Dr. Jack Feldman: Breathing for Mental & Physical Health & Performance | Episode 54

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2022

⏱️ 142 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode my guest is Dr. Jack Feldman, Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles and a pioneering world expert in the science of respiration (breathing). We discuss how and why humans breathe the way we do, the function of the diaphragm and how it serves to increase oxygenation of the brain and body. We discuss how breathing influences mental state, fear, memory, reaction time, and more. And we discuss specific breathing protocols such as box-breathing, cyclic hyperventilation (similar to Wim Hof breathing), nasal versus mouth breathing, unilateral breathing, and how these each affect the brain and body. We discuss physiological sighs, peptides expressed by specific neurons controlling breathing, and magnesium compounds that can improve cognitive ability and how they work. This conversation serves as a sort of "Master Class" on the science of breathing and breathing-related tools for health and performance. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Maui Nui: https://mauinuivenison.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com Our Breath Collective https://www.ourbreathcollective.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Introducing Dr. Jack Feldman (00:03:05) Sponsors (00:10:35) Why We Breathe (00:14:35) Neural Control of Breathing: “Pre-Botzinger Complex” (00:16:20) Nose vs Mouth Breathing (00:18:18) Skeletal vs. Smooth Muscles: Diaphragm, Intracostals & Airway Muscles (00:20:11) Two Breathing Oscillators: Pre-Botzinger Complex & Parafacial Nucleus (00:26:20) How We Breathe Is Special (Compared to Non-Mammals) (00:33:40) Stomach & Chest Movements During Breathing (00:36:23) Physiological Sighs, Alveoli Re-Filling, Bombesin (00:49:39) If We Don’t Sigh, Our Lung (& General) Health Suffers (01:00:42) Breathing, Brain States & Emotions (01:05:34) Meditating Mice, Eliminating Fear (01:11:00) Brain States, Amygdala, Locked-In Syndrome, Laughing (01:16:25) Facial Expressions (01:19:00) Locus Coeruleus & Alertness (01:29:40) Breath Holds, Apnea, Episodic Hypoxia, Hypercapnia (01:35:22) Stroke, Muscle Strength, TBI (01:38:08) Cyclic Hyperventilation (01:39:50) Hyperbaric Chambers (01:40:41) Nasal Breathing, Memory, Right vs. Left Nostril (01:44:50) Breathing Coordinates Everything: Reaction Time, Fear, etc. (01:57:13) Dr. Feldman’s Breathwork Protocols, Post-Lunch (02:02:05) Deliberately Variable Breathwork: The Feldman Protocol (02:06:29) Magnesium Threonate & Cognition & Memory (02:18:27) Gratitude for Dr. Feldman’s Highly Impactful Work (02:20:53) Zero-Cost Support, Sponsors, Instagram, Twitter, Supplements Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.8	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.1	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today my guest is Dr. Jack Feldman.
0:17.0	Dr. Jack Feldman is a distinguished professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
0:23.0	He is known for his pioneering work on the neuroscience of breathing.
0:27.0	We are all familiar with breathing and how essential breathing is to life.
0:31.5	We require oxygen and it is only by breathing that we can bring oxygen to all the cells of our brain and body.
0:38.2	However, as the work from Dr. Feldman and colleagues tells us,
0:42.3	breathing is also fundamental to organ health and function at a
0:46.3	enormous number of other levels. In fact, how we breathe, including how often we breathe, the depth of our breathing, and the ratio of
0:53.7	of inhales to exhales actually predicts how focused we are, how easily we get into sleep, how easily we can exit from sleep.
1:02.8	Dr. Feldman gets credit for the discovery of the two major brain centers that control the different patterns of breathing.
1:09.2	Today you'll learn about those brain centers and the patterns of breathing they control and how those different patterns of breathing influence
1:15.6	all aspects of your mental and physical life.
1:18.5	What's especially wonderful about Dr. Feldman and his work is that it not only points to the
1:23.5	critical role of respiration in disease, in health, and in daily life,
1:28.5	but he's also a practitioner. He understands how to leverage particular aspects of the breathing process
1:34.1	in order to bias the brain to be in particular states that can benefit us all.
1:39.2	Whether or not you are a person who already practices breath work or whether or not you're somebody who simply breathes to stay alive,
1:45.1	by the end of today's discussion, you're going to understand a tremendous amount about how the breathing system works
1:51.2	and how you can leverage that breathing system toward particular goals in your life.
1:55.6	Dr. Feldman shares with us his own particular breathing protocols that he uses
	...

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