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The Breathing 411
Nasal Breathing, Belly Laughing, and My Favorite Signs of Progress
Hi, it's Nick. Welcome back to another edition of The Breathing 411 for September 16th, 2024. Let's jump straight into this week's four thoughts. The first one is titled, "My new favorite signs of progress." And here is a quote, "I look for changes in character and conduct. How selfless can you be? Can you restrain your senses when necessary? Can you go against your self-will when it benefits those around you? How long is your span of attention?" These are the signs of progress in meditation, end quote, and that is echnoth-ish worn from passage meditation. And of course, right, there are many different signs of progress in meditation and in breathing and mindfulness and all the things we practice, right? But these are my new favorites because they offer a simple, yet powerful way to assess whether these practices are truly changing our lives, right? Looking for changes in character and conduct is way more important to me nowadays than like changes in HRV or these or that, right? So this is how I'm going to start measuring my progress. I hope you will join me. And with that, let's move on to thought number two, which is an awesome one. It is titled majoring in the minor. And here is a quote. That's when I learned that people have a habit of looking for the next big thing when they haven't spent any time mastering the simple thing in front of them. A lot of you are missing the forest for the trees. You're majoring in the minor. You're getting in the weeds. End quote. And that is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that is so good, right? Do you have? So the question here is, do you have any areas of your practice where you're majoring in the minor? Of course, we all do. I'm guilty of, you know, always looking for the next thing or that. So let's use this as a reminder to master the simple tools in front of us, things like breathing, slow breathing, meditation, mindfulness, the basics, right? Before we go looking for that next big thing. I love that and I love the governor is right or whatever his nickname is, his daily newsletters. One of the best I would have never expected how good it is. So if you don't subscribe to his daily newsletter, you should. It's so good. And yeah, I love that majoring in the minor. So so awesome. Okay, let's move on to thought number three, which is three reminders to breathe nasally. And here is the first one. The nose is the silent warrior, the gatekeeper of our bodies, pharmacists to our minds and weather vane to our emotions. End quote. And that is James Nestor. Here's the second one. nasal stimulation represents the fundamental link between slow breathing techniques, brain and autonomic activities, and psychological slash behavioral outputs. In quote, and that is from a paper published in frontiers in 2018. And then finally, the third one's a little bit longer, but it's so good. I decided this is the one I'm going to put in here, even though I like these newsletters to be short and sweet. This one's too good not to write here it is quote. Obsessed with notions of health, he was fascinated by his breathing. In fact, can't develop a technique to breathe solely through his nose 250 years before scientists recognize the role of nasal breathing for good health. He was so determined to breathe only through his nose that he refused to walk with a companion fearful that conversation might inadvertently make him inhale through his mouth. Can't live to just short of his 80th birthday, a phenomenal age in 1804. In quote, and that is Annabelle streets. That's where I got that quote. And that is so awesome. He refused to walk with a companion fearful that conversation might inadvertently make him inhale through his mouth. I love that. That's so good. All right, let's finish up with the fourth. So those are the three reminders to breathe nasally. Let's finish up with the fourth thought here, which is belly laughing as good as crunches. And here's a quote. Break into a full belly laugh. And you hit two pillars of stress control in one go. A recent study found that laughing really hard provides a better core workout than crunches. End quote. And that is Caroline Williams from the great book move. And we already know right that laughter significantly reduces cortisol. But here we learn that it may be as effective or even better than crunches for our core. So let's just use this as our friendly reminder to laugh this week to support both our physical and our mental health. That is it belly laugh, improve your core and reduce cortisol. And with that, those are the four thoughts. Let's move on to this week's one quote. And it is a great one here. It is quote. Breathing is not only critical to sustaining life, but done correctly and consciously, it can be a valuable tool for getting the most out of every human endeavor from the most demanding physical challenges to the pursuit of understanding life's deepest spiritual mysteries. End quote. And that is Ali and Don Campbell. That's so good. That's so awesome. All right. And then let's finally let's wrap up with the one answer for this week. The category is nasal breathing and the brain. And here is the answer. Slow nasal breathing increases these slow brain waves, often associated with sleep, creativity and relaxation, more so than mouth breathing does. What are theta brainwaves? That is it for this week, a quick recap. Remember the true signs of progress, right? Are changes in character and conduct? How selfless can you be? Can you restrain your senses when necessary? And so on. Remember that none of us should be majoring in the minor instead of getting lost and what's the greatest next technology and all these things, we should just master the simple tools in front of us. And for our case, that's things like slow breathing, meditation and mindfulness. Yeah, just such a good reminder. Remember those reminders to breathe nasally and that can't walk without a partner because he was so scared he would breathe through his mouth. And remember to belly laugh as often as you can to both increase or decrease your cortisol and increase your core strength. So that is it for this week. And if you are interested, you can join the breath learning center to become a mixed mindful artist. So if you like these ideas, you like this kind of interleaving of mindfulness meditation and thoughts on breathing, we do that a lot more in the in the breath learning center. So instead of trying to fit into one single method, right, you can integrate principles of breathing meditation and mindfulness to find a balanced and adaptable practice that supports you right in any stage of your life. So if you're interested in that, go check out breath learning calm and get started. And with that, I just thank you as always for listening. I'll see you next week.