chronic stress — Blog — The Breathing Diabetic

I’ve been out of town, with less time than normal to work on the newsletter. So, I decided to share a buffet of interesting breathing articles this week.

I hope there are a few you enjoy!

4 Thoughts

1. Study Shows How Slow Breathing Induces Tranquility

“Breathe slowly and smoothly. A pervasive sense of calm descends. Now breathe rapidly and frenetically. Tension mounts. Why? It’s a question that has never been answered by science, until now.”
- Stanford Medicine News Center

We all know that slow breathing calms us, and fast breathing stimulates us. But in this great article, we learn that there are specific neurons “spying” on our breathing, “reporting their finding to another structure in the brainstem.”

Enjoy the interesting read!

Thanks to new 411 reader A.L. for inspiring this thought!

2. This Ridiculously Simple Breathing Technique Is Scientifically Proven to Improve Mental Focus

“I can't promise that it will make everything go smoothly, or take all your jitters away. But I can guarantee that you'll feel more focused and calm than you did before.”
- Inc. Magazine

Perfectly said. If you need a quick way to increase focus, it might be as simple as making “your exhalations longer than your inhalations.”

Enjoy the super quick read.

And, if you want to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, here are a few more:

3. The Importance of Breathing, from the American Institute of Stress

Please do yourself and favor and check out this issue of Contentment from the American Institute of Stress. They dedicated the entire thing to breathing.

Here’s what’s included:

The Health Benefits of Nose Breathing
Healing Power Of The Breath
The Setup Breath: Exhaling Deeply First
Re-Association: Fusing Awareness and Sound with Deep Breathing Practices
Take A Deep Breath
Yogic Breathing: Ancient and Modern
One-Minute Relaxation Exercise for Busy People

The first two were my favorites. You’re sure to find one or two you enjoy too.

P.S. I found this through an excellent Medium blog post.

4. Significant Brain Changes Found in Children Who Regularly Snore

“Children who regularly snore have structural changes in their brain that may account for the behavioral problems associated with the condition including lack of focus, hyperactivity, and learning difficulties at school.”
- Significant Brain Changes Found in Children Who Regularly Snore

This was a somewhat troubling read on how sleep-disordered breathing might explain hyperactivity and aggression in children.

With complex issues like these, it’s likely not as simple as “one thing.” But, this is an important read, especially if you have or work with children.

Thanks to great friend E.S. for sharing this with me.

Related Quote: “If respiration truly acts as a fundamental organizer of oscillatory brain activity, then surely its modulation could be utilized to modulate brain activity to promote sleep.” - Frontiers in Psychiatry (2019)

1 Quote

“In a single breath, more molecules of air will pass through your nose than all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches—trillions and trillions of them.”

- James Nestor, Breath

1 Answer

Answer: In the early 1770s, this gas was independently discovered in England and Sweden.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is oxygen?

In good breath,

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

P.S. Enough for the next 11 days

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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.

Listen to this post:

Welcome back to another issue of The Breathing 411.

Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for the week. Enjoy!

4 Thoughts

1. The Epiphenomena of Breathing

“However, a lightbulb also produces heat. Heat is not the function of the lightbulb, nor is it the reason we originally fashioned it […] It is an unintended by-product of the operation, not the true function. Heat is an epiphenomenon in this case.”
- Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep

Depending on you and your perspective, breathing can have many epiphenomena. For example, you might do a breathing practice to relax. But, as a by-product, it will also improve autonomic and cardiovascular function.

Perhaps your breathing practice is for better sleep. In this case, you’ll still experience the epiphenomena of better insulin sensitivity and better focus.

In fact, optimal breathing has so many “epi-benefits,” it’s hard to keep track. Luckily, you don’t have to. You simply pick one or two reasons that make sense for you, and let the rest happen on its own, like heat from a lightbulb.

Related Quote: “Replace the habit of taking short shallow breaths into the top of the lungs with the practice of taking a full deep breath. Nearly all of the benefits begin with this one simple change.” - Al Lee, Don Campbell, Perfect Breathing

2. The Negative Feedback of Stress in Diabetes, and What We Can Do About It

Diabetes is a chronic stressor. [1]
Chronic stress worsens blood sugar control. [2]
It also reduces HRV, increasing susceptibility to more stress. [3]
This then can increase anxiety. [4]
Leading to more stress and worse blood sugar control. [2]
Which then leads to the subjective feeling of more stress. [1]

It’s a merciless cycle.

Encouragingly, however: “Emerging evidence strongly suggests…that interventions that help individuals prevent or cope with stress can have an important positive effect on quality of life and glycemic control.”

You probably know where this is going : )

Slow breathing immediately helps:

It reduces chronic stress by increasing vagal tone. [5]
It improves both short- and long-term HRV. [6]
It reduces anxiety. [7]
It improves blood sugar control. [8]

The negative feedback loop of stress and diabetes won’t just go away. But slow breathing gives you an effective intervention you can use to help offset its harmful effects and prevent it from getting out of control forever.

Related Quote: “Slow breathing could be a simple beneficial intervention in diabetes.” - Nature Scientific Reports

3. How The Wim Hof Method Works, In 2.5 Minutes

“So what happens when you breathe this way is you stress your body out. […] You control your stress to a specific amount of time so that, for the rest of the day, you can chill out. So that is probably why Wim Hof’s method works so well.”
- James Nestor

Tomorrow is Wim Hof’s birthday. In that spirit, here’s a quick 2.5 minute clip of James Nestor explaining how the WHM works.

Enjoy!

Related Quote: “I’m not afraid of death, I’m afraid not to have lived fully.” - Wim Hof

4. We Are All Living Nasal Breathers

“All living things on our planet undergo a unescapable and predictable daily change in their environment: Day becomes night. […] To cope with this predictable daily change in light and dark, almost every living organism has developed an internal timing system, or circadian clock.”
- Satchin Panda, PhD, The Circadian Code

In The Circadian Code, we learn that, try as we might, we cannot override our circadian rhythm. Evolution programmed it into us. Trying to fight it with more coffee (talking to myself here) will only hurt us in the long run. We’re much better off aligning with it to achieve our best health outcomes.

This reminded me of a seemingly unrelated, yet similar concept: we’re all nasal breathers. We can optimize our diets, exercise, and so on, but if we don’t breathe how evolution designed us to—through our nose—we’ll never reach our full health potential.

Related Quote: “Around 1500 BCE, the Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest medical texts ever discovered, offered a description of how nostrils were supposed to feed air to the heart and lungs, not the mouth.” - James Nestor, Breath

1 Quote

“The power of the breath has been used not just to heal, but to attain extraordinary feats that appear to defy laws of physiology. […] With mastery of his breath and his meditative practices, Hof is redefining what is considered physiologically possible for a human.”
- Michael J Stephen, MD, Breath Taking

1 Answer

Answer: Although known as the Ice Man, Wim Hof has also completed a full marathon without water in this desert.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the Namib Desert?

P.S. Here’s short clip of him walking. He’s mainly nose-breathing, probably to conserve water : )

In good breath,

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

P.S. Do drugs and stay out of school

A Buffet of 13 Interesting Breathing Articles

4 Thoughts

1. Study Shows How Slow Breathing Induces Tranquility

2. This Ridiculously Simple Breathing Technique Is Scientifically Proven to Improve Mental Focus

3. The Importance of Breathing, from the American Institute of Stress

4. Significant Brain Changes Found in Children Who Regularly Snore

1 Quote

1 Answer

Sign Up For The Breathing 411

Breathing Through Negative Feedback Loops, and the WHM in 2.5 Minutes

Listen to this post:

4 Thoughts

1. The Epiphenomena of Breathing

2. The Negative Feedback of Stress in Diabetes, and What We Can Do About It

3. How The Wim Hof Method Works, In 2.5 Minutes

4. We Are All Living Nasal Breathers

1 Quote

1 Answer

Sign Up For The Breathing 411