the Science of breathing | #1
Hello Friends,
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom where I share the many cool and interesting things that I come across in my pursuit of bettering myself everyday. Here are the things that I have discovered this week. I hope this provides a little bit of entertainment and enlightenment into your life.
Starting this month I want to implement a new component into the Wednesday Wisdom newsletter. I will have a monthly theme where I dive deeper into a topic and share what I have learned from what I find. The topics will mainly be centered around health and science. As someone who is pursuing a career as a physician this is what I enjoy learning about and hope to help others with what I learn. I hope you enjoy this new experiment, and as always I would love any feedback that you have on how I can improve and bring more value into your life.
Monthly Theme
How To Improve Your Health Through Your Breath
Book:
“The Relaxation Response” by Herbert Benson, MD. This book is a classic in the mind/body health approach to medicine. Coming out almost 50 years ago Dr. Benson was a pioneer in introducing meditation to Western medicine for treating stress. He recognized that numerous amounts of diseases were the result of chronic stress in individuals. As a Harvard trained doctor and scientist he bridged the gap between Eastern and Western medical philosophy by going into the lab and conducting studies to show the benefits of a regular meditation practice.
One of my favorite things about medicine and science is that it is always evolving. In the podcast that I mention next it explains that a breathing practice can have a greater impact on stress reduction than a regular meditation practice. That isn’t to say that a meditation practice isn’t beneficial to your health, as I do it daily. Studies are now showing that a regular meditation practice is more beneficial for your memory and focus and is the reason why I practice it.
Podcast:
"How to Breathe Correctly for Optimal Health, Mood, Learning & Performance” Huberman Lab podcast. One of my favorite podcasters, Dr. Huberman is a master at explaining complex physiological concepts to the general public. In this podcast he explains the physiology of the breath and provides protocols to improve your health through proper breathing. His discussion also included his recent study on this subject and their findings which showed that practicing a cyclic physiological sigh for 5 minutes daily decreased anxiousness to a greater extent when compared to subjects that did classical meditation. He also answers some common questions around this subject such as why is it harder to breathe at altitude and how to effectively get rid of hiccups.
Action Steps:
Prioritize nasal breathing
Nasal breathing is essential for providing your body with a greater amount of oxygen. When you nasal breathe you are creating greater resistance to your inhalation and it allows for a slower inhale and the lungs to fill more than when compared to mouth breathing. Nitric oxide is also synthesized in the nasal passages and nasal breathing stimulates this and increases the amount of nitric oxide in the body. Nitric oxide is important because it is a vasodilator which dilates your blood vessels and allows for a more healthy blood flow, decreasing your blood pressure.
Nasal breathing is especially important when it comes to sleeping. Studies have shown that nasal breathing at night can decrease the chances of developing sleep apnea which is a major health concern in America. Sleep apnea can lead to coronary heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. A common practice that you can do, which I have done and continue to do on and off, is taping your mouth at night to force nasal breathing. Here is a link to the tape I use.
Practice a breathing technique daily
There are a numerous amount of different breathing techniques that you can practice. I for one am going to be trying the cyclic sighing protocol since that proved to be the best practice in decreasing anxiety in Dr. Huberman’s study. In addition to the daily 5 minute cyclic sighing practice I may practice other helpful breathing protocols such as box breathing, and cyclic hyperventilation. Here are links to videos so you can see how it is done.
Cyclic physiological sigh - This practice involves taking two inhales and then exhaling through the mouth or nose and repeating this for 5 minutes. As the name suggests it is simulating the physiological sigh which we do subconsciously every 5 minutes or so.
Box breathing - A pretty straight forward protocol that involves inhaling, holding, exhaling, and then holding again each for the same amount of seconds. This is then repeated for the rest of the practice. The number of seconds you use will vary and it can be determined by doing a “CO2 tolerance test”. Here is how you do the CO2 tolerance test and what your results translates to in terms of the box breathing protocol:
1) Take 4 breaths. An inhale followed an exhale = 1 breath. Ideally these are all done via the nose.
2) Then take a maximally deep breath and once your lungs are full, exhale as slowly as possible through your nose or mouth.
3) Time how long it takes (in sec) to empty your lungs; this will be your C02 discard duration.
4) Do not hold your breath with lungs empty. Once your lungs are empty simply record your ‘discard duration.
5) Use your discard duration to determine how long your inhales, exhales, and breath holds should be for the box breathing protocol using this table:
0–20 s C02 discard time = your inhales, exhales, and breath holds should be 3 - 4s.
25–45 s C02 discard time = your inhales, exhales, and breath holds should be 5 - 6s.
50 - 75 + sec C02 discard time = your inhales, exhales, and breath holds should be 8–10 s.
Directions adopted from this study.
Cyclic Hyperventilation - This type of breathing technique has been made popular by Wim Hof which I have linked to a guided breathwork video by him. It involves breathing deeply for 25-30 cycles and then holding your breath for around a minute. This can then be done for a few rounds. Doing this type of breathing can actually increase your immunity and increase the arousal of your autonomic nervous system. Deliberately increasing the amount of adrenaline that is produced during this protocol allows your body to disengage from the chronic stress that you may be feeling from other aspects of your life.
Quote That Struck Me:
“If you name it, then you can tame it”. - Unknown.
I’ve actually heard this quote in a few different contexts and it’s something that I find true. When you are able to have self awareness and name the emotions you are feeling then the response that occurs from that is greatly diminished. A meditation practice has helped me and may help you develop this self awareness.
