Ed Harrold and Dr. John Douillard discuss the relationship between Ayurveda, breathing, exercise, and sustainable fitness health.
Ed Harrold with Dr. John Douillard. Originally published on YouTube February 5, 2021. Watch the original conversation on YouTube.
Ed Harrold and Dr. John Douillard discuss the relationship between Ayurveda, breathing, exercise, and sustainable fitness health.
00:03.3 Hey everyone, Ed Herald here. Welcome to our Life with Breath expert series. Great to have you. Welcome everyone. Today, I'm here with an American treasure, Dr. John Douillard. He's a doctor of chiropractic. He's a certified Ayurvedic physician. He's authored seven Ayurvedic health books and best sellers, Eat Wheat and The Three Season Diet. He is a repeat guest on the Dr. Oz Show. He's a former NBA nutritionist and creator of LifeSpa.com in Boulder, Colorado, where ancient Ayurvedic wisdom meets modern science. If, if I was gonna read all of Dr. John's accomplishments, we'd be here for the whole hour. It, it's a life that has been lived.
01:12.1 He has helped thousands of people, and continues to do so on a daily basis. He is a real treasure, and I'm really excited to share a conversation with Dr. John today. So welcome John Douillard. Ed, thanks for having me, really appreciate it. Hey, I remember back in the day, uh, it was big news when you were with the New Jersey Nets. Was it big news for you? It was big news for me, that's for sure. I didn't know it was big news anywhere else. Well, at that time, you know, it was pretty regimented in regard to how we treated athletes, and I was friends with Lou Katz.
01:50.9 And we went- Oh, really? ... we went to the same high school together, and Lou's a real character. We could talk about him for a while, but you know, I know initially he had great love for you, and really, uh, was totally down with kind of the Ayurvedic approach that you brought to the NBA world. Wow, I didn't know you knew Louis. That's g- that's great. Kind of, you know, s- tragic ending, right? But yeah, he was a great guy. I really liked him. Yeah. It, it was great to see you up in the major league, so to speak. You know, d- do you see any Ayurvedic or kind of the Eastern arts moving into any of the professional athletic world at all in, in your travels today, John?
02:29.7 I haven't seen it, you know. I, I know we, uh, we went from the number one, number three most injured team in the league to the number three least injured team in the league in just one season, and I was giving them Ayurvedic herbs before and after every, uh, game and practice. And, uh, you know, I did a lot of active release on them as well and, and uh, you know, uh, just had a great experience with that, with that team. But you know, um, the NBA's interesting. Um, you know, it's, it's, everybody's worried about their contract and w- you know- Yeah ... what's next for them.
03:08.2 And uh, so it's a, it's a dog eat dog world out there. Um, uh, but it was a phenomenal experience for me. I love the, uh, the organization, the Nets, uh, the ownership, the players, the coaches. I had a great experience. But you know, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's not a place to promote yourself, you know? Mm. Exactly. I had some great experience with athletes and, and I was like, "Man, they went from like not being able to feel their hand to feeling their hand," and you know, things that happened where they couldn't walk and their knee's better, and now they're out on the field, on the court.
03:41.0 I had one time where a guy came off the court and he was, couldn't walk, and we had, we had, you know, two guys on one side of his leg on his thigh with two guys on his, on below his knee- ... and I was in the middle, and I had them traction on his knee. We're rotating his knee, pulling it, got rid of some loose bodies, put the knee back, wrapped him up, and he went out and played the second half. He literally couldn't walk when he came off the court. You know, stuff like that. But it was just magical, and I realized in short order that these a- these players don't wanna talk about h- somebody helping them get over an injury because they don't wanna be injured.
04:14.3 That's a- Right ... you know, a chink in their armor, and they're, they're a, they're a commodity. So I, you know, I, it was sort of like, uh, you know, realizing that this is for the cause, man. This is for the team. And I just went in full on with the team, and we had a great season and it was great and, and uh, but uh, you know, I didn't think anybody knew about it. It c- I'm surprised that you knew. Um, but- Oh, yeah. It's a great ride for me, man. I loved it. You know, it's funny because even in today's world, you know, we're out there and like people are afraid to say that they're stressed, you know?
04:47.8 Like 'cause that's like a sign of weakness and- Right ... you know, uh, somehow you can't handle it and you can't measure up, and you need to meet your appointments, when it's really just like an alarm system that needs to go off. Like if your body's not healthy, your mind certainly isn't gonna be healthy. Well, the players were completely into, you know, that was the best part. You know, they, they were completely into what I was offering therapeutically. But publicly, they weren't gonna share that they had an injury that got better because, you know, they're, you know, next year gotta have a contract, and if they're, if they're, you know, in the papers getting injured, you know, no one wants- Right ...
05:27.6 to be labeled injury prone, you know? Well, in, in 1994 or '95, I, I met you for a moment at a spiritual retreat and, you know, I was at the beginning of my journey of transformation right there. You were a f- further along than me, and I just remember your presence. You know, it was so light. It was so loving. You were so intense and so filled with knowledge. It was like a whole complete package. And then I got into Body-Mind Sport- Which coming out of a former professional marathon swim career, it was perfect for me to get into Body Mind Sport and bring some of these ins- eastern principles into the Western paradigm.
06:09.2 And then about in the same time in 1995, I met a American yogi named, uh, Yogananda Michael Carroll, who had a practice that was steeped in breath control and pranayama. And, and you two guys were like the base that took me into whatever I've created today. And I, you know, it's just a real honor to talk with you because you were way ahead of what's really required in the fitness and athletic and racing regiments. Yeah. That's so kind of you to say. You know, I, I, uh, was, you know... I mean, it, the... You know what was cool about the New Jersey Nets and was that they were open.
06:47.3 They opened, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, Calipari was the coach at that time. Yeah. We had, you know, Breathe Right strips. Everybody's running around with nose breathing. They were all into the nose breathing thing, and I was like, "This is so cool." You know, they were really open to it, and a lot of the players really benefited from it. Um, but, uh, you know, at the same time, you know, I, I was called crazy most of the time telling people that there's a, there was a difference between breathing through your nose and through your mouth. Just saying that was like, you know, heresy.
07:17.4 Right, right. Now we have, you know, you know, James Nestor's book was so cool to see. Yeah. I was so shocked to read that book and see my name in it, and then I- Yeah ... called James, and he was like, "Oh, my God." He reached back and pulled my book off the shelf and said, "I've read this book so many times. It's like my Bible," he said, you know? Mm-hmm. Which was, it's so cool to see that, uh, that it inspired him, and now look, the nose breathing thing is, is definitely here to stay, you know? Seeing his work and Patrick McKeown's work, um, you know, it's just really cool to see it's evolved.
07:45.1 You know, uh, back in '95 and, you know, the early 2000s, you know, I would go to conferences and, you know, I'd be talking about nasal dominance in athletic training regiments a- and racing. And then there'd be another guy who would be talking about nutrition and fat metabolism and eating good fats. And we were always in the corner of the, of the conference center, you know? Nobody wanted to talk to us because we were the guys who were stirring the pot up. And now 20 years later, everybody's kinda saying, you know, "Diet and breathing play a huge role to my athletic performance." Yeah. Yeah. You know, and we published a study on, you know, nose breathing versus mouth breathing exercise in the International Journal of Neuroscience, where when you breathe through your
08:29.4 nose, the v- the brain goes into a, an alpha state, a coherent- Mm-hmm ... brainwave state that you only see in meditation. Mm-hmm. And my goal way back then, as you probably know, is to kind of replicate the runner's high, 'cause I had some pretty cool experiences as a athlete that I was just like, "There's something about this. There's something magical here. I wanna replicate this." And then it ended up, you know, 10 years-ish later, I was able to hook up with a university and do the research and, and we found that we actually were able to do it, you know? And, and, uh, it just didn't move the needle.
09:00.8 Nobody cared. It was just like, uh, wait, this is unprecedented. Nobody's produced alpha in the brain during exercise before. No one ever did it. And it's still like, uh, you know, it's sort of it's not invented here, it doesn't exist kind of a thing, you know? It's just crazy. You know, when you were a youngster and you get, getting involved in competitive ath- athletics, did, you know, did you know you were gonna have the fire to become a world class- best triathlete. Well, I don't know if I was world-class by any means. You know, I, I, I went, uh ... You know, my story was I went to...
09:30.3 I heard the word Ayurvedic medicine, or Ayurveda, it was like 1980 or something, and I was in chiropractic college at the time, and, uh, um, there was a lecture in LA about Ayurveda I heard, so I wanted to go hear it. Mm-hmm. And I heard this guy talk, and I went up to him afterwards and I said, "Uh, you know, uh, I'm doing a triathlon. I was training for an Ironman." And, uh, and I said, "I wondered if from the Ayurvedic perspective, is it good for you to do it?" And he looked at me, he said, "What is that?" And I told him what it was, you know, two and a half mile
10:01.2 swim, 212 bike, and marathon, and all that. And, and he said, "Why do you do that?" And I was completely stumped, you know. I was like, "Well, uh, uh..." I, I don't know. I didn't know what to say, 'cause I didn't have an answer like why I did it, you know. It was only 'cause I could do it, I don't know, and I loved it, you know? And I... But I didn't know what to say. And he looked at me like I was an idiot and he said, uh, he goes, "Do you meditate?" And I was like, "Yeah, actually I do meditate." My mom taught me how to meditate, you know.
10:28.9 She, she taught me TM or gave me the money to go buy TM when I was like 17. Um, and, uh, so I do meditate. And he goes, "Do you sleep when you meditate?" I went, "Really deeply. I mean, I get the deepest sleep when I meditate. You know, I meditate for a while, conk out, it's just great." And he looked at me like, again, like I was an idiot, and he said, "You know when you meditate, you're not supposed to sleep. It's, it's a completely different state of consciousness. You're supposed to be restfully alert, not asleep." So I'm going like, "Oh." And so the meeting went on and on, and I said, so he s- so I said to him, "You mean if I can meditate and not fall
11:02.6 asleep, then, then it's gonna be okay in, in the Ayurvedic world?" And he said, looked at me sort of like, gave me a head shake, like, "Yeah, it's okay you crazy kid." You know. And I went and took that like, you know, that was my marching orders. I started meditating more and training less. I went for weekend retreats to meditate, two-week retreats to meditate. And I came back, one, after that two-week meditation retreat, I came back shot out of a cannon. I, I- Yeah ... all of a sudden was, was competing with the guys that I never... 'Cause I was sort of, you know, treating a lot of the, the better triathletes in the South Bay.
11:32.7 At that point there was just a handful of guys that were, you know, were in the South Bay, and they were really good, and that's where sort of triathlon started in, in California, LA, in LA, you know, in the early '80s. And, um, so I started treating these guys, but I was never as good as them. And all of a sudden, you know, I started competing, you know, top 10 in some events and, you know, just started doing really, really well. And they all thought I was on steroids. I'm going, "No, man. Somehow less is more." And I knew- ... that less was more, and that's what got me into, you know, going, you know, wanting to go to India, which I did in 1986, and lived there for a year and a half and, you know, started to understand breathing
12:09.9 and all that. And, and that's how it got started. Yeah. That's an amazing story. And, you know, I believe it's in, it's in Body-Mind Sports, so everyone out there, if you don't have a copy of that book, make sure... It's a life-changing seminal book that is still as re- as relevant today or more as it was when it came out in 1994. You know, when you think about looking back in the past and, you know, you've kinda collided the wor- the worlds of chiropractic with Ayurvedic medicine, was there any surprises along the way to what you've discovered? Um, well, I think I became a, a bigger believer in chiropractic theory once I really
12:50.3 learned about Ayurvedic medicine, that's for sure. But at the same time, I sorta never really went back to chiropractic, 'cause I was just so down that road of Ayurveda. Although, um, along the way, my dear friend Mike Leahy, who was the creator of Active Release Technique, um, you know, he was m- my, one of my best friends in chiropractic college. He sent me all his videos. And, uh, so I always had my hands in it. I never lost my skill. So when I got the job with the Nets, I did the, the Ayurvedic nutrition and the, uh, the rehab side of it. I think they worked incredibly well together.
13:23.7 Unbelievably well. Nah, it's, it... You know, the whole nasal breathing thing is just, it's, it's one of the secret switches that are available to us to remain vibrant all the way to the end of the line, you know? And I think of you, I think about a lot of what I, I hear from the work you do, it's about efficiency. It's about getting the body efficient, getting the mind efficient, you know, being in perfect 24-hour cycles. You know, when you first started the nasal breathing i, in your training regimens, you know, what was the hardest initial steps you had to work your way through from trying to shut that mouth and stabilize that inner world with that nostril breathing?
14:01.9 Well, you know, I got punched in the nose by a friend of mine as a joke. We're just playing around, you know, just goofing around- ... and broke my nose right here. And, uh, not, not like a major break, but it definitely caused me not to breathe through that nostril for a lot of years. So, you know, I, when I first learned, came back from India, I started doing focus groups, taking, you know, 5, 10 people and say, "Hey, let's go work out together." You know, teach them the nose breathing and see what they said. And they were all like, you know, a lot of them were like, "Yeah, this is really awesome.
14:33.6 I really love it." And I'm going like, "I can't even do it," you know? 'Cause I couldn't breathe through my nose. And, uh, so I just kept sticking with it, sticking with it, sticking with it until I finally, my, my nose just completely opened up one day, and I was able to breathe so fully and, and then that really launched me into being able to get to that place where I could get, you know, where as I would train harder, you know, run faster, my breath rate would start to slow down- Mm-hmm ... instead of what you would think it would get faster. And I, and I ended up, uh, shortly thereafter in, in, in actually 1994, moved to Boulder from, I was working with Deepak Chopra back in Massachusetts, and I moved here,
15:11.1 and I started to, uh, teach a, a free class in North Boulder Park here for free. Anybody could come. And, you know, I started with 10 people, 20 people, then soon every week i, in the park at 8:00 in the morning, I'd have 10, 20, 30, 40 people come, teaching how to nose breathe. And that went on for about f- maybe it was seven, eight years I did that. And I had people come back a year later, two years later, three years later, and they go, "You know, I thought you were out of your mind." But I kept doing it, a little bit, little bit, and all of a sudden, boom, that deviated septum, that opened
15:39.2 up and I could breathe, and I'm so grateful. I heard that so many times, people's asthma, breathing, you know, th- things would disappear. Um, you know, I, uh, one day a, a fire truck drove up. Um, and these guys, you know, they were across the park, and I just, uh, it's... I didn't think anything of it. And then these guys come walking with their, with their helmets on and the gas masks on, and they're, you know, the Darth Vader, they're breathing through the respirator, and they said, "We're here for the class," with, full suited up. And I was going, "Are you kidding me?" And they go, "No." They go, "One," he says, "kid came to your class a couple weeks ago, and we have a competition, how many people, how quickly,
16:14.3 you know, how, running hills with the tank on. And whoever can last the longest wins the competition. And this kid came, came in and took your class, started nose breathing, and he broke the record." Yeah. And, uh, so next week two, three firetrucks came. Next thing I know, I'm giving a whole Colorado State in-service to the, in the Denver Fire Department, teaching them how, how to nose breathe. Uh, which was just really cool. But, you know, they, if, you know, having a tank last two or three minutes longer was a life-saving event for these guys. And, uh, so it was just a really cool experience to actually, you know, be teaching it, you know, week after week after week for so long, and then seeing the long-term results is phenomenal.
16:55.2 That's great work, and that's a great story. You know, when you're talking about the nostril breathing and the deviated septum and issues that folks have making that switch, uh, can you explain a little bit about how the ujjayi breathing, or that ocean-sounding breath i- is so beneficial athletically, uh, in training and fitness and getting those nostrils to open? Yeah, so when you do the ujjayi and you make that sort of ocean sound, uh, you know, if people wanna do it, you know, they can do it, but I'm gonna ask you to do it, but don't contract your abdominal muscles, your belly, at all. Mm-hmm. So make that sound.
17:37.1 Don't con- and b- and get rid of all the air, and don't contract your abdominals. You can do it for a little while, but at the end, the only way to get the air out is to use your abdominal muscles. So the ujjayi on the exhale, not on the inhale when you're working out, but on the exhale, creates an abdominal diaphragmatic cardiac massage. And on your heart there's a nerve called the vagus nerve which is responsible for parasympathetic dominance, which it means chill, and that sends a v- a message to your brain to increase parasympathetic, change the body, the brain waves from beta and fight or flight stress to alpha, to meditation.
18:14.4 So when you do the, the ujjayi on the exhale, you're creating this abdominal diaphragmatic cardiac massage that triggers the brain into an alpha state and amps up parasympathe- sy- parasympathetic activity. And Ed, you know, the most amazing thing about this was when I started researching the runner's high, which was my goal of this whole thing, it's always my best race is my easiest race. Right. It was always a combination of, you know, dynamic activity and complete composure and calm- same time. You know, Roger Bannister, when he broke the four-minute mile, he said, "I felt like the world was going... Like the world was standing still.
18:52.4 Like I was going slow." Um, yet he's running faster than any man alive. You know, Billie Jean King, who wrote the forward to my book, she said, "I would transport myself beyond the turmoil of the court to a place of total peace and calm," when she would win Wimbledon or something, you know? Crazy thing like that. Um, so, so it was that runner's high was what was, in Ayurveda it's called the coexistence of opposites, dynamic activity and calm. Like a hurricane, winds and a calm. The bigger the wind, uh, the bigger the calm, the more powerful the winds. It's a law of nature, and we can mimic that in our body.
19:27.6 That's what the whole book's about. Mm-hmm. And that's really what my whole life is about, is about doing that at different and ma- bigger and bigger levels. And so when we did the research, yeah, normally in exercise your fight or flight nervous system goes to 100% and your parasympathetic zeros out. Mm-hmm. But in our study, what happened was the sympathetic only went up 50% and the p- parasympathetic didn't zero out, it equaled. Mm. So the two opposite nervous systems were coexisting. And I was like, you know, the brainwave was cool, the brainwave coherence was cool, but when I saw the two opposite nervous systems coexisting, I was like, "We did it."
20:05.8 That's the coexistence of opposites. That's the, the Vedic, kinda mandate for full human potential, when you're doing the, the whole eye of the hurricane thing. Pretty cool. You know, when you're dealing with Ayurveda, there isn't one breath wasted. You know, everything is, is part of a stepping stone. And when, when I've incorporated pranayama in, into my trainings and practice, one thing I begin to have athletes report back to me is, that as the event unfolds, they actually get stronger while everybody else seems to fall off and get weaker. Do you think that has any correlation in regard to either mouth breathing or nostril breathing? Well, we s- One of the studies that we did was endurance, and endurance was significantly improved with, with, uh, nose breathing versus mouth breathing.
20:53.1 That was a clear fact, and that was written up in the study. So yeah, I would say that nose breathing doe- and you know, when you think about it, you know, if you're, if you're, i- if you're out there training, and, you know, one of the... I think one of the best parts of the study was something called perceived exertion. Right, right. So we had the two groups and, and when, when the kids were mouth breathing, they were huffing and puffing and, and really working really hard, and their perception of the exertion was a 10 out of 10. As high as exertion, you know, stress that they could feel.
21:22.4 They're all like, "10 out of 10. This is hard," you know? And then they came back and did the nose breathing workout a day or two later, and, uh, their perception of the same workout was a four out of a 10. So just think about it, right? You're training next to somebody, got their mouth open, they're pushing 10 out of 10 in exertion, and you're out there pushing four out of four. Four out of 10. You know? Right. Who's gonna last longer? Who's gonna go further? You know, obviously you're working half as hard. Yeah, yeah. But with the same level of a performance. It... On some level, initially, it's so counterintuitive i- in what you tap into in yourself.
21:59.9 It's almost like your mind is the last to know that you're getting stronger. It's like you have to sell it to your mind like, "Hey, I'm okay. Normally, 25 minutes into this I'm gasping for air, I've lost my posture, I've lost my lower body mechanic skills, my patterns of movement are off." And then you look at someone, you know, who's doing the nasal breathing and different protocols around pranayama in Western exercise, and it's almost like you have to sell it to your mind like, "Hey, check in with... We're okay." Yeah. I, I, I, I agree. It's a, it's a, um, I was at a... Sort of pinched my own self when I came back from that, uh, that, th- those weekend retreats where I just really, you know, just kept...
22:42.6 You know what was crazy, Ed, was the level of fatigue that was in my system from all the years of training, you know, just pushing. You know, we'd go for runs in the Hollywood Hills, we'd run 20, 30 miles couple times a week. I was running with a guy named, um, uh, Bill McQue- Bill, Bill McKeown, who was a- Yeah ... won the Western States 100. He was one of my dear friends, also a chiropractor. And, uh, yeah, we'd run and run and run and run and run and run and, and, uh, you know, the level of fatigue, I had no idea was there until I started meditating, and I would just
23:17.2 sleep and sleep and sleep. And then all of a sudden when I came out of that c- that, that coma of sleep, all of a sudden I was like shot out of a cannon, you know? Uh, it, it was fr- you know, Mike Lahey, for example, I'll tell you a story about him. We had... Him and I used to work out together, and he was a, you know, an Olympic v- volleyball player. He's incredible athlete. And, uh, we used to hop on these steps, going up these steps once, one, uh, on one leg. Bleachers, you know, hop up on bleachers on one leg and then come down and do it again until you fatigue your right leg and then do your left leg.
23:48.7 And I'm a g- white guy, I can't jump, but I was, you know, and I... And he would just blow me away normally. I came back from this retreat, and I was, like, going up on my right leg, and I was hopping up, and they had fatigued their right leg and their left leg, ready to go onto the next thing, and I was, like, still on my right leg, and I was blowing them away. And they looked at me like, "What the hell happened to you?" And I'm like, "I don't know, man. Something's crazy, but I just feel good, you know, like great." And, uh, and, uh, you know, it, it was just such a phenomenal experience that,
24:20.0 uh, that less was more. And dumping the fatigue, that's the thing people don't understand. And that was before yoga became a really big thing. Mm-hmm. But now... And even yoga has become sort of, can be a fatigue incurring event too. Or people don't realize that you gotta pull back that bow. Mm-hmm. And when you pull back the bow, you gotta pull it back all the way and hold it perfectly still. This is an aspect of the Veda, it's called Dhanurveda. Mm. And it's the Veda of transformation. So when you pull that thing back and hold it all the way still, which means your meditation- Your yoga and breathing, and they're all designed to create a still, calm lake that you can see through.
24:54.6 You know- Mm ... really calm, still water, and you function from that eye of the storm. Man, i- i- i- it is powerful. I... All I can tell you is it's powerful, and we proved it. Um, and- Yeah ... you know, and I experienced it, and, uh, I think that's what it's really, really about, is people don't realize that, um, that how fatigued they really truly are until you shut it down and realize, "Man, I'm just sleeping my, my m- my days away," you know? 'Cause, but you don't, but your, your nervous system keeps you up. But the, like, those meditation retreats were just like, you meditate, then you do some yoga, breathe, meditate.
25:28.2 Yoga, breathe, meditate, all day long, and after a while, you're just so tired from yoga, breathing, and meditate, you think, uh, you think that it's just that until you go home, and then you're like shot out of a cannon. So it was crazy. You know, when you think about our ability to wind ourselves up and our ability to cool ourselves down with, you know, meditation or gentle yoga or shavasana and things like that, and we, we look out into America today, and we see stress levels are at an all-time high. And then we see people going into HIIT classes, you know, going, you know, maximum re- reps for 90 seconds on and off, on and off.
26:04.9 You know, one of the things I really found out about nasal breathing that I really loved is it never allowed me to over or under train. It always hit the mark where I needed to hit the mark that particular day based on the energy that I had available to me. So I couldn't really violate my system and rob my immune system of energy and rob my gut of my stored minerals and nutrients. It seems like the nasal breathing, it kinda kept me on a realistic, uh, ego interpretation of my skillsets. I, I, I always, I, I agree with you 100%. I always call it the governor of how much is good- Right ...
26:41.4 and how much is bad, you know? Because it, it, it really does dictate. You know, you can open up your mouth and crank it out here and there, no big deal, but if your whole training is all with your mouth open and you're just pushing this maximum level, you're gonna incur, you know, you're gonna incur a level of stress that's gonna compromise your performance in the long run, no doubt about it. You know, but if you can have most of your training in that zone where your, your parasympathetic and sympathetic are, are equal, you're not in... Your, your, as you incur the stress, you're ch- you're, you're repairing it right then and there.
27:13.5 There's no, uh, there's no, there's no real wear and tear. And it's the amount of... You know, we, we, our model of exercise is stress recovery. Still is today, you know? No pain, no gain. Yeah. Still exists today, and I thought, when I wrote the book, I thought that was old news, telling people no, that no pain, no gain was, was old news. It, it's still news today. Still what they do. Um, a- and, uh, you know, um, and when you stress and recover, ultimately your s- your, your performance is limited by how much stress you can endure. I mean, at- Mm-hmm ... at some point you can't endure m- you can't incur more.
27:44.4 And, uh, the Ayurvedic approach is instead of stress, recover, stress, recover, stress, recover, and then you, you, of course you get better and perform better over time. But the Ayurvedic approach is to listen to your body, and when the body says it's stressful, back off. Mm. And then the body goes, "Okay." You know, now, um, well, how, how it really works is that when you, when you breathe- Into the lower lobes of your lungs with your nose, there's a, there's a level of ribcage rigidity that doesn't let you access all five lobes of your lungs as efficiently, and your diaphragm is not as efficient as it could be initially.
28:20.6 And then, so when you reach a point where you're, where you have to start breathing more shallow through the mouth, you slow down and you recover. But you- when you push into that stress, and then you take the stress away, you can breathe into the lower lobes of your lungs that you were pushing into a moment ago, and now gain better access for oxygen exchange. And the key is not to get the good stuff in, the oxygen, it's getting the waste out. It's getting the CO2 out and getting that exchange to balance, and that's really, that's really the key. 'Cause you can get all the oxygen you need for your 8- 98% oxygenation of your blood by breathing in the upper two lobes of your lungs.
28:58.2 You don't even need your lower ... I was told that by every pulmonologist, "You don't need the lower lobes of your lungs. You get 98% oxygen just by, you know, breathing in the w- first, the upper lobes of your lungs." You know, we have five lobes that you don't even need, you just need two of them. You know, it's clearly, you know, you know, clearly not true, but, um, that's what I was told. But the lower lobes of your lungs are where the parasympathetic nerves are to calm you down. Lower lobes are always where 80% of the oxygen exchange takes place for getting rid of the waste, so your, so your r- your, your lower lobes are a detox pathway.
29:31.7 Now, of course, 10 years later, all the research comes out saying that when you ... That your lungs are, are the number one detoxifier of fat out of your body- Yes ... and that's where you lose weight from. They didn't tell you that in the, in the early '80s and, you know, when I was writing the book, you know? Mm-hmm. But it didn't make any sense that, that we have five lobes of your lungs, and we're not, and we only need two. That was like ... Yeah, I just couldn't move beyond that , you know? It's like, come on, really? It, it's amazing, you know, how large these lungs are, and I look at things that are underutilized, you know, in our health and fitness medical world.
30:08.0 And it, it's so important to get that air down into the lower lobes of the lungs to sustain the, the life of your cells, to get that parasympathetic response, you know, to have great posture in your spine, to remove ama and excessive, uh, inflammatory markers from our gastrointestinal organs. We could go on for hours about how important it is to get that phrenic nerve amplified, that diaphragm range of motion and strength strong. And then on that exhale, have that vagus nerve amplify and give you those great neurochemicals that make us feel relaxed and invincible. Yeah, no, it's abs- I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, they did a study with elite athletes, and half of them did not have a diaphragm that was contracting and relaxing fully.
30:57.8 Right. The diaphragm is a muscle of breathing, right? Really important. In fact, inspiratory muscle training, uh, which is, which is what they call it in the hospital, is used for heart failure, lung failure, heartburn, and recently approved for COVID. I wrote an article on my website at livespot.com called, uh, Strengthen Your Lungs Now: Pratiloma. And Pratiloma is the Ayurvedic version of inspiratory muscle training they use in the hospital just recently approved for COVID. Good. And it's all about strengthening your diaphragm. And if you don't have a good, strong diaphragm, you're gonna breathe really shallow. And if you breathe really shallow, you over-breathe oxygen, right? Mm-hmm.
31:39.7 And so in another study they found that, that 75% of the oxygen people breathe in, they breathe right back out unused, 75% of it. Mm-hmm. So it's like, wait a minute, we're breathing in all this oxygen and we're not even using it. We just breathe it right back out. So that over-breathing of oxygen also allows us to sort of under-breathe CO2. The CO2 levels stay low and the oxygen stays high. And interestingly, oxygen is a stimulating molecule and CO2 is a sedative molecule. So to be calm in your skin, you gotta have them balanced. Right. But if you're over-breathing oxygen and you're under-breathing CO2, then you end up with an overstimulated system, a depleted, anx- anxious, worried, stressed
32:23.4 out system. So what happens is, and what's interesting is low CO2 levels, um, are critical because the lower your CO2 levels, the tighter the bond between your oxygen and your blood is, between your hemoglobin and your oxygen. So until you start to bring your CO2 levels out with long, slow nasal breathing, which you do when you do this workout, the CO2 levels naturally begin to rise, and it's the CO2 levels that, a little bit of air hunger is what that feels like, that actually- Mm ... releases the oxygen from your blood and dumps it into your tissues. Amazing. And most people walk around with a state of tissue hypoxia.
33:03.7 There's mutagenic stem cells that take advantage of that tissue hypoxia and give you diseases and things like degeneration. And, uh, so that's ... The difference between the oxygen in your blood and the oxygen in your tissues is massive, and that's what nose breathing provides. It prov- It's, it's, it's, it's got a turbinated kind of apparatus for breathing that slowly brings air all the way down into the lower lobes and all the way back out, and that gives time to keep the balance between CO2 and O2, and your NO2, which is your nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is produced in your nasal sinuses. That's the molecule that won the Nobel Prize in 1998 as the panacea molecule, and you make it when you breathe through your nose.
33:44.5 You make zero when you breathe through your mouth. So there's a balance when you breathe properly of, of nitric oxide, oxygen, and CO2. They all have to stay in check, and if they're out of whack, you're gonna, you're not gonna perform well athletically, but you're also not gonna perform well mentally when you handle ... You know, at the end of the day, it's always our, our, our, our crazy mind of ours that makes us, that, that causes most of our health concerns, but also- Allows you to perform at a, at a really high level or at a really low level. And you think of the greatest athletes, and it's all about how did they handle that mental pressure, you know?
34:19.4 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, Dr. John, just he hit gold right there. I- in the last five minutes, he just tied it all together into everything you need to know to go be great. I mean, that was just perfect. That was wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah. You know, s- speaking of the diaphragm a little bit, can you explain a little bit about how the, how the diaphragm on the inhale interacts with the liver, gallbladder on the right side of our belly and the stomach, spleen in the left side of the belly, and keeping that engine rolling, and the energy in the upper abdomen along with the enteric nervous system, which is in, uh, the upper solar
34:55.4 plex region. Do you have any wisdom you c- you can share on that? Yeah. Well, absolutely. Well, you gotta think the diaphragm is the number one muscle of breathing. Inspiration. It's contracts and pulls the air in, and when it pulls the air in, your ribcage opens up and expands. Mm-hmm. You take ... If that diaphragm relax, what happens to your ribcage? Bam, it clamps right back down. It has what's called the elastic recoil. Its nature is to be fully contracted. The only way you breathe in is that diaphragm like a piston sucking the air in, and pulling that, uh, air, pull- pulling that ribcage open.
35:29.9 The diaphragm is also, in addition to that, which is big, is the number one lymphatic pump for your abdominal cavity. Your intestinal tract is lined with lymph. Mm-hmm. Uh, the lion's share of the lymph in your body is around your intestines, and when the intestines become congested with lymph because the diaphragm's not working the way it should to pump that lymph out, you get extra weight around your belly, you get congestion. Uh, congestion of the lymphs around your belly are linked to decreased aging. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, which has been studied, which is pretty cool. And also, studies show that the diaphragm is a major pump for the breast tissue.
36:06.3 Women with breast cancer, a significant number of them had congestion in the anterior diaphragmatic lymph nodes. So, you know, lymph is really important, and it's also the number one pump of the cerebral spinal fluid- Mm-hmm ... washing your brain of toxins. And our brain dumps three pounds of plaque and chemicals out of our head every year while we sleep, and that's the cerebral spinal fluid washing up and down our spine and our brain, washing out all this trash. Mm-hmm. But if that, if you're not breathing properly, you don't get that pumping of the washer fluid, and you end up building up impurities in your brain.
36:38.0 So instead of dumping the three pounds of toxic plaque and h- crap out of your head, it ends up staying there. And congestion of the brain lymphatics, now called the glymphatic system- Mm ... is linked now to issues like anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, inflammation, infection, and even autoimmune concerns, 'cause the master computer is congested with trash, can't get its trash out. And Ayurveda talked about the brain lymphs thousands of years ago. They developed therapies to clean it out, breathing techniques, and a whole bunch of techniques to get the brain lymph cleaned out. They only discovered the brain lymphs about a decade ago at the University of Virginia, and only recently they discovered how important they are for cognitive function, anxiety, depression, inflammation, all those
37:18.5 things. It's just really incredible. So, so, so from the perspective of the diaphragm, whatever is above it and whatever is below it is gonna be intimately impacted by- buy it. So your heart and your lungs, inspiratory muscle training, used in every hospital in the world for heart failure, lung failure, and heartburn. That's the kinda interesting thing. How does breathing affect your heartburn? Mm-hmm. Well, your esophagus goes right through your diaphragm, and your stomach is right up against the diaphragm, and so is your liver on the other side. And if the diaphragm isn't contracting fully the way it should, the stomach can get pushed up against the diaphragm.
37:56.4 And this is something that Western medicine calls gastroparalysis, where your stomach holds onto the food too long, and yet it creates upward pressure against the diaphragm, and it can affect how you breathe. It can affect how your heart functions. It can actually cause heart issues and tachycardia, and a host of things around your heart. But it can, but it pushes up against the diaphragm. And because they're so close, they can literally adhere together, and the diaphragm can stick to the, to the stomach. And now your diaphragm's trying to contract and pull, and re- open up this really tight ribcage on top of having a big old stomach stuck to it.
38:28.3 And it's like, "You gotta be kidding me. I can't win this battle," you know? So the diaphragm starts to just get weaker and weaker, and we become more shallow breathers. We over-breathe oxygen, under-breathe CO2, and our tissues become hypoxic, and we get sick, and get old, and die. Pretty much how it works. So when you breathe and you start using these Ayurvedic techniques as breathing techniques, you, and nose breathing exercise as well, uh, you strengthen the diaphragm, and that begins to exercise and release the esophagus from the diaphragm. You know, there's a imbalance in what, in, in, uh, called hiatal hernia. A hiatal hernia- Mm-hmm ...
39:02.6 is when the stomach gets pushed up against the diaphragm with such pressure at, that it actually herniates through the diaphragm. Mm-hmm. The lower esophageal sphincter, one of the strongest muscles in the body, breaks down, and your stomach pops through the diaphragm, when your stomach is supposed to hang from your diaphragm. Mm-hmm. So you think that this creates so much upward pressure, that's such in a crazy long-standing imbalance that probably took 10 years in the making, and finally pops through. So then when you start to strengthen that diaphragm again, you can reverse all of that, which is crazy when doctors are giving people Prilosec and, you know, omeprazole, and all this stuff to take care of the heartburn, and in their very own journals, their research study after study after study says, "All you gotta do is do this breathing technique to reverse your heartburn."
39:49.7 It's been proven, but nobody knows that. They don't tell you that when you go to the doctor. They just say to take a pill, you know? But- Right ... it's crazy. Uh, you know, it sounds to me that this diaphragm muscle is the number one muscle out of all the 600 or so muscles we have, and it seems to intervent like an organ with all the various responsibilities it has for our mind and body. 100%. When you're working with clients and, you know, we wanna shift them from that mouth breathing to nasal breathing, if someone was gonna go for a five-mile jog, is there a strategy that you would give them before they headed out that would be very simple that they could practice to get them some, in some sort of a nasal dominance to get them going?
40:37.2 Sure. You know, what I would suggest to do is, you know, um, I, I really love starting with the Sun Salutation, which is in the book. And, uh, and I, and, you know, I wrote that so many years ago and, and it, after all these years, I still believe it's the best exercise to do before you start a workout. And the reason why is because when you go into that Sun Salutation, y- and your, and your arms go up and back, the diaphragm is going down. Mm-hmm. So you're actually, you know, creating a separation between your ribcage and your diaphragm. Then when you go into a flexion posture, you're squishing it together.
41:11.5 Then you go into an extension posture, you're cr- opening it back up, and c- really working that area right under the ribcage, and that's where the rubber meets the road. Just like you said, it's such a critical piece of the puzzle, and most people just don't have that figured out at all. You know? We just shallow breathe, and it's just a terrible th- way to go. And, um, so, so that, y- you're getting into the rhythm of, and using that as, as, to set the rhythm of nose breathing. Long, slow in on, you know, um, during the exhale on the extension postures. Long, slow out during the flexion postures, and create a rhythm.
41:46.1 And what I always like to say is when you create that rhythm, you should notice a natural space between the top and the bottom of each breath. Just a linking. You're not holding your breath, but just a linking between the top and the bottom, and the top and the bottom. And then you go on and you start your jog real slow, maybe even a walk in the beginning. Mm-hmm. And continue that rhythm. Ta- you know, long in, long out, nice space between. And as you begin to jog a little bit faster, I always would ask the athlete that I'm working with, keep asking yourself, "Am I breathing the same rhythm?
42:15.4 Do I have the same space between each breath now as I'm going faster as I did in the very beginning when I first started my run?" When you establish that space. And as soon as you lose the space between the breath, you're not even anywhere near opening, you know, your mouth in a full-blown gasping emergency, but you're definitely going in the direction of that emergency. Mm-hmm. So you wanna pick it up before the emergency happens, and then immediately slow it back down. And then, so, so you, and very, very, right off the bat, you go on your jog, you kinda push it a little bit, and if you lose that space, back off, reset that original breath that you
42:53.5 had and that space between the breath. Try to go a little faster, and what'll happen, and we did, done this so many times on a treadmill, we actually measure it. We, if you're on a treadmill, we have you go every 15 seconds, increase the elevation by one degree, one degree, one degree. Asking yourself along the way, you know, is that space between the breath the same? Soon as you lose the space, zero out the treadmill. Reestablish the space between the breath, the original breath, and then go back up one degree every 15 seconds. And now instead of four degrees of elevation, the breath gets short, you just went to eight, and you're still breathing with the ne- same space.
43:27.6 What just happened? You just doubled your performance- With your breath being exactly the same. How does that happen? You're forced, allowed to breathe deeper, more efficiently, move waste out more efficient. You're becoming a better waste removal machine. And at the end of the day, when you get older, it's how you get rid of waste that determines your age and your degeneration level. Clear. That's why, that's the, that's the number one limiting factor to us is getting the trash out. And the breathing is one of the most important trash removal systems that nobody talks about. Well, they're starting to talk about it now, but for, you know, most of my adult life, nobody talked about it.
44:02.5 Again, what Dr. John was just speaking about is solid gold. So if you ... When this is over, if you wanna go back and replay that, that last five minutes is the blueprint that you need to shift from a mouth-dominant exercise protocol into a nasal dominance. It works for everyone if it worked for us. So it just might take a little patience, but believe me, that is a wonderful stepping stone to get from where you are right now to what the next great step is for you. You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, having this minute or, or moment or two with you, you know, in Ayurveda, we all have a dosha, and
44:43.3 these doshas are like the hard drive of, uh, you know, what our life strengths and weaknesses and potential can be. You know, do you have different breathwork that you would give a, a vata, a pitta, a kapha in different times of seasons? Or is it all one size fits all? Or is, do we need to break that down a little bit more? I think that, you know, breathing is, you know, is probably a tri-doshic event. You know, it- Mm-hmm ... is really important for everybody, and I think that the real killer, kicker, uh, killer too probably, uh, is sitting. You know, when we sit down, the ...
45:20.6 Most of us, we sit and we sit sort of slouched, right? And when that happens, the ribcage gets pushed down. And when it gets pushed down, what is it pushing into? Your diaphragm. And for your diaphragm to work well, it actually contract and pull the air down. But if you ... If it's, if here's your diaphragm and your ribcage is pushing into that diaphragm, as it pushes down into the diaphragm, it's putting it into an already pre-contracted position, which means when it then contracts from there, it can only breathe halfway, which means that over time, the ribcage ... And how often do we sit? Think about sitting, like, in your chair or in the computer, in your house in front of the TV, in the car, you know, watching a movie, eating.
46:04.2 I mean, we work out great, which is critical, but we still sit way too much. And chairs are a relatively recent invention in our evolution. Uh-huh. And, uh, and, um, they're devastating to our breathing really, and that's one of the things we have to overcome. And, and everyone has to do it. Now, kapha types, bigger, heavier types, what they really need is flexibility, so doing more flexibility work for them is critical because their rib cages, they're usually, they're big and barrel-chested and strong, and they ... And we're pumping iron and making it bigger and tighter and tighter. And, and what they really need at the, the very least is breathing, but also the flexibility to go along with the flexible ribcage.
46:44.1 Um, you know, the vata types, they probably could use to lift some weights and put some meat on those bones and strengthen those muscles- Those muscles are, are weaker and, and more vulnerable to injury and strain because they're not as strong and frail. They're more frail. You know, with the Pitta types, they just have to be careful not to overdo everything, you know, push themselves to such a competitive state that they actually overtrain themselves i, in whatever they're doing. Um, but I think breathing is... I haven't looked into whether the, you know, there's... I mean, there are definitely different breathing techniques to treat a Kapha condition and a Vata condition.
47:18.5 You know- Mm-hmm ... the slow Ujjayi for Vata, the more aggressive, uh, like the, the Pratyahara breathing technique, you know, really simple. I should probably teach people by saying, "What is that one that's approved for, that's been approved for COVID?" And it's super simple. You would just take your, your fingers and close both nostrils here and create about 75% close and create resistance. So you take your fingers, and then you would breathe in against that resistance, and that will force your diaphragm to work extra hard because now you've created resistance. Now that muscle's gotta work harder than it normally would. So you do 10 of those.
47:54.0 You can do 10 of those and then all the way in till you literally feel your diaphragm contract and then let it go and then do another one. All the way in till you feel the diaphragm contract against the resistance of your nostrils. That's what strengthens your diaphragm. Do 10 of those and then rest. Do three sets of 10 a couple times a day, and, uh, you'll be ready if you ever did get a respiratory infection. You'll have a diaphragm that can help you bail, you know, help bail you out. You know, I heard somewhere along the line that, uh, you know, Vata is the master dosha or this wind, this breath.
48:28.5 Is, is there anything to that? Well, there's, you get, you know, there's, um, two times as many imbalances in Vata than there are in Pitta, and there's two times as many imbalances in Pitta as there are in Kapha. Kapha- Mm-hmm ... is stable, Pitta is fiery, movable, and Vata is air, very movable. So that, the more you move, the more you break, right? Mm-hmm. So it's along those lines. You're absolutely right. You know, moving forward in, uh, 2021, you know, it's gonna be a great year, and i- is there anything you wanna share with our audience before, before we wrap up this amazing hour that I've had with you?
49:05.8 Uh, well, with regard to nose breathing and breathing, I think that, uh, I've been practicing Ayurveda for over 35 years full time. Mm-hmm. Um, teaching breathing all that time, and, uh, you know, I've learned so many Ayurvedic techniques and this and that, but I can tell you one thing. The most important thing, and this is not just me saying it, it's the Ayurvedic textbooks that say it, the yogi textbooks that say it, the Yoga Hatha, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika- Mm-hmm ... Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, all these ancient texts. They all say, "Breathing is the key." You can do everything else, but if you don't breathe right, you're in trouble.
49:42.4 So please, you know, what Ed's talking and teaching, teaching you guys, uh, man, I'm telling you... And, and I'm telling you also what the other thing is, be prepared to suffocate when you first start this, right? You know that, Ed, right? It's, your, your- Just means it's working ... nose doesn't all of a sudden be able to do it. You gotta get this thing opened up and get it resiliency. Otherwise, your ribcage literally becomes a cage in your life, or it could become 12 levers massaging your heart, your lungs, and your liver 26,000 times a day, or a cage locking you in. It's really that simple.
50:11.6 And I should also say that because of the elastic recoil of the ribcage, there's a level of effort to start a breathing technique like this that is uncomfortable, and most people bail out. I've been teaching breathing techniques and I, you know, for years, and I always say, "You know, the most powerful thing I teach, nobody does because they don't wanna actually stick with it." But I can, if I can t- I can promise you one thing. If you stick with it for a week or two and work, push through that rigidity of your rib, of your ribcage, there'll come a point where all of a sudden you're looking forward to your breathing practice every single day, which
50:43.9 I do. I look forward to it. I miss it if I miss it. And, uh, and so please understand, you know, a lot of times one of the tricks is take, just say, "You know what? I'll just do two or three breaths today of those- Mm ... deep breathing techniques." And then after you do those two or three, you'll have enough energy to do two or three more. And then just chip, chip away at it that way and next thing you know, you're, you're, uh, you're, you're in the, in the groove. And, uh, yeah. So that's, that's, that, that's, uh, some, uh, fair warning, warning about what to expect when you get into nose breathing.
51:15.5 Yeah, you know, I tell folks if, you know, if you don't feel like you're suffocating or drowning out of water, it's probably not working. Yeah, and that air hunger is- Mm-hmm ... critical for building your CO2 tolerance. You see, your brain stem has a receptor to respond to CO, carbon dioxide. Mm-hmm. And if you over-breathe oxygen, that CO2 receptor is a hair trigger. Boom. It goes off, and you gotta breathe again. And it keeps going off, going off, and you keep breathing, breathing, shallow, shallow, shallow. But once you start to get comfortable with air hunger, you actually start to reset that, that receptor to be tolerant to the air hunger.
51:57.3 And a little bit less air, we know, just like a little bit less food, calorie restriction, Nobel Prize-winning science called autophagy, cellular repair when you don't eat as much, stem cell activation when you don't eat as much, the same thing happens when you don't breathe as much. A little bit of air hunger called intermittent hypoxia has been shown to increase stem cells, nitric oxide, what Lance Armstrong got busted for injecting, EPO, you make your own self when you hold your breath and become tolerant to CO2. He, w- someone coulda got to him earlier, would've saved him. But reality is that holding your breath, th- you know, a little bit of air hunger, just like a little bit of food hunger, not starvation, not suffocation, changes the
52:43.1 game. I remember back in the day you were telling me, uh, not to drink water, uh, during my exercise period unless it was gonna be something super long so that when I'd, you know, I would constantly detox myself, and then when I was done, add water. And it just was a real super awareness that I, I never thought of at the time, you know, being, uh, you know, ignorant of the Ayurvedic gifts. Hmm. Wow. Well, cool. I'm glad that worked for you. You know, I mean, obviously it depends on how much and how, you know, the weather and temperature, how long you're going and all that, but for sure.
53:17.2 Is, is there any Ayurvedic herbs, uh, that folks can get at LifeSpa.com that would be helpful, uh, for their breathing practice to open them up? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, the herbs that I gave the New Jersey Nets were, were, were really clear. I gave them an herb called ashwagandha, which means the strength of 10 horses, and that's an immune builder. It's been shown to modu- modulate your immune system so you don't get a cytokine storm if you get sick, that kind of thing. It's also an adaptogen for stress. That's really, really important. Um, there's also an herb called the mucus destroyer, which soothes and heals the respiratory tract.
53:52.6 It opens up the airways, allows you to, to breathe more efficiently. I think those two are, are really two really good herbs for, for, uh, you know, the, the stamina that you need for the, and, you know, mitigating the wear and tear, and also keeping the airways open and healing them. 'Cause a lot of times our respiratory tract is so irritated, it's constantly producing reactive mucus, and then that bogs, that, that bogs everything down. The, on the outside of your respiratory tract is your lymphatic system. On the outside of your intestinal tract is your ly- lymphatic system. On the inside of our skin is your lymphatic system.
54:27.0 So wherever you have skin, outer skin or inner skin, respiratory or intestinal skin, there's your lymph. That's your immune response. And if that gets congested because of overreactive mucus production from the skin on the inside, which are mucus membranes, you get compromised immunity, and that then makes you more vulnerable, which is critical. No, that's so beautiful. Thank you so much for that. You know, I wanna thank Dr. John Douillard for, for being with us today. He, he's an American treasure. He brings so much to the table. Anyone out there, if, if, you know, if you're looking to evolve your life and, you know, get back on track and find that energy that you know is inside you somewhere, open that rib cage
55:08.2 up a little bit in the mind, this is a man that you want to become involved with. To learn more about Dr. John, you can visit his website at www.LifeSpa.com. You can find his book, Body, Mind, Spirit, where books are sold, and I highly recommend it. For those of you that wanna learn more on how to weave breathwork strategies into fitness and exercise performance, check out my 15-hour Breath is Medicine training. Listeners to this show get 20% off and use the code STREAM. I look forward to seeing everyone next month. Dr. John, it was an honor to be with you. You've meant so much to me from afar in my life, and I continue to carry the torch.
55:50.5 Ed, thank you so much for having me, and I truly hope we stay in touch. Let's do that. Thank you, John. Have a beautiful day. Yeah, you too. Peace.