Ronda Holman is The Airway Champion. She is the Co-Founder of Airway Coach a revolutionary approach to helping humans learn to help themselves breathe better while they sleep by developing protocols and systems to be preformed daily. She is a 25 year, US Airforce trained, dental assistant who has spent her entire career looking at airway disorders and their negative effects in the mouth. She has dedicated the last 5 years helping patients and strangers understand the negative affects of oral breathing on their oral health. Ronda runs the airway protocol for her general dental practice helping patients rule out sleep apnea and find custom solutions to breathe better while they sleep. Ronda not only has a passion to help people discovered the root cause to so many non-communicable diseases, but she grew up with an undiagnosed airway disorder herself. After connecting the signs to the symptoms it is her mission to help others learn to see the signs so they can advocate for themselves. Many people do not understand the bio mechanics a breathing. Nor do they understand the detrimental effects over breathing/mouth breathing has on sleep quality. Ronda had extraction retraction orthodontics completed when she was 12 years old. She was diagnosed with upper airway resistance syndrome when she was 37 years old. Ronda then made a choice to either live with struggling to breathe during sleep every night and continue to watch her oral health decline or make a change to improve her airway health. She shares her passion every day to help people understand the difference between sleep (surviving) and quality sleep (thriving) and its inter-relationship between airway health and breathing. Here is the link to all of the tools that have helped other humans breathe better while they sleep https://msha.ke/airwaycoach
Ronda Holman is The Airway Champion. She is the Co-Founder of Airway Coach a revolutionary approach to helping humans learn to help themselves breathe better while they sleep by developing protocols and systems to be preformed daily. She is a 25 year, US Airforce trained, dental assistant who has spent her entire career looking at airway disorders and their negative effects in the mouth.
She has dedicated the last 5 years helping patients and strangers understand the negative affects of oral breathing on their oral health. Ronda runs the airway protocol for her general dental practice helping patients rule out sleep apnea and find custom solutions to breathe better while they sleep.
Ronda not only has a passion to help people discovered the root cause to so many non-communicable diseases, but she grew up with an undiagnosed airway disorder herself. After connecting the signs to the symptoms it is her mission to help others learn to see the signs so they can advocate for themselves. Many people do not understand the bio mechanics a breathing. Nor do they understand the detrimental effects over breathing/mouth breathing has on sleep quality. Ronda had extraction retraction orthodontics completed when she was 12 years old. She was diagnosed with upper airway resistance syndrome when she was 37 years old. Ronda then made a choice to either live with struggling to breathe during sleep every night and continue to watch her oral health decline or make a change to improve her airway health. She shares her passion every day to help people understand the difference between sleep (surviving) and quality sleep (thriving) and its inter-relationship between airway health and breathing.
Here is the link to all of the tools that have helped other humans breathe better while they sleep. https://msha.ke/airwaycoach
SHOWNOTES:
😴 Why Ronda believes your function matters not just your CPAP machine
😴 The airway-health clues hiding in your mouth right now
😴 Tools that changed her life: lip tape, nasal dilators, foam rollers, and headstands?!
😴 Why your sleep isn’t “fine” just because you’re not gasping for air
😴 How to identify if you're a "habitual mouth breather" (and what to do)
😴 The #1 indicator that your breathing habits have truly changed for the better
😴 Curious to learn more about your airway health? Ronda is offering a 1-on-1 Zoom session. Enjoy 10% oFF using code SLEEPISASKILL10
https://www.airwaycoach.com/offers/6Pa73oez?coupon_code=SLEEPISASKILL10
😴 And many more!
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DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.
Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today.
To transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
If you've ever woken up, tired and just accepted it as normal, this episode is going to flip that script. Today we're joined by Rhonda Holman, known far and wide as the Airway Champion and that title is earned. Rhonda is the co-founder of Airway Coach, a revolutionary approach to helping people breathe better.
While they sleep without skipping straight to bandaid solutions like plastic oral appliances. With 25 years of experience as a dental assistant trained by the US Air Force, Rhonda has spent her career examining how breathing disorders show up in the mouth and how we often miss them entirely. But this isn't.
Just professional, it's personal. Rhonda grew up with an undiagnosed airway disorder, dealt with constant sickness, and later had to face the consequences and miss things like upper airway resistance syndrome. Now she's on a mission to help others. Discover that mouth breathing is not just a cork, it's a health disruptor, especially when it comes to your sleep.
We're going to get into why your teeth might be a map to your airway health. How to tell if your tongue posture is wrecking, your REM cycles and why snoring. Even a Q kind is never normal. If you've ever felt like your sleep reports look quote unquote fine, but you. Still wake up exhausted. This one is for you.
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If you wanna give it a try, go to buy optimizers.com/sleep as a skill and use the code, sleep as a skill to get gifts with your purchase. And this is a limited time offer, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results. Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. If you hear me pronouncing things oddly at all in this conversation, there's a good reason for that.
It's right on topic for today's conversation. So I just had a tongue tie release. And a procedure on my nose to expand my, apparently, I didn't realize I had a deviated septum until just a little bit ago, but corrected that and then did this tongue tie release. So I'm only four days out, really. Barely. And so here we are.
We're gonna be talking about, I. These topics and more. So thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you so much, Molly, for having me. I'm really excited. This is, this is my favorite thing to talk about in the history of the world is how people breathe while they sleep. Because you know, a lot of people don't realize that when the doctor says, oh, hey, by the way, you need to prioritize your sleep.
But they don't realize if the person on the receiving that information is a mouth breather or a floppy tongue owner like. The last thing and they're gonna wanna do is prioritize it. 'cause it sucks. Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm excited to have you here for your favorite topic. I mean, I think our worlds are colliding then, because this is just very complimentary.
I can't get over just, and you have such great content, I'm gonna share in the. Show notes and beyond for how people can follow you because they must follow you to really just have their minds blown on the multifaceted ways that these things can impact us. But maybe before I get ahead of myself, starting at the beginning, how did you find yourself such a kind of pioneer and leader in this area?
I. So I grew up as a dysfunctional breather. You know, I was that kid that was always sick. Like looking back, I really feel bad for my mom. Like she, she kept taking me to doctor after doctor, you know, I had ear infections, throat infections. I was wetting the bed past the age of three, I had cavities and every single baby tooth I owned.
And then, you know, my teeth grew crooked. And so like, they're like, oh my gosh, here's just more money we're gonna dump into this sick child who, you know, by the way, can't. Past kindergarten. So she gets to do that twice, which kind of set, you know, like this whole motion of like, you know, is she gonna thrive or is she just surviving?
And so what's really interesting is a lot of us, we compensate human beings are amazing at compensating. So I, you know, I graduated high school, went to college, got a great job, had a family. It was fertile, like everything was. On point, but I was always waking up tired, you know? And I just thought that was me.
Like I was, that was who I am. I was, I was gonna wake up tired for the rest of my life. So one time. I got to go to a dental state meeting and the, the topic was oral sleep appliance therapy. Okay, so I went to this meeting for seven hours, Molly, seven hours. I sat there and they had expert after expert talking about these oral appliance therapies that are, you know, equivalent to CPAP and that they're gonna, you know, anybody who's non C CO or CPAP compliant, they can put this plastic in their mouth and voila, we can help them breathe better while they sleep.
And I left that meeting thinking so much about myself. I'm like, well, yeah, you know, here it is. Like should I get an oral appliance? Like yeah, they're describing me and then I thought, holy crap, wait, I spent seven hours and not one person outta all those experts said why people can't breathe well while they sleep.
Yeah. I'm like. Okay, this is weird. So I know everything about the plastic, but I don't know anything about the problem, and that just opens up a giant can of worms. Ugh. Yeah. When you realize that, you know, a lot of it's epigenetics, a lot of it starts in childhood. And you know what, if you don't want to sleep in plastic and, and plastic looks like a CP pap or an oral appliance, what if you.
Want to treat the root cause. So I have dedicated the last, hmm, almost eight years now to figuring out the problem and offering real world solutions. Amazing. And you know, granted it's really hitting a home for me right now 'cause I'm in the midst of this myself and just mind blown at some of the differences.
You know, really immediate differences of addressing some of these things and the journey that it takes, but also just the missing of information and also kind of. Questioning that seems to come from more established kind of allopathic medicine. And when you mentioned some of these things, how many people just like scratch their head at you?
Like, what are you talking about? So maybe we could start kind of parsing through like what are some of these topics that you saw that were missing that are really at the root cause that were not addressed when we skipped over to the plastic solution? Absolutely. Okay. So most of what we see now with people who are struggling to breathe while they sleep, our gauge is off.
So a lot of us have always woken up tired. Yeah. And so when you asked me how my sleep was like before I became a habitual mouth or nose breather with a stronger tongue, I would've said my sleep was fine. Sure. But it turns out like our baseline is really off because we've woken up tired our whole lives.
Yes. And we've compensated through it. Right. And so. Now that I've, I've recovered. I'm on the other side of better sleep breathing. Like I get it. I'm like, oh, well my sleep is definitely not fine. And there's so much to it. I mean, most of it is epigenetics. You know, there's, if, if you guys really wanna know more about breathing, you know, if I had to put it in order of books to read, I would definitely start with Breath by James Nestor.
You know, it was, it was perfect timing. Pandemic hit. Everybody's like, oh, I, what's this book about? Breath. Interesting. Yeah. And then everybody's like, oh no, I've been breathing wrong my whole life. Right? Turns out mouth breathing is bad for you and it's not just something we say derogatory. Uh, and then I would definitely go to bko breathing.
So there's, um, the Breathing Cure by Patrick McOwen. Yeah. It talks about all the benefits of nasal breathing. I tell you guys, if you are a habitual mouth breather, meaning you're breathing through your mouth out of habit, not out of necessity, it is time for you to catch your breath. Yeah, because it is so life changing when you change the way you breathe.
You know, there's all these people that talk about meditation and, and slowing down the breathing and, and, you know, doing all these things, but, but they don't think about the stuff that really impacts you is the stuff that you do 24 7. Yes. And they don't realize that you can change the way you breathe.
If you can change the way you breathe, you can change the way you sleep. There's a lot of people, if they're struggling to breathe while they sleep, they cannot stay in the restorative and reparative phases of sleep. 'cause like for me, uh, it had upper airway resistance, meaning I did not suffocate where.
Apnea is where you stop breathing. Yeah. I just struggled to breathe enough to where it would send me into an arousal state and bring me out of deepened rim. So like it was like 80% of my night was in light sleep. I'm like, no wonder I'm tired. Yeah, exactly. My body's so efficient. How many people are missing that, like in, you know, upper air resistance syndrome, like still people don't even know what that is or like how to get that diagnosed for, or They've tested for sleep apnea and it was a miss.
You know, so, yeah, it's such a huge topic. Yeah. And it's still getting missed. Yes. A lot of people have to be their own advocate. If you, okay, let's say you suspect there's something going on with your sleep quality, and it might be related to your breathing because maybe you have some oral signs and symptoms that you didn't develop properly, and that passing air through and your nose into your lungs might be a little more challenging than somebody who has a mice broad smile.
And then you think, okay, I go to the sleep clinic and the sleep physician says, Hey. Sleep report looks good. Look at that. You're not stopping breathing at all. So I'll see you later. Bye. You're like, wait, wait, wait. I'm still tired. Hey, I.
Oh, okay. So that's, I mean, that's kind of why I'm, I've, I've really developed a passion for this. It's for the people in the middle. You know, it's one thing to go to a sleep clinic and be told you're apnic. You're having like seven times an hour, you're not breathing Right. So clear 10 seconds or longer, let's get you some type of appliance.
Right? Yeah. They're gonna try and give you a, you know, some type of crutch. Yeah. But for those of us who don't actually stop breathing. It's kind of like a wait and watch. It feels like if you do nothing, nothing changes. So you have two choices. You either A, wait for it to get it worse and you know, bad enough to where they give you an appliance according to the, you know, medical insurance, or B, you do something now to change the way you breathe while you sleep.
Yes, so true. Okay, so if someone's listening and they're saying, well, maybe this is me. Like I don't think I quite have sleep apnea necessarily, or maybe they do, this could still apply, but they're in this conversation of these unknowns. What are some of these things that are starting to get illuminated?
You know, we talk about tongue ties and I mean, I only realized I had a tongue tie. It was like a few years ago, and you know, I've been in this space for a while. Like, how is this happening that these things are going missing? The deviated septum to was a more recent discovery. So what are you seeing from an airway perspective?
Things that you really wanna get the message out for people to start to uncover might be a part of their problem. Yeah. And so let's go back, Molly real quick. Remember, you don't know how bad it is until it gets better. Exactly. So that's why airway dentists are really starting to help people discover that they're struggling to breathe while they sleep.
Yes. And so there's oral signs and symptoms. So if you have a mirror, go look at your mouth. Yes. Um, there's, there's some telltale signs in there that might be great indicators that you could benefit from better sleep breathing. So one of those could be your front teeth. If your front teeth are getting thin or worn down and you don't GNA on strips of wood with your feet, your front teeth every day, like there's no reason.
That you can think back and say, oh, you know what? No wonder my front teeth are all flat. Like this could be happening when you sleep. You're suffocating or struggling for air, and your jaw will jet forward sacrificing your teeth for air, like no matter what, air comes first. Yes, a hundred percent. And so the front teeth are a giveaway.
We've got, um, you know, if your tongue is not able to stay suctioned to the roof of your mouth when you're not using it, that says a lot. Yeah. See, what people don't realize is that if you are a habitual mouth breather, you are atrophying the muscles in the tongue. Their whole job is to stay strong enough to stay suctioned to the roof of your mouth at rest.
And when you have to drop your tongue down to breathe through the wrong hole, those muscles over time start to reflect the disuse. Yes. And so the, I love this. The number one way to stop mouth breathing is to fix your tongue posture. It really is. Yes. Yes. If you didn't know how to break the habit, you don't have like a rubber band to put on your wrist or somebody tapping you on your shoulder like every 45 minutes and be like, Hey, where's your tongue?
Uh, it would be get your tongue to the roof of your mouth. That's where like exercises, neuromuscular patterning happens with like, there's a field called orofacial myofunctional therapy, and there it's a group of therapists designed to help someone recover from mouth breathing. You know, they're, they're strengthening the muscles of the tongue, making sure they're working the appropriate ways so that they stay strong.
Uh, and, and then, you know, you think about all of the other components to it, there's just, there's, there's inflammation. There's. Sinus congestion. There's, there's, you know, um, let's go back to the mouth. We've got recession, so that's areas at the gumline that are shrinking away. Everybody says, oh, you're brushing too hard.
I'm like, Ooh. But are you breathing through your mouth? Okay. Yeah, totally. Before we blame the toothbrush, let's look at like your oral habits. Yes. It could be, oh, lingual tori. Okay, so everybody has a mandible, right? That's where your bottom teeth are stuck into. Sometimes if there's a lot of clenching and grinding from struggling to breathe while you sleep, you'll grow extra bone, which is wild.
Like if you feel down there, they'll like be little bumps that are coming out of the bone. You're like, oh, where did that come from? And it continues to grow. The longer you clench and grind, because the body's really cool, if it, if it, it's experiencing extra force on any given body part. It will send signals to lay down more bones, like, oh, we gotta make this thing stronger.
'cause we're using it a lot. Even though we aren't using it for function, we're just using it as like a, it's, it's a side effect. Uh, and, and the, and the bone here is hollow. So if you look at the mandible, uh, where the tongue sets, there's no bone there. And so in order for your body to make this spot stronger, 'cause it doesn't.
Your body doesn't know you're struggling to breathe while you sleep. It just knows that you keep clenching and grinding, right? And so this hollow bone, this one strip needs to get thicker. Um, you can look at tongue scalloping, so that's where there's like indentations on the tongue. Yeah. A lot of times that's the tongue coming forward while you sleep or it's a small box.
You know, like for me, I had extractions when I was a kid and I had retractive orthodontics, which my teeth are super straight. I love them. They're gorgeous. Yes. But my tongue does not fit. And so it shows in the mornings especially, you just open your mouth slightly. Don't stick your tongue out. Look at the sides of your tongue.
Are there little wave-like indentations on it? That's a great indicator too. And then build up. You know, people don't realize that saliva is a buffer. It is what helps keep your teeth clean. Our ancestors did not use toothbrushes. They did not have access to floss. Okay. They had wet mouths. This, you know, if you go way back before we started talking so much, I mean, people really had clean teeth.
Yes. Totally that the saliva dries up so fast, especially if you're mouth breathing at night. Well, okay, let's say this so you're not even mouth breathing and your mouth is just open while you sleep. That saliva changes when you sleep, it becomes thicker and there's less of it because it's the time that your teeth have to remineralize.
Like they don't have time to do that during the day. We're eating, we're talking, we're doing all these things. Drinking, yeah. But at nighttime is when our lips should be closed and our teeth should be bathed in this mineral rich saliva so that our teeth stay strong. Wow. Oh my gosh. So many things for people to be reeducated on or educated in general that just has been stepped over.
Do you feel like, just as a quick aside, do you feel like the dental community is starting to be in this conversation more like, is this. Do you have a sense that the waves are turning and we're starting to have more dental professionals that can start to spot these things for people? Or do you feel like no, you still just gotta be your own advocate?
Well, we haven't made it into the textbooks yet, so that's the downside. So I can have a graduating dentist of 2025, still not know anything about airway health, but that, I mean. Things are changing. Molly, I'm, I'm super silver lining, right? Yeah. So the A DAI was there in 20, was it 2017? We had the pediatric airway conference, um, where they had all these dentists, all these experts come and say, Hey, we at least have to screen for sleep disorder breathing in children.
And, you know, try to circumvent some of these crooked teeth. 'cause it's becoming an epidemic, right? Like everybody's gotta have braces. Like, we gotta stop at some time. And so that's helping and they're trying to work now on a, like a screening questionnaire called Gasp. It's C gasp, um, where the, the doctors, you know, and, and no matter what, where you are, whatever community can screen for sleep disordered breathing and be able to kind of like.
Refer out as needed. Hey, do we need an ENT? This kid's nose isn't working. Hey, do we need to find an allergist? I, you know, I, I think that there could be a part of this. Can we have like these sleep physicians help us and, and building that community, I think is gonna be huge, is just making it front and center.
They're gonna start with the kids first. As we get into adults, it's a little trickier 'cause it's more behavior modification. But, you know, kids, that's where we really need to get, 'cause if we wanna bright the ship. We gotta get to the kids. Uh, so true. Wow. Okay. Well, thank you for kind of clarifying where we're at in this conversation.
What are some of the progress that has been made and what are some of those opportunities? So important, so for the listener, then maybe this conversation of tongue ties. You know, I. Top of mind for me, certainly with as I'm like trying to formulate words, so tongue ties being a possible kind of gateway for people to really make a difference with this tongue posture conversation.
How might people become aware that they are dealing with tongue ties or someone in their family or beyond? Okay, so some tongue ties are super obvious. Yeah, they call them Eiffel Tower tongue ties. It's where you can see a thin piece of fascia that pulls the tip of the tongue down to the floor of the mouth, and when they try to lift their tongue up, it looks like a little heart like that is super obvious.
Okay. Those people probably have speech impediments. You know, they, they definitely can't lick all their teeth, so they're gonna have oral hygiene issues, you know, after they eat a meal. Like, if they don't have access to a toothbrush, they're kind of hosed. Food's gonna get stuck. And without swishing water, they can't get it off manually.
Right. Um, so we've got other tongue die. So here's the thing, there's a difference between a visual tongue tie and a functional tongue tie. Yes. So a functional tongue tie prevents you from being able to keep that suction to the roof of your mouth. Like you physically cannot get the tongue up to hold up your soft palate while you sleep, making it harder to breathe.
And so what we've seen in the last couple of years, thanks to institutes like the The Breathe Institute, yeah. They're training ENTs and MDs and Ddss DMDs to look and. Consider these functional tethers to, to see, okay, this person cannot breathe better while they sleep because their tongue cannot stay in the proper position at rest.
So how can we help them? And again, all of this is with Orofacial myofunctional therapy. If you went to a doctor and they said, Hey. Bobby, you've got a tongue tie. Let's just go ahead and snip it. I would run away, run really, really, really fast. Okay. 'cause they don't know what function means. Yeah. Uh, what you need is somebody who says, Hey, let's get your tongue strong enough so that when we release it, you'll be able to manage that thing in your mouth.
Yeah. And you also understand that even if you have a tongue die, if you don't make it stronger, it will still go back to where it was. And it'll be worse because then you'll have scar tissue. Oh gosh. Got it. So I know Molly's like in the middle of her postoperative healing and it's hard to do the exercises 'cause you're like, oh, I don't wanna stretch my tongue.
But you really want to move that fascia. You wanna create the best healing environment so that you don't take a existing tongue tie and make it worse. Yes. Oh, totally. Yes. Thank you for that. Reminder gives even more underscoring of the importance of these exercises. I appreciate that. Okay, so for someone that might have a tongue tie, there's the visual piece, but there's also the functional piece.
So they wanna make sure that they're getting somewhat a trusted professional to help diagnose this, that they're not just self diagnosing and then taking those steps to really retrain how to work this thing essentially in the lead up to the surgery and beyond, and post-surgery. Any call us about how for people to kind of take those actions to do that.
You know, it's gonna be a little tricky if you can find a dentist in your area that says they're airway focused or airway centered. Yeah. Um, they're gonna be your biggest advocate. Um, chances are, A, they actually provide functional releases, or b they know someone close to you that you might have to drive a little bit For sure.
That does the functional tongue tie release. Okay. Um, but you know it, and it comes down to like. Are you willing to do the exercises? Because if you're not, I don't think you should have your tongue tie released. Yeah. There's a great book called, um. 10 foot tiger, six foot cage or something like that, Dr. Le Lyal.
And it was kind of the same concept, like, okay, well let's get your tongue tie released, but if you don't have the room for your tongue, or if your tongue isn't strong enough, then it can actually make your sleep breathing worse for a period of time, so, right. It's, it's not, it's not a decision to be made lightly, and I definitely would drive outta my way to find somebody who knows what they're doing.
Yes. Oh, I couldn't agree more. So important. Thankfully there's more and more individuals like yourself that are out there and getting this message out, so great. Okay, so then what else? When we talk about this huge topic of sleep and breathing, what are some of the other things that you wanna make sure we get the message out around?
Okay, so in case you're wondering if you have audible breathing during sleep, that is considered sleep disorder breathing. There's so many people that think snoring is normal. Yes. Or that, oh, that's that's a nice little purr. It's so cute. I'm like, no, it's not cute. That's an audible symptom that somebody is having issues passing ear from their nose into their lungs while they're supposed to be sleeping.
Yes. Uh, and so like. There's, I always think of sleep disordered breathing as a spectrum, right? So you go from slow and silent nasal breathing. Hopefully at some point in your life you get a cold, maybe switch to mouth breathing, maybe something happens and you end up being. A floppy tongue owner, but your, your nose breathing and then that floppy tongue.
You guys, you don't realize how important it is to make it stronger. It is designed to hold up your soft palate while you sleep and Im posture your lower jaw forward, keeping that flacid tube behind your teeth open and patent. And so people are like, what's the tongue got to do with it? I'm like, it's kind of everything.
Yeah, it really is like. I have so many people, they're like, you know what? I never mouth breathe. 'cause a lot of those people are self-conscious. They don't, you know, wanna show their teeth. Maybe they have underdevelopment, they have, you know, crowded, crooked teeth and so they're adamant. I do not breathe through my mouth.
Okay. Yeah. I would like to see a video of you sleeping just to prove that. Let's just do that first and then if you did prove it to me that you were a habitual nasal breather, I wanna see where your tongue is at rest because I can almost guarantee you it's not staying suction to the roof of your mouth.
Everybody's like, how do I know if my tongues my tongue is suctioned to the roof of my mouth when I sleep? 'cause you know I'm asleep? Well, the easiest way to do that is a split second tongue check the minute you wake up. So before you open your eyes or go to an alarm or do anything that you, your morning routine requires of you.
Check your tongue. If your tongue was suction to the palate all night, it'll still be up there. Hmm. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you can't wake up in the middle of the night and put it up there and stay up there. I mean, I guess you could, but most people don't. Yeah, exactly. Once you go to bed, if you suck your tongue up and it's not up there when you wake up in the morning, then it was down.
That's like the easiest way to check. That's so good. I know. I wish we could get people to more actively even take video of what is going on and we'd likely see more wake up throughout the course of the night. Just a whole lot going on that most people don't realize. Is there anything you see on wearables by any chance that you point to or any call outs there?
I do, I love wearables. I do an Apple Watch myself, and, and I have looked into the Ora ring. Um, but there's some good data that's about to come down the line on Apple watches with sleep apnea in particular. Yeah. So I'm gonna kind of hold out for that. Totally. Um, but there's, you know, okay, let's say the metrics that you get from a wearable device that tracks your sleep quality, you know, so the ma the majority of them give you, um.
HRV, they give you oxygen saturation. They give you breath per minute. They give you an estimation of deep rim and light. They tell you, you, when you went to sleep, they tell you when you woke up. But these are about 70% accurate still. Like if you compared it to like an in-lab sleep test or even like a, a very complex.
Home sleep test. Yeah. You don't get the same data, but I love it as metrics to measure your progress because I am not gonna go back to the doctor every week and say, Hey, can I have one of those sleep tests please? Yeah. I'd like to put all those wires and that nasal cannula on and that, uh, pulse oximeter and I'd like to sleep again in that, um.
Exactly. And they're like, no, you're not. We're not gonna do that. Exactly. So it can be a nice in-between, even if it's not, it's such a great in between. Yeah. And even if all you did was get, you know, like look at like your option saturation, they're pretty accurate there, right? Yeah. If you dip below 95%, there's something wrong folks, right?
Like you are supposed to be between 95 and 99, very few people will stay at a hundred. So if you go from 95 below. Then we're in trouble. Like there's, there's situations where I have patients that'll tell me their sleep data. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like if you were in a hospital, they would've put you up to supplemental oxygen.
Like there's no way a doctor would let you go like that all night. Yeah. And they're like, really? I'm like, yeah. Like you're suffocating. Your brain is losing its ability to like, you know, the glymphatic system. We talked about that in one of your recent podcasts. Yeah. Like your brain is the losing the ability to clean itself and there's like the suction around your heart every time you suffocate.
Like it's just, it's, it impacts your entire life because you heals, you heal when you sleep. Yeah. And if your body's just trying to keep you alive to breathe, there's no way it's gonna prioritize the other stuff. Yeah. So you're just gonna slowly decline. Exactly. If you've tuned into the show or followed any of our content here at Sleep as a Skill, you may have heard that everyone that we work with wears the Ora Ring, and as a result, we have amassed a very large database of Ora Ring users and get to see what really moves a needle for people when it comes to their sleep measurably.
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Sleep is a skill, all one word at checkout for a discount. Okay. And so once people discover this, do you find or meaning like, so say they discover they have a tongue tie or they're, they're mouth breathing, they wanna take these next steps. Is it something where like, I know before we hit record, I. You had some of your own, the kind of tools that you were using, so your straws to help with your tongue posture.
Are there certain things that you just would suggest people across the board start doing? Do they need to have a whole protocol? Do they need to work with someone? Like what are the, what's the path? I mean, honestly, in the best case scenario, everybody would, would go to an ENT, right? Yes. They'd make sure there's nothing structurally compromising their nose.
Yeah. And that's why they started mouth breathing in the first place. Um, they would want to go to an allergist. To see, you know, are the tissues swollen in the nose? Like is there anything that I'm eating that might be causing a slight histamine response? You know, and could kind of eliminate some of those foods that, you know, might be causing a difficulty breathing through your nose.
Yeah. And then you'd wanna go to an airway dentist, right. And say, Hey, do I have room in the roof of my mouth from my tongue? And then they're like, oh, you know what? Well you're, you have like, okay. So if, if you wanna ask the question to the airway dentist, 40 to 42 millimeters between your first molars is considered optimal.
Okay. That's the distance between your first molar, mesial, buccal cusp to mesial. B, a mesial lingual cus sorry to mesial lingual cusp. 40 to 42 millimeters. So if you have 28, if you have 32, if you have 37, they're gonna tell you that there's under development. And if you gotta realize this, that the floor of your nose is the roof of your mouth.
Right? What a lot of people don't understand is, yeah, if your mouth is smaller, that means you have less air in your nose. Yeah, like you have less room for air and so if your mouth is bigger, you have more room to breathe with in your nose. So that's right there. Gonna make it a lot easier to breathe slow and silent through it, right?
Just because of more real estate. So true. Myofunctional therapist, you know? Yeah. A lot of this can be done. Like I work with a lot of grownups, right? Adults. Yeah. People who, you know, are sick and tired of being sick and tired. And a lot of this can be self-guided. Like there's a, there's enough information online and tools, um, you know, for an adult you would look at like something called the froggy mouth.
It is a, a appliance that you wear 15 minutes a day in front of a screen and it helps to re-pattern your swallow. So if your swallow is strong, then your, you know, your, all the effort you're gonna put into making your tongue stronger will help maintain that strength. There's tools like the re replenish my nozzle.
It is a, a straw that works out Yeah. But it's passive exercise, like 30 to 60 ounces of water a day and, and you're working out when you drink. So I'm, I love multitasking. Same. You instead of that. Yeah. I love that. Um, there's like newer stuff coming out all the time. I know that there was a, um, pathologist who just invented a tool called the Beauty Balloon and so she's kind of merging the two.
'cause a lot of it is aesthetics with function. Okay. And so there it's just like basically myofunctional therapy on steroids 'cause they give you something to play with for resistance training. Cool. It's really neat. And, you know, nasal hygiene, you guys, yeah, it could be as simple as you don't blow your nose enough or you don't hum to clear out all that mucus.
Or you're, you know, you could use a nasal irrigation, you could use a nasal spray. You just, you can understand, oh, you know what, maybe I have nasal valve collapse. You know, when I breathe in through my nose, these little holes collapsed. And then you could look at like nasal dilators or nasal strips. Right.
Um, lip tape, if you have confirmed that you have nasal patency, right? Let's say you're one of those people that fall into the habitual mouth breathing category, you know, not doing it outta necessity. Yeah. I highly, I mean, I haven't, I. Missed a night of taping my lips in like seven years. I, I don't even need it anymore.
My lips are strong enough to stay shut. Yeah. I don't like it. Like I sleep better knowing it's on. Yes. It sleep. Comfort blanket, knowing Okay, at least for this eight hours, I'm functional. Yeah. You know, even if I mess up during the day, I at least and breathing the right way while I sleep. Yes. And there's so many types.
There's stuff that goes around your lips, on your lips, you know, full coverage. Minimal coverage and, and there's just, I mean, since I, gosh, okay, so I was 37 'cause I'm almost 45 now. When I was 37, there was only one lip tape on the market and it was som fixx. I remember that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And there's like a generic one on Amazon.
But now I look and there's like a whole like. Hundreds. I know. Different types of lip tape. I'm like, wow, when did that happen? Totally. Oh my gosh. Okay. These are great resources and we'll make sure to put those in the show notes too. So all of those are available. It's becoming more well discussed and we're starting to have more and more information getting out thanks to people like yourself that are really just taking the time to get this sort of content out there.
I'm very excited to hear, given that you've been for so many years now in this conversation, even before a lot of people even knew some of these things, I'm excited to hear how you're managing your own sleep. So we'll get into that in a second, but I know this is a huge topic. Any kind of closing thoughts on this big area?
I. Well, I mean, I guess goes back to nothing changes if nothing changes. Yeah. If you want your sleep breathing to get better, you will have to actively do things in your life that can impact it. Yeah. Unfortunately, you guys, there's no pill for this and there's no like, willpower, right? I be like, oh, you know what?
Tonight I am going to keep my tongue suction through the roof of my mouth. I'm gonna keep my lips closed, and I'm gonna breathe slow and silent through my notes. Like, you can't just will this, like, it takes work, you know? Yes. Um, and, and that's the, the hard part, but you have to really want it. Like, this is the first thing I've ever committed to long term that has shown me rewards.
Like every year something that was broken in my body fixes itself. Like, I'm like, yeah. You know, like it's, it's not a constant decline. Like I'm finally getting to a place where I feel like, you know, hey. I don't have to wake up tired. My brain works so much better. I would like to do this as long as possible.
You know, other people are like, Ugh, you know what? I don't care if I live till 87 or blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, no. I want a hundred. Let's do a hundred. I wanna have a party and show people like habitual nasal breathing works, you guys. Yes. I love that. You could be the poster child. Amazing. I told you function matters.
Function matters. Yes. Wow, that's so good. And I appreciate too bringing in that kind of sense of personal responsibility, personal or that self-efficacy once you do commit to it, like what's can be available on the other side of that. So that's so beautiful. And to your point, it really, I think many people might not be aware of what could be available if they were to.
Commit to that. Some of those differences, like, um, I don't know if you've seen, I'm sure you have the Snore Gym that goes along with Snore Lab and I like how they've, you know, just demonstrated or they pull from different research of some of the differences of how you can lower significant amount of your snoring, you know, by almost 40% and, and certain research and, you know, apnea severity by.
I'm throwing out numbers, but a, a large percentage just by some of these exercises. But it takes doing these kind of weird looking exercises at different points. Like you gotta like goofy, you gotta get goofy with it. You gotta stick your tongue out. You gotta do all these things that you know, people don't wanna do.
But you can do 'em from the comfort of your own home. You can buy the tools like Molly's talking about, like these, these accessories. Or you can do it just on your own. Like there's resistance training just in your cheek alone. Yeah. And so it's. Consistency. Right? Yeah. And it's, it's working out. So fatigue, you know, you're not gonna get any muscle gains.
You guys, if you're not putting in the work, like, I'm not gonna go to bed, wake up like, oh my God, look at that bicep. Yeah. I didn't lift any weights. How did that happen? No, you have to, you have to lift weights. You have to lift the weight. Exactly. Oh my gosh. So good. Okay, love this. And so I'm excited to hear how you're managing your own sleep, given that you've thought so deeply about these topics.
So our first question is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now? Okay, so my nightly routine starts in the morning. 'cause I know about Ian Rhythms. Yes, it. Uh, I go outside. I get that sunlight. Yes. You know, I'm a big proponent for lymphatic pumping. I love to go outside and jump in the sun if I can and if I can't, no matter what, I get out there and I get the light in my eyes.
You know, I even have like a greenhouse 'cause I live in Montana and it snows a lot here. Yes. So I have a greenhouse that I go in and get my feet on the ground. Yay. Because there's no snow in there, you know, like, yes. You know, think outside the box. Some people put a rug down and they just lift the rug up and then they ground, or, you know, get their feet on the soil.
Like, uh, all of it's, it's all connected. You know? Totally. And we're trying to live in this modern world and stay healthy, so we're gonna have to get a little weird in order to do that. Yes, I could agree more. Oh my goodness. And it's so good because that's one of the questions first, we didn't have the morning routine in there beforehand, and now we've added in, so you already, that's perfect.
You answered our second question of what does your morning sleep routine look like with the call it of how we sleep? Start our day can a hundred percent, not just can, will impact our sleep results. Is there anything else that we'd see either in the morning or night? Uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a big fan of the creatine and dandelion and, um, in the mornings I like to, you know, I hum a lot.
Love that I simulate the vagus nerve and more nasal nitric oxide. Um, I like to do what. Most people probably think is weird. Yeah. Uh, but I, I just like to sit there and understand that, okay, the way that I breathe today will dictate how I breathe tonight. So what can I do today to avoid stress that makes me wanna sigh.
What can I do today by not wearing clothes that are too tight? Makes me wanna suck in. Yeah. What can I do? You know, like you, you, you can plan out your whole day. Like, how do I avoid Susie who stresses me out Yes. And makes me wanna yell. Yeah. You know, have this ability to, to have forethought and like, look at your day and think, okay, this day is, is going to help me breathe better while I sleep tonight.
So what can I do add in or take away that's gonna impact that ability? Yes. Oh, I love that. So that management, and it's so good. I've often said over the years that how you are by day gets mirrored in the nights, and that's so well demonstrated in what you're sharing, particularly with how we're breathing.
It's just gonna show up. We can't run away from it. So really wise, okay, so you're managing things throughout the course of the day. To support your evenings. Any other callouts around kind of like wind down routines or in the mornings? So, um, I am, I'm a huge proponent of, uh, either eating windows or intermittent fasting.
Yeah. And depending on what you wanna call it, a lot of people don't realize that how you eat and what you eat affects the way you breathe. Yeah. So if you eat like highly inflammatory foods, you'll notice that your respiratory rate. Inclines, like there's, there's, there's a immediate reaction. Like, okay, think about it.
This, just, just think about your diaphragm. It's located below your stomach. If I fill my stomach all the way up to max capacity and then I try to take slow and silent nasal breaths, it's gonna be hard You guys. Okay. 'cause there's physically not enough room for my lungs to inflate, you know, to the best potential.
Right? And, and so a lot of people don't realize that, like the food impacts how you breathe. And then I do my best to avoid any foods. Like I did a food elimination diet, like I got rid of a lot of stuff and now I barely have any snot. I didn't realize that, that the inflammatory foods I was consuming was making it harder for me to reach my goal of slow and silent nasal breathing while I slept.
You know, there's so many people, you might be one listening to this right now, who says, you know what? My nose works fine all day until I lay down, and then as soon as I lay down that bad boy stuffs right up. I'm like, yeah, well, that's when you need to peel back the curtain and look at the food. What did you eat during the day that could be contributing to that excess inflammation or excess mucus.
That is harder to deal with when you are supine, when you're laying down. Yes. Yes. And gravity's not your friend anymore. Totally. A hundred percent. Oh my gosh. I know. I've been happy. I have the eight sleep and they just. Came out with this, um, base that adjusts to so it can elevate you. So I've been sleeping somewhat elevated with all this, you know, nasal stuff and all of it.
Yeah. Ugh. But a hundred percent when we go flat, all kinds of problems can show up. So well said. Okay. So that gives us a sense of kind of your day and into the night. Any other callouts for, so we, our first question, nightly sleep routine. Second question. Morning sleep routine. Anything we missed? Well, I guess I kind of didn't highlight too much about my nighttime routine is, um, I, no matter what, I stopped eating three hours before bed if possible.
There are gonna be times like I had to go to a, a dinner party last weekend and they didn't eat till seven, and I'm like, ugh. I know, but you know what? I tracked my sleep and I'm like, I told you. Yeah, I told, and it really messes up your breathing when you're going to sleep on a full stomach. Yes. And then liquids.
You guys like, just try, like, unless you're taking a pill or something, cut it off at least an hour before bed so your bladder has time to go through that liquid and dump it. That, and you know, 'cause a lot of people say, you know, just I drink too much water before bed. I'm like, okay, okay. Maybe it, maybe it's not your breathing.
Yeah. Maybe it's over hydrated. So why don't we reduce your liquid intake prior to sleep? And definitely. No alcohol. Okay. There's no such thing as healthy alcohol. Yeah. And alcohol, no matter what you do, is going to impact your sleep breathing 'cause of the way it reacts with your muscles. Yeah. And yes, it might be a sedative, but your sleep's gonna be much worse because it's gonna be harder for you to breathe when you have that sedative in your system.
Yes. And then I, I do see my tea. I do a nighttime tea, that's my last liquid. It's ginger and kimba meal. Love that. And I do my magnesium with that. And then I sit in the bathroom for like an hour. My brain is going through, like I'm closing all these windows before I go to sleep. And so I'm doing like the facial massage.
I'm doing my tongue workouts. I'm in my red light. I do my oral hygiene like, and then I get on a foam roller, like the last thing I do every night, unless I'm in a hotel and I don't have access to a foam roller. Is I, I call it stretch the day away. Like I try to release as much of that tension that it, I don't want it to follow me to bed, you know, like I wanna just get on the roll roller and just roll it out.
Yeah. Like, I'm super weird. I do a lot of headstands and stuff because I love, I read this one thing once and it said that if you can be inverted for 70 seconds, it helps to lengthen the telomeres. You know, like, I'm kind of like, yeah, you know, I wanna, I wanna be progressive. I wanna be in this whole like, uh, biohacking community.
And then lay down and go to bed. No phones in bed, you guys. Yeah. It doesn't belong there. Like, 'cause you're tricking your brain. Your brain goes to lay down. It's like, oh, this is where we watch our phone. I'm like, no, no, no. This is where we watch the back of our eyelids. Yes. Oh my God. So good. Okay. That was beautiful and I love that.
Stretch the day away. That's fantastic. I'm gonna bring that in. Beautiful. Okay, and then we did, so nightly sleep routine, morning sleep routine, and then third, what's on your nightstand or maybe ambiance, or if you're traveling proverbial nightstand. Yeah, so no lights. Or at least as minimal light exposure as you can.
Yeah. Um, so that's taking a little piece of black tape and covering up all the little lights if you can on my nightstand. It's funny, Molly. 'cause I have a remote control to my bed. Ah, my bed. Yes. It is one of the best investments you're gonna make, especially as you age. Yeah. You know, there's gonna be nights where I can, I can make my bed flatter when I, like, on the days I fast.
Like if I'm in a 72 hour fast, yeah, I can sleep a lot lower. But if I've eaten or, you know, had maybe exposure to inflammatory foods, I can raise my bed. You know, it's now more than like one to three inches. Like we're not talking about like hospital bed, where you're sleeping upright, you. We're just talking about, just trying to get your chin above your chest.
Yes. Um, my lip tape, my lip tape's always on my bed. Stand. So good. Any preference for the lip tape? You know, I like them all. Okay. So I, it all depends, like, if I wanna do like a facial routine, like a moisturizing thing, then I'll get my lip tape like drift or somnia fix that, go right over the lips. Or even 3M micro paper tape.
Yeah. And, you know, if, if I wanna moisturize my lips, then I'll do like a Mayo tape or a VO two tape. Yes. I, I love having a little bit of everything, so, you know, just spice it up. Totally. Exactly. I know people get very like, impassioned on it, whether it's one right one or whatever. And it's, it's so true.
It's like if we, it gets the job done, most of them do do that. So Love that. Okay. And then the last question would be to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to your sleep game? Or maybe said another way. Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep. It was the minute my tongue stayed suctioned to the roof of my mouth.
You know, like the lip tape, it was a pretty big game changer. Like that started this ball rolling. Like, I was like, ooh. I started digging deeper. I'm like, how can my sleep be that much better with just a piece of tape on my lips? Like, that's weird. Yeah. Uh, but it was the, the day I woke up with my tongue suction to the roof of my mouth, I.
And I slept on my back all night long, you guys. Wow. It felt like little ants running up and down my spine. Like I never had that much blood flow on my spine for that period of time. Like it was amazing. That is amazing. Oh, you are inspiring. I'm glad you have put in this message around doing the work too, because.
I've seen for many people where it's almost this call it a well, oh yeah. Mouth tape. So I just like mouth taped the problem away. But as you're pointing to, that can be a part of it. But then there can be cases where if we are, we can truly be bandaid over a real problem and can sometimes make it worse if we're not addressing sleep apnea, upper air resistant syndrome, et cetera, depends on the situation.
But what you're pointing to is so important. So it's not just like a one and done thing. There's gonna be steps to this. Yeah. So good. Yeah. There, I mean, there is, and, and everybody's journey, I call it the airway journey can look different. Yeah. You know, uh, it took me a while to stop snoring. Turns out you guys, I didn't even know that you could snore through your nose.
I just, I put lip tape on my mouth thinking, ah, ha ha, ha ha. I am done snoring siara. And then my husband wakes me up in the middle of the night and he is like, you're snoring. I'm like, mm. You know, I table on my lips. So I couldn't tell him. I was like, how can I be snoring? My lips are closed. Yeah. Uh, yeah.
So there's a lot of aha moments along the way. You're like, right. So that's where BTE breathing comes in to slow down the breath. Yeah. That's where the anti-inflammatory stuff comes in. That's where like the nasal dilators, so that you can make what you have work better. Yes. So well said. Ugh. Well, thank you so much for providing all this information and very important, how can people follow you, be a part of your world?
I know you've got some exciting things coming. Tell us all the things. Well, if you want to be annoyed by my, my mug every day, follow me on social. I try to get everywhere, like I'm on Instagram, TikTok. YouTube, Facebook, uh, and it's always the same. The airway champion. Yeah. Uh, because I figured like, everybody's like, I don't even know your name.
I'm like, that's cool. This is not about me. It's about you. I want you to breathe better while you sleep, and I wanna lead by example. Love. And then, you know, I'm actually a coach and co-founder of Airway Coach, and so we've designed this. Place that's safe for people who are recovering from mouth breathing and are, you know, floppy tongue owners who want to change the way they breathe while they sleep.
And a lot of times you can get overwhelmed when you first jump into this subject. You're like, what do I do? Do I do this? Do I do expansion? Do I do a tongue tie release? Do I do this? And so it's nice to have somebody who's. A been there B read pretty much every book there is. Yeah. On this subject to help guide people in the right direction.
So it's not so overwhelming to the point that they just give up. Yes. Oh, so important to have people like yourself truly pioneers to guide others. So needed. And I'm grateful for this conversation too, 'cause it's further motivating me to even add, uh, stacks in. 'cause I do have the rim kind of straw.
Somewhere I gotta find it though. And I haven't been using it recently, so now I gotta bring that back and you know, just putting in that message of you'll get out of this what you put in. Very motivating for myself and I would know for others. So thank you so much. Did we miss anything of any other ways that people can work with you or any other call outs there?
Um, okay, so. You know airway coach.com. Super easy. We are actually hosting a virtual summit in December that's free to attend live, and we've done it. This will be our third one where we find 10 experts in different fields of medicine. They don't have to be in medicine, just people that are helping other humans breathe better while they sleep, and we put 'em in one place.
And so for three days you just watch a speaker two or three a day and they'll help you understand the problem. 'cause I promise you guys, the minute you realize what the problem is, the solutions make more sense. Yeah. But if you don't understand the problem, you're less likely to do this to solutions. Yes.
You're like, why would I stick my tongue out? You know, that's just silly. I'm like, no, but if you understood why it happened, what you can do to help yourself, then you're more likely to do it. Yes, preach. Amazing. Okay, we'll be sure to add those in the show notes. Definitely check those out. Be a part of these offerings in this community.
Really fantastic, and thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Molly. You've been listening to The Sleep As A Skill Podcast. The top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet.
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