The Science Is In, Why Breathing is First, and a Better Metric of Success

1. Why Your Brain Puts Breathing First

“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.”

– Charley Morley, Wake Up to Sleep

That perfectly summarizes why breathing works: “the brain prioritizes messages from the lungs above all others.”

Let’s be sure to send our brains positive signals, today.

2. The Meditation Paradox: Too Busy NOT to Practice

“Most excuses fall somewhere in between: ‘It’s not in tune with my personal journey this month’ or ‘Big project this week...so much buzzing around in my head...I’ll meditate when things lighten up.’ Nope. Things will lighten up when you meditate.”

- Dean Sluyter, Natural Meditation

Reminds me of the famous quip attributed to Gandhi: “I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”

3. The Science Is In: Breath Is Medicine

Here are two powerful sentences from a book chapter in A Clinical Guide to the Treatment of the Human Stress Response:

“Controlled respiration is one of the oldest and certainly the single, most efficient acute intervention for the mitigation and treatment of excessive stress.”

“Any clinician treating patients who manifest excessive stress syndromes should consider controlled respiration as a potentially suitable intervention for virtually all patients.”

4. A Better Metric That Reveals Your True Success

“When we admire great thinkers, doers, and leaders, we often focus narrowly on their performance. That leads us to elevate the people who have accomplished the most and overlook the ones who have achieved the most with the least. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.”

- Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

"Breathing involves a continual oscillation between exhaling and inhaling, offering ourselves to the world at one moment and drawing the world into ourselves at the next."

— — David Abram

Natural Meditation by Dean Sluyter

I just finished this one and loved it. Simple, natural techniques alongside deep (yet super relatable) wisdom. It’s meditation for regular people.

In good breath,

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

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P.S. so i know u are safe ❤️

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