What If Most Sleep Problems Start In Your Mouth; Dr. Steven Park

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002JVF7BK?ccs_id=f3ee9867-ed2b-4bf5-9c5d-bdb5164b91f6

If you’ve tried every sleep tip on the internet and still wake up tired, there’s a chance you’re treating the symptom and ignoring the bottleneck: breathing. Peak Performance Coach Brian Bosley sits down with ENT surgeon and sleep medicine specialist Dr. Steven Park, author of *Sleep Interrupted*, for a grounded look at why so many modern adults struggle with snoring, reflux, fragmented sleep, and that frustrating 3 AM wake up.

We dig into Park’s core claim that “modern faces” often develop smaller jaws and narrower airways thanks to softer diets, less chewing, and early-life factors like reduced breastfeeding. From there, we get practical fast: why nasal breathing matters for sleep and endurance (including the role of nitric oxide), how late-night eating can drive reflux and nighttime arousals, and why blue light and screens can suppress melatonin at the exact time your body needs it most.

We also cover overlooked problems like upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS), why some sleep studies miss real fatigue, and simple experiments you can try at home like nasal strips, safer mouth taping approaches, and tongue exercises or myofunctional therapy (including the Airway Gym app). Then we zoom out to Park’s upcoming book *Health Interrupted* and his holistic framework connecting light, food, movement, stress, airway health, and meaning.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend who “sleeps but never feels rested,” and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Sleep Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, Peak Performance Coach Brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning, but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you. All of you strivers, thrivers, and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at www.bamboollab3.com.

Brian 0:41

Welcome back, everyone, to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. I believe this is episode number 167. And it's this is an interesting story because maybe a month or five four or five weeks ago, I was talking with a client of mine, and he's like, dude, you got to get I have this guy you need to bring on your podcast. And sometimes that works out really well, and sometimes it doesn't at all. And so I said, Well, yeah, give him my number, you know, or give me, let's exchange information, introduce us. He said, He's a doctor, he specializes in sleep. And um, I'm like, well, number one, that's a topic I've always wanted to have on here. And because I'm really interested in the topic of the study of sleep. And um, so many of the people I talk to talk about their, you know, I'm I don't know if I'm sleeping well. So then my next guest and I had spent about 45 minutes on the phone a week or two later, and right away I said, the the stuff he shared with me was exactly what I needed for my life. And I know so many are you going to get so much value out of this. So without further delay, I'm gonna introduce the author of the book Sleep Interrupted, which is available on Amazon, both Audible and Hard Copy. Dr. Steve Park, welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast, my friend. Thanks for inviting me, Brian. Oh, it's been a pleasure. It's been good to get to know you over the past few weeks, too. We've had some glitches getting this thing started.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

That's right. That's pretty expected on these podcast episodes.

Brian 2:00

Well, I'll let the audience know the first one we we started doing, Steve and I were plugged in, ready to go. We did about five or ten minutes of the interview, and then my equipment just shut down. And I said, I don't know what's happening here. And I was having some problems with it the day before, but I thought I fixed it. Um I thought I was just a minor glitch. But no, so it took me a few more hours to figure it out and get it fixed. But then we had a I I think I had to cancel one time, and it was just so this has just been a it's been a labor of love getting Steve on here. So and I know you I know you like to be called Steve, not necessarily doctor. So um, anyway, let's start off. I've gotten to know a little bit about you. Uh and uh, but just start off with um introducing yourself, where you know, where you're from, a little anything you want about your childhood, your family, whatever you want to share to get the audience to know you.

Steve Park’s Personal Wake Up Call

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Sure. I'm actually an ENT surgeon by training. Um, but later on I I actually got certified in seeking medicine as well. And actually, my whole history is um my practice patterns, it all comes from um working with my wife, who has some various health issues and my own health issues over the last couple of decades. So it's a personal journey for both myself and my wife. And so I kind of had this major revelation, uh, I guess about uh mid-1990s, of how um my wife, after her pregnancies, uh, had some major health issues, uh, getting a lot of weight, and her doctors couldn't help her. Realize that um her father was just diagnosed with C B apnea, and she kind of has his facial features. And of course, when you gain weight, you're gonna have more sleep apnea.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

So that's when the light bulb went off, and that's what inspired me to write the book, Sleeping Debutted.

unknown 3:41

Okay.

Brian 3:42

And that book has done well on Amazon. You had a lot of there's been a lot of people who have read that book.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

I won't you know I self-published that book, uh, but we've I think we sold over 100,000 copies so far. It's still selling.

Brian 3:53

That's amazing. No, I I didn't notice when did you do the Audible?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Uh about five years later. No, that was more recent, like last 10, 15 years.

Brian 4:02

Okay. Or months, you mean?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah.

Brian 4:04

Okay. Yeah. I I when I was researching the book before, I didn't even see the Audible version. I didn't see that until um this morning when I pulled it back up so I could have. Oh, really? Yeah, I just maybe I saw it and didn't pay attention because I wanted to get the hardcover copy. Um, and one thing we learned about we learned about each other today before we started talking is that we both played rugby in college.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

I I played in medical school.

Brian 4:25

In medical school, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah.

Brian 4:27

So uh you were a little more smart, you were a smarter version of a rugby player. I was nowhere near ready to play, be go to medical school when I was playing rugby. I know that, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Well for some reason, this is a very popular sport amongst the medical schools in the area.

Brian 4:43

Where'd you go to school then? I went to Columbia University. Yeah, that's what I thought. And now, right now, can you tell the audience where you're living now?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

So uh for the first part of my life, I was living in the New York City area. So I had a private practice in the NT in Manhattan for about 13 years. Then I switched over to academic medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. So that's for about 10 years. And then after COVID, I ended up moving over to Pennsylvania. Right now, I'm living in state college at Penn State area.

Brian 5:12

Do you like the the state the area?

SPEAKER_02 5:15

We love it here. It's called Happy Valley. There's a reason for it.

Brian 5:19

Is it true to its name?

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Brian 5:22

We we played Penn State in college one time, but I think I think it was at a tournament. I don't know that we've ever been, we ever went there, but I remember playing them. Um, because it was one of the bigger schools we played. And so I remember it was it was probably a tournament in maybe Ohio or somewhere we played. We played a lot of tournaments in Ohio for some reason. Well, let's start off by I'm gonna ask you, and we'll start, then I want to get into your actual field of expertise. Is there one thing, one person or one moment that really inspired you as you were growing up?

A Do The Opposite Philosophy

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Not as a child, but as an adult. Um, when I first started my practice, my wife and I had to do a lot of marketing to promote the business, and that's what prompted us to write the book. But um there was a and this may be in line with what you're interested in as well, is a marketing expert. I think his name was Dan Kennedy.

Brian 6:18

Oh, I know, yeah, I know Dan Kennedy.

unknown 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

So um he said something that was kind of profound. He said, whatever field you're in, look around all around you to see what everyone is in all the experts and professionals are doing, and then do the exact opposite. And so that philosophy has kind of held you to be for the most part. Like in medical school, for example, um, I didn't do too well with my grades. And my it's medical advisor said I should probably look for a different profession. Of course, I ended up getting into Columbia University. Um, and during medical school, my dean said that I I was my grades were not good enough to get into an ET program. And of course, I got into an ENT program. Um, and so that that philosophy has held true to me for every aspect of life.

Brian 7:05

No, did you meet Dan?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

No. Oh, yeah, yes, I did. I went to a marketing course uh early in my career.

Brian 7:11

I read all he had all those no BS series. Yes. Yeah. I read, I think, probably four or five of those books, I mean maybe 20 years ago. I don't even know, maybe it wasn't that long ago. Um, and he's a hard, he's a hard, pretty hard-hitting uh author. Like he he just tells you exactly what he thinks you need to do. Right. There's no doubt. Um, all right, let's let's

Modern Jaws Shrink And Airways Suffer

Brian 7:32

let's start. So let's just get on with this because I know so many people are gonna or are sitting in the audience right now are thinking, okay, I want to I want to hear Steve talk about sleep. Can you just start up from scratch and say, okay, if you have 45 minutes to talk about sleep, and I know you have your other book next book coming out soon, Health Interrupted, and we want to transition to that a bit. Where would you start to talk about what you've learned in your research on sleep?

SPEAKER_02 7:56

So there's a lot of good information about sleep in general, because of the internet, that's even easier now these days compared to when I first started writing my book, there's no internet. But um my base the basic premise of my book is that all modern human beings fundamentally have anatomic reasons why we can't breathe properly at night. It's getting worse and worse over the past couple hundred years. Um, and so what's happening is, for example, if you look at pictures in the early, like let's say uh early 1900s, they look different, right? They have these rounder, fuller cheekbones, wider jaws. And the reason is that because of our modern diets and eating styles, um, so cutting more of our food rather than ripping it apart with the teeth, uh, eating softer foods, less less breastfeeding uh as infants, um, congestion, and poor nutrition. Our facial skeletons are getting smaller and smaller. So you see the younger people these days have these more narrow, you know, narrow faces and more recessed faces. And if your skeleton is smaller, this is why everyone has crooked teeth now compared to 100 years ago. Everyone needs braces. Um because if you see if your skeleton is smaller, that means your airway is smaller. And this is why most people can't sleep on their backs anymore. 100 years ago, people sleep on their backs, but now you have to sleep more on your side because on your back you stop breathing and you keep waking up. So that's that's a fundamental um premise of my book, Imagine, which is which I wrote in 2008 or nine. Um now there are a lot, and that's gone kind of I've kind of gone beyond sleep now into more of a holistic area, which we can talk about a little later. But um, so for for sleeping, first thing I'm sure I'm assuming that you've tried all the other things that you've you've been told, um, a lot of good information out there. But fundamentally, if you have a breathing problem, all these options, you know, behavior, uh cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and open sleep and things, they work to certain degrees, even though the treatments for sybapnia, if you have it, they all work to certain degrees, but not completely. And so the fundamental reason why people don't do well is if they have a breathing problem.

Brian 10:04

Okay. You know, you know, since you told me that a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that because I take a nap every day. Well, five days a week. I but I only nap for maybe five to ten minutes. You know, because I just I set my my timer because I'm always I get up early, and I've noticed, and my son has told me this too, because he I talked to him uh after I originally spoke with you a few weeks ago. And he says, Dad, because when we've gone camping and he and stuff like that, he'd say, Yeah, you wake up, go like that a lot of times. And um, and I noticed that that I I didn't really realize the connection until you went you and I spoke that I I wake up not choking or anything, but just with a almost like a in the back of my throat, there's a uh that noise wakes me up. Then I just get up. But um so so I'm gonna break this down then. So what you're saying, what you your research has shown is that has shown is that over time, over the last, you know, let's call it a hundred or hundreds of fifty years or so, we had we're eating obviously uh a lot of meats and a lot of harder foods. They weren't just cooked the same way. So our our muscular muscular system was stronger, the face muscles and the neck muscles as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Absolutely. Okay. Um actually, there's a book called Um Conservative Fork by B. Wilson, and she describes um historic culinary cooking instruments, but she brings up this um anthropologist named C. Lorne Grace, and he studied all these skulls from early like a couple hundred years ago, looked at British culture and also Chinese culture. What they found was that the rich people, the people who could afford the cutting tools, got by um maliclusion first. The teeth became more crooked first. And the reason is that 100 or 200 years ago, people had what called edge-to-edge bites where the teeth, the front teeth lined up, touching each other right in the middle. But then as they adopted these um cutting tools and made softer foods and the meat to cut up at the table, they got what's called an overbite. So modern humans have an overbite overbite now when the front teeth are on top of the um with front of the lower teeth. Um I had a um a nurse in my OR many years ago, and she was from Jamaica, not Jamaica, one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean. She said that when she was growing up, they made fun of rich people because they had crooked teeth.

unknown 12:22

Wow.

Brian 12:23

Is that why you when they you see all these skulls, these skulls that have been um anthropologists have dug up the teeth? Yeah, exactly. They're still intact. There's no cavity, there's three.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Exactly. And also, um, there's a book called Um Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price. This is a dentist that traveled the world in the 1930s and 40s with his wife with a nurse, and he's got like six or seven different remote cultures that only cross the board if they ate naturally they had perfect teeth and no cavities and they're perfectly healthy.

Brian 12:55

I don't so so when you have when you're chewing the harder foods and you're not getting caught up in this and diced up into smaller pieces, obviously you're so your muscles are more formed, they're more divine, defined, fuller faces. And so when as we've eaten softer foods and you know, diced up foods, and maybe we've breast milk get got off breast milk and stuff like that. So the the muscles don't obviously don't develop. How does that restrict the airways with the muscles? How does that work then uh physiolog physiologically?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, because the bones, not just the regular the regular bones, but especially in the face, the bones don't grow. If you feel it, it just doesn't grow, it has to be grown with forces.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, you need stimulation for the bones to grow.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

It starts it starts from infanthood because the suckling action of our infant on the mother's breast is different. The muscular force is different than sucking on a bottleneckle.

Brian 13:47

Wow. My daughter's gonna love to hear that because she's adamant about breastfeeding. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so she's gonna love to hear that. Um, so okay, I didn't I didn't mean to interrupt you on that. So then so but the next question is so that that transformation can take place in a hundred years?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Oh yeah, even in one generation. So that that dentist um wasn't priced to know is that in one generation as they start to adopt Western diets, all these problems came about.

unknown 14:13

Wow.

Brian 14:14

So we're trying to make life easier, but really we're making it harder on ourselves in the long run.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, absolutely.

unknown 14:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

That's a price of advancement in technology.

Brian 14:22

Is there anything a person can do today who's listening to this who is is there is there anything we can do? Can we can we reverse that in one lifetime if you're say 30, 40, 50, 60 years old?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Well, that was I I did say that I could you do that when I first wrote my book, but now I'm realizing that that's not as easily done anymore because there's so many other variables and forces that shape our jaws and our lifestyles and habits. Um so that there are tech there's technology to help make your jaws bigger, and the most important thing is to make sure that you breathe into your nose.

unknown 14:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Um on a historical note, there was a um this is a painter in the Civil War area, I forgot his name, but he looked at um Native American cultures and he wrote

Nasal Breathing And Performance Benefits

SPEAKER_02 15:12

a book called Search Your Mouth. And what he noticed was that the cultures that Native Americans that ate naturally and breastfed to babies have again these wide jaws, perfect teeth, that's very healthy. But the ones that ate American food, Western diets, they had these crooked teeth. Um again, same pattern over and over again historically compared to um um Western price. And so now in modern times, from the beginning you're you're at beyond an eight ball because uh not too many babies are breastfed for more than even if they're breastfed, they're breastfed for a couple weeks, a couple of months. But traditionally they breastfed for one or two years or up to three years. Yeah.

Brian 15:54

Wow. So one of the things I know, I'm a mouth, I'm a nose breather almost all day long. Now when I'm out in the trail or when I'm running, or or you know, when I'm winded, you know, I'll you know, I'll take it a little more, you know, just seem like I'd take it a little more when I'm doing that. But I think when I sleep, my mouth opens right up.

unknown 16:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

So I'm actually I'm actually looking at your picture right now on my computer. I I think what's called facial profiling. I kind of look at people's faces and try to predict what's going on. And um, this is a you have a typical modern face. I have a modern face too. And so what happens is if you if if you not if your face doesn't develop, the hard palate doesn't drop. So the septum inside your nose doesn't develop fully, so it gets crooked to one side, and the sidewalls of your nasal cavity are more narrow too. And then your nose is more irritable, so it gets more stuffed up. And you notice that they open your mouth more, but then you think that you get more air and if you can be open through your mouth, but that's not true. When you open your mouth, the tongue gets pushed back more, so you get there's more resistance when you breathe, especially at night when your muscles are relaxed.

Brian 17:00

Okay, so how about when you're exercising and you're running and that's what I do notice on that when I'm most of the time I can do it, but when I'm really like I'm really pushing it, my mouth opens up. So you're saying if I keep my mouth shut, I'm or am I just breathing out my I will get more air that way?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yes. Let me give you an example. If you look at the elite marathon runners, and most of them are from Africa, right?

Brian 17:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

So at the finish line, you'll see the elite runners, they all come in smooth, effortlessly, with the mouth closed to bring to the nose. Now the nose makes a gas called natural oxide. This gas, um, multiple purposes, but one of the one of the benefits is that it increases oxygen in the lungs by 10 to 20 percent.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

You know, so it's an antimicrobial kill bacteria, fungus, and back and viruses.

Brian 17:48

Well, I've always heard people say don't be a mouth breather. I thought just because when you breathe out of your mouth, you look kind of dumb. You look dorky, but really there's a scientific reason for that.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Absolutely. And the old old wives' tales, like grandmothers in current culture, they keep closing the mouth each mouth if you mouthfeed.

unknown 18:06

Wow.

Brian 18:07

Okay, so let's just assume I got a 40-year-old person on the on the in the audience right now listening, and they're saying, okay, I ate, I didn't breastfeed, I didn't, I wasn't breastfed, I was on formula, I've been eating soft, diced food all my life. Um it's too late for me to make a correction, but what can that person do? Some simple things they can start to do or consider from this point forward, other than breathing out of your nose more, obviously. Yeah.

Stop Eating Late And Cut Screens

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Well, before going to an ET doctor to consider surgery, um, you have to change your lifestyle issues, what you eat, when you eat. Um, so let me just start with some of the tips that I tell everybody that I see. Number one, stop eating close to bedtime. It's nothing within three to four hours. So, what happens is and that one of the basic premises from my book is that apneas, when you stop breathing, that that goes along with reflux. So, when you stop breathing, you physically forcefully bring up your stomach juice into your throat.

unknown 19:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

That can also go into your nose and your lungs, causing inflammation. So that's why people who don't eat late they can lose weight better too.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Um, and then number two, don't look at electronic screens, especially these um smartphones or laptops or computers, two hours before you go to bed, because that's when your melatonin sleep hormone start to go up, and blue light suppresses that hormone. Now, one thing people don't know about is that melatonin is not just a sleep hormone, but it is also an anti-reflux hormone. That should lowers acid secretion and tighten the sprinkler.

unknown 19:35

Okay.

Brian 19:36

Can I just can I ask you a question? That is television considered a screen?

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Well, it is, especially the neural ones that are huge and very bright. Yeah. So any kind of bright blue light is bad. Uh, but TV is not as bad as opposed to the screens that close up.

Brian 19:50

And I know on your phone, like or on your iPad, or maybe on your computer screen too, and you can put that different light in from nighttime. Does that even help at all?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

It helps, but you still have light. You still have light, okay. Your brain is not designed to see light, artificial light at night. That's why uh red light is the best from campfires, candles.

Brian 20:11

What about red light therapy? Do you know much about that? I I love it. Okay. I do it every day. You do it every day, okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yes, so many benefits to red light.

Brian 20:19

Okay, can I ask you a question then on that? Because I do red light therapy too. I do it three to four times a week. Um, I have one here um in my bedroom uh little system. So when you do that, I've heard different they they give you glasses and they give you like a mask to put on. But then I've also heard from um like Dr. Andrew Humor and says, Don't don't don't put a mask on. Let that light come in through your eyes while you're you know, maybe not stare right at it, I don't know. But what what's your what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 20:43

I think it's perfectly safe to do because uh, for example, the sun makes tons of red light, right? And if you close your eyes and look at the sun, you're fine, right?

Brian 20:52

Right, right, yeah. And you would do your red light therapy for every day.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Well, right now, since it's the better weather here, I spend a lot of time outdoors. Yeah, you get tons of red light from the sun. Okay. But you see, you get more of it more in the early morning hours in the late afternoon when the sun's a little bit orange and red. That's that's a part of red light. And then the middle day is for more volume leaf with UVB radiation.

Brian 21:17

Okay, okay. Then I have one more question on there. You know those lamps that you can buy that are can stimulate sun? You know, for me, I live in you live in a northern climate as well. Um do those work? I mean, I did the when I bought mine 10, 8, 7, 8 years ago, after I did the research on a certain what you need to find. I bought one for me, one for my I think my daughter, my son, my mom. Do those help? Oh, absolutely. They do, okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Tons of there's tons of studies showing that they do work. Uh obviously it's not as ideal as a son, um, but it's better than doing nothing. And that along with vitamin D.

Brian 21:50

Okay. Yeah, like the actual in vitamin form.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Right.

Brian 21:52

Yeah. So I one of the things I take vitamin D with K two every day every day. Um and then I do I use I call it my happy lamp. My

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Yes, yes.

Brian 22:03

Yeah, exactly. So I do it in the morning when I get up and after I'm when I'm sitting down and journaling and reading, I'll do it. I usually do it for 20 minutes. I'll have it in front of me. Those are I do it on the days I know I will not probably be outside much because I'm working, you know, until it's a little too late to go outside and get much vitamin D or get much sun sunlight. Um okay, that's that's good to know those work because I've I've never really asked an expert, a person in your field on that. Okay, so no, I'm gonna repeat for the audience no food three to four hours before I go to bed, uh, no screens, um, two hours before I do go to bed, even though TV is better, but the newer TVs are very bright and they're very big. And I in red light, sun, and then if you if you can, the happy lamps to help. I know it's a little off-subject, maybe from sleep, but those are just some four or five good tips I've gotten so far.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Well, all these things are needed for optimal sleep, believe it or not.

Brian 22:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Everything's connected.

Brian 22:55

Can I ask you another question? Because you said yeah, vitamin D, and then I I've always heard to take K2 with vitamin D.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Is that K2? Of course, yeah. Okay. So K vitamin K2, actually, this is described by the that that dentist wasn't price. He described something called an activated factor X or something like that. There's an element in food that made them much healthier. And I think only like 23 years ago, they discovered it was vitamin K2. I mean K. Not K1, that's for bleeding, but K2 is the vitamin that what it does is it helps to absorb vitamin D better from your gut, but more importantly, it helps to divert the calcium away from your heart and blood vessels to your bones.

Brian 23:35

Okay. Well, it's good. Because here's the problem with me, Steve, is I'll hear something from someone. Like I'll like I'll listen to a podcast, or I'll have somebody who I trust will say, Hey, you got to take this, right? You have to do these two things, and I'll just try it, and then I'll maybe research it later. So I'm it's good to that some of the things I'm doing, the red light, the happy lamp, the vitamin D with K2 is stuff I'm actually I'm actually doing. And I'm getting validated right now. Yeah. No, can I ask you a question? The food notes to uh three to four hours before you go to bed, is that all foods or are there certain foods if you want to have a little snack, maybe an hour or two hours before you go to bed? Is there search?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

I I I generally recommend nothing at all because you want to be fasting. And this gets into the intermittent fasting concept. Uh eating stopping eating at eight. That's some of a limited intermittent fasting.

Brian 24:21

You know, we never the window in which we eat. But like drinking water is fine.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Well, it's fine, yeah.

Brian 24:26

Okay, okay. Well, I go to bed at like nine o'clock, so that means I have to stop eating anything at five o'clock then. Maybe have but I eat early anyway. But I'm you I eat a lot of oranges. A lot of I'll literally will eat 10 pounds of oranges a week. Wow. Um, I just love oranges. And so there have been many nights before I go to bed, I'll have three or four oranges. There's a small little Clementine oranges, you know, the smaller ones. Yeah. But I'll eat three or four of those. So I'm gonna that's something I gotta work on. The screen one will be tough for me because I live alone, and what I tend to do is once I'm done with the day, I'll sit down and read, and I'll, you know, maybe call talk on the phone a little bit, and then I'll sit down and finish my night by by uh uh watching a just a couple sitcoms or something. But I go to bed. Here's my problem. I never, and you're gonna I want you to help me with this one, please. I never go to bed without a podcast on in my ear when I'm when I fall asleep. I know that's awful. And I talk to a lot of people who do that. How how bad is that?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

You know what? I think that's that's okay. If it helps you to fall asleep, that's fine. Some people to fall asleep. I I I I read to fall asleep.

Brian 25:34

I used to before the internet.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Um, but it's it's we're so dependent on these devices. Um to have these paper books now, it's it's kind of inconvenient. It's much easier to do on my hand as a reader.

unknown 25:49

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

No, so I'm not I'm not perfect myself, but my my recommendation is experiment.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Go without it for a couple weeks and see how you feel. If it makes no difference, you can keep back go back to doing it.

Brian 26:01

Okay, all right. No, I feel like I interrupted your tips that you tell everybody. So I know we I we went to no food three to four hours, no, no screens uh two no two hours before bed. Um, can you do you have any more that you want to share?

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yeah, so I mentioned sunlight. I I would get as much sun as possible. I mean, don't go crazy to get burned, but because doctors are telling people don't go outside in case you get skin cancer, um, what's happening is everyone's vitamin D went down. In fact, all the skin, all the cancers, all the other cancers went up as a result of people not getting sunlight. And even the skin cancer issue is that's somewhat controversial.

Brian 26:37

I have heard that recently.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Yeah, yeah.

Brian 26:39

I I was just telling a friend of mine, and I bring about this to my family all the time. So I have not been sick since September of 2024. I've had a couple, uh like well, there may be a couple days where I'll have the sniffles, and that's it. But I haven't had the flu, a cold, haven't had COVID. And that was actually COVID in September of 24. I had COVID after going to a funeral. And I I do attribute a lot to the sun. I'm out in the sun. I'm outside every day. If I can't be, I'll do my happy lamp. And I do think I do vitamin DK too. Um, and I eat a lot. I always thought the vitamin C helped too, because I eat probably overdosing on vitamin C. Most of us is probably just wasting through my body. But um, so I'm assuming that has helped me to some degree.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Well, I'm not surprised. You're doing all

Sunlight Red Light And Vitamin D

SPEAKER_02 27:20

these bright habits that um that help you from getting infected. Um, actually, let's talk about the sun. The sun is not just a vitamin D source, it also has other um major benefits. For example, the near infrared light. The infrared light, what the red light, what happens is it penetrates your body a couple inches and it activates um your mitochondria to make antioxidants.

unknown 27:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

And it gives you more energy for your mitochondria. And then it also produces natural, your body helps your body to produce natural oxide in your blood vessels, so it lowers your blood pressure. It also causes endorphins to be made in your body. That's why you feel good in the sun.

Brian 27:57

Okay. Now, does the sun have to be directly on you, or can you like like if you live in an area where there's clouds, you know, it's somewhat cloudy most of the time. How does that what's the difference there?

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Any natural sunlight, whether it's cloudy or uh bright sunlight, it's better than nothing. Because the sunlight in overcast days is still very bright, it's brighter than indoor light. And you get a full spectrum.

Brian 28:22

Huh. You know, maybe that's why people who are on their boats a lot are always happy. I always assumed it's because they're just out there drinking beer all the time. So they're just they just get a lot of vitamin D and all these other endorphins are being released.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

And before 1950, the the main treatment for TB and depression and anything like that was sun exposure in these sanatoriums, these sun tanning areas. Actually, there are these um hospitals now building in sun exposure uh balconies for sun exposure to treat pneumonias and chronic illnesses. Because the data is so good.

Brian 28:57

It makes so much sense because it seems like people who are that I know who get sick the most are people who don't spend a lot of time outside.

unknown 29:06

Right.

Brian 29:06

And I just assumed it was also because if you're not outside, you're probably not getting enough physical exercise as well. But it's probably a lot to do with the lack of vitamin D and the other benefits of natural sunlight. Yes. Okay. So I'm I'm that 40-year-old man who's who's who wants to can't change his sm his uh facial structure and all the skeletal.

Adult Expansion And Kids Braces Timing

Brian 29:25

What else can I do?

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Well, what I did personally was because I was involved with a lot of work-thinking dentists that change people's uh anatomy. So the traditional concept about expanding jaws and adults is that it doesn't work, but um a lot of dentists are proving them wrong. So there's these what are called functional expanders or appliances. Um, and then if you go up the spectrum, you get to surgery or palatal expansion and then jaw surgery, but that's the extreme end. But I underwent a couple of years of palatal expansion and braces. So my intermolar distance, the distance between this my molars went from I think like 36 millimeters to 42 millimeters. Okay and I felt so much better afterwards.

unknown 30:07

Wow.

Brian 30:08

That's a surgery is that a surgery?

SPEAKER_02 30:10

No, it's like it's like a powerful expander, like braces. Oh, okay, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, I see. Yeah, and it works much better in kids. So I basically I think all kids these days should get powerful expansions um when they're really young, like three to four. Okay. Before before braces are considered, because um, I think they can apply them like when you get the first molars. Because if you wait until 12 or 13 to get braces, it's too late.

Brian 30:37

You know, it's interesting. I've seen a lot of dentists um well, I'm just I I coached a couple dental practices uh years ago, and one of the dentists shared with me that I'm saying, okay, you're seeing so many more kids get braces that I'm like, well, they just got their teeth in. And he said, Well, his theory was I think a lot of dentists are taking advantage of their patients. And I thought that was what I was thinking. But maybe maybe because of what I'm learning today, there's there's a reason for it as far as you know, kids just need people just need more braces in general, and even not just not kids. It seemed like we have a lot more braces out there, or they lose the lines or or whatever they uh you don't see the big metal braces as much anymore. But a lot of it has to do with just the fact the fact that our face our I'm called from our neck up, our structure is different now. Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

It's a combination, yeah, it's a combination of this facial underdevelopment that we talked about, but also more awareness. Um, it's funny, when I first wrote my book, my book was most popular with dentists, believe it or not. Because I just I just I describe all these uh dental concepts and just really took off with dentists, and I got invited to speak at major demo conferences. Um, and I um I hope that I I've kind of fueled the fire with knowledge against amongst dentists with uh airway development and dentistry. So the airway dentistry field has exploded the past 10, 20 years.

unknown 31:56

Good.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

So they're doing a lot more with abrasives, palatal expanders, uh and more aggressive procedures like palatal expansion with surgery-assisted palatal expansion, and even jaw surgery is is is more there's more much more awareness about that too.

Brian 32:10

Well, this is good this is apropos for me because my grandkids right now are you know between ages of almost well, five, let's call it five, you'll be five next month, and then younger. This is good information for them to be aware of as well. So um, okay, so what what else we what other things can we do right now to because I know how important sleep is. I know for me, if I don't get my my sleep in, I'm just a completely different person. I really am. Can I ask you one question, though? Is getting up, I go to bed around nine, but then I don't fall asleep until probably 10, and I'm up every day, at least every weekday at five. I have been finding lately that I'm less productive when I get up at five, but if I wait until like 5:30 or 6, I feel more productive. And that's just over the last couple of months. You know, of course, we're getting more sunlight here, you know, it's it's darker, it's like stays lighter longer, so I probably stay up a little longer. Is there a certain best time frame for people to go to bed and get up, or is that just dependent upon your lifestyle?

SPEAKER_02 33:05

It's how many of your lifestyle and also how efficient or inefficient your sleep is when you're sleeping, and also the the duration of your six stages.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

So it's hard to I I don't think you can just say everyone should be sleeping seven to eight hours. Everyone's different. So my veins are what's normal? But again, the only way to know is to experiment.

unknown 33:27

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

And like I said, it's gonna change as you get as you age.

Brian 33:32

Sure, yeah. Because really, like in you know, in the northern climates, you know, it's it's late, it's dark, it's late at 9 45, 10 o'clock at night. It's kind of hard to go to bed at 8 30. In the winter time, I have no problem going to bed at 7 45, 8 o'clock. You know, I'm tired. I just go to bed. Right. I might have to do more seasonal adjustments too, if that if that helps for me. Um okay, and I I keep interrupting you because like, yeah, I just have so many questions for you. So I'm just gonna let you run for a little bit here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

I think the one other thing that's uh that's critical, not just for sleep, but for health, is is is our diet. I think there's a bit a lot more conversations about healthy, what healthy eating is. Um, but traditionally, our the professionals that recommended what's healthy has been, I I think they've been wrong. I think I think it's being admitted these days. Um turning back on calories to lose weight and not eating any fat and all that stuff. Um is kind of because what happens is you need you need fat to absorb your your um uh fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K.

unknown 34:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

And the fat also helps the bile to flow and pancreatic enzymes to run. So you need fat in your diets for optimal nutrition. And then you get into the controversy about what kind of fats are healthy or not, and that's that's a really long discussion.

Brian 34:48

Do you cover that more in your new book? Yes. Okay. All right, when are we gonna get that? When is that coming out?

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Um, I'm just finishing up the first draft of all the chapters this week. So I think it's an optimal editor, and then probably um fall, early dec early, early um winter.

Brian 35:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Well, I know who I I I I just wrote my um sub working subtitle. So it's called Health Interrupted. Seven Silent Seeds of Energy, Clarity, and Vitality.

Brian 35:19

Oh, okay. Well, we're we're definitely getting you back on when that comes out. I'm a year before. Um, so what would you recommend for? I mean, I obviously in our culture today, we eat so many uh, you know, uh fast foods, I mean, so much uh processed foods and things like that. Are are there suit certain foods that are really bad for sleep and overall health? I mean, uh maybe sleep, stick with that for a minute. And are there any uh foods that we can put introduce to our diets or add more to our diets that do help with sleep?

Weight Nocturia And The 3 AM Wake Up

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Sure. Well, looking back at the big picture, because of the state of our poor diet in America, um, everyone gets is fat, basically.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

We are the fattest country in the world.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

By far.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

And we have all the medical, the most medical problems in the world, too, right? So as you gain weight, your seat, your your area gets more narrow and you get more synapse. It's a it's a one-to-one correlation. So gaining weight, even five, ten pounds, will um diminish your sleep quality. Um another little um information that's really important is a lot of people will wake up in the middle of the night to urinate to go to the bathroom. Yeah, it's called bacteria. And people think that's due to being uh getting older, or some people, women say it's a bladder issue. But the most common reason is because you have sybapnia. What happens is when you stop bleeding every once in a while, um, you stretch your heart. Your heart thinks that there's too much blood coming in, so it makes a hormone that goes through your kidneys to make it pain within you. So you get a little extra urine throughout the night, and at three in the morning, that's when that's the most common time that people wake up because that's when you go into the longer period of REM sleep when you're dreaming. That's when the muscles relax. So getting up to the P once once a night, that's not a big deal. But if you if it goes to two or three times every night, and usually it's about 90 minutes apart, that's one sleep cycle. They've shown that waking up more than two times per night significantly raises your risk of dying of for all causes.

Brian 37:13

Okay. And that's is that because the heart's being stressed too much?

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Well, it's the end result is that you get heart disease as a result of synth apnea and poor lifestyle, you get diabetes, high blood pressure, all the cardiometric metabolic problems that people have. So synth apnea is just one part of the bigger picture.

Brian 37:32

You're uh it's so funny because I wake up always in that 3 to 3:30 time rate. I go, I only get up once to pee once a night. And it's not every night, it's probably five nights a week. Um, but it's always between 3 and 3:30. And almost everybody I talk to, that's when they get up. If they're gonna get up, they get up between 3 and 3 and 3:30, 3 or 4 o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of theories about it. Actually, my YouTube video that I did on this is the highest views. I think I have over 2 million views on that topic.

Brian 37:56

I just pulled it up, actually. So you have a lot of views on that YouTube. And I'm gonna I'm gonna I I have that pulled up here. Yeah, just go to Dr. Stephen Park, everybody, on YouTube. Um, I subscribe to it, and there's a there's a lot of stuff on here. Um you know, I was I remember hearing this years ago, Steve, is that somebody said, you know, if you wake up between three and three at three o'clock, it's called the witching hour. That means some there's some there's a body, there's somebody from your past, somebody who's dying is standing at the foot of your bed at that time. I'm like, and I'm thinking that's what happens to me every night. So for a while I was going in this down this kind of you know, metaphysical or this paranormal uh realm in my mind thinking, I don't know who's up, I don't even want to open my eyes, but I gotta pee.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

I think that's a very legitimate concern. Um actually, I write my book, my first book, um, I had this revelation where during surgical internship, um really growing our work hours, and what I noticed was that the sickest patients would have heart attacks or die in the early morning hours between three and six. Oh, and so that's why hospitals are so dangerous. But it's not the hospital itself. But what happens is um since I'm I was a surgeon, I was I was covering post-surgical patients. These patients would number one, in general, normally would like to sleep on their sides or stomach, but now they're being forced to sleep on their back after surgery. And then you get more apneas, and then number two, you're given narcotics for pain, which suppresses your drive to breathe. And that's why a lot of people have complications like pneumonia. When you ask you have apneas, you're gonna create more reflux that goes into your lungs. So um that that's another one of my revelations that I have um that probably need to write the book.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

So three to three to six a.m. that's when people have most of these um heart attacks, especially if you have sleep apnea. If you don't have sleep apnea, heart attacks happen between 6 a.m. and um like 12 noon, you know, for example, when shelving snow.

Brian 39:51

Okay, yeah, I hear that one a lot. Yeah, so I know you you and I spoke about this when we talked a few weeks

Nasal Strips And Smarter Mouth Taping

Brian 39:57

ago. Um, the strips like you can use to I guess expand your nostrils, and then you can tape your mouth shut at night. Yeah, yeah. Can you talk on that?

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Yeah, I believe in it because I do it myself. If I don't do it for a couple days, I feel it. So with someone with the nose, if you go back to the nasal anatomy, I mentioned that the hard palate doesn't come down properly. So a lot of people have a high arch palate and then the jaws are more narrow. And what happens is the side walls of your nose don't widen. So the nostrils in the front also get more narrow. And along with the deviant septum, if your nose is stuffier, the nostrils cave in easier. The free part, the flimsy part of the nostrils cave in. So one thing you can do right now is to put your finger right next to your nostrils, press down and lift up to the to the ears. And then if you can breathe better, that means you could then probably benefit from the breathe right strips. So these are tape, these are adhesives like a spring. So it pulls your nostrils apart.

Brian 40:59

And what is that called? So if somebody wants to go to their wall greens or get online, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

The brand name is BreatheWrite, but they're very expensive. Um, you can get generic ones on Amazon for really, really cheap. Oh, okay. Again, you have to try different ones because it nose may respond differently to the adhesive or how strong the spring is. Um, I think I went to like five or six brands before I found one that works for me.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Okay.

unknown 41:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Now um, so that will allow you to breathe much better if you nose. But then the mouth taping, that's a much with a more recent um recommendation. But the theory behind it is that, like I said before, if you open your mouth, the tongue goes back to you start breathing more often. So a lot of people recommend taping your lips together. That helps because that way you don't open your mouth as much, but you can still open your jaws even with lips tape taped together. You can try it right now. Right? Now, when if your jaws open, your tongue falls back much more. And I see this in the operating room. I do what's called drug-induced sleep endoscopy, where I put a little camera in the nose and you're sleeping. I see when you open the mouth, the tongue goes back significantly. So, what I do personally is not tape horizontally along the lips, but I tape vertically from just under the nose, keep your jaws closed, and go under your chin so that you can suspend the jaw a little bit upwards. And that's not perfect, but it's much better than taking your lips horizontally.

Brian 42:21

Okay. Now, do you is there do you have a YouTube video on this at all? Uh no.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Actually, there was a Washington Journal article where I was featured on the front page.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

But one of these days I'll do another video. Because as I start writing the book or publishing my book, I'm going to start starting my YouTube videos again.

Brian 42:46

Okay, good. Yeah, because I I think it was funny because we and the Reen, you and I spoke that week four or five weeks ago. I was when I was hiking one day, I was listening to I think it was Dr. or it was Andrew Human, but he had a sleep specialist on, and they were talking about that. And I was really fascinated by this. And then it was like within four or five days, I think it was, you and I spoke on the on, and I'm like, this topic has been on my mind for so long. And I know you know, talking with clients and friends and family members, and you know, just people that I colleagues of mine, this is a topic of sleep has become so much more prevalent over the past 10 years for people. Nobody, I didn't nobody I didn't really talk about sleep with anybody. Um, but I'm gonna I'm gonna transition to your new book because one of the things I've learned is really interesting in the last three years is so many more of my clients, and I coach peak performance, um, no background in in health or fitness, but so many of my clients will ask me questions like, hey, you know, what do you do for this? And that's why, you know, I I'm like, don't take my advice, do your own research. I'm just telling you what I do for certain things. Um, vitamins, you know, exercise and things like that, red light, you know, hanging and things like that. But this is a topic I didn't I never had any avenue to go down or to say, hey, go research now. I have this. I'm gonna tell people go to Dr. Stephen Park and find him on YouTube, go to his website and things like that. Um, and just gain more information and buy the books for one thing, or for yeah, the last thing, too.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Can I mention one important issue before we talk about the book? Yeah, um, um, now there's a condition called upper airway resistance syndrome or UARS. This is a wastebasket diagnosis where if you if you do a sleep study, let's say if you're symptomatic and you snore a lot, you're really tired, they have all these health issues, but you don't officially have sleep apnea on a sleep study. Now, the problem with the sleep study is that it measures apneas as 10 second pauses. You stop breathing completely for 10 seconds or longer. And if you have partial obstruction, let's say 30 to 50 percent obstructed breathing for more than 10 seconds, that's called a hypopnea, as opposed to apnea, which is 100% obstruction. So fishing, you need five on average of apneas and/or hypopneas per hour to say you have sybapnea. But let's say that you stop breathing 25 times an hour for five seconds each. So you wake up really quickly, and your score is gonna be zero. And that that's what I had, that's what my wife had. Um, a lot of people, I think as much, if not more, than people that have sybapnia have what's called upper airway resistance syndrome. This is described by Dr. Christian Gimonau of Stanford, one of the founding fathers of sleep medicine. He passed away a couple years ago, but he was a major inspiration for me um uh regarding this issue when I read about his papers.

Brian 45:35

So that for that means if you're doing it 25 times an hour for five seconds, you score a zero. Yes. Yeah, how do you how dangerous is that?

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Well, it's not dangerous, but your quality of life is gonna suffer. Because first of all, the sleep doctor is gonna say you don't have any problems, you're fine. Your fatigue is something else. Now, what's gonna happen is it manifests differently. So if you have C Bapia, then you have the risk factors for heart disease, heart attack, stroke, car accidents, all those things. But with UIRS, it's more fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, anxiety, depression, hormonal balances.

Brian 46:11

Okay. Now, what could what is there something other than getting a sleep study done or something? Is there what is there something somebody can do to test to see if how do you know if you have that? Like I mean, do you do you come fully awake? I mean, you are you do you can you don't at all?

SPEAKER_02 46:24

No, you just wake up subconsciously from deep to light sleep. Oh and and a lot of people are just light sleepers in general.

unknown 46:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Um also um see it. And this is something that oh also a lot of women have this more than men. And part of this is is that the fact that they have progesterone, the hormone, um, during the cycles, one of the benefits of progesterone is that it's an upper airway muscle stimulant, it helps drive breathing and respiration. And so women naturally have smaller airways to begin with. And this is why men snore more and have more apneas because um our voice boxes are lower. That's where we have uh deeper voices, right? But that's causing more of a cause of a tube above the voice box. That's where men are much more susceptible to sort of syndromia. But women have higher voice boxes, so they're so protected, but the airway is more narrow behind the throat than the tongue. But what happens is that because they have progesterone on board, especially before menopause, um, they they breathe, they have more protective reflexes, they wake up a lot quicker at the first sign of a partial obstruction. So that's why women tend to be you know these lighter sleepers and more have more sleep health, healthy sleep problems.

Brian 47:42

You know how many times I hear young mothers say, I've every time the baby cries, I'm right awake. My husband's still something asleep through the whole. So a lot of that could be physiological or biological.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Yes, anatomical and physiological.

Brian 47:56

Interesting. Interesting. I wish I would have had that when my kids were born, but I don't know that information. Um, you know, a couple of simple things I've heard throughout my you know, several years, and I that I do is I my room is always as cold as I can get as cold as I can get it, but it's I keep around 60 degrees in my room. I have room darkening curtains, and I have a noise, a sound machine that plays brown noise. Are those recommended? Like that those three things? Oh yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

I think you know, I think you you've hacked your health pretty well in all the right things, uh, despite your you know, obvious issues going on underneath, underneath. So um basically you want a cold environment for better sleep. Also, when your temperature goes down, for example, that's why a hot bath before bedtime helps, because if your core body temperature goes down, you want to sleep better.

unknown 48:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Um, but also if you have apneas, you're gonna have more, you're gonna sweat more at night because of the stress response. And this is why a lot of uh parametroposit women didn't have neck sweats. And I I saw this happen when um when I was in practice. I had a lot of young men who complain about mood swings, nette sweats, and poor sleep and insomnia. And once the sleep amnea was treated, the nets went away.

Sleep Position Pillows And Bed Elevation

Brian 49:12

Okay. No, sleeping on your back is recommended. No, no, absolutely not. Oh, okay. Good because I I don't sleep on my back, but I don't I know I don't sleep the right way.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

So that it's an interesting story. So many years ago, I saw a lot of um women with headaches, migraine, signs, infections, and looking at their anatomy, I I could tell they just can't sleep on their backs. And I asked them, Do you sleep on your back side of the stomach? And they'll say, I sleep on my my back. And I said, Oh, have you always slept on your back? They'll say, Oh, but no, six months ago, um, I switched my back. Why? My dermatologist said, Don't sleep on your back cut, or don't sleep on your side because it causes wrinkles on your face.

unknown 49:53

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

That's a common recommendation by dermatologists. By sleeping on your back, you stop breathing much more often.

Brian 49:59

Oh, okay. I thought that was okay. Oh, wow, I didn't know that. I know a lot of women get those pillows with a little silk cover on them, so they don't apparently don't wrinkle your face or something. I've seen those. I guess it's a hack, some type. So is it best on your side? Is there a certain position? Like, I kind of I put I might look like I'm running when I'm sleeping. I always have a knee up. And I don't know, I that's where I sleep best. But um, like on my cyborg with my knee my knee up, I don't know. I have a hard time sleeping any other way.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Yeah, and you'll naturally go towards a position that that you can breathe really well, unless you have a physical limitation like shoulder injury, hip injury, yeah. That's when everything goes downhill. So people have to surgery, for example, knee or hip surgery, if they're normal side with stomach separators, they're in trouble.

Brian 50:43

Oh, yeah. Yeah, because you have to have your yeah, because you can't I have had shoulder problems in the past and I would have a hard time and I'd wake up with my arm just in pain. So what I did is I pulled my bed out, I would hang my arm over it so my shoulder, I can still sleep on my side, but my shoulder would be kind of hanging down, or you know, yeah I'd rested on something, but it would hang it down. Okay, is a pillow recommended? Because yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

Okay, yeah, absolutely. There are different pillows. Some people sleep without pillows because that that way you you touch your head back, it opens the beer away.

Brian 51:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

Um, but the kind of pillow I use is a I I I kind of created my own contour pillow. I've tried literally, I'm my wife makes fun of me because I tried so many different pillows. But basically, these counter pillows give you more support to the base of the neck and it's lower in the back of the head. So it kind of counts your head back a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

Because if you tilt your head forward, it's like I said, your head gets more air gets more narrow, so you stop breathing more often. So the key is to keep your head in a neutral position or tilt it back a little bit. But most times you tilt your head back, your jaws can open more.

Brian 51:44

That makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Yeah, that's why it's important if you do the pillow to keep your head back, that to tape your lips and keep your nose open so you don't have to open your mouth.

Brian 51:53

Okay, so can I so anecdotally here then for me when I go to bed at night and I fall asleep, I don't ever find myself waking up, you know, doing that. No. But when I take my nap, I uh I'm laying on my couch and I have like two pillows because they're they're they're just decorative pillows on my couch. So my head is my you know, my head is tilted forward much more than it is when I'm in bed sleeping. And that's when I tend to do that one time. I'll go and I'll wake up. Is that me? Is that a lot of that because the head's tilted forward?

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Absolutely. You see the same thing in people when on um airplane sleeps as it just sleeping and dozing off and they wake up gasping air.

Brian 52:28

Wow. It's this stuff seems so it's it's it makes so much sense. It's so logical.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Oh, another thing is um for some people, trying to think the head up. That's a recommendation for for reflux, is telling the the head of the bed up about three to four inches using books or bricks. The entire bed frame. On the feet at the head of the bed, the feet.

Brian 52:54

You so you put you you lift what part of the bed? The top of the bed. But wouldn't that put your your jaw forward then?

SPEAKER_02 53:00

Or how's I'm no no, it's it's just lifts up your bed and then goes it up.

Brian 53:04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

The entire frame. Or you can get an adjustable bed, but that's that's more expensive. Yeah. Yeah, some of those beds are thousands and thousands and thousands of some people, not everyone, but some people get pretty dramatic relief by tucking the bed head up.

SPEAKER_03 53:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Or or or get a wedge, there are these wedge mattresses you can purchase that go on top of the mattress or underneath the mattress.

Brian 53:26

I'm gonna try some of these things. You know, and one of the things I I thought I learned back in the college days, or even later on in life when I'll go to Deer Camp is I would think I'd be at, you know, I'd be at Deer Camp for a week with my friends, or you know, and I'd sleep really well. I'd go to sleep. I thought, well, it must be the alcohol we're drinking at camp. And I know I I realize it's not the alcohol because it makes you fall asleep real fast, but you don't sleep at all when you drink alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

That's true. You so more and you have more aphids with alcohol. Um, it's funny. I I sleep much better when I go camping too. And I think that the reason is that you're spending all your time outdoors doing some kind of physical labor.

Brian 54:04

Uh-huh.

unknown 54:07

Yeah.

Brian 54:07

And plus you're getting all that vitamin D, your body's just feeling good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

unknown 54:11

Wow.

Brian 54:12

Wow.

Health Interrupted And The Seven Breaks

Brian 54:13

Well, let's talk about now. You went from this, you know, you you've had so many interesting stages that you've built your professional career in T surgeon. Um, then you, you know, then really got into this understanding sleep patterns and sleep studies and research. And now you wrote the book on that, sleep interrupted. Now your next book coming out later this year is Health Interrupted. What was that transition like?

SPEAKER_02 54:34

So it's a lot of different phases of the past three to five years, uh, multiple different steps, and ultimately what ended up happening is I kind of put not I'm not pulling away from sleep, but I'm putting uh above it all to have a more of a holistic integrative model of health. So, yes, breathing and sleep is really important. Um, but also what you eat, your lifestyles, your stress level, the toxins in your body, all the things that um you hear about here and there in the media and in the news, um, it's really important. But the problem is that a lot of the messaging is very um short and very um it's not really it doesn't really explain reasons why they make the recommendations. So um, and that's what my book is, uh the new book, um Health Interrupted. And I've I've kind of incorporated uh diet, lifestyle, stress reduction, uh toxin removal, um and a lot of other uh issues. Also, I can't let me go with the seven seven interruptions: light, food, lack of movement, uh, sleep, lack of sleep, um, lack of proper airway, stress, and lack of meaning and connection. And there's a lot of psychosides about that too.

Brian 55:53

Can you say those again? I gotta, I'm writing them down. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

So lack of light, food, uh, poor food quality, uh, lack of physical movement, we're sitting in our chairs all day long, uh, lack of quality and quantity, uh, poor airway issues for the reasons we talked about, uh, audience stress, physical stress, psychological stress, emotional stress, um, and lack of connection and meaning and purpose.

unknown 56:27

Wow.

Brian 56:27

I'm I'm looking forward to this book coming out. Yeah, I wrote a book a few years ago, uh Steve called the um the depression cure. And this this gentleman wrote, and I found it fascinating. And I was on an SRI, SRI, SSRI? I was on like a antidepressant for like six months. Um I didn't like it. I didn't even know if I needed that. I just kind of told my doctor who I knew. Um, you know, he's like, Yeah, you just try this. And what I found is I I was I didn't ever feel any highs or lows. I just felt like a kind of a zombie. I just I said so I dumped them out. And but before I did that, I read this book and it was talking about the studies of our people today in depression versus 120 years ago. And you know, obviously, so he went through the numbers of depression, but the argument he he he he said, I know the argument back as well. They just didn't diagnose it back then. They didn't have the the the proper you know tools, they didn't have the you know, they didn't have the way to really identify it as well. So they took this same um um in the same re um idea and they went to um a lot of uh rapper aboriginal tribes and all uh more uh in currently in in 2020 or so. So you know, and they went out there and studied. No, depression. I mean, depression numbers were incredibly low. And he found their reasons why it's so many of the things you're talking about. It was lack of sunlight, we have today. It was lack but different, uh, you know, we're eating grass-fed food, now we're eating processed foods now. Um, uh it was lack of uh community was a big one. Um uh it was uh oh well, movement was a big one. So it was all these things that we used to do back then, and all these what we'd call underdeveloped tribes are doing today. They didn't have depression, but it's our the depression's all lifestyle really, and something most of us can just say, Okay, I'm gonna do more of these things. Better foods, you know, sleep, um, you know, like you you can talk about passion and pr and and in uh purpose and things like that, and meaning, you know, that's has a lot to do with even just being you know doing things with family and friends and having a community around you. I mean, so much of this is the same. So when you were researching this, were with those seven um elements, what did you was that's was were those things you already knew over the your just your career, you were seeing those, or did you for did you come up with those during the writing of the second book?

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Oh no, the so the airline state, that's my first book. Yeah. And then I just practiced conventional ENT and medicine and surgery, um, doing all the uh stand-up care practices. But then over the last five years, it's got kind of escalated with the importance of a lack of light, reading all the studies about um the recommendations about not getting sunlight because you can get skin cancer, and all the studies showing that that's not true. Um, and then also with my wife um her health journeys and um just learning a lot from her as well, especially her wisdom on cooking. For example, um let me give you a great example. When we first got married, my father-in-law got diagnosed with advanced stage four stomach cancer. So they went in to cut out the stomach, but they they could only cut out like two-thirds of it and then they had to stop because it spread too far in the stomach. It's very metastatic. And so they sent home to die. They refused chemical age because there was no no chance of living. And um, my mother-in-law, with me, he she didn't even graduate high school. She whipped up her old cookbooks and did her own research, and one year it was completely cured. I've seen test results proven negative.

unknown 1:00:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Yeah, so that's what diet can do.

Brian 1:00:04

That's it. What's so enlightening is that nobody talked about, I mean, not in my circles. We didn't talk about this, this level of health and fitness and diet and sleep, you know. Most of my professional career, I didn't hear many people talk about this. But like I said, over the last few years, I don't know if it's because of books like yours and podcasts and YouTube videos. It's just so much more a part of the zeitgeist than it than it ever has been, at least in my lifetime. I mean you know, but I do think we look around and we see people who are more sick, like you said, we're fat. We have the fattest country, though some one of the help unhealth one of the unhealthiest countries, if not the unhealthiest country. Um, and it's because of so much of the things that we're doing wrong. We do all these things for convenience. We're trying to better our lifestyles by eating, you know, quick foods and and you know, sleeping, you know, drinking alcohol, whatever we're doing, you know. But yet what we're doing is we're having the opposite impact on our lives. We're lowering our life, our our life expectancies and really our overall life happiness or our life uh yeah, you know, whatever benefits of life.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Going back to your uh comment about your depression and studies that get common cultures that eat naturally and they're very healthy with no depression. Um the problem is that we've kind of isolated each diagnosis into a separate category with different treatments and different medications. But my philosophy is that the original roots of whether it's depression, uh cancer, heart disease, digestive issues, whatever it is, the root cause is much higher up. There's a commonality that's based on lack of these seven factors that we talked about. These are these are metabolic problems to begin with. That's my main focus of this second book. It's a metabolic approach to health and wellness.

Three Actions To Start Today

Brian 1:01:58

All right, man. This is honestly, this is episode 167, Steve. And as I was sitting here writing notes, I really think this of all the episodes I've done, this was by far the most informative one. And maybe it's because that's it's so related to what I'm thinking of, some changes and up improvements I want to make in my life, not just sleeping, also making more tweaks in my overall health journey. But this was packed. So I'm gonna ask you if you could give the audience, uh one audience member sitting out there right now who's absorbing this information. Can you give him or her three things they could start doing right now that they would recommend they look into or start doing today?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:35

Or the first thing we mentioned, the uh nasal strips and lip taping. But if you can't breathe your nose, it's like what you do. Um you can also try nasal saline. Um, also sometimes um looking at what you eat can cause nasal congestion, allergies, for example, dairy products. So you kind of have to go down the checklist of things that can cause nasal congestion and also not eating late too. But if if you have a structure problem, it's not gonna get better with conservative options. So C and E and T to at least come to at least come to the surgery to see if that's a good an option for you. So nasal breathing is so key before you can make any progress. Um sunlight. I can't I can't stress how important sunlight is. Um even 15 to 30 minutes in the middle of the day without without um sunscreen.

Brian 1:03:35

Um that's a ticket. I I like what you said about sunscreen, because that's one thing I've been looking into a lot too is uh the some of the dangers of using to not using sunscreen, you know, or of using it, I mean, of using it. Right. You know, constantly we're flooding ourselves with sunscreen.

unknown 1:03:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

Um, and I I mean I could probably go another 20-30 items here, but one thing that I do personally that I do recommend people trying are tongue exercises. So, you know, you're we're doing everything to be fit on the outside, but why not uh exercise the throat muscles that control your airway? So, for example, um myofunctional therapy or um tongue exercises has been proven to lower sleep apnea severity by 50% on average in adults and 60% in children.

Brian 1:04:23

Okay. Can you can you sh could you share that over the podcast? What that tongue exercise looks like, or is that something you have to do visually?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Um it's it's it's pretty straightforward, and there's lots of uh YouTube videos they can see, but you want something a little bit more formal than just one exercise that you see on video. Um the best way of doing it is to find an orthopedicial biologist or non-functional therapist, and they can probably do it um virtually on YouTube or on face on FaceTime or Zoom. Um, but I I personally do something called the airway gym, it's an app on your phone. And this was studied, I think it lowered the C Badnia by 40%, which is better than nothing. And it takes me about 10-15 minutes a day. I do it when I'm running.

Brian 1:05:11

Okay, that's exactly okay. That's that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

Yeah, when it's when you're driving or running. Um, and if I skip a week or two at a time, I feel it. So all these things, they don't you don't feel it's not you don't feel a dramatic improvement by the way, but keep it to be as long as you add it the add things up, then you feel a difference overall.

Brian 1:05:30

Okay, so is it airway gym like GYM? Yep. Okay, all right. So everybody, airway gym. Um I'll I'm gonna download that this afternoon. So nasal strips or saline or you know, uh start with that sunlight, 15 minutes, middle of the day, no sunscreen, and then some tongue exercises of okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

Yeah, yeah, I think anyone can benefit from that.

Brian 1:05:51

Okay, perfect. I mean, I honestly uh I can I know right now you're well I'll be in touch with you, Steven, and I'm gonna definitely have you back on, you know, at the release of your next book because there I there's so much information here that we can cover and go deeper with. We can pick one or two maybe you know, we just talk about the seven uh keys there that we talked about that you mentioned. Um we just go deeper into those uh next time we come on, if you don't mind. Of course. This has been incredibly informative, it really has been. Um you mind if you could after we I say goodbye to the audience, do you mind if we stay on the phone for a couple minutes, the two of us? Of course. Of course. Well, again, man, this was this was great. Um, it has helped me. And I I felt I was as I was talking, I think I'm kind of being a little selfish with my podcast here because I'm asking him questions that I want to know the answer to. You know, and I and I but I I know my questions are were connected to so many of uh it's not just anecdotal to me. I so many of my friends and family and clients and colleagues, like I said, are wondering these same things. So I know that the the vast majority of the audiences wanted to hear those kind of questions, or at least I hope so, because I just hear it from so many people. Like, I don't think I'm getting enough sleep. I wake up and you know, I got to pee three or four times, and I don't know, you know, and sometimes people don't want to go through a big sleep study. Um they just want to get it maybe get some basic information and try different things, like you said, experiment with some things and and make it fit for you. So this was incredibly beneficial, Steve. So thank you for being such an amazing guest on the Bamboo Lab Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

My pleasure.

Brian 1:07:18

It's a pleasure too. All right, everyone. Uh hey everybody, please hit that like button, uh, rate and review us and smash that subscribe button. It's always a pleasure and honor to bring on beautiful and wonderful people like Steve, uh Park Dr. Steve Park on here. Um, I'll talk to you all in one week. And until then, please get out there and strive to give your be your best in the world. Please uh show love and respect to others and also back to yourself. And please live with purpose. I appreciate each and every single one of you.