Most Replayed Moment: Simple Breathing Techniques To Reduce Stress Fast! - James Nestor

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

Are you feeling more fulfilled now that you're back to work?

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

This Friday. No, I need a vacation. See the movie that critics are saying is an awesome. Look at that. Crowd pleasing, fist pumping, all that brawl of a film.

Steven Bartlett (0:16)

You're right about that.

James Nestor (0:19)

They're coming after our family. Go fix this.

SPEAKER_2 (0:26)

Rated R. Only in theaters Friday.

Steven Bartlett (0:34)

Is there a correlation between our health outcomes, how long we'll live and our lung capacity, our VO2 max and all of that stuff? Is there a correlation there?

James Nestor (0:44)

So I had the same question years ago, and I started looking into it, and it turns out that numerous studies have found that the healthier and larger your lungs are, the longer you will live. That is the greatest indicator of lifespan, was lung size and lung health.

Steven Bartlett (1:03)

The greatest indicator of lifespan.

James Nestor (1:05)

The greatest indicator. According to these studies, the Framingham study looked at 5200 people over the course of 70 years, and they found that the people who lived the longest had the largest and healthiest lung function. They even did studies in which they were looking at people who had lung transplants, so surgically implanted lungs. Those who were given larger lungs lived way longer than those given normal size or smaller lungs. So no matter how you get these larger lungs, it's better. And luckily, we don't need to get a transplant to do this. We can practice healthy breathing, we can practice stretches, we can exercise, and this naturally can keep our lung size up. It's very sad when you start looking at these charts of what happened after you're 30 You're almost there, so get ready. It's a real bummer. But your lung function starts dropping off very quickly. And especially for women, around 50 and 60, your lung function and your lung size starts shrinking, shrinking, shrinking up. Which means at the time you need more oxygen more easily, it's much harder to get that. And that's where people's health really starts disintegrating, they start having problems. The good news is you can stave off this deterioration, this shrinking of your lungs by doing all the stuff we're talking about, by doing breath work, exercise by exercise. What is yoga? But stretching and breathing into this lung and breathing into that lung. So the yogis knew this thousands and thousands of years ago.

Steven Bartlett (2:43)

And it's that it almost feels like that downward spiral is kind of self-reinforcing and self-fulfilling because if my lung capacity deteriorates, my movement and my exercise capacity will deteriorate, which means my lung capacity will deteriorate, which means I'll move less, which it's kind of this downward spiral, right?

James Nestor (3:02)

Absolutely. And it's my belief after studying this stuff for so long, that that is the thing you want to pay attention to more than anything else, especially as you grow older, your lung function, how much air you can pack into your lungs, how long you can hold your breath. All of this is indicative of your general respiratory function and your general health. So that little hint of using a breath hold every morning to see where you are physically and mentally, I think is good. They've used it for thousands and thousands of years and now it's coming back. This is something that a lot of these longevity experts aren't looking into. They're looking into nutrition and exercise. They're not looking into lung capacity. We get more energy from breath than we do from food and drink, right? We take 30 pounds of air in and out of our lungs every single day. And so I find it interesting. They're focused on all these micronutrients. All that stuff's important, right? I believe most of it. But from what I know, a lot of them aren't focused very much on their breathing.

Steven Bartlett (4:08)

I want to make sure that I have something that I can take into my own life there, for the expansion of my lung capacity because I'm sold on the importance of it. So exercise expands my lung capacity.

James Nestor (4:19)

Yeah, 15, 20 percent just by exercising by virtue of exercise. If you're a good exerciser, your lung capacity will stay up.

Steven Bartlett (4:27)

Cardiovascular exercise.

James Nestor (4:28)

Cardiovascular exercise. There's ways to access that a little more if you're dysfunctionally breathing when you're working out, you're not doing yourself too many favors. So you have to remember the simple basic things. You have to learn how to take a proper breath, then apply that to your workouts. You will see such an incredible difference once you do this. This is what yoga is good for. It's harder to yoga without breathing well, right? You can do it, but by virtue of all those different poses, they're meant to open up your chest, right? To expand this area.