brain

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How to Not Get Upset, Robust Science, and the Great Synchrony

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Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

Reading Time: 1 min 42 sec

I hope the next 21’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. The Great Synchrony Between Breath, Heart, and Brain

“We term this phenomenon the great 10 second synchrony between breath, heart and the brain.”

– The Brain's Resonance with Breathing

This 2019 study found that slow breathing, particularly at 6 breaths a minute (a 10-second cycle), rapidly synchronizes breath, heart, and brain rhythms, providing insight into how slow breathing exercises may enhance mental and emotional well-being 👏

***

P.S. As always, if you want to nerd out on the full review, check out the Breath Learning Center. We now have reviews of 51 papers, 45 books, and 552 daily messages to help you live better as a mixed mindful artist (and we’re just getting started 😊). We currently have 86 active members…I’d love for you to join us.

2. Get the Best of the Mind: Now Enough Robust Science

“There is now enough robust science to show that mastering the simple movements needed to control the rate, depth and route by which you get air into your body can become a handy tool to steer thoughts and feelings in useful ways. Mastering this range of bodily movements can allow us to dial into the workings of the brain and the rest of the body, change the settings of both and get the very best out of the mind.”

– Caroline Williams, Move

👏 👏 👏

3. Three Random Thoughts on Breathing

1. All life needs to move, and the lungs and airways are perfectly designed to optimize air motion in support of life.

2. A breath practice is a tool—but not a requirement—for a good life.

3. The most common mistake in breathing is using the nose, lungs, and diaphragm, but not the heart.

4. How to Not Get Upset when a Real Trial Comes

“Simply by maintaining a sense of humor and humility, we can teach the mind not to get upset even when a real trial comes.”

– Eknath Easwaran, Conquest of Mind

This one certainly passes the real-life test for me 😊. Give it a try this week and see how it goes.

1 Quote

“Joy seems to be the ‘natural’ state of a unified mind, and the more unified a mind is, the more joyful it is.””
— John Yates, Ph.D., and Matthew Immergut, Ph.D.

1 Answer

Category: Brain Rhythms

Answer: These are brain electrical signals directly related to mental effort and brain excitability, which can become synchronized with respiration during slow breathing.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What are slow cortical potentials (SCPs)?

In good breath,

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

P.S. I was born to be Finnish

Our Only Guide is Homesickness

“We have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness.”

– Herman Hesse

This perfectly captures the essence of becoming a Mixed Mindful Artist. We don’t focus on one method that worked for someone else; instead, we let our homesickness—our own intuition—guide us while using wisdom from great teachers and scientists to support that journey. If you’re ready to find your way home, get started today.

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.

 
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Five Minutes, How to Heal the Mind, and 15 versus 300

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If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

Reading Time: 1 min 29 sec

I hope the next 22’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. The Entire Purpose of the Human Brain

“The entire purpose of the human brain is to produce movement. Movement is the only way we have of interacting with the world.”

– Daniel Wolpert, Ph.D., from The Joy of Movement

And the most fundamental movement the brain produces to interact with the world? The movement of air—our breathing 😊

2. Five Minutes for Meaningful Change

“The lack of significant association between effectiveness and session durations >= 5 min indicates that any session duration beyond 5 min can be effective…simply engaging in a breathing practice provides benefits, with sessions as short as 5 min yielding comparable benefits to longer sessions.”

– Bentley et al. (2023), Brain Sciences

This was the most surprising yet welcome result of this excellent paper: We only need five minutes of slow breathing practice to see significant improvements in stress and anxiety.

Of course, longer sessions can have different benefits. But if our goal is lowering stress (or we’re short on time), we can be pretty confident that even five minutes will make a meaningful difference in our day 🙏

3. It Isn’t Really a Wonder

“There are quite a few validated, scientific findings that suggest that controlled breathing has a wide range of beneficial effects…This makes a lot of sense…it isn’t really a wonder that the thing that keeps us alive also impacts how we experience life.”

- Eddie Stern, Healing Through Breathing

“It isn’t really a wonder that the thing that keeps us alive also impacts how we experience life.” That’s so good, so obvious, and so logical, which is why it’s so easy to overlook 👏

4. A House a Home, a Cup a Drink

Like how the space inside a house makes it a home, or the emptiness within a cup makes it useful for drinking, it is the breath inside the body that makes it so remarkable for living.

1 Quote

“Your mind cannot heal without laughter.””
— Catherine Rippenger Fenwick

1 Answer

Category: The Best Breathing Exercise

Answer: Children do this about 300-400 times a day while adults only do it about 15 times a day.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is laugh?

In good breath,

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

P.S. three day recovery period

Breath Science & Wisdom Meditations for a Well-Lived Life

Learn to think, speak, and act in alignment with the person you want to be.

Start Today.

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.

 
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Gratitude Brain Change, 2 Quotes, and You Can Bring Retreat to You

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If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

4 THOUGHTS


1. The Passion Paradox

I love breathing and lose sleep thinking about it.

2. Two Unconnected (but highly related) Quotes to Contemplate

“To know that the mind is the root of everything is to realize that we are ultimately responsible for both our own happiness and our own suffering. It is in our hands.” – Sogyal Rinpoche

“By controlling your breathing, you can use a voluntary mechanical behavior to make a profound change on your state of mind.” - Emma Seppälä, Ph.D.

3. An Easy Way to Change Your Brain & How You Feel

“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”

– Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Buddha’s Brain

Here’s a simple way to put this idea into practice during your day: Take a couple of breaths and think to yourself, “This is great! I have an abundance of the most valuable resource known to our species, and I don’t even have to work that hard to get it!”

***

P.S. I use this a lot.  Sometimes it feels too forced, and I don’t notice much of anything.  But sometimes, it profoundly shifts my mindset, making it worth it every time 🙏

4. Nasal Breathing Counteracts the Effects of Gravity

“In this work, we have demonstrated that nasal breathing counteracts the effects of gravity on pulmonary blood flow in the upright position by redistribution of blood to the nondependent lung regions.”

– Sánchez Crespo et al. (2010)

I re-read this excellent paper and wanted to re-share this remarkable finding: Due to nitric oxide, nasal breathing redistributes blood flow from the bottom to the top of the lungs, countering gravity’s effects.

This *might* mean that nasal nitric oxide was an evolutionary adaption to lessen gravity’s effects, allowing us to walk upright 🤯

P.S. Check out the IG post for neat graphics.

1 Quote

“Breathing, it turns out, can be the quickest, most direct path to deep rest. When you can’t go to a retreat, you can bring the retreat to you. And all you need is your breath.””
— Elissa Epel, Ph.D.

1 Answer

Category: Nasal Nitric Oxide

Answer: Compared with mouth breathing, research shows that nasal breathing delivers about this much more nitric oxide to the lungs.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is six times more?

In good breath,

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


P.S. I personally have no problem with it

* 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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How to Let Go, Breathing for Better Emotions, and Loving Life

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If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

4 THOUGHTS

1. Breathing to Reduce Negative Emotions

“In view of the close association between respiration, ANS activity, and emotions presented, it is apparent that individuals possess the ability to alter emotional states using the voluntary control of breathing and mindset.”

- Self-Regulation of Breathing as a Primary Treatment for Anxiety

 

Over the years, the most rewarding benefit of my breath practice has been better mental health. This paper helps explain why.

They propose that slow breathing alters cell excitability by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, making you physiologically less susceptible to negative emotions. That’s pretty neat.

If you’re interested, you can get all the details in the Learning Center.

***

P.S. To apply these findings in your life, consistently use virtually any slow breathing practice to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and increase overall vagal tone 🙏

2. How to Let Go: Brush Your Teeth and Heal

“Try to think of the practice as you would the daily ritual of brushing your teeth … Let your body heal itself without the interference of mind-generated doubts, criticism, and appraisals. … You wouldn’t critique your toothbrushing so don’t analyze this exercise either.”

- Herbert Benson, MD, Timeless Healing

Whether it’s breathing, meditation, or another wellness practice, a reoccurring theme I hear is that we need to let go of expectations. We need to simply perform the exercises without judgment. Judgment and self-appraisals will only take away from their healing potential.

That’s really easy to say, but harder to actually do. That’s why I love this analogy. Each time we find ourselves judging our practice, we can think: “You wouldn’t critique your toothbrushing so don’t analyze this exercise either.” Then, just get back to the practice.

Simple yet powerful 🙏

3. The Power of Breathing in Everyday Life

“[Breath] training not only results in extraordinary wisdom and realization…but it also results in ordinary worldly wisdom. When we have the qualities of calm and relaxation in body, speech, and mind, we are able to accomplish more, and with better-designed plans. We make clear and thoughtful decisions and have more harmonious relationships. We avoid doing things that are at odds with our personal goals and integrity, and do not sabotage our own growth. We avoid making impulsive decisions, or speaking impulsive words, ones we may regret later. When we lack chaos on the inside, the world outside reflects our sense of inner harmony.”

- Anyen Rinpoche & Allison Choying Zangmo, The Tibetan Yoga of Breath

This is a perfect description of how a consistent breathing practice can help our everyday lives in meaningful (yet often immeasurable) ways 👏

4. Loving Life

To genuinely fall in love with life, fall in love with breathing.

***

P.S. I know that sounds cheesy (it even feels cliche writing it), but it’s absolutely true.

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1 Quote

“Waking up is becoming more alive. The aliveness that’s available to all of you is already here in this moment. It’s life in the form of breathing.””
— Larry Rosenberg

1 Answer

Category: Breathing and Emotions

Answer: Contemplative practices like breathing, meditation, and yoga may influence emotions by increasing this neurotransmitter.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)?

In good breath,

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


P.S. Meditation in real life

* 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.

Sign Up For The Breathing 411

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,

Build-a-Breath, How to Work with Emotions, and Carrying Great Power

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Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

4 THOUGHTS

1. Build-a-Breath: Breath Stages and the Nervous System

“Vagal activity is enhanced during the postinspiratory period and inhibited during the postexpiratory period.” - Kromenacker et al. (2018)

 

When I read this somewhat unassuming sentence, it actually led to a pretty big “aha moment” for me. It means: 

  • Inhalations: Sympathetic

  • Inhale-Pauses: Parasympathetic

  • Exhalations: Parasympathetic 

  • Exhale-Pauses: Sympathetic (I had never actually thought about this one and just assumed it was parasympathetic.)

Let’s apply this to a real-world example: the popular 4-7-8 breath. Using the above relationships, we see that 4 seconds are spent in sympathetic and 15 parasympathetic—no wonder it’s so relaxing.

With this information, you can now assemble and tailor a breath to meet your needs using a simple app like Breathe: iPhone & Android.

The power is yours…have fun with it 🙏

 

2. One Way to Stop Overbreathing: Mouth Tape at Night

“Taping the mouth at night ensures the benefits of good breathing during sleep, allowing you to fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep longer, and wake feeling energized.”

– Patrick McKeown, The Oxygen Advantage

And if that’s not enough, it’s also one way (among many changes we need to make) to train our bodies to breathe less in general.

As Patrick says, “Spending a guaranteed eight hours breathing through your nose while you sleep is an opportune way to reeducate your respiratory center to adjust to a more normal breathing volume.” 👏 👏 👏

***

P.S. If you want more amazing wisdom from The Oxygen Advantage, I just released a Book 411 summary on it in the Learning Center.

3. How to Work with the Root of Emotional Imbalances

“No matter how out of control we feel, how low our energy is, or how large our problems seem to loom, wind energy training is an effective intervention for all emotional imbalances. When we work with the breath, we work with the root of the problem.”

- Anyen Rinpoche & Allison Choying Zangmo, The Tibetan Yoga of Breath

I have nothing to add except to repeat that last sentence: “When we work with the breath, we work with the root of the problem.” 👏

4. A Tiny Thought On Why Breathing Helps Everything

Since no bodily function can occur without breathing, it just makes sense that breathing, in some way, influences every bodily function.

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1 Quote

““For something so simple, automatic, and for most people, unconscious, breathing carries with it great power.””
— Al Lee & Don Campbell

1 Answer

Category: Breathing and Emotions

Answer: Using fMRI, researchers have found that breathing influences activity in this region of the brain, an area associated with emotional regulation and response.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the cingulate cortex?

In good breath,

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


P.S. and I can finally be free

* 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.

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.

 
,

Free OA App, 60 Seconds of Joy, and Breathing Improves Cognition

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Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

4 Thoughts



1. Slow Breathing Improves Cognition: A 2022 Study

“Finally, at the applied level, these findings may have implications for individuals looking for a quick and easy method to alter their executive functions, for example, to better execute cognitively demanding tasks in their jobs.”

- J. Psychophysiology (2022)

This recent study found that 15-min of slow breathing:

  • Improved attention control

  • Improved working memory

  • Increased cognitive flexibility

Take-home: slow breathing helps you plan, monitor, and execute your goals.

***

P.S. If you’re interested, there’s a new Science 411 for this one that goes through all the details.

2. Meditation, Yoga, and the Healing Touch of Prayer

Here’s a memorable passage from Breath, where James Nestor offers an eloquent summary of the benefits of slow breathing:

“In many ways, this resonant breathing offered the same benefits as meditation for people who didn't want to meditate. Or yoga for people who didn't like to get off the couch. It offered the healing touch of prayer for people who weren't religious.”  

 

Sounds good to me 🙏

***

P.S. Note that the key words are “in many ways”; not “in all ways.”  Breathing isn’t a one-to-one replacement for these other powerful health practices.  But, it is a nice option that covers many bases.

3. Patrick McKeown & the New Free OA App

Patrick McKeown and the Oxygen Advantage® team released a new app. It’s got a TON of guided breathing exercises and educational videos—and it’s all free!

It’s an incredible gift from someone who, after 20+ years, still loves sharing breathing with as many people as possible 🙏

Go check out the app and enjoy all of the free OA exercises.

4. Sixty Seconds of Joy

For every minute you practice conscious breathing you gain sixty seconds of joy.

***

P.S. This is a play on an Emerson quote I saw on Insight Timer: “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

1 Quote

“It is quite a striking example of evolutionary balance and beauty that the trees around us that give off oxygen and the trees in our lungs that absorb it share a similar structure.””
— Patrick McKeown

1 Answer

Category: Oxygen Carrying Capacity

Answer: Our kidneys produce this hormone to help us maintain a healthy level of red blood cells (breath holds can amplify this process to boost oxygen carrying capacity).

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is erythropoietin?

In good breath,

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


P.S. I’ve done this writing blogs, emails, etc.

* 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.

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.

 
,

Big Tech vs. Gandhi, Breathing is Self-Love, and Syncing w/ the Heart

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4 Thoughts



1. The Breath-Love Connection: Safety, Self-Love, and Upward Spirals

Here is a summary of my recent dive into the breath-love connection:

Breathing is self-love: It increases vagal tone and helps us feel safe, allowing us to experience more love-love. Experiencing more love, then, will reshape our lives for the better, triggering an upward spiral that lifts us to become the best versions of ourselves we can become.

2. The Breath-Heart Connection: Entrainment

“‘Entrainment’ is the term for when two oscillations become synchronized—like when two tuning forks come to vibrate at the same frequency or two pendulums begin to synchronize and swing at the same tempo.”

- Lisa Miller, Ph.D., The Awakened Brain

Although this passage wasn’t about breathing, I thought “entrainment” was the perfect word to describe the breath-heart connection.

When we breathe at about 4-7 breaths/min, our breathing rate entrains our heart rate. They “synchronize and swing at the same tempo.”

This makes everything run more efficiently. As Tree Meinch says, “our respiration has the potential to optimize the rhythm of various mechanisms and align them with our heart rate.” 👏

3. Big Tech vs. Gandhi

“‘[O]ne of the ironies is there are these incredibly popular workshops at Facebook and Google about mindfulness—about creating the mental space to make decisions nonreactively—and they are also the biggest perpetrators of non-mindfulness in the world.’”

- Aza Raskin, from Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

I’ve often thought it was cool to hear that big tech companies have meditation pods and mindfulness events. How neat, right?

Well, maybe not. As this passage points out, these companies are also the “biggest perpetrators of non-mindfulness in the world.” (🤯 never thought of it like that).

Of course, no one person or company is perfect—we’re all just trying to do the best we can.

But this reminded me of a Gandhi quote: “One…cannot do right in one department of life whilst…doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.”

So here’s to doing our best (accepting we’ll never be perfect) to lead with our hearts and live up to our values in all areas of our lives 🙏

4. Science Offers Only Glimpses

“This highlights a weakness in what otherwise might seem quite impressive findings on the yogis: these data points are but glimpses of the altered traits that intensive, prolonged meditation produces. We do not want to reduce this quality of being to what we happen to be able to measure.”

- Daniel Goleman & Richard Davidson, Altered Traits

 

I think the idea applies perfectly to breathing, too. It’s a nice reminder that, while we should value scientific findings, we must also remember they’re only a glimpse of the benefits based on “what we happen to be able to measure.”

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Day 1: The Four Paths of a Generalist

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Day 3: How to Find Science Papers Worth Reading

Day 4: How to Decide Which Books and Papers to Read

Day 5: Become More You, Become Irreplaceable

1 Quote

“Love—like taking a deep breath…—not only feels great but is also life-giving, an indispensable source of energy, sustenance, and health.””
— Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D.

1 Answer

Category: Breath Speed

Answer: A nasal exhale travels at a maximum of about this many miles per hour.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is 3 mph?

In good breath,

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


P.S. this one’s gonna be huge for me

* 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.

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.

 
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Free 5-day Course, an Inspiring Study, and the Heart of Life

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Listen Instead of Reading

If you enjoy listening, you can subscribe to the audio version on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible so you don’t even have to look at the email 😊

4 Thoughts



1. Yoga Breathing Helps Cancer Chemotherapy Symptoms (+ free science 411)

“Pranayama may be helpful for improving sleep disturbance, anxiety, and mental QOL [quality of life] among patients undergoing chemotherapy.”

- Dhruva et al. (2012)

This is an inspiring pilot RCT that found that a simple breathing practice can help reduce the harmful side effects of chemotherapy.

The study wasn’t perfect and pranayama didn’t magically solve all their problems. But it helped. That’s all we can hope for.

I’ve also made the Science 411 on this paper free for everyone 🙏

***

P.S. Some of you may know that I lost my sister to cancer. I remember how hard chemo was for her. So—even as someone obsessed with breathing—it’s difficult to review a study suggesting that patients should “just breathe,” and it will help. But this study was done over 1 year, and the classes had almost 100% attendance, making me believe the patients found it valuable, which matters the most.

2. Breathing is the Heart of All Life

“In addition, the mental component of breath is a sense of rhythmic expansion and contraction, and I think that connects us to every other living thing because all living organisms breathe. So that same rhythm is at the center of the heart of all life.”

- Andrew Weil, MD, Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing

Just an elegant reminder that breathing connects us to all living things. It’s the heart of all life 🌎

3. Optimal Mouth Posture at Rest

“The correct oral posture, the one that appears most conducive to jaw development, is (when not speaking or eating) holding the mouth closed with teeth in light contact and the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth.”

- Sandra Kahn and Paul Erhlich, Jaws

I struggle following these guidelines all day, but here is the most succinct description I’ve found on optimal mouth posture at rest.

Maybe it will inspire you to notice your mouth posture more today 🙏

4. It’s Not the Highs; It’s Who You Become

“It's not the highs along the way that matter. It's who you become.”

- Daniel Goleman & Richard Davidson, Altered Traits

 

That’s a perfect rule of thumb for any contemplative practice (like breathing).  Experiencing highs & improving biomarkers of health and wellness is meaningful, but it’s who you become that matters most.

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Day 1: The Four Paths of a Generalist

Day 2: How to Read Books Efficiently

Day 3: How to Find Science Papers Worth Reading

Day 4: How to Decide Which Books and Papers to Read

Day 5: Become More You, Become Irreplaceable

1 Quote

“If you would foster a calm spirit, first regulate your breathing; for when that is under control, the heart will be at peace; but when breathing is spasmodic, then it will be troubled.””
— Kariba Ekken

1 Answer

Category: Breathing and Brain

Answer: This neural network is critical to generating breathing rhythm.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the Pre-Bötzinger complex?

In good breath,

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


P.S. Google Maps every time

* 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.

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.

 
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Applied Elegance, a Gift of Breathing, and How to Practice Philosophy

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4 Thoughts



1. Applying the Lung's Elegant Structure to All Aspects of Our Lives

“While the heart has dense striated muscle, and the brain its conglomerated networks of communicating neurons, the lung is a thin, graceful structure of interconnecting fibrous tissue that is beautifully held together with a foamy substance that lubricates its functions in a quiet and effortless manner. It is an organ of elegance, not brute strength.”

- Michael J Stephen, Breath Taking

Our most important organ is designed to be graceful and flexible, not rigid and strong. To be of elegance, not strength.

Something for us to consider in all aspects of our lives…

2. Practical over Perfect: A Simple Way to Start a Breathing or Meditation Session

“Breath priming means that you take a few conscious breaths to set up the flow of breathing. … We prime our breath so it can function at a higher level.”

- Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, Ph.D., and Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D.

Breathwalk

I love this idea of “breath priming,” and I use it every day.

It’s pretty straightforward to do:

  1. Pick a breath that will set you up for whatever you’re about to do (for example, I use alternate nostril breathing before meditating).

  2. Other good options: breath of fire, humming, or a few physiological sighs.

  3. Do this breath for 1-3 minutes.

  4. Then start your session.

And, in my opinion, we don’t need to add more time. For a 10 min meditation, I use 2 min for priming and 8 min for meditation. Practical over perfect.

3. Breathing is Philosophy: Transforming Emotions and Living Better Lives

“That’s what the teachers depicted in The School of Athens once provided: they taught their students how to transform their emotions, how to cope with adversity, how to live the best possible lives.”

- Jules Evans, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations

That sentence is exactly why I think breathing is the most direct path to practicing philosophy in our lives. With two added bonuses:

  1. Breathing is also physiology. It changes our body, allowing us to truly transform our emotions instead of just “thinking our way out of it.”

  2. There is no abstraction. You just breathe in preset patterns (like 4:6 or 4:4:4:4), see what works for you, and ignore the rest.

So here’s to being breathing philosophers, applying this stuff every day, and using our breath to help us become the best version of ourselves.

4. Internal vs External Stimuli, and a Gift of Breathing Exercises

External stimuli cause opposite or similar internal reactions, for example:

  • Our body responds to a hot environment with internal cooling.

  • But it responds to a stressful environment with internal stress.

Conversely, internal stimuli generally trigger similar external reactions:

  • Our body responds to slow breathing by interpreting the external environment as safe.

  • Our body responds to fast breathing by interpreting the external environment as dangerous.

This reveals a gift of breathing exercises. They don’t change our situation, but they do change how we interpret it, which may be just as powerful.



1 QUOTE

“The breath can command the brain, and the brain can regulate our moods. This gives us a way to practically direct moods.”
— Breathwalk

1 ANSWER

Category: Drive to Breathe

Answer: Your drive to breathe comes from this portion of the brain, which monitors blood pH and sends a signal to breathe when CO2 rises too high.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the medulla oblongata?

In good breath,

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

Available Now:

THE BREATHING FOR DIABETES SELF-PACED WORKSHOP

If you like geeking out on breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, you might really enjoy the workshop, diabetes or not.

It’s packed with easy-to-understand science and super practical breathing advice that you can immediately implement. I hope you’ll check it out.

 
 

* 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.

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.

 
 

Exciting News: A New Breathing Gas Discovered

 

Happy Monday. There was a breakthrough in breathing research over the past few weeks: A new breathing gas has been discovered. I hope the extra hour of sleep you got this weekend will help this exciting news sink in even deeper.

OK, let’s get to it. Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for you to think about as we begin November.

 
 
 
 

4 THOUGHTS

1. A New Breathing Gas Discovered

"Thus, H2S [hydrogen sulfide] produced by CBS surely has a crucial role in maintaining eupneic-pattern respiration."

- Nature, Communications Biology

Hydrogen sulfide. It’s toxic, and it’s what gives rotten eggs their rotten smell. It also helps maintain our breathing.

A study published in Nature: Communications Biology on October 16, 2020, found that a small amount of hydrogen sulfide is critical to maintaining normal breathing. It does this through modification of the neural connections in the region of the brain that controls breathing.

When hydrogen sulfide production was stopped in rats, normal breathing turned to gasping, implying that it is vital to maintaining rhythmic breathing.

From a practical perspective, I’m not sure what this means yet. At a minimum, breathing now appears to be a four-gas system: oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, and hydrogen sulfide.

We’ve found ways to breathe to optimize the first three. However, it’s not yet clear if the way we breathe (or do anything else, for that matter) can influence hydrogen sulfide.

In any case, as a fellow breathing nerd, I hope you find this as fascinating and humbling as I did. Here’s to the joy of never-ending learning.

P.S. Here’s a short summary of these findings from ScienceDaily.

2. The Single Most Important Part of the Breath

"Interestingly, Törnberg et al. recently showed that more NO is released from the nasal passages during nasal inhalation compared with exhalation." - Lundberg et al. (2008)

Here is yet another reason why inhaling through your nose might be the single most important part of breathing: nitric oxide (NO) production is much greater during inhalation than exhalation.

Here’s the finding from the paper mentioned above: "There was a marked flow dependency of nasal NO output, with the highest levels observed during inhalation at flows similar to those seen during normal breathing." - Törnberg et al. (2002)

In hindsight, this makes complete sense. NO helps protect our lungs from inhaled pathogens and it redistributes blood flow in the lungs. So, of course our bodies would maximize it on the inhale. But it wasn’t until I read these two papers that it made sense to me.

"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.” - Kahlil Gibran

3. What Focusing on the Breath Does to Your Brain

"Conversely, it may be possible to reduce fear and anxiety by slowing down our breath." - Greater Good, UC Berkeley

Here is a quick-reading article, packed full of excellent information, from The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Anytime you see a headline like "Managing stress: Is it all in the breath?" you know it’s going to be a good read. Enjoy!

4. Sleep Scientists Call for the Elimination of Daylight Saving Time

"It is, therefore, the position of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that these seasonal time changes should be abolished in favor of a fixed, national, year-round standard time."

- Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine

I hope you all enjoyed the extra hour of sleep you got this weekend. The world’s leading sleep scientists say your body will function better, and they suggest we keep it this way (Standard Time) forever.

The above article is pretty short. But if you’re interested, here’s an even more concise summary, along with a rather impressive list of organizations that support the permanent change to Standard Time.

Because nasal breathing at night changed my life, I am endlessly fascinated with sleep. So I hope we all enjoy the next few months of better sleep and better optimization of our body's wake-light cycles.

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Answer: Average walking speed (~2-4 mph) is also around the average speed of this physiological function.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy music.)

…

Question: What is blood flow?

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. New life in a new city.

 
 

The Breathing 411 - On Becoming Indisfunctionable

 

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

P.S. Didn’t see that coming.

 
 

How Nasal Breathing is Imprinted on the Brain - And What it Means for You

 
LifeTooShort_JamesClear.png
 

It feels somewhat odd to send to write a post breathing right now. There are certainly bigger problems to worry about. But, I hope this can, at the very least, serve as a distraction. Stay healthy and stay safe!

 

It makes sense that our brains have regions that “light up” when we smell something. But, what about the airflow itself? If there was no odor, would we still see effects on the brain?

That was the question this week’s paper answered.

Activity Patterns Elicited by Airflow in the Olfactory Bulb and Their Possible Functions

(Click Here to Read Full Summary)

It took me two days to enter all of my notes on this one. I felt almost neglectful distilling everything into one page for the summary.

Using fMRI, the authors examined how nasal airflow stimulated the olfactory bulb of mice and compared it to that of odor stimulation. The main difference: Nasal airflow lights up broad regions of the olfactory bulb, whereas odor stimulation is more localized.

Interestingly, the intensity of the nasal breathing signal only changed with total airflow. For example, if they increased the breathing frequency, but reduced the volume, intensities remained relatively constant. But, if they increased frequency and volume, things “lit up” even more.

Why is all of this important for you? The olfactory bulb influences the limbic system, which influences emotions and the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, if nasal breathing is imprinted on your brain in the olfactory bulb, this helps explain how it can easily influence your emotional and physiological state.

If you have done any breathing practices, you have likely experienced this. Here, we see one reason why.

So, we can conclude: Breathe through your nose to change your brain, change your emotions, and change your physiological state. Simple, yet profound.

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. Don’t worry about corona?