The Breathing Expert: Breathing Through Your Mouth Can Cause ADHD, Diabetes & Child Sickness! (Must Listen): James Nestor

Sep 7, 2023 1h 57m 12 insights
James Nestor, international bestselling author, discusses how modern life has led to widespread dysfunctional breathing, impacting health, sleep, and cognition. He shares insights from his research and personal experiments, offering actionable strategies like nasal breathing, diaphragmatic techniques, and improving indoor air quality to restore optimal breathing.
Actionable Insights

1. Prioritize Nasal Breathing

Consistently breathe through your nose, as it’s the organ designed for respiration, filtering air, capturing moisture, and producing nitric oxide, which is crucial for circulation and immunity. This simple habit can prevent numerous health issues and improve overall health.

2. Master Diaphragmatic Breathing

Focus on breathing deeply into your lower abdomen, allowing your diaphragm to descend and your hands to move laterally, rather than just breathing into your chest. This ensures proper gas exchange, aids blood and lymph circulation, and supports heart health by reducing its workload.

3. Optimize Posture for Breath

Maintain a straight yet relaxed spine, especially when sitting, to allow your diaphragm to move freely and facilitate deeper breaths. Poor posture, such as slouching, inhibits proper diaphragmatic movement, leading to shallow chest breathing and reduced oxygen intake.

4. Monitor Children’s Breathing

Actively observe how children breathe, especially at night; audible breathing or mouth breathing are red flags for potential health issues like asthma, allergies, ADHD, and sleep-disordered breathing. Early intervention to correct these habits can prevent long-term problems.

5. Increase Chewing for Jaw Health

Encourage children to eat foods that require significant chewing, as this helps develop proper facial structure and larger airways, counteracting the negative effects of soft, industrialized foods on breathing and dental health.

6. Reset Stress with Double Inhale

When experiencing acute stress or anxiety, perform a double inhale (two quick inhales) followed by a long, slow exhale to quickly reset your respiratory system and calm your nervous system. This technique can be done subtly anywhere to regain composure.

7. Lengthen Exhales to Calm

To activate the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce stress, practice breathing patterns with an extended exhale, such as inhaling for four seconds and exhaling for six seconds. This slows your heart rate and promotes relaxation by sending signals to the vagus nerve.

8. Monitor Indoor CO2 Levels

Be aware of indoor carbon dioxide levels, as concentrations above 800-1000 ppm can impair cognitive function, cause physical discomfort, and lead to health issues. Prioritize ventilation by opening windows or ensuring fresh air intake, especially in sealed environments.

9. Track Breath Hold Capacity

Regularly perform a ‘control pause’ or BOLT score test by exhaling gently to a neutral point and timing how long you can comfortably hold your breath before the first urge to inhale. Aim for 40 seconds or more, as this indicates good respiratory health and CO2 tolerance.

10. Hum for Nitric Oxide Boost

Humming can increase nitric oxide production in the nose by up to 15-fold, which helps with vasodilation, circulation, and defense against viruses and bacteria. It also stimulates the vagus nerve, promoting calmness and reducing rhinitis symptoms.

11. Tape Mouth for Sleep

Consider using mouth tape at night to ensure nasal breathing during sleep, which can significantly improve sleep quality, reduce snoring, lower heart rate, and increase sleep efficiency by providing a consistent, fluid breathing signal to the brain.

12. Exercise to Maintain Lung Function

Engage in regular cardiovascular exercise, combined with proper nasal breathing, to maintain and improve lung capacity. This helps stave off the natural decline in lung function that occurs with age and is a strong indicator of overall health and longevity.