Jules Evans

Elevated Mood, Tremendous Breath Energy, and How to Move a Ship

 

Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊



 

4 Thoughts



1. State vs. Trait Breathing

  • State Breathing: How your breathing changes during and immediately after an experience (e.g., breathwork, yoga, a stressful event, etc.).

  • Trait Breathing: Your everyday breathing. How you breathe when you’re not thinking about it.

The goal is to purposefully use our state breathing to improve our trait breathing.

***

P.S. This thought was inspired by this Optimize +1 on states vs. traits.

2. Applying Ancient Greek Philosophy to Our Breathing

And that was what ancient Greek philosophy did. It involved a two-fold process: first make the habitual conscious, then make the conscious habitual. … Philosophy is a training, a set of daily mental and physical exercises that become easier with practice. … After enough training, we naturally feel the right emotion in the right situation, and do the right thing.

- Jules Evans, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations

Speaking of states vs. traits, here’s how the ancient Greeks applied that concept to practicing philosophy. We’re essentially using their process for our breathing:

  • When we become aware of our breathing, we’re “making the habitual conscious.”

  • When we use breathing exercises regularly, we’re “making the conscious habitual.”

With enough training, hopefully we’ll breathe optimally in every situation.

***

P.S. If you’re like me, this process won’t happen quickly…it might even take the rest of our lives <— you can obviously count me in 😂. I hope you’ll join me 🙏

3. Elevate Your Mood and Command Your Energy Levels with this Practice

Breathwalk is the science of combining specific patterns of breathing synchronized with your walking steps and enhanced with the art of directed, meditative attention. … By learning how to consciously breathe and walk, you can elevate your mood, command your energy levels, and shift your mental gears, as you need.

- Gurucharan Khalsa, Ph.D., & Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D., Breathwalk

Just a quick reminder of how easy and powerful breathwalking is.

There are countless ways of doing it, but you can start with a 4:4 or 8:8 cadence: inhale 4 (or 8) steps, exhale 4 (or 8) steps. Adjust as needed.

Enjoy elevating your mood and energy levels with this simple practice.

4. How to Sustain an Unusual Life: Tremendous Breath Energy

Having breath energy in a body is like having water in a river: the same water can both topple a boat and carry a boat. The breath energy can both build and destroy a body. When there are deep waters, unusually large ships can be carried. When tremendous breath energy is accumulated, unusual life can be maintained.

- The Primordial Breath, Volume II

Here’s to building “tremendous breath energy” so we can sustain unusually optimal lives 🙏



1 QUOTE

It’s not the towering sail, but the unseen wind that moves the ship.
— Proverb
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Breathwalking

Answer: If you took 10,000 steps per day, you could circle the earth this many times over an average lifetime.

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

Question: What is ~4-5 times?

P.S. This assumes 10,000 steps is about 4-5 miles and a 70-year life span.

P.P.S.Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” - Steven Wright


In good breath,

Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”

P.S. ideal routine before going out

Breathing for Diabetes:

If you love learning about breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, 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.


Sign Up For The Breathing 411

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.

 
 

Applied Elegance, a Gift of Breathing, and How to Practice Philosophy

 

Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊



 

4 Thoughts



1. Applying the Lung's Elegant Structure to All Aspects of Our Lives

While the heart has dense striated muscle, and the brain its conglomerated networks of communicating neurons, the lung is a thin, graceful structure of interconnecting fibrous tissue that is beautifully held together with a foamy substance that lubricates its functions in a quiet and effortless manner. It is an organ of elegance, not brute strength.

- Michael J Stephen, Breath Taking

Our most important organ is designed to be graceful and flexible, not rigid and strong. To be of elegance, not strength.

Something for us to consider in all aspects of our lives…

2. Practical over Perfect: A Simple Way to Start a Breathing or Meditation Session

Breath priming means that you take a few conscious breaths to set up the flow of breathing. … We prime our breath so it can function at a higher level.

- Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, Ph.D., and Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D.

Breathwalk

I love this idea of “breath priming,” and I use it every day.

It’s pretty straightforward to do:

  1. Pick a breath that will set you up for whatever you’re about to do (for example, I use alternate nostril breathing before meditating).

  2. Other good options: breath of fire, humming, or a few physiological sighs.

  3. Do this breath for 1-3 minutes.

  4. Then start your session.

And, in my opinion, we don’t need to add more time. For a 10 min meditation, I use 2 min for priming and 8 min for meditation. Practical over perfect.

3. Breathing is Philosophy: Transforming Emotions and Living Better Lives

That’s what the teachers depicted in The School of Athens once provided: they taught their students how to transform their emotions, how to cope with adversity, how to live the best possible lives.

- Jules Evans, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations

That sentence is exactly why I think breathing is the most direct path to practicing philosophy in our lives. With two added bonuses:

  1. Breathing is also physiology. It changes our body, allowing us to truly transform our emotions instead of just “thinking our way out of it.”

  2. There is no abstraction. You just breathe in preset patterns (like 4:6 or 4:4:4:4), see what works for you, and ignore the rest.

So here’s to being breathing philosophers, applying this stuff every day, and using our breath to help us become the best version of ourselves.

4. Internal vs External Stimuli, and a Gift of Breathing Exercises

External stimuli cause opposite or similar internal reactions, for example:

  • Our body responds to a hot environment with internal cooling.

  • But it responds to a stressful environment with internal stress.

Conversely, internal stimuli generally trigger similar external reactions:

  • Our body responds to slow breathing by interpreting the external environment as safe.

  • Our body responds to fast breathing by interpreting the external environment as dangerous.

This reveals a gift of breathing exercises. They don’t change our situation, but they do change how we interpret it, which may be just as powerful.




1 QUOTE

The breath can command the brain, and the brain can regulate our moods. This gives us a way to practically direct moods.
— Breathwalk

1 ANSWER

Category: Drive to Breathe

Answer: Your drive to breathe comes from this portion of the brain, which monitors blood pH and sends a signal to breathe when CO2 rises too high.

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

Question: What is the medulla oblongata?


In good breath,

Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”

Available Now:

THE BREATHING FOR DIABETES SELF-PACED WORKSHOP

If you like geeking out on breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, you might really enjoy the workshop, diabetes or not.

It’s packed with easy-to-understand science and super practical breathing advice that you can immediately implement. I hope you’ll check it out.

 
 

* 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.


Sign Up For The Breathing 411

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.