Living a more meaningful life and happiness. It really isn't about the big stuff. It's about the little things you can do every single day. I'm talking pillars to a meaningful, healthy, and fulfilling life. So today, you're going to meet the world's leading expert on breathing, and there's one change that will help you breathe correctly. And then we're going to move on to walking. Are you walking correctly? Are you walking enough? Probably not. And then we are going to move on to the third pillar, which is sleep. And she is going to help you get a better night's sleep starting tonight. If you can nail breathing, walking, and sleeping, something you don't even think about, you got 80% of your life nailed. And today, they're here to teach you the one change in each of these three pillars that you need to make to do it better. Hey, it's your buddy Mel, and I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here with me. I just love the time that we get to spend together. I also want to acknowledge you for taking the time and choosing to listen to something that could help you create a more meaningful life.

That's super cool. So yay you. And if you're a new listener, I want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Today is a great, great, great day because I'm going to boil down almost 200 episodes that we've done into three pillars that really improve your health. One of the greatest things about modern life, can we just call it as it is, is that there's just so much information out there. I mean, you can literally Google any topic and get billions of search results. But isn't that also the hardest thing about modern life? That there's just so much information I don't know about you, but I get overwhelmed really easily. I find, particularly when it comes to prioritizing your own health, for example, how do you distill it all down, especially when there's so much information. So today, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to really try to distill down the extraordinary amount of research and information that there is out there about health. And so first thing is that we have learned over and over and over again on this podcast from world-renowned experts that maintaining healthy connections with friends and family is one of the most important things that you can do.

And since we've talked about that recently, I want to just shove that to the side for a minute, and I want to ask you to get selfish. Let's just forget about everybody else, okay? I want you to pretend that you're looking in the mirror, and you're having one of those moments where you're looking in the mirror, you're staring back at yourself, and you're like, All right, We got to pull it together. What are the top three things that you would focus on? For real, where do you start when it comes to being healthier and taking care of yourself? I mean, should you go gluten-free? Is it weight training? Do you need that infrared face mask thing that you see all over the internet? Should you be taking supplements? You're talking to the person staring back at you in the mirror. If you had to bottom line it, what are the three most foundational things that you should focus on that will give you the biggest bang for the buck with your overall health? I mean, given the fact that you got limited time to devote to yourself, you're so busy taking care of everyone else, and you're busy at work, and you're busy at school.

You got little time for you. What are the three things if you had to bottom line it? Well, your friend Mel Robbins is going to bottom line it for you because based on the research, hands down, those three pillars that you need to focus on: breathing, walking, sleeping. Now, when I hear that trifecta, I'm like, Are we 80 years old? We're talking breathing, walking, and sleeping? Come on now. The fact is, though, that breathing, walking, and sleeping, based on the research, they They are the pillars, the foundation of your overall health. I have handpicked the, I'm talking, capital T-HE, world-renowned experts in each one of these three topics. This is all they research. This is all they talk about. This is all that they write books on. You're not only going to learn about each of these incredible pillars of better health: breathing, sleeping, walking. But you're also going to learn that you're Probably doing it incorrectly. And there are simple changes based on their research and expertise that will help you leverage the power of breathing, walking, and sleeping for your overall health. How cool is that? It doesn't matter how old or young you are.

These are changes you're going to make today. You're going to look at that person in the mirror. You're going to be like, We are going to be doing this correctly from now on. In fact, I am going to forward this episode to my children. They are 25, 23, and 19 years old, because you're going learn that you're breathing wrong. And guess what? My kids are breathing wrong, too. So let's start right there. Let's start with breathing. I mean, you know you need to breathe. The second you stop breathing, you die. But I don't think you've ever stopped to consider whether or not you're breathing correctly, whether or not you're doing it as a way to feel better while you're alive. I I cannot wait for you to meet Patrick McKeown, who taught me when he first appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast over a year ago, that Mel Robbins, you are breathing incorrectly. I am what researchers call a mouth breather. Well, apparently, mouth breathing is a major no-no. I don't even need to be sitting with you. I can tell you're holding your breath right now because now you're thinking about your breathing, right?

And so as I'm talking about breathing, you're like, Am I even breathing? Oh, my God, I'm not breathing. Let's I'm not going to change that. Because maybe like I am, maybe you're breathing incorrectly, which is you're always breathing in and out of your mouth. I don't do that anymore, and neither are you. Patrick McKeown will make you close your mouth and open your eyes to a whole new way of breathing. Patrick McKeown is a breathing expert and a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in the UK. His research is so widely regarded. I don't have time to tell you all the citations and academic stuff. But he is an international best-selling author, all on the science of breathing. Who knew there was so much information about breathing? Patrick's specialized breathing techniques are used by Olympic athletes, top business executives, and the lead singer of Coldplay. Hey, now, I want to learn that. And his work with elite military personnel, Patrick teaches snipers how to change mental states and keep a steady hand simply through their breathing. And Today, he's here to teach you how to use your breath to stay grounded and relaxed in your day-to-day life by simply breathing the right way.

Now, when he first came on the show, he was like, Mel Robbins, you're a mouth breather, and I'm no longer a mouth breather. I'm a nose breather, and you want to be a nose breather because breathing through your nose makes you less stressed. It keeps you calmer. It boosts your overall health. But I'm going to let Patrick McQ explain why mouth breathing is so bad for you and what other thing. He not only makes you feel smarter, he's so fabulous to listen to. Wait till you hear his accent. And here's what he said when I asked him the opening question. So Patrick, when it comes to breathing, what are we doing wrong?

If you breathe through your mouth, what part of the body moves? So if you look down at your chest, if you take a breath through the mouth, and as you breathe through the mouth, you'll notice that your breathing is faster and your breathing is more upper chest.

Yes. I can't get it down. I feel like it stays tight, like just under my boobs. It's like right in there.

And then we have to ask, what effect does that have on the physiology? Will mouth breathing, faster breathing fast or breathing an upper rest breathing is activating a greater fight or flight response. How should we be breathing? Our breathing should be in and out through the nose. When you breathe through your nose continuously, oxygen uptake in the blood increases by nearly 10%. When you breathe through your nose during physical exercise, The gas carbon dioxide is higher in the blood. When carbon dioxide increases and blood pH drops, the red blood cells release oxygen more readily to the tissues and organs. If you, during rest or during physical exercise, breathe in and out through your nose, you're going to increase not only oxygen uptake, but also oxygen delivery to the working muscles and tissues and organs, including the brain. We can influence the blood flow to the brain by changing our breathing patterns. It's not about taking the full big breath. My own personal journey was having asthma. I was a mouth breeder for years because if we have inflammation in the lungs, that same inflammation will travel up to your nose. When your nose is stuffy, you're 2-3 times more likely to have a sleep problem, to snore, to have obstructive sleep apnea.

And of course, this then is affecting your mental health. This is affecting your concentration. This is affecting your attention span. Mel, this is a topic that doesn't even come top of the list. In actual fact, it doesn't even come on the list. And in the last few years, we've started to see a greater awareness of breathing, and probably because it's too simple. But at the same time, breathing is not that simple. This is the importance of breathing and the importance of knowing how to breathe right. If, for example, we are breathing the way you described during the introduction, and that's the acute panic attack. But say, for example, somebody who's just breathing a A little bit faster, a little bit harder, upper chest breathing, irregular breathing patterns. That's present in a minimum of 10% of the general population, but up to 75% of the anxiety and panic disorder population. So 75% of the population with anxiety and panic disorder have dysfunctional breathing. It's not just that stress levels change our breathing. Of course, when we are stressed, our breathing changes. But our everyday breathing breathing is feeding into our stress levels. Who doesn't want to be more resilient?

And the other thing about stress is when we have a lot of mind activity, it's impossible to do mindfulness. We have to be absolutely... We have to think of this ourselves, the next time that we're having a really bad day, and there's a lot of thoughts going through our minds, and I don't suffer from anxiety, but of course, things happen. That's the way it is as human beings. I can change my breathing patterns without having to be so aware of my breath to help to bring the body and mind into balance. And that's the thing about breathing. So coming back to oxygen delivery and blood flow. If, for example, even getting to the working muscles, if there's insufficient oxygen getting to the working muscles, well, we're more prone to fatigue. In terms of the brain I spoke about. We have 50,000 miles of blood vessels throughout the human body, and our breathing is influencing how dilated or not are they. And people with poorer breathing are more likely to have cold hands cold feet. It's not just the blood circulation in the hands and feet that's the problem, it's throughout the body.

I feel like I might be your test case here because now I'm thinking, Well, I wear socks to bed because when I touch my husband with my feet, he's like, You're so cold. Okay, can we just take a minute and appreciate his voice? I mean, I could listen to the man all day long. He's got such a smooth, beautiful accent. There are times when I realize I'm not breathing because I'm just focusing on his voice. But what I love about what he just taught you is it's so logical and understandable, right? When you hear breathing spelled out like that. And I promise to distill these three pillars. So let me just highlight a few One of the things that I found fascinating. For example, the 50,000 miles of blood vessels and the way your body can make better use of all that oxygen when you're breathing most efficiently, which is through your nose. I mean, it makes so much sense. And I also love that Patrick talks about how stress can make you breathe faster. But breathing faster, like I do when I get stressed, just makes you more stressed. And that is a cycle, right?

Now it makes sense because you understand it. I want to break that cycle. Why on Earth, when I get stressed, do I want to just default into a dumb way of breathing when I can use what he just taught us based on the research to to lower my stress simply through my breathing. But I couldn't just let him give you the science and not the solution. So I asked Patrick to take you from breathing in a dysfunctional way to breathing in a more functional way, to make breathing a pillar for better health. And so here he is. He's going to give you very quick and effective breathing exercises that you're going to do right now. These are amazing, relaxing techniques that you're about to learn from a world-class expert. Here's Patrick.

The first exercise, Mel, that I would like you to do, when the mind is racing and you're not feeling in form of focusing on your breathing, simply hold your breath in the exhalation. Take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold and hold for five, four, three, two, one. Let go. Just breathe normal now for about 2-3 breaths or even four breaths. Not to change your breathing, just breathing normal. And again, take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Let go. And now just breathe normal for 3-4 breaths. So you're just breathing normal. The small breath hold will help to stimulate the vagus nerve, which secretes a neurotransmitter middle called a settle calling, which causes the heart rate to slow down and the brain interprets that the body is safe. And again, take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold. 5, 4, 3, Three, two, one. Let go. Breathe in through your nose. So now you're just breathing normal for three to four breaths.

And then a couple of repetitions, then I will show you how to go from this to decongesting your nose. And again, normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold. Five, four, three, two, one. Let go and breathe in through your nose. Also, as you hold your breath, nitric oxide is pooling inside your nasal airway. Then when you let go, you're breathing in. You're carrying this nitric oxide into your lungs. Nitric oxide is antibacterial, antiviral. It's a bronchodilator. For bronchitis, this is your natural way to help open up the lower airway. Nice. Last one. And again, normal breath in through your nose, out through your nose. Pinch your nose and hold. Five, four, three, two, one. Let go. So now we're going to go on to the nose and blocking exercise.

Can I ask you a question? Yes. So when you say, breathe normally, you mean not like how we normally breathe. You mean breathe in and out of your nose, right? Correct. Even after the first round of breathing in and out of my nose, and then breathing in and out of my nose, and then pinching and holding for five, you really start to feel the pressure that you're not even aware that is built up in your body start to lower. So it had an immediate impact on me.

That exercise is very much an exercise we do with people who are prone to high stress, racing mind, panic disorder. Now, the next exercise I'm going to show you will decongest the nose. However, not to do this if somebody is prone to panic disorder or anxiety or pregnant or cardiovascular issues.

Oh, okay.

Now, despite that, it's actually relatively safe. So I would like you... And do this. You do all of these exercise. You always do them. You'll tune in to your body and do them to the level that you're comfortable with. Okay. So with this exercise, Mel, you take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose, and you pinch your nose. And you pinch your nose, just gently hold your nose and just nod your head up and down, holding your breath. And keep holding your breath. Keep holding. Keep holding. Keep holding. Keep holding your breath. Keep holding. And let go there and breathe in through your nose. So when you do a breath hold after an exhalation, so if you hold your breath after a normal exhalation, that will have to decongest the nose. Now, we need to do it five or six times.

I got worried about how much you were counting. I'm like, How long am I holding this? Oh, my God.

Whenever you're ready, take a normal breath in through your nose. Only normal. I'm going to have you just do that again. Remember about the subtlety of the breath. Just a light breath in.

Patrick, there's nothing subtle about me. Here we go. Light breath in, everybody.

A light breath into your nose and a light breath out through your nose. Just gently hold your nostrils to stop breathing and nod your head up and down as you hold your breath. Keep relaxing into the body as you're holding your breath. Now, it's a very normal thing to hold your breath. Kids, if they go swimming, they'll do breath holds all the time. It's a very normal human trait to go into the water and hold your breath. Now, as you hold your breath here, it's activating a slight stress response, which will help to open up the nose. Now let go, Mel, and breathe in through your nose. The key to help decongesting the nose is to hold the for at least 30 seconds or so. But I would say when you start off, always start off gentle and just tune in on how is your body reacting to breath holding.

I'll tell you what just happened. I literally feel like my nostrils are now the size of a Tootsie Roll. They widened up, and all of a sudden it was super clear because my allergies are starting to kick in. It worked that second time in particular, like Yeah, no, it's a very reproducible technique.

I've used it with thousands of people. We had a small pilot study involving 26 people at a hospital here in Limerick in Ireland. The three-month follow I saw symptoms of rhinitis, which are stuffy nose and runny nose, et cetera, had reduced by 70 %. But I thought that pilot study, which was published as an abstract, I thought it would lead the way to generate some curiosity into a bigger study. It never happened. That study took place 10 years ago. But despite that, the exercise works.

I don't know. Oh, that was a mouth breath. Oops, I should have gone through my... I don't know I don't know about you, but the combination of his voice and those breathing exercises, don't you feel more relaxed? I do want to point out that for our fans on YouTube that watch the Mel Robbins podcast, That clip right there that you just listened to is one of our most watched clips from his episode, just loving these techniques. And I could see, don't you, how making it a habit to breathe like that would help you calm your body and your mind down. And so now that you're completely relaxed, you're welcome. Just sit right there in your totally relaxed state, breathing in and out of your nose, and be chill, and and you can envision this simple life ahead of you. And when we come back, we're going to move on to a second pillar. We're going to talk about walking. Yep, there is actually a science of walking. And just like breathing, there is a correct way to walk, and you are going to learn what it is. And you're also going to learn the extraordinary benefit of taking a simple walk, how it can affect your personality, your waistline, your social life.

I can't wait to introduce you to the world's walking expert, a neuroscientist, and another Irishman named Shane O'Mara. Right after we take a short break and hear a word from our sponsors, make sure you hit send and share this episode with the people that you love. And a little later, after we hit Pillar number 2, you are going to learn about how to get the best sleep of your life from one of the world's leading sleep experts. Stay with me. Hey, it's your friend Mel. And because you're here with me on YouTube, I I took out my own ad because I wanted to say one thing. First of all, hit subscribe because that really helps support this channel, helps me bring you free videos. Second, make sure you take advantage of this free workbook that I've created as a thank you to you for subscribing to this channel. This workbook is going to help you answer the single most important question you could answer in life, which is, what do you really want? It's a surprisingly hard question to answer, but now it's not because you have the science-back approach that I use in my work, in my marriage, in my life, to help me get to the truth about what I actually want.

This workbook uses science. It is free to you. You can get your hands on this puppy in just a minute. Click the link below, and it is yours as my thank you for being here and supporting this channel. Again, this is going to help you answer the question, What do you want? Because if you can't answer that question, there's no way you're going to get it. So use science and let me support you in answering the question and gaining the clarity and the courage that you need to figure out what your next move is. All righty. Take advantage of this, melrobbins. Com/what. Hit subscribe, and let's get back to the video. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I am so glad that you're here with me today. I just love this topic of the three pillars for better health. We've already covered Pillar number 1. Next up, we're attacking Pillar number 2 for Better Health with Dr. Shane O'Mara. We're going to talk about walking. Dr. Omera is a neuroscientist and a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College in Dublin. He's also the Director of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and a member of the Academic Staff of the School of Psychology.

Now, he wrote the best-selling book, In Praise of Walking. Dr. Omera is going to get you off your rear end and out the door and walking because the research, it is so compelling. I mean, this is what Dr. Amara said when I asked him, What's happening in our brains and in our bodies when we're taking a simple walk?

The bottom line is very, very simple. That people who spend increasing periods of time being sedentary as they move along in life. It's not a question of getting older. This can be a midlife. They tend to show changes in their personality, which are, for want of a better phrase, tending them towards being more asocial, being less open to experience, and probably experience facing more by way of negative emotion compared to people who get up and get out and get moving. The other study that I'm thinking of is one that was conducted just a couple of years ago in older people, people in their late '60s and early '70s. And that study, again, a beautiful US study conducted in the Chicago area, showed very clearly that if you are inactive, There are negative changes in the brain compared to people who are active. And the changes that are positive in the brain from activity arise from getting up and moving and getting out and going for a good walk. So the intervention is a very simple intervention. It's to go for a walk three times a week for a couple of miles, along with a walking partner and a physiotherapist.

And what you see in the that are active is brain changes that are really remarkable. You get an increase in the volume of certain brain regions that are concerned with memory, and you also get changes in the effectiveness, for want of a better phrase, of the memory that's supported by those brain regions. Whereas the people who are sitting at home not active, they're showing a greater decline than they need to do, or if they had have been active over that period of time. So the key point here to really to drag out is that being active positively supports good things about your personality, but it also reaches across to cognitive function. It supports positive things about memory function, and it helps you resist the trajectory of decline that you would have if you just are sitting on your couch doing the Homer Simpson, eating a bag of potato chips and watching telly.

I think that Most of us underestimate what's actually happening in our bodies and in our minds when we're walking. And so let's break it down. What happens in the brain when you go for a walk?

Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things to think about here, and it really depends on the level of analysis that you want to start at. So let's make it very simple. So I'm sitting here at home and I want to go to the shop. So the first thing that you have to do is form the intention that you're going to go and get up and do something. That could be because somebody somebody has bleeped you or phoned you or whatever to say to come and meet them at the shop, or you realize you need to go and pick up a pint of milk or whatever it happens to be. So what does that do? The first thing is you have to stand up. You have to get up. You have to engage in preparatory movement in order to walk. That's a challenge for your brain. Sitting or lying down in a chair or being recumbant in a chair is not a challenge. Standing up, maintaining balance, and then having directed coherent motion in the direction you want to go is also a challenge to your brain. So the key point here is that movement, and the movement in this case we're talking about, of course, is walking, acts as a positive spur to the brain.

And rhythms that would be quiescent in the brain are suddenly alive. They become very apparent. So in order to get to the shop, you have to orient your body in the correct direction. You have to create a cognitive map of the environment that you're in. These are all subtle small challenges, but the brain benefits from these. And then let's say you are actually going to the shop and it happens to be up a hill for the sake of this point. Well, then there are other challenges happening as well. So you have to calibrate your walking speed so that you're at a speed that's comfortable for you. That means you have to step up your heart rate a little. You have to increase your breathing a little. Your musculature has to respond to all of those things. So you've got a whole lot of top-down signals from the brain acting as a challenge to the body to get it moving. And then you get to the shop, you do what you got to do, and then you walk home again. You might have to carry something. So that's actually a good challenge for you as well.

I certainly don't think about any of those things when I need to get... Or should you? Well, but what is that? You said that the act of pushing yourself off the couch, standing up, triggering your mind to activate from the top down the mechanical patterns that allow you to walk, the cognitive patterns of surveying where you are and how you're going to get to a certain place, that all these things benefit the brain. How do they to fit the brain?

Probably the best way to think about this is that movement is medicine, is the lovely phrase that's going around at the moment. So think of an example. Let's imagine you own a bicycle and you get this lovely new bike from the shop and you put it in your garage and you leave it there for a year and you don't do anything with it. What condition is it going to be in? The chain is going to be all silted up. The tires are probably deflated. The brakes aren't going to be especially responsive. All of those kinds of things will have gone wrong with it. And the same is true for your body. Your body needs to work optimally. Repeat a challenge. Your brain needs this as well. This is why, for example, if you're walking for the sake of your heart, you need to step it up so that speaking is hard for you, so that there's a sufficient challenge being presented to you.

I freaking love it. Don't you just love it when people dork out on this stuff? I feel smarter. I almost feel like I got my lab coat on and we're standing in a lab, research and all this stuff, as he's talking science and this, and studies. But here's the thing. I'm the person, and I know you are, too, who just like, Can you bottom line it for me? Give me a goal, okay? If you just tell me, Hey, Mel, you need to walk more because it's good for you. I'm going to be like, Okay. And? I need to be told, How much do I need to walk? Bottom line this for me so that as I'm looking in the mirror in the morning and I'm like, Okay, girl, you got to really nail this today. I know exactly what to do. You know why you need to do it, but now you know what to do. So I asked Dr. Amara, What should your daily walking goal be? And here's what he said.

So there's good news and bad news here. So the good news is that you don't have to do a half hour. You don't have to do 40 minutes in one burst. In fact, the good news is that lots of small bursts distributed right throughout the day is actually probably the best thing for you. Lots of low level activity distributed right throughout the day with rest periods. So the advice to get up and walk for two minutes every half hour or whatever is really good advice rather than sitting at your computer for that time.

You can get a benefit from a two-minute walk?

Even from a little bit of activity. You don't need to do a lot, but you do need to do some. Now, here's the bad news. Most humans in Western societies are not moving at all, are not moving very much. So we know this from mobile phone, smartphone data, which you can grab the levels of activity that people engage in. And what you see in Western societies, Ireland, the US, the UK, France, and all the rest of them, is sadly that people don't walk very much. The average adult in the US, for example, walks at about 4,000 steps a day. Now, a child learning to walk does about 1,200 steps per hour. So there's a huge difference. As I said, most people don't walk very much. So my advice is always walk about 5,000 steps per day more than you're doing. And that gets you, for most people, very close to that magic 10,000 steps, which- Where did that come from? It's made up. There are all sorts of apocryphal tales about where it came from. Which one is your favorite? I think the one that I like the best is that it's a mistranslation from a Japanese activity company in the '60s.

I don't I don't know if it's true or not. However, what we do know is that if you look at what's called all-cause mortality, your likelihood of dying of anything rises the more inactive that you are, and it falls, the more active you are. So at somewhere between about four and a half thousand and seven and a half thousand steps per day, people's all-cause mortality falls and falls quite substantially, something like 30 or 40 %. You must turn on your mobile phone and find out how many steps you're walking per day, because most people don't know. So that's the first thing you need to do. And what you'll find for most people, most of the time, is that they're not walking very much at all. It's probably around 3,000 or 4,000 steps a day, and that increases your chances of dying younger of something unpleasant.

I got 2,800 steps right now.

So you need to add 5,000 steps to that.

Okay. How big of a distance is that?

I guess it's about 5 km or 4.5 km.

That's a lot. So I have to walk two miles a day, two and a half miles a day, you're saying?

Yeah. To my mind, it's not much at all. But I can boast because I did 9,785 steps today.

Shane with the flex, everybody. He's holding up his phone. Well, you are the walking guy. I would hope you walk every day.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so you got to track. You got to do 5,000 more. Okay.

Nobody knows how many steps they took last Tuesday week. Do you? Do I? No, of course I don't.

Well, you should because you're telling us to track.

No, of course not. I don't have a brain that's designed to remember the number of steps that I take every day. That's why we offload this to a pocket computer. And again, Again, just to look at what we know about people in non-mechanized societies because we can learn lots from them. So there are tribal societies in Africa, the Hadza, for example, who live traditional lifestyles, and they walk a lot. They walk everywhere. And these people don't have metabolic diseases on average. They don't have diabetes. They don't have lots of body fat. They tend to have very, very healthy hearts. And what you see is they're walking somewhere in the range, depending on whether they're male or female, between 10 and 20,000 steps per day on average. So the benefits are there in terms of health, in terms of heart health and all of the other things. But you actually got to put in the miles, unfortunately. And this is why I say doing lots, doing a little often is really the key rather than trying to get one single burst of activity in and hope that that will zero out all the bad things that you've been doing during the day.

All right.

So Dr. Amara is asking for 5,000 more steps than what you're doing today. You and I could do this. I know it sounds like a lot, but can we just stop and really just hover here on the benefits of walking? I mean, it's astounding, and I think that's why we're not walking more. That we just brush off a simple walk like, what good is it really going to do? Turns out it does extraordinary things for you. Here's the thing. You're not only doing it for the health benefits. You're getting out the door and moving your body and walking for the social, mental, and long-term benefits. Here's one thing that I know. Everyone in my life who makes a habit of walking looks and acts at least 10 years younger than their real age. For those of you that love my mother-in-law, who's been on the podcast a couple of times, Judy Robbins, you all obsess her the fact that at 86, she walks no less than 5 miles a day. My parents, Bob and Marsha, 75 and 80, they walk every single morning, and all three of them look 10 years younger than their real age, and they act it, too.

And so Dr. O'mara is right. It is the Anti-aging secret. Forget that red infrared thing on your face. Get your rear end out the door and take a walk. I don't care how young you are. We got a lot of high schoolers and 20-year-olds that listen to this podcast, thanks to the parents and aunts and uncles and older brothers and sisters that keep forwarding it to them. Movement is medicine, and I see it in my own life. And in fact, you do this when you're on vacation, don't you? You make the time for this because you know going on a long walk on the beach, it feels fantastic. Going on a hike on a weekend, it feels fantastic. One of the ways that I have incorporated this into my life is I have a walking group. When I moved to Southern Vermont after living in Boston for 26 years, I met a bunch of women and we started a walking group. And now on Wednesday mornings, we walk it out together. And I will tell you something, it has made a big difference in my social life. It gets me out the door knowing that I am going to be seeing a group of smiling, friendly me faces at 6:30 in the morning, particularly when it is like 20 degrees and dark, like the pits of hell up here in the middle of winter.

It gets me out the door. It gets me moving. It keeps me social. And there are walking groups everywhere. And for those of you that are single, forget the freaking dating apps. Why don't you join a walking group for crying out loud? Meet people, socialize, get offline. And one other way that you can make this more fun with where you live, is walk a different route than you normally walk. My husband Chris, actually, is so good about this. There's so many things that he's so good at. If I didn't love him so much, I would probably hate him or be envious of him. But he's always trying a different route. One day he's walking the loop behind the house. The next day, he's walking this thing called the whatever trail that I'd never even heard of. I'd lived here for two years. The next thing you know, he's walking the pond behind the school. The next thing you know, he's found this other trail. Then he's walking the golf course that he doesn't even belong to. I mean, I thought that was trespassing, but apparently it's a walking thing. So anyway, I got to get back on track here.

I digress. Walking is a really important pillar in your life. And can you tell I'm excited about it. I geek out about this stuff, too. I love dorking out about this stuff because when I know why it matters, if I'm looking in the mirror at myself and I know why it matters on those mornings where I just don't want to, I can literally look at myself and be like, Come on, woman, you know this matters. Get your rear-end out the door and go do it. All right, one of the things that has changed my life for the better was when I started to learn that you can be a better sleeper. You can. You can learn to be a better sleeper. And one of the things that has helped me become a better sleeper is learning about the circadian rhythm in your body. I mean, this is game-changing stuff to realize that there's actually programming in your body that you can tap into that will help you understand how to get a better night's sleep. And it turns out your circadian rhythm is the key to everything. And it also is not only impacting your ability to sleep better, but it has a huge impact on your overall health and wellness.

Sercadian rhythm affects your sleep, your hormones, your mood, your mental health, your metabolism, and your weight. You're also going to learn that circadian rhythm impacts how well your brain functions. If you're dealing with some brain fog or trouble sleeping, or your hormones are out of whack, or you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing in terms of eating and exercising, but the weight's not coming off, Listen up. Dr. Gina Poe is in the house. She's a neuroscientist at UCLA. She's been studying the science of sleep and circadian rhythm 30 years. That's three freaking decades. Here's how we're going to attack the topic of sleep. First, we got to talk about circadian rhythm. I mean, a little bit later, you're going to get her two power tips for great sleep starting tonight. But you got to first understand the research and hear how she explains your circadian rhythm and why you need to know about it, because it plays a fundamental role in your ability to sleep well. Here's me asking Dr. Poe about the circadian rhythm.

Every cell in our body has has a clock in it. And these clocks are aligned by a master clock in our brain called the Superchiasmatic Nucleus, SCN for short. And that nucleus is reset every day by light coming in through our eyes.

And is our clock running on a 24-hour cycle?

Roughly. And that's why it needs to be reset every day because everybody's clock is a little bit... The period is a little different. Bright light in the morning. And so that tells you time zero.

Oh, so when you wake up in the morning, whether it's raining or it's cloudy or it's a bright sunny day, that is the clock hits zero in terms of your brain going, Okay, the day has started? Yeah.

So you really do need to control your light exposure to make sure your timekeeper sets it to the world that you need it to be.

So if you were to use this I'm going to do a research around circadian rhythms to improve your sleep, how would I go about figuring out what's the first thing I need to do in the morning to reset my clock now, to start training myself to get a better night's sleep.

If you want to reset your clock so that you're up, say, at 6:00 in the morning or whenever the sun comes up, get outside and expose yourself to that sun. Eat your breakfast and then do the same with lunch and do the same with dinner. Don't expose to bright light at night, especially blue light. If you expose yourself to a lot of the strong blue light at night, then your circadian system will say, Wait a minute. Is it morning time? I guess it's morning time, and we'll shift you forward.

Did everybody hear that? So there are some very free and specific steps there, which is get some bright light exposure, and I take it even a cloudy or rainy day is going to suffice.

So much brighter than indoor light.

Okay. And how long should we be standing on our porches or sticking heads out the window.

It doesn't even take that long. 20 minutes is plenty of time to give your clock. And if you can be exercising during that time, all the better. So get out and walk.

If I can only get out for two minutes, would it make a difference?

Two minutes make a Yeah, makes a difference.

Okay. And then you also heard everybody that based on the exact same research and principles, staring at your phone, your computer screen, your television in the evening is a big no-no, unless you've got the blue light blockers, right? Because it is signaling to your brain that it's not time to go to bed, which makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, it says it's morning. I should be awake.

I mean, it makes perfect sense when she explains it like that, right? And so now that you know, you've got this baseline understanding of why your circadian rhythm really matters and why getting light first thing in the morning is important and how it impacts your ability to get better sleep, you We now need to hear Dr. Poe's answer to the next question I asked her, which is Dr. Poe, as a sleep researcher, what are your best tips on getting better sleep starting tonight? Here's her answer.

It really helps you sleep better. Why? It's thought to be because you are warming your periphery and vasodilating your hands and feet because there's a nice and warm- Oh, that's sexy.

Vasodilating. That's what I'm going to say to Chris. Chris, I'm going to go vasodilate my hands and feet in a hot bath, honey.

And vasodilation is good because what that does is it then helps cool your core, which is something that happens as you fall asleep. The core of your body cools by half a degree, something like that. And people get the best night's sleep if they can have warm hands and feet out there exposed to the air, helping to cool your core. So that's great. Also, to have a great night's sleep, exercise during the day. Our bodies are made to exercise. They are made to move. And if we get a good time of exercise where our blood is racing and our hearts are pounding and our breathing is deep, then for some reason, we don't know exactly why, it might be due to adenosine build up or needing growth hormone and the signals your body gives you, says we need repair ourselves. It gives you a really wonderful night's sleep. Those two things are beautiful.

So I promised that this was going to be an episode where I bottom line this stuff. And so let me distill those four tips that Dr. Po just shared with you that are going to help you get a better night's sleep starting tonight. So number one, you now know, light in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm. It's okay if it's a cloudy day, you just got to get that UV into your eyes. Got it? Good. Second, exercise during the day. Third, a warm bath at night. And four, not too much caffeine. That's it. That's it. World-leading researcher. You do those things, you're Nailing the third pillar of health, which is sleep. You will start to get better sleep starting tonight. You know what I think is really cool about all of this advice? Is that it's from a sleep researcher. I mean, Dr. Poe studies these behaviors in her lab. She has so many academic citations, and here she has boiled it all down. While the advice may be things that you've heard before, this isn't like your mom or your friend, Mel, going, Hey, dude, just take a hot bath and you're going to sleep better.

No, this is a scientist with 30 years of experience studying sleep. I'm underscoring that because I want you to take this seriously. From the UV exposure in sunlight, first thing in the morning, to moving your body in exercise, to limiting caffeine, to the warm bath. Take it seriously. Look at the person in the mirror and be like, Dude, we're doing this. Try it for a week and you will feel better. There's one thing that Dr. Poe said when she first appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast that I had never heard before. It made me understand in an instant why you sleep. And more importantly, it made perfect sense once she said it. And once you hear this, you're never going to cheat yourself out of the sleep that you need. You're going to take those four tips that she just gave you, and you're going to put them into your life. Here is what Dr. Poe said as she was explaining how you get what she calls a junky brain. And more importantly, based on the research, what Dr. Poe says that you need to do to avoid it once you realize you have a junky brain.

And so Here's what I asked her to set this up. I was basically like, So Dr. Poe, what's a sleep cycle? And that's how this junky brain thing came up. I'm asking Dr. Poe, Dr. Poe, what is a sleep cycle and why should we care?

On average, it's 90 minutes. And that's when you go from N1 to N2 to N3 to N2 to rem. It's called the deep sleep.

And what's the purpose? What is actually happening in your body when you're in that third phase and the wave is happening?

Yeah. So that's a time when we know that our brain is cleaning itself, actually. Wait, what? Yes.

It's cleaning itself?

Yeah, it's cleaning itself. Of what? Of all the junk that builds up during the daytime when we're awake and alert. What junk builds up? Well, proteins get unfolded. Things break down, energy is used. All of that gets restored in that deep state of sleep. If you eliminate the deep slow way sleep part, the N3 state, the cleaning part, you will wake up with a junky brain and not be as efficient and able to handle the day.

Oh, my gosh. I can't get that image of the Zamboony out of my head. I'm thinking about the night after Oakley's high school graduation, and this place looked like it had been a frat party all night. We got to get the Zamboony in to clean it up, and you need the Zamboony in your brain to Clean up that junky brain. When I was talking with Dr. Poe, here was the thing I just couldn't stop thinking about. You're designed to sleep well. You were actually born with the wiring to nail this pillar. It's part of your hard wiring. Same with breathing, by the way, and same with walking. And what I loved about Dr. Poe is that when it comes to breathing and walking, you don't really sit around and go like, I'm a lousy breather. I'm a lousy walker. You don't trash yourself. But I bet you have had periods in your life, and maybe you're going through one of them, where you literally are bashing your sofa being, quote, bad at sleeping. And she's here to tell you, No, you're not bad at sleeping. You're actually designed to sleep well. And now that you understand the wiring, and you understand circadian rhythm, and you understand the four tips that she gave you based on the research.

And all you got to do is do what Dr. Po just told you to do. And you can let your your brain and your body take over and do what it was made to do. Don't you just love the smart design of your body? I mean, it's so simple when you hear the world's leading expert explain it like that. Just like every single thing that you are learning as we've distilled down these three pillars. You've learned that breathing low and slow through your nose helps you decrease anxiety and be more present and make more efficient use of the oxygen. You've learned that walking helps you stay not only physically fit, but it also helps you stay mentally fit by decreasing anxiety as your eyes scan the horizon. Just thinking about closing your mouth and breathing through your nose, you can almost feel yourself relax and be calmer. You also learned from the world's leading sleep researcher, Dr. Poe, the secrets. It's circadian rhythm hacking. You got to get in the UV rays in the morning. You got to exercise and move your body during the day. By the way, you now know from Dr. Romera that it's just 5,000 additional steps a day, so get it in.

A warm bath at night, which is this like wind down routine. Not too much caffeine. Limit the screen. There you got it. It's a simple stuff. But this is what I love about what you just learned today. Breathing, walking, sleeping. They are the pillars of your health. And if you're not doing it correctly, it is negatively impacting your health. But when you take the simple things that we've just distilled for you today from the world's leading experts, you know that what you're doing is you're making your life, your health, and your happiness all a priority by simply doing these basic things. How freaking cool is that? I told you I would bottom line it for you. But we're not quite done. Here's why. Because knowing what to do is never enough. Based on the research, when it comes to motivation and behavior change, you got to have a why. You got to know why you need to do it at even higher level, right? Otherwise, you're not going to do it. And the reason why these three pillars matter so much is because they all impact stress. They all impact your overall health. And when you're not breathing right, it causes stress.

When you're not walking those extra 5,000 steps, it causes stress. When you're not sleeping, it causes stress. And now you know how to walk, breathe, and sleep well. Now I want you to hear from Dr. Naha Sangwan, who's a medical doctor, an engineer. She is also a best-selling author and researcher on the topic of stress. I want you to listen to Dr. Naha Sangwan because you're going to hear her talk about the relationship between your stress level and disease. Now that you know that you can lower your stress by simply breathing through your nose and getting 5,000 extra steps and really When you're prioritizing your sleep, you can boost your overall health and fight disease and live a long and happier life by simply paying attention to these pillars. Honestly, what Dr. Sangwa said when she appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast earlier in the year about stress, it blew my mind. Here's what Dr. Sangwa said.

I found that stress causes or exacerbates more than 80% of all illness.

Wow.

When I realized that, I came back in the I was like, Hey, guys, I figured out that stress causes or exacerbates more than 80% of all illness. Why are we not asking our patients once we've physically stabilized them, let's ask them what's at the root of their stress. And my colleagues, one at a time, gave me some version of this. Neha, just like you wouldn't order a test or a diagnostic that you didn't know what to do with the result, nor should ask a question that you don't know what to do with the answer. And I'm telling you, Mel, I got angry. I got sad, and I almost got emboldened. And then we give them some cocktail of medications, antidepressant, anti-anxiety, or sleep medication, to help their physiology get back in sync. Now, these things are good to do when somebody is about to fall over the edge of burnout or stress or overwhelm or whatever it is. They're helpful. But as a long-term strategy, one month later, we send them back in the ring for round two with no new awarenesses of how they got there or tools to fix it.

But I want to make sure the person listening really gets the takeaway, which is the root cause of 80% of the diseases and the health issues that people have can be traced back to the stress in their life You are also saying that the majority of the stress that you have control over, that is what is contributing to you getting sick and unhealthy and feeling anxious and stressed, and that there is a solution. So tell us these five questions that you ask the people that you work with, Dr. Neha.

I call it the awareness prescription. Okay. Question number one, why this? Why a heart attack? Why not your liver or your left leg? Why has your body... Why has this part of your body broken down? And whatever comes to you is the right answer.

Okay.

Question number two, why now? Why not three years ago? Why not two weeks from now? What is the message that you needed to get in this moment that you were not getting? Question number three, since hindsight's 2020, what clues, symptoms, patterns that didn't make sense now make perfect sense? Question number four, What else in your life needs to be healed?

Oh, that's the dozy.

And question number 5, if you spoke from the heart, what would you say to me? And so every patient knew why they They were what was at the root of their stress. They knew why they were sick. They knew what they needed to do. And I wonder if there's not a single patient, thousands and thousands of them have done it. Here's the best part, Mel. My patients Families weren't the ones that started writing me after this. The patients themselves would show up in the hospital cafeteria, would write me letters themselves and say things like, Hey, Doc, You remember that lifelong migraine medication I was on? I only need half the dose. Hey, Doc, it's the first time in five years I've slept through the night without back pain. Hey, Doc, I only need a third of my anxiety medication now. I think I'm making progress. And they had started to do their own work. What they wanted was that sacred exchange that we have an opportunity to have with one another, where I was willing to slow down and ask them the real questions, and they were willing and open to answer.

In addition to everything that you've learned, I love what she just said, you've got to do the work to destress yourself, that taking proactive steps to destress your life is about longevity. It is about happiness. It is about you being healthy. It is how you create a more fulfilling life because you're creating a healthier you. And that gives you yet another reason, a bigger reason, to really pay attention to these three pillars that we have talked about. Because the work that Dr. Sangwa was referring to is about these three pillars, and these simple hacks and changes. Because if you flip the sentence into the positive, and we don't go, Okay, 80% of disease is in a root cause of stress. You can feel 80% better if you your stress. Why wouldn't you want to do that? So as you are looking in the mirror at the person staring back at you, and you are going, Okay, where do I start? What do I do with the limited time that I have in order to make myself feel 80% better, in order to be happier and healthier? You now know the three pillars. This is exactly where you start.

Number one, you're going to start with breathing. You're going to go low and slow through your nose. Patrick McCowan, he taught that to you. You now know how to do it. And you can also, by the way, come back to that breathing exercise that he did anytime you're stressed out. So the pillar number one is breathing. Through your nose, not your mouth. Pillar number two. Want to feel 80% better? Get your steps in. Add 5,000 steps to whatever you're currently doing. It'll calm your mind. It makes life move at a slower pace. It has so many health benefits. We don't have time to go through them all, but you You get it. Now do it. And finally, you want to feel 80% better? Prioritize your sleep. Dr. Gina Poe, get the junk out of your brain. Get the device out of your hand. Get your butt into a warm bath. Get yourself outside to see that sunlight. Hack the circadian rhythm and make sleep a priority, and it will change your life. And one more thing, in case no one else tells you today, I want to say thank you. Thank you for spending time with me today.

I love you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. I'm so confident about these things because we just distilled world-renowned research into three simple habits that you can start to practice today that will make you feel 80% better. Now, just go do it. Because you're watching on YouTube, you know the drill. Go do it. I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. I'm also going to say, if you love this, please subscribe. My goal is to make sure that 50% of the people that are watching videos on this channel are subscribers. It's free. You're not going to get stalked by me. It literally is the only way that you can show me that you love these videos, and it's a way that you can support me in bringing you world renowned experts for free every single day we're launching new videos. So thank you for taking the time to do that. Thank you for sharing this. I mentioned at the top of our time together that one of the things that we've learned on the Mel Robbins podcast is the importance, the critical nature of relationships in your life for better health.

Since we didn't cover it in this episode, I want to recommend that you watch this video next. This is an in-depth interview with Harvard's Dr. Robert Wauwinger, where he unpacks 86 years of research from Harvard about the power of connections in your life and how to create better ones. You're going to absolutely love this. Bring your tissues. It's super profound and powerful and actionable. All the things that you love. All right, go check Thanks for subscribing, and I'll see you soon.