long-term — Blog — The Breathing Diabetic

Welcome to another edition of The Breathing 411:

Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for you to consider this week. Enjoy!

4 THOUGHTS

1. The Science of Breathing’s Indirect Benefits

Last week we learned that breathing is the only true compounding health habit. However, I believe the real magic occurs when breathing begins improving other areas of our lives. I’ve never had a reasonable explanation for these "indirect effects." They just seemed to happen. But now I do, thanks to Tiny Habits.

In this excellent book, behavioral scientist BJ Fogg shows us how tiny changes in one area of your life can lead to massive changes in others. It all comes down to a simple equation: B = MAP

A Behavior happens when Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt all come together. Makes sense. But the significant breakthrough Fogg discovered is the curved (nonlinear) relationship for when action occurs (adapted from his book below):

In this hypothetical example, we see how a breathing practice might help you exercise by increasing your motivation and physical ability (e.g., better sleep and oxygenation). The exercise prompt is now above the action line, and you exercise.

This is behavioral science, not physics. So there are no exact numbers for "motivation" or "ability." It will be unique from person-to-person. But this is where the real magic of compounding occurs. We move beyond just breathing, and begin fulfilling our own individual goals and ambitions.

P.S. Some examples from my life:

Walking 100 miles.
Having more energy to manage my diabetes.
Waking up before 4 a.m. every day for breathing research.

2. Health is What You Don’t See

"But the truth is that wealth is what you don't see. Wealth is the nice cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The watches not worn, the clothes forgone and the first-class upgrade declined."
- Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

Similarly, health is what you don’t see. It’s the cold you didn’t get, the late night you didn’t have, the stress you didn’t experience, the breathlessness you didn’t have after a brisk walk to catch your flight.

This is why the benefits of a long-term breathing practice might not be immediately apparent. You can’t measure the number of health issues that breathing helped you avoid. But that makes them no less important.

3. Longer Exhalations Are An Easy Way to Hack Your Vagus Nerve

"Just two minutes of deep breathing with longer exhalation engages the vagus nerve, increases HRV, and improves decision-making."
- Christopher Bergland, Psychology Today

Here’s another gem from Psychology Today on slow breathing, stress, and the vagus nerve. I may or may not have visualized "squirting some stress-busting vagusstoff" onto my heart when I took my next slow breath : )

4. Breath Matching

Rather than focus on any specific method, focus on your goals: to reduce anxiety, to increase focus, to improve autonomic function, to fall asleep, and on and on.

Then, based on those aspirations, find the right match. For combatting anxiety, you might choose extended exhales. For focus, you might pick box breathing.

But it’s not about the method; it’s about the outcome you wish to experience.

1 QUOTE

"Life and respiration are complementary. There is nothing living which does not breathe nor anything breathing which does not live."
- William Harvey, 1653, Lectures on the Whole of Anatomy

1 ANSWER

Answer: More than 60% of primary care physician visits are related to this condition.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is stress?

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. Really made me stop and think

It’s rare to find a long-duration breathing study. Typically, they examine effects lasting only minutes to hours. Then, it’s up to us to extrapolate the long-term benefits. This paper was different.

Effect Of Diaphragmatic Breathing On Heart Rate Variability In Ischemic Heart Disease With Diabetes

(Read Full Summary)

They asked participants to perform 10-15 minutes of slow deep breathing, twice a day, for one year. The researchers followed up with them at the 3 and 12 month marks.

(Side Note: This is basically what I have been doing for the past 2 years. I perform 15 minutes of slow breathing in the morning and ~5-10 in the evening before bed.)

The results were amazing.

Heart rate variability (HRV) increased significantly at the 3 and 12 month marks.
HbA1c dropped slightly at 3 months, and then significantly at 12 months.

The drop in HbA1c (3-month average blood sugar) was impressive, with one group experiencing a 2% decrease: They dropped from an average of 8.95% down to 6.95%. That’s like going from an average blood sugar of around 200 mg/dL down to 150 mg/dL. Even if you don’t have diabetes, you can appreciate the significance of these findings.

Participants who did not comply with the breathing protocol experienced a worsening of their HRV and HbA1c over time.

Of course, we need to take these results with a grain of salt. Over the course of the 1-year study, participants could have made other changes (diet, exercise, and so on) that would also influence the findings.

Nonetheless, this study is encouraging and corroborates the “N=1” experiment I have been performing on myself over the past few years.

The results also remind us that persistence is key. If they had stopped the study at 3 months, the improvements in HbA1c would not have been significant. It wasn’t until the 12 month follow-up that major improvements in blood sugars were observed.

Check out the full review to learn more.