breath brain

,

A Mini Life, Breath-Brain, and Helping Everyone Else Relax

,

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 😊

Audio Block
Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more

Reading Time: 1 min 32 sec

I hope the next 19’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. A Miniature Model of Life

“When we truly observe the breath, we are automatically placed in the present. We are pulled out of the morass of mental images and into a bare experience of the here and now. In this sense, breath is a living slice of reality. A mindful observation of such a miniature model of life itself leads to insights that are broadly applicable to the rest of our experience.”

– Bhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

Yep, that sums it up perfectly. I have nothing else to add but several of these 👏👏👏

2. Breath-Brain: Entire Fields are Dedicated to This

“The brain’s metabolic-energetic coupling to respiration is at odds with how neuroscientists methodologically treat respiration. Respiration-related neural activity is typically considered noise, and entire fields are dedicated to stripping it from brain data.”

– Neuroscience Bulletin (2023)

The breath’s influence on the brain is so pervasive that “entire fields are dedicated to stripping it from brain data.” How crazy is that? 🤯

It’s a powerful reminder that, although we often talk about the breath’s impact on the nervous system, its effects on the brain may be the most profound (yet least appreciated) of all…

3. Three Random Breathing Thoughts

1. Shining your attention on your breath is like a dimmer switch: even if it’s not all the way up, it will still help you see better.

2. Scientific studies of breathing are timely and indispensable; personal experience with the breath is timeless and irreplaceable.

3. Equanimity is when the breather realizes they are the breath.

4. Few Persons Realize

“Few persons realize that health actually varies according to the amount of laughter.”

– James J. Walsh, MD, PhD

Here is our weekly reminder to laugh. It is, after all, the best “breathing exercise” around… 😊

1 Quote

“Pressure is contagious, but so is good will. Just one person slowing down, one person not putting others under pressure, helps everyone else to relax too.””
— Eknath Easwaran

1 Answer

Category: Breath Connection

Answer: Breathing influences this organ over a wide set of frequencies, ranging from as slow as 0.01 Hz to as high as 80 Hz.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the brain?

In good breath,

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

P.S. like I get it

Reminder: A Good New Year Begins Now

Like a good inhale starts with a full exhale, or a good morning starts the night before, a good 2025 begins with how we end this year. So, if you want to start 2025 off strong, consider ending this year by becoming a Mixed Mindful Artist. You can do that by joining the Breath Learning Center. I’ve made it accessible, with options starting at just $5, because I believe the mixed mindful arts should be available to all who seek them. I hope you’ll join us!

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.

 

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.