Listen Instead of Reading
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Reading Time: 1 min 33 sec
I hope the next 23’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.
4 THOUGHTS
1. You Will Receive All Benefits in Due Course
“If we commit to a twice-daily practice and give it some time to work, the benefits will be there. The beauty in this is that no matter which of the benefits we have come looking for, we will receive all of the benefits in due course – relaxation, good health and, eventually, enlightenment too.”
- Yogani, Spinal Breathing Pranayama
I love that. And although it’s referring to spinal breathing pranayama, I think it applies to any slow breathing practice: We start with the benefits we’re after and let the others come naturally with time and persistence.
2. Playing an Infinite Game
“More to the point, Richie’s lab finds that even among the meditation adepts—all of whom have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice—expertise continues to increase steadily with the number of lifetime hours.”
- Goleman and Davidson, Altered Traits
Translation: there’s no end to contemplative practice. The more you do, the more you grow.
3. Three One-Sentence Thoughts
Meditation is about stopping thinking as much as breathwork is about stopping breathing.
Breathing saves your life 20,000 times a day; mindfulness helps you appreciate this truth.
The greatest skill in breathing (like in life) is knowing when to go with the flow, and when to deliberately change it.
4. How to Align with Your Life Force
“On a very basic level, when we’re consciously aware of the in-breath and the out-breath—or in other words, the act of inhaling and exhaling—we infuse ourselves with that life force and anchor ourselves in our own deep center space.”
- George Mumford, The Mindful Athlete
I have nothing useful to add, except for a few of these 👏👏👏
1 Quote
“Health and happiness are about being so connected to our own life force that we feel we fit into the world around us.””
P.S. This came from The Well-Lived Life. I’m only about a third way through, but I must say it’s incredible—an absolute must-read.
1 Answer
Category: Breath and Focus
Answer: This state (often achieved through conscious breathing) involves being wholly immersed in an activity, cultivating intense focus and creativity, and losing awareness of time and self.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is flow?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. Nice book. Too bad it was…
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* An asterisk by a quote indicates that I listened to this book on Audible. Therefore, the quotation might not be correct, but is my best attempt at reproducing the punctuation based on the narrator’s pace, tone, and pauses.