Summary of Huberman Lab Podcast Episode: Optimize Health, Mood, Learning & Performance with Correct Breathing | Huberman Lab
Podcast: Huberman Lab
9 min. read
— Description —
Discover the power of breathing and how it can enhance your quality of life Learn how to leverage your breath to improve mood, sleep better, increase alertness, and find calmness Explore the benefits of physiologic sighs and the impact they can have on relaxation and stress reduction
Test your carbon dioxide offload and use box breathing techniques to improve control over your breath Dont underestimate the importance of breathing through your nose for optimal efficiency and jaw structure Take control of your breath and unlock its potential for a better life.
Optimize Health, Mood, Learning & Performance with Correct Breathing | Huberman Lab
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
- Breathing is obviously essential to life but how we breathe is important for the quality of life – for example, you can leverage breathing to improve mood, get rid of cramps, sleep better, increase alertness or calmness
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Breathing is a unique feature because it is within our control to direct the brain’s excitability through breathing by shifting the duration in inhales/exhales and how long we hold our breath
- The more you inhale longer than exhale (preferably through the nose), the more your brain is in a focused mode of accessing and retrieving information
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Physiologic sigh practiced for 5 minutes per day over about a month can have the same or better effects on relaxation, reduced stress, lower resting heart rate, and improved mood when compared to meditation
- Physiologic/cyclic sigh – 2 inhales through the nose (one big, one smaller) then 1 long exhale through the mouth until lungs empty x 5 minutes
- Even just one physiologic sigh is the fastest way to bring about calm in real-time
- Test your current carbon dioxide offload with the carbon dioxide tolerance test; based on the results, use various duration of box breathing to improve mechanical control over breathing and reduce resting respiratory rate
- Whenever possible, breathe through your nose instead of your mouth– you don’t want to default to mouth breathing as your mode of breath for many reasons from efficiency to the aesthetic structure of the jaw
Introduction
- Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His lab focuses on neural regeneration, neuroplasticity, and brain states such as stress, focus, fear, and optimal performance.
- In this episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, learn all about breathing – the biology of respiration, nose versus mouth breathing, benefits of breath for mood, leveraging breath for improved health outcomes, types of breathing, and much more.
- Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)
Why & How We Breathe
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We breathe to bring oxygen in and remove carbon dioxide
- It’s not as black and white as oxygen is good and carbon dioxide is bad
- Breathing offloads carbon dioxide because excessive amounts are bad but we do need the correct ratios for bodily function
- People who breathe too much put their bodies in a hypoxic state, with not enough oxygen to the brain
- How breath moves in the body: air comes in through the nose and mouth; the larynx (rigid tube to avoid closing) brings air from the nose and mouth to the lungs
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Lungs can expand and contract to bring in or expel air
- Diaphragm is a muscle that moves the lungs
- Intercostal muscles allow ribs to expand when air is brought in
- Two brain structures control breathing: (1) the preBötzinger complex and (2) the phrenic nerve (motor nerve) from the neck which forms synapses with the diaphragm
- Diaphragmatic breathing is the most efficient way of breathing: to test, inhale through the nose – if the belly moves out just a little, then goes in upon exhale, the phrenic nerve is controlling the diaphragm properly
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The nose and mouth have different resistances to air
- It’s normal one nostril is a little easier to breathe through at different points in the day (it’s not always because the septum is deviated)
- At altitude: air pressure in the lungs is low and low outside is high so it takes more effort to get air into the lungs
- Inhales tend to be active and exhales tend to be passive
Chemical Aspects Of Breathing
- Oxygen and carbon dioxide are needed by all the cells and tissues of the body but the ratio matters
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Oxygen passes from sacs in the lungs (alveoli) into the bloodstream then gets bound by hemoglobin and is delivered to tissues in the body
- Carbon dioxide is needed to liberate oxygen from hemoglobin
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You want the body to be at about a pH of 7.4
- If carbon dioxide levels are too low, pH increases to make more oxygen available to tissues
- When you exhale, carbon dioxide is taken from the bloodstream back into the alveoli of the lungs then out into the world through the mouth or nose
- Carbon dioxide is a vasodilator
Impact Of Different Patterns Of Breathing
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Sleep apnea: not taking deep enough or frequent enough breaths during sleep so experiencing hypoxic (not enough oxygen)
- Symptoms of sleep apnea: excessive daytime anxiety, excessive daytime sleepiness, snoring
- Dangers of sleep apnea: increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, and stroke, accelerates dementia, impacts cognitive function, decreases libido
- Treatment options: CPAP machine, sleep with medical tape closing the mouth to force nasal breathing until trained, practice nasal breathing during exercise to transfer skill into sleep
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Physiological sigh for relaxation and enhanced mood: 2 inhales through the nose (one big, one smaller) then 1 long exhale through the mouth until lunges are empty
- A physiologic sigh can be cycled for 5 minutes or performed once for acute stress relief
- You can alleviate exercise cramps in right side using about 3 physiologic sigh – this specific cramp is related to misfiring in the phrenic nerve
- Note, the cramp in the leftside is likely related to excessive air or fluid in the stomach (not alleviated by breathing)
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When you hyperventilate you are inhaling and exhaling more than usual – this can increase anxiety in a reciprocal way, which deploys adrenaline and increases excitability
- There’s a reduction in oxygen delivered to the brain and neurons increase firing so noise goes up and the signal goes down
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Cyclic hyperventilation: deep inhale through nose immediately followed by deep exhale through mouth x 25-30 then fully exhaling until lungs are empty and repeating – cycle for 5 minutes
- Do not do this in or near water because this may trigger a gasp reflex
- This will increase adrenaline and is a way of inducing self-induced stress and allows you to explore how to tap into a calm mind and body during stressful times
- Be careful doing this if you are prone to panic or anxiety attacks
- Most people breathe too much per minute – increase efficiency by nasal breathing and pay attention to how quickly you breathe and the amount of time between breaths
- Use rhythmic breathing to calm the brain and body during physical stressors such as cold plunge
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Hiccups are a spasm of the phrenic nerve
- To reliably alleviate hiccups: inhale through the nose 3x in a row, hold your breath for 15-20 seconds, then exhale completely
- The brain actually functions better when inhaling through the nose – you can increase memory retrieval, and cognitive function, block out signal-to-noise, detect novel stimuli
Test Your Breathing
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Carbon dioxide tolerance is an indicator of whether the system as a whole is working properly and measures the ability to mechanically control the diaphragm
- Step 1: Inhale through the nose and exhale all the way – repeat 4x
- Step 2: Take 5th inhale as deep as you can, release as slowly as possible, and time
- Step 3: Stop the timer when you can no longer exhale any more air
- If carbon dioxide discard time is 20-25 seconds or less, you have a low carbon dioxide tolerance
- To improve, try 3-second box breathing: 3-second inhale, 3-second hold, 3-second exhale, 3-second hold, repeat about 2 minutes
- If it took 25-45 seconds to discard air, you have a moderate level of carbon dioxide tolerance
- To improve, try 5-6 second box breathing: 5-6 second inhale, 5-6 second hold, 5-6 second exhale, 5-6 second hold, repeat about 2 minutes
- If you go 50+ seconds to discard until your lungs empty, you have a high carbon dioxide tolerance
- To improve, try 8-10 second box breathing: 8-10 second inhale, 8-10 second hold, 8-10 second exhale, 8-10 second hold, repeat about 2 minutes
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Box breathing will improve mechanical control over breathing; once box breathing becomes easy, try the carbon dioxide tolerance test again
- Progress leads to deeper and less frequent breathing at rest
- Carbon dioxide does not necessarily correlate to fitness but if discard time drops over time, you might not be putting enough energy into recovery
- Carbon Dioxide Tolerance Clip (Galpin Guest Series Episode 3)
Breathing & Heart Rate
- When you inhale, the diaphragm moves down and when you exhale diaphragm moves up
- During inhale: the heart temporarily expands and blood moves slower which prompts neural signal to increase the heart rate
- During exhale: the volume of the heart is reduced and blood flow accelerates which sends a signal from the nervous system to slow the heart rate
- To quickly reduce or increase heart rate for a situation, you can take advantage of breathing
- To increase heart rate: inhale longer and more deeply than exhales; to decrease heart rate: exhale longer and more vigorously than inhales
- Box breathing will moderate heart rate to equilibrium
- Tummo or Wim Hof style breathing: this is basically rapid, deliberate hyperventilation – this will make you feel alert and liberate adrenaline
Articles & Books
- Concentration of carbon dioxide, interstitial pH and synaptic transmission in hippocampal formation of the rat (Journal of Physiology)
- Effects of voluntary hyperventilation on cortical sensory responses Electroencephalographic and magnetoencephalographic studies (Experimental Brain Research)
- Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal (Cell Reports Medicine)
- Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion (Annual Review of Neuroscience)
- Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function (Journal of Neuroscience)
- Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials (Scientific Reports)
- Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn