The Breathing 1%
“Breathing is the compound interest of health and wellness.”
TB1% delivers daily bite-sized chunks of wisdom to help us continue compounding our knowledge. They only take a few seconds to read, but they'll set you up for a better day, every day.
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The Breathing 1% (TB1%) is based on the idea that “Breathing is the compound interest of health and wellness.” That if we improve by just 1% every day, those benefits will compound into extraordinary results.
All Editions of The Breathing 1%
“All we need to do to make use of it is to deepen our attentional skills and…”
“It’s quite amazing: we can control our breath, which means we can control the state of our autonomic nervous system…”
“This is the real benefit of doing yoga practices, and the primary reason for doing them.”
“It anchors us in the body. It allows us to experience the body sensations that are unfolding in real time as we breathe…”
“…not of their business, not of their riches or poverty, their pains or their pleasures…”
“…as a crucial link between the material world, the human body, the psyche, and…”
“In this work, we have demonstrated that nasal breathing counteracts the effects of gravity on pulmonary blood flow in the upright position by redistribution of blood to the nondependent lung regions.”
Of course, there are many powerful nervous system and brain changes going on, but this is the true real-world power of contemplative practices involving breathing.
What better way to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, this most basic good of life?
“Doing this …will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”
Rather than being something that needs to be “suppressed” or “changed,” let’s view them as…
“What if learning how to inhabit silence and stillness and awareness—especially when you do so with kindness, with patience, and with self-compassion—is itself healing?”
It’s an interesting idea to contemplate…
It is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, with the remaining 70 percent…
Mindfulness amplifies the benefits of slow breathing. Slow breathing amplifies the benefits of mindfulness.
“[I]t means that you can be in a difficult situation, fully, and know that you have the cognitive resources to get through it.”
“…our results lead to the hypothesis that slow breathing may exert some antioxidant effect, possibly via parasympathetic stimulation.”
“As long as we are alive, it is always with us. We can’t leave home without it.”
“As practice continues and breathing becomes progressively slower, the body adjusts its physiological set point for its respiratory rate accordingly. That’s a good thing.”
“Developing inner resources is like deepening the keel of a sailboat so that you're more able to deal with the worldly winds…”
“We propose that these breathing techniques could be used as first-line and supplemental treatments for stress, anxiety, depression, and some emotional disorders.”
Two of the most powerful sentences I’ve read in a scientific publication.
“If you reduce your breathing and properly regulate the amount of air you take in, you will teach your body to breathe more efficiently, and you will become healthier.”
“The more complicated and restricted the method, the lesser the opportunity for the expression of one’s original sense of freedom.”
When I read this unassuming sentence in the Discussion of our most recent Science 411 paper, it was actually quite eye-opening for me.
“It also improves respiratory and cardiovascular function, decreases the negative effects of stress and the production of stress hormones, and improves physical and mental health.”
“So, at the beginning, you might want to stay with the breath, or use it as an anchor to bring you back when you are carried away.”
“This is perhaps the biggest revelation of the awakened brain.”
“The breath is something that is readily available to us simply because we are human beings.”
By separately blocking the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems during slow breathing, this study conclusively found that observed increases in HRV during slow breathing are primarily due to increased vagal activity.
“However, I’d like you to think of it as a versatile training tool to help you engage fully in every meaningful task in your life.”
“This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t…”
“…to improve subjective sleep quality and cardiovascular function during sleep in young healthy individuals.”
“That’s what these researchers discovered. The missing pillar in health is breath. It all starts there.”
“Researchers…found that slow, controlled, deep breathing helps the brain nail the noradrenaline “sweet spot,” heightening attention and getting people laser focused.”
“When tremendous breath energy is accumulated, unusual life can be maintained.”
“What this means is that abdominal nose breathing not only makes more oxygen available to our bodies in a more efficient manner, but it also…”
It may seem strange that such a disparate range of complaints can be caused by or worsened by overbreathing, but…”
Slow breathing helps you plan, monitor, and execute your goals.
“Any practice, whether spiritual, physical, or artistic, only begins to pay off when it is done with regularity and sincerity.”
“It’s difficult to do both at the same time, so counting is exceptionally effective at crowding out stress, calming a busy brain, and enhancing focus.”
Voluntary Slow Breathing: Using an app (or counting) to deliberately breathe slowly at a set pace (like five breaths a minute).
“In many ways, this resonant breathing offered the same benefits as meditation for people who didn't want to meditate…
“We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by…”
“I am as confident as I am of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking is only a careless name…”
Experiencing more love, then, will reshape our lives for the better, triggering an upward spiral that lifts us to become the best versions of ourselves we can become.
“We do not want to reduce this quality of being to what we happen to be able to measure.”
“In truth we are always present. We only imagine ourselves to be in one place or another.”
A quote from Kelly McGonigal inspired by brain-imaging studies.
“Pranayama may be helpful for improving sleep disturbance, anxiety, and mental QOL [quality of life] among patients undergoing chemotherapy.”
“‘Each of you is perfect the way you are,’ Zen master Suzuki Roshi told his students, adding….”
“It's not the highs along the way that matter. It's who you become.”
“When the thoracic curve become more pronounced (think hunchback), the lungs’ ability to expand decreases.”
“For the lobster, stress literally leads to growth…”
“It's the most accessible tool you have, and it's invisible.”
This may be the most important paper published on breathing to date.
“And, at the very least, this approach is safe and could make you feel better.”
…those of us who practice breathing exercises today may well pass on more disease-resistant genes to our descendants tomorrow.”
“As for you personally, you have the capacity to change your physiology, biochemistry, brain activity, and genetic expression for the better. Isn't it time for you to invest a short period each day to capitalize on your innate and underutilized gifts of healing?”
“Taken together, our results suggest that slow-paced breathing performed before sleeping may enhance restorative processes at the cardiovascular level during sleep.”
…breathing can recondition your body to a state of greater calm, helping it bounce back from stress more quickly and perhaps reducing reactivity in the face of challenges…
So to make it fun, let’s imagine nasal breathing to be like an IV, injecting oxygen to the organs, tissues, and muscles that need it most.
…produced incontrovertible evidence that the mind can indeed influence—and heal—the body….
“There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then there’s another way…
“Taken together, the RR has been shown to be an appropriate and relevant therapeutic tool to counteract several stress-related disease processes and certain healthrestrictions, particularly in immunological, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases/mental disorders.”
The calmness that persists several minutes (sometimes hours) after performing a slow breathing practice.
“High vagal tone, then, can be taken as high loving potential. … Compared to people with lower vagal tone, those with higher vagal tone experience more love in their daily lives, more moments of positivity resonance.”
“Breathwalk at its very simplest means putting breathing patterns and walking together into a carefully and beautifully timed single, synchronized movement. It is walking harmonized with breathing.”
“Oxygen is what we breathe in. CO2 is what we internally produce in order to allow us to use that oxygen most efficiently.”
“Each new breath creates a unity of life as all people share the nourishment that the earth's atmosphere freely offers."
This genuinely changed my life in 2022.
“We live a story that originates in our on autonomic state, is sent through autonomic pathways from the body to the brain, and is then translated by the brain into the beliefs that guide our daily living…
“But learning new skills is also one of the best ways to enhance awareness of the present moment […] New situations kill the mental clutter. In newness we’re forced into presence and focus.”
“Differences in the effects of various stress management approaches are minor compared to the general goal of inducing a relaxation response…
“In those who practice breathing exercises, levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood are significantly lower, especially under certain types of stress…
“Anxiety is often excitement and anticipation without the breath.”
The most practical take-home from this one is that practicing slow breathing for at least 10 min daily for 4 weeks leads to noticeable improvements in blood pressure.
“I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”
…With oxygen, the possibilities of the world opened up.”
“Only by using your intelligence and putting the teachings into practice can they bring you happiness. Please base your practice on your own life and your own experiences — your successes and your failures.”
“When I was teetering on the brink, I was able to physically calm myself down with a few deep breaths…
“Breathing involves a continual oscillation between exhaling and inhaling, offering ourselves …
“Rather than write an exhaustive book with hundreds of breath practices, we have selected a few that are easy to teach, easy to learn, safe, rapidly effective, and useful in many different aspects of life.”
“…They found that the higher a subject’s HRV was at the beginning, the easier and more quickly he or she could experience positive feelings over the next 9 weeks.”
The more you learn about breathing, the more this happens.
It may be the most therapeutic “breathing exercise” of all 😊
It’s the study behind the “nose breathing increases oxygenation” line you see everywhere.
“More and more, I became convinced that our bodies are wired to benefit from exercising not only our muscles but our rich inner, human core — our beliefs, values, thoughts, and feelings.”
“The lungs are receiving a greater volume of blood as well, which, combined with the pressure that water exerts on the chest wall, makes them work harder to breathe—approximately 60% harder than on land. This means that aquatic exercise can strengthen the respiratory muscles and improve their efficiency.”
“Over thousands of years of evolution, fast and powerful pathways between the respiratory system and the brain have been established. If breathing stops, death occurs within minutes, and so the brain prioritizes messages from the lungs above all others.”
“World-class performers are less about complexity and more about optimizing simplicity…It’s about the fundamentals. But small, daily improvements on the fundamentals every day done with ridiculous consistency creates insane revolutions over time.”
“In this way, the breath is like a mirror that shows you the state you are in.”
“And beyond improving stress resilience, breath practices can restore your sense of being genuinely who you are…
“…the situation of people during Holotropic Breathwork very likely resembles that of being in high mountains, where there is less oxygen and the CO2 level is decreased by compensatory faster breathing…”
“You won’t find many quick fixes in this book, but there is one way to immediately boost willpower: Slow your breathing down to four to six breaths per minute…”
“Within a very short time, breathing at five breaths a minute will synchronize the electrical rhythms of the heart, lungs and brain, which is very beneficial and leads to a state in which we are both relaxed and alert. It's unusual to be both relaxed and alert at the same time, but Coherent Breathing creates this sweet spot.”
“[B]reath is the animated, nonphysical aspect of your being. So that when you look in the direction of breath, when you focus your attention on your breath, you are really looking at your spiritual self.”
“If you look up the word “spirit” in the dictionary, you will find that it comes from the Latin, spirare, meaning “to breathe.” The inbreath is inspiration; the outbreath expiration. From these come all the associations of spirit with the breath of life, vital energy, consciousness, the soul, often framed as divine gifts bestowed upon us, and therefore as aspect of the holy, the numinous, the ineffable. In the deepest sense, the breath itself is the ultimate gift of spirit.”
“Breathing, like most forms of physical rest, improves as you practice. It takes a little time. But it’s a technique you’ll be able to do for the rest of your life, so it’s worthwhile getting good at it now.”
To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
“Taken together, these results confirm that nasal stimulation represents the fundamental link between slow breathing techniques, brain and autonomic activities and psychological/behavioral outputs.”
“Your body has numerous major systems, including the endocrine (hormone), cardiovascular, immune, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems. If you want to use the mind-body connection to lower your stress, cool the fires, and improve your long-term health, what’s the optimal point of entry into all these systems? It's the autonomic nervous system (ANS).”
“One of the essential techniques that I distill from this body of knowledge about pranayama is that the qualities of breath that you want to develop are to make it deeper, slower, quieter, and more regular.”
“You can borrow knowledge, but not action.” – James Clear
The Breathing 1% (TB1%) is based on the idea that “Breathing is the compound interest of health and wellness.” That if we improve by just 1% every day, those benefits will compound into extraordinary results.