Transcript 0:00 Today's episode is supported by Swedish health tech startup Diversify. I'll tell you more about their ketone breathalyzer called Acetrack later in the show. 0:08 Breathing, it's so basic, but many of us seem to be doing it wrong, and chances are you are, too. 0:14 But if you want to significantly improve anxiety, depression, migraines, congestion, snoring, change your jaw and face structure, or just want to live longer, then you need to be breathing right. 0:23 After today's episode, you'll have no excuse. Soft breath in, really relaxed, slow, gentle breath out. The simplest thing in the world. And I felt, going into that room, I was ready to go through a brick wall. 0:35 Breathing is a very good way to, to counter stress. And by stimulating the vagus nerve, it's been found to block pro-inflammatory cytokines, so these are the chemical messengers that trigger inflammation. 0:46 There has been enough of the woo-woo, and there's enough of pulling information from thin air and saying, "This is what... If you breathe this way, this is what will happen." No, no, no. 0:56 We need to show that there's a seriousness, a credibility, and a tremendous foundation and power in the breath, and we can do that with the information that we have. Welcome to the Health Optimisation podcast. 1:12 I'm Tim Gray, the UK's leading biohacker. 1:14 This podcast is all about gaining actionable advice from the world's top experts and sharing new breakthroughs in nature, biohacking technology, and longevity research to help you live longer and happier. 1:27 Everything I'm gonna cover on this podcast are things I've learned from the world's top medical professionals, researchers, scientists, and authors in the health field. However, I am none of those things. 1:37 I'm just someone with a very keen mind for figuring out how to be as healthy as possible and as young as possible, while aging gracefully and learning from the best. My only bias is health. 1:48 Now, breathing might seem simple, but actually it's a skill that needs to be honed, and mastering it takes practice. Find the right breathwork technique, and you'll unlock the power of your brain and nervous system. 1:59 And one expert whose methods have helped me immensely is Patrick McKeown, leading expert on breathing and sleep. 2:05 Patrick is the creator of The Oxygen Advantage, a breathing method taught by instructors around the globe that helps you optimize your health, mental clarity, and performance. 2:16 Patrick is also the author of the best-selling books The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure, with his latest book being Breathing for Yoga. Patrick, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, Tim. Pleasure to be here. 2:26 So the listener may be wondering, how the hell am I getting breathing wrong? I'm keeping myself alive, aren't I? Patrick, what would you tell them? Yeah, I suppose we're keeping ourselves alive. 2:38 We can eat junk food, and we can do a lack of physical exercise, and we can do many things, and we're still alive, but are we really alive? 2:45 Breathing is one of those things that's very, very susceptible to change, and we live in a totally different environment now than the environment that we evolved in, and our breathing pattern changes. 2:58 And it can become dysfunctional, and it will depend on the person, and more... In some pockets, more people are impacted by dysfunctional breathing or faulty breathing than others. 3:11 So we would say in the general population, it's about 25 to 30%. In the asthma population, the literature shows 30%, but I would believe it to be more. In people with anxiety and panic disorder, it's as high as 75%. 3:28 In people with lower back pain, it's 50%. And surprisingly, a paper published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2022, looking at 1,900 athletes, 3:40 it concluded that 90% have dysfunctional breathing from a biomechanical point of view. So I suppose, Tim, the question is, how do we determine if breathing is faulty? Because it's multidimensional, so it is... 3:56 it does delve in a little bit of a further explanation, you know. Because even defining what's, what is functional breathing, you know, it's... there's a little bit more to it than that. 4:08 When I first heard about breathing, and I'm not talking obviously [laughs] day to day, as in suboptimally, it blew my mind because I started seeing everywhere how people weren't breathing properly, and how I realized that I'd had a lifelong 4:23 problem with breathing myself. Waking with a dry mouth, waking with stuffy sinuses, bad breath, brain fog, and actually when I first started opening the window, which obviously helped me significantly. 4:37 And then we go into things such as nose breathing and mouth breathing, you know, and the differences of how to optimize in a moment. But when you don't know, you don't see it. 4:45 But when you see it and you know about it, you start seeing it everywhere and realize how it's actually, you know, a huge problem everywhere. 4:53 And with the static, the stats you've just said now [laughs] about athletes and asthma and back pain and all these things, it's absolutely crazy how one of the most simple or automatic things that we can have in our lives can be so dysfunctional, I guess, or unoptimized. 5:09 It's bonkers, isn't it? Yeah, it's true, and I think the word simple you used probably has held it back, and I think it's also with how breathing has been espoused over the last number of decades, it has held it back. 5:21 It hasn't been communicated to an audience in a way that it made the audience curious and, and wanting to know more about it. You know, the surface has been scratched, um, but it's a lot deeper than that. And 5:35 it's really understanding that we have at our disposal, our disposal tools to be able to regulate states. We can improve blood flow to the brain. We can improve our blood circulation throughout the body. 5:47 We can influence our oxygen delivery, and it's not done in a way that many people think we should be doing it. We can help to protect the upper airways. We can help open up the, the lower airways. 5:58 We can improve our sleep quality. We can bring down our heart rate. We can- Access flow states by changing breathing patterns. We can improve our cognition. 6:09 We can improve the functions of the human being that are absolutely vitally important, and they pertain to every walk of life. And to be honest with you, it should be taught in schools. 6:21 You know, we are in an education system, we're taught various subjects, but we're not taught how to deal with stress. We're not taught how to concentrate. We're not taught how to hold our attention. 6:31 And yet, dealing with stress, improving our resilience, improving concentration, attention span, are tools that we need for the rest of our life. 6:39 You're gonna talk us through some of the methods to improve our breathing in this episode. But how easy is it to actually make some of these changes? Oh, it's-- I think it's very easy. Bring it into your way of life. 6:51 There's nothing-- This isn't a technique. 6:53 Like, we use 26 different exercises, but I've been long enough working with people to understand that people have no time, and there's so much pressures on them to live a perfect life and live this life and that life. 7:04 You know, I have to be realistic about it. I'll give you an example. I'm currently working with a musician, well-known musician, but has chronic fatigue for about 30 years or so. 7:16 And on one particular day about two weeks ago, I had a session with him, and he said, "I didn't really put in that much practice that day." And I said, "Okay, what, what's your day like?" 7:26 And he says, "Well, I'm kind of resting." I said, "Excellent. You're resting throughout the day. I want you to continuously tell your brain that your body is safe." 7:35 Because if we have chronic conditions such as chronic fatigue or any condition, 7:41 we need, and we can with breathing, we can change our breathing patterns to tell our brain that the body is safe, and with that then, we're setting up the right foundation for the body to heal itself. 7:54 Now, in his instance, I didn't want to make breathing a chore. He's already resting. I said, "Excellent. You're resting. 8:01 Whenever you're resting, I want you to bring some attention onto your breathing and take a soft breath in through the nose and a really relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out. 8:11 And as you're breathing in through the nose, you shouldn't hear it. It should be silent. 8:15 And even to slow down the speed of the air coming into your nose, and by having that really relaxed and slow gentle breath out, relative to how you feel." 8:24 I'm not going to time it for him because his breathing wasn't ideal. I don't want to give him in for four, out for six, or in for three and out for five because that's not tailoring it according to him. 8:35 I'm asking him to slow down his breathing relative to how he breathes, and we know that by slowing down the speed of the exhalation, 8:43 we stimulate the vagus nerve, we gently increase carbon dioxide in the blood, we slow down the heart rate. 8:50 But also, it's the bottom-up communication but the top-down communication because there is a structure in the brain which is spying on our breathing. And there's just one example. 9:00 Now, this morning, I spoke with a person, and he does a 5K run with his mouth closed. There is a breathing exercise. That's totally accessible. He's breathing through the nose during physical exercise. 9:12 What are the benefits there? 9:14 Harnessing nasal nitric oxide, dilating the airways, improving gas exchange from the, from the lungs into the blood, better recruitment of the diaphragm to help improve respiratory muscle strength. 9:26 All of the communication going via the nose via the olfactory nerve from the nose to the brain, increasing visuospatial awareness, increasing blood circulation, increasing oxygen delivery to the working muscles. 9:38 And even when you're doing your physical exercise or any movement for that matter, by having some attention on the breath, you're taking your attention out of the mind. 9:48 You have an awareness of your breathing, which will help to bring a quietness and a stillness to the mind, but you're also changing the physiology to improve blood flow to the brain, and this has a calming effect on the brain. 9:59 The brain, by controlling breathing, regulates its own excitability. Well, actually, this is a brilliant-- I, I love this. 10:05 It is one of the points that resonated with me when I first heard about The Oxygen Advantage, actually. Uh, my background with psychology of nearly 23 years now, and 10:14 one of the exercises I learned very early days was to put a pencil in your mouth to trick your body into thinking you're smiling, which then makes you feel happier. 10:21 And or, you know, so you're, you're using your body to trick your brain and or, or should I say, your nervous system. And then you can then use your brain and to get your body to feel better as well. 10:34 And it-- So it works both ways. And yet we always think our brain controls our body, not that our body controls our brain. So it's so circular but profound when you get it, I think. 10:45 So it's really lovely that you explained it in this way because this is now my belief solidly. I think the safety and the word safe is really, really important to him because breathing we can up-regulate. 10:56 We can stress body and mind, and we can cause positive adaptations which are very, very important. But for some people, it's not about up-regulation. We need to be able to learn to down-regulate. 11:08 We need to be able to tell the brain that the body is safe. And I think that, that applies especially in the civilization that we are living in today. And often that's overlooked because there's no spectacle. 11:20 Like, I'll give you an example. I was in a high-pressured situation about six months ago. I was interviewed for one and a half hours by five individuals with seven cameras in tow, 11:31 and I was left in a room first for five hours before being interviewed in anticipation. And then I was brought into the room, but they left me outside the door for seven minutes in a round. 11:42 Seven minutes is not a long time, but it is when you're going in to confront a situation like this. I could feel my heart rate increasing. 11:50 And even though I'm fairly skilled with breathing, my heart rate was increasing as I stood outside the door. And the production assistant said, "Take a deep breath." 11:59 And I turned around to him and said, "I'm not taking any deep breaths." I just stood there. I took a soft breath in through my nose and a really relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out. And I just kept on doing that. 12:11 Soft breath in, really relaxed, slow, gentle breath out. The simplest thing in the world. I was able to bring down my heart rate. I was able to put my critical mind aside, the thinking mind aside. 12:22 I was able to access that state of mind, and I felt going into that room, I was ready to go through a brick wall. Now, 30 years ago, I would never have done that. I would have absolutely buckled under pressure, 12:36 and that's so simple. And, you know, there's another thing is as well, like, see, b- I think breathing, we're all individuals in, when it comes to the breath, and we all have our history as well, and, 12:48 say, somebody with panic disorder and anxiety, every time that they've had a history of panic disorder and anxiety or hyperventilation, 12:56 their breathing is, was impacted, and they have a personal connection to their breathing. And when we then employ breathing exercises to help that person, we have to be considerate of that. 13:09 Because if I give them a breathing exercise that may be a little bit too strong, I can tip them into a fight or flight response, which I've done many times, by the way. 13:18 So there's tools that we can give breathing exercises without the person even having to be conscious of their breathing, because some people can get nervous or anxious when they focus on the breath. 13:28 Because, of course, the breath was the very thing that was affected in their history. But we can do small breath holds. We can do walking with breath holds. We can go for a walk with the mouth closed. We can hum. 13:40 There's so many things that we can do. Even breathing in and out through the nose helps to induce relaxation. So that's, again, a beaut- the beauty of it. 13:49 You know, if there's agitation of the mind, yes, bring our attention onto the breath, but even if you feel you can't bring your attention onto your breathing, you can still do breathing exercises. 13:59 It's, a- actually, it's like atomic habits. It's like work with what you have and make it automated and do interrupts. And in fact, I did your breathwork training with some of your practitioners in Scotland, uh- Mm... 14:13 about six weeks ago, which was fantastic, and they run you through all the different exercises that you, you outline and, you know, walking up a hill, holding your, your breath, and, and then h- keeping your mouth closed and just doing nose breathing and exercising with your mouth closed and through your nose and things, which was fantastic to see how you can incorporate these things. 14:30 And one thing that I learned from it that, obviously, I'd read the books, and I've done lots of practice and things with your, your work for quite some time, but it's actually really interesting to see how it's so agnostic to you and your life, you personally and as an individual, and it's like, actually, this one doesn't resonate with me. 14:45 I don't feel quite so good when doing it. Perhaps I should explore this one and see if it works. 14:50 This one seems very easy to me, so obviously something in my breathwork pattern is making that easy, so therefore maybe it's one that I've already got down. 14:57 So it's actually really nice to have done that breathwork training and be guided through it, especially in such a nice setting. 15:02 One of the issues I find with the biohacking or health optimization longevity space is there's fundamentals that we have to drive our health and our physiology and our mental health, the basics. 15:15 You know, obviously, sleep is one of them. Breathing, breathwork, oxygenation is another one, and that actually helps sleep. 15:23 You know, there's hydration, with correct hydration, obviously, with the right minerals or electrolytes, which also helps with breathing and vice versa, movement, exercise, blah, blah, blah, blah. 15:34 Point is, is so many people are looking for the quick wins of popping a pill or taking a drug or doing whatever, that they miss the fundamentals. 15:41 And the reason why, obviously, we're speaking today is because I consider breathing to be one of the fundamentals, and yet 90% of people I meet haven't ever even thought about optimizing their breath. 15:54 One of the things that I'd like you just to briefly touch on right now is why breathing less means better oxygenation. 16:04 I think intuitively we realize if we see somebody walking down a street and they're out of breath, we'll say, "Well, at the very least, the person is unfit." 16:12 If you look at the breathing of people who are stressed and anxious or people who are quite unwell, their breathing is a little bit faster and harder, upper chest. It's not just that the condition itself is, 16:24 is causing us to breathe harder and faster. That is true, but the faster and harder breathing is putting us into an increased stress response. 16:32 It's tipping us into an increased sympathetic drive, which in turn is feeding back into the very condition. So breathing is that one function whereby if we can 16:43 improve our breathing patterns to help bring the, the autonomic nervous system into balance, and one way to do that, there's a number of ways to do it, but nose breathing in and out is crucially important. 16:54 The mouth has no function whatsoever when it comes to breathing, other than allow air straight down the throat, but it does nothing. Another aspect is breathing light. 17:04 So when you talked about breathing less air, stress makes us breathe faster and harder, and if we have chronic stress, faster and harder breathing pattern becomes normal. 17:15 And if we're breathing faster and harder all the time, it's keeping us stuck in that stress response. 17:20 So in order to counter that and to improve our breathing patterns, instead of breathing faster and harder, we need to breathe light and slow. 17:28 And as we gently soften and slow down our breathing to the point that we're breathing about 30% less air into our lungs, carbon dioxide isn't able to leave the body quickly enough, so it accumulates in the lungs. 17:41 And as carbon dioxide accumulates in the lungs, it also accumulates in the blood leaving the lungs. 17:48 Now, carbon dioxide isn't just this waste gas that we often hear bandied about, but carbon dioxide helps to dilate the blood vessels, 50,000 miles of blood vessels throughout the body, and the dilation is influenced by carbon dioxide in the blood. 18:04 So, for example, if I had or if I was practicing really soft breath in and a really relaxed and gentle breath out- And softening my breathing to the point of air hunger, which anybody can try. 18:16 You can even try it based on the instruction I've just gave you. And I would say to you to try it. As you practice that exercise, 18:25 practice it for about two to three minutes, and your goal is to achieve a tolerable air hunger or a sensation of breathlessness akin to as if you're going for maybe a moderate walk. 18:36 As you practice that exercise, pay attention to how you feel. Pay attention to the saliva in the mouth. Pay attention to whether you feel drowsy or more alert. 18:46 When you practice that exercise, the increased carbon dioxide in the blood helps to stimulate the vagus nerve, which in turn causes a slowing of the heart rate, and physiologically it will activate the digest response. 19:00 You know this by increased watery saliva in the mouth, and it will activate the rest response by f- the fact that you're feeling sleepy. 19:07 Now, here's an example where less is more, and it's by practicing breathing a little bit less air at different times throughout the day that you help to counter the chronic stresses which is causing you to breathe too much air. 19:21 I'm not saying that everybody with dysfunctional breathing has got chronic hyperventilation, but chronic hyperventilation is the most for- common form within dysfunctional breathing or breathing pattern disorders. 19:34 Now, there's other ways to help bring the autonomic nervous system into balance, and that would be slow breathing. That would be low breathing. 19:41 But when we think about people with dysfunctional breathing, very often they are breathing with a little bit too much movement from the upper chest. 19:48 In other words, they're breathing high instead of having optimal recruitment of the diaphragm. Why do you breathe with the upper chest more? 19:56 Very often we breathe that way because we feel that we are not getting enough air. Our everyday breathing pattern feels effortful. And why do we feel that we're not getting enough air? 20:06 It's because we are too sensitive to the accumulation of carbon dioxide, which implies that there's a, a problem from our br- with our breathing from a biochemical point of view. 20:16 So even though breathing is multidimensional, there's a, there's some overlap between the different dimensions. 20:22 And that's why when, when researchers look at breathing, they don't just look at breathing from one dimension. They look at breathing from three dimensions, and there could be more. 20:31 If researchers look at breathing from three dimensions, then we need to be training breathing from three dimensions. But because breathing has been traditionally trained, 20:42 you know, you have your breathing guru, you have this instructor, and this is his or her way to breathe, and that's it. 20:48 But tradition is holding back breathing because as breathing evolves, as science evolves, even though, of course, the human physiology is the same, our knowledge of the body is improving, and that's vitally important because I think it's very important to bring theory and to bring the science to breathing. 21:06 There has been enough of the woo woo, and there's enough of pulling information from thin air and saying, "This is what... If you breathe this way, this is what will happen." No, no, no. 21:15 People are educated now, and we need to show that there's a seriousness, a credibility, and a tremendous foundation and power in the breath, and we can do that with the information that we have. 21:27 There are many breathing techniques out there, and many people, I imagine significant amount of our listeners, would have heard of the Wim Hof method. Your, 21:40 let's say, way of breathing methods is called the oxygen advantage. How would you say they differ? Because while I appreciate Wim's work with cold and breath, it never really resonated with me on the practice. 21:56 I always felt like I was hyperventilating and looking for tingling lips, for instance, which, you know, is supposedly a good sign. 22:04 While it helped me feel good in the short term, I didn't feel like it was actually doing much for me other than, actually, no offense to Wim, a little bit of theater, [chuckles] actually. 22:13 Whereas I feel with oxygen advantage, and this is just my personal opinion, oxygen advantage, I feel like it's far more functional, far more integrated throughout the day. 22:21 I feel like things like my snoring, my, uh, being able to exercise with my mouth taped shut became much easier. But how would you define the difference between the two for the listeners? 22:33 I think with any breathing technique, and probably with any other technique, look at the personality of the founder, because the personality of the founder will always come into the technique. 22:42 And Wim has done tremendous work in terms of his ability to do major feats. He's an extreme athlete, and his breathing technique resonates that. 22:53 So if you look at the, the Wim Hof method, it involves hyperventilation, taking full, big breaths, and according to his word, words, any hole will do, breathing whether it's through the nose or through the mouth. 23:06 And that hyperventilation is a stressor. You're getting rid of a lot of carbon dioxide from the blood through the lungs. This is driving up blood pH, and in Cox's paper it was 7.75. 23:18 And this is causing arousal of the central nervous system. It increases neuronal excitability. There's a reduction of blood flow to the brain, reduction of oxygen delivery. 23:27 And in some ways it's almost as if it's a reset. See, during panic disorder and anxiety and hyperventilation in our everyday life, our breathing does become faster and harder. 23:38 And in some ways then the practice of breathing faster and harder in a controlled setting as du- as during the Wim Hof technique, it's training you not to associate ha- harder and faster breathing during panic with fear, 23:54 because it's almost desensitizing your reaction to it. I'll explain that again. You practice breathing faster and harder in a controlled setting. Then if you get into a difficult situation in your everyday life, 24:07 the faster and harder breathing isn't going to be so off-putting because you're so conditioned and used to it because you've been practicing it during a controlled setting without the fear. 24:17 The long breath hold is very interesting. If you hyperventilate, you get rid of so much carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the stimulus to breathe, the primary stimulus to breathe. 24:27 And once you remove that alarm to breathe, then you can hold your breath for a long, long time before you can feel the sensation to breathe again. 24:36 And as you hold your breath for that long, long time, your blood oxygen saturation is dropping because your cells continue to ex- extract oxygen from the blood, but you're not replenishing it because you've stopped breathing. 24:48 And during the first cycle, your blood oxygen saturation may go down to about 85% or so, and then you hyperventilate again, and you hold your breath. 24:57 Your blood oxygen saturation may go down to 70%, and then you hyperventilate again, and your blood oxygen saturation goes down to about 50%. It's a stressor, and with each cycle, the stress is greater. 25:12 Now, I've got a couple of things about this, and I use stressor exercises, I use breath holding, and I've put people into panic attacks. I've put people into anxiety. And 25:23 I'm cautious with stressor exercises because I've made mistakes, and I've seen it. 25:29 If I'm working with somebody with panic disorder and anxiety, the dose of air hunger is so small, the duration of the breathing practice is so small. I need people to dip their toes into the water. 25:42 And it's not just about stressing the body and mind. We need to be teaching people, how do you recover? 25:48 It's not about, you know, okay, I understand there's tremendous capabilities when we put the body into a controlled stress, but how much is a good stress, and when does a good stress become a bad stress? 26:04 That's an individual thing. 26:06 And I would say to anybody listening, if you're going into breathing techniques, regardless of whatever breathing technique that you do, if you are going to stress the body and mind, and there's two main ways to do it. 26:17 One is to hyperventilate, and the other is to do a long breath hold. They're the two main ways. So you can look at any breathing exercise, and you can say, "Okay, is this a stressor? 26:27 Is it upregulating me, or is it downregulating me?" To downregulate, it's about breathing in and out through the nose. 26:34 To downregulate, it's when you have a really slow and relaxed and gentle exhalation, or you breathe in, you breathe out, you hold your breath for a short period of time. 26:45 Downregulation is when you slow down your breathing. Downregulation is when you breathe light. Downregulation is when you breathe low. What about breathing for longevity? 26:55 Now, I mean, it seems pretty obvious 'cause if we go without breathing for X amount of minutes, you know, we're pretty much gone. 27:01 But in terms of the compound effect of breathing properly over a period of time, what are your thoughts about it improving longevity? I think breathing is a very good way to, to counter stress, 27:13 and obviously that stress makes people sick, and stress contributes to inflammation. By changing breathing patterns and understanding that we have a tool at our disposal 27:25 to help stimulate the vagus nerve, and by stimulating the vagus nerve, it's been found to block pro-inflammatory cytokines, so these are the chemical messengers that trigger inflammation. 27:37 And this was discovered back in 1998 by a neuroscientist called Kevin Tracey. And at the time, he was working on a rat, and he, he stimulated the vagus nerve in the rat. He found it could block inflammation. 27:48 And then he worked with humans, stimulating the vagus nerve. And there's different ways of stimulating the vagus nerve, and it's this nerve that's wandering throughout the human body. 27:58 It's innervating the major organs, and 80 to 90% of the communication of the vagus nerve is from the body up to the brain. There are a few ways of stimulating it. 28:08 Um, of course, humming is tremendous, and humming isn't just stimulating the vagus nerve, but it's also increasing the production of nitric oxide in the nasal airway, and it's slowing down the breath itself to activate a relaxation response. 28:24 But also, any exercise that we do which will improve recruitment of the diaphragm, that will help to stimulate the vagus nerve, slowing down the breath to between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths per minute. And it's not just... 28:38 Say, for example, now let's look at everyday breathing. If we practice breathing exercises, and by doing so, by bringing balance to the autonomic nervous system, and there's two different routes there. 28:51 One is stimulating the vagus nerve and improving vagal tone, but the other is improving the sensitivity of the baroreflex. So these are the pressure receptors in the major blood vessels. 29:01 If we can improve the sensitivity of the baroreflex, this in turn modifies the chemosensitivity to carbon dioxide. 29:10 And when we have an improved tolerance of carbon dioxide or a reduced sensitivity to carbon dioxide, our breathing is naturally lighter and slower. 29:20 So then in our normal, everyday breathing, w- we have a reduced respiratory rate. We have a slower exhalation. We have a natural pause at the end of exhalation. 29:29 And somebody who breathes this way is more likely to be more relaxed and better able to counter stress, versus somebody who's breathing a little bit faster. 29:39 And when I talk about faster respiratory rate, I'm not just talking about the respiratory rate. 29:44 It's also, of course, if you're breathing upper chest or irregular breathing, in other words, faulty breathing, which is a habit which can be trained. 29:51 If we have a constant faster and harder breathing and upper chest breathing, it is more likely to keep us stuck in that fight or flight response, increased inflammation, and increased risk of, of disease. 30:06 When you're in a ketogenic state, your body releases acetone. Measuring the acetone in your breath is the only non-invasive way of monitoring your ketosis, and Diversified's ACE Track Breathalyzer can do just that. 30:19 The device has high accuracy and repeatability that makes blood ketone measurements redundant Ace Track measures whether your body is burning fat or not. 30:28 You measure concentration of acetone in parts per million in exhaled air. Then you compare it to your own historical values. 30:37 It's possible to determine if and how much and at what time you started producing energy in your liver using fatty acids instead as carbs. 30:45 You appreciate this method over blood and urine tests because it's non-invasive, portable, hygienic, and less expensive. 30:53 So whether or not you're a health optimizer or struggle with weight control or need to be in ketosis for medical reasons, a simple breath in Ace Track helps you keep track. Diversify is offering a 20% discount. 31:05 Go to getacetrack.com/timbiohacker and use the code timbiohacker20. 31:11 If this conversation has got you inspired, whether you're new to health optimization, longevity, and biohacking, or just wanna learn more, the best place to hear the most effective and up-to-date knowledge is the Health Optimization Summit. 31:23 This is where I bring together the world's top researchers, authors, pioneers in the field, people like Ben Greenfield, Dr. Jolene Brighten, and Patrick himself. 31:31 We also showcase the most cutting-edge health tech on the market. You can grab a ticket at healthoptimization.com. Can breathing better relieve regular headaches and migraines? Because for me, I had a history of them. 31:46 There was various reasons for it, but I found that my, my migraines and headaches have reduced to almost zero since breathing properly. What do you find generally with, you know, who you work with? 31:56 With some people I've seen results, with some people I haven't. I can't always say that we can help, especially with migraines coming in. I get sometimes a little bit frustrated with it. 32:07 You know, for, you can have a headache as a result of stress. 32:11 So on that basis, by teaching the individual to be able to, to better cope with difficult situations by changing their breathing patterns, that they are not going into hyperventilation. 32:23 You know, what is hyperventilation? It's not an acute situation of hyperventilation. That's 1% or 2%. We're talking about chronic hyperventilation when our breathing is just a little bit faster and/or harder. That's all. 32:39 To cause an increase of minute volume, which causes a lowering of carbon dioxide, which reduces blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, which can bring on a headache. 32:48 So headaches can arise as a result of hyperventilation. Now, headaches can also arise as a result of hypoventilation. 32:57 If I'm working with a client and I do too many breath holds, I can bring on a headache with that person. 33:02 Or if they go for a jog with their mouth closed and the carbon dioxide is, you know, reasonably high during that period of time, it won't be that high, but reasonably high, it could bring on a headache. 33:13 So I have seen results with people with headaches and migraines. I haven't always seen 100%. 33:20 So I would say to individuals, "If I'm not sure, do you find that you experience headaches and migraines as a result of stress and challenging situations in your life?" And if the answer is yes, I say, "Let's... 33:34 Listen, let's teach you breathing exercises because it will help to counter the stress response." So I just wanted to touch on, you know, two more questions actually before we wrap up, Patrick. 33:43 But some people have stuffy noses when they don't even, even have a cold, and they're doomed to mouth breathe anyway, which I hear very frequently from people. 33:54 I, I, my- me, myself, I used nasal decongestant spray for quite some time, which can be quite damaging and very addictive because you can breathe so well with it. But, you know, is there hope for them? 34:04 And h- can we help open up their sinuses? Now, 34:08 obviously, people that get a stuffy nose after drinking red wine or having aged meat, which are histamine-based things, or chickpeas, you know, you can have DAO enzymes, which are, you know, enzymes that break down histamine, which, uh, then helps relieve the sinuses. 34:23 But for those that aren't necessarily histamine intolerant, what hope is there for people to nose breathe when, when, instead of mouth breathe, when their sinuses are stuffy all the time? 34:33 Oh, you can easily decongest the nose. We did a pilot study on this in Limerick Regional Hospital in Ireland back in 2013, and it was published in the Journal of Clinical Otolaryngology in 2013. 34:48 26 patients with asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis. Looking at their rhinosinusitis, which is a stuffy nose in a nutshell, 34:58 from a visual analog scale, from the nasal obstruction symptom evaluation, and also from what's called the SNOT test, the Sino-Nasal Outcome Test. These are validated questionnaires in an ENT department. 35:10 We had a reduction of 70% of symptoms at three-month follow-up. And that's without medication. Now, I thought that this pilot study would spur on a clinical trial. It never happened. 35:24 See, the problem with breathing is that it doesn't really generate a whole lot of profit, and you can't sell a product on the back of it. But it doesn't mean... The lack of evidence doesn't mean that it doesn't work. 35:36 It's been known since 1923 that if you want to open up your nose, you hold your breath. I'll show you how to do it, but I will say this. 35:44 Be careful if you have a history of anxiety or panic disorder or cardiovascular issues. Go very gentle. If you're pregnant, please don't do it. Because to decongest the nose, you need to stress the body a little bit. 35:57 The exercise is very simple. Take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose, and just gently hold your nose to stop breathing. 36:05 And you nod your head up and down, and you can even do it for a count of ten. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Let go. Breathe in through your nose. 36:19 And that, that exercise there, it's only for a count of ten. You'll start to feel some alleviation that the blood vessels in the nose will start to shrink as a result of doing that Then wait a minute and do it again. 36:31 And if you can do it for 15, do it for 15. If you can do it for 20, do it for 20. And ideally, you can hold, if you can hold your breath for 30 seconds, so you are pushing it a bit. 36:43 And if you're doing, say, you're, so you're holding your breath until you feel a moderate to strong air hunger, that will help to decongest the nose. Now, that's a short term. 36:53 But if we improve breathing pattern, then we have a long term that the nose is better functioning. And by improving breathing pattern, we're looking to normalize minute volume. 37:04 And you know that your improving breathing pattern is based on the BOLT score that we use. 37:10 So, the BOLT score is also worth considering because sometimes people are, well, well, they're saying, "Well, I've got good breathing." Well, okay. Is there a simple assessment tool to assess your breathing? 37:20 And maybe this was your last question. I'm not sure, Tim. But I might as well go through the BOLT. It stands for the body oxygen level test. It's also the control pause from the Buteyko method. 37:32 To measure this, you take a normal breath in and out through your nose. You hold your nose, and you time it in seconds. 37:38 How long can you hold your breath for until you feel the first definite desire to breathe or the first involuntary movement of your breathing muscles? And then when you let go, your breathing should be normal. 37:50 An easier way to think of it is as follows: take a normal breath in and out through your nose and hold your nose, and hold your breath for as long as you can but still have normal breathing when you resume breathing. 38:03 So that's the key. Hold your breath for as long as you can but still have normal breathing when you resume breathing. Your BOLT score, if it's above 25 seconds, there's an 89% chance that your breathing is functional. 38:18 If it's below 25 seconds, your breathing has room for improvement. And I will always say to clients with stuffy noses, "You are going to have a stuffy nose until you get your BOLT score a minimum of 20 seconds." 38:33 So in the short term, we can decongest the nose by holding the breath. 38:37 In the long term, switch to nose breathing and practice breathing exercises such as nose breathing during physical exercise, during rest, during sleep, light breathing, slow breathing, low breathing. 38:50 You can do breath holds, which are tremendous at controlled stress. And all of that will help improve your breathing pattern, and your nose then is more likely to stay open. So you'll know by your BOLT score. 39:02 Now, there's two other ways to help decongest the nose. One is by doing physical exercise with the mouth closed. 39:09 Naturally, the nose opens up because the body is anticipation of increased ventilation as a result of the physical exercise. 39:17 So the human body is amazing, and this is why when people say, "Well, should I be breathing through my mouth or nose during physical exercise?" 39:24 Your body knows that when you do physical exercise, that you are going to need more air, and it naturally opens up the nose to help with that. Now, the third way is having sex. If you have sex, it opens up the nose. 39:41 So people have a choice. There's three ways there. I know which one I would go for. [laughs] In fact, compound effect, let's go for all of them. 39:49 And so it, it [laughs] takes me on to, um, uh, a question I just wanna, I wanna put in here because, uh, obviously sleep is fundamental to health and longevity, and snoring, uh, impacts that very heavily. 40:03 So something I incorporated, which I know you're a big proponent of, is mouth taping to force us to nose breathe. 40:11 Now, some people say it's scary, and I, I've gotta be honest, for the first few nights that I did it, I woke up in the middle of the night and ripped the tape off 'cause I felt like I wasn't safe. 40:20 But it forced me into nose breathing. Can you tell us a little bit about mouth taping and, you know, the impact it has on sleep and snoring? 40:27 If you wake up with a dry mouth in the morning, you're more likely to wake up feeling unrefreshed. You spend more time in light sleep and less time in deep sleep. 40:36 You're more prone to snoring, more prone to obstructive sleep apnea. I wrote a scientific paper on this with two ear, nose, and throat doctors looking at how our everyday breathing influences our breathing during sleep. 40:50 If our everyday breathing is faulty, our breathing during sleep is not automatically going to correct itself. It too will be faulty. And when we think about snoring, snoring through the mouth, and it goes like this. 41:04 [snores] Once we get the mouth closed, mouth snoring stops. And taping of the mouth is absolutely one way to do it. There's a number of different options. 41:15 We have our own tape, which is called Myotape, which surrounds the lips to bring the lips together but doesn't cover the lips. And this is very important for a number of people. 41:25 One is for people with severe sleep apnea and moderate. There was a study that was conducted in 2022, 41:33 and they found that when people with sleep apnea taped their mouth right across their lips, two-thirds of them, their sleep apnea improved, but one-third, their sleep apnea got worse. 41:46 And the reason being is because when their mouth was taped, they weren't allowed to mouth puff. The air couldn't leave the body quickly enough, and as a result then, it increased the severity of their sleep problems. 41:58 So what I would say, if you're choosing a tape, well, number one is if you wake up with a dry mouth in the morning, I would absolutely say to you, look into getting your mouth closed during sleep because in terms of recovery and rest and glymphatic drainage and just feeling better the next day, and also mental health, 42:18 if we don't have good sleep, we have nothing. Because we feel lousy. We're going to be irritable. We're not going to function. We're not productive. I know you can get used to feeling a little bit under par, but- 42:31 When you start breathing in and out through your nose during sleep, you'll notice a difference. The second thing is nasal snoring, and it goes like this. 42:40 [snoring] And this is where there's turbulence in- inside in the nose and where the nose is meeting the back of the throat in the nasopharynx. 42:48 When we develop an easier breathing pattern of softer breath in and a relaxed and slow, gentler breath out, that in turn will reduce turbulence in the nose. 42:58 However, it may not be always possible to eliminate nasal snoring. Some of us have a deviated septum. Some of us have a compromised nasal airway. 43:08 So the turbulence that's experienced in the nasal airway, it's not just about the nasal airway, but it's also about the flow of breathing. Yes, we can improve the flow of breathing. 43:19 We can help the nose to work better, but if there's a deviated septum, which is a mechanical obstruction, that in turn is going to generate turbulence. However, 43:29 the same study that I spoke about, which I can send them on to you, Tim, by mouth taping, it reduced the snoring index by 47%. It's still considerable. And if that individual... Now, these individuals were just taping, 43:44 and with mild obstructive sleep apnea, the sleep apnea severity, the apnea-hypopnea index reduces by 33%, just with taping the mouth. 43:53 Now, I know doctors come out, once they seen the paper that showed that people with severe sleep apnea, mouth taping caused one-third to get worse, and of course sleep doctors were saying it's dangerous. 44:04 Listen, they don't talk about the two-thirds of people who got benefit. They don't talk about the millions of people and children who are mouth breathing and how that's impacting their sleep from a negative perspective. 44:18 They're first sometimes to criticize a negative, but they don't look at the positives. It's well known for hundreds of years that human beings, we should be breathing in and out through our nose during sleep. 44:31 You know, there was a book written back in the 1870s. You'll find it online. It's called Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life. It was an American painter called George Catlin. 44:41 He thought that the American Indian traditions were dying out, so he went and lived amongst them, and he noticed that whenever the young Native American baby had the mouth open, the Indian mother would go over and press their lips together. 44:54 So nasal breathing is natural, and mouth breathing is not natural. But I would say that if you are taping, yes, there are a number of different tapes out there. 45:04 If you do have severe sleep apnea or even moderate s- moderate to severe sleep apnea, don't cover the lips because it could worsen your AHI. 45:12 And that's where a tape surrounding the mouth to bring the lips together is better. Your children, don't cover the lips either. It's not ideal. 45:20 Um, and using-- You might say, well, if listeners have children and their child is, is mouth breathing, we've put all of the exercises for kids out there for free. 45:31 We've actually put all of the exercises for adults out for free. I developed an app last year, and I put $150,000. We self-funded it, so we paid for it all ourselves, and we put everything in the app for free. 45:45 Everything. There's no subscription. There's no nothing. So you've got 100 different sequences of videos. Now, people might ask why did we do that. I don't know. I felt it was the right thing to do. 45:55 Everybody was saying that, you know, it wasn't the right thing to do. Intuitively, I felt it was the right thing to do because we still haven't touched... We haven't got the mainstream. 46:05 We haven't, we haven't reached that tipping point in terms of breathing. 46:10 But if more and more people were to start realizing it, yes, of course, it's in the biohacking community, but the biohacking community is streets ahead. We need to get it into mainstream society. I, I agree completely. 46:23 Um, it's interesting that you say just about it helped two-thirds of people and didn't help one-third of people, even though those one-third of people can actually be helped by adjusting the protocol individualization. 46:35 But if there was a drug or a supplement that could improve for two-thirds of people, they would say that is a massive win. 46:45 And, you know, when in pharmaceutical studies, double-blind studies and things, they, they look for small percentages, and they say, "Yes, that was a success," 'cause they want the, to sell the drug. They want to show. 46:55 But when it's two-thirds, [laughs] they then talk about the negative. 46:58 Uh, I would say make it make sense, but, you know, when you're talking about something that's free and easily accessible versus something that's patentable and monetizable, you know, is a, a big difference. 47:07 Can I step in there, Tim, because that's a really interesting point you have. Okay. 47:13 I, I'm not going to be critical here of the medical profession, but what I would like to say is I'd just like to relay some facts about the current treatment of, of sleep in children. 47:24 Tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy has been the gold standard of treatment for children with sleep-disordered breathing for the last 50 years. 47:32 The efficacy of it was first tested and, and published in 2010 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. They looked at 578 children. 47:43 Only 27% of children had their sleep apnea cured post tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. 73% of children continued to have sleep apnea even though they had their adenoids and tonsils removed. Okay. My first point is 48:00 the enlarged adenoids and tonsils are, of course, one factor, but there are other factors such as inflammation and mouth breathing that are feeding into t- into sleep apnea in children. 48:09 And the problem with sleep apnea in children, according to a British study of 11,000 kids in-- 48:16 published in Pediatrics Journal in 2012, if a child has sleep-disordered breathing at age five and untreated, they have a 40% increased risk of special education needs by age eight. 40% increased risk. 48:29 Because the brain is developing during deep sleep And during the formative years of childhood, that's when our brain is developing. 48:38 But if the child is getting sleep fragmentation or disrupted sleep or light sleep, it impacts brain development. Now, that's a serious thing. Let's look at the adult industry. 48:48 The main and gold standard of treatment in, for sleep apnea in adults is continuous positive airway pressure. This was a device developed by an Australian doctor called Dr. Colin O'Sullivan. 49:01 He got the idea from a vacuum cleaner. A vacuum cleaner sucks air. The CPAP pushes air. It pushes air down your nose or d- into your mouth, and it helps to splint open the airways. The efficacy of it is 50%. 49:17 So 50% of patients who are prescribed a CPAP machine continue it 12 months later. So now we have 50% of the adult sleep apnea population, and they have nowhere to turn to. 49:30 And I wrote a paper that was peer-reviewed with two ear, nose, and throat doctors, and we supported it with 170 different papers. 49:39 We have not had one ounce of interest in terms of a randomized double-blind control study investigating how can adults improve their everyday breathing patterns to improve their sleep. 49:53 So, you know, sometimes frustration sets in with me, and that's why I think a conversation needs to be had with breathing. Okay. So I, I think this is a, a good point to come onto our last and closing question, Patrick. 50:09 So for the person listening to the podcast right now, what are the fi- foundations of Oxygen Advantage that they can start putting into practice straightaway? First and foremost is 50:22 do your best to breathe in and out through your nose during rest, and also during physical exercise and sleep. 50:29 Of course, there's a time during physical exercise at which the intensity of the air hunger might be a little bit too much. You switch then to mouth breathing. 50:38 It would even be better if you slowed down, to be honest with you. 50:41 Because the thing about if you do your physical exercise or your yoga with your mouth closed, breathing in and out through the nose, while initially the air hunger is a little bit stronger, 50:52 the air hunger diminishes over time. Because the more you breathe through your nose during physical exercise, your body adapts to being more efficient and not needing as much air. 51:03 So you're training your body then to do more with less, and that's important. I would also ask people to tune in on your breathing patterns, and just check in. 51:13 Is there any time that your breathing is faster in upper chest or if it feels uncomfortable? And start just bringing some attention out of your mind and onto your breath. 51:24 And this isn't just about awareness of the breath, but even a simple instruction. Take a very soft, gentle breath in, relative to how you feel you breathe, and a relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out. 51:37 And under-breathe to the point of air hunger. And as you're doing that for two to three minutes, okay, if you feel a little bit stressed, take a rest. B- uh, the objective is to feel comfortable. 51:49 As you do that, pay attention to the saliva in the mouth and pay attention to your state of mind. 51:54 Because as you do that breathe light exercise, carbon dioxide in the blood will increase by about two to three millimeters of mercury. 52:02 And for every one millimeter increase of mercury pressure of CO2, it increases blood flow to the brain by between 3 and 4%. 52:09 So as you're breathing light and you're feeling a little bit of air hunger, you might feel that your oxygen is being deprived. But I'm gonna say no. Carbon dioxide is the driver to breathe. 52:22 And by breathing light, you're increasing carbon dioxide in your lungs and blood. And as carbon dioxide increases in your blood, it improves blood flow to the brain. 52:30 So even during that exercise, you can increase blood flow to the brain by 10%. Now, we think about the brain. The brain consumes 20% of our oxygen. 20% goes to the brain. 52:44 So here we have an organ that requires blood flow and oxygen, and we can enhance that. 52:53 If you feel stressed, just as I spoke about going into that presentation with five individuals, and a couple of them are contrary enough, so, you know, you're a little bit apprehensive about it, or you're going into a job interview, and any time that you feel your heart rate is increasing, 53:08 do your best not to hyperventilate. Because when we breathe harder and faster, the brain is going to tell us, well, the body is under threat and the brain wants you to get away from the situation. 53:20 You don't want to go into your job interview in a state of fight or flight because it'll come across in your voice. The right words won't come out. 53:28 And also, the people who are doing the job interview with you, they will sense that you're uncomfortable. 53:35 And if you're uncomfortable during the job interview, they're going to feel that you're going to be uncomfortable during that job if they were to give it to you. Don't let your breathing let you down. 53:46 But also pay attention to other people's breathing, because by you paying attention to their breathing, you will also sense when they are uncomfortable. 53:55 So instead of having that faster and harder breathing pattern, going into any situation, or even if your laptop doesn't start on time and you're starting to feel a little bit of frustration, this is a perfect time. 54:07 The simple and small challenges that we face every day, bring your attention onto the breath, and have a really slow, relaxed, and gentle breath out. Nobody sees anything. 54:19 There's no spectacle, but your body is telling the brain that you're safe. You know, there's... I suppose even to start off with that, Tim, the awareness of the breath and the realization that 54:32 we have something inside of us that is an internal strength, that regardless of what's happening on the outside, that we can help to self-regulate. Now, that also, there's a comfort in knowing that. 54:47 Because there's something very important in life when we do put ourselves into challenging situations. 54:55 Not too much of a challenge that it scares the life out of us, but just a little, because we learn something about ourself, we develop confidence, and there's something very rewarding. 55:06 But knowing that you have a tool to prepare you mentally and physically before going into that situation, that comfort alone will improve your performance during the situation. I agree. I agree completely. 55:20 So thank you very much, uh, for coming on, Patrick. It's been great to catch up with you again. I know, appreciate we usually only see each other for a few minutes at a conference when people are everywhere. 55:33 So it's been really nice to discuss with you in a little bit more detail than we would do normally. So thank you very much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. An absolute pleasure. 55:42 Thanks very much, Tim, for having me. [upbeat music] A massive thank you to my guest, Patrick McKeown. You can find more information about Patrick and The Oxygen Advantage at oxygenadvantage.com. 55:59 He's also got a podcast if you want to hear more from him. You've been listening to the Health Optimization Podcast. I'm Tim Gray. 56:06 Comment and leave the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, and subscribe to my channel if you'd like to see more. You can also find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all the usual places. 56:16 Check out the description for extra information and links. See you next time, and remember, spread the health. Thank you again to our sponsor, Diversify, for supporting this podcast. 56:27 Go to our show notes for more details on how to get the Ace Track Breathalyzer discount.
