The Mel Robbins Podcast - 5 Ways to Improve Your Breathing for Better Health With the #1 Breath Expert in the World

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

In today’s episode, the incredible Patrick McKeown, international bestselling author of ten books on breathing and founder and CEO of The Oxygen Advantage, a world-leading breathwork training program, breaks down all things breathing. This is not a lecture; it is a masterclass. His decades of research will blow you away, so let’s slow down and learn from the best in class. You need this, and I need this. Why? Because you and I have been breathing all wrong. Today Patrick is revealing the 5 ways breathing through your mouth hurts your health and leaves you feeling more anxious and stressed. You and I are getting coached by the world's leading expert on functional breathing for better health, more focus, less pain, better sleep, and, honestly, a better you. This is information that should be shouted from the rooftops. AND taught to parents, teachers, and health professionals everywhere. These steps are so simple, and yet they’re incredibly impactful on ALL parts of your life: your work, your ability to play and have fun, and your relationships. Best of all, this advice is ZERO-cost to you. You will learn: What happens when you breathe through your nose.How breathing through your mouth stresses you out.How breathing through your nose improves your memory and focus.What your breath has to do with back pain.How nose-breathing boosts your immune system.What sleep apnea in children has to do with special education needs.3 simple yet powerful exercises that will leave you breathing easier.Why the hell should you want to tape your mouth shut.The study that found shallow breathing can lead to anxiety.An exercise that will help you get more oxygen into your lungs.Why your exhalation is the most important part of relaxation.How breathing the right way can stop snoring.Why the way you breathe during the day impacts your sleep at night.  The science proves that the quality of your breath determines the quality of your life. So let’s dive in. Xo, Mel In this episode: 3:15: Why do we breathe, anyway? Seriously.4:50: HOW are we supposed to breathe?5:30: Ok, so what are we doing wrong when we breathe?6:45: So what’s so important about breathing in through your nose?7:55: Here’s what happens when your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen.8:30: The antiviral gas only produced when you breathe from your nose.10:00: How mouth breathing increased a child’s need for special education.12:45: This statistic about breathing and anxiety is still blowing my mind.16:00: 3 breathing exercises you’re not going to want to miss!24:00: The incredible results I had after trying these breathing exercises.25:20: Listen to what happens when I tape my mouth shut. 28:00: Breathing out through your mouth tells your brain this.30:00: The study that found your breath is linked to anxiety.31:15: How many times should you breathe in one minute?32:00: Patrick coaches me into a proper BIG breath.39:00: Why your exhalation is most important when it comes to reducing stress.43:00: Why you should keep your mouth closed when you exercise.45:00: What mouth breathing has to do with snoring.51:00: Can better breathing help with sleep apnea?  Disclaimer

Hey, it's Fred Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm normally really excited about what you and I talk about here on the podcast, but today I am so jacked up because I just read this book called The Breathing Cure. It is by this dude named Patrick McHughan and I am still recovering from what I learned, because I basically discovered that for 54 years, I have been breathing wrong. I am what scientists refer to as a mouth breather. And I'm not supposed to be. And neither are you, by the way.

You and I are supposed to be nose breathers. Why? Well, because breathing in and out of your nose, it improves your health, your focus, your sleep, it improves your mood, it reduces your anxiety, I'm so blown away by this research that I fast-track this author and the world's leading expert on breath to come teach you and me everything we need to know. And this is not going to be a lecture. I will slow him down and I'm going to ask him to walk us through breathing exercises so we can learn as we're listening.

But before we welcome him to the show, I want you to just stop and consider how important breathing is. You can live without food for weeks. You can live without water for days. But your breath? You can't go without it for more than just a few minutes. Your breath is the through line of your whole life, from the very first breath that you took when you were born, to the very last breath that you'll take on the day that you

die. And my mission today is to make every single breath that you and I take from this moment forward truly count because the science is undeniable. The quality of your breathing determines the quality of your life. And I'm just thrilled that today you and I are going to get coached by the world's leading expert on functional breathing for better health. So get ready for more focus, less pain, better sleep, honestly, a better you. It is an honor to introduce you to Patrick McHughn, who is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in the UK.

His research is widely regarded. He's an international bestselling author of 10 books on the Science of Breathing. He's the founder and CEO of the Oxygen Advantage. His techniques are used by Olympic athletes, top business executives, and my personal favorite, the lead singer of Coldplay. In his work with our elite military,

Patrick teaches snipers how to change mental states and keep a steady hand, which means he can sure as heck teach you and me how to use our breath to stay steady and perform our best in our day-to-day life by simply leveraging your breath. Please help me welcome Patrick McCune to the Mel Robbins podcast. It's a pleasure. Thanks very much, Mal. Great to be here.

Well, I want to start with what might seem like a really stupid question. Can you explain the purpose of breathing to all of us? Yes. As human beings, what do we survive on? You know, we eat food, we drink water, and we breathe air. And when oxygen meets with the food that we eat, it generates energy. So the human organism is fueled by the air that we breathe. And in essence, it's as simple as that.

Well, what we're going to learn today from you and one of the reasons why I am so excited to talk to you is that while breathing is really simple, most of us are doing it incorrectly. And so I would love to start with, how are we supposed to breathe and what are we doing wrong? Yes, that's a good question. And people often talk about the quality of air that we are breathing. We have in the countryside, we have the seaside, don't be breathing polluted air. But what about the quantity? What about how we breathe? Breathing is very delicate. It's very susceptible to change. It's very susceptible to the food that we

eat, the lifestyle that we lead, the trauma, the stress that we experience, the excessive talking, the sedentary lifestyle, you know, the office-based jobs, many factors influence breathing. So, and for some of us, we're more prone to developing poor breathing patterns than others. And very often it becomes a habit. And we have to think of it's such a vital function. We can live without air for just a few minutes. And the importance of a function is determined by how soon the organism perishes when we switch it off.

Breathing should be subtle, it should be light, and breath should be undetectable. The perfect person breathes as if they do not breathe. Your breathing should be so smooth that the fine hairs within the nostrils do not move. And if you look at the breathing of a healthy person, their breathing is nose, it's light, it's slow, and it's low. And it's pretty much undetectable.

And if they do physical exercise, their breathing is pretty light for the given intensity of physical exercise they are doing. What are we doing wrong? Well, the foundation of breathing is breathing in the nature of the nose male. You know, when I'm working with anybody, I always ask like, what does your mouth do when it comes to breathing? I've never really thought about it. What does my mouth do when I breathe?

Well, doesn't it just suck in air? If you breathe through your mouth, what part of the body moves? So if you look down at your chest, and if you take a breath through the mouth, okay. And as you breathe through the mouth, you'll notice that your breathing is faster and your breathing is more upper chest. Yes, I can't get it down. Like I feel like it stays tight, like just under my boobs, you know, it's like right in there. So, and then we have to ask what effect does that have in the physiology? What mouth breathing faster or breathing an upper chest breathing is activating a greater fight or flight response?

Wow. So breathing in and out of your mouth, it activates a stress response? Whoa. So how should we be breathing? Our breathing should be in and out through the nose. And there was an American ear nose and trope doctor back in 1976 called Dr. Morris Kotl, COTTLE. And he said that the human nose is responsible for 30 functions in the human body. Really? I couldn't find this list. So I wrote my own list of 30 functions.

I could go through them now if you want. I want to hear about some because I think, okay, I smell, 30 functions. I could go through them now if you want. I want to hear about some because I think, okay, I smell, I sniff. I tend to get very prone to sinus infections and bronchitis and that kind of stuff. So it also gets clogged. Those are basically the three things that my nose does. Yes. When you breathe through your nose continuously, oxygen uptake in the blood increases by nearly 10%. When you breathe through your nose during, oxygen uptake in the blood increases by nearly 10%. When you breathe through your nose during physical exercise, the gas carbon dioxide is higher in the blood.

When carbon dioxide increases in blood pH drops, the red blood cells release oxygen more readily to the tissues in organs. So if you, during rest or during physical exercise, breathe in and out through your nose, you're going to increase not only oxygen uptake, but also oxygen delivery to the working muscles and tissues and organs, including the brain. You said that breathing in and out of your nose increases the amount of oxygen

versus breathing out of your mouth. Why does that matter? Well, I think it's very important. You know, oxygen is really it's the fuel for human being. And if for example, we are not getting enough oxygen delivery to the brain, if there's insufficient blood flow or oxygen delivery, it can increase brain selects credibility. So brain cells become more excitable, we're thinking more, we're more prone to anxiety. You know, we can influence the blood flow to the brain by changing our breathing patterns. And it's not about taking the full big breath.

That's pretty cool. Can you tell us how else breathing through your nose can help you? Other factors that you wouldn't consider visual spatial awareness. So throughout our evolution, if we, for example, we were in a wide open space, we had to be able to see what was ahead of us, but also to scan the environment for predators. And that's higher with nasal breathing versus mouth breathing. Memory and attention is higher with nose breathing versus mouth breathing. There's greater recruitment of the diaphragm, and the diaphragm breathing muscle isn't just for respiration, but it provides stabilization for the spine.

So 50% of people with lower back pain have this functional breathing. And as you breathe through your nose, you spoke about bronchitis. We have to think of the gas called nitric oxide. And this gas was first discovered on the exhale breath of the human being in 1991. This gas is antiviral, it's antibacterial, it redistributes blood throughout the lungs that helps to open up the airways. So people with respiratory complaints, but people who are prone to COVID. You know, when we think of the hundreds of thousands of people with asthma and bronchitis and bronchiectuses and COPD and different respiratory illnesses, why are we leaving them breed through their mouths?

And nobody seems to be telling them, breed through your nose. And that was my first, you know, kind of steps into the whole world of breathing. My own personal journey was having asthma. I was a mouth breeder for years, because if we have inflammation in the lungs, that same inflammation will travel up to your nose. And when your nose is stuffy, you're two to three times more likely to have a sleep problem, to snore, to have obstructive sleep up near. And of course, this then is affecting your mental health. This is affecting your concentration. This

is affecting your attention span. Now, you know, I talk about even for children. Current bonuck is a researcher from the United States. And she did a study in Stratford upon even in the UK, looking at children from age six months to 57 months. So it was over a few years. She looked at 11,000 British kids. Children who were snoring or apneic, having stopping breathing for two breaths or more during sleep and mouth breathing. Those kids, have untreated by age five, either 40% increase risk of

special education needs by age-h. Now we're not just talking about quality of life. We're talking about lifetime impact of chronic mouth breathing and 25 to 50% of study childhood population mouth breathed. So, Mel, this is a topic that doesn't even come top of the list. In actual fact, it doesn't even come on the list. And in the last few years, we've started to see a greater awareness of breathing. And probably, because it's too simple, but at the same time, breathing is not that simple either. I love absolutely everything that you said, and I want to take a gigantic neon yellow highlighter and make sure as you're listening to us, you understand the single biggest takeaway that

Patrick has just explained, which is, if you want to have a change in your health, a change in your stress, a change in the pain that you may feel or the sleep that you cannot get, you have a free treasure trove inside your body if you simply start to change from mouth breathing to nose breathing. I remember writing a book back in 2010 called anxiety free and I spoke about this paper that was published in 1988 and the paper said that the brain by regulating breathing regulates its own excitability and then I was listening to a podcast by the neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman about two months ago, and he cited the exact same statement and sentence. And it's funny how things come around, but this is the importance of breathing, and the

importance of knowing how to breathe right. If for example, we are breathing the way you were described in during the introduction, and that's kind of the acute panic attack. But say, for example, somebody who's just breathing a little bit faster, a little bit harder, upper chest breathing, irregular breathing patterns. And that's present in a minimum of 10% of the general population, but up to 75% of the anxiety and panic disorder population. So 75% of the population with anxiety and panic disorder have dysfunctional breathing. It's not just that stress levels change our breathing. Of course, when we are stressed our breathing changes, but our everyday breathing is feeding

into our stress levels. Who doesn't want to be more resilient? And the other thing about stress is, when we have a lot of mind activity, it's impossible to do mindfulness. We have to be absolutely, we have to think of this ourselves, the next time that we are having a really bad day. And there's a lot of thoughts going through our minds. And I don't suffer from anxiety, but of course, things happen.

That's the way it is, the human beings. I can change my breathing patterns without having to be so aware of my breath to help to bring the body and mind into balance and that's the thing about breathing so come back to oxygen delivery and blood flow. For example if there's insufficient oxygen we're more prone to fatigue. We have 50,000 miles of bloodvast astride human body and our breathing is influencing how dilated are not ariday and people with poorer breathing are more likely to have cold hands and cold feet. It's not just the blood circulation in the hands and feet that's problem. It's stride the body. So one of the things that I read on your website and in your books was you said

breathing is not just for relaxing. It is an incredible tool when you get intentional about how you breathe every day to fight stress. And that's exactly what I wanna talk about, how we can get intentional about our breathing every day Patrick. So let's take a quick pause. I wanna hear a word from our sponsors

because they allow us to bring this to everybody around the world for zero cost and everyone. So let's take a quick pause. I want to hear a word from our sponsors because they allow us to bring this to everybody around the world for zero cost. And everyone, when we return, Patrick is going to start coaching you and me through functional breathing for better health. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins and I'm here with Patrick McEun.

He's written 10 books. He's one of the world's leading experts and researchers on the science of breathing. And he is going to teach us right now how to stop being a dysfunctional breather and to start breathing in a functional way in and out of your, so that you can get the maximum health benefit. Okay, Patrick, take it away. Okay, so the first exercise that I'm going to start off with is small little bratoes, and this is going to introduce you to a means of helping to activate a relaxation response.

And then from that, I'm going to show you an exercise to decogestanose. Oh, great. Okay. If you have a stuffy nose, inevitably, it's going to cause my breathing. And then I will do a breathe light and then breathe low and slow. Okay. So I'm going to go from one sequence into another. And this can be, it will be no more than five minutes. And we're going to cover a bit of ground. So I think people will have to replay this. Okay, let's do this. And for those of you driving, just focus on breathing in and out of your nose,

low and slow as you're listening to these exercises because I don't want you to take your hands off the wheel or your attention off the road. You can always come back to this when you're not driving or you can watch this on YouTube as well when you get back home. All righty. Patrick, let's go. That first exercise you were talking about was about holding your breath. You called it breathing holds and you said we're going to do this in order to activate a relaxation response. I'm game, let's go. So the first exercise, Mao, that I would like you to do, when the mind is racing and you're not feeling in form

of focusing on your breathing, simply hold your breath in the next situation. Take a normal breath in, three inos, and out three inos, and pinch your nose and hold. And hold for five, four, three, two, one. Let go. And just breathe normal now for about two to three breaths or even four breaths. Not to change your breathing, just breathing normal. And again, take a normal breath in three nose and out three nose. And pinch your nose and hold. Five, four, three, two, one. nose and I've three nose and pinch your nose and hold 5 4 3 2 1 let go and now just breathe

normal for three to four breaths so you're just breathing normal. The small breath hold will have to stimulate the vagus nerve which secrete the neurotransmitter called the settle calling which causes the heart rate to slow down and the brain interprets that the body is safe. And again, take a normal breath in three inos and I three inos and pinch your nose and hold five, four, three, two, one, let go, breathe in three inos. So now you're just breathing normal for three to four breaths. And in a couple of repetitions, then I will show you how to go from this to de-conjusting

your nose. And again, normal breath in three of your nose. And out three of your nose. And pinch your nose and hold. Five, four, three, two, one. Let go. And breathe in three of your nose. Also as you hold your breath, nitrogocide is pulling inside your nasal airway.

Then when you let go, you're breathing in. You're carrying this nitrogocide into your lungs. Nitrogocide is antibacterial. And eviral. It's a bronchidilator. So for bronchitis, this is your natural way to help open up the lower airways. Last one. And again, normal breath in three inos.

Out three inos. Pinch your nose and hold. Five, four, three, two, one. Let go. Can I ask your question? Yes. So when you say, breathe normally. You mean not like how we normally breathe. You mean breathe in and out of your nose, right? Correct. Correct. Well, that's how we should be in a fully breathing. Well, I just, you know, most of us are probably mouth-breather, so I just wanted to make sure everybody's getting the coaching

that when he's queuing us to breathe normal, Patrick means in and out of your nose. And one thing I will tell you is even after the first round of breathing in and out of my nose, then pinching and holding for five, I started to feel almost that sensation of going down in an elevator. Like you really start to feel the pressure that you're not even aware that is built up in your body start to lower. So it had an immediate impact on me. That exercise is very much an exercise we do with people who are prone to high stress,

racing mind, panic disorder. So the thing about breathing is every time that we get into a difficult situation or breathing changes and when we start playing with the breath, we can often relive the situations in our history. So I'll give you this example. Somebody who's coming into me with panic disorder. Every time the day of had a panic attack in the past, they've been breathing faster and harder and upper chest and are feeling suffocated.

Now even just placing attention on their breathing can make them anxious. And if I start doing any breathing exercises that alter the volume of breathing, and it brings on air hunger, it can tip them into a panic. So we have to be very careful too about breathing in terms of tailoring the breathing exercises to suit the individual. Now, the next exercise I'm going to show you how to go from this to de-conjusting your nose. So now we're going to go onto the nose and blocking exercise. However, not to do this if somebody is prone to panic disorder or anxiety or pregnant or cardiovascular issues. Oh okay. Now despite that it's actually relatively safe. So with this exercise male, you take a normal breath in three

of those and I three of those and you pinch your nose just gently hold your nose and just nod your head up and down holding your breath and keep pulling your breath keep pulling keep pulling keep pulling your breath keep pulling and let go there and breathe in through your nose. So when you do a breath hold after an exhalation, so if you hold your breath after a normal exhalation, that's what happens to de-congestion nose. Now we need to do it five or six times. Now you could simply breathe in and out through your nose, hold your nose and jump up and

down on one leg. It's movement dissociated with the breath hold that helps to open up the nose. I got worried about how much you were counting. I'm like, how long am I holding this? Oh my God. So whenever you're ready, take an arm or breath in three and I was only normal. So I'm going to have to just do that again. So remember about the softness of the breath. Just a light breath.

Patrick, there's nothing subtle about me. Here we go. Light breath in everybody. A light breath into your nose and a light breath out through your nose. And just yet, you hold your nostrils to stop breathing and nod your head up and down as you hold your breath. And keep relaxing into the body as you're holding your right. Now it's a very normal thing to hold your breath. Kids, if they go swimming, they'll do breath holes all the time. Now as you hold your breath here, it's activating a slight stress response, which will have to open up the nose,

and now let go of male and breathe in through your nose. So the key to how de-conjesting the nose is to hold the breath for at least 30 seconds or so. But I would say when you start off, always start off gentle and just tune in on how is your body reacting to breath holding? I'll tell you what just happened. I literally feel like my nostrils are now the size of a tootsie roll. They widened up and all of a sudden it was super clear because my allergies are starting to kick in and it worked that second time in particular like. It's a very reproducible technique. I've used it with thousands of people and we had a

small pilot study involving 26 people at a hospital here in Limerick in Ireland. And the three-month follow-up symptoms of rhinitis, which are stuffy nose and runny nose, et cetera, had reduced by 70%. But I taught that pilot study, which was published as an abstract, I thought it would lead the way to generate some curiosity into a bigger study.

It never happened. That study took place 10 years ago, but despite that, the exercise works. So it's for people to try. We're here now and I felt like it worked. And this is, again, I have so many elementary questions that I'm almost embarrassed to ask this one. Well, please do. What coaching do you have for people that are so used to mouth breathing,

that breathing in and out of their nose, is just, it just feels weird. How do you make this the new default, given the health benefits? So there's two parts to it. People have to understand about the importance of nois breathing. And in comparison to the mount,

the nose does all the work when it comes to breathing. And the second aspect of a dentist breathing exercises, gentle exercises, you know, just, for example, starting off with the two that we just did. And we also use a very simple tape around the mount that's elasticated that pulls the lipstick out. I have your tape. That's the one.

I have your tape. I'm going to put it on right now, everybody. Last night, I taped my, we're going to get into mouth taping, but I literally... See, you have to stretch it, Mal, about 30 or 40%. So it's only when you stretch it, you'll feel attention. Oh, I didn't even take off the sticky part. Okay. So everybody, it's like the shape of a, of a, of a, oh, yeah, and I stretch it by about 30 to 40%. Not that strong. Okay. Like that.

Not too much. Not too little. Maybe a little bit less. Okay. And you're just stretching it and then placing it surrounding the my, and the elasticated tension should be pulling the lips together. So it should be, you should feel some tension there. I do.

So with children and teenagers, we very much use that as a training tool during wakefulness. So because kids are kids and they get distracted and they're watching television, they're on iPhone, the mouse is open. But for some adults as well. So part of this is the training during the day. So if an adult has the mouse open and they forget about it, the tape will automatically remind them to breach the nose. And that's all about changing habits.

It definitely signals that I shouldn't be breathing in my mouth like I do. In my toe open. Yeah. Well, this is cool. And bear in mind, the one thing about the nose is that the more we breathe through it, the better it works. But normally what happens is the nose gets stuffy. The person feels uncomfortable breathing through the nose.

They switch to mouth breathing and when they switch to mouth breathing, it increases their nasal stuffiness. So it's again, it's a vicious circle. So I would also say to people that when you first switch from mouth to nose breathing, remember this is the natural way to breathe in a natural nose. And even if you feel a slight air hunger or a slight feeling that you're not getting enough air, stick with it. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages and the other aspect of it is, if you continue walking with your mouth closed, the body adjusts to it. And you then can do a physical exercise with less ventilation. So, it's almost as if you're training your body to do more with less. There's so much to cover, but first, we need to take a break and hear a word from our sponsors who are bringing us all of this amazing information at zero cost.

And everybody, breathe in and out of your nose, listen to our sponsors and stay with us, because we'll be right back. I'm Mel and I'm here with the amazing Patrick McEun. He's a best-selling author. He is one of the world's leading experts on breathing for better health. So, Patrick, can you just bottom line it for people about what happens, like, what's wrong with breathing out through your mouth? We know the benefits of breathing in, but what goes wrong

when you're breathing constantly in and out of your mouth? The biggest one is that you lose moisture. when you're breathing constantly in and out of your mouth. The biggest one is that you lose moisture. So there's a 42% greater water loss breathing out to the mouth and losing moisture if your mouth is dry and you're losing moisture from the body, of course, you're more likely to be dehydrated, but that will impact your dental health. Gum disease, bad breath, for example, chapped lips.

But the other problem about breathing out to the maturing rest is that it's a fast exhalation. And see, when we think about the body's relaxation response, it's all in the exhalation. It's not really in the inhalation. Wait a minute, it's not about the breath in, but it seems like that's what everybody says, right? I mean, think about it everybody,

if you're in a yoga class or a meditation class, to take a deep breath in, right? So if it's not about the inhalation, it's about the exhale. What do we have to pay attention to in the exhale in order to activate the relaxation response? You can take a fast breath in or you could take a slow breath in, but really when it comes to activating relaxation during rest, it's the speed of the exhalation. If you breathe out fast, it's a stressor. So if you breathe in fast and out fast, it's a stressor. It's not just how you breathe that way during stress, but if you deliberately breathe that

way in your everyday, you're telling the brain that the body is under trech. You're going into this fight or flight response. And of course, your brain is here to protect you and your brain wants to get you out of the situation. So you don't want to be breathing fast going into a boardroom meeting because while you're going in in person, your brain wants you to get out of there as quick as you can. So coming back to mouth breathing,

if you breathe out through the mouth, there's less resistance to your breathing. It's faster breath out. And it's a bigger, bigger exit ramp because the mouth is bigger than your nostril. And so breathing in and out of your nose, if I'm tracking correctly, one of the added benefits is that the exhale is going through something smaller

than your mouth, so it slows you down. And in preparing to talk to you, we came across that Stanford study that you cite. And I thought this was super cool that your breath is like your brain's remote control, that there are actually neurons in your brain watching your breath. And when you start to breathe faster or out of your mouth, it signals to another part of your brain that something's wrong. And so I want to make sure you listening to Patrick and all of this research and the

10 books that he's written, what he is saying to you is that learning how to breathe in and out of your nose has extraordinary benefit for lowering stress, for lowering anxiety, for being able to focus. You're also coaching athletes and high performers because your breath and being somebody that can breathe in a slow and steady fashion out of your nose helps you with focus. And so can we break down just the mechanics of the ideal, normal breathing? Like how many breaths in and out should you take in, let's say a minute. So typically during rest, it's about 12 to 14 breaths, but the only caveat there is how much air is involved with each breath, the tidal volume.

So we can't just focus on the respiratory rate. We also need to focus on tidal volume because ultimately it's the volume of air that we are breathing. And if we breathe too much air, less oxygen is delivered throughout the body. So this is another aspect in, you know, there's a myth out there that if you want to bring more oxygen throughout the body, you take this full big breath. But if you take this full big breath, you're getting rid of too much carbon dioxide that loss of carbon dioxide will cause your blood vessels to constrict and also red blood cells to hold onto oxygen more readily.

Can you coach me through this? Because if I take a big breath, like if I go in through my mouth and I'm like, I'm trying to get a breath right. What happens as I go to get oxygen is my shoulders come up and I feel my chest pinch and I feel my stomach suck in and I actually can't get a deep breath because I can't get it below my boobs. Like I can't get it down into like that really satisfying

full breath. Is that what you're talking about when you talk about the flow or volume or whatever? Yeah, there's two aspects. One is when you were talking about there, you're talking about shallow breathing, which is not ideal either. So we do want to breathe low with good recruitment of the diaphragm. How do you do that? The best way to do that is in the natural the nose. So if you, for example, if you place your hands either side of your lower ribs. Okay, so everybody unless you're driving a car, I want you to get, I want you to cup your rib cage. Okay, are we cupping the rib cage? We're going underneath it. Just on just at the base of the ribs. Just on just at the base of the ribs. So just at the base of the ribs.

Got it. And as you agree then, you're just gently directing your lower ribs to move outwards. Oh, how do you do that? And as you breathe out, you're directing your lower ribs to move inwards. And the aspect is to cool your sides

because normally when people put it on their belly, they're pushing and pulling their belly irrespective of their breathing. So that's why you have your hands on your sides. So, as you breathe in, you're just gently guiding your ribs out. And as you breathe out, your ribs are gently moving in. Now that's a deep breath in the true sense of the word. We don't hear it. You're breathing in the night, so you're nose, and you're breathing slow, and you're breathing low.

Now we can slow it down. If for example during rest, we want to have the ideal breath to have to bring the body and mind into balance. That's between 4.5 to 6.5 breaths per minute. So let's practice that with low breathing for just one minute. Okay. If you like. Yeah, I would. Can I ask a question? Of course.

Before we do this exercise, so what I'm gathering from this is that I'm a mouth breather with bad breath, who's causing myself stress and anxiety because I'm signaling to my brain with my shallow breathing that something's wrong. And that I always thought deep breathing because I practice yoga was this belly breath. And so I've always focused on inflate and deflate the stomach. And what you're talking about when you cup kind of the bottom of your ribs because I want everybody to get this, you can watch it on YouTube. But for those of you listening to Patrick and to me, I want

you to really get this. That it's really more of a horizontal thing. You're not inflating your stomach. You're making your bottom rib cage expand and come back in. And I'm realizing that so much of my breathing pattern has been almost like vertical up and down. And I hadn't been thinking about that. So that was super, super helpful. And you said that in a normal, just going about your life,

you're not trying to relax, you're just trying to focus, you're going through your day, you're not trying to stress yourself out, you're getting the benefit of normal in and out of your nose breathing. You said that it would be somewhere between 10 to 14 breaths in and out of your nose in a minute. And now what you're about to show us is that for relaxation, you can do this kind of

deeper breathing where you fill your diaphragm horizontally, your ribcage is move out, but it's for four to six times a minute. Is that what we're about to do? Okay, great. I just want to make sure everybody's following. And just coming back to the diaphragm, like when the diaphragm,

which is the main breathing muscle and it separates our chest from a abdomen. So during inhalation, the diaphragm is moving downwards and it's the movement of the diaphragm downwards that draws air into the lungs. But as the diaphragm is moving downwards you will have some movement to your front so you will have some belly movement and movement to your sides and movement to your back. It's a good gauge of the generation of what's called intra-abdominal pressure that when you breathe in that your ribs are

gently moving out because this is what's giving youabdominal pressure, that when you breathe in, that your ribs are gently moving out, because this is what's giving you good indication of the recruitment of the diaphragm and from that then stabilization of the spine. So the diaphragm breathing muscle is really important because when you breathe with good recruitment of the diaphragm, it's also a calming effect in the mind. Mm-hmm.

The diaphragm and the brain are connected. So earlier on you were talking about that work by Stanford, which I think is so cool, that there's a structure in the brain that's literally spying on our breathing. Now we can use that to our advantage. Don't breathe fast, don't breathe shallow because you're telling the brain that you're under trech. And your brain is going to arise, you're from sleep,

and put you into this stress mode. So now we're talking about five minutes to spare. And instead of just scrolling aimlessly, wasting time in our mobile phone, give ourselves a little bit of attention, getting attention out of the mind and holding your attention to your breath, which in turn is training your brain to be focused, but not just about awareness, it's also about changing the physiology. So if you have your hands again, just gently on either side of your lower ribs.

And as you're breathing in, that you're breathing in for a count of five. So you're breathing in two, three, four, five, out, two, three, four, five, in, two, three, 5, in, 2, 3, 4, 5, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, in, 2, 3, 4, 5, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, in, 2, 3, 4, 5, out, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now, say for example, if we have somebody with pretty poor breathing, and they're breathing 20 breaths from inish, I would say don't go from 20 breaths down to 6 all of a sudden. Gently soft in your breathing, but do it, slow it down to a lever that's

comfortable for you. So if you're starting off, what you could be doing is maybe breathing in for two seconds and out for three. So during rest, we always need to think of the exhalation. It should be about one and a half to two times the inhalation. This, the length of the inhalation. Could you say that again about the length of the exhalation versus the inhalation with the normal nose breathing? Because you've said repeatedly, the exhalation is the most important part. Yeah, the speed of the exhalation during rest should be about one and a half to two times out of the inhalation and You can play with it if I'm having a meeting that's pretty intense, you know

I don't want to go into that meeting breathing fast and shallow. I will deliberately In that situation nobody even knows what I'm doing I could be sitting down or I could be standing outside the door waiting to go in. I Will just take a soft breath into my nose. I don't even time it. A soft breath into my nose and I really slow and relax and gentle breath out. Because by doing that I'm telling my brain that everything is okay. And I'm also taking my attention out of my mind and onto the breath to put the critical mind aside because I want to go into that meeting and I want to be in a state of mind that I'm fully there that

I'm listening with all of my attention not just lost in touch. Now I would say don't waste until the important meeting before you start to do it. Start bringing it into your way of life. There's a really well-known doctor from Italy called Bernardi and he did a study back, I think it's in 2000. He looked at the breathing that was taking place when people were saying prayers of different fates. So one was Mantras and the other was the Rosary which is the parent from the faith and boat whether it was a mantra or the Rosary, boat of them lowered the respiratory rate down to six breaths per minute. Now I think there's

something really brilliant in this that when we think of people who are saying prayers, it wasn't just from a spiritual and psychological aspect, but it was also the effect it was having on their body and mind physiologically. And it's so cool that this information was always out there, and now it's time to start embracing it. Well, it's one of the reasons why I asked you the question at the very beginning, what's the purpose? And I was thinking about it kind of from a neurological, scientific standpoint, but there's something so much deeper that it really is the quality of your life, that you have within

you if you take the advice and you apply this research to your life and you start to teach yourself how to use the tool of normal nose breathing and longer exhales. That this is something that your body was hardwired with, a natural intelligence. And so it's really cool that the research shows that when people are in a state of being present, in a state of purpose, in a state of deeper connection, your body naturally drops in to this kind of breathing. Are there other specific types of breathing that people need to know about that either reduce stress or that you should use in certain situations? Yes, when it comes to breathing, you can down-regulate, which is inducing relaxation, or you could up-regulate.

So, for example, if you want to stress your body in mind a little bit, when you could go for a jog with your mouth closed, it's a pretty safe way to do it. Jog with your mouth closed. Jog with your mouth closed. Do you have to be in an amazing shape to do that? I don't, like, as hiking up the mountain that I live on, I'm panting like a dog. I don't know that I could get up there with my nose. Well, when you're walking up the mountain, go with a pace that you can sustain like a dog. I don't know that I could get up there with my nose.

When you're walking up the mountain, go with a pace that you can sustain nasal breathing. And if necessary, get a nasal dilator, which just taps to gently open up your nose. But also, breathe nose, slow and low because your ventilation is going to be more efficient. Physically, exercise anyway is a stress, but it's a good stress,

but it should be dose according to the individual needs of the person. Like I do breath holes without leads, I will have them breathe in and out and hold their nose and they sprint for 40 meters without breathing. Wow. They then rest for 30 seconds and they sprint again for 40 meters without breathing. Or I can have a 400 meter sprinter. And in some of their trainings when they're well-wormed I would have them nose sprint for 360 meters and the last 40 meters that they have to stop breathing.

So we do exercises to stress body and mind. If you want to stress your body and mind using breathing techniques just dip your toe into the water and just see how your body feels and you don't have to hyperventilate for 30 breaths and then do a long breath hold. That's doing the entire thing. If you want to do a stress maybe hyperventilate if you want to do it for five breaths and then do a breath hold but it's comfortable for you. We don't teach hyperventilation. The reason being is because my whole thing about breathing is I want to get persons every day breathing right

Let's get the foundation right first. I love that and then then if they want to do that the peak we can do that Get the foundation for every day life Nailed first in and out of the nose low and slow. Can you tell us more about mouth breathing and snoring? low and slow. Can you tell us more about mouth breathing and snoring? There's been any studies that investigated nose versus mouth breathing during sleep. The people who are breathing through their nose naturally, during sleep, always had a deeper sleep. So you can imagine a mouth reader during sleep. They're breathing faster, they're breathing harder, dropper chest breathing. I'll give you this

example. Do the sound of a snore through your mouth and it goes like this. It does. Like a pig. That's it. And now bring your lips together and try and snore through your mouth with your lips closed. Only through your mouth, try and snore. So try and snore through your mouth with are lips together. Mm-hmm, I can't do it. Though it's not possible, so mouth snoring stops once we get the mouth closed. The second snoring then is nasal snoring which goes like this. Yes. Now, if you take a very soft breath in through your nose and a really slow and relaxed and the

gentle breath out and a very very soft silent breath through your nose and a relaxed and a slow and a gentle breath out. As you breathe very softly in and out through your nose, try and snore through your nose. So you will see it more difficult. I can't. So, mouth snoring we can stop. Once we get them out closed, nasal snoring we can significantly reduce. The whole aspect in sleep medicine has focused on the airway, but they haven't focused on the person's everyday breathing.

And it's a everyday breathing that's influencing or breathing during sleep. And this comes back to, remember that study by Stanford. Yeah. If you're breathing fast during sleep, it arouses you from sleep. Who gets aroused from sleep? People would insomnia. They're breathing fast during their sleep.

Their brain is interpreting that the body is under trash and the brain wakes them up and they're there two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, thinking, thinking and thinking and thinking and then they're waking up exhausted. And of course, that's going to affect their productivity, their focus during the day. So, you know, we need to look at the big picture. So, how does breathing impact your sleep?

In terms of insomnia, there's two times I can manifest manifest and insomnia affects about 30% of the population. Wow. And 10% have it chronic. One is that we go to bed at night, but we don't fall asleep readily. Typically, we should fall asleep in a few minutes. That's an ideal situation. But if we have overstimulation of the mind,

we're not going to fall asleep so readily. So it's very important to be able to go into relaxation before we go to sleep. Now that would involve, I would say, you know, used blue light filter glasses and follow sleep hygiene, your bedroom is cool, it's airy, it's dark, and all of that stuff. But also, we need to tell the body that we're going into rest and digest. So you could be sitting down, you might be watching some light TV, you might have your blue light, fresher glasses on. And as you're sitting there, really take a soft breath in three

and a half, almost that you're breathing less air. And that's what I would like you to do. You're taking a really soft breath in three and a half. And you're having that light on a really slow, slow, slow, relaxed gentre breath out. And then when you need to breathe in again instead of taking your normal 100% of the breath maybe taking about 70% of the breath in and then a really soft and slow gentle breath out and the whole aim is to breathe about 30% less air into your body than what you're normally used to. You know

you're doing it correctly if you feel a slight air hunger. Now as you do that pay attention to the slyve in the mouth. So we'll continue for one more minute. I would like you to underbreed male. I would like you to breathe in a way that you feel that you're not getting enough air. How do you do that? Take a very very soft gentle breath in almost as if your breath in is imperceptible and a really relaxed and slow and a gentle breath out. So gently soft and then slow down your breathing so that you're taking 30% less air into your lungs. If you get stressed just take a rest but keep working on this because now what you're doing is you're telling the brain that

everything is okay and pay attention then to the slyven the mouth. When we get stressed our mouth tells us because our mouth goes dry. When we are ready for rest and digest rest we feel sleepy. Digest we have increased water slyven the mouth. So when we alter our breathing we're stimulating the vagus nerve which is secreting that neurotransmitter acetylcholine which is telling the heart to slow down. The brain is interpreting that the body is safe and the brain is also spying and are breathing at the same time and interpreting that the body is safe. So we feel sleepy and we do this for 10, 15 minutes before we go

to sleep. I know that you recommend people try this tape on their mouth when they sleep. And I tried it for the first time last night. I used packing tape. I know that that's probably not what you recommend. And when I pulled it off this morning, I think I gave my upper lip a wax. I put it from the nose down so that the sides were exposed. And I learned something really interesting.

I put the tape on my mouth so that I would be queuing myself to nose breathe. And it's how I sleep. And I'm a fantastic sleeper. And I realized I sleep predominantly with my mouth closed. My husband, on the other hand, he has this sound that he makes that goes, it drives me fricking crazy. I know it's sleep apnea. I also know that one billion people around the world have obstructive sleep apnea, one billion. How does this nose breathing improve people's lives with obstructive sleep apnea?

Okay. So obstructive sleep apnea is when the person stops breathing for 10 seconds or more during sleep that will be an apnea. Or a high poppia is when there's a reduction in the flow of their breathing due to partial collapse of the airways that their blood oxygen saturation drops down by by 3 or 4%. The problem with sleep apnea is that it arouses you from deep sleep, but it's very stressful. It's very stressful in the cardiovascular system. There are four characteristics in obstructive sleep apnea. It's not just the anatomy. So in some near that we spoke about early run as one of them. So it's

very important to be able to down-regulation. Upper airway muscle recruitment, getting these muscles to do their job is very important. There's a therapy called myofunctional chirpy that's excellent for that. Mount closed with the tongue resting up in the roof of the mount with good recruitment of de-dye from, perhaps to open up the airway. Think of the typical middle-age man, we're drinking a few beers, we're putting weight on the belly, this is impacting the movement of de-dye from, we're now breathing more upper chest, this is reducing lung volume and the troc lapses more easy. Our die from breathing muscle, as I said, early is connected with the brain, but the diet from is also

connected with the upper airward deleter muscles in the throat. So coming back to mouth puffing and the mouth closed is really important with obstructive sleep up near. You still need to allow them to mouth puff during sleep. And we were lucky with the design of the tape, the myotape, because it allows the mouth puffing. Whereas before that, we were using 3M1 inch microport tape, which is going right across the lips, but that doesn't allow mouth puffing. And that can make sleep apnea worse in some people. Just getting your mouth closed reduces

sleep apnea severity by 33%. That's not looking at how do you improve your breathing patterns. If you have somebody with obstructive sleep apnea and they bring nose breathing into their everyday life, they learn to slow down their breathing, they learn to have good recruitment of the dive from all simple skills that you bring into your everyday life That will help your sleep up there. For moderate to severe Overall, it helps when you get the mouth closed also, but for some people with moderate to severe They need to be allowed to mouth puff. So whatever you use as support to get the lips together Make sure it allows you to mouth puff. Got it. Well, I'm going to make sure to tape my husband's mouth with your tape, and I'm

going to stop shoving him or pinching his nose when he goes, Patrick, you are a gift to all of us. You have just given us all a free tool that we were born with to activate our natural intelligence to lower our stress, to get better sleep, to be more present in our lives, and to learn how to access the profound power of breathing in and out of your nose low and slow. I cannot wait to have you back on. We will link to all the resources in the show notes. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. My pleasure. Thanks very much, Mel. My pleasure. Wasn't that incredible? I want to make sure to tell you in case no one else does today.

I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to change your life, and how cool is it that you and I now know how to use our own breathing to change your life for the better? Alrighty, I'll talk to you in a few days. How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me?

How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me?

How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say to get for me? How do you say that you can't for me? McHughan. Hold on one more second, I just suggest he say, what am I doing? I need to do that again. Already, the wheels are off because of me, Patrick. This is how it's going to roll. That's for you, Andrea. I puh, puh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyer's right

and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

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