baroreceptors

Progress, Heart & Happiness, and How to Become a Breath Coach

 

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4 Thoughts



1. Another Excellent Quote on Breathing from Another Doctor

Last week, I shared a great quote from Andrew Weil, MD. Here’s another one, this time from Wayne Jonas, MD, in his outstanding book How Healing Works:

Breathing techniques and mobile apps can teach you to use your breath to self-calm. The breath triggers changes in the body's nervous system that help you better manage stress. Deep breathing techniques help reduce feelings of anxiety and stress by blunting the expression of genes turned on during stress

👏👏👏

2. A Different Perspective on How to Make Progress in Your Practice

Sometimes progress is just knowing when it’s time to switch things up.

Improvement can simply be trying new breathing exercises when it feels right.

3. Heart & Happiness: Strengthening Your Heart May Have Antidepressive Effects

Additionally, recent neurocardiology studies have revealed that the heart is capable of secreting feel-good chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and norepinephrine, all of which help to counteract feelings of depression. … This suggests that strengthening the heart through HRV-strengthening practices could possibly yield mild antidepressive effects.

- Leah Lagos, Psy.D., Heart Breath Mind

That’s insane. And here’s Dr. Lagos’s starting practice for strengthening our hearts: “The standard rate that works for most individuals is to inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for 6 seconds with no pause in between.” Sounds good 🙏

4. The Breath of Art

Art, after all, is about rearranging us, creating surprising juxtapositions, emotional openings, startling presences, flight paths to the eternal.

- Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility

Adding ‘breath’ to great quotes is what I do best (yes, blatant plagiarism is my calling 😂). So, here it is:

Breathing is about rearranging us, creating surprising juxtapositions, emotional openings, startling presences, flight paths to the eternal.

Extra: Become a Breathwork Coach Starting August 8

Through holding my free 1-on-1s, I’ve gotten to meet some incredible people.

One of them is Campbell, a physical therapist, breathing coach, and all-around good person. In our chat, I learned he has a 12-week breathwork coach program. It looks awesome.

If I had any free time nowadays, I’d join. But since I can’t, I’m going to put it here for anyone who might be interested:

Learn more about the Breathwork for Practitioners Program

I hope you’ll check it out.



1 QUOTE

Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.
— Plotinus

P.S. Thanks to good friend (and 411 reader) E.S. for sending me this one 🙏

 

1 ANSWER

Category: Breathing & Blood Pressure

Answer: When you inhale, your heart rate increases, which causes your blood pressure to rise about 5 seconds later; the opposite occurs during exhalation. This process is mediated by these specialized receptors.

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

Question: What are the baroreceptors?


In good breath,

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

P.S. the honesty policy

Breathing for Diabetes:

If you love learning about breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, I think you’ll really enjoy this class (diabetes or not).

 
 

* 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.

 
 

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

 
 

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: #2 Why Trampolines Are More Useful Than Science To Explain Slow Breathing

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

Related: Mindfulness training helps kids sleep better, Stanford Medicine study finds (July 6, 2021)

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.