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Welcome back to Chasing Eden, where we begin to rediscover
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our body's divine design. I'm your host, Carolyn Thompson. There's
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something almost unsettling about how easy it is to ignore
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the one thing keeping you alive right now, breathing. It's
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happening without effort, without awareness, quietly in the background, and
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because of that, most of us never stop to ask
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a very simple question, actually breathing in a way that
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supports life or just sustaining it, because there's a difference.
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You can be breathing and still not be oxygenating your
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body well, you can be alive but not functioning at
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your full capacity, And over time that gap starts to
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show up in ways that feel completely disconnected from breathing,
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like things like low energy that never quite rebounds, or
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brain fog that lingers longer than it should, a body
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that takes more time to heal or never quite feels
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fully restored, and often a quiet sense that something just
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isn't right. And most people don't trace that back to oxygen.
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But when you begin to understand how oxygen actually works
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inside the body, everything starts to connect. Because oxygen is
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not just air, it's fuel. It's the driver of energy production,
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it's the foundation of healing, and in many ways it's
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one of the most overlooked pieces of modern health. So
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today we're going to take our time. We're going to
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walk through how oxygen was discovered, how it functions inside
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the body, how modern life is quietly interfering with it,
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and how to bring your body back into alignment with
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something it was designed to do. From the very beginning,
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we'll talk about lung capacity and longevity and the connection.
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We'll talk about breathing patterns, we'll talk about healing, and
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some fascinating real world stories of how oxygen has been
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used to help the body recover in ways that seem
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almost unbelievable at first. So just take a breath and
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let's begin. Now, there was a time when people didn't
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know what oxygen was. They understood breath, but not its purpose.
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They knew life stopped when breathing stopped, but they didn't
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know why. And in the late seventeen hundreds, a scientist
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named Joseph Priestley began experimenting with gases. He heeded different
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substances and captured what he believed to be a new
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form of air. In one of his experiments, He placed
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a candle inside this air and watched as it burned
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brighter than usual. Then he placed a small animal inside.
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It lived longer than he expected. There was something different
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about this air, something life giving. Not long after that,
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Antoine Levosier built on Priestley's work and gave this substance
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a name oxygen, And with that something invisible became understood.
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Breath was no longer just a sensation. It was a process,
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a transfer of energy. Today we understand that oxygen is
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involved in nearly every function inside the body. Deep within
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the cells are mitochondria, tiny structures responsible for producing energy.
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They take in oxygen and neutril and convert them into ATP,
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the fuel your body runs on. Without oxygen, that process slows,
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and when it slows, everything slows. Doctor Josh Acts has
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said this quote Oxygen is essential for cellular energy production
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and healing. Without it, the body cannot function or repair effectively. Unquote.
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And when you really sit with that, it explains more
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than most people realize, because when people feel tired, they
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rarely think about oxygen as a factor. They think about sleep, stress, hormones,
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and those things do matter, but underneath them, there's often
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something more foundational. The body is not producing energy efficiently,
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and that inefficiency often traces back to oxygen. The challenge
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is that oxygen problems don't always feel obvious. They don't
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feel like gasping for air. They feel like a kind
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of fatigue that doesn't fully lift, or a mental fog
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that comes and goes, a body that feels like it's
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working harder than it should, and over time that becomes normal.
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But it's not. Here's where things shift. Because oxygen alone
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is not enough. Your body needs carbon dioxide to release
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oxygen into your tissues. This is known as the bore effect,
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and it changes everything. Carbon dioxide is often treated like waste,
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something to get rid of, but in reality it plays
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a critical role. It tells your body release the oxygen.
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Without enough carbon dioxide, oxygen stays bound in the blood
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and it doesn't reach yourselves efficiently. Human biologist Gary Brecka
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explains it like this quote, It's not about how much
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oxygen you take in, it's about how well your body
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can use it unquote. And modern life works against this balance.
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We breathe faster, more, shallow, more through the mouth. We
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live in a constant state of low level stress. All
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of This lowers carbon dioxide levels, which means oxygen delivery
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drops even though we're breathing more. That's the paradox, more breathing,
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less oxygen where it matters, And once you understand that,
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you start to see how something so simple can influence everything.
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We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
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we'll talk about how to actually measure your oxygen efficiency
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at home, and what your lung capacity says about your lifespan.
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Also how your breathing patterns are connected to stress and anxiety.
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We'll be right back. Most people assume that if they're breathing,
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they're fine, but breathing and oxygen efficiency are not the
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same thing. One of the most common tools people use
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today is a pulse oximeter. You place it on your
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finger and it gives you a number, usually somewhere between
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ninety five and ninety nine percent, and for most people
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that number feels reassuring, but it only tells part of
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the story because it measures oxygen in your blood and
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not in your tissues. Now, you can have normal oxygen
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saturation and still have cells that are not getting what
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they need, and that's a very where a simple test
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becomes more revealing. If you take a normal breath and
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you hold it, and you observe how long your body
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comfortably allows you to stay there, you begin to see
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something different because the urge to breathe is triggered by
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rising carbon dioxide, not falling oxygen. So what you're measuring
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is not just your lung strength, your measuring tolerance efficiency balance.
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A shorter breath hold time can indicate that your body
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is not tolerating carbon dioxide well, which often means oxygen
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is not being delivered efficiently. A longer comfortable hold often
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reflects better balance. There's a BBC article I read and
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it talks about the relation between lung capacity and longevity.
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There's a growing body of research showing that lung capacity
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is one of the strongest indicators of long term health.
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The article explored this idea and introduce the concept of
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quote unquote lung age. In simple terms, your lungs may
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be aging faster or slower than the rest of your body,
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and that matters because your lungs determine how much oxygen
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your body can deliver, and that affects everything energy, healing, resilience.
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Your lungs peak in your early twenties and then slowly
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begin to decline, but that decline is not fixed. Breathing patterns, movement, environment,
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All of these things influence how your lungs age, which
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means your breath is not just sustaining your life, it's
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shaping it. Breathing is also directly tied to your nervous system.
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Fast breathing signals danger, slow breathing signals safety. Doctor Bergh
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has explained it like this quote Shallow breathing reduces oxygen
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delivery and increases stress responses. Unquote. This creates a loop.
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Anxiety speeds up breathing faster breathing lower CO two. Lower
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CO two reduces oxygen delivery, which increases your stress. But
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when breathing slows, the body shifts. We're going to pause again,
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and when we come back, we'll talk about how to
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improve oxygen levels naturally through breathing, movement, your environment, and
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some deeper therapies that take oxygen even further. We'll be
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right back. There's something encouraging about realizing that improving oxygen
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levels doesn't require anything extreme. It starts with awareness. Breathing
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through the nose instead of the mouth is one of
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the simplest shifts. The nose filters air, slows it down,
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produces nitric oxide, which then improves your oxygen delivery. Doctor
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Berg says this quote Nasal breathing enhances oxygen absorption and circulation. Unquote.
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Slowing the breath is another Most people breathe too quickly
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without realizing it. Breathing allows carbon dioxide to stabilize, which
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improves oxygen release. Now, if you were alive in the
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nineties like I was, you may have heard of a
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type of exercise system called body flex And there was
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a woman named Greer Childers who was on one of
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the shopping networks, and she was selling this exercise system
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that had to do with a type of breathing system.
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It actually seemed too good to be true. However, I
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was one of the people that purchased at the time
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the VHS videos and started to do the workout. She
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asks you at the very beginning to take your measurements
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to compare, because she insists you're going to lose inches
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and you want to be able to track that because
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it's almost too good to be true. I remember writing
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down my measurements and then a week later taking them
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again and being really surprised at my inch loss and
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I remember thinking at the time, maybe I didn't measure
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myself right, maybe I was doing something wrong. But then
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the following week I lost more inches and it was
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kind of unbelievable at the time. Now they do talk
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about the type of system that Greer uses. She doesn't
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use this phrase, but there's something called intermittent hypoxic training
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or IHT. And what you do is you hold your
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breath for brief periods of time and then inhale. And
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this is supposed to have several effects on the body,
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according to doctor Jockers. He says, it increases your stamina
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and endurance, supports optimum blood flow, stimulates cell production and regeneration,
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lowers your blood pressure. It can be achieved through the
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simple breathing techniques. It encourages growth and development of nervous tissue,
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naturally restores normal blood flow to an obstructed coronary heart artery,
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prevents degeneration of tissue and organs. Relieves from many chronic
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diseases like asthma, arthritis, diabetes, and sleep disorders. Now, I
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know this sounds like a lot, but because you're oxygenating
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your body through controlled breathing, you are going to get
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the benefits of oxygen. Now, maybe not to the extreme
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that say a hyperbaric chamber might give you, which is
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really going a bit deeper, but it's something that you
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can do without paying anything. And hyperbaric chambers, I was
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looking those up and they can cost anywhere from three
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hundred to two thousand dollars per treatment, and then I
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don't even know how much buying your own personal hyperbaric
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chamber costs. I know Mel Gibson was on Oh Joe
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Rogan and they were talking about hyperbaric chambers and mel
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Gibson says, I got to get back in my chamber again.
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So we know he owns one, but not all of
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us can afford that. So if you want a more
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affordable way to increase oxygen and get some benefits, you
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might look into the intermittent hypoxic training. Greer Childers and
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her Body Flex method does use this type of breathing technique,
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which explains why it increases your energy and it helps
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burn fat. There are lots of people talking about how
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it helps with your stem cell production, which is a
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very cheap way to do that. There's conspiracy theoristying out
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there that nobody wants you to know this if you
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google it, it's going to come right up that it
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does help stimulate cell production, which is a really great
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way to do it for free. And considering that some
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people are pushing another cheap way of stem cell production,
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because we both know that if you go do that
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through the medical field, it's a lot of money and
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people will oftentimes leave the country to get a more
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affordable way to do this. People are encouraging people to
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drink their urine. They want you to put your urine
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aside for twenty one days and then drink it. And
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I'm thinking, Nope, not doing that one. But if all
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you have to do is just learn how to intermittent
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hypoxic breefe, then you can learn how to do it
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yourself and you don't have to worry about drinking your urine.
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So that being said, now, Greer Childer she built an
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entire exercise system around this idea, and her body flex
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system method focuses on the controlled breathing, oxygenation, and core engagement,
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so you're flexing and you're doing certain positions. I just
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started her new system. Coincidentally, she just came out with one.
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I downloaded it because it's a download online and there's like,
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I think, three different ways to download it. It's I
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believe it's twenty nine ninety nine. It's pretty simple. She
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has streamlined it and made it easier, so pretty much
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anybody can do it. I believe it's it's only three positions. Actually,
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because this is day three for me, I'm feeling pretty
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darn good. As a matter of fact, on day two,
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I was buzzing all over the house doing housework, and
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I just feel more sharper and focused. So this inspired
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me to do a podcast on oxygen because I just
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was being reminded of how fantastic I feel when I
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do her system. So movement does also play a role. Walking,
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especially outdoors, has a powerful effect. It naturally regulates breathing
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and improves your circulation, and it also increases oxygen efficiency. Now,
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when you want to go walking, it's better to walk
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among the green natural green plants and trees because obviously
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we know that exchange we make right from science class,
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where we breathe out the carbon dioxide the plants need
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and they return us with oxygen. So in return, we
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get the oxygen, but we also get the mental effect
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of green. It's actually been proven in experiments that they've
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done that people who are surrounded by the natural green
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of the outdoors actually it releases it relieves some of
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their stress. So there's so many benefits. We talk about
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the grounding where you just walk barefoot on the ground
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and you connect with the energy force and the earth
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which is actually there and the body is electrical. And
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then we have the benefits of the oxygen from being
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around trees and the green plants. And then we also
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have the psychological effect, the calming effect of being out
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among nature. So that being said, modern environments often work
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against oxygen. Indoor air can become stagnant. I remember Jordan
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Reuben years ago saying that at the time they had
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lived in Florida. He said, we live in Florida, but