
July 28, 2021
Change Your Breath, Change Your Life | James Nestor on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson
Check out the Modern Wisdom episode page and show notes
Key Takeaways
- Basic Breathing Recommendations:
- Stop mouth breathing; focus on habitual nasal breathing
- Breathe slow and low
- Use nasal tape and dilators to acclimate nasal breathing
- Use incline bed therapy
- Avoid sleeping on your back
- Efficiency is more important than quantity of breath
- “The further away we get from a natural environment, the more patches we rely on to keep our body sustaining” -James Nestor
- The lungs are an organ you can control unlike our kidneys, liver, heart, etc. The control of the lungs can directly control many vitals and overall health of the body.
- The need to breathe is dictated by tolerance for CO2, not oxygen
- The more acclimated you become to holding more CO2 in your body, the more oxygen your body can deliver
- Breathing is not a one stop solution but can help rebalance the body
- Dysfunctional breathing can directly accelerate chronic health problems like diabetes
Intro
- James Nestor (@MrJamesNestor) is a journalist who has been primarily focused on reporting on the scientific study and health benefits of breath. James and Chris discuss his new book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, as an introduction to breath and how it is vital to our overall health.
- Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
- Check out James Nestor’s website and additional podcast notes
- Host: Chris Williamson (@ChrisWillx)
Intro to Breath
- We get most of our energy from our breath
- Everyone is looking for an external solution (pharmaceuticals) for their energy levels and health problems rather than an internal solution like breath
- “The further away we get from a natural environment, the more patches we rely on to keep our body sustaining” – James Nestor
- We need to reacquaint ourselves with the benefits from the most fundamental human funcitons like breath and movement
- The lungs are an organ you can control unlike our kidneys, liver, heart. The control of the lungs can directly control many vitals in your system even after a couple minutes.
- We are breathing in ways that are extremely dysfunctional
- Apnea – unnoticed shallowed or shortened breathing while in front of a computer screen and completing stress-inducing tasks
- Our threshold for fear is so low that we get stressed by a bad email that elicits the same response as our ancestors would have when encountering a predator
James Nestor’s Influences
- It took Jim him years to finally build enough evidence from scientific studies to finally share his research that has been ignored for so long
- Tummo – breathing exercise used to gain the control of body temperature
- Monks in the Himalayas in a scientific study were able to increase their body temperature by 17 degrees and melt the snow they were sitting around
- Ability to reduce their metabolism by 60%, which is below a state of being in a coma
- Wim Hof has been very influential in bringing Tummo breathing practices to modern culture
- Swami Rama has the ability to increase the temperature on one palm while decreasing the temperature on the other
- Still unproven scientific truth on how these breathing practitioners have the ability to test such extremes
- “The freak (monk) views the normal person as someone who isn’t achieving their full potential. Maybe we are the freaks” – James Nestor
- Many culturally valuable practices are misunderstood by the outside world
How to Breathe
- Efficiency is more important than the amount of breath
- The misconception carries over with food. More food doesn’t necessarily equate to more energy
- When you over-breathe, your outflow of carbon dioxide is too high resulting in decreased circulation which makes it harder to get oxygen
- Breathe slow and low and through your nose
- You’re pressurizing the air and allowing the air to spend more time in your lungs
- More oxygen with less work
- Try it! Feel the tingling in your extremities and analyze your blood oxygen levels
- Don’t be obsessive about tracking your vitals. Simply make it a habit to be conscious about your breath
- Take it slow and get acclimated to it as a natural function
- Recommendations:
- Stop mouth breathing, focus on habitual nasal breathing
- Nasal tape and dilators can condition your breathing through the day as well as benefit your unconscious breathing during sleep
- Incline bed therapy – raising the bed stand (throw a book under it) by roughly 6 inches can improve breathing while sleeping
- Avoid sleeping on your back to decrease snoring – taping a ping pong ball to your back can make it uncomfortable to sleep on your back
Chronic Health Examples
- Breathing is not the one-stop solution but can help rebalance the body
- Case Study #1: Asthma:
- Patients tend to breathe too much, through their mouth, and have low levels of CO2
- Over-breathing constricts blood vessels and creates a snow-ball effect to more over breathing
- Simple slowing of the breath in a study showed asthma attack reduction and elimination
- Case Study #2: Diabetes:
- Improper breath can induce hypertension
- Sleep apnea has a high connection to diabetes
- If you’re stressing yourself out even while sleeping, your body is going to feel the effects from the constant state of hypertension
- Sleep Apnea fact: the mouth has gotten smaller over time causing issues with airflow and causing respiratory problems
- Snoring is not a natural bodily function; it represents a struggle to get energy and induces stress
Athletic Performance
- We have 11 pounds of muscles in our respiratory system and have overlooked the active training of this muscle group
- Nasal breathing during exercise will decrease performance initially
- Afterwards, your breath will then align with your metabolic needs and increase performance
- Recovery also becomes more efficient
- The need to breathe is dictated by tolerance for CO2, not oxygen
- The more acclimated you become to holding more CO2 in your body, the more oxygen you can deliver
- Interval breath holding during exercise can help build this acclimation
- Start small while not exercising to get introduced!