10 Big Ideas to Optimize Your Breathing (via Mastery Series Module VI: The Fundies - Part 5: Breath)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimize Mastery series. Today we've got module six, the Fundies, our fourth fundamental. We've done eating, moving and sleeping. It's time for breathing. Then of course, focusing, celebrating and prospering before we wrap it up and send you on your way. But for now, we have breathing. Now you may think, really, we got to learn how to breathe. And the reality is, yes, in our modern society, all the chronic stress, the bad nutrition, the sedentary ness has created a sub optimal breathing pattern in most of us. Most people breathe through their mouths when they should be breathing through their nose. We're going to work on that as we take an 8020 look at how to optimize your breathing so you can create that energized tranquility. We're always talking about the calm confidence to approach life with calm, grounded, centered focus. As always, we have 10 big ideas. But, but before we jump in and look at those, how about we take a deep breath? You know the drill at this point, we got a 1, 2, 3. We're going to review it today, but in through your nose, down into your belly, work out that diaphragm back out through your nose, exhaling slightly longer than your inhale. We're going to do a lot of practice today. Theory, practice to mastery. We'll start right now. I always love taking breaths with you. And it's funny because as I was doing that, I was thinking of one of the ideas. We'll talk about Tai Chi masters when they compete, which is a funny thing. But when Tai Chi masters compete, they will lose points. Judges will deduct points if they can detect their breathing. The Tai Chi master has such a subtle breath, they say that the nose, the hairs in your nostril don't even move as you breathe in and breathe out. That's the ultimate ideal. Nice calm, centered, relaxed, gentle breathing deep into our diaphragm, back out through our nose. Imperceptibly quiet, etc. When we're at rest. So here we go. Big idea number one. Oxygen. O2 equals cell fuel. There is no more fundamental fuel for your cells than oxygen. All healthy cells depend on oxygen for their fuel primarily. You know what cells don't, by the way? Cancer cells. Cancer cells can actually rapidly recreate themselves in an anaerobic environment. Healthy cells, aerobic, they're oxygen fueled. So we want to remember we can go for weeks without food, we can go for days without water, we can only go for minutes without air. Which is why the experts in this domain say this is the fundamental that we want to pay the most attention to. As I playfully said before, you talk to an eating expert, they say eating is the most important. A movement expert says movement. A sleep expert says sleep. A breathing expert. Guess what? They say breathing. It all comes down to breathing. And they're all right, by the way. These are all tied for first place. We want to optimize each, aggregating and compounding these tiny gains, getting to that point where we have that grounded foundation, fundamentally permanently changing our lives. So we're going to talk about that in a little bit more depth. Then we have the second idea, which is, paradoxically, oxygen isn't the issue. Most of us get the right amount of oxygen saturation, 95% plus blood saturation of oxygen. It's the carbon dioxide levels that are disrupted. And it's carbon dioxide that paradoxically, we need to work on, because oxygen is only released from the hemoglobin into our tissues in the presence of the right amount of carbon dioxide. And if you aren't breathing properly, AKA if you are over breathing, which most people who breathe through their mouths are doing, then you don't have the adequate levels of CO2. So oxygen is actually not getting out of your hemoglobin into the cells where it needs to go. We're going to reflect on that. Third, fourth and fifth big ideas are our three rules for proper breathing. You want to get the CO2 levels right, to push the O2 into our cells and tissues, out of our hemoglobin into the tissues. What is it say with me, rule number one, in through your nose, always. Rule number two, down into your belly, Pretty much always. Three, exhale slightly longer than your inhale. That is the fastest way, the easiest way to flip the parasympathetic nervous system switch. Get out of fight or flight when you're breathing through your mouth. The only time we used to breathe through our mouth old school style was in an emergency. Now we do it all day, every day. We're triggering a fight or flight response. Sympathetic nervous system is blowing up. We can change that very quickly and easily. Nose, belly, exhale. Those are our three rules. Those are the fourth, fifth, sixth ideas we'll cover today. When should we do that? How about all day, every day? Of course, today's the day, but moment to moment to moment, more specifically, breath by breath by breath, we want to get in the habit of breathing through our nose, down into our bellies. Exhaling slightly longer all day, every day. So we want to think about how we can train it in three ways. One, our sleep. We're going to introduce a silly idea of putting tape over your mouth, which is not a silly idea at all. It's transformative. Second thing we're going to do is train it deliberately. Train our breath via meditation practice. And while we are exercising or training breathing exclusively through our nose. It'll be hard when you start, I promise. And then the third thing is we want to find micro moments throughout the day to practice our breathing. We're going to talk about extending your telomeres by those moments of mindfulness. The seventh idea is we're going to help you discover your count. What's the optimal count? Breath count. We. Well, there's something called a resonant rate or a coherent breathing rate. And when you get that right, you can 10x your heart rate variability, which as we've discussed is one of the key measures for your overall well being and balance in your life. Which leads us to the eighth idea, which is a vagus getaway, not Las Vegas. The vagus nerve. It's your 12th cranial nerve. It's named after like a vagabond, vagus the wanderer. This is the nerve channel that wanders through your body from your mind to your heart to your gut. And what's interesting is you can flip this vagal switch and get your vagus nerves communicating to your brain and calm down most powerfully through your breath. The best, highest peak performers get this. They know that they can create emotional control through breath control. Whether it's the Navy Seals or world championship or gold medal winning teams. They know that the avenue to self mastery and self control is through your breath via your vagus nerve. Vagal tone is one of the measures of well being as well, which is correlated with our heart rate variability. Ninth idea are four S's. We're going to talk about Superman again. Boom. Flip the switch. Clark Kent versus Superman. Posture matters. We're going to talk about something called oral posture. There is such a thing. We're going to master it. We're also going to talk about Spartans. Superman 4s's Superman, Spartans, ancient old school Spartan warriors. A little practice they engaged in for nasal breathing. And then look at modern Spartan warriors. Oops. Everyone's mouth is gaping open. Look around you. You'll see the same thing everywhere, perhaps even in the mirror. Until we work on it. Then we're going to talk about sports. This is the number one way to boost sports Performance this and sleep, as we discussed. Remember LeBron James, Roger Federer, Tom Brady? These guys swear by their sleep. And then the fourth thing is screens. So remember the negative one to plus one. Of course. Here's another negative to the screen obsession. Oftentimes when we're looking at a screen, we don't breathe. We hold our breath. We have what's called screen apnea. Ah, four S's. All of which leads us to the tenth big idea. Putting it all together. The perfect breath, the optimized breath. We have a big three times three. You got to know how to do it, you got to know when to do it, and you got to do it. We're going to talk about that. When you know, then you check to see if you are doing it. If you're not, boom. Do it. Enter perfect breath. And of course, we're going to wrap it up with one more optimized fundy prescription. What are you going to write for yourself? What's the number one thing you can do to optimize your breath today? That's the overview. Let's jump in. All right. Our first big idea is oxygen equals cell fuel. We're going to talk about some details to bring that point home. But first, we're going to start with another breath. In fact, between each of our ideas, we are going to move from theory to practice to mastery. I actually wrote breathe right As a reminder for me as a little insert in my notes here. And then I realized, you know what? I was going to do it a little bit further along after we've practiced the core rules. Then I realized, no, no, no. We need to do this between each of our ideas. Practice, practice, practice. We want to feel it. Flip the switch. Feel that energetic transference. Feel energized. Tranquility operationalized. One breath at a time. This is our ticket to calm confidence. So I took the piece of paper that I had written breathe on, put it on the scanner on the printer. Give me 10 copies, please. There we go. Boom. Let's go. So find a comfortable position if you're standing up. Stand up nice and tall. Strike that power pose, whatever it is for you. Thread through the head. Feet nice and grounded. You're buoyant. You have simultaneous levity and gravity. I remember once I gave a talk and a professional ballerina came up to me afterwards and said, you hold yourself the way we were trained to hold ourselves in ballet. Up right? Where there's an upness and at the same time, a groundedness. We want to have fun playing with that Emerson and I, our little Emerson, talk about this all the time. Boom. Up, down, levity, gravity. Pull that thread. Chest up, chin down. You've got your posture right? We're going to talk about this a lot, too, in posture. I'll go to it right now. Most people have an S shape. They're hunched over, they're looking at screens all day long. We want to have a J shape, right? They talk about this oral posture. Think of a Greek statue. It literally is striking. A power pose, a Michelangelo painting or sculpture. We want to have that level presence. You can be sitting and doing this as well. Same thing. Pull the thread. Spine, nice and long. You're up. And why do you do that? Because you give yourself an opportunity to breathe better. 30% better. When you're hunched over, your diaphragm is compressed. You can't get as much oxygen into the bottom of your lungs. Therefore, posture matters. Let's do that. Breath long. Prelude and let's go. Start, end with a smile. Smile in the middle. It's a nice touch. We'll talk about that today, too. So you know how I've kind of enjoyed sharing some of those quotes on if you could take a magic pill, right? We talked about John Ratey's In Movement. We talked about Matthew Walker's in the sleep section. I promised I'd share one in the breathing. Here it is. This is Belissa Vranich from her great book called Breathe Right. And as an aside, the top books I recommend are the Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McGown. Check out the notes. Love Patrick. Check out His Luminary session and James Nestor's Breath. Great book as well. Quick reading or great read by a journalist talking about breath and some experiments he ran, ancient practices, modern science, etc. Fantastic. Melissa's book is great as well. Here's what she says. What if I said I had a medicine that would keep you calm but alert? Energized tranquility, that would relax and energize you, that would help you recover, boost your immune system, lower the oxidative stress that causes aging, power you up, and fuel every cell in your body, from your frazzled brain to your taxed muscles. You'd say, give it to me. Right. Well, here it is. And no side effects. Take it every day. Doctor's orders. She continues by saying, life changing. Yes, That's a word I keep hearing over and over from my clients. The first time, I thought it was an exaggeration. Life changing. I cocked my head. Yes, life changing. They would insist, often after only the first session I'll attest to that as well. Now, I've done a lot of stuff over the last 20 plus years and I have practiced meditation now for shoot, 13 plus years. I've missed one day over that period of time. Literally we've talked about that before, but I had years in a row and I missed a day and I was like, oh no, got back on it. So I've missed one day of meditation that calmed my mind significantly. Yet I still had, as we've discussed, when I was a kid, I was super anxious, nervous about everything, right? Constantly sweating, etc. Now that kind of went away on a significant level, but I didn't realize that I still had a baseline there until I removed grains. I followed a Whole30 approach for a while, right? And that literally healed some skin issues for me that I had. And my consciousness just dropped down a level. It was as if I had, and I almost certainly did have some inflammation in my brain from something that wasn't working. And when that was gone, I felt psychologically calmer because I was physiologically less active and inflamed and struggling, et cetera. But so that took me to another level. But doing the breathing work that I've done has taken me to an entirely different level. When I got into Patrick McGowan's work, the oxygen Advantage, I interviewed him, he wound up coaching me, and I practiced it every single day for years. Now, since I first read his book, I've done an exercise I'm going to share with you and I do so much. It's tough to point at one thing, but I'm certain that optimizing my breathing has truly dropped me into an even deeper state of that energized tranquility, that calm confidence, and as Belissa says, life changing. So I'm really excited about that for you, for your kids, for your family, for your clients, colleagues, community, et cetera, as you master this and share it. So here's another thought. This one is from Breath. Great new book by James Nestor. New as I'm recording this, he tells us this. No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or strong you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. Then of course, he proceeds to provide some compelling evidence to the truth of that. So I kind of view my job in general and particularly with each of these fundamentals to sell you on it, right? I'm a virtue salesman, a fundamental salesman. So hopefully I've started that sales process. We've got you on board. Here's A little more. Virtual oxygen is cell fuel. It's your number one source of energy. Every single healthy cell in the body depends on oxygen for energy creation. As I said. You know which cells don't need that? Cancer cells. They can thrive and do thrive in an anaerobic environment. You know what they feed on? Sugar. Whole nother conversation we talk about in conquering cancer 101 and 102. For now, healthy cells and need oxygen. I will say it one more time. You can live for weeks without food. You can live for days without water. You can live for minutes without air. It is fundamental to our well being. And again, you could say this is actually the most fundamental fundy out there. And you'd be right. Here are some other stats to think about. Your brain. Three pounds. Beautiful little guy, right? Or gal. Three pounds. Two percent of your body weight. Yet it uses 20% of your body's energy and 20% of your oxygen. So getting this right is very, very important for your mental performance. Did you know that your breathing is responsible for 70% of your detoxification? It's true. Sweating and eliminating only account for 30% of your body's detoxing. Most of it is done via breathing or not done via breathing. Which is why Belissa says, look, you can eat all the organic food you want, you can take all of the supplements you want. But if you are not oxygenating your cells through proper breathing, it doesn't matter. So let's pay attention. Which is why final little point here. Dr. Andrew Weil tells us if he could only teach us one thing, it would be learn how to breathe. Oxygen. It's cell fuel. Let's figure out how to breathe. Hey, this is Brian again. I hope you enjoyed that overview of a Mastery Series session and got some wisdom out of it. You can apply to your life today. What was it again? You can learn more about our Optymyze Coach program at Optimize Me Coach. And here's a fun little video we put together featuring some of our Optimize Coach graduates describing what they got out of our program and why they loved it so much. You can also check out hundreds of other testimonials at Optimize Me Coach. Have an awesome day and let's do this.