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Breathe Well for Better Health w/ Patrick McKeown - Connecting Minds Podcast Ep17
149 Plays4 years ago
Shownotes: https://christianyordanov.com/17-patrick-mckeown/
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LAH2ra_0H6U
On this episode of the Connecting Minds podcast we have world-renowned breathing expert Patrick McKeown discussing the dangers of breathing too much (which many of us do) and mouth-breathing (which many of also do) in adults and children. We discuss the techniques he teaches with the Buteyko Breathing Method and how to normalise our breathing volume for better sleep, reduced anxiety, improved concentration and focus, and find relief from chronic conditions.
Patrick McKeown, BA, MA (TCD), Dip BM (Prof KP Buteyko), FBPI, FRSB, is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. In 2002, Patrick completed his clinical training in the Buteyko Breathing Method at the Buteyko Clinic, Moscow, Russia. This training was accredited by Professor Konstantin Buteyko. Having suffered from asthma, rhinitis and sleep-disordered breathing for over 20 years, Patrick is able to offer both theoretical knowledge and his own experiences to help clients to overcome similar challenges.
To date, Patrick has written seven books and produced four DVD sets on the Buteyko Method, including two Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk bestsellers for the management of asthma: Close Your Mouth and Asthma-Free Naturally. The Buteyko self-help manual Close Your Mouth has been translated into ten different languages including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian and Russian. His latest book titled The Oxygen Advantage, improves sports performance by addressing dysfunctional breathing patterns and simulating high altitude training. The Oxygen Advantage is currently available in English, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese and Polish. By September 2018, it will be published in German, Spanish, Chinese and Taiwanese.
Links to Patrick’s Resources:
Buteyko Clinic website: https://buteykoclinic.com/
YouTube:
Oxygen Advantage: https://oxygenadvantage.com/
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Patrick-McKeown/e/B006X1OD3U
Buteyko breathing exercises: https://buteykoclinic.com/breathing-exercises/
MyoTape: https://oxygenadvantage.com/product/myotape/#a_aid=christian
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:02:20
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Connecting Minds podcast, episode 17. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today on the podcast, I have Patrick McKeown from Ireland, who is one of the foremost breathing experts in the world.
00:02:36
Speaker
I had the privilege of training in the Botteco method which is what he teaches to practitioners all around the world and I was very happy to get him on the podcast today to discuss basically breathing how many of us are actually breathing wrong and by wrong I mean
00:02:58
Speaker
We overbreathe a medical term being chronic hyperventilation. So this is much more prevalent than you would actually expect.
Understanding Overbreathing and Buteyko Method
00:03:08
Speaker
So Patrick teaches the Butteko method which was created by the Ukrainian doctor Konstantin Butteko.
00:03:15
Speaker
And actually Patrick trained with the late Dr. Butteko in person. So basically the premise is that the volume of breath that we take in on an hourly basis is greater than what we actually need. And the method teaches us how to slow down our breathing, breathe light and more shallow, which paradoxically oxygenates our tissues better. So we've been kind of erroneously taught by
00:03:44
Speaker
personal trainers yoga teachers all sorts of practitioners that you want to take deep breaths so that is actually wrong patrick has written many books on this topic he will go into the actual physiology of what happens at the tissue level in our body when we breathe too much.
00:04:04
Speaker
or stay in the state of chronic hyperventilation and then he will discuss what the implications are in children that over breathe or breathe through the mouth which is another very prevalent problem and it is contributing to many issues such as ADHD, anxiety, sleep apnea, snoring etc.
Resources for Learning Proper Breathing
00:04:26
Speaker
poor concentration
00:04:27
Speaker
So Patrick will talk about how this can affect children and then of course we will talk about the actual botanical method exercises because you know no discussion of the problem of over breathing can be complete without actually discussing the solution and of course the solution is the botanical method exercises that you can
00:04:48
Speaker
do or if you also have children you can also teach them to do. Patrick has videos, books, children's books, video courses, DVDs, CDs, so a ton of resources that I will link to in the show notes. So if you suspect that from listening to the episode that you may
00:05:08
Speaker
Over breathing or that your child may be mouth breathing or in a in a state of chronic hyperventilation and please do check out the botanical clinics resources and patrick's resources and books and videos and it's just a it's a gold mine of information and
00:05:24
Speaker
I can honestly tell you that when I discovered his book The Oxygen Advantage and I switched to just nasal breathing and I retrained myself to stop mouth breathing when doing like running sports, things like that.
00:05:39
Speaker
And I started taping my mouth at night with paper tape. That was one of the most dramatic improvements in my health and
The Importance of Breathing in Health
00:05:48
Speaker
well-being. So this is how important breathing is, right? The most fundamental thing we do before, as I say in the podcast, before hydration.
00:05:58
Speaker
before food, before sleep, before your posture, before the supplements you take, your breathing is the biggest contributor or detractor from good health. So I hope you join me and Patrick in this conversation. It is really eye-opening for many folks that are still not aware that they may be over breathing or their kids may be mouth breathing, et cetera. So thank you so much for joining me.
00:06:23
Speaker
As always, video will be on YouTube. Show notes on christianjordanov.com. I'll have some extra resources there for you. And without further ado, here is Patrick McKeown.
Patrick's Personal Breathing Journey
00:06:43
Speaker
Connecting Minds is a space dedicated to honoring the amazing authors, researchers, clinicians, artists, and entrepreneurs who are contributing to our collective evolution or simply making the world a better place. These thought-provoking conversations are intended to expand our horizons, so come with an open mind and let us grow together. Here is your host, Christian Yordanov.
00:07:14
Speaker
Today on the Connecting Minds podcast, we have the pleasure of Patrick McKeown. Patrick, thank you so much for joining us today. Sure. Of course, Christian. Thanks very much. Yeah. Good to be here. Yeah. I want to give folks a little bit about your background before we get into the breathing stuff. Can you tell us how you got into just what spurred your interest in breathing and Botteco in general?
00:07:41
Speaker
My interest was because of a habit of chronic hyperventilation syndrome. And it was undiagnosed and nobody had ever told me about it. So I wasn't, you know, at the time I wasn't aware that my breathing was so faulty or suboptimal.
Effects of Overbreathing on Health
00:07:54
Speaker
But I was a chronic mouth breather. I was very fast breather. I was a shallow breather.
00:07:59
Speaker
And the typical symptoms that I had was poor sleep. I always had cold hands and cold feet. I always had poor concentration. I was a little bit more highly strong and my asthma was getting progressively worse.
00:08:13
Speaker
So, you know, I suppose it's quite common with people, especially with breathing problems, because if you, for example, if you have asthma, it's not just limited to your lungs, but it will travel up to your nose. And if you have a stuffy nose, you don't just have a stuffy nose, you also have a problem with sleep. So I came across an article in the newspaper
00:08:31
Speaker
And it was about the importance of breathing light and breathing through the nose. And I started practicing doing the opposite to over breathing, breathing less air, gently slowing down the speed of air that I was breathing because before that I was always breathing hard. And I didn't realize that hard breathing was actually causing my blood vessels to constrict. I thought just as everybody else seems to think,
00:08:58
Speaker
that the more air you breathe, the more oxygen gets delivered. And I remember starting slowing down my breathing. I'm breathing less air to the point that I had air hunger.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I remember tension changing and reducing my head. And I could also bring an increased temperature into my fingers. And then I did the nose and blocking exercise and that brought some relief as well. I switched to nose breathing and it totally changed my life. It was one of the best things I had ever applied in my life. Hence, I changed careers two years later. Okay.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, I came across your book in the summer of 2018, the oxygen advantage. And I realized I breathe through the mouth so much and when doing sports and everything, and as soon as I switched to mouth breathing, as soon as I switched to taping the mouth at night, like, it was this was the one of the most pivotal changes I made in my in my habits, you know, and
00:09:59
Speaker
It was absolutely amazing.
Breathing and Hormonal Changes
00:10:01
Speaker
That's when I found out that you do trainings. That's when I trained with you in September. So with that, I'd love if you could give folks a more in-depth understanding of what is the physiology of overbreathing and breathing through the mouth. What does that do to the chemicals in our blood? And what does the transition to lighter breathing
00:10:31
Speaker
change in the body and what are the knock-on benefits of that, please? There's quite a few questions there. Yeah, it's a big one. So when you breathe too much air to remove too much carbon dioxide from the blood, you increase blood pH so it becomes too alkaline. And when blood pH becomes too alkaline, it has an arousing effect on the central nervous system.
00:10:59
Speaker
Other features, it can increase pain perception. It can lower pain threshold. It can contribute to fatigue, exhaustion. It's very more common probably in females than males because of the changes in the hormonal cycle. So the monthly cycle, days 10 to days 22, progesterone levels increase. It's a respiratory stimulant. Carbon dioxide levels decrease. And with that, the female who are susceptible
00:11:28
Speaker
will experience increased pain, et cetera. It's also relatively common in males, but unfortunately for either women or men, it doesn't get a whole lot of attention. The other aspect of it is that when we breathe too much air and we remove too much carbon dioxide from the blood,
00:11:49
Speaker
blood vessels constrict. So carbon dioxide is not just that waste gas, but it's also responsible for dilating blood vessels, for opening blood vessels, for improving blood circulation. And it's very common for people who have poor sub-optimal breathing or faster and harder breathing. As I said at the start, I always had cold hands and cold feet.
00:12:11
Speaker
And we never seem to realize that the 70,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body are influenced by the volume of air that we breed. So
Signs and Solutions for Overbreathing
00:12:21
Speaker
not only that, there's also what's called the Bohr effect discovered back in 1904 that when hemoglobin, and hemoglobin is the main carrier of oxygen in the blood,
00:12:32
Speaker
In order for hemoglobin to release oxygen more readily to the tissues, one of the catalysts is carbon dioxide. So as carbon dioxide in the blood increases, blood pH drops and the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen reduces. In other words, hemoglobin is releasing oxygen then for delivery to the tissues. So really chronic over breathing is affecting us in so many levels. Sleep is one.
00:12:58
Speaker
mind activity, racing mind, anxiety, stress, depression, sympathetic arousal is another one.
00:13:06
Speaker
respiratory conditions is another one, but it can also affect the gastrointestinal tract. And Dr. Claude Lombe, who was a chest physician in Papert Hospital in Cambridge, Cambridge back in the 1970s, he said the chronic hyperventilation. And all it means is that our breathing is a little bit too faster, too much faster, and more upper chest oriented.
00:13:30
Speaker
that by breathing more air than what we need, every minute, every hour, every day, this can affect any organ or system to different degrees. So it's not just limited to breathing. And there is debate, of course, around the carbon dioxide. And if you ask somebody to hyperventilate, you could produce their symptoms of hyperventilation. But you might not necessarily see CO2 levels
00:13:58
Speaker
In other words, it doesn't have to take a drop in carbon dioxide to initiate symptoms resulting from hyperventilation. So carbon dioxide is not the only thing at play here. It's really coming back to the crux of it. How should we breathe? Our breathing should be in and out through the nose. Our breathing should be light. Our breathing should be slow. And our breathing should be low.
00:14:24
Speaker
And if our breathing is the opposite, if it's in and out through the mouth, and most people will say, well, I don't mouth breathe. But then the question is, well, do they wake up at a dry mouth in the morning? Do they mouth breathe if they're doing physical exercise? Do they mouth breathe if they are distracted?
00:14:40
Speaker
You know, and mouth breathing, then, is causing upper chest breathing, and mouth breathing is causing faster breathing. So dysfunctional breathing patterns is typically breathing more so through an upper mouth, upper chest breathing, faster breathing, irregular breathing, harder breathing. And dysfunctional breathing patterns has quite an impact on the human body.
00:15:03
Speaker
So yeah, I've noticed some people, they say, I don't mouth breathe. And then every few minutes or even a couple of times an hour, they go sighing. And even that can keep you in a state of slight overbreathing, can't it?
00:15:22
Speaker
Yes, and it's a very common trait amongst people who overbreed. One sigh every six or seven minutes or eight minutes can be enough to keep us stuck there. And another common trait of people who overbreed is frequent yawning.
00:15:38
Speaker
So frequent yawning too, because that's often accompanied by a larger breath. Now, what should we do if we are sighing frequently? Well, I suppose allow the sigh to happen, but after the sigh, hold your breath.
00:15:53
Speaker
just to replenish carbon dioxide. Before we were telling people to try and stop sign, don't give in to the big brat. But then again, we don't want to be increasing tension. You know, for many people, the site can often be a source of relief for them. But the issue with the site, even though it feels really good, the problem is
00:16:13
Speaker
that you can remove between 7 and 16 millimeters of mercury CO2 from the blood in one breath. And every one millimeter drop of CO2 reduces blood flow to the brain by 2%. So you can reduce blood flow to the brain by between say 10 and 20% as a result of just one big breath. And
00:16:37
Speaker
you know so you know it's not and people will ask well how should i breathe then if i'm playing a trumpet or how should i breathe when i'm singing i suppose it's looking at the bigger picture yeah it's more so it's just as you said you know if you're sighing frequently if you're yawning frequently it's an issue but if you have a sigh every now and again it's not a problem it's going to be fairly normal
00:17:03
Speaker
So it's looking at the bigger picture. And also we want to have a continuous regular pattern of breathing because it seems to be that it's the fluctuations of carbon dioxide more so than chronically low levels that can initiate symptoms. It's when carbon dioxide levels are going from normal to low, back up to normal, down to low.
Impact of Breathing Patterns on Stress
00:17:25
Speaker
And then if the individual is holding their breath, it can be increasing carbon dioxide in the blood. So when CO2 is fluctuating throughout the day,
00:17:33
Speaker
that also, and that could even be a greater problem than clinically low CO2. The whole thing about CO2 is more complex. It's not as straightforward, but yet the basic physiology of carbon dioxide as a catalyst for the release of oxygen from the red blood cells, that's there. That's just the known.
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah, you know, now that you mentioned these fluctuations in carbon dioxide, I kind of recently picked up the flute, just a bamboo flute, and I noticed after playing for 10, 15 minutes, because you're holding your breath a lot, you're taking deep breaths, and then you're like breathing out very slowly for like a minute or whatever, I noticed afterwards, not necessarily headaches, but definitely changes in like blood pressure, I can definitely feel them. So I can see how,
00:18:23
Speaker
fluctuations all the time. Let's say you're climbing the stairs and now you're breathing too deep, too hard. Then next time you get up off the couch or whatever the chair, I can see how this can keep the body in like a semi-constant state of stress.
00:18:38
Speaker
Because I want to cross post this episode on my other podcast for children's health. Can you give, I know there'll be a lot of parents listening, can you give parents an overview of what can happen to a child that breathes, over breathes or breathes through the mouth as they develop? How can it affect children's just growth and development? Oh, it's
Mouth Breathing in Children and Developmental Issues
00:19:04
Speaker
not good.
00:19:07
Speaker
I think it's one of the worst habits that any child can have. It's worse than a bad diet. It's worse than no physical exercise. I will say that I was a mouth-breathing child. I've seen the impact. It had my energy levels, my concentration, my mood.
00:19:24
Speaker
my academic ability, my sports performance. Children, we don't drive when we have the mats open. Craniofacial growth, my jaws are set back. My top jaw, my lower jaw, I had overcrowding of teeth. I have a really high upper palate. I've got a very poor airway. So anatomically, I'm very susceptible.
00:19:48
Speaker
towards sleep issues for the rest of my life as a result of the chronic mouth breathing and the changes that happened to my face during childhood. And you know, it's just one of those things. I was a chronic mouth reader and unfortunately nobody ever said anything to me. Nobody said anything to my mother or my father to encourage me to breathe through my nose.
00:20:11
Speaker
And it's just, when I look back at photographs, I can't help wondering why was that. I was going into doctors every three months looking for asthma medication. Again, childhood asthma, you would think that nose breathing would be very logical, that it should be the first step in helping a kid with asthma. Didn't happen. We have to bear in mind that the mouth is absolutely has zero functions when it comes to breathing. The mouth does nothing.
00:20:38
Speaker
Now, if we look at a study by Karen Bannock and the research is there, this has been debated, Christian, for 100 years. 100 years, this has been debated. This is not new information and millions of children are suffering as a result of this. Now, there are tremendous, some tremendous ear, nose and throat doctors, dentists, orthodontists and medical doctors who get it.
00:21:06
Speaker
but they are about 5% of the medical population. The other 95%, I don't think they've even taught about it. They just accept the child comes into the surgery with the mouth open. We'll pass no comment on it. But if you look at a recent enough paper published in 2012 by Karen Ballock in the Journal of Pediatrics,
00:21:31
Speaker
She looked at 11,000 children in the UK who had sleep disorder breathing, of which mouth breathing is a contributory factor. Children who were untreated by age five, by age eight, they had a 40% increased risk of special education needs.
00:21:49
Speaker
Now I can pull up that study there. I'm not sure if I can do a share. I think you're the host. No, you're the host. But when you look at that study, and it really drives home here, why are we allowing children to breed through an open mouth?
00:22:04
Speaker
because it's having a detrimental impact on their sleep. They are more prone to sleep disorder breathing. It's not a coincidence that children with ADHD often have nasal congestion. And if a child has nasal congestion, it's normal that they will breach with them out. But let's teach these kids how to decongest your nose, how to switch to nasal breathing, butchering wakefulness and sleep. And the other aspect of it is, in terms of sleep disorder breathing,
00:22:32
Speaker
The first kind of gold standard of treatment is tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. So the child's tonsils and adenoids are removed to help make room in the airway so that they can breathe, so that there's less resistance to their breathing during sleep, so that they can breathe more freely. The efficacy of it was first investigated in 2010, despite it being a practice for decades.
00:23:00
Speaker
And this study that was published in the American Journal, or maybe it's the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, but it's a journal by the American Thoracic Society. And one of the lead, the lead author there was Dr. Batar Charji. And he looked at 578 children.
00:23:21
Speaker
post-tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy, and only 27% of them had their sleep apnea completely cured. 73% of them continue to have sleep apnea, post-tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy. Now, there's two things there. Number one, it points that it's not just the adenoids and the tonsils that are the issue, because if they were the sole issue, the outcome would have been higher.
00:23:49
Speaker
There are other issues involved, including breathing pattern disorders, inflammation of the upper airways, development of the jaws. If the jaws are set back, so for example, if I'm to look at an anatomical model of the nose, and here we have the nose itself, and here we have the lips, so this is a front profile.
00:24:13
Speaker
So here we have the side profile, we have the tongue here, we have the hard palate, we have the soft palate. Here we have the nasal cavity. Now, my earlier point was, you know, the mouth doesn't perform any functions in terms of breathing. If we breathe through the mouth, air goes straight down our throat, the mouth doesn't do anything.
00:24:31
Speaker
With the nose, if we look at the extent of the nasal cavity, it's sitting right above the roof of the mouth. Anatomically, mouth breathers will have a higher nasal, sorry, they'll have a higher upper palate. The upper palate is then fringing at the nasal cavity. This in turn then will reduce the space of the nasal cavity. Child is more difficulty breathing through the nose. And as a result, could be a lifelong adult mouth breather.
00:24:56
Speaker
Now let's look at the adenoids here. The adenoids are lymphatic tissue, which it's very common for, you know, for them to be inflamed for children aged between say two and six and seven years of age.
00:25:09
Speaker
If the jaws are well-forward, if the child has really well-developed jaws, even if the adenoids are inflamed, it's not likely to cause so much resistance that the child has to breathe through them out. But if we have a child with the jaws set back, and in combination, set back jaws, in combination with enlarged adenoids, then we have a problem.
00:25:34
Speaker
But the thing here is just removing the adenoids is not going to fully address the issue because it's not just enlarged adenoids, that's the problem. The problem is a compromised airway. And when I, with my own daughter, she has, you know, partly this is going to be, of course,
00:25:55
Speaker
is partly genetics, you know, it's genetics meeting lifestyle. And so my own daughter was susceptible to obstructive sleep apnea and I was noticing or stopping breathing during sleep and all you need is a child to stop breathing one time and that is clinically significant, one time per hour, that's clinically significant for a child to be diagnosed with sleep apnea.
00:26:21
Speaker
So I went and I, you know, I followed best practice at the time, this is a number of years ago, and we had our tonsils removed, we had our adenoids removed, we had our lips tied down, we had tongue tied down. You know, I just think it was a really traumatic procedure. It was traumatic for the child, it was traumatic for the parents, you know, you're looking at the child after undergoing a procedure, the child is wheeled back in,
00:26:44
Speaker
You know, they bounce back fairly quickly in fairness to them. But nobody spoke about the importance of nose breathing post-transelectomy and adenoidectomy. You know, it was only afterwards when I was reading some papers by Dr. Christian Guimina, a French medical doctor who's considered probably one of the founding fathers of state medicine. And in that, he reported that transelectomy and adenoidectomy have short-term results
00:27:09
Speaker
There's a frequent relapse within three years unless nasal breathing is restored.
00:27:15
Speaker
but yet very few children who undergo that procedure receive respiratory rehabilitation.
Role of Healthcare Professionals in Breathing Health
00:27:21
Speaker
There's no follow-up. And as a result, you know, the ear nose and throat doctor doesn't know the outcome. Because if they're not following up the child, if there's not a change in breathing patterns, and very often if the child has been mouth breathing for a number of years, pre-operation, of course they're going to continue mouth breathing post-operation.
00:27:41
Speaker
So it's not just enough to treat the nose. We also have to change the behavior. And like, I don't think children will thrive. And it's
00:27:51
Speaker
You know, if you look at the work of Dr. William Hange from Agora Hills in California, I had a podcast last night with Dr. Derek Mahoney from Australia, and he's a world-renowned orthodontist, just as William Hange is. And they will readily agree. They are very much focused on the face and airway.
00:28:12
Speaker
Think of Professor John Mu in the United Kingdom, Dr. Mike Mu, his son. And there's the AOMT, there's different academies, the AAMS in the United States, Mark Moeller, you know, there's Joy Moeller. There's individuals who have dedicated their life's work.
00:28:31
Speaker
to help improve the awareness of nasal breathing during childhood. And even if you were just to say, well, show me an unbiased perspective, read the book by James Nestor called Breath, because he's approaching it from the perspective of a journalist.
00:28:49
Speaker
you know i'm a breathing educator so you know i may have a biased perspective and say well all children should be breathing through the nose show me the evidence well i think there's sufficient evidence there we have to bear in mind that we don't get the cohort of evidence in terms of breathing because 75 percent the reality is that 75 percent of of studies are actually conducted by drug companies
00:29:17
Speaker
So, you know, how can we expect to have a huge quantity of studies on the importance of nose breathing? In saying that, there are quite a few papers. There are quite a few. Yeah. Actually, that Bonac paper you were talking about, I included that in my book, you sent that to me
00:29:36
Speaker
So I'm going to have some screenshots for whoever's watching the video and some links in the show notes. I just want to stress for parents listening again, if the child breathes through the mouth, Patrick,
00:29:52
Speaker
Can you just quickly sum up what happened? The palette, the teeth don't get pushed by the tongue. Can you just give a little bit of an overview there? I think it's important to underscore that a little bit. Sure. There's one terrible paper to read, I think either 2010 or 2012 by Christian Guimlo. He looked at seven young infants who died as a result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
00:30:19
Speaker
And he looked at the shape and the profile of their jaws. All of the children died as a result of hypoxia during sleep. The only thing that they had pre-that was a runny nose. But the problem was that they had a compromised nasal airway. They had a very high upper palate.
00:30:37
Speaker
They, children are anatomically nasal breeders. So if you have a child with a compromised nasal airway and throw in a head cold, now the child can't breed. And in this instance, you know, when they looked at the seven children, they had high upper palates. This could have been identified easy early on. It must be the most horrific thing for any parent to go through. I can only imagine it.
00:31:05
Speaker
You know, we really need to be looking at when a baby is born because it's, you could argue this Christian, it's a chicken and egg scenario. My daughter was genetically at six months old when I looked into our palace and I had a pediatric dentist here from Canada.
00:31:22
Speaker
And she also commented on it that her palate was very high. So she was born genetically with a high palate. So already the anatomical features was that the mouth was quite small and the palate was high. And this could contribute to mouth breathing. But then mouth breathing, because the tongue isn't resting in the roof of the mouth,
00:31:45
Speaker
because we need the lips together with the tongue resting in the roof them out and with the tongue resting in the roof them out, the pressures exerted by the tongue have to shake the maxilla or the top jaw and also have to forward growth of the jaws. So a child is a better facial profile, but more importantly, they have a better airway. They also have straighter teeth.
00:32:09
Speaker
So overcrowding of teeth or crooked teeth is not because the child has inherited dad's big teeth and mom's small jaw. Yeah. Overcrowding of teeth is because the jaw isn't large enough for the teeth. Now there's two schools of thought in orthodontic history. One is let's remove teeth and straighten teeth.
00:32:35
Speaker
And the other school have taught us, well, the problem is that the jaw is too small. Let's make the jaw wide enough to house the teeth. And the biggest advantage when you widen and broaden that jaw, that you're making plenty of room in the mouth for the tongue. And when you have plenty of room in the mouth for the tongue, the tongue is less likely to be falling back into the throat. So one aspect, so that's the craniofacial development. So not only do you have a better looking child,
00:33:05
Speaker
But you have all of the benefits that go with it. Better breathing, better sleep. Because of better sleep, better academic functioning, better cognitive development. A child's brain is growing during the formative years. And children with sleep disorder breathing, if it's untreated,
00:33:27
Speaker
I remember reading one statistic. They have an 80% chance, 80% chance of a permanent 20% reduction in their mental capacity as a result of poor sleep quality. And in order to have good sleep, we need good airway and we need good breathing. Now, I believe that dentists have a tremendous role to play here.
00:33:56
Speaker
because dentists are looking into the child's mouth. They are trained to look into the mouth. They will be able to identify risk factors, such as a poor airway, a high upper palate, V-shaped maxilla, retronatic jaws. They're able to spot these factors. That's their training. And they are in a wonderful position.
00:34:22
Speaker
both to identify the risk factors, but also to do something about it. And they could literally change children's health for the rest of their life by bringing in interventions in terms of ensuring adequate and normal craniofacial growth. And even coming back to the young infants with the high upper palate, if mom knew that she could simply get her tums, put on a pair of gloves,
00:34:49
Speaker
get her thumbs and just gently press her thumbs or maybe even one thumb on one side of the jaw or on the other. And just for 10 seconds because the jaw in an infant is malleable. It's very pliable. So you can gently expand it. No trauma to the baby, but at least then you're helping to expand the palate. So when I, my own daughter was four years of age, I put her in an alpha appliance and it stands for
00:35:20
Speaker
advanced light wire functional appliance. And it was from a dentist in Washington,
Techniques to Improve Children's Breathing
00:35:30
Speaker
Dr. James Bronson. And it was Dr. Tony O'Connor and Cork who fitted it. But I seen that appliance and it was the lightest. She didn't even know it was in her mouth. Totally non-invasive. I seen that change for JAWS within weeks. I seen it happen.
00:35:50
Speaker
What age? It's at age four. Now even that might be too old, but it's still a great place to start because traditional orthodontics would typically say wait until the child is 12. But the problem is at 12 years of age, the face is already grown. It's not just about straightening teeth, or to don't just have a much more important role than just straightening teeth.
00:36:19
Speaker
Their role is in developing the airway. And some orthodontists, as I said, some of them got it. And I think the reason that they got it was because it came down to their own children. When they were working with their own kids, very often you find things when you're working with your own family. And they realized then that the curriculum that they learned in university
00:36:45
Speaker
and you somebody might argue well surely the professor of orthodontics in the university is is really staying ahead of all the developments and everything not necessarily you know because human nature we become very much stuck in a rush just keep doing the same old thing over and over and what drives change is necessity and when you're working with your own child
00:37:10
Speaker
there's a necessity there because of course you've got a greater vested interest. And also you're seeing your child develop. So you're with your child 24-7. So I often find that in those fields it was from a family perspective, but also you will have dentists and orthodontists who are innovators. And these are the individuals who are questioning and they want to improve.
00:37:36
Speaker
And then you have 95% of the individuals that just continue with their basic normal training. And that's problematic. Yeah, that's very slow to change as well. First, it's like the old saying, first they ridicule you, then they vehemently oppose you. And then in the end, it's like, well, we've always known that. So it's like anything else.
00:37:59
Speaker
fortunate at least at least you're kind of helping to to change that faster Patrick but luckily so with this kind of stuff luckily the exercises are free to do they're very easy and change can happen especially for smaller kids but even for adults but positive change can happen very very quickly can you give folks an overview of okay we
00:38:27
Speaker
let's say your child, five years old, has a breathing issue, or you yourself, you might middle-aged, always had some issues with it. What does one do now with the Botteco method? So the Botteco method is really about understanding the importance of breathing through the nose, both in and out. There is an exercise to decongest the nose.
00:38:54
Speaker
And the main exercise for children are steps exercise. So typically if a child comes into ourselves or into yourself, you're going to be looking at, is that child a mouth breeder and why are they a mouth breeder? Is it because of nasal obstruction or is it because of habit?
00:39:14
Speaker
And if it's because of nasal obstruction, why? Is it because of enlarged adenoids? Or is it because of rhinitis that the nose is stuffy? So typically, when the kids are coming in, I have them wear paper tape across their lip in class, their lips. And we now use our own tape, the Myo tape. But we're using the paper tape to bring the lips together. Because I want to see, can the children sustain continuous nasal breathing?
00:39:42
Speaker
not just for three minutes, but for about 30 or 40 minutes. And the child then with nasal congestion, we bring them through the various exercises very easy. Take an umber breath in and out through your nose, pinch the nose, hold the nose, and they gently nod their head up and down, holding their breath. As if they're swimming underwater, they're going underwater, they're picking up a diving stick, and then they're coming back up again.
00:40:06
Speaker
And we do that five or six times, it helps to decongest the nose. Then we go on to the steps exercise. And this is involving breath hold walking. And this also is helping to decongest the nose and change breathing patterns. And then I have them do walking, you know, because I want children breathing through the nose, not just when they're sitting down, or when they're asleep, but also when they are doing physical exercise.
00:40:31
Speaker
So we have the kids walking for about a minute and then we have them running with their mouth closed for a minute and walking and running and walking and running. And you know, we go through a number of different exercise looking at how are they breathing during rest? How are they breathing during physical exercise? And then we talk about myotape during sleep and I should do a demonstration actually. Because I suppose I used to get frustrated with some kids coming into me.
00:40:57
Speaker
And I'm doing this quite a while, 18 years. And with some children, we could restore nasal breathing pretty easy. It wasn't too difficult. But there'll be always a couple of kids that come in a week later, and they're coming in with their mouths wide open. And here I go again. Well, it's OK. Well, here's the benefits of the nose. It's really good in terms of
00:41:17
Speaker
a more natural looking face, and it helps your teeth, and it helps your sports performance, and all of this good stuff, helps your concentration, et cetera. We go through all of the exercise with the child. The child can breathe through the nose for 40, 50 minutes. Off they go again. And we want them nose breathing all week. And they come in to me a week later, and the mouth is open again. They said, OK, what's going on here? So I started introducing them taping during the day. And I was saying to the parents, it's not just enough just that we fix the nose.
00:41:46
Speaker
we also need to be changing the behavior. And, you know, I remember my own example, I had an operation on my nose in 1994. And still, you know, an ability looking at my nose, you see, it's all over the place anyway. But in 1994, I had an operation to alleviate congestion, and whether it was a deviated septum or enlarged turbulence, I can't remember. But nobody told me to breathe through it afterwards.
00:42:12
Speaker
So from 1994 to 1997 or 1998, I continued mouth breathing because that was my behavior. And I have to bear that in mind with the kids coming in. They're coming in with chronic mouth breathing, persistent mouth breathing. We not only changed the obstruction, but we also have to change the behavior. And the tape that we use, the only one that I can find off to hand here, actually this is the adults one here.
00:42:43
Speaker
So it's myotape. I'm sure you've seen that. But it was always an issue because we do want children breathing through their nose during sleep. And for years we were using tape, trying to get it maybe a strip this way or a strip this way. And it's always problematic because there's a perceived risk there. It doesn't seem to be the right thing to do, even though
00:43:10
Speaker
our intentions were best. We had the best intentions. So the myotape then was an idea in terms of bringing a tape out. And this is the adults version here, obviously, the child's one is smaller. And we bring out a tape and we stretch it by about 30 to its cotton. So it's stretchable. And we surround the lips.
00:43:39
Speaker
And you see it's powering the lipstick. So the tape.
00:43:44
Speaker
by virtue of the elastic tension is bringing the lips together. But also, the pull of the tape is in this direction. It's pulling inwards. And this helps to stimulate the muscles surrounding the mouth, the orbicular aerosol muscle to help activate it. So it's pulling that in. But this is for changing the behavior of breathing. So if a child is watching television,
00:44:11
Speaker
The child is distracted and that's often when they have the motor open. If they're wearing the tape,
00:44:18
Speaker
While they're watching television, if they're distracted, and if they forget about breathing through their nose, if they open them out, the tape automatically reminds them to get them out closed. So there's a sensory feedback continuously back to the brain to get the child to change that behavior. And changing behavior, it's not just something that happens in 21 days, but it typically takes 60 to 70 days to change behavior.
00:44:47
Speaker
Especially if you're older, that neuroplasticity is a bit slower. You know, I'm actually going to order some of this tape because this is exactly what my little nephew does. He's like this in front of the TV. So I'm going to definitely get some for him. And I know my mother would certainly, she's one person that's constantly sighing every few minutes. So definitely going to email Anna about getting some of that stuff. Sure, sure.
00:45:16
Speaker
Okay, so we have the nose decongestion exercise, very simple breath holds, nodding the head. Steps exercises where you take a normal breath in, normal breath out, pinch the nose, and then you do some steps. And would you like to just briefly elaborate on what
00:45:37
Speaker
basically other exercises there it's it's that's really it there's about six or seven exercises that folks do once twice a day yeah yeah yeah the the first exercise that we start off with is typically small breath holds yeah so we we have the children wearing tape and we have them hold their breath for three seconds or five seconds and let go yeah three seconds let go three seconds let go just to get used to holding of the breath but we also use it as well as a calming exercise
00:46:07
Speaker
Because if children have fast breathing, and sometimes kids come into us with anxiety, I want to try and slow down their breathing. You know, I want to get them breathing from the chest down into the using with greater amplitude of the diet from with slow breathing. And in general, most children will actually breathe with good amplitude of the diet from, but if a child has asthma or anxiety, they can have a greater susceptibility to upper chest breathing.
00:46:31
Speaker
So the first exercise we typically start off with is many small breath tones. And that is a calming effect, but also teaches the child technique. And then we do the nose and blocking exercise. And we do that six times with a minute's rest in between each. And then we go from that end to the steps exercise. And then we do the steps running. And we do about six repetitions.
00:46:55
Speaker
And then we go walking, jogging, walking, jogging or jumping jacks or whatever with the mouth closed. And then from that, then I typically will have the kids do some slow breathing, but I have to understand the kids are kids, you know, children are children expecting any child to sit down and to be slowing down their breathing for five minutes a day. Forget about it. If I can get the idea across to them.
00:47:19
Speaker
that their breathing should be quiet. So what is good breathing? It's in and out through the nose. It's gentle, it's quiet, it's calm. What's not so good breathing? Well, it's mouth breathing, it's harder breathing, it's faster breathing. So it's just really kind of giving them that kind of basic knowledge in terms of it.
00:47:38
Speaker
And that's it then, you know, and it's very simple. Working with children is very, very simple. They don't have, yeah, there's, if your child has diabetes, a little bit different because blood sugar levels have to be checked more frequently. If a child has epilepsy, we go easier with the steps exercise. If a child has pulmonary hypertension, we don't do many breath tolls whatsoever.
00:47:59
Speaker
We do try and encourage nasal breathing, but obviously that's under their pulmonary hypertension has to be, you know, managed with their medical doctor. So, but other than that, children in the main, this is the same as swimming. And many children, if you think of Michael Phelps's history,
00:48:17
Speaker
one of the world's greatest swimmers ever. And his parents sent him swimming. I believe the story. I'm not sure what age, maybe 10 years of age or 11 years of age, but he had two things going on. He had asthma and he had ADHD. And I thought it was interesting because children were often sent swimming when they had asthma.
00:48:39
Speaker
And when you're swimming, you're going under water. Any child who swims, they'll have a little diving stick. I see with my own kid, show it into the water and then they go after it. Very natural thing to do. What are they doing? Holding their breath. What are we doing? Holding the breath. So there are some similarities in terms of the resistance to breathing during the sport of swimming. And I
Patrick's Upcoming Book and Resources
00:49:03
Speaker
think it was no coincidence
00:49:05
Speaker
that those similarities are there because when we apply these techniques for children with nasal congestion, with asthma, and with kids as well with ADHD, they're calmer. If you can get a child breathing through their nose during sleep, that child is much more likely to have deeper sleep.
00:49:24
Speaker
and less likely to have ADHD. Because if a child, for example, is mouth breathing in sleep, and they've shallow breathing, and they're twisting and turning all night long, and they're stopping breathing, and they're snoring, they're in sympathetic arousal. They're in that constant state of fight or flight. And they come out, they wake up in the morning, they're still in that sympathetic arousal.
00:49:49
Speaker
Whereas we need the kids to have deep sleep, regular breathing with no sleep interruptions and they wake up feeling relaxed. So what is ADHD? Should we be looking at ADHD as being a sleep disorder?
00:50:05
Speaker
a symptom of sleep disorder. I think the disorder of sleep is definitely a major contributor. Not just ADHD, but just to take it back to the overall person, to the adult as well.
00:50:22
Speaker
I noticed as soon as I switched to nasal breathing, not only was I more well rested, but I was calmer. I got in a hoop less often. Because literally when you breathe through the mouth, and I write about this in my book, how do you test the hypothesis that
00:50:42
Speaker
uh nasal breathing activates the parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system well do the opposite breathe take 20 deep breaths through the nose and immediately your pulse increases you can feel your blood pressure increasing everything so the inverse of that or the opposite of that is what what i just said so
00:51:04
Speaker
Anybody that is living a stressful lifestyle, you know, you have kids to take care of, whatever, if you do this, if you switch to nasal breathing and retrain your breathing, you will actually be contributing to lessened anxiety, increased sense of well-being, and yeah, I love it. So what I'll do is, just so I want to wrap up here, I know your time is very precious,
00:51:28
Speaker
What I'll do is I will include a ton of your videos and your articles. I have an article yet unpublished on the actual exercises. So folks that check out the show notes, we'll be able to actually print out the exercises. There'll be videos on Patrick's YouTube channel of the Botaco Clinic.
00:51:50
Speaker
So, just to kind of wrap it up, Patrick, can you tell us, I know you're close to publishing another book. Can you tell what, I'm dying to know what that's all about. And then after that, can you also tell folks where they can find all your resources and all your books and all that good stuff. Sure, sure, Christian. And the new book is going to be on topics that we haven't explored
00:52:13
Speaker
previously. Some topics we have explored, but some of them we haven't. Diabetes type one and how we can, how to influence the autonomic nervous system to improve better control of type one and type two. Epilepsy, functional movement, women's breathing, because women's breathing is so much different to men's breathing. Children,
00:52:39
Speaker
because I've really put in a big section on sleep in children because I think it's a crying out for attention. Sleep of course, we've put in a little section on asthma. So it's different, just its oxygen advantage, kind of more so I brought in the vagus nerve and heart rate variability, so stuff that's outside of the typical Butteko.
00:53:00
Speaker
you know, important in terms of breathing and important as a marker of the functioning of the autonomic nervous system. And as you said, slow breathing there's absolutely no question that slow breathing brings the body into relaxation.
00:53:16
Speaker
and that can be objectively measured via heart rate variability. So by breathing through the nose, slowing down the cadence of breathing to between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths per minute, stimulating the vagus nerve, increasing the sensitivity of the bar receptors, and achieving a better balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
00:53:38
Speaker
So it's all there. And, and then for people to get in touch with us, we have different channels for Butteco. It's buttecoclinic.com. And we have videos on YouTube, and we have Instagram channel, etc. So it's, it's, yeah, people are looking for more information.
Conclusion and Importance of Breathing
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'll have all those links in there and a few videos for folks to check out. So thanks. Thank you very much, Patrick. I wish you a pleasant and successful book launch. I know you've been really working hard for God knows how long. So yeah, so hopefully when this book, I suppose I've been hoping to get it out the last six months, but every time I think I'm across the line.
00:54:21
Speaker
just there's a few delays and I suppose I don't have the time to be focusing on because there's trainings going on and things like that so that's why I suppose I need to block off about three weeks in my calendar and just say I'm going to do nothing else other than focus on this for three weeks and get it across the line so
00:54:37
Speaker
Will you be doing more live training this year, next year? Do you have anything planned? Yeah, I don't think so. We've cancelled everything. So I went from being booked out for 18 months to cancelling everything except one training that I did in Ireland and one training in Denmark and that's since March. And yeah, so we've got trainings organised for Tampa, which I think we're going to cancel.
00:55:06
Speaker
I've got a training in Japan and I think that's going to be canceled too. And everything else we've, we've canceled pretty much. So 2021 is looking to be a, I'm happy out. I don't mind, you know, a little bit of a break from travel because it gives me the time just to kind of get, get those, those other tasks across the line. So that's just the way it is questioned. Sometimes it's two feet flat in the ground.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, you see, this is a great example you're setting because you're given lemons and you are making lemonade instead of, you know, being all sour about it. So that's great. I like to see that. Well, we have to accept those things that we can't change. Yeah.
00:55:50
Speaker
Thank you once again so much for your time. Thank you for your work. And I'm extremely glad and honored that you came on and I can share your work with a wider audience because this is one of the most fundamentally important things that breathing is literally like the foundation before food, before hydration, before sleep, literally breathing is the foundation.
00:56:13
Speaker
it's not sexy. Unfortunately, guys like James Nestor are making it sexy, you know, you're, you're making it sexy a little bit with oxygen advantage. So it, yeah, we need to, we need to make it sexy. So people really kind of get into it. So thank you, Patrick, so much for your time. Thank you very much, Christian.
00:56:44
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Connecting Minds. We hope you enjoyed this conversation and found it interesting, illuminating, or inspiring. For episode show notes, links, and further information on our guests, please visit christianjordanov.com. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with someone who might also enjoy it. Thank you for being here.