Transcript

[Joshua Holland] (0:00 - 0:05)
We are back with Mr. Anders Olsson for the third time.

[Anders Olsson] (0:08 - 0:11)
Thank you, thank you Josh, it's an honor.

[Joshua Holland] (0:11 - 1:03)
My pleasure. If you really want to have a better understanding as to why I would have him on the show a third time, please refer back to the other episodes. This show is an opportunity for you as the listener and the viewer to understand how our minds work.

Anders and I, we have been friends for a while and we actually had the great fortune of being able to be together in person when I was recently in Stockholm on tour with Roger Waters and we were going all through Europe. You may have seen some videos on my Instagram in which I had my mouth taped and I also had this Relaxator device which we're going to talk about a lot. These tools are very important.

I love being able to communicate with Anders because we don't always agree on everything that we talk about which I think is healthy, right? We need to be able to have discussions in which we're actually learning something and we're not speaking in a vacuum. I'll shut up.

Anders, welcome to the show.

Welcome to Simply Walk the Talk. Our bodies and minds adapt to what we do most of the time. If you want to change your body and mind, you must change what it is you do most of the time.

This podcast explores all things health, wellness, fitness, lifestyle, and biohacking. Stay tuned as we explore various thoughts, methods, and experiences from a multitude of conversations between our interesting guests and experts through many fields of work. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

[Anders Olsson] (2:03 - 2:05)
Thank you. Thank you, Josh.

[Joshua Holland] (2:05 - 2:24)
Yeah. So you wanted to come on and kind of discuss some of the latest things you've been working on. And I think maybe the best place to start is with the Relaxator being that we both have this green ribbon around our neck with a whistle on the end.

So let's dive into that.

[Anders Olsson] (2:24 - 3:46)
The Relaxator is really a small little device that may seem like nothing but it actually does quite a lot for us. It helps us to achieve a calm and low and slow and rhythmic breathing which makes up for a steady supply of oxygen to your brain and to your body which at the end of the day that is what we want more than anything, right? We live from one breath to the next.

So oxygen is the number one priority. And what many people do in today's fast-paced society, we tend to switch between holding our breath which we can all understand does not deliver any oxygen to our body. And then on the other hand, we switch to breathing fast and shallow but that is also an inefficient way of oxygenating your body.

So it's the number one priority to oxygenate your body and we do it about thousand times an hour, move air in and out of the lungs. So we can benefit a lot from turning to our breath and trying to change it in case we have these inefficient breathing habits which in my view, most people have or at least I would say that most people have room for improvement when it comes to their breathing.

[Joshua Holland] (3:47 - 3:56)
Well said. And why would someone gravitate to something like this, like the Relaxator?

[Anders Olsson] (3:57 - 5:44)
Yeah, so you can use it in many different situations which means that you don't need to set extra time aside to do a certain exercise. You don't need to go to the gym. You don't need to hang out on the yoga mat.

You can put it in your mouth when you're driving, when you're watching TV, when you're in front of the computer working or for example, in the bed before getting to sleep, before getting up in the morning. So there are many different situations in your daily life where you can use it. So for example, if you want to concentrate better, if your brain is constantly racing and you have problems to actually focus on the task at hand, this tool is fantastic because it balances the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in your body.

So we have already talked about the importance of oxygen but in this case, actually less is more. A lot of us, we take in too much oxygen and we get too stimulated. So oxygen is activating and if we want to focus and concentrate, we may not need more adrenaline or more oxygen.

We may to find the right balance, just like a car needs the right amount of fuel. It doesn't go better if we give it more fuel. It's just as bad as having too little fuel.

So the same with our body and our nervous system, they need the right amount of fuel. And so when we start to breathe low and slow, which we do when using the Relaxator, we give the brain the right amount of oxygen. Yeah.

[Joshua Holland] (5:44 - 9:00)
I like the concept of low and slow and I obviously have a certain understanding with that. The thing that I really love about the Relaxator is it's kind of like a conversation tool. And so when I have this around my neck, a lot of times I am reminded of the fact that maybe I should use this more often.

When I have it tucked away in my bag or it's somewhere not within sight, maybe I practice my breathing through my mouth or through my pursed lips and that's effective as well. But I like the gamification part of using this, right? So I'm very competitive.

And I know that some of your teaching is that we shouldn't be forcing the breath and going too hard with it. But sometimes that's just how I am, right? Like I know that if I was able to do a 30 second exhale followed by a two minute breath hold, then I'm gonna end up trying to do that even longer when I try it again.

And that's just kind of what helps make it fun for me. So I'll just show you here quickly. If you're watching this, you'll see that I'm holding up the Relaxator and it looks cool.

It's blue and green and it's got a little dial on it where you can change the flow of air coming in or out. I mean, obviously we shouldn't be having any air coming in because this is in your mouth, right? And so what you do is you place this in your mouth, you set your setting.

So I like to kind of start at around a three, which as you can see here, gives you a certain amount of hole opening for the air to go out when you're breathing out. So this tool is designed to slow down the air coming out, the exhale. And I also like to think of this as a really good tool to help build your lung capacity and to teach CO2 tolerance.

So a lot of times we freak out when we don't have enough air and the first thing we think is take another air. And a lot of times that's coming through the mouth and that's a sympathetic nervous system response, fight or flight, which we don't necessarily want. So I'll give you a quick example of how I like to do this.

So if I open it up, it's a lot harder to maintain that pressure within the lungs, which is kind of what we're going for. So I'm gonna put this all the way open because I'm competitive with myself, right? So here we are.

So I put it in, I take a nice inhale through my nose and then I hold it and then I just relax. A lot of times I'm sitting down when I'm doing this. That next inhale comes in through the nose again and then a slow exhale.

Now, I'll just quickly do this as an example as well. If I make this even smaller, so now the number is close to four and a half or five on the dial, that makes the hole smaller.

[Anders Olsson] (9:00 - 9:00)
Yeah.

[Joshua Holland] (9:00 - 9:04)
So you should be able to hear the difference. So here we go, inhale.

[Anders Olsson] (9:11 - 9:17)
Not much sound, yeah? Very slow exhale.

[Joshua Holland] (9:21 - 10:42)
So as you can probably see or hear, it was a much softer sound, even though I was giving it a decent blow. But what I hope you noticed is that I was able to extend that exhale for far longer. So it was approximately, I don't know, six, seven, eight seconds maybe on the first time when the hole was very open to I could have easily gone 20 seconds or more.

And that's actually one of the things I do when I'm working with clients or I'm encouraging someone to use this is I will ask them to do several inhales through the nose and then slow exhales out the mouth to see how long they can do it without this device. And then I will ask them, so after they do it two or three times, we'll mark that number, we take the best score. So let's call it 10 seconds for a person to exhale through their teeth or pursed lips.

Then I say, okay, let's put this on the smallest hole like I just did. Pop this in your mouth, do the same thing and let's see what happens. A lot of times they don't know what I'm looking for, but I'm looking to see if we can double their exhale time.

And I did this with my mom. I did it with my dad. I did it with a lot of clients.

And that light bulb turns on. They're like, whoa, wait a minute. So how should I use this?

And that's what I love. I love that extra question, yeah?

[Anders Olsson] (10:43 - 11:51)
Yeah, so we do have the Relaxator Lung Function Test, which is similar to what you described. So you have the smallest hole open. You set it at five and then you inhale for six seconds.

That's a really long inhale. And if your lung capacity is not very good, it will be hard to fill your lungs with air. So already there, it will expose that you have a room for improvement.

So you inhale for six seconds and then you exhale for as long as you can. And then you start the timer when you start to inhale. And you notice the six seconds.

And if it's five or five and a half or six and a half, doesn't really matter, but around six seconds. So you start the timer on the, sorry, the stopwatch on the first second when you start to inhale. And then you stop when you can't do the exhale any longer.

So that will be the total, your RLF score, your Relaxator Lung Function score.

[Joshua Holland] (11:53 - 12:31)
I love that. I will apply that. Thank you for kind of wrapping that up in a nice little bundle, because obviously I didn't explain it that way.

I didn't know that you had that, but that's great. That's a really good tool with another really good tool. So I'm obviously a big fan of the Relaxator.

I've had it for a long time and I've given it out to many of my friends. And a lot of my clients, thanks to you guys. You invited me over to your home, which was beautiful.

I had an amazing time. I'm going to play this video. You can actually see the device.

You can see us both utilizing it. This is the Relaxator and Mr. Anders Olsen himself is going to explain why and how to use it.

[Anders Olsson] (12:31 - 12:52)
Yeah. So inhale is activation, while exhale is relaxation. So the Relaxator helps you to get into a more relaxed state by extending the exhale.

What are the numbers on the side of the screen? Yeah, so there's from one to five. So one is the biggest opening and five is the smallest opening.

[Joshua Holland] (12:52 - 13:01)
Let's set it to three. Most people start somewhere in the middle. Yeah.

So we put it in our mouth. Yeah. Inhale through the nose, a soft inhale.

[Anders Olsson] (13:15 - 13:31)
So what are the benefits of this? It's like a workout for your breathing muscles. You strengthen your diaphragm.

You open up your airways. You increase the muscle tolerance in your throat. You get the air to circulate.

So basically a more efficient oxygenation.

[Joshua Holland] (13:32 - 13:42)
So this is something that can be used anytime, anywhere. We'll pop it in and do a few rounds of this. And you almost immediately notice the benefits.

This is very relaxing.

[Anders Olsson] (13:42 - 13:50)
You will calm down. Your brain will calm down. It will be more focused and being able to concentrate better.

So relax with the Relaxator.

[Joshua Holland] (13:52 - 14:29)
All right. So I wanted to share that just so you guys can kind of see some of the posts that we've created together. Obviously, we have a lot of fun.

And I think that demonstrates that a little bit, right? It shows like how we're able to have a good time together. And of course, there's a lot of stuff out there on social media.

But there is a really good tool out there that allows a person to almost instantaneously relax. And this is not the only one, right? But this is one of my favorite ones, because I've been working with you for the longest.

And this was the first tool that I used to help me to understand everything we're talking about today. So thank you.

[Anders Olsson] (14:30 - 14:34)
Yeah, thank you, Josh, for using it and spreading the word.

[Joshua Holland] (14:35 - 14:57)
Yeah, yeah, it's fun. Is there anything else that you would like to make people aware of when it comes to the Relaxator or understanding breathing? Because obviously, I know that we've exhausted the information around it.

But is there anything new that you've discovered besides this lung function test? Because I think that's pretty cool. That's something new.

[Anders Olsson] (14:58 - 16:24)
Well, just the understanding that with every breath, we are affecting our nervous system. We switch between sympathetic and parasympathetic with every single breathing cycle. When we inhale, we go to sympathetic.

When we exhale, we go to parasympathetic. So a definition of poor health, stress, anxiety, worry, fatigue is basically that we spend too much time for too long in sympathetic, in fight flight, in activation, in stress, and too little time in parasympathetic. Where we recover and heal and repair.

So by turning to our breath, just that simple understanding that it is such a powerful tool to affect our nervous system. It reflects the state of your nervous system. So you're actually able to read your nervous system by checking in on your breath.

So typically, if you're breathing through your mouth, if you're breathing fast, shallow, if you're holding your breath, if your breathing is noisy, irregular, chaotic, then you are in sympathetic. And if you want to move to rest and digest, parasympathetic, you just do the opposite. The theory is extremely simple.

So you just close your mouth. You start to breathe more rhythmically and low using your diaphragm and slow and quiet.

[Joshua Holland] (16:26 - 16:28)
So yeah, there you go.

[Anders Olsson] (16:28 - 16:30)
That is the essence in conscious breathing.

[Joshua Holland] (16:31 - 16:46)
Well said. One of the other things I wanted to play on here is from also from my Instagram. Because it reminds me, and this is kind of gravitating towards something else that we did together when we were in Stockholm, which was the mouth taping.

[Anders Olsson] (16:46 - 16:47)
Yes.

[Joshua Holland] (16:47 - 17:30)
And the reason why I feel like this is a really good segue to that is because that was that moment when you and I were having this debate or discussion around the idea of high intensity interval training and the potential implications of that. And then also the sound, right? The sound of breathing.

So I was more of a loud breather, even though it was obviously all through the nose. And you were encouraging me to be a little bit softer with that. So that's why I brought that up.

And I want to play this because this gives me so much joy just to relive this moment with you. And we're at this beautiful park. What is the name of that park?

[Anders Olsson] (17:31 - 17:32)
Hellasgården.

[Joshua Holland] (17:32 - 19:05)
Exactly, Hellasgården. Okay, so here it is, nasal breathing and exercise. Nasal breathing and mouth taping, I think, allows for a better flow state.

Also, we're in nature, so we're taking in the sun and we're hearing all the sounds of nature. I think this is amazing. Not communicating sometimes, it gets rid of the noise.

The noise that is, you know, normally I have music in, I'm talking to people. What I noticed is the mouth taping allowed me to be more focused on what I'm doing. That's the thing.

Right? Like there's obviously the nasal breathing, all of that helps. CO2, O2, conscious breathing, mouth taping.

[Anders Olsson] (19:06 - 19:13)
Anders Olsson, good times. It was not my strongest, but I have improved since.

[Joshua Holland] (19:13 - 19:15)
Have you? Did you try it again today?

[Anders Olsson] (19:16 - 19:17)
Yes, for sure.

[Joshua Holland] (19:17 - 19:57)
Good. So for those of you that are listening, apologies for the video playing, but Anders and I got a nice little workout and I showed him some of the playground fitness stuff that I like to play with. And he had some struggles with the balance and whatnot.

But as you notice, we have our mouths taped the entire time. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about nasal breathing, because there's been a lot of chatter on social media around this idea of taping your mouth and if it's beneficial or not.

And of course, we're going to get the naysayers out there saying that this is really problematic. But let's discuss that.

[Anders Olsson] (19:57 - 21:03)
Yeah. So actually, when we think about it, if we take a step back and look at the common exercise regimes, we have high altitude training. People go to high altitude.

And then when they come to sea level, they benefit because they have increased their body's, the blood's oxygen carrying capacity. Because at high altitude, there is less oxygen. And when you restrict the oxygen, the body will respond by creating more red blood cells.

The kidneys will produce more EPO. And the same goes when you do high interval training. You will actually restrict the oxygen.

You're not able to supply the need for oxygen to your muscles. So the body has to compensate, right? And the same if you do the Japanese training regime called Katsu, where you, for example, you restrict the blood flow to your biceps.

[Joshua Holland] (21:04 - 21:06)
I'm just pulling this out so people can see.

[Anders Olsson] (21:07 - 21:08)
Yeah, you have that, right?

[Joshua Holland] (21:08 - 21:09)
Yeah, the Katsu device.

[Anders Olsson] (21:09 - 22:14)
Yeah, the Katsu. So when you do that, it's the same. You're restricting oxygen.

And when you tape your mouth using your nose, it is similar. And the body needs to respond. Basically, excess is not good for us.

Excess fuel to the car is not good. It's just as bad as too little fuel. So the car needs the exact amount.

And we have a tendency in today's society to overload our system with oxygen by engaging in a hidden form of hyperventilation, over-breathing, not the thing we associate with hyperventilation. But the hidden form that we can't really see. And that means we take in too much oxygen.

We activate our body too much. That's why we have problems to wind down. So when we train our body to get by on less oxygen, we actually train our body to become more efficient.

[Joshua Holland] (22:14 - 23:39)
Hmm. So one of the things I'd like for you to touch on, based on what you just mentioned, is this idea, because I think a lot of people think of oxygen only through the lungs, right? Like I think they only think about oxygen comes in to supply oxygen to the lungs, right?

Or air comes in to supply oxygen to the lungs. And that's kind of it. But you just described muscles and other tissues throughout the body.

We need to be able to, I think there's an analogy I like to get people to at least understand or start to think in a different way when it comes to this discussion, which is imagine how long it may take for oxygen to make a full cycle through your body. Regardless of what that time is based on research and science, it's much longer than we imagine. Some people think that it might take 20 minutes or some people think it might take two minutes.

But regardless, it takes longer than that next breath. So if we can hold that oxygen in, it gives it more opportunity to circulate. This is how I think about it.

And when we can extend our exhale, it gives us more time to build up the CO2, which does something to the oxygen, right? It kind of helps to get that oxygen into the tissue. So that's the thing.

[Anders Olsson] (23:39 - 23:40)
Yes.

[Joshua Holland] (23:40 - 23:49)
So all of this that is being said around this discussion around breathing basically says we should slow down so things can do what they're supposed to do better. Period.

[Anders Olsson] (23:50 - 25:43)
Yes. When we slow down, we will oxygenate our body better. That's at the end of the day, that's the only thing we want.

We want to oxygenate our body in the most efficient way possible. As we do this about 1000 times an hour, there is a huge difference if it takes 5 or 10 or 15% of our body's resources or 1 or 2% because oxygenating our body, breathing has the highest priority. So if that process of moving the air in and out of the lungs and transferring the oxygen to the tissues, the liver, the heart, the brain and the muscles, if that takes, say, 5% of our resources, then it means that there are only 95% left to thinking a thought or fighting a bacteria or moving a muscle.

So the more efficient our breathing is, the more resources we have available to do these other things where we're supposed to do. Beautiful. That is the whole key to make it efficient.

What it turns out that even though oxygen is the thing we want more than anything, it is carbon dioxide that paves the way for oxygen. That is where we have gone a bit wrong. We are so obsessed with oxygen, which makes sense because if we stop breathing, we will die within a couple of minutes.

But if we look at the physiology, we have to understand that it's carbon dioxide that paves the way for oxygen by making the smooth muscles relax so that we open up our airways in the throat and in our lungs naturally so that we open up the blood vessels so that the heart can relax and doesn't have to pump as hard to get the blood out in the body.

[Joshua Holland] (25:44 - 26:41)
So there you have it. If all of that is true and you believe in all of that and you support that idea, then how cool is a device like the Relaxate or something this simple that allows you to extend all of what Anders just explained? So if the idea is to slow down and to relax all of the tissues in the body, then this tool is something super novel, super easy to use.

You breathe in through your nose with a very soft inhale through the nose and then exhale as long as you can through the Relaxate or and then you do that several times and you start to see that you get better at it, which tells you ultimately you're getting better at breathing and your body's getting better at learning how to utilize oxygen. So if that's important to you, then you should use something like this. It's that simple.

That's what I think.

[Anders Olsson] (26:41 - 28:21)
It is that simple. Yeah. And I mean, where I come from, I'm so nerdy about breathing because it has changed my life.

I come from this stress, racing mind, I had problems to wind down, take it easy. And when I started to calm down my breathing, my mind, my racing mind followed. I could be more present and more relaxed.

And when I put this in my mouth, so when most of us, when we are sitting there at our computer and trying to focus and concentrate, suddenly our mind goes, oh, I need a coffee. Oh, I need to call my best friend. Oh, I need a biscuit.

I need to go to the toilet. I need this and that, this and that all the time. And I think a major reason for that is because we switch between breath holding and breathing too fast.

So the brain goes, hmm, I can't trust this guy. He doesn't give me what I want. I want oxygen more than anything, but he can't deliver it to me in the situation we're in right now.

So we need this break. But when I put the Relaxator in my mouth, I become like a machine. I can sit six hours straight, don't need any pauses, don't need to eat, don't need anything.

I'm not saying we should do that, but just to illustrate that when the brain can get the oxygen it needs, it starts to relax and then we become present and then we can do whatever task it is we have at hand. So that is the powerful idea of helping us to get this steady supply of oxygen.

[Joshua Holland] (28:21 - 29:41)
And I will say before we move on, there are a number of people, because I watch what's happening on social media in terms of the comments and things like that. We know that there's a number of people out there who have blockages in their nose and congestion and things like that. And I don't have it near me, but I'm going to be doing at some point soon, I'm going to be doing at some point soon, is this guy who developed a device that helps to undo all of that.

Literally, you put it on your nose. So it's almost the opposite, right? So the Relaxator is for the mouth and it helps the exhale, whereas this other device helps with the inhale through the nose.

And I think it's kind of a good tool. I might use that with my mouth taped, knowing that I'm only breathing through my nose. And it has this sort of like pulsating like effect.

And then I add a hum to that to help to get all of those tissues to vibrate at a certain frequency to allow things to relax. So if you are one of those people out there that have blockage or whatever, hit me up or stay tuned because I'll be showing a lot more. But I also will say, even without that device, the more you practice breathing through your nose, the better your body gets at allowing you to breathe through your nose.

[Anders Olsson] (29:41 - 31:23)
Yes, if you don't use it, you lose it. That goes for the nose as well. And there are countless of people since I started with this 14 years ago that have said how their nose was blocked.

They were addicted to nasal sprays and for whatever reason, the nose was constantly blocked. And then they started to use it more. And at some point, it started to open up.

And from my perspective, it has to do with carbon dioxide. When you have imbalance between oxygen and carbon dioxide, which many people do because we breathe fast and shallow, the body, which is very clever, right? Figures, how can we stop this dude from lowering the CO2 levels in the body because they are so important to facilitate efficient oxygenation?

Well, we can create narrow airways and we may get the diagnosis of asthma or we can create a narrow and blocked nose to prevent the outflow of carbon dioxide. As a person in our mind, we don't like that, right? But the body, which is way smarter, sees that this is a defense mechanism.

So once we start to slow down our breathing and at the same time start to use the nose more, we will slowly build up the levels of CO2. And that will lead to open airways in the lungs and in the throat, as well as in the nose. And then the defense mechanism isn't needed.

And the erectile tissue we have in the nose, they will start to get smaller and smaller.

[Joshua Holland] (31:23 - 32:02)
There you have it. Let's move on to our movement break. So we used to call this the Pomodoro break, which it still applies.

But I've recently started to call this movement moment or moments of movement. And I would love for you to maybe give our audience something that you would do in a moment like this when it's been over 30 minutes or so. We've been both standing in one spot.

So regardless if you're standing or sitting, this is an opportunity to get you out of that sedentary moment. So what would you like to offer? Do you have anything in mind?

[Anders Olsson] (32:03 - 33:53)
Yeah, I do. I remember on one of our calls, we did a headstand, right? But let's skip that today.

So we can just do a simple exercise called a separator. A lot of us, when we sit, we sit like a couch potato. So the chest and the stomach, they come together and squeeze the diaphragm in the middle.

And the separator means that we activate the diaphragm and separate the chest from the stomach. So we just stretch the air, the hands towards the ceiling, and we take a big breath in so that we push down the diaphragm and we hold our breath a little bit. So inhale through the nose and you push your hands, reach for the ceiling, and then you exhale while you put your thumbs back and your chest moves forward.

And then you go up again, reach for the ceiling, inhale a big inhale through the nose, hold a little, and then exhale, thumbs pointing backwards, elbows 90 degrees, chest moving forward. Let's do it one more time. Reach for the ceiling as much as you can, big breath in, push the diaphragm down, hold a little bit, and then exhale through the nose, tongue in the roof of the mouth, thumbs pointing backwards.

Okay.

[Joshua Holland] (33:54 - 34:35)
That's a good one. I feel myself, I feel like a tingling through my body and you can kind of see my face getting red, not from holding my breath and about to pass out, but from this circulation. Right.

I like the circulation that occurs. And I literally feel this all the way down to just below my knees right now. Like I feel this cooling sensation or this, I guess you could describe it as like a tingling sensation.

And that's something from just doing three little breath focuses, right? Focusing on your breath for about three rounds. And that's why this stuff is powerful.

It's as powerful as we want it to be.

[Anders Olsson] (34:35 - 34:35)
Period.

[Joshua Holland] (34:36 - 34:37)
Right. It's as powerful as we make it.

[Anders Olsson] (34:37 - 35:03)
Yeah. And if you were to check in on your breathing before and after this little exercise, you will probably notice that it's easier for the air to flow, easier for the diaphragm to work easier to, to, to end up with this low breath where we activate the diaphragm, which is by far more efficient than the sympathetic chest breathing. Beautiful.

[Joshua Holland] (35:04 - 36:36)
All right. Moving on. I would love to go back to another video because now I want to talk about carbon dioxide.

I know you're a huge fan of carbon dioxide and we've obviously touched on it a little bit, even in this conversation, and we've talked about it on the other conversations we've had, but now I want to go over some new stuff that you've been testing. So we're going to think, show some video of the body stream, which if you guys remember the videos I posted in this big puffy blue suit, that's the body stream, which is amazing because it, it allows the body to, to be flooded with carbon dioxide, which is incredible, especially based on what you've been talking about. And then we're going to talk about a new device.

So stay with us. This first one is, here we are, there's the big blue suits. All right, here we go.

Obviously that is a, a fun little video clip that I put together to show people, but that was a, it was a time lapse because we spent some time doing that. And then of course we had some fun for social media to like, you amazingly were able to do a head, a headstand in the body stream, which I couldn't even do. I got my feet up, I think like for two seconds and I was, I was down, but obviously you're a pro at this, but let's talk about the body stream and why it's so important.

[Anders Olsson] (36:36 - 39:23)
Yeah. So the body stream is, it is like a space suit or something like that. Right.

You look a bit funny and what you do is you fill up this suit with carbon dioxide, which is then absorbed through your skin. And the idea of this product stems from the hot springs that's been around for hundreds and thousands of years, right? The, the healing benefits of the body when you go into a hot spring for your circulation and your skin and your stress levels has been shown in many different studies.

And what they also have found is that the active ingredient, the most important thing in these hot springs is the high levels of carbon dioxide. So since not all of us have a hot spring in the backyard, we can then bring this treatment to your own home by, by, by making this body stream carbon dioxide suit. So it is really cool to notice the effect on people.

So typically when you go in it and you stay there for 30, 45, 60 minutes, you calm down a lot. You enter into what we call the parasympathetic deluxe state, the la la land, where you really, we need to go there in order to really heal and repair and recover. That's where many people lack being in that state.

And that's over time leads to, to health issues. So when we absorb the CO2 through the skin, it reduces friction. When we lower the CO2 levels in our body, not only do we increase the levels of adrenaline and cortisol and reduce the blood flow to the brain, but we also induce more friction in the throat, in the airways, in the lungs, in the, the blood vessels, because carbon dioxide has a relaxing, a dilating effect on the smooth muscles surrounding the airways and the blood vessels.

So when you absorb it through the skin, you reduce some of this friction and these blockages that are a result of the, the, the smooth muscles constricting. And that means that the air can flow more freely. The blood can flow more freely and the heart doesn't have to work as hard.

You don't have to take as many breaths per minute. So your whole body can relax. It doesn't have to spend resources like being in a fight and going uphill all the time.

[Joshua Holland] (39:23 - 40:19)
And then imagine what could possibly happen. I would think that you've probably done this, but I've certainly done this. Imagine pairing the CO2 dry bath session in the body stream with the Relaxator or with conscious breathing, right?

So like some people get in there and just let it do its thing and that's perfectly fine, but I like to benefit the most. I want to be as efficient and effective as possible. So I like to do the, I like to use the Relaxator while I'm doing my, my body stream session.

And then a lot of times what ends up happening is, is I sort of fall asleep. I kind of take a nap, obviously after, after I get over the, the warming sensation of the body, but that's what I wanted to ask you next. What are some of the things that people experience?

What are they telling you that they experienced when they do their first session or when they've done 10 sessions and beyond? What are they experiencing?

[Anders Olsson] (40:20 - 40:49)
Typically they reduce their stress and they, they notice that they are calmer and they also feel that they get more energy. And I heard the other day, a guy said that his pain went away. He's in his forties and have had pain more or less his entire life.

So for five full days, he didn't have any pain. So he was super happy for those five days.

[Joshua Holland] (40:50 - 40:51)
What kind of pain was he experiencing?

[Anders Olsson] (40:52 - 41:28)
Oh, pain. He did immediately after the, the body stream, he did his stairway test, walking up the stairs and he said, wow, I don't feel any pain. So typically pain in his joints, his knees, hips, and that, that was gone.

And that is one thing that is coming over and over again, that feedback of reducing the pain. But then the, the treatment, the, the exposure to carbon dioxide needs to be, you need to do it again.

[Joshua Holland] (41:28 - 41:44)
What do you think the sort of like the mechanical action, or what do you think, what do you think is responsible for that reduction in pain or the, the absence of pain in this particular person's situation? What do you think is responsible for that?

[Anders Olsson] (41:45 - 43:06)
I think that the whole idea is the relaxation, the relaxation of the mind, of our emotions and our physical body. So in childbirth, there is this expression called fear, tense, pain cycle. The woman is afraid of what's coming and she tenses up and that increases the pain.

And in this vicious cycle, you also have a tense and fast, shallow breathing, holding the breath. So in order to reduce pain, we can turn to our breath, which means that we slow it down, which means that we then increase the carbon dioxide. So when we go to our breath and start to breathe low and slow and rhythmically, our whole body will follow, we'll be, we'll, we'll be less tense in our mind and our emotions and in our body.

So I think that is a huge part of, of experiencing pain. And we have numerous examples of that, both with the Relaxator and with the sleep tape and with just applying the, the knowledge in your day to day life, slowing down your breathing and how it has helped reduce the pain for everything from migraine to fibromyalgia pain to, you know, knee pain. So that goes hand in hand with the body stream experiences.

[Joshua Holland] (43:07 - 44:50)
And so for those of you that are a little skeptical about how that's even possible, one of the things that I would offer is when, so from my perspective, when I work with clients from like a physical therapy standpoint, when, when we have pain, we understand that the body keeps the score. So there's certain traumas that are held within various tissues in our body. And so I could understand how that might alleviate some of that tension.

But if you also happen to have a structural issue, like some kind of hernia, herniated disc, or you have no, I don't know, like no tissue, no joint support, like, like if you're bone on bone, bone on bone in your knees or in your hips, then obviously just getting into a body stream and having better breathing and carbon dioxide is not going to fix that. But, but what it can do is allow those tissues to relax so that when you do go and do physical therapy, or when you do have to try to pinpoint where the problem is, it should make that process a little bit easier to deal with, because the muscles and the tissues around said injury may be a little bit more relaxed. So that that's something that I want people to walk away understanding it's this is not a cure all.

This is not something that is going to fix your vertebrae or fix your herniated disc. But it can reduce pain. And it can also allow for the inflammation to subside a little bit so that the other professionals can do what they want to do, or that you can do what you need to do to heal yourself.

So just keep that in mind.

[Anders Olsson] (44:51 - 45:10)
Yeah, no, I agree completely, Josh. Well said. And it's like it could lay the foundation to help you get more out of these other modalities, other things you're doing, whether that is changing your eating habits or taking supplements or going to a chiropractor or whatever.

Right.

[Joshua Holland] (45:11 - 45:50)
And and for all the stuff that we're talking about, by the way, so the Relaxator, the body stream, a lot of the the books that you've written and the concepts that you talk about, it's all on ConsciousBreathing.com. So we'll we'll link to that, obviously, in the show notes. And then we will we'll add various different studies and things like that.

If you guys are interested in that, feel free to check out the comments or the description, because we'll list all of that. What else would you like to discuss with with the body stream? Because I want to make sure we touch on everything you want to talk about before we get to this this new thing you're working on.

[Anders Olsson] (45:51 - 47:51)
Well, I mean, body stream is a fairly new concept. So we are still in the learning stages, learning what you might expect. And I think the key is the ability to calm down, because when we calm down, that's when we're able to zoom out, take a step back and and make better start making better decisions in terms of our sleep and prioritize eating good food and maybe changing our drinking habits, etc.

That's how it starts, right? With making small changes, it doesn't matter what I want to achieve. If even I even want to go to Mount Everest, it's still one step at a time.

We have a tendency, I think, to to think that it has to be very complicated. It's it's impossible for me. Look at those guys over there.

They can do it, but I can't because I don't have the resources or whatever. So one of my favorite example is the fact that when you look at tennis and the three best male players in the history of tennis, Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, they have something in common, and that is that they have lost 45 percent of all the balls they have played in their entire career. And they have only won 55 percent.

So that tiny difference, winning slightly more balls than they lose, just above 50 percent is enough for them to be outstanding in winning tournaments. So that goes for us mortal people as well. We don't need to think that it's about taking giant steps.

It's small, small, small steps that we repeat and repeat and repeat that over time would will take us in the direction we want to go.

[Joshua Holland] (47:51 - 48:37)
I would like to paint a picture of what it would be like to do a body stream session. So whether you're considering to have one in your own home, like I do, like you do, and like many others out there in the world have their own system, let's just let's keep in mind that it's not as simple as just getting the body stream and you're ready to to go. There's a number of things that you have to have.

You have to have a carbon dioxide tank and whether it's a large one, if you're going to always be at home doing it, or you can even get a small travel one, which I've seen you use and I've used myself. But let's paint this picture of what it looks like. So you get the suit.

There's one of two sizes. You get inside the suit. You can have your clothes on.

Yes.

[Anders Olsson] (48:38 - 48:44)
So you can. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because CO2 is going through the clothes.

No problem.

[Joshua Holland] (48:44 - 49:20)
Great. So you can have your clothes on. You get inside.

It's literally like you said, like a what did you call that? A scuba suit. It's like a scuba diving suit or like it's sealed, right?

It's completely sealed. And one of the uncomfortable bits, which is not so uncomfortable, but I think the most uncomfortable part is having the material around your neck because it needs to seal off at the neck. And you get all the way inside, you zip it up.

And then the next thing you do is you extract all of the oxygen.

[Anders Olsson] (49:21 - 49:21)
Yes.

[Joshua Holland] (49:21 - 49:31)
You extract all air and oxygen from inside the suit because it's sealed. It looks and feels like you're being vacuum sealed into the suit.

[Anders Olsson] (49:31 - 49:31)
Yes.

[Joshua Holland] (49:32 - 49:51)
Right. And so if you go back to that video that I played that it was time lapse, you'll see there's a point where I think you and I were in our underwear, right? So we're in our underwear and we get inside the suit.

We zip it up quickly. And then next thing you know, we're vacuum sealed inside of this big blue suit. Then what happens?

[Anders Olsson] (49:51 - 50:28)
Then we fill it up with carbon dioxide. You can do it either standing up or laying down. If you do it standing up, then you need to, well, you can do it sitting or you can lay down and you can either lay down on a yoga mat or lay down in the sofa or in the bed.

And if you are not so mobile or if it's the first time, because even if you are mobile while in the suit, you become like a Michelin man. So you may need some help if you're going down on the floor and laying on a yoga mat.

[Joshua Holland] (50:28 - 50:28)
Right.

[Anders Olsson] (50:28 - 50:34)
But it's easy to learn after some time for most people actually to use the system by themselves.

[Joshua Holland] (50:35 - 51:14)
Right. So you get in, you fill up with carbon dioxide until it's fully blown up or it's fully saturated and then you disconnect and then you go and do your thing, right? Like you can sit, you can read, you can practice with the Relaxator.

You can like what I like to do is I like to sit and listen to a podcast because my head is free. Right. So there's also another thing I really love doing and it's probably one of my favorite things to do is I take the Relaxator, breathe a few times, a few rounds with this until I'm really calm because there is an initial sympathetic response for me.

[Anders Olsson] (51:14 - 51:15)
Okay.

[Joshua Holland] (51:15 - 51:37)
Right. I have an initial sympathetic response, which is I get in and I pump this thing up and it's like this and I'm walking around like the Michelin man, like you said. And so that's a little bit like jarring, I think.

And then until I can sit down or lie down and do my relaxation session, then I put on brain tap. Are you familiar with brain tap?

[Anders Olsson] (51:37 - 51:37)
No.

[Joshua Holland] (51:38 - 52:36)
Okay. Brain tap is this really cool meditation device that utilizes flashing lights through your eyes. So it has this visor and it has the earbuds or over the ear earbuds that also have lights in them.

So it has various lights. So it's going through the ear canal. It's going through the lights through your eyes.

Obviously, your eyes are closed. And then the headphones are playing binaural frequencies that match the music that's coming and it matches the lights that are flickering. And so depending on whatever session you choose, whether it's detox or it's, I don't know, like a better, better, less stress, better sleep, whatever you choose, you can do that while you're in the body stream.

And like usually those sessions are around, I don't know, 15 to 25 minutes long on average. And the body stream session, I typically like to do it for around 45 minutes. What is your suggestion there?

[Anders Olsson] (52:36 - 52:46)
Yeah, the same for me. 45 minutes and upwards. Last time a few days ago, I think I did it almost two hours because I fell asleep.

[Joshua Holland] (52:47 - 52:51)
Oh, good. Good. Did you have to refill the CO2?

[Anders Olsson] (52:52 - 52:54)
No, I didn't have to. No.

[Joshua Holland] (52:54 - 53:14)
Okay. Because that's one of the other questions that I had when I was testing this out on my own, utilizing it myself is I don't know if it's because there's a small leak or if it's because my body is absorbing the CO2, but there's times when it's, it comes down slightly. It's not as filled up as it is when I first start.

[Anders Olsson] (53:14 - 53:38)
Yeah. So one reason is of course that you absorb through your skin for sure. Yeah.

But another reason could be, for example, if we stand up when we fill up the suit and then when we lay down, they may open up some spots in the throat where there will leak out some CO2. Okay. And is that a problem?

No, not necessarily. I wouldn't say so.

[Joshua Holland] (53:38 - 53:38)
Okay.

[Anders Olsson] (53:38 - 54:03)
You may want to pay attention. If you are laying down on the floor, CO2 is heavier than air. So if a lot of CO2 leaks out, that means that the CO2 will stay there on the floor level.

And then you may, if you start to inhale too much CO2, that could be a little uncomfortable.

[Joshua Holland] (54:04 - 54:41)
Okay, good. So that's the piece that I wanted to touch on before we move to this last piece. Because again, like there is with most anything that goes online, we are subject to the naysayers and there's going to be a lot of stories that have popped up when people did things incorrectly.

Maybe they over consumed CO2. There have been some major problems that have happened. So what we're saying here is if you do it correctly and it's sealed the way it's supposed to be sealed and you're doing it properly, then it's almost like nothing can go wrong.

Really, right?

[Anders Olsson] (54:42 - 55:24)
Yes. And we should consider the fact that CO2 is very safe in general. Because for example, if you come to the hospital and you're going to have a keyhole surgery in your stomach, they inflate your stomach in order for the surgeon to have room to do the surgery.

And the gas used to inflate the stomach is carbon dioxide because it is considered so extremely safe. And it makes sense because almost every single cell in our body produces carbon dioxide. So our whole body, all system knows how to get rid of too much CO2.

[Joshua Holland] (55:25 - 55:32)
So then what would you consider to be some of the top contraindications? Who might this not be for?

[Anders Olsson] (55:32 - 56:12)
We haven't yet discovered any who had any side effects that were not just a because sometimes that could occur that we get a, what do you call it? It gets worse before it gets better. Like if you have been smoking for 30 years, you may not get all the benefits the first day.

You may still be anxious and stressed out and only thinking about the next cigarette. So, but you know, you're doing something good for your body. So over time, that will anxiety will be reduced and you will start to feel more open lungs, right?

Because you're not smoking anymore.

[Joshua Holland] (56:13 - 57:13)
So yeah, that's, that's a good point because I think that's something that people need to understand. And I call it the way I understand it is known as a Herxheimer response, which basically is this extreme detox that may be faster than the body is used to having. And so sometimes the, these toxins, if you don't excrete them well enough, if you don't get rid of those toxins well enough by sweating or, or, you know, doing sauna or running or whatever if you don't get rid of it faster than it's being unloaded into your body, then you might get this response that feels as if it actually got worse before it got better.

But to your point, as long as you stick with it, especially something as safe as CO2, and you're not directly inhaling it like more than you should, then it should be all good, right? Just start low and slow, maybe do a shorter session until you get comfortable doing longer sessions and see what happens, right?

[Anders Olsson] (57:13 - 57:35)
Yes, exactly. Like in anything we do, we should really try to listen to our body, which for many of us is not that easy because we're not used to it. But yeah, don't overdo it.

So if you're starting and you have a lot of health issues, maybe you start with 15 minutes and then you work yourself up and listen to what your body says.

[Joshua Holland] (57:35 - 57:50)
Right. Now, I just took a drink. As you see this here, this is a really good conversation.

You know, this will allow us to go to the next part of the conversation. So I have my soda stream.

[Anders Olsson] (57:50 - 57:51)
Okay, cool.

[Joshua Holland] (57:51 - 58:24)
For those of you that have soda streams, or you like sparkling water, well, everything we've been talking about so far is carbon dioxide being infused into water. And that's what this is. And that's what the soda stream literally is.

It's just a small carbon dioxide canister that allows for a momentary burst of carbon dioxide to go into whatever. And I know that you have some videos out there on the internet, on your YouTube channel and your website that describe how you can do a face wash with the same carbonated water.

[Anders Olsson] (58:25 - 1:00:01)
Yes, right. And I mean, it's really interesting. If you think about it, what you just showed the soda stream, you add carbon dioxide to water and suddenly you have changed the taste and you can add it to water and you can get champagne and beer.

There are other things you add as well. But carbon dioxide in the water, in the champagne, in the beer, it's crucial. If you drink a beer without carbon dioxide, it doesn't taste good at all.

And if we just think about the fact that we, our body is 60-70% water, it makes a lot of sense to realize that, okay, if we change the levels of CO2 in our body, we lower it, it will have an effect. So doing a face bath, it's really cool. I've also done a hand bath and a foot bath.

So basically you expose the area to carbonated water and that will drive oxidant to the area. And whenever you drive oxidant to an area, that increases the circulation, right? That increases the ability to oxidinate the area and then the cells start to work better and waste products can be removed more easily.

So after you do a face bath, you feel really refreshed. After you do a foot bath with carbonated water, you feel that you improve the circulation to the feet and then the same with the hands.

[Joshua Holland] (1:00:02 - 1:01:03)
Beautiful. So let's talk about what we've been dying to talk about. There's a video that I recorded.

I haven't yet edited it. So for those of you that are watching and listening now, you're going to get a first sort of like inside scoop before I actually edit this thing. But we're going to discuss this device called the Carbohaler.

And the Carbohaler, just so everyone knows, full disclosure, it's in its infancy. It's in beta testing mode. But I got a chance to finally try it out while I was there in Stockholm.

And it was very, very interesting. So let's play this video. If you don't mind sharing your screen, let's play this video and then we can discuss.

Many people think that carbon dioxide is a waste gas and that is actually bad for us. But Anders and I are here to show you that you can actually inhale carbon dioxide. Now, here we have the Carbohaler.

What exactly is the Carbohaler?

[Anders Olsson] (1:01:04 - 1:01:12)
So it's a device to help you to inhale carbon dioxide. You put the mask on and you get it in through your nose or through your mouth.

[Joshua Holland] (1:01:14 - 1:01:18)
So you're telling me that this is 100% carbon dioxide and you're breathing that in?

[Anders Olsson] (1:01:18 - 1:01:47)
Well, here we have 100% carbon dioxide. But the device helps you to set between 1% and 8%, which means you're inhaling between 50 and 200 times more than you normally inhale. So what is the benefit of that?

Well, that will help you to open up your airways, to restore balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide. You get a more efficient oxygenation. And it will also help you expand your awareness, your consciousness.

[Joshua Holland] (1:01:47 - 1:02:58)
Wow. So we're essentially blending oxygen and carbon dioxide, which ultimately allows us to balance out that oxygen carbon dioxide ratio. Yeah, you can put it like that.

Beautiful. Okay. So obviously, I didn't get a chance to edit that in this really cool, fancy way that most people will see on social media.

It's coming. But part of the reason why is because you had told me to hold off until you fully developed it or until you were ready. And I figured, well, since I have you on the show, we may as well talk about it because you've been doing a lot of testing around that.

And even what I experienced when I was there was like amazing because I wasn't sure what to expect. I remember reading about the usage of carbon dioxide, inhaling that by reading the book Breath by James Nestor. And so I was curious.

I wanted to try this so much that I was hounding you like, hey, when can we try it? When can we try it? And I think you had just gotten a new device when I happened to be there.

So the timing couldn't be more perfect.

[Anders Olsson] (1:03:00 - 1:03:03)
Josh, we got it two hours before recording that video, right?

[Joshua Holland] (1:03:03 - 1:03:25)
That's right. That's right. So it was like brand new for you and brand new for me.

And I distinctly remember what it was like trying it. And I think the first thing I thought was when I inhaled it, I was like, oh, this is a lot like a soda stream. It's like smelling what I taste when I drink sparkling water.

[Anders Olsson] (1:03:25 - 1:03:26)
Right. Yes.

[Joshua Holland] (1:03:27 - 1:03:39)
And then obviously the other, you know, not the implications, but the other benefits from doing that and everything else that happens, you can discuss now. But let's talk about what you've been doing with it and what people are saying.

[Anders Olsson] (1:03:39 - 1:05:07)
Yes. So what we notice is that it has an effect both on the airways as well as on the brain. And one thing is that you seem to get stronger.

So I've done it. My partner has done it to inhale carbon dioxide and then doing push-ups afterwards. And I think there are five more people that have said that they can do more push-ups after inhaling carbon dioxide.

And I could rarely do more than 50 push-ups. I was stuck at 49 and then I kind of gave up. Okay.

I had my chance. I did a program for six weeks where I really wanted to, this may be the last chance in my life to do over 50 push-ups. I only reached 49 and I was so pissed off.

And so just to put things in perspective. So the first time I tried doing push-ups after the carbohydrate, I managed to do 57, which is quite a lot more. And now a few months later, I can do 70.

So I have really done quite a bit of an increase. And Marlene, my partner, she can do 45, which is really a lot for women. Yeah, for women.

[Joshua Holland] (1:05:07 - 1:05:11)
That's incredible. And if you don't mind, how old are you again?

[Anders Olsson] (1:05:11 - 1:05:12)
54.

[Joshua Holland] (1:05:12 - 1:05:37)
So you're 54 years old. Even without the impressive bump with the carbohydrate, being able to do 49 push-ups at 54 years old is impressive, right? And to then, like you said, to get any bit of a bump, whether it was two more push-ups to get you beyond 50 or to get to where you got the first time, it's incredible.

Because now you're up to what? How many?

[Anders Olsson] (1:05:37 - 1:05:38)
70.

[Joshua Holland] (1:05:38 - 1:05:40)
You're at 70. Don't you have a video of that?

[Anders Olsson] (1:05:41 - 1:05:44)
No, I only have one video where I do 57.

[Joshua Holland] (1:05:44 - 1:05:45)
Can we see it?

[Anders Olsson] (1:05:46 - 1:06:26)
Yeah, we can see it. So first, I do the carbohydrate, inhaling it. Maybe you can see that my chest is lifting a little more than normal.

I'm breathing slightly heavier because carbon dioxide drives breathing. It is not lack of oxygen that makes you take the next breath. It's actually the buildup of carbon dioxide.

So when I'm inhaling extra, there he goes. Yeah, so this is a couple of months ago when I did 57 and I was super happy with that.

[Joshua Holland] (1:06:28 - 1:07:16)
I recognize this place. So look at how he's cranking out good form. This guy is rocking it.

He's got the power of CO2 helping push him. Well, I should say CO2 and oxygen, right? Because once this video finishes playing, I want to talk about lactic acid and how it is involved in this whole process.

Because I think that's at play here, right? When you can slow down the buildup of lactic acid, I think it allows a person to have more strength endurance and more endurance overall, especially throughout the muscles, right? So I think that there's a big component there.

Look at that. Push, push, push, push, push. Ah, well done.

[Anders Olsson] (1:07:17 - 1:07:20)
Okay. I can tell you I was exhausted there.

[Joshua Holland] (1:07:20 - 1:07:47)
I can see. So let's discuss what's actually going on. How do you think that's possible?

And I know that there's, again, there's a lot of skeptics out there. There's going to be people that say, oh, he could have done that without it. Possibly, possibly.

But let's describe what you're doing now. Because I don't think I can even do 70 right now. Without having that, I couldn't even do 70.

I don't even know if I could do 50.

[Anders Olsson] (1:07:48 - 1:09:50)
No, I mean, it is quite a lot. But yeah, so another example, we were in Utah one and a half week ago, and there was a guy there who tried it out, Dr. Mark Allen at Cognitive FX. They are world leaders in, he runs quite a big clinic.

There are, I think, 55 employees helping people with concussions and brain damages. And he was super excited about the Carbohaler because he could see how it could benefit their treatment protocol. And he tried it on himself.

He likes to go out for a run and push it. So he goes out for this four-mile jog, and it's 2,500 feet elevation. So it's quite steep.

And during that jog, he stops five times and do push-ups, as many as he can. And normally, he starts, he can do 30 and then 20, and a total of about 110, 115. And when we met, he said, okay, now I've done it twice with doing this exercise routine after the Carbohaler.

And both times, I've been able to do 160 push-ups. First, I started not with 30, but with 50. And then it went down from 50 to 30.

But still, when you summarize, instead of doing 110, 115, he did 160. That's almost 50% increase. And then just when the day we went home back to Sweden, he sent a text saying, okay, I have this other thing I'm doing.

It takes me about one hour, 20 minutes. After the Carbohaler, it only took me 58 minutes. Okay, I must admit, maybe I pushed it a little more than normally.

But still, that is quite a difference. So this is really interesting.

[Joshua Holland] (1:09:50 - 1:10:25)
It's very interesting. And back to the idea of lactic acid. So obviously, I'm a lot more muscular than you are.

And so there is this idea of the type one fibers, or sorry, the type two fibers, being able to generate more energy and more power. So people with more muscle tone typically tuck her out a lot quicker. So let's talk about the influence of lactic acid and kind of where that comes in here.

[Anders Olsson] (1:10:25 - 1:13:23)
Yes. So I mean, our body can produce energy basically in two ways, with oxygen and without oxygen. So without oxygen, it's called anaerobic exercise, right?

Anaerobic energy production. And with oxygen, it's called aerobic. So we want to avoid anaerobic because that means the powerhouses of our cells, the mitochondria, produces most of our energy.

They can only work with oxygen. And they produce as a byproduct carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide helps lower the pH so that the cell should not become too alkaline.

But if oxygen is not around, which it isn't when we start to exert ourselves too much, we are not able to deliver enough oxygen, we will have to switch to anaerobic energy production. But it's not either or, right? It's a gliding scale.

So the body gradually shifts from producing the majority of its energy with oxygen, which is by far more efficient about, we can almost extract 100% of the energy from the nutrients we eat. While anaerobic energy production can only extract about 6% of the available energy in the food we eat. So there is a 16 times difference.

So obviously, we want to produce energy with oxygen. That's the whole reason why we die. If we stop breathing, the lack of oxygen leads to lack of energy.

So anyway, when we can't supply the cells with enough oxygen, the body has to switch to more and more anaerobic energy production, which produces very little energy. And instead of giving off carbon dioxide as a byproduct, it gives off lactic acid to prevent the cell from becoming too alkaline. So lactic acid isn't bad per se, but it has been associated.

We see that in studies, when the levels of lactic acid goes up, the endurance goes down. The performance goes down. So, and that coincides with oxygen.

So the whole idea, the thing we want more than anything is to oxidinate ourselves, our muscles. And if we don't, we have to switch to produce energy without oxygen. And that's a byproduct that is lactic acid.

So when we inhale more carbon dioxide, we facilitate the delivery of oxygen to the cells, right? That's the, at least the understanding I have. Maybe someone else has another view on it.

But the essence is that you seem to be able to perform better. You seem to be able to recover faster.

[Joshua Holland] (1:13:23 - 1:13:38)
So do you think there's a correlation to like having, to be able to have like more CO2 tolerance? You think that's synonymous with having more lactic acid tolerance or the delay of the buildup of lactic acid?

[Anders Olsson] (1:13:39 - 1:13:40)
Yes, I think so.

[Joshua Holland] (1:13:40 - 1:13:40)
Yeah.

[Anders Olsson] (1:13:41 - 1:14:14)
That's the experience of our colleague Alexandra Kolam, who was top five in the world in CrossFit. She says that nasal breathing, which in a way is the same, you restrict oxygen and you increase, you boost the carbon dioxide. She says that when she does that, she not only crushes her competitors, but she also delays the lactic acid explosion in her muscles.

So she can go on for longer. Yeah.

[Joshua Holland] (1:14:15 - 1:15:31)
And that's super important. I'm glad you brought up Alexandra. And CrossFit because the CrossFit athletes represent some of the toughest and the most powerful athletes on the planet.

Because a lot of their, especially at that very high level, a lot of the workouts is all about like strength endurance and all about delaying lactic acid. So those who can delay lactic acid buildup, I think a lot of us know that when we get full lactic acid buildup, the body's going to stop. You're going to stop.

And it's kind of like that warning signal or that check engine light that comes on that says something bad is going to happen if you don't stop or if you don't figure this thing out. So if you can prolong that, then you might be able to get more reps. You might be able to run longer.

You might be able to do more. Therefore, getting you out of danger or winning a competition or whatever you're looking for. But if you're trying to improve your performance, this is one of those tools that can definitely help to do that.

And you don't have to worry about it being listed as a performance-enhancing drug, even though maybe we call it a performance-enhancing gas peg. Performance-enhancing gas.

[Anders Olsson] (1:15:32 - 1:17:31)
Yes. And another aspect, I think, is also that it has an effect on your brain and your nervous system because the nose is connected to the brain and specifically the amygdala, our fear center. So another theory is that it actually helps you to reduce fear.

Our nervous system is there to protect us, right? More than anything, it wants to make sure to keep us alive. So for example, I have this friend, he is an orthopedic surgeon and he confirmed to me that I asked him, if someone is anesthetized, would it be possible for them to do a split or to put their leg behind their head?

And he said, yeah, actually, I tried that with a patient. And it was true. When he was awake, he was super stiff and I could barely lift his leg more than, you know, to this position.

And then when he got anesthetized and my colleague, a nurse, came around and she needed to do something and she was able to lift his leg like that. And I thought, oh, am I so weak or is she so strong? He said, so obviously he had to try.

But he was then able to put his leg like that when he was anesthetized, when his nervous system did not, wasn't able to protect him anymore. So I think potentially that is another aspect because we have seen people saying that when they inhale CO2, it makes them more clear, it improves their vision and their memory and it makes them less afraid. So I think that comes into play as well.

My body or my nervous system says, okay, well, let this guy do 70 push-ups. We think he is safe. But before now, we shouldn't let him do more than 45, if you know what I mean.

[Joshua Holland] (1:17:32 - 1:17:57)
I'm glad you brought that up. Because I know you talked to me a little bit about that and I didn't grasp it the way that you just explained it now, but I got it and that's very cool. That's very, very cool.

And I guess one question before we move on, what is the relationship between being anesthetized and CO2? Is it a similar gas?

[Anders Olsson] (1:17:57 - 1:18:23)
I see. No, there is no relation. I was just illustrating being anesthetized is a way to take away your nervous system control.

And when you expose the amygdala, which is located in the brain, that is your fear center, when you expose it to carbon dioxide, it will start to change.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:23 - 1:18:24)
I got it.

[Anders Olsson] (1:18:24 - 1:19:55)
There are a lot of studies showing that amygdala is involved when there is a lot of stress and anxiety and worry. So there is a malfunction in the amygdala. You interpret this little spider as this big.

And when you expose it to CO2 and do that gradually, the amygdala, that is my hypothesis, the amygdala will start to put all these stuff that are red coated in the red box and put them up and put them in the green box. This is safe. So when we are exposed to a new stimuli, before we may got that scared about it, and when the amygdala starts to work and operate in a different way, we don't get afraid anymore.

And that has actually been a theme since I started with conscious breathing 14 years ago, both on me and on the participants on our courses, that they have said that they are not only less stressed, but they are also less anxious, less worried, less afraid. And I think the low and slow and rhythmic breathing, which gradually, very slowly increases the carbon dioxide levels while Carbohaler increases them a lot faster, but it is the same mechanism, although the Carbohaler is a lot faster. Does it make sense?

[Joshua Holland] (1:19:56 - 1:20:36)
It definitely makes sense. And it's very fascinating. And I am excited to see how you get on with the development of it, which brings me to my last point.

Where and when and like, how are you going to get this into the public? Because currently right now, well, I know it's been since we had our last conversation, it's been quite some time that I've been wanting to get this, but you told me you've come up against a few challenges. If you're willing to open the kimono a little bit about that, maybe we have some people listening or watching that might be able to offer some assistance.

Can you tell us what you're faced with right now at the moment?

[Anders Olsson] (1:20:37 - 1:20:54)
Yeah, it seems like we have overcome those challenges, but I've said these things way too many times. So I'm a little bit reluctant, but I think we are not that far away. I think we're just talking about maybe a couple of months.

[Joshua Holland] (1:20:54 - 1:21:34)
Okay. All right. Good.

So maybe we check back in, maybe we do another episode. So we have you on here a fourth time. Why not?

Right. But maybe we can bring you back in to actually dive very deep into it. Because I think by then, hopefully you'll have even more research and people can get more excited about it.

Personally, I think that if I had to choose between the BodyStream or the Carbohaler, I probably would go with the Carbohaler because of the footprint. It's a smaller footprint. But I love the BodyStream for that systemic effect.

[Anders Olsson] (1:21:35 - 1:23:12)
Yeah. I think they're a bit different, but I agree with you. The Carbohaler is a lot more accessible, but the BodyStream really gives you the nice, deep relaxation.

The Carbohaler feels more like I get a little fired up. But interestingly enough, when we did one study on the transcutaneous oxidant pressure, which is basically how much oxidant do you have in different parts of your body? When we compared BodyStream with Carbohaler, we had similar effect actually on the oxidant.

If you just think of the fact that we did not supply any extra oxidant at all, we only supplied extra carbon dioxide, either through the mask, inhaling it, or through the skin, absorbing it in the BodyStream. When in the BodyStream, the person trying it out, his oxidant pressure on his shoulder increased from 26 millimeters of mercury. No, sorry, it increased from 14 millimeters of mercury to 42.8, a 300% increase. With the Carbohaler, it was on the arm, measuring the oxidant pressure, it increased from 26 to 78. Wow. And then when the inhaling the carbon dioxide stopped, it started to go down, but it stabilized at about 42, still 10 minutes after inhaling it.

[Joshua Holland] (1:23:13 - 1:23:18)
So you know what that sounds like to me? That sounds like the perfect recovery tool.

[Anders Olsson] (1:23:18 - 1:23:20)
Yeah, it does.

[Joshua Holland] (1:23:20 - 1:24:12)
That's exactly what it sounds like. I think if people understand it the way I understand it, then all of these professional sports teams and anybody who wants to be high performing in whatever industry they're in, I feel like they should use this, if nothing else, to recover from said sport or whatever, because again, it's not illegal. It's not a performance enhancing drug.

It's not like the stuff that they use in... What is that stuff they use in the Tour de France? EPO, it's not EPO, right?

It's just carbon dioxide, which is prevalent all around us, right? So I feel like this is something that we should look into as a community of people who really want to help perform at our best. Then we should also recover at our best.

And this is a really good tool to do that.

[Anders Olsson] (1:24:12 - 1:24:46)
That lays the foundation for perform at our best, right? To recover at our best. And at the end of the day, I think the whole conscious breathing concept, whether that is sleeping with your mouth taped or doing physical activity with closed mouth or inhaling through your nose before talking or using the Relaxator, they follow the same principle, oxygen restriction and carbon dioxide boost as it does the body stream and the carbohydrates.

It's actually very, very similar.

[Joshua Holland] (1:24:47 - 1:26:00)
This has been so fun. There's a lot of things in here that I didn't even think we would talk about. And I'm glad we did.

And we're obviously getting a little long and I want to be mindful of the viewers and the listeners. But if you've listened up to this point, thank you. Thank you for taking the time.

I'm trying to be as authentic as I can when it comes to bringing people on that are doing cool things. Whether that comes from the biohacking space or that is musicians or comedians or whatever, I'm gonna continue to explore all that I can and try to share that with you. And Anders is someone that, I mean, we've had more conversations off of a podcast than we have being on a podcast.

I love it when every once in a while, you just call up and we have some of the most amazing conversations and be on the lookout because I spoke to him about some things that I want to do with him in the future in which we might work together doing some speaking engagements or some retreats or whatever, because he's a wealth of knowledge. He's someone that I really enjoy being around. He's got such great energy.

And I think a lot of that is because he's conscious breathing.

[Anders Olsson] (1:26:01 - 1:26:03)
Likewise, Josh, likewise.

[Joshua Holland] (1:26:03 - 1:26:42)
So as you are familiar with, being that this is your third time on the show, let's go with these last two questions that I'd like to ask and let's see if you have anything different. The first question I'd like to ask is, what are your top two pet peeves? Two top what?

Can you explain that? The pet peeves. I think it's an American expression, but it's something that kind of bothers you or that gets under your skin, something that kind of annoys you.

And it doesn't have to be about conscious breathing or doesn't have to even be about health and wellness. It can be about anything.

[Anders Olsson] (1:26:42 - 1:27:34)
So I think one thing that annoys me is that we are so much herd animals. We just do things what other tells us to do without thinking. We live our lives sleeping.

Sheep. Yeah, well, it's a harsh word, but I would like to, you know, sometimes, oh, come on, wake up. What are you doing on this planet?

Why are you here? What do you want to achieve? What is important for you?

Are you living your life or are you living someone else's life? Your parents or your media or your friends or whatever? What do you want?

What is important for you? More engagement, yeah.

[Joshua Holland] (1:27:35 - 1:28:27)
That's a really good one. And in fact, I think that will suffice the pet peeves one because again, you've been on here more than twice. So this is your third time here.

So I think that's good enough. Like, I don't even want to harbor on the negativity, so to speak. And usually pet peeves is kind of seen as being negative, but I like to bring it up so that we get moments like you just expressed, which is true.

Like, I think that we should be a little bit more aware or a lot more aware and conscious of what we're doing in life, right? Like if you're just following what your spouse or your boss or what you see on social media, if you're following that, like what's the point really? Yeah, yeah.

So well done. My last question, and I'm sure you have a good response for this. What is something you are most grateful for?

[Anders Olsson] (1:28:28 - 1:28:55)
Something I'm most grateful for? There are so many things, but something we can never take for granted, that's our own health and the energy and waking up healthy in the morning. I'm super grateful for that, that I find life so meaningful and that I have the energy and the health to pursue the things I wanna do.

[Joshua Holland] (1:28:55 - 1:29:10)
Beautiful. Okay, well, as a reminder, can you let people know the best place to keep in line or keep track of what you're doing, what Conscious Breathing is doing? Can you rattle off some of the best ways to find you?

[Anders Olsson] (1:29:11 - 1:29:22)
Yeah, so consciousbreathing.com is our website. We are most active, I think on Instagram, Conscious Breathing and Facebook as well. It's Conscious Breathing there and also on YouTube.

[Joshua Holland] (1:29:22 - 1:30:18)
There you have it. All right, well, happy breathing, everyone. I hope you took something from this.

If you do resonate with this and you feel like it's something that others could learn something from, then please feel free to share, write us a comment, ask us some questions, reach out to Anders himself directly if you want, reach out to me if you have questions. In fact, if you are nearby New York City and you wanna come and hang out with me and try out the BodyStream, I'd be more than happy to show you that. I even have a couple extra Relaxators, right?

So if you're one of the lucky few that get a chance to hang out with me here in New York while I'm here, hit me up and then let's see if we can't help people become a little bit more conscious with their breathing. So Anders, thanks again. Thanks for your time.

[Anders Olsson] (1:30:18 - 1:30:20)
Thank you, Josh. Thank you for having me.

[Joshua Holland] (1:30:20 - 1:30:24)
Yeah, and we'll talk soon. This is Josh signing out from Simply Walk the Talk.

[Anders Olsson] (1:30:24 - 1:30:25)
Peace. Peace and love.