MBSR

Your Quiet Center, Being Better, and the Great Secret of Long Life


Reading Time: 2 min 5 sec

I hope the next 25’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. Aligning with Your Quiet, Still Center

“Approached consciously and with awareness, your breath also helps you relax, release stress, and align yourself with your quiet, still center. You can be anywhere, with any kind of stress or chaos, and your breath will always be there like the tides, moving in and out, connecting your mind to your body, and vice versa.”

– George Mumford, The Mindful Athlete

Just our periodic reminder of the power of the breath. Let’s make sure we use this power to align with our “quiet, still center” whenever we need it 🙏

2. It’s All Minor Tinkering Compared with This

“All the blandishments of modern sports science—altitude tents and heart-rate-variability tracking and bioengineered sports drinks and so on—amount to minor tinkering compared to the more elemental task of pushing your mind and body in training, day after day, for years.”

– Michael Joyner, found in Endure

This is about sports, but I think the same is true for contemplative practice. It’s informative (and honestly, just plain fun) to read all the science, track HRV, measure CO2, and so on. But all of this is just minor tinkering compared to the fundamental practice of sitting with our breath, day after day, for years upon years (upon years).

3. However You View It, It Works

“Whether you believe that this is evidence of a greater spiritual power or a global consciousness that we can connect with, given enough dedication, or whether you think of it as a biological phenomenon that makes you feel good, the important thing here is that, thanks to the way that your brainwaves synchronize with the rate at which you breathe, anyone can access this feeling for free. All you have to do is take control of your diaphragm and the intercostal muscles between your ribs.”

– Caroline Williams, Move

Yet another incredible benefit of breathing: Whether we view it through spirituality, science, or something in between, what ultimately matters is that it works. All we have to do is “take control of our diaphragm and intercostal muscles” and feel the benefits for ourselves 👏

4. The Great Secret of Long Life

“I will laugh and my life will be lengthened, for this is the great secret of long life.”

- Og Mandino

Just our weekly reminder that laughing (and not taking things too seriously) will always be the best breathing and mindfulness practice around 🙏


1 Quote

It is easier to try to be better than you are than to be who you are.”
— Marion Woodman

1 GOOD BOOK

Peak Mind by Amishi Jha, Ph.D.

This is an incredible book on attention and mindfulness from one of the world’s leading researchers on the topics. If you want to learn how attention actually works—and how to train it—this is a must-read.

P.S. My friend & mentor Paul Hunt recommended this book to me a couple of years ago—thanks, Paul! If you’d like to deepen your mindfulness practice, check out his MBSR course starting April 15.


In good breath,

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

Enjoy these posts? Donate to say thanks!

P.S. I liked doing those…

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!

Learn more here.


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.


 

MBSR Course, Reducing Anxiety, and a Funny Quote about Negative Feelings


Reading Time: 1 min 54 sec

I hope the next 23’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. MBSR 8-Week Course Starting Soon

“Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.”

- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D

My good friend, mentor, and all-around awesome human Paul Hunt is leading an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course starting on April 15th.

MBSR is a world-renowned program that changed Paul’s life, so now he shares it out of genuine care and passion. He even offers a pay-what-you-can option to ensure finances don’t hold you back.

If you’ve ever been curious about learning MBSR, this is a perfect way to begin.

Click Here to Learn More

2. Less Caught Up in the Noise of the World

“When you’ve immersed yourself in meditation, silence, breathing, and wisdom, then you’ll find it is so much easier not to get caught up in the noise of the world, the agendas, stories, and opinions. And even when you do get caught, you’re rarely fully entangled because there’s a part of you that notices you’re getting caught. So you can extricate yourself more easily.”

– Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., Sovereign

Just a reminder that when you immerse yourself “in meditation, silence, breathing, and wisdom” (like what we do here 😊), you become naturally shielded from the world’s noise. And with that security, you find a little sense of sovereignty.

3. Slow Breathing Helps Anticipatory Anxiety

“Through slow breathing exercises, participants’ responses to the emotional stimuli of an impending uncertain threat were diminished. It may be that slow breathing prepares the individual physically and psychologically for future anxious events.

Nature Scientific Reports (2025)​

​A new study found that just 30 seconds of slow breathing helps with anticipatory anxiety—the worry we feel before something stressful actually happens. In the experiment, slow breathing lowered self-reported anxiety, reduced heart rate, and slowed brainwaves, all of which may help the mind and body better handle uncertainty 👏

4. On Other’s Actions Controlling Your Feelings

“You’d better behave as I have decided, or I shall punish myself by having negative feelings.”

- Anthony de Mellow, Awareness

Ha! So good. Let’s do our best to stop punishing ourselves for the ways others act 😊


1 Quote

It is easier to give up our material clutter than to shed our psychological baggage. Pride, ego, fear, and anger clutter our souls and minds in the same way that piles of clothes, furniture, and other belongings clutter our homes.”
— Satish Kumar

1 GOOD BOOK

Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg

Even if you’re not into meditation, this book is worth the read for all the great quotes, stories, and analogies about the breath. It’s one of the first “non-breathwork” breathing books I read many years ago that opened my eyes to the power of the breath as an analogy for life.


In good breath,

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

Enjoy these posts? Donate to say thanks!

P.S. Technology has gone too far

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!

Learn more here.


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.