Nitric Oxide: The #1 Molecule for Blood Flow, Energy & Performance

July 09 2026, by Sara McKinney

Nitric Oxide: The #1 Molecule for Blood Flow, Energy, & Performance

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Dr. Eric Snow with Snow Holistic Health, and today I want to talk to you about nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is the number one molecule that helps to improve blood flow in your body. Helps to improve better energy and performance overall.

So, number one, the question is what is nitric oxide? It's basically a gas molecule that's going to tell the blood vessels to relax. It tells them to basically open up, which means better O2 delivery to your heart, your brain, your muscles, and even improved sexual health because of circulation that is going to go to those tissues in a better way.

And one thing that gets missed a lot when we're working on health-building, taking supplements, we need to really watch for the things that will actually kill the nutrients or kill the processes that we're trying to support.

And so there are some big killers to nitric oxide and one of the biggest missed ones is mouthwash. These harsh mouthwashes that people use daily kill the good bacteria in your mouth that are responsible for turning our food basically into the precursors that our body is going to need to make the nitric oxide. So, we need to watch out for these harsh mouthwashes.

Sugar is going to really decrease your NO. Creates lots of inflammation in your body and does lead to poor circulation. So, that's processed foods found in the processed Standard American Diet or the SAD diet.

And then being sedentary is a really big deal for circulation and NO production. We do not circulate very well when we do not move, and we need to contract our muscles, pump our venus blood, pump our lymphatic system, and this will help the body to make more nitric oxide.

And then stress is really tough on nitric oxide because of the inflammation that it causes, the constriction that it causes from those stress hormones. So, we need to really work on destressing to improve our nitric oxide.

And then we just have natural decline. And that's something to really consider as we get older. Know the different things that we're going to more than likely suffer with just from being older. So, this is 50 and up. And nitric oxide is one of those main molecules that naturally declines as we age. So, we can mitigate that by understanding how to improve our nitric oxide.

And number three, there's some really key lifestyle changes and biohacks that we need to do on a weekly or daily level to make sure that we keep that nitric oxide high in the body. And number one is nasal breathing. A lot of people do not realize this, but they mouthbreathe a lot, even at night time.

So if you have sleep apnea, if you are a mouth breather, you need to consider what are the things we can do to improve that. Mouth tape works for some people as well. But just practicing nasal breathing when you're meditating or when you're praying, taking that first inhalation in, then come back out through the mouth or even back out through the nose, can really bring that nitric oxide up. And believe it or not, humming increases nitric oxide by 15 times. And so you can even practice that when you're praying. You can hum a melody. You can practice just humming with the breathing. And we can get that NO up that way.

Exercise is going to improve it. Early morning sunlight is going to improve nitric oxide. And then heat therapy like infrared sauna does a really good job at increasing our NO levels.

And we need to really look at the diet, what we're eating. We talked about what not to eat. But most of the precursors for nitric oxide are going to come from foods that have lots of nitrates in them. And basically, we eat the food and then the food that has the nitrates in it gets turned into nitrites, and then eventually into nitric oxide.

So one of the number one things that I like as a source of nitric oxide is going to be beets. I do prefer to get that in a supplement form, fermented. I like the fermented beet powders because we pull the sugar out, and then we get more nitrates so we can make more of this nitric oxide.

Arugula has lots of nitrates in it. Spinach, celery as well, pomegranate can really help. But we need to remember this mouthwash can really kill the bacteria that helps start this process. So, we need to be sure that we get that out of our lifestyle. And as far as spinach, it's the red mountain spinach that really packs a punch with these nitrates.

And so, how do we get this in supplement form? That's going to be the best way to make sure that we get a consistent source of nitrates for this nitric oxide. And my favorite is going to be fermented beetroot powder. We'll have a link for that below as well.

[Get Dr. Eric Snow’s Red Beet Power]

And then the two top amino acids are going to be L-arginine and L-citraline. These have actually been called poor man’s Viagra because they help with circulation so much. But these can be very beneficial.

Citraline is a little bit better absorbed than the L-arginine. This comes from watermelon, and it's really highly concentrated in the watermelon rind. So, if you like watermelon, we do have to watch the sugar, but it's going to be the rind that's going to help us get our source of citraline.

And there's a really great product called SP® Red Food from a company called Standard Process. And they've combined a lot of these foods like the beetroot and the red mountain spinach and some other different natural antioxidants. It does a good job at getting the nitric oxide levels up. And then magnesium is going to help us relax and be a part of this nitric oxide pathway.

And so just remember that when we have better blood flow, we're going to have better healing. So we need to watch the diet. We need to include these foods in our diet. Consider adding some of these biohacks to our lifestyle, so we can get this better blood flow, better energy, and performance.

And if you would like help to take your health to the next level, I've been practicing functional medicine for 20 years, and we can help you with that. We'll have a link so you can make a phone call. And remember, you can transform your health naturally.

I'm Dr. Snow. See you on the next video.

Featured Products

Dr. Eric Snow's Red Beet Power

Our #1 Fermented Beet Powder Supplement. Boost your nitiric oxide without fillers, additives, or unhealthy colorants. Our high-quality formulation is 100% organic with just one ingredient: fermented beet powder. Buy Dr. Eric Snow's Red Beet Power here in our shop.

SP® Red Food

Organic red beetroot, red mountain spinach, and microalgae combine for powerful, multi-botanical nitric oxide support. Packed with naturally-occurring antioxidant compounds and phytonutrients including astaxanthin, SP® Red Food supports healthy energy production, skin health, and inflammation control. Buy it here in our shop.