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Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
Tyson (00:02.337)
There we go. We are on. Yeah. It's just saying so exciting to have the opportunity to sit down with you. The last few months on this show, there's been a real theme of health in general. And I've started to understand there's a real interest in our audience amongst health, fitness, wellbeing, and small things that you can do and the big things that you can do in order to improve health, benefit health, or just feel better as you go throughout your day. And.
I mean, the theme that we're gonna tap into today is a really interesting one to me because I've got a three-year-old and a one-year-old at my house. The idea of sleep and time and energy is a, it seems like a bit of a foreign concept, but before we get into all that, I thought it might be nice for you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself, who you are, what it is that you do, and why it is that you've, or how it is that you found your way into the scene that you're in.
Steven Park (00:55.886)
Um, Stephen Park, I'm an ear, nose and throat surgeon, also a sleep medicine doctor, and I've been doing this for 23 years and I started off as a general ENT doctor practicing in Manhattan, and I started to see a lot of patients who had sinus problems and the interesting thing was that almost every one of the people who had sinus problems who needed surgery snored and had sleep apnea. So that led me into this, this rabbit hole where the sleep apnea...
associated with as the reflux, as reflux, sinusitis, and everything is all connected. And so it just kind of opened my eyes as to how with health and modernist, it's not just the sinuses and ears and snoring and sleep apnea, but everything, depression, anxiety, pregnancy problems, depression, other immune diseases, dementia, it's all connected. And so it's been a long journey and still I'm still learning as I'm going along. And so more recently, I've kind of
everything else, not just to go beyond ENT medical issues, to go way beyond the nutrition, holistic issues, your environment, toxin removal. And so that's where I am right now.
Tyson (02:07.209)
Yeah, I haven't even told you this, but it's an interesting conversation to me because I've actually had two sinus surgeries myself in my past. The last one was around 2014, so we're going back a little while now. But in terms of interrupted sleep, I was a middle distance runner or a long distance runner for quite a lot of time. And the sinus problems was a big part of the reason that I decided to...
leave the distance running scene alone for a little while because I was constantly on the brink of being sick. And the way I explain it to people is whenever I woke up, I always woke up feeling as though I was about to get a flu, felt very congested, very heavy in my head, very blocked through sort of my sinuses and the back of my eyes. And obviously as a result, my athletic performance was severely hampered.
But I went in, I had a number of, I had two surgeries, but throughout that whole period, the sleep was the one thing that I knew was so interrupted. And maybe we could speak to this a little bit more, but one of the things that I often experienced was really bad night sweats. So it wasn't an anxiety thing. I was very calm, I was very relaxed, but I would wake up in like a puddle of sweat. And it was like my body was just having trouble regulating temperature. And I often woke up just feeling more exhausted.
than what I went to bed. Long story short was it turned out I had an allergy to dairy and the dairy was causing some inflammation. Had, I don't know if I said, had a number of polyps removed on both occasions. But once I cut out the dairy 2014, the problem pretty much disappeared. I mean, I'd be interested. I still struggle a little with night sweats from time to time and it doesn't seem to be temperature related, but is that a common experience for people who are actually going through, yeah.
Steven Park (03:56.398)
Oh, you know what? Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. Early in my practice, I actually noticed a lot of young, thin, healthy looking men having night sweats like you. And what I realized was that, and this came across after I read a book by Dr. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. And he talks about the stress response and how...
When you're under stress, let's say you're being chased by a tiger or you're in an accident or you're fighting, your body activates a sympathetic nervous system, right? That's your fight or flight response. And then when you're sleeping or digesting, when you relax, that's your parasympathetic system kicking in. But when your body's under stress, it's going to create a series of consequences, like your blood pressure goes up, all the blood gets diverted away from your gut, your hands, your skin.
your extremities, certain parts of your brain so that you're ready to fight or run. And one of the other things that happens is that the sympathetic nervous system activates your sweat glands. And so now we see night sweats a lot in menopause of women during menopause. That's very common. And what happens is when you stop breathing for various reasons, we'll talk about why people stop breathing later. But when you stop breathing and wake up...
You create this stress response, this massive stress response where your heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes up and you sweat. But why is it happening in young thin men? And the reason is that you stop breathing. And now it doesn't have to be sleep apnea. And this is the main point of my book, Sleep Interrupted, where yes, you have sleep apnea patients and that's pretty well documented. And there's a lot more awareness about that, but you can be a young thin man or woman who doesn't snore, who can be very healthy.
and still stop breathing 20, 30 times an hour. But the problem is that threshold where you measure an apnea, we define what an apnea is, it's the 10 seconds or longer threshold. So if you stop breathing 25 times an hour for nine seconds each, you don't have sleep apnea. But you have the consequences of interrupted sleep.
Tyson (06:05.401)
Yeah. And so what's going on that's causing us to stop breathing throughout that time? Because this is a subject I've become fascinated in. I'm sure you're familiar with James Nester, the author of the book, Breath. I had him on the podcast a little while ago and it was interesting talking to him because one of the takeaways and one of the things that I've been focused on and thinking about because throughout his book, he speaks about the sinus structure and how I think the example he gives is it's very similar to...
Steven Park (06:09.411)
Yep.
Steven Park (06:14.666)
Yes, of course. Yeah.
Tyson (06:31.453)
I'm not sure if he says in substance or it's just an analogy, but he was explaining how when it's worked out, it can strengthen, it can expand, it can open. And he gives the example of like a strengthening abdomen, like you can work out your abs with the intention of strengthening it. And you're going to lose any of that flab, you're going to lose any of that, you know, sort of floppiness that's there. And he spoke about the sinuses in that way. And he said that one of the best ways for you to actually strengthen it is just through a focused nose breathing.
routine. And part of that was through mouth taping when you go to sleep. So I do that on a regular basis, almost nightly. But I often wake up still, despite the fact I've been doing it probably on and off for maybe three years, I still wake up from time to time going, oh my gosh, I have lost my breath and I'll quickly peel off the tape. So I say all that to say, despite this focus that I've had on, you know, that nose breathing and awareness of it, trying to develop my health,
When I go to sleep, this is obviously still an issue. So like you mentioned the stress, but what's going on that's actually causing the pause in breathing?
Steven Park (07:35.586)
Okay, so let me go back a little bit here. And this is, again, I covered this in my book in a lot more detail, but fundamentally, the basic premise of my book is that all modern humans, no matter the way you are, especially in the westernized countries, have shrinking faces. And the reason is that because we switched over to eating softer foods, processed foods, highly refined foods, a lot less pure breastfeeding. So breast milk from a mother's nipple and not from a bottom.
you know, pump milk. And also chronic nasal congestion due to allergies, for example, that causes your face to shrink. Also nutritional differences disease and also toxins, chemicals. I can list probably four or five common toxins that everyone's exposed to that prevents proper jaw development. So you have a lot of these combination of factors that causes our faces to not expand properly. So if you look at people from a hundred years ago, if you look at these old photographs.
They have these wide jaws. They look like aliens. And now all modern humans have these triangle long faces, right? Like you and I have these long faces. That's the modern face. So what happens is the jaws don't widen and as a result, you get this resultant high arched palate. The heart palate never drops properly. So if it drops, the jaws widen and you get all your teeth coming in straighter. And that's why everyone needs braces now. Now they've even said, the dentist have said that even a hundred years ago,
Most people didn't need their wisdom teeth taken out because they had that much more space. And so if you go to these indigenous cultures and you don't find them too much anymore because everyone's organized, but in the very remote areas, when they eat naturally and breastfeed their babies, they have perfect teeth, no cavities.
Tyson (09:22.293)
Yeah, yeah, it's such an interesting subject. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. I'm familiar or relatively familiar with Western Price and a lot of his visits to the indigenous cultures. And it's fascinating just looking through some of the photos for anyone listening. If you just type in Western Price teeth or dentistry or whatever, it's so interesting just seeing exactly what you're speaking about. These indigenous tribes with the wide faces, no cavity, straight teeth.
Steven Park (09:24.21)
Right. It's kind of, yeah, it's really sad. Yeah, go ahead.
Steven Park (09:31.136)
Yeah, oh yeah.
Steven Park (09:40.934)
Yeah, yeah.
Tyson (09:48.017)
And then just seeing that transition from when they move from an indigenous traditional culture into a more civilized in terms of the food that we eat, the way that we live, and just seeing the struggles that they start to have with the same issues that we do. It was, yeah, it's really fascinating to see.
Steven Park (10:02.762)
Yeah, it was actually mentioned by a Civil War era lawyer painter. And the name escapes me right now, but he wrote a book called shut your mouth and save your life. And he painted, um, native American faces, the ones that were ate naturally in the native lands off the land. And the ones who ate modern Western diets, it was a big difference. The ones who ate modern diets had mouth breathing, mouth open, slack faces, much sicker.
much more prone to infectious diseases. Actually, another interesting phenomenon was actually our cutting tools. There's a really fascinating book called Consider the Fork by B. Wilson. And one of her chapters is about the development of the knife and cutting tools. And what she documented through the work of Dr. C. Loring-Brace, he's an anthropologist, this is like a hundred years ago. And he looked at cultures like in England and China.
before they developed cutting tools, because you know, metallurgy, that was kind of a new technology, but only the rich people could afford cutting tools and knives, right? So what happened was the aristocracy, the rich people in England were the first people to get overbites, because before that everyone had edge to edge bites like this, but then with cutting tools, because you cut it before you brought it to the table, you didn't have to chew and rip it. So what happened was you got this overbite. So the peasants had...
um, straighter teeth for a long period of time. Um, and then in China, the same thing happened, but about a hundred years earlier, because they had that, I guess that, that towel knife, that square knife that was chopping everything. So it was chopped before they brought it to the table. So only the rich people could have this.
Tyson (11:50.589)
So the pieces you're saying like back in the day that you might be served a decent, like an actual serving of steak, for example, and that would come to the table and you'd be forced just to, like you wouldn't necessarily be cutting it. Yeah, you'd just be ripping it off. Okay, so it's really interesting to hear because, I mean, there is a correlation between poorer cultures and I mean, there's plenty of exceptions to this rule, but I'm just in regards to what it is that we're saying right now in terms of.
Steven Park (11:58.058)
Right, yeah.
Just rip it off. Right there. Yep.
Steven Park (12:13.026)
Yep.
Tyson (12:17.749)
dental health and in terms of the foundational health elements, once you've got your basic needs net, I guess, you've got your food, you've got your shelter, you've got relatively clean water. There seems to be a greater level of foundational health in these places than what you see in 95% of houses now. The interesting thing to me, and one thing that I've become so fascinated with through conversations on here and as well as just my own education is seeing the power of marketing in the world.
Steven Park (12:25.568)
Yep.
Tyson (12:46.149)
my local grocery stores and just seeing how foods that really don't deserve to be mentioning any of their health benefits like here in Australia. I'm not sure. I'm sure you've got the equivalent there. We call it Coco Pops, which is just essentially 95% sugar. I mean, they're advertised as high in protein or high in fiber. And it's so interesting to look at the covers of a cereal like that and see how marketers are trying to target that towards parents and say, no, there is nutritional benefit in this being a kid. But Michael Pollan.
Steven Park (12:58.702)
Right.
Tyson (13:16.381)
a journalist or an author that I'm a big fan of speaks in regards to food saying, you know, the louder a particular food is about the health benefits on the cover of the packet, there's a very good correlation to that being probably far worse for your health. You never really see an apple screaming about how beneficial it is to your health because it's just grown in nature. So what is it do you think that's going on there? Is this just a lack of education, lack of awareness?
Steven Park (13:26.447)
Yeah.
Tyson (13:42.977)
power of marketing, combination of all of the above, because it blows my mind that people with such a fascination in health, myself included for many years, and still sometimes gets caught in this rabbit hole of eating foods that I should know better than to be eating. The most recent one is the seed oils. I've just started going through foods. I'm like, oh great, now everything I eat's got seed oil in it. Ha ha ha.
Steven Park (14:05.475)
Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. We read the same authors and books. Actually, there's a book called and I just read this such a long time ago, but I think it's called Confessions of a Dietitian or Nutritionist. I forget the author's name, but I'll certainly need a link later on. But she's a dietitian and she details the evolution of the whole dietitian industry. And I won't get into too much detail, but it's a little bit
Tyson (14:10.313)
Yeah.
Steven Park (14:32.31)
I would say controversial. Um, what she's saying is that, is that, um, the, the general trend of recommendation to eat whole grain processed foods came from Kellogg. And Kellogg, it's a very interesting story. He, he was a, um, a student of, uh, Mary White, who was the, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And they had very strict.
policies in terms of they didn't allow it to eat meat because they thought it caused bad thoughts and sinful thoughts and lustful thoughts. So they were vegetarian. And I think she put Kellogg through medical school and then he went and moved to Michigan and opened up the health sanatorium there. And he made up these cereal concoctions. They were health, really healthy. But his brother said, well, if you add sugar to it.
you can sell a lot more, but he didn't want to do it. So his brother took off and made a fortune with the Kellogg's cereal company. Interesting story, though. Yeah. But they, that group kind of started the whole nutritionist, dietitian organization that still exists today, the mainstream organization that determines health policy with the government. So that aspect of nutrition kind of...
Tyson (15:39.465)
That is an interesting story.
Steven Park (15:58.318)
directed direction of our country and the rest of the world to promote processed grains. And then they add sugar. And so it's kind of a weird uncomfortable, you know, back to history that kind of, it's like, I guess that's why it happened.
Tyson (16:14.589)
I mean, I'd be so keen to hear your thoughts on this. I know for years you were working as an ear, nose and throat surgeon, as you mentioned, the world of, whether it's doctors, any expert, I find it a really fascinating thing to dig into because obviously you don't have to look far to see that amongst the experts that the average man or woman is looking up to as their source of reference for whatever it is that they believe.
you realize quite quickly that there's a lot of disagreements among the experts about the right way to health, the wrong way to health, what we should and shouldn't be doing. And often, particularly the last few years, I feel as though, but here in Australia through COVID, obviously it was a highly, what do you say? Like it was a very emotional time and we're all trying to do the best we could for our health. And it didn't matter what you thought about, like in that instance, the vaccine or the best way to health.
the experts were the ones who were in many ways, if you were given an open platform going back and forth and people seem to just quote, I know I was, quote the experts that sided with whatever it was that they believe. And I say all that to, I guess, ask the question, like, what are your thoughts? Having come from that scene, it seems as though there's a lot of sort of regurgitated information. I mean, I've heard a lot that
for the average GP who goes through university or colleagues, there's, I can't remember, like the equivalent of maybe a handful of hours of conversation dedicated to the subject of nutrition or maybe exercise, which to anyone curious about health, it seems as though it should be the first point of call. And yet me who's fascinated by health, fitness, you know, wellbeing.
are told to listen to these particular people. Has that been an issue of contention in your own walk? Because to read what you've had to say and see what you've had to say, it's obvious to me that you're not amongst that particular scene anymore. Your mind is far greater. It seems to be well above that, though would understand that better than everyone else. Like, had that ever been a point of contention or frustration in your own career before you pivoted?
Steven Park (18:29.946)
Um, you know, that, that's a long discussion. Um, there's so many different factors, but it's really surprising and shocking to me that pretty much every basic tenant in medicine that I've been taught is wrong. You know, about nutrition, for example, about different kinds of healthy, what's healthy and what's not, um, to kind of like what, you know, in the 1950s that medical profession heavily promoted smoking because it was healthy for you, right?
So we're kind of in that era right now with a lot of the health concepts. And the other issue is that it's probably the same in Australia, that all the health agencies in the government are captured by industry. I mean, it's a fact and they admit it too. Um, I think 90% of the FDA commissioners end up going to work for pharmaceutical companies afterwards. So it's like this evolving door. So I'm not surprised that this is happening because it's happening. It's coming, it's top down the industry.
Tyson (19:23.954)
Mm.
Steven Park (19:28.502)
controls the agenda.
Tyson (19:30.289)
Yeah, I had a great conversation with Dr. Ray Dorsey on here a little while ago about Parkinson's disease. Oh, so I was so inspired by that conversation because I think people who have more to lose for the things they say from the people that you just referred to, big industry, I admire first of all, the courage to speak out, but second of all, it seems as though it's coming from a place of honesty and genuine care.
Steven Park (19:36.225)
I heard this interview with you, that was great.
Tyson (19:58.761)
that conversation with Dr. Ray, but throughout that conversation, exactly what you said was true. And you would know, he spoke about that in a lot of places in Europe, paraquat or glyphosate, the key ingredients in things like Roundup and sort of relative products are banned throughout so many countries yet here in Australia, heavily used in America, heavily used. And so, as you say, you don't have to look too far to realize that big
a pretty solid grip. Did you ever feel sort of stifled with what you're allowed to speak about when you were a practicing surgeon because of what we just mentioned?
Steven Park (20:37.494)
Well, just to backtrack a little bit, I had to quit medicine two years ago because I didn't wanna take the vaccine. I'm going back to practicing again pretty soon, but it was a really valuable learning experience for me to take some time off. It was like a very extended sabbatical for me. So I just really opened my eyes to a lot of different aspects of health and wellness. But I think...
The reason why I'm going back is because I think I thought I could help a lot more people within medicine as opposed to being outside of it. I think I think just people trust you more if you're working in the field. And, and I can, I think, I think I can do it in a way that's that obviously I'm going to ruffle some feathers, but my priority is to help my patients. And if I can kind of integrate what I've learned towards the on top of the traditional models, I can do a lot more to help my patients. And so.
It's always going to be a challenge if you have these beliefs. And there's a lot of pressure from organizations, you know, government and your professional organizations to kind of suppress these things. But if you really believe in this, you have to fight for it.
Tyson (21:38.666)
Mmm.
Tyson (21:51.349)
For sure. I mean, that's a whole subject in it. So obviously the emotions of what you just said had calmed down. I remember I was a teacher before I moved full-time into, I'm actually a running coach now and I probably stepped prematurely into full-time work as a running coach about three or four years ago for the same reason that you just said you couldn't practice medicine was because I was kind of just curious to see, okay, let's just see how COVID plays out, what happens with the vaccine before I take it.
long story short was, you know, you were just given an ultimatum. It was like you take it now, or you lose your job. And I said, Well, I lucky I had a supportive wife, and we had some savings put aside where we had the had the option to be able to say, Okay, well, not right now. But yeah, a number of people who sort of saw the situation, or at least probably felt the same, at least with a lot of respects to the vaccine, as you and I that I know, had to had to take it based on the fact
That was the first time I think the foundation of the question that I just asked you was born from. I'd never really questioned, especially medical authority before. I always looked at people, whether it was my local doctor or whether it was a surgeon or it didn't matter. I looked at them with an element of respect based on what it was that they said. And then recently, I feel it sounds so wrong saying this, but I think you'll understand where I'm coming from. I really struggled to take a lot of what, especially my local GPs as good as
as good as people they are. Like I've got nothing but positive things to say about them as people. But I think when you're so close to something, a lot of the time you fail to see that there's any kind of bias around the things that you actually believe. And that's one thing that I'd fallen into. I remember messaging a friend of mine who happens to be a GP to say, mate, I don't want to get this vaccine yet. Do you think you could write me an exemption? And he wrote back this.
email, which I could see was clearly copy and pasted with words I knew he wouldn't have understood just saying about the only people that he'd given exemption to. And I thought, isn't that interesting? Like obviously there's a pressure on his shoulders to take a particular stance. And over the course of that couple of years, I thought I'd never really considered the fact that the people that I went to for comfort were also under some kind of pressure for the beliefs or the education that they sent out to people. So man, I applaud your courage to be able to...
Tyson (24:12.193)
take that step, I bet it wouldn't have been easy, especially with, I'm not sure what the pressure was like where you are, but it was very quick over here to label anyone with a question, to be honest, not even skepticism, just questions as an anti-vaxxer or a bit of a nut job. Like, was that an experience before you left?
Steven Park (24:31.894)
Um, I didn't feel very much of that. No, not, I didn't feel very much antagonism. They just respected my decision. And, um, yeah, I think as much pushback as I expected. I think if you, if you're on the internet and you read up on these things, you see a lot more of it on the internet, very extreme measures, but, um, from Mike, my friends, my local community really wasn't an issue.
Tyson (24:45.903)
Yeah.
Tyson (24:59.969)
Sure, sure. I mean, we've taken a little bit of a pivot around this. Subjective health is obviously broad and deep. And one of the things that I constantly learn on this is there's so many directions you can take the conversation of health, but for the sake of what it was that I was actually excited to speak to you about, let me redirect us towards the subject of sleep, because it's something that I've got so many questions on. And it's something that I heard Matthew Walker speak about a number of years ago in regards to just the average amount of sleep that
Steven Park (25:04.438)
Yep, yep. Yeah.
Tyson (25:28.837)
I think the study was done on Americans from 1946 to today was saying that in 1946, I might be making up that date. So don't quote me on it. The average American was sleeping eight hours a night. Fast forward to 2021, it was, he said that same American or the average American is now operating on six to six and a half hours of sleep. And I mean, you don't need to be a genius to see what's transpired in the last 60 or 70 years.
that might be making this more of a problem. But can you speak to that a little bit? What is it from your perspective, besides obviously stress, obviously an obsession with work that is causing people just to feel as though they can't justify the inactivity of what sleep offers?
Steven Park (26:18.506)
Well, you're right. There are a lot of different factors, but the most obvious one is technology with screens and the availability of it in multiple different ways, right? The phone, the TV, the computer, we're so addicted to it. And these screens have blue light, which suppresses your melozole and sleep hormone. So that's a simple way of looking at it. But we have all these other distractions in life too. And so it's hard to shut down your brain. It's just not the screens itself, but just...
other factors in life that kind of puts this added burden on your brain and your thoughts and your emotions. So it's hard to shut down your brain, even if you wanted to fall asleep. So it's not surprising that we're sleeping six and a half, seven to six and a half hours per night on average. And that's what's also adding to the burden of disease in general, because sleep deprivation affects every aspect of health and wellness, including weight gain too, the direct correlation between lack of sleep and weight gain.
Tyson (26:56.545)
Hmm.
Steven Park (27:15.65)
So you can see how, and then you add the poor diet and nutrition, lack of exercise, lack of sunlight, because doctors are saying that you should stay out of the sun. So, um, everything, everything that doctors are telling you to do is, is like going against natural, just common sense, um, health concepts.
Tyson (27:35.857)
Yeah. Have you listened much to or seen, I'm not sure if you're on Instagram, but have you seen Carnivore Aurelius? It's his, it's not satire, but it's a play on words. Carnivore Aurelius. I'll send you the link after he's a really interesting guy that I think based on a number of things that you've quoted, a number of things that you've said, you'd really enjoy him. He looks at basic health stats and how things have transpired over the last sort of 100, 200 years.
And he does it in quite a quirky way. But one thing he often makes fun of is this idea of us being so terrified of the sun. So it, this is a really interesting topic because the fear of sun, especially here in Australia, it is mind blowing to me. Uh, how terrified we are. Like there's no fear around so much of the processed food, uh, lack of natural exercise, uh, lack of natural.
whatever, I mean, insert anything into the end of that natural. But there's certain things like sunlight, which it just baffles me that it's so scary. So this idea of skin cancer being a real danger. Now, obviously, I know one should quote me on this. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. But just from an observer's perspective, it does seem as though the sun has so many health benefits that we seem to just look straight through in the in the name of health.
Steven Park (28:58.474)
Right. Yeah. Well, it's purely a marketing campaign by the medical associations, based on observational studies done decades ago, which at that point in time, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. But if you look at it from this perspective now, from today, it's probably not that accurate. So if you look back at the results of this campaign to keep people out of the sun, what's happened is yes, there seems to have been
Tyson (28:58.884)
What's going on there from where you sit?
Steven Park (29:28.486)
have been a little bit of a decline in skin cancer rates, which is true. That's the whole point of this campaign. But all the other cancer rates went up a little bit and all the other health conditions because vitamin D, for example, and there's other benefits like near infrared radiation too, but for vitamin D alone, if the bare minimum level is 30, that's to prevent
Steven Park (29:56.27)
pretty much every condition out there, diabetes, cancer, depression, and suicide, heart disease, autoimmune diseases. And most people are very deficient in vitamin D. They're in the 20, the US is 27. And so, um, yeah. And the foods and the foods are so unnutritious that we don't even get it from the food. You don't get it from the sun. And so this is one reason why we have this conundrum right now with health problems and obesity right now.
Tyson (30:23.457)
So you're not, when you're going outside, you're not stressed too much about the sun. Like there's very few times, I spent a few hours, here in Victoria at the moment in Australia, we're in summer and we've been lucky enough over the last few days, I'm just looking at my window now to see the sun shining again, which is something I'm proud to see because it's been missing a little bit the last couple of months. But yesterday we're lucky enough to have the sun shining and I went out in the sun for a few hours, I was down at the beach, it wasn't overly intense, but I came home and I actually said to my wife, I go, do you feel good?
She goes, I feel awesome. And I said, well, so do I. And we actually had this conversation because there's never been a time where I've gone out in the sun for a couple of hours, bar the chance that I've maybe taken it too far and just obliterated myself and got way too burnt, where I come home and I go, oh, wish I didn't do that. And surely that's a telltale sign. It's like when I get back from exercise or get back from the gym, sure, it might've been hard work out. There might be some shakiness in my legs. I went for a run this morning. I was tired when I got back.
but I'm sitting here now feeling as though there's an energy just radiating through me. And I go, okay, well that seems as though it was good. And often I find the things that are good for me leave me feeling that way after like post sauna, post swim, post beach, post sun, whatever. Your body seems to tell the score or keep the score a little bit more. Yeah, sorry, you go.
Steven Park (31:43.17)
You bring up a good point that as long as you don't get sunburned, you get as much sun exposure as possible. And the other reason why you feel much better and have more energy is something I alluded to before, the near infrared radiation. Are you familiar with that concept? Fascinating concept. And I'm sure once you start looking at this, you're going to start going down this rabbit hole. So the sun has this full spectrum of radiation. And there's one frequency called near infrared radiation.
Tyson (31:59.019)
No.
Steven Park (32:11.65)
What happens is, and you get this mostly in the early morning hours is that red, orange light in late afternoon hours. So this radiation frequency, it actually activates the mitochondria in all your body cells to produce melatonin, which ends up being an antioxidant. So you create more ATP and energy and anti-cancer cells. And the radiation penetrates about 10 centimeters through the bones in the brain.
Tyson (32:35.038)
That's so interesting.
Steven Park (32:41.484)
In the cut.
Tyson (32:44.865)
Gee, all right, I'm gonna have to, you've given me my homework. I'm gonna have to take that away and yeah, dig into it.
Steven Park (32:49.418)
Yeah, look up near-infrared radiation, you'll find 12s of information.
Tyson (32:54.409)
For sure. So the other thing is I often after sun exposure notice I sleep better. And so yesterday was a great example, but I mean, I have to have an asterisk next to that statement because I sleep deeply, but not unfortunately that I have kids, but unfortunately my kids interrupt my sleep at the moment just with the nature of the age that they're at. But I mean, I went to bed last night and for me, I mean, feel free to point me in the right direction here.
Steven Park (33:01.108)
Oh yeah.
Tyson (33:22.993)
I do a lot of standup comedy. So regularly I'm in bed later than I know I should be. But last night was a relatively early for me in the sense that I went to bed at around probably 10, 10 30, and I slept pretty continuously. It must've been until about four until my boy woke me up and I went in there. But there is a direct correlation between me being outside and me sleeping. Well, I'm sure I've got no data to back it up apart from the fact that I've noticed a little bit of a trend. Like, is that something from, from where you see you notice, or is that something that you recommend? Because.
Steven Park (33:52.796)
Oh, it's scientifically proven that the more time you spend in the sun, the deeper your sleep gets and more efficient it is.
Tyson (33:59.641)
Interesting. Man, this is a subject that I'm sure you've had so much pushback on because, so I'll go down to our local park or I'll even send my kid to his local daycare and in order for the kids to play outside they're told they have to wear sunscreen unless they've got like a written note from their parents. So I've written that note to say like don't stress, but I've also got, and I don't know what your thoughts are on these, I think it's a zinc-based sunscreen. So if you are going to put...
Steven Park (34:18.702)
Wow.
Tyson (34:28.273)
anything on the kid, I've tried to find something that's a little more natural. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that. Feel free to educate me because I'm very open to being changed. My mind on that.
Steven Park (34:34.718)
Yeah. Well, my wife is very into these healthy foods and, um, ointments and things like that. And she's the one that did all the research for me for the sunscreens. And it's clear that some of the older traditional sunscreens had toxic chemicals. Uh, there are lots of good alternative options right now. Um, but honestly, I personally, I never wear sunscreen unless I'm like
fishing for 10 hours a day on the boat. On the beach, I rarely wear sunscreen. Because you know how long it takes for you to sunburn, depending on how light your skin is, right? But the more you get tanned, the longer you can stay out in the sun, and the more sun tolerant you become. I've even had someone tell me anecdotally that he was very sun intolerant. And then once he got his vitamin D level up to a normal range...
Tyson (35:04.425)
Hehehehe
Tyson (35:19.765)
Yeah. Yep.
Steven Park (35:31.266)
He could top his son much better.
Tyson (35:34.101)
Well, that principle applies to every other element of life, doesn't it? Like I said, that I went for a run this morning and when I start running, I could only run 2K and then I started being able to run 3K, 4K, 5K. The same was true in the gym. The same seems to be true anywhere. The more you expose yourself to something, the more equipped you are to handle that. And I heard the exact same thing. And again, anecdotally, I feel as though that's been true for me. I started probably...
three years ago, it's very rare that I wear sunscreen. I get a very pearly nose when I go running sometimes. So I'll put a little bit of there, purely aesthetic, just so I get home and my wife doesn't have to kiss a bloke with just like a real pearly nose, so I can look a little bit better. For sure, for sure. That's another thing that I should do. But I think, I mean, I'm pretty confident. So I'll say, I think it was Banana Boat. There was research done into the brand Banana Boat and their sunscreens to show that it was an actual carcinogen.
Steven Park (36:14.092)
Or you can wear a hat too, right?
Tyson (36:29.693)
And yet it seems that the general public is more comfortable putting that on them, whether it's due to a lack of education or just an overhyped fear of the sun than what they are to apply anything that you've said. And again, this maybe falls under the category of what I was saying before in people trying to trust the experts, but the experts here, we had a campaign online for quite a while promoted by our Australian government saying there's nothing healthy about a tan, like make sure you're...
It seems to be the opposite. What about, so I'm 36 and I'm getting some pretty solid wrinkles around the side of my eyes. My wife, nice enough to call them smile lines, maybe a little bit of truth in that. A lot of people say it's cause you've never really worn sunscreen, which is true. I've run for a long time. I'm constantly exposed to the sun. I didn't really ever focus on wearing sunscreen. What about that pure aesthetic? Like, is there any benefits in terms of how you look to wearing sunscreens or is...
That a little myth as well.
Steven Park (37:29.646)
Well, I think it depends on how severely you have sun damage. So people who damage their skin all the time, let's say they're fishermen, they have really dark red and really scaly faces, right? Deeply red colored faces. And these are the people that will get cancer. But for most people living in modern societies, you're not going to get that much sun exposure. Now, actually I did a blog post about this, about facial wrinkles and aging.
So my theory is that because modern faces are not wide enough, because it's smaller, the skin doesn't get draped, it doesn't become taut as the faces get smaller. So now it starts off more wrinkly and loose, but then as you get older, you start to see the wrinkles earlier. So people who have wider jaws have less wrinkles as they get older.
Tyson (38:22.845)
Are you focused on an education with the broadening of the jaws? That was another thing that James Nestor mentioned when I spoke to him. Was I think he, I think he referred to a practice called mewing. I'm not overly familiar with it. I mean, I've, I've practiced what I think it is a couple of times, but I'd love to hear you speak about that just in terms of developing the face structure.
Steven Park (38:45.002)
Well, I was actually mentored by one of his students, John Yoo's student. He's a dentist in LA. And he's the one that opened my eyes to this whole concept of airway dentistry. But mewing is a series of exercises to help strengthen your muscles of your jaws, lips, tongue, throat muscles. Because the way you use your mouth affects how your jaws grow. So that's why infants that breastfeed on a mother's nipple have better teeth as they grow up.
Um, I thought the kind of the kinds of foods that you eat. So hard foods, you really have to stimulate your jaws to have proper facial development. Now, when you use your muscles, it does help to some degree. And obviously it works much better as you're, when you're younger. And it can also help as you get older too. Uh, but my philosophy is you have to kind of compliment these exercises with appliances if necessary. And these are the various palatal expanders and different opinions on which is better. But.
combination of optimal nasal breathing, proper muscular activity, including exercises, plus added appliances to kind of widen the jaws. So that's what's going to give you this expansionary phase. So my face went from my intramolar distance was 37 millimeters, and then I got my appliance. Now it's 42.
Tyson (39:55.285)
Hmm.
Tyson (40:07.039)
Wow.
Steven Park (40:07.926)
And I felt a big difference.
Tyson (40:09.873)
And so what are you doing? Like, cause you mentioned before that you have a relatively slim face. I I'm looking at myself now and I'm comparing it to your face. You do look like relatively broad across the center of your face here, like from the cheekbone to cheekbone. So is that something that you're saying has been developed through these appliances and practices?
Steven Park (40:21.218)
Yeah.
Steven Park (40:27.67)
Right. So I've always had some of a narrow face and I've always had sleep problems myself. I could fall asleep anytime, anywhere. I slept with most of my lectures in college and medical school. Don't throw anyone. So this is a personal ownership for me. And so I have what's called upper airway resistance syndrome. I probably, you probably have that too. This is where you stop breathing often. These are subconscious subapnea obstructions that causes sleep fragmentation. So you can, you never feel like you're getting deep sleep.
Tyson (40:43.008)
Yeah.
Tyson (40:57.557)
Hmm.
Steven Park (40:58.302)
And so I've gotten tested multiple times. I don't have sleep apnea. And if you got tested, you probably wouldn't have to be happy either. Now, as you get older, if you put on weight, you're probably going to have sleep apnea, but the problem is that our jaws are very narrow. And so the space, the airspace within the throat and behind the palate is very narrow. So any degree of relaxation caused by deep sleep, it's caused you to stop breathing partially, and then you wake up from deeper light sleep. So you never get into deep sleep. And so.
Um, what I did was it's not just the power of our expansion, but my lifestyle factors, I'm really, really stringent about not eating late before bedtime, making sure my nose is clear before I go to bed, um, when I eat my country, my stress levels, avoiding toxins, getting enough sunlight. Um, I tried to exercise as much outdoors as possible. Um, so yes, you have to exercise, but my point is exercise outdoors as much as possible.
Tyson (41:43.456)
Yeah.
Tyson (41:52.849)
Yeah, awesome. So you mentioned before you go to bed, you went through your, you go through a process of making sure your sinuses are clear or your nose is clear. One thing that I noticed, and I often wonder, I've done no research on this. My left nostril is very clear. Usually, unless I've got a cold, flu or whatever, I can breathe through my left nostril very clear. Very regularly, my right nostril feels as though it's completely blocked. I think a lot of the things that you're saying, there's-
like a little alarm in the back of my mind going, Tice, this is so relevant to you. Perhaps that's just the narrowness of my face. What is going on? Because I've heard that before, that it's common for someone to have a more blocked nostril on one side than the other.
Steven Park (42:32.694)
Yes, absolutely. Now, anecdotally, what I find as an ENT surgeon is that most people have a deviated septum on the left side. So I'm looking at you like this. Um, now let's do a quick experiment. If you don't mind, put your finger right on the side of your nostrils here. When you press on your face and lift up towards the corner of your eyes, this way, and then sniffing. Okay. Now is it clearer on both sides? Okay.
Tyson (43:00.459)
Yes.
Steven Park (43:01.862)
on the right side too? Okay. So just to the right side and just breathe in. Is it better? Okay, yeah. So what happens is this is a little bit contradictory. But if you have a left side of the diva septum, that means you're going to have more airflow on the right side, right? Because you have more airflow, your nostril can cave in much easier, like sucking through our flimsy straw.
Tyson (43:02.974)
Yep.
Tyson (43:09.342)
Yeah.
Tyson (43:26.453)
Huh.
Steven Park (43:27.17)
So one thing you can experiment with is to use breed right strips or any of these gadgets that you put on the inside to stiffen your nostrils. Cause I can tell you have a very narrow nose. And so as you breathe in, the nostrils cave in. And so a lot of people do well with the breed right strips that could be enough to just improve your sleep somewhat even more. So that's the first phase. Yeah.
Tyson (43:34.709)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (43:51.078)
I used to run with those and I noticed they were very beneficial. Like I actually have been thinking recently, because I've only just recently got back into more serious running and it's one thing that Patrick McEwan, the oxygen advantage, you're familiar with him. I had, of course you are. I had him on my podcast a while ago and he had, I've actually never used it before, but of me meaning to buy one, it's like the inverse of a Breathe Right strip where it goes up your nose and somehow
Steven Park (43:52.546)
Yep. Yeah.
Steven Park (44:04.192)
Yeah. I'm in a bit with him too now.
Steven Park (44:16.77)
Yeah, right.
Tyson (44:18.357)
pushes it out. So in terms of that being, is that more of a temporary solution or is that something that can actually develop that nose to strengthen out and broaden a little bit? Because I'd love to tap into some of the appliances to actually give more of a long lasting impact.
Steven Park (44:28.922)
Uh, you know, yeah, right. Well, unfortunately these devices and gadgets only work when you use it. So there are procedures that you can do. And I did a lot of those to improve the nasal breathing on a permanent basis. That's a whole other discussion itself, but these gadgets are pretty widely available, it's accessible to everybody. The problem is that you have to kind of find the one that works for you. Some people don't like the adhesive. Like for example, I don't know if you see my red mark here, but
I pulled the breath right tube quickly, took it away from the skin. But there are these internal devices that you mentioned, there's probably five or six popular brands out there, various different contraptions and devices. So you have to kind of experiment with one to find one that works for you. Now with the internal devices, the problem is that sometimes they don't go up high enough because you have what's called the upper-lateral collage and the low-lateral collage.
Tyson (45:00.705)
Hehehehe
Tyson (45:04.853)
Yeah
Steven Park (45:26.038)
This crease is the junction between the upper cartilage and lower cartilage. So you have to kind of go beyond the border of the junction between the upper and lower lateral to kind of keep your nostrils from caving in. So that's why you have to experiment. Whereas the brie writes kind of pull both sides, but it's not as strong. Yeah.
Tyson (45:43.137)
Sure. So I've come to you and I've asked the question. I say, all right, Dr. Park, I need your help. My face is too skinny. I'm struggling with sleep as a result. What are some practices that I need to take up to first of all, address the shape of my face. Second of all, improve the quality of my sleep.
Steven Park (46:04.994)
Let's start with the basic three to five sleep hygiene principles and then we'll go to the nose. So number one, no eating or snacking within three to four hours of bedtime. That is the most important principle. Some people who know, they know if they eat close to bedtime, they don't sleep as well. This is why elderly people, they eat much earlier. They know they don't sleep at all if you eat much later. And the reason is that assuming you have breathing issues just once in a while, you're going
The more stomach juice you have in your throat, the more it comes up. So the more stomach juice you have in your stomach, the more it comes up when you stop breathing, causing inflammation here, which now sinus, sorry, the stomach juices can go up into your nose, sinuses, ears, and your lungs. They've actually found pepsin, a digestive enzyme in sinuses, ears, and lungs. Think about that causing major inflammation, right? And then along with that, no alcohol because it causes your muscles to relax. Um,
And then number two, optimize your nasal breathing. So getting into using Breed Right Trips, do whatever you can to control your allergies. You can use a Nettipot nasal saline irrigation, allergy medications, getting rid of pet dandruff. There's a lot of little long list of things you can do to control you for allergies also. Worst case scenario, if you still have problems breathing through your nose, see an allergist for more definitive control, whether it's through medical therapy or even surgery.
Tyson (47:27.957)
Mm-hmm.
Steven Park (47:34.262)
I'm not going to get into surgery because that's kind of a longer discussion, but I've had very good success with people who could not benefit from medical, conservative or medical therapy. So that is an option down the road. And then sleep position, make sure you don't sleep on your back. And I'm willing to bet you probably sleep on your side, right? Or stomach? Yeah. Most modern people can't sleep on their backs anymore.
Tyson (47:47.649)
sure.
Tyson (47:56.186)
I do. Yeah, I do.
Steven Park (48:00.95)
because of the airway narrowing, because on your back is when everything falls back to the gravity. And so you stop breathing more often. And then what also happens with a lot of people who have these breathing problems, whether or not you have syphabnia, is that they wake up to go to the bathroom at night. It's a very common problem even amongst young people. What happens is when you stop breathing, you stretch your heart. And the heart thinks that there's too much blood coming in. So it makes a hormone called atrial naturally peptide.
which goes through your kidneys to make it pee more than usual, to get rid of the volume. So most people, when they get up once a night, it's around 3 a.m.ish, plus or minus half an hour to go to the bathroom. And then if it's more severe, more frequent, it's about 90 minutes apart. So that's one of the signs of a sleep breathing problem, and it's not due to a bladder problem or prostate problem for most people. So if you have nighttime urination, get that checked out. But most of the time, you have to make sure it's not sleep apnea that's causing it, not something else.
Tyson (48:59.494)
Yeah, sure.
Steven Park (49:00.874)
Okay. All right. And then no screens within two to three hours of bedtime. So nothing. Um, now if you have to work or do homework, you can use a screen filters on the devices to cut out all the blue light. And these are pretty commonly recommended concepts that everyone knows about, but most people don't apply it. Even I, I beg my own rules once in a while. Um, and then now in terms of length of hours of sleep, everyone has different sleep needs.
Tyson (49:04.293)
Okay. Yeah.
Steven Park (49:30.43)
And so the eight hour rule, that's more traditional, but what they've shown is that the optimal rate of sleep, the optimal duration of sleep is about seven and a half hours. If you go up 15 minutes on each side, you can actually see a difference in diseases on both sides.
But so this is an epidemiological average for everybody, but everyone has different needs. Like I get by on seven hours. Um, some people need eight, some people need nine, but it really depends on how efficient your seat is. Actually one great running example, many years ago, I was a very active runner, uh, with my running club. And we had some very good top, um, ultra marathon elite runners. And as I was talking with them, as we learned our long runs,
Tyson (49:49.107)
That's wild, yeah.
Steven Park (50:17.366)
It was the conversation with always end up talking about sleep because they found out I was a sleep doctor and they were telling me, they were telling me that I, my sleep is terrible. And the only thing that makes me happy is by running all the time.
Tyson (50:33.554)
Yeah. The running is the thing that gives them energy or is the running the thing that made them tired enough to actually sleep? Yeah.
Steven Park (50:39.638)
That too. Yeah. We feel alive when they're running and they get better sleep when they run.
Tyson (50:44.765)
For sure. I'm really interested in this idea of the appliances as well. Like what apply, I think I've seen some Joe Rogan clips of him chewing on some rubber ball.
Steven Park (50:48.583)
Okay, alright, so let's go on.
Steven Park (50:54.922)
Yeah, so that's in line with what's called malfunctional therapy. We exercise your mouth and your jaws and your lips. And there's different variations of this with different names, but as a big umbrella concept, anything to exercise your muscles of chewing your tongue, your lips, your facial muscles, and opening your mouth, that helps to develop and tone the jaws and it does grow the jaws a little bit, but it's not going to be a traditionally, not going to be very wide amount.
But it does help. Now, when you get to appliances, there's lots of different appliances. And this is where there's a schism between traditional dentistry and the more progressive dentists, the airway centric dentists. Historically, the dentist have said that in adults that the palatial suture line has fused, so you can't grow it anymore. Uh, whereas in kids, you can still do it. That's why they give a lot of palatial expense for kids. But these
Although dentists have been doing these appliance expanders for decades with really good results and I'm one of these patients. Um, so these are slow expanders and there's different names, different variations. So you'll see names like the alpha appliance, um, DNA, homeoblock, um, bioblock, there's all these names out there. Vivos. I think they all have value. And the problem is that no one has done a study comparing one to the other. So you can't say which is better.
Tyson (52:19.457)
That's all.
Steven Park (52:20.162)
But I think what's more important is the expertise and skill of the practitioner and not the device itself.
Tyson (52:25.789)
Yeah, so what is that? Like it's something that's actually on the inside of your mouth and is gradually expanding it or is something that you're putting from time to time?
Steven Park (52:32.362)
Yeah. Um, it's, it's there all the time. Sometimes you were at night so that you have, you have a daytime appliance and nighttime appliance and others are just there permanently and you adjust the screw every once in a while. So it's like a Palo Alto expander. Uh, the one I use is just a spring that gets adjusted every couple of weeks.
Tyson (52:49.045)
Hmm.
Tyson (52:53.69)
And how long did you have that in for?
Steven Park (52:55.711)
Probably about a year, year and a half.
Tyson (52:58.925)
Yeah, and it says yours was in there full time. And it's just across the roof of your mouth.
Steven Park (53:04.738)
Well, it's like little wires, almost like braces wires, but most of it's behind the teeth. Yeah, very unobtrusive. It's called an elf. Um, but that, I mean, that's, that's one of many different options, but depends on who you have access to.
Tyson (53:10.343)
Ah, okay, I didn't even know that was...
Tyson (53:19.289)
Yeah, sure. And in the meantime, so obviously you've got these as an option if you wanted to do something a bit more long-term with longer lasting impacts. We've obviously spoken about a number of things that you can do as of today that's gonna start to make a difference. Besides screen time, besides food, what are some of the other things that people are doing that's just really spoiling their chance of a good night's sleep?
Steven Park (53:34.027)
All right.
Steven Park (53:43.607)
Um, well, you also have toxins.
right? And that's the whole other discussion itself from your personal care products, your furniture, your house, air quality. So this is more of a high level general concept of anything that's irritating to your nose and to your body in general. And so these are the phthalates, the pesticides, the herbicides, fungicides, the...
Steven Park (54:17.878)
the, all of the endocrine disruptors that most of the endocrine disruptors promote or mimic estrogen. So you can imagine with, with women, if you have too much estrogen, it suppresses progesterone. And there's another concept with, especially with women, progesterone is actually a hormone that increases muscle tone in the throat, helps you to breathe better. So during, when a woman has her periods, after she ovulates, progesterone goes up and drops just before periods.
So when projection goes down before periods, the tongue gets more relaxed when she doesn't sleep as well. So you can imagine what happens if you don't sleep that well a few days before your periods, but, uh, then, then during, um, menopause, the same thing, progesterone drops very slowly. So that's what women's sleep quality goes down during menopause. So, um, and the same with men too, if you have too much estrogen, it suppresses, suppresses testosterone. And also the toxins can lower testosterone.
Tyson (54:52.721)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tyson (55:03.508)
Yeah.
Steven Park (55:16.674)
So there's a lot of different variables and factors and you have to kind of go through it one by one. It can be daunting, but just take it step by step and don't think that you can take care of it all at once. You have to, it's a lifelong habit. It takes months or years. I've been doing this for 10 years with my wife.
Tyson (55:34.961)
And as your wife experienced some pretty impressive results as well.
Steven Park (55:38.174)
Right. She had many, many more health problems than I did. Um, and so we went through, she went through gluten sensitivity issue and now she's gluten, she is gluten free. Um, but she's very sensitive to everything. Uh, but with the regimen that we have, she's pretty much under control. I mean, she still has her abouts every once in a while, but much better than before. So it's a personal journey for the both of us. Um, and that's why it's important for us to spread the message, um, through.
Tyson (55:59.061)
Yeah.
Steven Park (56:07.05)
venues like this and also with what she does as a life coach. Um, it's, um, it's really important not to just share it with the people on the internet, but with your family and friends and colleagues too.
Tyson (56:18.405)
For sure. And in terms of, I've mentioned a couple of times that I've got young kids, are there anything that I can do to give them a head start besides giving them some good solid food to eat in terms of solid in density, as well as solid in nutrition, to get them more effectively sleeping or more prepared to just have good health going forward?
Steven Park (56:38.938)
I mentioned one before is breastfeed as much as long as possible. I know it can be challenging for some women, but just do what you can as much as possible. Start solid foods earlier. Avoid pacifiers or thumb sucking that causes major damage to the jaws. Now around age three to four or five, that's when kids start to have large adenosine tonsils or nasal congestion. And so
around age four, that's when you can actually get intervention by a dentist, especially that alpha appliance that you can actually do in kids. Um, and you get pretty good results that way so that you don't need braces later on.
Tyson (57:18.289)
Sure. That's yeah. Okay. And is that something that should be looked at as a last resort? Or is that something that we should be looking at as like, there's a very good chance you're going to need this. So you may as well just take the front foot and get it sorted. Hmm. Yeah.
Steven Park (57:31.606)
Yeah, the latter, it's better to be prophylactic. Yeah, it's well worth the investment.
Tyson (57:37.877)
for sure. No, it's so interesting. I mean, these are conversations that I mean, I've read so many of your blogs, I've heard so many of the conversations that you've had. And I understand there's so many different directions you can take a chat like this. So maybe we, uh, we needed to around to at some stage cause there's so many things I'm sure we could go down the rabbit hole of, but is, is there anything that, um, you'd like to leave with the audiences, uh, some practical takeaways of, you know, okay, so let's boil everything we've said down into three or four things.
He's where you need to start today.
Steven Park (58:11.382)
Yeah. Um, nasal breathing. If you can't breathe through your nose, everything else goes downhill. Even for runners and athletes, you have to breathe through your nose. Right. Do you breathe through your nose? I, um, during some of my lectures, I show a picture of the New York city marathon winners, typically from Africa. They are just effortlessly running down, causing a finish line with the mouth closed.
Tyson (58:24.811)
I do, when I'm jogging I can, when I'm working hard I struggle.
Tyson (58:42.14)
Yeah.
Steven Park (58:42.594)
Or 10 paces back, do you have the American manners with the mouth ca- oh yeah.
Tyson (58:50.1)
It's funny. I used to run with a Sudanese athlete. His name was Dua Yoa, very good athlete. I remember one day, he was a few years younger than me, but for a while we were around the same level. I remember the Melbourne Marathon 10K. We were about seven kilometres into this race and I was starting to work really hard. I looked over at him and I always knew, as I mentioned, Sudanese got very, very broad through the nose.
And I looked at him and it was like it was a joke. He was just doing exactly what you just mentioned, breathing through his nose. And I tell you, psychologically, it was the wrong move for me to look at him because I realized just how comfortable he was.
Steven Park (59:27.214)
Well, that's a good reason, anatomically. Your nose makes a gas called nitric oxide. You may have heard about this. Nitric oxide, first of all, is antibacterial, antifungal, antibacterial. So it kills germs in your nose and your lungs. Number two, when you breathe it into your lungs, it increases oxygen absorption by 10 to 20%. So think about that. Number two, if you open your mouth.
And it's time to get, you think that you can get more air into your mouth, but actually it narrows the space beyond your tongue. So you breathe less when you open your mouth.
Tyson (01:00:04.769)
I learned that from breath as well. I remember, I remember just thinking as a running coach, as a runner, I was thinking, okay, obviously you just want to get as much oxygen into your lungs as you possibly can. And so sure, like maybe you're like, it seems as though anatomically more air is going through your mouth. But then I remember James Nestor just break it down and saying, yeah, but exactly what you just said. You've got to take into consideration like the temperature of the air, the filtration of the nose, the other elements that's delivering like a higher quality oxygen.
Steven Park (01:00:07.077)
Yeah.
Steven Park (01:00:14.99)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (01:00:33.621)
to your lungs to be absorbed rather than just like, how much is in there? Like how much is in there? It just sounds like a classic modern civilization person of what is better, like surely more is better, but not necessarily.
Steven Park (01:00:47.382)
One little tip quick for runners or any kind of athlete, if you're at the near the finish line, and you really have to go all out, and you're sucking wind, one thing that you can do is to either tilt your head up, that opens up the airway, or just move your jaw forward. And these are the, this mimics that the, the maneuver advancement devices that we use for storing sleep apnea, just by moving your jaw forward like this, so you open up your airway, and you can tell the difference when you do that.
Tyson (01:01:16.469)
Yeah, it's so good. That's so helpful. Dr. Park. I've told you an hour, so I don't want to leave you here longer than you need to be if you've got other things to do. But if you've got anything that you wanted to, anything else you wanted to leave us on, feel free to do that. Um, because I could talk to you all day, but I know that might cause some marriage issues, so I don't want to do that. Awesome. Well, you're always welcome back. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed that chat. It's a very interesting conversation to me.
Steven Park (01:01:34.832)
Yeah, I'm perfectly fine. I really enjoyed our conversation today.
Tyson (01:01:44.105)
I know our audience is gonna love it. I'm gonna link your book, I'm gonna link your blog, your website, everything in the show notes. For everyone who's interested, make sure you check that out. But hey, how about we leave it there? Thanks so much for coming on.
Steven Park (01:01:55.15)
Thank you very much.
Tyson (01:01:56.549)
Awesome. I'll cut that recording off there. Hey, that was such a fun conversation. I know.
Steven Park (01:02:01.192)
We covered so much, but maybe if you could...