Welcome to October and another edition of The Breathing 4.1.1.
Below, you’ll find 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer (like "Jeopardy") related to all things breathing. Enjoy!
4 THOUGHTS
1. Breathing to Gain Traction
"On the left side is distraction, the opposite of traction...the word means the 'drawing away of the mind.' Distractions impede us from making progress toward the life we envision."
- Nir Eyal, Indistractable
I’ve never thought of "distraction" being the opposite of "traction." (Pretty neat.) Distraction, as Nir Eyal states, is the drawing away of the mind.
But what can we do to bring it back, to gain traction?
"It has long been claimed by Yogis and Buddhists that meditation and ancient breath-focused practices… strengthen our ability to focus on tasks. A new study explains for the first time the neurophysiological link between breathing and attention.…
The way we breathe, in other words, directly affects the chemistry of our brains in a way that can enhance our attention and improve our brain health." - ScienceDaily
That sounds like a great place to start. Here’s to combining ancient wisdom with modern science on our path to becoming indistractable.
(Thanks, a million times over, to Brian Johnson for inspiring so many of my thoughts.)
2. How to Become Indisfunctionable
In addition to improving focus, a staple of slow breathing is that it reverses autonomic dysfunction. It does this by promoting cardio-respiratory balance, in as little as two minutes, putting us back on the track to health and wellness.
In the process of becoming indistractable, we also become indisfunctionable.
3. Similar Lung Deficiencies in Diabetes and Asthma
"In a study of the pulmonary biopsies of 171 patients,(18) it was concluded that individuals with DM [diabetes mellitus] present an increase in basement membrane thickness similar to that seen in asthma patients." - Forgiarini et al. (2009)
I have often wondered why breathing principles that work so well for asthma also benefit people with diabetes. Here’s one interesting similarity: The oxidative stress from diabetes leads to similar lung structure changes seen in asthmatics.
Thanks to 411 reader T. P. for inspiring this thought.
4. Heavy Breathing at the Start of Exercise (it’s not just CO2)
Your breathing rate typically increases after just a few minutes of exercise…unless you’ve been reading this newsletter long enough :)
By now, we would all probably agree this increase in breathing is due to a build-up of CO2. But is that truly the case?
"The increase in ventilation does not appear to be the consequence of changes in arterial blood gases." - Respiratory Physiology pg 187
The reason is perhaps more impressive. It’s what this textbook calls "Phase 1: The Neurological Phase" of exercise. The movement itself might be sending neurological messages to the brain, instructing it to begin breathing more.
That is, your body has a built-in, anticipatory mechanism that links movement to the respiratory controller in the brain to help prevent blood-gas imbalances from ever happening. The result is that changes in breathing precede changes in CO2.
1 QUOTE
Same goes for breathing:
"It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light."
- G.K. Chesterton
1 ANSWER
Answer: The time it takes gas exchange to occur in the lungs.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy music.)
…
Question: What is about 0.25 seconds?
In good breath,
Nick