters our minds and our bodies, and how it can benefit us, and that would be the new science of that subtitle. Um, it's a new science, new measurements, looking at a very old practice.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:36

      Yeah, it's interesting when you compare this to other old practices such as, uh, let's say traditional Chinese medicine, which for years has been telling us that different organs in the body function, uh, function in different ways at different times of the day. Something that Western medicine until recently has almost sort of looked down upon. That was, you know, the liver is the liver, the, the kidney is the kidney. But there's a lot of science now in circadian biology showing that these organs at different times in the day, there's different amounts of genetic expression, and they have different functions, different enzymatic functioning, and all kinds of things. Yet we need almost... Well, we've needed modern science now to go, "Oh, actually, yeah, you were right." Um, and, and I, and I, I sort of understand that. And you are a science journalist, so I guess you may... Or is it fair to say you always approach topics with a bit of skepticism? Because I, I, I kind of feel that it's a... not a little bit of arrogance in us as modern humans that we, we sort of feel that, you know, "Oh, prove it," you know, "Prove it." Like, we... You're saying this has been written about 5,000 years ago, so it's so striking that, that we've forgotten it, we, we've, we, we need reminding of it. But then also, why is it at this moment in time, in 2020, why does there appear to be such an interest now in breathing and breathwork? Because, yes, your book is incredible, but Wim Hof has been gaining notoriety and popularity for, for a good few years now. Um, hopefully Patrick McKeown and with The Oxygen Advantage, that's getting more and more awareness. I mean, what is going on? What... Why are, why are people interested now?

   4. JNJames Nestor10:15

      I think the, the main thing for me was I had no slant going into this story. I, I... There's no benefit for me to say nasal breathing is better than mouth breathing, or one version of breathing is better than, than the other. So, so my job as a journalist is to go in, talk to the experts in the field, accumulate as much information, and objectively come out and, and give my, uh, assessment of, of this world of breathing. So there was a lot of what I found which was not supported at all. But the areas that I focused on on the book have such a firm foundation of science. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way that science is set up, especially medical science right now, you know. Uh, at the beginning, about half of the professors and doctors and other experts I talked to said breathing doesn't matter. So how we do it does not matter. Nose, mouth, 20 times a day, 10 times a day, your body is gonna compensate, which is 100% true. Our bodies will compensate, but that doesn't mean they're fully working at their best potential. That doesn't mean we're healthy. Just getting by is different than being healthy. Then you have all these other researchers who have studied breathing for, for 50 years. Some of these researchers signed up for 50 years. They said how we breathe absolutely affects us. It even affects the density of our bones. It affects us down to the atomic level, subatomic level with electrons. So to, to think that how we breathe does not matter is not based in any real science. And, and again, my job was to go in and talk to these people and look at the studies and piece together a story from that.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:07

      Yeah. Now, thanks for sharing that. Um-

3. 12:12 – 16:18

   A Simple Foundation: Slow, Nasal, Light Breathing

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:12

      When I think about breathing and when I talk to people, whether it's my family, my friends, patients, I think people are starting to get awareness now that actually it's important. But there's a bit of confusion. There's so many different breathing methods out there, and I think some people struggle to know, well, what sort of breathing method should I do? I really wanna sort of delve into that today in this conversation, but I guess before we do that, is it, is it worth clarifying, you know, what is the problem at the moment? What... Are there... Is there a base level breathing practice that everyone should do, for example? Because I think it'll be easy, and I wanna go into, you know, all k- different kinds of breathing, uh, practices, but I also wanna make sure we don't lose people so that they can see the big picture, but they also know a simple thing that they can take away and start applying.

   2. JNJames Nestor13:06

      Yeah, and that's a great question, and it's a question I had early on because you've got dozens of books on breathing. There's some books on pranayama that have 300 different practices in it. [laughs] It's like, where, where do I begin here? What I've found is so many of them all come to the same conclusion. They're all doing the same thing, so they're means to the same ends. So if you look at ancient Chinese practices of breathing, they are almost identical to ancient Hindu practices of breathing, which are almost identical to the yoga practices that are being used now or the other practices that are, uh, being used by psychiatrists for anxiety and depression. They're all doing the same thing. We know this from measurements. So what I tried to do in the book was not to focus on these individual breathing techniques, but to focus on the larger story around it. How do they affect us? What are they? Where did they come from? Um, because it doesn't matter, you could call it by 12 different names, slow breathing is slow breathing, and there's a very simple way of doing it. So the, the center of the book is a foundation of breathing that everybody can benefit from. And again, it doesn't matter who invented this or who claims to in- have invented this stuff or at what time, it's simple practices of breathing through the nose, exhaling more, breathing less, breathing slowly. So that's what I tried to focus on, the, the general view of this, and if you want more of the specifics, there's already a zillion books on, on the how-to with, with hundreds of different practices.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:42

      You're just past 8:00 AM at the moment in San Francisco, so I don't know what your normal wake-up time is, but have you done any breathwork this morning as a way of preparing for the day ahead?

   4. JNJames Nestor14:53

      I'm a night owl, so my normal wake-up time is much later than this, hence, hence the tea over here. Um-

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:59

      Oh, wow.

   6. JNJames Nestor14:59

      [laughs] But, uh, you know, people think that since I studied breathing for so many years, I'd be the best breather in the world, and I'm, I'm not. I've got a lot of work to do. Um, but at least the, the first step about breathing is to be conscious of it and, and to understand that this isn't something that should just be running in the background, in the back of our minds, but something that we can take control of. So I'm acutely aware of when I'm breathing improperly, and I'm acutely aware of then how to fix it. So more intense breathwork practices I will do about three or four times a week, usually at night, but throughout the do- throughout the day, I'm adopting very simple, healthy breathing habits. And that, that to me is, is one of the most important things about this. This isn't asking people to go out and run six miles a day or to completely change their lifestyle. You can adopt healthy breathing habits no matter what you're doing, if you're sitting in front of a computer, if you're watching Netflix, if you're walking around. And just by adopting those, you can have a transformative effect on your health. That sounds like a huge claim, but I've seen it, and the studies have shown it.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:09

      Yeah. Oh, brilliant. Uh, and I think that's a great message for people. So let's dive into something that you have written about. You've touched on it in the conversation so far, nasal breathing,

4. 16:18 – 23:43

   Nasal vs. Mouth Breathing and Mouth Taping

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:18

      okay? Um, and you know, for people who've, who've been listening to my podcast for a while, they will have heard me talk about this with Brian McKenzie and with Patrick McKeown, right? Um, but I think we've got a lot of new listeners, and I think it's always reiterating how important it is to breathe through your nose. So, so what's going on? When someone breathes through their nose compared to their mouth, what is going on, and why does it make such a difference?

   2. JNJames Nestor16:46

      So when we breathe through our nose, we are humidifying air, we're pressurizing air, we are filtering that air out, and we're conditioning it so that by the time that air gets to our lungs, it can more easily be absorbed, and we can extract oxygen from it. So we know this. This is, this has been proven time and time again, and yet about 25 to 50% of the population habitually mouth breathes. And when you mouth breathe, you get none of those benefits. You can almost think of the lungs as an external organ when you're mouth breathing, right? They're exposed to everything in your environment, and if you live in a city like I do, I don't want to expose my lungs to all those allergens and pollutants. So the quickest way of filtering air and conditioning it is this wondrous organ right in the front of our faces called the nose, and it is completely underappreciated and underused in society.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:46

      Yeah, absolutely. So how did you go from... I think I've read you say before, or I think maybe I heard it in an interview, that you used to be a mouth breather. Um, how did you become a nose breather, and is it possible for anyone to actually listen to this and go, "Okay, I hear you, James. There's all these benefits. I want those benefits. How do I start?"

   4. JNJames Nestor18:13

      Yeah, I remember breathing through my mouth as a kid. I see pictures of myself when I was young and I'm breathing through my mouth. Not all the time, but it definitely happened. And even until adulthood, I thought it was normal just to go to sleep with a pint of water by my bed every single night, to wake up every few hours with a dry mouth, take a swig of water, go back to sleep. I did that for decades till I met Dr. Jayakar Nayak down at Stanford, and he said, "This isn't normal at all. We should be breathing through our nose all the time, especially during sleeping hours." That's a third of your life, and if you're breathing through the mouth, you're just exposing yourself to everything in your environment, and also you're loosening the tissues at the back of your throat and making yourself more apt to snore and have sleep apnea, which is another thing that, that blew my mind. So, uh, you know, once you realize how dangerous mouth breathing is, you can then take a conscious effort to change it, how you're doing, how you're breathing throughout the day. But that won't help you when you're unconscious at night, right? So, so once I learned this, I was shutting my mouth all the time, practicing nasal breathing. At the beginning it was very difficult. I felt very congested here, but the nose is a use it or lose it organ. I also learned that from, from Stanford, that the more you use it, the more it's gonna open up. Those tissues are gonna acclimate and open up. So I focused on that, and at night, this sounds a little crazy, uh, but I used a little piece of tape, uh, which I still do, just on my lips, to train my mouth shut at night. And, uh, this sounds a little, you know, like, like New Age science, but it's, but it's not because I heard from the, a breathing therapist at Stanford, Anne Kearney, who had used it herself and uses it for her patients, and talked to other researchers who did the same thing. Um, and that has helped me tremendously, and it's helped so many other people as well, and it's free.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:16

      Yeah. Hey, James, look, I, I'm, I'm totally with you on that. It, it is incredible the difference. In fact, I actually spoke to a buddy this morning on the phone who I've not spoken to for a few months and I said, "Hey." He was saying, "How's the podcast going?" I said, "Yeah, great. I'm actually speaking to someone, James Nestor, this afternoon. You gotta get his book. It's just incredible. It's all about breathing." And he said to me that the thing he's changed a few months ago, um, was he started to tape his mouth up at night, and he said he cannot believe the difference. He said, "I don't wake up thirsty. I'm not groggy in the morning. I've got more energy, better cognition." You know, and, and I think for people who are skeptical, and I know they are out there, they're, they're... Even within my own family, there's skeptics to how important breathing is. I think it really is quite profound what you can feel like. You may not even know how good you can feel until you start breathing in a more optimal way. Um, but if you talk, when you talk about tape over your mouth, some people I think will probably feel claustrophobic and the thought of actually taping their mouth shut probably is gonna scare them. But, but you would say it's not like that, is it?

   6. JNJames Nestor21:27

      No. And, and just to, to second what you were saying, it's one thing to have a subjective experience and say, "Hey, I feel better after taping," and that means something, right? But it's another thing to measure this stuff. If we can measure it, we can study it. If we can study it, we can figure out if it's actually working, and that's exactly what we did work- working with, with Nayak at Stanford. So the measurements from these instruments aren't gonna lie. Yes, I felt better, but to me as a science journalist, it's much more convincing to have data, 'cause what works with one person may not work with somebody else. And that's... They're finding right now that Stanford, Anne Kearney, is booting up a study of 200 people looking at sleep apnea and snoring and sleep tape, and, uh, I so happen to have a little role here. Um, and I wanna explain to people that don't... I would highly suggest not going on YouTube and looking how to sleep tape, 'cause there's a lot of really sketchy stuff there. All you need is a teeny piece of tape. I use a piece that big. It's about half the size of a postage stamp, and I put it right across my lips. I can still talk to you, I can still breathe from my mouth if, if I want, but it just reminds me when I'm unconscious to keep my jaw shut. And I can take it off with my tongue. So this is not a hostage situation duct tape kinda thing. This is a teeny piece of tape just to train the mouth shut. And just anecdotally, I've received several dozen emails from people who have had chronic snoring for the past few decades, who have had even mild or moderate sleep apnea, and they've recorded their sleep and they no longer suffer from those things. So it's not psychosomatic, it's not a placebo effect. That's what happens when you close your mouth and you allow that air to be pressurized, push the soft tissues further back in your airway, and open them up to breathe more efficiently. You get 20% more oxygen through a nasal breath than you do through a mouth breath, and if you think that's not gonna affect you over the long term, you're, you're nuts. It will have a tremendous effect on your health.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:41

      Yeah, absolutely.

5. 23:43 – 34:31

   Shrinking Jaws, Soft Food and Airway Development

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:43

      In your research, you know, you mentioned sleep apnea, um, and you know, these, these problems we have, sleep problems are endemic now. You know, there's... It's, you know, sleep deprivation is an epidemic. There's many reasons for that, of course. Um, but it, but it's really fascinating for me that, you know, I think back, I always try and look at the way we're suffering now or, or the maladies of, of the 21st century and try and put them in a, in an evolutionary perspective and a context and go, "Well, what's really going on here?" And I don't know if in your research, did you ever come across that sleep apnea and sleep problems are quite a modern problem? I mean, do we know if this existed 300, 400 years ago? Was, was any part of your research on this at all?

   2. JNJames Nestor24:30

      Well, we can't go back and test people, but what we can do is look at skeletons. And so I talked to the experts in the field, biological anthropologists, who look at the shape of skeletons. And our ancestors, anything older than around 400 years, maybe 500 years, they would have these very powerful jaws, and they would have these faces that grew outward, and these huge nasal apertures in the back. So from those skeletons, we can, we can decipher that these people had larger airways, they had more room to breathe. We know that obesity a- absolutely affects snoring and, and sleep apnea as well, and people are not, were not as obese as they are now, and that, that seems very clear and understood. But this idea that our ancestors had these huge, powerful faces and we do not is less acknowledged, and yet it's very clear in the skeletal record. And an example of this is looking at the teeth of an ancient skeleton. If you were to look at the teeth of one of your ancestors 400 years old, 4,000 years old, 40,000, doesn't matter, on back, they would have perfectly straight teeth. There's like a 99.9% chance perfectly straight teeth. Today, 90% of us have some sort of crookedness in our teeth because our mouths have grown so small. With a s- with a very small mouth, you also have a smaller airway, and that's one of the main reasons so many of us suffer from snoring, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, it's even implicated in asthma, allergies, and more.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:12

      Yeah. Wow. And why do we think that's happened? Why, why have we got such a smaller mouth, smaller jaw? Are there some sort of theories out there?

   4. JNJames Nestor26:19

      [laughs] Yeah. There's, there's a few theories, but there's also some, a, a few absolute facts that have, that have been, uh, very clearly identified in the past 20 years, and that is when our food shifted from this wild, tough food where we were required to chew a lot more, food became soft, we chewed less, our mouths grew too small. Environmental inputs had some effect on that. When you're walking around breathing through your mouth, especially when you're a kid, your face will grow differently. It's so common that this is called adenoid face, from when the adenoids or tonsils inflame and you have to walk around like this. But most of it is caused by food, by the softness of our diets, and there's been some incredible research done, done in this, and I just think it's so under-acknowledged, the role that, that chewing, masticatory stress, plays in the structure of our faces. But it's also so simple. The less you use something, the less it's gonna develop. And especially this is important in infancy. They've done studies where they've looked at infants who have been bottle-fed versus those who have been breastfed, and when an infant is breastfed, it requires a tremendous amount of stress and exercise and helps push the face outward, which will then create a larger airway.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:47

      Yeah. You know, it's incredible. You're talking about food that we chew more. What you're fundamentally talking about is more natural foods, less highly processed, industrialized food. So we, we often think about food in the context of our health, our wellbeing, particularly a lot of people talk about it in the context of their weight. But you're sort of saying, yeah sure, but what... You know, yes, your weight, but health and wellbeing is so broad, and now we're introducing mouth size and teeth strength and teeth structure and jaw structure into the potential benefits of eating real food.

   6. JNJames Nestor28:27

      Yeah, I mean, here again is an example of all these disparate people in these disparate areas of science all coming to the same general conclusion in just slightly different ways. So we're usually looking at foods in terms of calo- at least in the US, we're looking at it in terms of calories. We're not looking at it in terms of toughness or, or softness. And I think it's, it's quite interesting that even today, you think about what's considered healthy food today. Oatmeal, avocados, yogurt, you know, goo bars. All this stuff is soft. It requires basically no chewing at all. And the less you're chewing, especially when you're younger, the less you'll be working out these muscles, the less you'll be developing your face.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:17

      Yeah. And you said especially when you're younger. Now, that's really interesting because one thing, yes, as a doctor, but also as a parent, that I've always found quite curious is this idea that, oh, the adults will eat proper food, but the kids' menu... I don't know if it's the same in the States, the kids' menu is g- generally full of junk.

   8. JNJames Nestor29:39

      [laughs]

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:39

      It's like the prop- the adults will all order the proper food, but the kids will have some sort of, I don't know, you know, hyper-processed, industrialized foods. And, you know, I am not blaming anyone or criticizing anyone for doing that. I understand. That's the, almost the conditioning as well. But one thing we have very much tried hard from a young age with our children is they eat the same as what we do. We eat, as much as we can, uh, minimally processed, m- you know, food as close to nature as possible. And, you know, I appreciate we're lucky to be able to have access to that, but we do that, and that's what we give our kids. We don't make separate food for them. And it's just interesting. You know, you say all, all roads are sort of leading to Rome and the same place. Actually, yeah, eat the right diet. It's, it's almost like [laughs] ... It's basically what you're trying to say is live, eat, and breathe in the way that we have evolved to. And we will be more thriving, healthier, uh, happier human beings, I guess.

   10. JNJames Nestor30:42

       Yeah, nature already did all of this for us. It's just in the last 100 r- years we thought that we were smarter than nature, and we thought we could take some, some side tracks into this and condense food down to one pill or some mush that you could squirt into your mouth and it would have the same effect. Yeah, we're not getting scurvy from that or beriberi from that. We're not getting these diseases that we used to suffer from, but we're also denying ourselves so many of the benefits. And exactly what, what you had said, and y- there's this huge, I would even call it a revolution right now, in baby-led weaning, uh, which is not to give babies, infants, this soft mush in jars, which we've only been doing for the past 100 years anyway, and look at what's happened. Look, [laughs] look at what's happened to our weight. Look at what's happened to our faces. Look t- what happened to our teeth. I mean, on and on and on, is that is a modern invention. So to allow kids, especially early on, to be able to really work out that masticatory stress to, to chew properly, is gonna have benefits down the road, and that's been very well proven at this time.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:57

       Yeah, and, and it really, you know, th- the, the phrase use it or lose it, which is, which is common parlance in the English language, both in the US and in the UK, you know, we understand that, don't we, with muscles. We get that. You know, if I, if I do a bicep curl every morning, my bicep is gonna get stronger. If I stop doing it, over time it's gonna get smaller. I think we, we understand that with the, you know, our physical muscles. But a- as you say, I don't think we've thought about it in terms of our, our jaw, our mastication muscles. It's like if you don't chew regularly, if you're not sort of, um, having that stress put on your jaw, like the stress on the bicep, what your jaw is then gonna adapt, is it's gonna adapt to what it feels that you need. Um, I think y- I, I think I've heard you mention before that there's something about chewing on one side as opposed to two sides, and I found that really interesting. So I'd love, I'd love to just explore that, but I also just wanna make sure we've covered that many people listen to this show. Some, uh, I'm sure are avid meat eaters. Some are vegans. And when we talk about natural food, I think it's just important to say you, you can probably, you know, whilst obviously meat is quite tough and there's bones to chew on, you know, there's a lot of vegetables, like a carrots, for example, or, you know, a lot of tough veg that you have to chew. You can probably also get that sort of stress on the jaw, right? So I just wanna make sure we, we include everyone in this conversation, that they all feel as though this applies to them. Um, yeah, so I wonder if you could just expand on that at all.

   12. JNJames Nestor33:33

       Means to the same end, that, that's again, you've got these different people in these different camps, but of course, if you're chewing on carrots, if you're chewing on celery, I mean, just think of natural foods. Even wheat, uh, you know, we got really good at removing the bran and the germ from wheat and creating this, this processed white flour. And the same thing with rice, white rice, bran and germ removed. We just have this, this little seed left. So chewing is, is essential, especially with or early on to developing proper airway health, proper mouth. Uh, and we, we know that. And it's how you chew, what you're chewing is... I don't wanna get into that. That gets very, very political-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:15

       Yeah. [laughs]

   14. JNJames Nestor34:15

       ... 'cause the, the carnivores are gonna say one thing, vegans are gonna say the other. But, but do not underestimate the power and benefits of chewing. And this is a whole new science that is really being, uh, deeply explored now, which I find is fascinating.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:31

       F-

6. 34:31 – 39:48

   Remodeling the Face as an Adult and Chewing on One Side

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:31

      for people listening thinking, "Okay, I've got kids. Um, for whatever reason, I wasn't able to, uh, breastfeed, uh, and maybe I have been giving them a lot of soft food because that's what I thought I should be doing," can we change things? Do we know, you know, if we change diet and we start to give the jaw a new stressor, uh, particularly that one-sided stressor, which I'd love to, lo- love you to expand upon, you know, how late can we still make those changes? Uh, 'cause it's, it's not quite just in those infant years, is it? We, it, it goes on quite, quite a lot longer than that.

   2. JNJames Nestor35:07

      Well, I was curious about that, and I will get to the one side or other side, I promise. [laughs] Um-

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:12

      Got it

   4. JNJames Nestor35:12

      ... I was, I was... So, you know, I was young a zillion years ago, so I, you know, I cannot take advantage of infant breastfeeding or baby-led weaning or chewing hard foods when I'm eight or nine years old. So I wanted to find out what an adult could do, if an adult could improve his airways. And from what I'd understood, um, and what I've heard from many people, is you really couldn't. Whatever you've got on the inside is what, what you're stuck with. But I met a few researchers that had been conducting studies for decades, and they told me that most of us understand that we only start losing bone mass past around 30 years old. It starts going down and down and down. But there is one bone in our bodies that we can remodel at virtually any age, and that's the bone right here in our faces, in our maxilla. So they told... Uh, this seems impossible. They showed me pictures of people before and after these treatments, uh, these chewing treatments, other treatments to expand their palate, in which they had gained more bone in their faces. And as a journalist, I said, I looked at all the studies. They were legit. They were, um, they were confirmed by a Mayo Clinic, uh, uh, advisor, and they had also been written about by a Dr., uh, Jeremy Mao, uh, in Columbia. But I wanted to see this for my own, my own s- uh, interest and, and curiosity. So I said, "Okay, you've got a year. I'm gonna do whatever you want me to do. We're gonna take a CT scan before and after, and we're gonna look at my airways to see what happened in that time." So during that time, I wore this device at night. Um, I have a very small mouth, especially my upper palate did not develop properly because I wasn't chewing enough when I was young. The palate starts like this and should come down and be more flat. Mine is V-shaped as are the, the vast majority of the population has a palate like this. So I wore this device to help expand the upper palate of my mouth, and by doing so, expand my airways and also to help model new bone in my face that would be advantageous to breathing. So this sounds like crazy stuff, but we took CT scans, and that's exactly what happened. I gained about five pennies worth of bone in my face. My airway opened up about 15 to 20%, which is an incredible amount. All this pus and granulation that had been stuck in my sinuses was gone. Um, subjectively, I can say I've never been breathing more easily in my life. So you don't need a palate expander to do this. I wore one because I just wanted to see if this was possible, and yes, it is. By chewing, and specifically by chewing on one side or the other, you can help tone your airway. The airway is a muscle. This is a muscle tube, and if you're just eating soft mush, and if you're eating it improperly and [smacks lips] like that, you are not working out this muscle as well as you should be, and it will become, uh, lazy and flaccid. So you want your muscle to be toned and open and the airway to be clear, and that's what chewing helps to do. So specifically, the right side, left side, and this is what Dr. Ted Belfor and Scott Simonetti told me, which blew my mind. If, if you think about chewing, we won't talk about if you're chewing meat or carrots, just, just vegans, imagine chewing celery. You know, carnivores, you've got a big, big rib or whatever.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:58

      [laughs]

   6. JNJames Nestor38:59

      [laughs] You're, you're not chewing on both sides of your mouth. You're not... You chew on one side and then you switch the food over and you chew on the other side. So our bodies identify that side to side chewing with a parasympathetic, a relaxation response, which will make it easier to digest that food. When you're clenching your jaw, think about before a fight or you're stressed, you clench both sides of your jaw, which spikes a sympathetic response, a fight or flight response, which makes it harder to digest. So when you're chewing, when you're masticating, you wanna have this relaxation response because during that response, you're also able to help grow bone more easily.

7. 39:48 – 44:29

   Breathing as the Great Unifier and Western Medicine

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:48

      I'm blown away, James. I mean, hearing that, the fact that if we chew on one side of the mouth, it stimulates, you know, parasympathetic tone, so the relaxation part of the nervous system, as opposed to both sided, which is jaw tension, which then activates the sympathetic, the stress part of the nervous system. Absolutely incredible. Then again, we go back to evolution. We, you, as you say, nature figured it out. You know, if we're eating something of value, it's on one side. Um, it's, it really is incredible. This, this idea of, you know, you say all roads leading to Rome, I love that 'cause you can, you can think of breath in the same way. So, you know, James, I, I've been practicing now for almost 20 years as a medical doctor and, you know, I'm very proud to be a medical doctor, but I do have, I have concerns over, uh, the way we treat certain things. We're very reductionist. We, we put things in their little boxes. There's often not crosstalk between, um, you know, that's a lung problem, or that's a stomach problem, that's a heart problem. Without this recognition that everything is connected together, and I've been using breathing, uh, practices with patients, I don't know how, at least five years, probably longer now, may- maybe even 10 years, and seen incredible benefits across a whole variety of different conditions. So breath for me in many ways is, is almost the great unifier. You can apply it to anxiety, to panic attacks, to just generally feeling stressed, to improving your sleep, and the beautiful thing about it is it, it's free. It's available to everyone. You know, in this, in this era where a lot of people are making the claim that wellness and looking after yourself is the preserve of the middle classes, I just don't agree with that. I think, I think, yes, some things that have been marketted are, but we all breathe every day. Uh, what you're asking people to look at is, well, how do you breathe? Can you improve the quality of your breath?

   2. JNJames Nestor41:51

      And yeah, just to be clear, in no ways, in, uh, do I view breathing and the science of breathing as contradictory or butting against so many doctrines of Western science. My father-in-law is a pulmonologist. My brother-in-law is an ER doctor. So we've been talking through this entire process, and they are so good at what they do. So as a pulmonologist, you're dealing with pathologies of the lungs. I get in an accident, my lungs get ripped up, I have cancer, I wanna see a pulmonologist. I want the latest, most advanced technology to help fix me. What a wonderful thing. I likely wouldn't be alive without Western medicine. So this is not them versus us or anything like that. It's, it's coming together and looking at the limitations from each area. So what they have told me repeatedly is they're so frustrated because when you're just looking at the lungs, you're not even looking at the airway. You're not even looking at what's happening in, in the nose, but this is all one connected system. So what's happening in the nose and in the airway is absolutely gonna be affecting what happens in the lungs. But at least in the US where you've got private medical care, everyone is siloed off, and they don't really even talk to one another. But, you know, our bodies aren't just a liver. They aren't just kidneys. They aren't just lungs or brains. This is one complete body, and what happens up here- Affects what happens down here. And so breathing to me is this thing, even though we may not be able to take conscious control of our heart rate, of our circulation, of our blood pressure, of our liver function, of our digestion, when we breathe we can influence all of these functions and willingly help ourselves function in a completely different way that's beneficial to our health. And again, what I think is so interesting about this, it's not just a subjective experience. You can measure the effects of someone just shifting their breathing within a few minutes. I have borderline higher blood pressure. It's not too bad, but I can breathe in a certain way and two minutes later take my blood pressure and it will go down 10 to 15 points. You imagine, that's after a couple minutes. What's gonna hap- happen after a couple of days, couple weeks, couple months of adopting healthy breathing habits? Well, we're seeing these people are able to overcome so many chronic problems and really put themself up that next rung of human potential.

8. 44:29 – 53:25

   Asthma, Emphysema and Breathing Protocols

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee44:29

      What are some of those cases you've come across? You know, what sort of chronic problems have you seen people overcome and leave behind once they start focusing on their breath?

   2. JNJames Nestor44:39

      The most dramatic have been asthmatics. Asthmatics and emphysemics. So asthmatics as a population will be much more apt to breathe through their mouths and they will have much lower end-tidal CO2. And what that means is they are breathing too often and too much, and they were blowing off too much CO2. And a lot of us understand carbon dioxide, CO2 as being this really bad thing. It's the thing that's causing global warming, the acidity of the ocean. All of that is 100% true, but in the body it really wants a balance of CO2 and oxygen. Oxygen can't do its thing without a balance of CO2. So if you don't have enough CO2 in your body, you are causing vasoconstriction and you can exacerbate asthma attacks. We see this with asthmatics. They're so scared they're, they're gonna lose the ability to breathe, 'cause that reminds them of an asthma attack, that they [inhales] start breathing more and more. Guess what happens? They blow off more CO2. They get more constricted [inhales] . They start breathing more and more and they are caused to have an asthma attack. And by simply changing the way in which they breathe... To be clear, this isn't gonna work for everybody, but the studies have shown... Alicia Mourad at Southern Methodist University did this incredible story with 120 asthmatics, and the only thing she changed was how they breathed. They carried around this little device that calculated their carbon dioxide. Whenever their carbon dioxide was getting low, that showed that they were breathing too much. She would have them slow down and breathe more, more slowly. They had such a profound change from just doing this, not only, uh, significantly fewer asthma attacks, but increased respiratory function. They were calmer. They felt better. And again, this isn't some psychosomatic thing. This is allowing the body to function the way it's naturally designed to function. And so much of asthma I think has been, I won't say misdiagnosed, but I don't think asthmatics have been properly served with the right information on how they can potentially change their, their asthma and really improve their health.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee46:57

      Yeah. And, and I want to reiterate what you said, uh, just before we got onto asthma, that this is not about it's breathwork or Western medicine. No, it's about saying Western medicine is brilliant at so much, but there's also some things that we might be able to add into our practices. It's, it's like breathwork and breathing practices could help expand our toolbox. And so for an asthmatic walking in, yeah, sure, they may need their brown inhaler or their blue inhaler. Uh, absolutely, particularly in the acute phase, um, because if you can't breathe, you know, that is, that's a very powerful signal to the body. You know, it's scary. It's, it's problematic. But it could be also that with this science, well, maybe, uh, breathing protocols can also be prescribed in the same way. And, and, and, and I really feel strongly that if... You know, people look up to the medical profession, so if, if you, you know, you listen to this podcast or you read your book or you listen to another podcast and then you go to your doctor with asthma and your doctor says, "No, it's about this brown inhaler and this blue inhaler," you are automatically gonna prioritize that. And it's not either/or. It's saying, "Hey look, sure, take that, but what if you spent five or 10 minutes a day working on breathing less, breathing slower through your nose? What may happen? Maybe over time you're gonna be able to reduce how many inhalers you need. Maybe you're gonna have less attacks." You know, that's, that's where I think it's... It's not about being combative, one side against another. It's trying to bring people together and go, "Look, that's another tool here that, you know what, has no side effects." [laughs] Which, which, which, which I think is a really important point to, to sort of hammer home.

   4. JNJames Nestor48:38

      So oral steroids and bronchodilators are absolute lifesavers for asthmatics.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:43

      Sure.

   6. JNJames Nestor48:44

      And no one would say, "Just take up breathing, ditch all that stuff." Absolutely not. But those are dealing with the symptoms of asthma, and we know that after being especially on oral steroids for decades, which a lot of asthmatics are, there is an increased chance of blindness, of, of bone density issues, of autoimmune problems, of worsening asthma symptoms. And, and we know this. This is very clearly defined. So what I would really like to see happen is when asthmatics come in, yes, they get their medication for their acute asthma attacks, absolutely necessary, but they also get information. So what they do with that information is up to them, but I really believe that they would be better served to know that there are protocols that have profoundly changed other asthmatics. And I've talked to people, one woman was 70 years old. She had had asthma since she was 10 Couldn't walk a couple blocks without suffering from an attack, and she had been on all these drugs for decades and decades. She changed the way in which she was breathing, and she no longer has symptoms of asthma. She's out hiking. She's out traveling. So this is, this is real stuff. I've talked to dozens of other people. Patrick McKeown's a great, great example.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:08

      Patrick, same story.

   8. JNJames Nestor50:08

      [laughs]

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:08

      He told his story on the show. Same story and it's-

   10. JNJames Nestor50:11

       So-

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:11

       ... it's like, why not try it and see if it works? And if it doesn't-

   12. JNJames Nestor50:14

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:14

       ... okay. But why not try it?

   14. JNJames Nestor50:16

       So, so I've heard this story dozens of times and, and I've seen the, the effects. These, these people on, on heroic doses of steroids and bronchodilator 20 times a day. And it helps them, uh, keep the symptoms at bay, but it does not help with the core issue of asthma, and so much of that is tied to inflammation, and what's the quickest way of reducing inflammation in the body is to put it in that parasympathetic state. That is gonna reduce inflammation. It's gonna relax you. You're gonna breathe easier. So not only asthma though. There was this researcher named Carl Stough who was a vocal teacher, choral conductor in the '50s and found this new way of breathing, this deeper way of breathing that really helped singers. And he was then brought in to the VA hospitals, uh, in the US on the East Coast and just by teaching emphysemics who were laid out and basically left to die, they didn't know what to do with these people, just by teaching them breathing, they were able to walk out of the hospital. And there's X-rays of this. There's an interview with pulmonologists who, who were there to witness this. So it's just another, you know, reason that, that or, or example of how powerful simple breathing techniques can be for so many chronic conditions.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:41

       Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, and I just wanna reiterate to people, um, that look, if you have got asthma, if you are already on a prescribed, uh, regimen of inhalers, neither James nor, nor I am asking you to reduce that at all without a consultation with anyone. Uh, what we're trying to say, and I don't want to speak for you, James, but I, I... If you don't agree with this summary, then please, uh, feel free to jump in. But saying, look, listen to the conversation. Uh, check out some videos. We, we'll sort of maybe I'll link some at the end or in the show notes of how you might wanna start practicing some of this stuff and see how you go. And maybe you can go back and see the asthma nurse or the doctor and tell them how you're feeling differently. We're definitely not saying to stop anything or do it of your own accord. Uh, so you... Sort of fair, fair summary of what you said, James?

   16. JNJames Nestor52:29

       Abso- absolutely. I need to second that. Um, and go out and look, look at the science yourself, I would suggest. Be skeptical. Go out, look at, look at the science, look at the experts in the field, look at what they've put together, and you can make your mind up from there. I also wanna second one other thing you mentioned is this stuff is not requiring you to change your diet or, or to go jogging for 10 miles a day. It is free, okay? It's accessible to anybody. Um, and these techniques are freely available on- online. You can buy a book, probably cost you 10 bucks. Patrick McKeown's books are fantastic. They're all based in science. There's references at the back. So at least I, I believe that this information should be offered to people. What they do with it is up to them, but it should be offered, and we know through decades of studies that it can have a really profound effect.

9. 53:25 – 1:06:26

   Why Breathing Less Is More Efficient

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:25

      So one thing I've changed, um, I'm always experimenting with different practices and different things, but the more I've got into breathwork... So I've written about it in some of my books before. I've, I've been experimenting with different formats. Uh, been chatting to people on the show about different breathing techniques, and I, I was very lucky Patrick came to my house the other day. He did a session with my children, then we recorded the show, and you know, he's... A, he's a lovely man, um, but B, I was really convinced afterwards that I had to or I would benefit from working on breathing less. Now, I think this is quite counterintuitive for some people, so I'm gonna ask you about this in just a second. But just to give a bit of context, I start pretty much every day now with this kind of breathe light to breathe right exercise where I really try and slow down my breathing, um, through my nose, which is I pretty... I hope I breathe through my nose pretty much all the time these days. I've been working on it for a long period of time now, well over a year. Um, but I work for about five minutes, I'll do this very slow, uh, breath practice through my nose that Patrick taught me. Uh, and I personally feel that if I want to meditate afterwards, I'm way more focused and in the zone. But I mean, I'll, I'll... I can share more of what I do if people are interested, but you know, a lot of people will think, "Well, hold on a minute. You're s- oxygen's good, right? I want more in my body. Why are you saying that people are over-breathing? Why are you saying I need to breathe less?" So I wonder if you could just sort of unpick that for people.

   2. JNJames Nestor55:00

      Sure. So it's basic physiology. So the more you breathe and the more often you breathe, you're gonna be taking breaths in, but you're gonna be exhaling them more quickly. And if you look at the airway, you've got your mouth, you've got your nose, you've got your throat, you've got the bronchi. All of this is dead space, and by that, I mean there's no oxygen that can be absorbed in these areas. Oxygen is absorbed in the lungs, and most oxygen is gonna be absorbed in the lower lobes because blood is gravity-dependent and there's more blood in the lower lobes of the lungs. So if you're breathing at a rate of 20 breaths a minute at, at a tidal volume- minute volume of about six liters, you are gonna take in about 50% of that air is gonna make it through the lungs into the bloodstream. 50, only 50%, because so much of it is here. You're just [inhales and exhales] .

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:01

      So 50% is in that dead space at the top of the lungs sort of, okay

   4. JNJames Nestor56:05

      It's in that... Yeah, you only get to use 50% of it. So if you breathe 12 times a minute, [inhales] you're gonna bring that air down a little deeper, okay? And you will be able to use about 70% of that air, which is a huge, huge difference. 20% difference. But if you breathe six times a minute at six liters, you use about 85% of that air. So you can see how much more efficient it is, and not only is that more efficient for oxygen exchange, you are also allowing your heart not to be overburdened by constantly beating. You are gonna decrease your blood pressure. All the sym- systems of the body are gonna work in harmony with one another. You're gonna also increase your diaphragmatic movement, and we know when you do that you can help release more lymph fluid. So the diaphragm not only helps expand... So the diaphragm is this muscle that sits under the lungs, that when we breathe in it sinks down to allow the lungs to expand, and when we breathe out it rises up to exhale for an exhalation. But that movement also has many other benefits to have more diaphragmatic movement, including removing lymph fluid. So you just see, it's... A lot of people think, "Well, I wanna breathe more breaths, more air because I'm getting more oxygen." The opposite is happening. By breathing most closely in line with your metabolic needs and slower, you are getting more oxygen and you're able to do so much more with so much less effort, and your body really likes that.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:46

      I- It's almost a way of really sort of assessing modern society, this idea that more is better. I need to do harder, I need to go more. Whereas actually many things, whether it's breathwork or other things, it's about slowing down and doing less. Um, and, and I think that word efficiency really, really sort of hits the nail on the head there. Because if we thought about our car, for example, we'd understand if, if the fuel we put in, if we could drive in such a way that that fuel goes longer, we don't need to fill up petrol, um, a- as often, we'd go, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds brilliant." But that's kind of what we're talking about in the body, aren't we? We're saying you're gonna, you're gonna be more efficient. You're gonna be using less resource, um, in your body to actually get those benefits. I mean, it's... I, I think that analogy works with the car.

   6. JNJames Nestor58:43

      Yeah. And just to sort of vibe off your car analogy, imagine being at a stoplight and just revving your motor. Just being in neutral and just [imitates revving] . That's gonna wear that car down so much more quickly, and it's completely unnecessary. You're gonna use more gas. It's just bad news across the board. That's what you're doing when you're over-breathing and you're just sitting here at rest. If I'm breathing at 18 breaths per minute, which is considered normal by the way. 12 [laughs] to 18 is considered in the normal ra- If I'm doing that, I am causing so much unnecessary wear and tear on my heart, on my cardiorespiratory systems, blood pressure, vascular system, you name... Um, your brain. You're stressing yourself out, anxiety, sympa- I mean, I could go on and on. So why would you do that? Why, why not breathe more, more closely in line with your metabolic needs? And this is not only a benefit for people with, with asthma and anxiety, this is a huge benefit for athletes. Because if you go out into the street and if you could go to g- I don't know if gyms are open, uh, over there, but they certainly aren't open here. Every time I went to my gym, you'd see people just [inhales and exhales] working out, thinking they're getting more oxygen in by doing that. And there's... So right now if people are sitting at home, you can breathe those breaths with me. [inhales and exhales] After a while you're gonna feel your fingers getting a little cold. You're gonna get a little dizzy to your head. That isn't from an increase of oxygen, it's from a decrease of oxygen to those areas, to vasoconstriction to those areas. So when you're over-breathing, you are actually inhibiting circulation throughout areas of your body. So breathing less, you can do so much more.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:00:31

      Yeah. I want people just to really sit with what you said there. You know? Because a lot of people will know that feeling of tingliness, um, in their fingers. Uh, people who suffer from panic attacks will certainly know that feeling. It's, like, one of these cardinal symptoms that we talk about. And yeah, I think a lot of people would think that that's because, well, I don't know, whatever, maybe they need to breathe even faster to sort of get rid of this. But it, but it's, it's the opposite, right?

   8. JNJames Nestor1:00:58

      That's, that's exactly right. People think, "Oh, I'm not getting oxygen to my fingertips and my toes. That's why they're always cold. I need to get some more air in there to get some oxygen." And the opposite is happening, and you can see this by instead of breathing those 18 times a minute, which is w- again, way too much, you can slow down your breathing to about six times a minute. And if that's difficult, make it eight times a minute. Th- No one's watching you. This is not a competition. But by just breathing more slowly and more efficiently, I think you will be amazed how your body's gonna heat up and how you're gonna feel your fingertips. All that numbness will tend to go away. Not for everybody, but for a lot of people. Because you are increasing circulation to those areas, you're making those areas more, uh... It becomes easier for them to offload oxygen because there's an increase in CO2. There's a balance of CO2 and oxygen, which is what it's all about. Again, for people with chronic problems or for athletes, it's that balance which is essential

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:04

      A lot of people these days suffer from cold hands and cold toes. Did any of your research come across this, that some of this may be related to breathing? Of course, there are other causes of this, but they, it would seem pretty reasonable to me, looking at the basic physiology, that that could absolutely be a cause.

   10. JNJames Nestor1:02:20

       Without a doubt, which is why you look at populations. It's no coincidence that a lot of asthmatics also have anxiety, and a lot of people with anxiety and asthma have cold fingers and cold toes.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:33

       Yeah.

   12. JNJames Nestor1:02:33

       So, so this is, this is measurable stuff, and you can see by, by really, uh, super breathers, be it a yogi or Wim Hof, when you take control of your breathing, you can not only return circulation to these areas, you can superheat the body to such a degree that you can go and sit in an ice bath. Wim has sat in an ice bath for two hours and not had his core temperature go down [laughs] .

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:58

       Yeah.

   14. JNJames Nestor1:02:58

       And yogis have been doing this for thousands of years. Uh, it's been studied by a, by, at Harvard by, by Herbert Benson. We know it's real, and it just shows you what the human body is really capable of. But the, the first thing, before you go off and do that and become a super breather, is to get that foundation of breathing right.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:17

       Yeah.

   16. JNJames Nestor1:03:18

       And so much of us breathe way too much. By slowing that down, breathing in line with our metabolic needs, you'd be surprised what a transformative effect that will have on your health.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:29

       Yeah, you... I was struck by you mentioning what is considered the normal breathing rates, or what we call the respiratory rates. And, you know, I remember from medical school and early days as a junior doctor, you know, it's, ballpark, you're sort of 12 to 16 or 12 to 18, depending on which guidelines you look at. And before this call today, before our chat, I go, "I'm just gonna look up some, you know, big medical institutions and see what's going on." And I, I came across the Cleveland Clinic website, where they were talking about breathing rates, and they said normal, I think, is 12 to 16 or 12 to 18. Under 12 is far too little. Over 25 is far too many. And I thought, "Wow, that's incredible," because we're talking about maybe optimal efficiency might be six breaths a minute. Or not might be, I mean, you're gonna tell me it is six breaths a minute. But our medical guidelines are actually giving us almost double that, which again, it, it's just remarkable, isn't it? It, it comes back to this normal versus optimal. What is optimal for a human being?

   18. JNJames Nestor1:04:31

       Well, so much of those guidelines were based on people with pathologies, you know?

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:35

       Yeah.

   20. JNJames Nestor1:04:36

       And, and I was talking to my father-in-law about this. I say I saw that same Cleveland Clinic guideline, and I was like, "That seems high," and I sent it to him. He said when he was m- in medical school it was 8 to 12. So, [laughs] so within 30 years, [laughs] it's almost doubled what's considered normal. So he was shocked to see that as w- He's like, "That is way too much." And we know by measuring what happens when you're breathing at a rate... Uh, and again, people get so tied up. I, I say in the book 5.5 second inhale. I... People have written, said, "I'm a half a second off. Am I gonna be okay?" And I said, "Oh my God, what, what have I done to these poor people?"

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:17

       [laughs]

   22. JNJames Nestor1:05:17

       So anything, anything in that range. So you could go down to five, four breaths a, per minute, to, to six or seven or eight.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:25

       Yeah.

   24. JNJames Nestor1:05:25

       What you're comfortable with. We can so clearly see what happens to the body when we're breathing at this rate, and when we're breathing slightly deeper than we're used to. We can see what happens to blood pressure, circulation, and almost most importantly, autonomic nervous system function. If you get a heart rate variability monitor and look at what happens when you're talking or when you're not, focusing on your breathing, compared to what happens after just a minute of breathing at a rate of about six breaths per minute, you will find these lines that were jagged and disorganized become these beautiful sine waves, because your body is entering a state of what researchers call coherence, where all the systems are really working at peak efficiency. Which, of course, why wouldn't you want to be working at peak efficiency? When you're doing that, you can think better, you will feel better, and your body will be allowed to help heal itself.

10. 1:06:26 – 1:15:49

    Start Small: A Few Minutes of Slow Breathing a Day

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:26

       Yeah. It, it, it's just incredible, and I just wanna... You know, we are gonna get into Wim Hof stuff and Tummo and all these kind of, I won't say crazy, all these kind of, like, super breather territories that, that people may wanna hear about. But, you know, what, what you're sort of talking about is how do you breathe day to day? What is your normal? You know, the, what, what... Can we improve that? Can we consciously, for just a few minutes a day, just remind your body what it's like when you take six or eight breaths a minute? And, you know, it doesn't surprise me that people have emailed in saying, "Oh, James, you said 5.5. I'm s- I'm on 5.7 or 5.8." Um, you know, and I think this is almost... I see this a lot as well. I get messages on Instagram all the time like, "Yeah, but what about this and that?" And I think sometimes we, we get so caught up in the tiny details, we lose the big picture. Big picture is we're breathing... As a society, we're probably over-breathing. Okay? Can we individually practice a little bit every day where we sort of slow that down? I, I, I, I h- I, I think that's quite simple. If we can get to 5.5 or 6 in and 6 out, great, but anything, I'm guessing, slower than what we're normally doing is probably gonna yield some kind of benefit.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:07:46

       Yeah, they found four, four to 10 breaths a minute. All of those, uh, anything in that range is gonna have some profound benefits. So, uh, I, I just wanna second something that you said. We're so, as Westerners, we, we hear, "Oh, breathing's the latest thing. I'm gonna go and do 100%, I'm gonna push it all the way, and I'm gonna do it perfectly." So this isn't... What I tried to s- stray away from in the book was this granular detail, and look at this overview. What is healthy breathing? How can we do it? What does it do- do to our body? And you can focus on the specific ways of breath, the hundreds of different ways of breathing once you've already built that foundation. So we, we know that this, this slower breathing, we know how it affects us, and we know that most of us are breathing too much and too often. So even a few minutes a day of this six breaths, we're just gonna call it six breaths a minute, it might confuse [laughs] people counting to five breaths.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:42

       Yeah.

    4. JNJames Nestor1:08:43

       We'll just call it six breaths a minute. Start with that, and then go down to 5.5 or five or whatever you wanna do. A few minutes a day, uh, Dr. Patricia Gerbarg and Dr. Richard Brown, who's at Columbia, have used this for people with anxiety and depression, even bulimia and anorexia. All of these different maladies that you would think wouldn't have anything to do with breathing, but these populations traditionally breathe way more than they should. They're constantly stressed out. And it's completely touching to see these people be reacquainted with their breath, 'cause they've completely lost control of it over decades. And just to take a slow and steady breath in, a lot of them instantly freak out 'cause it's way too slow to them. They associate that with an attack. But once they acclimate to it, this might take a session or two to really get this down, you watch this transformation occurring. You just watch the stress just lift from their faces. And again, this isn't just a subjective measure. This is, this is their bodies entering a state of, of healing that we can very clearly see with instruments. So the fact that psychiatrists are using this, um, MDs are using this for, for asthma, it, it works across the board for athletics, um, for performance it works as well. So even five minutes, they, they found that can have an effect on blood pressure. Five minutes of healthy breathing a day. Um, so start with that. Just focus your time. Again, un- unlike meditation, we know the benefits of meditation. No one's gonna argue that. My argument is that so many of those benefits early on are tied to the way in which you breathe, 'cause I don't know of any meditation where you're sitting there and you're not focusing on your breath. So if it's difficult for people to sit in a dark room and look at a wall, you can breathe this way while you're watching TV, while you're driving, at the dinner table, I mean, whenever you want. Start with a few minutes and start developing that because after that, hopefully it will start to become a habit. But first you have to acclimate your body to this new form of breathing, which is really the natural, healthy form of breathing that we've all forgotten.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10:59

       When you mentioned anxiety, depression, and other conditions, I would even make the case for weight loss, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Um, when I say I, I, I very much believe that a lot of these chronic conditions, a multi-pronged approach often works much better than just looking for that magic bullet. And if we think about, uh, excess weight gain, a lot of the issues driving that, w- I'm not, I'm not here to talk about the right diets, okay? Because as you've said, it's a, it's a religious-type debate that I'm not sure is that helpful a lot of the time. Um, but stress and our emotions drives a lot of our eating behavior. Um, there's no doubt about that. There's one study which shows 80% of us change our eating behavior in response to stress. About 45% of us eat more, 35% of us eat less. So I would argue in, if you're someone who, uh, eats more in response to stress, then perhaps working on your diet, you know, whether it's paleo or vegan, to take two extremes, maybe that's not the best use for your time. Maybe it's working on your stress levels. And if we're over-breathing, if we're breathing too much, um, that is information for your brain, you know. That is keeping you in that stress state. So a daily breathing practice, and I have done this with patients, as part of a multi-pronged strategy, helps them to feel in control of themselves. They go, "Oh, I feel less stressed. Therefore, I'm no longer needing as much food to compensate for that stress." You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to make too many leaps there. I understand that you're looking at hard research and you put that in the book, but as a clinician, um, I really see this work in a whole variety of different conditions. It helps you sleep better, you know. So which, which of my patients don't wanna sleep better? Um, blood pressure. Do you know what I mean? So I think you can make the case for many different conditions, 'cause breathing is fundamental to who we are and, you know, w- how our body thinks we are in that moment. You know, are we running away from a tiger, or are we chilling out, relaxing, and thriving in a place of safety?

    6. JNJames Nestor1:13:10

       When I first heard that breathing, and breathing problems specifically, could be associated with metabolic disorders, it seemed like a crazy tangent until you look at how the body functions and you look at how blood sugar functions. And you know that if you're in a constant state of stress, your adrenaline's gonna go up, blood sugar's gonna spike, and the longer your blood sugar is spiking, the less sensitive insulin's gonna get. And, and so we know that sleep apnea is directly tied to diabetes, the onset of some forms of diabetes. But you don't need to suffer from sleep apnea just to be more apt to have these conditions. If you're walking around all day stressed out, you've got this IV drip of adrenaline, your blood sugar's jacked the whole time, your body can handle that for a while, but it's eventually gonna break down. So I could not agree with you more that if you're focused on losing weight, it can't just be about calories. It has to be how your body is processing those calories. 'Cause if you're constantly stressed, you have this unconscious stress, it's gonna be so much ... harder for you to digest food. So you're not gonna be able to process this food efficiently, which is gonna cause all kinds of problems. Dr. Stephen Porges did some amazing research into the vagus nerve, and this is this nerve that really is this throttle that can either turn on fight or flight functions in the body or make us relax, and it's connected to all of our organs. So he kept seeing patients that they would have sexual problems, they would have digestion problems, they would have sleep problems, they would have kidney problems, and they were treated for each of these problems individually, but there was nothing wrong with their stomachs or their genitals or anything else. What they had were problems with connectivity with the vagus nerve because they were constantly stressed. So by being in this state of constant stress, all of the signals that those organs normally send to the brain were cut off. So by fixing this vagus nerve connectivity, specifically through breathing practices, through calming practices, all those organs start functioning and all those problems can go away. I'm not saying this is gonna work for everyone with multiple problems, but if you think of the body as a complete system, and if you think of the vagus nerve as a telephone network, and if you think of breathing as this way to crack into that network and open up those lines, then it starts to make sense, and that's exactly what breathing does to the body.

11. 1:15:49 – 1:27:50

    The Vagus Nerve, Panic Attacks and Email Apnea

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:15:49

       Was there a study you mentioned in your book about a researcher who can predict whether you're gonna have a panic attack or not just by looking at your breathing rate? I... That, that was incredible, and then I... It makes me think about all these kind of tracking devices we now have, and is there a way of sort of, uh, you know, predicting a panic attack? I mean, tell me a little bit more about that. I think people will be very interested to hear that.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:16:15

       That's exactly right. And guess how she was doing it? She was looking at respiratory rate. Specifically, she was looking at CO2. So the lower the CO2 got, she was able to predict a panic attack an hour before it came on because panic attack is preceded by an increase of breathing. And the more you breathe, the more CO2 you're gonna be blowing off, the more constriction you're gonna be, uh, getting throughout your body, the more that's gonna exacerbate and, and shuffle in that, that attack. So by just having... She was able to identify it an hour before, and then she would send a, a little alert to these people to slow down their breathing, and by simply slowing down their breathing and allowing their bodies to build up to that healthy level of CO2, she was able to abate panic attacks. This was after a few weeks. Several of her patients continued to do this onwards for a year, and the numbers were incredible. Something like 80%, don't quote me on this, but it was around 80% were no longer suffering from these attacks. So, so this is, this is a study that was, that was out about eight years ago. It's widely available. Uh, her name is... Uh, this is Alicia Meuret, again, at SMU.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:30

       Wow.

    4. JNJames Nestor1:17:30

       Has done so many... so much interesting work. But if you really... That sounds crazy, um, that breathing could be so closely attached to panic attacks, but if you look at how the systems in the body work, and you look at the influence of breathing on all those symptom sy- systems, it makes perfect sense that it would be so closely tied.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:50

       Yeah. It, it really is incredible. And then I think about rising levels of anxiety, which of course is linked to panic attacks, not quite the same thing, but it's sort of, you know, they're broadly in the same area. And, you know, emails, and now we're moving into a culture where loads of Zooms, and I think I've heard you talk about this before, how the way you breathe changes. And, you know, we can almost induce a feeling of anxiety and panic by changing the way that we breathe.

    6. JNJames Nestor1:18:24

       Of course we can. And if anyone wants to do that, you can start breathing in this very unhealthy way right now. [breathing] You will stimulate a sympathetic response, and that's easily measured. So, uh, I thought this was interesting as well. Um, at UCSF, which is very close to my house, University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Margaret Chesney had worked for, for decades on National Institutes of Health research looking into something called continuous partial awareness, also known as email apnea, and what she had found was that when we sit down at our desks in the morning, one estimate says that 80% of office workers do this. We open up our email, got Zoom on, got Twitter on, say, "Oh my God, I have 60 emails." We stop breathing. We just stop breathing, and then we go [breathing] . So she called it email apnea because we're so distracted and stressed out by what's going on. If you think about when you're extremely... Let's say there's a tiger coming around the corner here of my house. What am I gonna do? [gasps] I'm gonna be silent because that is a reflex reaction to be, to be very scared, to be silent so you don't become prey. And once it's on, once the fight is on, [breathing] I'm gonna breathe a ton, um, to, to get more ox- to get more energy, um, to my body, to feed more energy to my brain and heart and other essential muscles to get me out of that situation or to fight off that thing. But we do the same thing unconsciously at work. Even though there's no tiger around, even though there's nothing threatening us, our sense of threat has become so sensitized that so many of us will stop breathing or start breathing completely dysfunctional. And she's found that if you do this for long enough, it can have some of the same effects on us as sleep apnea. By that, I mean neurological disorders, physical problems, again, spiking blood glucose, adrenaline Um, and it's just something so few of us are aware of. And I was wearing a, a pulse ox and all these different... Measuring what happened. Every morning I'd put this stuff on and sit down. My breathing would go to hell every single morning. Um, and I realized that, you know, there's probably a reason why around 11:30 I'd get... I used to get this slight headache, used to feel kind of fatigued. It was still morning time and I wasn't full of energy. And so by just switching your breathing, again, you can allow your body to work so much more efficiently.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:05

       Yeah. I mean, thanks for sharing that. And I think that term email apnea is brilliant because it just brings it to life for people that, wow, who doesn't check email every day? Who doesn't spend a lot of time on their computers, particularly now more than, more than ever? And I, and I really... I, I, I... You know, I can't stop shaking the feeling. You mentioned the tiger, right, that might be popping around the block in San Francisco around from where you live, uh, which I hope is not happening. But, um, your body's actually doing what it's meant to do in response to a threat. Your body is meant to become anxious. It's meant to become hypervigilant. You're meant to be... Your blood sugar's meant to go up, right? Your blood pressure's meant to go up. All these things are happening to prepare you for danger so that you can escape from that danger. So actually your body is functioning the way it is designed to function, given the fact that it perceives that to be a threat. So the problem is that we're perceiving the email inbox or the multiple screens open to be a threat, so your body is reacting in the same way. So it's not that there's anything wrong with people, right? I, I actually, I think it's very empowering, this. Your body's not broken. Actually, your body's doing what it's meant to do. You've just gotta give it a different signal. You've gotta just teach it, go, "Hey, you know what? I'm not in danger. There isn't a tiger there, it's just 20 emails," right? [laughs] So, um, I, I'm a big fan of talking to patients about transition times. So, um, a transition time, let's say, from work to home life. Instead of just coming, uh, all ramped up from work into then trying to relax with your partner and your children, maybe have a five-minute transition where you do some breathing or you do some yoga, something just to move you, shift you from one gear to the other gear. And I, I've been talking to a lot of people, particularly during the pandemic, about Zoom calls. I said, "Before you eat your lunch, just take a couple of minutes. Maybe get outside in the garden, if you're lucky to have one. Maybe just slow down your breathing, do two minutes of nasal breathing. Put your body in a different, uh, state and you will digest your food better. You'll crave different amounts." And it's... I've actually seen, uh, James, I'm not sure if you've come across this, I've not seen any research to support this, but I have seen with some patients in the last few years who thought they were reacting to a certain food... Now, of course, some people do react to certain foods, whether an intolerance or an allergy. But sometimes I've realized they were reacting to the way that they, their body was whilst they were eating. So when they did a couple of minutes... I have a breath called the 3-4-5 breath, which I've been recommending for many years. Again, a similar theme, right? A longer exhale than an inhale. But people who, who try that 3-4-5 breath for two minutes before they have their dinner, sometimes they would say, "Hey, I'm not actually reacting to that food anymore." So I am saying, "Well, maybe it's the fact that you're eating in a completely stressed out state. Your body's not able to receive that food. But when you chill out and relax, your body's like, 'Hey, this food is okay.'"

    8. JNJames Nestor1:24:13

       Absolutely right. Again, it, it comes down to nature, and I thought you made a really good point there. It's... There's nothing wrong with us feeding more circulation to our skeletal muscles when we get threatened. This is really good. This is what allowed our species to survive in the wild for so long. It's that perceived danger and that perceived threat that is so sensitized right now that people will react to an email the same way that they would have reacted a thousand years ago to that tiger or to being attacked by a mammoth or whatever. And, and so, you know, some of this is... A lot of this is psychological. But the neat thing about breathing is by changing the way in which you breathe, you can actually change how your mind is processing thoughts and feelings and emotions. And we know that. Because this is a two-way street, so there are signals coming from your brain telling your organs what to do, but there are also signals coming from your organs telling your brain what to do. So another reason why s- that slower breathing works, you're like, "I can actually... Not only do I feel better, I can think more clearly." Not a placebo. This is how it works in our bodies, and it's so important to acknowledge this throughout the day. Those transition times, what a wonderful thing to do, especially before a meal, especially if you have gut issues. Take a couple minutes. That's not asking a lot. Breathe calmly, relax yourself, and go in and eat, and I think that you'd be amazed by how, how quickly you will show benefits of digestion. I don't think it's too much of a, a mystery, um, why so... in so many cultures there's grace before a meal.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:26:01

       Right.

    10. JNJames Nestor1:26:02

        You sit down, you calmly recite whatever phrase, doesn't matter what religion. You sit there a moment, you be thankful for the food you're about to eat, then you eat it. I think that there is a scientific foundation for how effective that is.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:26:17

        I, I completely agree. And actually I, I... A few weeks ago I finished writing my fourth book on, uh, weight loss for people who are looking to lose weight, and I've, I've written a section on this exact, exact area, what exactly what you say, that actually I don't think this is by accident. There are many benefits of doing this, and- It's reflective of our busy, modern culture. We don't have time for this kind of stuff. You know, we've, we've evolved as humans. We don't need all that kind of slow stuff, that gratitude, that grace. But you know what? We're realizing more than ever now, actually, we are. It's a... As you say, it's a lost art. It's a lost art.

    12. JNJames Nestor1:26:54

        And just speaking, uh, to that, this 5.5 breaths a minute, 5.5 second inhale, exhale, this is nothing new either. Uh, this was all adapted, researchers found, from prayers, from Buddhist prayers, from Kundalini yoga prayers, from Catholic prayers. All of them that they looked at locked in to this respiration rate of about 5.5 seconds, and these res- Italian researchers said, "This is probably no coincidence." All these different cultures came to the same conclusion that, wow, we feel so much more connected to ourselves, to the universe, to everything, by reciting this prayer. A lot of that had to do, this is what the researchers said, to the respiration rate, to breathing in this certain way to calm your body and make you more receptive to that message.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27:48

        Yeah. Thanks, James.

12. 1:27:50 – 1:37:41

    Nasal Breathing for Athletic Performance

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27:50

       I was chatting to my, uh, videographer, Gareth, who's just nipped out at the moment, and I was saying, "Hey, I'm gonna talk to James." I know since you heard my chats with, uh, Patrick and Brian, he's changed his life. You know, he is now... He's tried the mouth taping at night. He sleeps better. He now runs. He does some light jogging, only nasal breathing, and really feeling the benefits. But he said one thing I wonder if you could ask James about, um, is, he says, "When I go upstairs now, if I go up a lot of stairs and I nasal breathe, my recovery is so much quicker than when I mouth breathe." But you've already answered that, really. You said that throughout this conversation. You're, you're basically saying your physiology changes. It works more optimally when we breathe through our nose as opposed to our mouth. But there is another kind of real-life example. This is minutes before we started the call today. He said, "You know, it's just incredible." Um, and you mention athletes, and I just wonder if you could briefly... I mean, the time that we got left, I'd love to cover this and also maybe some of those more super breathing techniques. So if we could just cover athletics and kinda recovery and why people really should make the effort, I think that would be super helpful.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:29:00

       So the key with athletic performance is you wanna do more for longer in a state of pure efficiency, and we know that nasal breathing is gonna allow you to perform harder with a lower heart rate. You're gonna be getting more oxygen more efficiently by breathing less. Again, we know how counterintuitive this is, but the science is very clear on that. And you can see this with professional athletes who have adopted to nasal breathing. Sanya Richards-Ross, the best, uh, runner, sprinter, uh, for 10 years going. Uh, it's fascinating to look at pictures of her, uh, in the Olympics. Closed mouth, nasal breathing. All of her competitors [inhales sharply] beside her, breathing through the mouth. She's in front of the line, winning golds time and time again. And she's just one example of what we've already known for decades. Dr. John Douillard has done tons of science, tons of work in this, looking at cyclists nasal breathing versus mouth breathing, and looking at their endurance, looking at their performance, and looking at recovery. And it is such a drastic difference between those two. What... One reason why a lot of people give up is they try nasal breath- They've been habitually mouth breathing while they're jogging, for sometimes decades. They try nasal breathing, and they're like, [inhales sharply] "Uh, I can't get enough air in there. I'm giving up." But sometimes it can take weeks or even months to truly acclimate this organ here to breathe properly. But once you do, the benefits are-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:40

       Yeah

    4. JNJames Nestor1:30:40

       ... huge. And check out the work by Phil Maffetone, Dr. John Douillard, and some of the athletes that have adopted proper nasal breathing. Or try... M- Most importantly, try it yourself-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:52

       Yeah

    6. JNJames Nestor1:30:52

       ... and, and you can very clearly see the difference.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:54

       Y- Y- I would say to people, 'cause I've literally been experimenting this for maybe 12, 18 months now. Uh, you know, when I go for a walk, I'm nasal breathing. Like, I'm... It's, you know, no question, I will make su- I don't think about it now 'cause I know I do it, but initially I had to, you know, consciously think about it. I do... You know, I take the kids for walks. We all go... We all, we're, we're all sort of trying to spot if one of us is mouth breathing, 'cause I'm trying to instill it in my kids-

    8. JNJames Nestor1:31:18

       [laughs]

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:19

       ... from a young age that this is important. Actually, I went for a run with my son yesterday. He's like, "Daddy, Daddy, look, that guy's running. He's mouth breathing. That guy's mouth breathing." I'm like, I'm sort of conflicted. Have I, have I started something in him? I'm not sure. But, but on one level I like it because I think, okay, as you said before, awareness is key, right? Without awareness, we can't make any change. So first of all, let's be aware of what's happening. Let's not beat ourselves up. Be aware, then let's go, "Well, maybe I'll start with a walk." Maybe a five-minute walk each day, nasal breathing, and see how you go. Um, and for me personally, now I sort of am getting into running. I was going to buy a heart rate monitor, and I thought, "You know what? Forget it." I, I, I sort of don't want more and more tech in my life. I'm trying to sort of go more minimalist, and I use, uh, nasal breathing as my barometer. As soon as I go too fast where I cannot nasal breathe and I have to open my mouth, that's my trigger to slow down. And I really feel I'm getting more efficient, and, uh, it, it feels really good. And you know what? I'm not stiff the next day or that evening. I, I recover quickly. Again, I will admit, this is a subjective experience, but it backs up the data and the science that you've written about so beautifully in your book.

    10. JNJames Nestor1:32:31

        But there's e- e- exactly. It, it may be a subjective experience, but it's, it's grounded in real science. If, if you look at nasal breathing and you look at using that oxygen most efficiently, you are allowing your body to operate in an aerobic state for longer than, than to go anaerobic and have that lactic acid build up and, and all of that, and this is very well known, having that balance, again, of CO2 and oxygen. And something that Patrick Mc- McEwen told me, which I really liked, he said, "Never work out harder than you can breathe correctly." So once you've reached that threshold and you're breathing to you're like, "I really gotta breathe through my mouth," or you're breathing in a dysfunctional way, you have to slow down and work yourself back up. And by slowly working yourself up this way, your performance is just gonna shoot through the roof.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:23

        Yeah.

    12. JNJames Nestor1:33:24

        And we've seen that time and time again. And again, th- these weren't studies that I was doing. These are studies that have been around for decades that right now there's this new interest in breathing in athletics, and I have a feeling these people who are gonna be adopting these healthy breathing habits are just gonna show some incredible improvements.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:44

        Yeah. No, absolutely. And it's, it's again, it's just reflective of culture. It's the more now, we're quicker, faster. It's that I'm gonna work out, I wanna push it hard, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be grunting, I'm gonna be... You know, it's, it's... I, I want... Is it a Western thing? I guess it is on, on some level. Like, it's... I really feel we're at that point now in Western culture where we have to go look. We do so many things beautifully well, but we're kind of a bit lost on some of these other things, and maybe just slowing down and doing less. When we, you know, in inverted commas, work out or move our bodies, maybe use your nose as the barometer, and then, you know, you'll be working on your efficiency. Maybe you'll go... You, you'll run less, but you'll run more efficiently, which actually will lead to you running more just a few months down the line.

    14. JNJames Nestor1:34:30

        Yeah. It still ties... There's nothing wrong with running further and running faster than a competitor, right? That's, that's human nature to wanna do that. But if you really wanna do that, you have to take control of the systems in your body, and you have to be operating more efficiently. Why waste energy? Like, why not store that energy, then use it to best your competitor?

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:52

        Yeah.

    16. JNJames Nestor1:34:52

        That's what sports performance is all about. And something you mentioned that, that I thought was interesting is in so many ways, like what we know about eating now, food, I remember in the 80- growing up in the 80s, just the only things that were around the house were just like processed food. And this was normal. White bread, Velveeta cheese, and everyone seemed to be eating this way. Well, we know that eating that stuff is bad news. I'd, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who is gonna defend eating highly processed foods. It's bad news. It took us a while to get to this point, right? So it took about maybe 20 years of science to come out. Now we all know it, and I really think breathing is this next thing. So 20 years ago, even nowadays, some people are poo-pooing it, say, "How we breathe doesn't matter." The science is so clear, and you can go back in history thousands of years again, and they have been studying this for so long. And-

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:35:49

        Yeah

    18. JNJames Nestor1:35:49

        ... it really feels like this wave of awareness is really-

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:35:53

        Yeah

    20. JNJames Nestor1:35:53

        ... starting to, to crash right now.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:35:55

        No, I would agree, James. So, so just for the sort of final stage of this conversation then, um, we've... Just to sort of really put it in perspective, you know, we're, we're setting the scene that people are breathing too much, they're breathing too fast, and it's not necessarily how... Yeah, of course, breathing when you're working out and running, sure, work on it if you want to. But again, if you wanna do a sprint and you wanna breathe through your mouth, mouth to beat an opponent, that's okay. It's... What we're talking about is how do you habitually breathe, right? So, um, you know, because I know there's some confusion. So just to clarify, so what, what you're saying, I think, and certainly what I would say is practice breathing through your nose, practice for a few minutes a day breathing less. Try and go for that six or even eight breaths a minute. See how that feels. Now, if you wanna go beyond that, if you wanna go into super breathing territory, right? The cool stuff that people get, "Oh, you know what? I wanna, I wanna do a marathon up Everest like Wim Hof," or, or, you know... Which again appeals to us culture of doing more and I wanna do all that crazy stuff. There are quite a few different methods, aren't there, where we consciously over-breathe. So you were talking about under-breathing. Now I wanna talk about, you know, Wim Hof, uh, the breathing technique or one of his breathing techniques, certainly the one I've experienced in a... when I saw him speak in LA a few years ago, and I recorded a, a podcast with him a few weeks back. It's not come out yet. And we actually did it where you actually, you know, for 30 or 40 breaths, you take these big breaths in and out, and then you do a hold. What is that doing? What, what... Why should people think about these over-breathing practices? Did you try them as part of your research? Did you look into the research here? And what, what sort of... What, what would you tell people about these practices for those who are interested?

13. 1:37:41 – 1:45:16

    Wim Hof, Over-Breathing Practices and the Roots of Yoga

    1. JNJames Nestor1:37:41

       Sure. So the first thing, I just have to second something that you said. I'm talking about mouth breathing as a habit. Some people have written me and said, "I noticed I was laughing today and I took a few mouth breaths." And again, I'm like, ugh, I thought I had, had made this very clear in the book. So I've been breathing through my mouth talking to you today, right?

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:02

       Yeah.

    3. JNJames Nestor1:38:02

       And when I swim in the ocean, I'm breathing through my mouth. When I'm laughing, I'm breathing through my mouth. This is perfectly fine and perfectly natural. So a few hundred breaths per day breathing through the mouth is fine. If we're taking 25,000, it's about that habit and that chronic breathing. Um, you, you want to be breathing through your nose as often as you can, but that doesn't mean you should hate yourself for laughing or for breathing through your mouth. [laughs] So I just wanna make that really, really clear for everyone. [coughs] But the-

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:34

       Or swimmers, right? Swimmers. Swimmers.

    5. JNJames Nestor1:38:36

       Yeah.

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:36

       Like, you know, when you're swimming You sort of have to take it... You don't have to, but you may gulp in a lot of water unless you breathe in through your mouth. So it's-

    7. JNJames Nestor1:38:45

       Absolutely

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:45

       ... it could be normal for swimming. It can be fine, you know. Um-

    9. JNJames Nestor1:38:49

       I swim and surf almost every day out here in San Francisco, and I tell you, I'm not breathing through my nose when I'm doing that. It's impossible.

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:55

        Yeah.

    11. JNJames Nestor1:38:56

        There's, there's saltwater up there, and there's nothing wrong with that.

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:59

        Exactly.

    13. JNJames Nestor1:39:00

        It's chronic, it's habit. So I, uh, in the book after, like, you get that foundation of healthy breathing that everyone can benefit from, I kept hearing about Wim Hof breathing, these intense pranayamas, holotropic breathwork, these long breath holds. I said, "This is completely counter to what I learned before. We shouldn't... Like, apnea is a bad thing. Over-breathing's a bad thing." All of that is true when it's unconscious. But when you consciously do it, when you place yourself into a position in which you tell yourself to follow with this ancient breathing technique, and some of these include mouth breathing-

    14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:40

        Yeah

    15. JNJames Nestor1:39:40

        ... exhaling through the mouth or even inhaling through the mouth, something amazing happens because you're allowing yourself to consciously take control of unconscious functions in your body. So with Wim specifically, what I thought was so interesting is we have this autonomic nervous system that turns us on for sympathetic stress or turns us off and relaxes us, parasympathetic, and we've been told if you get a... pick up a textbook, it's gonna say this is autonomic, as in automatic, as in beyond our conscious control. But we can control it through breathing, and when we control our nervous system function, we can take control of our immune system functions as well. And we've seen this. People who have been practicing Wim's version, which the, he calls it Wim Hof Method, uh, but he's very clear that this stuff has been around for at least 1,000 years. He didn't invent anything. He was able to take this thing and distribute it to the masses, and he's done that better than anyone on the planet for breathing awareness. But it's no coincidence that the people who practice this, people with autoimmune diseases, with arth- arthritis, eczema, psoriasis, what- whatever, they can show a marked decrease in the symptoms of their problems, and sometimes they claim that they're completely healed by adopting these simple breathing habits because what they're doing is they're breathing in a way that purposely stresses themself out for a short amount of time so that they can spend the rest of the day relaxing and healing themselves. And again, seems a little counterintuitive. Why would I purposely wanna stress myself out if I'm stressed out throughout the rest of the day? The point is to focus that and to regain a balance in your body and in your health, and that's exactly what these more intense over-breathing practices do.

    16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:41:38

        I think what you said there about where this has come from, that nobody new has invented anything, you know, Wim hasn't. It's, these are all, uh, practices that have been there. Uh, but you also paid homage to Wim. He's very... He's, he's, he's got it out there to the masses in a fantastic way. You've said that, you know, that in the Indus Valley 5,000 years ago, there's, there's writings on this and that. You actually... I think you wrote the, about, that yoga or, or the rece- the scriptures you saw showed yoga initially was just a breathing practice. I think.

    17. JNJames Nestor1:42:13

        Th- that's exactly true.

    18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:42:15

        Wasn't you... Is that true?

    19. JNJames Nestor1:42:17

        The, the abs- ab- there were no standing poses. There was no movement. It was focusing, meditating [inhales] and breathing. Only in the last 100 years have we developed vinyasa flow. That wasn't around until 100 years ago. And I wanna make this very clear to all the yogis out there, I do yoga all the time. Love it. I've seen the benefits. There's science proving the benefits. But this practice, this modern yoga that most of us do, is just that. It's modern. So the first yoga was a practice of breathing and focusing, and then it developed into holding one pose and breathing. Opening up this side [inhales] , inhaling into that lung, opening up the other side. And then about 100 years ago, 110 years ago, those poses were combined into this sort of dance-like movement which had nothing to do with the early yoga. So it r- really was all based on breathing and focusing on the breath.

    20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:43:20

        Yeah, amazing. And one of the... I think you quote someone in the book, um, I, I can't remember who it was, but someone said to you, "There are as many breath practices as there are diets." I've never heard that before. I thought that was incredible because you were talking about conscious over-breathing and, you know, if we had more time, I would talk about Tummo breathing and holotropic breathing, but you know what? It's all there in your book for people to read about. Um, but that is... W- who, who said that phrase? Who was it?

    21. JNJames Nestor1:43:51

        Uh, a free diver told me that, uh, very early on, which I thought was very surprising. I didn't know that there were different ways of breathing. This was years and years ago. But by adopting those, those different breathing practices, you can push your body into different states. You can relax yourself on purpose. You can stress yourself out on purpose, which has pronounced benefits to doing that as well. And again, you can find books. There's yoga books with 400 different breathing practices with all of these crazy names. All of that's great, but w- I wanted to focus on the general concept behind these. There are heavy breathing practices, over-breathing. There are, there's breath holding, there's slow breathing, and there's nasal breathing. And you can call it whatever you want. You can practice the Chinese version of that, the Greek version of that, the Indian version of that. Doesn't matter because they're really all doing the same thing. To me, it's no coincidence that Wim Hof method, also known as Tummo, has so many of the same benefits of Sudarshan Kriya, which has been studied in 60 different independent studies to help people with anxiety, depression, autoimmune problems. There's, there's no coincidence that these things are helping people in the same way because guess what? They have you breathe really intensely [inhales] and then breathe really slowly. It's almost the exact same practice, just coming in from different directions.

    22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45:15

        Absolutely.

14. 1:45:16 – 1:52:26

    Freedivers, Fear and Closing Advice

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45:16

       Before we wrap up, you mentioned freediving, and I know you wrote a book on that. I haven't read it yet, and I am... Definitely it's on, right at the top of my list to, to, to sort of read, uh, when I, when I get some time. But one question I had about freedivers who c- who obviously have masterful control of their breath, did you notice, was there a theme that... You know, a freediver by definition needs to have a very high level of control over their breath. You know, a high degree of carbon dioxide tolerance so they can actually go down and actually maintain that... You know, tolerate the buildup of carbon dioxide in their body without having that strong urge to, to, to breathe. Given the multiple benefits of improving your breathing, have you heard any stories in freedivers that actually a lot of them had mental health problems or depression or anxiety or, or autoimmune conditions that, that got better? Or the flip side is, was it those conditions that actually led them to freediving in the first place? I don't know, it's so interesting for me, that.

    2. JNJames Nestor1:46:25

       Many of them had anxiety issues, sometimes depression issues, sometimes addiction issues. There's a great film that, uh, somebody made, a, a very short film, Jonathan Rempel, about a freediver who had all of those things. And she found freediving because when you freedive, you are putting... It is almost like a forced meditation. You cannot freedive stressed out. You cannot freedive with anxiety. You cannot freedive with a sense of panic. You have to completely give yourself over to the water and connect so deeply in your body. And when you're down there, everything is silent, so you are so connected with your breath and with your brain on such an intimate level. And this reconnects people with themselves when they're up on dry land afterwards. And to s- so some people have found that salvation through freediving, and so much of that is due to breath control. So I've never seen, uh... I've met dozens and dozens of freedivers. That, that book, Deep, looked at the ocean from the surface to the very bottom of the sea, looking at the human connection. So towards the surface there was a lot of freediving, but I've never seen one who suffered from anxiety. I've never seen one who panicked because you just can't do that when, when you're down deep in the water holding, holding your breath. There hasn't been any studies on this. I think it would be fascinating to look at the physiology of someone before and after training for freediving. Look at markers of panic, look at other i- uh, issues, even blood glucose, um, and how they react. Because freediving is... That is the ultimate art of breathing. You're focused on your breath, connected to your breath the whole time.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:48:15

       It's breath, it's mindfulness, it's meditating. It's everything all in one, right? To be able to, to, to, to do that practice. And one study that we've not had a chance to talk about, which I've underlined heavily in my book and I'd encourage people to read it in the book, is, is just this idea of fear and that lady who didn't... who had that genetic condition without the amygdala, the sort of emotional center, the fear center of the brain, and how basically you can't stress her out. She d- she would get scared of nothing until carbon dioxide went into her. She got a dose of carbon dioxide, and that then stressed her out and scared her. I wo- I won't sort of spoil the rest of the story there for people, but what, what's really incredible for that, and I really want people to get this, is that we think fear and anxiety is always about an external event. "Oh, that is happening to us." We, we forget that it can be biology, it can be physiology. And, and I really... I know how many people suffer from these sort of conditions, and I really, really want to encourage them that what James has been talking about, read the book, learn about these techniques, and start small because it can really transform every aspects of your life. Um, James, look, I, I really... I don't say this often, but, but that is a phenomenal book. Uh, I, I feel quite lucky actually. I've got these early copies. They're still very sort of the early unproved manuscripts, uh, so I feel I've got sort of something quite special here. Um, the, the podcast is called Feel Better, Live More because, James, I... It's pretty obvious, but fundamentally, I, I, I've seen time and time again where people feel better in themselves, they get more out of their lives. And I think it's pretty clear that you're making the case that if we breathe better, we're gonna live more. So I wonder if... You know, I, I want people to get inspired by this. I want them to get your book, but I want people to take action. I don't want them just to hear it and go, "That was interesting," and then get on with their lives. So I always like to leave the podcast with my guest with some sort of practical advice. I know you've covered a lot of it already, but just some sort of what would you say... If someone, someone's heard this and they're still skeptical, how would you encourage them to get going with a breathwork practice in their daily lives?

    4. JNJames Nestor1:50:31

       I would say go see for yourself because you're, you're your best judge of this. If you have a blood pressure monitor, and a lot of people do, take your blood pressure before and after a simple breathing practice six times a minute. You could start with that. Start small, exactly as you had said, and give it a while. Um, by that, give it a week. So a- adopt a simple practice. And again, this isn't requiring you to go to a monastery or sit in a dark corner. You can adopt healthy breathing practices anywhere. And we know that there's a solid foundation of science between all of these things. We have seen people absolutely transform by adopting simple breathing habits. This is not a placebo effect. It's absolutely real, and I'm convinced. I've experienced this myself. I've talked to dozens and dozens of people who have also experienced it. I've talked to the leaders in the field who have introduced me to all of their data. And I, I find that this is an underappreciated and underacknowledged aspect of our health, but that's starting to change, and it couldn't happen sooner, especially right now with- in the midst of a pandemic. Focusing on your breathing can really have some transformative effects.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:48

       James, thanks so much. Thank you. Really, really helpful advice there. Thank you for writing a brilliant book. Thank you for your time today, and good luck with the rest of the promotion. I'd love to see this book a bestseller in every country around the world. Get out there, give people this information, this knowledge that really is transformative, so thank you.

    6. JNJames Nestor1:52:04

       Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. [upbeat music]

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:52:07

       Press Subscribe to get more inspiration and ideas on how to feel better so you can get more out of life. And if you have a moment, why not check out this conversation that I've picked out as a perfect follow-up? Remember, lifestyle change is always worth it, because when you feel better, you live more.

Episode duration: 1:52:27