The Breathing Cure Interview with Guided Breathing Exercises | Patrick McKeown | TAKE A DEEP BREATH

hey everybody and welcome to take a deep breath uh i'm delighted to uh present today's guest which is patrick mcewan uh and this is the second time that we've had patrick on the on the breath cast uh patrick's got a brand new book coming out next week called the breathing cure um and in there he covers such a wide range of topics uh and in this podcast we go through a lot of that too so it's a buckling for the next 80 to 90 minutes of pure breathing science for those of you that don't know patrick is the author of the oxygen advantage uh he trained under buteyko constantine and he is somebody that is deep deep deep in the breath work field and a true expert his new book is fantastic i've been lucky enough to get an advanced copy of it it's a big book and it's an accessible book and it's got a lot of detail and it's got a lot of breathing exercises and what you're going to get in today's breath cast is not only going to get a conversation with patrick you're going to get patrick teaching us some of the breathing exercises as well which is very very cool so he'll take us through a number of those exercises and he'll take us through a bit of the book um and we'll just have a good conversation about what's going on there so by far one of my most interesting chats with a breath expert and i love patrick i've i've been trained under him a couple of times now under potako and the oxygen advantage and as i said we've had a couple of conversations so this episode is packed full of breath goodness so so as i said get your pen and paper ready uh sit back enjoy practice some of the breathing exercises as well um in the description below is a link to the book and to patrick's website the oxygen advantage it is the 29th of january now this podcast will probably go out this weekend and i think the book comes out on the 8th of february 2021 so depending on where you're listening to this when you've listened to this uh i highly recommend going out and getting a copy of that book i don't think you'll be disappointed if you're interested in breathing and breath work and we also talk a bit about mindfulness which is lovely as well and uh we finished off podcast with with a lovely sentiment from patrick about mindfulness being present and and and living in the place of happiness um and a place where we're not just stuck in our head all the time which is definitely something i i still suffer with and something i'm working on all the time so uh so yeah so i i feel so privileged to talk to patrick um he is a wonderful force when it comes to breath work and you know just somebody that just wants us to feel better you know he just wants to get that information out there so that we can be functional breathers and we'll talk about what functional breathing is um no other messages from me let's just get stuck into the breath cast here is patrick mcewan talking about the breathing cure his new book let's get stuck into the breath cast cheers patrick thank you for coming back on the take a deep breath podcast it's it's lovely to see you again it's an early start for us both how are you doing this morning good morning how are you yeah you're really really good and uh really excited to get stuck into your new book so can i ask you first of all just to introduce the title of your book and uh i don't know a short synopsis of what the book's about sure that the title is called the breathing cure now i didn't come up with the title of it because we're always afraid to use the word cure and you know just in case people kind of think that we're saying that breathing is a magic bullet but i went with the title it was chosen by our u.s publisher i actually think it's fairly pertinent because i suppose mike we have to consider the application and the potential of breathing exercises and when i look at breathing and the depth of breathing it's not just about you know what you hear people often say go and take a deep breath it's nothing like that it's changing breathing patterns and by influencing breathing from functional breathing from three different dimensions the biochemical the biomechanical and resonance frequency breathing we can influence pretty much all of the major disciplines of medicine so for people with respiratory complaints we can improve control of breathing we can reduce symptoms of breathlessness wheezing coughing for our people with mental health issues we can make significant differences for people with anxiety panic disorder ptsd and depression people with sleep issues we can influence insomnia snoring and obstructive sleep apnea and i've just had a scientific article that i wrote in conjunction with the near notes and truth doctor carlos o'connor and dr plaza and we had it published it was peer-reviewed and published just two days ago in the journal of clinical medicine so it's a it's a high-impact journal and if we were to look at functional movement and the relationship between functional breathing and functional movement diabetes is influenced by how we breed and by changing breathing patterns we can improve diabetic control epilepsy for 100 years it has been shown that hyperventilation can contribute to some forms of epilepsy and you know even if we're looking at dentistry craniofacial development development of the jaws whether children are going to develop crooked teeth or not because that's going to be influenced by my breathing or not so you know breathing has been overlooked it's really really it's it's real to be honest which i don't know whether it's frustrating or if it's bewilderment um and the when i think of the industries and i think of the very intelligent people in medicine and dentistry how did they miss this one i really wonder and this is not new information and the breathing cure is putting it out there it's a big book it's 500 and something pages and it's 190 000 words it's about 40 pages of references but i've made it accessible too or at least i've tried to in that the first two chapters contain all of the exercises the rest of the chapters then are looking at specific issues women's breathing totally different to men's um known since 1905 you know and yet how many females know about the impact of breathing how many females know about the impact of changing hormone levels and how that's going to influence breathing and how that in turn then contributes to pain fatigue anxiety symptoms of pams and then post-menopausal women how breathing can influence sleep disorder breathing so you know i think it's really i think i would say that 2020 was the year of the breath it was a it's a breathing revolution that's going on now i've waited 20 years for this to happen um and it was a long slog and breathing does have a little bit of a bad rap because people have been talking and teaching breathing exercises and not necessarily knowing the physiology of what was happening behind it and i remember you know taking this advice back in 1995 or six i was doing final exams in trinity college in dublin so i suppose it was 1996 i was anxious going into the exam one particular exam and i went for a walk for two minutes and i went and i started taking these full big breaths because i believed at that time that it was beneficial to take these full big breaths and i went into the exam hall i was spaced out i was lightheaded i never realized that the more air i was breathing it was reducing blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain it was entirely the wrong thing to do now how many times have we heard in the western world take big breaths breathe harder breed more air because it brings more oxygen throughout the body we have to question that and it's not just about the biochemistry and i think so also my point that i'd like to make is that breathing we get we when people train and breathing they train according to traditions they typically have their guru and their guru was saying this is the way it is i had my guru constantine buteyko i followed his method which is a wonderful method focused primarily on the biochemistry wonderful method not taking into consideration enough about the biomechanics not looking out at all about the resonance frequency breathing the yoga instructor is focusing on the biomechanics and often sacrificing the biochemistry and not looking at resonance frequency breathing the heart mat instructor who's looking to improve heart rate variability it's focusing on cadence breathing or paste breathing not looking at the biomechanics and not looking at the biochemistry and who is looking at nasal breathing because it's only with nasal breathing that we can influence all three dimensions and all three dimensions even though studies will show that you know they may not be as interconnected as strongly we still have to look at the connection here if you've got good biochemistry you typically will breathe low so you will have good biomechanics and if you've got good biomechanics and you breathe low you in turn will breathe slow and slow breathing down is influencing your biochemistry and you know that's the depth that i wanted to look at with the bread and the other point that i'd like to make is that it's not just about how we breathe inside the studio you know that this breathing instructor who is teaching breathing exercises to their group of students in the studio why not show people why not show the students how to breathe outside the studio why not show them how to bring these good breathing patterns to help with their sleep to improve their resilience to help deal better with stress to significantly reduce asthma like even in the uk and ireland for example these two countries two of the highest countries with the highest rates of asthma in the world and i've been seeing and reproducing results to it i would expect a 50 reduction of symptoms in two weeks from people who genuinely put the exercise into practice 20 clinical trials on the buteyko method for asthma and yet the vast majority of people would ask my aunt children go into their doctor surgery many of them will be mount breathing the doctor gives them medication there's no attention paid to how they are breathing and these children and adults will continue to have symptoms because of a poor breathing pattern that's feeding into their condition so that's my rant over for this morning thank you no it's it's really interesting and i i i think completely differently now about about things like kumo or wim hof or holotropic and and and my comparison i'm making my mind now is is they they're great and have a purpose but it's like me i've got i've got bad posture from years of sitting behind a computer and i've got a bad back because of that and dysfunctional breathing's played a role but if i try and do a deadlift now that's not a good thing to do i need to get all my muscles right and i need to kind of get my base sorted before i start to do all the you know sexy stuff and i think that it's really important people hear that it's we've got to get that functional breathing right and we've got to understand let's get those basics set up and all the work you've done to you know all these things that can be helped how would you if you in a short summary how would you define the difference between functional and dysfunctional breathing i think it's really important if people don't know that what what are the differences there so functional breathing is effortless breathing breathing should never be an effort functional breathing is in and out through the nose driven by the diaphragm it's regular there's a natural pause on the exhalation dysfunctional breathing involves effort for breathing there's an effort involved in breathing and dysfunctional breathing will often be mouth breathing not always but a good movement from the upper chest and slightly faster breathing so that would be the main difference and it's just a habit and it is influenced by genetics there's no question it's it's influenced by a number of things lifestyle you know sitting down or sedentary lifestyle is one and how common is it 50 percent of people with lower back pain of dysfunctional breathing 75 of people with anxiety have dysfunctional breathing so can you imagine that thousands of people with anxiety and they're doing cognitive behavioral therapy but they're having that faster and slightly higher um breathing pattern so they're breathing upper chest probably irregular breathing as well if they're prone to panic disorder and their breathing pattern is feeding into their condition so they're doing you know great stuff with cbt but it's not going to change respiratory physiology and we also have to look at their sleep patterns you know and this is where i think the healthcare professionals might really need to um to start opening broadening their horizon a little bit you know if i was going to a psychotherapist for anxiety i would love to see a psychotherapist who has a good understanding not just of cbt and counseling tools but can also recom recognize even just to recognize if the patient in front of them has a dysfunctional breathing pattern and at least to show that to the patient your breathing is a little bit too fast and it's not just about the speed of the respiratory rate because this has been a mistake made in the treatment of mental health patients um so for example the therapist would say well your breathing is 20 breaths per minute your breathing is much too fast and the therapist in fairness would say slow down your breathing but in the process of slowing down the breath the size of each breath increased disproportionately which caused increased minute ventilation and it had the opposite effect to what was intended so when we look at the breath it's not just about timing the breath it's not just about the number of breaths per minute it's looking at the respiratory rate but it's also looking at the depth or the amplitude of each breath because ultimately it's the volume of the there that we breathe per minute which is influencing carbon dioxide in the blood and it's the carbon dioxide in the lungs which determines the co2 in the blood and of course co2 how many people think it's a waste gas when in reality um it's very common for example for people with dysfunctional breathing patterns to have cold hands and cold feet and that's normal you know not everybody but it's common it's very common for people with dysfunctional breathing patterns to frequently yawn and sigh and to feel tense to wake up with a dry mouth in the morning you know to feel they often feel as well it's kind of ironic they often feel that no matter how much air they breathe they're just not getting enough air that air hunger and even though these people are breathing too much likely to be breeding too much in the first instance and um but you know breathing can be trained you know it is that it is that function in the human body that we can train breathing patterns and by doing that then we can influence other functions outside of our control and resilience is really the word that comes into mind performance how could you have a child a teenager or an adult perform to the best of their ability if they have poor breathing patterns which is a feeding into agitation of the mind which is feeding into poor sleep quality you know it's not going to happen they won't have the focus they won't have the concentration they don't have the energy levels and not only that is but happiness mood you know if we wake up in the morning and we're you know every one of us is prone to having a bad night's sleep every now and again that's normal you know but when it happens consistently and that person is waking up every morning and they're waking up almost that they feel that they've had a hangover how on earth could we be in a good mood and this is where as well with anxiety and depression etc there is a link poor sleep is really the key stone here and breathing can play a role yeah no this is it's fascinating yeah and i've experienced that for years just having that poor sleep and and the sad thing is we adapt to it in some way because you almost don't even know what great sleep is if you've had bad sleep for years and years so you think oh i can get by on six hours of sleep and then you then you get some good sleep and you you look different in the mirror the next day you feel different so it's a no no it's very interesting i patrick what i'm keen to do is is i'd love to get stuck into the books and then we're gonna do some breathing exercises but i guess what i'd like to know before we do that is so the oxygen advantage came out a couple of years ago what what's made you then write this this new book what was the kind of cause first the second book on breathing yeah i just felt like the oxygen advantage was you know i put a it was a great work at the time and i think it's still a good it's a good work in terms of breathing the emphasis is more on performance so there's very much an emphasis towards the athletic population which i wanted to do and the breathing cure is kind of opening up breathing that it's looking at topics that yeah i have covered them like i wrote a book on anxiety back in 2010 sleep in 2011 children's breathing in 20 2009 2003 and 4 asthma in 2003 4. but it's looking at those topics but it's also looking at topics that i hadn't covered to date diabetes epilepsy women's breathing i included a chapter on sex because i think that's important as well if nothing else that's going to generate some debate um asthma covet functional movement you know how many people are going to gyms and they're working on their core and they're looking to improve their functional movement but not necessarily looking at their breathing and also in rehab you know so for example if an individual has dysfunctional movement it does increase the risk of injury and when we're thinking of the diet from breathing muscle even just from a biomechanical point of view it's not just for respiration but it's also for stabilization of the spine and you know the stability of the the spine postural control and the generation of what's called intra-abdominal pressure and so the dye from breathing muscle performs a number of functions even the connection between the diaphragm and the mind and i just want to kind of bring that out so yes i brought in a chapter on dentistry you know the dental industry and you we know professor john mu in the united kingdom dr mike mu and sometimes i feel that the industry has really got them such a hard time you know what was john mu saying other than breathe through your nose with your tongue resting in the roof of the mouth because this is going to influence the development of your face and orthodontist criticizing him ridiculing him and luke causing he lost his dental license he got frustrated at the age of 9 89 years of age you know and here is a man that's trying to to set out preventative measures and i like i was in their surgery back in 2010 when i was writing a book and i sat down i watched patients coming in and out and i remember a 20 year old man come in a young man come in and um he had he didn't have good craniofacial development his jaw his lower jaw was very far forward and his maxilla was very far back and um he was wondering could mew help and dr mu says unfortunately it's too late now that's what they said back 10 years ago it may have changed now and they said that the only outcome is surgery but if we hadn't got you as a child you wouldn't have had to need surgery you know like why is this happening and these kids with you know of course it's important that our face develops the way it should grow like we have to be real about this we all want to have an attractive looking face or at least we want to develop a face that's to the best of our genetic ability but if we are mouth breathing as i was as a kid you have a compromised airway your nose is is looking so big because of the maxilla being set back the mandible is set back you tend to have a double chin even though you don't put on weight not just because you have excess fat but because the jaws aren't forward enough in the face so you have a weak chin you have a flat face you're tired and all of these things like this is not new i have a a magazine behind me or a dental journal around its time the dental cosmos in 1909 and i talked about how mout breathing and how mouth breathing causes crooked teeth and you know then and it's not just that it's being debated in dentistry but why has nobody done anything about it and more so mike why have those dentists who have done their best and those medical doctors who have done their best why have they been attacked why is there such a vested interest in the status quo you know and i really wonder we had we had a debate on this with healthcare professionals it was joined by a number of different top orthodontists and james nestor was amongst us dr william hang dr mike mute dr john mew mark muller was conducted by the aams and the question come up why has there been no innovation or no kind of you know research why has it not got the credit why has breathing not being how come why is it being overlooked and i made one point the reason that it is being overlooked is because it doesn't promise significant profit and that is the reality of it if if the industry if breathing was to promise significant profit or the avoidance of significant loss then doctors and dentists would get behind it because there would be a monetary incentive there but there's no monetary incentive because it's a time-consuming effort but if we were to look at the bigger picture here in terms of the child with asthma who doesn't just have asthma but they're tired because their mouth is open they're going to develop more likely to develop craniofacial abnormalities they're more likely to have sleep disorder breathing we know from carbonic study that if the child you know the brain is developing during the formative years and if the child has sleep disorder breathing they have a 40 increased risk of special education needs by age eight so think of the cost of that so here we have a cost not just in terms of social costs the quality of life for the kid the quality of life for the parent but the economic cost because this child increased asthma gonna require more and doctor visits more medication and if the the asthma is unstable we're talking about hospitalizations we're also talking about reduced productivity in terms of sleep we're talking about the cost of correcting the child's crooked teeth and if the teeter and face don't develop the way they should possibly surgery at a later age and a breathing and i'm not saying that this is a cure at all but i'm saying to the industry please give it a chance and you know that's why i wrote the books back in 2003 because i had no um support none and i too felt that you know i was talking to a brick wall so i said back in 2002 2003 i'm going to get this information out there and that's why i wrote the book asthma free naturally because it's getting the information right into the hands of the people who need it and i felt that if change was going to happen it was going to happen with the sons the daughters the mothers the fathers the grandparents it was going to be driven from the grassroots upwards and when parents were demanding from doctors that why did you tell me to breach through my nose my sleep now is much better my asthma just feels easier and it's not just enough about breathing through the nose we also have to address breathing patterns so you know but i'm delighted because now it's happened and james nestor his book the brett or brett has been one of the most influential books on breathing in the last 20 years and there is no doubt that he has contributed i would say that he has made the greatest contribution to breathing in 20 years and i'm grateful for that because it's lifted the awareness for all of us because we're in this field we knew it worked like we are the ones that are working with the individuals coming in we're seeing the differences and um when you have something that you feel that it's beneficial and it's it's no side effects you know it makes common sense so james nestor's book definitely has helped here yeah i was watching a mike mew uh podcast today actually and uh he's gonna come on this podcast soon fingers crossed um and thank you for that recommendation um and he said something along the lines of why do people think we're being born with extra teeth and these extra teeth need to be taken out what other animals have got extra teeth and they have to have surgery and just just those words it was just it just was kind of a yeah that's so weird isn't it why don't we question that more and more what what a bizarre thing um because it's so common it's being accepted as being normal it's not normal it's not normal to have overcrowding of teeth you know overcrowding of teeth is not because the teeth are too big it's because the jaws are too small but the real problem here is if the jaw is too small for the tongue where is the tongue going to go but into the airway and if the tongue is going into the airway during sleep that's going to increase the risk of obstructive sleep apnea and obstructive sleep apnea is a condition that it exerts a great toll on the human body because it's disrupting sleep and it's putting the individual into sympathetic stress activation it's increasing their blood pressure it's putting a stress in the heart it's leading to arrhythmias it can contribute to cancer to dementia to all of these conditions that we want to try and avoid um but yeah it's it's mike mike makes good points definitely yeah and and um it's wonderful to see as you mentioned you know patrick um james's book the success you've had mike's got a big following now on social media and again on the same podcast i was watching that he was on who's saying that he really contributes a lot of his message getting out there with the thanks to social media now because to the point you were making the establishment in some parts mostly doesn't want to hear about this free stuff that we can do that can make such a a big difference to people's lives and just just while we're on the subject of mouth because i am keen to explore so i'm tongue tied and i know that you've got a chapter on tong thai so can you just share a bit about what what's going on there and why you've mentioned yeah yeah so tong thai is is this string that's holding the tongue to the floor of the mouth and if it's too tight the issue is that the child growing up or adults but the child is not able to elevate their tongue and the first thing the problem is with breastfeeding so a child that's tongue-tied is not able to feed from the mother and ends up jumping on the mother the mother becomes very uncomfortable the child doesn't try because the child isn't getting adequate nutrition and then a plastic bottle or a teeth is introduced breastfeeding is not just for nutrition but it's for manipulation of the muscles of the face necessary for craniofacial growth so the other aspect about tongue tie is that when the tongue is is when the tongue is when the tongue is on the floor of the mouth it's not able to elevate into the polish and ideally we want the lips together breathing in and out through the nose with the tongue resting in the roof of the mouth and it's the pressures exerted by the tongue and the roof of the mouth which had to develop the shape of the top jaw of the maxilla and ideally we want to top the shape of the top jaw the maxilla to be the same shape as the tongue which is u-shaped and is wide and when the maxilla is shaped u-shaped and wide there's no overcrowding of teeth because there's plenty of room in the jaw for the teat but not only that when the tongue is resting in the roof of the mouth it's driving the shape of the face forward so the lower 50 percent of the face is influenced by nose breathing and correct tongue resting posture so we want three quarters of the tongue to rest in the roof of the mouth and it's the pressures exerted by the tongue which is helping to drive the lower half of the face forward so for example the tip of the chin should be nearly as far forward as the point of the nose and if you look at people who are very beautiful they typically have very good forward facial forward facial growth and it's not just that they're beautiful looking but they also function very well because they've got a good airway now tong thai has been known of course this has been around for a long time in the 16th century in france midwives had extra lung they had one extra long fingernail and when a baby was born they looked into the baby's mouth and if the if the tongue was tied they released it with their fingernail i know it kind of sounds gross but you know i suppose you have to look at it this way back in the 16th century babies had to breastfeed or they died you know so in order for the baby to live and to drive it was essential that the baby was able to to take milk from the mother so yeah it this is another aspect that's overlooked even though our ancestors knew about it you know and it's not even known what extent in the population the tongue tie is significant i know brazil is a country they have a much greater awareness of tongue-tie because i think it's the also the impact not just on craniofacial development but also on speech and so it can impact a number of different things so and also i don't know enough about in terms of if the tongue is tied what pressure is that putting on the neck for example um on forward head posture so could it be influencing the entire posture of the human body and it's likely that it is i know people who have released it that they've said that once the tongue was released they felt a release in terms of tension postural tension so the tongue is performing probably more functions that like i'm i'm no expert in the tongue um myofunctional therapists will be absolutely the best people to to um you know and that might be an interesting podcast actually it's to talk with joey muller and there's eva tanner in the uk and there's there's myofunctional therapists in the uk we were really really good and this would open up the whole possibility of chewing and correct tongue resting posture you know muscle tone but muscle function and also the relationship with dentistry and speech and development yeah oh patrick you've just opened up something there because um i went to see my dentist a couple of months ago uh well not mine just a dentist while i was in poland with my partner and she and the dentist said if you don't get your tongue cut the tongue tie you're gonna lose your two front teeth over the next two decades because the tongue's pulling at the gum and the gum's getting smaller and smaller i'm 40 now so it's starting so that's made me question it but interestingly i'm very very tight always here and i've tried to do i've got a standing desk now and i try and have correct posture but nothing seems to get this pressure here and i've got lower back pain so i'm wondering that's really interesting i'm wondering now what connection the tongue could have because i never would have connected that with with posture so uh no i would i'll look into that and as a child i had to have speech therapy um and i had adhd or a version of that so i'm wondering again i know the speech therapy was linked to the tongue tie um but yeah the adhd maybe mouth breathing because so no oh thank you that i think you've just set me on a bit of a different path there with that so very very interesting so let's uh let's let's talk about the book so you've got control of the of the zoom screen um so it's really over to you however you want to do this so yeah i think what we'll do is i'll just go through kind of the the topics that we're covering in it and we spoke about functional breathing patterns and we really need to be thinking about like in terms of the biochemistry and the biomechanics and the psychological triggers this is how researchers would look at breathing but the solution for dysfunctional breathing is looking at improving biochemistry and that's more focused on having normal carbon dioxide in the blood and also a reduced chemo sensitivity to carbon dioxide in short carbon dioxide is the stimulus to breed and if you're overly sensitive to the accumulation of carbon dioxide your breathing is typically faster probably more upper chest because faster breathing and upper chest often go hand in hand but you're more likely to feel as well feelings of suffocation and that would be definitely for example people with panic and anxiety but also people with asthma can have you know um strong chemo sensitivity to carbon dioxide buildup and we can determine or at least get us some idea of this by measuring the bold score and that's what i'll just bring you on to so when for example an individual has dysfunctional breathing patterns their bowl score is typically lower than 25 seconds and that's based on the paper by kiesel and kyle kiesel is a professor of physical therapy so what i'm just going to do is just pull up the piece in the book that looks at keysel study and because one second there so in addition so the keys those participants now just want to see this as well participants with poor breathing and this was in bradley's paper they scored lower on the fms which is the functional movement screen i know it has its critics but you know it's a screen screening tool to assess functional movement eighty-seven and a half percent of people who passed the functional movement screen were classified as diaphragmatic breeders so aunty keysel's paper because that's not ish so in 2017 then keyser looked at 51 subjects and he looked at their breathing from a biochemical point of view looking at carbon dioxide from a biomechanical point of view looking at the high low test and also from a psychophysiological point of view looking at the nine megan questionnaire but his conclusion was that now interestingly out of the 51 subjects mike only five of them had normal breathing and these were 27 years of age so 10 of this studied population had normal breathing 14 of them failed at least one measure 20 of them failed at least two and 12 out of 50 failed all three so you're talking about you're turning about 25 percent there failed all three only 10 percent of participants who passed all three dimensions of breathing actually had normal breathing so we spoke about that so the tools that keysel brought in was a breath hold time of 25 seconds and four questions from the functional movement screen and the four questions are do you yawn frequently throughout the day do you feel tense do you wake up with a dry mouth do you have cold hands and cold feet and the conclusion was that if your breath told time your both score if it was greater than 25 seconds there's an 89 percent chance that their breathing was not dysfunctional and i'm not sure what's happening with my cursor here it's all over the place so the whole objective is to get a bulls score above 25 seconds now to measure the ball score we'll pull that up here [Music] so i'm just going to so for those of you who want to measure your ball score what i suggest is that you're sitting down for about five minutes or so and you need to have you know a timer secondhand watch or whatever you have your phone take a normal breath in and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold your breath and time it in seconds until you feel the first definite desire to breathe and at the first definite desire to breed is to let go but to breed in through your nose so the whole relevance of this is that when you have a low bolt score your breathing is typically faster and harder and when you have a low ball score it's also indicative of that hyperventilation syndrome so people typically with a lower bowl score are people typically who have hyperventilation syndrome have a lower volt score so the both score gives us good feedback of breathing across the number of three dimensions if you have a low ball score your breathing is faster it's more upper chest you're more likely to have a regular breathing and it's a measurement of breathlessness so for example if somebody comes in with a bald score of 10 seconds i know that they will have exercise intolerance and we've seen it with kovid people with long covert both scores of three seconds these individuals couldn't even talk a sentence they were so called for brett so then in terms of the training itself we go through the different breathing exercises so what i'm going to do is i'm going to actually go on to the breathing the biochemistry um i might just look at that diagram there if it's on page 29. so this is a useful diagram just to get an insight into the dimensions of breathing and looking at breathing then from the three different dimensions so just about me one second can you see that mike i can yes so we're talking about the biochemistry we're talking about and we spoke about this at the very start today and the interrelationship between so this is focused on carbon dioxide and the biomechanics is focused on whether you're breathing low with good amplitude of the diet from whether you're breathing high and cadence breathing is the practice of breathing slow breathing to between 4.5 to 6.5 breaths per minute now in the middle is nasal breathing so when we're looking at breathing patterns and i would say you know if anybody is listening who teaches breathing please start looking at breathing not just from the biomechanical point of view but look at the potential of the biochemistry because if you influence biochemistry you influence blood circulation you increase you can increase oxygen delivery you know you can help open up the airways and also if you're good biochemistry you have slower breathing pattern and a slower breathing pattern then enables you to breathe low and if you've got good blow breathing again as we said to die from in the relationship between the diet from the mind and functional movement etc and then diaphragmatic breathing assistance slow breathing slow breathing assistant better biochemistry nasal breathing is the piece in the middle they're all interconnected and that's that's just functional breathing this isn't talking about the stress or exercises and i'm not sure even if we've got time to cover those but what we'll do is i'll just move down then to the text of say breathing light now the acronym i use is lsd so here we have for example why we want to focus on breathing light breathing slow and breathing deep and this is the potential in terms of breathing reduce breathlessness harnessing nasal nitric oxide opening up the airways improving blood circulation increasing oxygen delivery but also calming the mind and then if we look at for example um cadence breathing slow breathing stimulating the vagus nerve improving alveolar ventilation that's improving gas exchange from the lungs into the blood stimulating the bar receptors the pressure receptors in the major blood vessels improving heart rate variability which is a measure of um resilience and also stress coping ability and also health and performance and improving respiratory sinus arrhythmia which is the relationship between breathing and the heart rate or speed of the heart rate and to achieve a better balance of the autonomic nervous system and then low breathing we're looking at the benefits of low breathing for slow breathing it's improving lung volume it's a better gas exchange increasing ventilation perfusion which is gas exchange improving spinal stabilization so as we said 50 percent of people with lower back pain have dysfunctional breathing patterns so dysfunctional breathing then should be looked at individuals with lower back pain so this first exercise by the way there's 26 exercises in this so we're not going to get through them but we'll go through um this one is an interesting one and this is about breathing very very light so it's the opposite to what's commonly taught so say for example here you have your normal breathing pattern and the individual is taking a normal breath into their nose and nectar their nose an intruder knows the naturally the nose and what we want to do here is we want to have a very soft and gentle inhalation almost at your breathing is imperceptible and at the top of the breath a total feeling of relaxation to the body and a prolonged and a relaxed exhalation and then after you breathe out you're taking a very soft and gentle inhalation through your nose really soft gentle inhalation through your nose and at the top of the breath a total feeling of relaxation to the body and a gentle and prolonged breath out and the instruction is we're sitting up straight in a chair or you could do a cross legged on the floor lie in your back and if you're sitting just to imagine there's a piece of string pulling you upwards um from the top of the back of your head you could have your hands in your chest and tummy or you could place your hands on your lap to observe your breath as it enters and leaves your nose feel the slightly colder air as it enters your nostrils and feel the slightly warmer air as it leaves your nose so it's really about bringing attention from the mind onto the breath and when you can feel your breathing begin to reduce the speed of each breath as it enters and leaves your nose so your breathing should be light it should be quiet and it should be calm slow down your breathing so that you feel hardly any air entering and leaving your nostrils so your breathing should be so quiet that the fine hair the fine hairs within the nostrils do not move now by slowing down the speed of your breathing with the intention of breathing less air into the body the goal is to create a feeling that you would like to take in more air so you're doing it correctly if you feel breathless or if you feel that you would like to take in more air or if you feel that you're not getting enough breath to create air hunger your breathing volume now should be less than what it was before you started but you shouldn't feel stressed so if the air hunger gets too strong take a rest for 20 seconds or so and then start off again so really the whole emphasis here is on focusing on the airflow coming in and out of the nose and really slowing down the speed of the breath as it enters the nostrils so your breathing is so smooth that the fine hairs within the nostrils do not move can you breathe in so quietly almost that you feel hardly any air coming into your nose can you take the littlest amount of air possible into your nose and then when you're breathing out have a really slow and relaxed exhalation the objective is to breathe less air and the objective is to feel air hunger do that for a few minutes now as you do that check the saliva in the mouth it's it's quite normal that when you do this exercise there's a number of things that are happening number one is it's a great meditation because when you are slowing down the speed of your breathing your mind is anchored onto the breath so from a meditative point of view it's really good and the mind is less of a tendency to wander so i think it's it's a great way to support mindfulness but the other thing is about this is that slowing down the breathing to breed less air and you know that you're breathing less air if you feel air hunger so slow to breathe less air and you should feel air hunger an air hunger signifies that carbon dioxide is increased in the blood and as carbon dioxide is increasing your blood vessels dilate so i remember i was having cold hands and cold feet and i tried this was 20 years ago and i felt a warm a warmness coming into my hands and it's not just that your blood vessel is going into the hands dilate but it's the 70 000 miles of blood vessels throughout the human body now the other thing about this is that you'll notice that most people will notice that they've increased water is live in the mouth and this is an indicator that we've activated the parasympathetic nervous system or we've have the body to bring the body into relaxation so people will often as well they feel drowsy so this is a very good exercise to do for people with insomnia and for people who are in sympathetic increased sympathetic drive or stress state so for you know i say to people with anxiety be careful with doing the exercise because the air hunger you know could could set off a bit of panic but you have to go very very easy with it now we can do a second variation of this and this is similar enough to the last one but instead of focusing on the breath in we're actually focusing on the exhalation so we are taking a slow breath in through the nose but the intent is really to have a low and long and prolonged exhalation now this is supposes you can think of the opera singers of old they were singing with a candle placed about 10 centimeters from their face and the intention of the the the candle of course was lighting so there was a candle flame there and the opera singer was to sing with such conservation of the bret that they didn't blow out the candle because the training involved and i suppose it's a recognition that there's a cause associated with hard breathing if you breathe hard it can bring on fatigue and any of your listeners who talk all day they will know well they're on a phone all day they may have meetings all day they may be teaching they may be in sales and at the end of the day they're pretty much exhausted they're wiped out and they're wiped out not because of the mental concentration but because of the act of talking and the impact that that's having on breathing so it's causing the person to breathe more this exercise is good for helping the biochemistry but also to stimulate the vagus nerve so you place your finger underneath your nose so that you can monitor the airflow from your nose and you're bringing your attention onto your finger and as you feel the warm air on your finger so it's coming from the breath gently slow down your breathing so that you can feel hardly any warm air onto your finger so you're taking a soft and slow breath into your nose and allow a gentle and prolonged breath out breathe so softly that you feel hardly any air blowing onto your finger imagine that your finger is a feather and that your breathing is so soft that the feather doesn't move so if you were to pretend that your finger is a feather and that your breathing is so light that the feather doesn't flutter the feather isn't moving and there's no need to hold your breath or to restrict your breathing it's really just paying attention to the airflow coming onto the finger and it's about breathing less air so the more warm air that you feel the harder you are breathing can you quiet and then soften your breathing to the point where you feel hardly any air on your finger you're doing the exercise correctly if you feel a tolerable need for air i need you to feel like you want to breathe in more air and you continue practicing that exercise for about four minutes or so and again the objective here is to breathe less air so these two exercises are focusing on the biochemistry now this is a third variation which is cupping the hands on the face i'm breathing in a very small amount of breath into the nose and a small amount of breath out now this is quite a tough one so you're cupping your hands on your face and the objective here is to breathe hardly any air so you're focusing on the airflow coming in and out of your hands and the more warmer air that you feel coming into your hands you know the harder you are breathing so what i would like you to do is to breathe in a flicker of air into your nose and a flicker of air out of your nose breathe in for one centimeter or half an inch and breathe out for one centimeter or half an inch breathe in for one centimeter half an inch breathe out for one centimeter half an inch breathe in from one centimeter breathe out for one centimeter so you're taking a flicker of air in and out of your nose and as you exhale that gas carbon dioxide enriched air into your hands you're rebreathing carbon dioxide into your lungs which increase the co2 in your lungs and increase the co2 in the blood so the purpose of that exercise is continue with the air hunger for about four minutes now we typically i'll always focus on the biochemistry first and then we focus on the biomechanics and here's where we have individuals they place their hands either side of the lower ribs and as they breathe in the intention is that they're pushing their lower ribs outwards but you shouldn't hear your breathing so it's often a mistake that's made when the focus is on improving the biomechanics of breathing the intention is that the you know oftentimes the student feels that they have to be taking these full big breaths and they don't because if you're taking full big breaths you're sacrificing the biochemistry you could be so with this the person has their hands either side of their lower ribs and as they breathe in their ribs are gently moving outwards and as they breathe out their ribs are gently moving inwards so as you breathe in the ribs are gently moving outwards and as you breathe out the ribs are gently moving inwards and as you breathe in the ribs are gently moving out and as you breathe out the ribs are gently moving in so this is breathing low or breathing deep in the true sense of the word that during the inhalation the diaphragm is moving downwards and as the diaphragm is moving downwards there's movement outwards to the sides to the back and to the front so we have to think of the core as a box and at the top of the core is the diaphragm and you have the you have the abs to the front you've got the spinal muscles to the back and you've got the pelvic floor to the bottom and then we bring in resonance frequency breathing and this is slowing down the respiratory rate to between 4.5 and 6.6 breaths per minute and this is about stimulating the vagus nerve so this is really important in terms of you know causing are helping with recovery so when we stimulate the vagus nerve it's been known since 1913 that by stimulating the vagus nerve it releases a substance called acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter and this causes a slowing of the heart so somebody who wants to recover post physical exercise slow breathing especially a prolonged and relaxed exhalation but i just like to show you something else in this which is quite interesting and i'm just going to put in kevin tracy there's more to this you know back in 1998 there was a neurosurgeon called set kevin tracy in new york and he thought that if we could stimulate the vagus nerve we can reduce harmful inflammation and you can imagine the number of conditions that inflammation is playing a role and he was able to electronically stimulate the vagus nerve and he found that the nervous system could be used almost like a computer to trigger commands that stop a problem in its tracks and apparently tracy's colleagues were outside in the corridor placing bets that he wasn't going to achieve what he wanted to achieve so further trials confirmed tracings tracy's findings using electronic implants to stimulate the vagus nerve in humans you produce a dramatic reduction and even remission in rheumatoid arthritis a condition with no cure so this helped to illuminate the vagal systems close into relationship with the inflammatory system so the first steps here is that the vagus nerve by secreting um so crucially ach acetylcholine the neurotransmitter secreted by the vagus nerve it blocks the release of many of the pro-inflammatory cytokines so these are cytokines are involved in producing inflammation if we can stimulate the vagus nerve can we reduce the production or can we reduce inflammatory cytokines and then the question to ask is how can we stimulate the vagus nerve and we had i had a we had as oxygen advantage instructors we had a seminar with dr jay wiles who is an expert in clinical i think his background is clinical psychology but he's worked with a lot of people with ptsd and with anxiety and he's also an oxygen advantage instructor and he was looking at the exercises from the oxygen advantage which is basically this book and asking which exercises can we improve heart rate variability nose breathing will increase heart rate variability breathing light increases heart rate variability breathing slow and breathing low so pretty much all of the exercises that we do in terms of functional breathing patterns can improve heart rate very badly now the other point that mike just before we go on in terms of i would say to anybody you know if you are looking at breathing that the application is is enormous here breathing in asthma breathing for females diabetes epilepsy improving heart rate variability improving sleep panic disorder anxiety and racing mind post coverage and there's protocols for each of these conditions as well as chapters so people can dig deeper into it so we have exercises as well then which are very popular at the moment to stress the body so there's exercises to improve focus and concentration and exercises to stress the body i'm going to just go to a couple of them and i'm going to go to exercise number 24 on page 87 here and the reason that we're looking at this exercise here is if you do fast full breaths which is a stressor to the body and then you exhale and you hold your breath it's very important that you recover your breathing by breathing light for at least three minutes afterwards and the other thing that i would say is only do these exercises if you're not pregnant and if you're in good health your bold score ideally should be greater than 25 seconds and the reason i talk about this is because it seems to be that individuals with a low ball score when they do hyperventilation and breath holding their carbon dioxide levels aren't recovering and it could actually lower their sensitivity to carbon dioxide as opposed to improve it whereas an individual with a bold score above 25 seconds when they do hyperventilation and breath holding they seem to have a better recovery but i think it's very important that if we stress the body and you stress the body with the speed of the exhalation so in this instance it's a very fast exhalation that's a stressor whereas the previous exercises we had a really slow and relaxed exhalation that brings the body into relaxation so this exercise is a stressor we have an exhale hold exhale to functional residual capacity and only holding the breath into a moderate air hunger we don't want blood oxygen saturations dropping down to 60 percent to 50 percent to 40 percent the reason being is we've never done this in a revolution and i don't know if i want to expose the body to such critically low o2 because i really wonder when is a good stressor becoming a bad stressor so we want to stress the body but we want to do it within limits and then we want to have recovery and this is where the breed light exercise is coming in here for three minutes and just i'll just show one more exercise as a stressor and this was taken from yasin um sai weisser and i'm terrible at pronouncing his name but he's based in germany interesting guy for 35 years he's been practicing meditation and mixed martial arts and he used to do cage fighting before the rules come in so i think his first round would be five minutes and then they had a one minute rest and then they would fight until submission or knockout so it wasn't for the faint-hearted here's an exercise that came from him quite quite a useful exercise and this would be a good exercise to stress the body but it's not going to disturb everything so much so for example you have very short rapid breaths so you're exchanging a lot of air in dead space you're exercising the the breathing muscles you are stimulating the vagus nerve um you will you will activate a stress response here you start off with short breaths short breath in short breath out short breath in short breath out at a speed that you're comfortable with and then you increase the speed to between one and three breaths per second short fast breaths with movement of the diaphragm you do that for one minute and then you breathe light for one minute so you have the stressor you have recovery and then you do a second round stressor recovery and a third round stressor recovery and this is shaking the autonomic nervous system so you know this is just there are only a few exercises there's 26 exercises that we have just different variations of it but it'll kind of give people an insight into you know the potential here and you know that's where it's at wonderful um patrick thank you so much for taking us through those exercises i'm definitely going to practice some of those latter ones while they seem very interested i've not come across some of those before i'm keen to just ask you actually how do you find the time i'd love to know what your routine looks like a little bit because you seem so busy to me you're always doing podcasts you're teaching different courses to people how do you find the time to be mindful and to write books and do research i'd love to know about what your routines look like yeah like we have to face the reality here that people are not going to do formal exercises for the rest of their life i did formal breathing exercises up until about 2005 and then i brought in formal exercises into my way of life and for me it has been the best way to do it so i'll always take time out during the day and for example i'm proofing the book but i'm actually proofing it on my treadmill so and as i'm proofing the book i'm also doing brett tolling now sometimes i use sports mask so i use a device that's pulling carbon dioxide so i get the benefits of the biochemistry and then all was before like i give training most evenings because where a lot of our work is towards the united states i'll always take an hour an hour and a half out and that's when i'll do total relaxation and get away from the laptop no mobile phones bringing my attention inwards slowing down the breath so i like to do it in that kind of regime i always have to get physical exercise in every day but i'm not an athlete um i'm not a fan of running so i'll do you know at most it would be jogging fast walking etc and typically i'll get in about an hour to an hour and a half a day um the other aspect that i think it's very very important mike is not to live in my head i spent 20 years stuck in my head and i you know i often use the story that my first kind of taste of this was back in 1998. i went to a two-hour talk and obviously i had a racing mind at the time because i wouldn't have had such an interest in psychology in the mind unless my mind is racing like if you look at people who have who are in psychology there's a reason that they're drawn to psychology and i think that the reason that they're drawn is that they're drawn to psychology in an effort to try and solve their own mental health problems you know so i was drawn to quieting the mind not from a theoretical point of view it was to try and get some solace for myself because society puts an awful lot of pressure and the education system you know we're trained how to think but we aren't trained how to control the mind we're not trained how to stop thinking we're not trained how to bring a quietness to the mind and it's only with a quietness of the mind can be concentration because if we have a mind that's bombarded with thought that thought is continuously distracting that we don't have the focus to place what we need to place it upon so i went to this talk back in 1998. there were two guys giving the talk was a guy and a girl and i just listened as part of an audience part of a group small group of people for about two hours i left that hotel in dublin and i walked down grafton street and it was the first time that i was there so whatever had done and it wasn't hypnosis or anything like this it was more the individuals who were giving the talk were talking from a point a state of presence and by doing that they were able to bring me and i'm sure other people but i didn't talk to anybody else about it so i don't know but i felt that when i left there i was present that the chattering mind had quietened and it was almost as if there was kind of a you know a movement that i was then able to come into present moment awareness as opposed as opposed to my entire attention stuck in my head because i can imagine the number of times i would have walked down grafton street before i went to school in sink street i went to university in tcd so i was walking that street all the time most days and i hardly ever saw the street because i would be walking completely immersed and taught asleep and you miss everything because if we are living in our head how can we relate to life we don't we only relate to life for very brief moments when we take our attention out of our head and we focus and the one thing about the breath was like that gave me a taste of it and then i did more courses on it and then i went down and i did for past the courses which i thought were wonderful i did a tony quinn course for example and this was back in 2000 we we flew to egypt and this will show you the extent because i was only in my twenties at the time for two weeks i paid fifteen thousand pounds for two week course and i did the two-week course you know what it was beneficial but i never told anybody else ever to go on it and the reason being is because you can achieve what you could achieve in that course by simply doing it for passing a course and a 10 day for passing the course you know and i did that for past the courses afterwards and it's voluntary you know you just donate whatever 300 euro or whatever you feel that's suitable you know to the course so the whole aspect i would encourage anybody you know really check how how often are you actually in the present moment or are you stuck in your head all the time because it's something that's endemic and i'm assuming that the reason that it hasn't come into education is because most school teachers are stuck in their heads you know and it should be in religion and it would have been the pillars of religion spirituality you know when we're talking about spirituality we're talking about the degree to which we have stopped thinking and the degree to which we're connected with life like as human beings are we actually here or are we living in our heads and how on earth are we living life and how inert are we connecting with life through the five senses through our sight sound touch taste smell etc you know it's really and it's a habit it's a habit that as oscar wilde said he said he said thinking is a disease and people die of it just like any other disease and he's correct because how many people die by suicide every year how many people need to take antidepressant medications and when you talk to these individuals how many people are on drugs you know how many junkies are out there they need their fix why because they're trying to escape pain and the pain is coming from the mind and when you think about somebody with mental health issues you know the racing mind how can we teach or how come what can we do to bring a quietness to the mind focusing on the breath is definitely one but it's not enough mindfulness is not enough you know i know sn goenka will say never change your breathing and i will say absolutely change your breathing because if your respiratory physiology is off you need to address that you need to improve blood flow to the brain you need to increase carbon dioxide because it has a calming effect on the central nervous system you need to breathe through your nose you need to get better sleep you need to breathe low using the diaphragm and people might say well oh my god that's totally unachievable no start off with one thing start off with nasal breathing start off with nasal breathing and the one thing that really changed my life was taping my mouth at night getting my mic closed waking up feeling alert and refreshed you know we're talking now we start about 7 30. you know it's it's okay but we're fairly bright at 7 30 and there's times that i've started working three or four o'clock in the morning you know especially when i'm trying to get a book done and that's the benefit of this because i remember as a teenager going into school i would be absolutely exhausted and falling asleep at the desk and the teachers thought i had no interest like i was one of these students that the teacher had absolutely no interest in because i didn't have the capacity to focus and concentrate because of poor sleep but nobody ever told me breathe through your nose nobody ever said how can we show you how to concentrate because concentration is the tool and it's a tool that we need for the rest of our lives and only can we concentrate when the mind is quiet when we can bring a stillness between thoughts if the mind is content constantly in the state of vegetation we cannot concentrate but what's more we're not happy so happiness is related to the degree which we can quieten the mind and through the breath by bringing our attention into the present moment by taking our attention out of the mind and into the body we can help bring a quietness to the mind and these are skills that i bring into my everyday life because i'm not sure mike how would i have coped you know i'm nearly 50 years of age now so i have a few miles in the clock how would i have coped without the tools that i came across accidentally 20 25 years ago they have been absolutely instrumental in my work in my productivity in intuition in creativity all of those tools that we need to survive and drive you know i feel for the guy who's going into the corporate environment he's in a stressful environment and if on top of that he is poor sleep poor breathing patterns what on earth what is happening there you know that's a toll on that individual and um yeah it's we're all as human beings we're all seeking happiness and that's where it's at yeah and i just think about that poor corporate person and then they've probably got a bad posture as well they're probably not they're probably not getting daylight they're probably getting distractions everywhere emails whatsapps everything's going on and then you just come home and you're just exhausted you've been talking all day so uh thank you i think that was a really beautiful lovely summary about mindfulness and you said something once when i was in one of your training for the oxygen advantage it was something along the lines of people put on a music track and they don't even hear it after the first few seconds and that that really hit home with me when you said i thought oh that's me because i put the music on but i actually put it on to go and think and then i'm just constantly thinking and it was only the other day actually i read i read a book by uh author robin sharma and it's called the 5 a.m club i don't know if you've come across this wonderful book no i've come across some of his other books but yeah not that yeah i i i then read the monk who sold the ferrari which was also fantastic but there was i just started um giving myself a little bit of time in the morning just just to do nothing because i'm constantly distracted so i thought well i'm gonna have just 20 minutes and i'll do a better journey and a bit of thinking and for the first time this only happened to me the other week i was in the shower and i noticed the pattern on the tiles and i was oh that's a nice shower and i was like and it was the first i can't remember the last time i had that moment of clarity of like this is really nice and i just was in a bit like you were the street in in dublin i was like yeah yeah i'm present now and i'm just i'm just enjoying this environment i've never i've been in that shower hundreds of times never noticed the pattern so so there you go but um so thank you so where can uh where can people find your book and uh what's that just reminds us the title again yeah so the title is the breathing cure and um it's available from our website it will be on amazon as well amazon.com at uk so it's available from oxygenadvantage.com or buteykoclinic.com so it's released on the 8th of february so within one week so that's why i'm in a rush to proof well guys i'll put the links in the description below please go ahead and get that book and uh if you don't know much about the oxygen advantage you get onto that website as well and uh and start looking at all that good stuff patrick once again thank you so much for your time it's always a pleasure to talk to you really appreciate it and yeah guys we'll see you on the next podcast cheers everybody thank you mike cheers you

Channel: TAKE A DEEP BREATH

Views: 33,371

Keywords: take a deep breath, breathwork, breathing exercises, patrick mckeown, james nestor, breath the new science of a lost art, tadb, the breathing cure

Id: d2i-1hCRPLw

Length: 74min 30sec (4470 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021