Living A Full Life
Welcome to the podcast designed to empower individuals and families on their journey to better health. True wellness isn’t a mystery—it’s built through consistent daily habits that fuel vitality, energy, and longevity.
Each week, we break down the latest health research, debunk myths, and provide practical, science-backed strategies to help you thrive. Whether you're seeking answers to improve your own well-being or support your family’s health, this podcast is your trusted resource for living a full, vibrant life.
Living A Full Life
The Oxygen-Sleep Connection: How Proper Breathing Transforms Your Health
Breathe your way to better health! In this eye-opening conversation with Dr. Joita Ghosh, an airway-centric biological dentist from Kia Smile in Tampa, we explore the fascinating connection between your airway, sleep quality, and overall wellness.
Most people don't realize that oxygen deprivation during sleep could be the hidden culprit behind their chronic fatigue, pain, digestive issues, and even serious health conditions. Dr. Ghosh explains why logging eight hours of sleep isn't enough if you're not getting proper oxygen throughout the night. She breaks down the science of sleep, highlighting three crucial gases—oxygen, nitric oxide, and carbon dioxide—and how they affect your body's ability to repair and regenerate overnight.
We dive deep into both structural and functional issues that can compromise breathing during sleep. From tongue ties and narrow palates to allergies and nasal congestion, Dr. Ghosh shares practical solutions for better nighttime breathing. You'll learn how modern dentistry has evolved far beyond treating cavities to address whole-body health through proper airway function.
The conversation reveals how poor sleep quality affects nearly every system in your body, potentially contributing to heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and even cancer. But there's good news: addressing the root cause through proper assessment and treatment can transform your health outcomes. Dr. Ghosh emphasizes the importance of collaborative care between dentists, chiropractors, ENTs, and other specialists to achieve optimal results.
Whether you're struggling with unexplained health issues or simply want to optimize your wellness, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable steps toward better breathing, better sleep, and better health. Listen now and discover why your airway might be the missing piece in your health puzzle!
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Hey everyone, welcome to another podcast of Living a Full Life. We've got a really special guest this week, Dr Joita Ghosh from Kia Smile here in Tampa. Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as a dentist, it's cool to have you here and talk about your expertise in overall health as well, so we've got a great podcast moving forward. How long have you been a dentist? Where are you located? What's your passion?
Speaker 2:How did you get into all this stuff? Well, firstly, I became a dentist. I'm an international graduate, so I went to dental school in India. I got my bachelor's and master's in oral surgery from India and then I moved to the States in 2000. I went back to school, earned my DDS from NYU and I've been practicing since then, in from 2010. In the States, I bought my practice in 2013 in the Tampa area, so I've been in Carolwood since 2013. And so this has been a journey interesting journey, so and my passion is whole body health, the oral systemic connection and particularly airway and how it connects and helps people live more fulfilling, healthier lives, and how we can transform.
Speaker 1:That's what we loved about you. I mean, it's an unconventional dentist philosophy, right? I mean, typically, oral health is the focus of the dental profession, but it leads to whole body health in many different ways, which we're going to dive in today. So we've been talking about stress, we've been talking about nutrition, exercise. I always repeat these things all the time. But what's health to you? If you had to define health, what is it to be healthy? Is it a thing you acquire? Is it something that you were born with?
Speaker 2:Well, some things you're born with, but I always believe in nature versus nurture. So some things you're born with, but you have to surround yourself, you have to give your body the right ingredients so you can get healthy and healthier. So it doesn't matter if you have genetic conditions or you know family history of certain things, definitely how you put yourself in an environment which is more conducive to a healthy way. That means eating right nutrition very important. Getting the amount of rest an important amount is to de-stress, not have enough stress, lack of stress, then focusing on how to de-stress, detox your body, stress, then focusing on how to de-stress, detox your body, focusing on right exercise, focusing on how you can get more hydration, get more sleep, get proper oxygen intake those are the most important aspects. Then you can get healthy. It's not about weight only.
Speaker 1:It's not about it's not about weight only, it's not about looking your best. It's also feeling your best and your mind, body, soul. That's the key. Health is not something we, we acquire. You don't cross a finish line and now, all of a sudden, you're healthy Because, like you said, like because you reach your weight goal or something like that, that doesn't necessarily mean you're healthy. So I love that. So we talk about nutrition, we talk about exercise, just like nutrition, just like how we eat and we watch our diet and we try and fill it with nutrition, which means macro and micronutrients that we need, and we focus on this. We also need to focus on our sleep, and I know that seems kind of, you know, something we don't think about. We just close our eyes and fall asleep and there's not much to it. But there's a big thing to this if we don't sleep properly and we don't have healthy sleep, we can't be healthy.
Speaker 2:Exactly and sleep. People think like, oh okay, I'm going falling on the bed and I fall asleep and I wake up to my alarm. I've slept for eight hours and so that's good. That's not the only component of sleep. There are various components of sleep and it's important to get all that pieces of the pie to have a really fulfilling sleep so the body can do what it does while you're sleeping. And that's the most important aspect most people are unaware of.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about sleep. So sleep. There's a system to sleep. It follows our circadian rhythm and there's an equation to sleep as well.
Speaker 1:We fall into three different stages of sleep and I have a sleep podcast with Dr Downs. Actually, you should go back and listen to Dr Downs podcast. I did with him. That was cool and we talked about sleep in there and he described it as you know the shallow sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep and really the goal is to get not an abundance of REM sleep but a certain amount of REM sleep is where the body heals and if we never get REM sleep, we can't really heal, because we only heal at night and I found that to be extraordinary, fascinating. So we want to talk about what gets us in there, and really the key to this is oxygen.
Speaker 1:Oxygen is what determines good sleep versus bad sleep, and I think it's what I see in my practice is like I'm tired, I'm fatigued, I'm achy. It's because of a long duration of poor sleep. People are just the longer they go with poor sleep, as the years go by, they feel more fatigued, feel less rested and they think they have chronic fatigue. The adrenals may start to kick in. But these are all symptoms of lack of oxygen when we sleep and even during the day, Because if we're not sleeping properly at night, our rib cage as a chiropractor, I notice people's ribs stop moving, they don't oscillate like they're supposed to when they breathe, they just become very stiff. And so now we're not getting good oxygen when we sleep because of poor sleep, and we're not getting good oxygen during the day because we don't take a second to take a deep breath. We're all shallow breathing our whole life, and I found that that's the slow cascade to feeling fatigued all the time. So how about you dive into the sleep? How do we get more oxygen?
Speaker 2:Or how do we know if we're getting enough oxygen? Where do we start? So that's a great question. Where do we start? First, understanding how the breathing affects you know, your overall sleep. What has oxygen and sleep got in connection? So one of the key thing is nasal breathing. So I like to talk about three gases which is important for us. One is oxygen, second is nitric oxide and the third is carbon dioxide. This is key, important aspect and this is what is kind of like a switch which turns the body on and off. So if the brain is not getting enough oxygen while we sleep, it cannot do what it does best, that is, repair and regenerate while we sleep, One of the key things you talked about, the REM sleep.
Speaker 2:Yes, not having enough deep sleep or REM sleep will cause the toxins in the body not to get flushed out. So as we accumulate that, it comes to more of ending up having other chronic diseases. Chronic fatigue is just one of the side effects. Our gut gets disbalanced because the brain is trying to pull oxygen from different parts of the organs, different parts of the body while we are sleeping and it's if it's not getting enough oxygen and there are weak transitions, meaning the brain is waking up. Not necessarily the person lying down in bed is getting up and frequenting. You know they're waking up, but their brain is waking up and that kind of causes the body to go into a sympathetic pathway, always not parasympathetic. So parasympathetic pathway means our body is in rest and digest mode. But if it's constantly fighting mode, that's upright, and flight mode, that disrupts everything in the body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, see how it starts to build that up. So that's that's how it works when we're not getting enough. And then we can have CO2 buildup. We can have all these other toxic buildup as well, and I think that's why people come in with pain you know, discomfort and achiness and pain is because of the toxic buildup as well. And then we get into like detoxes and we go further deeper into diet and restrictions and people kind of get a little bit better, but they're actually not getting better. I see these ones a lot and it comes to sleep. It really does come to sleep. So let's dive into how. So now we know okay, maybe, maybe we are oxygen deprived. What can we do to get maybe assessed? Is the, is the traditional sleep apnea test the best one to do? And then, or what are our options? How do we get assessed? What do we do? What's the next steps to maybe figure it out? Do we wear an aura ring? Do we wear our Apple watch? What do we do?
Speaker 2:So one of the key things yes, you can get a preliminary screening with your watch or your aura ring, but it not necessarily is monitoring the oxygen concentration. Monitoring the oxygen concentration. So very simple sleep study can be done. It's a home sleep study. But one of the key things is like for everyone. I recommend this to all my patients and everybody.
Speaker 2:I know nasal breathing. If your nose is stuffy, if you're not getting enough, you know adequate breathing through your nose, you know that you're not getting the dilated vessels because you're not getting nitric oxide and that's what dilates your arteries and enables the oxygen to reach your heart, to reach your brain. So if you're not getting that, you start off there. So we live in Florida, lots of pollen, allergies and people think like, oh, this is normal. I would start there. Nasal hygiene get yourself evaluated by someone who knows airway. That means an airway-centric dentist. They're looking at things because a constricted airway is because of an underdeveloped mouth and that's where we come in as dentists that we can evaluate. We can see if a person has structural issues, if they have any ties, tongue ties and like the oral posture, how the tongue is resting, everything If they're grinding at night. All these lead to like okay, there's something happening that the body is trying to do while they're sleeping.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. So we have structural issues and we have functional issues as well. Structural issues might be something we were born with right Tongue tie, lip tie, biblical tie, airway, small mouth, hard palate for sure and these have to be assessed by somebody like you. Then we have things that are functional as well, like allergens and pollen and histamine responses and allergies, and that's maybe an ENT evaluation or just practicing better hygiene. So a couple of tips.
Speaker 1:Just as a chiropractor not an expert, what I give people is just start off with the nasal strips of opening that airway, just as a structural thing that you can do to start getting some more air, as long as you can breathe through your nose. That's something I probably didn't think about. If you're just blocky in there and you always have a stuffy nose, that's probably not going to even work. You got to get that all cleaned out and make sure that that's getting better. So in our sleep podcast we talk about an air purifier in the room to minimize those environmental toxins that are there and nasal rinses every day, trying to practice nasal hygiene that way as well. But what about the structure? So what does that look like when we're like, okay, we're doing the nasal stuff. I do have allergies or I don't have allergies, but either way, I think I'm doing a better job with my nasal passage. What if I have structural issues that are going on? What does that look like? How do I get assessed for that? What's the remedy for that?
Speaker 2:So structural issues. If a person and it's not necessarily that the tie is restricting, it's not necessarily that the tie is restricting if a, if a child, we start as being a born right from birth if they have structural issues, like a really strong tongue tie or lip tie, they're unable to latch on and feed. But if it's not, if it's not a failure to thrive, that child is assessed and said, okay, that's fine. And then you up, you're unable to really have the tongue. Being the architect of the mouth cannot really form a very wide palate, so that affects everything. So crowded teeth, malformation of the mouth and you know if your mouth breathing everything, thumb sucking or any kind of oral habits, that has to be curtailed.
Speaker 2:So let's say you know you didn't have that and now you're an adult and you've had gone through a couple of sessions of braces, you know that you may probably still have an issue. So getting an evaluation starting there, and then there's different ways to help treat that individual. One key important thing is to understand not everybody has sleep apnea. It could be upper airway resistance syndrome, so you could have that oxygen deprivation due to a structural issue and that can be resolved. So we can ward off chronic diseases and especially diseases like heart attacks and diabetes and having issues like dementia or Alzheimer's, because that is one of the key things. Cancer, even cancer. Having enough oxygen, getting that oxygen to your brain, to your body, that's one of the key things.
Speaker 1:Great, great tips there. So then we get assessed and maybe we have some of these issues. How do you help your patients with some of these things? What does it look like to work with you if there is something that you can help them with some of these things? What does it look like to work with you if there is something that you can help them with? Because they're thinking dentist, oh, you know, I don't have any cavities, but really we got to think a little bit deeper than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we look in my practice we assess everybody, we screen everyone for airway. I am an airway centric biologic dentist so my focus is how I can make my patient healthier. We are not just treating cavities, we want to go to the root cause. So if we are evaluating, we evaluate for the heart tissues, the structures, the tongue ties, the lip ties, the buccal tissues and then we collaborate with a chiropractor like you. We collaborate the patient to have proper skeletal alignment they need.
Speaker 2:If they have aches and pains, they need that kind of treatment from someone like you. But if they have other issues, like if a structural issue, we collaborate with the ENT. We collaborate with their nutritional or functional medicine doctor, someone to help them detox. If they have mercury fillings, we do smart removal. We make sure that the patient and then we expand their jaws with oral appliances so they can get you know better and with children we've seen tremendous success with removable oral appliances or some fixed oral appliances that help them grow that they will never need braces or they won't be those sick adults journey with a lot of professionals who have suffered through many years of you know, having gone through that cycle of being sick and not feeling great and they feel wonderful after treatment and they are like okay, why was I, you know, why did I wait this long?
Speaker 2:But the key starts in assessment.
Speaker 1:It all starts with an assessment, that's for sure. So if you're feeling like you're definitely not getting good sleep, you're feeling like, yeah, I definitely have fatigue, I don't feel rested, we got to start with oxygen. I think it's going to save you so many other paths going down and never getting to 100%, because once you fix this issue, it's usually resolves the main issue. It's like the bottom of the iceberg. You're getting there, you're getting to the root cause of this and it's really the airflow getting that in there. So that's, that's wonderful. So if you're in the area, go to Kia Smile. For sure for that one. But where can people find biological dentists? Maybe online, maybe they're in a different town, maybe they're up in Jacksonville or something.
Speaker 2:Well, they can always search on Google. There are different and there are different organizations, so you can look it up. And patients can, definitely they can call and we can refer to colleagues if they are in different towns. So, like I know, I get calls from different patients like, oh, I have a family member in, let's say, delray Beach area, so can you tell me someone like you? So we can definitely draft our people and we love to collaborate with you know, make sure that the goal is to get our community healthier.
Speaker 1:Good doctors love to cooperate because you can't do it all. I don't have all the tools that I need. You're the expert in the mouth. I can help the spine and align the airway with the Atlas, but that's about it. I mean, so we have to work together to help people get better. I mean, I've true, I'm a true believer of that for sure. Anything else you want to add to the podcast that I maybe missed about airway and sleep?
Speaker 2:So one of the key things is like a lot of people may not feel tired, they may not feel that, but if they have aches and pains, they have gut issues, they have skin issues, and they are not 50 years old, they are young, they may understand this. That, oh okay, what? How do I start? Or if they see a child who's getting too many cavities. Or if they have somebody in their household who has chronic diseases, and they eat healthy, but they are getting that. So there has to be an underlying oxygen deprivation. There's oxygen oxidative stress. Our environment is not. It's full of environmental toxins. The food we eat, the, you know, the, what we are breathing and living in is not complete, conducive to the healthiest environment, so as to say, and so the best thing is to get yourself assessed and then follow the. What's the best way to get to a healthier self yeah, I love it that.
Speaker 1:That's really it. And then, by having the right tools and the right people, saves you a lot of time, saves you a lot of money honestly at the end. And then, by having the right tools and the right people, saves you a lot of time, saves you a lot of money, honestly, at the end of the day. Going to the right people at the right time saves you a bunch of cost as well. So I hope this helps a lot of people out there looking for better results with their sleep and their energy and their oxygen and all that great stuff. Thanks for being on the show. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
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