My guest this week is Dr. Michael Stephen. He’s the author of a new book called Breath Taking: The Power, Fragility, and Future of Our Extraordinary Lungs (affiliate link). Michael and I talked about some really important ideas related to the lungs, including life itself, of course, and COVID, mind-body breathwork, the communal nature of our atmosphere, the extraordinary human feats our lungs make possible, and a lot more. Topics we explored together included:

• Lungs as the organ that extracts the life force that we need to exist
• Concepts of the sanctity of the breath: ruach (Hebrew), pneuma, prana, qi, the Holy Spirit
• The communal nature of the breath
• Protecting our lungs with a mask when pollution is high or allergens are abundant
• Why we tend to take our lungs for granted
• Beliefs about the lungs being “dirty”
• My guest’s extensive training that prepared him to treat patients with COVID
• Michael’s experience treating COVID
• Understanding the natural history of COVID
• How Michael deals with the tremendous stress and strain of the pandemic
• My guest’s very serious COVID infection
• Mind-body practices that center on the breath
• The link between the lungs and the parasympathetic nervous system
• 5-2-7 breathing: five seconds in, two second hold, seven seconds out
• Box breathing: inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, pause for four
• The importance of not panicking when treating a new illness
• Not prescribing medicines based on small, uncontrolled studies
• Primum non nocere – First do no harm
• The science and art of effective medicine
• The risks involved in going on a ventilator, and in making the decision to intubate
• Keeping patients alive until their bodies can heal themselves
• Michael’s deep respect for the body and its ability to heal
• Our frequent omission bias—preferring to do nothing vs. something when balancing risk
• Reluctance to take the COVID vaccine
• Benjamin Franklin’s advice for when making difficult medical decisions [the quote is here]
• The perilous transition as babies move from inside the womb to outside
• Michael’s own nerve-racking experience when his son was born
• The extraordinary feats that the lungs make possible
• The work of Wim Hof

I look forward to hearing what you think about our discussion.

Michael J. Stephen, MD, is an associate professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and director of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center.

He’s a leader of numerous clinical trials and has been on the front line caring for COVID patients—and also recovered a serious bout of the virus himself.

Over the past two decades Michael has studied advanced end-stage lung diseases and worked with patients at diverse locales, including a Massachusetts prison hospital and a pediatric HIV clinic in Cape Town, South Africa.

He’s a graduate of Brown University and Boston University Medical School, and lives in New Jersey.

Find Michael online at his website and on Twitter.