Listen Instead of Reading
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4 Thoughts
1. The ROI for Our Daily Morning Self-Care Practice
“Think of mindful meditation as a smart investment of your time, offering such returns as being less reactive, less stressed, and more alert, grateful, and content. All of these will help you optimize the rest of your morning and whatever else the day brings.”
- Laurie Cameron, The Mindful Day
Those returns sound good (& really apply to any daily self-care practice you do).
And remember, by being less reactive, less stressed, more alert, and more grateful, everyone you interact with will also profit. 👏
2. Breathing 3.0: Directing our Own Lives
“Motivation 3.0 is all about intrinsic motivation. It’s spurred by Pink’s belief that ‘the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to make a contribution.’” (my emphasis)
- Peter Hollins, The Science of Self-Learning
This made me think we should create Breathing 3.0: It’s not focused on any one benefit or method. Instead, it’s about “our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to make a contribution.”
What better way to do all those than with our body’s most important function?
3. Slow Breathing With or Without Resonance Gives Similar Benefits
“Within the context of this study, we found that breathing at RF or RF + 1 induced significant hemodynamic and autonomic changes but we were unable to detect any differences between the two breathing schemes. This raises the question as to whether precise measurement of the RF is essential for the reported beneficial clinical effects of individualized RF or a standardized paced breathing at 5–7 breaths per min is all that is required.” (my emphasis)
Acute effects of resonance frequency breathing on cardiovascular regulation
Two key points from this paper:
We each have a personal resonance frequency (RF) breathing rate theorized to maximize the benefits of our slow breathing practice.
However, slow breathing at, or close to, our RF gives similar beneficial cardio-autonomic outcomes.
My less scientific but practical takeaway for our daily practice:
Don’t stress over finding your “perfect” rate. Just use a comfortable pace that’s less than 7 breaths/min, and enjoy the power of slow breathing.
4. Breathing’s Biggest Benefit is…
“But for me, and for millions of people everywhere, the best and biggest benefits of water are all emotional …. Try as we might, no amount of scientific data, fMRI scans, EEG readings, or carefully designed research projects can really show us exactly what we feel at those moments.” (my bold)
- Wallace J Nichols, Blue Mind
Likewise, I think the same is true for our breathing (or really any contemplative) practice we might use: The best benefits are emotional.
Try as we might, nothing can show us exactly how we feel in those moments.
So make sure you feel more of them, this week 🙏
1 Quote
“I think it’s fair to say that when you have your attention on your breath, it’s in a safe place. It’s like putting your consciousness in neutral.”
1 Answer
Category: Breathing Forces
Answer: Our breathing muscles and airways don’t actually move air, but instead create differences in this between the atmosphere and lungs, which forces air into (inhalation) or out of (exhalation) the lungs.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What are differences in air pressure?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. My worst nightmare
Breathing for Diabetes Online Course ($99):
If you love learning about breathing, want to live a healthier life, or just want to support my work, I think you’ll really enjoy this class (diabetes or not).
* 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.
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Each Monday, I curate and synthesize information from scientific journals, books, articles, and podcasts to share 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer (like "Jeopardy!") related to breathing. It’s a fun way to learn something new each week.