254: The Hows and Whys of Integrating Optimal Movement Into Your Daily Life
with Aaron Alexander
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith. Today, we welcome movement coach, Aaron Alexander, who is here to discuss the subtle physical and environmental shifts that create huge impacts on your health. Aaron will be talking about the origins of movement, how to move more effectively, and how our environment around us can mold our bodies more than we know. Aaron Alexander is an accomplished manual therapist and movement coach with over 13 years of professional experience.
He is the founder of Align Therapy, an integrative approach to functional movement and self-care that has helped thousands of people out of pain and into health. He hosts the top-rated Align Podcast featuring the biggest names in movement and wellness. Aaron’s clients include Hollywood celebrities, Olympic and professional athletes, and everyone in between. He teaches worldwide and resides in Venice, California. Please check out our show notes for more information about Aaron and his programs.
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Dr. Pompa:
Welcome to Cell TV. You and I go back. We’re all at the same seminars. One of the things I always remember—I don’t know what seminar it was. I think it was one of the low carb events. I’m talking to someone, and I look over, you have people on your shoulders, my man. You literally stacked up. I don’t think that’s part of your Align Therapy; however, you’re a strong dude.
What I love about your movement and that day I remember we started talking is how you bring movement. Which I think my audience understands the importance of movement, but I want you to actually bring some importance to it as well. What you do amazing is you bring it to the everyday. I think one of the points you make is we go to the gym; we do yoga; we do this; we do that. It’s what we’re doing day in, day out which really can hurt us or massively help us.
Your Align Therapy falls in there. By the way, you have one of the top-rated podcasts called, Align, your Align podcast. That’s how much of an expert you are in this area. Alright, man, let’s bring it to life. Movement, look, I feel like I’m preaching to the choir when I say that we have to move, but it means a little bit more and a little bit different to you. Bring some value to it first.
Aaron Alexander:
First, thanks for having the conversation; appreciate it. Appreciate making that happen, man. Yeah, something that I see through the world that once you see this, it’s really hard to un-see this is most of us. If you were to look at people, take the cell phones for example. If you didn’t have—see that they had the cell phone, and they were sending important text messages or whatever, you didn’t realize what was happening because you were up in this time frame, you’d look at them and think it was a bunch of sad people. What’s happening at the same time as were structurally being formed into this hunched over position, that’s all physiologically tied into decreasing testosterone levels, increasing stress hormones, cortisol for example.
There’s been studies out of Harvard specifically focusing on this. They did saliva samples. Just two minutes of people hunched over into this hunched over essentially staring at your cell phone position, hunched over in that position after two minutes, they showed stress hormones actually increasing from that. They showed testosterone levels decreasing from that. Then the inverse happening when you go into more of an upright position.
What’s happening structurally are our environmental mold, not like the kind that grows into the carpet kind of mold, but the mold that we’re living in, it’s literally forming us into what I would conceive to be more of like a depressed, anxious, potentially obese, all of these different problems that we’re attacking through putting different things into our mouth. I think there’s an environmental conversation that’s not had by enough people. That’s essentially what Align Method—there’s a book coming up and then an online program. That’s all that, what that’s all about.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, well, we’ll talk about that. This is my background. I don’t even know if you know this about me, but structural correction was my background. I understand the physiology of we create these postures.
You see so many kids today especially have forward head posture. Obviously, the phone as you pointed out, but video games. It’s unbelievable. Gosh, I would educate people on every one of your spinal bones to make it simple have these things called proprioceptors in them. They’re really mechanoreceptors that communicate with your brain constantly of the malposition that it’s in.
When you’re in the position that you were describing, you tether the spinal cord which has a lot to do with your sympathetic dominant people, anxiety, how you feel every day. What you said is absolutely true. Structure affects function even at a hormonal level. What do we do about it? Obviously, you have this therapy. Movement is important, but so is structure. How are you putting it all together?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, well, you need both. That’s what you’ll see a lot of times with people that are traditional say like a physical therapist. Oftentimes, physical therapists are looking more at let’s do this band exercise. You need medial rotation, or external rotation, or you need—more focused on the movement part. Or a personal trainer would be movement. Then you’ll go see a massage therapist and they’re more focused on getting laxity, and getting everything, the nervous system to calm down.
The reality is you need both of those. The scales need to be equal. What we can do if we just start to bring a little bit more awareness into mechanics of our movements on a momentary basis is we can start to bring more flexibility and strength into literally everything that we’re doing. Right now, as we’re having this conversation, I’m sitting on the floor. I actually have a band around my foot right now. You can see that I’m over here doing this stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, listen; I’ve watched him. I’ve watched you do interviews at seminars. You’re on the ground and you’re doing what you say. You’re in incredible shape, so it’s working.
Aaron Alexander:
I don’t do that much fitness is the thing because my life is play and fitness based. Right now as we’re doing this, technically, this could be considered as work which I’m just immensely grateful that’s the reality. As we’re at work, we can be also be at play, also at gym, also at yoga, and also connecting community. Making your work be more of like a community connection piece as opposed to it just being staring into a cell phone.
Those are all choices that both you and I have intentionally made for whatever reason. Both of us have noticed at one point the value of community. Now here we are connecting to community. We have to make those conscious decisions to make our life a little bit more supportative in that way.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and I want you to be really descriptive because the thing I love about you is you give people do this now. This show, folks, you’re going to get do this now stuff. You can start it today which is great. You’re an expert in the origins of movement. That’s really where a lot your stuff came out of which I agree with.
Look, I look at the origins of diet. I look at how ancient cultures do what, where, how, when. It really has developed a lot of my material that I teach. Same with you. That’s one of the things I liked. It’s why you’re on this show. Talk about the origins of movement.
Aaron Alexander:
Oh man, I’m doing a chapter in this book right now actually about hanging. One of the things that—I’m by no means an expert on these topics, but I like to research and look into it. A lot of really smart people believe that we come from arboreal critters like ape-like critters running around the trees. A lot of smart people say that we still are apes; there’s not really a separation. If you look at the organization of our shoulder girdle, they’re built to hang much more than that of a monkey’s shoulder girdle for example. Monkey bars are actually a misnomer actually; it should be called ape bars or human bars for that matter.
Structurally, our joints are built to be in this up overhead flection hanging position. One of the beautiful things about that as far as actionable tips people can take away is if you start to tap into some of that, your ancestrally of hanging through trees—if that’s true. That doesn’t need to be true. Structurally it is true though. That’s present moment stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s your point.
Aaron Alexander:
You can literally reshape the shoulder girdle. There’s a whole book called Shoulder Pain that it’s a pretty quick read; it’s like 150 pages. I highly recommend people checking it out, Shoulder Pain? by Dr. John Kirsch. It gets into just a simple hanging protocol. I think it’s for a minute and a half each day just spending time in a passive hang.
What you see with that is it literally reshapes that whole relationship of the clavicle, and the scapula, and the head of the humerus. Most of us are in this forward flexed, medially rotated position with our shoulders. Just spending that time up above, it literally changes the shape of the bones. It’s Wolff’s Law. Wolff’s Law being that we—our bones change based off the peripheral stimulus, based off the mechanical stimulus.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, that’s why forward head posture, doing this—
Aaron Alexander:
That’s it.
Dr. Pompa:
They end up that position because of Wolff’s Law and etc.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, it’s really easy for us to accept that Wolff’s Law, no one would call it that, but our bones can shape into a position that deleterious or negative for us. We’re like, well, the bone, it’s a bony thing; it shifted, so you’re screwed. You can’t get out of that. You didn’t start off as a baby in that position. You started off as this blank slate and then you shifted your own bones into these positions. What makes you believe that you can’t shift them back into a more healthy position?
This is as simple as just adding a daily hang into your day. Get a pull-up bar into your doorway. Every time you pass through that just do a little swing. It opens up your lungs, opens up your heart, opens up your diaphragm, changes the shape of your shoulder, makes you feel more confident so says the studies in Harvard and other places: simple.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, keeping it simple. I know that in your book that’s coming out and you have a program you can talk about online, but you talk about the five steps of moving and the five steps of moving effectively and efficiently. Give them some pointers and the things they can do right now.
Aaron Alexander:
Okay, another thing right now; everybody needs to spend more time on the floor. If you look at—this is maybe a little bit of a stretch, but I see people—I don’t really love the term adult. To me, adult feels very stuffy, and old, and on the way towards death. What I see is a true adult in the not so great version of that is someone that can’t comfortably get down on the ground and play with a kid. They can’t comfortably get down on the ground and play with a dog. It’s like, aww. If you make that sound as you get to the ground, you’re an adult. You’ve made it. You’ve arrived.
You can start to rewind that just by literally just making your life—get ground cushions. Spend some time. Make it be so that—some of my really close friends, a guy called Kyle Kingsbury and Aubrey Marcus, people that are influential in the fitness, machismo, masculine, big, strong man reality, they have low tables to eat at. They have floor cushions in their house. There’s people that we respect in the world that are big, strong, testosteronic human beings that are adapting this. When I say this, I’m aware that some people might be like, well, that’s crazy; I’m not Japanese. It’s not crazy.
Dr. Pompa:
Explain why. Tell me why it’s not crazy. I’m not saying it is or isn’t, but I understand the physiological effects of squatting. Not squatting with weights; I’m talking about literally sitting in a squatted position. When I lectured in Africa, many times actually, I don’t know how I said it, but I said something about structure and how squatting—I was talking about getting back to their roots. They used to all squat. Then we invented these nice chairs and we don’t squat anymore.
Actually, the gentleman that was there got very excited because he wrote a whole thesis on the benefits of squatting, and physiologically, how it affects your hormones, how it affects your structure, all of it. Squatting I get, but why—what are you talking about being on the floor? What does that look like? Why is it so beneficial?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, first of all, with being on the floor people need to—a disclaimer—get as many cushions as you possibly need. It shouldn’t be an uncomfortable thing. It shouldn’t be like, okay, Aaron said be on the floor, so I’m just going to lie on bricks all the time. Make it really comfortable. Raise your butt up as high as you possibly need. That could be two feet off the ground for some people that are very inflexible. Slowly, you start to bring that journey all the way down.
What you see in countries that spend more time on the floor, they poo, and they pee, and they sleep on the ground, they have minimal to no instance of osteoarthritis around the hips. They’re continually feeding fluid into those hips throughout the day just through—every time I get down to check my email, I have to go through a full range of motion of a squat. I’m essentially doing a Turkish get-up. Now, I don’t need to do those Turkish get-ups at the gym as much because I’m doing them all day long at the house. Any instance of osteoarthritis goes way down if you’re going through that full range of motion with the hips.
Fall risk, that’s the number one leading risk for elderly needing assisted living. If the reason that they need that is because of the chair—which is a sign of nobility. The noble people are usually the people that end up becoming the palest, and the fattest, and the sickest because the other people that are actually working for them are feeding their body by doing the work. Those people, they end up losing that range of motion of that bottom four feet, three and a half feet of a range of motion; it’s just gone. It’s this proprioceptive blank space. All of our proprioception use that term as up in this front little 12×12 little box in front of our face. We miss out that really a truly healthy, vibrant being of any sort, animal, baby, adult is someone that really has that full connection through their legs. Anytime [00:15:29] that.
Dr. Pompa:
This is step one, so we’ll get to step two. We’re stuck on one which is not a bad thing. Give us some scenarios of when they could do this. You gave a lot; you gave one. You said you put your computer down low to make you go low. Every time you check your emails, you’re being pulled down. What are some others? Eating, you did give that one. Eating is another one. You could eat at a coffee table so to speak. That’s what the Japanese technically do. Give us some other ideas.
Aaron Alexander:
Take a break from work and go outside and sit in the grass. You could take your shoes off. You could take your shirt off. Expose your sun and your eyes to the sun. Spend some time literally getting down on the ground. Depending upon I guess what kind of fertilizers they’re using, all that dirt, you’re now going out and you’re having this probiotic experience as well. That would be something that I will—anytime if I’m doing some type of indoor conference thing like we’re doing, to me I’ll get charged up by walking outside, taking my shoes off, and spending time on the ground. Use it as like a break would be an option as well in between work and—
Dr. Pompa:
I’ve got one because I’m thinking in my life. I’m thinking, how can I possibly do that in my day? I’m coming up with ideas. I realized that the one place that I spend the most time on the ground, what brings me to the ground most often is my dogs.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, I was going to say dog, get a dog.
Dr. Pompa:
I encounter my dogs, I end up on the ground with them somehow. That’s one of my favorite things to do frankly. Whether it’s playing with them or just cuddling them and loving on them. There’s one. Think of that one.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great reason to get a dog. The dog is an example of that mold. Your dog is a part of your mold. Just how you’re interacting with that animal, all of a sudden, you’re attuning; you’re molding your body to it, so it brings you down to the ground. So does having a foam roll on the ground; so does having myofascial release balls; so does having balance boards; so does having cushions. Anything that will say, okay, now that’s there, it’s a visual cue; I’ll use it. That’s the thing is realize that you become your environment. Your visual cues that you have in your environment are super powerful.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and that’s your point of environmental molds. We’re not talking about the black mold in our walls typically we’re talking about on this show; we’re talking about literally the things that mold us. Again, for better or for worse. Hanging, absolutely; squatting, great; time on the ground. Those are molds, environmental molds that make us better. Our computers, those things, we’ve got to work against that stuff.
Aaron Alexander:
Can I do another tip that people can go with?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.
Aaron Alexander:
Grab a pull-up bar, have that in between any doorway that you walk through often. Every time, it’s just little titrates, little drops: boom, boom, boom. That times a year or five years, you’re a whole different person. You have that cushion on the ground; you’re sitting on that. That times a year, five years, when you’re a hundred years old if you got that cushion now when you’re 30, you will not need assisted living unless there was some other whatever circumstance. You will be able to get down and up off the ground until you’re done with this body.
Dr. Pompa:
Is the hanging one of the steps or is that part of step two?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, the hanging is one of the steps. One of the steps is spend time hanging each day. The other step is spend time on the floor. The other thing is cultivate your hip hinge. This is a thing that so many people miss out on in their day to day experiences.
If you go to a CrossFit gym, or Olympic lifting, or any kind, if you see a personal trainer, it’s all going to be about the hip hinge. They’re going to want you to squat. They’re going to want you to lunge. They’re going to want you to deadlift. It’s going to be, okay, bring those hips back. Get a nice sharp angle. Cultivate that hip hinge, activate those gluts. You’re thinking about it, you’re conscious, you’re intentional.
Then you leave, and the rest of the day, you dump yourself over, and you lift with your spine, which your spine’s not built to lift. The spine’s built to distribute that weight from up to down. The hips are what’s built to actually really bare that load. Through day to day, the same way that you would practice hip hinging in the gym, you need to practice that as you’re sitting down on a chair for example. You can actually pretend you’re going into a squat, so you reach the butts back.
Dr. Pompa:
I want you to show it. I’m going to make you get up off the floor.
Aaron Alexander:
I can show you if you want. Do you want to see?
Dr. Pompa:
I want to see it.
Aaron Alexander:
I’m going to show you, Dr. Pompa.
Dr. Pompa:
Get hinging. I want to see hip hinging.
Aaron Alexander:
As you’re coming up—first of all, being comfortable, which is being—I’m already on the floor, so it’s a little strange. First of all, just being comfortable being in a squat position. This is so great that you asked me to move this because now I’m starting to pump all these fluids out from my organs and opening up my pelvic floor, etc. With the hip hinge, you’d want to be staying nice and long in your spine. You’re not going to hunch yourself over in that position. Then you end up going into this forward head position. Now, we’ll just help all the stuff to go at one. Staying good and long in the spine, reaching the butt cheeks back, and just reaching back, back, back. Staying long through the spine the whole entire time until eventually, you land your butt down onto the edge of the seat.
If you’re doing that—this is the worst. I have probably hundreds of videos about this at this point. You can just connect to one or something. If you’re doing that on a momentary basis as you sit down on the chair, as you sit down on the toilet, as you lean over to pick something up off the ground, now it’s like you’re pre-habing yourself. When you go to the gym, you don’t have to do all these stretches and dynamic hip whatever. You’ve been preparing yourself to be in the gym the whole day, the whole week, the whole month.
That’s the difference between an athletic animal and a less athletic adult is animals throughout the day, they’re continually tuning themselves the way that they move to the world. They step on a root differently. They have to climb up the tree. They’re always in this tuning state. Then when they need to go and attack or whatever it is, they’re already prepped. Humans don’t do that, but we can. That’ the thing is we can. It’s not complicated.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me ask you something. We’re going to get through—that’s three; you have two more. Okay, but let me ask you something. Were you always like—even as a child, I was not flexible. I remember watching other kids very young and I could barely sit Indian style. I’ve always had very tight ligaments and tendons; however, I never got injured in those types of injuries. I had very few if any. Also, I had—they were really strong. I was just naturally really strong for my size. It has to do with these darn tight ligaments. Were you always flexible or did you gain it with—because you’re really flexible and strong?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, no, not at all. I started off super immobile. Then I got really obsessed with bodybuilding which really threw a big wrench into the whole system because I was so obsessed with appearing strong that I ended up becoming super imbalanced because all I cared about was the beach muscles. Then I ended up having pretty dramatic injuries as a product of that. Then it became more of a direction towards Rolfing and different forms of manual therapy.
Even psychology, went and studied psychology. Just curious about what forms this physical body because I promise it’s more than just muscular, skeletal, muscle stuff. Our body is a representation of the way that we think and we feel. You can see the way people think and the way they perceive the world in the way that they carry their self. There’s a quote from Ida Rolf. She said, “The way you walk through the room is the way you walk through your life.”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I agree. No, totally; I couldn’t agree more. When we’re talking about a cellular level here, this is Cellular Healing TV, so we can do that. Bruce Lipton was one of the first to talk about how our thoughts change our cells, literally our DNA. Then the cell via the DNA produces different proteins.
We become our thoughts literally for better or worse. No doubt the same for what you’re saying that basically, our environmental molds if you will become who we are because it changes the DNA, it changes the protein, it changes who we are. How you carry yourself, the things you’re doing every day, you’re right; no doubt it benefits the joints, the ligaments, the tendons, the muscles, but there’s a feedback into the DNA as well. You become that.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, The Biology of Belief was one of his big books, which is just—the name in and of itself is great. That’s every time you look in the mirror, if you see a forward head posture, maybe the beginnings of the Dowager’s hump, which mean a dignified elderly woman actually, the Dowager’s hump. Your shoulders are rolled forward. You have shadows, bags under your eyes. It’s like what do you think—what feedback loop are you forming for yourself?
Every time you say, oh man, I look tired and shitty. Maybe we can’t swear on here; I apologize. If we don’t, you can bleep that out. I look tired and hunched over and I look haggard. If you change that posture up slightly—not through faking it though. We do this “fake it until you make it.” I think that’s fine; I get that. Through starting to integrate some of these basic fundamental practices into your day to day life, it’s not a “fake it until you make it”; it’s just you become it because on an ongoing basis, you’re continually cultivating and sculpting it.
Then you look in that mirror, and you say, oh wow, I’m looking pretty good. I’m looking strong. I’m looking upright. Then you go out in that world, and you’re like, yeah, I feel good. Then people tell you, wow, you look good. You’re like, oh, wow. Now, okay, now we’re really getting into the Biology of Belief. It’s these continual feedback loops that we’re forming. Structure, that’s what you see, man, every time you walk across the—you see the reflection of yourself. Humans do that; I do all the time. You look over and say, how am I looking? If you look over and you’re hunched over, okay, that’s the beginning of that loop.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, like you said, you create it. You create it by all the stuff that you’re doing. Getting back to our ancestors, getting back to our childhood movements and things, you will create that posture at the cellular level. Literally, you’ll end up being that. Whereas doing this all day, you’re going to be that and then it’s feeding back into unhealth in many ways. Okay, we did three; there was two more steps into this. I’m not letting you go.
Aaron Alexander:
I want to say one more thing. Something that I liked about you is you still have a youthful spark. You’ve managed to maintain that. My guess would be you’ll maintain that until you’re not on this planet anymore. I think that’s such a huge conversation that people don’t really have maybe the right vernacular to talk about. It’s not as easy to hold that into a beaker.
I think of that amber of youth, you could call it as just that; it’s like we need to hold that, we need to support that. If you can support that through your life all the way through—Einstein, his whole thing was like creatively, man; creativity wins it. If you don’t have that, you’re screwed. It’s that childish, look up into the trees, be able to get down on the ground and play, be able to make faces to your kids. If you can maintain that on an ongoing basis, it’s a huge conversation of cellular health that it’s just—it’s less easy to hold it and measure it. That’s something that I noticed with you which is why I resonated with you.
Dr. Pompa:
No, I appreciate that. I think people would argue that’s personality. I would argue, yeah, there’s ways—what you just said, there’s ways to do it with every personality. Of course, there’s different personalities; however, you were a kid once. You still did those things. There’s ways to bring out the way you were as a child. The things I love to do keep me there.
Honestly, it’s like you should see me when I ride my bike. That’s a childish thing, I guess. I’m the happiest guy in the world. Much of my day is in the woods. One of my goals for this year is—I exercise. I exercise all the time, but I did less of it last year because I traveled so much, in the woods. I guess that I just have a thing with being in the woods. It’s from my childhood, man.
Again, if you go back to some of the things you loved as a child. There’s nothing I love more than playing Legos with my kid. I just said to my fifteen-year-old, man, I miss when you were a kid because now he’s too cool for Legos. I’m not too cool for Legos; I love Legos. Then we played with these electric cars. I told him, I’m like, I miss that, too. He’s too cool for the electric cars.
Aaron Alexander:
I think you also—I think it’s also your childhood, but it’s also your ancestry. It’s also that the woods is one of the most robust environments with just—you’re able to adapt to so much out there. There’s thermoregulation. It’s cold. You have to figure out how to—you’re walking on contoured surfaces which stimulates your brain, stimulates your whole body in a different way than these flat covinous type realities that a lot of us are stuck in.
You’re looking out into the distance, which literally relaxes your whole entire nervous system. Because when we’re looking at a screen close up like we’re doing right now, it contracts all the ciliary muscles around the eyes. It’s literally a state of contraction. When you walk out into those woods, there’s the [00:29:11] Shinrin-Yoku, nature bathing is what they call it. You’re breathing in all of these different chemicals from the trees that literally stimulates your immune system. It stimulates your cognitive.
It brings you alive. It makes you feel youthful. That’s the big conversation, man. There’s a quote from Voltaire said—oh, what did he say? He said modern medicine is the art of entertaining the patient while nature heals the disease; something like that.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I get that actually, yeah.
Aaron Alexander:
That’s what we’re doing, man. We’re doing it. We’re taking all this stuff. We’re doing all these panaceas—and some things aren’t panacea; whatever, but placebos. Meanwhile, so often, it’s just like maybe it was that walk out in the woods. Maybe it was you not stressing out about your fill in the blank thing that allowed your body to start to—
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, this is like one of those topics that it seems like such a small thing, but sometimes the small things are actually the biggest things. When you look at what’s happened to our culture, our lives, this small thing that maybe wasn’t even a thing now is a massive thing. You’re giving great things that people if you just literally started your year this year and said, okay, I’m going to put this into my life, I’m going to take advantage of this, I’m telling you; your life will be different because you don’t realize what all these things that we’re surrounded by, our environmental molds are actually molding us. It’s a big deal, man. Give them information on how to get—I know we have two more. I’m not letting you off the hook.
Aaron Alexander:
Oh, whatever.
Dr. Pompa:
Where do they find out more about all of this?
Aaron Alexander:
I don’t even know if people go to websites; they just go to Instagram. That’s probably where most people will probably likely go to. Align Podcast is the Instagram. I’m on there quite regularly. If you want to go deeper beyond just 60-second videos, then aligntherapy.com would be a great place. There’s a five-day movement video challenge that people can start which breaks down all these concepts of hip hinging and how to integrate better movement into your day to day. That would be a great starting point. From there, we have—I have self-care products and I have the online program coming.
Dr. Pompa:
There you can actually learn the techniques because I feel like our job here is to get people to understand the impact that this is going to have on their health mentally, physically, and all the way through. If we do that, then they’ll take the step and go there and learn and put this in their life. Yeah, your new year is here. Let’s set it up. I think you had something else too you’re going to be offering soon.
Aaron Alexander:
Online program is the big thing. We’re launching our online program. It’s all completely done. Probably be launching middle of next week.
Dr. Pompa:
Perfect.
Aaron Alexander:
It breaks down specifically on how to unwind these patterns of forward head posture, rolled forward shoulders, hyperkyphotic spine, essentially everything that our “modern mold” forms us into. The program focuses specifically on that. Then it gets into there’s nighttime routines, and morning routines, and how to move around on the ground, and how to use this Align Band which you can get into all that stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
I was going to ask you about the Align Band honestly, but again, people that are serious need to go there.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, just figure it out.
Dr. Pompa:
Obviously, you figure it out there and add it to your life. Man, it will change your life. Anything else, man? Like I said, there was two more of the steps. Maybe—
Aaron Alexander:
Those last two things we don’t need to get into because we’re obviously already well over time, which was totally my fault. Breathing through the nose. Breathe in general, start paying attention to your breathe. Then once you start to pay attention to the breathe, now start to bring it more through the nose. That’s shown to increase nitric oxide in the blood. It’s actually shown to literally change the shape of the face.
There was a study, I think it was in the ’70s. They took monkeys and they taped their nose shut so they could only breath through their mouths. What they found was they found facial deformation. Their faces started to get narrower and testosterone levels decrease. This whole sinkhole of issues happens just from breathing incorrectly because your mouth is built for eating. It’s not a breathing vessel.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I have to breath out my nose; this is a revelation.
Aaron Alexander:
Right, so that’s really simple. Breathing through the noise, it’s a smaller passageway, so it helps activate those diaphragmatic muscles. You’re just breathing through the place you’ve been meant to breath for—
Dr. Pompa:
What do you think about this? I know it’s a big deal for people who breathe through their mouth when they’re sleeping. It changes like you said, physiology, oxygen uptake, the brain, you name it. People say you can train it by taping your mouth shut opposite of the monkeys. Have you heard of that or do you recommend that?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, Patrick McKeown. There’s a book called, Oxygen Advantage people can check out. He’s actually going to be in my upcoming book. I haven’t done it personally, so I couldn’t say, but I’ve heard a lot of people that I respect say that they have done it and had great results from it. There’s specific tapes that you can get for that. You can just throw some whatever on there, but there actually is specific mouth taping, which sounds pretty traumatic, but I’ve heard good things about it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I have, too. I just wanted to get your opinion on it. Eventually, does it become a habit? You don’t have to sleep your whole life with tape on?
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, exactly; that’s the thing. A big thing, it’s just a really interesting point with that is with the facial deformation. When you’re breathing through your nose—actually, people can just do it right now. If you just breathe through your nose as you’re listening to this, you’ll notice naturally, your tongue will start to go up to the hard palette, go up to the top of your mouth.
What that does is it’s actually creating an outward pressure. You’re pushing your face away as opposed to it sinking in. When you’re pushing that face away, think of this as like all your life as from a baby as your palette’s forming. If you have those—if you’re not able to have adequate expansion outward, then your teeth will start to get crowded and get really crooked. In the Oxygen Advantage, that’s a big thing they get into there is the orthodontic issues of mouth breathing.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Aaron, thanks for being on this show.
Aaron Alexander:
Yeah, man.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s a very big thing. Get Aaron’s material. Get his book. Go to his podcast. You’ll love it. Thanks, Man.
Aaron Alexander:
Then I will release our podcast that we recorded probably eight months ago or something like that on the same—whenever you release this, I will release that so people can—if they want to continue, they can hear you on the other side.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, perfect. Awesome, man. I’ll see you at the next seminar I’m sure.
Aaron Alexander:
Amen; yeah, I’ll see you soon.
Ashley:
That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode which was brought to you by Fastonic Molecular Hydrogen. Please check it out at getfastonic.com. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10 AM Eastern. We truly appreciate your support. You can always find us at podcast.drpompa.com. Please remember to spread the love by liking, subscribing, giving an iTunes review, or sharing this show with anyone you think may benefit from the information heard here. As always, thanks for listening.
