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4 Thoughts
1. Why 6 Breaths/Min Improves Heart Health & Quality of Life in Diabetes
I never get tired of talking about slow breathing : )
So, here’s a longer blog about the benefits for heart health & diabetes:
Why 6 Breaths/Min Improves Heart Health & Quality of Life in Diabetes
It’s framed around diabetes, but, of course, it really applies to anyone.
4 Breathing Exercises to Improve Your Heart Health and Extend Life Span
While we’re at it, here’s another guest blog for ResBiotic outlining 4 breathing exercises you can do for a better heart. Two are slow breathing, and 2 are not.
Enjoy!
2. Why Breath Holds Are Mental Resiliency Training
When we’re in a stressful event, we can use our breath to help us cope.
But when lack of breath is the stressful event, we must use our minds.
3. Insight: Just Help Them To Do What Nature Provided Us With
I’m taking pranayama teacher training with Eddie Stern and Robert Moses.
In their exercises script, they (somewhat offhandedly) threw in this deeply insightful message:
“We want to teach people to breathe better so it makes their lives better in whatever way they need their life to improve—we don’t always know what that is (even for ourselves) so we do not want to impose things upon them, just help them to do what nature provided us with better.” (my emphasis)
That is perhaps the best statement ever made about breathing and how it should be used & taught. It’s almost as if they’ve been doing this for a while…
4. Yoga and Breathing Exercises, or Prozac and Zoloft?
“Deep breathing is a potent inducer of the parasympathetic nervous system. The release of acetylcholine not only calms our organs, it also stimulates the release of serotonin, dopamine, and prolactin, the feel-good hormones targeted by medicines like Prozac and Zoloft. But yoga and breathing exercises produce this effect naturally and without side effects.”
- Michael J Stephen, MD, Breath Taking
Sounds good to me : )
1 QUOTE
“We must endeavor with all our resources and strength to become capable of doctoring ourselves.”
1 ANSWER
Category: Vagus Nerve
Answer: This organ receives the greatest supply of nerves from the vagus nerve, helping explain why deep breathing is so relaxing.
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is the diaphragm?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
P.S. a hero of our time
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.
Sign Up For The Breathing 411
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.