What's up guys, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon here with my brand new friend, Dr. Cupples.
And I want to give you a little bit of background behind how he got here and
is now on my YouTube. As you know, actually,
I don't know if you guys know this,
but a lot of my population actually has sleep apnea and they have,
and they're not overweight, super fit individuals with sleep apnea,
almost all my military operators have it. And Dr. Cupples,
Dr. Zac cupples has a very unique perspective.
He's a physical therapist and you know,
I only bring you vetted professionals on here.
He is a physical therapist and one of my patients was saying that they were
doing, what was it? Jaw, tongue, neck,
myofascial training, which you'll have to speak to.
And I was just so blown away because one of the things that people think about
with fatigue, right, as a physician and Zac was saying, this is, you know,
we run a CBC and we look at vitamins, we look at all the other things,
hormones and sleep apnea is a real thing.
And then it's not just the sleep apnea,
but then it's the subsequent posturing that goes along with it. So, Zac,
I mean, I know we have like 10 minutes, but him and I were talking and I said,
listen, brother, I can I put you on my YouTube, and he was like, okay.
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Then thank you for having me. Um, yeah. Yeah.
So basically what we did with this, with this particular patient was, um,
we did something called myofunctional therapy.
So myo tongue function basically is what it is. And so, you know, when you,
when you look at something like sleep apnea,
or even something like upper airway resistance syndrome,
which is basically meaning there's,
there's some restriction of your ability to pull in air through your nose.
A lot of times that's associated with mouth breathing and when you
mouth breathe, there's a lot of negative effects from that. Namely,
you're not getting good, uh, pressurization, um, uh,
of air through the nose because there's barrel receptors in your nose that help
when they're stimulated, they increase the diameter of blood vessels.
So that drops the blood pressure down, et cetera.
The air is also less humidified and, and it's,
your nose has stuff in it that prevents pathogens from coming in.
So there's a lot of cons to mouth breathing.
And can you spot and mouth either, by the way, my husband, Shane,
who will watch this video, he literally, and I have a video taped him.
He doesn't even know breathing through, you see these people, they breathe.
Like they breathe, their positioning is with their mouth open. So like,
your mouth is closed right now. He's like.
Yes, yes, I see that all the time. And it doesn't even have to be that dramatic.
It could just be like a subtle mouth closed.
But let me ask you this,
is that learned patterning or is it compensation from
something else? Are they doing that?
Because they have a jaw that is that, you know,
not in its ideal position. Why, why is that happening?
Yeah, so it depends long answer.
I'm going to go into what it depends on. So whenever I see something like that,
I always ask, like, why would that be useful?
And so mouth breathing is useful if you need that strategy for some
reason, to be able to maximize gas exchange.
And so it could be a learned behavior because your tongue has muscles
that attach to it, that function in various ways.
So your tongue is there to basically seal off the mouth. So you can,
it will basically pull on the floor of the nose,
which is the roof of your mouth. So maximizes the, uh, the size of the nose.
You can put more air in.
That's one thing it's also useful for things like chewing.
There's gotta be placement for that and swallowing.
And so if there's anything that prevents you from getting
that tongue up to the roof of the mouth during those situations,
then the tongue is gonna sit low,
your head may change position and then your mouth,
but that could be a control thing. So it could be a learned behavior.
Okay. But is that common and would that, not that wouldn't be the,
that would probably not be number one, it's more of a compensatory mechanism,
right? Yes, yes. Yes. Most likely. Um,
because you could also have a situation where you have a tongue tie, so.
But tongue ties and everyone has heard about that for infants.
If you don't get that addressed as an infant, it still continues on as an adult,
right?
Yes. Because it's a structural issue.
And I think it's about a third of the population. Has it.
I actually had mine released three years ago.
Yeah. That's insane. You guys, I'm totally nerding out with, um,
Dr. Cupples. I am sorry, but this is,
you guys have to understand is where I'm coming from is I'm seeing this in
clinical practice.
And would you say Zack that behaviors and compensatory mechanisms
like this ultimately result in fatigue or less than optimal,
you know, um, physiology and what I mean by physiology, that's kind of nebulous,
just more of a,
an energy standpoint as in being able to oxygenate being able to appropriately
breathe. And then, like you said, pathogens.
Yeah. Well, I think it's definitely a contributing factor.
If your sleep isn't optimized, well,
that's going to have a lot of negative effects. Like for example,
it's not uncommon for people who have sleep apnea or again,
upper airway resistance syndrome to have several disturbances in a given night,
either in deep or REM.
And so if you're not getting all of that,
that's most certainly going to have an impact on your recovery, you know,
mental, uh, cognitive capabilities, tons of stuff. And not only that,
but also risk of stroke.
Totally, totally. And in your practice,
do you manipulate for that kind of a thing?
Do you address the tongue tie, address the jaw address?
It just all upper airway stuff.
So my practice is pretty much,
I try to do everything conservative possible.
So I'm going to address the motor behaviors.
If you can't get your tongue up to the roof of your mouth,
I'm going to address not just upper airway, but also.
That's so cool. So how,
give me an example of how you would get someone's tongue to the roof of their
mouth.
Yes, it is. You have to assess where the restriction is in the tongue.
So you can have two types of tongue ties or both.
You can have one that's more front of the tongue. Um,
those are the ones that will typically be surgically fixed.
Cause it's like they can't the babies can't lift the tongue up. What's.
Okay. So those are the ones that people are.
You're typically not going to see that in the adult population. Got it.
Um, but there was also a posterior restriction, so I'm once further back.
And so there's tests that you can use to differentiate that. What about.
Cheeks?
Those are, yes. Those are common as well. I, again, a lot of these,
if it's severe enough, and if you look at some research by Dr. Soroush Zaghi,
he's like the guy for, for, uh, tongue ties,
he's in a loss or Los Angeles with the breathe Institute. Usually, um,
if you see a restriction that's like 50% or less of maximum range,
that's surgical. Um, and so you might have to do those things.
There's nothing that I've seen conservatively that could address peak ties or
lip ties, but tongue ties, you can expand the range of motion pretty far.
That's so cool. Zac,
I would love to have you back on, um,
if you don't mind. I think that my viewers would really find this interesting,
especially because the majority of the stuff that we talk about is really
relates to health and nutrition and longevity.
And I think the stuff that you're doing is very forward-thinking and could
benefit a lot of people. Where can they find you?
Uh, my website is Zac cupples.com,
ZAC C U P P L E s.com.
And if you type my name across all social media.
You guys, I was so impressed, Zac, that I looked him up,
messaged his office and was like, dude, you got to get on the phone with me.
And that's how I found him.
So I will bring more information about Zac here.
He's going to come back on.
I'm going to drop all the links so hope you guys like this video,
if you like it, like it,
subscribe to the channel and look for Zac in my next newsletter.