Today is a special edition of The Breathing 411.

Because today is 4/11.

It’s also World Breathing Day.

And it also happens to be my 35th birthday (to celebrate, I did one breath per minute for 35 minutes this morning <— maybe I’ll make it a new tradition 🙏).

To honor the occasion, there are 4 Free Gifts in Thought #3 below.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.

With love,

Nick

🎧 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. How Breathing Can Actually Change the World, in 3 Super Practical Steps

Step 1: Tape your mouth at night.
Step 2: Breathe nasally 90-95% of the day.
Step 3: Forget about the rest, and use your newfound energy from Steps 1 & 2 to help you do whatever you were put on this planet to do.

2. ANB Significantly Enhances Learning and Retention of New Motor Skills

“Our results thus uncover for the first time the remarkable facilitatory effects of simple breathing practices on complex functions such as motor memory”
- Deep Breathing Practice Facilitates Retention of Newly Learned Motor Skills

This 2016 study on alternate nostril breathing (ANB), published in Nature Scientific Reports, genuinely blew my mind. (See full review in Thought #3.)

Here’s what they did:

Participants learned a new motor skill.
A control group rested for 30 minutes.
A breathing group did 30-min of ANB.
Then, both groups were tested on the skill they had learned.
Both groups were also tested again 24-hours later.

The results showed that the ANB group significantly (it was almost ridiculous) improved the learning and retention of that skill:

They were significantly better at the 30-min mark.
They were significantly better at the 24-hour mark.

One 30-minute breathing session. One day of improved learning and retention.

3. Science 411s, Book 411s, and The Breath is Life Learning Center (4 free gifts)

To celebrate World Breathing Day, here are four gifts.

Science 411s: 4 Fundamentals, 1 Big Takeaway, and 1 Practical Application

Free Science 411: Deep Breathing Practice Facilitates Retention of Newly Learned Motor Skills (the paper from Thought #2 above)

Free Science 411: Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Improves Emotional and Physical Health and Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis

Book 411s: 4 Thoughts, 1 Quote, and 1 Idea That Will Change Your Life

Free Book 411: The Happiness Track: How To Apply The Science Of Happiness To Accelerate Your Success
Free Book 411: The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer

You can read, listen, or download them as PDFs here.

I hope you enjoy them!

4. Why We Breathe: Chemically and Spiritually

“Our drive to breathe is regulated by the medulla oblongata … When pH decreases (becomes more acidic due to the increase in CO2), chemoreceptors in the medulla send out a signal for the body to breathe. This means that our carbon dioxide levels have to rise to a sufficiently high level for our brain and body to know that it is time to take the next breath.”
- Inna Khazan, Ph.D.

It’s the perfect day to review why we breathe. So there’s the technical reason.

But breathing is a lot more than just gases. As Michael J Stephen, MD, tells us,

“That oxygen, life, and lungs all came into our world in relatively close succession is no coincidence. Only with oxygen and some means of extracting it are all things possible—thinking, moving, eating, speaking, and loving. Life and the breath are synonymous.”

So beyond chemistry, we ultimately breathe to live—to think, to move, to love. Breathing is, after all, what makes “all things possible.”

1 QUOTE

“It was ecstasy, it was sweet, air soughing in and all my little alveoli singing away with joy and oxygen-energy coursing through every space and particle of me.”
- Keri Hulme

1 ANSWER

Category: Body Chemical Composition

Answer: This gas is the most abundant element in the human body by mass.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is oxygen?

In good breath,

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

P.S. I’m only 35, I have my whole life ahead of me

* 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.

You’ve probably heard some variation of this by now: You can go weeks without eating, days without water, but only minutes with breathing.

But, have you stopped to think about what that really means?

I think we’d all agree that what we drink affects more than just hydration. (For example, weight loss and exercise performance.)

The same goes for eating. You would likely agree that what you eat is important to many aspects of health. For example, sleep and energy levels can be directly impacted by food.

However, when it comes to breathing, this is often overlooked. Most people think breathing is just about getting oxygen. But what if breathing actually limits oxygen?

Breathing: Is it Really About Oxygen?

Almost all “breathing techniques” are centered on oxygen. This makes sense. Oxygen is, after all, our #1 source of energy.

But what happens if we shift our perspective and look at breathing and circulation differently?

In the atmosphere, oxygen exerts a pressure of ~160 mmHg. In our cells, it exerts a pressure of ~5 mm Hg. From the time we inhale to the time the air reaches our cells, the oxygen pressure is reduced by 97%.

Therefore, our intricate oxygen transport system can be viewed as a way to limit the amount of oxygen getting to our cells. [1] Meaning, you can’t breathe more and “super-oxygenate” your body.

(Actually, breathing less is the only way to increase oxygen to your cells. But that only corrects under-oxygenation, it does not “super-oxygenate”.)

Breathing Goes Beyond Oxygen

I don’t think we’ll ever understand all of the functions of breathing. But, just like eating and drinking, breathing has impacts far beyond the obvious. Here are a few other reasons we breathe:

Circulate nitric oxide
Improve sleep
Improve cardiovascular health
Improve autonomic balance
Improve digestion
Increase energy levels (well, this is related to O2)
Synchronize brainwave oscillations
Improve cognitive function
Improve emotional control
Reduce stress and anxiety (or create it, depending on how you breathe)

That’s A Long List

And it should probably be longer.

But here’s the point: Breathing is Fundamental. It’s more important than what you eat, what you drink, or even how you sleep.

But you can’t just ignore these things either. In fact, I believe breathing should support you in your quest to optimize them. Health and well-being are not about any one thing. But, you have to start somewhere. So why not with your body’s most important function?

In good breath,
Nick

[1] This idea came from the great book “Oxygen” by Nick Lane. If you’re a super nerd, I highly recommend it.

Learn Better, 4 Gifts, and How Breathing Can Actually Change the World