mantra

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A Wild Sleep Study, Becoming Great, and Being More Human

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Listen Instead of Reading

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Reading Time: 2 min 2 sec

I hope the next 30’ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. Tickle Your Adrenals with this Therapeutic Breathing Exercise

“In the body, laughter serves an important purpose. It quite literally tickles the adrenals. The diaphragm is located just above the adrenal glands, which house our reactivity, our fear and anger, our apathy and hatred. When we laugh, we flex and release the diaphragm. This gives a light jiggle to the adrenals that I think of as a tickle. … In my experience, the adrenals are often quite relieved by the invitation to relax and let go.”

– Gladys McGarey, MD, The Well-Lived Life

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This is your friendly reminder to laugh and “tickle your adrenals” today. Laughter is, after all, the most therapeutic breathing exercise 😊

2. Becoming More Human, Not Superhuman

“It’s very intuitive: If we breathe better…we can deliver more oxygen to our muscles and organs, including the heart and brain, and thus heighten our physical capacity. All we’re really doing is assisting the body in working the way it was meant to work in the first place.”

– Patrick McKeown, The Oxygen Advantage

That’s a great reminder that breathing (and other mind-body practices) are not hacks to boost our health to superhuman levels. They’re simply “assisting the body in working the way it was meant to work in the first place.”

We’re becoming more human, not superhuman.

3. A Mind-Blowing Study on Sleep: Is It All in Your Head?

Of course, sleep is critical to health, and if this study was performed over a long duration, its results would likely change. But this passage from Dr. Langer is an extraordinary reminder of the power of the mind:

“Our intervention was simple: We programmed a bedside clock to alter the amount of time that participants thought they had slept, irrespective of their actual sleep duration.

When the clock was sped up, such that people thought they had slept for eight hours but had slept only for five, their reaction times were quicker on an auditory psychomotor vigilance test as compared to their performance when knew they had five hours of sleep. Conversely, when people slept for eight hours but thought that they only slept for five, their performance was worse than when they had slept eight hours and thought they had slept eight hours. Clearly, our perceptions of how much we’ve slept, and not just the actual number of hours, matter.”

Here’s the link to the study. I highly encourage reading the first three sentences of the discussion 🤯

4. The Biggest Mistake in Breathing

The most common mistake in breathing is using the nose, lungs, and diaphragm, but not the heart.

1 Quote

“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve…You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.””
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1 Answer

Category: The Mind

Answer: Focusing on this, which literally translates to “tool of thought” or “mind tool,” can add a touch of mindfulness (and hence additional benefits) to a slow breathing practice.

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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is a mantra?

In good breath,

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

P.S. Libraries were a good start but…

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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.

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

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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.

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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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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.

 

Timeless Healing, Anti-Harley, and 2 Rules to Improve Your Breathing

 
 

🎧 Listen Instead of Reading 🎧

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4 Thoughts


1. Breathing Exercises Lower Inflammation and Change Gene Expression

“In those who practice breathing exercises, levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood are significantly lower, especially under certain types of stress. Mobilizing the power of the breath has also been shown to turn on anti-inflammatory genes and turn off pro-inflammatory ones, including genes that regulate energy metabolism, insulin secretion, and even the part of our DNA that controls longevity.”

- Michael J Stephen, MD, Breath Taking

I have nothing useful to add here, except, of course, one of these: 🤯

2. These Two Simple Rules Will Improve Your Breathing Forever

If I could give anyone any advice for everyday breathing, it’d be this:

  1. Breathe through your nose, especially during sleep.

  2. Make your breathing quiet.

You’ll get massive benefits with minimal effort using these two simple rules.

3. Timeless Healing: Slow Breathing + The Relaxation Response

“To evoke the relaxation response, you need to follow only two basic steps. You need to repeat a word, sound, prayer, phrase, or muscular activity, and when common everyday thoughts intrude on your focus, you need to passively disregard them and return to your repetition.”*

- Herbert Benson, MD, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief

It’s that simple. And the word or phrase? Dr. Benson says, “The choice of a focused repetition is up to the individual. If you’re a religious person, you can choose a prayer. If you’re a non-religious person, choose a secular focus.”*

I’ve been using it this week in my slow breathing practice. I inhale and then repeat “be the change” in my head while exhaling at a 5 breaths/min pace.

I’ve never been a big fan of mantras (and I’m still testing different ones), but I’ve genuinely enjoyed this. It’s straightforward and highly effective.

Give it a shot and see how you feel.

4. My Fake Words, and Breathing as the Anti-Harley-Davidson

“Orfield Laboratories, run by Steven Orfield, is a small Twin Cities business that leverages the power of perception to help companies build better products. Harley-Davidson, for example, once hired Orfield to calculate the exact engine tone and decibel level that would give riders the impression that its motorcycles are powerful.”*

- Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis

How crazy is that!? Harley-Davidson actually hired a company to ensure their engines gave “riders the impression that its motorcycles are powerful.”

I think breathing is the anti-Harley-Davidson. You just relax and breathe. If it’s powerful, it’s powerful. If it’s not, it’s not. No fake impressions needed.

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P.S. Although I take pride in this newsletter, sometimes I feel like Orfield Labs trying to make breathing sound perfect. It’s not. But it is truly powerful. So, don’t just read my words, try it out and feel its strength for yourself.

Extra Thought:

5 Easy Breathing Exercises You Can Use for Better Sleep Tonight

I wrote a guest blog called “5 Easy Breathing Exercises You Can Use for Better Sleep Tonight” for The Breather, hosted by ResBiotic.

It’s a quick 4-minute read. I hope you enjoy it!

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“When we focus on the breath, we become mindful of the universal nature of all beings.”

- Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Meditation & Relaxation Response

Answer: A trademark physiological result of meditation and/or the relaxation response is that the body consumes less oxygen, also known as this.

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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is hypometabolism?

In good breath,

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

P.S. Science can catch these hands

 
 
 

* 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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