Listen Instead of Reading
Hey,
Here are four thoughts, one quote, and one answer for this week. Enjoy!
4 Thoughts
1. Don’t Let Your Breathing Get Featured to Death
“The answer starts with the noble intentions of engineers. Most technology and product design projects must combat feature creep, the tendency for things to become incrementally more complex until they no longer perform their original functions very well.”
- Chip and Dan Heath, Made To Stick
Breathing practices are simple. But, as humans, we tend to make things more complex. We let “feature creep” take over (guilty here). As Chip and Dan tell us, it’s an innocent process, but sooner or later, things get “featured to death.”
Feature creep can be seen in breathing in many ways—the infinite number of methods available, the untold number of bio-monitors you can wear, the countless places you can focus each breath.
These are all awesome things, and we should always be trying to improve our breathing. But, if your practice has lost its original function (relaxation, focus, etc.), then maybe it’s creeping too far.
Here’s to keeping our breathing fun and adding things that bring it more to life, not feature it to death.
***
Related Quote: “The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life because everything is pulling you to be more and more complex.” - Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia Founder
P.S. I find this to be more of an art than science with my practice. What’s “too much” for me might seem like “not enough” for you, so it’s very personalized.
2. How Nature Tricked Us into Thinking Carbon Dioxide is So Important
When you get interested in breathing, you eventually get fascinated by carbon dioxide (CO2). The more you learn, the more you feel like you’ve been duped the whole time: “Breathing is really about CO2, not oxygen.”
Everywhere you look, this makes sense:
Your primary stimulus to breathe is increased CO2, not low oxygen.
The exhale is most relaxing, and that’s when we offload CO2.
Breathing and circulation act to reduce oxygen by 97%.
You exhale about 75% of the oxygen you inhale.
CO2 helps oxygen get into the cells and tissues.
It just seems like CO2, not oxygen, is the star of breathing.
But just when you think you have it figured out, Nassim Taleb reminds you of the brilliance of Nature:
“It is all about redundancy. Nature likes to overinsure itself. Layers of redundancy are the central risk management property of natural systems.”
- Nassim Taleb, Antifragile
Ah-ha, reading this passage through the lens of breathing, we see it is really about oxygen. Nature is just smarter than us.
Nature built in layers of redundancy to ensure we always have enough—from our perspective, it seems wasteful. But paradoxically, that wasteful appearance is precisely due to how vital oxygen is.
As Taleb says, “Redundancy is ambiguous because it seems like a waste if nothing unusual happens. Except that something unusual happens—usually.”
There’s no real practical wisdom here, just fun to consider the genius of Nature and evolution. Here’s to never-ending learning and never-ending 🤯
***
Related Quote: "And if the traveler is fortunate…the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels." - George Leonard
3. Breathe through Your Nose! Modern Research Confirms the Wisdom of the Yoga Tradition
“Quite rightly, it revealed that breathing through the nose led to a 10 – 15% higher oxidation of the blood.”
- Eddie Weitzberg, M.D. Ph.D.,
Of course, if I see an article that starts with “Breathe through the nose!” I’m going to read it and share it : )
And even better, this one was written by one of the pioneers in nasal nitric oxide research, Dr. Weitzberg. He was part of the (now somewhat famous) study showing nose breathing increases oxygen by 10-20%.
It’s a quick read and a good reminder of how powerful nasal nitric oxide is.
Enjoy!
***
P.S. Check out the 3rd paragraph in the grey box titled “Nadi Shodana – to counter asthma.” It’s the best explanation I’ve heard for pinching your nose closed on a breath hold.
4. Phil Jackson on Focused Breathing Before a Big Game
“When we made it to our banquet room, five minutes ahead of schedule, every player was already in his spot ready to sit and breathe together.”
- Phil Jackson, Foreword in The Mindful Athlete
This was the morning of Game 7 in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. The Lakers won in overtime. Phil Jackson said the players kept the same cool on the court in overtime as they had in the banquet room breathing together.
Did they win because of breathing? Of course not. But did it help? Probably.
As Phil goes on to say:
“A lot of athletes think the trick to getting better is to just work harder, but there is a great power in non-action and non-thinking. The hardest thing after all the work and all the time spent on training and technique is just being fully present in the moment.”
Focused breathing helped the Lakers achieve just that.
1 Quote
“Breathing is the only system in the body that is both automatic and also under our control. That's not an accident of nature, not a coincidence. It's an invitation, an opportunity to take part in our own nature and evolution.”
– Dr. Belisa Vranich and Brian Sabin, Breathing for Warriors
1 Answer
Category: Nature and Oxygen
Answer: Although still up for debate, it is recognized that these trees generally give off the most oxygen.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What are Douglas-fir, spruce, true fir, beech, and maple?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
Diabetes is Tiny. You are Mighty.
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.