#1

Breathing as an autonomous process controlled by the brainstem is quite precisely tuned through the autonomic nervous system and feedback loops to the immediate demands of the body. By consciously altering our breath and intervening with this automatic system – how much do we risk disrupting this delicate balance?

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#2

‍“Evolution doesn’t always mean progress”‍

Although evolution does not necessarily mean progress, if a newly emerged adaptation would mean a lower reproductive success, those traits (and genes) would get eradicated from the population. So even though our airways, nose, and mouths have changed, it might not automatically mean they are inadequate.
There might be more factors in play in the prevalent dysfunctional breathing that we see now – starting with a change in diet, environmental stressors, or behavior change. Can you come up with some ideas on what has lead to this decline in our breathing functions?

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TASK 1

Noticing the invisible and mundane.

‍Breathing is one of the things that we usually barely notice, since it is so automated and constantly present process. We became blind to it, because we only notice the changes, not the sameness – not our fault, it is the way in that our nervous system functions. The point is – things that have the biggest impact on our lives, are often those that we repeat almost non-stop, but are rarely reflected upon. Apart from breathing, write down several more automated processes, that might have a huge effect on your health and performance.

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TASK 2

Tracking your breathing.‍

For the next week, try to notice and record your breathing. Observe the following: are you breathing through the mouth or nose? What is the tempo of your breathing? Is your chest is expanding in all directions during inhaling, or is it restricted in some way? Is your current posture affecting your breathing?

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#1

“Breathing is an autonomic function we can consciously control. While we can’t simply decide when to slow or speed up our heart or digestion, or to move blood from one organ to another, we can choose how and when to breathe.

Watch this video to understand the physiological mechanism between breathing and heart rate. It will give you the capability to increase/decrease the level of arousal and alertness—in other words, manage stress—in real-time.

https://youtu.be/PZ-GvIOhcf8?t=10‍

“Willing ourselves to breathe slowly will open up communication along with the vagal network and relax us into a parasympathetic state.”‍

One of the best-described mechanisms to do this in real-time is using the physiological sighs – double inhale, following a long exhale, repeated for a few cycles. Watch demonstration/description here.

https://youtu.be/rBdhqBGqiMc?t=5‍

“Breathing fast and heavy on purpose flips the vagal response the other way, shoving us into a stressed state. It teaches us to consciously access the autonomic nervous system and control it, to turn on heavy stress."‍

What other access points (apart from conscious breathing) can we utilize to control the state of the autonomic nervous system?

Vision can serve as another one of these access points. For the next few days, observe how vision—not only the content of what we see but also how you view your visual field—affects your internal state. Note, for example, how your stress levels alter when you: 1. spend your day in a confined space, as opposed to having an open view; 2. focus for a prolonged period on an object in close proximity (like screen), as opposed to having a diffused panoramic view multiple times throughout the day.

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#2

“It is conscious stress. This is something you are doing to yourself—not something happening to you!”

From a bio-psychological perspective – having no control over the situation you are in is one of the three aspects of a stressful situation. The other two are – no information (novelty) and uncertainty with a sense of threat (unpredictability).

And since we live in a continuously and rapidly changing world, we can consider all those three aspects—novelty, unpredictability, and uncontrollability—as permanent constituent elements of our experience. Therefore, the question of managing our stress levels (at least from our energy-budgeting brain perspective) is about how we make our life a bit more predictable and controllable.

How would you go about it and resolve this issue? How would you apply this perspective to your current life situations?

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‍#3

Consider the following notion: "Diet is a principal driver behind evolutionary adaptations."

Across all living life forms on earth, you can observe some specific differences between organisms that, for example, need to actively track or hunt their food and the organisms which food is stationary (herbivores). We can produce many other cases between different categories, but one fact remains constant – what we eat and how we get our food shapes our physiology and cognitive abilities.

In this context – how do you view our modern industrious society, in which the food is mostly soft, and we are hardly in direct connection with our food production (may it be hunting, foraging, or even gardening)? What consequences (immediate or future ones) could you see stemming out of this situation?

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‍TASK 1

Breathing less

“The key to optimum breathing, and all the health, endurance, and longevity benefits that come with it, is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in a smaller volume. To breathe, but to breathe less.”

‍Practice Breathing Less Sequence for nine repetitions for each pattern(daily). Put a focus on the motion of the arms, diaphragm and their effect on lung expansion/contraction.

Each breath you draw in should take about three seconds. With breathing out – start at four seconds and try to prolong each subsequent exhale (but never hit the ceiling, never block yourself – always keep a reserve). Record the time of the last exhale in the beginning and at the end of a week.

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TASK 2

Remodeling airways

Incorporate these two exercises from Dr. Mike Mew into your daily routine to improve your facial structure and open up your airways. The effect of this work will take some time (depending on your age) – so this task is a long-term one (months plus). However, it is a time well invested!

‍Meal Time Exercise

Tongue Chewing

For a more detailed intro to the work of Dr. Mew, see this video.

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#1

“There is no mention in the Yoga Sutras of moving between or even repeating poses. The Sanskrit word asana originally meant seat and posture. It referred both to the act of sitting and the material you sit on. What it specifically did not mean was to stand up and move. The earliest yoga was a science of holding still and building prana through breathing.”

We often follow practices without learning about their history and cultural context – where and how the practices evolved. The problems might arise when the original intention behind the work has changed with the emerged mutations of these practices, and no longer match the quality that the masters, in the beginning, were after.

As an assignment – pick one practice that you do (a particular martial art, internal practice, breathing technique), and research its history. How does the modern version differ from the original one? If yes, was it a step forward or backward from the initial practice?

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#2

‍“Dozens of doctors at Harvard, Stanford, and other institutions told me the same thing. Modern medicine, they said, was amazingly efficient at cutting out and stitching up parts of the body in emergencies, but sadly deficient at treating milder, chronic systemic maladies—asthma, headaches, stress, and autoimmune issues that most of the modern population contends with. These doctors explained, that a middle-aged man complaining of work stress, irritable bowels, depression, and occasional tingling in his fingers wasn’t going to get the same attention as a patient with kidney failure. He’d be prescribed a blood pressure medication and an antidepressant and sent on his way. The role of the modern doctor was to put out fires, not blow away the smoke.”‍

Viewed in this context – what is the role of the modern patient (like yourself)? How much health education should everyone possess to navigate successfully in matters of health and disease? Where are the limits?

As an exercise, imagine yourself as a busy doctor and create educational and self-help interventional guidelines for your patients, that would help them to deal with the most common mental and physical health challenges and would give them a great knowledge foundation that they can use to approach various health issues.


#3

“Eventually, their bodies adapt to avoid such unexpected attacks by staying in a state of alert, by constantly over-breathing in an effort to keep their carbon dioxide as low as possible. What anxious patients could be experiencing is a completely natural reaction—they’re reacting to an emergency in their bodies,” said Feinstein. “It could be that anxiety, at its root, isn’t a psychological problem at all.”

Let us come back to unpredictability as a follow-up to the aspects of stressful situations we have covered in reflections on chapters 6-8. Neurologically speaking, your brain is constantly analyzing three things – the duration, path, and outcome. If those are not set, you get into the stress of uncertainty because your brain does not know what particular strategy to choose, and it prepares for any possible scenario. Consequently, your system gets into the mode of over-preparedness, which is energetically very taxing and produces a feeling of agitation.
As an example, you can think of the covid-19 pandemic situation. We were all uncertain about its duration (how long it is going to take), path (how it will evolve, what restrictions would take place), and outcome (how it will all end up and how it will affect us). Therefore, our brain could not pick a particular strategy to act and needed to stay in energetically taxing over-alert mode.

So coming back to uncertainty – having fixed duration, path, and outcome for some events of our everyday life goes a long way in helping our brain (and us) to be calmer. This is where routines and rituals come into place. Go over your schedule and see how much of your time you spend in non-set vs. set duration/path/outcome situations – and how it affects your levels of stress. If it is out of balance to the non-set side – what structure/rituals/routines can you introduce into your days/life?

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#4

What are the most impactful things you have learned in this book? Take a few minutes to think about it and write them down.

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- a technique derived from Richard Feynman, who excelled in his ability to synthesize and explain even complex scientific concepts. By using this technique right after you have finished the book, you will further enhance your understanding of the book's subject, identify the possible gaps in your knowledge and master the ability to clearly communicate the newly acquired information.

It consists of the following steps:

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01. Teach it to a child

Take out a blank sheet of paper and write the central concept of the book you have just finished in the top corner. Underneath, write down everything you know about this concept, without revisiting your notes or the book. The trick is, however, that you have to write in style, as if you wanted to teach a given concept to a 12-year-old child. Unlike your intelligent adult friends, 12-year-olds do not have scientific / technical terminology and specific jargon. Plus, they do not hold attention for too long. Therefore, you need to be clear and concise, and use language, which vocabulary can be easily understood by a child, so it can grasp the basic ideas and relationships.

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02. Identify your knowledge gaps

As you write, you will get to points where you will not be able to explain something in simple words, you will not be able to recall some key information, or you will have trouble tying the individual parts together to make clear connection.

In other words, you will encounter gaps in your knowledge... and that is the point, where you are really starting to learn!

Now that you know where you got stuck, go back and re-read particular passages in the book, review your own notes, or look for other source materials that address this concept. This process is necessary for you to fill in all the cracks that emerged from the previous step, and skipping it leads to the illusion of your knowledge.

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03. Organize, simplify and tell a story

At this point, you have a set of manually created notes in front of you. Go through them and create one continuous story, which will contain the key terms, relationships, and ideas of the concept you have just studied.

Practice reading the created story aloud. Pretend you're telling a story to a class of younger students. This way you will hear where your speech ceases to be simple and concise - avoid jargon and complicated sentences. Stumbles in the speech will again indicate to you the incompleteness of your thoughts. Practice until you are satisfied with the simplicity, straightforwardness, and fluency of your presentation. Ideally, invite live listeners who will give you feedback.