This is a YouTube interview (uploaded by Josh Trent on Feb 7, 2024) featuring John Lieurance describing his use of an intranasal balloon technique he calls functional cranial release to treat nasal restriction, restore cranial rhythm, and address sleep apnea. He recounts being introduced to Dana White via Ari Emanuel, treating Dana (whose broken nose impaired nasal breathing and caused severe sleep apnea), and reports rapid symptomatic improvement. The conversation situates the technique in broader themes (cranial anatomy, dura adhesions, dental/cranial collapse tied to modern diet) and cites other celebrity clients and filmed appearances (UFC fighters, Diplo, Garrett McNamara; HBO recorded sessions).
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You actually helped in part of, I'm sure, a whole holistic approach. You helped Dana White crack the code on enhancing oxygen delivery into his brain and body, allowing him to sleep and recover from sleep apnea. I'm sure that had a huge impact on his weight loss, on his health. Can you talk about that?
Yeah. Well, I was working with Ari Manuel, who is the owner of ufc, and I was working with him in his best Beverly Hills home, and we had become friends because he heard me on a Ben Greenfield podcast, and he was interested in, you know, some of the health coaching ideas that we had. And. And then I mentioned this endonasal balloon treatment to him, and so he said, I'd love to try. He's very curious. Right. Ari's an amazing man, and he's very curious. He's very into natural medicine and holistic ways. And so he invited me to his home to work on him and his family. So I show up there. I treated him. He was so excited about the benefits because it opened up his nasal pass. He could breathe. He brought his wife in, his sons, and I treated the whole family. And I've been back to see him probably about half a dozen times. And so after one of the visits with him, he FaceTimed me with Dana White, and I would honestly say I didn't know who Dana White was, which is kind of crazy. Must have been living under a rock. But it, you know, just fighting and combat sports and so forth just historically hasn't been my thing. Yeah, I've shifted that a little bit because as I've been working with Dana and I've been working with some of the other champion fighters and so forth, I've become more interested in it and seen how it can be spiritual in a way.
Oh, yeah, right.
And so there can be some real beauty.
It's a warrior archetype that I don't think many of us, maybe 99 of us, never actually embody or even touch in our lifetimes. I used to have the same approach where I was like, oh, it's just glorifying violence. It's like, why do they hug afterwards then? Yeah, there's a reason why they hug.
It's kind of like there's a mutual respect. The samurai, you know, it's like they're. Yeah, just honor.
There's. It's a part of humanity that maybe is uncomfortable for. For people to look at, but it's still a part of us.
Yeah, it's still a part of human. There's so many. There's so many aspects of athletic and neurologic performance in combat. Because it's like dancing, but, like, with lots of, like, potential bad things that can happen with lethal force. Yeah.
It's like everything's on the line. It's truly living on the edge. I'm not here to say that you should or should not watch ufc. I just think it's. It's a fascinating tangent. But take us back, though. Take us back to. To Dana White.
So. So I'm. I'm actually getting an ozone IV in LA at the time, and I'm sitting there running a drip, and. And Ari, FaceTimes. Dana. And Dana's telling me about the fact that he got. He got jumped in Boston, you know, many years before that, and his nose was broken. He couldn't breathe through his nose. And I was recently listening to an interview just a couple days ago that he did on a podcast, and he was talking about how bad his sleep apnea. And I didn't. Until I heard this podcast, even just a couple. A couple days ago, I didn't realize how bad it was. He was waking up in the middle of the night, and he was vomiting and throwing up. He was having nightmares, you know, very. And he was using a cpap, and he really didn't, you know, like most people with CPAPs. That's. It's. It's horrible. It's horrible. Yeah, you're not getting quality sleep. So he flew to. To me. I was. I was staying at a friend's in la, and he literally took his private jet, showed up at the front door, and we did this treatment called functional cranial release, which is this endonasal balloon manipulation. And it literally is an expansive pressure that. That opens up the nasal passage and the sinuses. But more than that, it restores this movement pattern called cranial rhythm. So we all have and enjoy this flexibility to our cranium. And it's not just bones, because the cranium is made up of a bunch of separate bones. And the bones come together in unique ways to facilitate this motion called cranial rhythm. But there's a connective tissue layer just inside of the bones. And the name of that connective tissue layer is called the dura mater. Guess what that means in Latin. Tough mother. Because it's got £2,000 per square inch of tensile strength. It's very, very durable. And it's protecting. It's the mother because it's protecting the central nervous system. And so just like some mothers can be overly protective with their children, and what happens when mothers Mothers are overly protective. The kid doesn't get to explore their environment, doesn't learn. Right.
There's not as much expansion.
Right?
Yeah.
And so the same thing happens with the neurological system is that when you have this bound connective tissue, which most everybody has some level of restriction to this dura, right? To the. To the connective tissue that's behind the face. It's surrounding all of the aspects of the brain and spinal cord. And we get adhesions to this and it disrupts the flexibility. But it also causes the skull to be contracted and pulled into, like, a collapsed position. And the maxillary bones are basically under the eyes. And they make up the cheekbones. And these maxillary bones fall down and the roof of the mouth raises up, crowding out the space in the nasal passage. And so then the palate becomes crowded and the teeth become crowded. So 100 years ago, nobody had to have their wisdom teeth removed. It's not until industrial culture with, you know, refined foods, cooked meat, homogenized milk, all of these things. Weston Price was the who's considered the father of the raw food movement. He's the one that discovered this. He traveled all around the world. And he was able to show that the people that were aborigines had these. Maintained these wide dental arches, wide skulls. Their breathing was full, right? They could breathe robustly through their nasal passage. And they didn't get a lot of cavities. They didn't suffer from a lot of the diseases associated with. With, you know, diabetes and degenerative neurologic disease and cancer. And all of these things weren't happening with these aborigines. Where they were with people that were living in and eating the foods and the stressors of modern civilization. So if you appreciate that, then you would almost have to say that almost all of us have some degree of a collapse of our cranial structure. And that relaxing that can be of benefit to their health and vitality. Besides that, I've found that if you're a meditator, you know, and if you're into spirituality. Because this cranial rhythm is also working on those pressures. And we talked about Joe Dispenza, those pressures activating those little cells in the ventricles that produce cerebral spinal fluid, causing that piezoelectric effect to the pineal. That after these cranial adjustments, you have an improvement of those systems as well.
It's so fascinating. I mean, the fact that you can literally put a balloon up your nose. No, it's not that simple. I mean, it's obviously, you've been highly skilled, highly trained in how to do this. I remember the very first time it happened. We were at the proper downtown. You remember this? It was like two, three years ago. It was maybe three years ago.
Yeah.
And Luke was like, hey, do you want to try this treatment from John? And I was watching people get the treatment and like, their feet would kick out and their hands would kick out. There's an example of this on the screen right now. And it was so uncomfortable, but I was like, you know what? I'm just going to trust. I have never had such a weird but also amazing feeling in my entire life. As you know, I've struggled with sinus issues for like 20 plus years. So for. For me, it felt like there were actually bones popping. And I don't know if that was cartilage or the. Or the dura mater like you're talking about.
Yeah, release of the dura can cause it's like a popping. Like you're getting your neck adjustment.
It's so amazing. It's so good.
Yeah.
And so now. Now I feel like because you. You've put out so much media on this, and because people know you and your functional cranial release techniques, now you have other UFC fighters and even this major musician, Diplo, who you did a treatment on as well. Garrett McNamara. You're gonna be in the actual Hundred Foot Wave documentary. Is that why you're flying out there? Or was already recorded with some of the work you did with Garrett.
HBO recorded a couple of things. One is they recorded when I was out on the North Shore last Christmas doing balloon. I did balloons on CJ Macias and Garrett. Basically the whole family and Nicole McNamara. And so that was all recorded. We don't really know what's going to make it into the series and what's not. Yeah, we feel like this has got a high potential that I think so.
It's so novel and people don't know about it. It's so. It's so incredible. Check out some of the videos on this screen that are perfectly curated based on the video you just saw.
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