laughing

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One of My New Favorites, Inhale, and 3 Reminders to Exhale

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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 43 sec

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


4 THOUGHTS

1. One of My New Top 5 Favorite Studies (plus $1)

“When you control your breath, what you are actually doing is taking your brainwaves in hand and tethering the rate of their fluctuations to your breathing rate.”

– Caroline Williams, Move

The research Williams is referencing is a 2018 study that found that nasal airflow stimulation led to significant increases in theta and delta brainwaves while also inducing an altered state of consciousness.

It’s one of the coolest studies I’ve read. You can read it here.

***

P.S. Or if you'd like my in-depth review (available as a web article, PDF, and 13-minute podcast), including practical ways to apply the findings in your life, you can get it today-only for just $1.

2. Inhaling is a Spiritual Practice

“With mindfulness, you breathe in, and there you are, well established in the here and the now. Breathing in, touching your full aliveness, is a spiritual practice.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath

That’s so good. It reminded me of this wisdom from Rick Rubin:

“Taken more spiritually, inspiration means to breathe life into. An ancient interpretation defines it as the immediate influence of the divine.”

They’re perfect reminders that we can experience the “immediate influence of the divine” and “touch our full aliveness” at any moment by practicing mindful breathing 🙏

3. Three Reminders to Exhale

1. Here’s a metaphor for saying, “extend your exhale,” which we can apply to all aspects of life: Give more than you receive.

2. “For the lungs to draw in air, they must first be emptied.” - Rick Rubin

3. “The key to breathing, lung expansion, and the long life that came with it was on the other end of respiration. It was in the transformative power of a full exhalation.” - James Nestor

4. Better Friends with Everybody Around Us

“Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.”

– Orison Swett Marden

And to wrap up, here is your reminder to take part in the most therapeutic breathing practice of all: laughing 😊

1 Quote

“Mindfulness allows us to recognize our options, choose our responses wisely, and take control over the direction of our lives.””
— The Mind Illuminated

1 Answer

Category: Brain

Answer: These rhythmic patterns of electrical activity (aka neural oscillations) are generated by neurons and help send information across different regions of the brain.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What are brainwaves?

In good breath,

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

P.S. “you’re so chill”

Stop Specializing

Embrace a more thoughtful approach to a life of love, wisdom, purpose, and joy: become a Mixed Mindful Artist. Instead of trying to fit into a single method, you can integrate the principles of breathing, meditation, and mindfulness to find a balanced and adaptable practice that supports your well-being in every stage of your life. Learn more.

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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Nasal Breathing, Belly Laughing, and My Favorite Signs of Progress

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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: 2 min 4 sec

I hope the next 25’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. My New Favorite Signs of Progress

“I look for changes in character and conduct. How selfless can you be? Can you restrain your senses when necessary? Can you go against your self-will when it benefits those around you? How long is your span of attention? These are the signs of progress in meditation.”

– Eknath Easwaran, Passage Meditation

Of course, there are many different signs of progress in meditation (and breathing and mindfulness), but these are my new favorites 😊. They offer a simple yet powerful way to assess whether these practices are truly changing our lives.

2. Majoring in the Minor

“That’s when I learned that people have a habit of looking for the next big thing when they haven’t spent any time mastering the simple thing in front of them….A lot of you are missing the forest for the trees. You’re majoring in the minor. You’re getting in the weeds.”

– Arnold Schwarzenegger

Got any areas of your practice where you’re “majoring in the minor?” (Guilty here 🤚) Let’s use this as a reminder to master the simple tools in front of us—things like slow breathing, meditation, and mindfulness—before we go looking for the next big thing.

3. Three Reminders to Breathe Nasally

1. “The nose is the silent warrior: the gatekeeper of our bodies, pharmacist to our minds, and weather vane to our emotions.”- James Nestor

2. “Nasal stimulation represents the fundamental link between slow breathing techniques, brain and autonomic activities and psychological/behavioral outputs.” - Frontiers (2018)

3. “Obsessed with notions of health, he was fascinated by his breathing. In fact, Kant developed a technique of breathing solely through his nose—250 years before scientists recognized the role of nasal breathing for good health. Kant was so determined to breathe only through his nose that he refused to walk with a companion, fearful that conversation might inadvertently make him inhale through his mouth. Kant lived to just short of his eightieth birthday, a phenomenal age in 1804.” - Annabel Streets

4. Belly Laughing as Good as Crunches

“Break into a full belly laugh and you hit two pillars of stress control in one go. A recent study found that laughing really hard provides a better core workout than crunches.”

– Caroline Williams, Move

We already know that laughter significantly reduces cortisol, but here we learn it might be as effective—or even better—than crunches for our core. Let’s use that as our friendly reminder to laugh this week to support both our physical and mental health 😊

1 Quote

“Breathing is not only critical to sustaining life, but done correctly and consciously, it can be a valuable tool for getting the most out of every human endeavor, from the most demanding physical challenges to the pursuit of understanding life’s deepest spiritual mysteries.””
— Al Lee and Don Campbell

1 Answer

Category: Nasal Breathing and the Brain

Answer: Slow nasal breathing increases these slow brainwaves often associated with sleep, creativity, and relaxation more than slow mouth breathing does.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What are theta brainwaves?

In good breath,

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

P.S. Celery with anxiety

Elevate Yourself

Embrace a more thoughtful approach to a happier and fulfilling life: become a Mixed Mindful Artist. Instead of trying to fit into a single method, you can integrate the principles of breathing, meditation, and mindfulness to find a balanced and adaptable practice that supports your well-being in every stage of your life. Learn more.

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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Positive Stress, Open Heart, and a Poor Host for Disease

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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. Slow Breathing as a Positive Stressor

“Slow breathing is, in fact, a type of positive stress in and of itself, because you are making an autonomic function of your body intentional…sometimes, as you might notice, your nervous system might resist a little to the changes you are suggesting, because it is not used to being told what to do.”

– Eddie Stern, Healing Through Breathing

I love this shift in perspective. It reminds us that when we teach or practice slow breathing, there might be resistance. That’s normal. But as Eddie also says, that tension “will melt away with time, practice, patience, and a gentle approach to slow breathing.” 👏

2. An Important Thing to Remember in Learning Breath Practices

“In learning breath practices the most important thing to remember is to relax. … Self-judgment adds another layer of stress. The less you judge yourself, the easier it will be to relax and experience the benefits … Try not to evaluate or judge what is happening. Just go with it.”

- Richard Brown, MD, and Patricia Gerbarg, MD

This reminds me of another gem from another MD—Herbert Benson—discussing the relaxation response: “The less you worry about the results, the better. Just let it happen.” 🙏

3. A Poor Host for Disease

“…this is one of the grandest secrets of health…Research evidence today suggests that emotional immunity to negative states of mind may well be linked to physical immunity, even resistance to disease. A person who is even minded, who doesn’t get shaken if people speak ill of him or excited when they praise her to the skies – such a person, I submit, is a poor host for disease.”

– Eknath Easwaran, Original Goodness

Of course, this doesn’t literally mean we’ll never get sick or that all our ailments will suddenly vanish if we’re even minded. But, I love this idea of training our minds to be steadier—through meditation and breathing—so we can at least become “a poor host for disease.” 🙏

4. An Open Heart to Have Open Eyes

“Ancient meditation texts describe compassion and mindfulness as two wings of a bird—emphasizing that we need an open heart to have open eyes.”

- Ronald Siegel, Psy.D., The Mindfulness Solution

1 Quote

“This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t—but the way to get there is just to be fully here.””
— Larry Rosenberg

1 Answer

Category: Contagious Breathing

Answer: One study found that our brains responds to the sound of this “breathing exercise” by preparing our facial muscles to join in.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is laughter?

In good breath,

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

P.S. me but at my breath memes

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

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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 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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Laugh More, Buddha’s Breathwork, and How to Find Inner Silence

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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 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.”

– Kramer and Leitao (2023)

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 😊

***

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.

***

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.””
— Marina Abramovic

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

Work with Me

Or, create your own relaxation with iCalm (use discount code NICK20).

* 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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Breath Learning, More Joy, and How to Change Our Reality

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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. Introducing…

www.breathlearning.com

Now open. Check it out.

2. Seeing More Joy

Doing a deliberate slow nasal breathing practice first thing every morning is like putting on joy contacts to start your day.

3. A Good Case for Doing Your Practice in the Morning

“We each have our unique starting baseline—the level of stress arousal that we usually hover around through any typical day … Regardless of where we start from, the lower we can get our baseline stress arousal, the better—it means we’ll be much more able to tolerate the peaks of stressful events.”

- Elissa Epel, Ph.D., The Stress Prescription

To me, this passage presents a good case for doing our slow breathing (or whichever practice you do) first thing in the morning. By starting at a lower baseline, we’ll tolerate the day’s stressors better 👏

***

P.S. And if you choose slow nasal breathing, you’ll get the added bonus of seeing more joy 😊 (see Thought #2).

4. The Power of Breath Awareness

Dr. Amishi Jha discussing breath awareness in Peak Mind:

“[W]e use the breath for a couple of important reasons: It anchors us in the body. It allows us to experience the body sensations that are unfolding in real time as we breathe, in the here and now. … And finally, our breath is always with us. It’s the most natural built-in target for our attention that we can always return to.”

Put simply: The breath is the best way to be present with what is happening now.

1 Quote

“The first step in changing reality is to recognize it as it is now.””
— David Reynolds

1 Answer

Category: A Funny Breathing Exercise

Answer: This breathing exercise causes the abdomen, chest, and diaphragm to tighten while also expanding alveoli, all of which may improve lung function.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is laughing?

In good breath,

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


P.S. I need to adopt this practice

* 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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All 3 at Once, Laughing Monks, and Naturally Arising Compassion

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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. Breathing Does All Three at Once

A body scan focuses on your physical being.

Observing your thoughts focuses on your mental being.

Observing your beliefs focuses on your spiritual being.

But being with your breath does all three.

2. Maybe We Shouldn’t Be Surprised?

Imagine the power in your home goes out.

Would you walk into every room, try each electronic, and then act surprised every time they didn’t work? “The coffee maker won’t start!” “The internet won’t turn on!” “The TV isn’t working either!”

Of course not. But that’s sort of what we do with breathing studies: “Breathing helps our brain!” “It also helps our heart!” “It also helps us sleep better!”

But like the power lines feeding our homes, breathing is the power feeding our bodies. Without it, nothing else works; however, when it’s working correctly, everything inside works better, too.

So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised when breathing helps our bodies in some way. Maybe we should be surprised when it doesn’t…

3. Mindfulness plus Slow Breathing equals Amplified Benefits

“In both groups, meditation acutely decreased arterial and cerebral oxygen saturation, reduced chemoreflex sensitivity, and prolonged the RR interval, independently of respiration. Conversely, slow breathing improved heart rate variability, independently of concurrent meditation.”

- Bernardi et al. (2017), Psychophysiology

This study isolated the unique benefits of mantra-based mindfulness vs. slow breathing. As stated, they found that meditation alone reduced metabolism, whereas slow breathing alone increased HRV.

But in my opinion, the most practical finding was that combining them into one practice may provide the best of both techniques.

Here is a simple way to do it:

  1. Pick an emotionally meaningful word (“peace,” “love,” etc.)

  2. Focus on and silently repeat that word to yourself while exhaling during your slow breathing practice.

4. Laughing Monks: A Story to Contemplate

“For example, when Varela put on an EEG cap, which uses electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain, monks from the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala laughed and said, ‘How could we be measuring anything to do with the mind by putting a cap on the head? The mind is here!’—pointing to their hearts.”

– Clifford Saron, Ph.D., The Healing Power of Meditation

 

Reading that story (and its multiple implicit lessons) a few times is like a meditation in itself 😊

1 Quote

“It is not even logical, but it seems that when the human mind is open, compassion is the most natural thing to arise, and I think that is a key part of what we call mindfulness training.””
— Dr. Edel Maex

1 Answer

Category: Brain Changes

Answer: Meditation, like breath awareness, can increase the density of this brain tissue, which is where neurons talk to each other, and information processing happens.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is grey matter?

In good breath,

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


P.S. How to deal with stress

* 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.