Today is a special edition of The Breathing 411.
Because today is 4/11.
It’s also World Breathing Day.
And it also happens to be my 35th birthday (to celebrate, I did one breath per minute for 35 minutes this morning <— maybe I’ll make it a new tradition 🙏).
To honor the occasion, there are 4 Free Gifts in Thought #3 below.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.
With love,
Nick
🎧 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. How Breathing Can Actually Change the World, in 3 Super Practical Steps
Step 1: Tape your mouth at night.
Step 2: Breathe nasally 90-95% of the day.
Step 3: Forget about the rest, and use your newfound energy from Steps 1 & 2 to help you do whatever you were put on this planet to do.
2. ANB Significantly Enhances Learning and Retention of New Motor Skills
“Our results thus uncover for the first time the remarkable facilitatory effects of simple breathing practices on complex functions such as motor memory”
- Deep Breathing Practice Facilitates Retention of Newly Learned Motor Skills
This 2016 study on alternate nostril breathing (ANB), published in Nature Scientific Reports, genuinely blew my mind. (See full review in Thought #3.)
Here’s what they did:
Participants learned a new motor skill.
A control group rested for 30 minutes.
A breathing group did 30-min of ANB.
Then, both groups were tested on the skill they had learned.
Both groups were also tested again 24-hours later.
The results showed that the ANB group significantly (it was almost ridiculous) improved the learning and retention of that skill:
They were significantly better at the 30-min mark.
They were significantly better at the 24-hour mark.
One 30-minute breathing session. One day of improved learning and retention.
3. Science 411s, Book 411s, and The Breath is Life Learning Center (4 free gifts)
To celebrate World Breathing Day, here are four gifts.
Science 411s: 4 Fundamentals, 1 Big Takeaway, and 1 Practical Application
Free Science 411: Deep Breathing Practice Facilitates Retention of Newly Learned Motor Skills (the paper from Thought #2 above)
Free Science 411: Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Improves Emotional and Physical Health and Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis
Book 411s: 4 Thoughts, 1 Quote, and 1 Idea That Will Change Your Life
Free Book 411: The Happiness Track: How To Apply The Science Of Happiness To Accelerate Your Success
Free Book 411: The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer
You can read, listen, or download them as PDFs here.
I hope you enjoy them!
4. Why We Breathe: Chemically and Spiritually
“Our drive to breathe is regulated by the medulla oblongata … When pH decreases (becomes more acidic due to the increase in CO2), chemoreceptors in the medulla send out a signal for the body to breathe. This means that our carbon dioxide levels have to rise to a sufficiently high level for our brain and body to know that it is time to take the next breath.”
It’s the perfect day to review why we breathe. So there’s the technical reason.
But breathing is a lot more than just gases. As Michael J Stephen, MD, tells us,
“That oxygen, life, and lungs all came into our world in relatively close succession is no coincidence. Only with oxygen and some means of extracting it are all things possible—thinking, moving, eating, speaking, and loving. Life and the breath are synonymous.”
So beyond chemistry, we ultimately breathe to live—to think, to move, to love. Breathing is, after all, what makes “all things possible.”
1 QUOTE
“It was ecstasy, it was sweet, air soughing in and all my little alveoli singing away with joy and oxygen-energy coursing through every space and particle of me.”
- Keri Hulme
1 ANSWER
Category: Body Chemical Composition
Answer: This gas is the most abundant element in the human body by mass.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is oxygen?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
* 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.