1KHO 700: Mouth Breathing is Terrible | James Nestor, Breath

Oh, it's a beautiful world Ain't nothing on the screen It's never gonna beat this view Oh, it's a beautiful world And I just wanna share it with, I just wanna share it with you It's a beautiful world Such a beautiful world Oh Before we begin, I wanna say thank you for being here Today is a milestone. This is episode 700 of the 1000 hours outside podcast That is 700 conversations with authors, researchers, explorers, doctors, thinkers, parents And people who are trying to live well in a very complicated world Plus a few episodes where I was slightly awkward all by myself For episode 700, I wanted a guest whose work has impacted millions of people Across the globe And so, James Nester is here, author of Breath Three million copies sold, translated into 44 languages This conversation connects dots almost no one is connecting Mouth breathing, crooked teeth, snoring, ADHD, anxiety, endurance, sleep quality And why the way you breathe every minute of the day Might be the missing lever in your health At one point in this interview, James says something I often hear from guests No one has ever asked me that before That's part of what makes this show unique I read each guest book from cover to cover And I never use the sample questions that publicists send over That means you're getting something completely fresh Even from people who have been interviewed countless times If you're brand new to this show, I'm so glad you're here The 1000 hours outside podcast is for people who care about living well in the real world Health, family work, childhood, adulthood, and everything in between And if you've been here a while, we did do two quick things that make a huge difference First, tag follow on Apple podcasts or Spotify So these episodes land in your feet automatically Second, share this episode with friends and family If you know someone who is a mouth breather, all the more reason to send it This might nudge their health in the right direction Every parent needs to hear what James has to say Because the way kids breathe affects their sleep, focus, behavior, and development And finally, because it's episodes 700, we are celebrating We have just launched a brand new toddler shirt that says Yes, I've eaten a bug or two We're offering this t-shirt for one week at a launch price of just $10 It is absolutely adorable All week long, the rest of our apparel will be 20% off as well We have apparel for adults and kids Short sleeves, long sleeves, hoodies With sayings like born to climb trees, trail kid out here to wander A little dirt never hurt and more Honestly, it's mostly what I wear every day Check it out at 1000hoursoutside.com, slash shop No promo code is needed Alright, episode 700, James Nester, let's get into it Spring has a way of filling up the calendar quickly Field trip sports, travel, co-op, which are all good things But they can make it challenging to keep curriculum learning consistent March is really about maintaining momentum while life gets busy That's why having a flexible, organized learning tool can make such a difference in the final stretch of the homeschool year IXL is designed to fit into your routine, not complicated IXL is an award-winning online learning platform Offering interactive practice in math language arts, science, and social studies From pre-K through 12th grade, it adapts to each child's level Keeps a motivated and gives parents clear visibility into progress What I especially appreciate this time of year Is how simple and time-saving it is Everything is organized by grade and subjects so you can jump right into Exactly what your child needs Whether that's reinforcing a concept before testing Or confidently moving ahead The clear explanations and visible progress markers help kids stay encouraged As they work toward year end goals Make an impact on your child's learning, get IXL now And when thousand hours outside listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership When they sign up today at IXL.com slash 1000 Hours Visit IXL.com slash 1000 Hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best place Welcome to 1000 Hours outside podcast My name is Jenny Hurt and I'm the founder of 1000 Hours outside And I am beyond excited because James Nester is here James Welcome Thanks a lot for having me This book is absolutely phenomenal I've had it for a long time And it just been I was so excited that you said yes 3 million copy sold translated into 44 languages And I took 9 pages of notes It is a book that gives you so much hope That you can drastically improve your life with some simple things With the lost art of breathing So we're going to talk about your history We're going to talk about the launching of the book during COVID But I want to kick it off here because we're just trying to get outside James Like we're trying to like leave the indoors We're trying to get outside get off screens And you talk in this book about the toxic air indoors And we haven't really talked about that on this show before So I would love to kick it out of there You're such a fantastic writer You talk about how you're if you're stuck inside too much You're taking in someone else's breath backwards A respiratory version of stone soup So can you talk to the parent who you know it's hard to get outside We're in Michigan it's the middle of the winter It's freezing you know it's so much easier to stay indoors Or if you're listening to this in the middle of the summer in Arizona It's so much easier to stay indoors But getting outdoors helps us with toxic air Yeah well you know I don't mean to become such a bummer So early in this podcast you are it seems so happy and full of energy But I'm going to talk about some depressing things The good thing is once you know these depressing facts You can fix them And you can improve the quality of your life Your kids life of your mother-in-law's life Of everyone around you So this was something that I learned actually after the book came out This book has been out for a number of years And I was able to go around and you know do these lectures at schools And universities and different corporations And I met a bunch of very interesting people who had a bunch of knowledge about reading an error that I was not aware of And one of the things they told me was that so many of us are conscious That the CO2 levels are going up in the outside environment Which is true right today it's 423 parts per million 100 years ago you know there's 200 something parts per million so it's going up But one thing very few people seem to be talking about Is the levels of carbon dioxide in indoor environments And how deleterious that is to your health To your mental health, your physical health and more Yes okay so these are high levels So you talk about that if the carbon dioxide level is at 1500 parts per million That means that one in every 40 breaths you inhale Is someone else's exhalation So then you talk about school You're like this is going to affect your focus So we're talking about our kids You know the typical classroom is twice as high as the outside air If not more 800 to 1500 parts per million This is offices, hotels, airports, airplanes, restaurants, buses, libraries and more You say we spend 90% of our lives inside And then you talk about how hotels Can you even add on that for hotels it's recycled air because that's cheaper than bringing in the outside air Yes so the problem with so many schools today Is the levels can be up to around 2000, 2500 parts per million So this is so much higher than our bodies or our custom Just taking in this level of CO2 And dozens and dozens of scientific studies have shown that When you are in an environment with this level of CO2 in the air It significantly affects your ability to think So one study done at Harvard found that 1500 parts per million Just 1500 parts per million showed a 50, 50% decrease in cognitive tasks So if you imagine your kid is in a classroom for 8 hours a day of 2500 parts per million which has been associated with headaches Which has been associated with higher blood pressure All these physical problems and all these mental problems We're asking kids to do their best But we're not putting them in an environment that is conducive to that And in Michigan a school got a CO2 monitor And they found that their levels were north of 2000 parts per million all day long Because the school never bothered to update its HVAC system Wow so you recommend at the very least cracking windows Crack a window while you sleep You know you can't do that at a hotel usually So as much as you can if you're a teacher listening in Crack the windows in your classroom Because we don't want to be breathing in other people's exhalations So talking about kids you talk a ton about kids in this book I'm so glad you're here Our story is that we had one child that when her teeth came in she had an under bite And so at a pretty young age we had to go down this path to correct that And we learned about this thing called orthotropics Which none of my friends knew about like nobody knew I didn't know about it And we started at really young ages with this forward jaw growth appliance And you have tons of information about this concept in your book breath It is imperative is imperative for parents to read Because this is like starting really an infancy With in other cultures they are very cognizant Of making sure that kids are breathing through their mouths That they are closing they're actually closing the kids lips Like after they nurse in the middle of the night They're closing the kids lips while the baby's lips while they're napping Nursing extended breastfeeding can help with this forward jaw growth And making sure that there's enough room for the teeth But we're so focused on orthodontics and straight smiles This is so much deeper this is about making sure that you have enough airway So you give a story in this book and it's so well done Because at the end you're like this is my story and you're not expecting it But you know we have this we're bottle fed we're using pacifiers We're switching to soft baby foods at six months And then we are extracting teeth and or using braces That's making small mouths even smaller Can you talk about the long term ramifications of this? Sure I'll talk about that but I want to go back to zero two a little bit more And provide some actual bullet point things that that people can do to help mitigate this issue This is a very major issue it's affecting so many people All over the planet right now and especially in the US So what has happened with so many new schools especially new construction New hotels new conference centers is they glued up all the windows Because by gluing up the windows they can save on heating and cooling costs But what they do instead is they recycle all that air around over and over and over And I can prove this because me and a small army of people have been cruising around with CO2 monitors And showing just how bad it is in some hotels Every 20 breaths you're breathing in is someone else's exhalation So one thing that parents can do is you can buy these CO2 monitors that they're very cheap on Amazon or whatever for 30 bucks and bring them into your kid's school And make them aware of this sometimes the fix is easy if there are windows in the school Then you require them to keep them open and turn the heat up a little bit a little bit more And watch the CO2 levels and if the teachers aren't on board with this then you go to the superintendent And you have them pay attention to this because this is not some crazy conspiracy theory They're for dozens and dozens of decades Researchers all over the world were recording this and showing the damage of it So I travel a lot for my job and these hotels are a catastrophe And you wonder why you feel so crappy when you wake up in the morning So this is something I'm trying to bring awareness To and I think the more people that start talking about it the more we're going to elicit some change to go back to getting fresh air The way we were having before All of this crazy industrialization and right now we're going to be putting out a database of all of the Data that we've collected over the three years. That's going to be available for free Everywhere and we're trying to get schools on board with this as well So moving on to from CO2 putting a little cap on that Let me read For one more second because I want to read what you wrote First of all the CO2 monitors the size of a pack of playing cards. This is a small thing We've actually done a similar thing with luxe You can get a lux meter and match the amount of light and it's very similar where you think oh I can see fine indoors, but as soon as you step outdoors the numbers jump thousands And so that's really affecting your physical health So the size of a pack of playing cards in here's what you wrote There is no way a student can focus and perform at the top of her potential Breathing in this kind of air five days a week. So to your point. This is incredibly important. All right. That's it Okay, moving on to the forward jaw growth situation So one of the first things I discovered when I was researching this is why have human become such poor readers Especially kids right around 50% of kids are mouth breeders and it didn't used to be that way So the question is why how did this happen and it turns out that our Accessors our ancient ancestors were great breeders and we know that because we can look at their schools Did you know that our ancient ancestors all had perfectly straight teeth and they had straight teeth because their mouths were Enormous and with a larger mouth you have a larger airway and the reason why 90% of us 90% of us have some sort of Cricutness in our teeth has nothing to do with teeth has to do with our mouths growing smaller and smaller and smaller Smaller mouth teeth have to fight for room. So they grow on crooked smaller mouth equal smaller airway which leads to breathing Problems. So the next question is how did that happen? Why are humans the only mammals on the planet that are growing Consistently smaller and smaller mouths in such a short amount of time just over a few hundred years and the answer is food The answer is the consistency of food when you are young especially so in those early years of very fast development It is essential to have kids chewing Chewing real food. There's a movement. I'm sure you're familiar with it called baby lead Weaning where kids are weaned from the breast on top. I'm sure you probably had some experts on it But who know a lot more about it than than I do but This is how we were evolved to be and when you are chewing You develop the proper Skelicature and musculature and the proper airway so that you can breathe later on in life And that's one of the main reasons why so many kids today so many are suffering from chronic breathing issues Is that small mouth? And this is affecting their nighttime sleep as well And then that is associated with ADHD symptoms and a lot of things I mean when you talk about what this can affect I mean, it's everything for anxiety to school performance to bed wedding I mean there are so many things that this affects and once again the number is 90 90% of children have acquired some degree of deformity in their mouths and knows that's why this Book is pertinent for parents to read because you're going to learn all about this all modern schools show some degree of crooked teeth What's so interesting to me James and you talk about this quite a bit in the book This isn't a lost art So you go through so many scenarios where you say someone came out with the information and then Either they were sort of scorned out of the room or just got forgotten and dropped and then it got brought back up again So these retainer appliances that guide the jaw forward our kids did one and our even as that We have a kid doing it now. It's called orthotropics. There's a company called toothpillow that does it And they talk in the book about bio block And I remember when we were researching the different ones reading about it But bio block is sort of this continuation of one called mono block That was out in 1859 It you're kind of like shocked because it all seems so new like in my group of friends No one is talking about this James like no one is talking about doing anything different But your typical orthodontics Maybe an expander but that only is is possibly doing the top. It's not pulling the bottom jaw forward So can you talk about how this these things all the concepts in the book that you go through they've been around for hundreds of years Thousands of years. This is not new Sure, I'd love to talk about that as long as you promise we can talk more about ADHD So I can talk about ADHD now or if you want to save that for later we can talk about that later You know I'll make a note we'll talk about it in just a minute We have to talk about that because I've been trying to get the word out about this because I'm tired of getting Hundreds and hundreds of emails and letters from angry parents like I am so tired of hearing the same story From the same parents with the same kids suffering from the same problems All right, well just go for it because we can always come back to the fact that this stuff I mean that's basically it. This is not new information. This has been around people. I've been studying it for so long The monoblock has been around since 1859 so okay talk to us about ADHD Okay, so what am I talking about? So we were just talking about ADHD, but but now you'd like to talk about the monoblock I'm losing track here a little bit. I just wanted to mention that and you talk about it a lot in the book Because I think sometimes people are skeptical because they think oh this is new You know everybody I knew growing up did orthodontics everybody extracted teeth What is this new fangled thing and you're like no these things at this particular thing had been around since the 1800s So that's just the whole point I don't there's really unless you have anything you want to add there you bring up often in the book that So many of these things are tried and true around the world and for a long time. So yeah I have a lot to add there about orthodropics and about retainers so Okay, so we're gonna talk about that then we'll talk about ADHD sound good So the the issue with kids and poor breathing and mouth breathing and nasal congestion all tied to the smaller airway You have to ask yourself the question of why do kids Get these issues, right? And are we doing our best job to help mitigate them and and prevent them and treat them And I was one of those kids who had braces and headgear and extractions just like everyone else I I knew It was rare to find somebody who didn't have all of that when I was growing up And it turns out that so many of these traditional orthodontic Procedures, but they do as they make a small mouth smaller What happens to a kid who has crooked teeth because their mouth is too small, right to accommodate all their teeth What happens when you extract teeth from that mouth and then take those remaining teeth and force them Into a straight position What you do is you're essentially doing mouth binding you're making this mouth smaller and smaller and smaller While the rest of the head is growing and this is one of the reasons why so many kids have this profile that grows Backwards it's called a retro-nathic profile Because the mouth started off small and then they were made smaller by traditional orthodontic and I'm a perfect example of this So what this is doing is it's not only affecting your facial profile. It's affecting your airways making your airway smaller And Dennis have been talking about this for over 100 years So if the problem is a small mouth, why wouldn't you expand it and that's what orthodontic There's a million of these different devices that do it and this is what was first done So 120 years ago when a kid had crooked teeth They knew the mouth was too small. They would expand it They would expand the mouth and what happens when you expand the mouth you make more room for teeth to grow and straight But to also make more room for the airway to take in an easy breath of air So the one piece of advice I would suggest to parents it seems like you're already on on this train Is if your kid has crooked teeth right nobody wants crooked teeth right that's that's a sign that something's wrong with the mouth Don't make the mouth smaller Talk to a dentist a functional dentist and find a way of expanding that mouth to the size it was supposed to have been Not only will you have a better facial profile you'll have straight teeth at the end But you'll allow your kid to breathe more easily and I think this is critically important and luckily Awareness is really starting to take off now Yeah You wrote in 10 years and this is what someone said in 10 years nobody will be using traditional orthodontics We will look back at what we've done and be horrified It's the the situation and if people are kind of like well why Why if they were expanding the mouth? Did they stop and it is a little bit more of a tricky process Expand and and what you wrote in the book is that fewer teeth were easier to handle and offered more consistent results So in time orthodontics has moved away from widening the mouth and opening the airways, but this is very important to go back to This is such a fun announcement to make womb bikes is officially the 2026 bike partner of 1000 hours outside And if you've been around here long enough, you know that's not a casual partnership We care deeply about the tools that help families reclaim childhood and womb Is doing exactly that womb is founded by two dads in a Vienna garage Who simply couldn't find a bike that actually fit their kids? 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They're miles of memories before the street lights come on So this spring we're launching something brand new the 100 hour ride challenge or release a brand new tracker chart Just for logging 100 hours outside on bikes and for at members stay tuned Integration inside the 1000 hours outside app is coming if you've got little learners The womb go bikes are incredible available in six bright colors including the sweetest new powder pink that just feels like spring If you are working toward your 1000 hours outside this year a great bike makes it a whole lot easier womb designs lightweight bikes built just for kids so they can ride farther and ride happier go to womb.com and use code outside 10 I check out for 10% off your bike purchase Excluding the womb wow That's outside 10 for 10% off at w o o m.com Marches when homeschool families start looking ahead you can almost see the finish line spring goals end of your milestones Maybe even testing around the corner and this is such an important time to reinforce key skills and build confidence Before wrapping up the year if you are thinking about assessments Whether required by your state or simply the benchmarks you set for your family It's awful to have a tool that makes review simple and clear that's where I XL can really shine I XL is an award-winning online learning platform that fits seamlessly into homeschooling It offers interactive practice across math language art science and social studies from pre K through 12th grade A person lives is learning for each child keeps them engaged and gives parents clear insight into progress What stands out this time of year is a real-time feedback and progress tracking Kids get instant explanations when they miss something and parents can see exactly where growth is happening And where a little reinforcement might help it takes the guesswork out of finishing strong make an impact on your child's learning Get I XL now and 1000 hours outside listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I XL membership when they sign up today at I XL.com slash 1000 hours visit I XL.com slash 1000 hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price Marches when homeschool families start looking ahead you can almost see the finish line spring goals end of your milestones Maybe even testing around the corner and this is such an important time to reinforce key skills and build confidence before wrapping up the year If you are thinking about assessments whether required by your state or simply the benchmarks you set for your family It's awful to have a tool that makes review simple and clear. That's where I XL can really shine I XL is an award-winning online learning platform that fits seamlessly into homeschooling It offers interactive practice across math language art science and social studies from pre K through 12th grade A person lives is learning for each child keeps them engaged and gives parents clear insight into progress What stands out this time of year is a real-time feedback and progress tracking Kids get instant explanations when they miss something and parents can see exactly where growth is happening And where a little reinforcement might help it takes the guesswork out of finishing strong make an impact on your child's learning Get I XL now and 1000 hours outside listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I XL membership when they sign up today at I XL.com slash 1000 hours visit I XL.com slash 1000 hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price And then like you said this is affecting the breathing and when kids are not breathing well during the day and then also you talk a lot about at night No snoring is okay That this is showing up as ADHD symptoms. So talk to the parents who are getting mad Yeah, so what's happened when these Kids have this mouth is too small It makes them much more apt to choke on themselves at night. And this is one of the reasons why they Start breathing through the mouth you say well, that's counterintuitive. They should start breathing through the nose right? No, because on the top of that mouth is this upper palate and You can if you have a clean thumb you can place it in your mouth and you will very likely feel this very deep ridge in your upper palate That's not supposed to be there Our ancestors didn't have that it's that Ridge that upper palate is flat So that's how our mouths are supposed to be Developing but for most people me included it's vaulted. Okay, it goes up very high That takes away real estate and the sinuses which makes it harder to breathe through the nose So you default with this small mouth to be a mouth breather over and over and you could say well who cares air is air right Same air comes in through the nose comes in through the mouth which is 100% incorrect, right? We know that scientifically that that's that's false Need to be nasal breathing and so these kids now and 10% of kids in the US right now have 80 HD and 80 HD is Is diagnosed as a neurological problem? It's a problem with the brain and it's treated as such We give these kids uppers to wake them up and downers to put them down the sleep But what I've been finding and what so many researchers have been finding is it is almost always not all the time But almost always tied to sleep disorder breathing to breathing problems at night To snoring and to sleep apnea some 80% of kids with 80 HD also have sleep disorder breathing That is insane and so we're treating and that is what's causing these neurological problems So we're addressing the wrong thing. It's a plumbing problem non-molecrical problem in the brain It starts with a plumbing problem and everything gets mess up after that and what the science has also shown us very clearly is that if you choke on yourself all night every night You're stressing yourself out when you're supposed to be resting and restoring That can lead to way more sicknesses It can also stunt your physical growth. It can stunt how tall you're gonna be growing Because you release human growth hormone in these deep stages of sleep that you're not able to access So this is any enormous enormous problem and the thing that's shocking to me is that no one's talking about it and So I try to every single time I do a talk is to make parents aware So they have the knowledge so they can address this so what I would suggest parents do is If you have a kid you go into the kids room if you can hear them breathing while they're sleeping There's a problem if you can hear them snoring or choking on themselves That's an emergency So both of those things are huge red flags that your kid is struggling to breathe at night And you have to fix it if your kid is ever going to be able to celebrate in truly good health There's a zillion different ways to fix it But that's the first thing one thing I have suggested to parents before is you can download an app There's a lot of them they're free snore labs snore clock I don't you know I'm not affiliated with any of these companies and you place a phone or tablet near your kids bedside And it records them throughout the night and it gives them a snore score So that's a good general gauge on the breathing quality and so many kids have been doing this Which is why they're still waiting their beds when they're 10 11 12 years old Now on the other side of this I'll just put a cap on this little section here now is that parents These are the parents who who write me that track me down when I'm speaking publicly They say you know, I taught my kid had a nasal breath. I used this little device and After six years of going to 30 different doctors and having this kid on 40 different drugs For the first time in a single night You didn't what is bad and two weeks later almost all of his problems were resolved almost all of them resolved By learning how to properly breathe and I am so sick of getting these These messages from people and they're so angry that their kid missed so many years So many years of development by breathing poorly. So that is my message to you parents out there take this seriously This is a box you need to check Yeah, and that is the hope of the book is that you can make your life in the lives of your children significantly better Simply there are things that you can do things to pay attention, but you have to know when they're young You have to have the information and you also go on to say if you're older You have not lost all hope you wrote that the bones and the human face don't stop growing in our 20s Unlike the other bones in our bodies. They can expand and remodel into our 70s and likely beyond Which means we can influence the size and shape of our mouths and improve our ability to breathe at virtually any age all the information is in this book It is wonderfully interesting. It's a total page turner Can you share your story of this is such a wild thing James like you went to such links to learn about this and You had a book that had come out years before called deep So you'd already Dabbled in this thought of like expanding your lungs and being able to control your breath with these with this free diving community But you go to such links to research and to really find out what's going on and why this matters so much So you had your nose completely blocked For 10 days and you went through this whole procedure with another person they did it to you and you also talked similar like what I said before People have been doing this for a while. They were doing it to monkeys in those cases sometimes They would sew the nose shut to see what would happen with extended mouth breathing So can you talk about when you said goodbye to your nose for 10 days? Yeah, so I had been researching all of the Problems associated with mouth breathing specifically what it does to focus What it does to lung health what it does to mental health like anxiety and panic and asthma and more And I wanted to see how quickly that damage would come on and we tried to get a big study together at Stanford But it was gonna cost you know, if they quoted us a million dollars To do that so so the I mean obviously that was so so beyond the scope of anything I could fathom doing But they offered to allow us to run an experiment with two people So me and a friend of mine were able to enlist in 20 day experiment in which 10 days We were forced to breathe through our mouths and we recorded data three times a day to see what would happen and everything as as advertised happened and it happened Within a single day spikes and blood pressure loss of focus and the most startling thing of all is I don't snore. I don't have sleep apnea In a single day of converting to mouth breathing. I was snoring and the longer I was mouth breathing the more severe the snoring got So this is this is a big issue and it's a big issue with people with seasonal allergies Which is why they tend to snore and have sleep apnea more During springtime when allergies are up. So if we didn't find any shocking information What what we found was called formation of what the science has been telling us for so long Just a 10 day change and even in five days you're like this is destroying health you talk about Getting up to pee you talk about your mouth being dry you talk about this chemical vasopressin and just how quickly it changes It's so interesting to read about you talked about you just felt awful and every day it seemed to get worse Then can you talk about because actually so I know about the mouth breathing just because our kids I've gone through these appliances and so the orthodontist would always say like lips together Teet together tongue at the roof of your mouth. I mean, I remember thinking James Why she I'd never heard of this. I'm like, what is she talking about? Why is this such a big deal? My functional therapy and how are you using your tongue? So I knew about it But I tend to breathe through my mouth when I exercise and you know because you're thinking I'm getting more air But you talk about how that actually This is a like this is a life-changing thing for me to read because Then you I've always felt like well exercises so hard and I'm so exhausted So you say if you could train yourself to breathe through your nose even when you're exercising and you talk about Olympic teams and runners how this changes their performance in the way they feel Yeah, so again, that's just a A recap of decades and decades of research that was all saying the same exact thing That if you think about an athlete or if you think about physical exercise If you were wasting energy breathing if you're taking an air that you aren't using Which is what happens when you mouth breathe and you breathe into the chest and you over breathe You were taking in all of this air, but it never makes it to the lungs to participate in gas exchange So it's just a waste of your energy Then you're not going to perform very well So I can count on one hand how many joggers I've seen jogging around With a closed mouth right breathing in and out of their noses But think about a cheetah over a horse Galloping at a very fat. They're always breathing through their noses Always and this is what we're designed to be doing for people who say well, it's impossible when I'm jogging I just can't do it Look at Kempoji running a two-hour marathon Right and and look at his breathing. He's running at what 14 miles per hour 13 miles per hour for two hours And look at his breathing the shoulders are relaxed he's breathing in and out of his nose Right, so if if you can do it for that long you can do it too It takes a very long time for some people to convert The nasal breathing when they're exercising And some people have structural issues in the nose and they need surgery But for most of us it's just a habit we need to change and when we change that habit You start to learn what true efficiency feels like Yeah Wow That's a that's a part that I wouldn't have even considered So you got these plugs up your nose you say everywhere we go We either get questioned or somebody gives us their long life story of breathing woes How they're congested how their allergies keep getting worse Breath in health through the mouth saps the body of strength deforms the face and causes stress and disease On the other hand breath in health through the nose keeps the body strong makes the face beautiful And prevents disease so there is so much to learn here this is so remarkable That it even affected this woman with scoliosis So you talk about the lungs That if you expand the shape the the size of the lungs That this is really going to affect your longevity And so we have I guess it's like you read it and you're like gosh we have a lot more control Than we might think we did so can you talk about because I think I had written like this is where I was like Wow, we can really change our lives about Katarina Schroff And how she had this I mean there's huge curving our spine and was able to really improve her quality of life and the quality of others through breathing She was a teenager growing up in Dresden about a hundred years ago and diagnosed with moderate scoliosis and Given embrace in a cane and told that this was going to a problem that she was going to have the rest of her life And she had other Thoughts about the body's potential and she Developed a method is basically yoga nothing more Fancing than that Of learning how to breathe in completely into both of her lungs and straighten her spine right now If you're sitting down or if you're standing or even if you're walking you could take a huge breath and huge breath And You notice what happens to your posture right? We have these two balloons right in the middle of our Of our chest that when they're inflated our posture gets a lot better So she literally straighten her spine with breathing and then taught this to thousands and thousands of women Throughout Germany. It's still taught today. It absolutely works And it's this is another thing if you have a kid with scoliosis It's especially effective for kids So a kid with scoliosis right now Check out the Schroff method CH R O TH I think they're still teaching it at Johns Hopkins It absolutely works and especially for kids because kids are much more malleable Within a few weeks you can see massive massive Improvements of just learning how to breathe properly one thing. I'll add to that I was talking to Dr. Andrew Wilde who I'm sure you know who he is and a great of doctor harbor guy He asked me a question. He said What a kid's get scoliosis was like, I don't know. It's genetic. It's something else. He's like no. We still have no idea We have no idea. So he his hypothesis is that it's caused possibly By dysfunctional breathing when we're young if we are curved in one position when we're sleeping as an infant One lung will always be inflating as the other will happen flate and then the spine will gently start curving Into that position So it's no one can prove this we can't run a randomized clinical trial of you know kids over the course of 20 years to do this Completely unethical But the mechanics of it make a lot of sense to me So pay attention to the bed your kids sleep and on pay attention if they seem to be Tilted to one side or if they're breathing irregularly And if you prevent this earlier it's so much easier to treat it than it is later on But the good news is even if your kid is in their teens it's still or even as an adult This is treatable It is so remarkable when you read about these huge gains and you talk about how these were just sort of random people You call them polminats and that you know There's all sorts of medical doctors and but these are people that really Wanted to see change or needed to see change. So you talked about scoliosis Catarina breathe at her spine straight again. She helped people who had gone to the hospitals and the hospitals had given up Trying to heal them And then you also talk about infosima and this choir teacher this choral teacher Who is helping his singers exhale properly and enlarge their lungs and the the gains are so large James and They're often so fast He took his work to help patients who had infosima And he called it a disease of exhalation. They couldn't get enough of their stale air out and many also helped athletes So can you talk about stow? Mm-hmm. So I I can fold this into the whole Spiel about asthma as well You have these conditions in which people are struggling to breathe right they have this chronic inflammation in their lungs and they Adopt very dysfunctional breathing habits To cope with that for people with infosima they're Losing the function of certain parts of their lungs. So they adopt this habit of just They use different muscles to take an inhale. They're never letting that full breath in And they're never able to let it out So what style found was that most infosimics were their diaphragms and the diaphragm is this umbrella-shaped muscle that sits underneath the lungs. It was stuck So it was it was literally stuck so they could only take these little gasps of air these He found if he could unstuck that diaphragm the diaphragm as it descends It creates a vacuum in the lungs so the lungs inflate and as it ascends as it lifts up the lungs deflate You exhale He found that if he could unstuck That that diaphragm right lifted out of that stuck position Then these infosimics could recover and that's exactly what happened So over and over again thousands and thousands of patients just by learning how to breathe properly now asma is different because anac asma is inflammation of the lungs right in the airways But what a lot of kids with asma don't realize and I I'm hoping By mentioning this parents will start educating them a little more on this is that Taking mouth breaths into the chest especially when you feel an asma attack coming on is that The single worst thing you can do because what you're doing is you're depleting too much CO2 You're causing more of that vasoconstriction you're causing more of that inflammation That's when the airway starts closing up even more So what kids with asma should be doing when they're feeling that attack come on Is breathing much more slowly and calmly with these tiny little breath holes in between And simply by doing that you send your brain messages that you are calm and you are safe It seems counterintuitive But you're getting way more oxygen breathing slowly and calmly than you are hyperventilating And this is another thing I keep hearing from from parents, you know Asma is diagnosed by a lot of doctors as a literally incurable disease That you're supposed to have for the rest of your life We'll tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people who effectively are suffering from the zero symptoms of asma right now Because they have learned proper reading techniques And I could tell you a bunch of stories. I won't One training technique that has been proven to be very effective is the boutico breeding method of beauty Y-k-o Breeding technique or breathing method it trains kids very effective for kids and adults It trains them to breathe very slowly to tolerate more CO2 and get control of their breathing and their life The book is remarkable with all the things in the appendix It's like one of the best appendicitis appendicitis there's two appendix the one an a and a b You go through every breathing method It's the best appendix I've ever seen in any book and then you include Cough reduction headache reduction panic reduction the 478 breathing method play the did you redo This where you talk about ADHD and sleep distorted breathing You talk about that people can download You have a live audio track of a seven-day breath reset up with the link in the show notes people can find that Mr. James nester Dot com slash audio Humming you talk about humming Humming increases the release of an itric oxide in the nasal passages So if you're hearing a lot of these things and you're thinking oh yeah, I want to check out that method or you know You talk about the 5.5 breath The breath prayer like having this rhythm. What is the perfect breath? And then you went and tried a bunch of different things and it's all in the in the back of the book the appendix Go through each one and then you talk about where you can find more information about some of those if you're interested in finding more information Can you talk about the CO2 because that's something I knew nothing about at all Yeah, so the reason I set up the book this way is Nowadays all we get is these little lyrms of factoids and tips Right they tend to go in one ear and out the other And they're valuable whether it's tips on supplements or how to prepare food or breath work or exercise But I found that without on text Without a story behind it none of those tips mean anything So you know 85% of the book is The science and the stories behind all this Why it's important how it was discovered what it can do for you And how history keeps repeating itself as you you certainly Thought on on that theme and at the end of the book my editor said well, you know It would be nice to have just a quick reference guide For people who just want to see a method right and see the instructions to a method very quickly So that's why we put it back there and you you can just refer to it whenever you want We've also are now putting a lot of these methods for free on on our website I'm doing them on social media, but but again, I it's sort of a A tricky situation because Just telling people to do something Without understanding or appreciating why they're doing it Tends not to stick and I'm more on the side of Trying to take people into a different world and tell them a deeper story To make it Not only make sense to them, but to make them care about it a little more So that's how we set it that up and the CO2 thing was Also one of those things I discovered which seems so counterintuitive if right now you take an inhale through your nose and exhale And I'll do this together And then hold your breath on that exhale just hold your breath After a while you're going to feel this nagging Need to breathe So that need to breathe People say oh it's because my oxygen levels are getting low. No That need to breathe is dictated by rising levels of carbon dioxide So we breathe or CO2 that's that's what controls our breathing and so many of us Are habituated to have this very low Level of CO2 in in our bodies and when it gets too high That reminds us that we might be choking Or we might be having a panic attack or asthma attack So we're habituated to just overbrew the old time And if we do that if we do that all the time and most people are over overbreweders We're reading too much It actually makes it harder for us to get oxygen into our bloodstream and into our hungry cells And it sends signals to our brains All day long that we are in a panic anxious state And this can destroy your health it can lead to autoimmune diseases increase risk of asthma headaches and a whole bunch of other Bombermalities by this constant overbreeding it is so counterintuitive but that's how it works Yeah, and I didn't know any of I learned so much I took nine pages of notes We are a culture of overbreweders when people hyperventilate they are taking in too much air But the sensation that they get is shortness of breath choking air hunger as if they're not getting enough air So it is counterintuitive it's very important to know you talk about the lungs are the weight regulating system of the body And you talk about how those with the worst anxieties consistently suffer from the worst breathing habit And if 18% of Americans which is almost one in five suffers from some form of anxiety or panic The numbers are rising each each year We need to teach them about their breathing and Every parent listening I mean can take this into their family It's fantastic you just learn like thing after thing after thing I love learning about the Terminates that there's six maze-like bones in your nose that look like a seashell and their your body's first-time defense and all the hairs in there Push against the force of they can push against the force of gravity Your nose is your silent warrior you talk about how in a single breath more molecules of air will pass through your nose Then all the grains of sand on all the world's beaches in a single breath Trillions and trillions you talk about mouth taping I mean it's just it's it is a I mean of course it like it got translated into 44 languages. It is a fantastic book Thank you. Thank you appreciate that about the anxiety part of this here You know they've done a bunch of studies and I know some of these people that have done these studies these researchers and they found consistently People with anxiety and panic disorders are Overbreathing so much To the point that several of these researchers told me this they said you can never cure anxiety Unless you first ensure that these people are breathing normally you will never it doesn't matter how many drugs you take How many therapy sessions you do? So much of this is tied to breathing and I know these listeners could be skeptical They say you know I've a stressful life. I've this and that I'm not saying it's the only cause of your anxiety What I'm saying is that if you are dysfunctionally breathing and you don't take care of that breathing and become a normal Breatheer and I'm by normal breather. I mean good breather because normal is good You want to be normal when you're breathing Then It's never gonna work and this is why so many people are failing their therapies And I've heard this from psychiatrists. I've heard this from psychologists I've heard this from respiratory therapists and by good breather and or normal breather as as I would say This doesn't mean someone who's spending two hours a day in breathwork classes Who is doing yoga all day long? This is we breathe throughout the day and throughout the night you can improve it at any time You don't need any special clothes You don't need to go to a special class But I'm telling you if you are breathing dysfunctionally your body is always going to be one step behind and you're never quite gonna catch up It's so important and it's fantastically written I would love to talk about the story of you launching the book because this is in the newer edition that I have Where you I mean it's you're such a great writer and it's an entertaining story And I think it's just it's like a A different type of message where you never really know where your life is gonna go And so can you talk about launching this book during COVID and basically being like completely out of money So you're like I can't wait until COVID is over and then it just Uh, it just took off. I've never talked about this in a podcast So you're the first one that that talking about the origin story of this book So so yeah, I mean the short version is that This book took so many years longer than I had budgeted And it cost so much more than I thought it was gonna cost I thought most of it was gonna be in the US most of it was gonna be in California And it turned out that I had to travel all over the world for for months of the time I was on the road for six months out of here trying to figure out the story I could not figure out the story because one door would open that would lead to another door And I felt I wouldn't be doing justice to this Unless I really understood The full thing from the ground up And I kind of hosed myself doing that because it took so long And I just burned through my my book advance to to the point where I had no other I had not set up any other means of of getting money You know honestly because I was just so absorbed in this book for so long And then we had tour plans, you know for the book I was gonna go out and tour around the world and all that And then COVID happens So this book was released about what six weeks in the lockdown And we almost didn't release it because you remember what that was like right Printing presses were stopped but there were no book stores were open I said I'm completely host here Like I spent years on this book I put everything even my own not only the advance but my own money into it researching Because I really wanted to understand it And the only reason Well one of the main reasons we released it at that time At the worst time to release anything in the history of publishing Was so I could get my next advance That's the truth So I would have a little security blanket because There were no other job all magazine writing was just just Just stopped there there's no one was and I couldn't sell another book because publishers at the time weren't buying books So so we released it anyway And uh just completely unexpected what happened after that I'm still my head is just spending so completely random and unexpected But it is also a remarkably good book But it is a story of hope like you just never know You say it looked like 10 years of work was to be flushed down the drain I hadn't received a paycheck in years and had no other prospects So when you do a book it's like you get They usually will give you money at the beginning You know third of it They'll give you a third of it when your manuscripts turned in And then they'll give you the last third when it Pub when it publishes So you wrote the on publication advance from the publisher Was the only way for you to get more money And then you recorded the audiobook Like you strung up a microphone In some shed in your backyard And then that ended up being one of the like the top selling audiobooks of the I got chills James it was one of the top selling audiobooks of the entire year It's the the publisher at that time all studios were closed right So so everything was closed and they said they told me and they're like Oh, I guess you know, okay, we can release this book But we're not going to release the audiobook I said why Why aren't you going to release the audiobook and they said because there's nowhere for you to record it I said well, what if I order a microphone And I set up a recording studio which is something I've never done before in my life But I assured them I said oh, I know exactly what I'm doing Had no clue I called a few people and I have this little shed in my my backyard And I I duct tape and nail a bunch of moving blankets to it And if you listen to that audiobook to this day It's the same audiobook. I didn't re record it If you listen very carefully you can hear maybe a trash truck cruising by you can hear dog barking Because those were the sounds I had to start and stop this thing A zillion times because a neighbor would yell or it uh, you know Or somebody would would drop something on the street. It was Completely mad me. So that is the story with the audiobook I'm actually talking you on that same hundred dollar microphone I it is it is such a champ. It just keeps keeps rocking. So I'm I'm now I'm kind of emotionally tied to it. So I guess I'm stuck with it the rest of my life What a story what a story breath res released in May of 2020 in the beating bleeding and coughing heart of COVID-19 What happened next surprised everyone it debuted at number six on the New York Times best sellers list went on to be on all these other best sellers list audiobook is one of the top audiobooks of the year all told Breathwood spend 20 weeks on the New York Times best seller list chart in a half a dozen countries around the world and be published in 44 language It is a phenomenal book. There's a total page turner. You learn so much the way that you write is it's just it's a tremendous It's like so interesting. You're like how could it be this interesting about breathing did I've got two last questions as we're wrapping up Did you have it to a hard time naming it like did you go between breath and breathe Or did you always know it was going to be called breath? I know that was something I just had to negotiate with my publisher. I had all these fancy names these very you know verbose complicated names and they just said no no no no no and then finally We just went for the most obvious and the the subtitle was was mine the new science of the law star because that's That's what it was and I didn't know it at the time But that's what I was looking for is Is something that bridged the gap between what we know now with all these measurements and what our ancestors knew for thousands of years Yeah, I love it Okay, our last question and I just but before I ask questions I just want to say I think fly-am that you said yes I think this is one of the books that every person should read and especially Especially if you're a parent because these are things that are going to be affecting your kids for the Remainter of their lives and there's a lot that you can do in their young So thank you for saying yes, thank you for spending this time with with all of us on your 100 dollar microphone We always enter show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside What I mean in the ocean is my absolute or earliest memory and I grew up in Southern California and we were down at La Jolla and I was not wearing any clothes I think it was what three years old or so and That's my first memory is is being in the ocean in Southern California and I get in the ocean almost every day Since then so yeah, wow James, thank you for this tremendous book people can read breath I'll put all the links in the show notes. They can go to your website They can come and on a retreat with you in Bali Incredible the photo online you're like I want to go to that and you also have deep freediving Renegade science and what the ocean tells us about herself. I I interviewed my name Adam Skolnik who also does a lot with freediving and these are fantastic books because you can learn about how you can Expand your lung capacity and those people end up living longer with extra capacity. We can expand our lives James Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for being here. Thanks a lot for having me That was episode 700 with James Nester and I hope you can feel why I wanted this conversation to mark this milestone If you enjoyed this one here are two simple ways it can help reach more people first Make sure you're following the show that one tap tells podcast apps this show is worth recommending second share this episode with someone specific a friend Who's always tired a parent dealing with a child who has chronic sleep issues a runner a teacher a co-worker This one applies to so many people Just start observing everyone you know and see if they breathe through their mouth or through their nose And don't forget we're celebrating episode 700 in our online shop the new toddler tea Yes, I've eaten a bugger too is launching for a price of just $10 and all our other apparel is 20% off this week as well born to climb trees trail kid adult and kids tease long sleeves hoodies It's comfortable. It's fun and it represents this whole movement toward real life I'm really glad you're here 700 episodes in and I'm honored to have spent time with you and your crew Until next time may you find extraordinary moments on ordinary paths Get out I'll open your eyes feel that sunshine kissing your skin. Oh, your worries out to the wind Climb some trees skin your knees feel that grass on your feet again get out there and take it in Oh Ain't nothing on screen. It's ever gonna be this view Oh Beautiful And I just want to share with I just want to share with you It's beautiful Such a beautiful world