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Breathing Better Will Transform Your Health w/ Nick Heath aka The Breathing Diabetic
239 Plays2 years ago
Nick Heath, a.k.a The Breathing Diabetic, joins us to talk about the importance of correct breathing habits, not just to help people with diabetes but really anyone no matter their age or health status.
We nerd out on how slow breathing can lower inflammation and blood-sugar, improve HRV (heart rate variability), reduce anxiety and stress, improve sleep, and contribute to a better quality of life for folks of all walks in life.
Not bad for something you can do for free, right here and now, hey?
Nick's links:
Website: https://www.thebreathingdiabetic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebreathingdiabetic/
Breathing for Diabetes course: https://www.thebreathingdiabetic.com/online-workshop-new-format
Christian's links:
Health consulting: https://christianyordanov.com/health-consulting/
Links to my book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy:
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Wellbeing-Plan-Child-Healthy/dp/1916393004
UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Autism-Wellbeing-Plan-Child-Healthy-ebook/dp/B084GBBDL9
My podcast, Autism and Children's Health: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/autism-and-childrens-health-lab-testing-diet/id1512380225
Website: https://christianyordanov.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Nick Heath's Work
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Connecting Minds podcast. Christian Jordonov here. Today we have Nick Heath on the podcast and a little bit about Nick. He's a PhD in atmospheric science, published in major scientific journals, recipient of a NASA fellowship and research grants. He has a website, thebreathingdiabetic.com.
00:00:25
Speaker
where he talks about all things breathing as it relates to helping to improve the quality of life of folks with diabetes he's an oxygen advantage advanced instructor
00:00:37
Speaker
Level 1 Pranayama instructor, member of the Global Wellness Institute's Breathe Initiative.
Breathing Techniques and Diabetes Management
00:00:43
Speaker
And in case you are not convinced that this man is serious about breathing, he also walked 100 miles wearing a 20 pound backpack to raise breathing awareness. Nick, thank you so much for joining us today. Amazing. Thank you, Christian. I appreciate that kind introduction.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, shout out to our mutual friend, Kathleen, for making the introduction. Yes. Thank you, Kathleen. You're awesome. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, man? Sure, yeah. You mentioned some of it. So I'm a type 1 diabetic, which is the whole breathing diabetic thing. Several years ago, I discovered breathing. So I started with some of the breathing stuff with
00:01:29
Speaker
Wim Hof like a lot of people get interested in breathing and from there it kind of opened my mind to the idea that breathing could be helpful and it wasn't until I was introduced to Patrick McKeown and his work with the oxygen advantage that it kind of clicked for me. I started like taping my mouth doing some of the the lesson breathing. I also at that point got into kind of slower breathing
00:01:51
Speaker
and breath holds in over time. I noticed that my blood sugars were getting better and really just my quality of life. Like I just felt better. I had more energy and I was, if anything, more resilient to diabetic stressors and things like that. And I wanted to understand what the, what was going on. And so you mentioned my background. I'm a, my PhDs in atmospheric science, meteorology to be specific. And so I was always kind of on the side and my professional life doing all this research and reading papers and stuff.
00:02:19
Speaker
So even though i'm not a pulmonologist or anything or you know i want doctor i decided. I want to see what's going on in the papers is there any research showing the stuff works and then sure enough you know i found tons of papers some specifically for diabetes and then just tons of other ones for health and complications associated diabetes all these different things and i felt like.
Influence of Breathing on Spirituality and Mental Health
00:02:40
Speaker
an obligation to share the information put it out there and that's what started the breathing diabetic so yeah i've been studying air my whole life and it wasn't till i found breathing though that i made that connection to like. Oh this air comes into me and has profound effects and uh essentially just now i'm i'm obsessed with with all things breathing i don't.
00:03:01
Speaker
I talk about diabetes a lot, but I'm also just kind of like, I just am really like interested in breathing in all aspects of our life, spirituality, just mental health, all these different things that, you know, the breath can be used for. So yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, man. It's not sexy until, I guess, I suppose, guys like Ben Greenfield, Dave Asprey, these awesome guys had Patrick on their podcast. And I'm sure he was pretty famous before
Breathing Techniques: Benefits and Risks
00:03:35
Speaker
that and stuff.
00:03:35
Speaker
But those guys are making it sexy, which is great because that influences us. And it's amazing the far-ranging benefits of improving one's breath. Actually, let's actually just take a couple of steps back. I had Patrick on the podcast a couple of years ago.
00:04:01
Speaker
But just for folks that are new to this type of stuff, let's talk a little bit about what, how are we as a society breathing dysfunctionally at the moment, for starters?
00:04:18
Speaker
Sure. So, of course, not every single person, but for the majority of us are chronic overbreathers, meaning we simply just breathe more than our metabolic needs. So it's not it doesn't have to look like a panic attack or some huge huffing and puffing. But in general, it's, you know, the analogy most books make is sort of like, you know, we've become a world of over eaters. And now we're a world of overbreathers. We just breathe more than our bodies actually need.
00:04:46
Speaker
And so that can actually have really profound and detrimental health impacts because when we breathe, we inhale oxygen, obviously, and we exhale carbon dioxide. And it turns out that carbon dioxide is really important to our overall health and wellness. So by
00:05:02
Speaker
breathing too much or exhaling too much carbon dioxide. And that can have negative effects for things like blood flow and most importantly, oxygen delivery. So we need carbon dioxide in the blood to actually loosen the bond between oxygen and hemoglobin, which will then help with oxygen delivery to the cells. So it gets a little complex and stuff, but the big thing is mainly that we're breathing too much. And then the biggest one is mouth breathing. So a lot of us,
00:05:30
Speaker
breathe through our mouths just because we've never been told any different, right? That's what I was a chronic mouth breather. It wasn't that I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I just didn't know. I just got breathe. It's easier through my mouth. Why wouldn't I? And so that can have really bad impacts just because your nose is so good for your breath. So your nose is, is good for warming and humidifying, for slowing down your breathing rate, for filtering out particles.
00:05:54
Speaker
And then for ultimately getting more oxygen in because it, yeah, there's, it gets complicated, but you know, it harnesses a gas called nitric oxide. And so that's going to help with oxygen uptake in the lungs. Um, and that's going to help with basically everything downstream of with each breath you take. So, you know, a big problem is that so many of us are over breathing and then mouth breathing. And that's putting us into a chronic state of stress. It tricks your body into thinking, Oh, we're stressed out because we're
00:06:23
Speaker
we're breathing heavier, we're breathing faster, and that tells your body something's wrong. And then we're not making up for it with physical activity. And then that basically sets off a cascade of bad things that, you know, for each person is different. That's what's really interesting about the whole breathing aspect is because breathing impacts everything, right? No bodily function can occur without breathing. So when you do something wrong, for me, it was really bad energy levels and really bad sleep. And, you know,
00:06:53
Speaker
poor blood sugar control. But for someone else, it might be something completely different with that you would not even, you know, might not even seem obvious at first. So there's a lot of different ways to look at it. And that's why it becomes complicated. But it's also why it's such a simple thing to start with. If you're on a health journey or whatever, it might be a performance journey.
00:07:13
Speaker
starting with the breath because that's going to help bring everything back into into line and then working on nutrition and furthering your sleep and all that stuff so that's kind of the way it works that from what from my perspective yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
Of course, when I'm asked what's the most important thing, I always say food and water, extremely well purified water and ideally a pristine diet that's organically grown and whatnot.
00:07:45
Speaker
I should be saying your breath is the first thing. But again, it's something we overlook so much. So you first started with this stuff with Wim Hof. Can you tell us, first of all, what are the benefits of Wim Hof breathing?
00:08:09
Speaker
potential drawbacks and how does it differ to the right way to breathe, let's just say. Sure. So Wim Hof's method for in general is about 30 to 40 big breaths.
00:08:24
Speaker
So there's no set speed. Each person goes at their own pace, but you breathe fully in. He says sometimes belly, chest, head. So you're expanding your belly, then your chest, then feeling the air go into your head, just kind of visualization. And you do that 30 or 40 times, and then you exhale.
00:08:44
Speaker
And then you hold your breath for as long as you can comfortably, you know, it's up to the person. There's no set time. Then you inhale and hold for about another 10 or 15 seconds. And that's one round. And then you do it over, you know, three or four rounds. And he suggests first thing in the morning. There's actually good reason for that. But in any case, the.
00:09:03
Speaker
It's an interesting technique because what you're doing is you're extremely stressing your body. Like you're putting your body into this extraordinary state of stress. You're hyperventilating, which is a stressor. Then you're holding your breath, which is a stressor. And because you're hyperventilating, you can hold your breath even longer beforehand because you're blowing off all this carbon dioxide. And then that will allow your blood oxygen to drop really low, which is then another crazy stressor. And so
00:09:30
Speaker
you know, they measured it in the famous study and Wim says this, you know, basically every time he talks about it, you know, that the adrenaline
Breathing and Autonomic Function in Diabetics
00:09:38
Speaker
levels of people practicing his method were higher than those who were going bungee jumping for their first time. And that was in a, you know, in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they have that sentence. So it's pretty crazy. So yeah, you get this big stressor, but it turns out that
00:09:55
Speaker
acute stressors are good for you in short bursts. So what we've been talking about, like chronic over breathing and things that will put your body into a chronic shade of stress. Those are, we all know those are bad, right? Just bad for everything. But if you do these really short bursts of stress,
00:10:12
Speaker
It actually does these really interesting things because your body goes into protective mode. It says, Oh, you're about, you must be getting infected with a virus. So you must be running from a tiger or there must be something about to hurt you. So it like, you know, it releases all these anti-inflammatory cytokines and.
00:10:27
Speaker
helps with immune function and things like that in preparation and so what women's method does is it harnesses this kind of you know luckily or maybe there is more premeditated than we think you know he says he just kind of came up with it so if that's the case then you know he got very fortunate or in great intuition but he's essentially utilizing things that
00:10:50
Speaker
different branches of science have known like it's called like psycho endocrinology or something there's this long and they've looked at this like if short term acute stress is really good for your body. It's just the chronic stuff that's bad. And so in any case, that's what whim does it puts you in this short term stressor releases all these anti inflammatory cytokines the things that help with
00:11:10
Speaker
with your immune system. And then because it's so stressful afterward, it's super relaxing. So you just kind of goes, you kind of zen out at the end, you know, you just kind of lay there. It's nice. And for a lot of people that they find it helpful for the quality of life, you know, they feel less anxious, less stressed.
00:11:29
Speaker
So when you explain it like that, it sounds basically like amazing Rosie's, you know, unicorns and rainbows and we're good to go. But of course everything has risks and you know, so for certain people, the Wim Hof method isn't, you know, applicable and he addresses this things with cardiovascular problems and stuff like that. It might be too much of a stressor. And for me, the problem was, is I started
00:11:55
Speaker
habitually mouth breathing from it. So it's not that he advised that it was just that because I was going through in these big breaths, when I'd be out at work or anywhere, I'd be like, Oh, that's what I need to be doing these, you know, these big breaths anytime and in over time, that's going to have a really tax because it's it's a stressor, like we just said. And so if you're doing that all the time, you're going to basically turn into a chronic overbreather and lots of stress.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah. So just because like everywhere I've gone to whatever type of activity, they talk about these deep big breaths as you call them. Is there ever value in a big breath or like in breathing out through the mouth, would you say?
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, of course. I'm very agnostic to all the breathing methods now. I think there's a place for all of them. I do think there's a place for Wim Hof. The interesting thing about big breathing is that from a biochemistry perspective, it's bad because you're offloading too much carbon dioxide. But there's other things like
00:13:07
Speaker
So let's say you're breathing slowly, deeply, and actually a little bit bigger. So probably more than Patrick would like, but he would probably let it go.
00:13:17
Speaker
actually, when you fill your lungs up, you're activating stretch receptors in your lungs. And this actually has a really potent effect of activating the calming branch of the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. And so by slowly expanding your lungs and stretching them out, it sends these signals that say, Oh, we need it, we need to relax and bring that back. And so you can actually
00:13:40
Speaker
activate the parasympathetic nervous system pretty strong through big breaths. And then with the mouth. So so that's one I guess I want to be clear that like, you wouldn't want that to be your all day everyday breathing. But when you sit down, if someone says, Hey, take a couple deep breaths, and you do it, and you feel more relaxed, that's probably why. But if you did it for like 45 minutes straight, you would be you know, you probably throw off your chemistry so bad that it would negate all the benefits.
00:14:07
Speaker
So there are slow, deep, big breaths. There's a place for those. And then as far as the out through the mouth idea, that is a big controversy, I feel like, in all the breathing techniques. So in general, if you're doing a slow breathing practice, let's say you're sitting down and you're going to just focus on breathing at about six breaths per minute and for 20 minutes.
00:14:32
Speaker
breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth can be really relaxing. So that's generally what most clinicians have patients do because people find it more relaxing and they find it easier if they're new to slow breathing to control their exhale through their mouth like through pursed lips rather than trying to control it through their nose.
00:14:54
Speaker
The problem with mouth breathing out through your mouth is again, you have the risk of offloading too much carbon dioxide. And you also have the risk of dehydrating yourself because you lose a lot more water out of your mouth.
00:15:08
Speaker
Again, it's kind of compromised. You get a little bit more relaxation effect, but you might be messing up your hydration a little bit. And so everything comes with a little, you know, a little trade-off, but in general doing it for, you know, 20 minutes, even like if you did two 20 minute sessions where you were in through the nose, out through your mouth, it probably is just going to be relaxing and beneficial overall. So, um, that's kind of my, that's how I look at it. And then your everyday breathing always in and out through the nose, you know, as much as you can in and out through the nose.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when I was training with Patrick when we went up to Galway for like seven days with him for the Botteco practitioner certification that I did. He was saying that he used to sort of advocate for suppressing like yawns and stuff. And you know, it's like some people sigh every once in a while, you know, this kind of stuff. And then he would kind of,
00:16:07
Speaker
He would advise them to suppress the yawn, but when we were talking about it, he actually said that
00:16:16
Speaker
a yawn or like, for example, my dog, when she is nervous, she yawns. It's a mechanism to release tension, similar to a sigh. So he was more, I suppose, this was back in 2018. Of course, things may have changed for him since the last five years. So you're kind of allowed to yawn or sigh if it comes.
00:16:45
Speaker
without suppressing it to release that bit of tension. But it's about re-stabilizing, renormalizing to the correct way of breathing. That's how I've kind of understood it. And you were talking about psych, I think it's psychoneuro...
00:17:02
Speaker
endocrinology or something. Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And I think that there was one guy, I read his book, he's an MD doctor. He studied with like the ayahuasca heroes in the Amazon there with ayahuasca. And he was talking about psychoneuroimmunology. And when people were on the ayahuasca sort of journey,
00:17:31
Speaker
they release tension through tears, purging, et cetera, but also through a lot of sigh, a lot. So I suppose there is something to be said for letting that happen if it needs to. But getting back to, you know, the most of the time, how can you just give folks listening? What is the best way to breathe? What is the correct way to breathe? Well,
00:17:56
Speaker
Again, that's a trick question because in each situation it's slightly different, right? So, um, but in general, in and out through the nose, calm, relaxed, you know, not into your belly always, you know, but like your lower ribs should be moving, indicating, you know, just slightly or maybe barely even noticeable at all. You know, just indicating simple, subtle breathing, diaphragmatic activation.
00:18:24
Speaker
often a little paused here and there on the exhale or even maybe at the top of the inhale but in general you know maybe a slight pause at the top of the exhale and pretty pretty unnoticeable most of the time you know quiet that that's my my two biggest tips I give people are in and out through the nose and quiet because
00:18:44
Speaker
If you don't hear your breath and it's in and out through your nose, you can be pretty confident you're breathing pretty gently, pretty subtly, and pretty good. But otherwise, you know, a little bit of belly activation, paused on the exhale. Those are some of the things that Patrick advises too.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, there's plenty of resources, of course, on the Patrick and you have, you know, we have all the links to the Botanical Clinic oxygen advantage. Oh, yeah. So folks can actually go online, you can get the books, you know, you have a course. The exercises are quite simple. But before we can discuss them a little bit, but before we do that, can you just because obviously you
00:19:27
Speaker
you've done quite a bit of research. What are some of the health issues that diabetics suffer from and how does improving their breathing help to address some of them? Sure, yeah. There's tons of ways we could look at it. The way I usually introduce it is first looking at autonomic function, so the functioning of your nervous system. And that is a
00:19:51
Speaker
big place where people with diabetes have complications. So they're more in a chronic state of stress because our blood sugars fluctuate the emotional roller coaster of having diabetes. We don't get enough oxygen typically to ourselves because of all the inflammation and oxidative stress and free radicals and all those different things. And so when you just take a few minutes each day to do some slow breathing, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system. And this kind of reverses some of those trends.
00:20:21
Speaker
The easiest one is heart rate variability because they measure that a lot now. And there's tons and tons and tons of studies basically showing the efficacy for, for slow breathing to help there. So when they look at people with diabetes, they take a population of, you know, age match controls and things like that. They find the people with diabetes generally have lower heart rate variability. Uh, and that generally means that their cardio autonomic function isn't
00:20:48
Speaker
is great, you know, it's, it's reduced. And typically that's due to over activation of the sympathetic nervous system. So we're in a chronic state of stress is how it's usually interpreted. And then they can take those same people and then just say, okay, we're going to have you breathe at six breaths per minute for a few minutes. And we're going to measure your heart rate variability and there's other ways of looking at it, but that's the easiest one. And so they'll do that. And they'll, so they'll show, Oh, okay. After just a few minutes, you increased your heart rate variability to
00:21:18
Speaker
like baseline to baselines of people who don't have diabetes. So like, it kind of shows that a lot of this is nervous system driven that we still have the capability to get our heart rate variability up to normal levels. It's just that we're constantly being stressed. And so with training, every day, you know, you can gradually increase your heart rate variability, which is just a marker saying, Hey, your overall cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems are functioning a little bit better. So that's a big one.
00:21:47
Speaker
also blood pressure. So people with diabetes, we have way higher likely, I can't remember the exact percentage now, but you know, I think it's upwards of like 40% of people with diabetes develop hypertension. And so if slow breathing consistently, that's one thing that you can see all over the place, like
00:22:05
Speaker
10, 15, 20 minutes a day of slow breathing consistently reduces blood pressure, um, down, you know, at least like five to six millimeters of mercury, uh, you know, on, on the systolic number, the top number, then the bottom number, it's, it's a little bit different, usually between like two and six, I think is about what I've seen. So not massive, you know, life-changing numbers, but it could be, you know, that threshold or, you know, just an
00:22:29
Speaker
Compliment to something else you doing to help reduce your blood pressure and so that's a big one and then really to me the biggest benefit of all of the breathing stuff for diabetes is the emotional side so. Which is interesting because i kinda never cared about the side and it wasn't till more recently to be honest that like.
00:22:49
Speaker
I've realized if of all the things that's been the biggest benefit and it was unintentional like even when I got in all the research and I was doing all this stuff like I still didn't realize the whole time that like it's been my mindset my emotional you know more stability stability with my emotions that have been super powerful and so
00:23:06
Speaker
There's all sorts of research now showing like the way you breathe influences your emotional state and it's tied to your nervous system. It's tied to your amygdala. It's tied to the hyperpolarization of neurons and all this crazy stuff.
00:23:20
Speaker
basically making neurons in certain part of your brain less excitable so that you don't get as stressed as easy and things like that. And so by breathing every day, becoming a consistent practice, it's sort of like practicing philosophy or something because you find that you're less reactive in situations. You
00:23:39
Speaker
things happen and you, you pause before you do something, you think about it before you make these reactions. And to me, that was a gradual thing. So I can't say it's an overnight change, but I think that's the biggest benefit for people with diabetes. Cause we have, I think, I mean, it's like insane, the levels of stress, anxiety, and depression in the diabetic population. They call it diabetic distress because
00:24:05
Speaker
you know, I've gotten I feel pretty fortunate to have diabetes, to be honest, like I don't think of it too much of a burden. There's things I hate about it. But I feel like it could be a lot worse and things like that. But it's a it's a lot of work like 24 seven, you're always doing something prescriptions insulin. Do you have your supplies? Why is my blood sugar high? Why is it low? Why is it you know, there's never like
00:24:27
Speaker
a second off. And so you can get burnt out really quickly. And so, you know, now countless studies have shown that a breathing practice is such a simple and possibly one of like the most effective ways to reduce stress and anxiety and depression and things like that. And so over time, breathing, doing these breathing practice is going to help with the emotional side of diabetes so that
00:24:50
Speaker
You know, I still get mad at things, but like when my prescriptions aren't ready because my insurance, there's an issue or my dog is like, there's always something right. And it's like, I have more time to sit back and say, okay, it's all right. Take a breath.
00:25:03
Speaker
Like, let's see what's going to happen. And it always works out. Things always work out.
Breathing as a Foundational Health Practice
00:25:07
Speaker
And, uh, you know, it's, there's no way to measure that. There's no way for me to tell you exactly how breathing did that, but I know it did because I used to get freaked out and all these things. So, so I think the emotional side is where most people would see the benefits, just having peace of mind with diabetes and having a little bit more emotional, uh, flexibility and able to come back quicker if you do freak out and things like that. Love that man. Yeah.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, my wife was having a lot of sleep problems last year after we had our daughter and it was literally her nervous system got discombobulated because of all the nighttime feedings and putting the baby to sleep.
00:25:53
Speaker
So she would have occasionally like about sort of, she'd start hyperventilating and I would try to like tell her, you know, just please force yourself to breathe through the nose because you can see just this chronic, not chronic, but like this acute hyperventilation, how it raises your heart rate, your blood pressure, just it can lead you to a pretty,
00:26:23
Speaker
bad place. And she started doing more and more breath work type exercises. And over months, her sleep is improving. And she definitely seems like she's more centered and stuff like that. And what you were saying, it's like a philosophical, it is.
00:26:44
Speaker
When you think about meditation, it's most simple and basic form. Meditation is about just focusing on the breath. It's not about clearing your mind. It's not about not thinking.
00:27:00
Speaker
focusing your attention on the breath, thoughts tend to subside. So I suppose that is like a long-term benefit that is quite difficult to quantify, but I'm sure research has been done on meditators. And when you think about meditation, if you're doing it in that specific way, where it's not like a guided meditation, that's literally what you're doing, is you're focusing on your breath. And when you focus on your breath,
00:27:23
Speaker
it will tend to actually come to some type of slower cadence, right? Because the body itself knows, like if I look at my baby or even my dog, like these are unencumbered by the psychological impediments that we have in our heads.
00:27:43
Speaker
And they in their normal state, like when they're sleeping, they breathe really, really well. You know, it's, it's quite amazing. Like nature, shit, nature knows what she's doing. It's amazing. Who would have thought? Who would have thunk it, right?
00:27:58
Speaker
Can you talk to us a little bit? What's the, and maybe we can circle back a little bit to the HRV thing. Can you tell folks what's the link and what is the vagus nerve and vagal tone? What's the link between that
00:28:14
Speaker
HRV and sort of inflammation or oxidative stress. Can you like paint the picture for us? Sure. So the vagus nerve basically connects our brain with tons of our organs. And one of them, you know, the lungs and the diaphragm, the heart and things like that. And so when we breathe slowly and deeply, we I guess I should step back and say one of the interesting things about the vagus nerve is that
00:28:41
Speaker
It's relaying information back to the brain. So there's like a lot of top down things. Like if you feel stress, you think something and then that sends a signal and the rest of your body, you know, reacts to it and you see it with sweaty hands or whatever it might be because you're thinking something. But what the Vegas nerve is doing is it's about 80 20 bringing stuff back. So about 80% is.
00:29:01
Speaker
checking out what's going on in your organs and then sending messages back to the brain and then those get re transmitted back to the rest of the body so. When you do something like slow breathing one of the ways it works is by basically sending signals via the vegas nerve to the brain that say hey all is good we're safe like.
00:29:22
Speaker
We're breathing calm where everything's good. And this then transmits back into a more overall calm, emotional state. So, but, but the link to heart rate variability is that. So when we breathe slowly during each breath we take, there's.
00:29:39
Speaker
During the inhalation, the Vegas nerve withdraws a little bit. So we get, we get a little bit more sympathetic fight or flight action. And then generally during the exhalation, the Vegas nerve turns back on. They call it the vagal break, which slows down the heart rate, reduces blood pressure. And so with each breath by breath motion, we're.
00:29:58
Speaker
basically turning off the vagus nerve during inhale, turning it back on during exhale, turning it on, turning it off. And when you sit and breathe really slowly, especially if you spend a little bit more time on the exhale, it just generally increases the activity of the vagus nerve.
00:30:15
Speaker
And so we measure this through heart rate variability so we look at how much is that that variation in heart rate or actually better better measures respiratory sinus arrhythmia when we start talking about Vegas nerve activity so let me let me step and just say so.
00:30:34
Speaker
With each breath, our heart rate goes up and goes down because of this vagal break. So the heart rate increases during inhalation when the vagus nerve withdraws and then it decreases during exhalation. And that difference, that peak to trough between the heart rate at the top and at the bottom is what we call respiratory sinus arrhythmia. And so this is a great measure of your vagal tone. So how well is your vagus nerve working?
00:31:00
Speaker
And so by practicing these slow breathing exercises, it tends to increase the tone of your Vegas nerve. It it's basically giving it a workout each time you do it. Cause you're inhaling longer, you're exhaling longer, and you're basically just training your Vegas nerve a little bit. And this increases that it's activity. And then this has all the downstream effects you are referring to like anti-inflammatory, uh, less oxidative stress and things like that. So for example, for inflammation.
00:31:30
Speaker
A huge thing is vagus nerve stimulation. So sometimes they do it through like something in their ear, I think, or I don't know all the mechanisms or they do some sort of implant that basically stimulates the vagus nerve. And then this, because it's so calming, it puts your body into this like relaxed rest and digest state. It lowers inflammation. And so through breathing, we have a natural way of doing this. It may not be as potent as something like, you know, an electrical stimulation, but it gives us a natural pathway for
00:31:59
Speaker
increasing activity of the vagus nerve, which is what we call vagal tone, which is then downstream going to have all sorts of positive benefits for inflammation and things like that. Amazing, man. That's fascinating. I have actually yesterday and the last couple of days and today I was reading Patrick's book, The Breathing Cure. And I know you helped him with the chapter on diabetes, correct?
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, he actually took some help. Yeah, let me help out. It was a big honor because obviously he's a mentor of mine. Yeah, he talks about your story there in the book. I'm glad this conversation happened because
00:32:47
Speaker
It just sucked me in again, there's this breathing stuff, you know, there's so many, like when it comes to health, there's so many things to be researching. Like in my case, I love supplements and you know, their mechanisms, specific diseases, just so many different things. But let me ask you, so you've obviously done a ton of research. Does the breathing stuff help both sort of type one and type two diabetics?
00:33:14
Speaker
Yes, and it's because there's similar mechanisms. So there's definitely differences, but as far as complications, they're very similar.
00:33:26
Speaker
reduce heart rate variability, hypertension, increased oxidative stress. These are all pretty similar between type one and type two. The only thing I've seen in the research and just makes intuitive common sense to me is that type two has better results. They get bigger dramatic improvements because they still have insulin being produced. They still have some functioning of their pancreas and things like that, whereas type ones don't.
00:33:54
Speaker
they're able to modulate their blood sugars easier and have less stress over all the type ones. Not that it's easy. I'm not trying to, you know, say type two is easy, but
00:34:05
Speaker
Cause it's not, but it, it gives them a little bit more benefit from some of the slow breathing practices. And I've seen this in. I know of one, definitely one study that looked at 15 to 30 minutes a day of slow breathing for a year. And they were able to reduce their hemoglobin A1C by 2%, which is massive, like going from like an 8.6 down to a 6.6%
00:34:33
Speaker
hemoglobin A1C. I know some different places measure it differently. I only know it in percentages.
Scientific Research on Breathing and Health Metrics
00:34:40
Speaker
And who knows what else? Like there's always confounding fact, maybe doing a little breathing, got them to do more supplement. It was over a year. So you never know what they might've walked more exercised more. Um, to me, that's the benefit of breathing is it's just like a snowball effect. It's like the first step. And then you do other things like, so I don't see that as like confounding. I'm like, that's part of the process. You start breathing, then you start noticing your health, you start noticing. So in any case, I'm kind of going on a tangent, but.
00:35:08
Speaker
So, but overall it seems to benefit both groups, type one, type two. I've seen one study had type one diabetics who had had diabetes for over 30 years. Now I'm at 24 years now. So that was, and they had them sit down and do the slow breathing practice and they were able to reverse some of that autonomic dysfunction with heart rate variability, baroreflex sensitivity, which we didn't talk about, but that's another measure of it.
00:35:36
Speaker
with just a few minutes and they've been type one for 30 years. So it shows that the mechanism of restoration, basically activating that parasympathetic nervous system is really helpful for any disease, right? But specifically for type one and type two, it kind of does the same thing.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah man, it's such a good point because this is what I like to kind of teach my clients is when your body is a complex system, when you have a positive impact, like let's say one variable, like let's say the breathing, or you start drinking more water and clean water, like you take one variable, it is going to affect
00:36:23
Speaker
the system in a non-linear way, at least to your perception. So that's the beauty of things like this, you know, like these modalities, it literally just, it kind of almost kick-starts the system. You know, now you're breathing better, now you're sleeping better, now you're happier, you're less cranky, you need less stimulants or you need less freaking downers in the evening, now your wife is happier.
00:36:54
Speaker
The sky's the limit. But obviously, if you change multiple inputs into the complex system, then you may have even better results. So this is what I also like to tell people. Don't just focus on one thing. There's a ton of other things. I know with diabetes, you've got your supplements that can help, your exercise, obviously diet.
00:37:19
Speaker
in what like what condition doesn't improve when you you know add exercise and freaking you know improve diet and you know add better water and stuff like that so it's it's almost like should go without saying i think it yeah and that's how i feel about the breathing stuff it's and you just nailed it's like a it's a whole body intervention right it's not just
00:37:40
Speaker
Taking one supplement that's one chemical or you know one drug that targets one neurotransmitter functioning or something you know like there's all these different interventions we use but. When you do stuff like breathing or meditation or exercise or sleeping better some more sunlight or whatever it might be you know it's like this whole body intervention where it has so many effects that.
00:38:03
Speaker
it seems it's I have to be very cautious when I talk about it because it seems you know very panacea ish infomercial late night like oh you can just breathe it because it's not it doesn't fix everything like I'm I still have tons of issues like it's like no one's perfect right but it it gives you this kind of like just whole body approach and mind to mind body approach why they call them you know mind body therapies like it kind of it does everything at once
00:38:30
Speaker
And so for each person, it's going to help them in the way they need the most. Like when you activate that parasympathetic nervous system consistently, that's going to have positive downstream effects on everything. But if you have, you know, a dysfunctional pancreas, that's probably where you'll notice it the most, right? Cause it's going to help a little bit functioning there cause you're going to stimulate it or whatever it might be. That's just a hypothetical example, but yeah.
00:38:53
Speaker
If you're super stressed, you might notice it in the stress and not even care about your heart rate variability. Even though they're both working, all you might notice is that, Hey, I'm not as stressed now. And that's good enough. Like good, great. Even though it's doing the other things, you noticed it for what you needed in your life. So that's where it's super powerful. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And literally I like, I forgot what I was going to say next. Perfect.
00:39:18
Speaker
Oh, perfect. No, it's good. It's good though. It's like really awesome information. Let's, okay. Oh yeah, here's what I was going to say, right? So there's, I can't remember where I read or heard this, right? But when you have a type
00:39:36
Speaker
A or the type A personality, you know, they're kind of more, you know, high achievers, you know, this kind of thing. So depending on the person you're dealing with, you want to like certain folks, they want a very sort of simple
00:39:54
Speaker
instruction and these kind of more type a people they actually get bored with simple. Interventions like even meditation or you know emotional freedom technique when you're tapping on meridians so like i think that's where i understood this so coaches.
00:40:12
Speaker
with that when working with type a want to give them more instructions are kind of more preamble when set up it's like you know like you're set up for you know like you do your routine that they know can you get your game face on so in the type either want a very simple thing right so
00:40:29
Speaker
Well, can you just like, uh, I don't know why, why I had to preamble the question with that. Cause you know, I'm type A, so you needed to set it up for me. Yeah, maybe. But, uh, so like these exercises, at least I'm not as well versed with the oxygen advantage stuff as the Botteco stuff, but the Botteco exercises are like,
00:40:53
Speaker
Super simple, right? Can you, like, just introduce folks, because I know some people might be intimidated that it's going to be too much work to implement this into their routine and blah, blah, blah, they're busy and blah, blah, blah. Can you, like, like, introduce what's, what does it look like to be doing these exercises to help with your condition or just your general health?
00:41:17
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah. I mean, it is, it can be so simple. Like, I mean, you could just sit down and focus on your breath. Like you mentioned, like a meditation, essentially, and just focus on your breathing in and out. And like you mentioned, that's going to naturally calm down the breath. You know, it's called breath awareness. That's usually the first step in, in any breathing program is just becoming aware of your breath. I won't go too deep into that because it, it gets complicated, right? But like.
00:41:45
Speaker
By focusing on it, most people alter their breathing. Like the minute you think about it, you focus it, you usually slow down. But the reason that's a cornerstone, so it is a good starting place to sit and just focus on your breathing is because
00:42:00
Speaker
to really make this stuff work in your life. Like if you're serious about using breathing for something to improve your life, you have to have mindfulness so that when things happen in the real world, you are mindful of them, right? That's the whole point of mindfulness. You aren't just reactive.
00:42:18
Speaker
So starting with mindfulness is a shortcut to that because you're learning that technique so that when you learn more breathing techniques, then when things happen in your life, you're mindful enough to say, oh, this is a perfect time to do my breathing technique rather than exploding and then saying, oh, I should have done my breathing technique. So mindfulness of breathing or breath awareness or whatever you want to call it is the simplest starting point. But if you were like, no, I need something. I want a breathing practice. It's really simple.
00:42:47
Speaker
breathe in for four seconds and then breathe out for six seconds. Use, you can use an app. Um, there's so many apps out there. There's, there's great one. Patrick actually just released a new app for the oxygen advantage and he'll guide you. You'll hear his voice guiding you through that exact exercise four seconds in six seconds out. Um, and it's free to everyone. So that's the oxygen advantage. So if you just,
00:43:11
Speaker
You know, and that's on Google Play or so Android or iPhone. There's another one called Breathe. It's just called Breathe.
00:43:21
Speaker
And that one's on both, too, iPhone or Android. And that one's free. And it's super simple. You just set a slider, four seconds in, six seconds out. So that would be the simplest starting point for anyone. Four seconds in, six seconds out. 10 minutes a day would be the minimum. Shoot for 20 minutes. You can do it in one session or two, whatever works for you. Sprinkle a few minutes here and there throughout your day. That's another way to really feel the benefits. And I'll give you a simple example for me is,
00:43:51
Speaker
I don't always remember, so my mindfulness isn't perfect, but when I switch tasks, like if I'm working on reading a paper and then I'm going to switch over to answering emails or something like that, I take like two to four breaths. That's it. I do something called the centering breath where I do
00:44:09
Speaker
inhale for six seconds hold for two exhale for seven and i do that for just sometimes i use alternate nostril breathing it just depends and just one or two breaths three or four breaths like it resets you and you're like ah okay i'm switching tasks like let me let me sit on this one um so that's a way to introduce it into your day but really the
00:44:30
Speaker
just the four seconds in six seconds out is where I would tell people to start 10 minutes at least one 10 minute session or two 10 minute sessions or even one 20 minute session so whatever works for you and then from there if you're type a and you want to switch it up
00:44:47
Speaker
There's endless right so i think of slow breathing like green green veggies right like some people like cauliflower some like broccoli some chaos me collards like they're all really good for you and each one has a little slightly different thing that could help you out right that could give you a little nutrition or whatever it might be and so.
00:45:06
Speaker
You could do like the four, seven, eight breath by Andrew while, or you could do four, four, six, two, or you could do five or six, two, seven. Like I just said, like you could play with the ratios and you know, have fun with it until you're, uh,
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah. To your, to your heart's desire and never get bored with it. So there's always that, um, but it is extremely simple. Like it's really hard. That's why Wim Hof is so popular. Cause this is super intense and type eight people just run to it. Whereas like the slow breathing does a lot of the same things over time, but it's, it's, it's the gradual approach. It's the really boring approach. And, and it's, you know, so yeah. So I fight with that.
00:45:48
Speaker
We have stuff dude that that gets you high exactly.
Advanced Breathing Practices and Cautions
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's like bossed. Yeah, it's really yeah, you're flooding your body with all these, you know adrenaline and all this stuff and even so there was a study on his brain where they put him in.
00:46:05
Speaker
cold, ran cold water over him. In any case, they hypothesized, they didn't have like the direct evidence, but based on like fMRI scans, I think it was, they said that they think he's, he's activating the endocannabinoid system. So, and then the innate opioid systems. So like, really feeling high on your own supplies, as he likes to say. So there's, there is some
00:46:27
Speaker
people, there are scientists who say that I don't think there's direct proof, but it kind of makes sense. Like you feel great afterward, you feel less pain, you get in the cold, it doesn't hurt as bad, you know, there's, there's different things. But so yeah, the simple approach though, just slow breathing. And then you can make it as complicated as you want. You could do alternate nostril breathing, things like that. They all have their own benefits. And then if you want to take it further, you can do the breath holds, maybe you can give folks a primer on what's that, what's the benefit of the breath holds?
00:46:56
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So when you hold your breath, you're basically, uh, you're dropping your blood oxygen saturation. That's the goal there. Well, there's two goals, but that's one of them. And when you drop your blood oxygen saturation, it's sort of like going to high altitude. You know, people probably know that when you go to high altitude, you start producing more red blood cells. And this has a lot of beneficial adaptations and these populations that live at high altitude tend to live longer and healthier lives in general. I know there's always exceptions, but
00:47:24
Speaker
And so when you deliberately hold your breath, drop your blood oxygen saturation, it can, it can simulate a few of these benefits. It triggers some adaptations in your body that are beneficial, like your spleen contracts and releases more red blood cells. It can over time increase. I'll see if I can say it right. Arethropoietin EPO, you know, the blood doping thing. Arethropoietin. Yeah. Arethropoietin.
00:47:53
Speaker
And so there's, there's some benefits there. It can help with immune function and anti-inflammatory stuff. So to do it though, it's real, you know, the way oxygen advantage does it is after an exhalation. So you inhale through your nose, exhale through your nose, pinch your nose and hold your breath. And you use a pulse oximeter to make sure you don't drop below like 80% blood oxygen saturation to keep it in that therapeutic range. And.
00:48:22
Speaker
Yeah, you do walking and you can do pushups or what there's a lot of different ways. Patrick does it, but it's usually just walking breath holds or maybe a light jogging and you do it, you know, three to five sets, um, or even 10 sets of these, of these really small, like you're only dropping your blood oxygen saturation for like 10 or 15 seconds or whatever it might be. It's a really, but it's the repeated going down, coming back up, going down, coming back up that leads to these beneficial adaptations. And so.
00:48:51
Speaker
If you want to Google some of the benefits, you know, it's called intermittent hypoxia training is one way you can find some of the benefits, some other benefits. The only issue, right? Is that it's a, it's a stressor. So you have to, if you have like cardiovascular problems or if you're pregnant, things like that, like.
00:49:06
Speaker
You don't want to go near these. Just focus on the simple restoring practices and work with a coach if you're interested in breath hold training, freediver. There's freediving coaches, there's breath coaches. They can all train you safely to make sure like, okay, you're in a good spit state health wise to partake in these practices. And do you do online coaching or do you only work with folks in person? What's your
00:49:34
Speaker
What do you do? Right now, I don't do any kind of coaching. I'm a nerd. I just read and present information to people. So I do have something called the Breath is Life Learning Center, where I basically review books and I review scientific papers and translate them into simple, actionable things, things like what we've been talking about. Like, oh, here's a study. And here's how you apply this.
00:50:02
Speaker
All this jargon, here's what you do. You take out your phone, you set the app to this, and you do this for 10 minutes, and that's how you could actually apply this research in your life today. It's kind of like what I wish I had going into it, like a simplified version of the science and of books.
00:50:17
Speaker
key concepts cuz like for example there's people like richard brown and patricia gerbark who. They wrote a book called the healing power the breath and it's got all this beautiful ideas and techniques and so i just you know take the best of that put it in a pdf for people and give them an audio tape you know audio track and.
00:50:35
Speaker
So they can practice it without having to read the book and do the training. It's like, here's just the simplest things from this book or from Wim Hof's book or from Patrick's books. So if they're interested in my work, that's one way to get trained by me is basically I give you all the stuff I'm researching and so you can do it yourself.
00:50:54
Speaker
In the future, I hope to do one-on-ones. It's just I'm an introvert. And I really like being, narrating out on books and reading and sitting in my room by myself and practicing the stuff myself. So getting talking one-on-one to people, I don't mind it, but I'm an introvert. So I avoid it if I can. Yeah, man. I wish I had more time to just sit around and read books. Undisturbed. God, I wish I had more time,
Integrating Breathing with Lifestyle Practices
00:51:20
Speaker
bro. That's my dream.
00:51:24
Speaker
What, just as we kind of, you know, wind this down, can you just, for folks with diabetes listening, what other advice would you give? Now we covered the breathing stuff. What stuff are you doing that you could kind of share with other folks that can also help? Just so aside from the breathing stuff, huh? Yeah. I mean, like if you want to incorporate other stuff related to breathing into the advice for sure, please go ahead.
00:51:55
Speaker
Sure. So yeah, I mean, the big one is I do my breathing practice every day. And that just sets my mental side, right? The one that I can't speak to, but I feel like everyone with diabetes has to look at is food, right? Everyone's different. I hate it. It's like it becomes
00:52:13
Speaker
religious and stuff when you talk about food and diets and things, but eating at least eating a lot of vegetables, uh, whether, you know, everything else, it seems like everyone can agree that the more vegetables we eat, the better. So eat a lot of vegetables. If you can, I can't afford organic for everything. So, you know, or
00:52:29
Speaker
i can't afford to go to the farm or don't have time to go to the farmer's market i try to be pretty reasonable i go to the grocery store i buy tons of broccoli and kale and collard greens and whatever i can get my hands on so i'm not perfect but i noticed the more vegetables i eat the better i feel so that's a big one exercise i do a lot of walking you mentioned i walked a hundred miles that was that was really really really bad for my health so one day well it took me
00:52:59
Speaker
It took me 35 hours straight. You went 35 hours straight. Yeah. Straight. No sleep. Just went because at the end, once I hit about mile 70, I got through the first 50 miles in 12 hours. And then once I hit about mile 70, I was like dead. And so I would just, I was taking so many breaks. I would stop and sit, go stop. It was like, I couldn't walk more than like a quarter of a mile without taking a break.
00:53:26
Speaker
Was the backpack the 20 pound pack full of snacks and stuff? Or was it just like, there's a way Oh, I was actually I'm at my house here. It was just like, I left from my driveway and I walked to this park and walked around it until they closed. Then I came back to I walked all the way back to my house and I would just walk this loop around my neighborhood, essentially.
00:53:52
Speaker
And just kept going so I could stop at my house and get food, snacks, you know, use the restroom and things like that. So I was, it kind of made it harder because I had a crutch here. Um, and I had a lot of support, you know, tons of friends and family around me, but it was for raising awareness about breathing and chronic disease, like not just diabetes, like any people dealing with chronic crap in their life. Like, okay.
00:54:14
Speaker
breathing just for the reason we've been talking about like the emotional side everything it was like here's a way for me to kind of I'm kind of crazy so I was like oh this would be a good test in any case I went way off but you I can imagine you know that that Homer Simpson one where he's like with the bell the end is nigh like breathe better damn it
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was not good for my health. I still do that. It was in 2020. I was on it was on leap day. So it was February 29. So just over three years ago.
00:54:48
Speaker
Wow. So, but, but the point I was getting has that exercise of walking, uh, I find to be really helpful for my blood sugar because people, you know, diabetes is so weird. Like if you go really intense, it will, it might actually raise your blood sugar. Um, and, and so you have to find this like sweet spot and I find just simple walking, like to be so helpful for maintaining baseline insulin sensitivity and things like that.
00:55:13
Speaker
And then, of course, sleep. And I'm not perfect at this either, but breathing definitely plays a role here. I use mouth tape still to this day. I've been doing that for five years. Yeah. Same. Five years here. Awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. We're in the club for life, the lifers. Dude, for life, I always have at least two or three boxes of 3M micro port tape.
00:55:34
Speaker
because after the supply chain issues from 2020, you know, after that trauma, like, no, I need, if, if things go down, how in the heck, I cannot like start manufacturing glue and tape. How am I going to do this? I don't know. That's hilarious. I like your dedication. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, certain things I could do, you know, I can maybe farm or like, you know, hunt or fish, but how am I going to like create a manufacturing facility for glue and micropore tape? There you go.
00:56:02
Speaker
I like I love that. Yeah. And I mean, it's the simplest thing for all of breathing. Like if you don't want to do anything, it's like that. I call it the passive income of health because it's like, literally just put a piece of tape over and go to bed. Like there's no you don't have to dedicate any extra time, nothing. Of course, you got there are a few safety concerns or whatever. But like, for the most part, it's pretty safe. And it can help at least keep your breathing
00:56:27
Speaker
levels slightly, you know, reduced and keep you breathing through your nose, which has all sorts of benefits for seven to nine hours or however long people sleep. But, but yes, sleep is a huge one. So, you know, breathing, food, whatever food you, you like, uh, but good foods and then, uh, uh, exercise and sleep is the things everyone already knows, but you just, you know, doing it is the important part doing it. Yeah. Common knowledge is not always common practice as to say, exactly. Yeah.
00:56:55
Speaker
Sorry, I want to ask you another thing about that, but just about the tape, the mouth tape. In my case, when I'm on my back, my upper lip is quite short, so quite a gap between my lower lip and my upper lip. For example, my wife, back in 2018, she tried the mouth tape.
00:57:25
Speaker
But it would be 11 o'clock in the morning and I'd be going into the room to check on her like, good evening. Do you want to like wake up today? So it worked on her, but it worked like really, really well. So she doesn't actually use the mouth tape, but in her case, she
00:57:44
Speaker
She doesn't need it because like she's able to keep her mouth closed at night, you know position seemingly right so she doesn't seem to need it as much as me but I am I saw on Amazon they have like these it's like a strap that goes under your chin and above your forehead and
00:58:01
Speaker
It's like a quote unquote anti snoring chin, chin strap, I guess. And that, I suppose that keeps your jaw, sort of your lower jaw connected to your upper jaw, which probably would have a similar effect. What, what would you, would you, have you considered those or heard about those or seen those?
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, I do remember, and I think even in, uh, in the oxygen advantage, which, which I guess was like eight years ago when Patrick wrote that, but he did mention those, the straps where the pushes the job. I've never tried one just because, uh, the tape is so simple to me, but it seems like it would probably do the same thing if someone's really scared about the tape. Yeah. You know, ultimately the dream would be to like actually train your body to breathe correctly. So you don't need the tape.
00:58:50
Speaker
You know, that's what people, that's probably what I should be focusing on. Like chewing more proper oral posture, all these things that help like shape your face and keep your jaw, you know, strong. And so it'd be easy, but, but it's just so simple to just tape your mouth. So that's what I do. But, um, ultimately we probably should be like training our bodies to not need it. But, um, if you need something that there's the chin, there's also these things called.
00:59:15
Speaker
Mandipular advancement devices, I think they're called. And they push your lower jaw forward a little bit, which is supposed to kind of keep the tongue against the roof of the mouth and prevent snoring and sleep apnea.
00:59:28
Speaker
I tried one and I probably tried the wrong brand or something and it was way too uncomfortable, but I have heard. I, you read the testimonials and it sounds just like mouth tape, like best sleep I've ever gotten and all this gold again, a mandipular advancement device, M a D.
00:59:46
Speaker
Can you get it from Amazon? Yeah, you can get them on Amazon. See, I bought one on Amazon that was like just a one, like I just picked one and bought it. But there's ones that you put in boiling water and then mold it to your mouth. And that's what I probably should have done because the one I bought was just it hurt my teeth way too bad. And you obviously just wear it when you sleep. Yeah, just when you sleep. Yeah.
01:00:07
Speaker
Interesting. I look into it because I do snore on my back. So that's probably like some type of, it could be structure. You know how it is. There's so many different, like I had braces when I was like a teenager. So that caused a lot of my issues with like my jaw not able to close like perfectly and aligned perfectly. It's everybody's got problems, but what I will definitely attest to as I'm sure you will is,
01:00:35
Speaker
for two bucks or whatever like one five meter roll of 3m micro port tape an inch in width 2.5 centimeters you tear a little bit of it off before bed you put it across your lips
01:00:50
Speaker
And you see all your lips together. Once you try that, I think most people were like, wow. Like, wow. You know, simply wow. Like, I think one of the cheapest, easiest hacks that one can invest in, you know.
01:01:07
Speaker
by far. Yeah, the number one. I mean, it's, it's a weird one. And people thinks it sounds funny. But you know, there's, luckily, you know, there's actually there's a study on mouth taping. So that gives it a little bit of credence now. And then there's tons of companies on Amazon. So if you don't, if you feel weird, putting like micropore tape, I don't, that's what I use. But
01:01:28
Speaker
there's so many companies, there's Somnifex, there's Simply Breathe, I just drift. There's so many, you know, I can't keep track of them all. But if people can find whatever, whatever they need online and, and feel a little safer if they feel kind of scared knowing like these brands are designed for sleep, like they've
01:01:49
Speaker
gotten funding, they've gotten the clearance, they've sold on Amazon. It's like, you know, it's legitimate to some extent, I guess. So there's other options, but I use the micro pour. I actually do the vertical now. So I used to be horizontal, but now I just do like a little strip here. And I probably still mouth breathe a little bit, but I like kind of that my jaw can still move if it needs to.
01:02:10
Speaker
Um, so there's, there's different approaches. I would definitely suggest Mark Burhenny and people Google Mark Burhenny. That's B U R H E N N E. He's a dentist, a doctor, and he has a credible stuff on mouth tape, like safely how to do it effectively, all the benefits. And yeah, that would definitely suggest looking him to make sure you do it right. And don't have any contraindications.
01:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, I will try to find him as well. I will do it vertically because I will be saving tape, but I probably just drew like sometimes like the tape dislodges and I just like wake up with like a bit of pool of drew, let's say. But what I do now is I actually put one on the two lips and then just
01:03:00
Speaker
another smaller piece on top and the bottom just to kind of really stick it together because I just I mean I have a lot of the tape so I guess I'm wasting it but I just want to make sure that the seal because nothing worse than the seal kind of because it got wet at night it's kind of getting dislodged and you're like looking for tape you wake up and you can't fall asleep all these things so I just like boom boom boom stick it on there it's like harder part is if like you're trying to sometimes you guys
01:03:29
Speaker
Oh my god how long are we gonna continue talking about taping your mouth. I mean it's such an easy tool I mean it's so dude like when people people just listening please just try it it is a game changer I cannot like Patrick I believe.
01:03:47
Speaker
When I got his book, Oxygen Advantage, back in 2018, I went the same day. I went to the little pharmacy where we were living. I think the next day, this was in Portugal, and literally the next day I went and signed up for his Botteco practitioner training course. That's how good I felt the next day after sleeping with the tape.
01:04:14
Speaker
Very, very similar here. Almost identical. Yeah. I did. I heard him on a podcast and that night just, I was like out driving. I was like, I'm just going to pull in Walgreens and grab some paper tape, you know, whatever. And then the next day I was like, Oh my God, this is insane.
01:04:31
Speaker
But again, like, I was a heavy mouth breather. So, like, my wife doesn't notice as big of a difference from doing it. And I've heard from people say, I didn't really notice it. And I'm like, well, you must have been a nasal breather, you know, or who knows, there's always something right. So nothing's a one size fits all. But for a majority of people, it can be life
Supplements and Nutrition for Diabetics
01:04:50
Speaker
changing. Like, like you said, like, I'm signing up for a call. I need to understand this. What the heck is going on?
01:04:57
Speaker
God bless that guy, man. Yeah, for real. Just to wrap, just to go back a quick, a few minutes ago, I asked you, I forgot to, I wanted to ask you, what about any dietary supplements? Do you take supplements yourself? Are you a fan or not?
01:05:14
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I take, I take alpha lipoic acid. Uh, and again, I don't know too much of the science I've just read on every diabetes website. That's a good one. I take L-theanine in the morning with my coffee, just to kind of, I love coffee. Like I can't give up coffee. So I use that just to kind of taper the, the, you know, the, the crazy sympathetic overdrive. Yeah. I do take ginkgo bilopa sometimes just for mental or whatever. And then.
01:05:44
Speaker
I cycle with other stuff so it's not like it's like a multivitamin just to like get a ton of B12 and some other things I don't probably get in my diet.
01:05:55
Speaker
probiotic every now and then, but not as consistently. So I've been trying to take a multivitamin more just like, I don't know, maybe it's not the right approach. I don't know. But I don't research. It's funny how I am because like I researched so deeply into some topics and others I just like Google like, just tell me what to do. I don't feel like I've had enough reading like and so with with multivitamins and stuff, I just kind of like cycle them in and out just to
01:06:36
Speaker
alpha lipoic acid on an empty stomach with trimethylglycine because recently I read that alpha lipoic acid can deplete methyl groups. So I have trimethylglycine. So I take that with that. I also take trimethylglycine because I have the, I'm homozygous for the MTHFR polymorphism. So that just kind of has to do with.
01:06:47
Speaker
just to get some more things in my body. But I should probably ask you since you seem to be really into that stuff.
01:07:04
Speaker
Metapholate metabolism and stuff like that. But yeah, look I That's I'm telling you if you there's another rabbit hole you could if you if you understand research, bro Bruce Ames is your guide to look into night Yeah, I mean I
01:07:20
Speaker
I, uh, I try to just eat well. And I know that's not enough with today's, like our soils messed up and the nutrients it's like, I understand all that. It's just like, I feel like there's so many battles to fight. And I just, if I, if I start getting into anything, I get so upset and just like, it just, so many rabbit holes, you know? And so I just, I'm like, okay, in certain areas of my life, I just have to accept, like.
01:07:45
Speaker
good enough like okay I eat vegetables I you know I eat fish and you know like I mean and there's problems with that too and so there's just all these issues and it's like
01:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I just have to say good is enough. Absolutely. I appreciate Bruce Ames. I'm writing it down if I could find my pen. Yeah, he the thing that I saw yesterday when I was I mentioned earlier yesterday, I was reading the chapter on diabetes in my my awesome book, the textbook of natural medicine. So
01:08:16
Speaker
This is a quote I just pulled out of there. So one of the hallmark features of type 2 diabetes mellitus is the presence of higher levels of free radicals and pro-oxidants, particularly an increased production of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, so ROS and RNS. So these compounds are also activated by high blood glucose and elevated levels of saturated fat.
01:08:41
Speaker
They're produced in the abdominal fat cells of individuals who are overweight or obese. So they are, as you know, for sure, but just for the listeners. So these compounds greatly stress antioxidant mechanisms. They directly oxidize and damage cellular components, DNA proteins and cell membranes.
01:09:00
Speaker
So they inflict damage on these structures, they induce damage to tissues by activating several inflammatory compounds, so NF kappa B. So that can lead to insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion, right?
01:09:17
Speaker
You already kind of went over the mechanisms of breathing better, vagal nerve sort of activation and so on. These things are obviously going to have a positive effect for inflammation.
01:09:33
Speaker
But I just wanted to throw out there a few supplements that folks can look into. It's an antioxidant in itself, it's a neutralizer of toxins, and it's also a part of the glutathione
01:09:53
Speaker
molecule, right? So glutathione is, quote unquote, the master antioxidant of the cell. Now, from what I understand, there is a lot of glutathione in lung tissue. And from reading the chapter on diabetes in Patrick's book, which obviously you helped with, so you may have come across this research, is there's a lot of
01:10:19
Speaker
disorders like CLPD, you know, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, asthma. So I think I've seen research in asthma where there's lower glutathione. So if you can boost glutathione production, you're helping your immune system as well because glutathione
01:10:38
Speaker
is also used to neutralize heavy metals and chemicals, of course, but also toxins as part of antibody responses to microbial threats, stuff like that.
01:10:54
Speaker
and alpha lipoic acid you already mentioned, NAC, and yeah man, multivitamin has to, I think nowadays has to just go without saying for anybody. It doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter your state of health. If you want to continue to be healthy, you need to make sure you get those minerals and vitamins, especially the minerals. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, uh, there's so many out there finding the right ones. Yeah. So just yeah. Yeah. Good luck people.
01:11:24
Speaker
Good luck. I really want to do a video course on supplementation, but to be honest with you, after the last three years, the supply chain issues, some of my supplements have almost tripled in price. Many have doubled that I take. So I've actually curtailed my supplement intake because prices.
01:11:46
Speaker
So I've probably, I probably like figure out how to do like supplementation on a budget, how to get your, if you need a specific mineral or vitamin or nutrient, how to get, get it from food, I think, or how to do like, what you call it, like a gut pathogen protocols on a budget. So like with garlic, honey, things like just natural products, you know, so you're adding real nutrition instead of synthesized.
Breathing and Spiritual Well-being
01:12:12
Speaker
That's always the best approach to let nature take care of it. But back in the day, the amount of nutrition you could get out of a carrot, it literally could be like a dozen times more nutrition a hundred years ago. A hundred times.
01:12:34
Speaker
All right, Nick, I have a couple more questions for you, bro. So I have a Solutions Talk segment, so we always end the episodes on a positive note because sometimes we don't necessarily talk about the most joyous topics. Of course. So for the Solutions Talk,
01:12:52
Speaker
segment is the question to you is what are you doing that others can also do to increase their freedom self-reliance and or resilience to the challenges that we face this decade and beyond it take control of your breathing right that is it for sure I mean just practice breathing there's
01:13:14
Speaker
you know, we mentioned, I mentioned like it actually does it changes your heart rate variability, which changes your resilience, like your ability to bounce back from stressors. It's not that stressors go away, it's that you can cope with them better and, and, you know, bounce back faster and not get as thrown off track. So
01:13:32
Speaker
There's also a big spiritual component to breathing, to understanding that breath is life. Without the breath, there's nothing else. So not religion, right? Spirit, that we are here, we're alive, we're so fortunate to be here. And just how literally amazing that is. I start each breathing practice by saying in my head this thing I heard in this book that it's essentially like,
01:13:56
Speaker
how amazing that I have an abundance of the most valuable resource to humans on the planet. I have it right here. All I have to do is barely breathe at all and I get an oxygen. I get the, it's there. So like we have infinite gratitude and I do like just like four or five breaths like that at the very beginning of my practice, just going through my head like, wow, this breath is mine. Like I don't even barely have to try and I'm getting,
01:14:22
Speaker
the most, you can go forever without food, water, not forever, but you know, you can go a lot longer without food, you can go longer without water, you, you know, money, all these different things. It's like, but breathing, it's right here all the time and how lucky we are. So you can use that as a source of gratitude. And, and that can make you feel just, you know, a more sense of awe and gratitude for the world when you step outside. And that can make you feel a little more spiritual or whatever it might be. It doesn't have to be, but I don't want to sound too woo woo there, but just gives you a
01:14:50
Speaker
You just feel better, you feel good. And so that's something that's evolved for me over time as a nerdy scientist, just being so grateful for little things. And so I would say, do your breathing practice, focus on your breath, and show some gratitude for your breath, and that'll help you for the rest of your life.
01:15:11
Speaker
That's amazing, bro. Thank you. It's nice to kind of see, because we know a lot of folks that are deep into science, they are attracted to the more mechanistic model of the world and whatnot.
01:15:32
Speaker
that takes a lot of the awe, like you said, and the beauty and the mystery of the world and life and nature and the human body. So that's awesome to hear that from you. Yeah. I mean, it's like that's how I started, right? I became so obsessed with breathing. I read it every day. I study it and I practice it. And it's like you can't help but as you peel back the layers,
01:16:01
Speaker
you become obsessed with one thing enough. And it turns out because breathing literally is life, like it literally is the most important thing we do.
01:16:10
Speaker
it makes it easy to kind of develop a sense of awe. And it's interesting now because luckily science is now showing us things like, there's a brilliant scientist, Lisa Miller, who wrote a book, The Awakened Brain, and she talks about this. She's a scientist, PhD, all this stuff. She doesn't say, oh, we need to be religious and we need to worship God. It's like, no, just this idea of spirituality has been shown now
01:16:37
Speaker
countless studies is like scientifically proven that it and improves your longevity it makes you happy so it's just like things we've known for for millennia as a culture that like having community and a sense of.
01:16:51
Speaker
purpose in life and things like that, that all relate back to kind of whatever you want to call it, spirit, purpose, you know, life force or whatever it might be is beneficial. And so to me, breathing was that gateway. And that's simply just because I studied so much, I couldn't help but get to that point, I think. So anyways, I'll quit rambling.
01:17:11
Speaker
That's beautifully said It reminds me of a quote that I'm gonna butcher from a person I will not remember and it's gonna be very embarrassing, but it was something like Was it Who was it Fritjof Capra and
01:17:34
Speaker
you know, the guy that wrote the Tao of physics. But I can't remember. I have one of his books here that I've not even read yet. But it's like if you study, like if you go, I forgot who it was, dude, could it be Newton or something? But if you if you go deep enough down the scientific path, it will eventually lead you to God, you know, whatever God
01:17:58
Speaker
Could have been Richard Feynman. He's a big fan of like, cause he was one of the, you know, first scientists that like realized that like it could help you experience more beauty by understanding it. Like he made those connect, like watching a flower, you know, understanding all the crazy things going on at the, you know, sub micron level or whatever. I don't understand all that, but, um, but it was, yeah, it was an interesting perspective. So I definitely, there is like some quote.
01:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, I can't remember so I won't even try but similar like, you know, most scientists start out the more you study the closer you end up to God, like, you know, whatever it might be. So in any case, to me, just the breath thinking of it as like your spirit or your life force or whatever it might be. It doesn't have to be too intense or anything. It just gives you a little bit of like, gratitude is really gratitude. I think it's like just an off like, wow, I have this infinite resource right here all the time. And
01:18:57
Speaker
And that's great. And that sets you up for a better day.
Resources and Conclusion
01:19:01
Speaker
Beautiful set, man. All right. Tell the folks where they can find you on the internet, how they can connect with you and all that good stuff. Sweet. Yeah. I'm on Instagram, the breathing diabetic at the breathing diabetic. Uh, then I have my website, the breathing diabetic.com. And then I have my, my email is Nick at the breathing diabetic. So they can email me.
01:19:20
Speaker
Instagram DM me or whatever and then I have my newsletter which is free and I think it's a really fun resource for breath learning then I also have my Breathing for diabetes course and my breath is life learning center So lots of ways if you want to learn more or support anything like that. There's tons of ways
01:19:40
Speaker
Awesome, bro. Well, listen, thank you so much for joining us today. It's just been really fun talking about, I love this topic and yeah, we'll have all those links in the episode description and thank you again for your time, bro. Awesome. Thank you, man.