SL

Breath

Summary

Humans have become notoriously bad at breathing in last 300 years, much of it due to the soft diets we now have making our mouths smaller, weaker and our teeth crooked. Our nasal and other air passages are constricted, which leads to a whole host of detrimental health effects.

But we can train our bodies and even influence the shape and strength of our faces by breathing properly and performing certain exercsies.

Even more than that, we can unlock our bodies innate ability to control our sympathetic nervous system, leading some superhuman effects like heat generation or immune response!

Bottom line - like a lot of other stress systems it seems like the majority of time breathing should be slow, smooth, through the nose and as little volume as necessary. 5-6 seconds in, 5-6 seconds out.

There are techniques that stress this base relaxing cadence by hypo or hyperventilating. holding breath or breathing deeply quickly

Instead of always being in a state of half anxiety, we should be controlling our breath to be relaxed most of the time, punctuated by episodes of purposeful stress to maintain control of system.

First will go through the basics, then the techniques.

The Lost Art & Science of Breathing

Breath Through your Nose

  • Warms, cleans air. Doesn't dehydrate you.
  • Mouth breathing is actively bad - the pressure inside the mouth goes away, softens —> more mouth breathing because now you are constricted
  • The nose has erectile tissue - can flex open each nostril.
    • Left nostril = paraympathetic (relaxing)
    • right nostril = sympathetic

Exhale Fully

  • You need to strengthen the diaphragm. When you exhale it is pushing up, you need to get every last molecule of breath out if you are training it
  • Thoracic pump —> when diaphragm movement up and down is in sync with respiration
  • Literally just count to 10 over and over again, audibly at first and then until you are just mouthing the words with little bits of air coming out

Breathe Slowly

  • Carbon Dioxide is really the regulator in this system not oxygen
  • you need the CO2 to act as a "divorce agent" of the oxygen molecules from the blood/hemoglobin
  • if there is too much O2 saturation, it wont get to your organs, just go for a ride around the bloodstream and back out
  • you basically want to do the opposite of hyperventalite by breathing slowly to let CO2 buildup
  • Perfect breath = 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out
    • This lines up with prayers across all cultures and times

Breathe Less

  • We are a culture of overbreathers.
  • Breathing less is not the same as slowly. Literally meaning the volume of air as well
    • even at 5.5 breaths per minute, we could be taking up 2x as much air as we need
      • So we should fill the lungs up 1/2 with each breath
  • Voluntary Emission of Deep Breathing = training during holding breath
    • helps to train world class athletes
  • when you hyperventilate, you feel shortness of breath paradoxically. willing body to breathe less is the opposite
    • sounds crazy but has helped asthma patients

Chew

  • Our ancestors diet required hours of tough chewing per day
  • Once we moved to agriculture and more and more processed foods, we stopped working out the jaw
  • This led to smaller, waker mouths, crooked jaws, crooked teeth and a loss of bone density
  • But this can be reversed by using the jawbone, ie, Chewing

Breathing Methods

Resonant Breathing (Basic Breathing)

  • Sit up straight, relax shoulders and belly, and exhale
  • Inhale softly for 5.5 seconds, expanding belly as air fills bottom of lungs
  • Without pausing, exhale softly fo r5.5 seconds, bringing the belly in as the lungs empty.
  • Each breath should feel like a circle

Tummo (Wim Hof)

  • Lie on your back, relax body
  • Take 30 very deep, very fast breaths into pit of stomach and back out. Try through nose, or pursed lips.
  • At the end of 30 breaths, exhale to natural conclusion (1/4 air) and hold for as long as possible
  • Once you cant hold anymore, take one big breath in and hold another 15 seconds. Move air gently around chest and into shoulders before starting heavy breathing again
  • Repeat at least three times

Box Breathing (Navy Seals)

  • Inhale to a count of 4
  • Hold 4
  • Exhale 4

4-7-8 Breathing (Relaxation)

Best for Deep Relaxation, falling asleep

  • Breathe in, exhale through mouth with a whoosh sound
  • Inhale through nose to a count of 4
  • Hold for a count of 7
  • Exhale through motuh, with a whoosh, to a count of 8
  • Repeat 4 times at least