Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I just gotta take a minute and share something with you. We are about to hit 205 episodes of the Mel Robbins podcast. My mind is like, how did this podcast go from an idea that started in the floor of my closet just over, like, I don't know, a year and a half ago to 100 million plus downloads? I mean, it's just, like, mind blowing. So, first of all, I just had to share that with you. That's fricking crazy. And as I think about it, one of the things that has struck me in interviewing so many experts and reading your comments and looking at YouTube and what really has resonated with you is that 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. In fact, there are some just really basic things when it comes to health and happiness and having this sense of control over your life that really matters. I'm talking pillars to a meaningful, healthy, and fulfilling life. And so today, kind of in honor of just how much ground you and I have covered together, I have handpicked a couple experts that you're going to meet that have singularly focused in terms of their research and expertise on one of three pillars that you need to master in your life.

I mean, if you were to pay thousands of dollars and jump on a plane and go to this, like, conference on health and wellness, you know, that everybody has these days, they wouldn't be able to get all four of these world renowned researchers in one room. I mean, they're so in demand. And so I have hand picked them to be here today for you, to inspire you. And I picked them because of their research. And this is more important because research is boring and nobody needs it if you can't apply it to your life, is they have this ability to discuss decades of information and distill it into one or two takeaways that you can actually do today. And so let me just unpack who you're about to meet, because you're going to meet the world's leading expert on breathing, and he's going to explain one change. Yep. One change that you need to make today to breathe better and why this matters. And I bet right now you're thinking, wait a minute, breathing. Am I breathing wrong? He's going to tell you, you definitely are. 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 the reason why you're not walking enough is you don't understand how important it is based on the research. And then we are going to move on to the third pillar, which is sleep. And you're going to learn simple changes from the world renowned researcher and expert on sleep. And she is going to help you get a better night's sleep, starting tonight. And just think about it. If you can nail breathing, walking, and sleeping, something you don't even think about, you got 80% of your life nailed. And that's what you're going to learn today from the most respected experts on the planet. This is all that they do. 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. And 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.

Like, 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. And today is a great, great, great day because I'm going to boil down almost 205 episodes that we've done into three pillars that really improve your health. And one of the greatest things about modern life, I mean, can we just, like, 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. And I find, particularly when it comes to prioritizing your own health, for example, like, how do you distill it all down, especially when there's so much information? And 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, like, 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? Like, 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? Like, 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 are the pillars, the foundation of your overall health. And I have handpicked the I'm talking capital, the 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. And 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 to 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 cannot wait for you to meet Patrick McEwan, 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. And, you know, 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 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. After you're going to hear everything that Patrick has to say because he is going to make you close your mouth and he's going to open your eyes to a whole new way of breathing. Patrick McEwan 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 McEwan explain why mouth breathing is so bad for you. And one 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.

Yeah.

If you take a breath through the mouth, okay. 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. Like, I feel like it stays tight, like, just under my boobs. You know, it's, like, right in there.

So. And then we have to ask, well, what effect does that have in the physiology? Well, mouth breathing, faster breathing, and upper chest breathing is activating a greater fight or flight response. So 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%. And that's discovered back in 1988 by a researcher swift. When you breathe through your nose during physical exercise, the gas, carbon dioxide, is higher in the blood. While carbon dioxide increases and blood ph drops, the red blood cells release oxygen more readily to the tissues and organs. So 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.

You said that breathing in and out of your nose increases the amount of oxygen versus breathing out of your mouth. Why does that matter?

Oxygen is really, it's the fuel for the human being. And if, for example, we are not getting enough oxygen delivery to the brain, if there's an insufficient blood flow or oxygen delivery, it can increase brain cell excitability. So brain cells become more excitable. We're thinking more, we're more prone to anxiety. You know, we can influence the blood flow to the brain by changing our breathing patterns. And it's not about taking the full, big breath. My old tersal journey was having asthma. I was a mouth breather for years. Because if we have inflammation in the lungs, that same inflammation will travel up to your nose. And when your nose is stuffy, you're two to three 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. Spanish. 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 either.

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, and that's kind of the panic attack, but say, for example, somebody who's just breathing a little bit faster, a little bit harder, upper chest breathing, irregular breathing patterns. And that's present in a minimum of 10% of the general population, but up to 75% of the anxiety and panic disorder population.

Wow.

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 is feeding into our stress levels. Who doesn't want to be more resilient 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, there's insufficient oxygen getting to the working muscles, well, we're more prone to fatigue. We have 50,000 miles of blood vessels throughout the human body, and our breathing is influencing how dilated our mouth are they? And people with poorer breathing are more likely to have cold hands and cold feet. It's not just the blood circulation in the hands and feet destroyed the body.

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 things that I found fascinating. Like, 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? Like now, it makes sense because you understand it. I want to break that cycle. Like, 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 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. And here's Patrick.

So the first exercise now 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 an exhalation, take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose.

Can I ask you a question?

Yes. 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. Okay, take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold. And hold for 54321, let go and just breathe normal. Now for about two to three breaths or even four breaths, not to change your breathing, just breathing normally. And again, take a normal breath in through your nose and out through your nose and pinch your nose and hold. 54321, let go and now just breathe normal for three to four breaths. So you're just breathing normal. The small breath hold will help to stimulate the vagus nerve which secretes a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, 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. 54321, let go. Breathe in through your nose. So now you're just breathing normal for three to four breaths and in 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.

54321, 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. So for bronchitis, this is your natural way to help open up the lower airways. Last one. And again, normal breath in through your nose, out through your nose, pinch your nose and hold. 54321 left. Go.

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 minds, panic disorder. 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 know, you do all of these exercises, you always do them, you 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. 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 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. Now you could simply breathe in and out through your nose, hold your nose, and jump up and down on one leg. It's movement associated with the breath hold that helps to open up the nose.

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

Oh, my God.

So whenever you're ready, take a normal breath in through your nose. Only normal. So I'm going to have to just do that again. So 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.

Light breath into your nose and a light breath out through your nose. And just gently hold your nostrils. So stop breathing and nod your head up and down as you hold your breath. And 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. So 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 stretch response, which will help to open up the nose. And now let go meld. Breathe in through your nose. So the key to help decongesting the nose is to hold the breath 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 now that it's going summer to fall in the United States. And it worked that second time in particular, like, it's a very reproducible technique.

I've used it with thousands of people, and we had a small pilot study involving 26 people at a hospital here in Limerick in Ireland, and a three month follow up. Symptoms of rhinitis, which are stuffy nose and runny nose, etcetera, had reduced by 70%. But I taught that pilot study, which was published as an abstract. I thought it would need a way to generate some curiosity into a bigger study. It never happened. And that study took place ten years ago. But despite that, the exercise worked.

Ah, I don't know. Oh, that was a mouth breath. Oops. I should have gone through my. I don't know about you, but I just love the combination of his voice and those breathing exercises. Don't you feel more relaxed? And 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. Like, 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 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. Later, after we hit pillar number two, 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 I know even I have my own ads. I'm a sponsor of my own show. How cool is that? Talk about cheering for yourself. But I love you and I love the time that we spend together. And I just want to thank you. And so I have a free gift for you simply because you listen to the Mel Robbins podcast. What is the gift? Well, it is a 20 page workbook that I designed using science, and it's going to help you answer one of the most important questions that you could ever ask yourself. What do I really want? Like, I know you're busy taking care of everybody else, but what about you?

Take the time to put yourself first. Just go to melrobbins.com. what? What? And you can get your hands on this puppy in less than a minute. And you will be one step closer to answering the question, what do I really want? And once you know what you really want, nothing's going to stop you from getting it. 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 one. I hope you've been doing your nose breathing while we were listening to our sponsors. Next up, we're attacking pillar number two for better health with doctor Shane O'Meara. We're going to talk about walking. Doctor O'Meara 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. And Doctor Romero 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 Doctor Romero 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. 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 experiencing 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 sixties and early seventies. Again, a beautiful us study conducted in the Chicago area showed if you are inactive, there are negative changes in the brain compared to people who are active. 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 group 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 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 if they had been active over that period of time. So the key point here to really to drag out is 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 kelly.

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. Let's make it kind of 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's 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? Well, 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 recumbent 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 of 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. 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 load 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.

Well, I certainly don't think about any of those things when I should. You need to get well, 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 to a certain place that all these things benefit the brain. How do they benefit 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 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 this. 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. Repeated challenge. Your brain needs this as well. This is why when you, 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 frickin love it. Don't you just love it when people dork out on this kind of stuff? Like, I feel smarter. I almost feel like I got my lab coat on and we're standing like in a lab researching all this stuff as he's talking science and this and studies. But, you know, here's the thing. I'm the kind of 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? Like, 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 it. 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 doctor Amara, what should your daily walking goal be? And here's what he said.

So there's good news and bad news here. Okay, 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, 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 very much. We know this from smartphone data of which you can grab the levels of activity that people engage in. Sadly, people don't walk very much. The average adult in the US, for example, walks at about 4000 steps a day. Now, a child learning to walk does about 1200 steps per hour.

Whoa.

There's a huge difference. As I said, most people don't walk very much. So my advice is always walk about 5000 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 sixties. 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 calls 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 steps per day, people's all cause mortality falls and falls quite substantially. Something like 30 or 40%.

Okay, so I want to make sure everybody hears that. So Shane is saying if you were to simply on average walk 4500 or between 4000 and what?

7000 steps, my recommendation is you must turn on your mobile phone and find out how many steps you're walking per day. Because most people don't know.

Okay.

So that's the first thing you need to do.

Okay, hold on. I want to make sure you're, hold on a second. Because I want to make sure our audience hears this. Shane is saying, everybody, 5000 steps a day minimum.

And saying 5000 more than you're doing.

Oh my God. Well, how do I know what I'm doing?

By turning on your mobile phone.

Give me my phone. Let me see what I'm doing.

We're about to out steps that you've done.

Okay. I don't even know if I've tracked this thing.

Yeah. So that's the first thing you got to do is to know how many you're doing.

Okay.

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 three or 4000 steps a day. And that increases your chances of dying younger of something unpleasant.

I got a lot to do. I got 2800 steps right now.

So. Yeah, so you, you need to add 5000 steps.

Okay. How big of a distance is that?

I guess it's about 5 km or four and a half kilometers.

That's a lot. So I have to walk 2 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 9785 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, yeah.

Okay, so you got to track, you got to do 5000.

Nobody knows how many steps they took last Tuesday week, do you? Do I? No, of course I don't. 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 to look about at what we know about people in non mechanized societies because we can learn lots from them. 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 ten and 20,000 steps per day on average. So the benefits are there in terms of heart health and all of the other things, but you actually got to put in the miles. Unfortunately. This is why I say 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.

Movement is good for you.

All right, so doctor Amera is asking for 5000 more steps than what you're doing today. You and I can do this. Like, you know, I know, 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 kind of astounding. I think that's why we're not walking more that we just kind of brush off a simple walk like, eh, 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. And here's one thing that I know, everyone in my life who makes a habit of walking looks and acts at least ten years younger than their real age. For those of you that love my mother in law who's been on the podcast a couple times, Judy Robbins, you all obsess over the fact that at 84 for, excuse me, 86, she walks no less than 5 miles a day. My parents, Bob and Marcia, 75 and 80, they walk every single morning.

And they, all three of them look ten years younger than their real age, and they act it, too. And so, doctor O'Meara 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 faces at 630 in the morning, particularly when it is like 20 degrees and dark, like, you know, 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 frickin 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, like, be envious of him. But he's always trying a different route. Like, 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.

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 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. And you know what else I need to do? I need to take a quick break. We have amazing sponsors. I want you to hear a quick word from them because they allow me to bring you these world renowned experts at zero cost. So take a quick listen, and when we come back, please do not go anywhere.

We have covered breathing. We have covered walking. You have learned so much. And now we got the third pillar coming up, and that is sleep. We have the sleep researcher. She has been doing this for decades. This is all she does. And she has the important secrets to a great night's sleep, starting tonight, do not go anywhere because I will be waiting for you after a short break. Welcome back. It's your buddy, Mel Robbins, and I'm fired up about today's topic because we are doing something I love to do, distilling down decades of research from world renowned experts around three critical pillars of health. We are making it simple. You are learning exactly where to start and why it matters, and I just kind of love bottom lining it, don't you? You feel smart and you feel like, I can start. Okay, great. That's almost a rhyme. 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. Circadian 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. So 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 weights not coming off. Listen up. Doctor 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. And 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 Doctor Poe.

So every cell in our body has a clock in it. And these clocks are aligned by a master clock in our brain called the suprachiasmatic 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 hours cycle?

Roughly. Roughly. And that's why it needs to be reset every day, because everybody's clock is a little different. Bright light in the morning 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, right?

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 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 six 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 yourself 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 gonna suffice.

So much brighter than indoor light. Okay. Even how long it doesn't even take that long. You know, 20 minutes is plenty of time. 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 difference? Yeah, makes a difference.

Okay. Yeah. And then you also heard everybody, that, based on the exact same research and principles, staring at your phone, your computer screen, your television for, like, in, in the evening is a big no no. Unless you've got the blue light blockers, right? Yep. Because it is signaling to your brain that it's, like, not time to go to bed. Right.

It's morning.

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

The bath 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 also feet. 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.

Right?

Yes.

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 deepen, then for some reason, and we don't know exactly why, it might be due to adenosine buildup or needing growth hormone, and the signals your body gives you says we need to repair ourselves, it gives you a really wonderful night's sleep. So those two things are beautiful and not too much caffeine.

Too late. So I promised that this was going to be an episode where I bottom line the stuff. And so let me distill those four tips that Doctor Poe 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. 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. And you know what I think is really cool about all of this advice is that it's from a sleep researcher. I mean, Doctor Poe studies these behaviors in her lab. She has so many academic citations and here she has boiled it all down. So 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. And I'm underscoring that because I want you to take this seriously. From the uv exposure and sunlight first thing in the morning to moving your body in exercise, to limiting caffeine to the warm bathe, take it seriously. Like 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. And there's one thing that Doctor Poe said when she first appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast that I had never heard before and 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 Doctor Poe said as she was explaining how you get what she calls a junky brain. And more importantly, based on the research, what Doctor Poe says that you need to do to avoid it once you realize you have a junky brain.

And so heres what I asked her to set this up. I was basically like, so Doctor Poe, whats a sleep cycle like? And thats how this junky brain thing came up. And so im asking Doctor Poe, Doctor Poe, what is a sleep cycle and why should we care?

Yeah, on average its 90 minutes and thats when you go from n one to n two to n three to n two to rem. It's called the deep sleep.

And what's the purpose? Like, what is actually happening in your body when you're in that third phase?

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

What? Yes, it's cleaning itself.

It's cleaning itself of all the junk that builds up during the daytime when we're awake and alert.

What kind of junk builds up?

Well, proteins get unfolded and. Yeah, so things break down, energy is used. All of that gets restored in that deep state of sleep. If you eliminate the deep slow wave sleep part, the n three sleep, the cleaning, 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. Like I can't get that image of the Zamboni out of my head. I'm thinking about the night after Oakley's high school graduation. And this place looked like, you know, it had been a frat party all night. We gotta get the Zamboni in to clean it up. And you need the Zamboni in your brain to clean up that junky brain. And you know, when I was talking with Doctor Poe, here was the thing I just couldn't stop thinking about. You're designed to sleep well. Like 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 doctor 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 yourself for being, quote, bad at sleeping. And she's here to tell you, no, no, 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, all you got to do is do what Doctor Poe just told you to do. And you can let 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. I mean, just thinking about closing your mouth and breathing through your nose, you can almost feel yourself relax and be calm. And you also learned from the world's leading sleep researcher, Doctor Poe, the secrets. It's circadian rhythm hacking. You gotta get in the uv rays in the morning.

You gotta exercise and move your body during the day. And by the way, you now know from Doctor Romero that it's just 5000 additional steps a day. So get it in a warm bath at night, which is this sort of like wind down routine. Not too much caffeine. Limit the screens. There you got it. It's 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 fricking cool is that? I told you I would bottom line it for you, but we're not quite done. And 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 an 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 5000 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 doctor Neha Sangwon, 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 doctor Nahao Sangwon because you're going to hear her talk about the relationship between your stress level and disease. And now that you know that you can lower your stress by simply breathing through your nose and getting 5000 extra steps and really 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. And honestly, what doctor Sanguan said when she appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast earlier in the year about stress, it blew my mind. Here's what doctor Sang hwa said.

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

Wow.

And when I realized that, I came back in the hospital and 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 physically stabilize 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 you 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. 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.

All right. 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. And 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. Doctor 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 is 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 doozy.

And question number five, if you spoke from the heart, what would you say to me? And so every patient knew why they were, what was at the root of their stress. They knew why they were sick. They knew what they needed to do. There is 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.

So in addition to everything that youve learned, I love what she just said. Youve got to do the work to de stress yourself, that taking proactive steps to de stress 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 youre creating a healthier YouTube 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 Doctor Sangwon is 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 diseases in a root cause of stress, you can feel 80% better if you lower 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 McEwen, 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 5000 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 get it now. Do it. And finally, you want to feel 80% better, prioritize your sleep. Doctor 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. And 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. Go do it. Do you want me to say something? Okay, now we'll do it here. Okay. Hey, we are gonna talk about three things that. Wait, hold on. So you also have an accent.

He is also irish.

Okay, great, great, great. Okay. Okay. Okay, great, great, great. Okay. And Patrick is now gonna give you some very quick and effective breezing. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and you and I are. Oh, no. Okay, that's right. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional, coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.