Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast.

Dr Neel [00:00:05]: So many people with adrenal issues, it's like they've been taking the supplements, almost dependent on them. And sometimes it's the kidney. The kidney's been out of alignment, and the adrenal gland has come along for the ride. So that's one of the main ways that I help people out of adrenal fatigue, is actually getting the kidney to be aligned, because then they don't need the supplements as much, but also just kind of like the way that we can be pliable and resilient and receptive to change when it comes.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:31]: Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:51]: Folks, you may have seen on Instagram me interviewing Dr. Neel Bulchandani about this crazy method he has where he works on the inside of your mouth and your tongue and adjusts your body. Like, for example, he went inside my mouth yesterday, he did work on my jaw, and it gave me, like three extra inches of mobility on my left leg. Just crazy stuff. I was so intrigued when I had him over to my house a few months ago, I decided to have him back for an official podcast. We are walking, as you may no doubt have already noticed, outside my home in Spokane, Washington. He came to visit, and we're doing work together this weekend. He's showing me all his tricks and hacks and tactics.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:42]: So his name is Neel Bulchandani. I'll link to his website. If you guys want to check him out and learn more about him, just go to bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel. Like D-r Neel. It's N-e-e-l. So, bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel are where you can find the fancy, fancy show notes.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:03]: So we've already today a pretty good morning. We did our cold plunge. We did stretching, biocharger, PEMF, Prisma golf, smoothie.

Dr Neel [00:02:36]: Delicious smoothie.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:36]: And now we're walking. Yes. So I actually wanted to ask you this right off the bat, Neel, because you were telling me this when you were doing body work on me yesterday about this cool hat. Pun intended, I guess, in this case that you have for cold thermogenesis. Did you get into that?

Dr Neel [00:02:36]: Yeah. Well, it can change depending on what someone needs. So in one sense, it's like an evolving hack. And I mean, for me, it's like when I think of cold, I think, ooh, that's there's some energy out of that that could feel shocking to a nervous system. I love the benefits of it, like, getting in there and feeling that dopamine release and feelings.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:01]: Why all the smart doctors tell you not to do it. Plus, sympathetic nervous system activation, baby.

Dr Neel [00:03:06]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:08]: Die in a pile of low HRV goo.

Dr Neel [00:03:10]: Right. Yeah. And, you know, some of that. Some of that mechanism is so good because we need that protection against when things are truly, you know, fatally or mortally injured injurious. But when you develop the resilience of your nervous system and your gut and for some who, you know, can get in there and do that, like some people, I think. So the right kidney, for me, that's when I work on, like, the actual.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:36]: Not the correct kidney, but you mean the actual right kidney. Kidney on the right side.

Dr Neel [00:03:39]: Exactly. The right side of the body. For most people, it's that right kidney on the right side of the body that could be slightly tense or misaligned and so often. But it's really nice because even if you, if it's not that, it could be the diaphragm, which is really close to it. So pinch, you know, kind of like, pinch your side. The QL muscle, either side, but it's painful.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:01]: Might not know what you say. What do you mean when you say QL?

Dr Neel [00:04:03]: The quadratus lumborum muscle. So if, you know, under the last rib on the right side, if you just kind of pinch your side, to make it very general, and you do a stretch towards the left side, you just open up the side, and it's kind of like a ballerina stretch. But basically, if you just massage or stretch in the area, and then you. That can totally help your nervous system reset. Take some of that stress off of the parasympathetic nervous system to allow it to do what it's designed to do, which is keep you mobile, fluid.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:43]: So tell me the story about you were with your kids in the river and you did this to yourself.

Dr Neel [00:04:47]: Yeah, exactly. I was in Bend, Oregon, and it was just like, less than a month ago. And, you know, I was. I love the idea of getting in and getting into some colds where there was some family. Matthew Rollins, a great friend of mine, he, you know, he's like, yeah, let's just get in. And the kids were in, everybody was playing. And I'm like, I should love it, right? It'll be good.

Dr Neel [00:05:09]: But as soon as I stepped in, my skin was, like, rigid. You know, it's shocking. And I, you know, by now I can tell, like, is that just something I need to push through? Yeah. No, this was like. No, because it just felt so shocking. And maybe I'm being dramatic to kind of, like, demonstrate, but all I know is that right kidney, when I freed it up seconds later, the skin was like, ah. And the water felt so good. I mean, it was cold, but it felt so good.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:36]: What do you even mean when you say free up a kidney? Or before you said, free up, you said a lie kidney. Yeah. What's that even mean?

Dr Neel [00:05:44]: So if I'm doing, like, body work on someone else, we're going to get in, and usually they're going to be lying on their backs, and we're going to feel like, which way is that kidney misaligned? I get into the nuances because I see, like, really complex cases. And some people have had body work, they've had a lot of different kinds of therapies. And it's that right kidney that could be mislined in direction. So it could be too far forward or it could be too far back, or it could be too far towards the middle medial. So, but, you know, just to kind of keep it simple, if it's tense and not only the organ, but the muscle and the fascia, the connective tissue that's connected to it. Sometimes a simple massage, you know, on the actual organ, can loosen it, and then it can go into.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:38]: This would be almost like, way to put both of your fists kind of back behind your back and feel like you'll sometimes do, if your back is tight, just kind of rub and roll in that area with your fists, that type of thing.

Dr Neel [00:06:48]: Yeah, that could be good. But for somebody who has, for a lot of people, though, that's going to drive that kidney even further. So usually grabbing under your rib on the front, the lowest rib, putting your hand there so you can kind of massage your belly, and then, you know, going into, like, laterally bending to the right, laterally bending to the left, even doing some rotation. So that's why I say pinch your side. Because when you pinch your side, you've got, you know, your fingers on the front and your thumb in the back.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:22]: Fingers in the front, thumb in the back. Okay. Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:07:24]: So if you, like, hug your side with your hand, you got your thumb in the back and your fingers on the front. Well, that's kind of a way to get the front in the back. And so then you can go into lateral flexion. Bend to the right, left, rotate to left and right.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:38]: While you're still kind of like, holding your torso.

Dr Neel [00:07:40]: While you're holding. And often, if you pinch, if you actually put pressure to try to bring your fingers and your thumb close together, so that's pinching your side, then you actually hold that pressure. It's a myofascial release technique. You hold that pressure, and then while you're doing the movements, you're allowing the movements to free up the adhesion versus, like, grabbing and digging in harder, because some people just can't take that pressure.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:05]: Right. You're using the movement of your body to self-massage. It's almost like if your knee hurts and you kind of, like, grab your knee or pinch it with the foam roller and stack and then extend your knee, you can kind of almost, like, floss that area with movement. So I could stand in front of my cold plunge. Let's say I'm feeling cold. I feel like maybe I've got too much sympathetic nervous system activation. I could grab the front of my torso with, like, my four fingers, put my thumb in the back, and just start to do, like, some hip circles and torso circles.

Dr Neel [00:08:33]: Exactly. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:35]: What I don't understand is why that works. Like, what's going on with the whole kidney nervous system activation, that would cause that to somehow, like, warm up my body or cause me to not have something like a cold shot?

Dr Neel [00:08:47]: Yeah. So. And, you know, there's. I can't, you know, help but think, oh, there's other nuances with some people. They're going to have different organs out of alignment so, but if we're sticking with the kidney, which I think is good, because in a lot of people, that's an issue.

Dr Neel [00:09:02]: Well, one is because if that kidney is misaligned, that's, you know, regulating electrolyte balance minerals, how they're, you know, distribute themselves to our body. It's also a big, massive regulator of our blood filtration. But what I think is really helpful to, like, for me to explain and for me just in the beginning to understand this, is that would the kidney in the western world, we think, hey, there's the kidney. And then we're like, oh, yeah, the adrenal glands sit on top of it. But if we break down the word and kidney is renal, right?

Ben Greenfield [00:09:34]: Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:09:34]: That's the word. And the adrenal is adrenal. Adrenal is adding to the renal.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:41]: I'm looking an idiot because I've been through, like, anatomy and physiology with Latin and everything. I've just never really thought about it that way. Okay, so adrenal, of course, it's kidney? Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:09:48]: So many people have it. Like, honestly, I didn't, even though I've been through, you know, 4,000 hours of practice college and additional myofascial therapy training. But it's like the kidney, when we look at it as this, not just an organ, but the synergistic properties of the adrenal gland and the renal gland. That's why in the eastern world, they view them as one organism. So do I. It's like one system. So I often see this is kind of, you know, rabbit trail.

Dr Neel [00:10:16]: But so many people with adrenal issues, it's like they've been taking the supplements almost dependent on them, and sometimes it's the kidney. The kidneys have been out of alignment, and the adrenal gland has come along for the ride. So that's one of the main ways that I help people out of adrenal fatigue is actually getting the kidney to be aligned, because then they don't need the supplements as much. And I also can regulate their nervous systems. So I think the answer to your question was, why does that work? Well, it's nervous system regulation. Because if we can get that nervous system to regulate and somebody can have that good balance between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic system, then our bodies can be resilient, and shock doesn't affect us as much. We're supple to it both, you know, an actual myofascially, but also just kind of like the way that we can be pliable and resilient and receptive to change when it comes.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:10]: Right. And I can understand how, you know, sometimes people have, like, neurological issues if one of, say, the vertebra is out of place. Like, you have a cervical spinal misalignment or something like that. But with the kidney, like, how does it get out of place in the first place? Does that make sense? Like, how do the kidneys just shift? Are they that pliable? Like, could it be an injury or a movement or a lifestyle practice or the way you're sitting at your desk or something like that? That's gradually shifting the kidney in such a way that causes some type of nervous system maladaptation.

Dr Neel [00:11:45]: Yeah, I think one clear instance is some guys operating. I'm thinking of several people right now. But if you're operating this heavy machinery and it's like this unilateral, it's like they're always on the right side, on the left side, constantly having to.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:01]: I had a lot of heavy machinery, by the way, it's called a keyboard.

Dr Neel [00:12:04]: Right in you. But there's like micro stress. If you do it over and over and over and over and over again, you're going to be exacerbating that side and tightening it. So I think it's like the brunt force, that trauma. But also repetitive things over time can create these. But any, you know, I think of some people have rib injuries where they've separated ribs or, you know, had somebody ran into them. Football players.

Dr Neel [00:12:33]: Good example, totally. Kidneys can misalign that way. So it's like the mild fascial system. Buckminster Fuller, he's probably the one who explained it the best. He's an architect and in kind of steps.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:49]: Isn't he the guy with the whole, like, shape, buckminsterfullerene, that they, there's even like that supplement people take the carbon 60 or the C60 that's named after. Or the shape of it is named after him. The buckminsterfullerene soccer ball, hexagon-like shape.

Dr Neel [00:13:04]: Yeah, totally.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:05]: I didn't know he was an architect.

Dr Neel [00:13:06]: It was named after him. So he kind of came out of the human potential movement, Big Sur Esalen Institute. And one of the things that he did, he spoke on tensegrity. You know, it's a concept that kind of talking about the way that all our body has tension and integrity. And it's the fascial system that often is what provides that. So with organs, sometimes it's just, you get into a movement and it's not even that much. It could be like a millimeter out of alignment.

Dr Neel [00:13:36]: But that's, you know, for the body. That's all it needs to say. Wait, hold up. And it disrupts that neural connection from brain to body, body to brain. And so then it can disrupt that nervous system. So I think there's a lot of pathways and ways it can happen.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:52]: Interesting. All right, well, we might have got a little bit ahead of ourselves because I think I told you this. I guess so many people that, like, want to come to my house, show me their special, unique flavor of bodywork, or show me some magical rabbit that they pull out of a hat that fixes everything. And I'm super skeptical. So, you know, you experienced this. I had you over, but it was pretty much just like that. You're gonna show up at this time, leave at this time, show me what you do. I'm happy to at least check it out.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:21]: And when you left, I was like, holy cow, my whole body feels different. I slept like a baby. I took a giant dump. The next morning, I had pain diminished in areas of my body that you just kind of started to work on. But, you know, as you told me when you were leaving, it's like I needed a little bit more attention. So I had you back this weekend, not only to delve into more of what you do, but also to record this podcast. And so I realized when he left, I'm like, oh, this guy's a unicorn. Like, more people in the world need to know about you. Sorry for making you blush.

Dr Neel [00:14:51]: It's okay.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:53]: And so where'd you actually come from? Like, what's your. What's your story? Because you're not, I mean, don't take this wrong way, but you're not really normal when it comes to, you know, the average chiropractic doc for me.

Dr Neel [00:15:07]: Yeah, I think it's, first of all, it's been really rich to be here. I just, like, I knew you were a great cook, but, man, you're like, absolutely. The way you blend meals.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:20]: I like to make meals for my friends and have a good time.

Dr Neel [00:15:23]: No, I just. I just feel like I'm riding the enrichment of the senses from that and all the movement and all the things that we've done. And so it's like, where we're at right now is the present tense and gratitude. And I think I look back and, man, there's, like, so many places to start, but I think if we get kind of start at the end is that I, you know, when I became a chiropractor, it was no clue that I was going to do that. And when I'll say, like, the apogee, the apex, or if you want to call it, the event horizon, like, the moment that really, like, so showed me of what I am to do and who I am was, you know, it was connected to being a husband of Don, my amazing wife. But also that moment when we had our first baby, Serenity, and that was eight years ago, and I had already been a chiropractor for, you know, at that point at 7 years, I think. And so she came into the world when she was born at home in a birth pool, and came up out of that water.

Dr Neel [00:16:31]: Wife held her, and it was eleven days later that we knew her name. We didn't know it right away. We just kind of wanted to wait and feel incensed. And we said, oh, she's so serene. And that was a beautiful, peaceful moment. And then kind of, like, as I mentioned, to start Vienna, then go back is she was born, and then.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:52]: She didn't name a mermaid, cause she was born in a birthing pool at home.

Dr Neel [00:16:57]: That would have been fitting. We saw Ariel. She's a singer. She's a wonderful singer songwriter, actually. So that's fitting. We knew she would be a singer. We knew she loved song. That kind of runs in our family, too.

Dr Neel [00:17:10]: But she, you know, she was born. And so born with a tongue-tie. That's, you know, and I don't want to get into the weeds of that yet, because I think you were asking more about where did this all start? Or where did I start? But I don't know.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:21]: A big part of it is the tongue-tie, because you did some crazy stuff to my tongue yesterday.

Dr Neel [00:17:25]: Yeah. Yeah. Freeing up the floor of the mouth. Under the tongue is sometimes an undersung hero. An unsung hero. And that's why I love talking about the floor of the mouth, because that tongue can move, but if it doesn't move well, it's often the floor, you know, that these muscles under it that won't let it move. And so the tongue can get villainized. The floor of the mouth can get all this tension.

Dr Neel [00:17:46]: So I'm talking about, you know, these areas that can loosen so the tongue can move more properly so that we can. I don't breathe more properly. And for her, that's what it was. It was. She couldn't.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:56]: So Serenity was born with a tongue-tie.

Dr Neel [00:17:58]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:59]: If we really don't know what a tongue-tie is, because for me, it was a little foggy. Surely you kind of did some explanation. I even went through your. Your tongue kind of, like, exercise program that you have on the Internet, and I'll include a link to that in the show notes because it's super interesting. Well, what is a tongue-tie?

Dr Neel [00:18:14]: Yeah. And a tongue-tie is, you know, there's so many colleagues, you know, people who I collaborate with that have done forerunning work in this. It is decades old, and midwives of old used to, you know, address this issue and talk about it. So I'm not, you know, I'm not a pioneer in talking about the tongue-tie. It's more of my floor to the mouth and how to free up tension there. But it's, you know, places like The Breathe Institute is a great place to know more about that or Tongue Tie Life is a great website. So amazing.

Dr Neel [00:18:46]: But when the tongue is tied, there is an inability for the tongue to move, you know, as properly as it should.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:53]: Yeah, but what's that mean, tied?

Dr Neel [00:18:55]: The frenum is the band of tissue that's right under the tongue.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:58]: Okay.

Dr Neel [00:18:59]: And that frenum is, some people who have an anterior tongue-tie means that fret runs all the way to the tip of the top, and that means the whole tongue is tied, so to speak. For you and for a lot of us.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:12]: So if a baby's born, that means, like, they can't move their tongue, they can't suckle properly or something like that.

Dr Neel [00:19:17]: Can't. Can't get the tongue to the roof, or if they're nursing, breastfeeding, they can't extract milk as properly. So a lot of.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:26]: Probably causes mouth breathing, too, because I read that whole book, Jaws, that hidden epidemic, the story about, you know, mouth breathing and how bad it is for a lot of things, sleep apnea, digestion of food, etc. But in that book, I learned that the tongue is supposed to be suctioned up against the roof of the mouth in just like normal day-to-day nasal breathing and posture. And so that's basically what you're saying. It sounds like that's impossible to do. If you're born with a tongue-tie.

Dr Neel [00:19:56]: It's tough. Yeah. It's just way harder. And there's so many, like, other things that paint the picture here more fully. Because what, you know, are their palates too narrow? Because that's a problem. The tongue can move well, but if the tongue, the palate's too narrow, the tongue doesn't have a home. So that's a separate problem.

Dr Neel [00:20:15]: But it's all connected. So it interrupts breathing, feeding, which is, you know, we're talking about nursing, but also, you know, along with that, there's this sort of pattern that the body tightens, contorts, and gets restricted where the throat bone, the hyoid misaligns. And, you know, for all the speech language therapists or those who have been to those, it's like, tireless work to try to help the chewing, swallowing, speaking, all these things that we take for granted, but yet with some connected to the tongue-tie, but it's downstream separate issue. It could be that. It could be that the hyoid bone is too anterior on the right, which often accompanies a tongue-tie. And so sometimes that's a really difficult area to assess and release. But thankfully, we have a lot more body workers who are aware of that. And so with Serenity, you know, back to her.

Dr Neel [00:21:08]: She had her, she not only had her tongue-tie, that's the frenum that's restricted, not allowing the tongue to lift up. And most of us don't have an anterior tongue-tie. That's why this is like an underlooked at has been for a long time issue. Most of us have what's been called a posterior tongue-tie, which actually, it's being renamed a mid-tongue tide, that when the frenulum under the tongue runs a little too far, a little too far forward, but not to the tip, but it still is too rigid and it doesn't allow the back of the tongue to lift up, which is still so important to get proper suction for nasal breathing. And also for, you know, latch being able to extract milk, whether it's a breast or whether it's the bottle, you know, and that's what, you know, I think of all the moms and all the families that I've journeyed with because, you know, sometimes that mom's trying to breastfeed and it's so hard, and they've been gaslit. Pediatricians, by all the people, you know, it just. You've been told, you know, it's not an issue. You've been told, you know, hey, don't worry about it.

Dr Neel [00:22:10]: Your baby's gonna outgrow it. And it's like, no way. No way. Because even though.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:14]: That's part of what I've learned from you is adults grow up with all these tongue issues, even if they didn't have a tongue-tie per se, which I didn't, but you're still fighting all these issues in the tongue and the roof of the mouth and the jaw muscles, even in grown adults who may have been affected by this stuff since childhood.

Dr Neel [00:22:30]: Yeah, huge. And it's one of my biggest, like, convictions is to be there for families and also support them through that, because maybe their baby has had failure to thrive, and maybe they've been, you know, dealing with speech issues, or maybe they've been dealing with baby growing up, you know, is growing up and that older kid is having issues with cognition that could be related to this or issues with, you know, swallowing, chewing. And then adults have grown up without ever knowing that this is, you know, this is an issue. But I had a 76-year-old patient who was referred to me by a tongue-tie surgeon who I love collaborating with Dr. Rachel Barnhart, and I collaborate with a lot of them. But, you know, he. His whole life he's had this issue because it all starts in utero. Sarts in gestation 4th, 5th week. And, you know, I'll go back into that. But it's like, for him, this guy, he had TMJ. He had jaw issues.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:28]: Mandibular jaw, like, super tight jaw.

Dr Neel [00:23:32]: Yeah, super tight jaw. TMJ, TMD, temporomandibular joint problems. And he was popping, and that's what TMJ.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:39]: I think I said jaw. It's temporomandibular joint syndrome.

Dr Neel [00:23:41]: Correct. Yeah, exactly. And D is the word. You know, when people say TMD, they're saying disorder. So they're more talking about what's the problem that's happening with the joint. Well, TMD. So that's the apple. You know, that kind of the appellation or the acronym.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:55]: Okay, got it.

Dr Neel [00:23:56]: But, you know, for him, he just knew I got the jaw that won't work well. And when I'm chewing, it hurt. Like, that's what drives a lot of people to get this figured out. And so he was referred to the dentist that I work with because she is an airway trained and certified, you know, dentist who specializes in this. And she could see it clear as day. He had a significantly restricted and tethered tongue. That was clear. And he had a lip tie, which is his upper lip, was restricted as well. Lower lip was restricted as well, because there are seven freta in the mouth. And, you know, if somebody has the upper lip or lower lip tie or tongue-tie or upper cheeks, lower cheeks, that's all possible. Well, he had, like, four of them. So it was actually through a lot of bodywork and shifting things that finally got the balance better so that his jaw would work, so that he could chew all he wanted without having that pain. So it affects people through the lifespan, and some people just will never know that it's an issue, but it could be why they have tight traps or, you know. Right. Hamstrings that won't ever stretch or inner thigh muscles that won't ever.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:02]: Which I experienced yesterday as you worked on me. So with Serenity. So she was born with this tongue-tie, and that's what got you down this rabbit hole.

Dr Neel [00:25:11]: Exactly. Yeah, she, you know, seeing, like, how hard it was for her to just get milk and how hard it was for my wife to be able to, you know, give her that milk. It was painful because it's, you know, when there's those issues, the baby will often clamp. And so, you know, mom's gonna have that really pain, painful, you know, irritation on the nipple from that. And then also with an improper lip seal, you know, you just get all this air that escapes in. And so, you know, for Serenity, she was writhing because she had this, like, diaphragm that was misaligned, but also air just stuck in her belly. So you know, I saw that, and I was really thankful for all the bodywork that helped because, you know, it was like hours a day. It was helpful, but it was really thankful for the surgeon, the tongue-tie release provider that we went to at that time, because it was a laser that released the tissues that allowed her tongue and lips to move more properly.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:16]: So what you do doesn't get rid of the tongue-tie. A surgeon gets rid of the tongue-tie, and then you start to do the therapeutic work after that.

Dr Neel [00:26:24]: Yeah. And it's, you know, it's a very delicate topic in some ways, because what you just said is it hits the nail on the head. In no way am I ever removing the existence of a tie because we can't do that. The collagen fibers are different.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:39]: Right. You can't just take out a pair of kitchen shears and go to work.

Dr Neel [00:26:43]: Exactly. That's on my scope.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:45]: You don't do tongue-ties in circumcisions.

Dr Neel [00:26:47]: Definitely no. But you know, what I do is I work on fascia that's restricted because of those, both of them. So often I've worked on, you know, babies post-circumcision to release both of them.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:58]: Are you referring to circumcision?

Dr Neel [00:26:59]: Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:59]: Really?

Dr Neel [00:27:00]: Yeah, I work now.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:02]: It's only about bone growth.

Dr Neel [00:27:03]: I don't work directly, you know, in terms of, like, you know, on a boy in that area in the penis But I do work on, like, the, you know, the inner thigh muscles can get really tight after a circumcision. Even tighter than they were.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:17]: I mean, just cause like, nervous system hyperactivation.

Dr Neel [00:27:19]: Nervous system hyperactivation. But also, you know.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:21]: It's actually stressful when you're born and the doctor cuts part of your dick off.

Dr Neel [00:27:24]: Well. Right. And it ripples, creates tightness elsewhere. So anyways. Well, but that's, you know, that's a hard topic to talk about because a lot of parents are like.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:34]: It's very controversial.

Dr Neel [00:27:34]: That's not a major thing. But with Serenity, I was driven by my desire as a husband of my wife and a dad to her and also a healer to help her. And there was the end to what I could do. And the release provider in the Bay area, Dr. Sherman Yaski, who's amazing, he did this laser release and night and day difference, and everything improved. So then I did an hour of body work after to help her versus 3 hours every night. So that's how both instrumental, the bodywork part, is to help the procedures go well. But also body work alone can't be the answer. It might mitigate or take care of symptoms for a while or maybe forever. Yet at the same time, we're not changing structure. And that is what can happen, is you can have tongue-tie issues that feel better. Symptoms go away through body work or through therapies, and then later in life, the issues present. But I'm also not a big fan of saying, hey, if it's there, cut it.

Dr Neel [00:28:32]: You know, if it's there, release it. Because that can be a camp that gets a little bit too intense for parents, because sometimes the tongue-tie is not the root of all these issues or the issue that their little one's dealing with. It could be, but I do a deep dive and integrative assessment and work to find out, because people come in for this now, and I'm like, is that really what's going on? Or is it the sense sensory system that has issues? And we'll dive into that. But before that, I really knew I was really driven and called to help people with my hands, but it was after that that I really felt like I should love helping moms and babies through these issues and then helping them, you know, be able to do this breastfeeding nursing more successfully and with ease. But then, you know, I started to see babies, kids, adults, and so to help them digest, eliminate, breathe, and move better. Yeah, that's way more of what I saw.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:29]: I told you the last two times you've worked on me, I've had a pretty giant dump in the toilet. Yeah, well, TMI there, but it is what it is. So when you first reached out to me, I wasn't that interested. Not that I'm not interested in babies and breastfeeding and tongue-ties. I'm just like, yeah, it seems like kind of. Kind of a pretty niche topic, maybe to be on, like a, you know, pregnancy podcast or something like that, or pediatric podcast. But then you came out and you worked on me, and a ton of this stuff translates into adults, as you just alluded to. And here's what I want to get into, because here's what I understand.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:06]: Like I said earlier on in the podcast, you did a bunch, like, you put on gloves. Thank you. And you did a bunch of work inside of my mouth. I can't say it was the most comfortable thing to have your fingers in my mouth. And maybe later we'll talk about this. And my nose also. But then stuff started happening lower down in my body, like the mobility and the stiffness started to go away from you doing the work in the mouth. And I would love to hear you explain why that happens.

Dr Neel [00:30:42]: Yeah, I mean, it's like the, it goes back to embryology, but that's a fancy word for the study of the embryo. And that's even a fancy word for how do we eat? How are we made? You know, thank God God created us, but we're made and we form in our mothers, and we all came into the world that way. So we have that combined shared experience and so any of the parts of our body that form and likewise, that, you know, as we get a little older in the tummy, as we gestate, you know, when we go from that curled up to unfolding before we're born, some of those organs and tissues, they're all tight and they're all together. So when we kind of unfold and then we're born and we come into this world, the ties have been there since 4th, 5th week. So that means if we've made it to 40 weeks, that's 35 weeks that we've spent constricted and tight in these areas. And so there's, you know. Yeah. Tom Myers is somebody who's talked about before.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:52]: What's that in his book, fascial mad?

Dr Neel [00:31:54]: Anatomy Trains.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:55]: Anatomy Trains. Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:31:56]: And I love Anatomy Trains. And I love, you know, I'm riding on the shoulders of giants. Like many people out there in the past, Dr. Sourush Zaghi's an ENT that I collaborate with out of The Breathe Institute. He's brilliant with his research. He's got hundred articles of research related to tongue-tie. And I think he's brilliant in putting forth that research to support this is a problem. And it's not just invert that can affect somebody through their whole life, but kind of a jump to. There's, you know, there's a lot of images that show, like, from the tongue to the toe, that's this fascia. That's so tight.

Dr Neel [00:32:37]: And there's a lot of good people talking about it. So I'm a big fan of so many people out there that explain it, but it's about that embryology, because if we formed with these ties and these issues, well, our body doesn't know that it's not supposed to be tight. So kind of when we're born, it's all tight. So we have that matrix. And I think it's like, as you start to age or grow up, you know, you. You can kind of balance out some of these things. But what I say is, like, the thousands of patients that I've worked on. And then I've been teaching birth workers and body workers and these methods. I see these 70+ points, like 70 points on the body that tend to contort, tighten.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:23]: Is this your actually mapped out 70 points?

Dr Neel [00:33:26]: Yeah, I created this map based on what I've discovered.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:29]: Can I, like, print out that map? Like, can I put it in the show notes or is that kind of like the secret sauce?

Dr Neel [00:33:33]: No, you can. There's a version of it that I have ready that you can get. It doesn't have all 70 points, but the only people.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:43]: Cause that sounds exhausting. Is it like the 80-20, like the most important ones?

Dr Neel [00:33:47]: Yeah, I've got the most important, and it's got maybe ten of those.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:50]: Okay, I'll put it in the show notes. So bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel. So if you send it to me as an image, I'll put it in there.

Dr Neel [00:33:55]: You got it.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:56]: Okay, so these points.

Dr Neel [00:33:57]: These points, they exist. They're there. And yeah, but, you know, that's kind of like the what? Like, that's the what that is going on in the body. And more of your question was, yeah, what? Like, what is what? And to me, actually, I'm one of the people. But I think, you know, the idea that I have in the theory that I have, that I'm writing publications on right now about is one of the most significant things. If we look at, like, I'll just pick one thing and how we form, that's it. It's when the diaphragm forms, it's in the throat. And so many people are like, what? Wait, say that again. But when we're in utero at four or five weeks in utero, that's where our mouth forms pharyngeal arches. It's the same time that our diaphragm forms. And so we think about the diaphragm is in the belly, right? That's where it is. Doesn't start there.

Dr Neel [00:34:49]: It starts in our throat. And so, embryologically, our diaphragm starts in the throat. But at four or five weeks, that's where it is. But then as you get to six weeks gestation, for some people, they're like, what does gestation mean? That just means, like, you know, you gestate for 40 weeks on paper before you're born. So 4th, 5th week diaphragm is in the throat. At the 6th week, the diaphragm descends to the chest in the thoracic area. And it's the 8th week gestation that the diaphragm descends to the belly. I have another great image that shows this whole string, and it's in the belly.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:26]: Okay, so it would make sense then.

Dr Neel [00:35:28]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:29]: That if the diaphragm and the tongue and the roof of the mouth and the whole oral area is connected, that if you do work on the tongue and the roof of the mouth, like you do, that would probably affect things like organ innervation, esophagus, kidneys, etc. But my freaking leg was moving. Like, how does it get fun going farther down?

Dr Neel [00:35:51]: Well, that is the, you know, you could. I could just sum it up and say fascia. And, you know, I think Anatomy Trains has been a great teacher to a lot of us. But even still, you know, my theory, my practice, my data that's coming out more and more is we have to keep in mind there's, you know, we come from this place in utero, and we're born with these restrictions. And so we have a different distribution of what's tight when we come into this world, which is what the 70 points show. But that part of that is the inner thigh muscles. The inner thigh muscles connect to the pubic bone, and then the pubic bone has the abs coming in, attaching to it, and then the abs go up to the sternum, and then you have fascia covering that that affects the throat. But if we talk about the diaphragm, even though some people come into this world and they're breathing fine, well, that might be fine.

Dr Neel [00:36:54]: That might be true. But that diaphragm is not only a breathing muscle, it's a digestive muscle, and it's made with two layers. And one of those muscles prevents reflux. That's what it's designed to do. So some people have had reflux, and they've had acid reflux and indigestion or spit up for babies, and it's because of that diaphragm, but also.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:14]: It might not be a bacterial imbalance, which can often be the case of acid reflux, but it can also be anatomical.

Dr Neel [00:37:22]: So many times people come in and we're adjusting the diaphragm to work better. But I, you know, there are other things that go on, but so much of the time, it's, you know, the diaphragm is not moving well. But, you know, also, if our breathing muscle isn't fully, freely moving well, the body's going to compensate around that, and we're going to get movement where we can. But there are going to be areas that you can't get that wiggle room. And so, you know, kind of one of those areas would be the pelvic canal. Like, you know, the pelvis is, you know, our hips and just so many muscles that connect into that pubic bone. So the inner thigh muscles, you know, for most babies, if you're born with, you know, tongue-tie neuropalate, those inner thigh muscles are so rigid. So babies are trying to move those.

Dr Neel [00:38:12]: They don't know what they're supposed to do. So the moms and dads are taught to do the bicycle. And, you know, that's really good unless they have a tongue-tie. And then that's kind of what I'm really getting out there is that when I get my map, these points, it'll show not only, like, what's wrong, but I want to give hope because it's the how, you know, how can we work on the body and understand the body from this context so we can heal it? And I think, you know, some of those points just give a clear way of navigating that.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:43]: Okay, so little shift of direction here. You know, both me and another one of my friends who you worked on here at the house, you basically did to me with your pinky. What I've talked about on the show before is, like a balloon cranial adjustment, where a doctor will put a balloon up the nose and kind of, like, inflate it and almost like a chiropractic adjustment for the skull. But you just, like, put gloves on and with your pinky finger. I mean, I was hoping that you weren't going to, like, sneeze and, you know, slip and then all of a sudden, you know, forget 6th grade math because you poked a finger in my brain or whatever. Like, it's kind of weird, but you could feel all sorts of stuff, like moving and popping and cracking. Like when you adjusted my ear and all of a sudden, like, my hearing went clear as a bell, which is crazy.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:33]: But the thing with the notes, tell me what's going on there. You heard my fat. He was like, I haven't. I don't remember the last time I could even breathe out my right nostril. All of a sudden, he was breathing out his right nostril. So what are you doing with the nostrils?

Dr Neel [00:39:46]: Yeah, I mean, one of the things is, like, there's four phenotypes. So, like, categories of people that I see when they come into this world with airway issues, tongue-tie included. And one of those phenotypes is so many babies are born with a deviated septum. I mean, it's crazy. The right nostril on. Out of that phenotype, in that subcategory of who I see in those countless people, that right nostril, the bones in there, which are called concha or turbinates, they're too tight. They're narrow. So, you know, they could be potentially shifted through intervention, like nasal baloney, which I love. Jonathan Delance. I have such a great respect for what he does.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:32]: Yeah. Dr. Jonathan, he's been on the show. Another guy who I've interviewed, Dr. Craig Buhler, kind of solidified.

Dr Neel [00:40:37]: That's right. And there's a few others out there who, I love their work. You know, they do such amazing things with these ballooning techniques, and in some cases, they do what fingers cannot do. But in some cases, my pinky, the way I intuitively open up those concha to shift and align, it takes some really very, like, specific loosening. And, you know, because on the one hand, if you stick your pinky up the nose and you get those bones to shift, and then that person can breathe more easily, it's like, that's it. That's what the goal is, because that's the key of life. One of the keys of life is to be able to breathe, you know, not be breath into Adam's nostrils.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:18]: I feel a lot of gunk down my nose.

Dr Neel [00:41:19]: Right. But, yeah, as your friend is a good example of, I could not release the nostrils on their own. It was going internally with the glove and massaging the soft palate with those muscular derivations on the same side as I was doing the intranasal release, that the nostril actually opened up. And so that's like a concept called fascial unwinding. But another step is to say, yeah, but the muscle actually needed to be released in the mouth so that the nose could open up because, you know, kind of a phrase that I'm used to saying, and some of the people that I work with is, you know, the. The roof of the mouth is the floor of the nose. And if you think about how we're made.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:01]: The roof of the mouth is the core of the nose. Okay.

Dr Neel [00:42:04]: So the back of the palate, called the palatine bones, and then deeper than that, the soft palate, those muscles, they're the bottom of the nasal canal. So there's a very specific anatomical connection there. And so, with some people, it's the back of the palate that's too tight, misaligned, often because the tongue won't lift. And I move up there because it's been tied since in Europe that the palatine bones don't move and then the nostrils just won't get air in. But some people, they can do mouth taping and it helps them greatly, and that's why I'm a big proponent of that. But as in the case of some of the people out there, it takes some layers to release not only the bones in the nose, the nostril, but it's also like the body. The body's formed around that. So you have to loosen up whatever it is in the body that's also associated with that, because then you can prevent the body from just going right back in and misaligning it again.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:04]: Right. Because a lot of people get frustrated with mouth tape because they do it, but they can't breathe through their nose.

Dr Neel [00:43:09]: Exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:09]: And my wife also had a lot of nasal congestion issues. You didn't work on her. Somebody else did a balloon adjustment on her and same thing. All of a sudden, her nasal congestion went away. I think that one of the issues, though, is I think if you were to Google, like, nasal adjustment, you'd get a bunch of websites warning you against letting people put things up your nose to adjust. And, yeah, I think people are very wary or skeptical of it in the same way people are skeptical of something like a coffee enema. It's just like.

Dr Neel [00:43:38]: Exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:38]: Especially in westernized culture, we're taught that certain orifices are not meant to be messed around with or whatever. But for you, with the pinky, you must have been nervous the first time you did. Did you practice on yourself or did you have like, a nose dummy or?

Dr Neel [00:43:54]: No, I don't have super. It's so funny because in Kyopada college, I was nervous because I really hadn't.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:00]: Picking your nose?

Dr Neel [00:44:01]: I just hadn't done anything like that. No, no. Thankfully, I did not practice at all on myself, but I just really let intuition plus, I mean, I say intuition, but what. The way we train in chiropractic college, if I just kind of, like, do a little snapshot, it wasn't just like learning about the muscles, learning about the bones, and that's really important. But I had some mentors who, they got a phone book and, you know, super thin pages on a phone, but some of you, some of us are like, what's a phone?

Ben Greenfield [00:44:29]: Yeah, I was gonna say, like, half in the audience probably didn't know a phone book.

Dr Neel [00:44:32]: So it's super thin pages, you know, like the pages of a Bible or the pages of something else super thin. It's like.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:38]: So it's a thing that you grab a receiver hanging by the doorway with a long, curly cord attached to to come through and make a phone call before you.

Dr Neel [00:44:48]: What are those, Ben?

Ben Greenfield [00:45:08]: Turn your lock on.

Dr Neel [00:45:08]: So the goal was, how many hairs? How many pages can we put hair under so that my fingers can sense it? Right. So we try to put, like, 100 pages. And then, can I feel that? Just that through the paper? And then we started doing.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:08]: Like the princess and the pea-ing your fingers.

Dr Neel [00:45:10]: Exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:10]: Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:45:11]: So human hair, horse hair. So train the fingers to be able to perceive something so very specific and subtle. So I use those abilities like we get trained in. Plus, the kind of, like, super extra skills I was trained in match with my intuition. So I don't get nervous. I just get really careful, cautious. And I think it's really wise to tell people, don't let anybody. Don't just let anybody do this. Make sure that they're.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:37]: And tell me when you're gonna sneeze.

Dr Neel [00:45:51]: Exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:51]: Has anyone ever, like, bite down on you, or anything when you're working on inside the mouth? Because just, you know, for me, I'm very. I just kept thinking the whole time, man, don't sneeze, don't cough. Be careful. His fingers are in your mouth. You've ever had any accidents happen?

Dr Neel [00:45:53]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, definitely, like, it's overall. Things like that happen and people are okay. And she just, like, I mean, meaning, like, I'm okay. My fingers. Yeah, I've trained my fingers to be tough, so I trained my fingers angled.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:04]: All those bite marks, all those bite tattoos. So, you know, the digestion thing is interesting. You even told me it's kind of funny. Like, you bring extra clothes sets for the babies that you work on because they'll, like, take a dump while you're working on them. I, like, filled the toilet bowl this morning after you worked on me. What's going on with the digestion piece? Is that like, a detox reaction or when you're working inside the mouth, inside the nose? And then just so people don't misunderstand, like, you're not just doing that.

Dr Neel [00:46:29]: Exactly. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:29]: Like, you're a combination of a massage therapist and chiropractic doctor. Like, you're working down through the whole body and you're hitting the it bands of the knees. And you adjusted my toes and adjusted my fingers and my wrists, even my ears. But the digestion piece is interesting. What's going on there?

Dr Neel [00:46:44]: I think digestion and absorption and elimination is such a, yeah, voluminous topic. And, you know, you could. I'm just going to pick the place that I have for that because right now I'm thinking of all the people out there who have brilliant insight on this and coming in, coming at it from different perspectives, different practitioners, different. So I want to really talk about what I know and what I do, but like you said, kind of paint the picture. My system is devised out of like a hybrid of chiropractic osteopathy, physical therapy, mild functional therapy. Not only that, but, you know, taking into consideration with fascia, with deep structural integration. And then I also include some of my work in somatic therapy, delving through emotions, energetic, you know, issues, and also taking into consideration that, like, you know, there are sometimes these nervous system issues coming from trauma, somebody experiencing that maybe they do or they don't know that they had trauma, but those things, you know, those things all matter. So, you know, all those things can, you know, you can sometimes trace them back to vagal nerve function. So that's really relevant because the vagus nerve is the wanderer start.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:56]: A lot of cranial nerves that you must be hitting. And the vagus nerve, of course, innervates a lot of the digestive organs. So you think there's a link there.

Dr Neel [00:48:02]: Huge connection there. And like you said, twelve, you know, cranial nerves, it, like so many of them are connected to the tongue and then so many more are connected to different areas that release, when we release the tongue in the floor of the mouth. And so then if we take into consideration that, you know, often one of the other points on the map that I have is that almost always there are going to be restrictions on the ileocecal valve. It's the colon. Right. The large intestine where the small, large intestine meet. And if that valve is.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:33]: By the way, I'll throw this in real quick before explain that. Sure. Some dude on a podcast once told me that there's a way you can, via neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, actually kind of like open the ileocecal valve.

Dr Neel [00:48:46]: Oh, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:46]: It involves placing a nicotine patch over your lower right abdomen, which obviously you're not going to do on an imprint or on somebody who's sensitive to a stimulant like nicotine. But I tried it a couple of times and, man, like, you got to have a toilet in your.

Dr Neel [00:49:01]: Yeah. And it's like, really? Like, these are the current contemporary understandings that give so many ways in to help these issues. But kind of one of the things that I'll say is that, well, yeah, but if there's a tongue-tie, an oral restriction, or any mallet narrowing or floor-to-mouth tension like that needs to be released in order for that valve to stay open or stay functioning. And so that's what I see with babies, adults. Like, you know, how many adults have come in and they're, like, constipated? I've been constipated for, you know, days, months, weeks, years.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:33]: Yeah.

Dr Neel [00:49:34]: And so sometimes I can work on that all day, and that valve won't open, or they've done, like, a lot of different, you know, integrative therapies, and we'll go work in the mouth. And that sets a downstream effect that loosens, you know, not just the mouth, not just the diaphragm, and not just the vagal tone, but it loosens up the inner thigh muscles, which are often associated with the tongue-tie. And that valve itself can loosen up so that, again, it doesn't just tighten right back up after we do work on it.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:03]: Yeah, yeah. It was interesting because I was telling you yesterday, I've been working with this dentist named Dr. Eniko Loud down in Phoenix, and she has a myotherapist named Kat, who, after Dr. Laud, did a lot of dental aesthetic work on me, has been sending me little videos, like different jaw and tongue and breathing exercises and sounds that you make. And you kind of have this similar idea, but specific to the tongue that people. It's not like they would have to come have you work on them. They can actually do some of this tongue stuff themselves. How does that work?

Dr Neel [00:50:37]: Yeah, and it's called tongue press. And I really. It's come out of years of work. And again, will, uh, you know, I give my hats off to Eniko and Kat. And what they do is really special, and we need mile.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:57]: Great status. Great American. There you go.

Dr Neel [00:50:57]: Can we get one of them? I love what they do. So it's kind of like I walked in, I said, these are great dentists.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:04]: Okay, I'll shut up now. Keep going. Sorry.

Dr Neel [00:51:05]: No, hey, you take over, man. It's a good one because it's relevant, right? Politically, social commentary. We can't get away from those. So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of the homage to malfunctional therapists. So I've got two courses. One is the tongue press for anybody with a tongue. And then the other one is for practitioners, for those like Kat and dentists, that, who want to learn more about how, how can you understand the body and the floor of the mouth so that we can really open all this up on a sustained basis. But for, you know, people who just.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:39]: Yeah, like somebody sitting at home right now. They're listening to the podcast, maybe they're driving. They got a tongue in their mouth. Tell them what they could do right now to just, like, try a simple exercise.

Dr Neel [00:51:46]: There's an eight and a half minute daily routine in the course. So I will say if we condense.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:51]: I don't like a piece of that. I'd try it.

Dr Neel [00:51:53]: Totally, totally. Yeah. If we condense that into one, this is gonna be really fun. Sounds you can make like a donkey. Hee haw.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:01]: Hee haw.

Dr Neel [00:52:02]: If you feel what happens with the back of your throat. Hee haw. Hee haw. Right? If you haw, and then you feel like it's. If you say haw, and you feel the back of your floor of your mouth, like inside your mouth, but the back, not your throat, and you feel that lower, well, lead gravity pulled that down even more.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:24]: I'm, like, doing it silently while you're talking.

Dr Neel [00:52:25]: Exactly. Yeah. So, so that's one. Or some people, like, say awesome, right? Just exaggerate the awesome, awesome.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:33]: California girl.

Dr Neel [00:52:34]: Awesome. You gotta enunciate it, right? So if you make those sounds, you're getting the floor of the mouth and the back to loosen. So make those sounds. But more specifically to, you know, if you get your tongue to lift and touch the roof of your mouth. And I often say people put the tip of their tongue up there, and I'm like, none of the back of it. So they're like, how do I do that? Just close your eyes, close your mouth. Try to get the back of the tongue up there to create suction so you create a sound like this. Or I have a bionic tongue, so I can make super loud sounds like.

Dr Neel [00:53:08]: Like that one. Yeah. But, um. But you get your tongue suctioned to the roof of your mouth.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:14]: Right. Which is the whole basis of that book Jaws: A Hidden Epidemic, or a big part of it.

Dr Neel [00:53:18]: And then if you do that, keep your tongue up there. And while keeping your tongue up there, open your mouth. It's a common myofunctional stretch. That's really good. And that's called cave or suction. Lingual, palatable suction. Now, if you can hold out for three minutes a day, you're on this. You're at the start.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:33]: I found the device, by the way, that kind of teaches. There's a gala interview from a website called Posture Pro.

Dr Neel [00:53:40]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:40]: And they have this thing you put in your mouth and it forces you to do nasal breathing and suction your tongue at the same time.

Dr Neel [00:53:46]: Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:46]: And I actually dug that thing back out after I started working with you and Kat and some of the gym. And I'll put it in now sometimes while I'm working out. So the whole time working out. Yeah. Forcing me to nasal breathe and have my tongue suction. I forget what it's called, but I think it's a breath corrector.

Dr Neel [00:54:00]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:01]: I'll find it in the shuttles. Like the Posture Pro breath corrector. But it's crazy how it feels really weird to have your tongue suctioned up against the roof of your mouth. If you've been a mouth breather for just kind of let your tongue just, you know, kind of like slouching. Right. Just like, hang live.

Dr Neel [00:54:16]: Exactly. And I think, you know something that, you know, people have been doing that and then you can, you know, there's another appliance called the UPWalker, Dr. Sandra Kahn, and then there's, like, UPWalkers. Amazing. I can send you info on that, but I, like, I know some amazing, brilliant innovators who, you know, like, it's like ten tools out there that exist for this, so. And I love those. But, like, for some people, they're like, I don't have that tool. And you have all the technology you need inside your mouth to at least loosen this, not address it, and it's like, you know, so if you start with the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and then you also then just allow your head to, you know, bend to the left, bend to the right while you're keeping that suction, and then you tip your head back and then you start to just go through your body and you can, you can feel it loose in your whole body, but you can also feel that start to loosen the floor of your mouth and your tongue more.

Dr Neel [00:55:07]: So for those, like, dancers or intuitive movers or those people who are just like foam rolling and stretching. I mean, if you just keep your tongue to the roof of your mouth and you open it up and get that cave or suction stretch where you're doing that, you're going to stretch the floor of your mouth but keep it out while you foam. Well, you do all those movements because it'll really.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:28]: Tell you what. I'm a believer, because I've been super geeked out on all this, like since I did my last round of work with Dr. Eniko where she really like did most of the bio-aesthetic work on my teeth. Like two 8-hour days in the Deadpool chair. And I came back and I was effed up. Like, you know, my jaw was tight, I didn't feel like I had control of my tongue. My teeth felt superordinate, I was chewing. So I've like doubled down on jaw exercises, tongue exercises, nasal breathing, suctioning of the tongue, reread that book, Jaws. And I've been very consistent with mouth taping, with using devices like what I just talked about, dude, within.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:08]: It took like maybe eight days after that dental work for my mouth to adapt. And now I feel incredible. It's almost as though my lungs are more open. I can exercise at a harder intensity, breathing through my nose, mouth taping feels great and the chewing is incredible. Like my food's like liquid pulp when I swallow it. I don't see like undigested pieces of food in my stool. It's just crazy how many downstream implications there are to this.

Dr Neel [00:56:38]: Yeah, it is this. You paint the picture well, it's like, man, it's amazing to see how much it's helped you. And it's like that, you know, that that's really so pivotal because some people, you know, try to work hard at doing all these other things and we need to, but sometimes it's like, wow, so much starts in the mouth.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:56]: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I know not a lot of people do what you do, but I'm just curious, like, well, first of all, let's start here. Let's say somebody who's not a practitioner, you know, in the healthcare industry, etc, is listening in. How do they actually get work? Like describe how your practice works. Because you came up here to see me. I know you travel, but then you have office in a couple places in California. Just walk me through all that because I want people to be able to find you, first of all.

Dr Neel [00:57:26]: Yeah. And you know all the ways to find me. Dr. Neel Bulchandani on Instagram. It's like the main place that we put out video.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:34]: Yeah, your name's a bitch to spell in the shots.

Dr Neel [00:57:36]: Exactly. So I think there's definitely people who, they need help and I can do a virtual consult or I can from anywhere, wherever you're at.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:50]: If I do a virtual consult with me and like opening my mouth and stuff, can you tell us some of the things are wrong?

Dr Neel [00:57:54]: Yeah. Often I work with to be able to see and I'll give them examples and I'll show them areas on their body that I can tell are restricted, have them work on that, and then we can see the changes. And then I'm kind of like really excited about the systems thinking approach because sometimes I'll see, oh, yeah, that's where you need Kat. You need a mild functional therapist in your case, or there's many others that I work with that are brilliant, myofunctional therapists that are. What they do is so important. So that's why I'm so happy that she's with, you know, Eniko and doing what you guys.

Ben Greenfield [00:58:29]: Yeah, I'll link to Kat's website and Eniko's website.

Dr Neel [00:58:34]: But I think with kind of the deep dive in that brief time, we can do virtually, I can see, like, what do you need? Who do you need? And what order do you need that in? Because I work with a lot of surgeons and therapists and coordinating care to make sure things go well. But that's just like a virtual way people from anywhere can, you know, get help. And then I, you know, my main practice is in Redding.

Ben Greenfield [00:58:56]: That's like Northern Cal, right?

Dr Neel [00:58:58]: Yeah, up at the top, 3 hours north of San Francisco, an hour and a half south of Oregon, where my wife Dawn and I have our three beautiful kids. And that's such a, you know, central place. And so, you know, for me, that's my Redding.

Ben Greenfield [00:59:13]: LA, too.

Dr Neel [00:59:13]: Yeah, Redding is the main practice. And then I travel to the Bay Area once a month to work. And then I also now have started going about every other month to Los Angeles to see patients there. So those are the main three areas. This is very unusual coming out here, but obviously.

Ben Greenfield [00:59:34]: It must be a little exhausting, not quite scalable. So the practitioner piece. I have a lot of doctors and physical therapists and folks in the healthcare industry who listen to my show. What if they want to learn what you do? Like, do you actually teach people?

Dr Neel [00:59:50]: Yeah, I have, you know, I have some amazing body workers and chiropractors, osteopaths, physical therapists, massage therapists that are all tuning into an online course that I have called Flora of the Mouth: Interconnectivity Unveiled. And it's a six-week class where it unveils a paradigm of understanding the body according to the airway map. And actually, all the students in the class have 70 points. I've only released it to them so far, so they're actually. If you take my course, you're gonna get all 70 points before I even unveil it to the world. But it's a. That course is huge because it really gives a way of understanding the body, and I go through ways how you can work on the body. So that's really good.

Dr Neel [01:00:30]: But I think there's some people who just like, yeah, that doesn't cut it. We need to come. So I've had people come from, you know, different places, different states to come train and practice. They can shadow me. And then, uh, then I could do some, you know, demo where I show them how to care for the people that I'm taking care of.

Ben Greenfield [01:00:45]: Stick my finger up my friends' noses when they're congested and just, you know, fix that. And it's. Trust me. Trust me. I'm a doctor with a pinky. Double pinkies. Well-lubed.

Dr Neel [01:00:58]: Well-lubed. And you know what? Yeah. Also make sure if you've used the pinky for the nose, don't use pinky in the mouth. That's like a. That's a no.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:05]: Yeah, yeah. Good point.

Dr Neel [01:01:07]: Yeah. So I train people who come, but I also have the online course, which is way more like, you know, in terms of approachable for people to get what I do. And I have more coming out that's going to impact more of that paradigm on how the floor of the mouth works so that it is really good, because it's not like you have to be someone who works in the mouth to benefit from the knowledge in the application. Some people who are, you know, massage therapists working on that right psoas that will never loosen. Well, it's the mouth, and here's how you can unlock it. But then.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:38]: So you go both ways. Like, could you work on the psoas and somebody sees an impact on their mouth?

Dr Neel [01:01:42]: Yeah, for sure. There's, like, all the 70 points, and you don't have to know all of them, but most of them are. It's. I call it bi-directional two-way street. So you can work on an area in the body and you can see the change in the mouth.

Ben Greenfield [01:01:54]: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. All right, so, well, we're getting towards the end of the show here, but I'm just curious for you. You know, the Greenfield compound is a place where a lot of people from the local community come and hang out for dinner parties, and people come in from around like you and do a podcast and hang out for a couple of days. What's something you've learned since you've been here, in terms of the inside life of me, that surprised you? Because I always love to hear not narcissistically but, you know, sometimes somebody shows up and it's way different than what they expected. Like, I had one guy show up. He's like, I thought everything was going to be super neat and organized. There's like, dirty goats and chickens all over the place and, you know, and you're playing country music and, you know, the Zen Dens just, you know, it's not like you stepped on a spaceship like the, you know, like the organization, the whitewashed walls or anything like that.

Ben Greenfield [01:02:51]: It's kind of rugged, but that was one comment somebody gave. But what's your overall impression?

Dr Neel [01:02:56]: Oh, you know, this, this. I'll start with legacy. I was so impressed and, like, really just love how you have, you know, taken so much time in you and Jess and, you know, your kids and you just, like, you've taken so much time to not only build, you know, the Ben Greenfield Life and all the things that you do, but it's so based on, like, the culture of your family, the values you have, connection, worship. And it's like. So even though I knew that it's a different thing to come and just to see, like, how important not only, like, your family is and legacy is. And in the. So for me, I have to say that's my. We were talking about in the car.

Ben Greenfield [01:03:42]: My logo everywhere. The pepper grinder. Ball paddles.

Dr Neel [01:03:48]: That's it.

Ben Greenfield [01:03:48]: Throw pellet out. We're proud of our family branding.

Dr Neel [01:03:48]: So I'm proud of that. And I'm also. I mean, I'm impressed by that, but I'm also my, the most. My why is my wife, my kids, like, the connection we have and, like, so it's reminded me of how, you know, that's something that drives me every day, is like, how can I be a better husband? How can I be a better parent? And it's for Serenity, me and my wife, dawn. Serenity, Cyprus.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:12]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:15]: This is that for our kids.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:15]: Kind of like a UPS driver coming.

Dr Neel [01:04:15]: Oh, yeah. So I was gonna say my goal is not to be this person who travels all over and who does all this stuff. It's like, I love that. But I'm at the phase where I want to, like, really impart what I know to the myofunction therapists and the dentists and the body workers so that they can all progress and do this work. And really, I just want to build a more connected life with my wife and my kids so that we can do what we want, you know, in terms of, like. And my wife is working on her PhD. And she's doing massive things in the space of keeping social harm and all that. So she can be, and we can be doing what we do and helping inform people.

Ben Greenfield [01:04:58]: So I love that. That's a Manson question when one of his books is like, what's the one thing you'd suffer for? It's one of the most powerful questions you ask yourself. What's the one thing you'd suffer for? For me, it's my family, right? That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what gets me work done. That's what gets me to do a lot of what I do is, like, I'd suffer for basically my family and my faith. And that's my big why. So anyways, we are, we're about on time, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take all of Neel's stuff. If you're listening in, if you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel, like d-r Neel. Not only am I going to link to all this stuff, but I have videos where you can see him working on me and show some of the cool tactics he does. I'll show you his airflow chart.

Ben Greenfield [01:05:42]: Pretty much anything that came up during today's show. I'll put juicy, juicy stuff in the show. Check those out. Bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel and wait thing man, I guess we're gonna go do some more volume.

Dr Neel [01:05:54]: I think so. One more thing I want to say is I, like, you met my brother Arun. He was out. Brett Rugger was trained with Wim Hof, but he's really about mysticism, metabolism, and so, like, I have a lot of people who come to me and they want more the christocentric how to understand God, but, but also just how to understand our metabolism and our bodies. Like, I really want to in breath work. So a nod to my brother Arun, to seek him out in our family is like so important to me. So I just love and I'm so thankful. And I see that in your family, knowing, you know, your dad and your brother.

Dr Neel [01:06:31]: So it's pretty awesome.

Ben Greenfield [01:06:33]: Awesome. Well, it's a pleasure to have you around. I'm looking forward to jamming and getting to know you a little more. All right, folks, thanks for listening. Show us our bengreenfieldlife.com/drneel. Til next time, have an incredible week and thanks for going on a walk with us.

Ben Greenfield [01:06:50]: Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes? My weekly roundup newsletter, cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more, check out Ben greenfieldlife.com. it's all there. Bengreenfieldlife.com see you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe like or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe like and or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings, and the bigger the Ben Greenfield live show gets, the bigger and better the guests get and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review.

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