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I hope the next 24’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.
4 THOUGHTS
1. Why Slow Breathing Helps Us Live Better
Slow breathing is like creating healthy soil in your body.
With it, latent seeds, which are common to every human—those of kindness, goodwill, forgiveness, and confidence—begin growing.
And new seeds of wisdom you encounter are met with fertile ground, allowing them to flourish in your daily living.
2. Switching Channels in Your Mind
“You train your mind to do this by switching your attention just as you change the channel on your TV set. There are many injurious channels in the mind, negative channels like anger, greed, arrogance, fear, and malice. But for every negative emotion there is a positive emotion, and you can learn to change channels.”
– Eknath Easwaran, Take Your Time
Of course, negative emotions are okay and part of being human. But when we do want to change channels, breathing can be helpful. By slowing our breath, we can slow our minds, which can help us change emotional channels more effectively 🙏
3. The Power of Loving-Kindness Meditation
“The research of Barbara Fredrickson, for example, has shown that practicing Loving-Kindness meditation improves heart rate variability, baroreceptor sensitivity, and vagal tone, leading to an ‘upward spiral’ of positive emotions. Simply by having loving thoughts, directed at various people, you can improve your heart health. The positive thoughts release a cascade of electrical and chemical reactions in your nervous and endocrine system that are associated with healing and cellular repair.”
- Eddie Stern, Healing Through Breathing
Controlling our breath is usually easier than controlling our minds. But when we do put aside time to deliberately have loving thoughts, the benefits for body and mind are profound ❤️🙏
4. Four Reminders to Laugh (it’s the most healing breathing exercise)
“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” ― Mark Twain
“I don't trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.” ― Maya Angelou
“I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.” ― Audrey Hepburn
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” ― Victor Borge
1 Quote
“When the heart is at ease, the body is healthy.””
1 Answer
Category: Cell Energy
Answer: Breathing supplies oxygen to the mitochondria, which produce this substance, creating energy that sustains life.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is adenosine triphosphate (ATP)?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. tax day
Breath Science & Wisdom Meditations for a Better Life
Learn to think, speak, and act in alignment with the person you want to be.
The Breathing App for Diabetes
This is the first program specifically made for people with diabetes to help manage their stress through breathing and mindfulness practices. In addition to the amazing program inside the app, we have some really neat things coming up, so sign up now!
Amazon Associate Disclosure
I’ve been recommending books for almost 6 years. Yet somehow, I just discovered that I could be an Amazon affiliate [face-palm]. In any case better late than never. Now, any Amazon link you click is an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. So, if you’d like to support my work, buying books through these links is helpful : )
* 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.