How to Improve Your Metabolism, Heart Health & Immunity with Breath | Sachin Patel

Did you know that the way you breathe impacts your metabolism, your immune system and your heart health? Welcome back to the show. My name is Sarah and today I have Sachin Patel with me to talk all about the breath and how this is so integral to your health. If you have someone in your life who snores or does a lot of mouth breathing or maybe struggles with metabolic issues, this is a foundational piece that you're going to want to address and learn more about. The good news is that Sachin actually gave me a ton of free resources that I want to share with you as my community. So make sure that you head down to the Show Notes to check out those free resources that Sachin is sharing with all of you. And he was a speaker on the Health Transformation Summit that I did with my partner Carrie Bennett just recently. So if you missed the summit, you can still get that on replay as well as two courses, one from me, one from Carrie, as a part of that package. So I will make sure to put that link in the show notes as well in case you missed the summit. On today's episode of the Evolving Wellness Podcast, we're going to talk about that and so much more. So stay tuned. Before we jump into this episode today with Sachin, I want to thank a couple of sponsors for helping make the show possible. The first one is going to be Viva Rays. They are a fantastic source for circadian glasses. You can use my Code Yogi to save 15% over there at Viva Rays and the link will also be in the show notes for you. They also have fantastic eye masks and earplugs. While you're working on those breathing mechanics, make sure that you protect those other areas as well. And the second sponsor of today's show is Upgraded formulas. I absolutely love their magnesium formula. It is a nanoparticle technology so it actually bypasses the gut. If you're someone with gut issues and you worry about absorption that, then check out upgraded formulas. Use my code YOGI12 or YOGI if you've already used that one before, to get their nanoparticle technology, magnesium. They also have a fantastic hair tissue mineral analysis with a consultation. I definitely recommend getting that consultation if you're curious about the mineral balance in your body. So thank you for sponsoring today's shows to my two sponsors and let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today we are going to talk about something we've really never talked about in depth and I'm so excited for today's guest, Sachin welcome to the show, Sarah.

Thank you. I am so pumped, so excited and inspired, no pun intended, to have this conversation with you.

Wonderful. Well, so we're going to talk about breath, and that's a broad topic. I think a lot of people are maybe familiar with James Nestor's work, and I love his book. It's really great to understand the breath a little bit more. Let's talk a little bit about you and how you got into studying this and what you do, how you apply these things.

Absolutely. So my journey is kind of convoluted, and I think most journeys are that way. So it's a combination of my son and his dental health, my wife and her dental health, and then also for me, I was looking for the zenith of health and healing, which is something that's the simplest thing to do, but also has the biggest domino effect on the body. So it's been my quest as a practitioner to find that. And I also had my own personal breathing and breath work experience. So it was a combination of things. So I've kind of studied this from the quantum space, like, how does this affect us? How does it affect our energetic signature? How does it affect our matrix? And it affects all those things. And then I wanted to figure out how does it affect us physically? And it affects those things, affects our facial structure, affects our spinal structure, our posture. All those things are determined by. Determined by breathing. And I also wanted to understand it from a dental perspective because as we know, the mouth is a window into the digestive system and into the cardiovascular system and into the immune system. In many ways, our immune system starts in our nose. And we just went through this whole pandemic and nobody talked about breathing. And how by simply changing the way you breathe, you activate your immune system versus suppress your immune system. And so there's just so many confounding factors that led me down this road and every problem I was trying to solve, whether it was for my son's health, for my wife's health, for my practice, and discovering what that simple thing was. And. And then also just with everything that was happening in the world, all roads led to breath. And I'm probably like you in many ways. I. Once I discover something, I just like to go as deep as I can. And I'll be the first to admit that I'm just. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of the surface. So imagine like the world's best free diver. They only. I mean, I say only. They only go 400, you know, feet down, holding their Breath on a single breath and, and come back up. But the ocean is six miles deep, so that's what breath is like for me. It's like I can go deep on this topic and probably deeper than most people because of how much time I've spent studying it. But it's, it's an ocean. So there's so much that, that I, I know I'm going to learn as I continue down this path. And my, you know, really my goal today, as, as I said before we started recording, is if I can just bring people up to where I am and I'll keep going and learning and keep sharing as I keep learning, then I think that'll be a huge step forward for a lot of people's health. And I'm also looking for quick and measurable. Like, that's another thing that's important to me. And the fastest way to assess your breathing is right now. We can do it while we're on this conversation, while we're on this call and people are listening. If they're, if they're tuning in, they'll be able to check in with themselves. You can measure it so within 60 seconds, I can understand how well your mitochondria are functioning, and it's more accurate than anything else you're going to do. And I can improve it very quickly in a measurable way as well. And so it's just like it just checks off all the boxes for me. And that's what, that's what caught me into it. And that's what kind of keeps me. Keeps me going deeper.

That's so fascinating. I mean, there's. I'm like, wow, okay, where do we go from here? Because there's so many places we can go. And it's funny, one of my clients was really struggling with the under eye bags. And I was like, you know what? Why don't you try mouth taping? I know we're doing all this other stuff, but, like, do you tape your mouth at night when you sleep? Do you think you mouth breathe? And she was like, I don't think so. Started mouth taping. Literally within three days, the under eye bags were completely gone. I was like, okay, well, there's something to this. And I know, like, probably like nothing compared to what you know about breath, but I do know that a lot of people have this chronic issue of mouth breathing during the day and then at night that exacerbates things and can lead to a host of health issues. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, and I know we'll go into this much deeper as we get started. But if all people did was simply change the hole in their face which they breathe through, it would completely change their life. And there's overwhelming evidence that demonstrates this. It's the simplicity in the design, you know, and as we get go down this rabbit hole, it'll become crystal clear as to why we should breathe through our nose as much as we possibly can and through our mouth as little as we possibly can. And about 50% of people are habitual mouth breathers during the day, and 66% of people breathe through their mouth at night. So statistically, if you're listening to this, if your spouse or your significant other sleep with them, sleeps with their mouth closed, the stats are that you probably sleep with your mouth open. And so it's something that once you start observing, you start. You start realizing. And so, yeah, I would say that it's super important if you learn nothing else. If people just, like, tune out after this, the most important thing people can start doing is placing their tongue in the correct position and breathing in and out through their nose.

Fascinating. Yeah. It's something I think people overlook because they want to just. And, you know, my audience is familiar with me telling them to quit hyper, focusing on diet and macro tracking and how many steps you get and all that stuff, like it's important. But there's fundamentals that we need to really, really address. And I think breath belongs in that fundamental area of something that can make a huge change even in your metabolism. Because I know that there, you know, if you're mouth breathing at night, you're not. There's an. There's a metabolic issue happening as well. Is that correct?

Yeah. So when we sleep, that's the most parasympathetic thing that we do. And the breath is the nervous system steering wheel. So it's like you can drive to work unconsciously and get from point A to point B with making very few decisions. And you can breathe unconsciously throughout the entire day and not realize that you were doing it. So I think for a lot of people that bringing breath to their awareness is one of the big first steps that they can take, but not just while they're conscious, while they're unconscious. See, the only muscle that stays activated 24,7 in your body is your diaphragm. Every other muscle shift shuts off when you're sleeping, except your diaphragm. And so at rest is when we are most parasympathetic, which is when every cell, tissue, organ and system in our body is healing and reprogramming itself and getting rid of toxins from the day. Just like we go to sleep and kind of reset, our body's doing the same thing. Our brain, our digestive organs, and everything our immune system, however, the way we breathe is actually like taking the steering wheel and the gas pedal and putting our foot on the gas, when really what we want to have is our car in neutral or in park and not moving. Right? So the way we breathe informs our nervous system. So if we breathe through our mouth, we're informing our nervous system. We're in fight or flight. And the breath overrides everything else. So, you know, right now, for example, I can have you breathe a certain way, and whether you like it or not, your heart rate's gonna go up and your blood pressure is gonna go up. Because the physical nature of the lungs expanding, contracting, and the diaphragm moving up and down. I mean, 40% of your blood pressure that your heart creates actually comes from your lungs and your diaphragm. Your diaphragm is referred to as your second heart. So people with high blood pressure usually have a weak diaphragm, not a blood pressure problem.

Wow.

So when you're sleeping at night, if you're breathing in a parasympathetic way, breathing in and out through your nose, slowing down your breathing, you're going to get into a much deeper healing state. So one of my. One of my mentors, Charles Poliquin, he's now deceased, but.

Oh, yeah, he.

So I used to teach his courses. And. So.

Okay, so you probably know Rob, then. Rob Jacobs?

Not personally, but I know the name.

He was training me when Poliquin passed, and they were, like, super close. So, though.

Okay, so. So. So I. I would go and teach the level one and two bioprint course. And so I had a chance to spend a lot of time with Charles individually, and we went on flights together and got stuck at airports together. So it's just. I got to see a side of him that many people don't see. And one of the things that he said was the first question I asked him, what's the first question you ask your athletes when you work with them? And he said, it's not how much they bench, not how much they squat, not has nothing to do with their macros, and has everything to do with how well they sleep. So even in people who are performing at the highest levels, that's the first question that people ask. You know, one thing I remind people of is, and this Is kind of where my brain goes is the. How important something is to me is determined by how long we can go without it. So you can go without eating for weeks, right? For some people, months. You can go without water for a few days, you can go without sleep, maybe two days. But you can't go without breathing for more than five to seven minutes. And for most people, it's like three minutes. So our mitochondria require. Our mitochondria die within five seconds. So if they don't get enough oxygen, they die within five seconds. Now, when we stop breathing, our CO2 concentrations in the body go up and the body starts dumping more oxygen as a last mechanism for survival. So that's why it takes us a while to. So our mitochondria need oxygen, and that's the only place we use oxygen in our body is in the mitochondria. And so, you know, we need that process, that delivery to take place. And the breath is one of the key factors that play a role in delivering oxygen to the tissue. Wow.

So if you're not breathing correctly, you're not getting your mitochondrial health. Mitochondrial health is going to suffer. And we know that that is crucial to our overall health, that a lot of diseases, most of them, are linked to some sort of mitochondrial dysfunction. So that would make perfect sense. That breath really, I would say, is up. Up there with the foundations. And a lot of people, like you said, are mouth breathing. And that that could be really contributing to a lot of the health issues that people are dealing with. Correct?

Well, how we breathe is directly correlated to our mitochondrial health. So, for example, the only reason, you know, the. The oxygen that we get from the air that we breathe in, first of all, we only use about 25% of it, 20 to 25% of it, with each breath. So 75% of it we excrete, the oxygen gets delivered to our mitochondria. And the byproduct of mitochondrial respiration, which is the exhaust that comes out of our body, out of every cell, is water and CO2. So our body's pretty amazing, right? Imagine, like, all we have to excrete is CO2 and water, and that's the byproduct of energy production in our body. Well, the reason we breathe out is to excrete the CO2. And so the whole process of breathing is directly correlated to mitochondrial function. If we can't get rid of the CO2, the cells die. And if we can't get oxygen to them, the cells die. So we need that process happening all the Time. I mean, this is why when somebody's born, the first thing we pay attention to is, are they breathing? And when somebody passes away, we're hopefully blessed enough to be present for their last breath. Right. Nobody says I was there for their last heartbeat.

Right, right.

They say they were there for their last breath.

Breath, yeah, absolutely. Wow.

Wow.

You know, you mentioned the dental aspect. That that was something that you had looked in for your son and your wife. How much does that play a part? And maybe we could just go there a little bit.

Yeah, great question. So that's really where the chiropractor in me stepped in. And, you know, I've been working kind of more in a consulting practice and kind of away from the structural side of things for a few years, but you never. You never lose it. So you always see things from that lens. And so when my son was growing up, we didn't. I didn't know any of this. So I'm embarrassed to say that this was not taught to me in school. Like, nobody taught it to me. And sometimes you learn things the hard way. So if you have young children, I know you do, it's crucial that you pay attention to this, because this will save you thousands and thousands of dollars. It will save you needless suffering for your child, and it will set them up to be. To basically live longer. But it happens while their facial structure is being developed. And the key muscle in our facial structure development is our tongue. So the placement of our tongue completely changes the way our face forms. So when children breathe through their mouths, their tongue sits in the bottom of their mouth. Or if they're born with a tongue tie, which is more prevalent now than ever before, then their tongue can't sit in the roof of their mouth, so there's nothing pushing their face outwards. And so what ends up happening is if the tongue sits in the bottom, you know, gravity and anatomy kind of does its thing. And, you know, things don't grow out unless they have pressure to grow out, otherwise they cave in. So his palate, it's very subtle. It's just a few millimeters. But his upper palate was underdeveloped, which meant that he couldn't bite over his front two teeth. And when they did an X ray, they discovered that his teeth were crowded. So we went to several different dentists, and they said that they wanted to remove teeth.

Yeah.

And this is very common. More common than I think it should be. And I'm like, oh, yeah. You know, I've always kind of had this philosophy that God don't make no junk. So I can't imagine that dentists have been around since the beginning of humankind. And no other animals need dentists. Why do humans need dentists? And so then that became a question for me to start asking. And then so we went to several different dentists. And that's right around the time I read James's book. And. And then once I read that, I'm like, oh, this makes perfect sense. He's a mouth breather. He had all the symptoms of mouth breathing, you know, rambunctious behavior. He would. And he's a sweet kid, so I'm not trying to paint him in a negative light, but sometimes it would be hard to control his behavior. Like, oh, he's just a boy. Oh, he takes after his uncle. Like, you know, we would just come up with all these excuses, but it turns out he was mouth breathing. And so when we breathe incorrectly, we're kind of trapped in our bodies and we create certain emotion in our body. It's basically a biological process. So if you breathe incorrectly, you're going to create more fight or flight neurotransmitters. If you breathe incorrectly, you're going to make more cortisol. Right? Like, it's just. That's what your breath signature does. Because a breath is a tool. So if I hammer, if I pull out this tool, which is a style of breathing, it's going to do a specific, predictable thing in my body. He would drool at night. So that's another sign your children are mouth breathers. And so we thought it was so cute. We took, like, all kinds of fun pictures with him, mouth, you know, with his tongue hanging out while he's sleeping. But the price of all that is that his tongue wasn't sitting in the right position, pushing his palate forward and outwards. And when the tongue is in the correct position, it forces us to breathe through our nose. You can't breathe through your mouth when your tongue is positioned correctly. So it's like a. It's a double whammy. And so what that allows for. Allows for a. Your. Your palate to form correctly. So we ended up finding a dentist who's about 90 minutes away from where we live, but worth the drive. And she put a palatal expander in. And a palatal expander is essentially an expensive artificial tongue.

Does it look kind of like a little, like, omega sign?

It's like a little arch. Yeah, yeah. And you install in the back. And they have palatal expanders that go outwards and forwards.

Yes.

And so we had that installed in him, which is basically an artificial tongue. Right. Like, if your tongue was sitting in that position the whole time, then you wouldn't need this expander to expand your palate. But we had to be a little bit more aggressive. So through that process now his bite is so much better. Right. But if his tongue was in the right position the whole time, then he wouldn't have had to have all this dental work done. In fact, the first time we took him to a dentist, he had a ton of cavities. And so the dentist, like, you know, Mr. Patel, we've got good news and bad news. I said, okay, what's the bad news? Like, your son has a lot of cavities. And we're like, we thought we had failed as parents because we're like, we're feeding him healthy. He's not eating this junk. Like, what the heck? And. And I was like, what's the good news? He's like, well, it's all his baby teeth, so we don't have to, like, you know, do. And we don't have to do anything. They're just going to fall out. But that was another sign that he was a mouth breather, because mouth breathing is the number one cause of cavities. Wow.

Okay, Interesting.

Because dries out our microbiome. Right? Our saliva is very protective. Our saliva maintains our oral microbiome. It has enzymes in it that prevent tooth decay. Right. And gum disease. And so this is why when people have a lot of stress, they reduce their saliva production and their teeth start rotting out of their face. And it all has to do with their fight or flight response. And when you're breathing in fight or flight, you're usually breathing through your mouth, so that compounds the problem.

Okay, so now can this cause, like root canal issues as well, or is it just cavities?

Well, I. I would suspect that any issue associated with the mouth is worsened by breathing through your mouth.

Mouth breathing. Okay.

And so the other thing to. To note for. For mouth breathing, since we're on the topic, is that your mouth is the. You know, if you ask any microbiologist, your mouth is the dirtiest part of your body. So imagine the air that's coming in, whatever the quality is, and we all know indoor air quality is the lowest it's ever been. You're now adding bacteria to it because you're inhaling those bacterial particulates and their gaseous waste products and everything that they produce. You're inhaling that right into your lungs, and your lung has A microbiome that is now being altered because you're breathing in all this bacteria that doesn't belong there. But if you're breathing through your nose, on the other hand, it pressurizes the air. It moisture regulates the air. It. It temperature regulates the air, and it also kills the bacteria and viruses that are in it, because our nasal mucosal membrane makes nitric oxide, and nitric oxide kills bacteria, viruses, and pathogens on contact, as are part of our own initial immune defense against the air that we breathe in. And it also helps dilate our blood vessels, which helps lower our blood pressure and increases circulation. So just by simply breathing through our nose, like all. There's a whole cascade of things that automatically start happening for us. Our nervous system becomes regulated. Our immune system isn't breathing in all this dirty air. Our oral microbiome is being protected. Right. So all of these things start happening. And that's just a handful of things. We get 20% more oxygen when we breathe through our nose. Because of that increased pressure that occurs, we get more depth in our breath. So our alveoli expands, which also means we're able to get rid of the CO2 more efficiently. So it just like that one thing changes everything without us having to think about all of those things.

Wow. And so if. So if your partner is snoring, that's not good. That's. That's not good at all. And that can lead to, I guess, all kinds of problems. Heart issues, autoimmune issues. Like, let's. Maybe. I know snoring is a sensitive topic, but maybe we can dive into that a little bit. And then I still have some more dental questions, but I'm like, the snoring thing is. Is very interesting, I think.

Yeah. Snoring is. I actually wrote a whole guide on how to stop snoring in seven days. And it was something. It was an issue that I had. And under the right circumstances or the wrong circumstances, I'll still snore. But there's a formula to stop snoring. And. And so I went down that rabbit hole myself. And one of the first things I realized is the first stage of snoring is denial. Because we're sleeping, we can't hear ourselves.

You don't know. Yeah, absolutely.

There'll be times my wife would have shaken me awake, and she'd be like, you're snoring. I'm like, what do you mean I'm still awake? Like, I was. I just thought I was still awake in my head. Right. And. And so then I got an app, it's called Snore Lab. And there's. I bet there's a bunch of them out there. I have no affiliation with them, but that's the one I use. And. And so that records you while you're sleeping. So now I could hear myself. And I realized that, oh, my God, I'm. I do snore. This is how it sounds, and this is how much I actually snore. So then it became like my personal quest to figure this out. Because how I breathe at night is actually the. Is so deterministic in how I'm going to feel and heal that I ha. If I don't fix this, then all the other things I'm doing are not going to work as well. So. So that became my quest to. To figure that out. So I discovered tongue exercises that you can do, swallowing exercises that you can do, daytime breathing exercises that you can do, and positioning exercises. I got an oil called Nasia oil, and I put that in my nose, and that helps clear my sinuses, but it also helps maintain a healthy sinus microbiome. So. So these are things that I started doing to, to kind of improve my respiration. And I. I can tell you what I have nights where I have zero snoring. And I know that. I know what I. How I have to set myself up for success. So it's really important that people figure this out if they do snore at night. It's a growing issue. And you know, I would say that if. If your partner snores, that is effective, affecting their life expectancy. A lot of people don't realize this, but when we snore, we become more insulin resistant. We also dry out our oral microbiome.

And studies have shown cavities, more dental.

Issues, more dental issues, more plaquing. Studies have shown people who snore are more likely to develop metabolic disorders like diabetes and. And also Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is metabolic disorder. So all of these things start happening as a result of our body not being able to go into a deep state of healing at night because of the way we're breathing or dysfunctionally breathing.

And then there's the issue with nitric oxide as well. Correct?

Yep.

You're snoring. Your body is going to naturally not produce as much nitric oxide. Am I right in that?

Yep, absolutely. So breathing through our nose increases nitric oxide production about six fold. And then humming increases at 15 fold.

Okay, let's get. Get one of some people I know are about to start humming.

One of the. One of the things since we're on the topic is what affects the oral microbiome in addition to mouth breathing is mouthwashes. So antiseptic mouthwashes like Listerine and Crest, we probably want to avoid those things.

What about toothpaste?

You got to be careful.

Do the same thing.

Yeah, you got to be careful with toothpaste. I mean, some toothpaste are just loaded with artificial ingredients and chemicals and things like that. So I use a mushroom infused toothpaste. It's made by a company called Organo and it's like an all natural toothpaste. And, and it's infused with reishi mushroom, so it helps with reducing inflammation in the gums.

Well, then I'm gonna have. I have a new rabbit hole to look down. I've been using Ryze. Well, Ryzwell sent me a ton of toothpaste for the. My son loves it. He's 16 months. He like begs to have his teeth brushed. And the Ryzwell mouthwash, I'm trying to get everybody to not throw the Listerine out of the house and use that. I haven't used any mouthwash in years. So that's. I'm like, let's, let's get all this crap out and use this stuff. Because I think that the teeth, the stuff people are putting in their mouths and it's. Yeah. And the fluoride at the dentist, it's like. That's a whole other. It's a whole other topic.

Yeah. You know, one of the things we have, we have that mouthwash as well. My son and my wife use it. One of the things that I found works also well is peppermint essential oil. So I'll put a, put a drop of peppermint essential oil on my tongue and that'll freshen my breath instantly. And it also, I find it, it creates, increases my alertness because peppermint tends to do that. And, and it also opens up my sinuses. So I find that that's also a good remedy for some people.

Now I've been. I don't know how you feel about this. I've been doing oil pulling with a dab of peppermint oil in it every morning and every night. Just put it in there. Swish. Drives my husband crazy because then he'll start trying to have a conversation with me and I'm like, you know, because you got to do it for a while. But I've, I've really been loving the oil pulling and then I brush afterwards.

But yeah, yeah, I've I've tried that in the past. I can't say I'm very consistent with it, but it's a, it's a habit.

It's a whole thing.

Yeah. Deep well, Deepa and I have, we just recently talked about this. We're like, we need to get back onto oil pulling because we're actually working with a group of dentists in a cohort right now. And, and so we're going down that dental rabbit hole ourselves and we're like, oh, you know, what can we teach? What can we teach these folks? But we can't teach it or tell them to do it until we're doing it first. So.

Right.

So we're, we're doing that. And then another thing that we're doing with dental health is something called perio protect. And so these are trays. You just get the trays fitted once and you put a, you put a gel in there that helps rebuild the oral microbiome. And so people really, people really love that as well.

Okay. Yeah, the, the dental thing I think is so huge. My son is getting teeth and his teeth have little gaps in between them. And at first I was like, oh, I don't know if that's okay. But a friend of mine, Dr. Jalal Khan, he's been on the, he was like, oh, no, that's really, really good that he's got the little, little gas shows his jaw is big enough because I see some babies in their teeth. Even as babies, their teeth are like, you know, right. Flush up against one another. But his teeth all have these little spaces, which looks a little bit odd, but I'm like, okay, this is a, this is a good sign. He's, his jaw's developing properly.

Yeah, it's actually preferred over, over. The opposite is what you described.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looks a little, little strange sometimes, but he's so cute. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Just a quick reminder, if you're listening over on audio only, please head on over to either Apple or Spotify and leave the show up to a five star review. Especially if you're enjoying it. If you've seen a health benefit or if it has made your life better in some kind of way, I would love if you go and review the show, share it out with a friend or family member. If you are on YouTube, leave us a comment. And like this video, I really want to continue get this information out to as many people as possible. This is mostly the things that I talk about here on the show are completely free to Implement. So please do share this out. Give the show a review, share it in a Facebook group Instagram post. I am forever grateful for the support of this community in the show and hope to continue bringing you more and more content. I have free resources on my website. If you're interested in diving into some of my work. There's that is always available. And you can go to my website, www.sarah kleinerwellness.com and go to the Free Resources page. I have over five different ebooks on everything from water to blue blockers, how to use them properly, and how to build your perfect quantum day for optimal health. All of those are completely free to download and available on my website on that free resources page. So make sure to check that out. All right, let's jump back into today's show. Yeah, and that's. I know that's an issue I've had is the crowded teeth. And of course, none of this was known. I'm 44, I'll be 45 in June. It's like none of this was taught. Never, you know, as everything was very standard. When I got to be about 14 years old, my teeth were getting even more overcrowded. And so what did they do? They did a surgery, put me under, and then pulled out my wisdom teeth that hadn't even grown in yet. They, like, surgically removed them, removed some of my molars. And then my teeth are still, still crowded. And I'm like, so braces are clearly not. I think the solution for people. And pulling teeth is not the solution either. I feel like we need to address, like, this, the structural issues. Right?

Yeah. I mean, so it may be necessary for some people. Right. And, you know, I. And I know that wasn't your intention, but I always want to. Sometimes people push back and like, well, what about this? So. So 99% of the time, braces and dental work should not be required. Now, it's very unlikely that that's going to happen. Right. Because we don't live in a perfect world. I'll give you an example. So my parents, all my uncles, my grandparents, no cavities, perfect teeth, no dentist. So you're just kind of like, okay, how does that make sense? Right. Because. Right. Fortunately, I've never had a cavity myself, and I attribute that to how I breathe. My wife has had many cavities, and we attribute that to how she used to breathe. So a couple things with my parents that I find this interesting, and you'll find this interesting as well, is that when you gave your son the toothbrush for the first time, did he brush his teeth or did he chew on the toothbrush?

He chewed on it, of course.

Right. So intuitively that's what we're supposed to do. So my parents grew up not using a toothbrush, which sounds kind of barbaric. They would chew on a, on a, on a leaf. Not a leaf of a, a branch of a tree.

Okay.

So every week they'd have, every few days they'd have these branches delivered to them and they would grab a branch and it'd be the length of a toothbrush and they would chew it. So they would have to chew this tooth, chew this branch until it bristolized the end of it, and then they would brush their teeth with the bristles and they have perfect teeth. So when you chew. So one of the reasons people's jaws are so small these days is because they don't chew. Right.

Our ancestors and I was like a 90s kid. Pop Tarts, fat free snack wells, like Lean Cuisine, my, you know, kind of a, what do they call it, the 90s, where the parents just kind of were off at work and they microwave era. You're 10, you can babysit, you can babysit your sisters, you're 10 now. You, you know, love my parents, but that's just kind of how we were. And it was like eat whatever packaged, processed thing at a very nutrient poor diet. And I think that that contributed to my jaw not really developing as well as it should have and could have. And nobody forced me to eat meat or chew. I think I've, I've, there's this woman I've been following on online and I can't even think of her name. She's in Australia, but she's been like banging the drum of kids needing to eat jerky. And like the, the dry, the meats, the dried meats that we kind of ancestrally would eat those because we weren't always able to get like fresh meat, you know, a fresh kill. And so they would dry the meats and that's what children would grow up eating these like, you know, the meat, the jerkies and having to do all this chewing. And of course you're getting the nutrients from the meat as well. That's also going to help with the development. But yeah, people are not chewing. All of our food is soft and packaged and you know, all the work's been done. Right.

So there's, there's very little stimulation of the jaw to form correctly. And, and so, you know, you combine that with nutrient deficient foods and then they're density deficient as well. So there's no work required. It just a recipe for a disaster when it comes to facial structure. And of course, you know, our son was drinking healthy smoothies. We're so proud of him for drinking smoothies. And you know, and basically anything blended in the Vitamix or, or in the blend tech was like, yep. Like, oh, like look, we're getting all this like all these vegetables into him and yeah, he doesn't even know that he's eating them. Like that was, that was like, you know, the jam. But now we realize that had he and he, he was, he was a good eater. But so I don't. It's not, it wasn't him, it was us. We just didn't know better.

We didn't know like, that's the thing is like when you know better, you do better. But I think most people, I think that's very, that was like very us in 2012. You know, we got our Vitamix in 2012 and we were making all the smoothies and you know, didn't really do a whole lot for my health. I started, I still started struggling with pcos and my blood sugar was a mess and I'm like, I was thin, like I was able to see stay lean, but my blood sugar was a mess. I wasn't getting what I needed nutrient wise. And it wasn't until I switched to more of like an animal based eating approach that I was able to start stabilizing my blood sugar and actually feel like my body was getting what it needed. But I think so many people are still in that. Like we were talking before we turn on the camera, you said like, what is it? Sidewalk, street and fast lane with people's knowledge. Is that what you said?

Yeah. So. And this comes from Scott Ulford. So it's this. People, some people are on the sidewalk, some people on the slow lane, and some people are on the fast lane.

Yeah. So there's a lot of people on the sidewalk that still think throwing a ton of stuff into a Vitamix and giving it to their kids is the best thing for them. Unfortunately, that's just kind of the propaganda and messaging that's out there. But what they need to be doing is, is developing the jaw and chewing with nutrient dense foods, Correct?

Yeah. I mean, think of a dog, right? So when, when you give a dog a bone, it, it's chewing on that bone and it's chewing and pulling, right? It's chewing and pulling. So that act of chewing and pulling pulls the jaw forward. And then the chewing causes the masseter and all the muscles to form more correctly and the jaw forms wider. So now we have a much bigger sinus cavity. Right. So our sinus cavity is about the size of our fist. So imagine a fist inside your, your skull. That's how much volume your sinuses take up. And so anything that compromises that is going to compromise the intake. So if anyone's listening and they're a car, buff the fast. One of the fastest ways to increase the efficient, not necessarily efficiency, but the power of your engine is to put an air intake on. So you just put a bigger air intake on the engine and now more air can come in and you get more power out of that same engine. So the same thing applies to our bodies. We want to get the air in and we want to pressurize it. So the nose, the nose always slows down the air. That's why it always feels easier to breathe through our mouth. The nose is always. The purpose of the nose is to slow down the air that's coming in. And by slowing down the air now, now the nasal mucosa can act on it. Right. Because the air is interacting with that nasal mucosa, the nose can temperature regulate the air and it can moisture regulate the air. Right. But if the air just goes straight in without going through that process, then the lungs don't like that either. So, so it's always going to feel like more resistance breathing through our nose. When people say, oh, it's harder to breathe through my nose, it should be, right? That's the whole purpose of it because it's perfecting the air. It's like a little, little air perfecting factory in your, in your head that's sending the air down into your lungs. Just like, you know, just like when you think about when you chew your food versus drink your food, right. When you chew your food, you're preparing the food to mix with the saliva in your mouth. Mix, start the digestive, enzymatic digestive process. Right. Especially of carbohydrates. Like a lot of times people get bloating after they, they drink their food because they didn't start that initial digestive process.

Right?

Right. So then they're like changing the ingredients, but it's really the process that's broken. So just like if you drink your food instead of chew your food, you know, you're not perfecting the food for the stomach. It's gonna cause problems through every step of the process. So the same thing, if you're not perfecting the air that's going into your lungs now your immune system becomes hyperactive, Right. And it's gotta deploy energy and resources. You know, every day, 1200 calories are consumed just to breathe. Oh, wow. So one of the first things we tell people is if you want to live longer, I mean, it's. You see this in the entire animal kingdom. Animals and, you know, people that breathe slower live longer. So if anyone here wants to live longer, just slow down how many breaths you take per minute. A Turtle breeds about four breaths per minute. A dog, 35 breaths per minute. Dog ages about seven times faster than a human. And turtles live into their hundreds. So we see this. If you look at a chart, you'll see it's a very clear correlation. So the rate at which we breathe makes a huge difference. So we want to slow down the air that's going in, perfect it, and pressurize it. And that's exactly what our nose does for us.

Wow. And so if somebody's maybe had like, a broken nose, that could really impact their overall health, and they've never really gotten it fixed.

Is.

Is that correct?

Yeah. So Joe Rogan actually talks about this. He broke his nose many times being in the mixed martial arts and as a fighter. And. And so he would always. His breathing was jacked up for a really long time, and then he finally got his sinuses corrected and started breathing again. And he's like, oh, my God, I had no idea what I was missing until I fixed this problem. And so the nose is an interesting organ because if you don't use it, you lose it. So when they put tracheas in people and had them breathing essentially through their throat, the nose, all. Everything starts closing up in the face. And that makes sense because the body doesn't like stagnation, right. So if there's no air going through there, then there's more likelihood of infections and other problems happening. So the, you know, the nose starts closing up. And so if people are habitual mouth breathers, it's going to be the same thing for them. The nose is. The sinuses are going to be a little bit smaller. And. And so as they start breathing in through their. It's really the mucosa, not the sinuses. The skeletal structure doesn't change. It's. It's the soft tissue inside that starts changing. And so as they start breathing more through the nose, initially, it's going to feel like resistance. And then the. The body starts making adjustments. So then the nose starts opening up. So sometimes you just have to give it a Bit of time.

Yeah, absolutely. So people don't necessarily need to go out and get surgery then, if that's happened. Or do you think it could be helpful in some circumstances?

Yeah, definitely. There's. There's a few different procedures that can be done. I haven't had this done. I would. I have a slightly deviated septum. And so if I. If I really start getting into my breathing paces, you'll see one of my nostrils flares and the other one doesn't. And so, you know, that means I'm getting a little bit more air in one versus the other. And what's also interesting is our body shifts from side to side. So some people might notice at certain times of the day, my left nostril is more clogged up and others the right side.

I noticed that. Yeah, yeah.

So that's actually the nervous system regulating itself because when you breathe through your left nostril, it's like hitting the brakes.

Parasympathetic. Yeah.

And when you breathe through your right nostril, it's like putting your foot on the gas. So your body is like, you know, kind of unconsciously, it's regulating your nervous system through which nostril you're breathing through.

So I remember as a yoga teacher for like 13 years, we do the alternate nostril and it's like Ida and Pingala. So, you know, the different naughties. And with the left side is the feminine moon, and then the right side is the more masculine, like. Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense.

And the way I remember it, it's. It's easy for a lot of people is your gas pedal is on the right hand side. And so if you want to go, you breathe through your right nostril and your brakes are on the left hand side. So if you want to relax or calm down, then you breathe through your left nostril. And if you want to have balance, you breathe between both. So you go back and forth from one to the other. And the. And so the nervous system and the body is kind of naturally doing that throughout the day. And so if people notice that, that's. That's normal. However, if people do have to answer your question, if people do have deviated septums or broken noses, it's probably good to get that evaluated because there's a spectrum of deviation. There's a spectrum of, you know, brokenness, I guess. And so it's probably good to see an ent. And I would also guide people to see a airway focused dentist. So a dentist who's not just focused on the teeth, but is also focused on how your airway is developing. And that's, that's who my son sees.

Yeah. And that's more of kind of a functional doctor. You're not necessarily going to find like a, a standard doctor doing that kind of work. Or is it a little bit more accepted these days?

I encourage people to go to a website, it's called askthedentist.com and they can find practitioners who are airway centric on that website. And more information too, in the show notes.

Okay, good, good. So teeth, all these things are important when we're looking at. And the structure of the nose, when we're looking at our overall health and we're looking at how our body is able to function, essentially the metabolism. Am I right about that? So if you're someone who feels like you have a really like, slow metabolism, this element of how you're breathing could absolutely impact that. Correct?

Yeah. So I, I just want to maybe clarify nomenclature because I think that'll be helpful for people.

Yes.

So. So there's no such thing as a fast or slow metabolism. There's an efficient or inefficient metabolism.

Yes.

And so your body does exactly what you tell it to do. And, and so it's. Our body's metabolism is constantly reacting and in flux. It's constantly changing based on the signals that it's receiving. So many of us, because of the way we breathe, we're stuck in fight or flight. And when we're stuck in fight or flight, we're gassing our adrenal glands, which are basically our fight or flight response glands. And we're under activating our thyroid hormone. So our thyroid hormone that's being produced either gets blocked and turned into blocked at the receptor or converted into something called reverse T3. And the pituitary gland stops making thyroid hormone because why would it make more thyroid and more cortisol at the same time? It can only use one.

Yes.

So, so they, so it's like a driver. Right. So if we need to get somewhere fast, I'm in the driver's seat. If we want to, you know, if it's not so important. Right. Then my wife is in the driver's seat. So, you know, you can't have two people driving at the same time. You can have backseat drivers. Right. But, you know, that person who's in the driver's seat is that one person. So our breath actually also regulates which hormone we're utilizing. So it plays such a fascinating and interesting effect on Every area of our body. So I'll give. I'll give people some, some nuggets to walk away with. So every day we consum 30 pounds of air. You only consume a couple of pounds of food. With every breath we take, there's more molecules of oxygen than grains of sand on the entire planet. Every day we take 23,000 breaths, about 500 milliliters each, in and out. So there's about 23,000 liters of air that go in and out of our body every day. The biggest lymph nodes in your body are underneath your diaphragm. The diaphragm, as it moves up and down, serves as a lymphatic pump. And it massages all of your internal organs and helps detoxify them. So detoxification is based on lymphatic drainage, which is based on how we breathe. 70% of our toxins in our body are eliminated through our lungs. So you can't detox properly unless you're learning to breathe correctly. Our blood pressure is regulated by our breathing. Our nervous system is regulated by our breathing. Our emotions are regulated by our breathing. So I can change the, the chemistry of your brain by changing your breath. In fact, the nervous system goes to the breath as the first thing to change when it's trying to change our physical state. So if a lion walked into my room, the first thing I would do is gasp. So my lungs expand rapidly and that squeezes my heart. That shoots blood into my arms and legs so I can run away from whatever is chasing me. And then every breath I'm taking then, now I'm ventilating at a super fast pace, is pumping blood physically, you know, helping my heart to pump that blood. Our diaphragm is known as the second heart. 40% of our blood pressure comes from our diaphragm working correctly. So somebody has hypertension, they probably don't have a blood pressure problem. They probably have a weak diaphragm problem. Super easy muscle to fix. It's the only muscle that is working 24 7, whether you like it or not. It's always on. The fastest way to slow down the aging process is to slow down our breath. When somebody reduces calorie intake, we also encourage them to reduce their breath intake. Because now, you know, if somebody breathes a third less, which the average person over breathes, by the way, and sounds weird, but it's true. So the average person over breathes, which means that if they were to slow down their breath, then let's say they were to slow it Down a third, they could consume 400 less calories a day and without going into a catabolic state. So just by slowing down our breathing, if we're fasting or doing things like that, to reduce the amount of catabolism we go into, which is where we start wasting muscle and other tissues, we just slow down our breathing. So that's one way to, you know, lean into a fast if you're doing it. For every ten pounds that we lose, 8.4 of those pounds are through the lungs. So the byproduct of cellular respiration and metabolism, as I mentioned earlier, is CO2 and water. So where does the weight go? They asked a group of scientists and medical doctors and other healthcare professionals. Where does the weight go when you, when you burn fat, where does it go? Virtually nobody got the right answer, including the respiratory therapist. They thought that we poop it out or we sweat it out, but we actually pee it out and breathe it out. So key contributor to our oral health as well is our breath number one cause of cavities. And it's the, the way we breathe, the way we position our tongue is one of the most important tools that we have to create the right facial structure, which creates the right sinus structure, which creates the right airway structure for us, and promotes good dental health and wellness. And then one last thing I'll say is that the breath is really so simple, and that's by design. So if all you did was breathe correctly and all of these other dominoes could fall for you without you having to think about any of them or work on any, any of them or supplement for any of them, then imagine how fast people can get healthy. It's easy to measure results for people, and it's wonderful to see that everyone has already has the apparatus. You don't have to go buy anything, you don't have to order anything online. There's nothing to download. You already have all the equipment that you need, so there's nothing to even sell you. We just have to teach you how to use it and everything else automatically falls into place.

It's amazing, so amazing. And I think it's really empowering for people too, because what you said about the detoxing thing, I'm like, oh, my gosh, so many people are just spending all their money on all these detoxes and cleanses and this, that and the other. And I always say you have to have the fundamentals down of like, circadian and quantum health, like if you're going to do that. But if they're not breathing correctly. Like, it's kind of a waste for them to be spending all this money on those protocols, would you say?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, breath is life, right? And it's. It's really a lifestyle. So what we, you know, what we want to. What I want to do. And I know that this, this conversation, hopefully, is helping people increase their intrigue. And again, even today, we're just scratching the surface of what I can talk about and which is scratching the surface of what there is to talk about. So this is, you know, you know, a topic that I think is long overdue for people to know more about. And I just love being able to put it in a way that I hope people understand it.

Definitely. Well, real quick, before we kind of wrap, I'd love to know, like you. You mentioned in the very beginning how you can kind of tell right away if somebody is a good breather or not so good breather. How do you assess that? Is that anything you can really explain, or is that, like, kind of a complicated question?

No. Well, first of all, we want to pay attention to their breathing signature. So if you're ever having a conversation with somebody, you can tell whether that person feels safe or whether they feel stressed based on their breathing. And because most people breathe unconsciously, it's a true sign of how they feel. So if somebody, for example, is breathing through their mouth, you know that they're stressed out. If somebody is holding their breath, they're probably stressed out. Or if somebody is, you know, calmly breathing through their nose, right, then they're probably feeling safe. You can also tell if somebody wants to have that conversation or not. So when I speak to my wife and I say something to her, I might ask her something. I know that if she exhales, she doesn't want to have that conversation. But if she inhales, right, then I know her nervous system is leaning into the conversation. So just by paying attention to how people breathe, we can, we can know, should I have this conversation now or not? Is this the right time or not? You can listen to their nervous system and it'll tell you. And then if you're sitting next to somebody, right, their breathing should be inaudible. It should be into the belly, right? Should feel soft versus feeling labored. And the ideal breath, the breath that I lean into, is six seconds in, six seconds out. So a count of six in and a count of six out. That's called coherence breathing. And so if you ever. If I, when I'm trying to catch Myself breathing, which is often throughout the day, then that's the breath that I go back to. That's my baseline breath. So that's called coherence breathing. Coherence breathing helps relax our nervous system and it also helps us increase oxygenation to the brain. So great way to breathe when you're sitting, doing an interview like this. Great way to breathe when you're on a zoom call. Great way to breathe when you're checking email. Great way to breathe when you're watching a movie. Right. This breath brings us into the present moment and allows us to stay present and focused.

I love that. And you had mentioned kind of before we turned on the recording, maybe doing a little breathing demo or exercise for the listeners. Would you still want to do that?

Here's what I'd love to do. I have a recording of a, of an entire 90 minute breathing experience. And I also have a series of tools that I'd like to share with people which goes into different breathing signatures. And these breathing signatures tell you how to breathe in specific situations. So I'd love to share that. But I would also like to share. Oh, thank you. But what I'd love to share now if, if you're okay with it, is a really powerful breathing technique called a physiologic sigh. Okay. And a physiologic sigh is probably the most useful form of breathing that people can use, especially for those people who are feeling strained or stressed or they just need to have a hard stop and reset. So this is called a physiologic sigh. And it's really simple. We just sit up night on a walk, walk people through it and we can do it together. So the first thing we do is we just find a nice comfortable position. We want to always to breathe correctly. We always want to have nice loose fitting garments. Right. We don't want to have a tight cinched belt or anything like that. And so we're going to breathe into our bellies, into our lungs and then into our throat. So it's a three step breath. And so I'll demonstrate. Our tongue is gently placed at the roof of our mouth. Works better if you close your eyes. Breathe in through the nose, into the belly and then into the lungs with a few sharp breaths and then into the throat. And in this case I'm going to breathe through my mouth. Three sharp breaths. And then I'm holding at the top. And what I like to do here is I like to squeeze my pelvic floor and imagine that I'm pushing some toothpaste up my spine. So I'm kind of squeezing this toothpaste up my entire spine, feeling that energy coming up. And then whenever you feel ready, you let it out with a nice long, audible sigh. And really just kind of drop the shoulders and lean into it. So it might look and sound like this. So we're using the sigh as a tool. The body already uses a sigh. When we feel a sense of relief, we sigh. And so we're actually exaggerating that, you know, so that we're signaling to our nervous system. This is how I want you to feel. I want you to feel relaxed, calm, and safe. And so when we do that five times within. Within just the first two times, people almost instantaneously feel different. So we can try that right now. How about I walk you through it, Sarah, and. And you can try it for yourself. So we're gonna have you set up nice and straight with a nice relaxed abdomen. Tongue gently placed at the roof of your mouth. And you're going to take a nice deep breath in through the nose, really feeling the air, paying attention to the air as it goes into your nose. Fills, starting at the bottom of your belly, filling that up as much as you can. And then take another sharp sip of air through the nose to fill up the lungs. And then one to three sips of air through the mouth to fill up the throat. And now let's squeeze the pelvic floor. Imagine you're squeezing a tube of toothpaste up your spine. Keep holding your breath. Imagine that this toothpaste is golden light coming up your spine, filling up your abdomen, your chest, your throat, your head bursting out of the top of your head. And when you feel ready, you can let it out with an audible sigh. Beautiful.

Yeah, that was nice.

So doing that a few times will. Will instantly change your physical state. And you'll feel calm. You'll feel reset. It's kind of like hitting the reset button on your computer. Everything just seems to work a little bit.

Just that way.

Just. Yeah.

Nice. I love that. I love that.

Thank you. So that's just. That's just one of the tools. There's different, you know, tools that you can do. Some of them are. Are more subtle than that, you know, and some you can do while you're driving. There's different ways you can breathe when you're having a conversation. Different ways you can breathe to help other people feel safe. Other way. Different ways that you can breathe to help you sleep better at night. Ways to breathe to replace caffeine and coffee.

So.

So there's, so there's ways that we can use our breath to do a variety of different or call our body into a variety of different actions if we wanted to.

Awesome. I'm excited. And I'm gonna make sure we get all those resources for people because I know they're gonna love those. They're absolutely gonna love those and dive into your work more. And if someone's just driving, listening to this and they want to find you, like, all right, I gotta find this guy right away. What's, what's a quick and easy way for them to find you in your work?

Yeah. So specifically for breathing, they can go to breathwork with sachin.com and if they want to find me on social media, you can find me at Sachin Patel on Facebook and also on Instagram. I'm mostly on Facebook. That's where you get the raw, unfiltered version of me.

Nice. Well, I'll make sure I link all that in the show notes as well so people can find you. And this has been a really, really fun conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate the opportunity and I hope your listeners found value.

I'm sure they will. Thank you so much for listening to the evolving wellness podcast. If you did enjoy the show, make sure to head on over to Apple or Spotify. Leave the show up to a five star review. If you're on YouTube, give us a like, leave us a comment. And thank you again so much for listening. Head to my website to get free resources. As always, it's www.sarah kleinerwellness.com the free resources tab. And just a quick reminder, none of this show is medical advice or meant to be taken as a substitute for getting in person medical care. So please don't take anything that we say here on the show as medical advice. Thanks again for listening. Thank you to Viva Rays. Code Yogi to save on their blue blockers, eye masks, earplugs and low EMF headphones and upgraded formulas. Absolutely, absolutely love their mineral supplements and their hair tissue mineral analysis test. Code Yogi 12 or Yogi to save there. Thanks again for listening or watching today's episode, whichever one you did. And I look forward to speaking with you again soon.