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4 Thoughts
1. State vs. Trait Breathing
State Breathing: How your breathing changes during and immediately after an experience (e.g., breathwork, yoga, a stressful event, etc.).
Trait Breathing: Your everyday breathing. How you breathe when you’re not thinking about it.
The goal is to purposefully use our state breathing to improve our trait breathing.
***
P.S. This thought was inspired by this Optimize +1 on states vs. traits.
2. Applying Ancient Greek Philosophy to Our Breathing
“And that was what ancient Greek philosophy did. It involved a two-fold process: first make the habitual conscious, then make the conscious habitual. … Philosophy is a training, a set of daily mental and physical exercises that become easier with practice. … After enough training, we naturally feel the right emotion in the right situation, and do the right thing.”
- Jules Evans, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations
Speaking of states vs. traits, here’s how the ancient Greeks applied that concept to practicing philosophy. We’re essentially using their process for our breathing:
When we become aware of our breathing, we’re “making the habitual conscious.”
When we use breathing exercises regularly, we’re “making the conscious habitual.”
With enough training, hopefully we’ll breathe optimally in every situation.
***
P.S. If you’re like me, this process won’t happen quickly…it might even take the rest of our lives <— you can obviously count me in 😂. I hope you’ll join me 🙏
3. Elevate Your Mood and Command Your Energy Levels with this Practice
“Breathwalk is the science of combining specific patterns of breathing synchronized with your walking steps and enhanced with the art of directed, meditative attention. … By learning how to consciously breathe and walk, you can elevate your mood, command your energy levels, and shift your mental gears, as you need.”
- Gurucharan Khalsa, Ph.D., & Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D., Breathwalk
Just a quick reminder of how easy and powerful breathwalking is.
There are countless ways of doing it, but you can start with a 4:4 or 8:8 cadence: inhale 4 (or 8) steps, exhale 4 (or 8) steps. Adjust as needed.
Enjoy elevating your mood and energy levels with this simple practice.
4. How to Sustain an Unusual Life: Tremendous Breath Energy
“Having breath energy in a body is like having water in a river: the same water can both topple a boat and carry a boat. The breath energy can both build and destroy a body. When there are deep waters, unusually large ships can be carried. When tremendous breath energy is accumulated, unusual life can be maintained.”
Here’s to building “tremendous breath energy” so we can sustain unusually optimal lives 🙏
1 QUOTE
“It’s not the towering sail, but the unseen wind that moves the ship.”
1 ANSWER
Category: Breathwalking
Answer: If you took 10,000 steps per day, you could circle the earth this many times over an average lifetime.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is ~4-5 times?
P.S. This assumes 10,000 steps is about 4-5 miles and a 70-year life span.
P.P.S. “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” - Steven Wright
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
Breathing for Diabetes:
If you love learning about breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, I think you’ll really enjoy this class (diabetes or not).
* 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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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.