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One hour of slow breathing changed my life

theguardian.com

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Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#281

Post by 2511 »

MrYellowP wrote: post #280

Nice to see something like this getting upvotes. I once had a friend who was out of sync with her inner rythm ... so to speak. After identifying the problem, we've sat down for an hour and I've taught her how to breathe properly, especially - but not only - slowly. It changed her life ... with a catch. People noticed she was calmer and happier. People liked her more. She got promoted. She started earning more. Her li…

If you don't mind- could you please elaborate on "taught her how to breathe properly"

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#282

Post by Yenrabbit »

dmitriid wrote: post #240
yladiz wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I consider my mouth my third nostril and reach nostril nirvana already?

There's a joke in Russian quite popular among small kids: "The hedgehog learned to breathe through his butthole. One day he sat down to rest and suffocated". (Hedgehog is the hero if many slightly absurdist jokes).

Hedgehogs can't (to my knowledge), but turtles can! A fact that seeks any opportunity to be shared. (Example source: https://www.livescience.com/61018-turtles-breathe-through-bu...)

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#283

Post by new_guy »

If anyone wants to learn to breathe properly I can recommend this book:

http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1903sciencebreath....

A lot of the stuff on Google search and even the so called 'experts' know nothing at all about this science. When you get deep into it you can even unlock psychic abilities (seriously).

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#284

Post by spuz »

crazygringo wrote: post #52
dcuthbertson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Naturally we breath out of one nostril at a time I don't understand how anyone can make that statement with a straight face. Unless one nostril is blocked, we use both simultaneously. There's no balance to be gamed.

That's not actually true. If you research it, you'll find that most people's nostrils alternately dilate and contract (the tissues reduce/swell). Most of us breathe primarily through only one nostril at a time, and it switches approximately every half hour. This is entirely unconscious and we're generally not aware of it. There is a little bit of airflow in the constricted nostril, but nowhere near comparable to the…

> This is entirely unconscious and we're generally not aware of it.

I wonder if I'm unusual in that I can consciously control which nostril is open or closed. Most of the time the switching from side to side is unconscious but if I concentrate, I can cause it to happen consciously. This is really useful when I have a cold and a blocked nostril and I want to get some relief when blowing my nose doesn't help - I just focus on allowing that side of my sinuses to open and after a few minutes it will happen.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#285

Post by onemoresoop »

nonbirithm wrote: post #244
gonehome wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of evidence that exercising is healthy and helps people improve their mental state so that analogy doesn't work. The point is if someone says they're getting a benefit from something that doesn't have a ton of evidence around it - my first instinct would be to be skeptical but curious. When someone takes that skepticism and implies that the "far bigger and more pressing problem" is that I can't determin…

It's weird though, because exercising physically can increase stress in the short term and can greatly elevate heart rate. Exercising is really unpleasant to me and I would really rather not do so. The only reason I choose to exercise anyway is because of the people online and the scientific evidence saying that exercise is better for you in the long term. I certainly don't feel like it in the moment, and in fact som…

If I were you I’d go to a clinic to check my heart health and ask a doctor whether or how much exercising is good for you.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#286

Post by tumetab1 »

martindbp wrote: post #4

> We’ve become conditioned to breathe too much, just as we’ve been conditioned to eat too much. How is one conditioned to breathe too much? We eat too much because there is so much available to us and it's engineered (by trial and error) to be as delicious as possible. That has not been done to air.

Mimicing others growing up. We know that even adults mimics each others breathing patterns, I think it's safe to assume a baby/child will try to mimic parents/care takers breathing patterns.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#287

Post by asimovfan »

osdiab wrote: post #136
impendia wrote: post #32

I started reading his book Breath , and he made the starting claim that, in essence, you could choose to be either energetic or restful by picking one nostril to breathe out of for awhile. (Naturally we breath out of one nostril at a time, and the body goes back and forth, but "it's a balance that can also be gamed"). I found this claim a bit... suspicious, and Googled, and didn't find much scientific evidence for th…

I’ve found that doing it has helped me sleep when I’m restless at night - I think it’s more about giving you something concrete to focus on in order to make you more conscious of your body’s sensations, not necessarily something special about breathing through specific nostrils.

i.e. meditation

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#288

Post by lowwave »

acituan wrote: post #219
spaetzleesser wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a lot of these things I would highly recommend to just try it. If it works for you, good. If not, don't do it. It doesn't cost anything and you won't harm yourself. I started yoga before it became mainstream and with a lot of the practices I tried them for myself. For example I noticed that some pranayama practices work for me and others don't. Back then pretty much every "serious" scientist or doctor would have…

> With a lot of these things I would highly recommend to just try it. If it works for you, good. If not, don't do it. It doesn't cost anything and you won't harm yourself. I strongly disagree with this line of thinking. If something is potent enough to deliver benefit, it can also be potent enough to deliver harm. You can't have it both ways. Turns out breathing is rather psychoactive, and without proper educational…

>Turns out breathing is rather psychoactive, and without proper educational context one can indeed induce or activate latent issues, anxiety or otherwise.

You can also die from drinking too much water.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#289

Post by codeyperson »

afterburner wrote: post #258
isbjorn16 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how much we take for granted without ever expecting it to be different for others. I thought you guys were just screwing with me re: having an alternating congested nostril. Like, I only experience that during severe nasal congestion, and it seems mostly to stick with one side or the other depending on which side I'm laying on. It never even occurred to me that people would experience something like that _…

I still don't get it. Do these people not blow their nose?

It’s nothing to do with mucus. The size of the airway physically changes over time.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#290

Post by vijucat »

An interesting resource that I found on the topic of breathing is https://www.normalbreathing.com/

Dr Artour Rakhimov claims that breath starvation (breathing slowly and less) is key to higher oxygen absorption; and definitely not deep breathing! "Take a deep breath" makes sense if you have been hyper-ventilating, but not ALL the time.

I found his site via his "How to unblock a blocked nose in 1 minute" video, a technique which works even when both nostrils are clogged:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhOTUBZYTEg

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