abdominal breathing — Blog — The Breathing Diabetic

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4 Thoughts

1. 22 One-Sentence Breathing Ideas for 2022

1. Demonstrations of breathing are small compared with the great thing that is hidden behind them.
2. Breathing doesn’t heal you; it gives your body the environment it needs to heal itself.
Keep going…

Let’s continue the tradition this year. Here are 22 one-sentence breathing ideas to kick off 2022. Enjoy!

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2. A Unexpected Truth: Use Your Heart to be More Objective

“I feel like I process information more objectively. If there's a bad call, or a player does something unexpected on the court, I can inhibit my reaction and quickly determine what needs to happen next with less effort.”
- Client of Leah Lagos, excerpt from Heart Breath Mind

This was the result of heart rate variability (HRV) training via slow breathing. As counterintuitive as it might sound, current science tells us that the more we train our hearts, the more objective we become.

It’s actually our pesky (albeit valuable, lol) brains that trick us into excess emotional reactivity, anxiety, stress, rumination, and on & on.

So to be more rational, use your heart, not your head : )

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3. Why You Should Practice Abdominal Nose Breathing

“However, when we breathe through the nostrils and into the abdomen, not only do we breathe less frequently, but our exhalations are prolonged. 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 stimulates the sympathetic nervous system less frequently.”
- The Tibetan Yoga of Breath

That is all : )

4. The Best Part about Breathing

The best part about breathing is that we can satisfy our craving to read and learn while also applying that wisdom in our lives. There’s no abstraction. It’s as easy as “sit down and breathe like this for a few minutes and see how you feel.”

Sure, I write to try to make it fun and philosophical. But when it comes down to it, you just sit there and breathe. No one can take it away from you, and you don’t need any special training. You just do it.

1 QUOTE

"There's nothing mystical or abstract about it. It's physical. Your breath is your life-force, right here, right now. It could not be any simpler. Just breathe and reclaim your soul."
- Wim Hof

1 ANSWER

Category: The Airways and Ancient Yoga

Answer: The trachea, a key component of breathing, is also referred to as this.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is the windpipe?

P.S. Yantra Yoga techniques were called “Wind Energy Training,” which sounds kind of woo-woo. But let’s not forget modern science refers to our main breathing tube as the “windpipe” : )

In good breath,

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

P.S. a workplace revolutionary tbh

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.

It’s rare to find a long-duration breathing study. Typically, they examine effects lasting only minutes to hours. Then, it’s up to us to extrapolate the long-term benefits. This paper was different.

Effect Of Diaphragmatic Breathing On Heart Rate Variability In Ischemic Heart Disease With Diabetes

(Read Full Summary)

They asked participants to perform 10-15 minutes of slow deep breathing, twice a day, for one year. The researchers followed up with them at the 3 and 12 month marks.

(Side Note: This is basically what I have been doing for the past 2 years. I perform 15 minutes of slow breathing in the morning and ~5-10 in the evening before bed.)

The results were amazing.

Heart rate variability (HRV) increased significantly at the 3 and 12 month marks.
HbA1c dropped slightly at 3 months, and then significantly at 12 months.

The drop in HbA1c (3-month average blood sugar) was impressive, with one group experiencing a 2% decrease: They dropped from an average of 8.95% down to 6.95%. That’s like going from an average blood sugar of around 200 mg/dL down to 150 mg/dL. Even if you don’t have diabetes, you can appreciate the significance of these findings.

Participants who did not comply with the breathing protocol experienced a worsening of their HRV and HbA1c over time.

Of course, we need to take these results with a grain of salt. Over the course of the 1-year study, participants could have made other changes (diet, exercise, and so on) that would also influence the findings.

Nonetheless, this study is encouraging and corroborates the “N=1” experiment I have been performing on myself over the past few years.

The results also remind us that persistence is key. If they had stopped the study at 3 months, the improvements in HbA1c would not have been significant. It wasn’t until the 12 month follow-up that major improvements in blood sugars were observed.

Check out the full review to learn more.

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. Gonna need a bigger backpack.

An Unexpected Truth, 22 One-Sentence Ideas, and the Best Part of Breathing