focus

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Free OA App, 60 Seconds of Joy, and Breathing Improves Cognition

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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. Slow Breathing Improves Cognition: A 2022 Study

“Finally, at the applied level, these findings may have implications for individuals looking for a quick and easy method to alter their executive functions, for example, to better execute cognitively demanding tasks in their jobs.”

- J. Psychophysiology (2022)

This recent study found that 15-min of slow breathing:

  • Improved attention control

  • Improved working memory

  • Increased cognitive flexibility

Take-home: slow breathing helps you plan, monitor, and execute your goals.

***

P.S. If you’re interested, there’s a new Science 411 for this one that goes through all the details.

2. Meditation, Yoga, and the Healing Touch of Prayer

Here’s a memorable passage from Breath, where James Nestor offers an eloquent summary of the benefits of slow breathing:

“In many ways, this resonant breathing offered the same benefits as meditation for people who didn't want to meditate. Or yoga for people who didn't like to get off the couch. It offered the healing touch of prayer for people who weren't religious.”  

 

Sounds good to me 🙏

***

P.S. Note that the key words are “in many ways”; not “in all ways.”  Breathing isn’t a one-to-one replacement for these other powerful health practices.  But, it is a nice option that covers many bases.

3. Patrick McKeown & the New Free OA App

Patrick McKeown and the Oxygen Advantage® team released a new app. It’s got a TON of guided breathing exercises and educational videos—and it’s all free!

It’s an incredible gift from someone who, after 20+ years, still loves sharing breathing with as many people as possible 🙏

Go check out the app and enjoy all of the free OA exercises.

4. Sixty Seconds of Joy

For every minute you practice conscious breathing you gain sixty seconds of joy.

***

P.S. This is a play on an Emerson quote I saw on Insight Timer: “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

1 Quote

“It is quite a striking example of evolutionary balance and beauty that the trees around us that give off oxygen and the trees in our lungs that absorb it share a similar structure.””
— Patrick McKeown

1 Answer

Category: Oxygen Carrying Capacity

Answer: Our kidneys produce this hormone to help us maintain a healthy level of red blood cells (breath holds can amplify this process to boost oxygen carrying capacity).

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is erythropoietin?

In good breath,

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


P.S. I’ve done this writing blogs, emails, etc.

* 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.

 
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Therapeutic Mouth Breathing, Focus, and My Favorite Breathing Parable

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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 Gets You Focused: The Noradrenaline Sweet Spot

“Noradrenaline is also released, though in different amounts, during times of intense focus, curiosity, or passion, promoting the growth of new connections in the brain. Researchers…found that slow, controlled, deep breathing helps the brain nail the noradrenaline “sweet spot,” heightening attention and getting people laser focused.”

- Leah Lagos, Psy.D., Heart Breath Mind

Next time we need to get laser focused, let’s breathe slowly and deeply to hit our “noradrenaline sweet spot.” Simple and highly effective 🙏

***

Related: Why Breathing Gets You Focused (and 5 ways to do it)

2. The Best (and most therapeutic) Form of Mouth Breathing Is…

Laughter.

Lately, I’ve been spending 10-20 min/day listening to comedy. It’s my new favorite “breathing exercise” 😊

Give it a try, and enjoy a little more laughter therapy this week.

3. Why Slow Breathing Helps Reduce Blood Pressure

“The connection between stress and blood pressure is the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the tone of the smooth (involuntary) muscle that lines the walls of arteries. The sympathetic branch of that system constricts arteries, increasing blood pressure, while the parasympathetic branch relaxes them, lowering pressure.”

- Andrew Weil, MD, Mind Over Meds

Slow breathing activates the parasympathetic branch of our nervous system. As we learn here, this relaxes our arteries and lowers blood pressure.

And with regular practice, we increase the tone of the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to long-term reductions in blood pressure.

4. My Favorite Breathing Parable

From Larry Rosenberg in Breath by Breath:

“An ancient teaching from India points to this truth. There was a conference of all the human faculties, all the senses, which in the Indian tradition are six. The five senses plus the mind. As at many meetings, they first had to decide who would be in charge. Sight popped up and put in its bid, creating beautiful images that had everyone enraptured. Smell arose and created powerful and haunting aromas that left everyone tingling with anticipation. But taste could top that with astounding and delectable flavors from all the world's cuisines. Hearing created exquisite harmonies that brought everyone to tears, and the body brought on physical sensation that had everyone in ecstasy. And the mind spun out intellectual theories that took on beauty by the depths of the truth they expressed. Along came the breath, not even one of the senses, and said it wanted to be in charge. All it could present was the simple in and out breath. Not terribly impressive in the face of everything else. No one even noticed it. The other senses got into a tremendous argument about which one of them would be chosen. The breath, in its disappointment, began walking away. And the images began to fade. The tastes lost their savor. The sounds diminished. “Wait!” the senses called out. “Come back! You can lead, we need you.” And the breath came back and took its proper place.”*


1 QUOTE

“The soul is the child of the breath, and breath is the mother of the soul. Soul and breath follow each other just as form and shadow do.”
— The Primordial Breath
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Breath & Biology

Answer: Breathing is part of a larger biological idea called this, which broadly represents our ability to adapt for optimal functioning within a defined biological system.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What is symmorphosis?

Extra: How to Easily & Effectively Build Breathing Exercises Into Your Daily Routine

Here’s another guest blog I wrote for ResBiotic. If you’re looking for some simple ways to include breathing into your day, I think you’ll find it helpful. Enjoy!

How to Easily & Effectively Build Breathing Exercises Into Your Daily Routine

In good breath,

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

P.S. Me neither…

Breathing for Diabetes:

If you love learning about breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, I think you’ll really enjoy this class (diabetes or not).

 
 

* 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.

 
 
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5 Breaths for Focus, Better Sleep, and Your Own Finely Crafted Program

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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. Thirty Days to Better Sleep and Higher Vagal Tone

“Taken together, our results suggest that slow-paced breathing performed before sleeping may enhance restorative processes at the cardiovascular level during sleep.”

- Laborde et al. (2019), Journal of Clinical Medicine

Here’s another excellent study from Laborde & colleagues, with lots we could cover. But the take-home messages were that 15 min of slow breathing (6 breaths/min) before sleep for 30 days led to:

  • Significantly better subjective sleep quality

  • Significantly higher nighttime vagal tone (via HF-HRV)

  • Higher (but not significant) morning vagal tone

Not bad for just 15 minutes a night 👏

2. The Centering Breath (and 5 Breaths for Better Focus)

“[B]reathe in for six seconds, hold that breath for two seconds, and then breathe out for seven seconds. When you modulate your breathing this way, you're controlling your state of arousal and corralling your body's natural response to stress.”

- Dr. Jason Selk & Tom Bartow, Organize Tomorrow Today

Here’s a nice breath to try whenever you need to re-center. In for 6, hold for 2, exhale for 7. Even just one of those is enough to reset your focus.

***

P.S. Here’s a guest blog I recently wrote for ResBiotic all about breathing & focus: Why Breathing Gets You Focused (and 5 ways to do it)

3. Perfect Advice for Applying the Power of Breathing in Your Life

“It’s not difficult to experience the psychological and social benefits of movement. … There’s no training formula you have to follow. There is no one path or prescription except to follow your own joy. If you’re looking for a guideline, it’s this: Move. Any kind, any amount, and any way that makes you happy. Move whatever parts of your body still move, with gratitude.” (my emphasis)

- Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., The Joy of Movement

Although Dr. McGonigal is talking about movement, this is also the absolute perfect advice for breathing:

Breathe. Any kind, any amount, and in any way that makes you happy. And breathe with gratitude for this beautiful life we have, thanks to the breath.

4. Your Own Finely Crafted Breathing Program

“The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection: Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweigh its negative impacts.”

- Cal Newport, Deep Work

And to piggyback on Thought #3, here is the perfect way to choose which breathing practices (or any self-improvement practices) we perform.

Here’s to finely crafting our own unique breathing programs, this week 🙏


1 QUOTE

“[W]e must seek awareness, and that can begin with the awareness of your breath, the foundation of your totality as a human being.”
— Al Lee and Don Campbell
 

1 ANSWER

Category: Nasal Breathing

Answer: Nasal breathing not only synchronizes electrical activity in the olfactory bulb, but also in these two areas, helping explain why it influences our emotional state.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

…

Question: What are the amygdala and hippocampus?

In good breath,

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

P.S. any other thing I can help with today?

Breathing for Diabetes:

If you love learning about breathing, or just want to live an overall healthier life, I think you’ll really enjoy this class (diabetes or not).

 
 

* 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.

 
 

Exciting News: A New Breathing Gas Discovered

 

Happy Monday. There was a breakthrough in breathing research over the past few weeks: A new breathing gas has been discovered. I hope the extra hour of sleep you got this weekend will help this exciting news sink in even deeper.

OK, let’s get to it. Here are 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer for you to think about as we begin November.

 
 
 
 

4 THOUGHTS

1. A New Breathing Gas Discovered

"Thus, H2S [hydrogen sulfide] produced by CBS surely has a crucial role in maintaining eupneic-pattern respiration."

- Nature, Communications Biology

Hydrogen sulfide. It’s toxic, and it’s what gives rotten eggs their rotten smell. It also helps maintain our breathing.

A study published in Nature: Communications Biology on October 16, 2020, found that a small amount of hydrogen sulfide is critical to maintaining normal breathing. It does this through modification of the neural connections in the region of the brain that controls breathing.

When hydrogen sulfide production was stopped in rats, normal breathing turned to gasping, implying that it is vital to maintaining rhythmic breathing.

From a practical perspective, I’m not sure what this means yet. At a minimum, breathing now appears to be a four-gas system: oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, and hydrogen sulfide.

We’ve found ways to breathe to optimize the first three. However, it’s not yet clear if the way we breathe (or do anything else, for that matter) can influence hydrogen sulfide.

In any case, as a fellow breathing nerd, I hope you find this as fascinating and humbling as I did. Here’s to the joy of never-ending learning.

P.S. Here’s a short summary of these findings from ScienceDaily.

2. The Single Most Important Part of the Breath

"Interestingly, Törnberg et al. recently showed that more NO is released from the nasal passages during nasal inhalation compared with exhalation." - Lundberg et al. (2008)

Here is yet another reason why inhaling through your nose might be the single most important part of breathing: nitric oxide (NO) production is much greater during inhalation than exhalation.

Here’s the finding from the paper mentioned above: "There was a marked flow dependency of nasal NO output, with the highest levels observed during inhalation at flows similar to those seen during normal breathing." - Törnberg et al. (2002)

In hindsight, this makes complete sense. NO helps protect our lungs from inhaled pathogens and it redistributes blood flow in the lungs. So, of course our bodies would maximize it on the inhale. But it wasn’t until I read these two papers that it made sense to me.

"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.” - Kahlil Gibran

3. What Focusing on the Breath Does to Your Brain

"Conversely, it may be possible to reduce fear and anxiety by slowing down our breath." - Greater Good, UC Berkeley

Here is a quick-reading article, packed full of excellent information, from The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Anytime you see a headline like "Managing stress: Is it all in the breath?" you know it’s going to be a good read. Enjoy!

4. Sleep Scientists Call for the Elimination of Daylight Saving Time

"It is, therefore, the position of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that these seasonal time changes should be abolished in favor of a fixed, national, year-round standard time."

- Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine

I hope you all enjoyed the extra hour of sleep you got this weekend. The world’s leading sleep scientists say your body will function better, and they suggest we keep it this way (Standard Time) forever.

The above article is pretty short. But if you’re interested, here’s an even more concise summary, along with a rather impressive list of organizations that support the permanent change to Standard Time.

Because nasal breathing at night changed my life, I am endlessly fascinated with sleep. So I hope we all enjoy the next few months of better sleep and better optimization of our body's wake-light cycles.

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Answer: Average walking speed (~2-4 mph) is also around the average speed of this physiological function.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy music.)

…

Question: What is blood flow?

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. New life in a new city.

 
 

The Breathing 411 - On Becoming Indisfunctionable

 

Welcome to October and another edition of The Breathing 4.1.1.

Below, you’ll find 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer (like "Jeopardy") related to all things breathing. Enjoy!

 
 
 
 

4 THOUGHTS

1. Breathing to Gain Traction

"On the left side is distraction, the opposite of traction...the word means the 'drawing away of the mind.' Distractions impede us from making progress toward the life we envision."

- Nir Eyal, Indistractable

I’ve never thought of "distraction" being the opposite of "traction." (Pretty neat.) Distraction, as Nir Eyal states, is the drawing away of the mind.

But what can we do to bring it back, to gain traction?

"It has long been claimed by Yogis and Buddhists that meditation and ancient breath-focused practices… strengthen our ability to focus on tasks. A new study explains for the first time the neurophysiological link between breathing and attention.…
The way we breathe, in other words, directly affects the chemistry of our brains in a way that can enhance our attention and improve our brain health." - ScienceDaily

That sounds like a great place to start. Here’s to combining ancient wisdom with modern science on our path to becoming indistractable.

(Thanks, a million times over, to Brian Johnson for inspiring so many of my thoughts.)

2. How to Become Indisfunctionable

In addition to improving focus, a staple of slow breathing is that it reverses autonomic dysfunction. It does this by promoting cardio-respiratory balance, in as little as two minutes, putting us back on the track to health and wellness.

In the process of becoming indistractable, we also become indisfunctionable.

3. Similar Lung Deficiencies in Diabetes and Asthma

"In a study of the pulmonary biopsies of 171 patients,(18) it was concluded that individuals with DM [diabetes mellitus] present an increase in basement membrane thickness similar to that seen in asthma patients." - Forgiarini et al. (2009)

I have often wondered why breathing principles that work so well for asthma also benefit people with diabetes. Here’s one interesting similarity: The oxidative stress from diabetes leads to similar lung structure changes seen in asthmatics.

Thanks to 411 reader T. P. for inspiring this thought.

4. Heavy Breathing at the Start of Exercise (it’s not just CO2)

Your breathing rate typically increases after just a few minutes of exercise…unless you’ve been reading this newsletter long enough :)

By now, we would all probably agree this increase in breathing is due to a build-up of CO2. But is that truly the case?

"The increase in ventilation does not appear to be the consequence of changes in arterial blood gases." - Respiratory Physiology pg 187

The reason is perhaps more impressive. It’s what this textbook calls "Phase 1: The Neurological Phase" of exercise. The movement itself might be sending neurological messages to the brain, instructing it to begin breathing more.

That is, your body has a built-in, anticipatory mechanism that links movement to the respiratory controller in the brain to help prevent blood-gas imbalances from ever happening. The result is that changes in breathing precede changes in CO2.

 
 
 
 

1 QUOTE

Same goes for breathing:

"It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light."

- G.K. Chesterton

 
 
 
 

1 ANSWER

Answer: The time it takes gas exchange to occur in the lungs.

…

(Cue the Jeopardy music.)

…

Question: What is about 0.25 seconds?

In good breath,
Nick

P.S. Didn’t see that coming.