351: Breathe Your Way Better with Sachin Patel

Welcome to the Fit and Rabbit U Podcast. I am your host, Tanya Shaw, functional diagnostic, nutrition practitioner, kinesiologist and mindset coach, here to help you do midlife and beyond well. If you are ready to take care of yourself, mind, body and soul and to enjoy the journey, you are in the right place my friend. You deserve to feel good and I am so glad that you are here. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so glad that you're here because this interview can change your life. What if there was something free, simple to use that could help you sleep better, reduce stress and improve your immune system, digestion, metabolism, help you with emotional eating? What if you already had access to it for years? In fact, just up until a couple months ago, I avoided anything to do with breath work. I avoid learning about it, engaging in it. If someone did a breathwork session or class, I did not want to go because I thought I already knew everything I needed to know about breathing. I knew how important it was to breathe correctly. I was good at breathing correctly. I know how to use my diaphragm. I know how to breathe through my nose. I thought learning how to breathe properly could be done in just a few minutes. I mean, if we breathe 20,000 times a day, maybe more. If you're breathing quite quickly, it can't be that complicated. And I do know about the power of breathing because at Ascend, my personal training studio here in Chilliwack is something that we look at with our clients to make sure they are breathing through their diaphragm because you can't activate your core muscles properly unless you are breathing properly. And so much of our postural issues and our tight muscles and our headaches comes because we're not breathing properly. But what I knew was just scratching the surface. So I first met Satchin Patel through my Functional Diagnostic Nutrition course program, continuing alumni membership. He did a webinar for us and I attended live. I signed up, I showed up live and I learned so much it blew my mind. And he recommended one book called Breathe by James Nestor and I'm almost finished it now. If you're interested in learning more about breathing and the power of breathing, it is a great book. He's also quite a good writer, so he has lots of stories and, you know, good descriptions in there, which makes it more enjoyable to read. But I learned so much and I invited Satchin onto the podcast to share the power of breath work with you. Satchin is a father, husband, philanthropist. I always have a hard time saying that word. Functional medicine, practice, success, coach Special speaker, author, breathwork facilitator and plant medicine advocate. He is committed to helping others raise their consciousness, advocate their inner doctor, and initiate their deepest healing through the use of lifestyle breathwork and respective utilization of psilocybin, which is also something I am exploring a little bit right now. In our conversation we talk all about, well, breathing, why how we breathe matters, how to breathe correctly, including the negative consequences of poor breathing, how different ways of breathing can change your physiology, and how to use different techniques depending on what you're doing or what your goal is for your day or that moment. And also some tips to get started and also for everyday practice because you don't have to set aside an hour and a half to do a breathwork course or you don't have to go to some mountain retreat in order to start utilizing your breath. It is something that we can do absolutely, absolutely, all the time, every single.

Day, ideally 22,000 times a day that.

We get to focus on our breath. A couple things I really enjoyed about this interview is how accessible breathing is, how important it is, but how we have this, all of us, we have the ability to work on our breath. I also really appreciate Satchin's approach to health and wellness. How we can really look at leveraging the basics and the foundations and so easy sometimes to look past the basics and the foundations and to go to all this fancy stuff when we really just need to focus on simple things like our sleep and our breathing. I also love Satchin's voice. I never actually told him that, but he has a very calm voice and when I was talking to him I just felt like my shoulders relaxed and I felt very calm and present just because of his voice and his Persona. So those are a couple things I wanted to share with you about Satchin. And he made it very accessible to all of us and very simple to understand and simple to implement. He has also very kindly shared a few links which I'll put in the show notes and also on the blog he has a 30 and 30 kind of 30 day challenge program where every single day you get an email to do one simple thing every single day to work on your health and to improve your health. And then he also has a link to a 90 minute breathwork session. So if you want to experience firsthand the power of breath work in an actual session, you could do that for free by just listening to his training on YouTube. All right, let's dive into the conversation.

If you were at, let's say like a party or something like that and someone Walks up to you and says, what do you do that you didn't know? What would you say?

I'm still trying to figure out what the answer to that would be. I think for me, I'm a student and I'm always learning new things, picking up new skills, and trying to find ways to connect them. If I had to put a title on what I do, I would say I'm a lifestyle and personal development coach. Because what I help people to do is design a lifestyle. I help them create the right mindset, and I help them kind of change their paradigm of health. And instead of focusing on disease prevention, I focus on health creation. Almost like a financial advisor would versus a bankruptcy attorney or somebody who's trying to turn around your financial situation. I'm helping people build theirs up. So our philosophy is that nothing can fix your body better than it can fix itself. And you have this billion dollar piece of equipment that nobody's taught you how to use. Let me show you how to use it. Unlock some of the magical features and you can enjoy better physical health, better spiritual health, better emotional health, better contribution, better income, be a better role model to your children if you have them, be a better spouse if you're married. So I just give people an opportunity to use health as the. As the platform for the other areas in their life.

I love that. It's like when you're going on a trip and the first stop is health. Because from health you can do so much, but without health, it's really hard to bypass that and to be the role model and have the energy to go do the things you want to do in life. Voice so talking about breathing, why are you so passionate about breathing and breath work?

Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, first of all, I was in the similar boat as you just like four years ago. And it wasn't until I had a breath work experience that it opened up Pandora's box for me and I started realizing, wow, if I could do that with my breath and, you know, be taken to into like a. Almost like a psychedelic type of experience, then what else can I do with. Made the other things possible because I had such an extreme experience. It made the simple things in our physiology possible, like raising our heart rate or lowering our heart rate, or raising our blood pressure or lowering our blood pressure or changing our body temperature, which we can do with our breath, or marrying our hemispheres in our brain, which we can do with our breath, or increasing our core temperature, which we can do with our breath. So there's all these different tools and it made those things more possible for me when I could go into almost what I would describe as an altered state of consciousness. So that was my first experience with breathing. So I took several breathwork sessions, and then from there I read James Nestor's book. And that really opened up my eyes to how to breathe correctly and the anatomy of breathing, not just the physiology of breathing, but the anatomy. And, you know, I was just hooked because what I've always been looking for in practice is, is a simple lever. And breathing is almost embarrassingly simple as a solution. And they, and we've been saying it our whole lives that they say the answers are right under your nose. Well, the answer to your health issues, most of them. You know, the first domino that we need to fix is your breath. Because think of it this way, you. You can probably go a few weeks without eating. You can go almost a week without drinking any water. You can go, you know, a long time without doing a lot of other things, but you can only stop breathing for about five minutes. I mean, that in and of itself tells us how important it is. But imagine if I could teach somebody how to breathe, something they do 23,000 times a day. Imagine I could make half of those breaths conscious breaths, or even 10% of those breath conscious breaths. I mean, there's so much opportunity in each day for us to breathe better. And, you know, I just feel like it's one of the lowest hanging opportunities that we have in our health. And it's free. I could teach it to people all over the world. They could apply it instantly. They can feel different instantly. It's measurable. There's thousands of peer reviewed studies on breathing. So it has all the evidence that's required. It just doesn't have a messenger or it doesn't have the awareness and somebody who's perhaps brought it to the limelight like James did. It's just cool to be able to see how powerful it is, how simple it is, how effective it is, how practical it is, and of course, how affordable it is. And now it's just a matter of teaching people how to do it.

Yeah. And I think what you said there, how simple and affordable it is, because it's so simple, we can almost downplay its importance. Because it is free, it is accessible. We can all do it right now together on this podcast if you want to. It's right there for us. And I think we are hardwired to look for the more fancy pants, complicated approaches because we think if it's more fancy, if it's more complicated, it's going to be better. And that's just simply not the case. And on your recommendation, I also have read that book and I'm almost done it. I think I have about half the half the last chapter left, and it has blown me away as well. So the book is called Breathe. And he does a good job of really looking at a lot of the different avenues of breath work and how breathing can impact so many different areas of your life. The other thing that I really liked about the book is that it talks over and over again how so much of our perhaps diseases or conditions based on poor breathing are reversible when we start to learn how to breathe properly. So even if you're in your 50s or 60s or 70s, and you've been breathing incorrectly or your whole life, you can actually start breathing correctly and your body can regenerate and it can actually. Your physical structure of your face can change based on your breath. So I thought that was really like hope giving. So we're not just feeling the word doomed because we've been messing it up our entire lives.

Yeah. You know what's fascinating about that is, and I didn't realize a lot of these statistics until I read his book and went down the rabbit hole, but the greatest predictor of lifespan is our lung capacity. And lung capacity is something that's pretty easy to measure and pretty easy to improve. So no matter where you are, there is room for improvement. And if you want to increase your lifespan, then get more air into those lungs, take them through their full range of motion every day. And you don't have to be even physically capable of being very active in order to breathe correctly. So those people who may have injuries, those people who may be incapable of doing physical activity or at an intensity that's appropriate for them, they can practice breathing techniques and do breathing practices from the comfort of anywhere. You can do it while you're driving, you can do it while you're reading. I mean, as we're having this conversation and as in your speaking, I'm becoming conscious of my breath and staying conscious of my breath. So, I mean, breath work isn't just something we do for 10 minutes in the morning. It's really how we breathe in as many conscious moments of our life as we can.

So you said something about conscious breathing versus unconscious breathing. So would you define conscious breathing as just simply being more aware of your breath, or is there another level to it?

Yeah, great question. There's conscious breathing in the sense that there's different layers of how you can check in. When I do a breath check in, which is the first thing I check in, because everything else rides on my breath. Whatever activity I'm going to do requires me to be breathing a certain way in order for me to do it. Well, if I'm running, or if I'm going for a mountain bike ride, or if I'm going to go swimming, or if I'm going to sit down at my desk and do some work, the first thing I need in place is my breath. Because then that sets the stage for the rest of my physiology. It's like the steering wheel of my nervous system. So I check in every chance I get. I wasn't always this way. I never checked in with my breath. I was completely ignorant of how I was breathing. Fortunately, I wasn't a mouth breather, which explains why I don't have any cavities. And it also explains why my wife, who has probably superior dental practices than I do, has had at least many cavities because she was breathing through her mouth. So when you start learning this stuff, you start realizing that there's so many implications of how we breathe. Where I check in is the position of my tongue. So that's layer number one. Is my tongue in the correct position? The tongue should be gently placed behind the front teeth in the roof of the mouth. So about three quarters of your tongue should be at the roof of your mouth. The next thing I'm checking in with is, am I breathing through my mouth or through my nose? And of course, if your tongue is in that position, it's almost impossible, virtually impossible, to breathe through your mouth at that point. So now you're breathing through your nose, and then I'm paying attention to the cadence at which I'm breathing. So am I. What's my pace of inhale and what's my pace of exhalation? So I'm generally trying to, if I want to put my body into a more parasympathetic state, a state of relaxation, repair, regeneration, sleep, you know, all the things that we want when it comes to healing, then I lengthen the exhale. So I might inhale for four seconds, exhale for six seconds, or the cadence that I like to breathe at most of the time is six seconds in, six seconds out, six seconds in, six seconds out. That's my. So when we're having this conversation, when I'm reading a book, that's what I train my respiratory rate to. That's what we call coherence breathing. That's the state that puts us in A that's the breathing that puts us in a nice parasympathetic state. That's the state of breathing and the pace of breathing that increases oxygenation of our brain. You have these benefits that are happening as a result of the way you're breathing. If we want to recover from a stressful physical activity, then I lengthen the exhale. My goal is to try to lengthen the exhale as much as I can, because that's going to bring my nervous system back into a parasympathetic state.

Before you were starting to become aware of your breath, were you breathing more? People just breathe more frequently. Do they breathe more shallowly? Shallowly. Shallowly, I guess, is the word. What's the difference? I guess it's going to vary from person to person because there are some people who are nose breathers or mouth breathers, but someone who's not aware of the breath. What some of the common things that we might do that might not be helpful for us.

All right, great question. There's a few things that I want to address there. One of the things that I noticed is that I'm able to control how I feel. No matter how we're feeling, there is a breathing signature associated with it. If your body is in an anxious state, there's going to be a breathing signature associated with it. If somebody's upset, there's a breathing signature. If they're happy, there's a breathing signature. Think of laughing. Laughing is actually a form of breath work. Crying, sobbing is a form of breath work. Yawning is a form of breath work. We do these things naturally, and they create a physiological effect in our body that has a core that is predictable. Every time somebody laughs, there's a predictable response that's taking place in their biochemistry. When we laugh authentically, or if we induce laughter, eventually we start laughing and we start building those chemicals up in our body. When we feel a sense of relief after something stressful has happened, and we sigh. That's our body's way of releasing. Releasing. Our lungs hold grief. So tension and stress and grief is in our lungs. So we're releasing that as a sign of relief and release. So one of the things that we can do is we can do a physiologic sigh where we exaggerate that type of breath to create that state faster in our body. So I like to, you know, I like to kind of switch gears depending on what I'm doing. So if I have a client that's coming and getting on a call with me and I know they've had a stressful day. Well, I'm not going to just start getting into the call with them. The first thing I need to do is make sure they're in the right state for learning and that they leave that stress behind them so that we're not bringing that into the conversation. So I will do something like a physiologic sigh at the beginning of the call. So they're able to kind of release, and with just like three to five releases like that, they feel like a totally different person. I've changed the chemistry in their body, and so, you know, so I like to kind of check in with, you know, the task that I'm doing, what I want to accomplish. What. What breathing pattern do I need to have in order to accomplish that task with much more ease now assisting my body in creating the physiology that I want to accomplish, what I'm trying to accomplish.

So cool. I love how you called it a breathing signature. I think that makes a lot of sense. And really, I understand that you also spoke at the beginning about just simply being aware of your breath and checking in, and that's really the start of change. We don't get to change things unless we are aware of them. How would you recommend with yourself or your clients or for other people listening to start that awareness piece? Because it's so easy to listen to this podcast and be like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. And then the next thing happens and they have to make dinner and their kids are sick, and, like, everything happens. So what are some of the strategies that you might have used or you'd recommend to other people to start to remind yourself of how to breathe?

Great question. So I think for me, it wasn't the knowledge, but it was the experience. So experiencing what breath work was able to do for me in. In about 60 minutes of breathing that, you know, piqued my interest into this subject. And then once I learned what I learned, it's like, you can't unlearn it. And there's nothing easier and there's nothing more sophisticated than, you know, tapping into this, you know, this. This really, really cool tool that we have. So for me, it, you know, once I experienced the benefit of it and realized how powerful it was and I went down the rabbit hole, I'm like, this is the first. This is the first domino in anything I do. Every task that I do, every client that I work with, this has to be the first domino, because between now and tomorrow, you're going to take 23,000 breaths. And if I could even just influence 10% of them, right, that's 2300 more conscious breaths that you've taken. If I can get you to tape your mouth closed at night, just with a small piece of tape vertically applied to your mouth, then I've now changed about 8,000 breaths that that person's going to take. Right. So just passively, that person can improve. And so I think first for me it was finding the. Discovering the power of breathing. And then it just became really obvious to me that this is the first thing I need to focus on.

Actually, after I read the book, I got some mouth tape, I put it on my mouth, but I had just been recovering from a cold, so it wasn't a good time to do it because I actually needed my mouth to breathe because my nose was so congested. But that was one thought for me because I think I breathe through my nose at nighttime. But how would you know unless you try to close your mouth because you're sleeping? And I know for myself, I do snore from time to time and that would be an indication that I'm breathing through my mouth. So be good to look at. Let's talk about some of the benefits of correct breathing or perhaps the negative consequences of incorrect breathing. Those might be a better place to start because those might be something things that others might be familiar with. So what are some of the. Let's start with the negatives. Let's, let's do the bad news first and then talk about what we can improve by proper breathing.

Yeah, absolutely. So I like to juxtaposition the mouth and the nose because most people, obviously it's clear we can breathe through our nose and we can breathe through our mouth. However, you know, our mouth is more designed for food intake and for output like our voice and expulsion, if we need to get rid of something versus taking in air. So some of you might recall if you've learned this in biology, that the dirtiest part of our body is our mouth. So every breath we take in through our mouth, we're inhaling all this bacteria and that's going into our lungs, which then creates a chronic, low grade immune response. So by simply breathing through your mouth, the dirtiest part of your body, you're creating this chronic low grade immune response that is just happening throughout the day. The nose, on the other hand, is an organ that actually cleans the air. You have little hairs in your nose, so we don't want to completely get rid of those. You might trim them, but we don't Want to get rid of them because they mechanically filter the air. We also have little cilia that we can't see with our eyes that also filter the air. We make nitric oxide when we breathe through our nose, that kills viruses and pathogen and bacteria on contact. And we pressurize the air, we moisture regulate the air and we temperature regulate the air. So the air is being babied by our nose and formed into something that we can extract more oxygen out of. You get 20% more oxygen when you breathe through your nose versus breathing through your mouth. So by simply changing the organ that you breathe through, you're getting all these benefits. Breathing through your mouth is actually very bad for you. I think of the mouth as an exhaust and the nose as an intake. So if you ever need. I mean, there's going to be times where we need to breathe through our mouth, and I get that, but that should be the few instances throughout the day. Right. If we're really sprinting or going at it or working out really intensely or some breathing. Breath work sessions can ask you to breathe through the mouth. Those are very short periods of time. The majority of the way we want to breathe is through our nose because of everything that I just said. The other thing that happens with nitric oxide production that I should mention is that it increases microcirculation in addition to killing bacteria in contact, and it also helps lower blood pressure because of that increase in vasodilation. Correct. Breathing will also change our blood pressure because it starts changing the chemistry of our body, including nitric oxide as well.

So fascinating. Then, if you're a mouth breather, what are some of the negative things that we might see there?

Yeah, great question. If you're a mouth breather, mouth breathing is the number one cause of cavities. You're going to have more dental bills, you're going to have more gum disease because the mouth tends to stay drier, and so the concentration of bacteria ends up being higher. Saliva is actually very protective. If our saliva dries out in our mouth, then bacteria tend to take over and create these oral diseases. The other thing about breathing through the mouth is that the breathing signature that you're going to produce is going to be very different. So generally speaking, people who breathe through their mouth are going to send more of a fight or flight signature to their immune system or to their nervous system. I'm sorry, this is something that we'll also see in people who snore a lot at night or people who have sleep disrupted or nighttime breathing issues. Because what ends up happening is these people wake up with high blood sugar. If your clients, let's just say if a client is waking up and they have chronically high blood sugar in the morning, despite eating all the right foods, the first thing I would assess and evaluate is their breathing. Because if they're breathing through their mouth, they're snoring, or they have apnea, their body's producing all kinds of catecholamines, fight or flight chemicals, and cortisol. And the main function of those is to raise blood sugar. So their blood sugar just stays high all the time because of how they're breathing, even though they're not eating anything.

Interesting. I do not know that. The other thing you mentioned in the webinar that you, that you hosted for us and was in the book as well is that if you are a mouth breather, you can also get up to pee more often throughout the night.

Yes.

And that is going to resonate with a lot of my listeners because a lot of times you just start going pee all the time.

Yeah. So a big, a big thing is, is that mouth breathing acts as a diuretic, and nasal breathing actually helps us retain fluids a little bit better. It helps us, you know, so what, what happens is we have a hormone called vasopressin, which regulates our flu fluids in our body, which then helps us regulate body temperature. So you actually become better at regulating your body temperature when you breathe through your nose versus breathing through your mouth. So people who are hot all the time or cold all the time, it could be the way they're breathing that's causing that issue for them as well.

Okay, that's so fascinating. And I don't remember if this is correct or not. What about allergies and asthma and things like that? Is that any relationship to mouth breathing or nose breathing, or am I just making that up because I thought I heard something or read something?

Well, allergies definitely. If somebody has allergies, we want them to breathe through their nose because it filters the air that's coming in. People have allergies. There are. And people have colds. There are no unblocking exercises that you can do. And simply you would take a deep breath in, relaxed, exhale, plug your nose, and you just keep it plugged while moving your head around. And usually with about three or four times of doing that, it unclogs the nose. So that's like a really easy technique that people can use. It's called a nose clearing exercise.

Okay. And then what about posture? That was the thing too. Is like our head, neck posture. Because right now we are in this culture of sitting in memory computers a lot. We're on our phones. We have terrible posture, and I know that is going to affect our breathing. And we become chest breathers because we're always so stressed all the time, and we're not conscious of our breathing. So what is the correct posture to also help you breathe properly?

Yeah, great question. So, as a chiropractor myself, we want to have as good a posture as we can. When we look down like this, you can almost feel like it's harder to breathe. It kinks our airway. It becomes a little bit more restricted. If somebody has a pillow and they're laying on their back and their head is beating jet forward, that can also disrupt their breathing as well. So nighttime posture, I think, is also something important to consider. If you're somebody who sleeps on their back, having a neck roll is a better idea than having a pillow. If you're a side sleeper like I am, then having a latex pillow is a great way to. Is to have good nighttime posture. Because during the day, we want to try to keep our ears above our shoulders. Right. Sometimes I'll lean in because I'm engaged in a conversation. But we want to make sure that we're kind of sitting in that neutral, neutral posture. When we. When we are curved forward like this, then our breathing becomes restricted. So our lungs and our rib cage can expand as much when we have a closed and flexed posture.

Okay, got it. And one more thing for breathing, too. So I own a personal training studio, and when the first. In addition to the FDN stuff and everything I do there, One of the first things that we do when we intake clients is we assess their breathing. Because a lot of people are chest breathers. They don't breathe through their diaphragm and their belly at all. And one thing also that we see with that is poor core activation, because the diaphragm is the top of their core canister. And that can really affect, especially a lot of people who have pelvic floor issues or just an inability to activate their core muscles properly. Not your rectus abdominis, but your actual deeper core muscles because you're not breathing properly. One thing we ask our clients to do is just simply lay down and put their hand on their chest and hand on their belly and just to train them to let their belly rise up and down and to get that. And that that in and of itself is going to get into that parasympathetic, sympathetic state. We've also found that sometimes laying back and this might be. Maybe you'll have something to say if this is. Maybe this is incorrect. But with your legs up, it can be quite helpful to get into that more relaxed kind of restorative breathing as well. That tends to be a good place for a lot of our clients. They do the best learning how to breathe, even on their back when they are just in that complete relaxed state. Because you said with the breathing, you can shift into a parasympathetic state, which is at rest and digest by your breath and by slowing down your breath. Most of the people that we work with and that you work with, I'm getting a guest as well, need more of that because we live so much for lives in more of that stress state where we're going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing, we're multitasking. We are always like, our brains are on all the time. And anything we can do to shift our nervous system into that parasympathetic state, which is the breathing, is super, super, super helpful. So what are some, like you mentioned, like the postures, you mentioned, the awareness piece. Let's say someone wants to actually start to build a bit of a breathing practice, like, or try breath work. Where do they start? How they do all this?

Yeah, so it's, you know, I'll give, I'll provide some simple solutions for people. So one of the things that people can do is they can download an app called I Breathe. And I Breathe is. It's free, so there's a free version of it. And basically you can set a timer that dings every six seconds. So it's a nice little chime. Or you can have your phone vibrate every six seconds. And what that does is, is it kind of tells your brain, without you having to count in your head, when to inhale and when to exhale. So that's like a first passive strategy. The next passive strategy is to get people to tape their mouth at night. So using 3M micropore tape, just putting a piece of tape vertically like that, is a great way for individuals to ensure that they're breathing through their nose while they're sleeping. You're going to wake up more refreshed. You're going to not wake up to go to the bathroom as much or at all anymore. You're going to be able to regulate your temperature better while you sleep. You're also going to be able to start dreaming again. If you've stopped dreaming, then a lot of times people report that they start dreaming, and for some people, they might stop snoring. So for me, it did help with my snoring, but then there's a few other things I had to do to really get rid of it. So it can help with snoring, but some people can still snore because their airway collapses. So the problem may not be in the face, but they probably might be in the airway in the neck. So we work on addressing some of those things with clients. The other thing, too is just raising awareness around breathing. I think that's the first practice is just checking, and how am I breathing? And am I breathing in a way that's appropriate with what I'm trying to accomplish? If you're breathing heavily because you're working out, then by all means, you might need to do that. But in between your reps, focus on your breathing, focus on slowing down your exhales so you can bring your body back into that parasympathetic state. Because health is not how much we can do, it's how much we can recover from. So you can build in resilience and train yourself to. To use your breath to recover from whatever bouts of stress that you might be going through. So if you're doing a heavy set in the gym, while you're waiting, while you're cooling down, you know, tap into your breath. As an example when you're driving, tap into your breath. So there's so many opportunities when the mind is wandering, come back to your breath, right? So it can be a focal point of meditation for a lot of people. So I like to incorporate it throughout my day. There's so many different types of breathing, and, you know, I don't know if we'll be able to cover, you know, really those today. But what I want people to know is that if all I can do is just open up people's eyes to, you know, even reading the book Breath by James Nestor, or, you know, we've got like a link that people can go to if they want to have their own breathwork experience. Like, I just want people to experience it, and then it'll be. They'll gravitate naturally towards it. It's. It's such a cool and powerful tool for people to use. And one of the things that. That I do is I offer, you know, like, I basically offer breathing prescription for people. And what's cool about that is that, you know, when somebody tells me, hey, these are the challenges that I have, okay, great. Instead of giving you supplements for all these things, I'M going to give you a breathing practice for all these things. So when you're cold, do this. When you're hungry, do this. When you're experiencing cravings, do this. When you want to go for a walk, breathe this way. If you want to raise your temperature, do this. So I give people breathing signatures just like I would, you know, supplements in the past. I would give, you know, you have this problem, okay, I've got this supplement for you. I've got this herb for you. But now it's like, hey, I've got this breath for you. And it's kind of fun to work with people in that capacity as well.

And so empowering and it's so instantaneous. It's something that you carry with you all the time. It's not like you have to make sure you have your special. I know what came to mind. Your special blanket for something. I don't know why, maybe that was when we were little kids. But you don't have to have anything. It's right there with you all the time. You mentioned actually something right now, which I wanted to circle back to or ask you about. Anyway, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast and I work with have a history of on again, off again dieting and just inconsistency, a rocky relationship with food, going to food for stressful events, and lots of emotional eating. How might breath work or paying attention to your breath help in those situations?

Great question. I want to start by sharing a study and I thought this was really fascinating when I saw this. They did a study and they found that people who breathe through their mouth actually require more sugar and sour in their food in order to be able to taste it. So let's say somebody is sitting next to me. My twin version of myself is sitting next to me, and I'm breathing through my mouth and he's breathing through his nose. It's going to take more sugar for me to get that sugar hit. So by simply changing how we breathe, we can change how food tastes. I mean, how cool is that, right? So we can buy just by changing how we breathe, alter our diet naturally or change how much of something we consume. Because if you breathe correctly, then something that's sweet is going to taste too sweet. Some people drink something and they're like, this isn't sweet at all. And you taste it and it's so sweet. And it could be because of the way they're breathing. Another thing with eating, you know, most of what we find with clients, and I'm sure Tanya you find this as well is a lot of times we don't eat to feed our bodies, we, we eat to feed our emotions. And so when we're in a, in a certain physiological state, if we're in a fight or flight state, then that shuts off blood to flow to our prefrontal cortex. So now we get into our emotional states, we get into our survival brain. And our survival brain is looking at, for things that help us stay alive, like food as an example, right? So it's a beneficial tool if we're trying, if we actually need to eat and survive, but it's not if we are, you know, if it's easily and readily available to us. So first and foremost, I'm sure you give this advice is if you don't want to eat it, don't buy it, right? Because if it's in your house, then it's meant to be eaten. You've already told your unconscious brain that at some point you're going to eat this. So either get rid of it if you have it in the house, or don't buy it at all. But if you do have it in the house, maybe somebody else eats it. Hopefully you're not, you know, you're not feeding your family unhealthy stuff, or maybe it's just stuff that's not right for you. The other suggestion would be tap into your breath first. Okay. So when we slow down, when we get into that six second breath in and out, or when we lengthen our exhales even more than that, or we do box breathing something to calm our nerves down, then we're able to make a more rational decision. We're able to make a decision that's much more congruent with what we want the next few hours to look like. So I would just tap into the breath, slow down the breath, and then ask myself, or ask yourself, whoever's listening to this, do I actually want to eat this anymore or is that emotion gone now?

Because we both know that we make better choices when we're feeling more calm and relaxed. And your breath can do that. And so often, even the breathing is such an important part just to pause. Because so often we just, we feel stressed, we feel the emotion, we go right to food without really ever having that pause break. And the breath can be such a great way to do that, to shift you into that more parasympathetic state where you're not so reactive. And so like, I need to just get this out now or you know, remove this emotion now or remove this feeling now and get that instant gratification and starts to get to start to use your higher thinking self, the part of your brain that actually cares about your future self by slowing down and focusing on your breath. Now you have a couple of links to share. I was actually just looking at one before this call. I did not go through the whole thing. It was breath work with Sachin and that one's a YouTube video. So it's about an hour and a half in that YouTube video. What do you go through? Because I just kind of went forward a little bit and there were some more quicker breath work session. So is that a good way for someone to even experience a breath work session with that link?

Yeah. So if somebody's going to do that, I definitely encourage them to do it with a partner. I think it works much better with a partner. You can both play it on a speaker together. Because the most important part of any breathwork ceremony that we recommend is having some sort of integration afterwards. And the integration is essentially a conversation between two or more people where you're. Where you're just kind of processing what comes up for you as you go through the journey. So it's an excerpt from a recording from a previous training that I did. But I take out the integration part because that's usually personal for people and I share the actual process. So if somebody wants to go through the process, they can go to breath work with Sachin. I give all the instructions, walk you through breath by breathing, and you get a sense of what you can do. It kind of, it's the. Similar to the experience that I first had when I started doing breathwork that opened up my eyes to this whole process. So people love it, they go through it. Sometimes people will invite their friends over and just hit play and they'll all go through it together and it's. It's a fun time. So, you know, do it with a partner. I mean, if you want to do it yourself, you certainly can. But if you do it with a partner, then you can enjoy the integration process afterwards.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, it's such a wonderful thing because like you said, it's so accessible and it's. Well, it's free to try it, right? Free to. We have this tool inside of us, all of us do. And when we understand the importance of it, and that's a big part too, because like I said about myself too, I kind of just brush it off. Like everyone knows how to breathe or I know how to breathe. And I still do consider myself to be a pretty good Breather. But then when you are doing breath work or you're more conscientious of your breath, there is that next level. So I'm not terrible, I'm not a, you know, I am a nose breather, but at least I think I am at nighttime. But like I said, I thought it'd be different when I actually start to tape my mouth. But there is that next level. You can, you can have as well. Super helpful. Yeah. As we wrap up here, I have a couple of kind of rapid fire questions I want to think about a little bit more for yourself. So what's one? You might have already said this one, but what's one book that you have recommended more than any other book?

Ooh, great question. So there's two books, the three books that I've purchased recently for all my clients. One is Breath by James Nestor, the other one is Rejuvenate by Sarah G. And the third one is what's in it for Them by Jo Polish.

Okay. I have not heard of the last two, but of course I read the first one. I always love that question because everyone has their books and I'm always looking for more books to read as well. What's one of your go to meals lately?

Oh, great question. Actually, my go to meal lately has been a smoothie. So my wife makes a delicious smoothie. I don't consider that a meal, but it's kind of my go to. When I'm on the run and I need to get a lot of dense nutrition in my body. She'll make me a smoothie. So it's got a whole bunch of ingredients in it, it's got dandy blend in it, it's got plant based protein in it, it's got some healthy fats in it, it's got some nuts and seeds in it, and she blends it up for me and makes it nice and delicious. So that's one of my go to things. It's something I use quite often on the run.

Awesome. Last question is. I feel like this is a question I wrote ahead of time for a lot of guests, but what's one self care practice or routine that's a game changer in your life? Can I guess, hey may say outside of breathing, what's another self care routine?

Yeah, absolutely. Circadian rhythm. So I really try to align my circadian biology with the rising and setting of the sun and then that leads into sleep as well. So the three big things that we focus on is first, the breath, second, the circadian rhythm, and then third, the Sleep. If you get those three things right, then those three dominoes knock down a thousand other dominoes.

Brilliant. And such. Again, relatively simple things to work on as well with the circadian rhythm. Just to clarify, would you then like in the summertime stay up a little bit later than get up earlier in the summertime and then sleep in more during the winter?

Yeah, generally speaking. So I, I adjust my, my wake and sleep time based on the time of the year.

Because you don't go to bed at five, I'm guessing.

No, I don't but, but I, I definitely go to bed earlier in the winter.

Okay, got it. I was like, I just want to clarify because I'm like, I know our days here get really short in the wintertime.

Yeah, they get pretty short here. Like 4:30. It's dark some days.

Yeah.

So yeah, I totally get that. And some days it's like still light outside and it's like 9:45, almost 10 o'. Clock.

Yeah. I'm usually in bed by then. And last question is how can my listeners connect with you and to. Yeah. Get in touch with you.

Well, thank you. I appreciate you asking. So one of the things that, what I, that I did is I created a free 30 day program called 30 Ways in 30 Days. And it's got 30 of the things that I would tell somebody if they were to come in and see me as a client. But I've made it free and accessible to everybody so I never have to say it ever again. And it's accessible to the masses. So it's 30in30.org 30in30.org and go check it out. It's absolutely free. I send you a quick email every day for 30 days and it's packed with value, but it's just one simple thing every day that you can do to improve your health.

Fantastic. I will sign up for that as well. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with my listeners and myself as well. I learned a lot from you, especially on that last webinar when it really opened my eyes to the power of breath and inspired me to read the book. And I have downloaded that I Breathe app and I'm going to take my mouth shut next. I'll do your 3:30 program. But I love the simplicity of it. I love the power of it and that it is something that is almost an untapped resource that we all have. And I really like it that it is accessible to everyone because a lot of things in especially as the world gets more and more expensive now there are so many Restrictions and limitations for a lot of people. And we often think like, well, you know, we kind of saved like being healthy for the people who can afford to be or have like the time or whatever. But these tools I think are just so powerful and I just love that, that we can all use them. So thank you so much for sharing.

Yeah, my pleasure. You know, there's a quote that Leonardo, Leonardo da Vinci said and Steve Jobs echoed it, and I'm trying to carry the torch. It is that the greatest sign of sophistication is simplicity. And so the body is so sophisticated, which means that it should be simple to take care of. Right. So it's kind of like this paradox. We don't have to match the complexity of the body to understand how to use it. Because that would kind of be a cruel joke from our creator that we had to understand every single part of our body in order to, to make it work for us. The key is that what we're looking for must be simple. We found it. It's right here, right in front of our eyes and it's. It's right under our noses, so to speak. And it's such a simple thing that we can do. So thank you for this opportunity and thank you for, you know, bringing this message to your audience and recognizing how important it is for them too.

And there you have it.

My interview with Satchin Patel. I hope you are interested in your breath. I hope this has inspired you to take that next step, to learn more and to take action. Remember to check out Satchin's free resources, the 30 day challenge or whatever you.

Want to call it, where every day.

He'S going to send you an email to help up level your life. And also check out his 90 minute breathwork session so you can experience it yourself. Until next week, this is Tanya and I'm here to remind you to be fit, be vibrant and be you.