brainstem

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How to Use Less, Accomplish More, and Feel More Cognitive Power

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4 Thoughts



1. How to Align Your Mental Posture to be More Cognitively Powerful

“There is always a mental posture, an alignment for your mind, as well as for your physical body.”

- Gurucharan Khalsa, PhD, and Yogi Bhajan, PhD, Breathwalk

“Mental posture” <— I love that.

We know that when we consciously sit or stand up straight, we feel more confident and alert. But we can also align our mental posture (say, by meditating) to help us feel more cognitively powerful, too.

So let’s pick a focal point and spend a few minutes coming back to it over & over to align and strengthen our mental posture a little more, this week. 🙏

***

P.S. I took “mental posture” somewhat out of context from how the authors were using it because I just love the wording so much : )


2. Use Less: Hypometabolism, the Relaxation Response, and “Mental Posture”

“A hallmark feature of the relaxation response is a significant decrease in the body’s oxygen consumption, or hypometabolism. … The body responds to techniques that elicit the relaxation response by downshifting your metabolism. By allowing your internal perpetual energy machine to ease off working so hard, much less fuel is needed to sustain the body in the hypo metabolic state characteristic of the relaxation response.”*

- Herbert Benson, MD, Timeless Healing


And when we practice mental posture for about 10 minutes, here’s one of the outcomes: we elicit the relaxation response. Our bodies use less energy, we feel at ease, and we set ourselves up for restoration and recovery.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I’ve been combining this with my slow breathing practice. I inhale, and during the exhale come back to an internal mantra (mental posture 101). It’s simple and genuinely powerful.

Give it a shot and see how it feels to shift into a hypometabolic state 🧘‍♂️


3. Success is Recovery: “Accomplish More than You Ever Thought Possible”

“Athletes put their bodies under stress at each training session and competition, but they are only as successful as the speed at which they recover physiologically. Your daily stresses may be different from those of an athlete, but the concept is the same. Your success is determined by the speed of your recovery. By tapping into your natural resilience through breathing and other calming exercises that activate the rest and digest part of your nervous system, you can learn to reduce stress and accomplish more than you ever thought possible.”* (my emphasis)

- Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., The Happiness Track

When you apply Thoughts #1 & 2 consistently, especially combined with slow breathing, you learn to “reduce stress and accomplish more than you ever thought possible.” Sounds good to me 😊

4. Breath is Life, Spirit, and a Divine Gift Bestowed Upon Us

“If you look up the word “spirit” in the dictionary, you will find that it comes from the Latin, spirare, meaning “to breathe.” The inbreath is inspiration; the outbreath expiration. From these come all the associations of spirit with the breath of life, vital energy, consciousness, the soul, often framed as divine gifts bestowed upon us, and therefore as aspect of the holy, the numinous, the ineffable. In the deepest sense, the breath itself is the ultimate gift of spirit.”

- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., Wherever You Go There You Are


Just another (quite eloquent) reminder that breath is life & spirit.

Let’s use this divine gift that’s been bestowed upon us wisely. 🙏


Extra Thought: Breath is Mind: How to Be Calm, Alert, and Make Better Decisions

I wrote another guest blog for ResBiotic (which is a probiotic that targets the gut-lung axis).

It’s titled: Breath is Mind: How to Be Calm, Alert, and Make Better Decisions

It’s all about the science of the breath-mind connection. I hope you enjoy the quick 5-min read.

 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“When you feel your life out of focus, always return to basic of life. Breathing. No breathe, no life.”

- Mr. Miyagi (YouTube Clip)

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Mental Posture and Breathing

Answer: Breathing impacts this region of the brainstem, which is tied closely to our attention.

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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is the locus coeruleus?

In good breath,

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

P.S. 4 new pages appear

 
 
 

* 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.

 
 

Lucid Breathing, Positive Feedback Loops, and Wim Hof’s Breath Mastery

 
 

Listen Instead of Reading

 

Hey,

Here are four thoughts, one quote, and one answer for this week.

I hope you enjoy!

 
 
 
 

4 Thoughts


1. Why We Should (and Should Not) Care About HRV

“Over the years we've experimented with many different types of physiological and psychological measures. Heart rate variability (HRV) patterns… have consistently emerged as the most dynamic and reflective of our inner emotional states.”

- The Heartmath Solution

I’ve been on an HRV kick lately. And although I’m fascinated by the physiological implications of it—its correlation with disease and diabetes, its impact on stress, and so on—here’s another reason we should care: It’s the “most dynamic and reflective [measurement] of our inner emotional states.”

Of course, this makes perfect sense, as our emotional states impact our physiology, and vice-versa. HRV gives us an index for them all, which is why we should care about it.

But, we should also remember that high HRV isn’t the end goal. It’s the positive states associated with high HRV we’re after.

So here’s to using slow breathing to maximize HRV while (paradoxically) remembering that HRV is not the end goal.

***

Related Quote: “‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you.” - James Clear, Atomic Habits

P.S. Huge thanks to Crussen for The Heartmath Solution. After taking his genuinely incredible Heart Coherence class, I contacted him, and he said Heartmath helped inspire it. I immediately grabbed the book and loved it.

2. The Positive Breathing-Relaxation Feedback Loop

“Slow breathing techniques with long exhalation will signal a state of relaxation by VN, resulting in more VN activity and further relaxation.”

- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018

Here’s a positive feedback loop we can celebrate: Slow breathing sends a message of relaxation via the vagus nerve, which increases vagal activity, further enhancing relaxation. Thank you, complicated physiology.

Practically, this is why when you start your slow breathing practice, you don’t feel much at first, but after a few minutes, you feel like a different person. You’re experiencing this positive breathing-relaxation feedback loop in action.

Complex science. Simple to experience.

Give it a shot today.

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Related Quote: “Not only does VN control heart rate and slow deep breathing, slow respiration rates with extended exhalation could also activate the PNS by VN afferent function in the airways. This is a form of respiratory biofeedback.” - Same paper as above

Related: Longer Exhalations Are an Easy Way to Hack Your Vagus Nerve

3. A Wealth of Health | Breathing: Misconceptions and Tips (and Wim Hof’s Mastery)

“Taking control of the breath — consciously thinking about the unconscious respiratory mechanism — is the first step to improving a plethora of everyday struggles and habits.”

- The Breeze, Breathing: Misconceptions and tips

I picked that quote because it goes perfectly with Thought #4 below on Lucid Breathing. But the article is packed with information (and name drops, 😂). It covers a lot of ground, somewhat disjointedly, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

My favorite part was a reminder of something I often forget: That Wim Hof is a master of the breath (and marketing). Although his method frustrates many in the breathing community, James Nestor nailed it in this article:

“Everyone thinks that Wim Hof is breathing ‘Wim Hof breaths’ all the time,” Nestor said. “He’s not. He’s breathing like that for 20 minutes, and the rest of the time he’s breathing really slowly, and he’s humming.”

Enjoy!

***

Related: 20 One-Sentence Thoughts on the Wim Hof Method

4. Are Lucid Breathers the Future of Evolution?

“It seems to be only around 20 to 30% of the population are actually natural lucid dreamers…Maybe those 20 to 30% of people who do lucid dream are at the forefront of hominid evolution, and they are going to be the next species of preference. We just don't know.”

- Matthew Walker, Ph.D.

Maybe the same is true of lucid breathers? Interestingly, Nature made it difficult to control our dreams. It made it simple to control our breath—though most of us sleep right through it.

But control over our breath was not an accident. As Belisa Vranich and Brian Sabin tell us in Breathing for Warriors, “It's an invitation, an opportunity to take part in our own nature and evolution.”

So wake up in your breath. Use it to control this dream we call living.

 
 
 
 

1 Quote

“The quality of our breath expresses our inner feelings.”

- TKV Desikachar

P.S. I found that quote here.

 
 
 
 

1 Answer

Category: Heart and Breath Pacemakers

Answer: Although our heartbeat is controlled by pacemakers in the heart, the breathing pacemakers are located here.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the brainstem?

In good breath,

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

P.S. My anxiety does not define me

 
 
 

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.