July 12, 2021

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How Breathing Improves HRV, Sleep, and “Keep Breathing. That’s the Key”

July 12, 2021

weekly email

Listen Instead of Reading

Greetings,

I realized that last week marked one year of The Breathing 411—and 2.5 years of sending a weekly breathing newsletter. 🤯

Writing this newsletter is my favorite thing in the world to do, so thank you for reading, sharing, and practicing these ideas.

Alright, here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for this week.

Enjoy!

4 Thoughts

1. The Mechanisms of How Breathing Improves HRV

“Inhalation causes an immediate rise in heart rate, followed (∼5 s) by increased blood pressure and baroreceptor ﬁring. Exhalation results in an immediate decrease in heart rate followed (∼5 s) by decreased blood pressure and baroreceptor ﬁring.”
- A Practical Guide to Resonance Frequency Assessment for Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback,
Frontiers in Neuroscience

Have you watched the Huberman Lab video showing how breathing immediately impacts heart rate? Check it out. The above passage explains how that process goes on to improve HRV.

Specifically, it’s that ~5-second lag between the rise and heart rate and rise in blood pressure that’s critical. And it’s this lag that makes breathing at a 5in/5out rhythm so beneficial (although it’s slightly different for everyone).

When we breathe like this, the messages from our breath and blood pressure synchronize, increasing their amplitude and increasing HRV.

Thus, there’s to magic behind how slow breathing improves HRV. It’s simply a harmony of body messages, which increases efficiency and, subsequently, improves resiliency and overall health.

***

Related Quote: “The optimum breathing rate is about 5.5 breaths per minute. That’s 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales. This is the perfect breath.” - James Nestor, Breath

2. Breathing’s Version of Powered In, Unplugged, and System Restarts

Nasal breathing is like having your computer plugged in. You’re getting a constant supply of energy via your power chord (nose and nasal airways).
Mouth breathing is like unplugging from the charger. Sometimes it’s needed, and you can make it for some time, but eventually you’ll run out of juice.

But suppose you keep your computer plugged in 24/7, even at night when you close your laptop (via mouth tape).

What happens in that case? Well, even then, you’ll eventually have too many things running. You’ll need a restart.

Methods like Wim Hof/SKY/Tummo serve as this restart for your nervous system. They clean out all the junk, allowing you to return to your baseline.

Here’s to using our breathing to optimize our energy and meet whatever demands our systems have.

3. “Can Breathwork Help You Sleep? An Expert Explains”

“If you want to engage in breathwork for sleep, don’t get too hung up on the details. The key is to slow down your breath and really direct it to your belly using your diaphragm.”
- Can Breathwork Help You Sleep? An Expert Explains

In this article, Molly Atwood, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, explains why deep breathing is so helpful for sleep. It’s super quick and practical—I loved it.

It was especially refreshing that there was nothing fancy or complex: “It’s not a super complicated thing to practice,” she says. “I think it would be hard to find something that would steer you completely wrong.” Amen, and enjoy!

***

Related: Self-Regulation of Breathing as an Adjunctive Treatment of Insomnia in Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2019

4. Turning Breathing Knowledge into Breathing Wisdom

“But not until that moment…did that knowledge become wisdom, that is, become how I felt.”
- Alex Lickerman, MD, The Undefeated Mind

What a perfect distinction for when knowledge becomes wisdom: It’s that moment when something you know becomes how you feel.

Here’s to turning breathing knowledge into breathing wisdom through continuous learning, practice, and insights.

***

P.S. Dr. Lickerman also describes an insight as “that most mysterious of experiences in which knowledge takes root in a person’s psyche and alters what he believes and therefore how he behaves.” Love it.

Related Quote: “Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.” - Dale Carnegie

1 Quote

“Keep breathing. That’s the key. Breathe.”

- Gimli, Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (link to video)

P.S. Thanks E.S. for that quote. Along with sending me ridiculously good science articles, he also hits me with gems like this : )

1 Answer

Category: Nasal Breathing and the Brain

Answer: Nasal airflow is encoded in this part of the brain, which then is projected onto emotional regions of the brain.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the olfactory bulb?

In good breath,

Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
Diabetes is Tiny. You are Mighty.

P.S. My entire personality for the next 3 weeks

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.

Nicholas Heath

May 31, 2021

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Breathing Know-How, and Why Trampolines Are Better than Science

Nicholas Heath

May 31, 2021

weekly email

Listen to this post:

Happy Monday,

Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for this week. Enjoy!

4 Thoughts

1. The Ultimate Goal of Breathing Education is Breathing Know-How

“Knowledge is not know-how until you understand the underlying principles at work and can fit them together into a structure larger than the sum of its parts. Know-how is learning that enables you to go do.”
- Make It Stick

This is the ultimate goal of breathing education. Having the tools to “go do.” Fitting the principles of breathing into a coherent structure that’s larger than just “breathe through your nose” or “do the Wim Hof Method.”

Here are a few simple ways I try (emphasis on try) to do this in my life:

Exhaling through the mouth at the start of each slow breathing session.
Many short bouts of breathwalking, especially to reset between tasks.
Slow breathing after lunch when my blood sugars are weirdest.

And here’s a real-world example of breathing know-how used to help a 67 year old with breathlessness. (Note the range of breathing methods used.)

Here’s to building more breathing know-how today.

***

Related Quote: “The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.” —Carl Jung

Related Quote: “The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.” - Frank Herbert

(Both of those also apply to using breathing as a cure-all too.)

2. Why Trampolines are More Useful than Science to Explain Slow Breathing

Do you remember jumping on a trampoline with your friends? You all start out jumping at different rhythms—it’s really quite awkward at first.

But then, gradually, you begin jumping together. You start synchronizing the ups and downs, and each bounce gets a little bit higher. (Then, of course, someone eventually gets “launched,” but that’s beside the point : )

The analogy is that slow breathing does this for our bodies.

We have many mechanisms working at different rhythms to keep things in balance. Your heart might get one message to slow down, but then you began to inhale, sending it a new message to speed up. There’s just a lot going on.

But when you breathe slowly, several of these messages come together and begin to work in unison, like kids jumping together on a trampoline. This synchronization amplifies your natural rhythms, making things more efficient.

So next time you sit down to breathe at 4-6 breaths per minute, remember the trampoline. And take joy in how easily you can bring your body’s chaotic rhythms into complete harmony.

3. How Slow Breathing Might Help with Allergies

“Researchers unveil relationship between presence of corticotropin-releasing stress hormone and increase in and degranulation of allergy-causing mast cells.”
- Relieve your stress, relieve your allergies

Excess stress makes everything worse. It looks like allergies are no exception.

But the point of sharing this article is this: Maybe the stress-reducing benefits of a consistent slow breathing practice could help reduce allergy symptoms?

Seems like a reasonable thought…

***

P.S. Thanks to new 411 reader A.K. for inspiring this thought!

4. Does This Mean Optimal Breathing is Optimal Living?

“Life and the breath are synonymous.”
- Michael J Stephen, MD
“For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.”
- Sanskrit Proverb.

From medical doctors to Sanskrit proverbs. Science journals to spiritual journeys. The breath is always equated with life.

Deductive reasoning might tell us that, if breath is life, then optimal breathing is optimal living.

1 Quote

“By reducing tension, alleviating anxiety, and improving blood flow and oxygenation, breathing practices enhance speed, accuracy, strength, and endurance.”

- Richard Brown, MD and Patricia Gerbarg, MD

The Healing Power of the Breath

1 Answer

Answer: A large portion of seasonal allergy sufferers are sensitive to pollen from this source.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the grass?

In good breath,

Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
Diabetes is Tiny. You are Mighty.

P.S. Ready to tackle the day

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.

Nicholas Heath

October 26, 2020

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Is This Stuff Really in Textbooks? And A New Nose-Opening Method

Nicholas Heath

October 26, 2020

weekly email

Hello, and happy Monday. Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for you to consider as we wrap up October.

4 THOUGHTS

1. Is this Stuff Really in Textbooks?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and the Bohr effect have motivated almost all the interest in breathing for health and performance.

CO2 is said to loosen the bond between oxygen and hemoglobin, allowing more efficient release into the tissues (the Bohr effect). Thus, counterintuitively, by breathing less (retaining more CO2), we actually get more oxygen.

It is often stated that this is just basic (but underappreciated) physiology that is in all the medical textbooks. Luckily, I find joy in reading medical books I don’t fully understand : ) Here’s what I have found:

- “Hemoglobin’s affinity for oxygen is also influenced by pH, carbon dioxide concentration, and body temperature…it releases it more readily under conditions of…increased carbon dioxide concentration." - Essentials of Pathophysiology, pg. 534
- “The shift of the curve to the right may be seen as a compensation that results in greater release of oxygen to the tissues…Temperature affects the relationship (increases in body temperature shift the curve to the right), as do carbon dioxide." - Respiratory Physiology, A Clinical Approach, pg. 110
- “Most of the effect of PCO2, which is known as the Bohr effect, can be attributed to its action on H+ concentration. A rightward shift means more unloading of O2 at a given PO2 in a tissue capillary." - Respiratory Physiology, The Essentials, pg. 91

So yes, this is basic physiology. It’s nothing new. But knowledge is only potential energy. What we’re doing is applying this knowledge in a simple way. Breathe less, get more.

2. A New Nose-Unblocking Exercise

Patrick McKeown’s nose unblocking exercise is phenomenal. It’s simple, and you feel it immediately. However, no one knows precisely how it works. My hypothesis is that it’s primarily due to nasal nitric oxide (but have no way of testing this, except on myself).

It just so happens that last week we discovered a way of breathing that increases nasal nitric oxide (nose in - mouth out). It also just so happens that I got a terribly stuffy nose during that same time.

So, here was my N=1 test. If the unblocking exercise works due to NO, it would stand that performing nasal-in, mouth-out breathing would help clear my nose.

So here’s what I did. I inhaled through my nose, pinched my nose, slowly exhaled through my mouth as long as I could comfortably, and repeated. And, lo and behold, it helped.

However, it took much longer than Patrick’s method (about 2 minutes for me). And, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic. Each breath only opened it slightly more. Conversely, in Patrick’s version, you go from blocked to open almost instantly.

What does this mean? Well, nothing, really. There are many factors to consider. But it *might* be suggesting that NO is, in fact, the “unblocking” mechanism.

So, here’s my request: If you get a stuffy nose this cold season, give it a try and let me know if it does anything for you. N=1 means nothing statistically, but it’s better than nothing practically.

3. For the Practice or For the Results? Why Not Both?

"How do you best move toward mastery? To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself." - Robert Greene, Mastery

Why do you practice breathing? For the practice itself, or for the outcome?

What I love about breathing is that it can be both. In fact, you automatically take care of both, regardless of which one you are focusing on. It’s health and mastery, wrapped in our body’s most important function.

4. Woo-Woo or Wu-Wei?

"It refers to the dynamic, effortless, and unselfconscious state of mind of a person who is optimally active and effective."
- Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try

Wu-Wei literally means "effortless action." If it didn’t sound so much like "woo-woo," it might be the perfect definition of ideal breathing.

We train our breathing so that we don’t have to think about it. We train our breathing to achieve this state of effortless yet highly effective action.

1 QUOTE

“It’s not enough to understand; you’ve got to do something.”
- Sandra Day O’Connor

1 ANSWER

Answer: On one breath, the world record for this movement is 81.6 meters.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy music.)

…

Question: What is underwater walking?

(P.S. The video is pretty amazing. Watch out Laird.)

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. Very Scary.