Hum for Stress, Less Negative Emotions, and Find Your Life Flow

1. Humming to Reduce the Stress Response

“We ask that you stop for a moment and think about the importance of this therapeutic aspect of humming. The bottom line is that humming can reduce your heart rate and lower your blood pressure. Essentially, it can reduce your stress response. And that includes reducing all those nasty hormones associated with stress, such as cortisol.”

- Jonathan Goldman & Andi Goldman,
The Humming Effect

That’s definitely worth stopping to think about…and to practice.

2. What is Meditation Good For? (Hint: Everything)

“Because meditation elevates your base level of concentration power and because concentration power facilitates all human endeavors, the question “what's meditation good for?" has a simple answer: meditation is good for everything…Is meditation really that valuable? Yes it is, because a person's base level of concentration is, in a sense, the most valuable thing that they have.”

- Shinzen Young, The Science of Enlightenment

A helpful reminder that, because it enhances our base level of concentration, meditation can help us in essentially every aspect of life.

3. How to Reduce Your Chances of Negative Emotions

“In view of the close association between respiration, ANS activity, and emotions presented, it is apparent that individuals possess the ability to alter emotional states using the voluntary control of breathing and mindset.”

- Jerath et al. (2015),
Appl. Psychophysiol. Biofeedback.

This paper had a compelling finding: slow, deep breathing may reduce the body’s physiological capacity to experience negative emotions. Pretty neat stuff.

4. Finding Where Life Flows From

“Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke

Whether we’re doing a 10-minute meditation, a 100-mile run, or just taking 1 conscious breath, this is what all contemplative and physical activities have in common: We’re simply going into ourselves to see how deep the place is from which our life flows.

"You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here."

— — Alan Watts

Blue Mind by Wallace J Nichols

While this one isn’t about breathing or meditation per se, it’s an excellent book on the power of water (and nature more broadly) to help us naturally cultivate mindfulness. As a surfer and someone who loves the ocean, it’s one of my all-time favorites.

In good breath,

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

P.S. new year’s resolution

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