Breath & Birth: How Breathing Patterns Influence Fertility

Sachin Patel

I thank you for offering this opportunity to discuss this topic. My intention is for one person to learn one new thing about breathing I hope that piques their interest. As it piqued mine a few years ago. The thing that might seem odd to somebody is that breath and fertility just seem so far disconnected from one another. But that’s actually where the paradox starts. Your breath is connected to everything. Simply put, your breath is the steering wheel of your nervous system. Your nervous system is the steering wheel of your entire life. Your nervous system informs every cell, tissue, organ, and system in your body whether it should be in a state of healing, repair, regeneration, or restoration. all the things that we want. Or if your nervous system should be in a state of fight or flight, in a state of attack, in a state of taking blood flow away from the trunk organs and sending it to the arms and legs because something is going to pounce on us or something is chasing us. 

You see, the best form of birth control that I’ve ever heard of is chronic stress. Chronic stress keeps us in this perpetual fight or flight—low grade, perhaps for some people, high grade for others —a perpetual state of chronic stress. I can’t think of anything more stressful for the nervous system than trying to have a baby under that condition.  Because we don’t have babies, we build babies. We can only, 3D print or 5D print out for, if you want to look at it, another human being from our body. The function and state of function of that body have to be ideal. The most ideal state for anyone to get pregnant and raise a child is when they have a calm, nervous system. We can’t control all the outside forces that are happening to them. Sometimes we can control how we respond to them. But the ultimate place where that signature of stress shows up is in how we breathe. We can either have a breath that’s reactive to all the forces that are acting on the cord that controls our physiology. Or we can become aware of our breath and now have the steering wheel to control our entire nervous system. So we need a healthy, regulated, functioning nervous system, not just to get pregnant and have the baby grow, deliver, and raise the baby. We need a healthy nervous system for every area of our lives. 

The paradox is that breath affects everything. When we learn how to breathe, the beautiful thing is that we are learning how to regulate our nervous system, which then improves every cell, tissue, organ, and system in our body simultaneously. This is truly the holy grail of healing, and it’s so embarrassingly simple that it’s so easy to brush over, which I did for the first 41 years of my life. I’m 45 now, and in the last four years I’ve discovered this journey and how it’s so important that I wish. I want every human being to know this because the world would be a different place if we all learned how to breathe. Breathing allows us to explore our physiology and regulate it. It allows us to explore our nervous system and co-create our reality. It also allows us to change our facial structure. Our physical structure is also impacted by how we breathe. We can access what some might call mystical experiences using our breath as well. This is something else that I help people do. We can have personal breakthroughs with our breath. I mean, there are so many things that you can do with this one tool, so I’m super excited to talk about it. You can tell I’m excited. I haven’t even taken a single breath. I’ll let you ask whatever your next question is, but I hope that gives people a connection and a bridge as to why. What we’re going to talk about is still relevant to them.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

It’s so relevant. I just want to reiterate what you said about the nervous system. The breath helps us regulate the nervous system, and our audience has probably heard me say this a million times. If we’re in fighter flight, reproduction is shut off. There is no way our body is trying to produce a child if we need to run from a lion or a tiger. At the core of it, if the breath is going to help us move into the regenerate, receive, relax, and heal mode, then that is going to be the vehicle essentially to get us to this more fertile state. Yes, I’m very excited about what you mentioned. I got the chills from your talk.

Sachin Patel

Yes, it’s a perfect recap. You summarize it nicely. Thank you.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Awesome. How do we learn how to breathe better?

Sachin Patel

All right, here’s the thing. Everything I’m going to share today is going to be embarrassingly and almost shockingly simple, and you won’t even believe how easy it is to do, okay? What I learned a long time ago is that things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. Leonardo da Vinci, I just came back from Italy a few weeks ago. Da Vinci: I love this quote that he has. He says that the greatest sign of sophistication is simplicity. To me, the greatest sign of sophistication that I’ve ever seen is the human body, the most marvelous thing that I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve dissected the human body head to toe many times in anatomy class. I taught head and neck anatomy. I have a very fine appreciation of what this body is capable of and what it does. What’s so fascinating about this topic is that it’s going to allow us to explore it from so many different vantage points. 

How we breathe is a simple thing to do. I want everyone not to get caught up in the simplicity. The Da Vinci Code is the greatest sign of sophistication and simplicity. Nothing’s more sophisticated than your body, and nothing should be more simple to take care of. Taking care of a computer. I don’t have to understand how my computer works to get on this call with you. I just have to push a few buttons, and the sophisticated software is what makes this computer awesome and a joy to use. Our bodies are the same way. They’re a simple joy when we know what the inputs are. When we talk about breathing, the first discussion probably starts here in the face. We have two orifices from which we can breathe. We have our noses and our mouths, and I would argue our noses, intake, and mouth if anything is in the air as an exhaust. You’ll hear me pause and take a breath in through my nose as often as I remember. 

I’m trying to be conscious of that throughout this interview, but even throughout the day when I’m speaking because I want my mouth to be exhausting, I want to try to avoid breathing in through my mouth. The mouth is the dirtiest part of our body. As a doctor yourself, many people have heard that the mouth is the dirtiest part of what is filled with all kinds of bacteria. Every time we inhale through our mouth, every breath we take, we’re taxing our immune system. The nose, on the other hand, purifies the air. It pressurizes the air. There’s 20% more oxygen. Pressurized air goes deeper into the alveoli. We take healthier, more cleansing breaths that also eliminate better. 

Also, when we breathe in through our nose, are physically enzymatic; we cleanse the air. We produce nitric oxide, which kills viruses and bacteria on contact. We also have to have the oral microbiome to do that. But temperature regulates the air, and moisture regulates the air, which means we recapture air when we breathe through our nose. What’s interesting about that is that for people who are thirsty all the time, it’s usually because they’re not breathing through their nose. They’re losing so much moisture while they’re breathing instead of recapturing it. The nose perfects the air before it goes into the lungs. That’s what we want. We only eat about a couple of pounds of food a day. Guess how much air we breathe each day?

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

I don’t know, 10 pounds?

Sachin Patel

30 pounds of air we breathe every day. It’s the thing. Our breath is the thing that we physically consume the most every single day. More than anything—more than food. This is why I tell people that how you breathe is more important than what you eat. I mean, both are important. But if I had to choose between putting somebody on a bad diet and putting somebody on toxic breathing patterns, the person who breathes poorly will age and have disease much faster because their nervous system is keeping them calm and in a state of healing, repair, and regeneration.  It’s when we have this that human beings are extremely resilient. But if we don’t know how to tap into that resilience, then we can’t develop it as a skill. 

Breathing through our nose is a far superior way to breathe in. Then, if we have to eliminate air quickly or we’re talking, obviously we want to be breathing out through our mouth 99% of the time. By the way, I ask my clients to breathe, and the way I invite people to breathe is with our tongue at the roof of our mouth, the tongue touching just gently, the back of the front teeth, and breathing, keeping our jaw relaxed, so not clenching the jaw, just keeping it in a relaxed state, and breathing in and out through our nose. We want to breathe in and out for about 6 seconds in and 6 seconds out. This is called the coherence breath.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Okay.

Sachin Patel

A lot of what I’m talking about today. Just if anyone wants to go deeper into this topic, one of my mentors, James Nestor, wrote an amazing book called Breath. I encourage everyone to read that book. I bought it for all of my clients, actually, in 2020, when it first came out. It’s probably the most important book I’ve ever read. A lot of what I’m going to share with you; if you want a fact-checked or you want to go a little bit deeper than this conversation, that’s a great book for people to read. The other so, breathing through our nose mouth closed six in, six out. This is called coherence breathing. This is the breath I want to be in as much as I possibly can. Whenever I’m drawing awareness to my breath, I’m going back into this pattern. That’s my default pattern. Mouth closed, six in, six out. Now, if I have to exert myself a little bit, I try to stay in that breathing pattern as much as I can. Believe it or not, the urge to breathe doesn’t come from needing more oxygen. The urge to breathe comes from being intolerant of CO2. You don’t need to breathe as much. People don’t need to breathe as much as they do; most people overbreathe. It’s an interesting paradox. There is such a thing as over-breathing. The depth at which we breathe is also something we want to control. You only need about 500 milliliters or so of air per breath, so it’s not a lot of air. It’s quite minimal. 

There’s a huge anti-aging movement that’s happening now, and there’s a strong correlation between how fast an animal breathes and how long it lives. A turtle lives for about 200 years, and they take on average about four breaths per minute. A dog ages seven times faster than a human being, and they take about 30 to 50 breaths per minute. one of the most effective things that a person can do, aside from all the other stuff that they can do, all the stuff they can put on their skin, and all the treatments that they can have. If you want to slow down the aging process, the most validated way to do that is to breathe slower. Well, there is already plenty of scientific evidence to support this. That’s an unequivocal fact. Slowing down your breathing is why whales don’t age as fast as you can. You always wonder, How do these animals—how do hurt animals live so long? Well, it’s correlated to their breathing pattern. If you want to slow down aging, then, slow down your breath. It’s about 500 milliliters per breath is how much they want to breathe.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Has it also been shown to reverse aging? With fertility, especially, this question is up for a lot of people. It’s like, How do I reverse the age of my ovaries? Or how do I slow down aging so that I can stay fertile longer? Has it been correlated to show that if we strategically slow down our breath, how long would it take to reverse our age? 

Sachin Patel

I know what everyone wants to hear. But the truth is, I don’t know. That’s a great question. I wonder if we could study that. I do know that it will slow down the aging. I know that if you could slow it down by 50% for some people, their breathing would be so dysfunctional because they’re just unaware of how they breathe. Once they have that awareness, depending on what their delta is—I mean, they’re going to see—the person who’s the poorest breather is going to see the most significant improvement.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Yes. Got it.

Sachin Patel

Breathe through the nose. Tongue it through for the mouth. The jaw is in a relaxed position, and then 6 seconds in, 6 seconds out—about 500 milliliters. How do you measure that? You can get a barometer if you want to be very technical. But the point is, it’s a very shallow breath.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Okay.

Sachin Patel

There are going to be occasions when you want to take deep breaths, and there are certain exercises that you can do. Think about it when you’re walking, though. Because you can take 23,000 of these breaths, plus or minus. You wouldn’t breathe to your full capacity with every single breath. Just if you’re walking or going for a walk, you don’t take a full, full-length stride with every step you take.  You look a fool. Same thing with breathing. Less is more in this case.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Okay.

Sachin Patel

Less is more when we’re breathing. It’s about breathing the right amount for whatever situation you’re in. But leaning toward less is more.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

I want to ask this question because there are other schools of thought in terms of taking deep breaths. You need to breathe into your belly. I think probably doing that for periods is a good thing. But you’re saying the shallow breath is also normal, adequate, and probably a good thing to do. How frequently would you say that compared to deep breathing?

Sachin Patel

I feel like it. There’s a way we want to look at breathing a spectrum,? We might look at activity on a spectrum. if your goal is to be as still as possible. That would be sitting and breathing, equivalent to meditation. Now we’re purposely and intentionally disconnecting from the outside world and getting grounded. We’re going to use our breath to get more and more grounded. The longer our exhale is, the more parasympathetic we get. When I’m sitting at my desk, I don’t want to have the same breathing pattern as someone who’s meditating because I want to be doing focused work. I want a balance between my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. I’m going to breathe in and out at a pace of six, and the shallowness of the breath and the cadence of the breath are important to indicate. If I were breathing at the same depth but faster, it’s going to sound and do something different to my nervous system. If I’m breathing with my mouth open, same depth as before, but I’m breathing fast. That changes the signal to my nervous system. 

Those are the most correct ways to breathe. Then if I’m increasing my activity and I need to I can’t keep in that maintaining breathing through my nose anymore, in and out. Keeping it for, six in, six out, and then increasing the pace as I need to to keep up with my metabolic demands, I’m going to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, and through my nose, out through my mouth. Now, if I’m on a full-on sprint because the dog’s chasing me or something, then for less than 1% of my day, I might be breathing heavily in and out through my mouth. Or intentionally, because I’m exercising. But then I’m going to come back. Once I’m trying to catch my breath, I’m going to go back to breathing in through my nose, then out through my mouth, and then back to breathing in and out through my nose. The measure of someone’s resilience in their nervous system is their ability to come back to a resting baseline. James talks about this in his latest book, and says it’s not how hard you can push yourself; it’s how fast you can recover from having pushed yourself. That’s the real measurement. The breath gets us back to that resting baseline nervous system, heart rate, respiratory rate, and all those things, blood pressure, and all those things, back to baseline faster by breathing in that cadence.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

I think that makes so much sense. Thank you for sharing that. Yes, cool. Are there variances, and you talked about variances throughout the day? What about nighttime breathing? Like, what does that look like, or what is it supposed to look like?

Sachin Patel

Yes, you read my mind. I was hoping we would talk about that. Nighttime breathing is what sets the upper limit of our metabolic system. The most parasympathetic thing that we do is sleep. There’s nothing more grounding, nothing more important to heal the brain, but also to heal all of our trunk organs. Then, when we are sleeping at night. It’s like your car. You can’t work on your car while it’s driving down the highway. Get to park it, put it up on jacks if you will, and put the parking brakes on and all that good stuff. That’s what sleep is like. That’s when we can do the deepest work on healing, repair, and regeneration. 

Now, the nervous system is constantly being informed by our breathing in terms of what state it should be in. There’s two-way communication. The nervous system can inform the breath, or the breath can inform the nervous system. Anything that causes obstruction in our breathing while we sleep, or if people are sleeping with their mouths open, have apnea, or are snoring. Their breathing is somewhat restricted and dysfunctional, that’s going to puts their nervous system in a more fight-or-flight state, so their healing and repair won’t be as deep. An important thing to note is how we breathe during the day. It carries over into how we breathe at night. Just blood sugar—our blood sugar—if we keep it stable throughout the day, it’s going to stay stable at night. But if it’s a roller coaster throughout the day, then chances are it’s going to be more of a roller coaster at night. That’s why I’m conscious of my daytime breathing. Slowing that down will automatically slow down your nighttime breathing. 

The next thing we do is encourage our clients to tape their mouths closed at night. We’ve all heard the trends about mouth breathing. Yes,  it’s a thing. Mouth breathing is, as I mentioned, the dirtiest part of your body, and you’re trying to heal it. You’re trying to heal your immune system while you’re sleeping, not make it even more toxic. Or keep it on high alert all the time. Mouth breathing also acts as a diuretic, which means you’re more likely to wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. One of the benefits my clients report back to me is that I won’t have to go to the bathroom anymore. It’s because they’re simply breathing through their nose instead of through their mouth. Mouth breathing also doesn’t dry. It dries out your mouth, and because of that, people need to drink more water. They need to use the bathroom more. It’s a vicious cycle. 

Mouth breathing is the number one cause of cavities because it changes the oral microbiome. All of these consequences of mouth breathing can simply be resolved by just putting a piece of tape vertically on your mouth. That will ensure that you’re taking nice, clean, pressurized moisture and temperature-regulated breaths that are essentially cleaning and perfecting the air for your lungs to consume. In terms of just finishing that thought, a lot of people snore at night and don’t realize it. We recommend sleeping on your side, particularly on your left side, for better circulation. We also recommend using a latex pillow. Latex is a natural, all-natural organic material and renewable resource, and it also has the type of firmness to support side sleeping. The third thing we recommend is a pillow between your legs just to keep your pelvis nice and balanced, and then the mouth tip. Those few things can make a big difference in somebody’s nighttime breathing pattern.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Amazing. Have you seen that help with people who snore? Are they able to stop snoring if they do all of these things?

Sachin Patel

Yes. This is the program I created for myself because I used to snore and I don’t anymore. I documented the process and all the things I learned along the way. The tongue exercises to do, the swallowing exercises to do—a lot of people’s airways collapse. As we age, just the rest of our muscles, if we’re not doing something to strengthen them, they start to collapse. The musculature in the airway starts to collapse, making it a little bit more challenging for people to breathe, especially in certain positions. If you’re not actively strengthening those muscles, then their natural state is for them to atrophy. 

We teach people different swallowing exercises, tongue exercises, and breathing practices that they can do to strengthen their diaphragm, to have a nice, resilient airway, and then work their way up, working themselves up to being able to tape their mouth closed at night. There’s a need. Some people could just go all in; that’s what I did. I just started taping, and four years later, having stopped, and then some people, they’re going to need some additional nudging every day to keep it going or they’re going to need to work their way up to it. Maybe they are mouth-breathers and they need to work themselves up to being able to breathe at night.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

That transition, because I think that for people who are first-time mouth-taping, it might provoke a little bit of waiting, I don’t know if this is a good idea for me to do at night. There’s some weird fear that might pop up. I know that it did for me. When I first heard about it, I was like, I don’t know about that. I don’t know anything in my mouth. I’m curious if there is one. The exercises and things that people are doing throughout the day are to help them set up so that they can do the mouth taping at night.

Sachin Patel

Exactly. First, to raise awareness around breathing through your nose and then raising the idea of taping your mouth closed so you can get a feel for it, start with 5 minutes of work, you’re up to 20 minutes, and then try taking a nap with the tape on and then try wearing it to bed. Some people need that progression. Some people don’t. If you’re a little bit nervous about it, I can understand that the tape is only placed vertically. You can still talk through your mouth. You can still breathe through your mouth. You’re simply keeping your mouth shut; you’re not taping your mouth to seal it shut. You’re taping your mouth so it stays closed. You’re not sealing the airway. You’re simply cueing your mouth to stay in that closed position so that it’s happening effortlessly for you. You’re not having to, because otherwise, for your jaw to stay close, you’d have to work against gravity. 

Some people will then have tension in their jaws to try to keep it closed. But this just allows your jaw to completely relax. What a lot of people will report is that they will start dreaming again. They’ll start remembering their dreams once again. They wake up, they’re a lot more refreshed, and they need less sleep. That’s another thing that a lot of people report because the repair time is much shorter when you’re breathing correctly or your nervous system is firing on all cylinders now. It’s working. It’s being given the information that it needs to fuel your processes. If you think about it, the only place we use oxygen in our bodies is in the mitochondria. That’s the only place we use it. If there’s anything that’s restricting our delivery of oxygen to our mitochondria, which is responsible for fueling ourselves, then of course it’s going to affect our energy,? If this was happening to the batteries on our phones, it would be unacceptable.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Say that again. What’s happening to our batteries would be.

Sachin Patel

Well, imagine plugging your phone into the charger. You think it’s going to be 100% charged, and you wake up and it’s 65% charged. If somebody’s breathing is dysfunctional, then it’s 8 hours of bass. The battery should be 100% charged, but it’s only two-thirds charged because they weren’t breathing properly.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it that way, but that makes a lot of sense. It’s what you said in the beginning. It’s simple, but it’s potentially transformational if you think about it impacts every area of our lives.

Sachin Patel

It’s a very and I just got goosebumps now as you’re saying that because it’s a very transformational topic and it’s connected to everything. The shame for me is that some of the things that I’m even saying, I’m saying for the first time. Nobody is even hearing it being put together this way. Thank you for this opportunity to share. It’s a shame that others are hearing it for the first time. I wish everyone had known this 20 years ago because I’m so excited for what’s going to happen 20 years from now because more people are going to hear about it, and so it is. quite a mind-blowing topic, like, no pun intended, it’s quite expansive, and it’s just so intriguing. You can go down so many different rabbit holes, but it comes down to, like, one simple thing that we can do.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Yes, I’m super excited. I know everyone’s going to get a message from me. All of our clients are getting messages, as I said, about what we’re doing now. But the number of people who have no energy are not sleeping in a way that recuperates; they still wake up with that 65% battery in the morning. What you said about the mitochondria is that if oxygen is the fuel for all of the mitochondria, and there are 200 times more mitochondria in our ovaries than anywhere else in the body, the impact is direct for me. It was about how crucial this is, and I’m having a little moment of damn, why is this not a bigger part of what we talk about with clients? Because it is so fundamental to everything.

Sachin Patel

Yes, it’s pretty cool. It’s a cool topic. My intention was for one person to be more intrigued by breathing, and I think we did that for you today.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Good job. Any other thoughts you’ve had about how this breathing and mouth taping, how improving breaths through our lives impacts fertility, sexual health, and general health? Are there any other impacts that we can get super excited about?

Sachin Patel

Yes, well, you bring up sexual health, so I’ll lean into that. One of the molecules that was discovered just in the past century and the last 20 years is called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide was discovered by a person who won a Nobel Prize because it’s an important signaling molecule in our body. Nitric oxide is responsible for many things in our tissues. One is that it kills viruses and bacteria on contact. That’s why our nasal mucosa makes nitric oxide. Assuming that we have a healthy oral microbiome, mouth breathing kills the oral microbiome, and so does mouthwash. Some people have bad breath because they breathe through their mouths. They use mouthwash to destroy the bacteria. Using mouthwash can cause people to have dysfunctional sexual health because they’re not making as much nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, interestingly enough, was, Viagra is a drug that recirculates nitric oxide. It doesn’t help you make it recirculate what you have. 

Here’s the thing: men after 40 and women after 40 their nitric oxide nosedives, so Viagra can be less effective because you’re not making as much. There’s not as much to recirculate. Initially, Viagra was being studied as a blood pressure medication because that’s what nitric oxide does, would it lower blood pressure by increasing vasodilation? Vasodilation means your blood vessels open up, so you get better microcirculation.  That’s when you when somebody is intimate, we want circulation to go to those parts of your body. Nitric oxide helps with that as well. One of the other benefits I know men might be listening to is that if a male doesn’t have a morning erection, that’s usually a sign of a stressed-out nervous system or low nitric oxide. Usually both. How we breathe improves nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide vasodilates, which means it also helps increase circulation to our prefrontal cortex, fingertips, and everywhere else in our body. It is also an important signaling molecule for metabolic health. There are just so many things it does, and we can make nitric oxide from the way we breathe. Things humming a buzz breath—what we call it—will increase nitric oxide production.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Wow, cool. I did not know that part. That’s awesome.

Sachin Patel

Yes. There are a couple of things that might be helpful for people if we have a minute or two. One is called breathing signatures. Certain breathing signatures are things that we do that create an emotional response in our body or breaths that we have that are in response to certain ways we feel. An example would be sighing. When we feel a deep sense of relief, we just take a deep breath in and let it out with a sigh. We can do that. Lean into it. It’s called a physiologic sigh, and you do that intentionally. If we’re feeling a sense overwhelmed. If we’re feeling frustrated and we don’t want to bring it into our house, if we don’t want to bring it to work with us or loved one’s places, we can just leave that at the door by actually doing a physiologic sigh. 

It’s a simple thing you can do: sit up nice and straight, and you’ll take a deep breath in through the nose at the very top. You’ll pack it with a little bit more air in your mouth, and you’ll hold it. Then, whenever you feel comfortable, you’ll let it out with an audible sigh. Letting it all out. Just emptying your lungs as much as you can. Remember, the purpose of breathing is to get rid of CO2. Once we have that awareness, we realize that the exhale is more important than the inhale.

With every breath we take, we only actually absorb about 20 to 25% of the oxygen that comes in. The urge to breathe is actually from releasing CO2. The better we are releasing things that aren’t serving us, metaphorically but also physiologically, the better our body heals, repairs, and regenerates. Another interesting fun fact is that for every 10 pounds that somebody loses, 8.4 of those are through the lungs. The byproducts of cellular respiration in the mitochondria are CO2 and water. Eight and a half of those pounds that we lose through metabolism are actually through our lungs. Our lungs also regulate the PH of our body, and they act as a secondary, or, tertiary, in some cases, primary detoxification organ. This is why you’ll smell alcohol on people’s breaths. More toxins will be released through the lungs as well. The lungs serve a crucial function. I don’t know why, for whatever reason, they’re not as sexy to talk about everything else, but they’ve been involved with us our entire lives. They’ve got to work. The greatest predictor of lifespan is lung capacity. It’s tied to so many things.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

It’s that birth and death are connected to breath. The first breath and the last breath are literally what determines our life.

Sachin Patel

Yes. I know that in our Hindu culture and India, this is something that’s talked about and discussed. I certainly know my parents didn’t teach me anything about this. In some ancient cultures and some schools of wisdom, breath is taught at a very young age. I’ve been teaching my son this for the last four years; it’s been quite a remarkable journey. One thing I do want to say, and I’ve said a lot, but I did want to make sure I mentioned this is how we breathe, which also affects facial structure. You’ll notice more and more these days that children have to have teeth pulled, and they’re going to the dentist or the orthodontist, and they’re having two or three, sometimes up to four, teeth pulled because their face is not forming correctly. They don’t have too many teeth; they have a small jaw. 

The reason for that is that if somebody has a mouth breather, their tongue never sits on the roof of their mouth; their tongue just hangs at the bottom, or if they have a tongue tie. The problem with that is nothing is pushing the upper palate outward and forward. These people end up with very narrow faces, and that leads to a very restrictive airway, which then perpetuates the mouth breathing, which then leads to a whole host of other issues for that child. Thumb-sucking and sucking do the same thing. Thumb sucking pushes the upper palate upwards, creating a very arched airway, or upper palate, and a very arched airway, or small airway. That makes breathing difficult. 

If you have kids, pay attention to how they’re breathing, because that will change their facial structure. They’ll save you thousands of dollars in dental bills if your children breathe correctly, not only because of the cavities but also because of their facial structure. I don’t know about you, but my parents never had braces, and their teeth are perfect. They have, like, perfect teeth. There are many mechanisms as to why that is that we could get into another call. But we don’t need all these things. A lot of one domino causes many other dominoes to fall. Breath is one of those lead dominoes that, if we can do it correctly, then a lot of other things just automatically, without us having to think about it, fall into place.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Yes. Is there anything that we could encourage parents to do, or how do we get our children to breathe better?

Sachin Patel

Well, one of the things that you want to do first is to pay attention to how we’re breathing because our breathing signatures are contagious. How we breathe is contagious to other people, in a good way or in a bad way. If you’re wondering if somebody is a short, shallow breather, guess what? Their child is going to be a short, shallow breather because you’re modeling that breath for them. and they’re unconscious of it. I think paying attention to how he breathes is crucial, making sure that our children are keeping their mouths in a closed position and their tongues at the roof of their mouths. It might sound like a weird conversation to have with your child, but they’re always fascinated with how their bodies work. I’ve never found children to be fascinated by the human body. 

Adults lose that mysticism and mystery after a while, they feel. But children are always amazed when you tell them, and they remember things, especially if you memorably tell them. I love, like, training my little niece and nephew and my son about proper breathing because they want to know how their bodies work. Educate them in a fun, light way. Tell them to keep your mouth in a closed position. My son, when he’s playing basketball, and I have permission to cue each other. We do this. I can communicate to him from 100 feet away that he needs to breathe through his nose, and he can run circles around other kids because he knows how to breathe better.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Wow. cool.

Sachin Patel

He also tapes his mouth too. My niece loves taping her mouth. That’s the thing that she looks forward to when she comes to our place, and she says, Chachi, can I put on the mouth tape? Chachi means auntie or aunt. It’s the cutest thing. They love putting mouth tape on. It’s an adventure for them.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Well, this has been just a fascinating conversation. I think that you’ve shared so many gems. Again, I’ll just bring it back to the simplicity of this makes it so that everyone listening can go and do this in their life today, you don’t have to wait for anything. You don’t have to buy anything. All of the tools are in your being. I’m going to encourage everyone to listen and go and take some breaths. That’s easy. It’s one of the best ways to support our nervous system and, hence, our fertility. I just love it. I’m glad that we had this conversation. I’m grateful that you shared your time today.

Sachin Patel

Thank you. It’s my pleasure.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Where can people find you?

Sachin Patel

Well, I created a very special bundle that I think the listeners will appreciate today. Whenever I talk about breathing, for me, this is something that I’m passionate about. Of course, I hope that it’s shown through today, and I’ve created a whole bunch of different resources—breathwork, experiences—saying many clips on breathing, training on breathing signatures, and things like that. 

I decided to finally do that. My wife’s strong recommendation. She’s like, You need to share this stuff with people. I put it all into an ultimate Breathwork bundle that I’d like to offer to everyone for free. It’s five of my most requested training trainings and videos, and then there’s more stuff that I’ll put in there too. But it’s everything that you need to get started and more, so dive a little bit deeper into this topic if you’re interested, it’s my gift to everyone so they can go to breathworkwithsachin.com, can find it there.

Aumatma Simmons, ND, FABNE, MS

Amazing. Thank you so much. This is so exciting. I’m glad that we had this conversation again. I couldn’t be more grateful. I feel some of what you shared was exciting enough for me to, how can I put this into my life? Or how can we encourage all of our clients to do this? I’m very excited. Thank you. 

Sachin Patel

It’s my pleasure. It’s my honor.