BREATHE: Joe DiStefano at TEDxLugano (Full Transcript)

Following is the full transcript of lifestyle and fitness expert Joe DiStefano’s TEDx Talk: BREATHE. at TEDxLugano conference. This event occurred on April 16, 2016.

Listen to the MP3 audio while reading the transcript: BREATHE. Joe DiStefano at TEDxLugano

Joe DiStefano – Lifestyle and fitness expert

I would love everybody here to simply stop your breath for the next few seconds. Don’t take a big gulp in, just exhale what you have, and let’s hold it.

Ready? Go.

Keep going. Keep going.

All right, let’s let it out. How did that feel? Did you feel like you could have done it much longer?

Well the truth is, if we had to hold our breath for another two-and-a-half to three minutes, most of us, unfortunately, would be dead.

On average, the human body can go about 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, but only 3 minutes without air.

Now, what surprises me, and what might surprise you too, is that when we go to try to improve our health, as most of us are doing perpetually on some level, we typically go first to the thing that we can go the longest without: food.

Maybe soon after, we start pushing aside some of the sugary drinks and beer, and start carrying around a big, blue water bottle, that we drink six times a day. But we never think to start with something we can’t even go even one minute without comfortably, something that we do 23,000 times a day. Breathing.

Now, changing your diet is a good thing. Hydrating is a good idea too. I’m not knocking those things. In fact, I’ve spent the last 15 years coaching clients and athletes how to improve them.

But what thousands of people have taught me is that if you’re breathing sub-optimally, dysfunctionally, or flat-out wrong, it’s almost impossible for your body to reap all the benefits from even the best diet, the best hydration or exercise program.