Listen Instead of Reading
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Reading Time: 1 min 51 sec
I hope the next 28ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.
4 THOUGHTS
1. Laugh More: Laughing Reduces Cortisol by More than 30%
“These analyses demonstrated the potential therapeutic role of laughter-inducing interventions as a complementary strategy to improve everyone’s well-being and highlight the need for further research aiming to improve our collective sense of humor.”
How’s that for the best quote ever published in a science article?
This recent meta-analysis analyzed 8 studies and found that spontaneous laughter reduced cortisol by 31.9%, making it a potentially powerful tool for improving wellness.
It certainly corroborates our saying: The best and most therapeutic form of mouth breathing is laughter 😊
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P.S. Sign up at BreathLearning.com to get my 4-page and 12 min 39 sec podcast summary of this one, which includes three ways to incorporate more laughter into your day using Spotify, funny videos, and Instagram.
2. Did the Buddha Do Breathwork?
Yes he did, apparently. But then he gave it up:
“After his enlightenment, the Buddha described how he had previously practiced extreme self-discipline by manipulating his breath in arcane and special ways. But he discovered that he could not get rid of impurities by holding his breath or altering his breathing. So he gave up breath-control exercises and followed his own middle way.” - Bhante Gunaratana
And what was that middle way? Mindfulness of breathing. It’s what ultimately led the Buddha to enlightenment.
It gives me hope that one day I’ll give up breathing exercises and reach enlightenment, too 😂 😂 😂
3. How to Find Your Inner Silence
“I believe it’s possible for everyone to discover this silence within themselves. It is there all the time, even when we are surrounded by constant noise. Deep down in the ocean, below the waves and ripples, you can find your internal silence.”
– Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise
One way to find that silence is to breathe deep down into your belly, below the restlessness of your noisy mind. There, you’ll discover your ever-present and always accessible internal silence.
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P.S. Thanks to Dr. M. for recommending this incredible book 🙏
4. The Gravity of Breathing
With consistent practice, the breath creates its own gravity, naturally pulling your attention toward it in every situation.
1 Quote
“To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.””
1 Answer
Category: Lung Measurement
Answer: This is generally a measure of the lungs’ ability to expand due to changes in their pressure.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is pulmonary compliance?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. what makes us human
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* 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.