Bhante Gunarantana

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Mindful vs. Slow Breathing, and How to Know the Nature of All Beings

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Reading Time: 2 min 3 sec

I hope the next 30ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. How to Become Mindful of the Nature of All Beings

“Moreover, breathing is not exclusive. Living beings differ in appearance and behavior. They eat various kinds of food. They sleep in many types of beds. But all living beings breathe. … When we focus on the breath, we become mindful of the universal nature of all beings.”

– Bhante Gunaratana, The 4 Foundations of Mindfulness

Just a thoughtful reminder that breathing unites all living beings, so when we focus on it, it can help us appreciate this universal connection 👏

2. An Excellent Summary of Some Benefits of Mindful Breathing

I found this summary by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., in Why We Meditate and loved it. I hope it inspires you to practice as much as it did me 🙏:

“People who practice simple mindfulness of the breath, for instance, become more relaxed in their daily lives and recover from upsets more quickly than non-meditators. The method seems to calm the amygdala, so that we are pitched into the fight-or-flight state less often. And the more time over the years you put into this mindfulness method, the less reactive you become. Troubling events trigger you into an upset state far less often. If you are triggered, your upset is less strong. And—maybe the biggest calming benefit—you recover more quickly than you did formerly.”

3. An Excellent Summary of Some Benefits of Slow Breathing

In that same book, Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., also had a wonderful summary of the key benefits of slow breathing:

“To summarize all the studies: Along with this healthy variability in time between heartbeats, people doing slowed breathing reported feeling ease and comfort, being more relaxed, as well as having positive energy and a general feeling of pleasantness. …

Slowed breathing also seems to bring a significant change in brain function. …(EEG) studies found that slower breathing was accompanied by an increase in synchronized alpha waves, which signify the brain has gone into a state of rest, like a car idling. This shift in brain state was associated with benefits like lessened anxiety, anger, and confusion, and an increase in feelings of vigor.”

The natural question: Should I practice mindful breathing or slow breathing?

My super scientific answer: The choice is yours 😊

4. Why Breathing Brings Us to the Present Moment

You can’t retake a previous breath you’ve already taken. You can’t take a future breath you haven’t taken. You can only take the breath you’re currently taking.

That’s pretty darn obvious, but it’s crucial for why breathing brings us to the present moment. When you focus on your breathing, you cannot be anywhere but here and now.

1 Quote

“That is the point. You sail out across the sea, but it’s when you make your return that you may discover what you have been seeking is in fact inside yourself.””
— Erling Kagge

1 Answer

Category: The Human Body

Answer: Your bone marrow produces 2-3 million of these every second.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What are red blood cells?

In good breath,

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


P.S. a conversation with God

Become happier, healthier, and more mindful.

Let’s go beyond standardized approaches that do not account for your unique circumstances. I’ll meet you exactly where you are and serve as your coach and accountability partner on your journey toward living a happier, healthier, and more mindful life.

Learn More about One-on-One Coaching.

* 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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Laugh More, Buddha’s Breathwork, and How to Find Inner Silence

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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 😊

Reading Time: 1 min 51 sec

I hope the next 28ish breaths are the most nourishing of your day.


4 THOUGHTS

1. Laugh More: Laughing Reduces Cortisol by More than 30%

“These analyses demonstrated the potential therapeutic role of laughter-inducing interventions as a complementary strategy to improve everyone’s well-being and highlight the need for further research aiming to improve our collective sense of humor.”

– Kramer and Leitao (2023)

How’s that for the best quote ever published in a science article?

This recent meta-analysis analyzed 8 studies and found that spontaneous laughter reduced cortisol by 31.9%, making it a potentially powerful tool for improving wellness.

It certainly corroborates our saying: The best and most therapeutic form of mouth breathing is laughter 😊

***

P.S. Sign up at BreathLearning.com to get my 4-page and 12 min 39 sec podcast summary of this one, which includes three ways to incorporate more laughter into your day using Spotify, funny videos, and Instagram.

2. Did the Buddha Do Breathwork?

Yes he did, apparently. But then he gave it up:

“After his enlightenment, the Buddha described how he had previously practiced extreme self-discipline by manipulating his breath in arcane and special ways. But he discovered that he could not get rid of impurities by holding his breath or altering his breathing. So he gave up breath-control exercises and followed his own middle way.” - Bhante Gunaratana

And what was that middle way? Mindfulness of breathing. It’s what ultimately led the Buddha to enlightenment.

It gives me hope that one day I’ll give up breathing exercises and reach enlightenment, too 😂 😂 😂

3. How to Find Your Inner Silence

“I believe it’s possible for everyone to discover this silence within themselves. It is there all the time, even when we are surrounded by constant noise. Deep down in the ocean, below the waves and ripples, you can find your internal silence.”

– Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise

One way to find that silence is to breathe deep down into your belly, below the restlessness of your noisy mind. There, you’ll discover your ever-present and always accessible internal silence.

***

P.S. Thanks to Dr. M. for recommending this incredible book 🙏

4. The Gravity of Breathing

With consistent practice, the breath creates its own gravity, naturally pulling your attention toward it in every situation.

1 Quote

“To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.””
— Marina Abramovic

1 Answer

Category: Lung Measurement

Answer: This is generally a measure of the lungs’ ability to expand due to changes in their pressure.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is pulmonary compliance?

In good breath,

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


P.S. what makes us human

Work with Me

Or, create your own relaxation with iCalm (use discount code NICK20).

* 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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More Joy, Long Beards, and Beating a New Type of Gravity

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Breathing for Better Mental & Emotional Health 4-Week Course

There are now 25 students enrolled in the course. Words can’t adequately express my gratitude and excitement 🙏

It begins this Sunday, May 7, so it’s not too late to join if interested.

Learn more and enroll here.

Hope to see a few more of you there!

4 THOUGHTS


1. More Joy: The Nose Should Be Considered Alongside the Vagus Nerve

“The emerging scenario strongly suggests that the effects of SNB [slow nasal breathing], beyond the relative contribution of vagal stimulation, are mainly ascribable to olfactory epithelium stimulation.”

– Zaccaro et al. (2022), Neural Correlates of Non-ordinary States of Consciousness in Pranayama Practitioners: The Role of Slow Nasal Breathing

 

This was a challenging & super fun paper to read. Here is my two-sentence summary of it:

Slow nasal breathing has significantly different effects on the brain than slow mouth breathing, which results in less physical and psychological tension, less anxiety, more joy, and a relaxed yet fully aware altered state of consciousness. Nasal stimulation should be considered alongside vagal stimulation as a primary mechanism behind the benefits of slow breathing.

2. Upward Spirals in Your Life that Lift You

“In fact, science documents that positive emotions can set off upward spirals in your life, self-sustaining trajectories of growth that lift you up to become a better version of yourself.”

– Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., Love 2.0

 

This is the real power of the breath.  By using your practice to regularly elicit positive emotional states—a hallmark feature of slow nasal breathing—you set off upward spirals that “lift you up to become a better version of yourself.” 👏

3. A New “Long Beard” and the Buddha’s Advice

“Years ago, a wonderful Hindu teacher, Swami Chinmayananda, who taught me the Vedanta, said, ‘The longer the beard, the bigger the fake.’ And he, himself, had a beard that almost touched the floor!”

- Larry Rosenberg, Three Steps to Awakening

That makes me laugh. But, it also makes me think of how, in today’s society, our version of “long beards” are our credentials touching the floor: Ph.D., MD, Psy.D., D.O., and on and on : )

We can apply ancient wisdom to handle this modern scenario:

“[T]he Buddha tells us to take the counsel of the wise. We would be foolish to overlook their immeasurable knowledge and skills. But he also tells us to test the teachings in the fire of our own lives. Listen to them, weigh them, and investigate them.”

Sounds reasonable to me…almost as if that Buddha person knew a thing or two : )

4. Beating the Stress of a New Type of Gravity

Gravity is a stressor. But because there’s no way out of it, our bodies have adapted, and we don’t even notice it.

I think we should start treating the external stressors of our modern world (emails, social media, news headlines) like gravity. There’s basically no way out of them at this point.

What we need to do is adapt such that we hardly notice them.

Conscious slow breathing exercises are that adaptation. They’re always available to counter the weight of our new gravity.

1 Quote

“The breath is free from greed, hatred, delusion, and fear. When the mind joins with the breath, the mind temporarily becomes free from greed, hatred, delusion, and fear.””
— Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

1 Answer

Category: Basic Breath Processes

Answer: During exhalation, these “folds” can come together and vibrate to create sound.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What are the vocal cords?

In good breath,

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


P.S. Dog owners will know

The Garlic Breath of the Week

Here is the most-liked post this past week.

* 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.

 

Timeless Healing, Anti-Harley, and 2 Rules to Improve Your Breathing

 
 

🎧 Listen Instead of Reading 🎧

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4 Thoughts


1. Breathing Exercises Lower Inflammation and Change Gene Expression

“In those who practice breathing exercises, levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood are significantly lower, especially under certain types of stress. Mobilizing the power of the breath has also been shown to turn on anti-inflammatory genes and turn off pro-inflammatory ones, including genes that regulate energy metabolism, insulin secretion, and even the part of our DNA that controls longevity.”

- Michael J Stephen, MD, Breath Taking

I have nothing useful to add here, except, of course, one of these: 🤯

2. These Two Simple Rules Will Improve Your Breathing Forever

If I could give anyone any advice for everyday breathing, it’d be this:

  1. Breathe through your nose, especially during sleep.

  2. Make your breathing quiet.

You’ll get massive benefits with minimal effort using these two simple rules.

3. Timeless Healing: Slow Breathing + The Relaxation Response

“To evoke the relaxation response, you need to follow only two basic steps. You need to repeat a word, sound, prayer, phrase, or muscular activity, and when common everyday thoughts intrude on your focus, you need to passively disregard them and return to your repetition.”*

- Herbert Benson, MD, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief

It’s that simple. And the word or phrase? Dr. Benson says, “The choice of a focused repetition is up to the individual. If you’re a religious person, you can choose a prayer. If you’re a non-religious person, choose a secular focus.”*

I’ve been using it this week in my slow breathing practice. I inhale and then repeat “be the change” in my head while exhaling at a 5 breaths/min pace.

I’ve never been a big fan of mantras (and I’m still testing different ones), but I’ve genuinely enjoyed this. It’s straightforward and highly effective.

Give it a shot and see how you feel.

4. My Fake Words, and Breathing as the Anti-Harley-Davidson

“Orfield Laboratories, run by Steven Orfield, is a small Twin Cities business that leverages the power of perception to help companies build better products. Harley-Davidson, for example, once hired Orfield to calculate the exact engine tone and decibel level that would give riders the impression that its motorcycles are powerful.”*

- Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis

How crazy is that!? Harley-Davidson actually hired a company to ensure their engines gave “riders the impression that its motorcycles are powerful.”

I think breathing is the anti-Harley-Davidson. You just relax and breathe. If it’s powerful, it’s powerful. If it’s not, it’s not. No fake impressions needed.

***

P.S. Although I take pride in this newsletter, sometimes I feel like Orfield Labs trying to make breathing sound perfect. It’s not. But it is truly powerful. So, don’t just read my words, try it out and feel its strength for yourself.

Extra Thought:

5 Easy Breathing Exercises You Can Use for Better Sleep Tonight

I wrote a guest blog called “5 Easy Breathing Exercises You Can Use for Better Sleep Tonight” for The Breather, hosted by ResBiotic.

It’s a quick 4-minute read. I hope you enjoy it!

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“When we focus on the breath, we become mindful of the universal nature of all beings.”

- Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Meditation & Relaxation Response

Answer: A trademark physiological result of meditation and/or the relaxation response is that the body consumes less oxygen, also known as this.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is hypometabolism?

In good breath,

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

P.S. Science can catch these hands

 
 
 

* 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.

 
 

Breath is Mind: 25 Thoughtful Quotes on the Breath-Mind Connection

 

1. “When you practice mindfulness of breathing, then the breathing is mind.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

 

2.  “I am as confident as I am of anything that, in myself, the stream of thinking…is only a careless name for what, when scrutinized, reveals itself to consist chiefly of the stream of my breathing.” - William James

3. “As we discover, when we pay attention to its natural rhythm, the breath becomes calm. Simultaneously, the mind quiets down. It all happens naturally. … Any force is counterproductive.” - Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

 

4. “When the mind is agitated, change the pattern of the breath.” - Patanjali

 

5. “Breath is the king of mind.” - B.K.S. Iyengar

 

6. “When the Breath wanders, the mind is unsteady, but when the Breath is still, so is the mind still.” - Hatha Yoga Pradipika

 

7. “However, when the air is calm, so is the water. It is just so with the mind. The more often we breathe, the more agitated the energy of body and mind becomes. By breathing less frequently, we begin to achieve elemental harmony.” - The Tibetan Yoga of Breath

 

8. “By controlling your breathing, you can use a voluntary mechanical behavior to make a profound change on your state of mind.” - Emma Seppälä

 

9. “So get out of your mind and into your breath because the breath is the life-force.  Not your mind, the breath.  Follow your breath, and it will lead you anywhere in your brain—and thus the mind—that you want to go.” - Wim Hof

10. “Thanks to the regulation of breathing patterns, patterns in our thinking are not just affected, but revealed, together with their entanglement with respiration.” - Marco Bernini 

11. "Messages from the respiratory system have rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior." - Dr. Patricia Gerbarg and Dr. Richard Brown

12. “In other words, by changing the breath pattern one can induce a chosen state of mind.” - Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati (found in Restoring Prana)

 

13. “The breath is free from greed, hatred, delusion, and fear. When the mind joins with the breath, the mind temporarily becomes free from greed, hatred, delusion, and fear.” - Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

 

14. "The breath is the intersection of the body and mind." - Thich Nhat Hanh

 

15. “Interestingly, the Greek word psyche, which we often use to indicate our mind or the emotional state of our mind, actually means soul or spirit, or most tellingly, the breath of life.” - Eddie Stern

 

16. “These practices demonstrate that the mind and the heart follow the lungs, not the other way around.” - Michael J Stephen

 

17. “The intrinsic link between prana and citta accounts for why the yogis insisted on breathing practices as the primary means to pacify the mind.  Through the breath, the ANS is directly impacted.  Breathing can effectively modulate the reactive loop, and restore us to a more coherent frame of mind.” - Robin Rothenberg

 

18. “I will breathe in, releasing the mind. … I will breathe out, releasing the mind.” - Mindfulness of Breathing Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 118)

 

19. “Just as your mind influences the breath, you can influence the state of your mind through the breath as well.” - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

20. “When we focus on the breath, our breathing naturally becomes calm. When the breath becomes calm, the mind and body also become calm.” - Bhante Henepola Gunarantana

 

21. “If our breathing is light and calm—a natural result of conscious breathing—our mind and body will slowly become light, calm, and clear, and our feelings also.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

 

22. “The Tibetan language describes this relationship between the wind and the mind as the wind-mind (Tib. rlung sems). This compound word describes the wind energy and the conceptual mind as always, intertwined and moving together—a singular motion.” - The Tibetan Yoga of Breath

 

23. “‘[A]ccording to the Navajo conception, then, Winds exist all around and within the individual, entering and departing through respiratory organs and whirls on the body’s surface. That which is within and that which surrounds one is all the same and it is holy.’ Finally, and most profoundly, this invisible medium in which we are bodily immersed, is what provides us with the capacity for conscious thought.” – David Abram, with inset quote from James McNeley

 

24. “When the incoming breath is offered into the outgoing breath, the outgoing breath is offered into the incoming breath, or when both are offered into the retention, the mind is purified of self-interest.” - Baba Hari Dass (found in Restoring Prana)

25. “The ‘I think’ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‘I breathe’ which actually does accompany them. Breath is the essence out of which philosophers have constructed the entity known to them as consciousness” - William James

Breathing & Love, Rising Above the Clouds, and 4 Years in 4 Points

 
 

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4 Thoughts


1. Demonstrations of Breathing & Love

“Demonstrations of love are small, compared with the great thing that is hidden behind them.”

- Khalil Gibran

Call it what you’d like, prana, qi, & so on, but the same is true: Demonstrations of breathing are small compared with the great thing that is hidden behind them.

2. Breathing for Diabetes: 4 Years in 4 Bullet Points

Based on about 4 years of research and self-practice, the 4 key ways that regular breathing practices help diabetes are by:

3. Breathing for (non) Diabetics: “Raising Our Heads Above the Clouds”

“But many of the same interventions that can help us get our heads above water can just as effectively be devoted to raising our heads above the clouds.”

- Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire

This is unquestionably true for breathing. Although everything I read, practice, and share is focused on keeping my “head above the water” as a diabetic, they can also “raise your head above the clouds” if you’re not diabetic.

Interesting side note: it’s typically broken people that find supplemental modalities like breathing—I guess because we need them the most : ) But if you’re not broken, all the benefits of breathing will be even more helpful.

So here’s to using our breathing to stay afloat, or rise above the clouds, today.

4. The Buddha, 20 Years after Enlightenment

Did you know that the Buddha was still meditating 20 years after his enlightenment? (I guess it never ends, folks 😄)

What kind of meditation, you might wonder? “Mindfulness of breathing.”

Extra Thought: Take High Altitude Yoga Alongside Me One Last Time

My wife is moving on to a new yoga adventure 🎉. But, she’ll be teaching the High Altitude Yoga class we designed together one last time.

The class incorporates slow breathing, breath holds, and yoga into a challenging but fun 45-min flow.

It’s $8 and happening tomorrow morning (Tuesday, Dec 14) at 6:15 a.m. EST. I’ll be there, and I hope you’ll join me in taking it!

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“Relaxing the breath, breathe in. Relaxing the breath, breathe out. Then joy arises naturally.”

- Bhante Gunarantana

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Category: The Diaphragm

Answer: This organ rests on the top of the diaphragm.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the heart?

P.S. This was inspired by Jill Miller’s amazing line: “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Which is of course, my diaphragm.” (Makes me laugh every time.)

In good breath,

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

P.S. and I’ve never respected anything more

 
 
 

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.