Why You're Breathing Wrong, and How to Fix It

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Chasing Life

Episode Title: "Why You're Breathing Wrong, and How to Fix It"
Host: Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Guest: James Nestor, author of "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art"
Date: January 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

Dr. Sanjay Gupta welcomes journalist and author James Nestor to explore the science and power of breathing well. The episode dives into how most people breathe incorrectly, why that matters for everything from physical health to facial structure to cognitive development, and, crucially, how to fix it with simple, actionable techniques. Listeners learn why nasal breathing is vital, how breathing habits begin in childhood, how modern diets affect our airways, and about the life-changing effects of proper breathwork—including impacts on ADHD, anxiety, and athletic performance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Problem: Most of Us Are Breathing Wrong

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces the issue (00:00):

  • Breathing is often thought of as reflexive, not as a skill.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the importance of breath.
  • James Nestor’s research indicates up to 90% of people breathe incorrectly.

  “As many as 90% of us are doing it incorrectly.” — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, 00:50

• Nestor's personal journey (03:05):

  • Despite being healthy, Nestor had repeated respiratory problems.
  • Doctor recommended a breathwork class, changing his perspective after experiencing powerful effects right away.

  “I had a really powerful experience in that breathwork class … I had a complete sweat, hair sopping wet … just within a number of minutes.” — James Nestor, 04:10

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Why Are We Breathing Wrong?

• The shift from nose to mouth breathing (05:33, 07:42):

  • Nose breathing is natural—animals do it even under exertion.
  • Industrialization and modern, softer diets have made our mouths smaller.
  • Less chewing = narrower mouths, crooked teeth, and airways more prone to obstruction.

  “Without chewing stress, you can’t expand your mouth properly … that’s the number one reason we have mouths that are so small. And with that small mouth, it’s harder to breathe.” — James Nestor, 07:42

• Consequences of small mouths (09:01):

  • Smaller mouths crowd the tongue forward, prompting mouth breathing.
  • Narrows nasal passages—leading to congestion and more mouth breathing.

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Practical Guidelines for Better Breathing

James Nestor’s 4 Simple Rules (05:37):

1. Breathe through your nose—day and night.
2. Breathe slowly.
3. Breathe rhythmically.
4. Breathe deeply with a full exhale.

“You can remember all of those … but actually adhering to those practices is a bit more of a challenge.” — James Nestor, 06:16

Tongue Placement & Oral Posture (06:49):

• Tongue should rest at the inscribed ridge behind upper front teeth.
• This makes mouth breathing harder and supports straight teeth and airway development, especially for children.

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Why Nasal Breathing Matters

• Physiological advantages:
  • Filters and humidifies air; adds resistance for lung efficiency.
  • Produces nitric oxide—an antibacterial/antiviral gas and vasodilator.

“You release six times more nitric oxide when you’re breathing through your nose.” — James Nestor, 16:11

• Athletic performance:
  • Mouth breathing during exercise does not increase oxygen absorption.
  • Tolerating more CO₂ through nasal breathing makes oxygen use more efficient and reduces fatigue.

“If you were able to breathe going up that hill, if you were able to breathe 20 deep breaths instead of 60 shallow breaths, that’s going to have a huge impact on your heart rate and your levels of fatigue.” — James Nestor, 14:20

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Developmental and Cognitive Implications

• Children’s facial development and ‘adenoid face’ (10:07):
  • Chronic mouth breathing in childhood changes facial structure.
  • Most vital ages for nasal breathing: roughly age 8 to 15.

“During those stages of very fast development, if your mouth is constantly open, the skeleton and musculature is going to adopt to that open, slack-jawed posture.” — James Nestor, 10:07

• Connection to ADHD and anxiety (18:52):
  • Growing research suggests sleep-disordered breathing may cause or worsen ADHD.
  • Kids with sleep apnea/snoring often underperform cognitively and physically, with effects that accumulate over years.

“One of the number one causes of ADHD … are kids having sleep-disordered breathing. They said this is the main driver behind ADHD.” — James Nestor, 18:52

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Discussion of Mouth Taping

• Mouth taping as a tool, not a cure-all (22:45):
  • Helps condition the habit of mouth closure at night, training nasal breathing.
  • Acclimatize slowly—don’t start overnight. Try it for short periods first.

“You have to acclimate your body to this…then work up to sleeping with it. So I think so many people want to jump out and go from 0 to 100. It’s a bad idea.” — James Nestor, 22:45

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Scenario-Based Breathing Techniques

For pre-date nervousness (24:43):

• Inhale, pause, repeat a few brief inhales and pauses, then exhale calmly; do this subtly to remind your nervous system you’re in control.

“You are constantly breathing in. You are telling your nervous system, you’re telling your heart that you are in control. It’s not in control. This is not a subconscious thing. This is something that you are consciously controlling.” — James Nestor, 25:29

For chronic pain or flareups (26:19):

• Avoid hyperventilation; try controlled, rhythmic breathwork like the Wim Hof method or Sudarshan Kriya.
• These can help turn the nervous system from stress response to calm control.

“When you are having a flare up, your nervous system is reacting … To hyperventilate is about the worst thing that you can do. You have to remind your brain and your body that you’re in control.” — James Nestor, 26:19

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “As many as 90% of us are doing it incorrectly.” — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, 00:50
• “If you look at any other animal … Even a horse running … breathing in and out through its nose, and we’re designed to do the same thing.” — James Nestor, 05:40
• “Six times more nitric oxide when you’re breathing through your nose.” — James Nestor, 16:11
• “Kids with ADHD also suffer from sleep depression, disordered breathing … one of the number one causes.” — James Nestor, 18:52
• “Mouth taping… is one of many tools… You have to acclimate… 20 minutes while doing the dishes… then work up to sleeping with it.” — James Nestor, 22:45

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00 – Introduction: Why we may be breathing wrong
• 03:05 – Nestor’s health history and initial skepticism
• 05:37 – Four basic breathing guidelines
• 06:49 – Tongue placement and its developmental impact
• 07:42 – How diet and modern living changed our airways
• 09:01 – Why a small mouth leads to mouth breathing
• 10:07 – “Adenoid face” and children’s facial development
• 13:27–15:12 – Nasal vs mouth breathing for athletes, CO₂ tolerance
• 16:11 – Nitric oxide and immune benefits
• 18:52 – The link between breath, ADHD, and anxiety in children
• 22:45 – How to safely try mouth taping
• 24:43 – Scenario: How to breathe before a big event
• 26:19 – Breathwork for managing chronic pain

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Conclusion: Actionable Steps

• Breathe through your nose, not your mouth—day and night.
• Practice slow, rhythmic, deep breathing to improve energy and calmness.
• Support your children’s oral posture and nose breathing to influence their health, cognitive function, and facial development.
• Consider simple breathwork techniques (including humming and CO₂ tolerance practices) for stress, pain, and performance.
• Experiment with mouth taping carefully if you struggle with mouth breathing at night—but start slow.

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This episode reveals that transforming your life may truly be as simple as changing the way you breathe—one breath at a time.

Transcript

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Welcome to Chasing Life. If you are listening to this podcast, you are breathing. And no offense, but there's a very good chance that you're doing it wrong. The average person takes something like 20,000 breaths per day, more than 7 million a year. And I've always thought of each of those as a reflex, something we instinctually do, rather than a skill that we can hone. But for me, that changed in 2020, as a global pandemic attacked our respiratory systems. This timely book came out called the New Science of a Lost Art. I read it, and it blew me away. Chronic diseases, brain function, even the way we physically look, the way our faces look. The author, journalist James Nestor, argues that mounds of scientific research makes clear that all those things can be direct consequences of the way we breathe. And he wrote that as many as 90% of us are doing it incorrectly. But something that really struck me was the next part of his argument.

[James Nestor]

Whether you have asthma or snoring or sleep apnea or COPD or nasal congestion during allergy season, all of these are signs that you're not breathing well. And just adhering to a few extremely basic, deceptively simple guidelines, you can restore a lot of those issues.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So a new anniversary edition of Breath is out now, and I invited James onto the show to talk about what he has learned since the book came out. This is a really fascinating conversation. We're going to explore how your diet can shape your face, how you can boost your stamina like Olympians just by how you breathe, and how your child's nighttime breathing can impact their development. Most importantly, we cover practical and immediately actionable ways to improve our health one breath at a time. Even the way that your tongue is currently sitting in your mouth, you can change that, and that changes everything. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Well, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.

[James Nestor]

Thanks for having me.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

You know, it's so interesting because I think people think breath, and they think it's just this reflexive thing that we do. And the idea that we could be doing it wrong or that we could at least be doing it better, I think is. It's inherently fascinating. That grabbed me out of the gate when I was reading your book. You start with this scene, which is essentially a free breath class in San Francisco, and I think you write that you're dying. Doctor said it could help your failing lungs and your frazzled mind. And I'm just curious, first of all, what was your health like at that stage of life? And what did you initially think when.

[James Nestor]

Your doctor said that my health was pretty good? I focused a lot on exercising, eating well, sleeping eight hours a night, all of that stuff. But the issue was I kept getting respiratory problems, I kept getting bronchitis, and I kept getting mild pneumonia every year. And I was told by my other doctors that I would go to, that this was normal, that I shouldn't be worried about it. But I started to question that after several years. And that's where Dr. Friend mentioned I should do a breathwork class, which I had never done in my whole life. And so I took her word and explored it.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Were you a skeptic or a believer out of the gate?

[James Nestor]

Well, I've been a journalist for 20 years, so I'm very skeptical about stuff, especially when people start making very bold claims about how very simple things can transform your health in particular ways. So, yes, I was extremely skeptical.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

So obviously your thoughts about this evolved over time. But take us back into that clinic, though. What happened and what started to make you less of a skeptic and more of a believer?

[James Nestor]

I think my personal experience, right from the get go, I had a really powerful experience in that breathwork class that didn't seem physically possible, that you could just sit with crossed legs in a cold room and breathe in a rhythmic pattern and break into a complete sweat, hair sopping wet, T shirt sopping wet just within a number of minutes. It wasn't like I was exerting any serious physical effort to do this. It was just a very rhythmic breathing pattern. And I'm not saying this is proof of anything. There's no control version of me. But I've never had one of those problems since after I learned these very basic principles. So that got me more curious from a journalistic standpoint of what else there was out there about it. You know, where was the science? And so when I started looking at the scientific literature, started talking to experts in the field, it turned out that so many of us are breathing dysfunctionally. So whether you have asthma or snoring or sleep apnea, COPD or. Or nasal congestion during allergy season, all of these are signs that you're not breathing well. And just adhering to a few extremely basic, deceptively simple guidelines, you can restore a lot of those issues.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Can you tell us what a few of those simple, basic guidelines are?

[James Nestor]

Sure. The first one is to breathe through your nose. The majority of time in the daytime and all of your sleeping time, you should be breathing in and out through the nose. If you look at any other animal in the animal kingdom, how do they breathe? Even a horse running at, you know, 45 miles per hour, breathing in and out through its nose, and we're designed to do the same thing. So that's the number one thing that you need to be doing. And after that, it's breathing slowly, breathing rhythmically, breathing deeply, and having a full exhale. So you can remember all of those, you know, very easy. You can write them on a napkin. But actually, adhering to those practices is a bit more of a challenge.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

One respiratory therapist I talked to, I was at the hospital on Monday, and I said I was going to be interviewing you, and she said to talk to you about this idea of proper tongue placement within the mouth. And so just now, as I'm talking to you, this idea of taking your tongue and putting it right at the junction of your palate and your front teeth, your upper teeth. And I'm doing it right now. And if you're trying this, you'll find if your tongue is in that position, it's very hard to mouth breathe then.

[James Nestor]

Right.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

It automatically forces you to nose breathe.

[James Nestor]

She's completely right. And so this is something that so many of us are just coming back to. This is especially important for kids because the tongue is very powerful muscle. And if you have proper oral posture, that tongue, especially when you swallow, will push against the upper palate and enable you to have a wider mouth. And with that wider mouth, teeth can grow in straight. And this is one of the reasons why so many kids have mouths that are too small. Because they have mouths that are too small, they have teeth that grow in crooked. So not only is it good functionally for how your bones are going to be developing, but for breathing as well and keeping your mouth shut. This is the natural position in which we're supposed to be holding our tongues and breathing.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

I think you just alluded to this. But why are humans more likely to be mouth breathers than other species?

[James Nestor]

It's a whole number of different factors, and the first one has to do with the size of our mouths. If you go back in time, you could go to anywhere in the world around 1,000 years ago, and you would see uniformly straight teeth. You would see very wide mouths. And then you could go back in time 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago, a million years ago, and you would see the same thing. And then right around the Industrial Revolution, depending on where you were 300 years ago, 400 years ago, in a single generation, 50% of a population would have crooked teeth because their mouths were so Small. And this was 100% tied to the consistency of the food they were eating. Industrialized foods are extremely soft. There's no chewing stress. Without chewing stress, you can't expand your mouth properly. This sounds crazy, but Dr. Robert Coraccini spent 40 years researching this and wrote 250 different scientific articles showing the same thing over and over and over. So that's the number one reason why we have mouths that are so small. And with that small mouth, it's harder to breathe.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

I just want to make sure I understand. So does a smaller mouth make you more likely to be a mouth breather? Is that the relationship here?

[James Nestor]

Yes, exactly. Because your tongue has a harder time fitting in your mouth, your mouth is so small, your tongue is more apt to be laying over your teeth. And it's more comfortable to breathe like this because that mouth is so small. Also what happens is the upper palate here. When the mouth grows too small, that upper palate grows up and it takes away real estate in the nasal cavities. So that makes us more apt to suffer from congestion. And if we're congested, we're breathing through the mouth.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

By the way, I have three daughters. My oldest is 20. She was visiting over the holidays, went into her room to wake her up, as you often do with teenagers, and I noticed that her mouth was taped. I think for her it's in part cosmetic. Like she thinks that it'll change the shape of her jaw. It's something that she would do for that reason as much as she would do for concerns about cavities and bad breath and things like that. Any validity to that?

[James Nestor]

I've spoken at a lot of schools and as you know, young kids don't care about being healthy. They usually don't have to worry about it. Right.

[Unidentified guest or commentator]

They're immortal.

[James Nestor]

Yes, they're immortal, but they really care about how they look. And the one thing that gets them to pay attention is to show them pictures of either twins or of young kids who have gotten hamsters or have gotten cats or dogs that they were allergic to. And you see within a few years of them adopting to this mouth breathing posture, their facial profile completely changes. Again, this seems nuts, but if you really think about it, during those stages of very fast development, if your mouth is constantly open, the skeleton and musculature is going to adopt to that open, slack jawed posture. Right? And after a few years it will affect your facial profile. This is so common that researchers call it adenoid face. When adenoids get inflamed, kids tend to mouth Breathe. And if they do that for too long, they develop this facial profile.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

What is. What is too long?

[James Nestor]

It depends, right? It depends when that obstruction happens. Probably, I think the most vital times to be a nasal breather are probably from the ages of 8 to 15. That's just a complete guess based on growth patterns and what I've heard from Dennis. But that doesn't mean that you have to start when you're eight and you have to stop when you're 15. You know, this is a habit you want to carry through.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

If you were to just define what correct breathing looks like, especially given the fact that 90% of us are probably breathing incorrectly.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

What.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

What does it look like?

[James Nestor]

If I were to show you, I would bore you to death, because it is imperceptible. It is so soft and so fine and so easy and so natural. It looks as if nothing is happening. So in my view, perfect breathing is in and out through the nose. We already know that. Right. It's able to bring breath comfortably down to the abdomen, to the stomach area, and be comfortable enough with yourself to allow that area to expand as you breathe in. As you're inhaling and as you breathe out, it's very soft. You're just letting it go. You're not forcing it out. This is a natural, cyclical, rhythmic thing. It should be very soft and very fine as well. My shoulders shouldn't be moving. My neck shouldn't be moving.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

I think everyone, including myself, is trying it right now. I'm doing that. And again, maybe it sounds silly to anyone who's listening, but it shouldn't, because it is so fundamental to get breathing correct. I was really fascinated. I consider myself at least an amateur athlete. I work out every day. I remember when I was cycling up this hill once with somebody who was a really good cyclist, and I was clearly getting to that point of suffering up this hill on my bike. And I started to breathe in through the mouth, and he basically came up behind me and he said, okay, stop that. You're gonna tire out really quickly. Just try breathing in through the nose. But I think there's this tendency to, when you're in the middle of something really intense, to start really trying to feel like you can get as much air in as you can. And that would be through the mouth. But why is that not correct?

[James Nestor]

It's not correct because for most of the time, exercising, breathing in and out through your mouth is not going to allow you to upload more oxygen. So if you are just breathing over and over and over, you are allowing all this air to come in. For one, you're not using it because you're just bringing it into the throat, into the bronchi, into areas of the airway that do not participate in gas exchange. That air never gets into your blood vessels. And another thing thing that you're doing is you are offloading this carbon dioxide. And without that carbon dioxide, oxygen can't do its thing. It can't function in your body. So it actually deprives you of oxygen if you are mouth breathing too much and breathing too much.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Why do you think we reflexively do that if it's not physiologically beneficial?

[James Nestor]

Because we have an extremely low threshold for carbon dioxide, because we have habituated ourselves to be over breathers all the time. The hottest new trend in athletic performance, and I know several elite trainers of Olympians and ultra marathoners, is to condition their athletes to tolerate more CO2. Because if you're able to tolerate more CO2, you're able to use more oxygen more efficiently and breathe less. If you were able to breathe going up that hill, if you were able to breathe 20 deep breaths instead of 60 shallow breaths, that's going to have a huge impact on your heart rate and your levels of fatigue.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

And I should point out as well, nose breathing is not just an alternative to mouth breathing. There are other benefits to nose breathing as well.

[James Nestor]

There's dozens of benefits to nasal breathing. The number one thing for me is that it forces you to slow down your breaths, right? There's a baffle in there. All of these different turbinates and different structures allow you to slow down that breath. And with that slower breath, your lungs are actually able to absorb more oxygen, right? You create more pressure, and with that pressure, you can absorb more oxygen. So it's much more efficient. Another reason our noses are our first line of defense against bacteria and viruses. Not only do we have different structures to help filter out stuff, but we also produce a profusion of nitric oxide, which kills bacteria and viruses very, very efficiently. And we produce that in our nose. We don't get that when we're breathing through the mouth.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

So just explain that to me. So if you're breathing through your nose, the nitric oxide is. You have higher levels of it as a result of nasal breathing.

[James Nestor]

You release six times more nitric oxide when you're breathing through your nose. It's that vibration, right? That rhythm of the air passing through your nasal cavities to the endothelial cells that release this nitric oxide. So that immediately down to your lungs and it's an extremely powerful vasodilator, so it allows your blood vessels to help open up. We can do that in our noses as well. And we can increase that even more. If we hum, we get a 15 fold increase in nitric oxide humming. You'd be surprised. I know this sounds goofy, but next time you're riding up that hill, next time you're struggling and you're breathing through your nose, try to hum and that this isn't some sketchy thing. There is biochemistry behind this and it absolutely works. And that's what a lot of athletes are starting to do now.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

After the break, James explains connections between breath to adhd.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

And I'm going to throw a couple.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Real world scenarios at him to see what breathing techniques might help in the moment.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Stay with us.

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[Hunter Harris]

Back in the pit for another shift.

[Dr. Alok Patel]

The prodigal son returns and we're going with him. I'm Dr. Alok Patel, a physician, journalist and a fan of medical storytelling.

[Hunter Harris]

And I'm Hunter Harris, a screenwriter and cultural critic. And we are the hosts of the official companion podcast from HBO Max.

[Dr. Alok Patel]

We'll be here every week to talk about each episode with the actors, writers, everyone who helps bring the page pit to life.

[Hunter Harris]

Find us on HBO Max or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

I love this book, I really do, because these are basic things that you can absolutely immediately incorporate into your life. It's quite remarkable. You know, this is something that you really started to highlight in the newer version of your book, the paperback version. I wonder if you can talk about the idea that some of what we're talking about here. I guess basic fundamental concepts around breath might have impact on things like anxiety and ADHD even. What did you find there?

[James Nestor]

I had heard whispers of this for the five, six years that I was researching this book, but it wasn't until I went on the road and started speaking at conferences that I heard the real story. And it was shocking when I heard it. And so I went back and researched it for a couple of months and what these people had told me was true. And it's that kids with ADHD also suffer from sleep depression, disordered breathing. What sleep disordered breathing is, is it's choking on yourself when you're breathing Sleep apnea. It's also resistance when you're breathing, it's snoring. It's all of these different things. So a lot of people say, well, you know, what came first, the ADHD and then the sleep disorder breathing or the sleep disorder breathing and the adhd. From the researchers I've talked to, they say one of the number one causes of adhd, the causes of it are kids having sleep disorder breathing. They said this is the main driver behind adhd. What happens is a kid doesn't sleep at night. They're struggling, they're stressed out because they're choking on themselves all night long. They wake up, they're extremely tired, right? This goes on for weeks, then it goes on for months, then it goes on for years. And when we're sleeping, we're restoring, right? And if our brains don't get that, they're not able to develop properly. So that's what this growing group of scientists is saying, that this is the thing. And from what I've seen, nobody's looking at this.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

So what are we to do with that information? As you're talking, I'm just thinking, even my youngest daughter, who's 16 years old, when I see her sleeping, sometimes I do see her mouth breathing.

[James Nestor]

I'm not a doctor. I'm not here to recommend anything. All I can do is tell you what I've learned from the real experts in the field. And Christian Guimano at Stanford studied this stuff for 40 years and has something like 500 different studies on the effects of poor breathing, especially the effects of poor breathing at night and what it does to your brain and what it does to even your ability to grow to a certain height. So because we release human growth hormone at night, right. And if we don't enter those stages of deep sleep, we're not going to grow to our full potential. So that's who I learned this from. Specifically, what do you do about it? First of all, you need to diagnose it just as you're doing. Is there a problem? Can you hear your kid breathing at night? If you can hear your kid breathing at night, that means there is some resistance to their breathing. They should be silent, their lips should be closed, they should be breathing in and out through the nose. Once you diagnose this, then you're able to address where is the problem. And then there are different solutions depending on the issue there. But I cannot tell you after talking with dozens and dozens of these people that are trying to get this word out, this can make such an enormous Difference to a kid's cognitive abilities, to even their ability to physically grow, to their epigenetic potential. That I'm trying to talk about this during every single talk I do, whether it's a lecture or whether it's a podcast, because I think it's that important.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

And I think this point that you've raised a couple of times, because I think the mind immediately says chicken and egg. Is anxiety driving this type of breathing, or could breathing be driving a higher likelihood of anxiety? Adhd? Look, I think about this all the time. And the idea that I would say, hey, look, proper breathing can increase your nitric oxide, could increase the amount of growth hormone you have, could physically change how you look. And some of that can be addressed by the foods that you eat, but also by something that people might think is silly, but even you have do it, which is this mouth taping. I don't want to make too much of that, but at the same time, I don't want to ignore something that people have maybe dismissed as too gimmicky.

[James Nestor]

The mouth tape thing is, now you can see people are fascinated by this because it seems so sketchy, and yet there seems to be a pretty solid foundation of science and reasoning behind it. I don't want to say everyone should go out and mouth tape. It's not going to cure everything for everybody. I would never say that. It is one of many tools you can do that some people can do to help improve their breathing, specifically to help make nasal breathing a habit so you don't have to think about it. One of the things that I've told so many people that if you want to experiment with mouth taping, do not run out by tape and try to do it at night immediately. You have to acclimate your body to this. So you wear it for 20 minutes while doing the dishes or watching TV or answering emails. Then the next day you wear it for half an hour, and then over two weeks, you see how your body is feeling. Then experiment with napping with a little piece of mouth tape on, and then work up to sleeping with it. So I think so many people want to jump out and go from 0 to 100. It's a bad idea.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Yeah, I totally hear you. And I want to make sure we emphasize this point in the podcast as well. We're not suggesting that either, but I think part of the reason these things take on such fascination is because they're so accessible and people want quick fixes. And I get that. I'm the same way. We realize there's a certain amount of work involved, especially if you're changing something as fundamental as what we're talking about here. You said this really interesting line. I think there are as many ways to breathe as there are foods to eat. And in the book, which everyone should get, there's this appendix that's essentially breathing methods that you've explored in the book. And I'd like to throw just a couple of scenarios at you and just see what breathing technique you might turn to in that situation. So let's say you're getting ready for a first date. What is the breathing technique you might use then?

[James Nestor]

I'm trying to imagine a scenario here. You're about to knock on the door, right? You've got your roses in your hands, some romantic rom com visual here, and you're about to knock on the door. This is what I would do to remove those butterflies in your stomach. I would relax your shoulders. Inhale, pause, inhale again, pause, inhale again, pause, inhale again, pause, inhale one more time and just let it out calmly out and do that again. Inhaling, pause, inhale, pause, inhale, pause, inhale all the way up and just let it out.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Now if they see this all happening on the ring doorbell, you'll have some explaining to do. Maybe.

[James Nestor]

I think you can do this. Yeah. Make sure there is not a camera watching you do this. But what you can do is on the, you know, in the car before you do that, or on the subway. And another thing is this doesn't have to be a big pronouncement, right? You can do this so subtly, no one can see it. You are constantly breathing in. You are telling your nervous system, you're telling your heart that you are in control. It's not in control. This is not a subconscious thing. This is something that you are consciously controlling.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

That's amazing. Let me ask one more scenario because I just wrote this book all about pain. Someone has chronic pain, like chronic back pain and maybe struggling with a flare up. I see this even in my own practice where people like their breathing changes as a result of pain. What is the recommendation in terms of breathing techniques there?

[James Nestor]

I think pain is extremely complex. I'm glad you're writing a book about it because I don't think anyone really has their head around properly how to manage people with chronic pain. I know a few people who got in very serious car accidents who are now living with chronic pain. It's very difficult for them. So I think the idea that when you are having a flare up, your nervous system is reacting Right. You were entering a state of stress is to try to turn that around. Just like if you suddenly hurt yourself. To hyperventilate is about the worst thing that you can do. You have to remind your brain and remind your body that you're in control. Several people that have suffered from autoimmune diseases, including people have suffered from chronic pain, have discovered that using these vigorous breathwork techniques like the WIM HOF method, which is actually an ancient technique, he just put his name on it. Or holotropic breathing, these very vigorous techniques can be beneficial. There's one called Sudarshan Kriya from the Art of Living that has been shown to be very beneficial. Will it work for you? I have no idea. But again, these things for the most part are completely free. And the only negative side effects are that you may lose 10 minutes of your time doing them.

[Interviewer (possibly a journalist or podcast host)]

Well, a lot of people read your book. I will say, and I mean, look, I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you, but the fact that my 20 year old read your book, you know, she's in college, she's got a lot of things going on and she read your book. So, you know, for what it's worth, you got a fan club within my own household. So I congratulate you for that and writing the book. And thank you for spending this time with us. I learned a lot.

[James Nestor]

Thank you very much for having me.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

That was James Nestor, author of the New Science of a Lost Art. The anniversary paperback edition is available now. And if today's interview sponsored sparked any questions for you, record a voice memo, email it to paging Dr. Gupta.com just the letters doctor for doctor or give us a call. 470-396-0832. And thanks so much for listening.

[Unidentified guest or commentator]

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