Full video transcripts:

Patrick McKeown
0:05

A conversation with all things breathing, and this is, I suppose, three breathing nerds, and we just want to — we were having a chat amongst ourselves, and we were wondering, you know, where is breathing going, how has breathing arrived at this point, what has held breathing back, and anything that's got to do with it. So I'm joined with, of course, my sidekick here, Daniel Pålsson from Sweden, and then, suited to that, many of you will be familiar with, is Anders Olsson, who was, of course, on the journey with James Nestor in the book Breath. So welcome, everybody. Welcome, Anders, and yeah, so just a little bit of background, and let's kick off — you've been teaching breathing, where did you start, where's it going, and all things breathing?

Anders Olsson
0:59

Yeah, so today you're outnumbered then by two Swedes, right?

Patrick McKeown
1:03

Well, that's a hard one, so it is, you know — well, if you start speaking Swedish, I'm absolutely out of the picture, so we'll stick to English, whatever chance I have.

Anders Olsson
1:09

Okay, yeah, well, my breathing journey started in 2009, when I read a book, How to Swap Asthma for Life, and it was, to a large extent, about the Buteyko method, and how you could actually improve your asthma, and eventually make it disappear, just by turning to your breathing habits and improving those. And not long after that, I took your course in Denmark.

Patrick McKeown
1:33

That was when we first met, and that was Buteyko, wasn't it?

Anders Olsson
1:39

It was, yeah, it was Buteyko in Copenhagen.

Patrick McKeown
1:42

Yeah, because Oxygen Advantage wasn't around by then.

Anders Olsson
1:46

No, that's true, yeah.

Patrick McKeown
1:47

Yeah, and from there — so did you have asthma, Anders?

Anders Olsson
1:49

I can't remember — no, my issue was mainly a racing mind, problems to unlock the turbo and slow down, and I could notice almost immediately that it gave me a new tool, an ability to unlock the turbo, to slow down. And since then, I've just proven it to myself over and over again, that carbon dioxide really has a calming effect on our mind, and I don't mind having my turbo at all, I love it, but sometimes it's not adequate, you need another gear. So for me, that was a huge thing — I realized, when looking back, that that was the thing I probably have searched for my whole life, that ability to wind down. So it was — I think it was life-changing, actually, for me.

Patrick McKeown
2:51

Can you imagine the number of people who are searching their whole life and they never actually find that solution, you know. And I would say, in terms of — this is another conversation, I had a conversation with a journalist yesterday, talking about — she was talking very much about anxiety, but I was saying, okay, there's a lot of attention with people with anxiety, but what about the people who don't necessarily have anxiety, but their minds are all over the place, and they cannot concentrate. And the other question is, I had a meeting last night with many OA instructors, and I asked them, show me how many of you here in this group have been taught how to concentrate, and out of the 40 people, only two put up their hands. And it ties in with exactly what you're saying — so your mind was racing, you were in turbo, and you came across breathing.

Anders Olsson
3:35

Yeah, simple as that.

Daniel Pålsson
3:41

But did you, Anders, did you try other things before that, such as yoga or something else — was this, and how did you get into breathing, like what led you to breathing?

Anders Olsson
3:52

I tried many different things, like improving my working habits and thinking habits, sleeping habits, and I also tried meditation and yoga, but I couldn't really get — for example, meditation, I couldn't wind down, it's not that easy to meditate, actually, if you live up in your head, at least that was my experience.

Patrick McKeown
4:20

Oh, it's totally, totally — and this is, Anders, we can discuss this — with mindfulness, everybody out there knows pretty much about mindfulness, and can you imagine the person with the racing mind, that their physiology is in that fight-or-flight response, and their sleep is impacted — when they start paying attention to their breathing and their mind is all over the place, the problem is the physiology is off. And John Kabat — and even if you were to look at the past, now, with S.N. Goenka, the instructions don't change your breathing, but in actual fact, this was found back in the day when mindfulness was developed as part of Buddhism, where people were living very natural lives —

Anders Olsson
4:59

Exactly, breathing was probably likely to be —

Patrick McKeown
5:04

— bad, but for the modern individual, the one thing that we do need to do is actually change our breathing.

Daniel Pålsson
5:07

So it's interesting that you speak about that.

Anders Olsson
5:14

Yeah, that's my experience as well — mindfulness and meditation, they're great, but they are like one, two, three, four steps up the ladder, we need to start with the basics, which we have kind of forgotten. And also, what I find more and more is the connection with our emotions, and with our emotional blockages, and when I look back, I can realize what was the root cause for my stress levels, and for me it was — when I grew up, I somehow installed the program saying that in order to be loved, I had to perform. So my racing mind came from that idea, that love is connected to performance, and then if you perform more, well, then you can get more love, sort of, which was not very clever.

Patrick McKeown
6:00

But I guess a lot of us as well, we go around, it's — that's not very clever, is society wants us to do this, you know, be good citizens, and work your butts off, and pay as much tax as possible, don't be a loner, you know, society — I think society is putting a lot of pressure on us, and also we then put this on our children, you know, without knowing it — I mean, we basically just repeat the things that we were taught by our parents.

Anders Olsson
6:33

So unless we're able to unplug from the rat race, and take a step back, and see the bigger picture, and question, what am I doing, then we will just, I guess, continue, go on and on and on with tunnel vision, and just repeat what we have been taught.

Patrick McKeown
6:48

Yeah, so — and I know, sorry, Daniel, I'm taking every bit of time here —

Daniel Pålsson
6:57

No problem.

Patrick McKeown
6:59

But, so you stepped out of the rat race, and you took that risk then to — and I can kind of identify with that — to start teaching breathing, it's quite a big departure, you know.

Anders Olsson
7:14

Yeah, yeah.

Patrick McKeown
7:15

How did it feel, was it risky, were you apprehensive about it?

Anders Olsson
7:21

I mean, I had to sell my house, and I had run a quite successful IT company before, and I had sold it, but then my money started — I started to run out of money, so I had to sell my house. And at that time, I was either finding a job that could get me an income, or I continued to develop the concept I've created, Conscious Breathing, and in order to do that I didn't have enough money, so I had to sell my house. And at a time, I remember when I gave my first course, there was one participant, and the second course there were two participants, and one of them who really needed it, because he had asthma, and you could see all over his face that he was a chronic mouth breather and fast breather, but he decided to quit the course. So it was not a brilliant start, and at that time I needed to make that decision, but at the end of the day it was really, really easy, because as soon as I saw myself in a company setting, working for a salary, it was like I was trapped, I was boxed in — this was my life mission, spreading the breathing, and at the end of the day it was a really easy decision.

Patrick McKeown
8:38

So do you think it was good instinct, hunch, intuition, something was driving you there?

Anders Olsson
8:45

Yeah, indeed, absolutely, it was my gut feeling, and before I didn't always have the ability to access that — I believe when we live up in our head, it's really hard to be connected with our heart and our emotions, and with our gut, and our stomach, and our gut feelings. So yeah, absolutely, I think it was the right decision.

Patrick McKeown
9:04

Yeah, and how — when, what year was that, roughly?

Anders Olsson
9:11

That was 2009, 2010.

Patrick McKeown
9:17

Okay, few years — and then, actually, it's kind of interesting, because you've done a few experiments here in Sweden, and I know you did an experiment — I'm not really sure, 10 years ago roughly, or whatever it was — with James Nestor, where you — I guess you mouth-breathed, forced to mouth breathe for a week, and how that affected your mind and your body — can you tell us a little bit about that?

Anders Olsson
9:48

Yeah, that was in 2018, we did that at Stanford.

Patrick McKeown
9:55

Yeah.

Anders Olsson
9:55

So actually it was 10 days, we blocked our nose so we could only mouth breathe, and when James asked me, do you want to participate, I said, but I'm far too curious to not do it. So it was a mixed feeling when we started that, plugging our nose and only mouth breathing, but I don't want to have it undone, because it was really, really interesting to be a 100% mouth breather for that long, at least that was how I felt. In 10 days it had a huge, huge negative impact on my sleep, on my stress levels, on my sugar cravings, on my mind — I felt many times I felt really stupid, actually — and the balance, that was interesting how it affected my balance as well. One of the things we did, just as an example, we measured tons of things three times per day, one hour each time, so in total three hours per day, plus a lot of things we measured at Stanford. One of the things was to just close our eyes and stand on one leg, and with mouth breathing I had to put down the other foot six times more than with nasal breathing — that's really a lot.

Patrick McKeown
11:02

I think that's due, partly, to the position of the tongue, but there's very little research on it, Anders — there was one study where they did something similar, they blindfolded individuals and they changed the position of the tongue, and with the position of the tongue resting in the roof of the mouth, they had better balance on an uneven surface.

Anders Olsson
11:31

And, yeah, it's very, very interesting, that most people won't consider — but in the main, it's kind of sad to think that between 25 to 50% of studied children persistently mouth breathe, and nobody is saying anything, and most doctors don't see a difference between breathing through the nose and breathing through the mouth.

Patrick McKeown
11:52

No, they don't see that difference, it's really, really amazing.

Anders Olsson
11:58

It is, it's, unfortunately, detrimental for our health — you know, the book Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life, that came out 150 years ago.

Patrick McKeown
12:11

Yes.

Anders Olsson
12:14

Even though you could dismiss it as just anecdotal, because he doesn't have any actual data from the Indian tribes, but what he saw, more than anything, was that they had their mouth closed, and they had superior health, straight teeth, and beautiful faces, compared to — at the time, in the 1850s, the bill of mortality, only one out of four could celebrate their 25th birthday, three out of four they died before that age. And, yeah, for sure, the tongue in the roof of the mouth and nasal breathing, it has such a huge impact, and it was written about again — sorry, Daniel — back in 1909, I think it was an article by Dunn, in a journal called Dental Cosmos, and when you're reading it, it talks about children in class being inattentive, and the teacher is accusing these children of not paying attention, the face is dull and expressionless — and we could read that today, 113 or 14 years later, it's the exact same issues as back in 1909.

Patrick McKeown
13:23

Why do you think it hasn't moved on, why do you — there's something holding breathing back?

Anders Olsson
13:35

Well, I think there are a few things — but still, when I started, and you started much earlier than me, right, then, at the time, it was really not very well known, compared to today, it's a huge difference, but still we are just scratching the surface. I see a few things — one is the medical community, I mean, you can't really — trained to become a doctor for six, seven, eight years, and tell people how to breathe, anyone could tell that, if you think of breathing just like a very simple thing — but actually it is much more complex than we think. And another thing I think —

Patrick McKeown
14:18

So do you think it's too simple for the medical doctor, why spend eight years training in medical school and devote a part of that eight years to something which is regarded as kind of left-of-field, woo-woo, even though it's entirely based on physiology, and even though we could argue that it impacts all of the major disciplines of medicine — sleep, respiration, mental health, movement.

Anders Olsson
14:49

I think that's a part of it, yes. There are very few people that can build their career on doing breathing research, for example — there should be more. I mean, if I'm 25, and, okay, let's — I want to cure cancer, you probably won't go for breathing immediately, you would consider other paths, and you also need funding, right, and probably the funding for breathing isn't really there either. So I think there are a lot of things, and also the fact that in the medical community you have all these specialties, so if you're specialized in the nose, or you're specialized in asthma, or you're specialized in the heart, you may not be able to see the bigger picture, you may not be able to see that — oh, we have a common denominator here, that people are not breathing very well. And I think also another factor is to go to us as individuals, because taking responsibility for our breath, that really means that we also take responsibility for our health and our life, and not a lot of us are prepared to do that, that's scary — many of us, I think, we spend most of our life just running away from the things that scare us the most, the traumas we have, which we all have, right.

Daniel Pålsson
16:11

I think that — the breathing is kind of hidden in plain sight, that it's something you do so many times you don't really pay attention to it, and it shifts slowly for most people, for years, so you don't — but you kind of just adjust, you adjust to it — but it's like, same with weight gain, so to some degree, if you gain 70 pounds overnight, you would notice it, but if you do it over 40 years, you don't really think about it. And I think one reason — I saw you also have an Oura ring, I could see, and now you can see, now you can actually see it, you get like these — the data points every day, visualizations, and I think that that will help, like a portable doctor that will give people feedback and help them say, oh, it's getting worse or better. Before, there wasn't really — until something happens, so somebody would have asthma or something, but if you're kind of in between, you're kind of like, oh, you just live with it. So I think it's part of it — I think, as well, that it's something you should naturally do, most people think, but like Patrick said, we don't breathe the same way we did, you know, thousands of years ago, we have a completely different life, but we assume our physiology will be the same, and it's not — when you sit still all day, look at screens, you have a stress all day, that alters the breathing pattern. So I think it's tricky, and then, also, to pay for something that's free — you do it already, so it doesn't fit in our economy, right — even though you may argue this is one of the most important things you can do, and if you learn how to change it, still, it's — I think that's the dichotomy, that's the paradox, why it's kind of hidden — what I call hidden in plain sight, because you can't really see it.

Patrick McKeown
18:17

No, and I — as you say, I really think that all these gadgets can help people understand what is the price for the lifestyle choices I make — for example, if you have an Oura tracker at night, you will be able to see that maybe alcohol has a negative impact on my sleep, or eating too late, or eating too much, or unplugging from social media too late, etc, etc.

Anders Olsson
18:48

Yeah, I think for many people that's the first step — awareness. Awareness, awareness, that it matters — then once you're aware, then you have to know what to do, it's not enough to have a gadget that just tells you, okay, these are the numbers, then you have to know what to do, why you're doing it, when you're doing it — and also, like anything else, you need kind of people to help you build the habit — sometimes, even though you know what to eat, people don't do it, even though you know exercise is good for you, you don't do it. So I think it's a long road, and we're still at the awareness stage in the breathing world, I would say — it's not enough, there is not enough people in the world that's aware of it.

Daniel Pålsson
19:22

No, I agree totally, but we are still moving in the right direction, and one reason I believe why we know all the things that are good for us, and still we don't do them, I think it boils down to energy, and there — sleep is so important, and in today's society we have a tendency to — I mean, it's almost, wow, you have a superpower, you only sleep five hours per night, wow, and we are jealous about that person, but I'm not sure if that is long-term beneficial, I think we should prioritize sleep much more, and just — if we ask the question, do you wake up to the alarm, if we do that, that means actually that we are depriving our body of the sleep it needs and wants, and I think most people do that. And what we also forget — if we have realized that sleep is important, we tend to forget the connection between breathing and sleep, it's not only about laying down in bed and sleep, we also have to consider our breathing while sleeping.

Anders Olsson
20:36

I agree.

Patrick McKeown
20:40

Yeah, so, what — as far as, where do you think breathing is at right now, and what does it take to make it move forward, do you have any ideas of where you think — should happen, to make it, you know, more awareness around the world?

Anders Olsson
20:59

I know Victor Hugo, he said, nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come, and I guess it's just for us breathing nerds to continue spreading this simple knowledge, and we plant seeds, and over time those seeds will grow, and over time people will tell other people, so at some point we will create a tipping point, and it will just be very natural, I think, for people to not, in the first instance, when they have health issues, go to surgery, or pills, or — sorry — but to go to themselves and see what they can do, and a lot of things, like sleep and breathing and emotional release, those are free, or moving, exercising.

Daniel Pålsson
21:53

Yeah, I think — I think I saw it was Mindvalley, they're kind of trying to create this new type of university, but basically, at the bottom of their teaching, or whatever you want to call it, is focus — so if you're not focused, you're not kind of open to whatever subject you're talking about, math or English or whatever, but if you want to be focused, you know, breathing is key — so focus needs energy, our brain is our main consumer of oxygen, and if we have fight-flight breathing when we're concentrating, it may not be optimum. So, for me, I think we need to get — it's important to get into schools, that's the point, you need to bring it back to, like, the generation growing up, where breathing is then a natural thing that you actually learn to breathe and focus, before, or in parallel with, other subjects — because if you're not focused, then the door's shut for learning, so it's kind of like, you're in school, but you don't really learn. And then they test people more and more, and it makes them more and more stressed, so instead, maybe focus on teaching young kids how to breathe, how to focus, and then slowly bring them into actually learning the subjects — that's kind of like the opposite, but then it becomes a habit, and when the habit is formed and it's automatic, then it becomes natural. So I think it could also be a generation issue, that it may — it's going to happen sooner or later, but it may take 10, 15, 50 years, who knows, but hopefully sooner than later.

Patrick McKeown
23:28

I think it needs to start straight away, Daniel — I think it's absolutely terrible, I went through the school system, as all of us have done, I didn't have a great experience with it, you know, I got out at 14 years of age, never to go back, and out of total frustration — you can have very, very bright kids with poor sleep and poor breathing, and they are not going to do well academically, and their self-confidence is going to be affected by this for the rest of their life, because you will always compare yourself to your peers when you're in that classroom environment, because society is telling you whether you're intelligent or not based on what you do academically, even though, of course, it has got very little to do with intelligence — it's got something to do with it, but it's not the entire picture. And I'm just thinking of the number of kids in school, and in high schools, and in university, where the point that you made there, is a demand and an absolute need to be focused, to narrow your attention to one thing, to be able to hold your attention, to be concentrated, and also to have a decent attention span, and it has been completely overlooked in the education system — these kids are not being taught how to concentrate, and it's not about mindfulness, I think it's huge, I think it's crying out for help. Maybe — I don't want to go into religion too much — but sometimes I feel that it's kind of ironic, that interest in institutionalized religion is wavering and decreasing, and interest in breathing is increasing, and I'm wondering, is breathing going to be the void, or fill the void, to some degree, because, you know, as human beings, we need to be able to have something that, when things go wrong, that we have some tools to bring us solace, and traditionally it was the church — yeah, things go wrong, you had a higher being who was looking after you, and it gave you relief — now, when things go wrong, many people are not going to church — could breathing be that solace?

Anders Olsson
25:52

I think that's a really interesting point, Patrick, and one way of looking at it, I think, is that not only religion — we can also see how we, in general, we look for external things, we look for authorities, whether they are religious or political leaders, or money, or medication — we have a tendency to overlook the enormous power we have inside. So I think you are right there, that we are doing a shift, where we put less and less of our efforts into external authorities, as we turn to our breathing, and are able then to connect with our inner self and our inner power. I did a podcast interview a couple of days ago, and there we discussed a study which I think is really interesting — they did it on rats — those poor rats, but yeah, that's, I guess, how it is — and they throw them in water, and they wanted to see how long they would survive before drowning, and on average, they survived somewhere — it's not very nice, these poor rats — but anyway, on average, for 15 minutes they survived before sinking down and drowning, but before they drowned, they picked them up and put them to the side, and then they were laying there for a few minutes, just catching their breath, and then they threw them in the water again, because they wanted to see how long would they be able to do it the second time — a shorter time, the same, or longer. I thought maybe they would only be able to do shorter, because I thought maybe they would then be conditioned to giving up, but they did longer, and not only longer, they did a huge amount longer — they were able to stay there for 60 hours. So they went from 15 minutes to 60 hours, just because their mind — first they was in fight-flight, doing away with all their resources, they were in a panic state, probably breathing very fast, and all the alert system were on red alert. The second time, they were sure that someone would save them, they were more calm, more relaxed, probably the breathing was then also more relaxed, they had hope, they had — they knew that there was someone caring for them, but there wasn't actually someone caring for them, but that was probably what they thought. So I think when we reduce the fear and stress and worry, we can grow as human beings enormously, we have so much untapped potential, whether it's our health, or whether it's love and cooperation, because right now we are not so nice — not to each other, not to the planet, not to the animals, not to the plants — I think we need to step up, in order to give something nice to our kids that are growing up now.

Patrick McKeown
28:59

I totally agree, that was — that's an interesting — what was the purpose of it, did they actually check their breathing specifically, or was it —

Anders Olsson
29:07

No, I don't think so, no, it was more to see how they would react.

Patrick McKeown
29:13

Yeah, okay.

Daniel Pålsson
29:14

Yeah, I'll send you the study.

Anders Olsson
29:22

Yeah, because I mean, there have been other studies, I think you had them in your book, Patrick, as far as, you know, with CO2 and these rats — I can't remember the names — oh, that was the naked mole rats.

Daniel Pålsson
29:37

Naked, that don't get cancer, and so — but that's more a natural habitat.

Anders Olsson
29:46

It is, and it's always difficult, as well, to kind of show that relationship — like, we know that they're able to survive in a high-CO2 environment, low-oxygen environment — is it because of the CO2 and the low oxygen that they're able to resist cancer? Nobody has really that answer, but there's something in it.

Daniel Pålsson
30:01

Yeah, it's interesting. It is — but also, moving forward, I think schools are very important for it to really take off, because there — there is where you form the habit, and you also — it becomes a part of your life, you need some good habits, to kind of, like you do physical exercise, you can, of course, combine it with physical exercise, but you actually do it. But I think, also, I think when — Wim Hof has really also helped everybody in this community, to make it very visual, of breathing with more forceful breathing and the cold, so I think if people are led to that breathing method, they will naturally over time go somewhere else, so I think that's also a natural progression, I think, in every area, wherever you are — so I think that also helps, and — so you can see it, but it's still moving forward, and I think yoga is great, but it's more like — what we're trying to do here is to bring breathing into everyday life, every second, at work, it's not something you do in the basement, and then for two hours or one hour, then you're done — thousand breaths we take per hour, how can we, if we want to unlock the turbo, how can we move away from fight-flight breathing to rest-and-digest, safe-and-secure breathing?

Patrick McKeown
31:25

Yeah, yeah, and there's the question that I often feel is, based on Daniel's point there, all of the sports sciences, and professors working in this field, teaching strength and conditioning coaches, and teaching all of those youngsters who are going to go out into the fitness industry — why have they no interest in breathing, why have they no interest in nasal breathing during exercise, why aren't they looking at the relationship between breathing and movement, because we know, of course, if breathing is off, movement is off, and the athlete has an increased risk of injury — why aren't they looking at breathing in terms of changing states of mind? I'm really intrigued — and even just coming back to the one thing about the nose, because, you know, if we bring it down to that very, very basic level, there's only been a handful of sports medicine sciences — one is George Dallam, from Colorado State University, and he's been very interested in it, because he's seen the results with triathletes that he's been working with at a very high level. What do you think is going to cause that shift, because, Daniel, I'm just thinking, can you imagine every strength and conditioning coach in the gym, and all of these members coming into the gym, all of the personal trainers, and if the personal trainers were aware of it, you know, you breathe through your nose, you got better recruitment of the diaphragm — all of the stuff that we know that could be transformative.

Daniel Pålsson
32:55

Yeah, it could be, and I have one take on that — there was a study where they measured adrenaline levels, so they were hyperventilating, and normal air first, the adrenaline levels rose by, I think, 360%, and then they did it again a week later, they hyperventilated, but this time the air was spiked with 5% CO2, so the CO2 levels were more or less the same, and then the adrenaline levels didn't change either — telling us that when you lower CO2 — because in the first hyperventilating they reduced the CO2 by about 50%, then adrenaline goes up. So if we take a step back and ask ourselves, why do we love to exercise, maybe one reason is because we want that adrenaline rush, and if we do nasal breathing and keep more CO2 in our body, it's like we're taking away that effect from people, and there is something missing — no, I don't know what it is, but I don't like it, I want to be in fight-flight state, I want to feel strong based on adrenaline, but I think there is another level — being strong based on higher levels of CO2, then you actually don't need your fists as much, you don't need to run for your life, you feel just strong from the inside out — that could be an explanation.

Anders Olsson
34:29

I think that comes back, Patrick, to your question a little bit, what we talked about before — that there is science, maybe they haven't read it, but they haven't done it necessarily in school, so they haven't experienced it for themselves, then they haven't seen it in others, and then they haven't read the science. I think this is the key, Daniel — a progression, you have to have those three in place. If you only have some science, but you haven't tried it on anybody else, you haven't tried it yourself, then it's not strong enough. I think the reason that I'm with breathing, and so many more, including yourselves, is when we practiced a specific pattern of breathing, we got results, and we knew there was something in it.

Patrick McKeown
35:17

And I think what has held breathing back is that breathing has been taught all over the shop for the last number of decades — I would say the last 40, decades — with not having a full understanding of what's actually involved with breathing, that it's more complex, that it's more multi-dimensional, and not to rely on the extroverted breathing technique of hyperventilation, or not even hyperventilation, simply filling your lungs full of air. The problem which has held back the biochemistry of breathing, and when you're talking about carbon dioxide, Anders, is when you're doing really, really light breathing, subtle breathing, under-breathing — there is nothing to see. But this really — I remember when I started practicing this breathing-less-air, which totally flies in the face of what everybody, many people are talking about, even to this day — the temperature of my hands increased, and when you experience changes in your body as a result of that, you know there's something in it, and it does come back to what Daniel is saying — this is not about theory, this is about practicing exercises to open up your nose, to improve your blood vessels, to increase oxygen delivery, to change and to experience it — what do you think?

Anders Olsson
36:35

No, I agree totally, and I mean, the day some athlete does something that — Roger Bannister, he did the impossible — so when someone wins, you know, an Olympic gold medal in 5,000 meters, and just doing nasal breathing, then probably — and world record — then probably it's going to be — you know, black people do have — have a better, African origin, a much better nasal structure than ourselves, especially a white person like me, with — is a one nostril smaller than the others, I'm not going to be doing any 5,000 meters — but that would be the key, you know, because your ability to do physical exercise with the mouth closed is going to be influenced by nose size and nasal cavity size. But it could happen — like you've seen the photographs of Sanya Richards-Ross, I think is the runner, and she's a 400 meter sprinter, and she won a number of golds in the London Olympics, and in a few photographs online you see her in full flex, and she's got her mouth closed, like it's pretty amazing.

Patrick McKeown
37:34

So yeah, I think it does need that — and that's why Wim Hof, you know, in terms of, he has been able to put it out there because of course what he's been able to achieve in terms of the extreme feats — it seems that it'll get attention when there's something huge.

Daniel Pålsson
37:56

Yeah, it's also — I think when they run, Patrick, I think it's only if you're observing somebody, and you, like yourself, you see one person mouth breathe, which is normal when you run 400 meters or 5,000 meters, versus another one who's not — but if they had these — like, they had tape on their noses in football, I can't even remember, 15 years ago, yeah, but it didn't really — I guess it was there for a year or two, then it didn't really take up — at least you saw it, or when you have something physical, something that you can see, but if you don't see it again, it's hidden, because most people wouldn't pay attention — oh, he's not breathing — and there is actually a few videos on Instagram with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, where they go back and forth for like 30 shots, unbelievably running from side to side, and the reason most people don't think about it — but what I find amazing is, after that point, they're both nose breathing, you don't see them panting at all, it's unbelievable — but most people wouldn't pay attention, because you don't — it's kind of hidden. So I think there's — that's one reason — it's almost, the more successful you are, the less you breathe, the less you see it — so that's one part of the reason, I think.

Patrick McKeown
39:14

Yeah, so where do we need to go with it?

Anders Olsson
39:24

Yeah, I have one idea, and that is that — well, first, when I spread Conscious Breathing, I don't try to convince anyone, I'm just planting seeds, I'm just turning to those who are willing to listen. In the beginning, I tried to — you know, save the world, try to reach everyone, but then I realized that doesn't work — no, it doesn't work, only the rise, "oh, here's another weirdo, left of field, how can I get out of here" — I've been there too. Yeah, but one thing I'm thinking is that actually nature is playing on our side, because we see that, whether we believe in climate change or not, there is an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, and if we try to understand what was the reason why the civilized people, people in the 1850s living in cities, had much poorer health than the savages, the Indian people referred to in this book, Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life — one reason could be, maybe, that they spent more time indoors, they had more insulated houses, and then the CO2 levels increase, right, because we are CO2 factories. So nowadays we spend, like, 90% of our time indoors, and we have very well-insulated houses, and the CO2 levels are about two times as high as the atmospheric levels, which are also increasing — so it's like our exposure to CO2 is getting bigger and bigger, and now, with the last couple of years, with the lockdowns, where we spend even more time indoors, and with the masks, where we rebreathe even more of the CO2 than normally, it's like we're coming to a crossroad — either you are able to deal with these higher levels of CO2 that you're exposed to, and you're able to reach a new level of awareness, or you fall into the other category, where you start to breathe more. So maybe I'm not saying that I like what's going on, when we dig up all the oil and we consume way too much, because that's the structure of our community — if we stop consuming, the whole society will fall apart, so we need to consume — I'm not saying that I like that, but maybe it's helping us to reach a new level of awareness, so that we can create a society that is more long-term sustainable.

Daniel Pålsson
42:01

It's difficult to know, because I think the vast majority of people, even wearing the masks, they react to the increased CO2 and air hunger with hyperventilation.

Anders Olsson
42:09

Yeah, they do.

Daniel Pålsson
42:12

Yeah, that's my point, so it's like a crossroad — if you're able to deal with it, then you will actually be able to benefit from it, but most — I agree, most people they would probably end up opening up their mouth and breathing higher up.

Patrick McKeown
42:24

So this initially then comes down to — it's really the awareness that you spoke about, you're talking about — internet through the nose breathing, light breathing, slow breathing, low —

Daniel Pålsson
42:40

Yeah, I find it interesting — I'm going back to what you just said, earlier on, about, you know, kind of like saving the world and planting seeds — I, even though I agree with it — is there really no way to accelerate that process, when there's something so important? It seems like maybe a naive illusion, but at the same time, something that's that important — you know, is there no way — because the people who are interested in breathing are normally — there's too few, and they, they have usually, you know, some sort of, you know, they're biohackers, have some sort of problem — but it's not the masses — so how do you reach them, any ideas on that?

Anders Olsson
43:22

I mean, for me, that's where I come from — stress, performance, tension — so if I adopt that mentality, I will see myself being more stressed, more tense. So, no, I just continue with the one-step-at-a-time, more centered approach, otherwise I would not be able to do this, I think I would be too frustrated.

Patrick McKeown
43:52

And I understand — yeah, I understand, easy to fall into it, Anders.

Anders Olsson
44:01

Yeah.

Patrick McKeown
44:01

Well, I suppose, Daniel, if we look at what has really catapulted this in the last couple of years, was James Nestor's book, Breath — so we need more books getting out there into the public imagination. If I was asked what was the single biggest thing that made the biggest contribution to breathing in the last 20 years, it was that book.

Daniel Pålsson
44:24

I agree, and in many instances it was — we were working in the cold, we were working, and that's a lot of the information, you know, we, in our circle, we knew it, but we didn't have the ability of getting it out there into that general public, and James was able to script a wonderful book, with stories, to capture the imagination. We need more of that, but I think it's about targeting it from a number of different perspectives.

Patrick McKeown
44:57

And if I was asked what sector has the biggest potential to transform lives, it is the yoga community — can you think of the modern yoga instructor that understands breathing from a biochemical point of view, a biomechanical point of view, resonance frequency point of view, that understands the vagus nerve, understands sleep, understands changing states, understands how to assess the breathing of their student coming into class, and understands how to bring breathing off the mat — and all of those hundreds of thousands of people going into yoga studios with asthma, with panic disorder, with high stress, with insomnia, with all of these issues, that the yoga instructor could transform this by simply bringing this information — it's the knowledge, it's not that anything massive has to be done, it's just a matter of tweaking what's already out there. And we have to put aside the image that breathing is about left-of-field, and woo-woo, and airy-fairy, and energy and crystals and all of that — breathing is absolutely for the people, and that's where we need to drive it.

Daniel Pålsson
46:15

I think it's happening — I think it's happening, but I don't know where to bring it, that's my issue.

Anders Olsson
46:22

No, but maybe, there were just like — James's book came, and made a huge difference — probably there will be new things coming from the side, and help to grow this. And, regarding research, I think it's very important, and my dream has been for a long time to create my own research institute — I'm still working on it — so we have this device we have been developing now for almost five years.

Patrick McKeown
46:44

What's it about, you're going to let me into your secrets?

Anders Olsson
46:52

Oh, yeah, it's called Breath — Breath Key — so, basically, you analyze — it's like a capnometer, you analyze the oxygen and the carbon dioxide, and your breathing frequency, your breathing volume, your breathing rhythm, and also the temperature and humidity. And, I mean, the big vision with this project is — if a dog can smell cancer or diabetes, which they can, why in the world shouldn't our electronic nose also be able to do the same? I think that we will be able to discover, over time, when we have a lot of measurements and data, see patterns, and see, like, okay, there is a breath print, like a fingerprint, for an asthmatic, for a person with panic attacks, for a person with sleep problems, etc — a breath DNA.

Patrick McKeown
47:44

Breath DNA, yeah.

Daniel Pålsson
47:47

I think that's a part of, as well, Anderson — Patrick — is, when you get these biometric devices more and more, when that becomes mainstream, and you're looking to see what effects, and then eventually you will hear about breathing, and then eventually everybody will have them, whenever that is — but I can tell when people have it on, it's still far from mainstream, but it's getting more and more exposure, and also, of course, an Oura ring — that's — maybe that's the point, you don't really pay attention unless you're looking for it, but again, eventually it will happen. I think it's very important to get that feedback in the first couple of years or whatever it is, to see what affects you, because if you don't do it, then you don't really know if you're going in the right direction, so I think all these devices — I know some are negative — will help to spread it, and eventually get into schools as well.

Patrick McKeown
48:44

Yes, yeah, it would be wonderful.

Anders Olsson
48:46

Yeah, yeah.

Patrick McKeown
48:48

So, in terms of the final — 10 years from now, I really feel that, uh, the trajectory where it's going, Anders, is going to be very interesting. I think it's moving — I know traditionally, when a concept gets into — it takes about 20 to 25 years, and it takes 500 papers on PubMed. Now, I suppose we can also draw on the research over the last 30 years with heart rate variability, you know, so in many ways we have the research out there in terms of changing states and resilience, and it's knowing the techniques that tend to impact that — and it comes back to the devices that Daniel was talking about, the devices are giving you feedback, but the real question is, how do you alter, how do you improve it, how do you optimize it — and we can do that by breathing, and it does start with sleep — I would agree with you — and also with nasal breathing, because if you have insomnia and sleep disorder breathing already, your recovery is going to be impacted negatively, and it is also brought in by your everyday. But one thing that you seem to feel, that breathing could be the savior of the planet — I don't want to put that out in an exaggerated way — but you see that there's a role, that when people become more — not engrossed, but more aware of their breathing, that it will give them a better capacity to be more caring for themselves, for the people around them, but also for the environment at large.

Anders Olsson
50:21

I absolutely, 100% certain about that — for me, the Conscious Breathing project, I mainly talk about it as a health project, a performance project, but at the end of the day, the core is a peace project, because if you have peace on the inside, there will be peace on the outside — you will communicate more peacefully, you will act more peacefully, you will be kinder, you will cooperate better, and I think that is where we need to go. I think we are all in this together, we do this journey together, so it doesn't matter if I take care of myself very good — I eat all the right things, I breathe, I sleep, etc — and then someone that is not feeling well is getting drunk, and goes into the car, and drives me over — doesn't really matter then how well I have taken care of myself. I really think we need to have the attitude of helping each other, that really, we do this together, so let's help each other to grow and evolve, and become a better version of ourselves. And yeah, I think breathing is a core — it helps you — the breathing rhythm will affect the heart rhythm, the brain rhythm, and the digestive rhythm, so we will be able to sync with the breath as the leader, as the CEO in "Me, Incorporated" — it will be able to sync the brain waves with the heart rhythm, with the stomach.

Patrick McKeown
52:11

It'd be very interesting in five years' time, or maybe sooner — hopefully sooner — to come back and kind of see where breathing is at, and maybe you can go back and say, well, it was because of biometric devices, it was because of an influencer, Instagram, or whatever, because you know, or all, maybe everything, or whatever it is — because it will be very interesting.

Daniel Pålsson
52:33

I guess, most of the time, whenever you guess, you make the wrong prediction, so it would be very interesting to do that, actually.

Anders Olsson
52:41

Yeah, because I think, like, both of you see, there's a lot of things going on in the breathing space, and it's kind of going faster and faster, so I think, ironically — I think in five years' time we'll see, we're at a place, and maybe breathing is completely different — place, be very interesting, at least, to see.

Patrick McKeown
53:04

It's super, it's super — well, I think it's been a pleasure.

Daniel Pålsson
53:09

Yep, absolutely.

Patrick McKeown
53:13

And Daniel, it's been very good — it's actually, in fact, a different podcast, because we've spoken at least — our often times, you feel the podcast, that kind of, you talk about the one thing over and over and over and over, so here we — we did something different, so that was kind of nice.

Daniel Pålsson
53:21

So I love that.

Anders Olsson
53:25

Yeah, yeah, it's always good.

Patrick McKeown
53:29

So, we'll do it again — absolutely — if people want to find out a little bit more about you, they go to your website?

Anders Olsson
53:37

Yeah, consciousbreathing.com, and it's the same name on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, Conscious.

Patrick McKeown
53:43

It's a pleasure, guys, great, great, thank you so much, Anders.

Anders Olsson
53:45

Thank you.

Daniel Pålsson
53:47

Thank you, Anders, thank you.