Breathing and eating are critical to life. We talk so much about diet but relatively little about breathing. Yet the impact of breathing on our body's chemistry has an effect on almost every disease. Mim Beim is a breathing specialist and will discuss 3 patients covering sleep apnea, asthma and anxiety. If you want to improve your physical or mental health or enhance your sporting performance you'll be fascinated by this episode of a patient story.
Breathing and eating are critical to life. We talk so much about diet but relatively little about breathing. Yet the impact of breathing on our body's chemistry has an effect on almost every disease. Mim Beim is a breathing specialist and will discuss 3 patients covering sleep apnea, asthma and anxiety. If you want to improve your physical or mental health or enhance your sporting performance you'll be fascinated by this episode of a patient story.
Hello, Mim Beim naturopath extraordinaire,
Mim Beim:Hello, Daniel, and same to you.
Daniel Baden:I was reading your website just before this interview. And there's one quote on there, which I absolutely love. We all breathe, but if you don't breathe well, you can't be well. That's just awesome. I mean, that says it all, that's our interview.
Mim Beim:Yeah, done and dusted. lets gossip as per usual. yeah, Daniel, it's so true. It's kind of blindingly obvious. Breathing is the first thing we do when we're born. The last thing we do before we die as a naturopath, yourself, you know, we're absolutely fixated on diet, particularly in Australia. I mean, it's, it's good. But I think that sometimes it's almost, there's too much emphasis,
Daniel Baden:Underline the word Well
Mim Beim:exactly.
Daniel Baden:One thing I learned recently, is that there are several different approaches to not breathing well, and how we deal with it. And four different types of sleep apnea for different types of breathing issue, but only one of them is mechanical, the rest are biochemical or adjustment of carbon dioxide, these sorts of things. Is that something that's really happened in the last few
Mim Beim:Well, I mean, I think we've been breathing for quite a while. But there's science behind it, or the understanding is, I guess, it's just it, too, has been known for a long time. But it's just started to got to get sexy. There was a fellow called James Nesta, who wrote a book called Breath about, I don't know, two or three years ago, may have been longer now. And he really got people's
Daniel Baden:it's also because a significant number of the Australian population and probably western world population is impacted by poor breathing. It may affect their asthma or anxiety levels, or sleep apnea, snoring, tiredness, exhaustion, chronic inflammation. I mean, the list just goes on. So breathing is associated with many of the modern illnesses that we're talking about,
Mim Beim:is Daniel, but I don't know that people are that aware. So things like dysfunctional breathing. signs can be snoring, that's a really obvious one, but frequent yawning, signs, sniffing, coughing, throat clearing, these are not necessarily illnesses, no one's going to come and make an appointment with a naturopath or a doctor because they're saying a lot. But that is potentially a receptors have changed their sensitivity, they remain changed. So this is I mean, that's how I came across this method. It was back in a long, long time ago in the early 90s. And actually, I was on Triple J. And a guy who was teaching bootay code had just come to Australia at that time, he was hounding me, obviously, he wanted a bit of publicity. And I had asthma and I had only heard about it in
Daniel Baden:Then I just only regret that while you're giving your analogy about biceps, you're actually looking at my biceps. And that's just disappointing. Not but
Mim Beim:no, no, they, they really, it's basically rippling, and those
Daniel Baden:the propensity for these chronic conditions associated with breathing seems to be increasing. And I'd be interested in your opinion as to why that might be happening. There are plenty of theories around weight and diet and stress and age, but particularly in women. So there seems to be some sort of hormonal contribution towards breathing and the biochemical mechanisms of breathing.
Mim Beim:I disagree with your thoughts. I mean, I always I usually agree with your thoughts. But in this case, I think that it's actually we're becoming more aware that breathing might have an impact. And with regard to hormones and breathing, yes, that's true. And particularly for women in the latter half of the cycle, the breathing increases, but then it changes and everything goes pear
Daniel Baden:No, I get that. Let's start talking about the cases that you're going to present to us in this podcast today. Got three conditions to talk about. One is sleep apnea. One is anxiety and one in asthma is asthma. Let's see how we how we go. There all breathing related, but what are the differences in your approach to these cases?
Mim Beim:Okay, the let's talk about the child with asthma. Let me read this a while ago, Daniel. Yeah, eight year old girl. Her mom's a naturopath, so had kind of heard about me and my obsession with breathing. So I guess the point of the mother's a naturopath is she's done everything. Naturopathic Lee for asthma sidelite looked at food sensitivities and possibly herbs and so on. So all that's then hold your nose until you feel the first sensations to breathe. So it's not your brain telling you to breathe. It's your body telling you to breathe. And it's not how long you can hold your breath. It's how long you can hold your breath into your body tells you to breathe. So it could be a little it's usually a little muscle kind of jerk. It could be the diaphragm, it could be the back
Daniel Baden:okay, so this is a podcast, we can't make it too boring.
Unknown:The Dead Space is literally, Daniel Daniel, I'm going to predict your CP is not that long, sweaty.
Mim Beim:Don't be scared about the dead air.
Unknown:Right. Okay, look, I'll sing a tune in between. And if it goes on for too long, I'll definitely be able to feel that you worry. Okay. So everyone out there listening to Daniel's podcast. Congratulations. It's a fabulous podcast, I've listened to a few myself. You are now going to have your mouth closed, you're going to take a breath in through the nose, a breath out through the nose,
Daniel Baden:So if somebody is doing this at home, what should they be looking for in terms of time? Yeah, whether they should take things further or not?
Mim Beim:Well, if the cp is a CP, you don't muck around with it. It's just like that is it for you. You can't make it longer or shorter. It's what your brain tells you. Okay, now, this is what I actually don't think I realized, but it's not oxygen that makes you want to breathe or low oxygen, it's carbon dioxide. Okay, you're probably very familiar with that. But a lot of people are not, and asthmatic, I am now so used to take it. So yep, your asthma is not controlled. And if someone if she's needing to take Ventolin, several times of day, it's not really controlled. She's not hospitalized, but it's not, you know, really shouldn't be needing to take the reliever that often. And so that's what all of the B tako. Specific specifically is about is increasing your tolerance to
Daniel Baden:And could you give me an example of one or two exercises you could do for this? Yeah.
Mim Beim:Well, one for for kids is lots of fun for them, it's called steps, you get them to breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the nose, and make sure they don't cheat and you make someone that you know, like me, you might take their mouse up, which we can talk about, and off they go. And they do as many steps as they can blocking their nose. And we do that several times. And
Daniel Baden:Well, cardiovascular system
Mim Beim:exactly beautiful, the blood vessels. And that's what Constantine be taiko who is Ukrainian. I used to say Russian and I was so wrong with you. I just didn't realize how wrong I was. I was researching the effect of breathing on blood pressure. And yeah, so this is how it can help certain types of high blood pressure. Because of course, if the blood vessels are constricted, then the
Daniel Baden:There's a lot of pharmaceutical company investment into nitric oxide at the moment.
Mim Beim:Okay, of course, and that's what and then the other thing is, the big area of nitric oxide is the endothelial phillium of blood vessels. The other big area where we produce it is the nasal cavity. nasal cavity. Yes. So if people are mouth breathing, they're missing out on that. You know, it's anti microbial. It's antioxidant. I'll let you speak now. Daniel,
Daniel Baden:I read somewhere a long time ago that 70% of the body's nitric oxide is produced through the nasal cavity with nose breathing.
Mim Beim:Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Look, I haven't read that statistic. But I know that apart from the blood vessels, the nasal cavity is the big and it's huge. It's like it's a third of the skull. It's enormous area. Yeah. And if mouth breathing, you're missing out on all of that. So we've got smooth muscle of the blood vessels we've got smooth muscle of the airways, smooth
Daniel Baden:it's amazing.
Mim Beim:It's like, it's, it's to me, I still get excited. It's, it's, as I said, um, glass half empty. I don't know why I keep getting excited. But the other aspect of the carbon dioxide is that it's a it's a nervous system tranquilizer. So in the old days, people having a panic attack that get to breathe into a paper bag, that's carbon dioxide being recirculated. What happens when you're
Daniel Baden:with a eight year old child, what would be the timeline before you start to see or they you start to see improvement or they start to feel better? And how often do they have to do the exercises, over what period of time it is officially a piece of string. However, as you know, treating children is always a delight, because they respond relatively quicker than adults. I don't know why. But that's, that's the truth. So generally, within the week, there'll be less wheezing, and so on. I never give a timeline though, because it's quicker for kids quicker for kids, but they have to do the exercises. And then this is Many years ago, in practice, I used to get some patients to use those TMJ devices, like a double sided mouthguard, they would put in their mouth to help relax the temporomandibular joint. But most people complain they couldn't breathe through their mouth when they had this thing at night.
Mim Beim:The splints are, it's I mean, it's not my area. I think you'd really need to be going to a good dentist because you're the position of that team to Jay is so precarious that you haven't in the wrong position. You can cause a problem but Tang posture which isn't which is the most one of the mechanical aspects of breathing will Hold your jaw in the right position. So you're where your
Daniel Baden:Yeah, yeah. So when you suggest to a parent that you want to tape their child's mouth up at night? How does how's the response? And how cooperative are people?
Mim Beim:By the time someone actually makes an appointment, they're kind of all over it. Yeah, they often have got it. Yeah, yeah. But it takes a shock, then how you get around that is, if the child has some screen time or watching telly or, or doing homework tape up for an hour then? And particularly, if they can't breathe through their nose comfortably. There's no way I would suggest typing
Daniel Baden:Build up the tolerance. Yeah, of course.
Mim Beim:And people will say, I mean, every time I give a course and give out the mouth tape, I'll always get an email saying I had the best sleep ever.
Daniel Baden:I know that you're a naturopath, so you wouldn't be looking at breathing just alone. Obviously, you would make be making an assessment about diet or
Mim Beim:no, I'm doing breathing alone, Daniel, I do, like get the breathing i What i Yeah, it's really quite interesting. I'll get the breathing, right. And then at the, the symptom don't improve. Let's look at your diet. Let's look, look, I mean, if there's heaps of grains, not something like that, okay, we're going to we're going to do something about it. But if they're saying, you know, I
Daniel Baden:And then number two, this child with asthma for a second? Yeah. And I imagine that you've seen quite a few asthma cases in your long career. 35 year career, what do you feel that the success rate is overall, I'm not holding you to any exact number. But do you feel that you've been significantly more successful than not successful in treating people with asthma?
Mim Beim:Oh, yeah, asthma is kind of like, Oh, phew, great, you've got asthma. Right. It's like, it's I can think of one person. And she had this really weird like, birds in a house. Yeah, no, really. I'm gonna say it's very successful.
Daniel Baden:But what about where people are challenged by environmental factors like mould in the house or?
Mim Beim:Yeah, well, that's that that will be the people will say, Oh, this isn't going to help me. I'm allergic to cats or the trigger will still be there. It's just like the extent of your reaction. Okay, to that, you know, it's probably not going to go into an entire asthmatic event. And you can then do a break breathing exercise to then reduce it even further.
Daniel Baden:So you work with someone helping them through a variety Do your breathing techniques and exercises? what's the end game? I mean, do they did their
Mim Beim:brains changed? Yeah, the pH there's carbon dioxide has, the ambient amount is changed, so that you're less likely to have that slightly constricted smooth muscle of the airways in this example. Yeah, well, we haven't talked about the diet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it makes sense. I mean, it's not it's not it's not alternative in any form. And I mean, then there's the Bohr effect.
Daniel Baden:Okay. And how does that work for people like athletes or weekend warriors?
Mim Beim:Well, yeah, I mean, it does improve the oxygenation. But with weekend warriors, if you take it a little bit further and block your nose for long enough, you will actually have a decrease in oxygen. Now, this is not therapeutic however, it what it has is the effect of increasing the production of erythropoietin from the kidneys, and there is very poor waiting, you will be releasing more
Daniel Baden:we all have our points of interest mim. That's the young lady with asthma. And we're also going to talk about somebody with sleep apnea. Yeah, so, II B problem that affects a lot of people in my age group.
Mim Beim:It's huge actually, it's a very undiagnosed, there's, it's huge, and it has this big, big impact, not only in quality of sleep, but you know, that, again, is very, very important. But heart disease and mental illness, and you're eight times more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident, if you've got sleep apnea. It's, it's, it's a big, big deal. And of course, it's a it's a sleep
Daniel Baden:So it's more mechanical, or do you think it's
Mim Beim:what they're now finding out? Like, there's different phenotypes. So there, it's part of it is the big breathing. So if you're snoring, you know, the and your, your upper airway ready, as we're getting, I mean, you're getting older Daniel, luckily, that hasn't made me go, oh, no, no, you right. But that, there's that, you know, it gets a bit sloppier. And so you've got the big breath, sleep study of severe moderate or severe, obstructive sleep apnea. They've done my cause they do another study. And it's gone down to mild.
Daniel Baden:Okay, from severe from severe from severe or moderate to severe.Are they the 3 stages
Mim Beim:yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the in a sleep study, it's the A-H-I, which is apnea hypopnea index. So it's the number of years and hypoxic years, which is reduced breathing over an hour.
Daniel Baden:How does what you do compared to people that use the various machines in the past?
Mim Beim:And so on? Yeah, there's very little research is it allied field called myofunctional therapy, which works on the muscles of the airways. And that's actually coming up. Really, they've done some studies now. And that is comparable to CPAP, which is the gold standard of treatment. But no, there's still, there's very little studies. And that's what that's what I would like to be involved
Daniel Baden:Let me put it a different way, where you've seen patients and I presume that you have that have been on a CPAP machine and not got the results that they were hoping to get.
Mim Beim:They all do. Yeah. Yeah. So So CPAP, I've done the sleep. There's a Colin Sullivan, who invented the CPAP, Sydney University. And I did there's, there's a certificate in Sleep Medicine, which I've done. And I felt like a spy, because they're all They're all. They're all the CPAP technology people in there and there was by the end of the fourth day, it was just like, I want one I want I want a machine. They're amazing. It doesn't reverse the conditions, okay, it's sleep apnea can cause however, it stops the sleep apnea, because you've got any air being pushed down his throat. It's got it's so it's very, very effective. And it's a really, it's a
Daniel Baden:kinda, but we also want to do things that don't have potential knock on effects or adverse reactions down the track. So I guess that's one of the reasons that drugs can be a bit of concern sometimes because of the side effects.
Mim Beim:I was being I was being trite.
Daniel Baden:But also with surgery, I just wonder a lot of surgery just does not have the research behind it. And I'm wondering what this research looks like for
Mim Beim:I follow, you know, being an influencer myself. Yes, Joker, I follow, I follow this lovely surgeon in the UK called Vic fears. He's just, I adore him. So he's a surgeon for sleep apnea. And there is a lot of research, but he as he says that it's not all types of all the phenotypes of sleep apnea are going to respond well to it. So it's really important, you know, why you've got the sleep
Daniel Baden:Did you have a particular patient in mind to discuss about sleep apnea?
Mim Beim:Well, I did. It was a woman that it's kind of like a bizarre one. She was a 45 year old woman. Really? Could people think of sleep apnea? You know, men who drink and overweight and but it's not like babies have sleep apnea. Children have sleep apnea. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely not an old big man thing. Right. And so, you know, she was very, she was very slim fit 45 year old BMI of 23.
Daniel Baden:Wow. Okay.
Mim Beim:And so so she came, and it was a bit like, yeah, sure, I can help you just two sessions. That's all you need. I didn't know. I didn't know. And her breathing actually was pretty good. So what the issue so what had happened is, she was diagnosed with sleep apnea two years prior. And on when I did a bit of digging with her case history. Prior to that, she'd had pneumothorax, who lung Yes, every week, I do I do that for 20 minutes. Isn't that enough? It's not as a matter of fact. And that was the key. Because yeah, she wasn't she wasn't diaphragmatic ly breathing in there and then had her sleep apnea. I mean, that was just it was that really struck because that she had all that surgery and she still had sleep apnea. That was the goal and someone like that. The goal for everyone
Daniel Baden:you can someone's tongue in the right position. If they've had half the back of their throat ripped out.
Unknown:It was just I mean, it's a uvula and tonsils and things like that. So yeah, I think the base of her tongue, there had been some surgery, but we're talking about the blade and the tip of the tongue.
Daniel Baden:Alright, and you're also going to discuss a patient with anxiety issues that
Mim Beim:would be made. Be You okay, that would be me. All right.
Daniel Baden:Let's talk about you.
Mim Beim:Why not?
Daniel Baden:has anxiety been a long term issue?
Mim Beim:Yeah. I mean, I, I had a pretty hideous childhood. And depression and anxiety has been a big part of my my life really. And so, I did the B taiko so I in 2011, I traveled to the states and studied with Patrick McEwen for did a 10 day course. And it totally changed my my life and then various things happen in 2016. I had to re arrange my life in a way and had a clinic in the city for a
Daniel Baden:extraordinary, because you've had a career on Radio TV, I remember you were involved in a show on one of the pay for TV Foxtel Foxtel those things. So that's quite extraordinary well done.
Mim Beim:Oh, thank you. Yeah, quite extraordinary.
Daniel Baden:So we've people want to try something at home? Is there one or two techniques that you can just help them with just to try to see if what difference it makes to them? If they're struggling? Yeah.
Mim Beim:Well, we do want to get Sure, sure. Let's do it together. Okay. All right. Let's do it. All right. Okay, well, just before we do it, just have a bit of a scan, how you are physically, how you are, in your mind what's happening with your thoughts, and what's happening in your heart with your emotions just kind of have a bit of a reflect. And then we'll just do this for a very short
Daniel Baden:will make the time. Oh, Daniel, thank
Mim Beim:you so much. All right. So with your back straight, and your mouth closed and your tongue rusty and the roof of the mouth, the tip of the tongue behind the front teeth, just start breathing. And this is just normal breathing. This is not special breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out. At the end of the third exhalation. just pausing for three seconds, if that feels comfortable, and And at the end of that third exhalation, you're just pausing. Maybe for three seconds, maybe for longer. It should feel quite comfortable just noticing if there's any more saliva in your mouth. Just noticing if you feel any warmer. So what so I asked halfway through there's more saliva and that's a sign that the parasympathetic nervous system switched on. Yeah, so and if they feel warmer because of the smooth muscle of the capillaries So yeah, that's that's something that I would suggest people can do. It's also you know, if you're a practitioner, if your naturopath or it's something that you can assess someone's stress
Daniel Baden:how do people get on to you through your website? Well
Mim Beim:the website is good, but I've just started a gym. It's called the breathe world gym and I am giving lessons three times a day. Half hour listens. And it's just like going to a gym. You just walk in and you turn up and you have a breathing workout.
Daniel Baden:That's a virtual gym. Yeah, well, it's
Mim Beim:live. Yeah, it's online. Yeah. It's via zoom. And it's live on there. I'm screaming at you, Kelly, the Close your mouth telling you to walk around with you know, is blocked
Daniel Baden:longer. What a wonderful idea. That's great. That's really great. Thanks, Daniel. Okay, and so how do people connect to you and or the gym?
Unknown:Yep. Just the website would be great website is mimbeim.com
Daniel Baden:Beautiful, mim. You are an extraordinary person. And I love talking to you,
Mim Beim:Daniel. It's been a delight. Thank you for having me on.
Daniel Baden:Take it easy. We'll speak again soon.
Mim Beim:Thank you, Daniel.