The Way You Breathe Today May Be Wrecking Your Sleep Tonight (w/Dr. Louise Oliver) [Ep.172]

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Louise Oliver, an NHS general practitioner, functional breathing practitioner, and founder of Breath Doc Programs, who discovered the profound impact of dysfunctional breathing after her own struggles with perimenopausal snoring. We dig into why physicians are rarely taught about airway and breathing dysfunction, the biochemistry of over-breathing and "air hunger," and how retraining your CO2 tolerance can be life-changing.

We also explore how daytime breathing habits shape nighttime breathing, why puberty, pregnancy, and menopause reshape airway function, the troubling gaps in sleep apnea research for women, and a nuanced take on mouth taping. It's a wide-ranging conversation that challenges assumptions about one of the most basic things we do every moment of our lives: breathe.

TIMESTAMPS

- 0:00 – Introduction

- 3:47 – Meet Dr. Louise Oliver

- 3:49 – Dr. Oliver's journey to functional breathing

- 9:59 – What actually counts as evidence-based medicine

- 14:04 – Why traditional medicine overlooks breathing dysfunction

- 19:28 – The mechanics of over-breathing and air hunger

- 25:23 – How to retrain your breathing

- 33:28 – How over-breathing affects the whole body

- 38:42 – Breathing and the autonomic nervous system